Will Last Forever
Solar Flare
Her Royal Majesty, Queen Solar Flare of the Crackling Sun, turned over in her bed and fell off.
She didn't cry out, she simply groaned and pulled herself to her hooves. She cricked her neck left, then right, before lowering herself and stretching like a cat. A groan built up in her throat, before turning into a gasp when her joints popped. She pulled herself back to her regal posture and shook her head. Her mane, white as sun-bleached bones, fell in front of her. With another shake of her head she tossed her mane out of the way, and let the power of her star flow through both it and her tail.
The fibers transformed into a roaring inferno of orange flame, eternally streaming off her body. Her tail blew outwards like a flame thrower and her mane's fires billowed upwards to double her height before lowering from purely vertical to sweeping down her withers. Her flames did nothing more than warm her, but many a mosquito and traitor alike had met their end in her personal conflagration.
With that done, Solar Flare swept her eyes across her eternally lit circular bedroom. Her carpet was dark orange and in its middle was her cutie mark, an orange sun with eight black rays coming off of it. Off to her left was her bed, a luxurious thing with bedposts of gold and blankets of finest silk, and mountainous pillows embroidered with her cutie mark, with a nightstand next to it holding her daily planner. There was also a desk, where Solar Flare handled the paperwork of state, and behind said desk were the closed doors that lead to her balcony.
To Solar Flare's right was a deceptively simple chest, sealed tight with spells that would set anypony who tried to open it without the correct authorization on fire. The number of ponies who had such authorization numbered three; she, herself, and her.
Solar Flare lit up her horn with a burnt orange aura, and effortlessly opened the chest. She then levitated her four ornate, amber horseshoes on, followed by her torc and helm. She slipped it down her horn and over her head, and smiled, closing the chest. With a flicker of magic she renewed the strength on her passive shields. Another quick spell to clean her up, and she felt good to go.
She looked towards the body-sized mirror, turning around and inspecting herself. Near the end of her turns, she smoothed out a patch of bed-coat from her luxurious orange fur, and then nodded, locking draconic magenta eyes with herself and smirking. She looked like a proper Queen now, ready to face the next twenty four hours.
Checking to make sure the fireproofing and intruder-incapacitation spells on her room were at their full strength, Solar Flare blew open the door to her chambers with a single stroke of a wing. She strode down the short corridor confidently, her two Coronal Guards - their armor enchanted to make their fur a dark orange - falling into step beside her without word.
Queen Solar Flare, without word, led her guards around her castle, climbing stairs and making sure her horseshoes clanked loudly on the marble floor to signal her arrival. Servants hurriedly bowed to her as she passed, causing Solar's face to slowly evolve a fanged grin. By the time she reached her dining chambers she was fully smiling at the obedience her subjects showed to her. She needed it, after that despicable display at the Eclipse.
The Coronal Guards assumed their watches outside the entry to her dining chambers, and Solar entered with another blast of magic, closing the gargantuan orange doors behind her with a kick from a hind leg.
Solar Flare's dining room was a fairly small room, reminiscent of her utilitarian youth, contrasted by having its walls bedazzled with paintings of her by artists from around the world; a profile of her with her burning sun behind her, laying down on a couch, striding on a cloud with her back half transformed into yellow flame. One picture in particular, from a century and a half ago, tickled her fancy; in that one, Solar Flare was in a shoddy little commoner's house. Before her was a Hearth's Warming tree, and she herself was reared up frantically, her mane having accidentally lit it on fire.
She had let the artist of that one live; he'd been funny.
There were, of course, many paintings that didn't relate to her or to just her, but she didn't dare look at those.
The table was a large, circular thing, made out of magically-reinforced glass. It could seat a dozen ponies, but only she used it. Above it, the ceiling was a glass dome, giving perfect sight of her burning sun, suspended at its apex in a clear blue sky. Four doors were spaced around the room's circumference evenly, and as Queen Solar Flare drifted to her tall red seat one of them opened, admitted a pony, and closed behind them.
