Interlude 3
I am Princess Luna, the Everchanging Moon, and I am perhaps the weakest alicorn in Equestria.
My present form is half-broken and drained of strength, even several moons after my return from exile and quick defeat at the hooves of my sister’s students and their friends. My magic is barely a spark, my wings can barely lift me off the ground, and I am forced to rely on the charity of a sister I’ve wronged to help me learn the ways of a world I no longer understand.
A thousand years changes the world in terrible and subtle ways. I recognize little on the map aside from the coastlines. Allies become enemies and then allies again. Governments have fallen, empires have come and gone, and my knowledge of the world is frozen at a time when we told the time with sundials and solved our problems with the sword instead of diplomacy.
I love my sister, but sometimes, even now, with my sanity restored and the dark magic purged from my body, I wish I could end an argument in the dueling circle instead of endless talking without ever getting to the point.
“It’s the most important social gathering of the year,” Celestia said, as if I hadn’t heard that already. I wasn’t sure if she was the reason ponies used the word nag or if her constant reminders simply defined it. “I want you to be at my side. You’re a Princess just as I am, and you should be there.”
“Thine daughter, Cadance will not be in attendance,” I pointed out.
“She has attended in the past, many times,” Celestia said. “She’s unfortunately out of the country. As Equestria's goodwill ambassador, her duties involve a lot of travel. I believe she's currently in Zanzebrica Land.”
I didn't even know where that country was. I could assume the general location no more accurately than the continent it likely appeared on. “We will not be attending until We have completed our convalescence,” I said. “We are not fit to be seen in this state.”
“We? I was intending on going,” Celestia said. I rolled my eyes.
“I am not fit to be seen in this state,” I corrected. “I am not going to be paraded in front of them as a symbol of thy forgiveness and triumph.”
“Luna, you know that’s not why I want you there.” She sounded disappointed. I had to fight back another biting remark. Even she had changed while I was gone. I was still ready to fight the mare she used to be, instead of the mare she was now. She craved attention. It made her feel alive. I could barely stand a crowd like that even if I was at my best, and I was so far from my best that I wondered if it had been banished even farther than the moon.
“I need time to adjust,” I said. “If I go out among them now I will make a foal of myself. Please, sister, do not make me beg you. I cannot do this yet.”
She sighed and lowered her head. It seems I had won at least some small victory.
“You’re as stubborn as Sunset,” she said. “She wouldn’t even discuss it with me.”
“Is it any wonder that we want to avoid the public eye?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. I did actually mean the plural we, this time. “Until recently, I was the villain of an old mare’s tale and little else. She still feels that she is a disappointment to thou. I have seen it in her dreams.”
“She’s not!” Celestia protested, her ears folding back. “And you’re different than you were. Please, Luna. I just don’t want you to be alone like you used to be. I want you to be happy.”
“I know, sister,” I said, trying to calm her down. “It is not something I wish to repeat either. It is just all very... new and I want to make a good first impression. You can understand that, yes?”
“Alright, Luna,” she said. “But like I told Sunset, Twilight will be there and I know you’d enjoy…” she trailed off, having seen the sour expression on my face. I hadn’t meant to make it.
“When I am ready,” I repeated. I wasn't sure I was ready to face the pony who had saved me yet, either. For many reasons.
“Well, then, since you won’t be going to the Gala, could you do one, small thing? For me?”
“She got you too, huh?” Sunset asked, as I settled down on a pillow in front of the fire. The mare watched my every move, and I felt myself getting self-conscious. Her eyes glowed in the low light like blue candles.
“Sister asked me to spend time with thou, since neither of us agreed to attend the Gala with her,” I said, neither confirming nor denying her suggestion that Celestia had tricked me into this arrangement. I was bound by my own honor, not trickery. At least this wouldn’t result in public humiliation.
“Great,” Sunset muttered, turning the page of the book in front of her. I wasn’t sure how she could read in the dim light. I was the Princess of the Night, and even I preferred not to read in the dark.
An awkward silence fell between us. We hadn’t really spoken since she’d tried to kill me. And I’d tried to kill her. While I wasn’t sure of the modern custom on such things, I was relatively certain that mutual attempts at each others lives tended to drive ponies away from each other.
I watched her while trying not to look like I was watching her. When I had been Nightmare Moon, she had looked much smaller, and the scars and black cloak had been much less intimidating.
I had to do something to break the ice. Sister would be disappointed if we didn’t at least try to get along. In some sense, I was her aunt, after all. I just had to compose myself and think of something clever to say. Something that didn’t involve my suspicion that she was only here to watch over me. An executioner armed with fire magic. She’d even brought appropriate attire, with that gloomy cloak of hers.
“I’m not afraid of thou!” I blurted out. It was not my best moment.
Sunset put down the book she’d been reading and looked at me. My cheeks were burning red-hot.
