Celestia grimaced. “Really now, Luna, this is how you’ll degrade yourself?” She sighed, tutting under her breath as her eyes scanned Luna’s new form with a dismissive glance. “You throw a tantrum and dress up like a primadonna drama queen? You haven’t changed one bit, baby sister. Just a child dressed in adult’s clothing, who never grew up big enough to fit in them.”
“You—” Luna blinked, her grim expression leaving her face for a moment. She… had not been expecting that for a response. “Hmph! Just another insult flung at me from your own lips. Always patronizing me, always lecturing! Always, always, always looking down upon me!” Luna stamped her hooves, creating cracks that spiderwebbed across the stone floor, stomping before Celestia. “I have more than enough reason to act upset! You said to me once, not too long ago, that we would rule together! Yet, here I am, standing to the side while you lord over our subjects, and they pay no heed to my own work. My night sky, my life’s work, is ignored constantly. None care for it, so as long as they have your glorious day to enjoy.”
Luna took in a few shaky breaths. A weight had lifted from her chest, or so it felt to the alicorn. She closed her eyes, and exhaled. “It’s evident that we cannot be equals, Sister." She spat the word as if it soured on her tongue. “You seem to take control of all things without even thinking about it. You give me no chance to rise up, so it seems the only way to do so will be done by using you as the first step to climbing the ladder to my ascension.”
“Wow… it really is like talking to a child.” Celestia rolled her eyes, walking past Luna without even a backwards glance. “I only look down on you, baby sister, because this is how you act. Like a spoiled brat. It’s any wonder I don’t lecture you more often, so that asinine situations like this don’t pop up.”
Celestia halted at Luna’s side, finally bearing down on her a cold gaze that felt like a cinderblock of weight pushed against Luna’s back. “Also, Luna, in case it didn’t occur to you, ponies aren’t nocturnal. Are you really just this much of a twit, or did you just not realize it? Of course they’ll appreciate my day more than your night. If you wanted a species’ collective shoulder to cry on, become Princess of the Bats or Moles for all I care.” Celestia broke her gaze, walking away from Luna with no indication she had even stood there. “Oh, and good luck with the whole ‘climbing the ladder to my ascension’ deal. It’s not like you know the first thing about running an entire country by yourself, but I’m positive that didn’t even occur to you past your own pretentious lamenting over your ‘cruel’ and ‘horrible’ fate of being second best.”
For the second time in the past few minutes, Luna was at a loss for words. She took a step back. “I…” She frowned, her gaze narrowing as Celestia’s gaze returned to the hole in the back of the throne room that Luna had created. “I could bring fortune and prosperity to this land faster and more efficiently than you could ever hope!”
She rounded on Celestia, standing before her once more. “I have drawn up revisions to your own tax laws so many times since we started ruling this land that I have lost count! I have helped settlements that were on the verge of collapsing by rerouting our capitol’s funds. I have stationed guards and military camps in spots that were strategic weaknesses to our borders!” She grit her teeth as Celestia continued to look ahead. “You dare call me second best? You may have their love, but it is a love bought with a porcelain smile and empty words, Celestia! You care more for keeping your comfortable little life than about bettering our subjects’ lives!”
She let out a huff, then continued while from Celestia. “You’re a ruler of a false nation. A nation that’s suffocating in its own lies, dear sister. I will take control of our land with my own power. Then I will break them all from the lies you have shackled them in. They will learn to love my night, and see the true beauty of this world is not only to be found in the day, but at all hours. When they learn of the possibilities by adjusting their lives to work and produce more goods and services, then our nation can finally become as strong as it was meant to be. We will not limit ourselves to a set clock simply because a self-righteous pony in gilded regalias says it’s how things are meant to be.”
Celestia stared at Luna for several seconds, her eyes as cold and strong as steel. Then she laughed. But it wasn’t the merry tone of joy and delight Luna had grown so accustomed to hearing from her beloved sister. She hadn’t heard that one since they defeated Discord. No, this one was empty, dry, and full of malice. A laugh directed solely at Luna, diminishing everything she had said to simple humor.
“Well, baby sister, it appears you’re taking this moronic plan of yours seriously enough. And for that, you have my respect.” Celestia took a step forward, the two sister separated only by inches. Leaning forward so that her mouth was right beside Luna’s ear, Celestia whispered, “But as a fellow leader yourself, you know I’ll never give up my nation willingly. Not to Discord, and certainly not to my own kid sister. So, you know what you must do.”
Celestia grinned, her voice colder than the top of the tallest mountains, each word an icy brush of wind up Luna’s spine. “So, baby sister, what will it be? Will you kill me in cold blood, right here in the throne room? Spread my blood across the halls to celebrate your ‘ascension’? Expect your precious ponies to love you when they hear you spilled the blood of your own kin? Is that what you want? Is it?” Celestia leaned in even closer, her lips only an inch away from Luna’s ear. “You better do it now, baby sister, because I’ll give you but one warning. If you don’t kill me the first strike, I won’t grant you the same luxuries upon mine.”
Luna was a mare of many things. She was wise, if not a bit impatient at times. She could be impulsive, but was also very good at picking out details when others had missed them. She was a worldly pony, and knew more about the other cultures of the world than any other pony in Equestria, barring Celestia.
Even so, despite her many experiences and bits of wisdom that she had gained over the many centuries, she did not know what to make of this. She had expected Celestia to be upset. She had expected Celestia to lecture her, or tell her to think her actions through before she did something rash.
She did not expect Celestia to goad her into killing her, though.
Luna gave no verbal reply. Like a flash of quicksilver, she spun around and used her momentum to deliver a powerful buck to Celestia’s chest. There was a resounding boom that echoed throughout the chamber as she launched her sister straight through the stone walls of their castle. Moonlight now spilled into the chamber as bits of rubble fell from the heavily damaged wall.
She walked towards the edge, looking down upon the castle grounds. A little further ahead, she could see a trail of broken trees and a gouge in the soil that lead into the Everfree Forest that surrounded the castle itself.
Luna spread her wings and flew down from the castle tower. She landed on the ground, and followed the trail of destruction her sister’s trajectory had caused.
It ended at an empty spot in the earth that was still smoking, dust and dirt having been kicked up in the air. There was no indication where Celestia had gone, except for several tree branches above Luna’s head being on fire. Actually, a good number of the branches were ablaze now, flaming leaves sprinkling to the ground like rain.
Luna slowly turned her head, the smug grin of her sister the first thing she noticed. Secondly was that a golden helmet melted into existence on Celestia’s head, the gold flowing like water to cover her skin. Her mane and tail had already burst into flames, the inferno hotter than the inside of a sun and able to melt the scales off a dragon. Luna should know, she had seen her sister do the very act with her own eyes. And that was the last thing Luna noticed about Celestia. Even after all the countless battles she fought by Celestia’s side, even after fighting the worst enemies and monsters imaginable, she had never in all her years of knowing her sister see those eyes filled with such cruel hunger. Like a predator playing with her prey, that’s how Celestia stared at her. Because now that’s all Luna was to this… thing she once called sister.
“You didn’t kill me,” Celestia said with a sad shake of her head. A burning branch fell to Luna’s side, singeing her coat. Looking up, Luna’s sight was filled with that of a second sun in the sky, more intense than the one which usually hung overhead. “Shame. Well, for you that is.”
Then everything burned to the ground.