Solar Flare's personal waiter, High Attendance, walked in and bowed low. After waiting the customary ten seconds, he rose and looked over to her. "My Queen, what would you like for breakfast?"
She didn't even need a second to consider. "Tomato soup with potatoes, a cockatrice leg, buttered toast seasoned with garlic, and a slice of chocolate cake."
High Attendance bowed. "At once, Your Majesty." He backed out of the room and closed the door behind him, leaving Solar Flare alone with her thoughts and the gentle crackling of her smokeless flames.
With a flash of magic, Solar Flare reached out into her room and summoned her planner to her, flipping it open to the date. She wrapped her fiery tail around the heat resistant seat.
She read aloud to herself, not that anypony would complain. "Wind exchange overseeing at the seventeenth platform, paperwork, lunch, training the guards in the Green Corridor, paperwork I forgot to do, dinner, recreation, sleep." She closed her book and, with another amber flash, sent it back. "Hmm, good enough." She hadn't dismissed it for one minute before the doors opened and two servants came in, each earth pony holding a silver domed platter on their backs.
"My queen," said the one in front, stopping next to her. Her partner stopped besides her, and waited patiently for Solar Flare to make her move.
"Acceptably quick," she said coldly, levitating the domes from their backs and placing them before her. "Leave."
Both bowed. "Of course, Your Majesty." With that, they backed out and left the room, closing the door and leaving Solar Flare to her thoughts. She lifted the metal domes off the plates and, with the barest flickers of thought, tossed them aside for the maids to pick up later. Almost immediately, the alicorn's mouth began to water. On one platter was the bowl of soup, with a spoon, and the cockatrice leg. On the other were two slices of perfectly browned toast and a luscious, luscious slice of...
Queen Solar Flare distracted herself with soup. Once that was done she tore her fangs into the leg of perfectly cooked meat, followed by devouring the two slices of toast. Only once that was done did she lift the fork and knife that had come with the dessert and, licking her lips eagerly, cut off a piece and stabbed it with the fork, levitating it to her mouth.
She smiled gleefully at the piece of cake, dark chocolate with maple frosting and rainbow sprinkles, and brought it into her mouth. Instantly her eyes rolled up in her head and she shook, moaning in delight as her wings fwhoomed out. Solar Flare set down the fork, and looked left. She looked right. Satisfied nopony was around, she dove headfirst into what was left of the cake, noisily devouring it. In moments it was over, the cake a desiccated corpse of crumbs.
She licked her muzzle clean of remains, then lifted her helm off. She telekinetically scraped the frosting and crumbs off her armor and into her mouth, then put it back on. As an afterthought, she dabbed her mouth with one of the provided napkins. Solar Flare got out of her seat and, with a flash and a bang, appeared above Everfree Castle, ready to go aid with the wind exchange.
However, even for her majestic and powerful wings, it was a long flight to the outpost. Of course, it wasn't the first time she'd made the trip, she'd done it tens of thousands of times. In that time Solar Flare had created a sequence of relays, invisible magical 'gates' in the air that would speed her along to almost anywhere in her kingdom she desired, or beyond. Those who feared her were well to fear her ability to appear almost anywhere at anytime.
With a burst of fire magic, Solar lurched forward and pressed her magic into the first relay. Immediately, the world around her distended and blueshifted, blinking past her before expelling her. She dashed into the next relay, then the next one in turn, until within two minutes she was at the border to the Great Sea.
It was here that the border of the day-side of the planet met with the night-side of the planet, under which was nothing but a vast ocean. The outpost in question was a little cloud base shaped like a bowl, upon which a hundred pegasi flitted left and right to the tune of one barking out orders. A dozen flew overhead, guiding winds.
All work stopped when she arrived, everypony bowing deeply to Solar. She counted exactly ten seconds before allowing them to rise, and then spoke. "Carry on with your work. You there!" she demanded, pointing a forehoof to the mare that had been shouting instructions prior to her arrival. The pegasus in question jumped to salute Solar Flare.
