Celestia inhaled as piercing light seared her delicate sockets, still dulled by the long, dark, veil of the previous night.
She cringed as three golden combs were thrust into her flowing crest of cascading hair, that drifted steadily in mid-air above her shoulders as if slowly sinking into vast water, and was a sight to behold when neat.
Celestia ground her teeth as her maids went through every knot with merciless brutality. She mentally cursed her librarians for loosing that wonderfully practical "untangling" spell, and herself for sending her only other copy to her faithful student a while ago.
She's have to write to Twilight, and courteously inquire her to send it back.
The follicles in her scalp screamed as every hair was individually yanked by the teeth of the combs' barbaric jaws.
Celestia restrained her features from twisting and her tongue from complaining with great effort.
But one maids' comb finally locked into a knot like a vice, which compelled Celestia to cry "ENOUGH!"
The maids jolted back, their eyes wide. It was seldom Celestia ever raised her voice.
The Princess twitched irritably, and the flickering tongues of fire slowly lapping at her temper, which for the past few tedious days she'd managed to keep starved, were beginning to expand and feast upon the kindling in her throbbing heart.
She sighed again as if to puff out the flame within her, and then fighting to keep her voice on a smooth, placid level, turns to the trembling maids and addresses them.
"I... Apologize." She spoke ruefully, "I was occupied for most of the night, signing documents and... making plans for the upcoming Summer Sun Celebration..."
She squeezed her eyelids shut briefly. "It's been... Very stressful..." She chuckled goodnaturedly, "Lots of papers and preparation... Not much time for repose."
She choked back a bitter laugh as she stared into space. She never got a break. Never got to rest. Never properly.
Sure, every evening after her chores for the Empire were completed, she'd eventually retire to her bedchambers, and would slip into slumber.
But never into luxurious, blissful state of dreams or darkness crafted by Princess Luna, allowing her to escape from her laborious tasks in the real world.
Even in sleep she'd still be conscious of her straining mind clutching the sun and moon, hoisting them steadily across the sky, like a firm shelf holding up two heavy clocks, refusing to collapse under the weight of them. Her link with the two was a stupendously energy-draining.
Celestia would draw some strength from the sun's yellow rays, but it still left one with an abominable headache, and wasn't overall a very pleasant experience. Nights were always long and uncomfortable.
Celestia was yanked from her whispering cave of thoughts as she felt the edge of her crown lightly touch her forehead. She felt cool and composed with it resting there.
She briskly thanked her maids as they snapped her golden neck-let around her neck, imbedded with the same, angler, lavender diamond in the center as her crown. A maid spat upon it and shined it with her hoof, making it gleam greater still, as another maid placed the solid, fleur de lys styled slippers upon Celestia's hooves.
The maids stepped back and formed a row, awaiting further instructions. Celestia dismissed them with a sweep of her broad, white wing plumage. As the great doors groaned behind them, the Princess sauntered over to the balcony (her eyes now far more adjusted to the brightness of the new day), and glanced down upon the rows of perky, Persian indigo tents, lavish marble manors and boutiques and the turrets with charming spiral designs, of buzzing, humming Canterlot.
The winding emerald paths delving throughout the place was dotted with aristocratic mares and stallions in tasteful attire, all scrupulously neat. All held their outrageously tall hats high.
Mares with ridiculous quantities of feathers and other articles upon their bonnets, balanced them upon their heads with most admirable skill.
Celestia respected Canterlot. The city was wondrous and beautiful, filled with amazing thinkers and artists, and no other place in Equestria was so renowned for it's knowledge, history and activity.
Sure, the stuffy, smug-nosed Dukes and Duchesses were tedious...
Celestia loathed their long and dreary dinner parties, at which the "noble" hosts would ramble on about the daily profits they earn and how much they fained upon doing their taxes, ect.
They would also butter her up shamefully, eyeing her tiara and chariot with their greedy, piggish little eyes, all squeezing her and pressing her like grapes being compressed into wine, trying to pinch and pocket her wealth. Often the gittish mares would try to nick the golden knobs holding her chariot wheels together, or the jewel set in her crown. (Celestia had got into the habit of casting charms over her belongings before such visits)
Celestia could never turn down invitations, so this sort of thing she had to put up with a regular basis. Not all the noble folk were self-satisfied pilferers and cows of course, but some did require a wary approach. Many were abominable gossipers, craving a scandal. She had to be very careful how she wagged her tongue indeed.
