Separated from their loved ones, Luna and Celestia are forced into a perilous journey that threatens to separate them forever. With Chaos following them at every turn, can the young fillies overcome it?
Everyone is young at some point or another. Even alicorns.
Before being assigned Day and Night, before even becoming alicorns, Luna and Celestia suffered through the Great War. Times were plagued by starvation and suffering, and a relentless dictator ruled the land. When an attempt at salvation goes horribly wrong, the two siblings are forced out into the world on a journey that may threaten to separate them forever.
The soft click of metal on the floor echoed down the hallway. The metal came from custom fit silver hoofguards which so frequently decorated the legs of Princess Luna. The world had changed in her absence. The castle had undergone many changes in style, only some of the towers reflecting the appearance she had remembered in her own time. Ponies around dressed queerly and talked in strange inflections. Things had loosened and gotten far more informal. Yes the ponies kneeled, and rightly so, but they also didn't quiver too much in fear before asking questions. She wandered down a long stretch of hallway, an empty corridor filled with stained glass windows featuring ponies who seemed to be laughing at her. Their eyes followed her every move, and the princess of the night broke into a run. She was filled with an unnatural sort of fear, worsened by harsh, victorious laughter that she could not escape. She turned her head as she ran down the infinite hallway to see Nightmare Moon closing in, eyes glowing and fangs glistening.
"You can't escape me that easily, Luna!" The apparition taunted.
Luna screamed and woke, realizing the ponderings she'd had the night before about the world that had entered her daily sleeptime. Light had woken her, the light from a sundown, she saw the silhouette of a small unicorn against the sun, moving from each of the towering windows in her bedroom and opening them quietly. Luna's hair was a mess, and she had rolled onto her left wing, the feathers out of alignment and practically aching for preening. The young servant was new. The servants since her return had been serviceable enough, no one stood out. He approached a small table set out next to the silken dark blue bed. Silver tray. He was surprisingly young, barely a colt at that, and surprisingly at ease in her presence. No eye contact, he conducted himself with grace. His horn glowed quietly and the lid of the tray lifted up. A nostalgic scent lifted off the plate, something that triggered memories so old that they slipped between her mental hooves before she could catch them. It was something that looked like a rough flat bread, and a goblet filled with something of a very fruity scent.
It was slightly odd, seeing such a young colt in her room. Each level of the castle had different levels of security. Her bedroom, for instance, was off limits to everypony except Celestia, and Twilight on rare occasions. The closer to the Main Courtyard they went, the more public the area became. Many of the front rooms were often occupied by a Tour Guide taking small groups of tourist ponies on an exposition filled tour of the castle, groups of whom just itched and prayed for a glimpse of royalty. As it was, she smiled at the servant, and excused herself to be made up properly. She wanted to look presentable, even for something as regular as raising the moon. One never knew when one might suddenly encounter a high ranking offical or a delegate, or even just randomly photographed.
The colt genuflected in a strangely familiar way, as she passed the breakfast that seemed to spark memories she couldn't quite place. Since Celestia had shown her those two old maps, she'd been in such a nostalgic mood. Adjoining her bedroom was a room with great mirrors, and a ream of dresses fitting many possible future occasions, they were replaced as they were used. One time wear. The usual team was gone, but she found that the colt appeared... or rather was already there when she arrived. Now she knew why he'd stood out. The way he stood, acted, it was completely familiar to the way servants had acted in her own time. Quiet, silent, quick to fulfill commands she hadn't even indicated she was about to give. Servants who were in tune with her, and simply knew what needed to be done. Different brushes lifted off the table, two were for her mane, two for her coat and four others each suited for a specific task were dedicated to straightening out and smoothing the feathers of her wings. All silently hung in the air around the unicorn. A little smile played on his lips for a brief second and the smile was immediately banished, he was obviously not perfectly into this role. Not a servant from her own time then, someone from this time who'd found out how her servants had once acted. An attempt to please her, no less. And it was working.
She couldn't help slightly teasing him, and cast a smile of her own towards him. "Thou hast not to always look as if thine mother has just passed on, a smile goes farther than you might think." She said to him. She went quickly into her daily grooming and preening, an act which she had done to a science and didn't take long at all. "Is our sister finished in her Chambers yet?"
He smiled silently, looking more than just pleased at her joke, it was the smile of someone enjoying great success. Interestingly he kept up the appearance of the servant, not faltering. And he seemed as good as herself at preening her feathers. A small flat piece of wood, elegantly lifted the tangled feathers out of each other one by one, and the other brushes gently stroked the hairs of the feathers into alignment. The itching along the wing arms decreased.
"Her royal highness, thine sister." He began. Correctly pronounced, almost the right accent too. "Hath returned from sending the sun down. She awaits your royal highness in the antechamber of the study."
Luna nodded. "Thank you, dear. Go and get some rest. Just because I must stay up through the night does not mean you have to as well." She made her way towards the antechamber, taking special care to take a shortcut which she knew would take her right past one of the last tours of the day, and bring joy to the hearts of all those contained in that little group. Particularly the children, who's smiles were as endearing as those of her own sister. She couldn't see every tour of course, but made special notice to 'accidentally' pass by one or two whenever she could.
A small rainbow of tourists with oversized cameras, almost tumbled over each other. Four little fillies squealed silently, their parents having a near impossible time of controlling them as the children tried to climb on anything they could to get a better look. A few flashes occurred. The tour guide was used it happening on occasion, and had as usual and wisely not told this tour group that around this time you had a good likelihood of spotting her. Most tourists tended to think it was during the twilight. Just like that she was gone, and the tour moved on without her. Luna entered the antechamber, on alert as she always was when she left her room. It was a small chamber separating a landing platform with the study. And like other events of today, it seemed designed to tickle her with nostalgic impressions. This room more than the others remained decorated in Golden Unicorn style, which the castle had been built in. She found Celestia, trotting in from the landing platform.
"Good evening, Luna." Celestia smirked. Of course, the elder sibling was the source of this mornings arranged amusements.
Luna burst into a delighted smile, and in a moment of high energy tomfoolery, rushed to meet her and nuzzle necks. She didn't get to see her all that often, so whenever she did it was a special time. "I woke occasionally to delight in your day for a few moments, it was beautiful as always." She said proudly.
Celestia returned the joy, resting her chin on Luna's neck for a moment. Her rainbow mane flowed around Luna's eyes, and their wings touched. Celestia went over to a large red pillow and lay down on her on her belly. "I think we have till you lift the moon, then I'll answer a certain sister's many questions before retiring." She made no mention of the young unicorn servant. A paper flashed into existence from out of nowhere and a quill. "Do you feel like diving into the past tonight Luna? I wouldn't try to write down this story without you, I only know my part after all." She closed her eyes in concentration "Its lifetimes ago, I think I know where to start, but I don't know how it ended. How we defeated Discord." Ponies sang songs about it, theaters reenacted parts of it. A story that had long been told and retold in art so many times, and without attention to accuracy, that the story currently shown was likely far from true. "We weren't born of the stars after all." She sighed. Contrary to what a popular play had said, they had not been born as alicorns.
Luna sighed with annoyance. It was not necessarily annoyance at her sister, but at having to recall events she had purposely pushed out of her mind. Tales of sadness and hardships that she didn't want to think about ever again. At the same time, however, she disliked when plays and songwriters made up their own facts, facts which then became accepted as truth by ponies too naive to ask questions or do research. A problem, thankfully, that they had never had with Twilight Sparkle. There had been a time long ago when they had both been as normal and mortal as any other pony.
"I will always help you, Celly. You know that." She said kindly, using the more intimate nickname for her sister that was reserved for her use and her use only.