"Your Majesty!"
She walked towards her, "How go the wind exchanges? My schedule says that the area here is behind on the heat dispersion. Explain. And for my sake, stop saluting. You look like you're about to fall over."
The pale blue pony lowered herself onto all fours, hesitantly meeting Solar's eyes with her own green ones. "W-Well, my Queen, there are strong winds coming in perpendicular to the designated route, and we h-have to keep storms from forming along the intersection line, so it's taking a lot of ponypower away from the moving of air."
Solar Flare narrowed her eyes, manipulating the muscles in her iris to make her slit pupils constrict further. "Are those excuses?" she demanded hotly.
The poor mare she was accosting hastily shook her head. "No, my Queen, they are reasons."
Solar let her pupils relax and smiled. "Good. Understand that the world without us is chaotic, and that such slips through even our finest attempts. Recognize your limits so that you can work to surpass them." And then die of old age, she thought with an internal nicker. "I'll get you caught back up. Pray that these winds fade, lest I visit again."
The pegasus bowed again. "Yes, of course, Your Majesty." Without waiting for her to pick herself up, Solar Flare leaped into the air with a burst of unmatched pegasus magic, leaving the cloud base far behind and facing the night side of the planet.
She could feel the warm air and cold air mixing together, threatening to cause a major storm, so she began fixing that, pushing the moisture back over the ocean where it would cool and fall as rain far over the sea. With another motion of her hooves, Solar Flare grabbed a wind stream and pushed it, causing it to exchange warm air from Equestria with the night-side's freezing air.
She set up another few wind streams before descending back to the cloud outpost and heading back through her portal relay, arriving high above Everfree City.
Everfree City was a perfectly circular city. Cobblestone walls rose around the circumference, Coronal Guards patrolling the top. Pegasi flew around the airspace, keeping out aerial intruders while iron gates kept out those who couldn't fly. Everfree City was divided up into three parts. The uptown of Everfree, right at the edge of the ring, was painted yellow and blue. Further in, Everfree's downtown was a hub of the sciences and Equestria's military, a force unchallenged by any other nation on the world. And in the very middle, was Everfree Castle, her home for the past three millennia.
On the outside it appeared to be the old-fashioned castle it once was, made entirely out of mortar and stone, whereas on the inside it was crafted out of the finest metalworking there was. Its spires reached up, tall and proud, towards the heavens above. Parapets and walkways formed rings around the spires, shading the corridors where the army drilled. Solar Flare adjusted her course for one of the higher towers and set down on the balcony, trotting into her room after opening the doors.
What was next was by far her least favorite part of day-to-day ruling; paperwork. Equestria was a vast kingdom, a leader among world powers, and that meant a lot of stuff happened in it. Most of the paperwork for various committees, subcommittees, and taxes and laws and lawyers and vacations and holidays was handled by her lessers, but a sizable share still made its way to her desk via magical relays every twenty four hours.
Solar Flare groaned, cracked her neck, and trotted over to her desk. She levitated a quill plucked from her own wings, dipped it in ink, and chose a place to start: tax reports. There seemed to be less coming in than there should've. Not by so much that it indicated a problem with the economy, but enough that Solar suspected there was a significant percentage of tax evaders. Centuries of rule had given her a good sense for that kind of thing. She'd have the guard look into it.
After that were requests from the Equestrian Department of Disease Research for more bits for their projects. After some time to consider it, she rolled her eyes and denied the requests. She'd visited those departments just last month, and with all their fundraisers and such they did not want for money. What they wanted for was time; some diseases were simply very hard to cure. She sat those forms aside into the Done pile, and plodded on.
Solar Flare went through most of the rest of her depressingly large stack of paperwork before deciding it was time for lunch. Pushing herself away from her desk and left her room, her Coronal Guard, once again, falling into position behind her. Like clockwork, which it may as well have been for all the times they had done it, and the infinitely more times she had done it and would do it after they died.
However, something happened to break the clockwork.