She had always had a soft spot for the tranquility of butterscotch-thatched-roofed Ponyville however, which could be spied from the highest tower of the palace. It was a shame her constant duty to Equestria called her to remain in Canterlot.
The Princess sent her gaze soaring upwards from the bustling activity bellow, scanning the ambling clouds, still slightly rosey-cheeked by the dawn, drifting across the untroubled blue heavens.
She squinted and crumpled her features as she observed the sun's magnificent halo of shimmering gold.
Celestia felt the usual warm sensation in her chest as she peered into it's blazing depths; the connection between her and the patron of her fruitful land.
Out of nowhere, a lurch of fatigue reached out and clenched the Princess' heart, wrenching it as if were a stiff door handle. Celestia reeled, and her voice cracked like a snapped twig, as unimaginable pain punched her lungs and smothered them.
Her eyes rolling as her vision swung violently, she began to sweat profusely. She gagged and choked, and her hindquarters jerked as a feverish, sweltering burning spread though her body. The Princess collapsed, suffocating from the ludicrous heat that now raced through her like a forest fire. She grew deadly silent, scorching agony snatching all sounds from her voice-box's reach.
As quickly as it began, the heat and anguish died down. Celestia gasped, frantically fumbling for oxygen. Relief sang in her soul, but only for a moment. She could feel something slipping out of her reach... Something from her fading away... As if her heart was cleanly and painlessly sliding through her breast in slow-time.
The Princess rose clumsily onto her hooves, which after the dreadful experience felt like getting up upon strange, uneven wooden stilts. She fixed her eyes to the marble floor, and was soon distracted from the puzzling pang of an unknown loss. Her violet eyes grew in dismay, as she witnessed her prolonged, almost spidery shadow beneath her, rapidly shrinking. The brightness of the chamber was gradually increasing.
Celestia snapped her head up and scrambled to the balcony. "No, no... Oh Faust, no, no!" She whimpered like a fearful filly cowering from faces in a curtain. What she now saw made her blood run cold. The sun. The sun was actually falling!
Her blood, literally was running cold, she suddenly realized. Colder, and colder, and colder... Suddenly, as if a razor-sharp icicle was struck into her spine, Celestia jolted her head back and mimed an empty scream, sprawling upon the floor once again. The link in the back of her mind with the moon facing the other end of the palace, was also beginning to writhe and tug away from her weakening hold, barbarously clawing at her mind with icy claws.
Celestia now experienced what felt like a frigid void opening up inside her, sucking all the remain warmth and life from her.
She forced herself to squeeze out a rosy glow to envelop her horn, in a desperate attempt to reel the sun and moon upwards back to the their original posts
But the magical radiance only lasted for a moment, for it was snuffed out like a candle from her horn, as a terrible numbness began slanting down it and across her features, and and down her body.
Limp as a rag-doll discarded in a blizzard, Celestia could barely flutter an eyelid. She stared at the vast ceiling with hollow eyes as a curtain of hopelessness of despair drew over her heart. The pain was melting away, but so was her pulse.
Condensation flared from Celestia's nostrils, as she felt her skin tightening from the frosty layer setting over it. Gradually shrinking, unfamiliar shadows cast by familiar objects in the chamber, danced above her, standing out from the bleached bright glare of the approaching sun. She could picture the collisional, burning star and full-moon plummeting toward Equestria's atmosphere upon either sides. Shining Armour's field would render useless, and she could do nothing at all.
The Princess found her eyelids increasing in weight, as if she in her own turn was being pulled by the moon and sun themselves. The roaring blood in her ears and the distressed cries of the occupants of Canterlot and the palace that rang so near, sounded distant and ghostly like ancient echoes replaying in her mind. Due to the numbness, she could not feel the light that now engulfed her.
Celestia sealed her eyes closed and heaved her lungs, and sank into a mental pool of swirling darkness. Not the darkness she was used to. A darkness, that blissfully drowned her consciousness, and lapped away her cares and worries with little waves. At long last, it seemed, she could finally slumber in peace. Forever.
-
"Canterlot at last! Huzzah!" Princess Luna guffawed hours prior, tugging her cataracting mane of swaying sapphire-blue locks dotted with stars from within the sturdy helm, heavily buffeted by raging foes, and tossing it upon the cobblestone path before the Canterlot drawbridge.
