"My dear friends,
I ask you not to worry about us. Celestia and Luna and I are safe, but don't bother looking for us either. We're not in Equestria... well, technically we are, we've worked out we've been transported into another dimension. I won't go into detail... there isn't enough room on the paper for that. However, I don't know when we'll return. According to Celestia, we have to save this world or... something. I will tell you this, it isn't pretty here. I don't know how things will turn out but... I do miss you guys.
Oh, and Celestia and Luna asks, who's raising the sun and moon?
Love, Twilight."
Spike flipped the paper around, but there wasn't anything else. On the back, it was just a cop out of some sort of book.
"Is that it?" Rainbow Dash asked, folding her hooves as she hovered in the air.
The dragon gave one last scan before answering. "Yep..." he sighed, "well, looks like we can't go and save the day and rescue them."
"Are you kidding me?" Discord sunk his head into his talon and paw. "I can't take the boredom of raising those two celestial bodies any longer!" he groaned. Cadance just gave an annoyed shove with her hoof.
"Forget that. I'm running out of excuses. It's been... I don't know... three days?" She rubbed her tired eyes as she said this.
"Actually, it's been three days, twenty-two hours, forty-two minutes and forty-two seconds," Pinkie corrected. This caused everyone to look at her.
"Are you counting every second Twilight's gone?" Applejack raised a brow.
"Mhmm." The pink mare picked up a small clock out of nowhere and looked at it. "So far, they've taken longer than any other time we've defeated any villain."
"Where did you-" Cadance began, only to be stopped by Rainbow Dash.
"Don't question her... it never works," she whispered into the princess' ear.
"Defeating Nightmare Moon only took eleven hours, four minutes and two seconds," Pinkie continued, "defeating Discord took one day, two hours, seven minutes and fifty-nine seconds."
"Is that all?" Discord sounded disappointed in himself.
"Yep. But that's okay, I suppose you could say defeating Chrysalis only took twenty-four hours, three minutes, and one second. I don't really know how long she was disguised as Cadance, but I don't count that part either because I wasn't there. Oh, and I think defeating Sombra only took nine hours, six minutes and twenty seconds."
"Um, what about Tirek?" Rarity added.
"Oh yeah! Again, don't know how long he was released, wasn't there. But ever since Celestia got that weird vision, I'd say two days, seven hours, twelve minutes and forty-two-"
"Okay, we get it!" Rainbow scolded, covering her mouth.
"So... we can't do anything?" Fluttershy whimpered, "We just wait until they come back?"
Spike sighed, then looked at the crystal floor below them. "Not a surprise it's taken them longer than usual."
"Why? Because this is a fanfiction?" Pinkie tilted her head.
"This is a wha - um... no. Look, I don't care that Twilight has Celestia and Luna. It's us she needs." He folded his arms, and started to walk towards the door.
"Where are you going?" Fluttershy called after him as he made his way out of the castle.
"To the Castle of the Two Sisters," he simply answered, closing the door behind him. This left everyone else to look at each other with confusion.
"Oh Spike..." Rarity sighed.
---
Celestia watched the sun descend behind the mountains in the distance. She could tell bu just looking at it that it was being lowered too quickly, she'd been controlling it for so long. The warm air, however, still lingered. It was hard to ignore, however she had managed to get used to the burning rock she kneeled on. An insect landed on the end of her muzzle, and she snorted it off with surprise.
"Um... Celestia?" her student's voice alerted her, causing her to turn around.
"Yes Twilight?" she smiled.
"You've been up here for a while... and the sun's going-" She looked over to where the sun was a few seconds ago, in which was now replaced with the moon rising ever so slowly. "-Gone down." She finished. "Don't you want to come rest?"
The princess blinked at her, then shook her head. "I've just been thinking."
Twilight kneeled next to her. "Thinking of what?" There was a side to Celestia she had never been able to work out. Sometimes, she was just hard to work out altogether.
"Just... events," Celestia began, "from a long time ago."
The smaller alicorn tilted her head. "Why?" It was a sort of question she'd ask when she was a filly, but next to the older Princess, she felt so much younger than she really was.