Celestia smiled in gratitude. "I know it's hard, but it's time our story was told."
"I thought we had agreed not to talk about this. While we are indebted to Twilight for everything she has done, we also were the ones who asked her to reform Discord. Does it not seem hypocritical then that we give him a second chance when we are going to bring up the evils that is responsible for? You know what he did," Luna said, anger seeping into her voice.
"Yes, but anger blackens the heart, Luna. I have forgiven him. We cannot change what he did, but we can ensure it never happens again. Besides, this tome will not be available for just anypony to see."
Luna was not as easily convinced, and turned her head to look outside, trying to hide the irritation on her face.
"Let us begin." The quill which hovered near the elder sisters horn was dipped in ink, and Celestia began to write.
Equestria no longer existed. It didn't even have that name anymore. The ponies that lived in this world had once called it something, but that name was forgotten. Not many ponies could study writings, and there weren't any left. The writings that detailed the early history of the land had been the first to go. The single name that all ponies knew, that all ponies learned to know, they feared more than anything else.
Discord.
The world was full of things that grew wild with excessive energy. Animals were bigger and more terrifying, as were the plants. Rivers flowed with intense energies. There was fecundity, but no regularity. Streams were independent, ponds were treacherous, a river was as much a source of life as a potential source of destruction, as it could easily decide to flow any way. Rain, snow, winds came and went with no seasons. These just were the daily frantic mess. Barriers and obstacles that nopony thought twice about. This was the world Luna had always known. The world her sister had always known. The world her parents had always known. There were no cities, no real buildings. Nothing lasted, so nothing was erected that couldn't be built quickly again.
Luna's family lived beneath the ground, in a small hole, dug out by the common effort of their hooves. The ceiling held up with good will, boards and planks, and whatever meager spells her parents Aurora and… Celestia hesitated in writing on her parchment, seeking a name she had forgotten for such a long time. Even then, only with a bit of help from Luna did the name return to her. ...Titan. Her mother was an almond colored unicorn, and their father was a dark shade. Both parents were as caring and loving as anypony could ever hope to find. The size of their home was small, it was a single room. You couldn't fit thirty ponies in there if you tried. It held nothing in terms of belongings. There was a hole in the center where what food they had scraped by from picking the randomly growing plants were stored. Supply was undependable. Sometimes they had food to excess, and often they were struggling to find enough to get to the next day. The key to survival often simply came down to rationing, and preparing for the unexpected.
Aurora and Titan often went hungry to feed their daughters. They never once complained, even when the girls suspected that something was wrong. There was a window, an opening in the ceiling, and covered with leaves. Through the leafy cover Luna could see the milky sky, ablaze with flowing colors. A kaleidoscope dome, flowing through surreal pastels as the day would pass. Her bigger sister Celestia was home as well, looking a bit stuffy. Their father had called her home from the ruins early.
"But dad, its the only place where there's any writings anymore! Real spells!" All forbidden, of course. Even now Celestia was etching the runes that she and Luna had studied and gleaned many times onto the wall. They were impossibly complex spells, nothing meant for tutoring. Yet Celestia and Luna were trying to do the impossible, relearn magic that was no longer to be found in books. It had occupied Celestia a lot lately, and her frustration matched only the intense energies she threw into her studies on it. Luna recognized the set of runes she was scribbling even as they were obscured by her flowing…
Celestia stopped and looked at her flowing tail for a moment, turning to Luna.
"Was it always like this?" Luna was quiet for a moment, the smile on her face had faded. She didn't like remembering what she only fleetingly referred to as the Dark Days, it was a time of suffering and hardship for many ponies. Being as though she had once been a Bearer of the Elements, it took a particularly stronger toll on her. Long ago, Luna had been tasked with Magic, Kindness and Loyalty, while Celestia had been the image of Laughter, Honesty and Generousity. As such, seeing others in distress and sadness, especially when caused intentionally, enraged her.
"Your tale is accurate thus far, Celestia." She said, her voice cold. Even during the present time, she found it difficult to fully trust Discord again. Not after what he had done to them. Not after what he had done to... No. She couldn't think about that. Not yet.
Celestia and Luna had competed on learning, mastering and improving the spells from their parents. Sibling rivalry, but they'd long since mastered what could be done with those simple charms, and they were each specializing in different wards. It was dangerous, and they didn't tell their parents all of how close they had gotten often in sustaining serious injuries when they lost control over improper spells. Being trained was an impossibility, and if they were caught performing magic, the consequences could be disastrous. There weren't any proper days or nights. However if one could call this a day, it was a special one. Aurora entered their hiding hole. Strapped to her back was a special box. Where she hid it she never said, and questions on the matter went unanswered. It held three items, one that was useless now and held only sentimental value, and two others. Celestia was still engrossed passionately with unlocking the mystery of a particular defensive spell she'd seen carved into one of the walls of a ruin. Aurora clucked in disapproval.
"You'll wear down your horn at that rate, Celestia. Put it away, I feel its time to retell our story." No seasons, it wasn't a yearly thing. Celestia stopped for a moment
"I'm so close, mother, just a little longer... shouldn't we wait until father comes home?" A tactic of stalling, but Aurora insisted. Luna had heard the story only three times, the story of day and night. The rare ritual when her mother told it, as their grandmother had told it to her, took a special significance.
"Luna would you do the honor of laying out the folded paintings?" Two of them, all that had survived. The only concrete evidence that there once had been something like a day and a night. That once, long ago, there had been peace.
Luna had a passion for stargazing, but it was something of a thankless sport. The stars rarely came out for more than a few minutes at a time. It was next to impossible, as far as she could tell, to schedule when they would appear next or for how long. But she adored the sky, and would often be seen in a dream filled state, staring up at the infinite void which was so stubborn as to refuse to give up its secrets. The young mare nodded to her elder, and went to fetch the paintings, ever so carefully unrolling them. "If anyone can unlock that spell, Celestia can." She said proudly.
The pictures were laid out. Even Celestia halted for a moment as the image of the sun was spread out. "Once..." The older sister began, in a sweet sing song voice… Celestia paused and cleared her throat.
"Its been a while since I've sung in the Ancient tongue, sister bear with me." A language hardly talked anymore, even Luna's inflections and formal language was a later development. Outside of obscure historians who enjoyed transcribing what few runes of it remained on the oldest of ruins, few but her and Celestia knew it, and only they were really fluent…
"The night begins at the end of the day.
The glowing orb sets, so the stars come out to play.
The little moon rises, shining through night
And the dreams of every pony, is guarded by its might.
And when the moon sets, is when the day is born
All ponies rise together, at the dawning of the morn
Rise to harvest, play, sing and prance,
Thus were the blessings of sun and moons dance."
The remembrance song ended, and their mother told them of how their great, great grandmother had lived during this time. "Notice the fields under sun?" Rows of crops were indicated in the painting of the sun, it hung above fields where ponies toiled, pegasi flew. Just as the song told. It wasn't as clear for the painting of the moon. It was more of a map, and Aurora would go through the names of all the places on the moon with her. The great mare sea, the alicorn crest, Titan crater surrounded by the little filly craters. "There were once names on this map. Of all those places." Her mother always became a little bitter and sad at this part. "Names of everything, when I was a little filly... we kept everything in books. I don't know which pony had said that, that we still had our memories. Then Discord had said
"When Day is Night and Night is Day, see if you can read words, when they all run away!"
Aurora opened the book, revealing only blank pages, reams and reams of blank pages. Aurora sighed in regret. So much knowledge had been lost.