As they were headed towards her dining chambers, taking a left down the hallway that brushed close to the servants' quarters, there was a blinding flash of light in front of Solar Flare. She drew back sharply, surprised, and both of her guards leaped forward to protect her. She herself lit up her horn, preparing both a shield and a counterspell to negate the magic. She reached out and probed it...
Solar Flare gasped as the flash of light turned into a swirling, howling vortex of rainbow colors, taking up the entire width of the halls. In the vortex she could feel... power. More magical energy than she had ever dreamed possible. The power to crush a planet like a pebble, to enslave the races of the world to one's will and to free them. Unmatched, overwhelming power that seemed to be a perfect antithesis of chaos magic. The rush of unstoppable magic condensed into a point, opened back up, and then...
As quickly as it came, it stopped. Where before the magic had been was a figure, about the size of Solar Flare with a coat as black as... as black as...
"Get out," she whispered to her two guards, who seemed also to recognize the figure from several paintings around the castle.
The two pegasi turned around to face her. "But, Your Majesty," said the one on her left. "That's - "
"Get out!" she bellowed. Both Coronal Guards backed away from the figure and past Solar Flare, their hoofsteps fading into the background. Once they were gone, she slowly stepped forward.
The figure was equine, and one of the few such that could match Solar Flare's height; that much she could tell despite the fact that the mare was on her side. Her coat was long and full, perfect for keeping warm at night, but was unkempt and ungroomed after the enormous magical whirlwind. Her mane and tail were both a deep shade of violet, long and languid. From the apparently unconscious pony's head sprouted a long spiraled horn, and two wings that looked like they hadn't been preened in far too long were folded limply at her sides. Confirming Solar Flare's rising suspicions was the cutie mark, a series of purple splotches of varying size, the crescent moon imprinted on the largest spot.
What absolutely confirmed it was a quick magical scan on the naked pony: there was not a hint of changeling magic at work. If that was true... if it could truly be...
Solar Flare stepped forward slowly, then hastened into a trot, then a full on gallop. Once she was almost there she slid to her hocks, placing both her armored hooves next to the alicorn's head. "N-Nightmare?" she whispered, not willing to believe her eyes. It couldn't be. It was too good to be true.
The black alicorn groaned, her eyes twitching underneath their lids. "N-No, no, don't want to go... not another thousand..."
Solar Flare swallowed hard and wiped at her eyes with a hoof. "Nightmare, is it truly you? C-Can you hear me?" She wrapped her forelegs around - it was too good to be true... - Nightmare's head and shifted so that her head was in her lap. "It's me, it's me."
Slowly but surely, the pony in her grip opened her eyes again, revealing turquoise irises and slit pupils that Solar hadn't seen in so very, very long. Her left ear flicked. "C-Celestia, no, don't... don't send..."
Celestial? What did that mean? "Nightmare, Nightmare it's me, it's me, it's okay. I've got you."
The pupils focused on her, and Nightmare opened her mouth. "Is it... you?"
Solar couldn't take it anymore. This wasn't one of her subjects, one of her lessers. This wasn't a mortal far beneath her, this was her sister damn it! With a joyful wail she pulled Nightmare up and buried her head in her neck, wrapping her hooves tightly around her barrel. "Nighty, Nighty oh I thought I'd never see you again! I, I thought, I thought you were..." She swallowed. "But you're not, oh you're not." She... she wasn't crying! There was just a thundercloud in her eyes.
"Grrk!"
Solar blinked, looked down, and loosened her grip. Immediately Nightmare took a deep breath, coughing once or twice. "Oh, I'm so sorry! Can you stand? Take, take all the time you need," she said, her voice breaking at the end of the sentence. All the same she didn't dare let go of the alicorn, as if she'd vanish from existence if she ever did. "Oh Nighty, Nighty."
Slowly but surely, the alicorn in her embrace began to get to her hooves. Solar rose with her, not daring to let go. "S-Solar?" she whispered, as if not daring to believe it. "Am I... am I really back?"