The clamor as the rest of her men threw down their shields, banners and helmets, lept high above the walls of the palace along with the joyous melody bellowing in Luna's soul.
Tossed over treacherous seas, flung into the distorted faces of unfamiliar foes, ambushing and begin ambushed by alarming animals never tamed, fighting famine and fatigue, and routing through the ranks of red-eyed, crimson-craving fear itself, Luna and her Soldiers had finally made it back to Canterlot, sweet Canterlot.
Luna arched her head toward the drawbridge. She sucked in a deep, long breath to ready her mighty vocals, and then, puffing out her powerful chest, boomed grandly to the guards looking down from the towers, "It is I, thy Princess of the Night, long-last returned from the darkest corners of Equestria! I hath spent the past twelve moons cleansing the land of the remaining, Changeling scum. I hath brought back tokens of war and many prisoners, as well as much glory for the Empire.
But my men art as worn as the Equestrian emblems upon their shields and banners, faded by rough sand, howling winds and the weapons of the shape-shifting outcasts. Drop the bridge, so they may be washed, fed and comforted by the familiar delights of home!"
Luna panted and tapped her hoof, waiting for a response.
The guards working the drawbridge stared down at her blankly. Luna rolled her tiffany-blue eyes. "In other words, for thy poorly nourished vocabularies... OPEN THE DRAWBRIDGE THOU BLOODY CLOTS, OR THY ARSES WILL BE FLOGGED THROUGHOUT THE STREETS OF CANTERLOT!" She hollered impatiently.
The guards made jittery apologies and hastily combined their efforts to hoist the drawbridge.
"Tis' a wonder anything is ever done around here." Luna muttered, as she marched her soldiers across.
She served a prompt salute with one wing to the delighted servants that now assembled to welcome her warmly back. Their eyes all shone hungrily, ravenous to hear of all her exploits from the past year. Luna however, politely brushed them aside.
The walls of the great palace hall swung open, and Luna stepped daintily inside.
She spread her majestic wings and raised each supple leg in turn, for a group of maids to remove her bulky layers of battle-scarred armor, and to freshen her sleek, lithe shape with the caresses of soft brushes and towels moistened by the cool, bubbling creek that ran throughout Canterlot.
As she was so being freshened up, and adorned with her smooth, ink black tiara, chestplate set with a swan white crescent-moon, and lavender fleur de lys shoes, Luna glanced up the winding, velvet stairway, expecting Princess Celestia, followed by a blast of splendid, golden trumpets, to ascend from them at any moment.
Luna frowned, and not to make a maid's task of applying her eyeshadow easier. There was no sign of her sister. Strange... Had the guards at the bridge not announced her arrival? The slacking imbeciles! They must've gotten seriously out of shape upon her departure. Celestia ought to learn to independently keep them better disciplined. Luna couldn't see to them constantly!
"Thou! Fair, but wholly insignificant maiden!" Luna barked, swiftly swiveling her raised chin in the direction of the maid preening her feathers, "Where art her Majesty, my noble kin? We hath much to discuss." The maid jolted. "I... I don't know O Princess of the Night." She stammered in a sweet, quiet voice, "L-Last time I heard... She was getting dressed."
"How long since the 'last time'?" Luna boomed impatiently, her mighty voice bouncing off the marble walls and soaring onwards throughout the palace.
"T- T... Tw- Twowoo.. Two... Hours ago." The maid replied timidly. Luna blinked like a wide-eyed owl that had been knocked off it's knobbly perch. "Two hours? Getting dressed?" She echoed. The maid nodded vigorously, her frilly headpiece bobbing like a frantic ostrich's plumage.
"Maybe she was a little disoriented, your Majesty?" suggested another maid, "The Sun rose... Later then usual."
"Later? It's the middle of summer!" Luna furrowed her brow. "You didn't... Notice, my lady?" The second Maid asked.
"Nay. We (I and my men) had secured ourselves in the Appaloosan Mountains for a night. We were delayed from our leave, due to a sirrah wandering off like a gurgling creek gleefully setting off course." Luna growled, chewing her mane distractedly.
A fourth maid twitched as she witnessed Luna's un-princess-like champing. The Princess of Night felt the gaze like a tap on the shoulder, and slackened her teeth with embarrassment. "A.. Bad habit We picked up upon Our travels..." She muttered apologetically, letting the hair fall.