Luna stomped her hoof. "It's not fair," she said as she always did. She and Celestia had aspirations to put Discord in his place, to defeat him and bring order once more to the world. Subsequently, most of these announcements, by other ponies at least, were only met with laughter and chalked up to the musings of foolish children. Many adults had tried, all had failed. Most had been left unharmed, sent home in defeat. A few who had gotten closer than others simply vanished, nopony knew what happened to them. It was unlikely they would ever be seen again.
"I want to see night and day." Luna declared, and when she declared something, you surely knew she'd do something about it. "And not just for a few minutes, I want a cycle, like in the old stories!"
The remembrance story was only about the night and day, and what they contained. Their mother didn't tell the story of how the weather had been broken, and the sun and moon prevented from returning. All ponies knew enough of that story. Discord, who had always existed as far as anyone could tell, had simply started acting out with still greater amounts of chaos; not content with the state of the world. This had grown until the present day. He was a force out of control, and nopony could stop him.
"A bit of order, just to have dependable crops... just for that sake alone. So we can eat." Their father Titan nodded, content with his thoughts. "Something planted with your own hooves, that would come back to you." Celestia, on the other hoof, was less serious and a bit dreamy.
"The sun," she simply said, smiling contently. "It has to be real." Both Luna and Celestia had a strange mark on their flank. Neither of their parents had. Neither had anypony in the village. Nopony knew what it meant. Aurora nuzzled Luna, and the young filly whickered with delight.
"You can always see the moon in your dreams. Discord didn't take those away from us, and I don't think he can."
Titan grumbled. "Humph, I think he'd try, or replace our dreams with something else. Most likely nightmares we can't wake up from. He has a perverse sense of humor." At this, Celestia's ears pinned back, and Luna looked as if she was about to cry. Aurora glared at him
"Not now. Titan, you're scaring Luna."
Dreams. Luna had very unusual dreams, often containing images of ponies she personally knew. Her mother, her father, Celestia. On several occasions subjects which she had dreamed had proven to be true upon her awakening, as if she'd seen the events transpire first hand. But she kept these things to herself, the only one she told was Celestia. She was afraid, why could she see these things and nopony else could? She had tried many times to control it, and yet it happened regardless. As for her mothers comment, she glared, and immediately wiped the moisture from her eyes with a front leg. "I am not scared!" She protested.
Aurora pressed her nose to Luna's cheek. "Of course you're not Luna, you and your sister are the bravest little fillies." Celestia took a bit of offense from being called a filly, and made a faux and overlydramatic humph.
"We're the bravest mares in the whole wide little world." Celestia smiled proudly. Titan looked outside and levitated a rock into the two openings dimming the hidey hole. Celestia made only a few protests about just being given a few more minutes. They had to sleep when things looked quiet and stable enough to allow it. Aurora tucked her daughter into the soft beddings they had managed to make over the days.If you could even call them that. In the dark Luna felt her mother nuzzle the side of her cheek.
"Little Luna, do you know why I'm not afraid for you?" She whispered so silently Luna could barely hear her voice. "Because I know you'll see the moon one day, just as it is. And when you do I hope you'll remember it and tell the world about it. A little hope like that can help any pony."
Luna felt her chest swell with pride. She had nothing but love for her parents and sister, overwhelming confidence and affection. "Of course I am!" She whispered back. "I'm gonna see the moon, and if that's not enough, maybe I'll go there someday too!" She announced in that full-of-spirit voice that children often had, and nopony could tell her she was wrong.
Their parents settled, not far from where Luna slept. Their body heat and magical auras nearby. She heard their breathing slow down eventually, and a silence settle over the hiding hole. Discord's mad energies hadn't penetrated the darkness a little cavern could make. His reach wasn't endless. Eventually she heard a whisper inside her head from Celestia. ` "We need to go back to the ruins, if we can figure out how to do this spell we can protect the village from at least flooding... I need your help." A rare admission. "Can you cast illusions of us, so mom and dad won't go looking for us? Then we'll have a good while to go over the spell again." Celestia didn't admit needing Luna's help in deciphering the complex and often broken spellwork runes laced into the walls.
Luna was always up for an adventure, especially one with her sister. Her horn glowed briefly, an illusion spell wasn't difficult. It just made one object appear to be somewhere it wasn't. "Already done." She said. "Let's get back there before mom and dad wake up or we'll never hear the end of it. If we get caught, I'll just say it was my idea."
"What is it?" Celestia asked, gazing upon her younger sister.
Luna had gone quiet, and her own focus was on the grounds outside the castle window. "I don't like this part," Luna admitted. "If I had known, if we had known, if we hadn't been so stupid..."
Celestia's voice softened. "We couldn't have known what was coming, or even what he was capable of. I'm here for you, Luna. Let us get through this tale together, then we shan't speak of it again. Our story will be preserved."
The Princess of the Night wiped her eyes, nodding in agreement. She hated Discord for what he had done, and even now, with him being reformed, she refused to do business with him unless it was absolutely necessary.
"Alright."
"They feel warm," Celestia said in a barely audible voice, her hoof prodding the faux image of her, going straight through the ethereal image. Specialization came with its advantages. They snuck out quietly into the perpetual never-night-nor-day. The ruins were a good distance away. While they were learning a lot on their own by sheer trial and error, and by figuring out the deeper mechanics of what they had been taught, only the ruins really gave indications of how complex and ambitious arcanery was to be done. "Teleport race you there?" Celestia smiled. A barely learned skill, already time to compete in it? She concentrated sharply, her horn flashing with ancient powers and with a wink she appeared a hundred feet ahead, blew a raspberry at Luna and started teleporting again.
Ever the child, Luna gasped in horror. "That's not fair! I wasn't ready!" She protested, and followed suit, overworking her horn in order to catch up. A good five feet behind, she called. "I challenge! You didn't even say Go!"
Celestia laughed "Alright then, go!" And she flashed ahead. It was a complex game. Teleporting required knowing where you were going in order to call up the spell in proper sequence to take you there and no where else. They were doing it on the fly, Celestia sticking to a certain length where the spell was easier to put together in the head, though it took longer. Luna's path zigzagged a bit, certain directions were easier than others. They arrived at the ruins completely exhausted, their horns feeling drained, and sweat pouring down their coats. It had only taken them a few moments. Celestia was off immediately, heading in a beeline for a particular stretch of the wall. It was hard to tell what it had been originally, some wildly overgrown cylinders stretched upwards. With the effort of a little magic Luna and Celestia had scraped away murals depicting castles floating in the sky. It seemed an obscene use of magic which reminded too much of Discord's own. They'd searched in vain for murals of the sun or moon, though they found one where the background sky did have a circle, but it wasn't clear whether it was day or night in the picture. The spellwork written into the stone was hard to follow, long interwoven segments of runes following a grammatical rule set which seemed to be endlessly complex. Whenever they had uncovered a new paradigm of principles, and the spells were starting to make sense, they started to encounter new exceptions. Celestia had originally called the art of complex spells which weren't based on 'feel' The Art, the little they knew of The Art was already improving the meager spells they were discovering for themselves. Unfortunately, the walls didn't contain instructions, or lessons. They contained fully grown spells meant for specific duties. Shielding obviously. One wall was free of plant growth, so some of the still active runes on that wall must be a spell preventing moss from growing on the stone. However picking out that spell, was like picking out a single birds song out of a flock of a hundred.
