Celestia made her way through the castle having finished with her duties in Day Court. It had been a long day, she had already lowered her sun and night had fallen upon Canterlot hours ago. The day had dragged on as she listened to petitioners as they made their cases. Following court, she had spent most of her evening on the large amount of paperwork she had to deal with on a day to day basis. With thousands of years of experience, Celestia was a master at completing her work quickly and efficiently. Today was different though, she was quite distracted. What normally took her an hour or two was going on five. She made a mental note to clear her schedule as much as possible for the next week. In her current state, focusing on her work was impossible as her mind kept wandering to Luna and her need to discuss the distant object speeding towards their home.
It was Luna who first noticed the object hurtling through the great void of space. Celestia tended to focus on her sun while Luna dealt with not only the moon, but the rest of the planets in the system, as well as asteroids and comets. Without constant adjustment by Luna, these bodies would be drawn out of their orbit around Equus as the sun's greater gravitational pull took hold.
It was during Luna's nightly work that she sensed an object not under her control speeding though the distant cloud of comets encircling the system; billions of miles away. Though extremely rare, this was not the first time a rogue body had entered her domain. This object, however, was unique. The first thing that stood out was that the object was moving at an extremely high speed. So fast that Luna had almost not even noticed it. She had been making some very fine adjustments to the orbit of a comet when it passed by. It took both Luna and Celestia searching for the better part of an hour to find the object again. In that time it had traveled hundreds of million of miles. Both sisters were shocked, neither had encountered anything in nature moving at that speed. After carefully tracking the object for the next several hours, Luna received her second shock. The object was slowing down.
By now, 21 hours after initial discovery of the object, Luna had determined that at its present course and speed, the object appeared to be headed very close (in celestial terms) to Equus. It would take less than four days to reach the planet. As it was so very distant, neither princess could yet see the object.
She rounded a corner and increased her pace. Up ahead she spotted Prince Blueblood talking to a guard posted at the door to Luna's room.
"Yes I've already checked court, she had already left and was last seen headed towards here," Blueblood said. "Look, I need to talk to her about a very important matter. I'll just wait here until she arrives."
She let out a quiet groan. She did not have time to deal with whatever his most recent complaint was. Thankfully Blueblood and the guard were facing the opposite direction and had not noticed her yet. With a quick light of her horn, she teleported herself into Luna's room.
Looking around the room, she realized Luna was not there. However, she did find a scroll addressed to her on Luna's desk. She unrolled the scroll and give it a quick read.
Sister, I will be in the observatory. Meet me there as soon as your schedule permits.
-Luna
Sighing, she lit her horn once more, and in a flash of light disappeared. Reappearing in Luna's observatory, Celestia looked she looked around the room until she spotted Luna making some adjustments to her telescope.
Noticing Celestia's entrance, Luna turned towards her sister.
"I see that you found my note," Luna said. "I did not want to interrupt court and I assumed that you would be looking for me as soon as you were finished with your duties."
"Thank you sister," Celestia replied. "Though I would have been glad for the interruption. Court was long today and I was distracted, thinking about our mystery object. And besides, you know that you are always welcome to stop by." She gave Luna a quick nuzzle.
"Tia please," Luna said, blushing slightly. "We need to discuss the object."
"Have you been able to find it in your telescope?" Celestia asked.
"I have not, but this is not surprising. At its current distance, it would have to be quite large for me to be able to see it. I have been modifying a spell that I use for astronomy. Once I have it working, we should be able to get a visual of the object."
"That is good news," Celestia said. "You know Luna, Twilight would likely find this very interesting. I've been thinking about it, and I think we should inform her and Cadance." She turned to Luna and smiled.
"Even if this turns out to be nothing, I'm sure Twilight would enjoy working on creating a new spell," she said. "It's also been a while since she's visited."
"I see no problem with that, and if it does turn out to be something, Twilight and Cadance deserve some forewarning before we make the information public," Luna replied.
"Then it 's settled. I will send letters to Twilight and Cadance, while you continue to work on your spell."
Luna nodded. "I shall do just that," she said. "But before I do, would you care to break for a late dinner? I assume that as usual, you worked through yours, and I know an excellent place that is open late."
"You know me too well. Dinner was five hours ago and I haven't eaten since lunch. The letters can wait a short while, let's go eat."
Luna headed over to her desk and placed the stopper on the open ink well. She tidied up the scrolls she was working on and then walked back over to Celestia. The two sisters then exited the observatory, chatting about their day's activities as they headed off to eat.
#####
The Ponyville Library stayed open rather late compared to most other libraries in Equestria. The mare who ran the library, more often than not, would stay up reading late into the night. It was her policy to encourage reading as much as possible and thus if she was awake, the library was open. Because one never knew when somepony might want to borrow a book. That meant that seeing the closed sign on the library door was an unusual occurrence, even at this late hour. That wasn't to say the library was empty. It was currently occupied by 6 mares and one baby dragon.
