Though Stella and Sol might have told the young alicorns what the problem was, they didn’t bother to tell them the where. It took the sisters an hour just to find the rough, moss covered staircase that led out of the canyon. While Celestia could have flown out, Luna wasn’t strong enough yet, and Cela could only fly short distances carrying her. However, the two fillies now possessed an acute sense of direction. They somehow knew exactly where they were going, even if they didn’t know exactly what to do.
Though the trees still grew magically when the fillies tried to fly up to see the edge of the forest, the trees were becoming thinner, and sometimes, Celestia and Luna would swear they saw the outside world. After about two weeks of travel though, the fillies finally reached the end of the trees, and the entrance to the beautiful land of Equestria.
~~~~~~~~~~~
“Cela, what’s all that white stuff covering everything?” Squeaked Luna, gingerly prodding a pile of said stuff with her hoof. The little filly had never seen anything like it! “It’s COLD!” she yelled, clutching her hoof back against her warm blue coat.
“Lulu, that “white stuff” is snow.” Said the older filly, trying to stifle her laughs.
“SNOW! I’ve always wanted to see snow!” At this, Luna could hold herself back no longer, and bounded out into the snow... only to sink into a snowbank. Cela burst out laughing, falling to her side and rolling on the ground with her chortles.
A muffled voice rang out from the snowbank,”I can hear you! Help me out, I’m stuck!” The pink-maned alicorn rolled back onto her feet, calming down her hysterical chuckles. Clutching her side, she limped over to the drift where her sister was buried. Before she reached it though, a muffled humming reached her ears. Before Celestia could triangulate it, a blue streak burst out of the snow bank and flew into the air, showering Celestia with snow.
“LUNA! That was on purpose!” Celestia shouted, her anger slowly turning into laughter. An evil glint in her eye, she lit up her horn, and grabbed all the snow in the clearing with her magic, and shot it up toward the speck that was her sister. Apparently Luna wasn’t looking below her, because the snow hit her full force. With a gleeful shout, Luna tucked in her wings and swooped down toward her sister, grabbing some snow with her magic.
Crunching the snow into a sheet, and focusing it below her, she yelled,”HEY Cela!” Celestia looked up, just to be bowled over by the snow. Soon the two sisters were engaged in their first snowball fight, using their wings and horns to their advantages. After a while, a snow covered Luna plopped down beside her sister. Celestia, was exhausted as well, and lay down beside her. The two of them huddled up together, and slept away their first night outside the woods.
Celestia woke the next morning as the sun started to creep over the horizon. However, it wasn’t the sun that woke her, it was the shouts emanating from a small town she hadn’t noticed before.
“Lulu, wake up, ” she said, prodding her sister,”there’s something I want to check out.” Luna groaned and rolled over. Celestia then proceeded to shake the her, until Luna looked up at her with bleary eyes. Motioning with her hoof, Celestia showed luna where the voices were coming from. The fillies hid behind a building as they looked at the scene before them. Hundreds of unicorns were straining with all their might to move the sun up into the sky. The ponies looked exhausted, and all of them had dark circles under their eyes. As the fillies watched, one of the unicorns collapsed, her horn flickering as she used up her magic. Luna jumped up and raced toward the unicorn, but Celestia caught her, and held her back.
“Luna, we must not be seen!” Cela whispered. Luna lessend her pull slightly, but still strained to get to the fallen unicorn’s side. More unicorns were collapsing, the strain of raising the sun too much for them. The unicorns were steadily losing their battle, and the sun was dropping lower and lower in the sky.
“NO!” Shout Celestia. Letting Luna go, she galloped out into the crowd, and lit up her horn. Using all her strength, she lifted the sun, straining, but prevailing. When the sun reached it’s peak, she extinguished her horn. She must have flapped her wings without realizing it, because was flying above the crowd, which was staring at her, open mouthed. Then, she realized none of the unicorns had even used their magic. She had lifted the sun all by herself. Suddenly, a strong wind started blowing sweeping up Celestia in a spinning tornado. By instinct she pulled in her wings, and shut her eyes. Her mane was whipping around, in her face, hitting her back, and she wished the wind would stop. As though obeying her command, the wind softened, and started to slowly lower the white filly toward the ground.
When she felt her hooves come to rest on solid ground, Celestia tentatively opened her eyes, only to shut them again as a bright light shone around her flank. After a few seconds, Cela saw the light dim through her eyelids, and opened her eyes once again. The first thing she noticed was her mane. It wasn’t draped down against her neck like normal, it was flowing like in a breeze! Looking behind her, she found that her tail was doing the same thing. Then, she noticed the sun beautiful sun on her flank. She wanted to cry out in joy that she FINALLY got her cutie mark, but with all the ponies around, she decided it wouldn’t be proper.
The ponies in the square were whispering to each other, some looking confused, some scared, some awed. Finally a green pegasus stallion with a short mane and a lettuce leaf as his cutie mark approached Celestia.
“Little filly, you are very strong. What is your name?” he asked, smiling at the baffled filly.
“Celestia.” She said softly. Spreading out her wings, she said louder,”My name is Celestia.”