Sharing the Night

by Cast-Iron Caryatid

Rating: teen
Tags: Princess Celestia, Twilight Sparkle, Princess Luna, Drama, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Romance
Length: 218373

Twilight becomes alicorn of the stars. This is sort of a problem, because Luna kind of already was alicorn of the stars. Oops!

Twilight becomes alicorn of the stars. This is sort of a problem, because Luna kind of already was alicorn of the stars. Oops!

TV Tropes

Published 2012-03-21 00:54:01 UTC
Last updated 2019-08-01 21:10:44 UTC

Chapter 2

Sharing the Night: Chapter 2

✶ ✶ ✶

The feeling of the wind rushing over Twilight Sparkle’s wings was glorious. If she closed her eyes, she could imagine that she was the only pony in the world. She had learned not to close her eyes though, because if she got too distracted her wings would start lifting her up out of the chariot in which she rode. It would be difficult to explain to her escort—or Princess Celestia for that matter—how a mere unicorn had drifted off into the sky and got caught in a bank of clouds. Still, the view over the golden-armored shoulders of the pegasi guards had its own appeal, so she was no less happy to keep her eyes open.

By all rights, Twilight could have been—and should have been—still panicking. She was after all, flying straight to the only two ponies in the world who could uncover her crime—specifically for the purpose of helping them solve said crime—and she really had no idea whatsoever what she was going to do about it. The only thing that kept Twilight from panicking at the moment was the fact that she was fairly sure that ponies only had a certain amount of panic in them, and she would simply implode if she carelessly spent it all before she even arrived. That—and the early stages of sleep withdrawal.

After Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash had left the night before, Twilight had gone up to her stargazing balcony and tried to put the stars back with no success. It felt to her as if she could have sooner joined the Wonderbolts with her new wings; at least those she could move, if clumsily. She was so lost for ideas that she had even gone back down to the bathroom and checked just to make sure the stars weren’t floating in the tub where she’d thought she’d seen them when she awoke from her dream. Sadly, the tub had only held murky water and bits of lavender detritus which she’d then pulled the drain on.

The only place Twilight had been successful was in finding a better way to hide her new wings; after her experience with Fluttershy the night before, she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to wear a sweater again, be it made for pegasi or not. What she found was the perfect illusion spell that could make her appear as if she were another type of pony. She’d had to cobble together her own version of it since unicorns had no need to disguise themselves as unicorns, but that at least was the kind of work she was used to and enjoyed. It wasn’t for nothing that magic was her special talent—though even so it had still taken her all night to perfect the spell.

Of course, it had occurred to Twilight to look for a spell to remove the wings completely; invisible wings were still a liability after all, especially when they seemed to bristle at the slightest provocation. Such a spell would have required a lot more effort of course, but Twilight suspected she’d have been able to use any unicorn magic she came across with relative ease now. In the end, she hadn’t even looked. She’d found the idea inexplicably distasteful from the start, and now she understood why; though she’d had her wings for less than twelve hours, she wouldn’t trade this feeling for the world.

To Twilight’s disappointment, the chariot had to reach Canterlot eventually and when it did, there was a stone-faced guard waiting for her. The face was a face she was familiar with, but it was not unique; all of the guards possessed it. It was a face they gave Celestia when a filly Twilight was hiding behind them and covered in priceless pottery-dust that used to be priceless in quite a different manner. It was a face that said they had bad news. It was a face that said something was wrong.

It was a face she’d hoped never to see from this side.

☾ ☾ ☾

Luna squinted blearily at the sunlight shining on her face through a crack in her heavy black curtains on the west side of her room, resisting the urge to push the loathsome ball of fire down below the horizon several hours early. In truth, she would have had a hard time of it even if she had tried, and she had no desire to spend another thousand years on the moon anyway. How Celestia had managed to raise Luna’s moon for a thousand years, she had no idea. She settled for yanking the curtains shut with her magic.

Luna had not slept well that day. She had tried to bring out the stars all night, but there was nothing she could do; they just... were not there. Staring up at that great blackness had been horribly unnerving; she had tried pulling her moon closer to fill it up, but it hadn’t helped much and she just couldn’t shake feelings of guilt, loss and loneliness over it. Celestia had clopped Luna on the head, told her it was not her fault and reassured her that they would find her stars, but the feelings remained. It wasn’t that she thought she should have been able to stop... whatever had happened; it was just that it was her night sky. It was a part of her, she was responsible for it, and it was wrong. She should have been able to reach up and fix it but she couldn’t. Even after Celestia raised the sun—hiding Luna’s shame for the day—the sense of wrongness pervaded.

Unfortunately for a certain lavender mare, this desire to see things set right did not extend to getting up on time when she was miserable.

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight glowered at the prominent silver moon inlaid on the large double doors of dark lapis lazuli in front of her. She wasn’t angry. She didn’t know what she was feeling, but she was pretty sure it wasn’t anger—despite the invisible wings bristling behind her. “I will be happy to receive her and any guests tomorrow,” Princess Celestia’s letter had said, but when Twilight’s chariot had finally touched down in front of the palace, the elder Princess had not been there. That was five hours ago, and Twilight still had not seen hide nor hair of her mentor.

The guards had been singularly unhelpful. They told her that Princess Celestia had cancelled court until further notice—and everything else, for that matter—and disappeared. She was believed to still be in the palace, but all business was being forwarded to Princess Luna... who was asleep. Princess Luna had been asleep when Twilight had arrived, and she was still asleep now as Twilight haunted the space in front of her private chambers. As Princess Celestia’s personal protege Twilight enjoyed a free run of most of the palace, but this did not include the ability to barge into a Princess’ bedroom and shake her awake—she knew this from experience.

Very specific experience.

Very loud experience.

Finished with her periodic glowering, Twilight lowered her gaze back to the book she was reading. She had grabbed every reference book on alicorns and celestial magic she could find in the palace library and piled them up here—directly between the two Princess’ chambers—and gone to work. Now, Luna was half an hour late getting up, and Twilight was almost done with all of the books she’d found.

Twilight was not angry. She had no reason to be angry. In fact, she was quite sure that this was exactly what she wanted—to be ignored by her beloved mentor and completely at the mercy of a nocturnal princess’ schedule. If she never managed to actually see the princesses she was here to avoid helping, she would be much less likely to end up banished to Procyon (she had changed her mind about the star she wanted to be banished to.)

If Twilight had been angry—which she was not—it would most certainly have been because of the books she had arrayed in front of her which were quite simply, rubbish. Absolutely useless. She had gotten nowhere with them... though technically, this was also exactly according to plan as she had not actually intended to uncover anything with her research. Still, even if she wasn’t going to uncover any great truths that pointed to her sudden alicornification, the books could at least deign to be interesting. They were not.

Well, that wasn’t true. They had been interesting at first. Twilight had been in complete rapture at the absolutely beautiful, perfect celestial system laid out in the first book she’d read. The second book had been similarly fascinating, and the third and the fourth and so on. Sadly, they were all completely different.

This was not entirely unexpected, and Twilight had continued to find interest in each new theory, hoping to reconcile the basis for their conclusions with her own experiences and see if she could form a better hypothesis on her own. Regrettably, none of the authors of the books she was reading had any basis for what they’d written. They had all just taken the conclusions they liked and started hanging ideas off of them in hope of reaching a solid foundation below; a feat none of them had achieved.

Twilight took another moment aside to glare at the blue and silver door in front of her, she couldn’t possibly imagine that the authors of these books had any trouble at all getting information out of Equestria’s sole alicorn sisters.

But no, lack of any sort of actual information was not what would have made Twilight angry (if she had been angry, which she was not.) Any theoretical incensation would have in fact been caused by the ways the books were not different or baseless. The conclusions these books each came to always seemed to have implications beyond the subject in question, like old pony tales each with their own little heartwarming moral—if you find ideological manipulation heartwarming. It was clear to Twilight that each and every book here wanted something.

These books—this entire pile of books—was a collection of political and theological detritus littering the history of Equestria. Their authors were each just using the subject as a medium to push some unrelated ideological agenda. The idea of it made her want to just—a hoof slammed down onto the book Twilight had open in front of her, crinkling up the page. For a moment, Twilight simply reveled in the book getting what it deserved—then she looked up and realized the hoof was attached to a princess who had yet not had her coffee.

Twilight Sparkle was not angry

She was scared.

✶ ✶ ✶

“Gone,” Luna stated flatly, staring into her coffee cup. The lavender mare across from her nodded in nervous silence. “But there is no sense in that! Why wouldst our sister simply vanish in such a way—and now of all times?” Luna scowled. To Twilight’s delight, the princess seemed to have cured herself of the traditional Royal Canterlot Voice. Unfortunately, the same could not be said for the traditional Royal Canterlot Morning Breath, and her diction was as early-modern-Equestrian as ever; a potent combination to be sure.

“Well,” started a sheepish Twilight. “They didn’t see her leave; she could be here and... err... hiding?”

Luna simply sighed in silence at that while Twilight busied herself fidgeting with her own cup of coffee, which she had politely accepted but didn’t dare drink despite her lack of sleep the night before. If exhausting one’s natural reserves of panic caused ponies to implode, she was relatively certain that caffeine would be no less than catastrophic.

“So,” Luna started, suddenly sounding a little sheepish. “Twilight Sparkle.” Twilight nodded at this, and Luna continued “We have heard of thy exploits. Our stars; we understand thou–”

Twilight imploded. That was it. She was completely out of panic; she had no more to spend. Imploding—she noted—was dark and wet and warm and could use some dusting

“–thou likest them?” Luna finished, lifting her gaze from her coffee cup to find nopony across from her.

Luna peeked quizzically under the small coffee table at Twilight, who had an upended coffee cup trembling where it hung on her horn as she shook in blank terror. "Twilight Sparkle... art thou afraid of us? Did we not solve this last Nightmare Night? Neigh, thou were never afraid of us to begin with, so why dost thou tremble so?”

Twilight opened one eye and looked up at Luna; she looked sad... and disappointed. Suddenly feeling bad, she jumped to her feet, “No!—Princess, I—” Thunk; a sharp pain split Twilight’s skull and she fell back to her knees, cradling her head. She had forgotten she was hiding under the table. She felt a drop of warmth drip off her nose and thought she was bleeding, but it turned out to be the last of the coffee from the cup dangling on her horn, which she then sheepishly removed.

Luna silently slid the table to the side with magic and placed a soothing hoof on Twilight’s throbbing head. “We didst not think we should have to go through this with thee of all ponies...” she sighed. “Celestia says thou art the only pony she can get to stop bowing at her constantly. We had hoped...” suddenly, a shadow of insight crossed her face and she wilted, looking a little embarrassed. "Ah, of course. Thou fearest the whirlwhind thy actions hath sown; not that of deeds long past, but follies more recent.”

Twilight’s eyes snapped open as she found one last ounce of panic to burn, but the mischievous smile on Luna’s face silenced her.

The moon princess knelt down across from Twilight, the action making her look a little less intimidating. “We are forever in thy debt for standing with us against the Nightmare; nothing could sour our image of thee, not even this. Thou–” Luna paused, consciously changing her diction in an effort to be believed, “You have nothing to be afraid of, least of all from me.”

Twilight was utterly speechless; panic and fear blown away by astonishment at the moon princess’ sudden knowledge and understanding of her crime (and the Equestrian language, but that was beside the point). “You mean... you knew...? You... you really forgive me?”

The smile that spread across Luna’s face was shy and embarrassed with a bit of guilt; it was utterly unlike anything she had ever seen on Celestia’s peaceful face. “In truth, I am shamefully gladdened by thy shortcomings in this matter. It heartens me to think that we are not so different, you and I.”

Twilight’s jaw dropped. The princess knew Twilight was an alicorn like her? She wanted this? “I... wow. Princess. I had no idea you felt that way. So you mean... from now on...?” Twilight Sparkle. Her. In charge of the stars. Forever? Twilight swallowed anxiously, not sure if she could really do it... but the look on Luna’s face made her want to try.

Luna nodded bashfully, “I know Tia already thinks of you as more than a student; I would be glad if I could at least call you a friend.”

“I... Yeah,” Twilight said, beginning to feel the beginning of a smile. For the first time since the stars had disappeared, she felt hopeful about the future. Maybe, she thought with guilty audacity, in a hundred years or so Luna would even call her ‘sister’. “I think... I think I would like that.”

Suddenly, the door clacked open, and in strode a certain large white alicorn with her own cup of coffee. “Princess Celestia!” Twilight exclaimed ecstatically, rushing forward to nuzzle her heretofore absentee mentor. Then, the floodgates opened; “I’m so glad to see you! Where were you? I am so, so sorry for stealing the stars! I didn’t mean to do it and then I couldn’t fix it and I spent all night worrying and panicking but Luna already knew and she said it was okay and that she was happy about it and she asked me if I’d do it from now on and I said yes and she wants to be my friend and I said yes to that too so please oh please don’t banish me to the stars oh but if you do banish me to the stars please please please pick Alioth I think that would be nice but not as nice as not being banished of course.”

There was a crash as Luna’s coffee cup slipped from her lips and shattered on the ground. “We—wait—what? When didst—”

Princess Celestia—for her part—radiated eternal calm. “Twilight, that all sounds very interesting—and I do care—but you’re dripping coffee on my... everywhere.”

✶ ✶ ✶

Three ponies—each covered in differing quantities of coffee—entered Celestia’s private bath. More accurately, Celestia entered her private bath while levitating the two smaller ponies with her magic and ignoring Twilight’s initial protests that a criminal like her shouldn’t be allowed there. The bath was large enough for three ponies of Celestia’s size, and certainly—the reigning princess had said—would do for the three of them.

As the most coffee-drenched pony in attendance, Twilight was plopped down into the bath first followed shortly after by Luna, who was still running over her conversation with Twilight again and again trying to understand where it had all gone so wrong. Twilight wanted to join her, but she didn’t have that luxury; she was busy going over all the possibilities of what would happen now since it was apparent Luna had not forgiven her—or had any idea what Twilight had been talking about at the time. “Apodis, Sirius, Canopus, Shedir, Acrux...” she listed under her breath; her idea of all the possibilities was rather narrow, consisting entirely of various stars to choose from.

“Now,” Princess Celestia said, settling into the bath herself and massaging her temples with her forehooves. “Twilight, my faithful student; calm down. I am not going to banish you to the... stars.”

“...you’re not?” Twilight asked, wary of misunderstanding the consolations of another princess today. “The moon, then?” she suggested, a little disappointed after she’d gotten so invested in choosing a star.

“Twilight...” Celestia smiled reassuringly. “You know that I value your diligence; in all the years you’ve been my student, I’ve never once doubted you... but believe me when I tell you that no matter what you read in those books you left outside my chambers that this problem with the stars is not your fault.”

“...books?” Twilight only blinked at Princess Celestia for a second. “Oh, those,” Twilight groused sourly. “That’s not what I–”

Celestia put a hoof up to silence her. “Not—your—fault,” she insisted. “Twilight Sparkle, you are quite possibly the most powerful unicorn I’ve ever met–”

“I’m not—I’m–” Twilight started, before being shushed again.

“–but no unicorn, no unicorn can have done this, least of all by accident. It’s not about raw power, there are simply things that only Luna or I can do. For this to be your fault, you’d have to be–”

Two lavender wings splashed up out of the water, suddenly visible. "–an alicorn?” Twilight suggested.

For the first time in at least a century, Celestia’s pleasant mien failed and her mouth dropped in astonishment, staying there for a very long time.

“So... Vega?” Twilight suggested.

✶ ✶ ✶

“I am still not banishing you anywhere,” Celestia sighed—sighed! It was as if once her mien of distanced calm had cracked once, she didn’t care any more. “Not for taking a bath, here or in Ponyville,” she clarified. “In fact, you’ve done nothing wrong.”

“...done nothing wrong?!” Twilight and Luna both shrieked in unison.

“I—but I—” Twilight stammered.

“You decorated the night sky as you saw fit. You did your job,” Celestia stated simply.

“Her job?” Luna balked. "But Tia, that is my job! It is my sky!”

Celestia shrugged, giving her little sister a wan, helpless smile. “Not any more, it seems.”

Luna just... stared at Celestia in horror. She worked her mouth like she wanted to say something, but nothing came. Finally, she turned and stomped out of the room; Twilight thought she heard the princess of the moon—the princess of only the moon—give out a sob from somewhere down the hall.

Twilight started to go after Luna—to try to make this right—but she didn’t know how. “How could this happen?” she pleaded as she turned to Celestia, needing to know. It was Twilight’s fault Luna was crying... It was Twilight’s fault a princess was crying... Somehow when Twilight had been imagining the consequences of her so-called ‘crime,’ she hadn’t thought they’d bring out the big guns. Disappointment, sure; banishment, of course; tears? Oh Luna, not the tears!

Celestia looked askance from Twilight, as if she didn’t want to answer... then finally lowered her head and admitted the truth. “I don’t know, Twilight.”

Suddenly, all the books Twilight had left outside the princess’ chambers made much more sense. “You... you don’t know how any of it works, do you?”

Celestia shook her head. “Luna and I were both born into Discord’s reign. We never knew the last generation; we earned our cutie marks when we discovered we could raise the sun and the moon. Discord didn’t even care until... much later. You know the rest.”

“That’s... it?” Twilight looked distraught. “Wait, if you never knew any other alicorns, that means...”

“Yes; we were born as two ordinary ponies—to ordinary ponies—and became alicorns when we first learned of our connections to the sun and the moon. What happened to you is... normal, I believe; but I do not know why it happened.”

“But I’ve had my cutie mark for years!” Twilight countered, looking for some flaw that would make giving Luna’s stars back the right thing to do—as if that would also somehow make it possible.

Celestia simply cocked her head to the side, looking at Twilight’s flank. “It looks accurate to me.”

Twilight twisted around—and around and around and around—looking at her cutie mark, scared that it might have changed; it had not. Adorning Twilight’s flank was a pink six-pointed star surrounded by smaller white stars. “What—? No! The stars represent the spark of magic!”

“They do,” Celestia confirmed. "Is it so hard to believe they might also represent stars?”

Twilight flopped down with a groan and buried her face in her hooves, dizzy from chasing her flank. “I can’t believe this is happening! I can’t believe... that there are no answers! Why did you even ask me to come help ‘investigate’ this if you already knew the books were all useless?”

Celestia knelt down in front of Twilight and nuzzled her comfortingly. “There are more creatures in this world than alicorns that can interfere with our jobs," Celestia clarified. “Discord for one, though I did suspect it might be another alicorn.”

“If you suspected, then why...?” Twilight prompted.

Celestia gave one of her warm, peaceful smiles—but having now seen Celestia’s more natural expressions, it looked mischievous to Twilight. “I never said we’d be investigating here,” she clarified, then looked guiltily at the door Luna had left from and sighed wistfully. “I cancelled everything. The three of us were going to get out of here... find some dragons to talk to... visit the old castle... see what we could uncover. There are creatures and places in this world that are older than Luna and I; older than Discord. A lot of it is... unreliable—twisted by an age of chaos—but this was important. It still is important. I still want to go, but... I may have been too blunt with her. That... was foalish of me.” Standing up, she declared “I should go talk to her.”

Celestia made to walk towards the door, and was stopped by a tug on her tail which Twilight had in her mouth; truly, the walls had come down. “I... think it should be me,” she suggested. Celestia was surprised, but nodded and stepped out of her way. As Twilight left Celestia behind, her mind was racing—wishing she knew what to say to Luna—yet somewhere in the back of her head, she was also filing away the information that Celestia did not in fact taste like rainbows.

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight regretted her decision the moment she left Celestia behind. She hadn’t changed her mind about needing to talk to Luna; it had just occurred to her how colossally stupid of her it was to expect to be able to do so. The lingering not-at-all rainbow taste in her mouth aside, she still wouldn’t be able to bring herself to force her way into Luna’s chambers unwanted—and where else would a crying princess go?

The moon princess wasn’t going to make it that easy for Twilight, however; not easy to give up on, or easy to catch either. Luna’s chambers were open, but empty save for the usual royal appurtenances including what she considered an inordinate number of couches. Twilight had just stopped to straighten the books scattered around the hall and collect her thoughts on where else to look when she heard a tiny sniffle and froze. It had come from Luna’s chambers, she’d thought. Silently, she peeked her head back into the chambers she was sure were empty. After a long, breathless pause, she heard it again; it was coming from the window.

Twilight craned her neck out the window, finding nothing as expected; the princess of the moon was probably on the roof. “Wings. Right,” she sighed. “I have wings too,” she told herself. "I just have to... use them. Somehow. Real easy. Perfectly safe.” She had pretty much mastered folding her wings back up after periodically finding them open... this was just like that—but faster—right? Hesitantly, she gave her wings a good strong flap and crashed into Luna’s nightstand, scattering everything on top of it including a number of old scrolls on tax law.

She really hoped she hadn’t broken anything important as she extracted herself from the nightstand. “Good news: the wings work,” she whispered to herself, acutely aware that the princess could have heard the racket she’d made. “Bad news: Flying inside is hard.” Logically—Twilight thought—this meant she was good to jump out the window.

Backing up all the way back to the hallway, Twilight tucked her wings in, ran through Luna’s bedroom, launched herself through the window and spread her wings. She even remembered to flap as hard as she could; once. One flap was all it took for her to achieve disaster; Rainbow Dash would have been proud.

Twilight’s flap was good, straight and level; mostly. Regrettably, it was also very strong; strong enough to flip her head over hooves back the way she came. A second before Twilight would have hit the palace wall, instinct took over; it had to be instinct, because Twilight’s brain had gone totally blank the second she had passed through the window and wondered what the hay she was doing. Twilight’s eyes rammed shut and she teleported the only way she could; straight up—or down, from her perspective. This maneuver did not in fact prevent her from crashing into the palace; but it did grant her a softer landing.

“Wah—!” Crash. Luna never knew what hit her. Logically, it would have had to have been some part of Twilight—several, at least—but for Luna it had been just a flash of light followed by a crash with hair hooves and wings everywhere as the two rolled up the incline of the roof and settled into a pile of pony. “I... do believe that thou art not very good at this, are thee Twilight Sparkle?” Luna stated sourly, spitting tail out of her mouth; her diction slipping back a few hundred years in her distress, Twilight noticed, though at least the royal ‘we’ had not returned. She supposed stealing a princess’ stars evidently put you on a more personal level with them—if not necessarily in a good way. Luna was unspecific as to what exactly Twilight was not good at—and the lavender mare would have very much liked to know, given that she could think of quite a few just this moment.

Twilight said nothing as the two alicorns slowly untangled themselves in an awkward silence broken only by the occasional sniffle or sob from the princess that stretched on long after they’d arranged themselves side by side on the rooftop. They sat there for a long while, watching Celestia’s sun hanging in the mid-afternoon sky until Luna finally broke the silence.

“I guess this answers my question,” she sniffed. Twilight was about to ask for clarification when Luna continued. "When I asked if thou liked my stars. Tia is right; they are thine now, and the universe would not be so cruel as to give them to a pony who did not appreciate them. I must have looked pretty foalish to you.”

“I don’t think I was capable of that particular emotion at the time,” Twilight assured Luna sarcastically. "I don’t think I was capable of any rational thought–” she explained, then caught her heart in her throat as she heard the words that came out of her mouth. "–not–not that it would have been rational to think you a foal princess,” she spat out, backpedaling in panic.

If Luna was bothered by Twilight’s gaffe, she didn’t show it. Eventually Twilight’s breathing calmed back down, and she began to hoof around for something to fill the silence... There was really only one thing to say; she hung her head in resignation, “I’m sorry.”

Luna gave a sniffle and steadied her voice, trying to sound calmer than she was. “It matters not... I do not care.”

Twilight opened her mouth to respond, then hesitated. Did she want to call the princess on such an obvious lie? She had to. “You can’t tell me this isn’t bothering you.”

“I care not that thou art s-s-sorry” Luna clarified bitterly, a little bit of venom creeping in between her sobs as she failed to keep her voice steady. “Thou shouldst not have come here. T’was a mistake.”

Twilight shook her head sadly and reached over to put a comforting hoof on her shoulder. "I don’t believe that for a second.”

Luna looked over her shoulder at Twilight with tear-filled eyes twisted into a scowl. "–and that is why it is a mistake, Twilight Sparkle. Thou came here expecting to be able to just... say some nice words and make it all better. Thou understandst nothing,” she growled, shaking Twilight’s hoof off violently. The lavender mare was at a loss for words.

“Thou canst not apologize for this; thou canst not make this right!” Luna sobbed. “The stars were a part of who I am! I poured everything I was into the night sky, Twilight Sparkle. I put so much of myself into it that when the little ponies turned away, it broke me! I did horrible, horrible things because they didn’t appreciate it! I hurt ponies, I hurt my sister because they didn’t see what I saw!”

“I–” Twilight started—standing up—but Luna didn’t even notice; it didn’t matter anyway, Twilight wasn’t sure what she could have said.

“–and then!” Luna exclaimed. "–then I spent a thousand years on the moon! A thousand years—! For a thousand years the stars were all I had! –and–and if not for them, I would still be trapped up there!” the princess was crying freely now, every word growing sour in Twilight’s stomach. She knew better than to say anything to interrupt the princess.

“–and now! Now that part of me is g-g-gone Twilight Sparkle. GONE! Thou canst not comprehend how it feels to have a part of thy soul taken by some—some ignorant little filly—and—and—and thou didst not even try. Wert thou thinking of me when thou came here? No, thou were thinking of thyself. All I am to thee is a guilty conscience.”

Twilight couldn’t say anything. Her stomach was lead, her lungs were iron, and her heart was being crushed between the two. She wanted to hug the crying princess, but she couldn’t move. She wanted to comfort her and say everything would be alright, but she couldn’t breathe. She wanted to tell Luna she was wrong about her, but... she couldn’t. Celestia help her, she couldn’t say it.

It would have been a lie.

Nothing Luna had said was anything Twilight didn’t already know, but she’d had to be told anyway. The princess was right; Twilight hadn’t been thinking of her. She thought this was her fault; she thought she had to fix it; she’d tried to apologize away the guilt, but Twilight’s guilt wasn’t why the princess was crying. Twilight’s guilt was her problem, yet she’d brought it here to the pony who was hurting the most. She’d made this about her.

She was wrong, and it hurt.

“Clop off, Twilight Sparkle,” Luna mouthed under her breath through gritted teeth. If Twilight heard her, she didn’t register it; her brain had joined the crushing hole growing in her chest.

“CLOP—OFF,” Luna snarled angrily in Royal Canterlot Voice, incensed at being ignored as Twilight simply mouthed wordlessly at her in stunned silence. The princess of the moon dropped her gaze, shoulders shaking with angry sobs as she tried to collect herself; failing to do so, she threw her head back up to face the ex-unicorn and—at a volume as far above the Royal Canterlot Voice as the Royal Canterlot Voice was above normal pony speech—shouted one last “CLOP——OFF!”

By the time Twilight’s mind caught up to the present, Luna was gone from her sight; the castle was gone from her sight; the mountain was gone from her sight; all she could see was blue.

She felt like she was floating through the sky.

She was half right.

✶ ✶ ✶

“Dear Princess Celestia; today I learned that I’m a horrible, selfish, inconsiderate pony... and I have a lot more to learn about friendship,” Twilight groaned as if she were dictating a friendship report—though she was making it in person.

“I’m concerned, Twilight," Celestia told her as she knelt down close beside Twilight, who did not really notice the gesture.

“Do you think she’ll... be okay?” Twilight asked hesitantly. She meant it to sound hopeful, but all that came out was helpless guilt. She disgusted herself.

“I mean about you," Celestia clarified, nudging Twilight with her shoulder in a friendly manner.

Twilight turned to Celestia in panic, “Me? What?—! I’m fine!” she insisted awkwardly. “Really!” She felt bad enough about taking her guilt to Luna—she didn’t want to distract Celestia from her sister’s problems too.

“You got shouted off a mountain and didn’t spread your wings to save yourself," Celestia reminded her.

Twilight winced. Sure it sounded bad when the princess put it like that. “I... would have gotten around to it... eventually... You didn’t have to–” she suggested unconvincingly, appearing to immediately find great interest in her hooves.

“–no, I didn’t have to. You would have been fine, but you didn’t know that," Celestia explained. “I think you should go home and relax, Twilight. You are high-strung by nature; all of this has taken its toll on you as much as her.”

Twilight gaped at the Princess. "You can’t compare my problems to hers! She–”

“She is being just as selfish as you were, and there’s nothing wrong with that. You both have the right. Her wounds are old, yes, and this can’t be easy for her—but yours are fresh, and they can hurt just as much. Do not worry about Luna; she is managing, and she has you to thank for that.”

“Me?” Twilight balked. “–but I—I probably made it worse!”

“You and all of your friends,” Celestia explained. “The elements of harmony alone could not have freed Luna from the darkness that had taken root in her hatred and jealousy—as you should know. When I wielded them against her, all I could do was... seal her away. It was through the six of you and your budding friendship that she was able to let go of those feelings and the darkness they carried. She may not show it now, but she is grateful for what you did for her. After Nightmare Night, I think she even saw you as something of a role model.”

“A role model?” Twilight balked at the idea. “–but she’s a princess, and I’m... I’m me! I mean, helping her talk to people is one thing, but just look at all the things that I—”

“—nopony is perfect, Twilight, you should know that by now. Seeing somepony fail, yet refuse to give up can be more inspiring than a thousand perfect princesses—especially to someone who has failed and can’t move past it.”

“‘A thousand perfect princesses?’ You mean...”

Celestia gave a small cough and straightened herself a little awkwardly. “It is... difficult for me to help her, being the pony who banished her and took her place all those years ago. We act sisterly enough most of the time, but we don’t talk about this. It is... not my place.”

“–but surely you’re still better qualified than me!” Twilight insisted in denial.

“Oh, I’ve done this and that,” Celestia gave a wan smile. “I may have lost a few copies of your friendship reports somewhere around the old tax laws after she started taking an interest in you.”

The gears in Twilight’s brain skipped a tooth at that. “W–what?” she sputtered, then the gears went into overdrive to chew on this little tidbit of information. Ah, of course, Luna had said over coffee. Thou fearest the whirlwhind thy actions hath sown; not that of deeds long past, but follies more recent.

“You... you didn’t!” Twilight gasped accusingly her mentor. “Not the one about the want it/need it spell...!”

Celestia’s only response was her usual look of eternal patience and calm—that is, the one Twilight was coming to associate with mischief.

All the air left Twilight’s lungs and she slumped down. “You did,” she said with finality.

“You have to admit, Twilight, that that report in particular would be of particular interest to her,” Celestia noted. “–if I were to have indeed selected specific letters for such a purpose and not just to distract her from how ponies fifteen generations ago were taxed.”

Twilight going unhinged in the head for her mentor’s approval? A spell for gaining the love and adoration of ponies gone wrong, threatening all of Ponyville? –and Celestia... Celestia had come to fix it all and give Twilight the dreaded ‘I am not angry, just disappointed’ speech...

“Yeah, uh, I... guess I can see that being somewhat relevant,” she sighed, completely ignoring the remark about taxes. “I don’t think it matters anymore anyway, I think she hates me now—and if it makes her feel better, I hope she does. Compared to her, I–”

“Like her, you have had your whole identity thrown into question," Celestia admonished. “Unlike her, you haven’t even slept. You’ve been on edge for almost an entire day now and awake even longer, you’ve been entertaining paranoid delusions that I was going to banish you, you’re terrified of everything and believe it’s all your fault and you even convinced yourself you could lie to me.”

Twilight blinked at that. That was kind of insulting. “Hey, I can–”

“You are a terrible liar, Twilight,” Celestia interrupted with piercing finality.

Twilight knew better than to argue the point.

“You are going to need time to process all of this,” Celestia explained. “If you aren’t convinced by your failure with lying, your failure with Luna or your failure with gravity—then let me point out that just moments ago you suggested hate would make my sister feel better. Listen to me, Twilight Sparkle—trust me—you aren’t thinking straight. You need to come to terms with this as much as she does, and I will banish you from Canterlot if I have to.”

“Banish me?!” Twilight gasped. “C-c-c–” she stuttered in panic, before blurting out “Cor Caroli!”

“–to Ponyville, Twilight. To your friends—who you will tell about this,” Celestia insisted.

“Oh,” Twilight said, trying not to sound disappointed. Disappointed...? Maybe the princess was right; maybe she wasn’t thinking clearly. “S-sorry... I... I’ll try to calm down,” she said. “But... can I go back to Ponyville?” she asked meekly.

Celestia raised one eyebrow. "I believe that is what I said, yes.”

“But... but don’t I have to stay here and... and... become a princess?” Twilight squeaked. “–or something like that?”

Celestia couldn’t help but indulgently crack a smile, and suddenly the mood in the room was several shades brighter. “...now where did you get an idea like that, my faithful student?”

“Oh... Umm...” Twilight looked askance, then suggested “I-it just seems sort of... logical?”

“I didn’t think you read those kinds of books, Twilight,” Celestia grinned.

“I—well... you know... a little,” Twilight admitted, trying not to see how amused her mentor is; alicorn books were usually romantic power fantasies for teenaged fillies who thought that Celestia would swoop down one day and recognize how much harder their life was than that of all their peers, bestowing them with immortal princesshood so they could be apart from the society that spurned them and have their comeuppance, after all. “It’s just... I am your student, you know,” she explained. “Some of them are even based on me—one is even called Twilight—it’s... bad.”

“Do you want to stay in Canterlot, be a princess and lose all your friends?” Celestia asked.

Twilight’s head drooped. “No,” she mumbled quietly.

“Then no one will make you,” Celestia said as if it were the simplest thing in the world—which apparently it was. “Luna and I don’t rule Equestria because we are required to as alicorns, Twilight; we rule Equestria because we built it—and we built it because it is what our little ponies needed after Discord. I cannot promise you that ponies won’t treat you differently now that you are an alicorn; I cannot promise that they won’t look to you for leadership—many in Ponyville already do. What I can promise is not to let my burdens complicate your life–” Celestia paused, “–any more than normal.”

Twilight cocked an eyebrow at that last addition.

“You are still my student,” Celestia explained with a simple smile. “–and a bearer of Harmony. I cannot promise there will not be more ornery dragons in your future.”

“What does Spike have to do with—oh. Oh. You meant—err—nevermind.” There was a pause, and she sighed. “Normal,” she said, thinking about it. “Normal sounds... good,” she affirmed with a smirk. “Those novels... don’t usually end well.” Slowly, the light mood drained out of the room as if it had never been there. Twilight resumed studying her hooves, glancing up at Celestia sheepishly. “Um...”

Celestia turned away from Twilight. "–and that’s not the only thing you need to ask about them,” she stated gravely.

Twilight nodded her head, but remained silent for a moment longer. “So...” she finally started, hesitantly. “Immortality.”

Celestia nodded in silence, composing herself. “It’s... not as bad as they make it sound,” she said, though the wistfulness in her voice rendered it somewhat unconvincing. “It is not as if the years will go by any faster than they already do; you will have all the time in the world for your friends, and the friends after them—and there will be friends after them, I assure you. Friends are what make it all worthwhile.

“When ponies imagine immortality, they imagine what it would be like to grow old and not die. They look at old ponies who have lost much, who are spent and who welcome the end with a healthy appreciation for their life; they imagine that eventually the pain of loss becomes too great for these ponies to handle and they imagine how horrible it must be to be denied release.

“Now, a life well lived is a beautiful thing—and to be proud enough to think it complete is enviable indeed—but as much as I wish it weren’t so, many of those old ponies who greet death with a smile have not lost half so much as some a quarter their age. It is pony nature to grieve and move on. You will be sad, and you will remember your friends forever; you may never have the same kind of friends again, but when the time comes, you will not be left an old mare with nothing left before you.

“Immortality is not an eternity of looking back and regretting all the things you could have done; as an alicorn your past will always be finite, your future infinite. Mathematically, you could even say you will always have your entire life ahead of you.”

