The dawn had been her favourite time.
If ever Luna confessed this fact to another, the first reaction was nearly always surprise. Muted and trammeled as it might be by occasion and reverence for her crown and station, nevertheless every pony she spoke to, when faced with the idea that the Princess of the Night would enjoy the dawn, would widen their eyes and tilt their head just so, and stare at her for the briefest of moments as if they had heard her utter naught but madness.
Then would come the questions. Did she not need to sleep when the sun rose? Was not her role as governess of the night inimicable to enjoyment of other, greater lights? Was she not supposed to find the night more attractive than any other thing?
And then their surprise would grow as they learned that, if Luna ever felt the need to sleep at all, it would be at night, as any other pony, so that her dreams might be closer to the sphere over which she reigned.
And then would come the inevitable question: was her prior madness not brought about by ponies shunning her night to sleep?
The worst aspect of the query was not, as some might imagine, the implication that she might still be mad in some indefinable way, but rather was the mind-numbingly predictable timing of it. Always a silence of a few seconds, followed by an indrawn breath as the querant sought to put words to their thoughts. Then there would be a second silence, and finally the words would spill out.
More often than not she would give some anodyne answer, or smile mysteriously and walk away. Sometimes, if she was feeling particularly mischievous, Luna would ask the exact same question at the exact same time and then look at them expectantly, as if waiting for their answer. That usually shut them up.
There was an exception, of course. A single pony who, on learning of her enjoyment of the dawn, had smiled and nodded, and asked her what she liked the most.
They had, one time, watched from the highest reach of Canter Peak as Celestia restored the sun to the world's face. The two of them, alone and unburdened by the expectations of their peers, had lain close and comfortable in the chill twilight and spoken of such things that Luna had never hoped to hear in that age, or in any other to come for a long, long time.
And when the sun's first light had crested the horizon, it found them tangled and exhausted, and they had laughed and sighed as it warmed their sweat-chilled flesh, before turning to face the new day.
But now, as she watched the rising sun and the fading moon, Luna's heart beat cold and heavy in her chest. At her side, Celestia stood serene and still, breathing so slowly and evenly that she might have been a statue, while her lidded eyes watched the brightening sky across the same enigmatic smile she had worn for millennia.
No magic flowed in her body. The sun rose at the behest of another, at the command of the pony who had brought her from the darkness those scant few years ago.