"Well... Summon her Highness. Dressed or not, what we have to share is most important, and requires her ears at once." She sniffed, glancing at her extended hoof. "Your majesty, I'm sure she'll be down soon enough. Couldn't you just-" "NOW!" Thundered the Princess, blowing the the Maids' manes, headpieces and aprons back like the banners her men had carried over the barren, silver-shadowed reaches of Equestria, sucked upon by furious winds. Luna had had the command of thousands of nocturnal fleets and midnight men for the past year. She was well accustomed now to having orders received without question. She would have her way.
The maids all shrank and trembled like lambs, their articles of clothing drooping like wool shrunk in the roaring rain. They all nodded their heads frantically, and then scattered like frightened geese and trampled up the stairs.
Luna gave a grunt of satisfaction. She'd soon beat the palace back into shape.
She swung her long, sleek legs around the hall, click-clacking her shoes briskly across the softly singing marble. Luna glided past the rows of gilded and priceless ornaments her sister had collected over the centuries, humming the anthem of Equestria as she did so.
She paused when she caught her reflection in a clear, saphire blue, glass vase. Her features were discordantly scattered about by the sharp, angler surface of it, like a puzzle put most disturbingly incorrectly together.
A filly-like giggle rumbled from the Princess' throat. She remembered this vase... It had been a gift from the Mayor of Trottingham centuries ago. Her heart glowed as she recalled her and Celestia as wild, stumbling, sqeauling foals, with their queen-sized tiaras constantly slipping over their bright eyes.
A favourite pastime had been stretching their mouths like drawbridges and lolling out their tounges like rolling waterfalls most hideously, to disgust their reflections in the vase. They had laughed themselves almost sick, their high-pitched squeaks leaping off the walls and driving all in the palace bonkers.
Their Nanny had always exclaimed that she feared that with their racket, they'd eventually "Shatter the stained glass windows!"
The warm lapping of contented foalhood memories against the shores of Luna's mind, were suddenly harshly retracted, as her eye, for the first time, properly fell upon the scrambled reflection . Her heart sank like an anchor in Everfree Forest quicksand as she was reminded by the distorted face that stared back at her, she was no longer a round-faced, plump little filly with a ruffled cornflower blue mane draped over her unwashed cheeks, rosy from Mother's kisses and frequent laughter.
The temporary feeling of nostalgic, childish joy and excitement were immediately drained, as Luna witnessed a crooked, ivory white scar, slicing like a slender sinew across her left eye, a fresh reminder of her recent conquests. Her current face was still smooth and fresh, seemingly evened by a wave's gentle caress, though naturally lengthened by the centuries. Yet her eyes, were so devastatingly different now. So.. Old...
Such eyes couldn't possibly be set in such a face she thought... Luna found herself running her hooves over it in disbelief, expecting to locate a crease or flaw of some kind lurking somewhere, or for wrinkles to start worming through her skin. For the first time in centuries , Luna, princess of youthful night, felt ancient.
Her eyes were like two strips of cerulean vintage wallpaper, with two, beetle-black irises sitting against it like forgotten heirlooms. The highlights of her eyes were like cobwebs or bone-white clumps of dust, clinging like vices to the heirlooms. Bags were draped beneath her gaze like worn, fading curtains. The make-up applied by the Maids could not disguise them.
The Princess darted her eyes up and down herself in the vase, scanning every inch of her scattered, mirrored self, and she sighed heavily. The Tiara felt so strange sitting there again, and the eyeshadow so sticky and thick upon her eyelids, after her long year as a soldier. She'd grown so accustomed to wearing that bulky helmet, the mighty, sweeping plume tickling her back as she strode, smeared only with sweat, mud and grass stains rather then clingy makeup.
She had indulged herself in rollicking adventure, bloodshed and glory for the past year. Casting away her worries with ale and song throughout the night with her men, and taking all lingering, emotional hell out upon the Changling lines, with mighty wallops and yells, while the sun nodded it's approval. The sting of the scars left by Changling fangs and swords had been another reliving distraction from residing dark thoughts that caused personal fear of her very self.
Depression beat her like a black tidal wave, sweeping along with it stabbing realizations like litter upon a beach. Luna would be returning to her former duties.