Twilight wasn’t sure exactly what to say. The words made a nice speech and all, but she wasn’t entirely convinced. Celestia wouldn’t lie to her... but there was no doubt the purpose of her mentor’s words was to cheer her up.

Eventually, the silence stretched on, and Celestia chose fill it. “I take it you’ve never spoken to Spike about this...?” she probed.

Twilight shook her head. “We’ve always avoided it,” she mused. “Just yesterday morning we talked about him eventually growing wings; it didn’t come up that I’d be... gone, by then.”

Celestia nodded. “You shall never have to have that talk, now; and you will never have to leave him. Not just Spike, but Luna and I will also always be here for you.”

Twilight frowned, furrowing her brow. A picture formed in her head, and she looked up at her mentor. “You said it’s not so bad—that friends make it worthwhile—but for the past thousand years...” she started, leaving the question unsaid.

Celestia looked away, not wanting Twilight to see the shadow that fell over her expression. “I have had Equestria to care for—and you, and others before you.”

Twilight didn’t want to say it, but she couldn’t help herself. “–but Luna...”

Celestia’s head dropped and she was similarly compelled to finish the thought. “Luna had the stars.”

Twilight said nothing. The hole she had felt in her chest on the rooftop was back, and it hurt.

“Twilight,” Celestia urged. “Twilight Sparkle, look at me.”

Twilight didn’t want to—she was afraid there might be tears in her eyes—but she did as she was told.

“Listen, Twilight,” Celestia stated firmly, looking her straight in the eyes. “Listen to me. Do not worry about Luna. The stars are not gone. They’ve simply changed hooves—and I am going to teach you to bring them out.”

Chapter 3

Sharing the Night: Chapter 3

☼ ☼ ☼

Twilight Sparkle’s eyes were solid black; even Celestia thought it was creepy—though she didn’t say so. “What do you see?” She probed her young student, who sat next to her on the balcony outside her chambers a while after dusk.

“It’s night,” the younger alicorn told her. “The sky is empty and black. I’m floating in a still ocean full of stars. The ocean and stars go on forever. It feels... calm.”

“It should,” Celestia nodded, unseen by her pupil. “You said you’re floating in an ocean... can you see your tail?”

“Of course I–” Twilight started, then a look of confusion passed over her unseeing face. “I... no, I can’t.”

“How about your mane?” Celestia continued knowingly.

“No... wait, yes!” Twilight responded, her countenance brightening. “It’s... My mane and tail are there, but they look like Luna’s; like they’re a liquid slice of the night sky. My mane is... longer. I can’t find the end of it; it just flows down into... the... water.”

A smirk found its way to Celestia’s lips, but she didn’t let it enter her voice. “Perhaps then, you would like to amend your original statement?”

“I...” the lavender alicorn started, but she had no words for the enormity of this implication. “I’m floating in an ocean of magic—my magic—and it’s full of stars?” she suggested, but the description still seemed... off.

The princess of the sun nodded to herself, then continued on to explain. “Not exactly. An alicorn is more than an immortal pony with the magic to control celestial bodies. We don’t know how or why, but from the moment you became an alicorn–”

“Luna said–” Twilight interrupted with an unsteady squeak. “She called it a piece of her soul. She meant it literally.”

Celestia shifted in place uncomfortably; she had been trying to get Twilight’s attention away from the princess of the moon. With a sigh, she nodded, “Yes. For all intents and purposes... You are the stars now, Twilight; this is what it means to be eternal. I told you that you would have been fine falling off the castle, and while that is true of any Pegasus, it would be true of you even were you lacking that particular magic. The stars will not die from simply falling off a mountain.”

Twilight said nothing at first; if the look in her eyes could have gotten any more distant, it would have. The elder alicorn understood her pupil’s mind was racing to fit this new piece of information into the puzzle she had been given, and sat patiently.

“But–” Twilight started suddenly as Celestia could almost see the gears in her student’s mind jam on something incongruous. “You said you didn’t know the last generation of alicorns; that implies there was a last generation—and something happened to them! If you’re the sun itself, how is that even possible? If that’s true... What kind of power—what kind of catastrophe could destroy something like that? I know you said you were born into the reign of Discord... but I don’t think it could have been him.”

There was a long pause as Celestia sighed and leaned over to rest her head on top of Twilight’s; her student had become so very good at asking all the hard questions. “I wish I knew. You are right, of course, it is not Discord’s style.” Celestia frowned, wondering if that was really all she could contribute; it felt hollow. “Luna and I are only in our second millenniums... I know we must seem so old to you, but compared to the age of the world... we are all children wandering blindly through this life with no idea what came before. That—I think—was Discord’s greatest crime; the incidental murder of history performed with cotton-candy clouds and show tunes.”

Twilight frowned; the black pits of her eyes making the expression look downright dreadful. “If what came before Discord... killed... the last sun—or at least the sun’s soul since we still have a sun though I suppose it could be a new sun–” she said, rambling as she tried to wrap her mind around the concept of being a celestial body and that celestial body dying. “–maybe... maybe he did us a favor,” she suggested weakly. “I mean, I want to know, but at the same time...” she sighed, trying to put her feelings into words. “I don’t. I really don’t. I think... I’m afraid knowing would change everything.”

Celestia said nothing, and the two of them simply sat there leaning on each other as Luna’s moon crawled higher into the empty sky. Twilight was right, of course. If there was a power like that somewhere dormant in Equestria, Celestia really didn’t want to know either—but it was time she had to try to find out anyway.

✶ ✶ ✶

Eventually, Twilight felt a wash of cool night air rush in where Celestia’s head had lain and heard her mentor stretch. She felt obligated to follow suit, but floating there in the sea of stars that was... herself... she found it unnecessary. The feeling of calm she felt surrounded by the ocean of her magic was almost addictive for somepony like her; staying calm was not something she was especially good at, as recent events had proven. Celestia seemed to recognize this, as she gave a polite princessly cough to break Twilight out of her reverie.

“Come on now, Twilight,” she said chidingly, with a hint of amusement in her tone. “The stars are not going to raise themselves.”

In her own little world, Twilight facehooved.

“That was a joke,” the elder alicorn stated with some disappointment. “–because you see the stars—that is to say, you—are going to–”

“–yeah, uhh... I got that. Thanks, princess,” she said in a flat, unamused tone. An awkward silence filled the balcony for a brief moment, and Twilight thought that if she could see Celestia, she would have had that sad, disappointed look of hers, but she wasn’t sure why. She must have been mistaken though, because soon enough the elder alicorn continued on in her scholarly tone.

“Now, you may recall that the legend of the ‘mare in the moon’ states that Luna and I use our ‘Unicorn Powers’ to raise the sun and moon; you know enough now to realize this is incorrect, but not why or how.” Twilight nodded at this, listening intently as she heard her mentor walk behind her as she spoke. “The reason this is incorrect is that you will not be using your magic at all to bring out the stars; not in any way recognizable as ‘Unicorn Magic’ and certainly not any kind of telekinesis.”

Twilight quietly digested this information for a moment and frowned. “–but Princess,” she interjected, “when you raise the sun at the Summer Sun Celebration, your horn glows; I’ve seen it!”

“Good,” Celestia answered, a bit of pride in her student showing through in her voice, “Yes, and that is likely where the mistake originates, but that magic is not for raising the sun—not directly.”

Twilight felt queasy. “–but that’s what got me interested in magic in the first place!” she balked indignantly. “Watching you raise the sun... It was just a filly fantasy, but I thought it would be the best thing ever if I could do something like that.” She felt almost betrayed; lied to. It didn’t change the fact that she liked magic, but she still felt like she’d just been told out of the blue that Starswirl the Bearded wasn’t real.

While Twilight despaired, the clopping of Celestia’s hooves around her had stopped momentarily. “Really?” the princess asked with distinct interest. “I am flattered, Twilight, but this is a rather curious turn of events, don’t you think?” The sound of Celestia’s hooves resumed their pacing behind her. “You earned your Cutie Mark—six stars, I might add—as a direct result of trying to emulate my raising of the sun; and now here you are fulfilling almost that very filly fantasy.”

Twilight blinked. She hadn’t thought of it like that. In fact, she hadn’t thought about having wanted to raise the sun as a filly at all since this whole thing started. She’d been complaining about how unfair all of this was since the beginning, saying that she’d never asked for this, that it was all some giant mistake, when it really was a literal dream come true for her. She hadn’t said outright that it wasn’t her fault, but that was what she meant every time she apologized. That was why Luna was so mad, she remembered. They hadn’t been real apologies at all, just Twilight whining her way out of the blame.

‘Ungrateful whelp,’ she pictured the moon princess snarling at her. Ungratefulness; that was her new guilt. She set it next to the others—soul-stealing and insensitivity—and moved on in her lesson with a sigh.

“If the magic you use at the Summer Sun Celebration isn’t for raising the sun, what is it for? Do you use levitation to match your ascent with the sun?” she suggested.

“No, after a thousand years of the celebration, I have that part of it well enough practiced. Rather, recall for me what it took for you to enter this state you are in, where you can see and feel your celestial form.”

Understanding dawned on Twilight immediately; she had spent over half an hour trying to recover her calm enough to see the stars again, and that was with Celestia by her side and encouraging her. It was no wonder she’d been unable to fix things on her own. “You use a spell to get like this?” she suggested.

“Not directly, but yes,” her mentor answered. “It is a simple spell of calming tuned precisely to what is needed to enter the celestial state.”

Twilight remembered her own thoughts about the state being so addictive and couldn’t help but wonder if she hadn’t just heard some great state secret; what was Celestia known for, if not her Eternal Calm? What if it wasn’t real? She imagined this putting a final nail in the coffin of her filly fantasies about magic, but the word ‘ungrateful’ loomed over her thoughts; her filly fantasies were alive and bucking. Bucking her, specifically. In the head. She didn’t have time to dwell on it any further as Celestia continued explaining the raising of a celestial body.

“Once the celestial state is achieved,” Celestia lectured, “the raising—of the sun in my case—is more like learning to move an appendage you haven’t had before rather than any sort of telekinesis; if you have too much difficulty, you may find it useful to think back to the recent experiences you’ve had learning to move your wings.”

Dryly and a tiny bit bitter, Twilight imagined telling her mentor that her flying was the last thing she wanted to emulate. The first time she’d tried to use her wings, she’d crashed into Luna’s dresser and then the moon princess herself soon after. Who knew what would happen if she botched raising the stars like that? She’d seen the damage a single fallen star could do—what if she dropped a bunch of them? What if she dropped them on the Griffin Kingdom? She could start a war—or end one, she supposed. It didn’t go unnoticed to her that while her unnatural calm kept her from panicking over the prospect, it didn’t seem to do much for her mood; her thoughts were getting a little dark.

The lavender alicorn shook her head, doing her best to focus on the puzzles at hand rather than the pile she was making for herself. “Wait—I sort of understand that—but if that’s the case then how did you bring out the night for the last thousand years? The moon and stars aren’t part of... of you,” she asked, perplexed.

“It was not easy," Celestia sighed a little sadly; the subject of Luna’s banishment still seemed to be a difficult subject for her. “Remember again, that I could not raise the sun at all while she refused to put away the night.”

Twilight’s brow furrowed. "If you couldn’t raise the sun with the night in the way... but you could once Luna was... gone... wait–” she paused to look blindly incredulous at the starry space in her vision where she thought the princess was. “Do you mean to tell me that you haven’t been bringing out the night all this time? –that you’ve just been pushing it around with the sun?”

“Do not tell Luna,” the elder alicorn whispered, tickling Twilight’s ear with her sudden close presence, “but she is exceptionally heavy.”

Twilight—again—facehooved in her private little world of stars. “–and,” she started, a certain resignation in her voice, “–the story of Hearth’s Warming Eve? How did the unicorns do it?”

There was a rustling next to Twilight as Celestia shook her head. “I don’t know, Twilight. The story of Hearth’s Warming Eve was old when I was a filly. I can only presume that it took place in a time when there were no alicorns for the sun or moon, and no Discord, who liked to cycle day and night at random. Clearly though, the presence of Windigos in the story implies that chaos was on the rise.”

Twilight sighed. Every time her mentor said those words—’I don’t know’—it disturbed her.

“Now,” Celestia instructed. “Let me see you bring out the stars.”

Twilight was about to object when she was surprised to realize that she felt like she actually could—maybe—feel the vastness around her as something resembling a part of her. She gave it a little nudge, and the entire ocean of stars... tilted, as did Twilight’s stomach. Scrambling to right herself—forgetting that the whole ocean of magic was ‘herself’—she only managed to flop over and lose herself beneath the churning surface. There was a brief moment as she drifted that she felt there was no up or down, no here or there—then everything seemed to right itself. Unsure of where she was in the sea of stars, she cracked her eyes open to check, then widened them with a gasp. The surface was right there—below her—and beyond it, Equestria stretched out as far as the eye could see.

‘This isn’t some vision or dream,’ Twilight realized, all her troubles forgotten. ‘This is real. This is now. I’m looking down on Equestria from the stars... because I am the stars.’ Suddenly it all felt so real. She searched the landscape below and found Castle Canterlot; she found the wing where the the princess’ chambers were; she found the balcony where she and Celestia had sat down to have their lesson... and they were still there. Not only that but the empty black pools of her eyes looked really creepy—she thought—which brought her to realize that she could see it all clearly from her place miles or more up in the sky. She wasn’t really sure how high up the stars were, actually, and they stretched on forever behind her; in front of her was Equestria and she was just... everything else. She had no sense of scale, it all just was.

Her special talent may have been Magic—or being the stars maybe, she supposed she didn’t even know for sure any more—but her methodology was Science, and the first scientific method anypony learned was simple: poke it. She looked down to where her body was, and she reached out as if to touch her cheek. At first she felt a tickle of magic under her hoof as it passed through her face and she thought she must be intangible, it was a queer feeling, and she couldn’t help but giggle. She pulled the hoof back and the giggle caught in her throat. There was a hole in her face where it had dissolved under her hoof like so much stardust. Worse: the hole was spreading; its edge dissolving like a sugar cube in hot tea. In the blink of an eye, the rest of the body was gone with a sedate, glittering sparkle.

Twilight’s heart beat wildly in panic; what had she just done? Then, she realized she had a heart that could beat wildly, which was good. Immediately after, she realized she had gravity, and crashed down onto the marble balcony with a soft thud and a kerfuffle of feathers. “What–” she squeaked, scrambling to look up at Celestia in cold, clawing fear. “What in the bucking hay was that?!” she gasped. "That wasn’t teleportation! My body just... dissolved! In front of me! I watched it happen!”

Celestia reached her hooves around her student and hugged her tight. “Shh... Calm down, Twilight.” she cooed, stroking the young alicorn’s mane which had retained its starry appearance after being cut from the sky. “Yes; a small, vestigial part of you turned to stardust and starlight when you re-manifested here and it was no longer needed. It has now gone to rejoin the rest of you in your sky—which I must say is beautiful, Twilight.”

Momentarily distracted, Twilight’s spirits rose in expectation as she turned and realized that yes, she had done it; she had brought out the stars. Look, right there is—wait—suddenly her eyes widened and her stomach sank. She dropped back onto her flank as she stared up into the sky in utter despair. "The–the–” she stuttered, crying out “The stars are wrong!”

☾ ☾ ☾

“They are all wrong!” bemoaned the navy-blue alicorn who was staring up at the night sky with nothing short of horror. “What didst that treacherous filly do to my stars?” She wasn’t sure ‘treacherous’ was truly the right word for Twilight Sparkle, but it was how she felt, and the moon princess was if nothing else, a creature of emotion.

She had sensed the magic of the lavender alicorn fill the sky as she abruptly flooded night with stars. All of Luna’s life, it had been herself filling the entire night sky; last night, she’d been alone, a tiny moon in a yawning empty void; now, Twilight Sparkle filled her world. The princess of the moon had come out onto her balcony expecting to see her familiar stars cradled in someone else’s magic; instead, she felt as if a crowd of strangers stared back at her from the sky. “What happened?” she shouted at the night sky; it didn’t answer, it didn’t know either.

Stomping back to her chambers with a scoff of disgust, she threw herself down on an antique fainting couch with midnight-blue upholstery. It was all just too much for her; she didn’t understand and she didn’t want to understand. She wanted it fixed. The thoughts in her head sounded like those of a petulant child and only served to make her angrier.

It didn’t help that this was hardly the first time she’d thought those words since her return and she was even beginning to tune them out herself. Why did ponies have to speak differently now? What was the point? Why had they done away with the abacus? It was a perfectly serviceable tool. What was the point of building another castle? Wasn’t the old one good enough?

Wasn’t she good enough?

Bitterly, she marveled frustratedly that she could feel so old and yet act so childish about it. She almost missed being Nightmare Moon. Where was the cold hate; the diabolical mischievousness; the mad vision that had coined the word ‘Lunacy’? She had told Twilight on Nightmare Night that the loss of her ‘dark powers’ was a good thing—and it was—but she couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d lost more than that. She felt so tediously, mind-numbingly sane, and now sanity just would not shut up about her incessant whining.

Yes, she was the princess of the moon. Yes, she’d always thought about herself that way; always felt the moon was the seat of her consciousness—but that didn’t mean the stars weren’t a part of her! It didn’t mean they didn’t matter to her! If they weren’t, she wouldn’t be so upset! If they didn’t, she wouldn’t feel like she’d lost everything she’d ever cared about! This was how she felt and nothing would change that. The moon was herself, but she’d loved the stars more than anything.

‘So go back outside and enjoy them,’ said the whisper of a voice named sanity.

☼ ☼ ☼

“No, no, no, no, no!” Celestia’s student shouted. “Argh!.”

Twilight had promptly forgotten all about the apparent destruction of her mortal body and now shook her hooves in vexation at her stars. She’d demanded Celestia teach her the calming spell immediately; it wasn’t working. In fact, it was probably doing her more harm than good.

A flash of magical light splashed out of the young alicorn’s horn and her eyes went black again. “You! You look sort of like Polaris! You go over—AUGH!” Another flash of light, followed by another exasperated cry of frustration, “GRAH!”

Celestia wanted to tell her student that the spell was for helping calm her mind—not to replace the need for it—but Twilight knew exactly why the stars kept slipping out of her grasp. It didn’t help her calm down or get the stars where she was actually trying to direct them.

The elder alicorn couldn’t contain her desire to sigh; it had been going so well. She’d had Twilight calm and collected, and all it had taken was... well, it had taken reverting to their well-practiced roles of mentor and student. Inwardly, she resented it a little. It was a step backwards, but a necessary evil, she told herself. Necessary, maybe, but she couldn’t help but feel a little bitter after she’d tried to lighten the mood with a joke and got a ‘Yes, princess,’ in return. Maybe her humor needed work, but the coldness of the response was an unexpected barb.

Maybe it was a mistake not to declare the newborn alicorn a princess right off the bat. No one would have thought it strange at all—in fact, sending her back to be Ponyville’s librarian again would turn more heads—but no, she couldn’t do that to Twilight. Right now, Twilight needed desperately to be in control of her life, not be told what to do.

A little niggling voice in the back of Celestia’s mind pointed out that given control of her life, Twilight had wanted to be told what to do—but she told herself that this was different; this was familiar in ways that wouldn’t last if Twilight were forced to return to the castle and presented at court like some long-lost daughter. Twilight’s general insignificance had protected her from politics as a filly; it would be a disservice to her to change that now just because Celestia wanted her to be more familiar.

She waffled long and hard in her head about her manic student. Eventually, after a long while Celestia realized that the sounds of said student’s mad cursing had gone curiously missing. A quick glance at the sky revealed that the stars were no longer darting clumsily this way and that at Twilight’s insistence, and the elder alicorn dared hope that her student had actually fallen asleep; she was disappointed, but only slightly.

Twilight was breathing hard and her eyes were not the flat black of the night sky, but merely their usual violet color. Further, those eyes were not tightened in distress, but merely squinting blearily at the sky as if she didn’t recognize it—which Celestia supposed she didn’t, since it was still far removed from how Luna’s sky had looked even to the casual eye; stars clumped together in strings and clumps that would be unfamiliar to anyone who had ever seen Luna’s delicate, evenly spaced night sky. Briefly, Celestia considered simply fetching a blanket from her chambers and letting the younger alicorn nod off with her, but she dismissed the idea as selfish; better to get her home while she was pliable.

“Twilight,” she said in her most serene voice, trying her best not to startle the sleep deprived mare.

“Gah!” It didn’t work.

“Twilight, look at yourself... Or rather, stop looking at yourself. Do you recall what we spoke about earlier? About Ponyville? You’ve brought out your stars and they are fine; you need to go home and get some–”

“Ponyville!” Twilight interrupted with a shriek. “Of course! I just bought that special twenty-one-volume uranographers’-edition of ‘The Stars, the Universe and Everything’ to replace the ‘Astronomical Astronomer’s Almanac to all things Astronomy’ that Spike ruined! I can use that for reference!” Before Celestia could say anything, Twilight’s horn flashed, her eyes went black and she immediately became stardust that fwomph’d to the floor like a bucket of sand before blowing away in the cool night air. Celestia had to cover her face to avoid getting faithful student in her eyes, and by the time it was gone... well, it was gone, obviously.

The elder alicorn shook her head, wondering if she could call that success or not, though in the end she supposed it wouldn’t really make a difference. She couldn’t easily follow Twilight to Ponyville until dawn unless she took a carriage or winged it herself, so she resigned herself to letting her neurotic student wind down on her own. Twilight was flagging, she assured herself. She couldn’t last too much longer, and would probably wake up tomorrow to find she’d drooled all over volume two of the compilation she’d mentioned. As for the stars... Celestia was quite sure said compilation catalogued well over two million stars; the alicorn of the stars would get bored trying to reproduce Luna’s night eventually... right?

Well okay no, she wouldn’t, but it was Twilight’s prerogative to do what she liked with her stars; Celestia wouldn’t say anything, even if trying to make yourself pass as somepony else would have been considered vaguely creepy for a normal pony. In the end, the truth was that the new alicorn didn’t really have anything to worry about now. A few days in Ponyville with her friends would help her realize that.

✶ ✶ ✶

Though her body had dissolved into stardust—and quite abruptly at that—Twilight had not yet manifested back at the library. The moment she’d decided she no longer needed to be at the Castle, her body had disappeared; now she was just the stars. She had no body to distract her—and the idea of that derailed her train of thought completely. For the moment, she forgot entirely that the stars were supposedly wrong; that she was wrong.

The oddness of that thought would have stuck in her mind if she was having it, but she wasn’t. The sleep-deprived mare of stars was finding herself looking wonderingly down on Ponyville. Specifically, she was wondering where exactly the library was; she knew it had to be there somewhere but just this moment that somewhere seemed to escape her—like she’d been reading for several pages, only to look back and realize none of it had actually gotten past her eyes.

The stars twinkled as she giggled at the idea applied to a town. It really was like she didn’t even recognize Ponyville; like she’d never been there before. It probably ought to have concerned her more, but the fact was that the whole thing had a strange novelty to it and she was distracted by the sheer beauty of the town she was seeing as if for the first time.

She had looked down on Ponyville from Canterlot before and had enjoyed how the clear winter nights would make the distance seem to vanish and the lights sparkle like a tiny fairy village sat just beyond her tower window. This was like that, but there was no tower window; there was no Twilight; there was just the great big sparkling night over Ponyville which twinkled again as she giggled in understanding of why Celestia had often found reason to refer to her subjects as ‘her little ponies.’

They really were kind of cute.

The stars twinkled some more and she lost track of time just watching them walking around their little town until slowly the streets emptied and things grew quiet.

As her gaze drifted on over the silent streets, Twilight realized the town looked even more fanciful and magical than it ought to have. There were no impenetrable shadows, no stark outlines. She could see every dark alley and corner with sparkling clarity—all at once—and the darkness held nothing to fear. In contrast, streets that were lit by pony means seemed to have an extra unearthly glow that made everything look misty and dreamlike.

The magical feel of the scene left her wondering if there was a more esoteric side to her being a part of the night. Was she just a pony who happened to also be the stars in the night sky, or would she also have powers over shadows, dreams and the creatures of the night? Would she hear ponies wishing on her stars? No, she told herself; the princesses had never had those kinds of silly powers. Celestia had told her once that she had magic related to her special talent like any normal unicorn, and she simply possessed the power and experience to bend it to almost any need. With this in mind, it didn’t take long for Twilight to think she understood the phenomenon.

Starlight. That was the answer. Wherever her starlight touched, she could see. It was weak, but ever present, shining down from every point in the sky. Every pinprick of light was like another eye and the clarity of her vision seemed to be proportional to the amount of her starlight something received. She could see inside some buildings, but only just. The interiors were fuzzier and fuzzier the more her light had to bounce, even—or rather, especially—in bright lamplight, which seemed to somehow provide its own interference. It occurred to her somewhat belatedly as her gaze wandered over sleeping ponies that she was invading their privacy and probably ought to stop—and only then did she realize that her drifting attention had brought her to look in on a most peculiar scene taking place in none other than the library she’d been looking for.

It was difficult to make out since the library tree was not deciduous and the leafy cover was quite good at catching and blocking her light even in winter, but it appeared to be Spike, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy sitting around a card table... playing poker.

Or trying to, anyway.

☁ ☁ ☁

Spike and Rainbow Dash were too busy arguing over poker rules to notice when the starry black circle of sky visible through one of the library’s round windows seemed to push into the room and quietly settle down at the table. Fluttershy may have noticed, but she was too polite to say anything if she did.

“Everypony in Cloudsdale knows it’s supposed to be ‘Ten, Jack, Queen, King, Ace,’ Spike, stop trying to be difficult!” complained Rainbow Dash.

“That doesn’t even make any sense!” Spike retorted with equal fervor. "A jack is a male donkey; it doesn’t belong in a royal flush! Look, I’m dealing, so it’s Canterlot deck and Canterlot rules; ‘Ten, Prince, Princess, Princess, Ace. The princesses are interchangeable—but you can’t use one twice in a straight.”

“Nnnnggghh!” Rainbow Dash grunted, trying to express how wrong that was and failing. “Look. First, that’s racist; second, the Jack is a Gryphon thing or something, okay? The whole world plays with the standard deck, why does the stupid Canterlot nobility have to be different? –and why is Twilight even on the ace for that matter?”

Spike just rolled his eyes and started dealing four hands around the table. “There’s this law that says the likeness of anypony who works for the government is in the public domain,” he recited exactly as Twilight no doubt had explained to him many many times. “–and Twilight is the Princess’ Ace, so there; deal with it. In another month when all this gets out, it’ll probably be changed to princess, princess, princess, and everyone will have to get new decks—again—so we’re gonna use this one while we still can.”

Rainbow Dash grumbled, scooping up her cards with a hoof and placing them in the cardholder in front of her with her teeth a little awkwardly. Like most Pegasi, Dash was used to just sticking them in clouds, so the earth-pony contraption was a little clumsy for her. Surveying her hand, Dash stooped to bend her head down onto the table to look closely at one of the cards. “Well they could have at least done a better job on it then; it doesn’t even really look like her. I can’t put my hoof on it, but...” the blue pegasus looked back and forth between the card and the mare across the table from her a few times, comparing them.

A heartbeat passed, then there was a tumultuous clatter as Rainbow Dash jumped and scrambled back away from the table with a “Wah!” startling everyone in the room but Twilight, who she’d just realized was sitting at the table with them. “Holy—bucking—hay—Twilight!” she said between gasps as her heart ran away without her. “When did you—how did you–” she started, then squinted as she finally actually took in Twilight’s appearance. “Did... did you use Celestia’s shampoo or something?”

Twilight—for her part—looked quizzically at Rainbow Dash as if she had no idea what was going on, then looked down and realized she had a body. “Oh! Oh hey,” she giggled. “I’m here! That is so weird,” she beamed in happy amusement, “I don’t feel like I’m here.”

Spike, Rainbow Dash and Flutteryshy all looked at each other in concern. “...Twilight? Hey, Twilight, are you okay?” Spike probed. When she didn’t respond, he carefully set down the deck of cards and got up to nudge her in the ribs.

The sleep deprived alicorn’s only response to being poked was to fall out of her chair giggling, clutching her side, “Hee—hehe—hahaha!” she laughed, then got distracted looking at something on the ceiling.

“Oh. Oh my.” Fluttershy waved a hoof slowly in front of Twilight’s eyes, watching as the sleep deprived mare tracked it... poorly. “She looks... delirious. Does anypony know if she got any sleep last night?”

Spike looked away guiltily, “I, uhh... I dunno. We had an argument and I went to bed early. I sleep longer than her, so...”

Fluttershy studied the floorboards for a moment, then met Rainbow Dash’s eyes knowingly. The two of them had left their friend with a guilt trip, but now it was coming back to bite them.

“Maybe the princesses were just sharing the royal moonshine?” Rainbow Dash suggested halfheartedly, distinctly uncomfortable with the idea that she’d been anything but attentive of their friend. “I mean, who knows what they do after hours up there?”

Fluttershy bent over to sniff at Twilight’s breath—sending the prone mare into another fit of ticklish giggles as their noses touched—and shook her head. “Let’s just get her up to bed,” she said, rolling Twilight over so she could pick her up from behind and fly her up the stairs to her bedroom. The door closed after her with a click, and after a moment there was a surprised, muffled squeak from the butter-yellow pegasus.

“Wait!” Rainbow Dash shouted up the stairs. "What about the bet? –and the hair! Is nopony else wondering what’s up with her hair? There are stars or dandruff or something in it! She might need a shower!” There was no response. She stood there awkwardly for a few minutes before it was clear that Fluttershy had elected to watch over their sleeping friend and wasn’t coming back out.

Spike had vanished, leaving his ridiculous deck of cards on the table; awkwardly, Rainbow Dash looked at the front door and considered going home, but sighed in resignation. It wouldn’t mean as much as it would have yesterday, but she could sleep on the couch for one night to be there for Twilight. Resigned to her fate, she walked over to the familiar shelf of Daring Do books and hoofed one down; being the loyalest of friends was hard work.

☾ ☾ ☾

“Is the filly gone?” Luna asked with a sour petulance as she heard hoofsteps that could only be Celestia clop quietly into the moon princess’ chambers.

“She is,” came her sister’s simple, aloof reply. That was Celestia, never rising to the bait. The clopping stopped as the older sister lowered herself next to Luna’s couch and gave her a nuzzle.

“Good. I do not think I could have sat with her at breakfast; not even for those ‘waffles’ the chef makes,” she stated dourly. Celestia gave a light chuckle at that, prompting Luna to crane her neck to look at her in confusion.

Celestia gave a wry smile. “Oh, I very much doubt Twilight will be awake for breakfast—even your afternoon breakfast. Knowing her, she’ll be out for at least sixteen hours; she hasn’t slept, you know,” she mentioned without much subtlety.

Luna frowned, unamused. “Thou art trying to excuse her actions by implying she was not of a right mind; it is not going to work.” It didn’t work, she told herself, though given a fair chance she might have felt a tiny bit guilty for yelling the filly off the roof. “She is an adult and will have to learn to take responsibility for her actions, deprived of sleep or not.”

“–an adult, you say?” Celestia smirked. “I was under the impression you thought of her as a troublesome filly now; quite the change of opinion from last night.”

“She is a an alicorn filly; it necessitates a certain maturity,” she groused unconvincingly. She’d walked right into that one.

“Now that you mention ‘her actions’, though,” Celestia started in a tone that clearly declared she needed no such prompting, “Since she left, I’ve been thinking. You see, she and I talked a bit about how she got her cutie mark.”

Luna craned her neck again to look at her older sister; she couldn’t help but be a little interested in the ungraceful change of subject, even if she’d rather not think about her right now. The japes were over; this was what her sister had really come in to talk about.

“It seems she got her cutie mark from wanting to raise the sun,” Celestia offered wonderingly.

“Congratulations, thy student of ten years loves and idolizes thee,” replied the bitter midnight blue mare. “I shall get the pink one to throw thee a party.”

“Don’t you think it’s rather interesting?” Celestia suggested. “You see—and I haven’t mentioned this to her yet—I don’t think this all happened just yesterday afternoon; I think it’s been going on longer than any of us realized.”

Luna furrowed her brow. “I do not see what thou art getting at, Tia. I had the stars still when I put them away yesterday.”

“Perhaps,” her older sister observed cryptically. “–but... That’s why I have to ask. What did it mean, ‘The stars shall aid in her escape?’”

“...thou shouldst not put so much stock in the wording of prophecies,” Luna asserted carefully after a pause, but the brilliant white alicorn refused to be deflected.

“Lulu... just tell me; did you—specifically you—regain control of the stars or otherwise arrange for them to be in a position to break you free?”

Luna was hesitant to answer. “I do not like what you are suggesting,” she stated.

“Luna,” Celestia insisted.

“...no,” she finally admitted. “–but that doesn’t mean anything; it was bound to happen eventually. As it is, it took a thousand years for them to align by chance.”

Celestia shook her head. “I don’t think they did; I think that through the act of anticipating it, she set you free.”

✶ ✶ ✶

That night, Twilight fell into the deepest kind of sleep that only ponies who’ve spent the last thirty-six hours awake can achieve; not only that, but she was doubly blessed with the unexpected warm, happy contentedness of having somepony wrapped up in her arms.

It was a great disappointment when—in the middle of the night—she felt that pony squirming to get free and she reluctantly moved herself to oblige them before drifting back into her coma-like state. This was a source of considerable confusion when she finally awoke and found her arms wrapped around Fluttershy; Fluttershy was the wrong pony. Still half asleep, she looked around the bedroom, blearily searching for somepony white, round and with a mass of roughly eighty quintillion tons.

Chapter 5

Sharing the Night: Chapter 5

✶ ✶ ✶

Sugar Cube Corner was filled with the bright colors and endless cheer that personified Pinkie Pie and all of her events, but despite the smiling faces, something was missing. It was no fault of Pinkie Pie’s, of course; the food was good and the company was as great as always. Even the big, giant banner hanging overhead reading Congratulations Space-Pony Twilight was certainly special in its own way. It was the space-pony of the hour herself who wasn’t quite present.

Twilight had tried, she really had. She’d humored Rarity who had presided over the ritual sweater burning, filled up on sweets and even played no less than six games of pin the tail on the pony—but it was no use. Nothing could rid her of the constant nervousness and discomfort.

Well, one thing could have.

It sounds like she’s the pony you need to see. The words had continually occupied one corner of her mind; it felt like they were important, somehow. They were the answer to a question that was on the tip of her tongue. It was only after the sixth time the tail from pin the tail on the pony had ended up on a certain steadily rising patch of wall that Twilight had finally given up and made to excuse herself.

“Are you gonna be okay, Twi?” Applejack asked as Twilight reached for the door. “Yer looking kinda—well–” she glanced at the banner, “–spacey.”

What Applejack didn’t know was that far from being a distant memory in Canterlot, the princess of the night was looking over Twilight’s shoulder constantly. Oh, she doubted Luna was actually looking in on their little party—at least, she hoped not—but every time she caught the eastern sky in the corner of her eye, she stopped like the princess had just walked in on them. Was it any wonder she was less than comfortable?

“Spacey. Yeah,” Twilight sighed, her eyes drawn to that spot on the wall that hid a goddess. She nervously took a gulp of punch and wished it was cider. “No. No, I’m not okay. I shouldn’t have come. I appreciate the thought, but I can’t do this. I’m just not comfortable celebrating... this.”

“Aw shoot Twi, it doesn’t have ta be about that. Jes think of it like it’s any other party. Pretend we’re—uhh—celebrating Pinkie Pie being clean and sugar-free for six months.”

Twilight blinked. “What? Sugar isn’t—that doesn’t even–”

“–a mare can dream, Twi,” Applejack interrupted. “A mare can dream.”

Twilight emptied her cup of punch and set it down on the closest table with a disgruntled sigh. “Look, Applejack... can you just explain it to Pinkie for me? Please?”

“...yeah, okay.”