"Alright girls, are you ready to head out?" Twilight asked.
"Just as soon as we can get Fluttershy to come out from under your bed," Rainbow replied.
"Fluttershy dear, it will be fine" Rarity said, trying to calm the nervous pony down.
"But it's so dark out. It's too late to be going out right now."
"Of course it's dark out," Rainbow said. "You can't look at the stars during the day!"
"It'll be just fine Fluttershy, we'll be in the field, just across from the barn," Applejack said. "You'll be within sight of mah house the whole time. Big Mac and Ah have been out almost this late working the orchards before, we ain't never had any problems."
"Besides, you don't want to miss Ponyville's first Stargazing Party," Pinkie said bouncing up and down.
"I know you're excited Pinkie, but most ponies don't usually stay up this late, I don't think that many will show up," Twilight said. "I invited you girls to join me but I didn't think you'd try to turn it into a party. Not that I mind, I actually like the idea, I just don't want to see you disappointed."
"Twilight, when you asked us to join you tonight, I said to myself, 'Pinkie, you've never been stargazing before, and that means there's probably never been a stargazing party before. That needs to be fixed, and it's up to you to make the first stargazing party, the best one, got that?' And do you know what my answer was?"
"You asked yourself a question, and then answered... yourself?" Rainbow asked.
"Of course I did. How else would I know if I was up to the task? And the answer was yes! Anyway, I passed those flyers out to everypony in Ponyville. I bet we'll get a bunch of ponies," Pinkie said.
"Well, we better get going soon, or if anypony does show up, they'll wonder where we are. Fluttershy, you don't have to come if you don't want to," Twilight said.
"No, it's all right" Fluttershy crawled out from under Twilight's bed. "I'll join you. Pinkie's right, I shouldn't miss out on this."
"Ok, then it's settled, let me just go check on Spike and we'll get going."
Twilight walked upstairs and into Spike's bedroom. Spike was sitting on his bed reading.
"Spike I'm headed out now. I should be back by midnight," Twilight said.
"Ok Twilight," Spike said, not even looking up from his comic book. "Have fun."
"Remember Spike, stay here, I don't want you changing your mind and walking over to Sweet Apple Acres alone this late at night."
"Not a problem, this is only the first book in the series," Spike pointed to a large stack of comics. "I've got to read that whole pile."
Twilight laughed.
"Ok Spike, but don't stay up too late. I expect you to be asleep when I get back."
"I won't!" Spike said. "Bye!"
"Bye!"
Twilight walked back downstairs and rounded up the rest of the girls. They walked out the door and headed towards Sweet Apple Acres.
"So I've got my telescope and 3 pairs of binoculars," Twilight said, nodding at the large duffle bag she was levitating alongside herself.
"We'll have to take turns using them, but they'll give a much better view than you can see with your eyes alone."
The group was almost at Sweet Apple Acres. Twilight had spent most of the walk over talking about the different things they could see. There were twelve planets in the system, but three were too small or far away to see, even with her telescope. She started to list the planets when Rainbow landed.
"Twilight, I don't think that's going to be enough." Rainbow said, interrupting Twilight.
"Huh? " Twilight looked up.
They had arrived at the field and there were almost 30 ponies there already.
"Oh wow, look at how many ponies showed up!" Pinkie bounced off and started to greet everypony.
"Whaaa?" Twilight's jaw dropped but she was quick to recover.
She looked at the mass of ponies, then looked at her duffle bag, then back at the ponies again.
"Oh my gosh this is a disaster. I don't have enough equipment for this many ponies. Some ponies might not get a turn and then they won't have fun and it will be all my fault."
She started to hyperventilate.
"I should have planned for this, I have another telescope, but I didn't bring it and I could have found more binoculars..."
"Don't worry about it Twilight," Cheerilee said, walking up behind them with Big Mac following her.
"Big Mac let me know that quite a crowd was gathering, we stopped by the school and picked up some extras," she said indicating at a box of binoculars in a small cart Big Mac was pulling.
"Plus I brought my own telescope."
"Eeyup," Big Mac said.
"Oh thank Celestia," Twilight said. "I really should have planned for this though. I didn't even know you had a telescope Cheerilee."
"Oh yeah, I used to run an amateur astronomy club, but I just haven't had the time in the last few years. When Mac invited me, I figured you knew since he said you planned the party and this is where we used to meet."
"I didn't pick this location, Applejack did," Twilight said.
"Oh yeah, Ah forgot to tell ya Twilight. When Ah mentioned it to Big Mac he suggested usin' this field," Applejack said.
"Reminiscing over old times again, eh Mac?" Cheerilee said, smiling at Big Mac.