Luna had long had a passion for the nighttime, she'd been drawn to the images of the moon and stars, while her sister, as if by complete opposite, was enthralled by the sun. Luna separated from sister with a warning of "Stay close." She'd warned, only going to the other side of the ruin to focus her study on ruins nearby. It would take less time than if they both became stuck on the same set of inscriptions. She was quiet in her own studies for about an hour, before teleporting right next to Celestia in the middle of an equally stubborn rune. "Boo!" She announced, as mischievous as ever. Celestia was fully engrossed in studying, and it seemed a silly way to break the silence.
Celestia who was usually up for a prank, stood in unbroken concentration reading the lines. Scanning one row then another, her lips moving silently to thoughts and spell pronunciations in her head. Her eyes didn't as much as blink. Then she became silent, closing her eyes. A little orb appeared on the tip of her horn, she connected it with the runework. And a single rune in the middle of the complex spellwork, which seemed offside and insignificant, caught fire. A fire that spread outwards, racing through the stone work. Celestia's eyes widened, in hope, in utter expectant hope. The spreading accelerated, and with the sound of crackling thunder the wall sprang to life, a blue bubble expanded rapidly and engulfing the two unicorns. When they could see again and the sound had died down, they saw the section of wall Celestia had worked on, free of all plants, its rune work glowing quietly with the blue light of Celestia's magic. They were also standing in the center of a sphere. Celestia stomped the ground with her hoof.
"It works!" She shouted triumphantly. A protective spell. One that could support itself independently.
Luna was equally excited, and bounced in circles around her sister. "It works! It works! It works! It works!" Then she composed herself, and quickly settled down. "I mean... it works." She said calmly, as if the outburst had never happened. "I always knew you could do it, Celly."
"Thanks, I knew I could do it as well, I just wasn't sure!" She beamed proudly, letting herself flomp down on her back. "They can be safe now, we don't have to move the village so often. It won't overgrow now, it won't get flooded as easily." It was hard to tell exactly how long the wall had lasted before its original charge had gone out. Things grew rapidly and unpredictably. All Luna and Celestia knew was that as far as they had been able to find, the only ruins left standing had magical protection. And that protection had kept some of the ruins alive through ever weakening spells, that had withstood the chaotic nature of the world they now lived in. Suddenly she was on her legs again "Wanna reactivate the rest of the ruin with me? I'll teach you the spell, we almost got it right, we just have to patch broken areas and start it the right way, that's all we missed!" Her sister was rarely demonstrating this much excitement. "As long as we don't get caught, I think we really have a chance!"
"Of course I do." Luna said with excitement, and was on her hooves almost instantly. "Do you think we'll be able to grow things again?" She asked. "Not the artificial stuff that we have now, but real, living things like fruits and vegetables?"
The possibilities were endless. The spell was indeed very complex, but now they had a correctly restored example, so it was a matter of running back and forth between this section of the wall and filling out the gaps and drawing in the correct runes. Celestia carefully instructed Luna how to activate the starting rune. And from then on... it was a competitive race again as they restored networks of runes, setting the whole ruin brimming with otherwordly light, the spheres of protection growing merging together. Many spells couldn't be restored, especially the ones that had made this particular castle float in the sky. They both grew in ecstacy as they stood on one section of all and looked across the glowing sight.
Celestia was overflowing with excitement. "Our families could live here! We could start anew and... Luna we could start to really study magic!" They were both exhausted, not a bad days work done.
And that's when a voice appeared behind them. The voice sounded faux, as if whatever it said was just said for fun, only this time it sounded quite offended.
"Oh, and here I thought you were happy with where you lived..." Turning around they both saw a creature, that seemed an ensemble of many others. Two different horns, a long slender furry body ending in a scaled tail, no limb from the same creature. They could sense his power, power that, at the moment, was directed at the two of them. "You could have lived there all your lives, and instead you repair an old dung heap, my what your parents must be thinking of you."
Luna felt her body fill with fear, although both were smart enough not to do anything overwhelmingly stupid, Luna stood in front of Celestia, her mother had always told her to make sure to protect her older sibling, although she was sure her father had told Celestia the same thing.
"Speaking of old dung heaps..." She sent muttered the joke just weak enough for Celestia to pick up on.
They weren't strong, they'd had a teleport race all the way out to the ruins and then run around wildly pouring in magic into the protective spells.
"Don't worry, sister, he's on the other side of the barrier, he can't get us!" Celestia replied in kind. And indeed he was, standing aloof outside the wall. He poked the barrier with a finger, and electric light filled his body while he screamed out in sudden shock.
"Whaaaarrrghh!" The cry of pain turned into laughter and the fireworks stopped. As if it was nothing in the world he stepped through as their spell works died across the ruins. "Oh that was a good one, little fillies. I thought good humor was hard to come by now-a-days. So I'm going to reward you. If things are so easy at home that you feel you can just run away… perhaps I should up the difficulty. Don't worry. It's not you I want." And with that he kicked off from the ground and flew towards their village at incomprehensible speeds.
"No..." Celestia whimpered and teleported away towards the village. Luna barely had enough time to process all of this before breaking into a run after her sister.
The look that the two sisters shared was one of immense fear, and Luna followed suit, chasing after her sister. But she was the younger sibling, and her magical reserves not as full. Already exhausted from their race, she found her magical energy drained, and resorted to racing after Celestia on all fours, panting for breath, and soon even her legs would fail her. The teleport race suddenly seemed like the worst idea they'd ever had.
Celestia appeared and disappeared as a flashing light disappearing and reappearing through the thick growth. Running was always easier than getting somewhere by magic. It drained you less quickly. Luna ran as fast as he could, but her legs felt like stone. In the distance she suddenly saw Celestia's light coming back, coming away from the village, flitting closer even faster than when she had tried to catch up to Discord. She appeared with wild and teary eyes. With speed and determination she touched horns and shared what meager power reserves they had.
"Ready? Turn around, and we teleport on go. And Luna whatever you do don't look back! GO!" She barked it as an order. Whatever she had seen, it had scarred her. Whatever she had seen, the determination in her eyes meant that she'd do anything to keep Luna from seeing it.
"But...but..." Luna protested. "Our parents, they're still-"
"Go!" Came the only response, and she turned back the way she'd come, confused and scared. She began to teleport as fast as she could, going farther and harder than she'd ever used magic before, until at last she could only lay on the ground with her face in the dirt, desperately trying to breathe. She'd never wanted her mother or father as much as she did that moment.
"I need... a minute..." Luna pleaded.
Luna heard sounds behind her, buzzing, the sound that usually meant a plant animated by a random streak of magic started to grow. Celestia didn't let her rest. Luna was equally disturbed by the thought of a giant flower trying to devour them. Had it gotten their parents already?
"Go!" She yelled fiercely, every time she sounded angrier and angrier. They passed the ruins and still the sound approached from behind. Celestia ran close, and whenever Luna tried to turn her head, Celestia forced them to teleport again. Luna had tried being run down and out of energy, had tried to starve herself of magic, had even experienced the drain felt when a spell too big for her to handle had gone through her. Yet nothing had ever felt like the searing pain she felt in her horn. Sharp cracks. Celestia's horn didn't just glow with a clean penumbra either, there were small fissures of bright light appearing. If they didn't stop soon their horns would crack permanently.
"One more jump as long as you can go, don't wait to think where you'll end up! Just empty your mind! Go!" The longest jump was quite a distance, and the spell was vague, her focus low. There was no time to cast the spell properly. Everything became light, then overwhelming darkness, and suddenly everything was quiet.
Celestia stopped writing again, and looked at Luna with sympathy.
"I just saw you disappearing, I never saw how you got out. Never knew where you went." The memories came to Luna, the quality of the experience had been a bit too similar to another not quite as distant one, but equally unpleasant...