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight didn’t stop as she escaped the party—and for good reason. The most charitable way to describe the late-winter night would have been ‘brisk’, and she had no intention of setting a single hoof off-course from her cozy little library. It was much to her surprise then, that Twilight actually was feeling charitable about the cold. It wasn’t that the night was mild, nor was she lacking in knowledge of dozens of colorful adjectives that could have been used to describe it, but as the din of music died out behind her she slowed down, took a great deep breath of clear, icy air and felt... much better.

It was a strange feeling. In a repeat of her experience with failing to tire herself out earlier, the discomfort she expected just... wasn’t there. Instead, the bone-chilling cold was not unlike her experiences being the stars and it felt... it felt really good, actually. If only she could capture this feeling and save it for just a few hours, she thought as a certain set of darkened windows loomed closer.

Well, why couldn’t she? There was nobody waiting for her at home—Spike had successfully evaded her at the party and would probably try to sneak in later—and there wasn’t really anything she had to do but put away the stars in the morning. Why couldn’t she just... take a walk and enjoy this for a while? She could in fact do that very thing. There was only the briefest of hesitations and the queerest feeling of rebellion as she walked straight on past the library, stepping off that path she had set herself to and out into her cold clear night.

Leaving her library behind was a peculiarly guilty feeling in spite of the mundanity of the act. It was such a different kind of guilt than the sort she was so mired in that at first it was downright disorienting and she stopped walking for a moment to get herself straight.

How was it different? She couldn’t quite put her hoof on it. The only way she could describe it was to say that it wasn’t a bad guilt—which only served to tempt her to run home and look up guilt in the dictionary once again because clearly she was mixing it up with something a pony might normally enjoy, like eating pancakes, wearing old sweaters or looking up words in the dictionary.

That was just it, though. All she was ‘guilty’ of was not going home to do any of those things. The only injured party here was her own expectations. How often did ponies go out on midnight walks in the middle of winter? How often did the Twilight she knew voluntarily do anything that took her away from studying? Not often, she admitted, yet here she was.

Of course, the Twilight she knew didn’t have wings.

An unsettling shiver ran up her spine that had nothing to do with the cold and snow. Already she was becoming a different Twilight than the one that woke up with wings. Her only consolation was that she apparently felt good about it.

✶ ✶ ✶

Headed nowhere in particular as she was, it was inevitable that as Twilight crunched through snow past Ponyville’s thatch-roofed houses and her brain ran around itself in circles, her eyes were drawn to the nightscape around her and eventually of course, the sky. For the first time that night she wasn’t looking at Luna—not at first.

It was something of an experience, really. She hadn’t had a chance to just stand and appreciate the beauty of her new stars on her own without overthinking the whole thing. Luna’s sky had certainly never been lacking, but while she would never admit it to Rainbow Dash, there was a certain grain of truth to the idea that she’d been used to them; even taken them for granted. She certainly couldn’t do that now; each star sparkled brilliant and new and they were all spread across the sky in great splashes and whorls utterly unlike the gentle display that had given rise to the constellations she’d grown up with.

Briefly, in one of those rare moments where she could admit her desires without getting crushed by guilt, she imagined all the wonderful things she could do with the sky. Auroras and nebulae, shooting stars and—actually, auroras were probably Luna’s.

Oh. Right. Luna.

The moment was over.

She’s the pony you need to see, came the thought again, nibbling at the edge of her thoughts like the moon that was always in the corner of her eye. She shook her head as if trying to dislodge the thought. Applejack would have her march right up to the palace tonight and confront the princess—but that was Applejack.

Twilight knew better, she told herself. She knew better than to think that such a visit would go well. Maybe Luna was the pony Twilight needed to see... but she wasn’t that pony right now, and Twilight... couldn’t make her be that pony. No, forcing the issue was probably the last thing she should to do.

She’s the pony you need to see. It was an infectious thought. It was just so simple and obvious that she couldn’t put it down.

No, she told herself. No. Princess Celestia was right, they both needed time. Pinkie was right, too. There was more to her friendship with Luna than this one event. Come to think of it, Rainbow Dash had said something like that, too. What was it she said, exactly? She tried to remember.

If they’d had ponies like you back then, Nightmare Moon might not have happened.

It wasn’t quite the same as what Pinkie had said... but it felt right.

The problem was, Applejack was right too. She needed Luna to... to what, exactly? She needed Luna to accept her as the stars, obviously, but it didn’t sound right when she said it like that. It didn’t pull at her like Applejack’s line. She’s the pony you need to see. What did it even mean to her?

Twilight sighed. Something was missing; she just didn’t get it. Nervously, she glanced up at Luna hanging there in the night sky. Hopefully she was doing a better job of all this.

✶ ✶ ✶

It would not have been fair to Twilight Sparkle to say that she was experienced in procrastination. Anyone who knew her would tell you that she was in fact very meticulous about managing her time and getting things done. They would also tell you that sometimes the priorities by which she organized that time bore a similarity to those of a certain pink party pony in their comprehensibility and—depending on said party pony’s mood—sometimes their comprehensiveness as well.

Yet, the areas of organization and procrastination undeniably share a certain skill set and Twilight was certainly aware of this, so when she reorganized her fateful meeting with the lunar princess down her mental list, she expected to have no trouble at all finding something at hoof to take its place. Her presumed powers of procrastination however, failed her.

Her current task of taking a walk in the night was all well and good as far as tasks went and she’d been enjoying herself immensely until the question of when she was supposed to stop had popped up in her mind. Not only that, but after she finished her walk, what was next? What, in the grand scale of things was she going to do.

Of course, her mental checklist wasn’t actually empty. In fact, she had a very real checklist back home with a great number of most definitely vital items on it just waiting to be done. The problem was, she didn’t really care.

She’d had her life turned upside-down, become a wholly different kind of pony—become not even a pony at all depending on how you looked at it—excuse her if she felt like she should be doing... something! Something other than just going back to lending books and replenishing her quill supply, anyway. It wasn’t that she felt above such things as a shiny new alicorn; she just felt like such a big change should have actually changed something.

Instead, nothing had been resolved at all. This whole situation with Luna had gotten everything all messed up like she was in one of those choose-your-own-adventure foals’ books and she’d chosen the wrong path; some other Twilight on some other page was having an epic adventure while she was just... here, walking through the silent streets of Ponyville in the night. Alone.

It could have been different, she told herself, recalling those few short moments when she’d thought the lunar princess was happy for her. What would have happened—where would she be now if things had gone right?

“I never said we’d be investigating here,” Celestia had said. “I cancelled everything. The three of us were going to get out of here... find some dragons to talk to... visit the old castle... see what we could uncover.”

That. That was what she could have been doing right now. She pictured what it would have been like; traveling the world with one princess on each side, having long talks about secrets only they knew, learning about the world from those who had helped shape it, laughing at jokes whose punchlines spanned centuries.

The three of them would have traveled at dawn and dusk—at dusk, first Celestia would leave, then she would set the sun and Luna and Twilight would bring out the night and follow after her; at dawn, it would be the alicorns of the night who would lead the way.

Then there were the places they would have gone, too; ancient cities, forgotten civilizations, real breathing creatures older than the princesses. She would have been introduced, not as a student but an equal; a fellow immortal they’d be sharing the world with. When she returned to Ponyville, it would have been in triumph; she would understand who and what she was. Then, after all that, then she’d be content to go back to buying quills and lending books.

It would have been magical.

She sighed. It was a pretty picture, but it didn’t help her figure out the here and now—did it? She could still do it, she supposed. Alone. There wouldn’t be any shared sunset walks through precordian ruins, nor would there be any fond remembrances about this or that historical figure. There would be no late nights discussing the stars with Luna, or any personal introductions to beings that were present at the birth of the world.

It was something, though. It was something she could do—something she could move forward with—something that could give her answers. If she knew what had happened, if she knew why she’d been put in this position in the first place, if she could just understand, then maybe... well maybe she’d be able to accept it.

She could do it, she repeated to herself, more sternly this time. She would do it. The more she thought about it, the more certain she was that this would set her back on the right path again. She had legs, she had wings, she had the ability to be anywhere in Equestria in the blink of an eye, she even knew exactly where she could find just such an ancient ruin.

The castle of the royal pony sisters.

It might not even be as lonely as she thought, she told herself semi-convincingly. There had been nothing of Luna in Canterlot while Twilight had lived there. Exploring the old castle could give her some insight into how the princesses had lived when they were younger—just like she’d been imagining they would tell her.

Just, without them telling her themselves.

Totally not creepy, honest.

With determination and a destination in mind, it didn’t take her long to wind around past Fluttershy’s silent cottage to the edge of the Everfree forest. In a remarkable display of common sense, the freshly minted alicorn chose to continue walking rather than add night flying to her list of poor decisions.

Of course, being that it was night, she could have been there in the blink of an eye, but she had thought better of that, too. She’d read a dozen platitudes, adages and truisms about journeys and destinations, but as was the way of such things they’d always just been words until she came up with them for herself. No—she’d set out to have a walk and she was enjoying it. Cheating herself out of it via the wonders of alicornhood wasn’t going to be a benefit to her or her sanity.

Briefly, she was also grateful that said alicornhood hadn’t come with a get out of sleep free card like some fiction liked to imagine. She was sure that if that was the case, she’d have been mad within the week. Then again, she wasn’t quite sure she’d make it to the end of the week regardless, so that was probably a generous assumption.

Regardless, she was feeling really rather proud of herself for the level-headedness of the decision. The choice to walk felt very... Celestia. Though she would never have admitted it to herself, it made her feel like she was doing the immortal alicorn thing properly.

All of this is why she was rather crestfallen when ten minutes later, she was bored out of her mind.

It wasn’t a feeling she was used to having in the middle of the Everfree forest, but with the sky blotted out by twisted leaves and and untamed clouds, she began to regret and even reconsider the decisiveness and pride of her decision not to skip ahead. She’d been growing used to Luna’s presence in the sky, to say nothing of her own celestial bodies, and while they weren’t gone by any means, they were... muted. Like an awkward silence gone on too long.

There was a very real silence settled into the Everfree too, and though she didn’t need to conjure up any light to see by, the way her starlight filtered down through the canopy made everything indistinct and grey. She had the feeling that it all should have been unnerving, creepy, even downright frightening... but somehow her heart just wasn’t in it.

Actually, now that she thought about it, it was kind of creepy... Not the Everfree forest, but her attitude about it. Now a proper shiver ran up her spine as she wondered if this too, was a different Twilight.

Taking a walk on a cold winter night was one thing; she clearly understood the decision, if not exactly how she found it enjoyable. Extending that walk through a forest full of manticores, serpents, dragons and any number of other things? The logical part of her brain told her a manticore couldn’t do anything she couldn’t come back from—a morbid thought, now that it came to mind—but the fact that it had only just came to mind was the thing. She hadn’t assured herself that her alicornhood would protect her, it had just... slipped her mind. It didn’t register at all. She didn’t care.

That scared her far more than theoretical manticores.

There were more than manticores in the forest anyway, though many were of the same sort of danger. Poisonous plants and animals were theoretically unpleasant, but such contaminants were still only physical. What about poison joke or a cockatrice, though? What kind of joke would be played on a new alicorn, and what would it say about her as a pony? What would happen if she were turned to stone?

Twilight caught herself in mid-step.

The scientist in her kind of wanted to try it and see.

What was wrong with her?

✶ ✶ ✶

In the end, nothing happened on Twilight’s way to the castle of the royal pony sisters. Whether this was fortunate or unfortunate depended on your perspective, but regardless, the damage had been done.

Twilight had always envied Celestia’s eternal calm, and was proud of her own ability to stay level-headed in a crisis, even though she sometimes failed spectacularly at it. Nopony but Celestia was perfect, after all. When her mentor had admitted to possession of the spell that allowed her to easily connect with the sun it had been a little disheartening, but she’d still allowed herself to cherish the artificial calm she felt as the stars.

Now, she wasn’t so sure.

She wanted to be immortal, wise and all-knowing as Celestia was, she really did. She’d set out into the night in the first place to calm down and just enjoy herself for a while. Given where she was and what she was doing, she had definitely been successful at finding distraction, so was succeeding at finding inner peace—or inner boredom at least, since her insides were anything but peaceful—really so bad?

She didn’t feel like she had succeeded, though. Not knowing where it came from, she felt like it had been given to her. Did that even make sense when she’d started walking to unwind in the first place?

There was a difference between being given something and simply achieving it too easily, she told herself. She was used to being looked down on by others for being a magical prodigy, was this really any different? She hadn’t really explored the new depths of her magic either, for that matter; would she feel cheated out of that, too?

She was the stars; it was an inescapable magical fact. She didn’t know how or why it had come to be, but her essence blanketed Equestria from end to end. She didn’t know how or why she’d originally been so good at magic either, but she’d never cursed or mistrusted the qualities that had led the princess to take a certain young filly under her wing.

She should be okay with this, she told herself. She just... wished she understood where it came from. There was just so much about being an alicorn that was left unanswered. Celestia might have been okay not worrying over them, but...

–but what? She blinked. It was an odd thought for her to have that something was good enough for Celestia but not Twilight herself. She was actually a bit uncomfortable with it, to be honest with herself.

Then again, it made sense. Celestia’s endless serenity was more than just a spell, it was her personality, her faith in herself and her ability to trust. Twilight had always envied that quality of Celestia’s, but now she realized she actually wanted something different.

Twilight wanted the kind of self assurance Celestia had, but she wanted to have it because she knew, not because she trusted. She needed information; she needed details.

She was going to get some. That was why she was here.

✶ ✶ ✶

The castle of the royal pony sisters was a good distraction from Twilight’s circuitous self-analysis, and she was glad for it. She wasn’t used to being alone with her thoughts for so long and it was starting to wear on her. She had assumed an officially nocturnal schedule wouldn’t change much in the long run, but now she was beginning to suspect that having to stay up to fulfill her celestial duty at dawn might not be quite the same as simply letting her studies stretch late into the night.

If this was what Luna’s life was like night in and night out, Twilight could understand how something like Nightmare Moon could happen. Hopefully for Twilight’s sake, her books would keep her sane; that end-of-the-week estimate was looking pretty real. Thankfully, the slow revelation of the ruined castle before her was enough to distract her from her morbid thoughts.

If Twilight ever had cause to attempt to explain her starlight-sight, she expected most would just imagine it was like being able to see in the dark, and she probably wouldn’t correct them if they did. It was an awkward thing to explain how the diffuse light let her see objects, ponies and ancient ruins from every side at once. Even she herself had difficulty reconciling the reality of it.

Manifested in pony form as she was and therefore already possessing eyes and regular sight, she normally wouldn’t even have noticed the faint overlapping images of objects unwrapping under her focus. Tonight though, the walk through the dark corners of the Everfree had allowed her sight adjust to the point that she felt distinctly like a certain wall-eyed mailmare as she stepped out into the starlight of the clearing that surrounded the castle.

The sky was clear over the castle of the royal pony sisters revealing a great expanse of stars and of course, Luna, giving both of her sights plenty of light to work with. The story her eyes told her was much like what she’d seen on her way to confront Nightmare Moon that fateful night; the story the stars told her on the other hoof, was anything but. Though the chambers she had visited on her first trip were the most prominent structures, there were a great deal more that were disguised beneath vegetation, silt and mud. At one time, this had been a castle that would have rivaled Canterlot itself.

The ruins looked promising at first glance, but a bit of investigation revealed only disappointment. A thousand years was a long time, and from the looks of it the castle might have been damaged before it was abandoned. However it had happened, most of the structures were collapsed to some extent and years of water, growth and rot had made short work of almost everything. Even iron fixtures were in evidence only as a patina of reddish-orange on the ancient rounded stone. Time and the Everfree’s wild weather had reduced what was once the seat of Equestria to little more than gravel.

The sting of disappointment was dulled only by the consolation that she hadn’t told anyone about her grand plans of adventure and archaeology yet. Nothing was expected of her, and from the looks of it she’d be meeting those expectations with flying colors.

She wasn’t quite ready to give up just yet, though. Celestia had thought there might be something of value here and Celestia was rarely wrong. Of course, Celestia would have known what this pile of rubble looked like a thousand years ago. She would have known where what she was looking for was likely to be, and what might have been only buried rather than destroyed. Maybe she even had secret chambers underground for just such an occasion.

Twilight herself wasn’t completely without resources, however; she had read many books about archaeology and ancient architecture. Unfortunately, almost all of those books were from the Daring Do series, and the Daring Do series was fiction. As luck would have it though, her extensive knowledge of the adventures of one fictional beige pegasus turned out to be unnecessary.

There was one geographical feature Twilight had overlooked on account of it not appearing to be pony-made at first glance. It was a ring of vegetation at the nadir of what appeared to be a crater some distance away from the castle, hiding a perfectly circular sinkhole about ten hooves across. It didn’t appear to actually be a sinkhole, however. Unlike a proper sinkhole, the walls of it were smooth as if Celestia’s own sun had lain there and sunk down into the earth—or maybe instead, something had come up. Something angry and full of hate. Something that didn’t care what it hurt to get its way.

Celestia wasn’t the only one who might have had secret underground chambers, after all.

The shaft only went down a few dozen hooves to an uneven bottom which Twilight managed to float down to with her wings and a prayer. Admittedly, it was hard to botch what amounted to falling straight down, but she still felt like there should have been some sort of fanfare to celebrate her success.

The bottom of the shaft was covered in rock and other debris below more than a hoof of ice thanks to the season; but that was it. Twilight assured herself that it was only a blockage and the shaft probably went down much deeper. If she had really just jumped in an empty sinkhole for nothing, she might as well just go home now and pretend none of this had ever happened.

No, she had to go deeper.

Now, she might have been suffering from a slight lack of instinctual fear of the Everfree forest, but she wasn’t stupid. She was standing on the blockage she wanted to clear; that was a problem. She didn’t really see any way around it though, so she was very careful as she melted the ice and began shifting what rocks she could without disturbing the rest, like that one foal’s game with the sticks.

As it turned out, below the debris and a hoof of silt she found a shelf of solid rock under one half of the debris. Apparently at one point or another the whole layer of rock above had shifted a half-dozen hooves and misaligned the shaft, causing a bottleneck and eventually total blockage. Knowing this, it was a simple enough matter for her to uncover the aligned portion of the shaft, retaining the rock, silt, debris and herself on the solid rock shelf.

Simple, but ultimately ill-advised. As she unwedged one rock, freeing up the rest to fall through and clear the half of the shaft she needed, it became clear that the shaft went down for another hundred hooves before opening up to a solid black expanse. She barely had a second to remember how real sinkholes were formed before a loud crack all the way up the shaft signaled that yes, this was indeed going to hurt.

✶ ✶ ✶

Deep below the castle of the royal pony sisters spread a massive pony-made cavern, almost perfectly hemispherical like a crude planetarium might have been if it were made before the invention of architecture. The dome of the cavern was dark in color and glass-smooth, giving it a rich depth that well mimicked the blackness of the night sky.

Twilight didn’t have a chance to comment on any of this as she and several tons of rock tumbled out of the shaft opening at the dome’s apex. The fledgeling alicorn screamed mostly for her own benefit as she tried over and over to stabilize herself as she had earlier, but each time her wings caught the stale air, she was struck off balance from above by rocks that had broken free of the shaft above her and weren’t so lucky as to have wings to break their fall.

Eventually, she spread her wings one last desperate time and wasn’t rewarded with pain. She couldn’t manage a full glide, but it was enough to soften the impact that followed moments later. Even softened, the impact knocked everything Twilight had out of her, which made rolling off into another twenty hoof drop an insult to injury that she barely even registered.

✶ ✶ ✶

“What in the hay am I doing?” Twilight groaned as she lay on her back in the middle of... wherever this was. She hurt. It didn’t seem fair at all. If she had let herself be dashed into stardust on the rocks, she didn’t think it would have hurt like this.

She was thankful for the starlight filtering down through the hole above her; she had no idea if it was helping her, but she liked to think it was. Either way, it helped her take her mind off of how stupid this whole thing was. Next time she would just ask Princess Celestia for directions.

It was remarkable, really. Though there was hundreds of hooves of rock between her and the stars, she felt like she was laying in the open sky. She could just see the whole sky sparkling with—no wait, she could see the whole sky, she realized, bolting upright so she could look around. Half the sky, actually; half of the planetarium dome was black, but the other half... the stars were as real as the ones in the night sky. She wasn’t being poetic, either. They were real stars. She could see the chamber by their light, even with her eyes closed.

She was speechless. Was this something left behind by Luna? Was this her private chamber where she had sequestered away a small piece of the night for comfort on Celestia’s long summer days?

The stars weren’t speechless. They growled.

Twilight’s jaw dropped and the color drained from her face.

The stars roared.

Twilight hated being wrong; her only consolation was that despite her earlier worries, her capacity for fear was most certainly, definitely functioning consummately. This was no hidden chamber of Luna’s, no ancient planetarium. Maybe it had been at one time, but now it was the home of the greatest of all the beasts of the Everfree, the great mother bear, Ursa Major.

Somehow, Twilight’s aching body managed to leap from the pile of rubble just in time for a great thundering crash to that she’d just narrowly avoided finding out just how much being dashed on the rocks could hurt. Then again, she might not have felt it if they hadn’t—her brain was stuck back at the top of the pile choking on two words.

Ursa.

Major.

This was no creature the size of a mere house, no; the great mother bear practically filled the whole massive chamber and could have flattened whole swaths of Ponyville just by sitting on them, and right now it was doing a whole lot more than sitting.

As Twilight fled for what she hoped would be sufficient shelter, she zigged and zagged as best she could, but she was dodging blind. In the dark, all she could see of the Ursa Major was the stars it was made of. She could see the chamber by the light of those stars—she really wanted to know how that worked sometime when she wasn’t fleeing for her immortal life—but to the beast itself her starlight was blind.

The Ursa Major on the other hoof, could see Twilight just fine, and eventually her luck ran out. Just as she was nearing the edge of the main chamber, the massive starry paw descended on the tiny alicorn.

She had been right. It didn’t hurt at all.

✶ ✶ ✶

Something was wrong.

Something was very, very wrong.

Twilight had assumed that dying would be like forced demanifestation. She expected to immediately find herself back in the night sky, because no matter her perspective, that’s where she was. She expected her body to turn to stardust and drift away to eventually find itself back among the stars.

That didn’t happen. She had no body—she was a pony-shaped smattering of stars and magic—but she wasn’t going anywhere.

The Ursa Major had her, and it wasn’t letting go.

Now she was afraid; terrified, in fact. The implications filled her with a kind of dread she’d never experienced. Was she about to die—actually die—so soon after being given the immortality she’d always wanted? That hardly seemed fair at all.

Ursas were made of stars. Real stars. How was that even possible? If someone had suggested it yesterday, she would have imagined it could be true if they were a part of her; staring into the Ursa Major’s eyes as it held her, she knew this wasn’t true. The Ursa’s starlight may have bowed to her, but none of the Ursa’s magic was hers; none of its stars were hers. She and it existed in direct opposition; they were anathema to each other.

Twilight could do nothing. She had no body; no legs to kick with, no hooves to pry with and no horn to do magic with, not even a mouth to scream with. All she could do was watch in mute horror as the Ursa opened its mouth below her.

Would she really die? The very idea defied the few things she actually knew about alicorns, but no matter what her mind told her there was a deeper instinctual dread through which she knew—she just knew—that this would be the end of her. You wouldn’t think that the inside of an Ursa would look any different from it’s outside—and it didn’t, really—but right now, to Twilight they were night and day; life and death.

Could the stars be different than the sun or the moon? They were diffuse throughout the sky—millions of little bits that covered the world—did that matter? What would that change? Her mind raced along as the Ursa’s mouth drew closer, and a spark lit her mind with a pall of understanding.

She manifested differently than Celestia or Luna. Where her mentor always formed her body out of sunlight, Twilight’s was manifested from the stuff of the stars themselves. Was starlight alone too weak? She didn’t know, but it all unfolded itself from there. She was not one thing, but millions, and that made her... divisible. How much of herself was in this small dusting of stars and magic that she’d made a body of? All of it?

It was possible.

In fact, could a soul really exist in more than one place? Could she really exist in more than one conglomeration of starts and magic, or did she wax and wane in a much more real sense than Luna, multiplying and dividing herself as she went from stars to pony to stars again.

What would that do to somepony? She had an inkling that history held the answer.

She could only hope for the chance to find out for herself one day.

–and what would happen if she did die? What would happen to the stars? Would the Ursa seize the night sky? Would Celestia and Luna have to fight against this Great Bear God that had killed their student and friend? Would they avenge her? Would Luna even care or would she only want her stars back, unaware of what that could mean?

So many questions, so many answers, but no solutions. As Twilight’s mind raced frantically from subject to subject, her time eventually ran out. The Ursa dropped her and its great maw slammed shut around the alicorn of the stars.

✶ ✶ ✶

Like everything else that had happened since becoming an alicorn, being eaten by a colossal starbeast was nothing like Twilight had expected it to be. Instead of gnashing teeth and pain, the experience was more like being dunked into a pool of water. The Ursa Major’s magic was thick and viscous, drowning her in pure bestial power that threatened to overwhelm her as foreign stars dug into her like burning embers as she sank past them.

Was this it, then? Was it her fate to have her existence rendered down to its component magics not owing to a threat to Equestria or even Ponyville, but only her own foolish pride? That was what burned more than the Ursa’s stars; she had friends, family, even between one and two princesses who would all have risked their lives in defense of hers if they’d only had the chance. She, whose only assignment was studying the magic of friendship, had thought she didn’t need anypony else.

Worse, they would all blame themselves. They would ask themselves if they had missed something; if they hadn’t been good enough friends, if they’d been unfair to her, or if they should have left her on her own. Nopony deserved that, least of all the ponies she knew; she couldn’t bear the thought—not when it was her who had let them down. If they could see her now, what would they think?

What would they think? What was she doing just floating here waiting for her consciousness to fade? She should be fighting! She didn’t have a horn, but so what? Her cutie mark was for magic and she was made of magic; her cutie mark was for stars and she was made of stars.

So was the Ursa Major.

She knew what she had to do.

With arduous effort, she reached out to one of the Ursa’s stars and took it in her hoof. The star burned like a baseball-sized sun, evaporating her leg as she held it, but she endured; it was about to get much, much worse. Couching the star close to her chest, she did the only thing she could do...

She ate it.

The sensation of swallowing a star fullfilled all of her expectations and then some—like swallowing an apple whole if that apple was made of fire and lightning. The star burned all the way down, but she contained it; she controlled it; she made it a part of her. Her head swam as she realized this new part of her was not just a thing; it was alive, a piece of the Ursa’s soul just as now it was a part of hers.

There was no way that wasn’t going to be weird later on.

Still, even as she did her best to ignore the images of ages long past, something else was happening. It wasn’t long before the burning star became a fire of vitality inside of her, a beacon that shone with one message to the Ursa she’d taken it from: a declaration of war.

The Ursa Major roared in defiance, flooding Twilight’s mind with a furious anger, but she weathered the onslaught; she wasn’t dying any more. By taking that singular star inside herself, she had started something. With the addition of that star, she was no longer wholly different from the Ursa; that changed everything. Half-measures were no longer necessary.

Twilight barely had to reach out to the stars around her; they pulled at her and as soon as she touched them, they were hers. She exploded outwards, consuming dozens of stars before the Ursa could force her back with monstrous effort that staggered the starbeast. It was just the opening Twilight needed.

As the starbeast stumbled, Twilight—now Ursa Minor in size and definition—threw herself against the creature’s defenses a second time and was rewarded as it fell off balance, crashing down in the center of the chamber.

The Ursa took a moment as it dazedly tried to recover itself, but it was too late.

From the center of the chamber, Twilight could see up the shaft to the sparkling night sky. It was enough; she reached out with everything she had and she pulled.

The sky answered, and bowed low to meet the earth not as a hail of stars but as a whole, amorphous bulge of pure night.

✶ ✶ ✶

The Ursa Major was gone. Just... gone. In its place stood a trembling Twilight its size of solid stars from horn to hoof whose starry mane billowed up into the sky. Her mind was blank save one singular thought.

She was alive.

She was alive and she was whole again. Despite her colossal stature, she was anything but sturdy. She shook as the weight of everything that had happened crashed down on her. She fell first to her knees, then the ground.

She had almost died. The way the stars worked was her worst nightmare; immortality cached in a sieve. Poetic justice for a covetous pony like her, she supposed. She never wanted to leave the sky again and the prospect of the coming dawn chilled her to the bone. The very idea that a dozen other starbeasts across the world would look at her with hungry eyes was just too much. It didn’t matter that they probably weren’t going to come after her. After this rude awakening, anything seemed possible to her.

This was demonstrably the worst time imaginable for an Ursa Minor to come looking for its mother.

Twilight moved very fast for a colossal starry alicorn tethered to the sky by a swath of night. She made for the opposite side of the chamber, but tripped over herself when she realized the chamber wasn’t there any more. The sky had erased hundreds of hooves of rock as it answered her call, and it hadn’t been careful. She now lay at the bottom of a wide, soft, gaussian dip open to the night sky.

The Ursa Minor thought Twilight was its mother; Twilight thought it wanted her soul. She scrambled away on her back as it chased her, but it was no use. The Ursa Minor jumped and latched onto her flank as if to climb up to its mothers waiting arms, but it didn’t get very far. Halfway there, it popped like one soap bubble merging into another.

She didn’t even feel it.

Her heart pounded as her lungs struggled to process air and she began to feel lightheaded. It was all just too much, and she couldn’t seem to catch her breath any more than she could process everything that had happened. She couldn’t go on like this. She forced everything out of her mind and concentrated on just slowly breathing until her heart calmed down and she realized she was still made of stars and didn’t even have a heart or lungs. Slowly, she curled up into the tightest ball of ephemeral night she could and began sobbing to herself.

☾ ☾ ☾

Luna was not alone when the whole world tilted out from underhoof. She wished she had been. As it was, she ate marble in front of no less than six ponies she disliked. “What is that foolish pony doing with the sky?” she grumbled sourly under her breath as she righted herself with as much dignity as she could manage.

“Is something wrong, your majesty, or is throwing yourself at the floor one of those ‘games’ you picked up on your visit to Ponyville?” one of the ponies asked with barely contained amusement.

Just as Luna was about to answer him, the stars began to cry in slow, heartbreaking sobs.

“We...” she started, but the sudden outburst had rendered her speechless. She recovered quickly, however. No sooner than it took to think it, there was an excuse on the tip of her tongue and her wings were lifting of their own accord as she made to take her leave. Then, she remembered the situation she was in with the bearer of the element of magic. She visibly wilted.

“It... no, it is nothing. Thou may continue speaking about the... whatever it was you were talking about,” she offered distractedly. It didn’t matter; she didn’t hear a single word they said the rest of the night.

✶ ✶ ✶

It had been a long time since Twilight had awoken to the warmth of the sun under the open sky. It had been a comparatively shorter time since she’d woken up to the warmth of another pony next to her. It was only her second night as an alicorn and she’d woken up next to a different pony each time; what would Celestia say?

“Good morning, Twilight.”

That was what Celestia would say.

“Good—” she started only for the word to turn into a wide-mouthed yawn. “—morning Princess Celestia,” she finished on the tail-end of her yawn, then snuggled closer to the warm diarch. “It sure is cold,” she remarked.

“Ah,” Celestia said in hesitant acknowledgement. “Yes. That would be the snow, Twilight.”

“The snow?” Twilight asked, lifting her head and cracking open eyes crusty with sleep—no, actually it was frost. Sure enough, she and the princess were laying in the middle of a gently rolling white plain of snow. The snow was too bright for Twilight’s eyes, so she closed them and settled back against Celestia. “That’s funny; why would someone go to sleep in the snow?”

“I was hoping you’d tell me, Twilight,” the princess suggested with an edge of concern in her voice that hinted that no, she wasn’t going to get just five more minutes in bed.

Twilight sighed, cracking her eyes open again with one hoof over her eyes to shield them from a portion of the glare. She stared into the cold blue winter sky as she began to think.

She regretted it.

The sky was what did it. The clear open blue sky was many things; beautiful, soft and serene with just a lingering taste of dawn. What it wasn’t, was full of stars. The events of the night before didn’t so much crash into her as slowly crawl up her spine and around her heart like ice.

“Twilight?” Celestia prompted, the concern no longer hinted at. “Twilight, what’s wrong?”

For a short, brief moment, Twilight’s brain connected the lack of stars with Celestia—she’d risen the sun while Twilight was asleep! To her credit, she did not kick Celestia out of their bed of snow as she had Fluttershy the day before.

Celestia was much too heavy for that, for one thing.

Physics being what they are, it was Twilight that tumbled away in the snow, though considering the two alicorns were at the bottom of the dip Twilight’s stars had made, she didn’t go very far. It was enough, though. Celestia looked startled, then a little hurt.

Twilight’s brief panic didn’t last, but the awkward silence that came afterward lingered long enough to make her want to burrow into the snow and not come out until spring. Just as she was scanning the hillside for sign of any snow deeper than a hoof, she felt Celestia’s wing settling over her. Twilight looked up at her, but Celestia’s face held only concern.

“I’m—I—” Twilight stammered, shamefacedly averting her eyes in embarrassment.

Celestia pulled her wing tighter over Twilight reassuringly, but said nothing.

Twilight looked around at the vast open space around them. “I’m... sorry about the castle.”

“I don’t care about the castle,” Celestia assured her.

“But everything that could have been in there; all the things you talked about looking though...” Twilight sighed, letting the implications hang in the air.

Celestia chuckled coyly. “–were removed yesterday by myself and a team of Pegasi.”

Twilight stared, blinked and dropped her head with a sigh. “I am such an idiot.”

“Twilight—what happened?” Celestia appealed.

“I just wanted to do something to help. I wanted answers,” Twilight explained a bit defensively, not looking at Celestia.

“I am sorry you had to come out here for nothing. I wanted answers to give you, but we didn’t find anything worth mentioning,” Celestia explained, dispirited.

“Yeah, well you see... That’s a funny story because I did. I found something. Actually, uh, it’s not a funny story at all. It’s actually really kind of... I don’t even know. Sad; depressing; scary.”

Celestia raised one eyebrow, looking around at the empty field of snow. “–and what you found did all this?”

“No,” Twilight admitted nervously. “No, that was me. Literally me. I pulled the sky out of the, uhh, the sky. The ground lost.”

“The ground... lost,” Celestia repeated, as if saying it again would make it easier to swallow. “Twilight,” she sighed, “I don’t know how you do it, but you really know how to make my life interesting.”

“–actually,” Twilight added, caught up with her description and making motions with her hooves, “it was more like the ground was an innocent bystander that got in-between me and the, uhh, the Ursa. The Ursa Major. The one that used to, um, exist. Here.” She gave a nervous laugh.

“I think maybe you had better start back at the beginning,” Celestia suggested wearily.

Twilight sighed, thinking back to the night before; the stars she’d absorbed and what they were. What had seemed so potent in the moment had been subsumed and diluted into the vastness of her sky; calling on those inherited lives now might as well have been homeopathy. Still, she remembered the impression she got from that first star pretty well enough to build a picture in her head.

Twilight rubbed her temples with her hooves, trying to not to think about how she knew what she knew and what she’d been through to come to the conclusions she had. She hadn’t even had time to frame them for herself, but she tried.

“I think I know how it’s possible for me to have stolen the stars,” Twilight said quietly, studying the snow in front of her. “That’s actually not the beginning,” she admitted, “it’s more like the end, but it’s important. I know because I almost lost them myself. I almost—I could have—” Twilight choked up. She couldn’t say it without thinking about what had happened, so she changed her approach.

“The stars,” Twilight hesitated as she phrased her thoughts, “aren’t like the sun and the moon. That’s pretty clear to me now. They’re like millions of little suns or moons and they could potentially belong to millions of different ponies. They don’t, though. They congregate into masses; masses like me, like Ursa Majors and Minors and other things like them.”

“Then, the Ursa you mentioned...” Celestia suggested, finally getting some idea of what had happened.

“A long time ago, but after Luna was banished and around the time ponies were beginning to build a mythology around the night sky, a star fell here. The stars were as lost without Luna as the rest of Equestria, and on some level they knew the stories ponies were making up about them. When the star fell—which a lot of them did, without Luna—it burned so hot that it sank down into the rock right over th—well it’s gone now. The point is, it sat there for years burning a void into the rock until it started to believe the stories it remembered. Stories of Ursa Major and Ursa Minor in particular.”