"Eeyup," Big Mac said quietly, turning a slightly brighter shade of red.
"Well why don't you help me setup the telescope, you remember how right?"
"Eeyup."
The two ponies walked over to the field and got to work.
"Wait, so your brother used to be in an astronomy club?" Rainbow said. "I didn't take him for an egghead."
"Yah do realize that you're at an event that might as well be another astronomy club meetin' right Rainbow?" Applejack said with a smirk.
"Ah, but, uh... Well, I'll make it cool," Rainbow said.
The rest of the girls chuckled. Twilight got to work setting up her scope and then worked with Cheerilee to pass out binoculars. She spent the few hours talking to the group of ponies, pointing out constellations, planets and a few moons. Cheerilee added some bits of knowledge and even pointed out a few things Twilight didn't know about. They both went back and forth helping ponies find things to look at and making adjustments to the telescopes. As it got later, more and more ponies had to head back home.
"Thanks for inviting me Twilight," Fluttershy said. "I'm glad I came, the night sky really is beautiful and if I hadn't come I wouldn't have seen those amazing fireflies."
"Ew, bugs, I don't know what you see in them," Rarity said.
"Oh they aren't bad Rarity, you like butterflies, they're bugs too."
"I suppose. Well I bid you all goodnight," Rarity said. "I'm going to walk with Fluttershy and then head home myself. I've got to open the boutique early tomorrow."
"Bye girls, I'll probably see you tomorrow," Twilight said.
Rarity and Fluttershy headed off. Only Pinkie, Rainbow Dash, Twilight, Big Mac and Cheerilee remained. Applejack had left about half an hour earlier since it was her turn to head into the Ponyville market in the morning to sell apples. Since the few children who had attended were long gone, Mac took a quick trip back to his house and grabbed a case of Sweet Apple Acre's famous hard cider, a big bag of marshmallows, chocolate, graham crackers, and some firewood. Dash immediately downed two bottles while everyone else was still working on their first. When everypony looked at her, she shrugged.
"It's almost impossible to find this stuff," Dash said, glaring at Pinkie "I might not get any more for another 6 months."
"Take it easy Dash, you've still got to fly home you know," Twilight said.
Rainbow stuck her tongue out at Twilight, but slowed down on her third bottle. Mac started a small fire and passed out sticks and marshmallows. Everypony gathered around the fire, eager to make s'mores.
"I'm glad you set this up Twilight, It's been too long since I've last done this," Cheerilee said.
"Eeyup," Big Mac added.
"I think I might try to start the club back up, I can probably set aside some time at least once a month. Twilight, if you are interested, would you like to help me run meetings? That way if one of us is too busy to make it, the club could still meet."
"That's a great idea, but I'll need to check my schedule to confirm I have enough time. Would you like to stop by the library tomorrow and we can plan something?" Twilight asked.
"Sounds good to me, I'll stop by after lunch. Is anypony else interested in doing this again?"
"I am! And if I come to the meetings you can be sure you'll have clear skies." Rainbow Dash said.
"I'm surprised you liked it so much Dashie, guess that makes you an egghead," Pinkie said with a wink.
"Ok I admit it, it was pretty cool. Especially looking at Luna's moon! Hey Twilight, you should invite Luna next time."
"I don't know, Princess Luna is likely far too busy to come to an amateur astronomy club meeting."
"Oh come on Twilight. Besides, I think she'd love to see ponies enjoying her night. Pleaseeeeeee?" Rainbow asked.
"Rainbow does raise a good point," Cheerilee said.
"Eeyup."
"Oh alright, when we figure out when the next meeting will be, I'll send her a letter." Twilight said.
"Woohoo! Yeahhh!" Rainbow said, doing a quick victory dance in the air.
"Dashie just wants to see Luna again," Pinkie said with a grin.
"No Pinkie," Rainbow said with a serious look on her face. "I mean I do, she seems pretty cool and all, but I really meant what I said.
I really do think she'd love to see ponies enjoying her night. Looking at her moon tonight, it really puts things into perspective. She spent 1000 years so far away from anypony because she thought nopony cared about her. Let's show her that isn't true anymore."
"That was a very thoughtful thing to say Rainbow," Twilight said
"Yeah yeah, " Rainbow said blushing. "Just don't tell anypony I said it, or I'll deny it. Don't even know why I did, bleh mushy crap."
"Could be the cider," Pinkie said with a giggle, pointing at the 4 empty bottles next to Rainbow.
"Can we change the subject?" Rainbow asked. "How far away is Luna's moon again?"
"It has an average distance of about half a million miles away." replied Twilight.
"Wow, that's like super duper amazingly far," Pinkie said.
"Yes it is, to put it in perspective, you'd have to circle Equus about 20 times to travel that distance." Twilight said.
"The whole planet? 20 times?" Rainbow asked. "That would take forever, even for me."
