Afraid of the Light

by BiniBean

Seconds Tick Forward

Chapter Fifteen:

"You may go."

It wasn't a request. It was an order. The two guards who stood in front of Celestia in the throne room nodded. It was an order. Not a request. She knew they couldn't disobey. She pointed her hoof to the double doors. In silence, the guards marched out.

In dead silence, she sat on the throne of Equestria, glancing at the sun in the window. It was nearly the end of the day now. The seconds ticked on as the dreading doom that nopony but the sun alicorn was aware of drew closer.

She tried to distract her mind with something else, perhaps the weather reports? She wanted it to be a sunny day...Yes, she preferred clouds in the sky to block the sunlight but frankly...She wanted to see the sun as she...As she...Well, the point was, she managed to cause a great deal of havoc at the Cloudsdale Weather Factory by cancelling the plans for rainfall today so last minute.

It wasn't like this was coming out of the blue. As if Celestia just randomly decided to throw the monarchy into a burning inferno. Well, she supposed it wasn't much better either that she had indeed been slowly reaching this point across lifetimes.

Luna became evil, and turned into Nightmare Moon. Cadence was a new alicorn but one could easily see how she could turn to a side of ruin with her powers. Everypony does something bad. Celestia was on a ticking time bomb to make the worse choice of her life.

Everypony makes bad choices.

Everypony repeats bad mistakes over again.

She was an immortal pony.

It made her just a pony.

Just a silly immortal pony.

She was tired of them all. Soon she could sleep, allowing the sun, allowing daybreaker to take hold of her body. Her better self after all.

She knew what they said in the streets. Princess Celestia, nothing but a weak Goddess. Couldn't even stop her evil sister. Had to get six mortal ponies to do all her work.

They could believe that all they wanted to. Didn't change that in a matter of minutes, they would live to regret such blasphemy.

The seconds drew faster. Celestia's heart rate increased as she slowly stepped toward one of the large windows beside her throne. She felt Luna start the process of raising the moon, expecting her sister to meet her with the familiar warmth of lower the sun to meet at the horizon before the night began.

Not tonight.

"I suppose...It's time to sleep now." She mumbled mostly to herself, as a empty reassurance that she was welcome to rest.

She ignited her horn, her golden magic latched onto the sun within seconds. She took a deep breath as she welcomed the sun's harsh unforgiving light into her soul. She spread her wings as the room's temperature dramatically increased. She felt the insistent tugging from the moon onto the sun, pleading with it to go down.

Not today. Not tonight.

Her golden magic soon fizzled into a deep red as she increased her strength against the moon. The sun did not move. She weaved her way into the moon's pull, grabbing hold of her sister's moon and yanking it down below. The night would not start. The sun needed to be free.

Her mind began to unravel. All those thoughts she had hidden in the deepest corner of her mind came crashing through. Soon, the voice that haunted her was more than just a presence. It was her.

Her magenta eyes changed in a blink to a solar eclipse, her coloured mane flowed into a harsh fire, and her jewelry soon melted and reformed into armour that would strike fear into anypony.

Soon, Princess Celestia was nothing, Daybreaker stood tall as her sun blazed high above Canterlot. She let out a laugh of delight as the sky turned blood red.

---

The day was long for Princess Luna.

She didn't have much to do during the day other than maybe provide a quick magic lesson to the fillies and colts at Celestia's school, maybe catch up on some reading but frankly, she had read the whole Library in the castle. Make some public appearances? She wasn't exactly a fan of those. She hated smiling, especially for long hours. Being around Celestia taught her that smiles just hid major insecurities she would need to later deal with in the nightmare realm.

She did a quick nap, not nearly as long as she had hoped but the troubling case of her sister was keeping her up more and more. The answer seemed like it was at the tip of her tongue. As if she had all the pieces of the puzzle but just couldn't connect it together. She felt she had witnessed what her sister was going through before but...from where?

She groaned in frustration as she slammed open her balcony doors, sucking in a deep breath of the muggy air before crunching her nose in irritation. She didn't remember the weather reports stating it would be so unbearably warm this afternoon.

In fact, she remembered them calling for much-needed rain but, she squinted to look at the sky of Canterlot, not a cloud in the sky. She did a quick flap of her wings, soaring high above Canterlot to the top of the mountain before turning to sit at the very peak of the giant mountain the capital city rested upon to look above Equestria.

There was a strange lack of clouds, that was for sure. She looked towards Cloudsdale, the peagsi that were working outside the weather factory seemed to have been arguing. She raised an eyebrow, curious of course as to what was happening over there but the seconds were ticking on.

She had a moon to raise.

She shifted slightly to be more comfortable on the soft grass patch she found herself perched on. She smiled as her light blue magic latched onto the moon and began to raise it above the horizon, waiting for her sister to lower her way too bright sun below. She would need to talk to her sister about that.

Luna embraced the calm of the night, closing her eyes to enjoy the peace she longed for on the moon before...

Her moon wasn't calm. Her moon was scared. Her eyes bolted open, she stared at her moon stuck at the horizon. She increased her magic against the pull, it wasn't moving. It had to move. It was her moon. Her destiny. She was born for the damn moon to move.

She glanced over to the sun, it wasn't moving either. In fact, she could swear it moved slightly upwards. Even looking at it hurt her eyes from the intensity. She gritted her teeth and muttered a curse. She promised her sister a very long time ago she would not interfere with the sun unless Celestia herself was dead but...Well...Celestia moved her moon for a thousand years against its will, perhaps it was time Luna took advantage of that fact.

She grabbed hold of the sun gently, trying to pull it down with great strength as she tried to keep the moon steady. Of course, that wasn't working. The sun yanked away, and without warning her moon was the next target. She felt her sister's power grab hold of her moon and yank it far away from the horizon, plunging the sky into deep red as the sun itself blazed in a firey red inferno.

Luna let out a strangled scream of frustration and pure confusion at the events unfolding. That was no mistake of the imagination, that was her sister controlling the sun, plunging Luna's moon away and throwing Equestria to a full stop as everypony began to look at the red sky, at the red sun. Even the Cloudsdale Factory workers had stopped arguing to look towards the sun.

Luna looked down to the capital city below, watching as citizens emerged from their homes to see the horrific sight.

Luna's heart beat loudly in her chest as she reevaluated what was happening. Her sister just caused...eternal day. She knew this game. Luna stepped closer to the edge to look towards the throne room where she suspected her sister was when the madness began. Always the workaholic in that room.

She knew this...game. She played this game before...

She knew what this meant.

She should have seen it in her sister.

She was blinded by believing her sister knew better than to fall into the darkness that consumed Luna to turn into Nightmare Moon. Her sister was around a lot longer than her after all, she had seen things that Luna would never see. She learned lessons that Luna had yet to learn.

Yes, Celestia was struggling. Luna knew this, trying to find a solution to help her but...

It was far too late.

Luna ignited her horn and teleported into Canterlot Castle's lobby.

Comments

[Ralanost]

Ah, it begins. I do wonder how this will turn out. The way this story is written it doesn't feel like it will be tackled in the usual manner.

[Malevolo cucarachon]

Este fic es muy bueno, me lo leí todo en un par de horas.

[Starlight Nova]

She hates she listening to it.

Is this a typo? I can’t tell.

[BiniBean]

11748553
Yeah, it is, it's supposed to be "She hates she's listening to it." (I think? Rn idk if that's the proper grammar.)