She nodded, tears still matting her fur. "Yes, yes yes, you're back." She leaned in to nuzzle Nightmare again. "Do you..." She licked her lips. "Do you want to go to your room? I kept it the same way you left it. Or the kitchens? Maybe, maybe the royal armory?"
Nightmare leaned into her. She was warm and heavy as ever, but even so she felt so weak, so magically drained. Her solid mane, not its ethereal form that no painting could ever do justice, was proof of that. "Can I... can I go see my room? Please? It's been so long."
"I know it has, I know it has," Solar whispered. "Come on, follow me Nighty." Solar Flare lead Nightmare Moon through Everfree Castle. Along the way they passed many other Coronal Guards, some of whom respectfully adhered to their patrols. However, more than one set looked at Solar Flare's sister incredulously, almost not believing their eyes, before she stopped their gawking with a simple murderous glare. Her fiery mane wrapped around Nightmare, doing little more than warming the other alicorn.
Eventually, Solar Flare led Nightmare down corridors she hadn't been down in so long, eventually leading to a simple door. Unlike the door to Solar Flare's room, which was emblazoned with her cutie mark, this one had no decorations on its outside. No guards stood watch, either; Solar had placed the strongest defensive wards she could around it. She probed them with the deactivation code, and opened the doors.
The inside room wasn't perfectly circular like Solar's was. It was an eight-pointed star, with the ones of the cardinal directions larger than the others. The door led into the blunted point of 'south', beyond which lay Nightmare Moon's old chambers. It was dark, so Solar Flare lit up her horn and sent out three orbs of white fire to hover safely around them, providing unflickering light. The walls were made of turquoise, flecked with streaks and spots of black. The carpet, matching the star-shaped room, was a deep ocean blue and, in its center, held Nightmare Moon's cutie mark.
Over by the North corner was Nightmare's bed, made of obsidian that had been hardened with magic to turn the glass-like stone into something tougher than steel. The silver bedsheets and pillows were all unmade, just as they had been a thousand years ago. In the little triangle behind it were some of the... things Nightmare had kept close to her bed.
Solar Flare didn't judge. Not her sister, at any rate.
The East corner of the star was where Nightmare Moon had kept her workspace, and old fashioned desk with a backboard of pegasi swooping around in breezes. There were no papers on it, but there was an antique inkwell given as a present by the long-dead minotaur king, Coron. The minotaurs had since switched to a republic, but here was a little pocket of history from ten centuries ago, perfectly preserved. Solar Flare hadn't let anypony inside ever since that fateful day, not even herself, happy to keep it magically preserved from the outside.
Nighty's eyes followed to the West corner, and she pulled away from Solar's side to stumble over there. She looked around at the bookshelves, stocked with hundreds of novels that she'd accumulated for her own personal reading. In several places on the shelves were little nick-knacks that'd been shelved for some reason known only to Nightmare herself. Nightmare reached out with a hoof and pulled off a tiny, model boat, its sails furled. She stared at it for a half a minute, then put it back and turned to Solar.
"I'm... I'm really home," she said, a tear tracing its way down her cheek.
Solar nodded. "I kept everything the way you left it," she whispered. "I missed you."
"How long?" Nightmare whispered. "How long has it been?"
Solar frowned. "How... how long do you think it's been?"
"A thousand years," she said, looking at her bed, then back at Solar Flare.
"I haven't seen you in a thousand years either," Solar Flare said.
Nightmare flinched. "You mean... you didn't look for me?"
"I did!" she shouted, taken aback. "But there was nowhere to look! You just vanished while in your room, and there was no hint as to where you'd gone! I, I looked everywhere! The Badlands, the Dragon Highlands, the Zebran Plains, everywhere! But after a few decades, with no hint, not even a clue as to what happened? I-I'm sorry, Nighty, but I couldn't imagine anything else. What happened? Where did you go? I thought you were dead!" The funeral had been a small, quiet affair. Solar hadn't been in the mood to entertain guests to her sister's funeral. Having her back was like a dream come true, a dream she'd long ago given up.