Signing documents, making speeches, and supervising the sponge-like elements of thought that trudged in the heads of the Royal Guard as best she could. She'd be marched daily about Canterlot once more, in another stiff, overbearing, atrocious robe, forced to smile and wave majestically at all the wealth-sucking leeches dressed in their finery. To squeeze out meaningless, ambling phrases to give the subjects false hope for her sister's decisions.
And worst of all, between tedious meals with the court and Celestia, choking strained confections down her throat, she'd be spread out like a useless, discarded, raggedy doll with forelegs and hindquarters hanging limp over the sides of her bed, made up with the sequin-choked cushions that stuck uncomfortably in all the worst places, alone.
With her fancies. Her questions. Her fears. Herself.
Devious fantasies and sinister melodies would usher discordantly in her head. They'd flow out like the hellish parasites that poured from Pandora's box. Sneering they'd prick and peck at all her flaws and sow and tend to her fears like fruitful vines.
They'd encouraged her in the past to curse Celestia under her breath. Their persuasion had been terrifying...
Terrifyingly... Effective.
Luna choked as the old nightmares she'd buried here in this Palace began to creep up on her. Of the moon tinting red, while a dark figure infested in it, shrieked with clamorous laughter, rattling the stars. "No!" She'd grovel from beneath the smothering silk bedsheets, scattering sweat, "We art not the same! We art NOT THE SAME!" She'd always defied the shadows... Always defied them... Always would...
Luna was jolted from her ushering chamber of memories and echoes. Through the line of long, formal, arched windows, the morning light, to her confusion, was swiftly intensifying. Alarmingly saturated multicolored light flowed through the tall, stained glasses crowning the head of the hall. As these shone through their images of various Equestrian war heroes they were pressed down upon the marble like shifting prints.
Luna gingerly peered from the under the shade of a raised hoof, and alarm rang in her heart, as she remembered it was still only morning. How could the sun be setting now?! So quickly?! By Faust, what was Celestia playing at?!
The light grew greater. Warmer. Brighter. Luna snapped her head round. She could hear cries of fear, confusion, and awe outside, mingling with drumming hooves and the clanging of iron, rolling in time to her heaving heart from outside the palace. Something had gone wrong... Time to react, and fast.
She enveloped her horn, now chipped near the tip where a frightful blow of a Changling weapon had once split it (thankfully some of her men were skilled Unicorn Healers) with an azure glow. The Princess of Night, breathing deeply, coaxed it's magical force to swirl about the great doors which she'd previously entered, and to fling them open.
She galloped outside, and warm sunlight immediately settled upon her head and back, bouncing off the stars that illuminated her swirling mane and her tiara, so that they glinted harshly.
Many flashing coats of many different tones, sprinted from all directions all over the palace grounds. The grass was trampled, and whirling dust smothered the flowers, as all mares, stallions and foals, whinnying and wide-eyed, frantically fled from all sides of Canterlot and the Palace Gardens.
Guards, pouring with sweet under their great armor, were either trying to restore order amongst the distressed stampedes, or had joined them.
Luna lifted her head above the wild turmoil, and intense white brightness dazzled her eyes. She cloaked them with an extended, flowing lock of her floating mane, and her jaw slipped at the fearful sight she now observed.
The patron of thriving, lush-valleyed Equestria, the white, scorching Sun, was plunging down toward them, like a saucer dropped from a shining shelf. It's heat was reaching slowly toward Canterlot, steadily sucking away all it's moisture. Luna knew that when it got close enough, her entire world would be utterly exterminated.
Canterlot would be reduced to black, fluttering ashes. It's tender-fleshed inhabitants would melt away like caramel. The high, breath-taking mountains that clung the City, would be burnt clean away like chalk wiped off a slate... No.
Luna furrowed her brow in determination and ground her lip, causing a long trail of scarlet to ooze out. Celestia had mysteriously vanished. The Elements of Harmony were far out of reach. Cadance was located far in the other side of Equestria. It was up to her now. Her, Luna, to make the last stand.
Luna flicked her hair our of the way and shielded her gaze with a new hoof. She thrusted more puff into her chest then she ever had, and then thundered like a bellowing avalanche, "Unicorns! All the Unicorns!" She yelled, summoning bitter winds and casting up whirling amber leaves with her mighty vocals, "Heed Us! There is no time to loose. Thou art going to have to trust Us! Listen carefully, for time is running short..."
Author's Note: First chapter of second fanfic finally done. Phew! I hope it's alright. Do leave some comments, and advice is always welcome and appreciated.
