The Heart of the Sun

by keithsterling

Chapter 2

The following morning in the royal dining room of the Royal Palace, Princess Celestia Silverlight hands out the scrolls containing her children’s Royal duties that they must perform for today. After Celestia hugs her daughter’s good bye at the main entrance of the palace she returns to the royal dining room and is surprise to see her son waiting for her eating his breakfast.

“Gasp!” Celestia exclaims

“That’s my black dairy...where did he find it?” Celestia thought nervously noticing the rose pink diary with her sun mark on it lying on the table in front of her place.

Nauseating spurts of adrenaline courses through her veins as she moves toward the table with her diary on it. She picks it up with her magic and examines the book closely. The only damage is the broken lock on the diary.

“Somnus? Where did you find this I’ve never seen it before?” Celestia said questioning with an angelic smile on her snout hiding the fact it was her own diary as Somnus did a slow, appraising glance of his mother’s face.

“In the Canterlot Archives, mother, under some out of date maps of our home of Equestria.” Somnus explains as Celestia’s eyes blink with incredulity. Setting the diary back on the table and continuing to pretend it’s not hers.

“Well this is surprising...I guess there’s things still to be found in the Canterlot Archives that I even don’t know about. Now if you would excuse me Somnus, I’ll return this book to the Archives and head to the throne room to start court.” Celestia said floating the book in a yellow bubble as a dark blue bubble forms around the book inside her bubble.

“No need to trouble yourself mother, I was planning to keep the book in my collection in my bed chamber.” Somnus comments as his mother gets an idea.

Instead of fighting with her son over the book that will get her nothing, Celestia releases her bubble around the book allowing Somnus to take the item back to his bed chamber. She knows it will be far easier to reclaim the book from his bed chamber after he leaves the palace to attend to his Royal duties for today.

Later that day after morning court has ended and before afternoon court begins Celestia stands on the second floor landing of the palace watching her son exit the palace by away of the main gate to head out into the city to fulfill his royal duties.

The moment Somnus leaves the palace, Celestia quickly makes her way to his bed chamber in the private living area of the palace. Once there, Celestia slips unnoticed into his darken bed chamber and uses a unicorn light spell to begin searching for her diary. Celestia’s breathe catches in her throat as the beam of light falls onto her diary sitting on top of his desk as a smile forms on her snout. As she approaches the desk, a pair of glowing solid white eyes appeared from the darkness making her jump a bit.

“Sister is that you? It’s not funny to scare some pony.” Celestia said a bit shaken as the eyes move closer to her. Once the eyes enter her beam of light, the glow disappears and looking back at her was not her sister, but her son Somnus forgetting that her own sister taught her son many of her own abilities.

“Looking for something mother?” Somnus inquires with an enigmatic expression as all the lights in his bed chamber turn on at once temporarily blinding his mother. Through her spotted vision Celestia watches her son flipping through her diary to a specific entry.

She figures that Somnus has already read through her diary once and wants answers; she’s not ready to give him. As her eyes return to normal, Somnus floats the open book to the end of her snout.

“Explain mother!” Somnus said testily as Celestia reads the entry from her diary to herself.

As she continues to read the entry her heart wrung with deep pity. What was written in that diary is something her baby should have never read. It paints his mother as a very uncaring Alicorn mare who only wants foals so she could withhold her heart for them and shows them as little love as she could to make her feel better about the lost.

“Somnus, that is not who your mother is, I will not simply have babies to treat them so badly to make herself feel better...My babies are very precious to me.” Celestia thought as she turns and runs out of his bed chamber unable to face that part of her life from long ago.

Back deep inside Somnus’s soul the blue alicorn spirit returns alone to the place where they sent the beast back into it shapeless form to check if it’s gone. As she lands she begins to look around. Without a warning the beast attacks her and absorbs her before she could put up a fight. With the blue Alicorn Spirit the symbol of Somnus’s dreams and belonging now under his control, the beast begins to form into a vaguely pony shape cloud and begins to speak.

“Only one left to absorb the yellow Alicorn spirit the symbol of his guardian and safety. Once she is absorbed no one can stop me...But she is the most powerful of Alicorn spirits that protect this pony from the darkness.” The beast said as he takes to the sky in search of the yellow Alicorn spirit.

Back in the Royal Palace of Canterlot, Prince Somnus walks beside his Aunt Princess Luna wearing a copy of his aunt’s royal regalia in a male version. They are on their way to a meeting in the quiet east meeting room. Suddenly adrenaline floods into Somnus’s heart causing it to beat faster. With a rapid beat it soon makes him black out from the sudden energy dump.