“This sounds awfully specific, Twilight. Surely this is conjecture?” Celestia looked puzzled.

“It’s not, really” Twilight admitted. “There’s a small part of me now that lived it.” Before Celestia could say anything, she continued. “It—the Ursa—caught me somehow. I couldn’t see it in the dark and it crushed my body, but somehow it held onto my stars and... ate me.”

Celestia looked distressed. “Oh, Twilight...”

“I fought it as best I could, but I was just... this tiny little pony made of stardust and friendship. That was when I reached for the sky and... it came down. I swear I didn’t even know what would happen, I just... it was me or it, except now it’s me and it. I’m... not really comfortable with that, you can imagine.”

“I’m so sorry, Twilight. I never knew. Luna never said anything,” Celestia insisted.

Twilight sighed, shaking her head. “I don’t imagine she knew either. I don’t doubt the stars used to be a part of her, but they weren’t her. First and foremost, she’s the moon, and being the moon, she’s never been apart from the stars. Maybe that’s how it’s supposed to be.”

Celestia furrowed her brow, a little confused. “Do you mean to say the stars in the sky are not a part of you when you’re a—quote—‘tiny little pony made of stardust and friendship?’”

“No, I don’t think that’s it. The sky has to always be a part of me, or I wouldn’t have been able to pull it down like that; I wouldn’t be able to bring the stars out as a pony. I think it’s just a separate part. Like... The opposite of how you manifest. You put a bit of sunlight and magic together and make a body, but you’re still the sun. I have to pull myself out of the sky to manifest, and what I leave behind in the sky is like your body of sunlight and magic.

“It doesn’t sound so bad when I put it like that, but it’s all up for grabs. Stars and magic, that’s all I am. One beast of a dozen; I’m just the one that’s winning. This is my immortal life; some kind of sick battle royale for the stars.”

“I don’t believe that,” Celestia insisted emphatically.

“Realistically, I know they aren’t all going to hop on a train and come for my head,” Twilight said, conflicted. “I know that, but it still scares me,” she admitted.

“You aren’t just another pony, Twilight. I know this is all... quite more complicated than you deserve, but you can’t let what you’ve become get in the way of who you are. No matter what you say, you didn’t steal the stars; they came to you because no matter how they’re divided, no matter what shape they take, no matter if you were pony or alicorn, you were the one they were meant for. –not just a mass of stars and magic, but a pony that deserves what she has been given. That is who you are.”

“Thanks, Princess Celestia.” Twilight looked away, embarrassed but genuinely heartened. “Hearing you say that helps. I just wish Luna felt the same way.”

Celestia’s expression darkened. “Luna...” she sighed. “I can’t even begin to predict what she’d make of this.”

“I’m not even sure I know how I feel about it, really.” Twilight cradled her head in her hooves. “Everything that happened last night kind of puts the rest in perspective, doesn’t it?”

“Her opinion matters a lot to you, doesn’t it?” Celestia asked, somewhat out of the blue.

Twilight blinked. “Well of course it does.”

“Is it because she’s my sister?” Celestia suggested neutrally.

The idea, honestly, surprised Twilight. “What? No, not really. I mean, I guess that would make sense, but I hadn’t really thought of it like that.”

“Then I’m sure things will work out with you two somehow,” the elder alicorn assured her cryptically, then suddenly stood up. “–and with that, I should go. I have a nation to run after all, and it looks like there’s someone here to see you.”

Twilight didn’t get so much as a bemused “bwuh?” out before the shining white alicorn standing over her was replaced by a gentle gleam of sunlight.

Confused by Celestia’s words and sudden departure the first thing that came to mind was what Applejack had said... was it really just last night?

It sounds like she’s the pony you need to see.

Twilight turned around, hoping to see Luna, but she was disappointed.

It was just Rainbow Dash.

✶ ✶ ✶

“Well it’s nice to see you too, Twilight. What’s with the nasty look?” Rainbow Dash groused as she landed, returning the alicorn’s sour gaze.

Twilight blinked. “What? Oh, sorry. I was just confused for a second there. Celestia was really cryptic when she left.”

“Yeah well, whatever,” the pegasus brushed it off. “More importantly, what’s with the big hole in the ground?”

Twilight averted her eyes self consciously. “It’s really more of a dip...”

“Hey, seeing it from the air a mile off—trust me, it’s a hole.” Rainbow Dash gestured for emphasis.

“Yeah, well...” Twilight started, then stopped herself with a grimace. “You know what? No. I am not going into it. No! First it happened, then I had to explain it to Celestia, I am not going to spend another hour talking about it with you!”

“Well jeez, what rumbled your raincloud?” Dash retorted, perturbed with the sudden attitude.

“A giant bear a hundred bookshelves tall!” Twilight yelled in frustration.

“Are bookshelves a unit of measurement?” Rainbow Dash snarked. “Wait—are you serious?”

Twilight pinched the bridge of her nose with the crook of one hoof in exasperation, then looked straight at Rainbow Dash, suddenly calm and serious. “Rainbow Dash, listen to me. I am going to say a phrase, and it’s going to make you forget I said anything about bears, okay?”

“Woah woah woah, not cool!” Rainbow Dash shouted, rearing up and lifting her wings. “I see one spark of magic out of you and I’m out of—”

No magic was required. “Teach—me—to—fly,” Twilight enunciated.

“...yeah, okay.”

✶ ✶ ✶

“Huh.” Rainbow Dash scratched her head with one hoof, perplexed. “You know, last night your wings were a mess, but now they look great. Did Celestia show you how to preen?”

“What? Oh, no.” Twilight spread one wing and craned her neck back to look at it; it was indeed spotless except for a dusting of snow, which she shook off. “It’s a, umm...”

Rainbow Dash groaned. “What, another alicorn thing? Come on Twilight, I’m playing along but you’ve gotta be able to at least hold a conversation!”

Twilight sighed. “I know. You’re right. Look, you saw how Princess Celestia left?”

Rainbow Dash nodded as she inspected Twilight’s wings to make sure they really were as neat and tidy as they looked. “Uh-huh. She teleported, right? Like you always do?”

“It’s not really the same, no,” Twilight lectured as Rainbow Dash poked and prodded at her. “Teleportation is like—hrm—okay, remember when we had to get Ponyville’s reservoir water up to Cloudsdale, and all the pegasi had to make a big tornado to get it there?”

“Uh-huh.” Rainbow Dash urged.

“Teleportation is like that. It takes a lot of power, and the further it is, the more it takes. Now, imagine that instead of the tornado, you just made all the water into clouds and flew them to Cloudsdale.” Twilight beamed; she was rather proud of her explanation.

Rainbow Dash didn’t think of it quite so highly. “But we don’t have any cloud-making machines in Ponyville, that’s why the water has to go to Cloudsdale in the first place!” she challenged.

Face, meet hoof, it’s been a while. “It’s a simile, Dash.”

That stopped Rainbow Dash. “A what now?”

“A metaphor,” she explained, weathering the sting of improper grammatical usage valiantly, like a true librarian. Somewhere in the back of her mind, a mantra was repeated several times. Communication before correctness.

“Oh, yeah,” Rainbow Dash laughed. “So the clouds in this metaphor, they’re what? Some kind of fluffy magic you precipitate back into liquid pony?”

Twilight’s face twisted into a grimace. “Okay, you know what; that didn’t work.” She sighed, wracking her brain for a better analogy. She failed to come up with anything, but there was another possibility, if she could do it. “Look,” she said authoritatively. “I’m going to try to show you something, just promise me you’re not going to freak out; especially do not freak out if I’m gone until sunset, okay.”

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah.”

“I’m serious, Dash,” Twilight scolded.

“Okay! I promise!” Rainbow Dash relinquished, though it was clear her eyes remain thoroughly rolled on the inside. “Stick a cupcake in my eye and all that, just show me your stuff!”

Twilight steeled herself. She should be able to do this if her theory about how she manifested was right. This is what ponies did—they experimented to confirm or deny a hypothesis. Concentrating on her outstretched wing, and starting at the tips, she slowly dissolved pony flesh and feathers back into stars and magic. Once she was sure she could hold herself together she let her whole body go until she was a whole pony made of stars again.

Just like last night.

She didn’t let it bother her. This wasn’t last night, she wasn’t in any danger, she was opening up to one of her friends. She was fine. Her mind was steady.

Rainbow Dash’s mind on the other hand, was quite elsewhere. “Dude, you’re like, evaporating in the sun.”

Twilight did, in fact, appear to be condensing vaporized magic on her surface. It was disconcerting, but miniscule. “It should be fine,” she said dismissively.

Rainbow Dash took the reassurement at face value and circled Twilight, “I gotta say, that is—”

“–creepy?” Twilight suggested nervously.

“–awesome!” was Rainbow Dash’s actual response.

Reassured, Twilight relaxed and focused on her next feat. Gently, she moved from one side of Rainbow Dash to the other, but not with her starry legs. She just seemed to flow across the space, over and around the pegasus for emphasis.

Rainbow Dash laughed and squirmed as the alicorn flowed over her and reformed on the other side. “You know, you could have just done that in the first place,” she said after Twilight reformed. “It would have saved some time.”

“Yeah, well I—” Twilight started, but Rainbow Dash had other ideas.

“Oh, oh! You know what you should do? Say the line! Say it!” she beamed with a wide grin, literally hopping on her hooves like she was Pinkie Pie.

Twilight was just confused. “What? What line?”

“You know! ‘I am the night,’ like Batmare!” Rainbow Dash mimicked the line with mock seriousness, then went back to grinning.

Just like that, Twilight was flesh again. “No, Dash. Just no.”

“Aww.” The rainbow pegasus deflated, but didn’t argue.

“This really doesn’t weird you out?” Twilight asked, one last time.

Rainbow Dash shrugged. “Hay, pony magic, right? My mane turns into a flipping rainbow when I fly fast enough, you’re made of sparkles, now let’s get you off the ground.”

“...they’re stars, Dash. Stars.”

✶ ✶ ✶

“So if you can do all that, why did you need me to teach you to fly?” Rainbow Dash asked during a lull in Twilight’s crash course in flight. “Couldn’t you just, like, sparkle your way anywhere?”

Twilight was doing much better now with a pair of fresh wings and Rainbow Dash’s instruction on how to keep them that way after a few of her less effective ‘landings.’ She wasn’t exactly a natural, but then she wasn’t exactly a fluttershy either. It felt a little mean to think of her friend as a benchmark for mediocrity in flight, but the butter-yellow pegasus herself would be the first to tell you that she didn’t mind, and indeed wasn’t the best of fliers.

Twilight rolled her eyes. “Are you seriously going to keep calling it that?”

“Yes.” Rainbow Dash declared with mock authority. “In fact, that’s your new nickname, Sparkles.”

“Eugh,” Twilight bemoaned her fate in life... or nomenclature, anyway.

“So, what gives? I mean, this is great fun for me and all but I got the feeling you didn’t just want to shut me up—though that was pretty good. Do you, like, sit up all night thinking up all sorts of ways you could take the rest of us out if you had to? Like if Discord came back and turned the rest of us again, only instead of using the memories of our friendship you had to—”

“I am not Batmare, Rainbow Dash!” Twilight interrupted. “I swear, if you keep doing this, I will stop lending you comic books at the library.”

“Oh fine,” she relented. “Why do I feel like I have to ask you everything three times, though?”

“Because I’m still not comfortable with some of it, and you’re as persistent as Pinkie Pie, sometimes,” Twilight sighed with a hint of tired bitterness.

“Look, I just...” She sighed, downcast. “I’d rather not have to go back through the Everfree forest right now. I’m still feeling uncomfortably vulnerable after what happened and flying seemed like it would help with that—and it is helping so long as I don’t have to keep talking about it.”

“You could have just said so in the first place, you know. ‘Hey Dash, I’m feeling down, let’s go fly!’” Rainbow Dash emoted extra smoothly for Twilight’s benefit.

“I used fewer words than you did,” Twilight pointed out.

“Yeah, but they were less honest words,” Rainbow Dash retorted justly.

Twilight exhaled softly, and gave a little chuckle. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

“I am always right,” Rainbow Dash declared. “I don’t know why you don’t listen to me more.”

“Dash, I’m powered by a million stars and I like you, but talking to you makes me so tired sometimes. Well, demonstrably less than a million right this second, but you get the idea. Some of us just don’t work at the same speed you do.”

Rainbow Dash cringed. “Ugh, don’t say that. I hate that guy. Just reading all that meta garbage makes me tired.”

The gears in Twilight’s head ground to a halt and she cocked her head at the pegasus. “What guy?”

“The one powered by a million suns,” Rainbow Dash asserted emphatically.

“Stars aren’t suns, Dash,” Twilight clarified. “I mean, they’re similar in a lot of ways, but they’re actually denser per cubic hoof, and even though they burn like the sun, the energy they release is closer to the moon, and... you don’t really care, do you.”

“Whatever. I still can’t believe you don’t read everything that comes through your library!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed with indignation. “I mean, reading is great and all but do you have any idea how it feels when I’ve read something and you haven’t?”

“I’m familiar with the sensation Dash, yes,“ Twilight replied with sarcasm bordering on abrasiveness. “–and I appreciate comics just fine, I just don’t like all of the crossovers or new authors that throw out everything a character is about just to make them more bright and sparkly. My life has more than enough sparkles.”

Rainbow Dash was covering her mouth with both hooves, but failed to muffle a snicker.

“What?” Twilight barked, then realized what she’d just said. “Oh hoof it all, now you’ve got me doing it.”

“–but hay, you read Twilight. You don’t have any right to look down on comics,” Rainbow Dash defended indignantly.

“Some day, Dash, I’m going to teach you about personal space.” Twilight grumbled, mostly to herself. “Look, if they made a book about you, you’d read it too.”

Rainbow Dash brightened up immediately. “You bet I would—because it would be AWESOME.”

“Okay, but picture this, Dash,” Twilight explained with exaggerated slowness. “What if they did write a book about you, but it wasn’t awesome?”

“Oh.” Rainbow Dash suddenly blanched, clearly picturing such a nightmare scenario in her head for the first time. “Oh Celestia, no!”

“Now you know what my life is like.”

✶ ✶ ✶

Eventually, Twilight was given the Rainbow Dash seal of yeah-you-can-probably-make-it-home and the two of them parted ways over Fluttershy’s cottage.

It was weird, but she actually kind of missed her little hole in the ground—she had to admit that it kind of was a hole if you saw it from far off—despite being in the middle of the Everfree forest. It was peaceful and secluded and somehow hers. She’d made it, after all.

That didn’t sound weird at all.

Actually, looking at it scientifically, unicorns did sometimes feel attachment to things they’d used lots of magic on. It was suspected that the magic grew to permeate the object and lent it an air of familiarity. In layman’s terms, it wasn’t unlike animals that marked their territory with scent—though she was unfond of the images that particular analogy brought to mind, especially on the scale in question.

Ew.

Of course, irrational attachment aside, she still felt bad for wiping a historical monument off the map. That seemed like the sort of thing you didn’t do, even if it was inside the one place in Equestria ponies just didn’t go. Celestia hadn’t seemed too broken up about it, and it was basically her old house—but then, sometimes it was hard to tell with her.

Luna, on the other hand...

Twilight sighed. Again, Celestia had reassured her that the two of them would be able to work it out, but she didn’t feel like she was getting anywhere. She’d sort of gotten over the lion’s share of her panic and fear by replacing it with a new breed of panic and another brand of fear. She felt more grounded than she had in days, but she was still in the same place as ever with the princess.

Stranger still, even though she wasn’t quite actually afraid that the princess would hate her forever any more, her desire for an amicable resolution sooner rather than later was stronger than ever. She already had friends like Rainbow Dash and she could just talk forever with Princess Celestia, so why did it feel like Luna was so important?

She found the library before she found an answer, and gently swooped down to land in front of it. Nopony could mistake her for a regular pegasus, but she hoped to be inside quick enough to avoid comment. When it came to actually opening the door though, she hesitated.

Standing in front of the door to the Library, she remembered her little fantasy from the night before about how she expected learning more about the alicorns would solve all her problems. In reality, it had probably been the shortest ‘quest of self discovery’ ever, but it sure hadn’t felt like it; stupidest maybe, like the zen equivalent of finding enlightenment by turning a corner and running straight into a wall. Either way, she was glad to be home. She wasn’t sure where she would be going from here, but there was still one more talk she had to have.

✶ ✶ ✶

There was a scratching sound like claws on wood upstairs as Twilight entered the library and shut the door behind her.

“Spike!” she shouted, but there was no answer. “I don’t care, okay? I won’t even say anything about it, can you just come out, please?”

A little purple and green head peeked out of the stairwell and the rest followed soon after. She was on him in an instant; the poor baby dragon never had a chance. Sister hugs were an inescapable fact of life.

“Twi—light! You’re—crushing—me!” came a series of complaintive squeaks from somewhere in Twilight’s arms.

She loosened her grip to hold him at arms length and look at him with misty eyes. “Please don’t ever avoid me like that again, Spike. You have no idea what I’ve been through. If the last thing I ever said to you was your name, asking you to come back... well, you’d feel really bad.”

“Don’t you mean you’d feel bad?” Spike asked, confused.

“No, Spike,” she responded with complete, almost unnatural sincerity. “I’d be dead.”

Spike frowned and was silent for a moment as that sank in. “Can that really happen?”

“Apparently,” was her only response.

Spike looked down, having been successfully embarrassed. “...I’m sorry.”

“Me too.” Twilight gave a short nod and hugged him again.

“What—did—happen,” he asked from within her death-grip

“Ursa Major,” she said simply.

“You mean Minor, right?” he asked, eyes wide.

She gave a smirk. “Both, actually.”

“Woah.”

“–and Spike?” she added, finally releasing him.

“Yeah?” he responded automatically as he recovered.

“At least bet on me next time, okay?” she said with a scolding smile.

The baby dragon dropped his eyes in embarrassment. “You said you wouldn’t say anything.”

“I’m an alicorn. I lied,” she declared matter of factly.

“I don’t think that’s how that works.”

✶ ✶ ✶

Some time later, after stories had been exchanged and food had been had, there was a knock at the door. Spike got it. “Um, Twilight?” he shouted. “There’s a bunch of ponies here to see you. Like, a bunch; possibly a ton of ponies. They look important.”

Chapter 6

Sharing the Night: Chapter 6

✶ ✶ ✶

“You don’t measure ponies by the ton, Spike,” Twilight chided as she made her way to the front door of the library. “The most common collective noun is ‘herd,’ but there’s als—oh Celestia, that is a ton of ponies.”

The alicorn of the stars paled at the mass of ponies outside her library. What had she done now? The ponies of Ponyville had mostly seen fit to watch her from afar, save that one time when she’d made the mistake of engaging them. They certainly hadn’t dared come to her door en masse.

Frozen in place in the doorway, hesitant to leave her home, no room to invite them in, and too polite to slam the door and hide under her bed, she realized that these ponies weren’t from Ponyville. A moment later, she realized that their not being from Ponyville didn’t mean she didn’t know them. In fact, one of them in the middle of the crowd waved.

Twilight weakly waved back, attempting to feign a look of neutrality and failing completely.

“Ahem,” the foremost pony of the group coughed.

“Star Glister,” Twilight greeted the aged head of the Astronomers’ Guild of Equestria as politely as she was able. He had a clean white coat and a rich midnight blue mane despite his age, and was not exactly her favorite pony in the world. Bringing the whole guild to her doorstep wasn’t helping either.

“So, it really is you,” he stated with a hint of sourness and disbelief.

“Yeah. It’s me,” she confirmed neutrally.

He eyed her wings and mane. “Princess of the stars.”

“Alicorn. Just... alicorn of the stars,” she corrected with a mix of exasperation and acceptance. There really wasn’t a way she could say it that didn’t put her on a pedestal. Still, the title of princess was special to her and it felt wrong to take it for herself.

“Of course.” He stiffened. “I never thought when Princess Celestia had us install that telescope in your tower that it would lead us here.”

“Why are you here?” Twilight asked, pulling back and flattening her ears with guarded suspicion. She had a pretty good idea.

“The princess of the night—” he started to say, but a younger stallion at his side nudged him and he corrected himself. “The princess of the moon directed us here.”

“She’s still pissed, huh?” Twilight asked dryly. Of course she was.

The older unicorn looked unsure at the connection, but admitted, “Her demeanor was not pleasant, no.”

“Princess Luna...” She shook her head sadly. “What are we going to do?” she asked herself.

“Lady Sparkle—” the stallion began.

“Please don’t call me that. This isn’t Canterlot,” Twilight asserted. “I’m just the librarian here.”

Star Glister frowned. “Very well then—Librarian Sparkle,” he corrected unhappily. “My apologies for bothering you at your residence, but the mayor of this quaint little town didn’t seem to know where you would be holding your evening court. Disgraceful, I tell you.”

“My what?”

✶ ✶ ✶

“Court, Spike!” Twilight bemoaned. “They want me to go out there at dusk and hold court!” She was standing over a large book of Equestrian law—her own personal copy, of course. “–and they’re right! The authority to hold court, mediate disputes and render judgement is granted to alicorns for some hoofing reason. Look at the date on this.” She stamped on the page with her hoof. “It’s from before there even was a diarchy! How can they not have updated this in over a millenium and a half?” she shouted angrily at the book.

“Wait, so all the talk about not being a princess was pointless?” Spike asked, dubious of the possibility. The princess wasn’t known to give false assurances. Well, not to Twilight anyway, usually, when the world wasn’t in danger.

“Right!” Twilight shouted automatically with indignation, then sighed, looking back at the book. “Well, no, it does matter. There’s a bunch of other stuff I’d have to do if I really was a princess, and I think I’d actually need to own land to even qualify. You might think all the stars in the sky would count, but apparently not! Anyway, look at this. All the really really big stuff says alicorn.”

“I guess that’s what you get for having one on the throne the whole time,” Spike shrugged.

Twilight gaped at the baby dragon. “Spike! Are you suggesting the Equestrian government is racist?”

“What? No!” Spike shouted defensively.

“Oh.” Twilight was easily mollified, though it got her thinking. “Actually, you know, there don’t seem to be any provisions for cloud ownership.”

“Man, you think you know your government...” Spike shook his head.

“Yeah, well, Celestia can only do so much.” Twilight shrugged. “There just isn’t that much pegasus representation in the government.”

“Duh—because they aren’t landowners!” Spike pointed out.

“No!” Twilight barked, then reconsidered. “Well—maybe—but I meant that most pegasi value their freedom and get bored sitting around waiting for politics to happen.”

“Didn’t that one pegasus mailmare run for mayor, once?” Spike recalled.

“That doesn’t count, it was a joke write-in that got out of hoof,” Twilight dismissed. “She didn’t even know she almost won until ponies started asking about her stance on muffin taxes. Her campaign never recovered from the embezzlement allegations after she started talking about how much she’d like it if ponies paid their taxes in muffins,” she elaborated somberly.

Spike rolled his eyes. “How do you even remember all of that?”

“It was last Tuesday,” she reminded him.

“Oh, right.” Spike scratched the back of his neck, a little embarrassed. “Anyway, Twilight. I just meant that there hasn’t ever been a difference between alicorns and princesses before, has there? You’re the first alicorn that’s ever not been a princess.”

“That’s true,” she admitted. “Unless Celestia and Luna had a third sister they didn’t get along with.”

Spike screwed up his face in disgust. “Yeesh, Twilight. That’s pretty grim.”

“Grim? What do you—no! Ugh, Spike!” she shared his look of disgust. “I just meant that they didn’t want her ruling Equestria with them!”

“Right,” he said. “So they—”

“You do not accuse the diarchy of committing sororicide of their non-existent sister, Spike!” Twilight lectured indignantly. “Not even if they have a history of long-forgotten sisters and attempted coups. Not only is it rude, but it’s also only one data point. I’ve taught you statistics, Spike. You know this.”

“I guess.” He shrugged. “But wait, speaking of ‘multiple data points...’ what about all those other princes and princesses, like Blueblood?”

“Don’t be silly; they aren’t real royalty, Spike. They’re not even—” She stopped mid-sentence, as soon as her mind caught up with her mouth.

“–alicorns?” Spike finished sarcastically, knowing her all too well.

Twilight just stared blankly ahead for a good, long moment before dropping to the floor and burying her face in her book out of embarrassment like a literary ostrich trying to will the pages to accept her face. “Yeah, that,” she said, her voice muffled by the pages.

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight was still reading her copy of Equestrian Law for the Politically Disinclined when there was an ominous knock at the door for the second time that day. For a moment, she panicked, thinking she’d lost track of time. She had lost track of time, actually, but lucky for her it wasn’t nearing dusk just yet. She still had some time before she needed to hold—she wilted just thinking about it—court.

As the door opened to reveal her mystery guest, though, she realized there were more immediate problems.

“Twilight Sparkle!” the pony at the door said disapprovingly.

“Hello to you too, Rarity.” Twilight shook her head and let the fashionista in so she could close the door before she attracted too much attention. “Why is it you’re never just happy to see me these days?” she grumbled.

Rarity had the decency to look contrite as she entered the library. “Well I’m sorry, Twilight, but how do you expect me to have something ready for you for tonight if I have to hear about it from the—”

“I don’t, Rarity,” Twilight interrupted. “I’m not wearing anything; Princess Celestia doesn’t.”

“You would think that, Twilight.” Rarity shook her head and tsked. “You know, the fact that she is never seen without it doesn’t make the royal regalia any less important.”

“Okay, fine.” Twilight rolled her eyes. “If you can come up with a full set of regalia, in my colors, within the hour, I’ll wear it.”

Rarity just grinned like the cat who caught the canary.

“...you didn’t,” Twilight balked, disbelieving.

“Days ago, darling.”

☾ ☾ ☾

Luna had listlessly lain in bed far into the late afternoon. It was true she hadn’t slept well ever since she’d lost the stars, but today in particular she’d been absolutely miserable. While in the end she’d only had to put up with the stars crying for a short while, the repercussions had bothered her for the rest of the night.

Well, bothered might not have been the right word.

She was conflicted. Of course she felt bad about ignoring a crying mare no matter how angry Luna was with her, but that wasn’t the worst of it. Worse was that after Twilight had cried herself out, she’d drifted off to sleep and the stars had once again clung to Luna until dawn. Apparently the lunar princess wasn’t going to get a choice in whether or not she had a part in consoling the element of magic.

Worse still, far from feeling taken advantage of, she was actually glad for it. She was glad to have the decision taken out of her hooves and she was glad to be a comfort to the faltering mare without actually having to face her. The empty place in her heart told her that she was still angry with the element of magic, but still...

It felt good to be needed. It filled the emptiness, if only just a little.

It was a lie though. The element of magic didn’t need her, she told herself. Twilight had five of the truest friends a pony could have. Even Celestia herself had run off at dawn, skipping their usual breakfast together. Luna scoffed; whatever had happened, she was sure the end result was a lesson learned and a heartfelt talk. If anything, it was Luna who would come up short in the matter. Surely a personal visit from Celestia meant there would be no letter for lonely, angry, bitter little Luna to read later.

It was dispiriting to think of herself as such. Honestly, she was sick and tired of being all those things. In the past she had been driven by them; she used to spend days on end with no sleep planning for the morning when she would stop Celestia from raising the sun. She suffered through countless lesser indignities just for the day she would see that self-righteous face falter.

What a joke. None of it meant anything to her any more. She didn’t know if the elements of harmony had taken those feelings out of her or if she’d just gotten old. A thousand years was a long time to hold onto hate, even for an alicorn like her. It was half her life. Was it any wonder she felt like a different pony these days? Was it any wonder that maybe, just maybe, she wanted to hope, for once?

She didn’t have a whole lot to hope for, though. The hope that she would get her stars back was dry and dying; it was nothing that would sustain her. The only thing she could come up with was a sad little bud that said maybe the element of magic would send a supplementary report on what had happened, and that she could read it.

Hope was rather depressing, she found.

✶ ✶ ✶

Moments before dusk, Twilight found herself shifting her weight from one hoof to the others outside of Town Hall where the Mayor sometimes held speeches and press releases. Public speaking was nothing new to her, though she’d had no time to prepare a speech on a stack of index cards like she sometimes did. She had no speech for that matter, which was sort of the problem.

The ponies of the Astronomers’ Guild of Equestria weren’t expecting a speech. They were here as petitioners. They wanted things from her. They wanted answers. Answers which—for all that she had discovered the night before—Twilight doubted she had.

“I present to you, the High Archlibrarian of the Stars, Twilight Sparkle,” came the announcement.

Twilight inwardly cringed as she stepped forth. “Libraries are not an autocracy,” she groaned to herself as shoes made of polished jet made dignified taps each time her hooves met wood. She prepared the traditional Ponyville Librarian Voice, expecting to have to quiet her audience as Celestia often did.

She didn’t. There was no need. These were astronomers, after all; they were scientists. They didn’t cheer. They just stared. She was okay with that, though. Staring was good. Staring meant she had their attention, and though she didn’t have any answers, she did have a bit of a plan.

Twilight’s ‘court’—she still couldn’t believe she was doing this—was scheduled for directly after dusk, but it wasn’t dusk yet, not quite. Her audience would expect to see her bring out the stars, and she wasn’t going to disappoint them.

It was a very strange plan for a pony in her position. It wasn’t very elaborate or complicated. The entirety of it could be summed up as ‘making a good impression,’ if you were so inclined. The strangeness came in that it required her to convince the crowd of something that she’d have argued adamantly against just yesterday, and she still wasn’t completely comfortable with.

They were here to question her, to complain, really. She knew because in her mind she was right there with them; they were her own concerns, her own complaints. They were polite and cordial on the surface, but she needed to convince them that she really was the alicorn of the stars. She needed to convince them that she had the right and authority to be here before them and tell them that what they wanted, they would never see in their lifetime.

As for what specifically she was going to do... Celestia had her own show for raising the sun. It was graceful, elegant and powerful; it was what had first set the fire in Twilight’s heart burning for magic. Twilight had ended up with a special talent for magic, the stars or both, but that was inconsequential. This—to stand before a crowd and show them something wondrous, like Celestia had shown her all those years ago—was what she had wanted to do with it. She wasn’t steady enough on her wings to do graceful or elegant, but after last night... she felt maybe she had it in herself to do powerful.

She stepped up behind the podium, but didn’t get up on it. Instead, she levitated it aside so she was in full view of the crowd. She felt exposed without the podium, index cards or other props, but she wanted them to see this.

She closed her eyes and lit her horn—using Celestia’s spell to calm herself until she could feel the stars around her—then snapped them open again. She couldn’t see the crowd any more, but she knew what they saw: eyes black as night, filled with stars. A few gasps of surprise egged her on only to be repeated again as the black from Twilight’s eyes seemed to spread over her body until she stood before them as she’d shown Rainbow Dash just earlier that day, stars from horn to hooves.

The jeweled collar and tiara she wore clattered to the ground; she lifted one hoof in surprise only for it to come out of its shoe. Somewhere behind her, Rarity made a sound like a strangled mouse. Twilight forced herself to go on.

Resplendent in all her glory—and none of Rarity’s—she reared up, spread her starry wings wide for effect, and slammed her forehooves down with a great resounding thump. Just at that moment, the stars exploded out into the sky above her, churning out great whorls in the process.

The deed done, she released herself from the sky and her starry form at the same moment and looked down at the crowd, expecting faces lit up with astonishment and awe.

The crowd looked back at her unimpressed. At first she wondered if she’d gone too far and scared them, but on closer inspection they looked disquieted—angry, even.

Twilight coughed into her hoof uncomfortably as she levitated her collar, tiara and shoes back on. The sound echoed over the crowd and they all looked up to her. “The—err—Stellar Court will now accept its first petitioner,” she announced, bemused and a little worried.

Star Glister stepped forward from the crowd with a dour look on his face. “The Astronomers’ Guild of Equestria would like to formally request to know when the stars will be returned to their proper locations so we may continue our work.”

Twilight stiffened and put on her best Princess Celestia face. “I am working to return the stars to their previous configuration, but I must do so star by star.”

There was a rumbling of dissent which was echoed in Star Glister’s steady face. Nopony knew better than them just how many stars there were in the night sky. “–and how long do you expect this to take?” was the obvious question they all had on their tongues.

Twilight swallowed hard, her throat dry. “By my calculations, it will take me a thousand years,” she stated plainly, doing her best to make it sound matter-of-fact. The rumbling of the crowd turned into a thunderous outcry as the obvious conclusion was finally confirmed.

Apparently, it actually was possible to get astronomers riled up, Twilight reflected with bitterness. All you had to do was crush their hopes and dreams and invalidate their entire lives’ work. “I’m... sorry, everypony,” she added weakly as she dropped her head. The traditional Ponyville Librarian Voice made the tremor in her voice clear as day, which only drove the crowd louder still. From zero to riot in twenty seconds, she mused. For some reason she’d imagined it taking longer, but what else was there to say?

Star Glister raised one hoof to quiet them. He wasn’t done, apparently. “–and can you do it?” he asked coldly.

Twilight furrowed her brow, confused. “I’m not sure I understand what you mean.”

“Forgive me, but you say you are working on restoring the stars. I don’t see it,” he challenged.

That was true, she had to admit. She’d had so much on her mind that beginning a thousand year project of shuffling stars about hadn’t exactly made it to the top of her list. “Well I—” she started to explain, but Star Glister had more to say.

“How do you expect to restore them when they never stop moving?” the aged astronomer aggressively snapped.

“They what?” she asked automatically.

“You swirl the stars about like it’s a show when you bring them out, and they drift in eddies and currents until you put them away in the morning,” Star Glister fumed angrily. “How do you expect us to maintain any kind of charts when stars can cross the sky in a single night, and drift away from our telescopes no sooner than we get them in sight in the first place? How do you expect to restore them—be it in one thousand or ten thousand years—when you can’t keep them still for one single night?”

Twilight blinked dazedly, blindsided completely. She’d seen the long swirls the stars had formed into, but she hadn’t had time to observe them for long. She certainly had been too busy to get her telescope out. “I... I didn’t know,” she admitted, her lower lip quivering.

“You didn’t even know?” the older pony asked incredulously, shaking with anger.

“I haven’t had time to—” Twilight tried to explain.

“–you didn’t have time?” Star Glister balked, all pretense of civility—let alone propriety—finally stripped from him. “You didn’t have time? You are the alicorn of the stars! What could possibly be more important to you than the bloody stars?!” he shouted in a rage.

Twilight cringed at the outburst and took a step back. Her heart was beating hard and she could feel the blood thrumming in her ears over the pregnant silence that came in the wake of Star Glister’s anger. A small part of her told her she was being ridiculous. It was just a pony yelling at her, but she swore that she could feel the hate boiling off of him. She felt like she had the night before, looking down the jaws of an ursa major—like she had two days ago when Luna had pointed out just how Twilight had hurt her. Most of all, though, she felt lost and confused as her head swam with a mixture of emotions she couldn’t rightly identify.

Before she knew anything was wrong, Twilight found herself surrounded by ponies. She felt another wave of anxiety building up before she realized it was just her friends. At some point she’d stumbled back onto her rump and she was just sitting there with one hoof over her rapidly beating heart like she was trying to hold it in. They were concerned about her, asking if she was alright, but their words all blended together in her muddled head and she couldn’t find her voice to answer.

It really was ridiculous, she told herself. She’d let the stress get to her to the point that she was worrying her friends and making a fool of herself in public because she couldn’t handle a single angry pony. As much as she didn’t want to disappoint Celestia, enough was enough. Magic filled Twilight’s horn and she used the calming spell Celestia had taught her for finding her connection to the stars.

It was like being suddenly dunked in ice water. Her heart seemed to stop between one beat and the next, but eventually it beat once, then again. Each consecutive beat came at its normal pace, as if she hadn’t been inexplicably scared for her life just moments ago. Her breathing followed suit, and she pushed the spell further until everything went dark and the whole of her great tangled mess of emotions unraveled out in the sky.