Luna in all her life had never experienced a quiet like this. Except in her deepest dreams, when she dreamt of falling through the skies. She couldn't move, her mouth was full of something hard and cold. She couldn't breathe. There was only the tiniest reserve of magic left in her. No air, but she could keep from suffocating for a little while yet. The hardness in her mouth... was it stone? Rock? She was encased all around, unable to move. The only sound was the beating of her heart inside her chest, rapidly thumping away, slowing as her muscles had no more room to struggle in. Rising a new sense of panic settled across her. She tried to scream, but couldn't. Even if she had been able to make a sound, there was nopony for hundreds of miles in every direction to help her.
Luna had never told Celestia that she'd gone to the moon that first time. She had wanted to tell her right away, but how could Celestia have known she'd been stuck there, not once, but twice? The second time was her sisters doing, and only made the experience all the more horrible. She just didn't have it in her to say it hadn't been the first time trapped in that desert of nothingness. Luna had become teary eyed, her expression shattered.
"It doesn't matter." She had said. "What matters is that I got out."
The rock around her, though it didn't change in quality, seemed eerily familiar. And unexpectedly she felt a trickle of power flowing through her horn, gaps tenderly closed by the pressure of her prison. Her heart beat became steady. And she felt her magic bleed into the surroundings. Mingling with the haunting energies of the place. It was a place very near to her heart. Something she had never seen. It was large, far larger than she had ever anticipated it would be. She was embedded somewhere deep inside it. The world she had run around in was far away... but it was hard to tell how or where. However now she knew where she was. It was a real place after all, the moon.
Celestia had managed for a thousand years to raise the moon. Even in her own absence the sun and moon would not have failed to be raised or lowered, the responsibility of doing that would have passed to the high council of unicorn mages in Canterlot. Their collective effort could also have done so. However in Luna's humble opinion Celestia had merely managed. She had not excelled. The moon was back in the night sky, seemingly bigger and brighter than ever in recent ponies memories. Following its trajectory with greater fidelity than ever. With the moon in its zenith, Luna was in the full of her power. She could swim in the ethereal real in the heavens, and see the dreams of ponies everywhere. Threads of nightmare, and strands of good dreams, ponies seeing their inner fears, hopes and desires, struggling with them, coming to terms with them. Luna could pluck a string here, encourage someone there, twine dreams, appear and disappear, wear a hundred faces in a single night. Being queen of the night was something she could never explain, and never replace. Always a familiar power, never dull to wield, she balanced on the landings outside hers and Celestia's quarters with no small measure of power lust. It did get a bit much at times. A good nine tenth of the castle was asleep, she sensed the sleeping minds around her. No small measure of interesting dreams, she viewed them from afar with little detail. Not always good to pry into the minds of servants. However she felt a strange noxious nightmare. Seeming to draw from this particularly splendid night, but it wasn't a good nightmare. And she felt its presence coming from her sister's private quarters. Celestia's mind. A little golden bright light entangled in thick dark lines.
Those in Lunas inner circle knew of her dream power. It wasn't a secret, but wasn't made easily available knowledge either. Dreams were personal, and prying into them was considered extraordinarily rude. Luna crept closer to Celestia's quarters. There was an unspoken agreement between them that she would not pry in her sisters dreams, but some agreements were just bound to be broken, especially under certain circumstances.
Her powers had been discovered long before she could remember, and had been honed to zen like perfection almost as long ago. Now...now she barely had to think about it any more than walking or flying or breathing. Celestia's mind was a clear and sharp diamond, no less brighter despite the many years. Unicorns lived a long time, alicorns even longer. All ponies who live long enough become proficient dreamers. Nightmares are mastered, dreams recognized for what they are. This was the first time Luna saw her sister dream, and did not know she was dreaming, for as long as she could remember. It was an unusually clear dream, vivid and sharp. Celestia was running around in the Everfree forest, the growth of which was what she and her had run from a long time ago.
"Luna! Oh, no, no... LUNA!" In the dream the young unicorn cast search spells, looking for her sister who she feared had teleported into rock, into the ground, into a tree. Praying that she was somewhere nearby. All the while running from something that was creeping. A buzzing sound.
A voice that hissed.
"Celestia, don't run…"
But Celestia did run, crying all the while. The fully grown Celestia's hooves were working as well, pushing off the covers and frantically kicking.
Luna remembered the first time they were separated. It had felt like only hours to her, trapped in the moon. She hadn't told Celestia where she ended up, to spare her sister the heartache of knowing that when faced with banishment, she had in actuality not banished her to a place of solitude, but RETURNED her to a former prison. How could she have known? But Luna had never asked what happened in the several weeks they were separated, it was a source of anguish for Celestia. In that moment, they had been separated from their parents only moments before. And now she had lost her sister.
Family, the only thing the two of them had back then, was being taken from them. One by one.
And the nightmare wasn't letting up. Celestia's head was murmuring, looking anguished, contorting as her inner filly acted out. It was a nightmare on loop, she was endlessly running, looking for her sister, blasting apart rocks and always trying to run away from something she couldn't face. It was a sick nightmare, not of Luna's making, or maybe there were still lingering traces of the vile magic she had cast when she had been the terrifying Nightmare Moon, aptly named. The nightmare would run its course in half an hour, or more, at which point Celestia would fall asleep again. It was quite a tangled mess, dreams were. Like a yarn spun together and twined into a complicated fabric. Most dreams were thin, they only seemed full and rich to the pony dreaming. So many details were lacking and the visual details were hardly there, only the ponies own mind made it possible for them recognize that blob over there as their mother. However with the moon in its zenith, even vague dreams were amplified, this was no less the case with Luna's sister.
Luna sat next to her sister, and her horn glowed. She was casting an extremely complicated spell, one that even a powerful alicorn with centuries of experience could barely pull off. It would not end Celestia's nightmare, but she could help her wake from it. When at last Celestia did wake, she'd find the room different then she left it upon retiring to her bed. It was painted many bright and soothing colors, and sitting next to her was Luna, many centuries younger. She looked barely cutie mark aged, her mane and tail returned to their pre-supernaturally infused dark blue colour.
Woona spoke. "Be still, Celestia. The night is almost over."
Celestia's eyes opened slowly as the nightmare melted away. The coils, which only Luna really perceived, were still there, the cause had not been dissolved. "Moon Pie?" A name not used in ages, long since outgrown. She was in the daze many ponies found themselves in when aided kindly out of a dream. She rose a little, sweat dripping off her and folded her wings in, the feathers unkempt. The only thing looking good was her flowing mane, which seemed to move on its own.
"Thank you Luna." She said gracefully, and without shame. It was one of the times when Celestia really seemed to look the thousand years older than Luna as she really was. "An old nightmare, I had forgotten it... I don't think I've had a nightmare in a long time either."
At that very present moment, though it took a moment to realize, they were both fillies again. Or at least appeared to be, via illusions. The same age they'd once been when their parents would rock them to sleep. The time warping spell Luna had performed was not impossible, but extraordinarily difficult. "Celly." She said with obvious relief. "I heard your distress, I couldn't help but watch. We... we need to discuss that day," she said softly. Celestia knew which one.
It couldn't really change a pony's age. It had its limitations, many a unicorn had sought to unlock the keys of everlasting life with it. However for the moment Celestia, who was no stranger to tricks done to cheer up someone, took heart. Regaining a little of the exuberance and daring she had before, though still shaken from the nightmare.
"Luna, were you spying on me?" Celly stuck her tongue out and sighed, feeling the effects of the memories. "I don't think I wanted to remember. Didn't want to remind you. You're a grown filly now." Quite a joke, they had outlived whole time periods together. Having composed herself, Celestia brought out the quill and scroll which the two of them had been working on together. "Shall we get it over with? And relive that horrible night one more time?"
