Sun & Moon Act II: A Crown Divided

by cursedchords

Prologue

Present Day
Canterlot Castle

With a sigh, Twilight set down her stylus. The mountainous stack of notes beside her had now dwindled to a few loose papers, and most of their contents had been transferred into the data recorder in front of her, as piece by piece the story had come together. It was still far from finished, but she felt that at least now she’d given it a respectable start. In truth, this was about as far as she could go based on the public records she had access to. The next section was going to require additional research, but she could afford at least a small break before then.

Outside, the Sun was setting, ending the latest of several days to have passed, something lost on Twilight. In truth, she had only noticed the passage of that time in a perfunctory manner: when somepony brought a meal she had eaten, and when it got dark she had slept. Other than that, she had utterly focused on her writing.

Twilight took the stairs down through the tower slowly, not out of fatigue, but instead to marvel like she always did at the grandeur of the space. The Tower of the Sun was all airy halls, three stories of hoof-cut stone, trimmed with gold and silver. Astronomical motifs decorated the walls and ceilings, and busts of the tower’s former resident still stared serenely out of niches in the stairwells.

The whole place had been built and furnished to meet the requirements of an exact plan, and Twilight appreciated the precision of its geometry. She couldn’t have asked for anything more when it came to building a home. But even so, after nearly two years, the place still seemed as unfamiliar as ever.

As she descended the spiralling stairs, her hoofbeats echoed long and loud in the empty space. It was a home worthy of a monarch, built for a ruler who had guided her nation through centuries, unaided and ever-steadfast.

Again Twilight sighed. No matter how successful her reign would be, she couldn’t imagine that she would ever feel comfortable with all of this as her own. Truthfully, she still longed for the simple and rustic charm of her old library home.

The tower’s base opened up into the Royal Antechamber, an expansive rectangular hall that joined together the Tower of the Sun with the Tower of the Moon, and connected both to the central palace complex. In ages past, her appearance here would have been greeted by a crowd of secretaries and courtiers, each of them eager to fill her in on the latest events in the kingdom. Today though, the glittering stone parquet before her was empty, save for two seats drawn around an elaborate chess board in the far corner.

Rarity sat in one of the chairs, her eyebrows knit together in deep thought over the White pieces. Across from her was a youthful purple dragon who towered over her even while seated, easily seven feet tall. With lengthy fangs growing out over his lower lip, he would have made an intimidating sight if not for the tan jacket and dark green bowler that he wore. Spike reached out a claw festooned with golden rings and clicked his Black princess three squares forward.

“Checkmate,” he said, in a voice that had rapidly grown deeper over the last few years. “That’s four for me now. Best of nine, perhaps, my lady?”

Rarity shook her head, glancing over in Twilight’s direction. “No thank you, Spike. You’ve made your point, and now I have work to do.” As she stood, the white unicorn magically smoothed out the folds in her uniform. “Have you finished, Twilight?”

The Princess chuckled. “Not even close. But I’m far enough along that I felt I could do with a little break.” She turned to Spike. “What are you still doing here?”

The dragon looked sheepish. “Well, I got here just when you started writing, and since Rarity didn’t have anything better to do, I stuck around.”

“What about your business?”

He shook his head. “My only business now is collecting royalties. Dr. Tosak licensed everything from me, so now his people take care of running the company. All I have to do is let the gold roll in.”

There was a distinct note of melancholy in his voice, which would certainly have sounded out of place from any other dragon in the position that Spike had just described. But Twilight knew that in spite of his heritage, gold had never been what Spike lived for. So many things had changed, but all that he wanted was still somepony to spend time with.

At that moment, an idea sprang into her mind. “Well, since you’re here, I do have a lot of research that I still need to do for the book. An assistant would make things go a lot faster.”

She saw his eyes perk up immediately. “Say no more, Twilight!” He stood and delivered her a deep bow, accented even more by his exceptional height. “Just like old times, I guess.”

“Sure,” she replied, enjoying the moment of nostalgia. “But please, no more bows. We’re partners, even if now I’m the Princess.”

He straightened up. “Of course. Lead on.”

“Will the two of you again be wanting privacy?” Rarity asked.

“No. Have the kitchen whip up a light dinner, then bring it to us. We’ll be in the library. Thanks.” Rarity gave her a quick nod before trotting off into the palace. Twilight too turned around and began making her way back into the tower, now with Spike at her side.

“So, Rarity said that you were working on some big writing project?” Spike asked, looking down at her. “A complete history of Equestria, start to finish?”

“Well, the modern era at least,” Twilight nodded. It was still a little disconcerting having to tilt her head back to look the dragon in the eyes, having spent so much of her life literally looking down at him. But there was also something adorably childlike in the enthusiastic spring in his step as the two walked on. “The era of the Triumvirs that preceded Discord’s reign isn’t part of it, but covering Celestia and Luna is still nearly fifteen hundred years. There’s so much confusion and mystery surrounding the two Princesses. Somepony has to set the record straight.”

“So that’s where you’ve been for the last week, then,” the dragon smirked knowingly.

The number struck Twilight dumb for a moment. She tried mentally counting out the days, but found that everything was blurred together. “I guess so,” she said after a moment. “Like I said, it’s a really long story.”

