In the Canterlot Palace, the two alicorns sat, gazing through the window towards the radiance that shimmered endlessly, all the way from the Crystal Empire itself. Just past the snowy mountain edges, one could see the explosion for miles. Lines of spectrum rays danced along side the aurora created by Princess Celestia’s setting sun.
While the beams merged together, Luna’s usual, unamused appearance remained unchanged. No smile would show despite the outcome of the recent incident. Celestia slowly turned her body to face her trusted unicorn apprentice. With a simple clearing of the throat, she motioned Twilight to finish her verbal report of her endeavors.
“There was... one thing that stuck out to me in particular,” Twilight reported after the lengthy description. Most of which were things they had done and experienced within the empire. “There was something underneath King Sombra’s Palace... at the bottom of those long, descending stairs... I’d hardly want to dismiss it as a mere accessory to the castle itself.”
Princess Celestia raised an eyebrow while Luna turned her head to the right, letting her mane flourish by her shoulder. Something about this little addition to Twilight’s explanation peaked her interest. “A door?” the sun princess questioned. “Please, continue.”
Twilight nodded. “Yes, your highness.” She turned to Luna. “The door showed us our deepest, darkest fears. Mine was...” Twilight drew in a pained breath of air before returning once again to Celestia. “Of you. I had been sent back to Canterlot. You see, you claimed I had failed the test, and there was no need for me to be your student anymore...” Tears brimmed Twilight’s eyes. “I’d been expelled…”
Celestia frowned at the stunning statement, bowed her head and returned her gaze to the distressed mare. With her hoof raised, she grasped the teary pupil tightly, and sighed as well. Holding her closely to comfort the worked up mare, Celestia assured her she’d never do that to her regardless of how the mission would’ve played out. While her sister cared for the disciple, Luna speculated on this matter. For all her life, The princess of the night assumed her biggest phobia was being sent to her very own crescent moon again due to overly misbehaving. She stared at the two mares, judging this ‘door’ would be somewhat intriguing to investigate.
Her slight smile spread slowly across her face as she thought about how ready she’d be to see that vision. After all, she thought, how could such a thing affect my mental state as I already know what’s to come? I can see it now. I’ll quaintly walk in, observe myself being sent to the moon by my sister. Simple enough, by the end of this little experience, I should be right back in front of the door.
Celestia soon informed Twilight of her success and allowed the young student to meet her friends in the courtyard. The two princesses stood in the throne room afterwards, perplexed by the long, almost awkward, wait. Both were thinking about that door, what it might hold beyond, and what it could possibly reveal about the both of them. In the past as well the present, Luna believed that she understood her fears, but she’d yet to learn an important lesson: No such individual is allowed to choose their fears in life.
She’d seen beyond her selfish desires of attention and opened her heart to the light while still remaining lost in the darkness of her blackest evenings. In time, very soon in fact, she would come to learn more than she could’ve ever possibly hoped for. Nopony wishes to learn what scares them the most, but at the same time, it’s not that simple to ponder on it for long. She had thought about the simplicity of her fears, and the fact that she’d been traumatized by the one thousand years, being trapped on the lunar surface. Little did this alicorn know of something much more devastating than simple captivity.
Along with twenty prestigious Canterlot Guards, the royal sisters ventured to the Crystal Empire hoping to not only examine the door, but to possibly rid the land of their concern for the safety of others. Walking towards the shimmering throne, Luna stared at the seemingly endless abyss, counting every stair step. Celestia gulped her frustrated thoughts away, took lead while Luna followed, and voiced, “Stay sharp. Remember Luna—”
“Yes, yes, sister. I know to keep my wits about me, like always.”
Celestia looked back. “Listen, I’m not going to look in, as I’ve no such desire to see what that cursed door may show. You, however...” Celestia concentrated on her sister even more with her soft, pink eyes. “You are free to do as you choose.”
“We understand,” Luna said in a calm and dignified voice. “After all, we are the one acquainted with darkness. Thus, we are more prepared to deal with fear.”
“I knew that you would be of capable mind,” Celestia said, though her voice was distant, like dull bells ringing higher and higher up the shaft.
Luna trotted ahead of her sibling, descending to the bottom of the stony abyss. When she reached the base, her trotting hooves shuffled to a slow stop. She stared at the gnarled, rectangular entrance, observing its corners and mahogany hinges. It appeared to be just like any other door, but merely in a place that steeped well within the bowels of the tower. She knew not what it would ultimately lead to.
“We believe it is stationary enough for us to approach, sister,” Luna said, though she was given no response. Accompanied solely by the sound of her breaths, she approached the entrance to the other realm; the gate to her subconscious. With grim determination, her magic grasped the handle, and she opened the door.