Luna nodded, and took hold of her sisters foreleg. "We shall. Together."
The Dark Days
Luna had been right at her side. How dumb could she have been?! Yes, they needed to get away or be swallowed by the rapidly growing forest, a forest growing wild at such a rate that most of it would suffocate under its own random excess. Teleporting as far ahead as possible had been the only sensible choice, but Luna and she had barely become proficient at teleporting and it was hard to master. She could be anywhere. And even that was when they weren't exhausted to the point of collapse. And she also had to find her parents, she hadn't seen whether they were free from the powerful spell Discord had cast where they had lived.
While prioritizing her search for her sister, who at this moment might be stuck in a place with little air, she ran wildly from place to place. It was then that she found her. Her silhouette present against the clearing of the trees. The identification spell confirmed conflicting things. It was her mother? But no, it wasn't. Not anymore.
"Celestia..." A raspy voice hissed. Something was wrong. A shiver passed down the back of the young unicorn. It was her mother, and something was wrong, was she sick, burnt? How many healing spells could she do? She rushed to meet her.
Her mothers forelegs wrapped around her. Drawing her close. The smell was the same, the voice... raspy, but it was her mother, even the aura was familiar.
"Mom, I'm so scared! I can't find Luna, I'm looking for her!" For once, again she was the little filly who ran crying to her mother because a spell had blown up in her face.
"Ssshhh, we'll find her together. I'll want her as well..." There was something wrong about the way that was said. A tone that was not soothing or loving at all.
"Want her for what? Mother?" Then Celestia felt a strange drain inside her, the comfort and love she'd felt for her mother felt drained out of her. There was only fear.
Then she realized that the arms of her mother were hard, lined with an exoskeletal crush, punctured with holes. Her mother's horn had become crooked and bent. Her mother seemed relieved, looking fuller again but with a contented smile on her lips. Then suddenly her facial expression changed.
"No! NO!" And she slapped away her daughter, screaming. "No, not like this, no!" Crawling rapidly away from Celestia, who was approaching extreme levels of confusion. "Get away from me!"
"Mother?" Celestia cried, desperately wanting to hold her again.
"I'm not your mother anymore, she's dead, do you hear me? I'm dangerous to you! I can feel it... taking over..." Aurora looked heartbroken, and her large eyes flashed green.
Celestia tried to run, but her legs wouldn't move. She felt drained and barely alive. Aurora turned around and looked at the charging unicorn with a face full of sorrow.
"Celestia? I love you... but you need to run again. Find your sister, the others will be coming for you... RUN!" Then insect like wings unfurled, and the dark ponylike creature who was Celestia's mother flew away, in between the trees, in a path that Celestia could not follow. Then the buzzing started again, as other creatures came closer. Hundreds of them. Charging at her with gaping jaws full of fangs.
Celestia screamed.
"Mother!"
But there was no answer. Completely alone, and separated from the only family she'd ever known...
This wasn't a dream. It was a nightmare. Vividly reliving a moment that she hadn't been present for, and a moment that Celestia never talked about. Luna didn't remember breaking into tears while helping to channel Celestia's memories, but when she regained herself, tears were falling from her face like a broken faucet. It was even worse for her, knowing that she had slept through the attack on Canterlot last year. Never gotten to say goodbye the first time. But was it really an attack, or an excuse for a reunion? A hostile takeover, intended to regain the throne that had originally belonged to Aurora? Or what was left of her, if anything. Wordlessly, Luna bolted down the hallway, away from her sister.
Several hours passed. The memory lingered in Luna's mind, as real as if she had experienced it yesterday. Though the memory no longer felt like her own. It had happened to some other pony, her sister, and she had seen it happen through her eyes of the mare who shouldered most of the work of ruling Canterlot. The sun was nearing its twilight position, and the irony of this was not lost on Luna. No officials had sent for her so it was likely that her sister was letting her have an evening to herself. Sleep wouldn't take her this day. The only one that came and went was Pip, her servant, bringing the food. This time it was another old time dish, little round potato dumplings covered with a rich sauce. One of the many peasant dishes that had become popular ages ago during the return of day and night after Discord's defeat. He retreated to a nook of the room, where he would stand silently for a while and read in case she had any sudden requests of the kitchen, and then he'd teleport away, able to be back instantly in case she wanted him.
Luna had cried off and on ever since retiring to her room. Pip was the only one allowed to see it. Her other guards had been sent home for the day, and she hadn't returned a single one of Celestia's summons, most of which were simple requests to join her for dinner. Her tears were a mixture of relief and fear. Celestia had years to come to terms with the knowledge of the fate of their mother, Luna had learned later on, after Discord had been defeated. When she'd been older. Pip was one of her two personal assistants, the other of which was still on vacation. She had not told either of them what had happened, it was not their business. She did, however, gesture to her personal couch.
"Lie down, Pip. You don't always have to stand." She said quietly.
He looked happily surprised, though he carried himself with dignified grace that seemed unusual on considering he was barely out of being a colt. Carefully he climbed onto the couch and lied down on his belly. "Thank you princess." Subtle body cues indicated that he was bursting with questions, and was fighting himself from exploding into a shrieking fan pony who was asked for a car ride with her idol. Though to most ponies he looked like a contented young unicorn colt on a sofa next to the princess.
Luna was not in the mood for questions, and though she treated her servants kindly, she was still royalty, and did not have to answer questions if she chose not to. Instead, she retired to her bed, the door to her private chambers closing. She knew she would have to leave eventually, but winter was coming and the days were getting shorter.
"Pip?" She asked, her voice flat. "Why do you pursue this line of work? Is it not demeaning?"
Though a part of him was bursting with questions, he kept that part in tight control. Subtle cues were always unavoidable. Ambitious plans, fatal attractions, small lies, unsaid strifes. On the whole his inner enthusiasm was fairly innocent. "Is the princess asking for this servants life story, or would she rather have a short answer?"
"I want to know why you want to work for me." She said.
"Because it makes me happy to serve another pony, and there are no other pony I would serve than you." He said, apparently deciding that she wanted the short answer. Which wasn't far off.
Luna seemed satisfied, but cautioned. "That is an admirable response, however, do not let your desire to please others inhibit your own happiness." She said. "I want you to do something for me, Pip. Something very important."
"Anything you ask," he said calmly, and though he was young and his inner being was a little hysterical, she knew he was telling the truth. Anything. If she had asked him to sneak in to Celestia's bedroom and throw a bucket of red paint across her, he'd do it.
"When you leave the castle and go home today, I want you to hug your parents and tell them you love them. If you can't, then call them. Will you do that for me?" She asked.
His smile faded. "I would love to, your highness, but I can't fulfill that request. I never knew my parents."
The alicorn's smile faded. He had never told her that before. "Then who in Equestria takes care of you when you leave here?" She sounded shocked.
"I... never leave this castle your highness." His head cowering a little from her shock. Looking ashamed and suddenly unsure of himself.
Luna looked stunned. "You're saying you've been lying to us, Pip?" She asked. "Whenever you go home for the evening, where are you going?" She sounded slightly angry, but more concerned than anything else.
"No, your highness, I'm in the employ of the castle, though I don't handle my own bits yet, and I've been bequeathed a small humble bedding. I get food with the other servants. And... this castle is not my first time as a servant, I merely went here after my mistress... passed on." He rapidly and carefully explained, looking nervous and anxious, his composure no longer under as strict control as it had been previously.