Celestia just shrugged. "I feel like they could help us," she said, looking towards her castle.
Twilight looked at her own hooves, then took a deep breath. "Where you thinking about Discord?"
That's when the white alicorn paused. She slowly looked at Twilight in surprise. There were a few moments of silence, then Celestia found her words.
"How did you know?"
Twilight stopped to think. "I guess I just knew. I've yet to be answered why you were so haunted the other day. So I just worked it out myself."
She saw her mentor's eyes sparkle with a bunch of contrasting emotions in a split second. She could recognize guilt in there, some sadness, even anger. All of it added to a tear, which rolled down her face.
"Are you okay?" Twilight asked guiltily. "I didn't mean for you to..."
"No, it's fine," she breathed, "it was no one's fault but my own."
"But I don't understand... how did everything come to this? Between you two?"
Celestia looked down at her, then she looked forward. "I misunderstood him. I know now what I did was wrong... both of us were in the wrong, I just didn't see it back then."
"Well... the past is in the past, right? Maybe..." Twilight was stopped by Celestia raising her hoof and hovering it in front of her.
"I'm afraid not, Twilight. Thank you for trying to help, but me and Discord..." she grunted as she stood up, "where never meant to be." With that, Celestia glided down to the ground, and trotted inside the cave, leaving Twilight alone on top of the cave. She sighed, then murmured, half to herself, half to nopony.
"Things must have changed..."
--
Ponies surrounded Luna on every side. She could barely hear her own thoughts over their excited conversations. She wanted to eavesdrop so she could find out what was going on, but anypony she paid attention to seemed to speak gibberish. The Night Princess pushed her way through the crowd to the large space in the middle, since the lack of room made her uncomfortable. That's when she spotted a familiar mare.
"Twilight!" Luna called, trotting over to her. When she got closer, she noticed Spike comfortably sitting on her back. "Twilight, what's going on?"
But she didn't seem to hear her. Luna also noticed she didn't have her wings anymore, she was a regular unicorn.
"Twilight! Twilight, can you hear me? Why am I in Ponyville?" No matter how much she raised her voice, she couldn't get the message across. Then a bright pink pony flashed before her.
"This is so exciting! Are you excited? Because I'm excited, I've never been so excited! Well, expect for the time I went GAAAH!" Luna recognized Pinkie Pie, whom was speaking so fast it was hard to take in. But what caught her full attention was how concerned Twilight seemed. That, or why she wasn't standing with her friends.
Then the lighting in the room went down, and birds started to sing a tune. Turns out, Fluttershy was composing them, like she would have done in Cadance and Shining Armor's wedding. The Mayor Mare then started to speak, but Luna didn't listen to her. She was trying to work out what Twilight was so worked up about. The young unicorn looked to the window, in which Luna followed her gaze. She then noticed something strange.
There was a symbol on her moon.
And stars seemed to be closing in behind it.
Then the symbol seemed to disappear. Luna looked back at Twilight, who seemed even more concerned than before.
"Twilight Sparkle... I don't understand what's going on!" The unicorn still didn't hear her. Instead, she turned back to the Mayor Mare.
"...The one who raises the sun and the moon..."
"Surely you mean, ones?" Luna corrected her.
"...Princess Celestia!"
How dare she? It was herself who raised the moon, not her sister!
...Except for the one thousand years she was banished.
Luna watched as Rarity pulled the curtains, revealing a blank space.
"Ooh! Is she playing hide and seek?" Pinkie squealed, as the ponies started to wonder where she may be.
Wait... Luna knew when this was.
"She's gone!" Rarity exclaimed, allowing all the ponies below her to gasp.
"Oooh... she's good!" Pinkie commented. "Gaah!" she suddenly screeched. Luna looked back up at the balcony, spotting a blue, sparkling cloud of smoke.
"Oh no..." she heard Twilight whisper. "Nightmare Moon!" The blue smoke revealed a tall, black armored alicorn, gazing down at her subjects with hatred. Spike fainted off of Twilight's back, and Nightmare Moon started to speak.