“That’s… good?” She said, puzzled.
“And thou… do not have to be afraid of me,” I said, trying to recover. Much better.
“I’m not,” she replied, her voice flat. I felt like a foal. This was exactly why I didn’t want to go to the Gala. It wasn’t just a thousand years of differences in the tiny social niceties. I’d spent a thousand years with only myself for company. Even with my memory of that time mostly lost, I was still not used to being social. I had to salvage this before I further embarrassed myself.
“What are thou reading?” I asked.
“A book,” Sunset said, snorting. I glared at her. Clearly she hadn’t been lying when she said she wasn’t afraid of me. She relented after a moment and picked it up, displaying the cover. “It’s Professor Hawkwing’s book, A Brief History of Time Magic. It’s about some of the discoveries in high-energy magic over the last decade or two. I kind of missed a lot of it.” Her voice dropped down to a low mutter as she continued. “Because I was living in the woods.”
“Is it… good?” I asked, hesitantly.
Sunset considered the question for a moment.
“It’s okay,” she concluded. “It’s written more for a laypony than an actual scholar. It makes some pretty wild claims, but doesn’t include the actual thaumaturgic math and diagrams. The writing is solid, but there isn't much substance behind it. I think I'd actually have to dig up his research papers if I wanted to get a grasp on some of the ideas."
“I see,” I said. Sunset kept watching me. I wanted to shrink and hide away, but I couldn’t afford to do so. I had to stand up to her.
“Why did you say you weren’t afraid of me?” Sunset asked.
“Because I am not,” I said quickly. Was it too quickly?
She stood up, and I felt my mane stand on end. She hadn’t been that tall- no, that’s not right. I hadn’t been this short, when I was Nightmare Moon. I hadn’t been afraid of her before. Why was I feeling a chill down my spine now?
“You are afraid,” she said, her tone disappointed. Not at me. Disappointed at herself. “I… should go. I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m sorry.” She turned to leave, and her hoof was on the door before I found my voice.
“Wait,” I said, my throat dry. “I did not mean…” I looked away, gathering myself. “I should apologize, not thou. I know well how it feels to be feared.”
“It feels good, for a while,” Sunset said, softly. “It makes you feel strong. But it gets so lonely. There were only a few ponies who really spent any time near me.”
“Sometimes I just wanted to be loved,” I said, continuing the thought. “But it was difficult. It is much easier to turn against those that reject thou. The catharsis of seeing them run in terror fades all too quickly.”
“I wonder which one of us they’d have been more afraid of,” Sunset joked. “Nightmare Moon or the Pony of Shadows.”
“I suppose we could terrorize some other small town and ask them in a few months,” I suggested. “Sister did want us to bond, after all. Perhaps Liveryburg or Manehattan?”
Sunset snorted and started laughing, sitting down. “At least you have a sense of humor. I’m pretty sure you’d win. I probably can’t manage half of the tricks you can.”
“And yet…” I muttered.
“And yet you’re afraid of me,” Sunset said. “Why? You almost killed me. All I did was--”
"A mortal pony should not be able to so easily wound an alicorn," I said. "I underestimated you, badly. I should have known any student of my sister's would be dangerous to face, but I was caught unaware. Now I am weakened by the Elements, and thou are only grown in strength. Can thou blame me for being cautious?"
“I guess not,” Sunset said. “But it’s not like I’d just hurt you for no reason. I'm not that kind of pony. Anymore.”
“Fear is rarely rational,” I said. “As we both know. I have seen thy bad dreams as well, where Celestia throws thou into the dungeons for things thou imagine she would judge thou for, or banishes thou to my moon.”
“Yeah, well…” she blushed. “It’s not like she doesn’t do that to ponies.”
“And thou tried to blow me up three times within the span of a single night. Two of those attempts had not even been intended for me.” I raised an eyebrow, and she nervously smiled. “Thou have a habit of using explosive force to solve thy problems. Perhaps not so different from my sister.”
“That’s… absolutely right,” Sunset said. “And you know what?” She grinned. “I”m the best at it. I’ve blown up more landscape than any pony alive.”
“Quite something to be proud of,” I said. “I would toast thee, if we had something to drink.”
“Well, actually…” Sunset looked thoughtful, then walked over to one of the bookcases around the room, examining it before pulling on a non-descript book. “Found it.” She stepped back to reveal that several of the book spines had been joined together to create a hidden space, and inside were several bottles.
“How did thou know about that?” I asked, amused.
“It’s kind of a strange story, and not all that interesting,” Sunset said. “When I was a foal, I sort of made a good impression on this dragon ambassador. I think I was the only pony my age that wasn’t scared of him. He was kind of like an uncle to me.” She smiled fondly. It was the only real warm smile I’d seen from her since she’d parted from her friends in Ponyville. "A big, screamy uncle who set things on fire."