Once back in the tower, Twilight led Spike up the stairs, past the grandiose state dining and reception rooms that she’d put to so little use. Even when she’d had guests to entertain, those huge rooms of polished stone and crystal chandeliers had felt empty and cavernous. There were plenty of other smaller chambers throughout the palace complex that she found more comfortable and served her needs just as well.

The pair turned a corner, and at the far end of the wall, an imposing set of golden double doors came into view, twin Suns on their front reaching out their rays to cover nearly the entire end of the hallway. It was one of the few rooms in the tower that Twilight hadn’t explored yet, but she knew exactly what was behind them. The spell to open these doors was one of the things that she had received on her coronation day, now that its former owner no longer needed it.

“Whoa,” Spike gasped beside her when he saw where they were headed. “Now this is something I haven’t seen before. Something you need for your research is in there?”

By the look on his face, Twilight could tell that he was thinking the room was a local repository for the Treasury.

“Of course,” she said, stopping just in front of the doors. “I’ve trawled through all of the records that I can find, interviewed subjects where possible, and examined what evidence there is available, but even with all of that the historical record is incomplete. I’ve finished all that I can at this point, but in order to go further, I need the information in here.” She took a deep breath. “In Princess Celestia’s personal library.”

One of Spike’s eyebrows rose about an inch when he heard, but it just as quickly came back down. “I’ve never heard you that concerned about entering a library before. There’s nothing, like, dangerous in there, is there?”

The remark brought a smile to Twilight’s face, but it wasn’t enough to dispel her trepidation. “No, it’s safe, Spike. It’s just…” She sighed, suddenly realizing how absurd this was going to sound. She had lived in this castle for more than two years, and every so often had considered entering the room. She had stood right as she did now, on the threshold, and every time had turned aside. It had never felt right then, and it didn’t feel right this time either.

The new Princess gazed intently at the twin suns. “For more than a thousand years, only one pony has opened these doors, and seen what lies beyond them. I’ve worn her crown for two years, and now that she’s gone it’s technically mine, but more than anything else in the tower, I feel like this place still belongs to Celestia.”

Spike placed a comforting claw on her shoulder. “Well, just going in won’t change that. Nopony is going to gild your cutie mark over top of hers. This will always be the Tower of the Sun, and this will always be Celestia’s Library.”

“Still,” she answered, “I’m writing this history to establish once and for all Celestia and Luna’s places in our past. That truth has to be made public, but I don’t want to tear down their legacy just to uncover it. But you’re right, Spike. It has to be done.”

With another deep breath, Twilight called the spell to her mind. There came two clangs of solid metal bars being withdrawn from their housings, and then the doors slowly swung inwards.

By this point in her life, Twilight had seen a great many libraries, from humble and cozy ones like her old home in Ponyville, to massive and grand ones like the official archives here in Canterlot. Yet, somehow, Celestia’s private library managed to capture a little bit of both feelings.

It was small as far as libraries went, and though most of the floorspace was taken up with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, it didn’t feel cramped. The room was semicircular, the shelves around the outside encircling a massive wooden writing desk in the middle. Seeing it there, Twilight could almost imagine her former mentor seated behind it, her mane shimmering in the afternoon light, a steaming mug of tea to one side and a stack of legal documents in front of her. She blinked and the image was gone.

The light that suffused the room came from an enormous window that stretched over most of the far wall, bathing the space in the golden light of the late afternoon sun. From this vantage point, there was an excellent view out over the whole city, the weathered towers of Old Canterlot dug into the mountainside and the rings of gleaming new developments on the plains around it. All of the steel and glass out there caught the setting Sun’s light to look like hundreds of burning candles out on the horizon.

Stopping behind the desk, Twilight let her senses drink it all in. Every detail of the space had been crafted lovingly, the geometry and symmetry calculated precisely, and each piece laid into place perfectly. For a moment, her anxiety at entering the private place evaporated. So far, this was the most homely room that she had encountered in Canterlot.

Beside her, Spike’s eyes were wide with awe. “Well, this should make a fine place for your research,” he said, though it was obvious that his thoughts were far from their work.

But his words did jolt Twilight’s mind back to the task at hoof. For everything up to Celestia and Luna’s accession to the throne, there had been enough archaeological evidence and public records to piece together the story. After that, though, many of the important documents had come to rest here: copies of ancient books that needed to be preserved, diplomatic texts and treaties, and, most valuable of all, Celestia and Luna’s private journals. With all of that, Twilight hoped to be able to put together the entire story. She strode up to the writing desk and pulled the heavy chair out.

“Right you are, Spike!” she announced. “Ready to look for some books?”

The dragon drew himself up to attention and snapped a salute. “What do you need?”

“The Second Age,” she said to him. “Earliest material first.” With another salute, Spike turned on his heel and marched off to the shelves.

As she waited for him to return, Twilight studied the carpet here in the middle of the room. It was patterned with the design of the Equestrian flag: Celestia and Luna circling their respective celestial bodies, a symbol of the harmony that had given birth to a nation, and had ultimately held it together for nearly two millennia. But the actual history, she knew, had never been so peaceful. And now she was about to unravel the rift that had very nearly torn the country apart just as it was getting started.