The light she found on the other side was blinding. With a burst of color, she was no longer in the dark cylindrical chasm ringed with stairs. Instead, she was in a large room fairly reminiscent of the new Canterlot Palace. The only rather noticeable difference, though, was that this one laid in utter ruins. The windows were shattered, the walls collapsed in the distance, and a huge hole torn straight through the side of the east frame. It almost reminded her of the wreckage left in the Everfree castle.
“Hello? Are thou anypony here?” No sound escaped but the faint whistles of winds scratching against the glass and deteriorating blocks of stone above her worried head. That, and her own, lonely echoes. The princess speculated on why she wasn’t on the moon, but soon, her mind would be wrapped around other matters.
“L-Luna... Is that... y-you...?”
“Sister?” Luna looked around confusedly. “Where are you?!”
Celestia’s wounded voice sounded again. “Luna…” This time, she caught its direction coming from the throne room where curtains and other once shimmering fabrics hung high on the now destroyed ceiling. Luna spun around. “Sister? Art thou injured? What’s happened here?!” She galloped that way, trampling over the fresh debris that at first laid still, but was not scrapped around and to the side thanks to Luna’s powerful haste.
Right there, where the two thrones used to reside, bits of Celestia’s white coat could be seen through the holes formed by rubble undoubtedly crushing her body. Luna stood there for a moment, transfixed by what she was looking at, and though she knew it wasn’t real, it still brought about an all too unfamiliar fear within her.
As the cloth was thrown off of Celestia’s body, and the remains of this once beautiful paradise was discarded, Princess Luna stopped and stared some more. Some trickles of blood seeped through her sister’s chest and fur. Her mane was tangled with blotches of dirt between locks. Even the eyes had been blackened with battle fatigue, too. She just gazed at the nightly mare with the most spiteful of glares, and muttered, “Y-You... were never... to be trusted!” As she rose slowly and painfully, Luna began backing away, almost tripping over some mounds of dirt behind her. “I should’ve known... y-you’d turn and try to... to d-do this to me again.”
The closer she approached with a limp, the more Luna forgot it was all a fantasy in her mind. She finally forgot completely about being sent to the moon, and overcoming her self assigned challenge. “Sister, we do not understand what thou are preaching. Last time we were together, we were at the… the, err...”
All Celestia did was grow more and more cruel towards the innocent sibling in front of her. Celestia’s eyes filled with rage, and as she collapsed, Luna’s body acted on instinct alone. She wrapped her hooves around her fatally wounded kin, pleading with a scratchy voice and tears cascading down her face, “Please, sister, tell me what became of us! What happened to me? We must know!”
The only thing that was uttered from her last, dying breath, the same that came with fate’s gripping claws was a scorning, “You will n-never be... f-forgiven. You took the trust I-I gave to you and shattered it under y-your hoof.”
Those white, hazy eyes closed, and Celestia’s mangled body went limp in Luna’s shivering hooves. Tears dripped upon her fur like snow on a winter’s ground. All Luna could think of doing was gulp, and buried her head into her sister’s chest, crying louder than ever before. She cared not who could hear, for if what had transpired was accurately so, then there’s nopony left to watch.
Pain coursed through her being worse than ever before. She couldn’t have been any less prepared for this outcome. While the ruins in the background crumbled and fell to the raped and tainted lands, Luna could be seen quite easily, holding her deceased kin tightly, almost smothering herself her ruffled mane. Tears sorely escaped with every tiny shivers she gave off. Her wings widened slowly after Celestia’s death, coiled themselves around her body, and comforted the mare while the owner walloped. Just as she was about to scream in unrelenting agony, she came drifting back to reality, and awoke from the nightmare the door had justly forced upon her.
Back in the dark depths of the chasm, Celestia stood looking down at the sobbing mare with a worried look. “Luna! Are you alright?” she asked with a worried, though sisterly voice. “I thought you were prepared for this. What… happened in there? What ever did you see?”
Luna leaped onto her sister, forcing her to collapse onto the cold, rough flagstone. Celestia did her best to stay standing, but just couldn’t take on Luna’s weight. So while giving up the fight to stay on her own hooves, she pondered what could’ve possibly came over her. Once again, this time in reality, Luna’s salty tears seeped through her eyelids reluctantly. The princess hesitated to explain what had transpired just now. Instead, she kept on crying, Celestia nodding the whole way through, and stroking Luna’s mane while she weeped. She also began to gaze at the menacing door, and understood full heartedly that it was a thing of sheer evil, and proceeded to destroy it.
Luna could only stayed there on the floor, watching Celestia do her work. All she needed to do was to send a radiant beam of magic into the opening, and simple enough, sealed away the frightful form of darkness for good.
“Sister... What did you see?”
Luna merely sobbed on the floor, unable to control the flood of tears cascading from her azure eyes. Celestia looked down in pure empathy for her younger sister. She could only imagine the mental horrors that had befallen her beyond the portal.
