Luna focused her magnification spell further, enabling her to watch the floating orbs of light move around her cavernous throne room. She stared, transfixed at their eternal dance, their myriad colors invisible to all but the wielders of the right kinds of spells.
The souls drifted around, always headed toward one place or another, stuck in that space between death and rebirth. She liked to guess about what kinds of lives they must have led to give them their colors.
Her night court was empty as usual, and the dreamscape didn’t have anypony that needed her help, so she spent her time keeping track of a dozen or so souls. In the midst of the dance, something almost escaped notice—something creeping ever closer.
She pondered the thing carefully. It bore a striking resemblance to an atom, yet it was far too large to be so. It was not entirely unlike a soul, but it was too small to be that, either.
She seized it in her magic. If it was an atom, it would obey her commands. She loosened her grip and ordered the atom to move away from her. It disobeyed, continuing its march in her direction. If it was a soul, it would have memories. She cast a spell to read its memories, but no ideas or lifetimes returned.
She let whatever the thing was loose, curious to where it would go. It crept closer and closer until it reached her horn, then disappeared.
A chill ran down in her spine. Had it gone inside her horn? She only knew magic that could manipulate atoms or monitor souls. Whatever it was, she would be unable to extract it.
She relaxed as an idea filtered through. She would tell her sister in the morning. Better yet, why not wait and tell Celestia when she found another thing like it again? If there was such a state between soul and element, then there would be more of it.
Her entire frame loosened, parts of her body growing limp as more ideas came.
Or perhaps, more likely, she had imagined the thing? She was in charge of dreams. Perhaps she had experienced a daydream without realizing it. Everypony else was dreaming at this hour, lost in their own inane fantasies, instead of enjoying her beautiful night.
She worked so hard to manipulate the atmosphere to make the stars twinkle just right. The moon didn’t have to shimmer onto Equestria, bathing it in moonlight every night. Luna didn’t have to have night court, or monitor the dreamscape, or any of those other wonderful things she did.
Her mother had given her daughters but one instruction: to make sure that the reincarnation cycle continued unheeded. Luna went above and beyond her duty and nopony even cared.
And the sun. The more Luna thought about it the more her blood began to boil. That poor sun was being controlled by Celestia. And ponies loved her for it. They frolicked in that sunshine that didn’t belong to her. That sun deserved a rest for struggling for so long against its oppressor. It should be set free.
And that would leave Equestria in the beautiful embrace of her eternal night.
It was the perfect solution for both of them.