“Ah, so you did learn something from him, as well. And the bottles?” I asked.
“Well, Celestia started making a habit of having me around when they were speaking. She would explain political problems to me, and I’d ask all kinds of stupid questions. I was only a foal, after all. He started doing it too. They had to simplify a lot to get the important points across, and when both sides are discarding useless details, you find out what really matters to each of them.” Sunset shook her head, smiling. “I think at one point it stopped a border war, because they both realized they cared about different things and they were able to come to a compromise. The ambassador wanted to toast to their success, and Celestia pulled a bottle out of here.”
“And thou still remember it after all this time?” I asked.
“Well, it was hard to forget. See, they didn’t let me have any, so the next time I was alone, I snuck in here and tried drinking it myself. It tasted awful, but I was stubborn and wanted to be adult, so I drank much more than I should have.”
“Oh my,” I said, cracking a smile.
“The good thing is that I passed out before I blew anything up. The bad thing was the hangover and the lectures later. Apparently it’s illegal for powerful unicorns to get drunk, just in case they set something on fire.”
“That, of course, was the fault of Clover the Clever,” I said. “She was famous for drinking to excess and casting spells that required both my sister and I to intervene. She would always tell us to simply trust her, and then immediately do something that made is regret that trust.”
“It couldn’t have been that bad,” Sunset scoffed.
“At one point she decided the reason she could not stay on her hooves was because the room was spinning too quickly, so she cast a come-to-life spell on the castle itself and made it turn in place to ‘counteract the other spinning’. Thou do not wish to know how much we had to spend to repair the castle gardens.”
“That’s pretty bad,” Sunset admitted.
“I assure thee, it is hardly the worst thing. She declared war against the diamond dogs when she tripped over a rock. Before she sobered up, she had turned their ambassador into a newt. I do not think Fidoleus ever quite forgave us, though he did get better eventually.”
Sunset picked up a bottle and two glasses, setting them down in front of me before sitting down herself. I lifted the bottle up to look at it.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Apple brandy. I thought we should start with something light. I don’t want to get arrested for public intoxication.”
I rolled my eyes. “Hardly a concern. I will pardon thee. Harmony knows both of us could use a few drinks.” I grabbed a scroll and started writing, my magic burning the words onto paper. “There. One official pardon from a Princess of Equestria. I doubt my sister will challenge it, since it is relatively harmless. And if she does, it will just prove once and for all that she does not consider me her true equal.”
“Spite and royal immunity,” Sunset said. “I’ll drink to that.” She poured two measures of the brandy. I sniffed at my glass. It smelled of musty apples, grapes, and strong wine. Sunset lifted her glass and held it towards me. I obliged, our glasses ringing as they touched, and then she surprised me by throwing back the drink in a single gulp.
I refused to be shown up by Sunset Shimmer. I downed mine, grimacing as the liquid burned a path down my throat. It was stronger than it had seemed.
“Not bad,” I said, coughing.
“You sure you can handle it?” Sunset smirked, pouring more into her glass. I grabbed the bottle and matched it.
“It has merely been a thousand years since my last drink,” I said, making an excuse. “It will take a few rounds to get a taste for it again.”
“A few rounds?” Sunset laughed. “Please. I could drink you under the table.”
“We do not have a table,” I said, confused.
“I mean I can drink more than you and maintain my composure,” Sunset explained, downing her glass. I scowled at her and did the same.
“Do not underestimate me,” I said, holding back a cough. “I have the stamina of an earth pony and the metabolism of a pegasus! Thou wouldst die trying to drink as much as I can!”
“Wanna bet?” Sunset asked, raising an eyebrow.
Things started to get hazy after that.
“What’s this?” I asked, holding a bottle up. Contractions were a lot easier after two… three… a few drinks. They made sense. It was hard to say all those extra letters. Sunset took the bottle from me, her magical grip surprisingly strong despite how much we’d had to drink. We’d had… I’d lost count. A lot. She blew dust off of the bottle, trying to read the label.
“It’s…” She frowned and uncorked it, sniffing at it. “It’s green.”
“I’ll try it!” I said, excited. Green was a good color. It was probably healthy. Green things were healthy. She poured a measure for me, and I downed it, licking my lips.
“So what was it like?” Sunset asked, as she poured some for herself.
“Melons and celery, mostly,” I said.
“No, I mean…” Sunset considered her words, her hoof making little circles in the air. “What was it like, being hit with the Elements of Harmony?”
“Oh.”
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” Sunset said. She could either read minds or expressions.
“You deserve to know,” I said, finally, after a few more moments of silent thought. Modern grammar was becoming easier as well. Perhaps this was the secret to fitting in in this strange age -- constant intoxication. “You know about the basics of the Elements, yes?”