She didn’t let herself get distracted, though. She tried to put a comforting smile on for her friends as she motioned them back, but it disappeared as she got up. Rainbow Dash and Applejack were facing Star Glister and the crowd, so she had to push past them to do what she was going to do. She felt strange and detached walking with only her starsight for reference, but that was the point. Only when she was like this did she really feel the scope of what she was. Only like this did she really feel whole.

Having to get in front of Rainbow Dash and Applejack put Twilight on the steps leading down away from Town Hall, so she kept walking on down to the crowd. As she did, she turned her body to stars again. Her collar and tiara thudded to the ground once more, but it wasn’t funny this time. As she approached Star Glister, it struck her how small she looked from above, so she pulled a little extra from the sky until her starry form had the stature of a fully grown alicorn. It was kind of mean, but she was beyond being polite.

In fact, just that moment, she had the urge to find out what happened to a pony when you dropped a star on them. Luckily for Star Glister, she’d seen last night what the stars could do to solid rock, and that was enough to stay her hoof.

She looked blindly down at the aged astronomer, then past him to the rest of the guild who had all backed up to form a bubble of space around him. “The Stellar Court is now over,” was all she said.

Star Glister was livid. “My hoof it is! You screw up the stars and you don’t even know what’s going on with them? –and now this—this posturing? What in Equestria is wrong with you?”

Twilight leveled her empty gaze back down at the aged unicorn in front of her. “Star Glister, you are the head of your guild, so act like it. If the stars move, either chart their currents or find a job farming rocks. I am done here.”

As if to prove a point, Twilight didn’t move a hoof. It only took a moment of awkward silence before ponies began to excuse themselves to... anywhere but in front of the alicorn of the stars.

Star Glister was the last to leave, but in the end he did so without another word.

☾ ☾ ☾

“We are done here,” Luna announced with a dejected sigh. The Night Court—nay, the Lunar Court, she corrected sourly—had been a complete waste of time tonight. It was a waste of time every night, but tonight in particular she had honestly considered striking up a game of cards with her guards. In the end though, she had told herself she didn’t want to have to look at the aces and so stuck it out until she caught one of her moon guard actually yawning, after which she decided to call it a night.

Also, she fired the guard.

With nothing else scheduled for the night, she made her way back to her chambers. She hesitated just inside the large double doors, however. The thought of another night spent wallowing around these gilded rooms turned her stomach, and the sight of books on tax law piled on her nightstand triggered a derisive snort. The fact that Celestia had thought her actually interested in ancient tax law proved that her sister had missed the point entirely.

Ever since she’d returned from the moon, she’d felt lost. She’d felt so empty and out of place in this new castle, with its new culture and new complications. The castle had been remodeled so she would have her own space, but you couldn’t remodel ponies and it was too late for her to go back and watch them change into what they were now.

The tax laws on the other hoof were something she could go back and understand from a thousand years ago to now. She didn’t care about them and she didn’t like them. They were a substitute. They filled the time and made her feel like she had some connection to the way things were. They were a dry, bland consolation, and one she didn’t have the stomach for tonight—a sentiment that extended to everything else in her chambers.

Her eyes drifted longingly to the window; she knew what she really felt like doing. She wanted to fly. She hadn’t done any flying since she’d lost the stars, though; they were connected. How could she bring herself to fly when it would be out there with those foreign stars all around her? Was it any wonder she was so miserable, she thought bitterly. The stars and flying were two things that hadn’t changed in the thousand years she’d been gone. Trapped in this castle, they’d been her only escape for a year. Now, having lost one, she’d lost the other and she really was trapped.

It was pathetic, she told herself. The fact that she—who once ruled the night—would not so much as go out into it was beyond sad. There were many things she had no control over in this new age; she could not make ponies speak or act like they had a thousand years ago, she couldn’t make them forget the horrible things she’d done and the stars would never be hers again. This, though, was not one of those things. This was a cage of her own devise—one she could ill afford.

Steeling herself, the princess of the moon took a slow, methodical step up to the window and took a deep breath. The cold winter night smelled the same as it always had. She opened her eyes, and the night landscape looked... well, not quite like it always had, but close enough. Finally, she raised her eyes to the sparkling night sky.

It wasn’t that bad, actually. They still represented the greatest loss of her immortal life, but if she imagined she were on some parallel version of Equestria, she could maybe admit that they looked... quite nice.

Somehow she’d expected more, but the worst part of it—the feeling of somepony else in her sky, blanketing the whole world with her magic—she hadn’t been able to escape in the first place. She was still a long ways from being used to it or accepting it, she told herself, but this... this wasn’t anything she wasn’t dealing with anyway. This was just looking at the stars.

She suddenly felt very foolish. In an effort to forget the feeling, she stepped up, launched herself into the night sky and flew.

☾ ☾ ☾

Some time later, after she’d shaken much of the anxiety she’d built up after several days of self-inflicted house arrest, she spread herself out on a wispy white cloud and stretched. Feeling much better, she had just settled down on the cloud to watch the terrain drift below her when a thought pierced the haze of her relief.

“...where is the old castle?”

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight was watching Canterlot castle from the stars when she started hearing voices.

“Do ya reckon something’s wrong?” Applejack asked someone. “She ain’t moved a hair fer half an hour.”

“Well, after that debacle, I wouldn’t be surprised if she’d fainted on her feet,” Rarity chipped in. “I suppose even alicorns can have panic attacks; Celestia knows she’s been taking this whole thing badly.”

“Yeah, well, if she knows, where is she then?” Applejack huffed. “Ya’ll know ah’d sell my hind legs ta help that gal, but I jes don’t feel like ah am. Seems t’me the princesses should be helping her with it all more’n they are.”

“I’m not so sure,” Rarity said uncertainly. “You know how she gets around Princess Celestia.”

“Yeah, ah know.” Applejack sighed. “Ah reckon Princess Luna’d be able to set her straight—return the favor fer Nightmare Night and all—but the way Twi talks about her, they’re really at odds over this whole thing.”

“You would think someone her age would be a little more mature,” Rarity sniffed, but relented. “I suppose it’s hardly fair to blame her. I can’t fathom what it’s even like to have that sort of connection with something, let alone to lose it. The way I hear it, her mane has gone all white with the moon in it—she’ll have to replace her entire wardrobe!”

“Ah don’t think she has a wardrobe, Rarity,” Applejack said in her distinctive sarcastic drawl.

“You and Twilight—honestly! They’ll need to find something white for all her regalia, at least. It can’t be too iridescent, either, or it’ll make her mane look dull. I just wish I knew how they make them; I nearly died when the set I made for Twilight just fell right off not once, but twice!”

“Well I doubt ya’ll will make that mistake again. Ah’m more worried about the mare herself. Any ideas, Shy?” Applejack asked.

Fluttershy squeaked quietly, responding with uncertainty. “I—I’m not sure,” she admitted. “She was sort of like this yesterday. She wasn’t all starry, but her eyes were and she wouldn’t respond to anything. She said it was, um, a normal alicorn thing.”

“No kidding!” added Rainbow Dash, who was apparently also present. “She’s stiffer than those stuffed-shirt guards when she’s like this. I tried to pry Fluttershy out of bed with her and it was like she was made of Applejack.”

“Now what in tarnation do ya’ll mean by that?” Applejack demanded, not sure if she should be offended or not.

“Well, darling,” Rarity tried to mollify her. “You are rather... solid. It’s not a bad thing!”

“A’course ah’m solid,” Applejack answered matter-of-factly. “Ah’m an earth pony.”

“Yes, well, so is Pinkie Pie,” Rarity pointed out for sake of argument. “You can’t crack walnuts with her face.”

“Ah trip one time and ya’ll never let me hear the end of it!” Applejack objected. “Pinkie Pie is made of cotton candy anyway—she doesn’t count,” she grumbled.

Rarity rolled her eyes. “I doubt she is actually made of candy, Applejack.”

“She might be if she got going fast enough,” Rainbow Dash pitched in excitedly. “I’ve got this theory going that the closer you get to the speed of light, the more you turn into, like, your cutie mark.”

“Pinkie Pie’s cutie mark is balloons, not cotton candy,” Applejack pointed out simply.

“It’s not perfect!” Rainbow Dash countered defensively. “I’m not done with it yet! –and I mean, like, what your cutie mark represents, you know? Like, as Rarity approached the speed of light she would probably turn into pure elemental priss—not diamonds—so she should probably avoid it.”

“Rainbow Dash!” Rarity balked, offended. “Honestly, I’m glad our little bookworm is rubbing off on you, but that is just rude!”

“It’s also sort of a self-serving hypothesis coming from, um, you,” Fluttershy meekly added her two bits.

“Hey—as the fastest pony alive, I’m the only one who can test it! You study what you know!” Dash reasoned.

Okay, that was enough. It had taken Twilight a moment of listening to her friends talking about her to remember she was still standing out in front of Town Hall, and after she’d remembered she hadn’t found a good time to interrupt, but now this was just going nowhere.

“I can hear you guys just fine, you kno—WAH.” Twilight yelped in surprise the moment she released her connection to the sky and found her entire field of view filled with Pinkie Pie, who was standing on a chair and making silly faces inches from Twilight’s nose. She stumbled back on her alicorn-sized starry legs and tripped over a stump.

No wait, that was Applejack.

“Oof,” Twilight grunted as she hit the ground, though it was less of an impact and more of an ethereal splash of stars and magic. For the first time, she looked down at the larger starry body she’d made from its own perspective. It was... peculiar. She didn’t really have time to think about it though, as Applejack was already standing over her, looking like she wanted to help Twilight up but couldn’t quite figure out how.

Twilight solved the issue for her by letting herself become a pony again. She was mildly disappointed when she found herself her usual, only slightly taller than normal self as the extra starry mass blew off in the early evening wind. She supposed she’d either have to grow up to Celestia’s stature the old fashioned way, or else find some dark power to—no, she couldn’t even joke about that right now, it was too close to the thoughts she’d had about dropping a star on Star Glister.

Once more made of pony stuff for the most part, she took Applejack’s hoof and pulled herself upright.

“You okay, hon?” Applejack asked.

“Yeah,” Twilight said automatically, then actually looked down at herself. “Um, yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. Pinkie Pie has good timing.”

All five other ponies just looked at her.

“What?” She turned and looked herself over again, but everything was where it was supposed to be. “Was it something I said?”

“Twi.” Applejack looked her in the eyes. “Pinkie there’s been making faces at you fer at least twenty minutes.”

“Oh.” Twilight looked away with embarrassment. To her relief, there wasn’t another pony in sight except for her five friends.

“Now are ya really, really okay? Ah cain’t pretend t’understand everything ya’ll are going through, but ah know mah friends and yer worrying me.”

Twilight sat down on the steps in front of Town Hall and sighed. “Yeah, I know. I worry me sometimes too. I’m sorry for going all... weird on you. I promised myself I wouldn’t use that spell for that.”

“Spell?” Rarity asked. Everypony looked at Twilight oddly.

“Hon,” Applejack took over. “Ah’m more worried that you looked like you nearly had a heart attack here when that old fool started yelling than all the exact details of how ya shut him up.” Everypony else nodded in agreement. “Way ah see it, ya said exactly what ya should have and ah won’t let it get t’me just because ya had t’turn up the creepy t’make him get it.”

Twilight looked up at Applejack and her friends with an expression of helplessness. Right. The whole collapsing thing. “I know, and I’m sorry. I know this isn’t like me. It feels like I’m falling apart, sometimes. I thought it was just with Princess Luna, and it made sense because I care what she thinks. I care about all those ponies I let down today to an extent too. Star Glister, though? He never approved of me and I made peace with that years ago.”

As she talked, her voice got more and more unsteady. Fluttershy sat down next to her and tried to comfort her as she continued. “I thought after last night that I was past this, but it’s like I fold from the slightest thing from anypony and I don’t know why. The worst thing is, you’re right; I said exactly what I should have. I’m a more functional pony as a ‘goddess’ than I am when I’m an actual pony, and I hate that.”

Twilight lowered her head and cradled it with her hooves. “I hate that it works, too; it always works! Every time I act like I’m better than somepony else it works wonderfully; it always has, even when I was just Princess Celestia’s student! Now ponies just fall over their hooves to do anything I want unless it’s to just treat me normally—and if I don’t tell them what I want they get all these crazy ideas in their heads. They bow to me, ask me the stupidest questions imaginable and make me sign library books whose stories only bear a superficial resemblance to my life!”

Everypony was speechless; even Fluttershy had paused in the middle of gently stroking Twilight’s starry mane.

“It’s a real concern!” Twilight asserted defensively. “The worst part is... I’m doing it right now and I know it!”

Applejack blinked. “Uh, care to run that one by us again?”

“Look around!” Twilight declared hotly.

“There’s no one here, Twilight,” Fluttershy informed her, trying to sound comforting rather than concerned.

“Exactly!” Twilight said triumphantly. “We’re sitting in the middle of Ponyville shouting—”

“–you’re the only one who’s shouting,” Fluttershy mumbled under her breath.

“–and nopony will so much as step out their door while I’m here!” Twilight finished. She was breathing heavily, but seemed to calm down after she’d said her piece.

“Twilight, I really don’t think–” Rarity started dismissively, but was interrupted by Twilight.

“No—you know what? It’s okay. It’s their problem. I have too much on my plate right now to also deal with trying to protect ponies from themselves. If they don’t want to come outdoors until morning, then fine.”

Everypony looked uncomfortable. “...you’re not gonna stay out here all night, are you?” Rainbow Dash asked, looking a little ashamed for doing so.

Twilight looked up at the awkward pegasus and sighed, feeling guilty about being such a burden on her friends. “No, Dash. I think I’m just going to go...” Twilight paused as she searched for the right words. “I think I’m going to go be myself for a while,” she finally said.

Applejack offered her a hoof and a smile to help her up again. “Come on, we’ll all walk ya back to the library.”

Twilight didn’t take the hoof she was offered, instead shaking her head slowly. “No, it’s fine,” she said, suddenly starting to dissolve into stardust before their eyes. “Tell Spike not to worry, okay? I’ll be... around.”

Ѽ Ѽ Ѽ

It was a long time until anypony broke the silence—long after the last mote of Twilight had drifted off in the wind. Applejack’s voice was grim, but determined.

“Somepony get me a quill.”

☾ ☾ ☾

Luna had circled the site of the old castle of the royal pony sisters a few times before landing with a crunch in the freshly fallen snow. There was no mistaking it though; the old castle was simply missing as if it had never been there at all. One more piece of her past was gone forever. As she looked out over the fresh white snow, however, somehow she was not quite so devastated as she thought she should be.

Having landed on the edge of the gradually steepening slope that made up the hole where she’d once lived, Luna begun to walk around the perimeter, examining the site and her feelings in turn.

The most glaring thing about the hole was that she had no idea what had made it. It wasn’t a crater; no falling star or explosion had carved it out. It was just as if the castle had vanished overnight like the Crystal Empire—and it had taken her feelings with it.

The crunching of her hooves though untouched snow stopped for a moment. That wasn’t entirely true. As she searched her heart, she realized she did still have feelings about the old castle, though not the ones she expected.

Looking over the blank slate where she’d once lived in the silence of the night, though, she understood that deep down inside, it was not a place that she had actually wanted to remember. Whether they were from a thousand years ago or just one, the old castle represented so many memories that were tainted by jealousy and hatred.

Luna had never actually asked Celestia why she had abandoned their old home. She had never really given it much thought, beyond bemoaning it as another source of unnecessary change. It was easy to forget that those events troubled her sister as much as they did her.

That wasn’t the point, however. She forced herself to keep walking and keep examining her lack of reaction. No matter what her real feelings towards the castle, the Luna she knew would be frothing mad right now. She was used to every insult, every prick or barb to her pride cutting her to the quick. It had long been a truism about the princess of the moon that she was nothing, if not emotional. Lunacy, they called it—moon madness if you were being crude. Whatever it was, it was like that whole side of her was gone.

A whining, unstable, insufferable side of her, but a side nonetheless.

She had bemoaned feeling listless countless times since returning from the moon, but this was just the straw that broke the camel’s back—or the castle that failed to do so, rather. The princess sat down in the snow and looked up at her moon. She was beginning to think that there really was something wrong with her.

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight was by now no stranger to the experience of actually being the stars in the sky, but neither had she made a point of spending very long as such. It was a good feeling, for the most part. She felt whole and secure in her immeasurable vastness, stretching all across Equestria.

Now that she had a clear head—which is to say, no head at all—she sort of regretted the dramatic way she’d left the girls on the steps of Town Hall. She really did somehow feel much more herself when she was up in the sky than she had as a pony these last few days. Being the stars didn’t seem an exercise in being immense and powerful so much as she just felt normal while everything else took on a certain toy-like size and quality.

It wasn’t entirely sparkles and rainbows, though. Now that it had been pointed out to her, she could feel parts of herself drifting gently across the sky in different directions. It was quite possibly the strangest part of her new condition yet, which was saying quite a bit. The drifting was slow enough that she didn’t consciously notice it and yet fast enough that she was constantly surprised of the shapes she was in from one hour to the next.

She would have said it made her skin crawl, but she didn’t have skin and was pretty sure the sensation in question was the movement of the stars themselves. Actually, when she just stopped and let herself drift, it was less of a crawl and more a gentle flow. She could imagine she was lying on her back in the ocean with her eyes closed, just letting the current take her where it would—except in this case she was the ocean and she was the current. It was really not a bad feeling at all.

In fact, it was so oddly hypnotizing that with no other pressing matters, she let herself just drift for hours. When the time came for dawn she was so lost in herself that she just rolled over in her half-sleep like she had the last two mornings, setting the stars and making way for a new day.

A new day without a Twilight Sparkle anywhere in Equestria.

☾ ☾ ☾

The urge to set the moon had awoken Luna, which was odd for her. She almost never fell asleep before dawn, though she’d been getting such poor sleep lately, she supposed it was inevitable. She got up and stretched in the fresh rosy dawn, the crunch of snow beneath her hooves reminding her that she had somehow fallen asleep at the site of the old castle.

The lunar princess let herself fall back down into the fresh, soft powder and rolled lazily over onto her back in it. Somehow, the whole area still felt like the night to her. The cold was reminiscent of the time she spent in the sky, of course, but that wasn’t it. Even though the night had gone, it was still here in the rock and snow—in the very air. She curled up on her side and breathed it in.

“Twilight,” she sighed.

Wait, what? Luna blinked, suddenly wide awake with her heart in her throat. It wasn’t the night she felt—well it was, but—it was Twilight. It was her magic that filled this place, the same magic that filled the night sky and constantly reminded her of what she’d lost.

When did that become a thing she sighed wistfully about when she was half asleep?

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight slept rather later in the day than she would have normally expected, though one could certainly say that there were extenuating circumstances what with her being sealed away in a silent realm that held nothing but the night and therefore there being no day for her to sleep late into. Wake she eventually did, though, all the while through the process reflecting that it was rather difficult to eke out just five more minutes in bed when one had no covers to wrap tightly about oneself, no eyelids to squint shut and indeed no bed to stay in in the first place.

Having awoken to the sight of nothing but empty black space, Twilight rolled over in place and looked elsewhere several times, locating some stars, some more stars and the moon before coming to the conclusion that indeed, Equestria seemed to be missing. Eventually, after a while longer spent waking up, she recognized her particular predicament for real.

This, then, must be the umbra.

Neither the word umbra nor the place itself was as new to Twilight as one might think, though indeed the application of one to the other was a thing of mere days, dating back to her nightmarish foray into the Canterlot archives’ collection of reprehensible books on celestial mechanics. The word itself, though, was common enough for a student as dedicated to the sciences as Twilight was, and the place she found herself in was the first way she’d experienced her new existence that day in the bath. This place was where the night went when it wasn’t night and it was the place she had to reach into to bring it back.

Umbra itself was an often misunderstood term, even before you started throwing it at celestial mechanics. Many ponies came across it first in fiction and simply thought of it as meaning ‘shadow,’ which it sort of did in old Equestrian and that was good enough for them. However, Umbra as it was used today had a much richer meaning.

Specifically, while a shadow was in most cases thought of as a flat shape projected on a surface, an umbra was specifically the three-dimensional space within which light from a particular source was obstructed completely. There were also the penumbra and the antumbra, but Twilight was pretty sure they didn’t apply here. In the case of an umbra though, it was the space itself which was in umbra, and the light never needed to touch anything or form any shadows for it to exist. It should be clear, then, why one would expect this seems like a perfectly sensible name for the place Twilight found herself in now.

One would then be wrong, but that seldom mattered with nomenclature.

Saying that the place Twilight found herself in was in umbra would of course lead to the question, ‘in umbra of what?’ Certainly, during the day it could be considered to be in umbra of the sun, but then at night the sun came to this place, so that didn’t work. If there was anything the place was actually in umbra of, it would have to be Equestria itself, except for the little detail that Equestria as a whole wasn’t actually a source of light and there was technically, no mass obstructing it from view, either.

The requisite mental gymnastics required to make literal sense of the word aside, it was really rather remarkable that nopony had come up with a more accurate one. Normally ponies couldn’t name things fast enough, but the idea of a place defined purely by the fact that it couldn’t be seen from Equestria quite literally proved the proverb ‘out of sight, out of mind.’

Twilight on the other hoof had much more use for a name for it, considering it could very well end up on a checklist with ‘pack sandwiches’ under it in red.

You’d think that the question of where the sun goes at night would be one of those awkward questions that young fillies and colts asked their parents or teachers, and you wouldn’t be wrong. The fact of the matter is just that very few children are still paying attention by the time their parents get finished making something up because they got bored when they were their age, and so on and so forth ad nauseam. As for those who ask their teachers, well, it’s pretty much the same, except the teachers actually know what they’re talking about.

If you ask the children, it’s not an improvement.

As it is, when first introduced to the idea that the world of Equestria is round, many children are wont to presume logically that it is always day on one side of the world and night on the other. This is of course, not the case. They are quickly taught that the sky and world are separate things and obey separate rules. The world is viscerally physical, while the sky is ephemerally magical. Earth and water below contrasted with fire and air above in some philosophies.

While the various basic elemental views are comforting, however, they fail to fully describe the complexities of the albeit limited pony understanding of the sky. One outlook young students are provided is to think of the sky as a layer of magic which wraps around the world like a blanket, and that from within the blanket, the sky looks the same from any point on the world according to the angle of observation. The day and night are then each one such blanket, existing in a space where they are able to trade places without intersecting one another.

This is generally where the class automatically divides itself into two halves: the half which finds this fascinating, and the half which will go on to do meaningful things with their lives. The Twilight Sparkles and the Applejacks, if you will. Sometimes there are also Pinkie Pies, but one does not normally talk about those in polite company.

Fortunately for the Applejacks, none of this is actually important but for the simple understanding that when the day or night seems to pass over the horizon, they pass into a place the same as any other, save that you cannot see the world from it. This, then, is the Umbra: a cold black expanse where nothing exists but night when it is day, or day when it is night.

Unfortunately for all of the Twilight Sparkles of the world—and specifically the Twilight Sparkle who was, at the moment, not of the world—this all took relatively less time for her to review than it did for the day to pass into night again so she could actually leave it. The umbra was—for all of its fancy metaphysical implications—quite boring to actually visit, as it turned out.

✶ ✶ ✶

As the late afternoon in Ponyville slowly turned into night in what was probably her most gentle dusk yet, Twilight let herself flow lazily down into the library to appear with a yawn and a great big stretch. She felt like she’d slept in all day, and had no plans to do anything at all stressful.

“Twilight!” she heard, moments before a small baby dragon wrapped its arms around her neck.

Twilight returned the hug. “Hey, Spike.” After a few moments, she tried to extricate herself from the hug, but the baby wouldn’t let go. “Spike?”

“Don’t tell me you can die and then just disappear for a whole day,” he said seriously.

Twilight blinked. A day? Well actually, her ‘court’ had been held at dusk yesterday, so... wow, it had been a whole day. “I... I’m sorry, Spike. I didn’t mean to be gone that long.”

The baby dragon finally let her go. “Did something happen again?” he asked with worry.

Twilight sat down and looked away guiltily. “Not exactly; that is—um—no. Nothing like the night before last.”

Spike just looked expectantly at her, mildly confused.

Twilight sighed. “I was asleep when I put away the stars, and I kind of... went with them. I didn’t exactly plan to, but it’s my fault I did so—I’m sorry for being gone all day,” she explained reluctantly, a touch indignant but mostly just embarrassed.

Spike looked like he was actively trying to wrap his head around that. “So... You locked yourself in some celestial closet all day and couldn’t get out until the sun set?”

“That’s...” Twilight hesitated. It wasn’t really worth lecturing him on the details. “Yes, Spike, that is exactly it,” she finally said flatly.

“So, pretty much the same as my day then,” Spike concluded.

Twilight cocked her head to the side. “You locked yourself in the closet?” she asked dubiously.

“I might as well have,” Spike explained. “I could have gotten some sleep if I had. Without you around, this place is dead quiet. I never thought I’d miss the sound of pages turning while you mutter under your breath about quadra-whatsits and whatever-nomials.”

Twilight was glad to hear it. “Quiet is good. I am sorry I left you alone, but at least all of those astronomers will be long gone back to Canterlot by now.”

“Um...” Spike hesitated, scratching the back of his neck out of awkwardness.

Twilight was not amused. “Spike, tell me the astronomers have all gone,” she insisted seriously.

Spike opened his mouth to speak, stopped to think, then declared with confidence, “the astronomers have all gone—”

Twilight sighed in relief.

“–to anypony who will rent them space while they’re waiting for the construction,” Spike finished hurriedly, as if maybe he could say it fast enough that she wouldn’t notice.

“Construction,” Twilight deadpanned. “What construction.”

“Um—you know—maybe I misheard Rarity,” Spike backpedaled. “I don’t think there’s any construction after all.”

“As if you would ever pay anything less than full attention to the sound of Rarity’s voice.” Twilight rolled her eyes. “What did you hear?” she enunciated insistently.

“They might be adding a guild branch here in Ponyville,” Spike explained.

Twilight cringed reflexively, but she’d already prepared herself for the obvious. “Well, that isn’t so bad. At least Star Glister won’t—”

“–more of a headquarters, actually,” Spike corrected quickly.

Twilight groaned. “The whole guild is moving to Ponyville?” she asked with a pained expression.

“According to Rarity...” Spike began to check off items on his claws. “The whole guild, their families, their servants, their business partners, ponies ‘in the know,’ whatever that means,” He had to switch to his other hand to keep counting. “–ponies not in the know who are smart enough to follow those who are, opportunistic nobility who’ll try to get you to naively sign off on things, all of their families, servants and business partners...”

Twilight’s eyes got a little wider and her jaw dropped a little more with each item Spike listed until the young dragon found himself blinking in confusion on account of being out of claws on his hands to count with. After a moment’s pause, he began to point to the claws on his feet, but the look on Twilight’s face indicated that she had got the idea, so he moved on.

“Anyway, apparently real estate prices skyrocketed today and Rarity said something about Ponyville becoming the new Canterlot. She was—umm—cackling like a madpony.” Spike looked around shiftily. “Don’t tell her I called it that,” he added.

“Wh—but I—how?” was all Twilight could say. “How do they get ‘we should stick around and build a monument to her glory’ out of what happened yesterday?”

“I don’t know anything about a monument,” Spike mentioned uncertainly. “–but Mayor Mare did say she had something important to talk to you about.”

Twilight’s head thudded into the floor in front of her with another groan. “Well, at least that’ll have to wait for tomorrow. The mayor’s office is closed by now.”

Spike hesitated to say anything at first, but he failed to keep quiet. “They adjusted their hours, actually.”

“What.” Twilight had clearly misheard him.

“They adjusted their hours,” Spike said again. “They’re open until midnight,” he clarified.

“Spike, that’s impossible,” Twilight dismissed with a hint of nervousness.

Spike looked confused. “–but the mayor said—”

“No, you don’t understand, Spike.” Twilight lectured, motioning with her hooves. “This is the government we’re talking about. No government office in the history of ponydom has ever been open past five.”

“Is there a record, or something?” Spike had to ask.

Twilight turned to look at her front door with dread. “Suddenly I get the feeling that this is getting too big for me to handle,” she bemoaned.

“You didn’t at the phrase ‘new Canterlot?’”

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight felt no compunction over using the stars to make her way to Town Hall without being seen; she held no illusions that such a trip would be as relaxing as her trip through the Everfree forest had been—which was a weird thing to admit without sarcasm, but no less true for being so.

Manifesting on the steps outside of Town Hall, she did her best to forget the events that had taken place there the night before, let alone the idea that there would apparently be many more such occurrences in the days to come.

Days? More like years—decades—centuries. It made her few petty days of resistance feel futile.

Twilight shook her head and distracted herself by confirming that yes, the mayor had even had Town Hall’s posted hours changed already; it was eerie, like something out of a horror story. Nonetheless, she steeled herself and opened the door.

Like most government buildings, there was no receptionist. You simply had to either know where you were going or check the posted floor map for the right office. Twilight’s case was of course the former. She’d been to the mayor’s office many times about this or that event, and the library was government funded, so she and the mayor saw each other often. They weren’t exactly friends, but they were comfortable with each other.

At least, that was what Twilight had thought before she’d walked into the mayor’s office only to have the government official get up and display exactly why one didn’t typically bow from behind a fancy desk. “Your—ow—majesty.”

Twilight rolled her eyes, and started to refuse the title, but paused. After what she’d read about the governing rights of alicorns, she wasn’t sure if ‘majesty’ wasn’t actually applicable after all. She settled for a sigh. “Come on, mayor. It’s just me. Spike said you had something to talk to me about?”

“Ahem, yes.” The mayor straightened up and regained her air of dignity. “It won’t take very long at all, I just have some papers for you to sign.”

Twilight furrowed her brow. “Papers?” she asked suspiciously. Her mind immediately went to Spike’s mention of ponies trying to take advantage of her relative political naïveté.

“It’s just a couple of things,” the mayor insisted as she fished some papers out of her desk. “The first is really just a formality,” she explained.

Twilight took the papers in her magic and looked them over. “Confirmation of alicorn residence...?” Twilight read across the top. “There’s a form for this?” she asked incredulously, wondering if this was some sort of joke.

“There is a form for everything,” the mayor explained seriously, for a moment giving the impression of a bedraggled office worker rather than the leader of their fair town. The impression was brief, however, and she continued. “This one mostly just confirms that you—an alicorn with all rights and privileges of such—make Ponyville your residence. Having a residing alicorn will have several benefits for Ponyville, not the least of which are several different tax exemptions, and the rights and status of being a crown city.”

“I don’t even have a crown,” Twilight grumbled, then proceeded to read through the papers as the mayor summarized them. She was glad she did, because the mayor helpfully left out one little detail. “This gives me authority over... you. This is a position.”

“It is not—strictly speaking—an actual position,” Mayor Mare corrected uncomfortably. “There’s no additional title involved. It was drafted with Princess Celestia in mind, should she ever choose to leave Canterlot. There are provisions there for residence and access to the city treasury, however.”

Twilight frowned. “I don’t need all that. I’m happy just being the librarian here.”

The mayor closed her eyes, took a breath, then opened them again. “That is the other thing I need to talk to you about,” she said as neutrally as possible as she slid another single sheet of paper over to Twilight with her hoof.

Twilight didn’t even have to pick it up. She could read the form header from where she sat. The large block letters read ‘notification of termination.’

“You’re... firing me?” was all she could say.

Mayor Mare looked like she wanted to word it differently, but eventually she gave up and just sighed. “Yes. Yes, Twilight, I am firing you.”

“–but... why?” she asked weakly, then stiffened up. “Are you trying to pressure me into signing—”

“No,” the mayor interrupted as sincerely as she could. “No, if anything I’m pushing that through because of this.”

Twilight was at a loss for words. It wasn’t like her irrational fear the day before—she was completely in control of herself—it was just... she had never been fired before. Princess Celestia herself had arranged for Twilight’s position at the library. She didn’t even know what to think.

She hunched over and moved the paper closer to herself with her hoof so she could read one line in particular. “Reason for termination: No longer suitable for position?” she squeaked softly.

“There have been complaints, Twilight,” the mayor explained. “–and I confirmed with Spike today; nopony but you and your friends so much as go near the library now. I know it’s been your home, but a library is a place of learning for the public, not just you. We can’t have a library that ponies are afraid to go to, Twilight.”

Twilight dropped her head and closed her eyes. That was it, then. She couldn’t argue against that. “I... understand,” she said hollowly, finally taking the paper in her hoof, as if in acceptance.

“Now, I know it has only been a few days. It’s going to take a while for things to get sorted out around here, and I don’t expect this to happen immediately,” the mayor explained. “I’d like you to keep it in mind, though.”

Keep it in mind. Right. “I get it. I assume you already have someone lined up?”

Mayor Mare nodded solemnly. “Dusty Scrolls has agreed to come out of retirement.”

Twilight nodded back, and made to stand. She suddenly didn’t feel like sticking around to chat. “I’ll... let you know when you can have your library back, I guess,” she said mechanically, then took the other stack of papers in her magic as well. “–and about your offer too. I’ll have to think about it.”

Mayor Mare kept her face neutral. “Of course.”

Twilight went to put the papers away, but of course she didn’t have any saddlebags on since she’d arrived via starlight, and she couldn’t go back the same way with the papers. Wonderful. She rolled the papers up in her magic and stuck them under the crook of her wing instead. At least they were useful for something.

With a silent nod of farewell to the mayor, she made her way out of the building on unsteady hooves.

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight slowly made her way home in something of a daze. As usual, nopony interrupted her, though she couldn’t say whether it was because it was her or just the time of day. She stopped a distance away from the library just to look at it. She wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to think of it as anything but her home; it was the only home she’d ever known in Ponyville.

The library door opened quietly in deference to Twilight’s mood and Spike was busy in the kitchen, so she was able to make her way upstairs without a word. She would have to say something to him sooner or later, but she really didn’t feel up to it right now.

As soon as she made it to her room, she dumped all her paperwork on the desk, collapsed face-first on the bed and just lay for a while. She wasn’t sad or angry—not yet, at least—mostly she was just... shocked. She’d been so busy dealing with all of her other things that she’d forgotten she’d had a life before wings had suddenly appeared on her back.

Her room, she noted as she rolled over onto her back, was as neat and tidy as always, reminding her that she hadn’t actually slept here for two days. She resolved to fix that tonight no matter how tempted she was to just disappear into the sky again. She had to stop neglecting Spike, or he’d be as lost to her as the library was to be.

It was a bit of a wake up call, she realized. Figuring out the past was all well and good, but she really had to start thinking about what she would do with her future. Her mind went to the papers on her desk and she wondered if it was already too late. Ponies were already trying to make those decisions for her. All they needed was her signature, and they’d build her a palace. If she didn’t do something to stop them, ponies would be arriving from all over Equestria just to look at her in her cage.

Who was she kidding, though? She already had a cage of her own devising. She stayed in the library all day or disappeared into the sky all night. She had avoided everypony she could since this whole thing had started; was it any wonder ponies were too scared to come to the library?

An official position, public appearances, a friendly face; that was how Celestia did it. Wasn’t that what she had said she wanted? Immortality, duty and responsibility? To be everything Celestia was? She had thought so, but faced with the prospect, the idea just seemed so hollow and lonely to her.

Maybe she should just move back to Canterlot, she thought at first. The idea was immediately rejected. The whole point was to get ponies used to her again so she could walk down to the Carousel Boutique or Sugar Cube Corner without causing a major incident. Hiding away in Canterlot wouldn’t help her.

Was that it, then? Was she really going to do this? Things were moving so fast, and she felt like she was all alone in the world when it came to things like this. She curled up on top of the covers and remembered the feeling of waking up under Celestia’s wing, or with Fluttershy in her arms. She kind of wished she had someone to hold right now. Not Celestia; she was too big... but maybe Luna. As she began to drift off to sleep, she vaguely remembered holding a small white moon in her arms.

