Twilight and Celestia stood looking out from a balcony high atop a Canterlot spire. The sun had set over an hour ago, but the warm mid summer night had a only brought more life to the world below. Twilight had been watching the many small parties below spring to life, when it occurred to her Celestia had been rather still. Looking to her mentor she found her studying the moon with a melancholy air.
Celestia felt her friend’s worried gaze. “Sorry, Twilight, just old memories.”
Pressing into Celestia, she gave her a casual hug. “It’s ok. You have her back now anyway.”
Celestia looked back to the moon and placed a forearm around Twilight. “Yes... But still, on nights like these, I ask myself why it was her and not I that corrupted”
Twilight balked. “What? Ponies sleep by night, ignoring all her work, while they see every moment of the day. What could you envy of the night?”
“Lovers have never climbed a hill to get a better view of the sun. Feasts are not held in the heat of the day. Work under my sun is called toiling. Noon is thought to be, a time to best be indoors. It is only on the day when my sun’s grace is the shortest that feasts are held for it.”
“Oh,” Twilight said. “That’s rather poetic, I never thought of it like that... Everypony loves to watch the sunset though!”
“So you’re telling me everypony’s favorite part of the day is it’s leaving?” Celestia asked with a crooked smile. “But don’t look so dejected, Twilight. It has been over a thousand years since any of that has bothered me”
The melancholy mood seemed to rub off on Twilight as she leaned over the banister to look at the moon. “Yeah, I guess raising both the sun and moon after having to banish Nightmare Moon would make that all moot.”
“I didn’t banish her, Twilight. I killed her,” a dull lifeless voice stated.
Twilight jerked her eyes to Celestia. Something about the princess seemed melted and faded. She sat looking at the city below as a tear rolled down her cheek. “Wielding the elements, I tore her body apart... I killed her. There is no banishing somepony to the moon. It’s all a lie.”
“But the mare in the moon- I mean I was right there when she came back.” Twilight stammered. “We were just talking to her!?”
A smile crawled back on Celestia’s face at the memory. “Yes, yes you were, and I am forever in debt to you for that. But she did not return, so much as she manifested for a second time.”
Celestia thought she could actually hear Twilight’s brain spinning, trying to find answers between the random statements. Her friend and student was truly unique. One day she would be her Arch Mage, head of the college and a key advisor. Twilight also happened to be the unicorn to bare the blessing of the penumbra, the gift that she and her sister gave to the Unicorns in the late days of creation.
Though, truth be told most of the penumbra had become key figures of their time, and most, in the past two millennia, she had called either friend or colleague; lover once. What made Twilight unique was that she was that as well as the element of magic. Even she did not know what that meant. Unlike the Elements of Chaos, the Elements of Harmony had never taken a scion before.
Her bout of melancholy had loosened her lips this much, she might as well go on. “Twilight, my sister and I existed before what you call creation did, yet we did not walk in physical bodies until Discord came. We are not the gods of the Sun and Moon; We are the Sun and Moon.”
Twilight staggered as she processed what she had just been told. Thinking back through the conversation, Celestia’s words “she manifested for a second time.” rang out in her mind.
“Explain manifested.” Twilight said.
Celestia gave a pleased grin at her friends question, she had cut to the marrow of the topic with two words. “Before, in the early days we only projected ourselves into creation, not unlike a ghost. But, as creation became less fluid and more ordered, we had less and less power in our projected form. Until, at some point, we realized we could only watch passively.”
She paused expecting a question, but was only met with attentive eyes, so she continued with her story, “Then Discord happened, and we decided that something must be done. We knew of the Elements of Harmony and where they were hidden. But we were unable to affect this reality: creation; so we had to wait. We were lucky though. Not many years after we resolved to do something, the opportunity arose. A once in a millennium celestial event occurred that thinned the barrier between us and creation. On that year’s winter solstice I threw my consciousness into creation. There I made the form you see now of flesh and blood. Six months later, on the summer solstice, my sister joined me. It was this same thinning that Nightmare Moon tried to use to bring everliving night, and the same thinning that allowed her to once again make a physical body.”
Twilight had that calm unfocused look that told Celestia that she was absorbing every word and thinking on many levels at once. After a moment of silence her mouth cracked open “So, when you... destroyed her body, her consciousness no longer had a purchase in creation. She solely existed as the moon.”
Celestia nodded. “Correct. Now, I know I started this gloomy topic, but I see a party down there that looks interesting and I’m going to go crash it. Want to come with me?”
A giggle escaped Twilight. “I wouldn’t miss this for anything.”