“Six powerful magical artifacts.” She paused. “Well, more accurately, five powerful artifacts and a sixth that acts as a focus for the others.”
“Artifact is perhaps not the correct term, but I don’t know a better one.” I could have thought of a more appropriate word, two bottles of whisky ago. “They’re a part of the natural order of the world. They were not created, but found.”
“Magical artifacts don’t just grow on trees, Princess.”
“You’d be surprised.” I allowed myself a small smile. “But knowing what they are is important to understanding what their effect is like. They are similar to a medical tool, and heal disharmony in the world.”
“That doesn’t sound too bad,” Sunset ventured.
“For the world? No. But a scalpel is rarely kind to a cancer. Their effect changes depending on what they are being used on. When my sister and I sealed Discord, it turned him to stone permanently. When they were used on me the first time, I was banished to the moon.”
“But why didn’t they just heal you then?” Sunset pointed out. “Like when Twilight used them.”
“The full power of the Elements requires all of them to work in concert. Sister was unable to do so, and three were more attuned to me than her. I believe they did the best they could, and sent me away.” I sighed. “It took a thousand years for them to find new hosts who had the strength of spirit enough to wield them properly.”
“So banishing you was just… delaying until treatment was available?” Sunset scoffed. “That would require incredibly powerful divination. Hundreds of things could have gone wrong! Like... I could have killed you.”
“If you hadn’t weakened me, I would have killed your friends,” I said, the alcohol loosening my tongue. “As it was, I was reduced to minor illusions and some shapeshifting. It gave them the time they needed to come together. You were instrumental to their success, and my defeat.”
“That’s flattering, but you didn’t answer my question,” Sunset pointed out.
“It was like being woken up from a bad dream by a bucket of ice water being poured over your head,” I said. “No, not just a bad dream. Some parts were good. I was powerful and strong, and finally my sister’s equal. But it feels… ephemeral now. My memories are scattered. I’ve forgotten almost everything. Even relearning modern Equestrian has been difficult, because my last clear memories were of a time when I was hailed as a hero, a new ruler and vanquisher of Discord.”
“Sorry,” Sunset said. “That sounds pretty awful.”
“Another drink might help,” I said, pushing my glass towards her.
“That’s the last one,” Sunset said, glumly, a few rounds later, holding up an empty bottle.
“But we’re not done!” I protested. “I’m still perfectly soccer.”
“Sober.”
“That’s what I said,” I retorted.
“Well I’m not done either,” Sunset said, standing up and barely wobbling at all. I stood up as well, but of course I was much more graceful because I am a beautiful and graceful princess and the very best at holding my liquor. I leaned into her to make sure she didn’t fall over.
“Wait!” I said, getting a brilliant idea. “The Gala is going on downstairs!”
“They’ll have wine,” Sunset said, nodding. She really was a smart pony. She figured out my plan even before I did!
“We’ll just sneak in and take a few bottles so we can finish,” I said. I was the smartest, and this was a great idea.
“No!” Sunset said. “We can’t go like this! Celestia will see us and she’ll know we drank all her booze!” She had a point, or maybe two points. My vision was a little blurry because the gravity was different on the moon and I was still getting used to normal gravity.
“We need disguises,” I said. “But where are we going to get them?”
I have been alive for countless years, so long that my birthdate was not only from before the current calendar but before written history itself. In all that time, I have never woken up with a worse hangover.
“Oh Harmony…” I groaned. “Only an immortal can suffer such agony…” I reached up to touch my horn to make sure it was still attached, since my head was pounding hard enough that it well could have fallen off. My hooves found something on my head. I pulled it off to look at it.
“A lampshade?” I asked, confused, sitting up and looking around. I was in the palace’s grand ballroom, and it seemed as though something had exploded. Multiple things. Cakes were splattered across the floor. Statues were toppled. Tables were overturned. There was something warm pressed up against me.
I looked down. There was a cardboard box. I removed it and found Sunset Shimmer, groaning as my sudden motion woke the unicorn up.
“Ugh…” my niece moaned, blinking slowly. She had been curled up around something. She picked it up to look. A bottle of wine. An empty bottle of wine. Another half-dozen were around us. “What happened?”
“I think… we might have done something bad,” I whispered. “Sister is going to banish both of us to the moon! Again!”
“Not so loud!” Sunset snapped, holding her hooves to her temples. “I think she already imprisoned half of the demons in Tartarus in my skull and gave them sledgehammers to keep them busy.”
“We need to clean this up before she notices,” I said, struggling to get to my hooves. The world had stopped spinning around me, but it seemed that the rotation had centered itself in my vital organs instead. It felt like my stomach was attempting to twist itself into a knot.
“Set it on fire and let Harmony sort it out,” Sunset muttered between clenched teeth.
I considered that for a moment. “No. Too much risk of something going wrong.”