Luna would be nice.

Just as she was on the edge of sleep, a knock at the door startled her awake. “Twilight?” came a trepidatious voice that sounded an awful lot like a baby dragon who wasn’t sure if she even existed.

Twilight rolled over onto her back and sighed. “Yeah, Spike?”

The door clacked open and Spike popped his head into the room. “I—um—made dinner. Hayfries and roast dandelion?”

Twilight swung her legs off the side of the bed and rolled up to a sitting position. She rubbed her face with her hooves as images of the moon faded from her mind. “Yeah, okay,” she responded as she rolled off the rest of the way out of bed and onto her hooves.

☾ ☾ ☾

“I missed you at breakfast,” Celestia mentioned offhandedly as Luna walked into their shared dining room for dinner.

Luna grumbled something unintelligible as she set down a plate of mushrooms and moonflower salad, which she didn’t particularly like but ate out of a sense of stubborn pride for nocturnal flora. Her choice of meals was not the source of her disgruntledness, however. She’d spent most of the day back in her chambers, pretending to be asleep after her unplanned ‘nap’ the night before. The memory of mumbling Twilight’s name in her half-sleep still haunted her.

“So, it seems Twilight has been roped into holding court down in Ponyville,” Celestia remarked out of the blue.

Luna nearly choked on a mushroom, giving a series of coughs as she cleared her throat and tried to regain her composure. “O—oh?” she asked, feigning innocence. She had actually completely forgotten about that particular little act of spite.

“Yes, it seems the Astronomers’ Guild tracked her down faster than I expected,” Celestia explained dourly.

It was then that Luna noticed a scroll sitting on the table next to Celestia’s plate. It looked exactly like the scrolls Twilight sent her friendship reports on. “I wonder how that happened,” she said, pointedly not looking covetously at the rolled parchment.

“Indeed.” Celestia took a sip of her tea. “It does present a bit of a problem, however,” she noted.

The word ‘problem’ immediately drew Luna’s eyes back to the scroll on the table. She subsequently lowered them back to her plate and resumed eating in an effort to distract herself. “W—what sort of problem?”

“I’ve received a number of letters concerned with the implications of a ‘filly’ passing judgement out from under the watchful eye of Canterlot, let alone the scheduling issues of having two separate courts for the night in different cities.”

Luna deflated; the scroll wasn’t a friendship report? She channeled her disappointment into indignation and puffed out her cheeks. “I had noticed a decline in supplicants as of late,” she admitted, remembering the previous night. If tonight was the same, she would have to have a pack of cards at hoof, aces or no aces.

“We’re agreed it’s clear what needs to happen, then.” Celestia set down her tea cup without a sound and looked at her sister seriously.

Luna nodded, her eyes still on her salad and not really paying attention. Politics this, and politics that. She rolled her eyes and gave a vague response, “She certainly cannot be allowed to go unchecked.”

“Good.” Celestia smiled. “The seneschal has already packed your things.”

“That shall be—wait, what?”

Chapter 7

Sharing the Night: Chapter 7

☾ ☾ ☾

It was a troubled Luna who found herself stomping about on a moonlit cloud, once more above the Everfree forest. She didn’t mean to keep returning to this place, but the way the hole just blended into the magic of the rest of the sky seemed to draw her back again and again.

Her head was in a similar state, constantly gravitating back to the same subject. She was sprawled out on the cloud, breathing heavily from flying all night, but no amount of exertion could pull her mind away from those few sentences she’d spoken with her sister.

In Luna’s defense, Celestia had been talking about politics, so she had barely been paying attention. That had changed quickly, and words were exchanged—if you could call them words. Mainly, Luna had made a series of strangled sounds while Celestia simply sat there, sipped her tea and made calm, one and two-word responses.

Eventually, Luna had fumed at her sister long enough that she couldn’t take it any more, and stomped out of the room with a wordless cry of incredulity. Even now, Luna still hadn’t quite recovered from the affront, though if it was any consolation, Celestia’s tea set never would.

Luna hated it when her sister meddled. Celestia was excellent at being sneaky and underhooved, but she never actually was when it came to Luna—she only pretended to be. Outright lies between siblings with immortal life spans had a way of coming back to bite you eventually, after all.

Yes, Luna knew exactly what her sister was doing, but when it came right down to it, that was the problem. Like that night when the stars had cried themselves to sleep with only her moon for comfort, there was a part of Luna that wanted nothing more than to be forced to do the right thing. Celestia couldn’t actually force her out of Canterlot, but Luna would go, nonetheless. They both knew that.

It was a harder pill to swallow than most, however. A whole mess of different emotions warred in her mind. The loss of the stars fought with more than a year’s worth of admiring the element of magic. Her frustration with Canterlot waged war with the idea of moving to yet another strange new place. Her irritation at her sister for telling her what to do clashed with aggravation at herself for needing to be told.

Luna stamped on the cloud with her front hooves. She just wanted things to go back to the way they were, with only her dark past to worry about. No inexplicable alicornifications, no reason to hate the element of magic, and no stupid hole in the ground that she kept coming back to for no good reason.

Unable to lie still, she stood up on the cloud and looked down at the smooth, cleared area below. Bristling with bottled-up frustration, she gathered up a measure of moonlight and flooded the clearing with it, trying to wipe away the stellar magic that filtered through the trees like a sparkling wind.

The clearing glowed with magical moonlight, but other than that, it did nothing. Her limpid light was no match for the lingering magic. Luna frowned. Whatever had happened here, it must have been truly incredible. Not to be defeated by mere lingering magic, Luna gathered up even more light, and brought it down harder than before.

The barren rock sizzled and smoked with moonlight, emanating a cool magical glow even as Luna surveyed her work, but it was all for naught. Truly, it was as if the sky itself had set hoof in the middle of the forest, and wouldn’t be banished by mere half measures.

Luna had never stopped at half measures.

Gritting her teeth and raising her horn, the princess of the moon took all the moonlight in the sky, pulled it into a single, wide moonbeam and poured it out into the vexing clearing before her with everything she had. Her grip on her manifest form slipped with the effort, and her eyes disappeared into pools of pearlescent white light.

To say that the effect was a bit more than anticipated would imply that she’d actually thought about what she was doing at all. No, it was exactly as one would have expected, considering her last attempt had left the rock smoking.

The moon went dark to the rest of the world as its magical light pierced the ground below the tormented princess of the night. The light burrowed clear down through the rock, on and on until all of its energy was spent. Luna’s chest heaved as she took deep, gasping breaths, and her eyes returned to their usual teal as she gazed upon the aftermath below. What had been a smooth impression in the ground was now a massive, gaping well rimmed with excess moonlight… and it still felt like the stars.

Spent and defeated, she collapsed back down onto the cloud with a sigh. Distaste and shame in her pointless outburst flooded Luna behind her returning common sense and dignity. Disgusted, she rolled over and looked up into the starry sky instead.

She lay there for a while, watching the slowly shifting stars, and to her surprise, felt a little better for it. They seemed to calm her down, somehow, as they always had. So long as she could forget that they had been hers, it was okay.

Maybe Ponyville wouldn’t be so bad, she thought. Even if she never forgave Twilight Sparkle, Ponyville was a moderately-sized town, and the alicorn of the stars was only one pony. If she could delude herself well enough to enjoy an entire sky, surely she could stomach one pony, right?

As she drifted along under the cold winter sky, her mind wandered to the other night, when she’d realized that she had no good memories of the old castle. Quietly floating there with the wind and stars as her only companions, she wondered if she had any of Canterlot either.

Meanwhile, in the depths below, something awoke.

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight awoke with a sudden jolt to find herself in a cold sweat. She’d been having a dream about… well, she couldn’t remember exactly. All she could remember were teeth and hanging over a maw of teeth like just before the Ursa Major had swallowed her, but instead of just one tooth-lined maw, it was dozens—hundreds—thousands. It was a whole sea of teeth, enough to swallow the sky.

The uneasy feeling of danger lingered with her as her heart beat in the early morning silence. The feeling seemed to surround and encompass her, but mostly, it seemed to be coming from below. She stayed frozen in place, as if any movement would cause the floorboards of the library to open up beneath her, and the earth below would swallow her whole.

After a time, the feeling faded—as all dreams do—and Twilight let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. Nightmares. Yes, clearly this was something she needed right now, terrifying, heart-racing nightmares. She peeled the sodden sheets off, tossed them aside and lay there letting the icy morning air cool off her coat.

At least she didn’t have to go far to figure out where this one had come from, she reflected. The looming loss of the library and the unknown future beyond had been cast in the form of the most frightening event of her recent life in a combination guaranteed to get under her skin.

Gotten under her skin it had. She rubbed her face with her hooves to wake herself up, then collapsed back down on the mattress. A glance out her window told her that dawn had broken just minutes ago. She usually remembered the process, even when it happened while she was asleep, but clearly her dreaming mind had had better things to pay attention to than celestial timekeeping. She felt a little guilty about always having to be reminded by the sun and moon trying to move without her, but she had more immediate things to worry about.

“The library,” she told the ceiling above her bed. “The library, the library, the library.” What was she going to do? How was she going to tell Spike? She pictured herself walking into the mayor’s office and demanding that she be allowed to keep the tree. Let them build a palace for the books instead; she didn’t need one.

It would work.

It always worked.

It would be hollow, though. What would be the point of living in a library nopony visited? Well—okay—the idea of having a private library all to herself was maybe sort of actually one of her fondest dreams, but that was irrelevant. Heck, they’d build her a bigger library if she asked. She could make them build the whole palace as a library. Clover-cached crenelations—Starswirl-stacked stairwells—the little filly in her perked up in greed at the idea of having a literal book fort.

It just wouldn’t be her home.

It would become her home eventually, of course. She hadn’t even been in this library for two whole years yet, after all. What was that to her? Hardly anything, really, even ignoring the whole thing where she was an immortal scion of the sky.

The library was more than a home, though. It was a defining part of her life. She didn’t just like having a library; she liked being a librarian. She felt pride in holding the position on her own merit. Sure, Princess Celestia may have arranged for it to begin with, but afterwards, Twilight had always paid for her residence with hard work and… and…

…and now she couldn’t. Nothing would change that. If she started her new life by making demands of the mayor, all she would get out of it was a tree.

It was a nice tree, though.

✶ ✶ ✶

Due to the change in hours, the mayor’s office didn’t open again until four in the afternoon, and Twilight waited until shortly before dusk to make her visit. Her day had been moderately uneventful, particularly due to having avoided the specific event of telling Spike she’d been fired. Better, she thought, to talk to the mayor first and find out what they could work out. As empty an act as it would be, she wanted to at least try to get the mayor to let her keep the library.

She had actually planned on waiting a bit longer, until after dusk at least, and probably a bit later than that to be certain that everypony else would be inside having dinner. Her nerves had gotten the better of her, though, and one moment completely indistinguishable from the next, she just grabbed the stack of alicorn residency forms from her desk and decided to get it over with.

Since it wasn’t yet dusk, she was going to have to hoof it. She technically could have used her normal teleportation spell, but in this case she wanted to be able to see where she was going. Blindly teleporting into a group of ponies just wasn’t something she wanted to risk right now—not that it was dangerous or anything, just, you know, awkward.

The streets were not as clear as she would have liked, but they had at least fallen below that critical mass that caused everypony to just stop, stare and bow as she walked past. Instead, they merely kept their distance and ducked down side streets or into other ponies’ houses while acting as if they were absolutely going to do so all along and had simply forgot where they were going for a moment.

She made it to Town Hall without incident and quickly ducked inside, stopping only for a moment to wonder if it would technically be City Hall after she signed these papers. Regardless, she was in such a hurry that she simply barged into the mayor’s office without knocking. She was surprised to find that Mayor Mare already had company.

There was a midnight blue alicorn standing there, hunched over the mayor’s desk, signing a stack of papers which looked strangely familiar.

☾ ☾ ☾

Luna heard the door open behind her, but ignored the interruption as she finished making the final touches to her overly long, title-bloated signature. Once she was satisfied that she had committed herself to this venture with suitable aplomb, she turned to see who the intruder was, and froze. Standing in the doorway was a frightened-looking alicorn. Moments later, two nearly identical stacks of papers fell out of the air and spilled across the floor.

Luna was quite at a loss for how to respond. She had known that she would have to face the element of magic eventually, but being that she was an immortal alicorn, she was quite good at imagining ‘eventually’ to be a very long time—or at least until after dinner, in any case.

Twilight’s wide, fearful eyes looked like she was ready to bolt at a moment’s notice. It was a look that Luna was used to seeing on most ponies she met, but she had never seen it on Twilight Sparkle. Not even when Twilight had been trying to hide her alicornification from the princesses had she looked quite so desperately afraid.

Rather than any of the great mix of emotions she would have expected to have upon meeting the alicorn who now embodied the stars, the only thing Luna felt when she looked down at the timorous Twilight Sparkle before her was… sadness, and a sense that she had lost something important.

For all that she was angry with Twilight, the alicorn of the stars—and she was, she had to tell herself—being angry with Twilight Sparkle, the element of magic, was far more difficult.

Twilight was the one pony who had believed in her, even when she hadn’t believed in herself. Twilight was the one pony who Luna looked up to, despite the disastrous mistakes she had made in her life—because of them, in fact. Twilight was the one pony since her return—the only pony alive—who she had briefly thought of as a friend.

Now, that pony was terrified of her. The thought twisted her up inside and she felt… ashamed that it had come to this. Silence filled the mayor’s office as the two alicorns dumbfoundedly stared at each other. The mayor, too, stayed silent, not privy to the details of the situation, but quite able to read the mood.

It was Luna who eventually marshalled the nerve to break the silence, if only to say, “Leave, please.”

Twilight made a noise like a strangled mouse and stumbled backwards, but Luna took the smaller alicorn in her magic and levitated her back into the room. “Mayor, please,” Luna abashedly corrected, with a nod of her horn to the door. The mayor didn’t need to be told twice and wasted no time on her way out. The door shut behind her with a click, and the silence returned, more awkward than ever.

Along with the silence, however, came the growing bitterness she had come to expect. It was the first time she’d seen the younger alicorn with her starry mane, and with the shock gone, the reminder of what Luna had lost began to take over.

It was just too much. Unlike the stars in the sky, she couldn't pretend that the alicorn’s starry mane wasn't a symbol of something that was—had been—hers. Not wanting to make matters worse, Luna turned away from the source of her discomfort, trying to separate Twilight Sparkle the alicorn from Twilight Sparkle the friend.

She opened her mouth to say something, but she was at a loss for what to say. She was tempted to simply move on to business and explain that she would be moving to Ponyville for the foreseeable future, but her memory of those terrified eyes in the doorway stopped her. She swallowed, trying to keep her heart out of her throat.

The silence in the wake of Luna’s aborted sentence stretched on, until finally, it was Twilight Sparkle who actually spoke. Her voice was tiny, her eyes downcast. In that moment she made Fluttershy seem like Rainbow Dash, but there was a hint of determination in her words, too. “Please,” she whispered in a voice so quiet it sounded raspy. “Please, don’t hate me.”

Luna was suddenly glad she wasn't looking at Twilight. Seeing the element of magic in such a state would be too much to bear. “Of course I don’t hate you,” she wanted to say. The words were so automatic that she almost spoke them aloud.

Her ability to say them truthfully was a different matter, however. She desperately wanted to be able to do so, she found. More than anything, she wanted to go back to the way things were before.

She was sad and hurt from losing the stars, yes. Twilight had only made it worse when she’d tried to cheer Luna up, yes. What was stopping her, though? What was really stopping her?

There were things in this new age which she had no control over, she remembered thinking as she stood across from a window that had eventually been the instrument of her freedom. This was not one of those things. This was a cage of her own devise—one she could ill afford.

Could it really be so easy?

As easy as stepping up to a window and daring to look outside?

What did she have to lose?

Craning her neck back over her shoulder towards Twilight Sparkle, Luna took a deep breath, swallowed and opened her eyes.

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight watched Luna turn, revealing a face tight and wary. Twilight met it with her own sad, but hopeful, expression. She dared to hope that this would be it. She dared to hope that the princess would forgive her.

Her hope didn’t last. She watched the light in Luna’s eyes die as a scowl found its way to her lips and the princess of the night once again turned away.

That was it, then. Twilight dropped her head and mirrored the motion in defeat. Unlike the princess, she had the benefit of a door behind her. She figured she might as well use it. Taking one last, sad look over her shoulder, she saw only the princess’ back and the white of the moon in her mane. The message was clear. Twilight was beyond forgiveness. Without a word, she made to leave the mayor’s office. Her hoof was inches away from the door when a voice just as unsteady as Twilight’s had been stopped her.

“Hold, please,” the princess pleaded. “Do not go.”

Twilight stopped, but didn’t turn. She couldn’t get her hopes up again. “I know when I’m not wanted.”

“No, thou dost not,” Luna stated.

Twilight dared to look back once more, but moon was still all she saw.

“I do not hate thee, Twilight Sparkle,” Luna insisted emphatically, her voice scratchy. “That is my decision,” she continued, but then her voice turned weak and timid, “but understand that I am also hurt.”

Twilight didn’t dare say anything to interrupt the princess and ruin the moment, only turning to look at her and listen to Luna properly as she spoke.

“Thou art blameless. I know this, but I have blamed thee just the same. I have not been kind to thee in my thoughts, and mine actions have been… similar. I wish that I could congratulate thee honestly, yet I have lost things most dear to me, and thou hast gained them. It is not a thing which I can simply pretend does not hurt.”

Twilight slowly sat as Luna talked, guiltily looking out the corner of her eye at the bit of her starry mane that rested on her shoulder. She could hear in the princess’ voice how hard it was to admit what she was saying, and Twilight was touched. At the same time, however, it was the death knell of any hope she had of real reconciliation.

With hope well and truly dead, the implications of the situation filled Twilight’s mind, and concern tightened her brow. “But, those forms…” she said, looking down at the mess on the floor. If things with Luna were this bad, alicorn residency forms were the last thing the two of them should be signing.

Luna was silent for a time, and Twilight had begun to regret asking, when the princess finally responded with distant wistfulness and a sniffle that Twilight had heard before. “I have some experience with hate and jealousy,” she bitterly reminded Twilight. There was another long pause, and Twilight almost said something before Luna continued. “In yon fair Canterlot, I have nothing to look forward to but more days of wallowing in mine own misery. It solves nothing. I wish… I wished to do better.”

Twilight stared at the princess’ back. “You came… because of me?” she asked in disbelief.

“It is… why I allowed Celestia to send me here,” Luna answered cryptically.

Twilight continued inspecting the papers that littered the floor. “You’re really moving here, then?”

Luna hesitated once again. “I have signed the papers,” she answered coldly.

That… hurt. The princess probably hadn’t meant to be cruel, but it hurt just the same. It was an admittance of defeat and a declaration of regret.

Well, why shouldn't Luna give up? Luna had given it her all and still couldn’t so much as look at Twilight. What had Twilight done to try to make this work? What had she given, besides one meek little “Please don’t hate me?”

No, there was something she could do. There was something she could give. There had to still be a chance, she just hoped it was enough.

Bracing herself, she reached deep into her magic and pulled.

☾ ☾ ☾

Luna was regretting the terseness of her response when she heard Twilight gasp—not a sniffle or whine as one might expect after such a spiteful comment, but a sound like a stifled cry of pain. Unthinking, Luna quickly turned to see what had happened and was struck dumb by the sight.

There were tears streaming down Twilight’s cheeks, and she seemed somehow… diminished. She was seated on her rump, timidly holding something in two shaking forehooves.

A tiny star small enough to fit in the hollow of one hoof shone bright enough to cast the room into sharp relief.

“W-where didst thou get that?” Luna balked. It was not yet dusk; there was only one place it could have come from. No—wait—why would that matter? She didn’t know, but the wan look in the younger alicorn’s eyes told her it did.

“Take it,” Twilight insisted.

Greed drew Luna’s hoof forward. It was wrong, she told herself, but her hoof didn’t stop. She made it stop. “I… I cannot. Twilight, do not offer me this.”

The young alicorn had already made up her mind, however. She lurched upright and shouted “Take it!” as she shoved the star into Luna’s grasp with both forehooves, then stumbled back and fell.

Luna panicked, juggling the star from one hoof to the other like a hot potato as she watched Twilight fall away. The element of magic hit the ground and fell still. “T-Twilight Sparkle!” she shouted in stark dread as she rushed to Twilight’s side. The star followed after her, gripped in her magic.

Twilight, for her part, was breathing heavily—but steadily—and smiling with her eyes closed. Luna was less composed. “What—how—why—” she stammered. “Why hast thou collapsed? What is wrong?”

Twilight just continued to lie there, pleased as punch. “I guess Princess Celestia didn’t tell you. I manifest… backwards from you. All of me is right here, in this room, in these stars. No offense, but it’s kind of lousy as immortalities go.”

Luna’s eyes widened and she looked up at the star that was floating above her head, then back down at Twilight, distraught.

“Thanks for not trying to give it back again,” she teased with a knowing smirk causing a sharp twinge of guilt in Luna. “I’ll be fine. I have… hundreds more on hoof,” she explained, interrupted intermittently by heavy breaths. “They’re just—um—smaller than that one. I didn’t expect taking it out of me to… take quite so much out of me.” The weakened alicorn gave a thready giggle at the play on words.

Luna was starting to get annoyed at the younger alicorn’s dismissal of the gravity of what she’d done. “Twilight Sparkle, what in all of Equestria made thee think that this was a good idea?”

“I don’t know,” she said simply. Her breathing had calmed, which was only more infuriating as she lay there still as the dead, not even looking at Luna. “I just… wanted to do something. I know it’s only one star, but I can give you more. I have plenty. I even found some spares the other night. Did you know that? A whole mess of stars just sitting around in a cave, minding their own business, trying to eat me.”

Luna had no idea what to say to that. “I think thou art delirious, Twilight Sparkle.”

Twilight just smiled smugly. “I think the fact that you still haven’t given it back means I made the right choice.”

Luna shrunk inwardly at the accusation… but did not prove Twilight wrong, either. The star floated above Luna in her magic as if it were judging her.

“Relax, princess. Dusk is in, like, a half an hour, tops. I would offer you Polaris, but I’m afraid I’ve quite lost track of it.” Twilight giggled. “Did you know the stars move, now?” she added as an afterthought.

Luna’s ears perked up. Dusk! Of course! They just had to wait for dusk, and everything would be fine. Concern furrowed her brow, however. A half an hour was a long time. Looking down at the still body of Twilight Sparkle, she wondered if that would be soon enough.

Buck it, she wasn’t going to wait a whole half-hour. Dusk would just have to happen right now! Luna lit her horn and let her presence recede back to the moon from whence it came. With a great effort, she pushed the moon along its course.

Nothing happened.

Of all the times for Celestia to begrudge her an extra half an hour. Luna gave another push, grunting with exertion. “Move your fiery flank, you fat cow!” she shouted aloud to the mayor’s office, but it was no use.

With a sigh of defeat, Luna settled fully back down into her manifest body. Twilight was staring at Luna as if the alicorn of the moon had just sprouted a second horn.

“Ah—umm,” she balked, blushing sheepishly and averting her gaze. “Yes, it is as you said. Dusk will be along shortly.”

The awkwardness from earlier was threatening to return, when there was a grunt from Twilight, and Luna looked over to find her attempting to sit up. Luna rushed to help her, and they succeeded with only a mild increase in Twilight’s breathing, though she wobbled a bit as Luna let her go.

The younger alicorn smiled weakly. “There, see? I told you I’m fine,” she insisted once again, still looking inordinately proud of herself. “In fact…”

Luna was mollified by seeing Twilight moving about again, but shifted to being concerned again as the younger alicorn’s horn began to glow. Having no idea what Twilight was doing, Luna gave a start when the star she’d been given was plucked from the grasp of her magic only to be set back in her hooves.

Luna took the star with slightly more grace this time but still resorted to fiddling with it between her hooves nervously as the glow of Twilight’s magic faded. It was a gift carelessly given and guiltily kept, and yet… the foolishness of the act was what made it special.

“There is no way that this can possibly be a good idea,” Luna muttered quietly, her eyes focused on the star.

“I’m glad you like it,” the alicorn of now one less star responded.

Twilight’s contradictory response earned her a flummoxed look from Luna, but that much was an improvement. Clutching the tiny star to her chest, she found that looking at Twilight Sparkle—the alicorn Twilight Sparkle—hurt a little less. Her lips curled up into a smile—a sad smile, but still a smile—and she gave a little laugh at the ridiculousness of the response. Yes. She did like it.

No matter whether or not it would give her more trouble down the road, the ice, at least, had been broken. That alone was worth the potential heartache.

☾ ☾ ☾

With some time to go before the two alicorns brought out the night and Twilight could replace the star she’d given up, Luna had taken it upon herself to clean up the mess of papers that had been spilled across the floor of the mayor’s office. Said mayor was then retrieved from an epic adventure she was having with the break room coffee pot, and its bounty shared. The papers were indeed two sets of identical forms, and the coffee was a far cry from the ambrosial drink Luna had been introduced to in Canterlot.

While the mayor was busy pointedly ignoring the star in the room, Luna cleared her throat and explained the situation properly to Twilight, who had been propped up in a chair off to the side of the mayor’s desk so that she could see both ponies without straining herself. “Your mayor has offered Us—” Luna paused and furrowed her brow at the ambiguity of the royal ‘Us.’ “Me—” she corrected, then changed her mind once again, “Us—the site of this building for our palace. We—I—think it will be suitable.”

“Us?” Twilight asked hesitantly. “Us us? You want us to… live together?”

“The available space is small, I admit,” Luna nodded, avoiding the question nervously. She would make it work, and that was enough. She continued on with forced pride, trying to distract Twilight with tales of what was to come. “But it is my understanding that pony architecture has come a long way since I was imprisoned. A glorious tower as tall as the summit of Mount Canterlot shall be the perfect way to begin this new city, I think.”

The mayor gave a polite cough, to get the princess’ attention. “Yes—well—I’m not sure we can build anything quite that tall yet, but—”

“What?” Luna recoiled in shock. She glanced at Twilight out of the corner of her eye, worried that she would see disappointment. Fiddling with the star in her hooves, she turned back to the mayor. “But I had thought—”

“I assure you, princess, it will be quite respectable,” the mayor reassured her. “An unequalled marvel of pony engineering, I promise. Just… not a mountain.”

Luna deflated at the news, but Twilight actually gave a cute, little giggle. The sound of happiness from the weakened mare assuaged some of her worries. Luna wasn’t sure quite where the two of them stood in regards to each other, so she wanted to avoid anything upsetting Twilight.

“We also may be able to reclaim the closest blocks of property over time in order to expand the palace grounds as the new city planning ordinances push out old residents. We’ve already lost the chance to scoop up a number of them that have been sold already, but outside buyers aren’t likely to be very attached to them,” the mayor explained, then looked askance. “Except…”

“Push out old residents?” Twilight frowned with concern.

“Yes, the new planning ordinances will require much more regal architecture to match the palace, like in Canterlot. We can’t force anypony to change their homes, but any new work must be done to the new code and existing residents may not be up to the, ah, costs involved.”

“You needn’t worry about thy fellow townsfolk,” Luna volunteered, trying to reassure Twilight while casually handling a star like a desk toy and pretending everything was normal. “It is my understanding that they will do quite well for themselves.”

The mayor nodded in confirmation. “That’s sort of the problem. You see, several properties changed hooves shortly before all of this happened, and not to an outside buyer.” The mayor looked at Twilight meaningfully for a moment before the younger alicorn facehooved with a sigh.

Luna was quite confused. “Prithee tell what thou speakest of, I seem to have missed something.”

Both Twilight and the mayor said one name in unison. “Rarity.”

“The element of generosity?” Luna asked with bewilderment in her voice, causing Twilight to wince at the reminder of her friend’s status in such a situation. Luna had read all of Twilight’s friendship reports, but never actually had a chance to meet the mare properly, as she had been absent on Nightmare Night. “I recall she is a seamstress, is she not?”

The mayor just nodded solemnly, not denying it, but giving the impression that it was more serious than that. “Rarity is the best there is at what she does,” the mayor explained, “but what she does best isn’t very—”

“Sewing,” Twilight suddenly interrupted energetically, in spite of her condition. “What she does best isn’t just sewing. She’s also an—um—aspiring landowner, apparently,” Twilight hastily clarified. Nopony seemed to want to elaborate more, and the silence stretched on awkwardly.

“I’m sure it won’t be a problem,” the mayor finally declared, with Twilight nodding in agreement a little too vigorously in her own right.

Luna was completely lost, but she let the subject slide, as she was certain she was misreading the subtext and didn’t want to sound foolish. Surely there was nothing to be concerned about with the element of generosity involved.

The three of them discussed several more issues regarding the potential palace as the clock ticked onwards towards dusk. Eventually, the mayor seemed to think they had covered everything important, and said as much. “If everything sounds satisfactory, I can take your papers now, Twilight.”

Twilight blinked, looking hesitantly down at the stack of papers on the mayor’s desk, awaiting her signature. “Oh, I… umm…” she stalled awkwardly.

Luna frowned as her worries over the tenuous peace they had formed came back to her. “Were we being too presumptuous?”

Twilight’s response was less than encouraging. “Ah, no. Nope. Nothing to add. Sharing a castle… tower… palace thing with you will be—um—perfect, princess.” Twilight quickly signed the stack of papers while wearing one of the biggest, fakest smiles that Luna had ever seen.

For good or for ill, Twilight seemed to have made her decision, and Luna’s concern was swept away by the time. “If that is all, mayor, please excuse us once again. Dusk approaches, and we would like some privacy while we perform our duties.”

The mayor’s eyes darted quickly to the window to see that it was indeed very nearly sunset. It was the look of someone who wasn’t used to being at work so late, and therefore it was a look which Luna was naturally familiar with. “Ah, of course, princess. I’ll just take this paperwork to be processed.” The mayor’s office door quietly clacked shut, and Luna took a breath, basking in the quiet.

In fact, it was so quiet that she briefly forgot that Twilight was in the room with her. Luna gave a start when she remembered the younger alicorn’s situation. Twilight was fine, though, and seemed to be enjoying the quiet as well, so Luna simply sat and said nothing, holding the star she’d been given as dusk approached.

At nearly the same exact moment, both of the alicorns’ horns lit with magic, and day flowed into night.

As soon as the deed was done, Luna slipped back down into her manifest body and looked hopefully over at Twilight. The alicorn of the stars seemed to brighten, the color returning to her coat as she was renewed from the state she had put herself in for the lunar princess’ sake. Her breathing quickened as well, no longer drawn out in torpid stillness.

As Luna watched, however, Twilight’s breathing quickly outstripped normal and her eyes shot open in stark terror, still black as the night. Luna quickly bolted up, reaching a hoof to calm the younger alicorn, but Twilight was faster still. The alicorn of the stars jerked away, her blank eyes never leaving the floor of the mayor’s office as she danced around on it as if it were made of lava—an ubiquitous children’s game which had been much more literal growing up during Discord’s reign.

Twilight wasn't playing around, however. The suddenly skittish mare leapt up onto one of the room’s finely upholstered chairs, then onto the mayor’s desk. “Twilight! What—” was all Luna got out before there was an explosive paff of stardust, leaving behind a spilled coffee mug of pens, a spilled coffee mug of coffee, several hoofprints that would make the desk a priceless historical artifact in a hundred years and a completely bewildered princess.

✶ ✶ ✶

Equestria wanted to eat her.

Things had been going well. Twilight had been the happiest she’d been since she’d become an alicorn. She had felt that she had finally done something right, even if—as the princess had said—it was a terrible idea. Unfortunately, it was all inconsequential next to the fact that Equestria wanted to eat her.

It was her dream from that morning all over again, only it wasn’t a dream and it hadn’t been a dream. There was no escaping it. No matter where in the sky she looked from, even with a whole sky of stars behind her, Equestria wanted to eat her.

Most ponies have no sense at all of the sheer size of the world they live on, for the simple fact that they cannot see it all at once. At sea level, a pony can only see for about two miles to the horizon; if they stand up on their roofs, they might see as far as five to eight miles. In Canterlot, they would be able to see for ten times that distance, but it would still be less than one one hundredth of a percent of the surface of the world.

Twilight, on the other hoof, was in the unique position of being able to see all of Equestria at once.

It was tremendously, colossally, impossibly large…

…and it all wanted to eat her.

☾ ☾ ☾

“Tiaaaaaaaa～” Luna shouted in panic as she slammed her hooves into the doors of Celestia’s chambers in Canterlot, throwing them open.

Celestia looked up from a scroll she was reading on her bed. “Yes, Luna?” Celestia calmly asked. “Aren’t you supposed to be in Ponyville?”

Luna was less calm. “Yes! I was with Twilight Sparkle when—” she had started to say, when Celestia jumped to her hooves, aghast.

“Luna!” Celestia shouted in sudden anger as she stomped towards her younger sister. “I cannot believe you!” she shouted furiously, yanking the star Twilight had given Luna from the grasp of her magic. Luna tried to quickly snatch it back with her magic, but Celestia wasn’t budging.

“You give that back!” Luna screeched in distress as she pulled harder. Thankfully, it was night, and she had the advantage. Celestia’s magic reluctantly relinquished the star, and Luna gripped it in her hooves covetously. “How dare thee! This is not yours to take!”

“It’s not yours either!” Celestia snapped harshly.

“It is!” Luna shouted back defensively. “S-she gave it to me,” the lunar princess insisted with less confidence as tears welled up in her eyes. She knew she didn’t deserve it—shouldn’t have accepted it—but she wouldn’t let it go, either.

Celestia stopped to look at Luna for a moment, and Luna could feel her older sister judging her. Finally, the elder alicorn gave a sigh and fell back onto her rump in acceptance. “Oh, Twilight…” She shook her head sadly.

Luna slowly let up her guard as her sister seemed to calm down. Celestia’s gaze found its way back to Luna once again, now full of equal parts remorse and pity. “I’m… sorry, Lulu,” Celestia apologized, “but she shouldn’t have—”

“I know,” Luna interrupted dejectedly. “I know. I told her as much.”

They shared a moment of silent acceptance before Luna remembered why she’d come. “Tia!” she shouted. “Twilight, she—” Luna paused as she tried to figure out how to explain Twilight’s behavior.

Twilight’s name spoken with such distress had got Celestia’s attention, however. “What? What happened?” she demanded.

“I—I don’t know!” Luna insisted. “We had just begun the night, when she—” Luna was about to explain when suddenly every star in the sky winked out. “That!” she shouted, pointing out the window.

Celestia looked out her window at the suddenly black sky with alarm, then back at Luna. There was only one place the stars could have gone, and only one of the two sisters could be there right now. It only took a moment for Celestia to disappear without a word, following after the stars.

With that, Luna was alone, the only alicorn left in the world. She stared up at the huge, empty sky for a while before placing the star she’d been given up next to her moon, adjusting it just so until it was perfect.

It wasn’t enough to fill the sky, but somehow, she felt a little less lonely for doing so.

☼ ☼ ☼

It had been a very long time since Celestia had manifested a body in the Umbra. There had never been much point, as by definition she had never shared the space with anypony else.

Until tonight.

Normally, for Celestia, the Umbra was a great sky-blue expanse with the sun burning brightly as the only landmark. She feared that the sun’s brightness would drown out the stars, and that she would have difficulty finding them; she couldn’t have been more wrong.

The stars burned brighter than they ever had before, bright, hazy shapes like miniature suns dotting the blue expanse.

“Twilight?” Celestia hesitantly called out, but there was no answer. “Twilight!” she called out again, much louder this time and full of hope, but the response was the same.

If only the stars had ears.

☾ ☾ ☾

Luna was at a loss as to what to do. She couldn’t very well follow Twilight and her sister into the Umbra while the sun was there. In fact, she had no idea how Twilight could do it. Were the stars truly that different? She scoffed at the idea. They were—had been—her stars for on the order of two thousand years; she knew how they worked… didn’t she?