Nightmare Moon shook her head, dark purple mane moving back and forth and some getting into her mouth. "Pfft," she said, spitting out a strand of her mane. She shook her head again. "What happened... what happened?" She closed her eyes and furrowed her brow. "I was... in my bed and then... that's right, them!"
Solar Flare's mane brightened for a moment. "Them? Who? The ponies who took you?"
"No, I don't think they tried to take me. I went to... it's so fuzzy. I was insane for most if it, I think. All of it, probably. Sharing heads does that, and it didn't get any easier - "
"Nighty, focus."
"Right, right. So, I was in my chambers and, and I was sleeping. Then there was a red glow around me. Some kind of time magic. I-I tried to stop it, but by the time I called magic to my horn it was already too late. Next thing I know I'm in some kind of... tundra." She shivered. "There was another alicorn."
Solar Flare's eyes widened and her irises collapsed. "Another alicorn? Up by the arctics? How have we not heard of them before?! Who were they? Did they hurt you?" She was going to find this alicorn, and when she did -
"I'm getting to it. Her name was Celestia. Apparently she has a younger sister called Luna. Luna... I was in her head, I think. It's so hard to tell. Don't give me that look, Solar! I really was in her head. She was moving without my say, talking without my control. I don't think she heard me thinking, because she never responded, and I couldn't hear her thoughts either."
"So what happened?"
"We drove each other insane." Nightmare Moon shivered and sought shelter under Solar Flare's right wing. "Literally, two souls using one brain just slowly drove us both mad. I never actually heard her thoughts, but I think her attitude towards the world began to affect me, and mine hers. I'm not sure. It's all so... cloudy. From what I can gather, Sola?" Solar Flare's heart skipped a beat at the use of her old nickname. "From what I can gather, whatever that time spell was it sent me to some kind of... alternate universe. Celestia and Luna were our soft-hearted selves."
She opened her mouth to berate her sister for such a foalish idea, but held her tongue. Solar wasn't the one who'd gone missing. She wasn't the one who disappeared. "So... alternate universe?"
Nightmare nodded, not noticing Solar Flare's reservations. "Yeah. Apparently Luna - guess whose alternate version she is - was jealous of Celestia. They weren't twins either, Celestia was older." For no good reason, Solar Flare felt quite proud of that. "I don't fully understand, but eventually, well... you know how long I want the nighttime to last?"
Solar smiled warmly at Nightmare. "About as long as I want the daytime to last."
Nightmare chuckled. "Yeah, that long. Well, it sort of... combined with Luna's jealousy, and obviously we were both being driven mad by each other. I think... I think for a while I actually thought Celestia was my sister." Solar winced. Nightmare had... had forgotten her. "But eventually, I came out on top."
Solar frowned. "What do you mean?"
Nightmare Moon, still under Solar's wing, puffed out her chest. Not long afterwards, she deflated. "Well obviously I was the stronger personality. Eventually, I turned Luna's body into mine. It wasn't like I tried to, it just... happened." She turned contemplative. "At least, I don't think I tried. Either way, well, I was jealous of Celestia, and I wanted the night to last forever, and in my infinite wisdom I kinda, sorta, tried to stage a coup," she said with a sheepish smile. "And, well, I wasn't thinking clearly, so I didn't fight as well as you know I can, and..."
Nightmare Moon shivered and curled further into Solar's coat. "What happened?"
"I lost. She got these... things called the Elements of Harmony and... and..." She shivered. "It was terrible. There was this... flash of rainbow light and then I was on... I was on the moon, Solar. And no matter what I tried I couldn't leave."
Solar Flare brought her hoof to her mouth. "For... for how long? And what about that Luna alicorn?"
"Luna? I don't think she was aware for most of it. I pushed her pretty far down. Honestly, I'm not sure how much she knew about what was going on, but I imagine that for her it felt like I was possessing her." Nightmare frowned. "I guess I was, in a way."