“Fine,” Sunset said, looking around with bleary eyes. “What did we even do? This place looks like a disaster zone.”
“I don’t know,” I said, as I tried to think back. My memory of the previous few hours was totally blank. I stomped a hoof in frustration, tile cracking under the force. “Moonless night, I can’t remember anything! What in Tartarus did we drink?!”
“Everything,” Sunset said. “I guess since we both passed out we’ll call it a draw.”
“I don’t care about the drinking contest,” I said. “I care about not disappointing my sister!”
“Between the two of us I don’t think she can get much more disappointed,” Sunset muttered, as she started righting tables. “I mean we were out for hours. She probably knows what we did already.”
“No,” I said. “She wouldn’t leave us here.” I put a sculpture back on its plinth. “She would have had us put back in our rooms, or waited right next to us so she could tell us how disappointed she was as soon as she woke up.”
“Celestia was a fan of doing that,” Sunset admitted. She lifted an overturned punchbowl and screamed as a snake lunged out, surprising her. Before I could stop her, a ball of crimson fire exploded at her hooves, and the castle shook to its very foundations.
My eyes widened in horror. She’d shattered part of the floor, a hole ten paces wide. Hopefully nopony had been in the rooms below, which were now filled with rubble from the collapsing stone.
“Ah… oops?” She turned and smiled at me.
I was speechless. Not at her power. That was easily replicated. Not even at her sheer reckless behavior and instant reaction with lethal force. What left me speechless was that my sister had trained this pony for a decade and still had all her limbs.
I sighed and turned to leave the ballroom, feeling defeated.
The doors opened before I could get to them, and I found myself looking up at my sister. She was graceful, powerful, beloved, the polar opposite of what I was in my frail, awkward body. She was always so perfect. Except for the bags under her eyes. And her tousled mane.
“Good morning, Luna,” She yawned. “I see you’ve found the mess--”
“It’s my fault!” Sunset yelled, shoving me aside with magic. “I take full responsibility!”
“Responsibility?” Celestia asked, tilting her head. “For what?”
“For… that.” She waved a hoof at the ballroom.
“Sunset, I know you care for your friends,” Celestia yawned again. “But I’m not angry at them for what happened at the Gala.” She rubbed at her eyes. “I basically orchestrated it myself to have a little fun, anyway.”
“I feel like we’re missing something,” I hissed in Sunset’s ear.
“I just wanted to find you,” Celestia paused to look around the ballroom. “The mess isn’t nearly as bad as I remember. I don’t remember the hole in the floor, but I did leave early…”
“So… this happened last night?” Sunset asked, as we edged past her. Sister trotted into the room, still bleary from a lack of sleep.
“Mmm…” Celestia nodded. “I’ll tell you about it later. I need a few more hours of rest, but I wanted to get the sun raised before I can go back to bed.”
“We can take care of it,” I said. “Why don’t you just go tuck in?”
“Are you sure?” Celestia asked. “The sun is pretty heavy…”
“We’ll be fine,” Sunset said. “I’ll give her a hoof.”
“Just don’t wreck the school again,” Celestia mumbled, tossing her head as she almost passed out on her hooves.
“I won’t,” Sunset said, rolling her eyes. Celestia nodded and walked out, guards circling her as she stumbled back towards her quarters.
“Usually she's more of a morning pony,” I muttered. "It must have been a very long night for her."
“Can you actually--” Sunset started, then snorted. “What am I saying? Of course you can raise the sun. Celestia managed both, and you’re as strong as she is.”
“Well… I am actually more practiced in preventing the sun from ever rising again,” I admitted. “I don’t think I have ever actually successfully raised the sun.”
“My track record isn’t so good either. Last time I tried, I, um, threw part of the School for Gifted Unicorns right over Mount Canter.” I just stared at her. She sighed. “Yes, I know. I’m a walking disaster zone.”
“Excellent,” I said. “So we’re right on track for either plunging Equestria into endless night or blowing up the sun itself.”
“And both of us are hung over,” Sunset groaned. “Glad we’re trying this while we’re at our best.”
I walked out to the gardens. Being outside wasn’t really important, but it had been a very long time since I’d done this. I hadn’t even moved the moon since returning from my exile. In truth, I’d barely even looked at it. Too many half-forgotten memories started to return when I thought about the moon, the things I’d done, the ponies I’d hurt.
“First, I’ll lower the moon,” I said, trying to stay calm. This was the easy part. “Pay attention. I will try to explain as I do this, but I have little time to review.”
“I know it’s not just telekinesis,” Sunset said.
“No. The sun, the moon, and the stars are not objects as such. They are, more accurately, projections of magical energy reaching through the Astral Plane, which appears above us but is not able to be reached by any conventional means. It is not even truly above us, as it is in a direction that cannot be pointed to, and what we see is just a shadow or reflection.”
“Okay?” Sunset said, sounding unsure.