Then again, she also thought she knew how Twilight worked from the dozens of friendship reports she’d read, but the Twilight she’d seen earlier had been a far cry from what she knew. Now that she had a chance to look back, it began to worry her. She’d been blinded by the turmoil of their unexpected meeting at the time, but in hindsight it was clear that something was really wrong.

“I guess Princess Celestia didn’t tell you,” Twilight had teased Luna in her delirium about her apparent odd relationship with the stars. Remembering the look of terror on Twilight’s face just before she disappeared, Luna wondered just how much Celestia hadn’t told her—and if she would have listened if she had.

As she had expected, though, there had been no friendship letter about the night when the stars had cried themselves to sleep. There hadn’t been one for any night since Twilight had become an alicorn. Luna had been—quite ironically—left in the dark.

She frowned. Just what in Equestria had been going on while she’d been wallowing on her own? Suddenly, Celestia’s words from the day after Twilight had left Canterlot came back to haunt her, and her face fell. It couldn’t be…

“You just didn’t expect her to hurt you,” Celestia had rightfully guessed at the time, but now it seemed that Luna’s naïveté had been twofold. In the light of the rogue thought, Twilight’s fear and desperation seemed to make much more sense. Luna had been so preoccupied with her own problems that she hadn’t even considered that the situation might go both ways. Luna hadn’t expected to hurt her.

Had she? Hadn’t she? Of course she had! She’d been hurt and had lashed out at Twilight. She’d wanted to hurt her as she’d been hurt. She’d been selfish, hurtful and ignorant, everything she’d accused the element of magic of being. Was it any wonder Twilight was a wreck? Was it any wonder that Twilight had been so desperate for approval that she’d given up a piece of herself? –and Luna had taken it. She’d held forgiveness out of reach until the younger alicorn coughed up a star for her.

This was all her fault.

What had she done?

✶ ✶ ✶

It took a moment for Twilight to realize where she was. Her only thought had been to get away from Equestria, so of course she’d ended up back in the Umbra where her stars had just come from. The Umbra, however, was occupied, and not by the silent, peaceful moon sitting quietly in a welcoming black expanse.

She had no attention to spare for the sun, however. Her eyes—as much as she had eyes—were peeled not in the direction of the sun, but at the corner of the twist in space around which Equestria waited. It was a thing which wanted to eat her, after all. She would be remiss to turn her back on it.

As is the way of celestial bodies, time stretched on as she held a breath she didn’t actually have. Over an hour passed as she waited, as if afraid that Equestria would follow her into the Umbra, but it did no such thing. Eventually, her curiosity grew as large as her fear, and—emboldened by experience and possibly a bit of mania—she dipped a few stars back into the night to peek at the terrifying beast that was the world she had lived on all her life.

It was like dipping your hoof into a pool to test the temperature, only to find that the water had been replaced with bees. You immediately think ‘Oh dear Celestia—bees!’ but at the same time, you don’t dare yank your hoof back for fear of disturbing them. Then, they start crawling up your hoof, but they’re just being nice, so you give a little awkward laugh of pure terror as goosebumps run up your arm and you stare in morbid fascination, all the while thinking ‘bees bees bees’ as you slowly pull your hoof back and the bees slowly leave your hoof, dropping in clumps or flying off to who knows where, until you can finally clutch your hoof to your chest—bee free—and assure yourself that the experience is over. You catch your breath and calm down. Then, anxiously, you do it again, with a little less terror and a little more fascination the next time.

It was like that, but in Twilight’s mind, the bees were teeth, and the pool was a starbeast’s maw the size of Equestria. Twilight clutched her stars protectively in her other stars until she calmed down enough to assure herself that everything was okay. Everything was okay. There was nothing to fear but fear itself—also, Equestria, apparently, but that was okay, she could handle that. Mind-numbing terror was just… a thing. She was good at handling things.

She did it again.

☾ ☾ ☾

Every once in a while, Luna thought she caught the glimmer of a star in the corner of her eye, but when she turned to look, it was gone. The sky was still starless as she found herself on the palace roof above her chambers, which was worrying. Dinner had taken quite some time and left Luna feeling certifiably awful, though it was no fault of the food. Dinner had been mushroom stew, but the only stew she’d had any mind for was stewing in her own guilt. In the end, she’d sent it away half-eaten, wishing emotions were as easily dealt with.

She hadn’t come up to this spot since she’d yelled Twilight off of it. She supposed it was an appropriate place to sit and think as she waited helplessly for… something. Celestia wouldn’t be back until dawn, of course, but Twilight should have been. It was odd to realize that she had gotten so used to Twilight’s stars that she missed them now in their own right.

She found herself automatically telling herself that it wasn’t Twilight’s stars she missed—that anything was better than this cold, empty night—but it was stupid. It was as stupid as making herself get forced to do what she really wanted to do. Couldn’t she just admit that Twilight’s stars were nice? Was that so hard? Did she have to unconsciously sabotage every thought she had about her?

The cold winter night had no answers for her, only more questions.

What could be keeping Twilight? What could have sent her beyond the horizon in such fear? More than anything, she needed to know. She needed to know what was wrong with Twilight. She needed to know how much of it could be laid at her hooves.

There was clearly more going on than aftermath of the… ‘argument’ she’d had with Twilight, she was sure, but that did not absolve her of her guilt any more than one was guiltless for kicking a pony when they were down—or felling them so they could be kicked, as the case may be.

Guilt.

Rather strangely for somepony who had once tried to plunge Equestria into eternal night, guilt wasn’t actually an emotion Luna had much experience with. For all the turmoil she’d caused by giving into her hate and jealousy, she’d been stopped, and now that she was restored, Celestia had only loving forgiveness for her. She’d never felt so personally responsible for another’s troubles.

Why should she? She was a princess! It was her lot in life to make decisions that affected many. It was her job to make the hard choices for the good of all. Guilt was a thing she’d forgotten long ago.

Hurting Twilight was hardly for the good of many, however—or any, for that matter. It was an act of pure, petty spite, which she now regretted.

Could she admit that to herself, now? Had she been cruel enough, gotten enough out of Twilight Sparkle that she could finally stop insisting that she hated her? It was a little late, she thought bitterly, but better late than never, right? She didn’t want to think about the possibility that it was too late, that the damage had been done.

Up in the empty sky, the moon hugged the single star cradled in its magic. In hindsight, the gift seemed all the more foolish and all the more special. It was a gift given freely by a mare who was at her lowest. One star to make up for the loss of billions.

Yes, she could admit that she’d forgiven Twilight Sparkle—if not at the behest of those sad, tearful eyes, then later, worrying over her in her fragile state. It was easy enough to like and hate someone at the same time, but it was much harder to hate and worry about them.

A colder, more pragmatic mare who wasn’t currently wracked with guilt might have asked herself if such forgiveness could really be bought with a star, but it wasn’t about the value of a star and it never had been; just as it had never been about the stars that she’d lost. Emotions were rarely as simple as that. Twilight Sparkle had done nothing that should have required forgiveness, but Luna needed to give it to her just the same.

If only she were here.

✶ ✶ ✶

There was a tingle in Twilight’s stars. It felt like fear, but she wasn’t afraid. She had taken that feeling and accepted it, embraced it. It couldn’t hurt her. She laughed as she rolled the feeling around between her stars, and the umbra filled with flashes of light that could no longer be called twinkling. It was bewitching how a feeling that had brought her such terror could be tamed and made to dance.

What was it, though? She still didn’t know. Was it a reaction to danger? Some sort of instinctual sense of self-preservation? Maybe it was a sort of magical empathy born of an alicorn-like connection to friendship. It sounded silly, but maybe not quite as silly as it should have. The specifics of her cutie mark were still a mystery, after all, and she was quite certain that her fear had a voice.

Not a real voice, of course. No, she wasn’t going crazy. It was a voice only insomuch as any celestial phenomenon mapped to bodily concepts. It spoke no words and formed no sentences; she simply knew that it was there and that it was anathema to her.

Whatever the feeling was, as she drew it in and examined it under the light of her stars, she recognized it. If it was fear, it was a very specific brand of fear. It was the fear she’d felt in the jaws of the Ursa Major, yes, but that wasn’t the only place she’d encountered it. There was one other, much smaller source that had come to vex her recently.

It wasn’t Luna. No, despite the lunar princess’ position as ex-owner of the stars, she wasn’t threatened by her in that way. Her fears and anxieties regarding the Lunar princess were all natural. No, instead she was thinking now of standing in front of Town Hall, with her heart seeming to seize up on her as a bitter old stallion yelled at her. Somehow, on some level, Star Glister was in the company of the greatest terrors in the world.

It was hardly much of a comparison of course, considering the other members of the club included the world itself. Still, it would have been interesting to look into if she didn’t have bigger fish to fry. Pisces, for example, because even as she accepted this fear into her, categorized it, bottled it and studied it, she knew—as the Ursa had known—that there would be no peace between her and its source.

There could be only one, and somehow, despite all sense, the entire world was her enemy. She was the underdog in this conflict.

She was going to need a lot more stars.

Chapter 8

Sharing the Night: Chapter 8

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight Sparkle was not afraid. She had mastered her fear, studied it, defined it and contained it. Still, her hooves seemed to tingle beneath her as she gingerly stepped out of the sky and into her bedroom in the Ponyville library. Each step she took was carefully measured as she kept a watchful eye on the floorboards to make sure Equestria stayed on its own side of them.

A self-conscious giggle escaped her lips as she marveled once again at the novelty of it all. Accepting the feeling of terror from miles up was one thing, but this—this was more like walking on the surface of the sun.

Even as a fresh shiver ran up her spine, though, she was glad to be back. The stars belonged to the night; she belonged to the night. Spending the whole night huddled on the Umbra’s metaphorical doorstep—hoping not to be noticed by anything on either side of it—was an experience not unlike replacing her blood with caffeine. Returning to the night, even now with Equestria beneath her hooves, was… soothing.

Fear of the unknown—like the stars—belonged to the night as well. As strange as it was, it was easier to deal with here, where both were part of the natural order of things.

It wasn’t just the night that helped her nervous giggle drain into a slow sigh of relief, however. The night was calming, certainly, but it wasn’t empty. The silent presence of the moon was a safe comfort which had become familiar since she had taken up the mantle of the stars. It was the kind of thing one could forget about, even while enjoying its company.

Her sigh of relief stretched on into one of melancholy as she turned to look up at the moon, with its single stationary star. Would that she could be so at ease with its earthly manifestation.

Luna… had apologized, hadn’t she? They’d even managed an honest-to-Celestia normal conversation… sort of. Things had been going so well before Equestria had ruined everything. So… why didn’t she feel like anything had changed?

The answer was on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t quite seem to put it into words. There was a growing sense of unease in the back of her mind that made it hard to concentrate… after all, she hadn’t glanced down to check on Equestria for a good ten—maybe even fifteen seconds.

A stubborn part of her wanted to keep looking at the moon just to ignore Equestria, but in spite of her growing mastery over herself, that part of her failed. Begrudgingly, Twilight gave in to her urge to make sure Equestria wasn’t doing anything behind her back. She was unprepared for what she saw.

She’d torn her eyes off the moon in the sky only to lock eyes with it standing in the snow below her window.

Normally, Twilight would have expected such a surprise to result in herself slamming the window shut and hiding under her bed, but seeing as she was already reining in a primal terror, the comparatively mundane act of finding the moon looking down on her—or up on her, as the case may be—was actually something she’d become quite comparably accustomed to.

After a moment of mental fumbling, the stellar alicorn settled on a simple, nonchalant “Hi.” Unfortunately, the sound that actually came out of her mouth bore only a cursory resemblance in content and fell far short in the delivery.

Luna mimicked it admirably. “Hi.”

Twilight swallowed out of nervous anxiety, having not forgotten why she’d been glancing downward to begin with. In the blink of an eye, she flowed out of the window as a field of stars and sidled up to the moon princess in a conspiratorial manner. Luna said nothing, only taking a step backwards as the stellar alicorn bent around her, searching for anything suspicious.

“T-Twilight Sparkle!” Luna exclaimed with her characteristic formality and volume, but a very uncharacteristic stutter. “What on Equestria are you—?”

“Shh!” Twilight motioned for Luna to be quiet. “Were you followed?” she asked with a hiss, eye twitching.

“I—what?” Luna was clearly confused. “Followed by whom?”

Twilight bent close to Luna’s ear and explained by way of a terse whisper, “Equestria.”

Luna opened her mouth to respond, but it seemed she simply possessed no words for an eventuality such as this. She shook her head, drew herself up and tried again, but the results were identical.

Twilight nodded with nervous vigor as the older alicorn processed what was no doubt a very serious situation. The hug that followed was, therefore, rather entirely unexpected.

“Oh, Twilight Sparkle,” the princess lamented. “Just look at thyself. Is this what mine actions hath reduced thee to?”

Twilight tried to say something in response, but her voice was muffled into unintelligibility by the princess’ coat, against which her face was being pressed in a most undignified manner.

Briefly, she wondered if she’d come back to the correct Equestria.

✶ ✶ ✶

The pancakes were great, Twilight thought, though apparently Luna preferred waffles. Twilight had calmed down remarkably quickly after dawn had finally arrived, and Spike had happily seen to breakfast for the three of them.

The pancakes were great, but Twilight did nothing but pick at hers, distracted as she was by the solemn weight of a day-old kale burger with her name on it in the garbage. Once again, she had failed her responsibilities as Spike’s adoptive guardian… Though if he resented her for it, he hid it well.

Luna, on the other hoof, was less difficult to read, as her worried eyes kept glancing up at Twilight to make sure she was still there, and not, say, at the door regaling unfortunate mailponies with tales of elder gods sleeping beneath their hooves... again.

In Twilight’s defense, five-thirty in the morning was hardly the time to be delivering mail, and she had only barely managed to hide the envelopes addressed to ‘New Resident’ from Spike. It seemed that somepony from the Mayor’s office had rather jumped the gun on paperwork related to the whole eviction thing. Regardless, the mailmare had deserved a good talking-to for that… though how the conversation had turned to the terror below, she couldn’t quite recall over pancakes.

Twilight gave out a groan just thinking about it, earning her looks from both Luna and Spike as she cradled her head with her hooves. She had enough problems—she did not need to deal with this right now.

She did, though. She did have to deal with it right now. The junk mail itself, at least, had met its end in the tiny fires of Twilight’s starry mane, but that didn’t solve the problem.

She would have to tell Spike eventually. She was rather certain that he would begin to ask questions if he just woke up one day and found himself in a palace. For that matter, he would probably notice the palace being built, if he didn’t hear about it from Rarity first. That was the real danger.

Suddenly, a thought entered her mind, and Twilight lifted her head out of her hooves with a jolt to look at Spike. Almost as suddenly, she found a renewed interest in her pancakes, making do with sidelong glances at the baby dragon. He hadn’t… already heard it from Rarity, had he? He would have said something if he had… right? It had only been one night since she’d signed the papers, she told herself, though it was hard to believe that considering how she’d spent it.

It was possible, however. Twilight didn’t doubt that Rarity herself would know by now—exactly how she’d know was anyone’s guess, but she was sort of like Pinkie Pie in that regard. The only question was how last night had gone. The burger in the garbage seemed to imply no one had stopped by.

Still, it was possible. For all Twilight knew, Rarity could have heard tell of the situation the day before when Twilight had been fired and the offer of alicorn residency had been made. She might even have known before Twilight herself. Twilight wouldn’t put it past her. Would she have told Spike, though? No, not before the papers were even signed, certainly.

No, Spike didn’t know—yet—she told herself. The time remaining on the status quo would be measured in days, however, if not hours, depending on Spike’s plans for today. Given that Twilight herself still needed to sleep, there was a good chance that those plans began and ended with a checklist listing ‘Rarity’ from top to bottom.

There was no avoiding it. They were having a pleasant breakfast, and the princess was even there; there was no better time. She had to say something. Still, she hesitated.

“Do I have something on my face?” the baby dragon asked.

Twilight realized with a start that one of her sidelong glances had gotten stuck and turned into what must have been a most unpleasant stare. She quickly looked away and coughed. “Um, no,” she dismissed.

A short pause later, she decided to get it over with.

“So,” she started suddenly, with all the grace of a moose. “A funny thing happened at Town Hall the other day,” she explained in a pleasant, upbeat manner. Luna perked up, thinking she knew where this was going.

“I—” There was the slightest pause in Twilight’s declaration as her better judgement began to take over. With a sudden bout of determination, she charged right on past it with as much forced cheer as she could muster. “I was fired.”

Spike fumbled his fork, which ended up on the floor, while the lunar princess poked herself in the cheek with a bite of syrupy goodness. Even Twilight herself was not unaffected. For all she’d gotten used to the idea, hearing it aloud was quite another matter. As the words hung in the air, Twilight’s throat began to grow tight, as if it could drag them back in and force them back down. She maintained her fake plastic smile as long as she could, but it only got worse as the silence stretched on.

Spike and Luna both broke the silence at almost the same time, though Luna was quicker on the draw. “They dare?” she shouted, mostly drowning out Spike’s own response of “Thank Celestia” as he bent over to retrieve his fork from the floor.

Luna and Twilight both stared at Spike as he cleaned his fork off with a napkin. Eventually, he noticed the looks he was getting. “What?” he asked around a fresh mouthful of pankake.

“Spike, the mayor fired me,” Twilight emphasized in a strained, breathless voice. “Do you have any idea how much that hurts? Do you even care?”

Spike began to look uncomfortable. “O—of course I care,” he insisted to his pancakes with a determined mumble. “I care that you already have too much on your plate.”

Luna looked rather confused. Twilight only had a moderate serving of pancakes, which wasn’t much for a growing alicorn.

“I mean, come on, Twilight,” Spike said with a little more confidence. “When’s the last time you actually did any libri—uhh—librifica… librarying?”

Twilight sulked a little. ‘Librarying’ was the least of the things she hadn’t done recently.

“You’ve already got a new job,” Spike argued. “Quitting your old one should have been obvious!”

Wait, that didn’t sound like Spike, Twilight thought. “Have you been talking to Rainbow Dash?”

“Um—maybe a little,” he admitted with a sulk of his own. “It’s true, though.”

Luna nodded. “He hath a point,” she admitted. “Or the element of loyalty does, in any case.” She looked like she wanted to say more, but held her tongue.

“He what? She what?” Twilight balked, turning to the lunar princess. “What happened to the… the righteous indignation?” she asked, a hint of hurt in her voice and feeling betrayed.

Luna looked at Twilight, ears drooping pathetically. Whatever the thought she was having, it was dismissed with a slow shake of her head. “That thee be dismissed as a common employee is a grievous insult indeed and was entirely unnecessary. The result, however, apart from your justifiably injured feelings, is the logical goal.”

“Logical?” Twilight asked, incredulous. “It’s logical?!” she repeated, face growing hotter. “Who are you to—I never asked for—I mean—why can’t I—?” She stammered over the words; it was only her whole life she was suddenly trying to justify in one sentence, after all.

“I can’t believe you two!” she finally yelled, slamming both front hooves on the table with a clatter of silverware. It was nowhere near Luna’s performance, but it got the job done. She looked from Spike, to Luna and back to Spike, but they only seemed shocked, not contrite.

“Fine!” she yelled, taking her hooves off the table and dropping to the floor. “Fine! We’re moving! I don’t care! No one cares!” she declared as she began to walk away. “I’m going to bed—where what I do is appreciated!” she shouted, storming up the stairs. The door to her bedroom opened viciously and then slammed shut as she fumed.

It took a moment before Twilight realized what she had just said.

☾ ☾ ☾

“I didn’t mean it like that!” came a muffled shout from upstairs.

Luna was looking up in the direction Twilight had just stormed off in. “Spike?” she asked without looking away.

“Um, yeah, princess?” the baby dragon answered, wary, but naturally trusting.

Luna frowned. “I confess I have not spent as much time with Twilight Sparkle as I should have liked. Has she always been…”

“Psycho?” Spike suggested.

“That is a no, then,” she deduced somewhat absently. The hair on the back of her neck was stood on-end, and she was fighting off a vaguely eerie feeling of déjà vu. “This is... most troubling.”

Spike looked across the table at Twilight’s unfinished plate of pancakes. It looked like she’d hardly eaten. “Yeah. Twilight can be… kind of crazy, sometimes, but lately it’s been different than the usual Twilight-crazy.”

“I wonder if this is what it was like for Tia,” Luna whispered to herself, visibly shaken.

In the silence that pervaded the room after Twilight’s exit, however, Spike heard her. He scratched the back of his neck, unsure. “Celestia always seemed to calm her down before...”

“Not with Twilight,” Luna clarified, in that same sort of scared whisper. “With me.”

Spike didn’t have to ask what she meant, and it was a long time before either of them spoke again. He shuffled about, silently cleaning up the remains of breakfast while Luna just cradled her head in worry.

This was not how it was supposed to go. Things had been going so well yesterday. It had all seemed so simple. As soon as Twilight returned, Luna was to apologize—truly apologize—and everything would have been made right.

Her apologies had fallen on deaf ears, however. Twilight had been too scattered and distracted to even care, first saying something about Equestria, then quickly becoming guarded and suspicious. Dawn had seemed to help, but it was hard to tell.

Had Luna been inconsiderate in admitting the sense of Spike’s words? She had explained the two sides of the issue quite clearly; the Twilight Luna had read about should have seen that. The mayor was out of line—she agreed! Why could Twilight not see that she was worried about her?

‘Why can’t you see I’m worried about you?’ echoed a distraught Celestia from Luna’s memory.

Why, Luna asked herself. Why was it the same? The same words, the same feelings, a thousand years apart. Luna had enough trouble dealing with the memories of her darker times. Why did it seem that history was repeating itself?

The lunar princess was broken from her reverie by the voice of Spike, who had finally mustered up the courage to ask after the elephant which Luna had carelessly left into the room. “Is Twilight going to…”

Luna closed her eyes, took a breath and let it out. “No, Spike. Not if I can help it.”

The baby dragon looked up at her, trusting and hopeful. “What are you going to do?”

“First, I believe I shall have a talk with your mayor.”

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight awoke that afternoon unusually content. Slowly, she took a deep breath and let it out in a long, relaxed sigh. The feel of being curled up in satin sheets with the moon was simply indescribable, and she’d never slept on a mattress so soft. The room, also, was dark, which was an unexpected comfort. Waking up with the sun in your eyes was nice at dawn, but lost much of its appeal late in the afternoon.

Twilight turned over onto her back and gave a stretch. The sheets were the thing which she enjoyed most. She hadn’t felt sheets like this in years, since long before she ever came to Ponyville. She hadn’t had them in her tower; it was only Princess Celestia’s bed—which she had occasionally slept in as a filly—where she had had such an experience.

It was not Princess Celestia’s bed she was sleeping in now, however, and it was not a round, white moon next to her in that bed either.

The idea didn’t shock her nearly as much as it should have, though she supposed anything beat waking up to a toothy maw of living terror beneath her. “I’m still angry with you,” she said to the room at large. Luna didn’t stir.

Turning her head, Twilight saw that the lunar princess wasn’t actually in bed with her. It looked like she’d been sitting on the side of it and fallen asleep.

Expanding her inspection past the princess, Twilight frowned. The room was quite a conundrum. It was clearly finely made and very expensive. Had she not been in Luna’s chambers in Canterlot before, she would have thought that was where she was. The style was completely different, however.

Where Luna’s chambers had been crafted in dark, smoky marble and deep, rich blue Lapis Lazuli, the room which she was in now had a much starker contrast. The floor was some sort of white, almost pearlescent stone with designs carved into it almost a hoof deep in places and filled in by a thick layer of some sort of glass or crystal. As for the rest of the room, the walls and ceiling both resembled nothing insomuch as the inside of a giant geode, being shaped into large folds and covered in sparkling black crystal as they were.

The room, wherever it was, was absolutely stunning, yet it wasn’t immaculate. Spread around and clashing terribly with the decor were all of Twilight’s personal effects. Messily stacked bookshelves, dressers and various bric-a-brac dotted the walls, looking far too small and far too plain for such a grandiose room.

“You’re kidding,” Twilight said flatly. She turned once more to the sleeping princess at the bedside. “You’ve got to be joking.”

Pressing her hooves on her face, Twilight took another deep breath, let it out and blinked herself more awake. Clearly, she had been moved. Not in the physical sense—though that had obviously taken place as well—no, she had been moved as in, out of the library and into… where?

It made no sense. The only place they would move her to—the only place that would look like this was the new palace, but it didn’t exist yet.

Frowning, Twilight moved the sheets aside and stepped off the bed, keeping a careful eye on Luna. Twilight wondered, had she been put to sleep? Well, obviously she’d been asleep, but had she been kept that way, and for how long? Long enough for somepony to build a palace?

She crept across the crystalline floor over to the large double doors on the opposite end of the room and silently opened one. Then, she closed it. A moment later, she fell back on her rump, held one hoof to her wildly beating heart… and laughed.

And laughed.

And laughed.

✶ ✶ ✶

“It had seemed a good idea at the time,” Luna mumbled, sheepish after having been awoken by an incredulous Twilight Sparkle.

Twilight was sitting at her desk with her head in her hooves, shaking her head at the situation. Once in a while, her barrel shook with a single, silent chuckle. “You built… a single palace room… on top of Town Hall… in a day… while I was asleep,” Twilight summarized between breaths. The very idea strained credibility.

“Technically, it is a style proof for the rest of the palace.” Luna reasoned, “But yes.”

“I’m not even going to ask how. Why?” Twilight asked stressing the question with a strained expression that Luna couldn’t see.

Luna pawed at the ground with one hoof. “I spoke with your mayor about the library. The tree is yours, and she will not make the mistake of insulting you such again. They did not even need it.” Luna scoffed with disgust. “A crown city requires a much larger library.”

Twilight’s withers sank and then shook with another silent chuckle. “That… no, that is the opposite of an explanation. Why?” she asked again, still looking at her desk instead of at the princess. She didn’t know whether to laugh, cry or be angry.

“I am… worried about you, Twilight,” Luna said with a shaky, sincere voice.

Twilight, for her part, believed her. The princess had changed so much since this time yesterday. Still, she was holding something back; Twilight was sure of it.

“Though you took offense, which I apologize for… I think this will help,” Luna reasoned.

“Taking me out of my home is supposed to help?” Twilight asked. It came out angrier than she had intended.

“Being an alicorn is not easy, Twilight. It looks easy to others, it even seems easy to oneself, but it is not. It has a way of getting to you—” Luna said, a hitch in her throat giving her pause. It took a moment for her to recover her train of thought. “I know this, Twilight. You know I know this. Tia would have you flounder on your own—‘find your own way,’ she called it—but it’s not working, is it? Let me help,” Luna implored.

Twilight inwardly cringed. Working? No, it wasn’t working… but if Celestia had said it... “If Celestia thinks—”

“She changed her mind,” Luna said, cutting Twilight off rather sharply.

Twilight’s heart sank at that. Had she… failed Celestia? “She said that?” she asked, her throat a little tight.

“No, not outright,” Luna said in consolation as she took a step forward to put a hoof on Twilight’s withers. “But, Twilight, she sent me to help.”

Twilight turned to look at the princess. It hurt to admit it, but Luna was right. She was hanging on by a thread, and something needed to change... Maybe she needed to change. The room was nice, though she was mostly inured to palace finery; more importantly, the bed was nice. She hardly imagined that Luna’s master plan was to get her into a fancy bed, but… it would help.

Still, it didn’t feel right—Luna’s words, not the bed, the bed was fine; that was the point of it, after all. No, something was off about the whole conversation, though there was no question that the princess was eager to help. Maybe that was it; she seemed almost too eager, too heartfelt to be believed.

“What aren’t you telling me?” Twilight asked, unable to shake her suspicions. “Yesterday it was all you could do just to look at me.”

Luna deflected the question. “If you wish to talk about yesterday, I would ask why you fled the night, screaming.”

“That’s not an answer,” Twilight argued, avoiding the question herself.

“Is it not?” Luna sighed, head downturned. “Twilight, you worry me. You did not deserve my ire, and I feel at least partly responsible for your current situation. I would make amends, if you would allow me. Please, you cannot stay cooped up in your library.”

Twilight gave a derisive snort, “Look who’s talking. This is supposed to be better? It doesn’t even have a kitchen.”

“Yes, your dragon told me how many meals you’ve been taking at home recently,” Luna retorted with a sarcasm that surprised Twilight, who didn’t find it quite as amusing. “It will get larger, though. Very quickly. More importantly, you will not be alone.”

“Servants,” Twilight dismissed. “Guards. The library is more accessible to regular ponies.”

Luna tsked. “You forget, I talked to your mayor, Twilight. I also know how many regular ponies you see.”

“That still only makes them the same,” Twilight grumbled. She would get around to seeing other ponies if she could just be left alone for once. Wait, did that make sense?

“Have you ever seen a manticore, Twilight?” Luna asked rhetorically.

Twilight rolled her eyes. “You know I have.”

Luna nodded and continued. “A manticore in the wild is a fearsome thing, but bring it into the city, where it ought not to be, and it becomes twice as frightening.”

Twilight grit her teeth. She might expect that kind of comparison from, well, somepony on the street, but not Luna of all ponies. “I am not a manticore!” she growled in her defense as she shot out of her chair and turned to bear angrily on Luna.

“You are!” Luna shouted back, stomping her hoof on the crystal floor with a thunderous boom. “We all are. You deserve their respect, and it is a sign of their reverence that they bow instead of flee.”

“So I should cage myself like an animal?” Twilight asked, petulant.

“Yes,” Luna answered, suddenly meek in contrast to her previous outburst. “If you wish for them to see you as anything save a manticore, it will be on their terms. Caged, they will come to you. It will be a start.”

Twilight sighed. “A start,” she repeated mournfully. It sounded so much like starting over. Luna was right though, curse her. It was the same reasoning Twilight had used to convince herself to sign the alicorn residency papers in the first place. Why was she even arguing? “But a cage is still a cage,” she said, despondent.

Luna turned away, a sad look on her face. “Do you think Celestia feels caged, Twilight?” she asked.

“Celestia?” Twilight was surprised to be reminded of her mentor. “Of course not,” she dismissed, doubly surprised to hear a bit of bitterness in her own voice which matched Luna’s. “I think you do, though.”

Luna closed her eyes and lowered her head. “You would not be wrong. ‘Twould be a lie to suggest that you are the only one who could use some company.”

Twilight’s face grew hot, and she was suddenly glad Luna had chosen that moment to look away. She was acquainted with the idea that Luna was in the same position that she was in an academic manner, but once again she’d failed to consider the lunar alicorn’s feelings on the matter. “Fine,” she relented, turning away as Luna raised her head. “I’ll stay.”

Luna’s relief was palpable. “Thank you, Twilight,” she said. “I am sorry that it has come to this, but I promise, it will not be as bad as it seems.”

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight lay in bed once more after Luna had left to arrange various necessities, such as—for example—stairs, or at least some manner of structure on the other side of the large double doors to grant access by ponies and dragons who did not possess wings, teleportation or powers of celestial manifestation. While the inside of the room was immaculate, there was quite literally nothing beyond save a long drop down to Town Hall below.

It was patently ludicrous, but alicorns did as alicorns liked, it seemed—for a certain definition of ‘as they liked’ which did not, apparently, include very much of anything which Twilight desired.

Not being put on the spot by the presence of said actual alicorn princess, Twilight supposed that Luna’s concern was… flattering, actually. It did pose a problem, however. Dusk was threatening to approach as it always did, and while she was fairly certain that she had a handle on the whole… immortal terror thing, she rather imagined Luna would notice, and was apparently of a mind to worry about Twilight.

No, it would be best if Luna didn’t have to see Twilight in such a state—which was fortunate, in a way, seeing as Twilight herself had things to do.

☾ ☾ ☾

Luna regretted having to leave so quickly after Twilight had accepted her fate in residency, but it was, quite simply, unavoidable. For all she had managed to convince Twilight that she had all of the answers and experience needed for the situation, she was hardly in any better position.

As she made orders for materials, directed ponies and explained everything that was going to be happening to various groups ad nauseam, there was no small part of her that felt an awful lot like a fraud. She was no stranger to the responsibilities and leadership roles that came hoof in hoof with being a princess, but at the same time, it was a dramatic change from the listless wallowing she’d been doing since her return.

Was she a fraud, though? Perhaps not. Perhaps she had not changed quite so much as she had once thought. She was scared, yes—forced into action by worry and regret—but did that make her actions any less genuine? Was the fire that drove her not of her own making?

As dusk arrived and Luna performed her solemn duty, she felt more alive than she had in ages. As she returned to check on Twilight, she felt that once again, she had purpose.

Unfortunately, however, Twilight Sparkle was not there when Luna returned.

In fact, Twilight Sparkle was not in Ponyville at all.

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight Sparkle was not in Ponyville, not only was she worried that Luna might suspect something, but it would have made her current situation undeniably awkward. It had now been a week and a half since she had moved into the palace, and she’d been busy busy busy; stars don’t eat themselves, after all.

That was a joke, she clarified to no one in a manner that was perfectly sane. Star humor. In fact, Twilight would say that her wit was positively stellar tonight. In retrospect, it was a good thing that Twilight wasn’t in Ponyville, and none of her friends—or Luna, for that matter—had had to hear that.

Luna... Twilight gave a wistful sigh as her massive starry hooves held Cancer down and her sparkling teeth pried open its hard magic shell to get at the nebulous mass of stars inside. In spite of promises made, Twilight had seen very little of the lunar princess recently. It was mostly Twilight’s own fault, however, as that was what happened when you specifically avoided your co-ruler during the time of day which the two of you shared—and also during the other parts of the day as well, for that matter.

The Lunar princess had remained very busy during the few daylight hours which she was awake for and had made good on her promises of finer amenities for their burgeoning palace, in fact doing much of the heavy lifting herself. According to Spike—who was, coincidentally, spending quite a lot more time with Luna these days than Twilight herself—Luna was was earning herself quite the reputation as a princess who wasn’t afraid to get her hooves dirty, which, in Ponyville, was actually a good thing.

Twilight, on the other hoof, seemed to be a fading presence in Ponyville. While she had become quite used to her nightly terror, it still prevented her from properly concentrating on the research which she required—the analyzing of local legends in order to pinpoint starbeasts across Equestria. Her days, then, were devoted to seclusion in her recently completed, if only moderately stocked palace library, while her nights were spent hunting the deviant aspects of her existence.

All of that was about to change, however. The night was passing, and she would not be able to flee to the ends of Equestria when it returned. She had an appointment to keep—one which she could not avoid, as Luna had already had it delayed longer than she would have liked.

Tonight, Twilight and Luna’s joint stellar and lunar court would be held for the first time. It was certain to go swimmingly, Twilight was sure.

There was little she could do to avoid what would undoubtedly be an unmitigated disaster, save challenge Equestria before dawn. Even as she made silent note to herself that it was apparently possible for stars to be chewy, however, she knew that she was even less prepared for such a confrontation than she was for court.

As it was, she seemed to be trapped between a rock and an even bigger rock—the moon and Equestria, in this case. She wished there was a simple answer, but what was she supposed to do? Just… tell the princess that Equestria wanted to eat her and, perhaps, attending court at night would be a bad idea?

Well... yes, a small part of her said. That would be the sensible thing to do, after all. This wasn’t like thinking that she would be banished for becoming an alicorn—Equestria really was out to get her! The princess would understand.

Princesses, Twilight corrected herself. The princesses would understand, she repeated, because just this moment she wasn’t quite sure if by princess she meant Celestia or Luna, and the confusion gave her an uneasy feeling in a gut that she’d didn’t have right now. Maybe that was just Cancer, though; while there shouldn’t have been much difference between a giant space crab and any other starbeast, the mental fabrication of her nonexistant stomach disagreed.

But no, it wasn’t Cancer that was making her uneasy, it was having to think to include Celestia that had done it. Twilight wasn’t really thinking that Princess Celestia wouldn’t understand; she just wasn’t thinking of Princess Celestia in the first place. For once in her life... she wasn’t looking forward to writing a letter or report to her teacher on what she’d learned, and that scared her.