A horrible thought occurred in Solar Flare's mind. "How... how long were you on the moon, Nighty?"
"A thousand years," she whispered. "A thousand long, horrible years before I could come back." She closed her eyes and shook, Nightmare's tears wetting Solar's fur.
"You were... all alone? For a thousand years?" she whispered, aghast.
"It wasn't as bad as it should've been. Didn't really... stick to me, crazed as I was." Despite her assurances that a millennium of solitude wasn't as damaging as Solar Flare thought, Nighty snuggled deeper into her chest. "Eventually I escaped, and of course, you know, I tried to stage another coup."
"But, those super weapons you mentioned - "
" - Celestia didn't have them the second time," Nightmare said. "I'm not too sure what happened, but I think she lost access to them. And wouldn't you know it? These six mortal mares picked them up just as I was returning and used them again."
"Mortals? Ouch." Solar Flare could feel her pride being stabbed. "What happened? What did they do to you?"
Nightmare Moon smiled warmly at her, her fangs sticking out of her upper lip. "They... they brought me here. I'm home." She squeezed her eyes shut, tears leaking out from under them. "I'm... I'm really... I-I'm - "
Nodding reassuringly, Solar gathered Nightmare in her forehooves again. "You are, you are. Nighty, tell you what. You get to bed, I'll bring you something to eat. Any preferences?"
Nighty looked unsure for a moment, looking down adorably. "A chicken wing would be nice. And some milk."
Releasing Nightmare Moon, Solar Flare stood up and nodded. "Alright. I'll bring you those, and when we get back we can get you your magic back. Bring you down to the armory, get you new trappings, and introduce you to the populace." She raised a hoof to wipe away a tear.
Nightmare nodded, climbing to her hooves and trotting to her bed. "That... sounds good. Thank you, Sola."
Solar Flare walked towards the door. "I'll be right back, Nighty." She opened the door, left Nightmare's room, and closed it behind her. She found two guards and posted them at the outside of her sister's chambers. "Guard this room with your lives," she intoned, before leaving for the Royal Kitchens.
She could hardly believe what had just happened. Her sister, Nightmare Moon, was back. It was like she'd come back from the dead. And her story! She was half tempted to dismiss it out of hoof as madness, but didn't. She was quite skilled in magical theory, and what Nightmare Moon had said happened wasn't entirely out of the realm of possibility. For the time being, she was going to nurse Nighty back to health, reinstate her as co-ruler of Equestria, and everything would go back to the way it had always been. And if she ever met this 'Celestia' pony?
She was going to kill her.
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interesting, I'm kinda surprised there's no twilight to solar but maybe she's just off screen. Does ask the question though of why the elements couldn't send her back when Celestia used them. Either way have an upvote and I'll be following through a favorite.
Oh my god all of my yes!!!
It shall be interesting to see how they interact when they finally do meet.
4776534 My guess is that Nightmare and Luna were fused temporarily and the Elements were used the first time to slowly separate Nightmare Moon and Luna from each other, then when the Elements were used the second time the separation was made easier due to the time span, removed Nightmare Moon from Luna, and then sent her home. Does this makes sense to you?
4777177 works for me let's see if it follows the authors story
I should follow you so I don't miss things like this.
Very interesting story idea, quite original. That's what drew me here. Though to be very honest with you, the very lengthy intro with little to no character interaction almost put me off. Maybe it's just my personal preference, but there wasn't enough there to draw me forwards. I had to remind myself of your story idea to keep me going. Though I do like the wind exchange idea to keep the sunny side cool and to keep storms from forming. You allowed the fact that she keeps her sun shining on one side of Equestria eternally to sail by on subtle inference which is a nice touch.
Things got interesting after NMM returned. I like how you used her room to demonstrate how NMM has a softer, almost 'human' (If I may use the word), side to her.
Do you read the IDW comics, by the way? They are considered MLP canon and NMM had her own palace on the moon, completely with an army of nightmare-possesed moon critters. There's also the Mirrorverse with evil versions of Luna and Celestia fighting the good king Sombra, Queen Chrysallis and Captain 'Good Guy' Discord. Could make for something interesting to work in.