“Raising the sun or moon isn’t about pushing some huge weight into the sky. It’s about rotating the Astral Plane’s orientation to the world.”
“...Celestia told me she dropped the sun once,” Sunset said.
“She is extraordinarily clumsy,” I grumbled. I focused my magic, and I could feel it grip onto the invisible gears of the world. Sunset’s eyes were focused on my horn as I pulled in a direction I cannot name but can feel in my bones.
For a moment I feared I wouldn’t be able to move it, the moon resisting my pull. Then I could feel it, like gears suddenly slipping. The moon jerked in its orbit and slid towards the horizon.
“That path will carry it away from Equestria,” I said, taking a deep breath. It felt just as I remembered, though more difficult by far. My weakness was going to make raising the sun exhausting, if I could manage it at all.
“Okay, so what about the sun?” Sunset asked.
“It’s… over there.” I didn’t point. “I just need a moment to gather myself.”
“So how do we want to do this? Am I going to just copy your spell? Is there some ritual we do to combine our magic?” Sunset looked at me expectantly. “I really never did any spells with multiple casters.”
“I’ll try to move it myself first,” I said. “If I can’t we’ll have to… improvise.”
Sunset nodded. I knew I didn’t sound confident. I’d gotten the moon to move, though, and the sun wasn’t that different. I just had to grip it correctly and force it into motion. Surely it couldn’t be harder than forcing my sister out of bed.
“It’s not… as easy as the moon!” I said, as I struggled to keep my grip. There was just enough give to it that I could tell it was supposed to move, but I felt like a foal struggling to pull a loaded cart through the mud. “The moon likes to change, but the sun is a stubborn, overbearing nag of a… giant ball of fire.”
“Hold on!” Sunset said, and I wasn’t sure what she intended to do before her horn touched mine. It wasn’t what I expected her to do, and certainly wasn’t what I meant when I had suggested she help me.
Then I felt it, a spark jumping between our horns like lightning striking between us. She was forcing her magic into synchronization with mine, just dumping power into my spell and letting me control it. It was the simplest way to combine magical fields, but also the most dangerous for both of us. I should have known it would be her first choice.
“Come on, Luna! Put your back into it!” Sunset snapped. “Stop holding back!”
“I’m doing all I can!” I growled, gritting my teeth. The sun stubbornly refused to rise, stuck in a rut on the other side of a dimensional barrier. The worst part was that Sunset could feel how weak I was with our magic connected like this.
“No you aren’t!” Sunset said, and I felt her grab at something deep inside me. Power rushed through me, as if she’d torn down a dam. I could feel my whole body straining as magic that I hadn’t even known I still possessed poured through my leylines. It followed along Sunset’s magic, and she was shoved back and away from me as I flared, unable to stop myself. With a spell already formed, the magic followed the path of least resistance. The sun jumped into the sky, settling into its orbit as my flare sputtered out and I fell back, stumbling into one of the garden statues.
“What was that?!” I demanded, my voice a little hoarse.
“You weren’t even trying,” Sunset said, as she pulled herself out of the fountain my flare had thrown her into. She shook her head and moved her mane away from her eyes. “I had to do something or we’d never have gotten the… sun… um…” she looked up at me.
Up. She seemed smaller, somehow. Everything looked smaller. I looked down at my hooves. My coat was darker. It was… I ran over to the fountain, needing confirmation.
“I can’t believe it,” I whispered. I was looking at a face I hadn’t seen in a thousand years. Not a foal, not Nightmare Moon. It was me, the way I used to be.
“Wow,” Sunset said, behind me. “Didn’t expect that.” She made a squeaking sound as I grabbed her, pulling her into a tight hug.
“I don’t know how you did this.” It was a struggle to get words out. A princess should have dignity and grace no matter what happened around her, but I was weeping like a foal. “You don’t know much this means to me!”
“Not an alicorn!” Sunset gasped. “Fragile bones!”
I released my grip on the mare. She stepped back and gave me a critical look.
“I guess that means I didn’t break anything?” She said.
“No,” I laughed, wiping my eyes. “You fixed something. How did you do that?”
“Oh, well, when our magic was connected I could just feel that there was something in the way.” She shrugged. “Kind of like a bunch of rocks blocking up a stream. I just shoved until it broke.”
“Come, we must show Sister!” I hopped excitedly, grinning. I hadn’t felt better in as long as I could remember.
“Isn’t she sleeping?” Sunset asked, as she hurried after me.
“We will wake her up!” I declared. “And have the servants bring wine! This calls for a celebration!” Truly, it was a glorious day. Even my hangover had vanished in the new rush of power.
“We drank all the wine!”
“Have them bring more!” I laughed as I trotted inside, feeling a lightness in my heart that hadn’t been there in as many years as I could remember.