“Somnus! Child!...can you hear me?” a voice calls as he feels someone stroking his front leg with a cold metal object. Slowly he opens his light blue eyes again stroking his front leg was Luna and the cold metal object was her silver horseshoe.

“Were am I? What happen?” Somnus asked looking around

“You are in your bed chamber I brought you here after you suddenly passed out. You’ve been unconscious for a little over two hours...Your mother was worried about you.” Luna explains as Somnus’s mouth crimps in annoyance.

“Like she cares what happens to me.” Somnus said coldly as Luna gasps with her nephew’s bad attitude toward his own mother and her sister.

“I don’t know what’s going on with you Somnus, to have this bad attitude toward your own mother...but if she didn’t care what happen to you, she would have never recalled your (pointing her hoof at Somnus) younger sister Blueberry from her royal duty in Ponyville to treat your sickness…those two mares have enough compassion to overcome your bad attitude...come see me when my real nephew comes back...till then farewell Sir Silverlight.” Luna said icily as she walks out of Somnus bed chamber annoyed.

Looking once again at her own reflection in the reflecting pool inside the palace garden was Celestia and what was looking back at her was a face of an alicorn mare haunted by some inner pain of her own making. A diary she should have destroyed long ago has resurfaced and now threatens to tear apart her carefully maintained perfect little family.

“Celestia! What were you thinking keeping that black diary around…I could have simply tossed the diary into the lit fireplace that afternoon in my bed chamber and watched it burn after finding out what I wrote in it...But no, I kept it and tried to hide it in the Canterlot archives thinking no pony would find it.” Celestia speaks with bitter resentment as she rears up and crashes her front hoofs in the pool splashing water across her body and mane.

“Now the one pony I wish never found it...found it because he was cleaning the archives as part of maintaining this Palace for us to live in.” Celestia says as her eyes widen innocently and water droplets run off her and splash at her hoofs.

“Sister, May we speak?” Luna asks as she approaches the damp Celestia snapping her out of the anger over discovering the diary.

“Of course Luna, but before we speak...how is Somnus doing?” Celestia inquires shaking the water off herself as Luna lifts her wing to block the water flying around.

“Somnus is conscious and he is the one I wish to speak about.” Luna comments shaking the water off her wing as Celestia is not surprised that Luna wanted to talk about Somnus.

“I have no idea what is up with that son of yours...he seems to have developed an awful attitude toward his mother...when he came to, I told him you were worried about him and he answered me ‘like she cares what happen to me’” Luna explains as Celestia’s heart drops not knowing just how bad her son’s anger towards her was.

“It’s my own fault that Somnus has that attitude toward me, Luna.” Celestia explains as Luna gives a startled gasp.

“What?” Luna exclaimed

“While you were banished to your moon, I fell in love with another pony from an alternate mirror universe….to stop an evil from that mirror universe from crossing over to our universe and destroying me….that pony sacrificed himself for me.” Celestia explains floating her locket out from under her collar.

“After it happened my feelings were so muddied that I couldn’t rule Equestria effectively. So when I saw the empty diary on my desk, I wrote in it. The following morning I woke up feeling better after morning court finished. I returned to my bed chamber and read my diary….I was shocked to read what I wrote in it.” Celestia explains using her magic to open up the locket floating in front of her.

“In the diary I wrote some of the worst things I could write….After reading it, I hid the diary in the archives where Somnus found it and read it. After he read it he brought the diary with him to the breakfast table wanting to talk to me about it, I was shocked to see that cursed book again, so I pretended it was not mine or I ever saw it...” Celestia explains as tears form in her light purple eyes looking at the two small pictures in her locket of her babies and her late husband.

“Doing that caused him to start wondering if what I wrote in the diary was true. I made things worse for me when I tried to steal the diary from his bed chamber and he caught me. He wanted me to explain what I wrote in the diary to him, but instead I ran not wanting to visit that painful part of my life again.” Celestia explains as tears drip down onto the two small pictures in her locket.

“Celestia! You foolish pony!…have you forgotten Justice’s warning to you what would happen if negative feelings begin to build-up in Somnus’s heart...he will begin to change like I did…he will become the next nightmare moon, more powerful than I. If it was hard for you to banish your own sister….it will kill you to have to banish the foal you carried inside you and gave birth to all those years ago.” Luna said hotly as a mask of terror spread across Celestia’s face and she runs at her full speed forgetting she could fly.

Meanwhile deep within Somnus, a titanic battle rages between the beast and the last Alicorn Spirit after a sneak attack that badly wounded the yellow Alicorn Spirit. The Alicorn Spirit has slowly been weakened through the course of the battle, till she is absorbed by the beast with the last of the Alicorn spirits under his control. The vaguely shaped pony cloud begins to take the form of a solid black mass of a unicorn shadow with glowing red reptilian eyes. In short order the shadow begins to corrupt this noble unicorn knight spirit and enhance the negative feeling he had.