How's that for a comment? Better than my usual 'LOL AWESOMESAUCE MOAR PLS'.
4799099 I actually don't read them.
And thank you for the extensive comment!
Yeah, things are going to get more interesting than they are now but, blegh, expositions.
4799103 Yeah, exposition can prove challenging, especially for AU settings. I generally build them into dialogue as much as I can with back-and-forth character interaction (and occasionally lampshade it, 'Exposition Moment!'). The other solution is to introduce more characters, for example an alternate world mane 6, high general, favourite court jester, etc. for her to interact with while she's going about her morning business.
I think you mean edge. A circle has no end.
Interesting idea, though I honestly confess I'm not sure where you're going to go with this. Still, you did write that excellent Greene Fields/Red Lights, so it should be interesting.
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Are they? I could have sworn they actually had been removed from canon.
I people get at Celestia and her cake fetish. She's got nothing on Solar Flare.
Oh, now that's a brilliant take; Luna summoning her alter ego to help her gain power over Celestia, the elements finally doing their job and banishing them to whence they came. This is going to be good, I just know it. :D
Kind of a weird concept. Seems really wrong that there's a word in which the alicorns are just evil, because. Not sure how far you can take it without being kind of random.
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i'm going to assume that Nightmare getting yanked out wasn't intentional (i.e. something strange happened).
It seems that Luna's desire for attention got mixed up with Nightmare's desire for eternal night with causing Night Eternal being the solution to both of their desires. I.e. by doing so, Luna would get some attention and Nightmare would be happy. Of course that got the both of them banished to the moon. My take is that the second time they had the elements of harmony used on them, a more correct usage (or maybe a different one altogether) split them apart and put them where they were supposed to be. The first time Celestia just used them to prevent Night Eternal from being the end of ponykind, etc and the desire to put her somewhere where she couldn't hurt anyone. Kind of like an extended timeout (whose duration she didn't intend), at least in this universe.
I really doubt there's anything like a Twilight Sparkle in this universe. Also, Solar Flare clearly doesn't entirely understand, because she doesn't get that Celestia didn't want to do anything to her sister (probably doesn't realize what the problem was in the first place) and arguably has suffered just as much as she has in the loss of her own sister for a millennia.
>with that done
following a wonderful description of her hair, it's immediately tailed by a very lazy phrase
>room description
Detail is great, but the way it's presented doesn't feel natural; feels more like reporting, or a script
>step beside her without word.
>Queen Solar Flare, without word
same phrase used within back to back sentences
dining room description feels a lot more natural, with Solar reminiscing about her past as she's looking at an object; it makes it feel like the object has importance, therefore makes it interesting to the reader
>delicious slice of...
It must be me at this point, but I just cannot stand it when the narrative interrupts itself. It feels like it's a cheap attempt at dramatic effect.
>nightmare's return
I would think that Solar would want to do a check up on Nightmare to make sure she isn't wounded (since she reappeared unconscious), so offering to see her room feels a smidgen rushed to me
>the... things Nightmare had kept close to her bed. Solar Flare didn't judge. Not her sister, at any rate.
Sex toys? Porn magazines? Hug pillows? All of the above? If it's supposed to be a mystery to us, the readers, then I would put more emphasis on the fact that Solar isn't looking directly at them, or something else. Or maybe she doesn't know exactly what they are.
I feel like this chapter should have ended as soon as Nightmare Moon returned, to give the readers a bit of that cliffhanger feeling, that the two might be enemies; which would be relinquished by the next chapter when it turns out Solar has been worried about her since she left, then the rest of the chapter would focus on them catching up and establishing a friendly connection to the reader.
Overall, not bad. I'm pretty intrigued by this story and you seem to have a fairly good idea on what you're doing here. I'm curious to see where it's going.
Man this is nice! I really like this!
5071622 maybe not evil, just harsh dictators.