“Was I there?” Luna nodded, her tears having almost stopped, but her cheeks remained shimmering with water. “I...” Celestia stopped for a moment, her single word echoing endlessly in the chasm’s space. “Did I... banish you again?” The distraught mare still sat on the flagstone, soft whimpers escaping her lips. “By the sounds of what you were saying not minutes ago, that’s what I can infer. Is that it?” Celestia leaned down, and brought her hoof to Luna’s damp cheek. The nighttime sister cringed at the touch, and closed her eyes, causing more of the moisture to slightly splash into the air.
“No...” She whispered painfully. “We had betrayed you.”
The alicorn of day was taken back by this. “You had... what?! How?”
“It didn’t show...” Luna’s voice trailed off morbidly. Finding her voice again, she continued, “The palace was in ruins! The stained glass holding the History of Harmony... it was all shattered... and thou lay battered and betrayed, cursing me with your final breath!”
Celestia didn’t know how to respond to this. She simply stared down at her sister, letting her thoughts wander. What could have Luna possibly done to betray her, even in the figment of her own imagination? Plenty, of course. Celestia knew of many possible outcomes Luna would fulfill, but none had occurred. Nor would they ever. She was sure her sister would never again stoop to such levels of corruption. With that in mind, Celestia still had trouble piecing the puzzle together.
She leaned forward, and held her sister tightly. Their two mane patterns intertwined in time, and their fur brushed softly against one another's. The soft noon-white coat combined leisurely with the midnight blue, and Luna promised, “We would never do such a thing, sister.” The midnight matriarch breathed softly at the solar princess’s torso.
“We—... I know, Luna.” The two broke their embrace, and stared silently at one another for a few more, long moments before Celestia turned her head to look upward. “What do you think we should do with the crystal palace?”
Luna sniffled a bit, and looked around. “It is quite a glorious estate. However, we
personally think it would be best to let the crystal ponies harbor an election or some other form of decision to choose who would own it.”
Celestia smiled. “I think that’s a wonderful idea, Luna. Cadence should be in the run.”
Luna couldn’t fight the smile forming on her muzzle. The feeling it bestowed upon her was one of utmost warmth. Celestia’s sister rarely grinned at her anymore, and had seemed cross with her for the past two weeks. This smile, however, struck a spark of hope. The two alicorns didn’t need to speak much more of the recent events. Instead, they extended their wings, and shot up the shaft. Aligning with the floor of the Crystal Palace, where two ponies were seeking to gain entrance, Lune looked down, replaying the memories in her mind that remained fresh and repetitive.
“I told you, they won’t even blink, but you can’t go past them!” the one on the left said in reference to the royal guards stationed at the throne room's entrance.
The one on the right muttered to herself, “It’s kinda creepy... anyway, we want to get in! We’re holding democratic elections in about an hour’s time, and we need to make sure it’s ready for our new ruler! Also, we might have to change our title to the ‘Crystal Republic’...”
“Don’t get ahead of yourselves yet, my little ponies,” Celestia said to the crystal mares. “We’ve yet to discuss if the empire will be annexed by Equestria. To help you get familiar with the norms of today’s society, or in other words, to get you accustomed to Equestria proper.”
Luna turned to the royal guards. “Art thou prepared to return to Equestria?”
The two present guards nodded their heads in unison, and trotted swiftly to the carriage where the other eighteen awaited. The alicorn rulers of Equestria followed soon behind, and embarked upon their journey back home.
As the cold airs of the north whipped through the manes of the sisters, Luna glanced up at the sky. She noticed Celestia concentrating on letting the sun fall down into the surface of far off lands, the rays of bright light danced vigorously in waves while enhancing the clouds to form pink, fluffy figurines. Light blue formed into silhouette night while the last beaming lines of illumination vanished, and was slowly but surely replaced by a dense, lazy fog.
Luna stared in wonder at it. Long over a thousand long years ago, she had been in the north as a filly. She had once, many years ago, seen this sight. It had entertained her mind as she existed in ethereal form on the moon.
“Aurora Borealis...” Luna’s eyes were filled with the glowing beauty as the royal carriage was pulled across the sky. The natural wonder made the night all the more beautiful, even though it still felt dark.
“Forgetting something?” Celestia asked with a chuckle. Luna stared confused for a moment, then cursed her own forgetfulness. With a grunt of concentration, she pulled the ancient ley lines of her horn to summon upon the astral powers contained in her. The moon began to slowly rise in the east, with the sun not fully set yet. The combined lights of the sun, the moon, and the Aurora created a soft glow of intermixing and wondrous colors.
Celestia turned to her sister and said something which was rarely heard by the lunar controller. “I love you, Luna.”
The sister offered a shining grin back. “We love thou as well.”
And all was golden in the sky, all was golden when the day met the night...
Author's Note