Overwhelmed by compassion, she summoned him into her Chambers, and gestured to her personal bed, which was adorned with jewels and imported silk sheets and gryffin feather mattresses. "You sleep here tonight." She insisted. "I will sleep on the floor in your place." She said. "I will hear no arguments."
He looked in two minds about it, climbing in and looking very much out of place in her gigantic and royal bed, giving her a nervous smile. Not sure whether he should be liking it, or feeling uncomfortable, so of course he felt both. And since she had ordered it, of course he gave no argument. The sun was coming down. Luna could see the outline of Celestia through the tall shaded windows. The princess of the day was standing on the highest platform, calling down the sun with her horn.
"You sleep here. I imagine my sister wants words with me. I have been ignoring her." She left him there, and made her way down the hallway to the tower where Celestia controlled the sun. She hoped she wasn't angry.
It was just a tall tower, mostly decked out in magical symbols and art. Mostly for show, and probably never something she had requested built for any particular reason. From time to time artisans and other ponies would join forces to honour Luna or Celestia with one thing or another. Some architect had probably thought Celestia needed to be up tall to use her powers. A kind mistake. A beautiful tower. A long walk up a spiraling stairway. Luna had the strength of several earth ponies, but that didn't make it any easier, the steps were steep and seemingly never ending. But the stairs weren't the worst part. The worst part was the ache in her heart she felt as she climbed them, for the stairway reminded her of a lost love, somepony she had known long ago. The architecture had been subtly deceiving, from inside it hadn't seemed very tall, but now she knew that it was clearly the tallest tower in the castle. Celestia was standing on the flat top of it. She smirked
"We had an elevator installed, why didn't you use that one?" A joke, and a weak one at that.
Luna gave a half smile, and quipped right back. "If I used the elevator all the time instead of the stairs, then I'd be fat like a certain somepony who doesn't know how to say no to cake." Anypony else who said that would earn a stint in the dungeon, she had certain rights only a sister could get away with. "Your sunset looks beautiful today."
"It's the sun that's beautiful, I just stoke its own magic to go down, no more." She said with the sagely smile that graced her a lot these days. Before the banishment war, she had been more conflicted, this older Celestia had only grown more graceful. And Celestia was right, Luna's humble task was only to encourage nature to take its course. The moon had existed long before she did, and it was possible that one day she wouldn't be around, yet the moon would still rise and fall with the help of some other pony.
"I'm sorry to have sprung such a bad memory on you last morning. And... I know what you might have been thinking, but there are no changelings now that will answer to the name Aurora. None."
Lunas smile faded instantly, and her posture stiffened. "I don't want to talk about that." She said firmly and quickly. "It's over, it's done, I refuse to speak of it. You did what you could, nopony could ask differently of you. But you gave me your story, it is time I give you mine."
Celestia's horn flashed, and in that brief moment, two couches appeared.
"I've always liked the view from up here," she commented casually. No doubt an effort to break the tension. The castle's network of spires and archways laid out beneath them. She climbed onto the sofa. "Yes, its your turn to tell a story, otherwise I fear you'll only hear my side of it. As princess it is our duty to hear all sides of every story."
Luna approached her. A rare grim look on her features. "I will enlighten you, but before I tell you a single word of my side, I want you to hear something." Without further warning, she touched her horn to Celestia's. Celestia would suddenly feel an emptiness unlike anything she'd ever felt before. It was pure and overwhelming loneliness. A feeling as if one had grown up with no friends, no family, not a single pony worth caring for. Immense sadness, complete isolation, not a single spark of laughter. On top of that... she was completely deaf. Every sound, every rustle, everything was cut out. It lasted only a few minutes, but it was terrifying. The experience seemed to last for hours. When the feeling lifted and sound returned, Luna spoke quietly.
"Imagine feeling like that every moment of every day, for a thousand years, when not even your own voice can break the silence."
Celestia looked shaken, composing herself, gasping. Looking sad for her sibling. "It… it was like that for you, wasn't it? I'm sorry for you to have gone through something like that, Luna." Reaching over she nuzzled her sister. "But you forget that I sang to you when the moon was in its zenith. I knew my sister hadn't disappeared into Nightmare Moon. And you forget that you slept a lot there. Though... now that I've felt it, it must have been hard for you to know when you were asleep and when you were awake. Do you remember what I sang to you?" Celestia asked. Gently, tenderly, her voice broke into a heartbroken chorus.
"...May these thousand winters,
swiftly pass I pray..."
Luna harmonized, and her voice matched her siblings, the two sharing a rare moment of song.
...I love you, I miss you.
All these miles away..."
The two alicorns bowed their heads, noses touching, and there was complete silence between the two of them as each grieved in their own way for the actions of the past.
"Share my burden, Celestia, and allow me to enlighten you," Luna said quietly. Luna sat next to her sister, and touched horns again. It had the same effect as telepathy, only stronger. She was able to share the memories that Celestia had missed. In that flash of a moment, they were young again, and running away from an unknown evil.
The Dark Days
Celestia looked at Luna, fear in her eyes. "Run, Lulu! Teleport as fast as you can, and don't look back!" There was another flash forward, a surge of light, and Celestia only saw the flat surface of the moon, the inside of a particularly large crater. There was nothing, nothing but dust and rocks. A single dark blue hoof burst out from beneath the surface, and a battle ravaged Luna tore herself out from inside the crater. Her horn glowed, barely functioning, but just enough to keep her alive.
"Celestia?" She called, tears in her eyes. "Celestia!" She screamed, she screamed until her voice was gone. But in space, nobody can hear you. Nobody can help you. Luna's voice seemed to disappear the moment it left her lips. She cried until her tears were gone. But nopony came to help her. The memory broke away to present day, where Luna was crying again.
Present Day
"It was horrible, Celly. I never wanted to back there. How could I have possibly known what my jealousy would become?"
Celestia was dumbstruck. Her eyes blinked. Then she simply sighed.
"I'm sorry that this happened to you. I should never have asked you to jump as far ahead as you possible could. Of course you would have ended up on the moon, you're intimately linked to it. That place is your natural home." She never said anything about regretting sending her there the second time. But it was clear she had regrets, in her own way. She had done what was necessary, and it had its consequences both on the moon as well as in Canterlot. "Did you use the moon's power to get you home?"
"Yes." She said. "I was fortunate that there was an eclipse approximately two months after landing there. With the suns power weakened and the moons power increased, I was able to harness my horn to send myself as close to you as I possibly could. I think that's when you found me." She explained. "I never want to go back there, Celestia." She said again. "It's a horrible place."
Celestia considered something, mulling it over. "We no longer have the power of the Elements of Harmony on our side as we once did.That broke when I banished you. And was lost when we passed them on to a new generation." Her eyes flashed and a blue crystal was summoned. "I am, however, able to store my powers over time. This... should do for a very long teleport for the two of us, there and back." She stood up from the couch and approached her sister. "The first time you got there you ended up in the worst possible way and you were separated from me… the second time, you were stuck even deeper inside the rock. Do... you want to visit the moon with me, just the two of us? I have never been there before. And we'll make it a good visit this time."
Luna's answer was immediate. "No." She said. "I refuse go back there." But after a moment, although her eyes were still teary, she relented. "Maybe." She said. "But you must allow me to return home whenever I want, even if only after a few seconds. I have nightmares about the moon, Celestia. I'm scared. I'm scared of being alone."
"Little Moon Pie," Celestia said affectionately, as if her little sister was scared of the dark. "...you know I'd be right at your side all the time and as soon as you go home I'll follow you. No pony is left behind alone there anymore. This time we'll try not to end up inside a crater." She floated the crystal which positively vibrated with an inner energy between, putting her hoof on it. "You know the moon, you steer the teleport spell, land us on the surface, I know you can do it."