"Right. After you made the sonic rainboom over Cloudsdale I calculated that you topped out at 10 times the speed of sound, or mach 10. Assuming that is the fastest you can go, and you could keep up that speed nonstop it would take you... " Twilight paused to run some calculations in her head. "Almost 3 days to make that trip."
"Wow," Pinkie and Rainbow said simultaneously.
"Luna's moon is actually our nearest neighbor in space," Cheerilee added. "Celestia's sun is about 100 million miles away. Dysnomia, the farthest planet from the sun is almost 5 billion miles away. It's so far away you need a telescope to even see it. It was named that because before the Princesses took over, it's orbit was so chaotic.
"It had a highly elliptical orbit, and at its closest it was visible to the naked eye, but would get harder and harder to see as it got farther away till it vanished completely . It was said that Discord had set the planet on its unusual orbit and so it was named Dysnomia, daughter of Discord. When Celestia and Luna ended Discord's reign they set it on a more natural orbit, so it no longer came close enough to see."
"I thought Celestia just moved her sun and Luna her moon?" Pinkie asked.
"It isn't common knowledge, but it isn't completely unknown either," Twilight said. "Between the two of them, they manage the entire solar system. Before Celestia and Luna, Discord did as he pleased. The asteroid belt between Equus and Leviathan, the first and largest of the gas giants in the system, is actually the result of him smashing two planets together. "
"Discord fiddled with the solar system on an almost daily basis. At the end of the Chaos wars, when Celestia and Luna used the Elements of Harmony against Discord, the entire system was in shambles. None of the planets were in stable orbits, with Discord no longer moving them about. The asteroid belt's orbit intercepted the one Equus had fallen into, but worse still, Equus' orbit wasn't stable. With Discord no longer controlling it, Equus was in danger of falling into the sun. "
"All of ponykind together were not powerful enough to mimic Discord's work. All except for Celestia and Luna. That's when they took over and reordered the solar system."
"Wait, Equus might have fallen into the sun?" Pinkie asked. "But the sun orbits Equus, how would that work?"
"In a normal system, planets orbit the stars," Cheerilee said. "Stars are massive, Celestia's sun is about 335,000 times as massive as Equus, it has a much larger gravitational pull and so smaller, less massive objects would ordinarily orbit it. When Discord lost control of the system, the sun was the largest source of gravity. But it would have been sheer luck if any of the new orbits had been stable without intervention from Celestia and Luna."
"Why is our system different then?" Pinkie asked.
"We don't know if our solar system was ever normal. Recorded history only goes back partially into Discord's reign, before that, if there was a before, maybe our system was normal, we don't know. Ponies back then didn't have the technological or magical knowledge we have today, so even if there was records, they wouldn't have known about the orbits." Twilight said.
"The only ones who might have are Celestia and Luna. We don't know where they came from or if they were around before Discord or not, all we know is that about 15,000 years ago they appeared and after a long war, they ended Discord's reign. With Discord no longer controlling the orbits of the solar system, the Princesses took over, but they ordered the system instead of leaving it a chaotic mess."
The fire started to die down as the ponies continued to talk. When the last of the hard cider was gone, the ponies started to pack up. Twilight realized that it was much later than she intended to be out and quickly began gathering her things. Suddenly the ponies heard someone running quickly down the road from the direction of Ponyville.
"Who would be up at this hour?" Dash said, yawning.
"TWILIGHT!" someone shouted. "Are you out here?"
"That's Spike!" Twilight said. She quickly cast a spell, reigniting the fire to provide some extra light. "Over here Spike!"
"Oh thank goodness," Spike said, breathing heavily.
"What are you doing out here, I told you that you weren't supposed to leave the library. You shouldn't be out this late alone."
"Sorry Twilight, but you have a letter, from Celestia, " Spike said. "It woke me up when I coughed it out."
"Oh Spike, whatever it is, I think it can wait till morning. Still, at least you had a good reason and you didn't get lost."
"But it's marked urgent! I looked for you since it was after midnight, and then I decided to just wait a while, but then I got another letter, this one addressed to me and it was Celestia asking if I had delivered the first letter yet. That's when I left." Spike said, still panting from his run.
"Oh, do you have the letter? I'll read it right now."
Spike kicked at the ground with a sheepish look on his face.
"I rushed so fast out the door, I forgot to bring the letter with me."
"Ok, better take the fast way back," Twilight said. "Sorry everypony I've got to go."
"Don't worry about it Twilight, we'll cleanup here," Cheerilee said.
"Let us know what's up when you can," Rainbow said.
She levitated her duffle bag over, tossed the telescope inside and gathered up the rest of her things.
"Spike, hop on, I'm going to teleport back."
Spike jumped up onto Twilight's back and she charged her horn. There was a flash of light and they were gone.