"Aah... My precious little subjects... it's been so long since I've seen your little sun-loving faces." Those last few words were spat out like they were a pain for her to say. Though Luna knew she wasn't really there, and that no one could hear her, she couldn't help but yell,
"No! They love you equally! Bring my sister back... you monster!"
From what Luna could remember, Nightmare Moon would start speaking again. But the whole scene instead seemed to pause. around her. Everything... everypony but Nightmare Moon, whom swung her head to look at her and smirked.
"Now now Luna, whom are you to call yourself a monster?" she cackled, "You know why you did this-" the black alicorn glided down to stand in front of her. "-don't you?"
Luna wanted to tremble and cower in front of her former self, but she stood up and glared into her cat-like eyes. "Yes... I do. But it was wrong of me," she retorted, "and I know just what would happen if I didn't change." By this point, Luna could tell she was dreaming. She knew where she really was right now.
Nightmare Moon gave her a smile, which might of suppose to be comforting, but to Luna, it just scared her. She felt an armored hoof settle under her chin, the cold metal making her shiver.
"So who do you talk to every night?" she asked her, her smile turning into a scoffing frown. Luna hesitated, opening her mouth slowly to answer her.
"Many. I help my subjects in their dreams... or nightmares, usually. Caused by their own real life troubles," her voice was quaking, dream or not.
The taller mare huffed in disbelief. "So you admit you only speak to them in their imagination?" Luna widened her eyes.
"What makes you think that?" she spat at her.
"'Real life troubles', you said. Why not visit them in 'real life' then? Oh, I forgot, they're asleep during the night," she explained, being quite sarcastic. Luna shook her hoof off of her, then glared at her.
"Stop trying to manipulate me! You're not me, you're... you're..." She trailed off.
"A monster?" she finished for her.
"Exactly."
Nightmare Moon leaned closer to her. "Your sister didn't think so."
"SILENCE!" Luna screeched in her Royal Canterlot Voice, before opening her eyes to the cave she had fallen asleep in. Her breath was shallow, making it a struggle to calm down.
The blue alicorn blinked a few times, then got used to her surroundings. Not far from her, Twilight slept peacefully, with a smile spread across her face. Luna guessed she was dreaming of being with her friends again.
However, she couldn't say the same for her sister. Next to her, Celestia was twitching and muttering words she couldn't understand. The easier way would've been to just nudge her until she wakes, but that may cause her to have the same dream tomorrow night.
Or, at least, the next time they rest.
Luna closed her eyes, letting herself try and focus on her sister's thoughts, trying to find the location of the dream she was in. It didn't take her long to finally step out of the darkness of her closed eyes into a bright scenery. Around her, everything was unorganized and chaotic. She immediately recognized the time when Discord was in power. Luna started to walk around, looking for Celestia. In a place so turbid, she would of thought it would take forever.
Though, it didn't. Despite the fact it was an exact replica of Discord's imagination, there was only a small patch of it. Celestia wouldn't possibly be able to remember every single detail of anarchy that was spread across Equestria when he ruled. She spotted the shape of her sister only a few feet away, whom was looking up to somepony. Or, some draconequus, should she say. Eventually, she got close enough to hear what she was saying.
"How could you do this? I trusted you!" she cried. Luna couldn't see Discord clearly, since she had to duck behind a mound that stuck out the checkered ground, but she heard him cackle.
"You're not as bright as I thought you were. I'm the Spirit of Chaos, what were you expecting, Princess?"
Celestia shook her head, "I expected you to at least thank me for freeing you..."
"Celestia!" Luna called. She leaped from her hiding place, and blasted her magic at Discord, which turned him to stone. Her sister stared at him, then looked at her.
"How did you-"
She put a hoof over her mouth. "You're dreaming," Luna told her.
At first, Celestia looked at her in disbelief. But then she sighed.
"Discord's reformed. Don't worry about it," she assured her.
"I know..." she murmured, as the scenery around them became normal. "I wish I could forget about this."
Luna blinked. "We all want to forget about something, but we can't," she told her. Celestia looked at her hooves.
"Unfortunate, really," she muttered, as the background started to fade. Luna realized she was waking up, and waited to appear back in the cave they were lying in.