“You seem to have had more fun than I did,” Celestia smiled, as I looked over the spread of small cakes and sandwiches that passed for a snack in this age. A thousand years ago we would have had a grand feast, or perhaps only what sparse rations could be managed. It had not been a peaceful era, and there had been near famines, even in Equestria.
“Aye, ‘twas far more festive than We had anticipated,” I agreed. I was in too good a mood to correct my own grammar, and sister was, for once, allowing me my small folly. “Though from the damage done to the ballroom, We suppose thou have thy own story to tell.”
“I don’t think mine could compare,” Celestia said. “I just arranged for a little bit of excitement at the Gala. It does get so dull, sometimes.”
“We should like to hear how thou made these arrangements,” I said. “We suspect thou performed thy usual juggling act and avoided telling anypony thine plan until twas too late to stop you?”
“Something like that,” Celestia confirmed, smiling. “You know I don’t like to reveal just how much work I put into my little fun. It spoils things when I explain my plans.”
“As thou wishes,” I sighed. I was in too good a mood to press my sister about it.
“I’m much more interested in what you were doing,” Celestia continued. “I had hoped you two might find something in common, but I didn’t think you would end up drinking everything in the castle. Nor did I think you would finally begin to return to your old self.”
“Thy daughter drinks with a fortitude We have only seen before in hardened soldiers,” I snorted. “Tis improper that she should even begin to outdrink Us.”
“I do wonder where she gets that from,” Celestia mumbled. “She didn’t learn it when she was here before.”
“Perhaps she simply burns it off,” I suggested, only half-joking.
“So what exactly did you two do together?” Celestia asked, her eyebrows raised and her eyes twinkling with barely hidden mirth.
“Certainly nothing thou art thinking,” I replied. “We merely spoke, at some length. We traded stories about our failures, the things we wish we had done differently. It was… cathartic, We suppose. Twas easier to speak with a pony whom had some inkling of what it meant to disappoint another.”
“You two--”
“Nay, sister. Do not say we have never been disappointments. We know that thou loves Us despite Our flaws. That does not mean We have not made mistakes, just that we are fortunate enough to have been forgiven for some of them.”
“For all of them, Luna,” Celestia said, quietly. “You suffered even more than I did.”
“Either way, tis in the past, and We tire of being squarely imprisoned there. We have a thousand years to get caught up on.” I smiled, trying to cheer my sister up. “Regardless, speaking to thine daughter was most helpful. We admit, We had been avoiding her. We were… afraid of what she might do.”
“She’s only a foal, Luna,” Celestia scoffed. "She would never hurt you."
“Sunset Shimmer is no foal. Hast thou ever crossed horns with her?” Celestia shook her head. “To call her a foal… thou hath no idea. Her wellspring is more akin to a furnace than a pool of water.”
“She’s the strongest student I ever taught,” my sister admitted. “Even stronger than Twilight, though… less interested in theory, and more in application. She certainly kept me busy.” She smiled. “I wish you had met her as a foal, Luna. She was just like me. Always rushing into things, the same kind of accidental explosions…”
“...Forgive Us for asking, but is she…?” I trailed off, not sure how to ask the question politely.
“Is she what?” Celestia asked, apparently not following my line of thought. I wasn’t sure if it was genuine confusion or simply feigned.
“Thou calls her thine daughter,” I said, bluntly. “She is extremely powerful. She has a sun for a cutie mark. Need I go on?”
“Luna, there are hundreds of ponies with cutie marks shaped like the sun, and dozens of powerful unicorns.” Celestia said. "Regardless of who gave birth to her, I do love her as my own,"
“Sister…” I frowned, displeased with the evasive answer.
“She is not my biological daughter,” Celestia said, firmly. “She wishes she was. Sometimes, I wish she was. If things hadn’t come between us… well, if things hadn’t come between us, her life might have turned out very differently.”
“Sister, thou art still leaving something out.”
“Very likely I’m leaving a lot out. Our relationship has been anything but simple. I did things I’m not proud of, and I’ll never be able to explain it to anypony.”
“Thou can start by explaining things to Us,” I said. “We know too well the burden of carrying worries alone.”
“I suppose you do,” Celestia admitted. “It started after your exile. For a time, I was afraid you would never return, that you were to be banished forever. Star Swirl never gave up on you, though. In time, and nearly at the expense of his life, he was able to deliver a prophecy of your return.”
I tilted my head, waiting for her to continue.
“According to Star Swirl, on the day of the one-thousandth anniversary of Nightmare Moon’s defeat, she would return, and she would be stopped by the actions of a pony of uncertain provenance, born under a certain sign, with the kind of magical power seen only once in a generation…”
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...I strangely find the interludes to actually be the better and more interesting story.
This fic isn't giving us ships, it's giving us a whole dang fleet for Sunset!