"I know the moon like the back of my hoof." She said. "The moon did not always have craters, you know. I had to find something to do over those thousand years. Imagine trying to dig to Saddle Arabia through the middle of the planet with a spoon. That's what it was like." She sighed. "I will go, but I want you with me, every second of every moment." She insisted. "There is not much to see, anyway. It's all the same."
"My morbid little sister, I'll be with you every single step, I'll even let my wing rest on your back just so that you can feel me." Celestia kept her hoof against the crystal. "You need to do this Moon Pie, the moon is… is like my sun is to me, and I can't go there." A genuine sense of longing in Celestia's voice. "Come, I want to see you there, and in a good way this time. It may be the only way to finally banish these demons of yours."
"We cannot stay enormously long, the moon will need raising here, and I cannot raise the moon FROM the moon. I've tried." She apologized. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and placed her hoof on the crystal. Teleporting to the moon was different than teleporting in general. They reached incomprehensible speeds, speeds that Rainbow Dash herself couldn't dream of. The ride took mere minutes, with the two landing inside a cave deep inside the moon, a cave once dug by Luna herself. There was only one way out, a single tunnel. It was completely dark, and turned into a scene from a horror film upon illumination. The name 'CELESTIA' was carved into the walls of the cavern, hundreds of times, over and over and over again. Words that were not meant to ever be seen.
Celestia's lips moved, but no sound escaped.
"..." then she realized her mistake and giggled silently. There was no sound, no feel of air, they could expand their lungs, but feel no air coming in from their nostrils. Any flap of a wing would be meet by no resistance. Her horn glowed and magic allowed a voice to be where none should be "I take it this was the tunnel Nightmare Moon carved?" She shone a light into the gnarly tunnel that went upwards in a steep spiral. Celestia took a bit more firm action and put her head against Luna's rear pushing her out of the cave and onto the moons surface. It was a tranquil basin. White powdery dust in curved hills, and rocky mountains. "..." Celestia mouthed again and turned on the horn
"Its beautiful, Luna."
Glancing back at the tunnel, Luna felt she owed her sister an explanation of her madness. "Do you know what the worst part was?" She asked. "The worst part of a thousand years of being by yourself?"
Celestia rolled her eyes. Then she heaved Luna upwards sending her in away in a parabolic arch, jumping up to follow her. "What, little sister? I'm not going to trivialize the torment you went through. I'll probably never understand how horrible it was. Luna, you're on the moon, with me, are you going to spend the rest of your time still reflecting on what Nightmare Moon felt here, or what you feel?" She landed on her back, wings sprawled, though the height of their jump had been large, the landing velocity was low. A quick burst of dust from their fall fell almost instantly in the void.
Luna had never spoken of what she admitted next. Never hinted, never admitted, never let Celestia know the depth or consequence of her isolation. When she finally spoke, her voice was full of shame. "Between the corruption of Nightmare Moon and the instability of centuries of madness, I... I forgot your voice. I forgot your name." She hung her head, tears falling from her eyes. "The sun always shines for you, Celestia. You always know of its warmth and count on its return. You... you are my sun, Celestia. And my sun went out."
Celestia reached over and nuzzled her sister. "Even if you had forgotten how to walk and talk, I'd have taught you it all again. Now I just want to see my little Moon Pie again, who was always badgering me about all the wonderful things about the moons she had learned. Who wanted to ask me what I thought the moon really looked like. Now that I think about it... you never asked those questions after you came back. Do you still love the moon?"
For the first time in a long time, Luna started laughing. Her laugh was musical, like wind chimes, and was a sound rarely heard. "Yes, of course. I always somewhat resented living in Equestria, because it only has one. Did you know some worlds have five or six moons?"
"So much responsibility, or do they move on their own there" Celestia smiled, happy to see her little sister laughing genuinely on her own. "Do you know what I sometimes hope?" She asked, with a little of the wonderment she had when she was young. "I hope that when Twilight and Cadance are ready, we can move on… not to the place where our little ponies go, but, you'll be this moon and I'll be the sun. Do you ever dream... of being the moon?" She sighed. "Or perhaps I've gone sentimental over the millenia."
Luna just gave a soft smile. "I want to be cremated." She admitted, again something that she had never said before. "I can think of no better fitting final pledge of loyalty to my sister than to go out in a solar flare." She shook her head. "But that time is not near to us, we have much to do before then."
The alicorns couldn't fly. Not with the pegasi magic their wings would naturally channel. They could fly with the assistance of artificially feeling unicorn spells. But this was the moon, who needed wings where you could bound? Silently they swept across the rim of a crater. The quiet was deafening. Luna could hear the blood flowing through her veins and her own heart thumping. Tears threatened to spill down her face, she had so many nightmares of this place. Celestia was right at her side.
"You don't get to appreciate how noisy Equestria is until you come here," the elder sibling remarked.
Luna forced a smile. "Yes, it is rather unusually quiet until you get used to it. But I pray, dear sister, that you should never have to get used to it. It's not something you want." She sounded sad. "It's so dark here, Celly."
A lunar dust ball hit Luna square on the back of her head. The dust quickly settling, she turned her head and she saw Celestia whistling, no sound apparent, holding another dust ball between her forehooves. Silent movie comedy.
If it was meant to amuse her, it warranted not even a smile from her. Luna just shook her head. It was not that she was depressed, she was happy Celestia was here. But she did not like being on the moon, it held too many unpleasant memories. But for the sake of her sister, she had returned. "This is not the place for games, Celestia."
Celestia sighed "I didn't think we could heal all the wounds between us so quickly. I'm sorry being so close to the moon has become a bitter thing for you. However... I'll make you return here as often as possible. Yearly if you can't stand quarterly. Just as I'm going to retell the past with you. I don't expect you to heal overnight, or any time soon. Being Nightmare Moon hurt you deeply, but I'm going to make amends for my failures in this."
"Nightmare Moon is not your fault." Luna insisted. "She left deep scars and terrible things behind, but she was not your fault. I'm sure you exhausted every alternative option prior to banishment, it was the only way." She said quietly. "I love you, Celly. Always have."
"No, this is all my fault." Celestia hadn't said it then, she disliked admitting it. But they were both at fault. Where had Luna heard that before? It had been a much younger Celestia. This one, more mature, instead said "I know you do Luna, I think I've forced you to return here for long enough. Let us retire back home.. I think you could help answering the scrolls of questions I'm sure have piled up in my absence."
Luna smiled faintly. In comparison with their current situation, a bit of work was highly agreeable, as well as perhaps once again returning to the past.
"I think I can do that."
The two sisters touched horns once more, as if to simply nuzzle, but it was more than that. They sensed each others magic, each others aura. A bright light enveloped the two, and in a flash the moon was once more left in peace.
What began as a favored project between two friends ended prematurely.
I'm sorry to say this story will not be completed. My friend with whom I worked on this has chosen to stop roleplaying, and I will be following suit shortly. This means we will not continue working on this story, and I will have no further inspiration to continue it. And I'm certainly not good enough to finish it on my own. I will continue writing of course, but it just doesn't seem right to continue this story without him, as it was a dual effort.
I never wanted to have to cancel a story. Ever. I always managed to find the inspiration or the determination to fast forward the ending, or at least attempt to finish what I started. But I just don't see that happening here. Perhaps, if the planets align, someday I will find someone else who enjoys this story and wants to finish it with me. But until then, this story will remain a moment in time that will never exist again.
So for those of you who read this, thank you. I'm so sorry.