“Ahahahahahah.” The shadow laughs evilly as it takes on a dark blue body colored with a cyan colored mane and tail, a pair of blue reptilian eyes look back as dark blue wings grows out of its shoulders.

“I can’t believe how much unrefined magic energy this pony has, I wonder who his parents are to give their offspring this much power?” The shadow thought walking around Somnus’s bed chamber trying to discover whose body it now inhabits.

“Huh? A crescent moon mark on the collar and black metal.” The shadow comments discovering the black collar with a white crescent moon symbol.

“The words ‘Auntie’ keeps coming up in this pony’s mind every time I look at the crescent moon symbol…is the symbol this pony aunt’s mark?...wait, now I am getting a name Princess Luna, the Princess of the night...Co-Ruler of Equestria….if this pony aunt is co-ruler of Equestria…Who is the other half of this dual rulership?” The shadow said very confused walking over to a small table with many pictures on it in gold frames.

“Who is this? Is she the other half of this dual rulership in this place called Equestria?” The shadow thought looking at the picture of an older pale pink Alicorn mare with light purple eyes wearing a gold collar and tiara.

“Is she a Queen or Empress?” The shadow thought studying the picture of the older Alicorn, until its attention is drawn toward a younger Alicorn mare with a light blue body and a crimson red mane wearing the same tiara as the older Alicorn. Also in the same picture was a younger unicorn mare with the same light blue body and crimson red mane.

“This pony has an older sister and younger sister...who I might...Ugh!” The shadow exclaims as the moment the word corrupting enters the shadow’s mind causing Somnus to fight back against the shadow in his body. Soon the shadow regains control of Somnus’s body and drops the thought of corrupting his two sisters at the moment.

“This pony will not allow me to corrupt his sisters, which is fine with me, if he has so much unrefined magic energy…I can only imagine how much magic energy his older sister commands and most likely full control of it. As for his younger sister she might have a level of unimaginable magic energy that could destroy me and my plans...So best to leave his sisters alone for now.” The shadow comment as he goes back to the older Alicorn mare picture.

“Now the words ‘Mother and Princess’ come up in this pony’s mind when I look at this picture...this older Alicorn mare is this pony’s mother!...By this pony’s best estimate his mother’s magic level is that of a goddess (gulp). But there’s more, it seems that this pony is angry at his mother for not coming clean about something she wrote in a diary….she lied about it not being her’s and ran away when he asked her to explain…but what really did it was when his mother tried to steal the diary from his bed chamber….damaging her own son’s trust and loyalty in her….no wonder I was able to take control of this pony (resting his chin on Somnus’s upturned black hoof).” The shadow comments as he learns the name of this pony’s mother.

“This pony’s mother’s name is Princess Celestia Silverlight…Princess of the sun and ruler of Equestria and lying Alicorn mare.” The Shadow exclaims as he regards with a lofty expression the events that led up to him being able to take control of this powerful half-Alicorn and half-unicorn pony.

The shadow spreads his wings with a running leap jumping off the balcony and takes to the sky to find a place away from the palace to begin planning his next move. A moment later a pale faced Celestia throws open her son’s bed chamber doors with her magic, before entering the room and not finding him anywhere. Out of habit she ran toward the balcony and looked around searching for her son in the sky, forgetting her son doesn’t have wings like her. Dark shadows begin to form around her eyes as she reenters, her son’s bed chamber fearing she just caused another pony she loves so dearly to change and threaten her kingdom of Equestria.

There’s a heavy thud as Celestia falls to the floor of her son’s bed chamber. As she lay on the ground she places her front hoofs across her snout and begins to cry uncontrollably as a feeling of a cold fist closes over her broken heart.

“No, what have I done?” Celestia said her voice a lifeless monotone

“I just turn my only son into an enemy of Equestria.” Celestia said her voice cracking, lifting her front hoof into the air

“Because of that stupid black diary I kept!” Celestia said fiercely slamming her horseshoe clad hoof hard on the ground cracking the tile underneath her hoof.

“There’s no other pony to blam…but myself...If I just forgot about my past and explain that what I wrote in the diary ment nothing...My son would still be here.” Celestia said fuming as she gets to her hoofs.

“Many times I can just imagine how good my life would have been with Good King Sombra…But that was not to be….Because of his sacrifice I met an even more noble stallion who needed my help and my love. My dear late husband Prince Justice Silverlight….that stallion reopened the shut eyes of this immortal Alicorn and gave her something she could never replace; a new family for herself and her sister to love.” Celestia said with reverence as she runs out of the bed chamber to prepare for the untimely appearance of her son.