9861496
Same here.
elder scrolls reference yes please
9861496
Same
Also, It's green! WOOT! TNG FTW!
9861496 9861578 9861873
Ah, that's only because the main story is still getting started. I feel, though, that we've been introduced to the full cast of characters, and all the other set pieces have been moved into place. Things are going to start heating up now, especially with an unaccounted for wish in the wild. Yes, the story is about to begin in earnest, and the only question unanswered is who the real villain is.
My money's on Flash Sentry.
66.media.tumblr.com/01db293be259b8abdf8a6eb8fa52ab49/tumblr_pny8g75X0f1rmt1pho1_400.gifv
9861873
You beat me to it. Darn.
9861899
But none of the characters in the main story seem that intelligent. Especially Sunset. Of all the wishes to hand it over for, one of the most cliche that go bad doesn’t seem even remotely smart. It’s not helped when she detected bad juju with regards to the food she refused to eat. When this goes horribly wrong, it won’t be a shock, it’ll be a “Why didn’t you see this coming? It’s more obvious than a peacock in the desert.” That’s my biggest problem, the vignettes are interesting with good interactions and the building of characters acting with a reasonable amount of intelligence. Multiple people feel like they’re holding the idiot ball in the main story.
I love this chapter
ST: TNG ref niiice.
Honestly I just wonder how things would have turned out if the green bottle was absinthe.
9862111
Then your expectation should have been met perfectly. Name one instance — just one — in either story where Sunset put even a tiny bit of thought into the possible consequences of the actions that she takes.
You can tell her all you want that something is a bad idea, and you can lay out evidence to back up your point. All that’s going to do is convince her that’s only going to be the case for most individuals; she can do it right.
9862414
I'd just like to say that, despite death of the author and all that, this is pretty spot-on. I promise there's a reason Sunset seems like she's really holding the idiot ball. Part of it is guilt, but even that guilt is being driven by something outside of her control. To be honest, the biggest mistake she made in the story was leaving Canterlot so abruptly and, as we'll see, without talking to her friends first.
9862422
Well, how about that? Reading Witch of the Everfree eight times did teach me something.
This was a great chapter and I enjoyed the interaction between Sunset and Luna.
9861496
Yeah, I kind of want an entire side fic on these two.
9861555
Sunset/Luna? ... Huh, that actually works, even if it's a bit quasi-incestuous (but they're not blood related and neither met till they were both grown adults).
Reference to "A Bug on a Stick"?
9862197
9861873
9861923
TNG reference is referencing Original Trek when Scotty pulled the same gag.
I love this chapter so much.
9861555
Sunset Shimmer Gets All The Mares
I understood that reference
LOL! Best chapter!
I feel like these interludes would have worked better in third person.
I constantly have to reread a paragraph when I forget it isn't Sunset who is talking.
sunset is NOT stronger than twilight, sunset herself said that they were equal
and even then twilight is literally the physical manifestation of magic, shes far stronger magically than anybody else
Then how did Celestia manage to drop it into the ground and then later had to rip it out of the stone it melted around itself?
10324608
Hm. Starlight Glimmer, who fights her to a standstill _after_ she becomes an Alicorn?
As the Element of Magic, Twilight should (at least in potential) be the most powerful, but the show kinda tossed that out the window to make her Princess of Friendship. And her power level in any event fluctuates wildly from episode to episode depending on the needs of Plot.
10452046
Twilight held back because it is not in her nature to explode ponies into ashes, she considered the consecuences on doing so, one very important thing was that she could've destroyed the mahic scroll and ruined the timeline forever. In my opinion Twilight is more powerful but she has something that other unicorns do not use and that is restraint.
10414371
She's that clumsy.
Like... I could have killed you.”
Aren't Luna Celestia and Typhon actual immortal? As in they can't die?
For shame to all the people calling out a TNG refernce, glad at least one person knows where it originally came from.
Now as to the test rest? ALL HAIL BEST PRINCESS! Great chapter, and confirms that yes, Sunset would be an awesome Equestrian ambassador to the dragons! So much fun and great character work here!
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10700512
Yes and no. The issue is less Twilight holding back, though that does play into it, and more that Twilight just plain sucks at fighting. She's got way more power then Starlight, but her entire moveset in a fight is to wind up the biggest haymaker of a magical laser blast she can till whatever she's fighting stops moving. Starlight just kept dodging the extremely telegraphed blasts and firing back just enough to keep Twilight too focused on blasting her to stop and think. The only his hits Starlight ever landed were sucker punches.
10324608
In this context, Sunset has a bigger font of magical power to draw on then Twilight, though not by much, and can pump out more raw power then her, but Twilight is far better at controlling her power and can use her magic way more efficiently.
Both are pretty much on the same level, but Sunset is a sprinter, while Twilight is a marathon runner when it comes to magical output.
Quite the misadventure.