Prologue
Princess Celestia stretched her brilliant white wings luxuriously, flexing the muscles to work out the kinks. She had been far too long without a fly through the air, the business of running Equestria weighing heavily on her shoulders. With the rise of Discord and recovery at the hooves of her faithful student Twilight Sparkle and her friends, fixing any chaos that had been left behind by the Element of Harmony had become her major priority.
The amazingly white Alicorn looked out of the palace window as she made her way through the Castle in Canterlot. It was approaching twilight, one of two times of the day when both her and her little sister's magic would work in harmony. She stopped her slow walk up the tower, resting her muzzle against cooling glass of a building high pane of glass and allowed her eyes a moment’s rest. It had been almost a year now since the defeat of Nightmare Moon and the release of her beloved sister. Her eyelids lifted slightly revealing her tired pink eyes. The sky had darkened considerably; it was time for her to lower the sun and allow her sister to raise the moon.
The power inside of her surged greatly at her command, willed by the right of her blood, ordered by her voice. The tell-tale glow of unicorn magic in use enveloped her entire body and spread out into the air, polluting the nearby scenery with it's viciously sweet glow. Celestia could feel it, the magical essence flowing from her blood out across her entire realm. She felt every heart beat, every life encompassed by her magic as it reached up into the heavens and grabbed hold the sun. The Princess allowed her eyes to close to focus on this feeling as she pushed the sun beneath the rim to the other side of the planet, allowing light to be shared with those of foreign lands, awaiting the telltale magical force of her sister, Luna.
The feeling never came… Celestia opened her eyes in confusion to view the starry sky, it darkened by the absence of her sister’s celestial body. Her voice called out in confusion, though no pony was there to hear. “L-Luna?”
With her unicorn magic encompassing her form, the eldest sister teleported to her sisters tower, barreling forward through the double wide wooden door into her sister’s room. “Luna!” she cried, but there was no pony to answer. The room was dark and barren, Luna’s things seemed untouched, uncorrupted. Stillness permeated the air of the room that showed the age of a thousand years, the youngest sister still taking a long time to adjust to the cultural shift.
A cold, icy wind blew in from an ominously open window, a shadow danced across Celestia’s face. Her eyes darted to the windowsill where a letter, sealed and pressed, was tied; being uplifted by the cold night wind. Using her unicorn powers the Princess lifted the letter to her face, her name was written on it in a beautiful and angelic font. Using her delicate magic she opened the letter and levitated the paper near her eyes, the only illumination cast by her horn, the sky dark without it’s moon.
I have done the impossible.
The moon has been stolen.
To be returned at my leisure.
Or kept for my pleasure.
-The gray-night.