It wasn’t that she thought Celestia would disapprove, it just... seemed to matter less and less, these days. Celestia wasn’t the one she was supposed to be holding court with tonight, after all. More and more, it was Luna’s approval she was worried about, and that was something she wasn’t sure she was quite ready for.

It made sense, though, didn’t it? Celestia would understand, surely—or would she? She would be understanding... but no, she wouldn’t understand. There was a difference. Luna, on the other hoof, was different. No, Luna would know exactly the kind of rationalizations Twilight was making in her head right now.

Wait—rationalizations? Had she meant to think that?

Oh. Yes, she had.

How awkward.

☾ ☾ ☾

Twilight Sparkle was not in Ponyville, much to the detriment of Luna’s mood. It had been a week and a half since construction had begun on the palace, and ponies were already beginning to refer to Ponyville as the City of the Night in jest. Luna was quite proud of the progress and suspected the jest would disappear in time.

Still, for all the growing palace would be magnificent when it was finished—three angular white pillars joined by sparkling black crystal in the center—Luna wondered if it was all for naught. She had promised to mend the gap which Twilight’s ascension had wrought between her and the populace of Ponyville, but the stellar alicorn had become more reclusive than ever.

She had been aware of Twilight’s love of books, of course, but she hadn’t quite expected the single-minded devotion she seemed to be showing them during almost all of the daylight hours. Still, it was a comparatively minor issue, in contrast to the way she always found reason to disappear at night. The celestial experience was new to Twilight, certainly, but Luna was sure that there was something more going on—something to do with the stars.

It was a bit humbling for Luna, being kept in the dark as she was in spite of numerous pleas, and it was more than her concern for Twilight that made it so. She was worried for Twilight, of that there was no question, but at the same time, it went beyond that. She didn’t just want to keep Twilight Sparkle sane, though that was an admirable goal. She wanted more from the stellar alicorn.

The stars had always been special to Luna, though despite being their caretaker for thousands of years it seemed that now, she no longer understood them. It was quite possible, in fact, that she never actually had. As difficult as it was to admit, the evidence was growing.

Luna had always presumed to understand the stars, but at the same time, she had never really thought about it too deeply. If she had really understood them, would they always have fascinated her so much as they did? She had become quite enough experienced with boredom in her long life, to wonder.

In spite of the pride with which she spoke about her moon, it simply wasn’t the same. She wasn’t unhappy with it by any measure, but it was just... there. It was her celestial body, in both meanings of the word. The stars were different. They were beautiful, tiny sparkling suns which crossed the sky in forms and patterns that were a mystery even to themselves.

In the week and a half since her concern for Twilight had overcome her hatred, Luna had finally begun to let go of the stars and the hole their absence had left in her heart. It was much to her surprise, then, when they wouldn’t leave.

No, Luna didn’t understand the stars—or Twilight, for they were now one and the same—but there was also no denying that she wanted to.

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight was only giving half of her attention to Rarity as the two of them ate breakfast together, the rest of which was divided between that stray thought she’d had earlier and chewing what were supposedly Equestria’s finest oats with strawberries and cream. One would think that eating an island-sized star-crustacean would have filled her up, but alas, such was not the case.

Then again, she was relatively certain she didn’t actually need food. Still, the oats weren’t bad, they just seemed to be chewier than they ought to be. Maybe it was just her imagination though. Her celestial jaws had gotten quite the workout this morning.

As she began to scoop up another bite, she realized the table was quiet. Looking up from her breakfast, she saw that Rarity was looking at her. “I’m sorry, Rarity, did you say something?”

Rarity clucked her tongue, but shook her head and went on without comment. “I was saying—I understand that there is still much to do, but can’t you have them build another bedroom yet? It’s scandalous!”

Twilight blinked. “It’s not really a big deal, Rarity. The bed is huge,” she said with a shrug before taking another bite of oats.

Rarity’s jaw dropped the tiniest bit. “The bed? You mean to tell me you’re sleeping together?”

Twilight gave a sigh and rubbed her temples with her hooves. “Rarity… you don’t understand. I mean you really don’t understand, okay? I know you’re mostly focused on… this,” Twilight said, lazily gesturing at the private dining room. “But… you can’t see what it’s actually like.”

“Twilight, I think I understand the nobility just as well as you. I haven’t exactly been doing poorly for myself, you know,” Rarity said with no small amount of pride.

“That,” Twilight said with a flat expression, “is exactly what I mean.”

Rarity looked like she’d tasted something sour. “I don’t appreciate being talked down to, Twilight.”

“Sorry,” Twilight apologized. Her big mouth had apparently dug her a hole she was going to have trouble getting out of easily. “I’m not trying to, it’s just… It’s nothing you could know, and… no offense, but I’d really kind of rather keep it that way.”

Twilight should have known better than to let Rarity smell a secret. “So… This is something nopony knows?” Rarity asked, fluttering her eyes innocently.

“Nopony,” Twilight said with confidence before something else came to mind. “Nopony but—no, nopony.”

“Twilight,” Rarity said, drawing the sound out coyly. “What was that?”

Twilight crossed her forelegs and puffed out her cheeks in a pout. Big. Mouth. “Nothing. I sort of was going to explain it to somepony, once, but she got the point before I did. You know as much as Rainbow does. Basically.”

Rarity grinned. “Rainbow Dash, hmm?”

“Don’t bother. She Pinkie Promised,” Twilight said with a smug smile. “And like I said, I never actually told her.”

Rarity gave a disappointed humph. “Twilight Sparkle, do you not trust me?”

That was it, Twilight was trapped. “I think you… can be overly generous, sometimes,” Twilight admitted. “Generous with things that you know. It’s—umm—a good quality,” she insisted with a slightly forced smile.

“Really now, Twilight. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were calling me a gossip.”

“The adjective ‘incorrigible’ comes to mind,” Twilight muttered.

“Surely if a Pinkie Promise is good enough for Rainbow Dash, it’s good enough for little old me,” Rarity reasoned.

“Oh, fine,” Twilight said, giving in.

“Well?” Rarity asked, but Twilight simply watched her, waiting. Rarity cocked her head and returned the look curiously… until it was clear that Twilight wasn’t going to continue. “Oh, alright,” Rarity said, rolling her eyes before making the motions with her hooves. “Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.”

Twilight nodded, satisfied, but still, she hesitated. “I’m only telling you this because Princess Celestia and Luna haven’t told me not to tell anyone. It’s just… I’m not exactly equine any more, Rarity.”

If there was something Rarity was expecting, that wasn’t it. She furrowed her brows in confusion. “I don’t understand. You’ve not grown any scales that I’m aware of, or anything else. Alicorns have characteristics of all three pony races; why, depending on how you look at it, you’re more pony than most of us.”

“That’s… debatable, and nice of you to say, but beside the point,” Twilight said, making a motion with her hooves as if placing a box aside. “Metaphysically, I may be a pony; I’m not about to give up my cutie mark or anything. It’s… physically, I’m not Equine.”

Rarity was quite beside herself. “You know, if you didn’t want to tell me, you could have just said so instead of—”

“I did, Rarity. I said exactly that. I’m serious, though. I get that you don’t understand, but I’m not intentionally obfuscating it. Look—you remember when we had that... event at Town Hall?”

Rarity nodded. “Your first stellar cour—”

“We don’t use that word in polite company, Rarity,” Twilight chided, thoroughly confusing Rarity before moving on. “You remember when I—as Applejack called it—‘turned up the creepy’?”

“How could I not?” Rarity answered politely, though still visibly confused by the previous exchange. “I still cannot find anything on how to create proper royal regalia.”

Twilight nodded. “That… is what I am. I’m ‘the creepy.’”

“You mean…” Rarity began, trying to puzzle out what Twilight was getting at as she went along. “So you don’t—umm—you’re not, ahh, interested?”

Twilight began to blush furiously. “R-Rarity!” she balked, shocked. “No! I mean, maybe…? But no! That is not the point!”

“O-oh,” Rarity stammered, and Twilight was suddenly glad the two of them were alone.

“Look,” Twilight said, standing up suddenly. “It’s like this,” she began—and then the room suddenly went dark. Twilight was gone, at least as far as Rarity could tell. The whole area had suddenly become a black space dotted by stars.

Rarity stumbled out of a chair she couldn’t see in order to look around. The effect was quite convincing. She could easily imagine that she had been transported up into the night sky—and during the day, no less!

“This,” came Twilight’s voice from all around, the stars pulsing with the word. “This is me, now,” she said with something closer to a sparkle. “The real me.”

Rarity opened her mouth to say something, but didn’t seem to be quite sure which direction to say it in. Then, just as quickly as they had appeared, the stars vanished, and Twilight was once more sitting at the table, taking a bite of oats and cream. When Rarity was done gawking—not that she would admit to doing such a thing—she strutted back to her seat, sat down and looked Twilight straight in the eye. “Explain,” she demanded.

“I don’t control the stars, Rarity. I am the stars,” Twilight responded directly back. She supposed she could have done that to begin with and avoided the… earlier misunderstanding. Hindsight was twenty-twenty, though, as they say.

Rarity opened her mouth, paused and then continued. “So, Luna is…”

“The moon, yes.” Twilight affirmed, pointing her hoof skyward, though it was day. “Sharing a bed is irrelevant; we share the night.”

“Oh… So, you two are close, then?” Rarity concluded.

“Yes—wait—no, I mean—yes, but…” Twilight dropped her head with a sigh. “This is why I didn’t want to try to explain it. You just… don’t get it. It’s not like that.”

“Well I’m sorry for only being mortal, darling,” Rarity said rather sarcastically.

“We’re… comfortable with each other, okay?” Twilight explained, then reconsidered. “At least, until one of us starts talking. Let’s just leave it at that.”

A moment passed as Rarity processed the information. “I can’t tell anyone?” she asked, finally.

Twilight facehooved. It was a shame, too. She’d been clean for three whole days, until then. “Look, if you think you can explain it to the rest of the girls, go for it—pending Pinkie Promises all around. I’d… kind of rather explain it to Spike myself,” she added, which actually meant she’d rather not have to explain it to Spike at all. Not for a while yet, anyway.

Rarity crossed her forelegs and gave a slight “Hmm,” as if working her way through a puzzle. “You’re sure you’re not interested in—” she had begun to say when Twilight simply disappeared with a flash of teleportation.

“Ah well. That’s a shame.”

✶ ✶ ✶

Luna was, quite ironically, nowhere to be found when Twilight made her way back to the bedchamber which the two of them were currently sharing. In reality, it wasn’t actually ironic at all, as this was the schedule they had fallen into; Twilight tended to turn in immediately after her morning meal so as to have as much time for research in the afternoon as possible. Luna, meanwhile, would be up for a while yet, arranging things for the day.

“Honestly,” Twilight found herself grumbling to the empty room. Rarity always let herself get carried away with her imagination. The situation was actually rather depressing when she thought about it—also when she didn’t, for that matter. It manifested as a vague sense of unease that clung to her as she closed the large, shuttered windows in preparation for a good day’s rest.

It wasn’t the tawdry insinuations of scandal that bothered Twilight, however, though she did wish some ponies would mind their own business once in a while. No, it was the reminder of what wasn’t which crawled under her skin like Equestria in the night. That one bright glimpse she’d had into a fantasy of celestial sisterhood back when all of this had begun haunted her still.

She’d come so far and done so much, but in the end, it was down a different path—parallel to what could have been, yet so far removed as to be unrecognizable.

Luna had been right when she had convinced Twilight to live in the palace with her; Twilight needed the company of somepony who understood. The girls—bless their hearts—always tried, but she was tired of seeing that look of perplexed confusion on their faces as they faked understanding.

It wasn’t their fault, and it wasn’t fair to keep foisting her troubles onto them. When was the last time she had just talked to Applejack about the farm or heard a story from Pinkie Pie about the Cakes and their twins? It was a special kind of loneliness, being surrounded by friends who couldn’t give her what she needed.

The shameful thing was, Twilight had somepony she could talk to and confide in—she had somepony who would undoubtedly listen—yet it was that pony she was specifically avoiding, and why?

Fear. Not the fear she faced nightly, that was only fear of a painful death in the jaws of a planet, not even fear of what Luna would think—not really. No, what truly scared Twilight was that Luna would confirm what she suspected, that she was wrong. Not wrong in her decision to hunt down starbeasts for their stars, but deeper than that—the kind of wrong that made it all necessary.

Deep down, she was afraid that all of her problems were because somewhere—somewhen in the process of becoming an alicorn—something had broken.

It was the fear that maybe—just maybe—her immortality was defective.

A greater fear did not exist.

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight awoke feeling drained. Not even a cloud mattress and satin sheets could soothe her that day, and neither did she wake to the familiar comfort of the moon beside her. It was not only disappointing but very strange indeed. For a moment, she wondered if perhaps she’d only had a short nap, and maybe Luna would walk in the door any minute to join her, but the position of the sun put lie to that possibility almost immediately.

Had Luna been and gone, Twilight wondered, or had she never come to bed at all? Either way, it seemed like yet another lost opportunity. With the mood she was in, Twilight might have finally said something to the princess, had she been present—though had she been present, Twilight might not have been in such a mood.

Rather than think herself into a circular depression, she would simply have to be content dragging herself out of bed for a cup of coffee and a book to comfort her. Her lethargic quest took her first to the palace’s private dining room and then to the palace library where she found something that she was quite incapable of dealing with at this early hour of the afternoon.

It was Luna, asleep in a velvet armchair, with a book draped over the side of it. The sound of an imploding coffee cup startled the lunar princess awake. “Twilight?” she asked as soon as she realized who was in front of her then followed Twilight’s gaze to the book hanging beside her.

Twilight was quite beside herself with both shock and despair. “W—where did you get that?” she asked, as if tracing the book back to its origin would change anything.

Luna had not yet grasped the extent of her crime and was quite accommodating as she answered. “‘Twas on the shelf with the others,” she said, gesturing.

In retrospect, it was no surprise that the palace library had been stocked with a copy, of course, but that didn’t help her now. “You weren’t supposed to read that!” Twilight shrieked, not angry, but in regret. “I didn’t want you to read that.”

Luna seemed surprised to hear such a thing. “Why? The book seemed to imply that Celestia already knows of your illicit relationship with Sunset Shimmer.”

Twilight’s face grew hot, whether from embarrassment or a now growing sense of anger, she couldn’t tell. “My what? There is no Sunset Shimmer, and I’m not in any relationships, illicit or not!”

Luna nodded in understanding. “Ah. Yes, of course. I have learned of this pattern of speech. I concur—there is no Sunset Shimmer. In fact, I hath never heard the name before.” Her understanding was, apparently, overrated. “In any case, I am more concerned with the Timberwolves who seem to have developed a crude tribal society since my banishment. I understand that thou fear how an all-out confrontation would affect Equestria, but I believe I have a solution in the changelings—”

“Stop!” Twilight cried, interrupting Luna. “Just… stop. Oh Celestia, I can’t believe this! Of all the days to wake up alone... and I find you sitting here reading that—that garbage.”

“Garbage?” Luna asked, taking the book and holding it to herself protectively. “‘Tis by far the most engaging history book I have ever read. I should like to enjoy more such—”

Twilight grabbed the book out of Luna’s hooves with her magic. “It’s not a history book! For Celestia’s sake, Luna, it’s fiction!”

Luna stood and reached for the book with her hooves before stopping to process what Twilight was saying. She had clearly never heard the word before in her life. “Fiction?” she asked, innocent as a foal.

Twilight could not believe she was having this conversation. “A fabrication!” she shouted. “A fake, made-up story!”

Finally, Luna was beginning to get the idea. A vague look of horror began to dawn across her face. “A sham? You are saying… the events described in this book did not occur as such?”

“No!” Twilight shouted, furious that anypony could even think she had anything to do with the eponymous Twilight described in the book. “They didn’t occur at all! There is no Sunset Shimmer, no Timberwolf army, no changeling invasion and I am not two-timing Celestia in contradiction to my established character and moral fiber for no discernable reason! There are… there are beasts made of stars! There are primordial terrors hiding beneath Equestria! There is bit-store immortality, and there’s… there’s you! Real problems!” Twilight shrieked.

Luna was most unhappy indeed, at first looking at the book as if it had bitten her then listening intently as Twilight blurted out hints at what she’d been hiding. “Why would somepony write such a thing?” she asked, dismayed. “This is… ‘Tis base slander!”

Twilight, however, was not listening. She felt almost… betrayed. She had wanted to confide in Luna; she was going to do it, she told herself. Now, all of that had been ruined. Just the thought of Luna reading that terrible monstrosity—let alone doing so behind her back, and enjoying it no less—hurt more than she could explain.

“How could you do this to me?” Twilight asked with a downcast whimper of hurt disbelief.

Twilight’s change of tone had Luna shrinking back cautiously in spite of her being the larger alicorn of the two. “What was I supposed to do? I wish to help, but how can I when you tell me nothing?” she asked, somewhere between vulnerable, apologetic and defensive.

“I am not the filly in that book!” Twilight growled. “I am a grown celestial goddess! I am a monster that eats stars for breakfast! I don’t… I don’t need—”

“This is not about the book, Twilight!” Luna emphatically insisted. “It is about keeping you from ending up like me!”

Twilight’s ears folded back. “W-what do you mean?”

Luna took a step forward, closing in on Twilight. “You know very well what I mean,” she said, tapping one hoof on the stellar alicorn’s chest. “Do you think I cannot see the madness in your eyes at night? Do you think you do not whimper in your sleep? I see you fraying at the edges, yet you pretend nothing is wrong!”

Twilight turned away from Luna and stepped away. “I’m just trying to be normal! I’m trying to cope with it!” she insisted, before turning back to Luna, helpless. “Am I supposed to not even try?”

“It is tearing you apart!” Luna shouted in response, eliciting a cringe from Twilight. Contrite, Luna stepped back and lowered her voice, sounding as helpless as Twilight. “I cannot bear to see you thus, but what can I do when my every attempt to help is brushed aside?”

There was that word again. Help. “I don’t need help! I don’t need to be fixed. I don’t need to be solved!” she yelled back, as if volume would make her words true—for she desperately wanted them to be true. Advancing on Luna herself, now immediately in front of the lunar princess, Twilight turned and waved with her hoof. “I don’t need somepony building a palace for me to get lost in!”

Luna was stunned into silence at Twilight’s outburst. The only sound in the room was that of Twilight taking deep breaths in rhythm with her thundering heart. Slowly, Twilight dropped her leg, her anger dragging her down as it left her. “I just…” she began to say, slumping back on her rump. “I just need somepony to talk to… somepony who understands.”

Luna’s silence stretched on as she gingerly approached Twilight, who had begun to tear up and was doing her best to pretend she wasn’t. “That is all I want, Twilight,” she said, slowly placing a hoof on Twilight’s shoulder in order to pull her neck-to-neck. “I just want to understand.”

Twilight sniffed as she leaned into the lunar princess and cried.

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight had traded places with Luna, taking the comfy velvet armchair for herself as Luna went off to replace the steaming cup of coffee which had previously imploded. She could only sulk, shamefaced, as the princess hoofed over the cup.

“I was going to tell you,” Twilight managed to say with a croak, her throat rough from the earlier yelling. “I really was.”

“I believe you,” Luna answered as Twilight took a sip from the cup. At first, Twilight was sceptical of her honesty, but the lunar princess clarified, “It is always the next time. ‘Tomorrow, it will be better,’ or ‘Tomorrow, I will be better. Tomorrow, they will appreciate me. Tomorrow, I will say something.’”

Twilight nodded to her coffee in place of Luna. The worst part is, she should have known better. She was Twilight Sparkle, not some filthy procrastinator. Quietly, Twilight took another sip from her cup, waiting for Luna to ask her what it was which Twilight would inevitably say tomorrow. The expected inquiry, however, never came. The lunar princess mutely made room next to Twilight on what had moments ago been an armchair and was now a small couch, sitting patiently.

Twilight was thankful for not being pressured into conversation, yet vexed at having to find the courage to begin on her own. She took a long, deep breath, and let it out, trying to prepare herself.

She began, not at the end, with Equestria, but at the beginning. She told Luna everything she could remember that had lead up to the current situation—about Rarity pointing out her aberrant growth, her overreactions and losing herself for hours that first time she had touched the stars. They weren’t particularly important in the grand scheme of things, but Twilight wanted to explain and maybe prepare Luna—and herself—for what was to come.

Much to Twilight’s surprise, Luna seemed interested—even grateful—to hear Twilight talk about the wonder of discovering her connection to the stars. The lunar princess dismissed the notion, explaining that it helped her distance herself from the stars by listening to Twilight’s experiences. It didn’t seem that Luna was at all interested in distance, regarding the matter, however.

Encouraged nonetheless, Twilight continued on to topics more sensitive. She recounted the letter from Celestia, her talk with Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, the night spent crafting an illusion spell to hide her wings and, eventually, her visit to the palace. When the subject came to Twilight and Luna’s altercation on the palace rooftop, they each found themselves stumbling over each other’s awkward apologies.

Ultimately, when no more apologies could be made, Twilight moved on, briefly covering her lesson with Celestia and the first time she had truly become one with the night. It was a wonder, she confided to Luna, that she had thought that she had any problems at all, at that point.

Pressing on, she completely neglected to mention waking up in bed with Fluttershy, instead taking extra effort to explain her friends’ reactions to the news of her alicornification. Luna required quite a bit of explanation and eventually Twilight was forced to move on before the lunar princess was entirely convinced of their good will—especially when Twilight recounted her encounter with Applejack half laughing, and half choking up.

When she couldn’t delay any longer, Twilight continued on to her second talk with Applejack, which was much more difficult to explain. As she had originally, Twilight cried once again in admitting that being an alicorn had always been her dream, though the reason for her tears was different now, knowing what she knew. She was grateful to have Luna to comfort her this time, and Twilight wished she could stop right there and have that be the end of it. In a way, she was granted her wish, as she ended up having to take a break in order to get cleaned up and compose herself.

Eventually, though—reinforced by a cup of hot cocoa and a bagel—she had had to continue, because for all that opening up to Luna over the course of her story was a relief and for all that she had explained, what really mattered was how it had all come crashing down. Settling back in and giving a sad, listing sigh, Twilight picked up the tale once more by describing her disillusionment with the celebration Pinkie Pie had thrown her and the resulting walk home which had turned into so much more.

Going over the event with the Ursa Major from front to back and back to front again was a difficult ordeal that took a good half an hour all on its own. Twilight had told Luna before that she manifested backwards from the elder alicorn sisters, but that cursory explanation belied just how traumatic the discovery had been and had been ever since. Twilight could tell that the lunar alicorn had wanted to comment on the destruction of the old castle, but it had simply ceased to be important as more weighty matters came to light.

If there was one bright side to the matter, it was that Luna did not begrudge Twilight the reclamation of her lost stars, even when Twilight skipped ahead and admitted to hunting them down this past week and a half. It was little consolation, though, compared to the more disquieting aspects of the conversation. In fact, Luna nearly took back her approval when she learned that the stars Twilight was recovering had memories of their own.

Twilight tried to reassure Luna that the starbeasts were only a small drop in the bucket of her being and their memories rarely interesting, but Luna was not ignorant to the damage a small voice of dissent could do to a pony. Even this, however, was overshadowed by a more insidious concern—the simple matter of what such a divisive existence would do to a pony in the long run.

The very idea that Twilight had to split herself off from the sky in order to manifest was distressing—and doubly so since neither of them could offer any solid conjecture on the matter. Reassurances on both sides simply fell flat, and the muddiness of the issue haunted them both with a sense of unease. There was, quite simply, no answer, and the topic eventually died into disquieted silence.

Given the mood which the trying topic had left in the room, Luna had imagined that they had come to the crux of the issue. To this, Twilight could only joke humorlessly, suggesting Luna refill her cup, for there was still one more topic yet to come. Luna obliged Twilight, proffering another pot of coffee for the two of them, though no amount of caffeine could stave off the weary mood that had taken root in the room.

As the afternoon stretched on, Twilight recalled being tracked down by the Astronomers’ Guild of Equestria. In contrast to Luna’s earlier responses of stammered apologies for the troubles she had caused Twilight, Luna now sat in mute, embarrassed silence, explaining in only a few words that she had been to blame for the timeliness of their arrival. It wasn’t until Twilight described her unnatural fear during her first session of court, however, that Luna became truly troubled.

Many of Twilight’s early troubles could be explained simply by way of her personality—which was, to put it kindly, of a highly-strung nature. Luna’s own actions, of course, had not helped matters, but that was beside the point. Further stress and… instability… could be laid at the hooves of some truly extraordinary events and revelations, the true consequences of which remained uncertain. This, however? An instinctual fear powerful enough to give an alicorn pause and its source was a simple mortal pony?

“I have never heard of such a thing, Twilight,” Luna said, shaking her head in weary distress. “I have met this stallion you speak of—there is nothing special about him.”

“I know,” Twilight groaned, rubbing her eyes, exhausted and spent. “I know, it’s just… ridiculous.”

“Have you encountered this unexplained fear elsewhere, before or since, not counting the starbeasts?” Luna asked, furrowing her brow as she tried to think of some explanation.

Twilight just stared at her. “You have no idea,” she said, once again succumbing to a rather dark humor. Luna visibly wilted, and Twilight empathized. This wasn’t easy for either of them, and she almost felt a little guilty for dragging the lunar princess down with her just so she would have company. She had no choice, though. She had to believe it would help.

“Every night,” Twilight admitted, tired and haunted. “Every night, like you wouldn’t believe. It comes from below, somewhere deep beneath Equestria. It’s everywhere and nowhere, huge, just… impossibly massive. Bigger than me. That’s why I’ve been chasing down stars—in hopes of, I don’t know, winning?—but it’s not enough. It’ll never be enough.”

Luna turned her head to look at Twilight beside her, seeming hesitant and uncomfortable, clearly not sure if she should speak or not. “And… if it was, Twilight? You do know that is not an option... right?”

Twilight swallowed to clear her throat. “Right,” she said turning away. “Fighting Equestria is bad. It’s where I keep all my stuff.”

Luna gave a sigh of relief.

“Well, not actually all my stuff,” Twilight clarified, thoughtful. “I mean, the stars are my stuff, aren’t they? They’re me-stuff anyway—wait, is that grammatically correct?”

“Twilight,” Luna reproved.

Twilight looked up, then down again. “Sorry.”

“You realize I only ask because there was a time when I would have answered differently, do you not?” Luna said, placing a hoof on Twilight’s shoulder.

Twilight nodded minimally. “I take it you don’t really know of any ancient evils sleeping beneath the entirety of Equestria? That seems like the sort of thing you wouldn’t leave laying about.”

Luna seriously considered the question for a long while, but eventually, shook her head. “I am sorry, Twilight, I cannot think of anything it could be.”

Twilight closed her eyes and took a breath. “That’s… what I expected, I suppose.”

“I promise you, it will not go unanswered long,” Luna said with sincerity. “And…” she began to say but hesitated. “It may be poor consolation, but you needn’t face it alone. Fear might be made impotent in light of the power of friendship,” she recalled with a nostalgic smile. “I learned that from somepony.”

Twilight’s smile held a bit of melancholy, but it was a smile nonetheless. “Thanks… really.”

✶ ✶ ✶

The two alicorns of the night collapsed in silence for a while, sharing an unspoken relief in the cathartic wake of everything that had been said. The couch, which had originally seated the two rather cozily side by side, now found itself serving as little more than a rough guideline for where a pony ought to be.

“Well, I suppose it’s some comfort to know it isn’t crowded down there, at least,” Twilight joked, trying to make the best of her disappointment.

Luna tapped one hoof to her chin where she lay. “Indeed, as far as I know, ‘tis nothing but dragons all the way down. An argument could be made that this still counts as crowded, however.”

Twilight gave a sigh, her head resting on Luna’s barrel. If only she could—“Wait, dragons?”

Luna nodded. “They are diurnal even when they are not hibernating, so it must be something else. I just hope whatever it is does not wake them up—though if Discord could not, I doubt it is possible.”

“Luna,” Twilight said, too dispirited and tired to get upset. “Pretend for a moment that I don’t know anything about any theoretical subterranean dragons, okay?”

“Oh.” Luna blinked. “It is simple: Equestria is made of dragons.”

“Ah, well, that explains it,” Twilight said, staring up at one of the library’s crystal chandeliers. “You’re sure it’s not them?”

Luna nodded, running a hoof through her own ethereal tail. “As I said, they are diurnal. Since you are disturbed at night, it would make no sense unless it is their snoring that is bothering you.”

Twilight shook her head. “Can’t be, Spike snores all the time.”

“Well there you go, then,” Luna stated simply.

“How does it work, anyway?” Twilight asked, curious. “Equestria being made of dragons.”

Luna was surprised. “You’ve never seen a truly ancient dragon?”

“Nope. Saw a dragon migration once, but you’d know about that,” Twilight reminded her, still a little put out that her friendship letters had apparently been a popular periodical amongst alicorn sisters.

“I see. There were few mature dragons left after Discord’s reign; there must be a generation gap,” Luna reasoned. “Though they do not migrate at that age regardless; they lose their ability to fly, you see.”

“So, dragons,” Twilight stated, an open question.

Luna leaned back, piecing together what she knew. “They resemble us, in a way, but they are creatures of earth and flame.”

“Did you just say I look like a dragon?” Twilight asked with mock-offense, which was entirely ignored by Luna.

“Unlike us, though,” Luna continued. “They are tied to the turning of this world, forever growing and aging.”

Twilight shuddered, strong enough for Luna to take notice. “And I thought stellar-brand immortality was bad. They should have shopped around.”

Luna shook her head. “It is not like that. They age, but they do not age as flesh and blood does. Consuming the earth and its magics as they do, they come to resemble the land and eventually become it. Their hibernations become longer and longer until one day, they do not rise. Thus the land of Equestria came to be and so has has been since time immemorial… probably.”

“Huh,” Twilight commented without complication. “That’s neat.”

“They are fascinating,” Luna admitted. “But I do not envy them”

Twilight wrinkled her nose. “Well no, not if it’s dragons all the way down.”

“Rather crowded,” Luna agreed.

“So, the stories about digging up dragon eggs in mines?” Twilight asked, her curiosity piqued.

“All true,” Luna confirmed.

Twilight crossed her forelegs and cradled her chin with the back of one hoof. “I wonder how that works.”

“I couldn’t tell you,” Luna admitted. “There is a certain level of privacy inherent in the act.”

“That’s probably for the best,” Twilight allowed.

“It would be rude to watch,” Luna added.

Still, Twilight couldn’t quite let it go. “They’d be asleep, though.”

“Can’t be very interesting,” Luna countered.

Twilight furrowed her brow. “Are you sure they hibernate permanently?” she asked, changing the subject slightly.

Luna blinked. “What do you mean?”

“Well, if they just sleep longer and longer, the duration could approach infinity, but never reach it,” Twilight reasoned.

Luna frowned. “That seems like it would be unpleasant.”

“Waking up a mile down—it would explain earthquakes,” Twilight offered thoughtfully.

Luna wasn’t convinced. “So would nightmares, though.”

Twilight cursed her own imagination. “Just thinking of it is going give me nightmares.”

Luna wasn’t much help. “You already have nightmares,” she pointed out cheekily.

“Nightmares are cumulative,” Twilight asserted ruefully.

Luna had opened her mouth to fire off another comment when a completely different voice interrupted her.

“Um, princess?” the voice asked, allowing both Twilight and Luna to follow it back to a blonde-maned, white pegasus with a clipboard under one wing. Twilight recognized her as one of the heralds which had mysteriously appeared—from Twilight’s perspective, anyway—when the palace had begun to take shape.

“Not it!” Twilight declared, raising her hoof triumphantly at her lack of princesshood.

“Well, it’s both of your majesties, actually,” the herald explained, much to Twilight’s consternation. “I’ve been asked to inform you that you have court in ten minutes.”

“Curses, foiled again,” Twilight grumbled.

“Be nice,” Luna shot back. “Court is one of the ways ponies will get used to you once again.”

“I know,” Twilight sulked, averting her gaze. “I just hadn’t realized how close it was to dusk.”

“Oh,” Luna said, remembering what night meant for Twilight. “For what it is worth, I will be with you.”

“I… yeah. Okay.” Twilight relented, though she didn’t move to get up. “Also,” she said, giving the herald a pointed look and Luna a pointed hoof. “She’s a majesty, not me. I checked.”

The herald cocked her head in confusion. “Are you not Princess Twilight Sparkle?”

“Nu-uh,” Twilight denied lazily. “Twilight Sparkle, no princess. Alicorn. No title.”

“Oh,” the herald said, brightening up. “I guess no one told you—the paperwork went through recently.”

Twilight blinked. “Paperwork?” she asked, suddenly worried. “What paperwork? There is no paperwork. I’m not even a landowner. Can’t happen.”

“That is not exactly true,” Luna chided. “I told you I arranged for the library to be put in your name.”

“You did this?” Twilight squawked in distress, craning her neck to look at the lunar princess.

“I didst not!” Luna insisted hotly before shrinking inwardly and adding, “Probably. The paperwork was confusing.”

Twilight rolled her eyes and collapsed back onto Luna’s barrel with a pout. “Great. I’m a princess.”

“A princess of one tree,” Luna scoffed. “It is fine; it will be less confusing for ponies if you are a princess.”

“Umm,” the herald shyly interjected once more.

“What?” both Luna and Twilight asked at once.

“It’s just,” the herald began, taking a moment to step away from the pair of alicorns and double checking her clipboard. “According to this, that isn’t right at all,” she said, looking at Twilight. “You appear to be princess of the libraries.”

Twilight opened her mouth, paused, narrowed her eyes and asked, “Libraries?”

The herald took another step back. “Yes,” she squeaked in a manner not unlike Fluttershy.

“Plural,” Twilight prompted.

The herald nodded.

“As in…”

“All of them.”

Author's Note

● Author's Notes ●

Chapter 9

Sharing the Night: Chapter 9

✶ ✶ ✶

It was clear from where Twilight stood, high up in her toweresque palace, that Ponyville was changing. Indeed, it had already changed while she’d been busy jaunting across Equestria hunting down myths and legends—trying to put herself together in hopes that it would… what? Keep her sane?

She wasn’t crazy, she told herself as she looked up at the sparkling lights in the sky. Some of her stars spun and coursed around the moon as she held onto it for support. No, she wasn’t crazy, she was just… off balance. That wasn’t the same thing as being unbalanced… right?

For the first time since she’d learned to do so at Celestia’s side, Twilight moved the stars. She didn’t move them one by one this time, however. Instead, it was as if she’d reached up with a hoof to stir them up. It was so unlike her, yet it made her smile. Another impulse took her, and she added some color in the form of a nebula arcing across the sky, something you’d normally need a telescope to see.

Let the Astronomers’ Guild of Equestria have fun with that.

Twilight knew that she shouldn’t antagonize them, but maybe Ponyville wasn’t the only thing that was changing. Besides, they had antagonized her first.

Well, not really. Not at all, honestly, but it irked her to be told she was wrong regardless of whether the message was delivered with unrestrained vehemence or timid mumbling and shuffling of hooves.

Actually, contrary to her irritation, Twilight’s first session of court with Luna had gone well. Thus far, there had been a notable lack of yelling on her part and only a bit of minor cowering from the petitioners.

Instead, she and Luna had greeted wave after wave of affable ponies who were each, to a one, either from Canterlot or trying desperately to seem as if they were. They came not with any gripe or grievance but simply to declare their intent to habitate the now-city of Ponyville and attempt to find any opportunity they could to ingratiate themselves with the crown.

For the most part, this brown-nosing was transparent. Most of the gentry had found some project or arrangement to propose which would be beneficial to everyone present in the room. Occasionally, one such project would even come up that would benefit those outside of it as well.

The Astronomers’Guild of Equestria, of course, would not be left out—not when the two ruling alicorns of Ponyville commanded the very night they were so keen to study. This was where Twilight had run afoul of them, because they had decided to build a telescope in Ponyville.

It was not just any telescope, of course, but a massive installation. Its intent was to monitor multiple sections of the sky and track celestial objects both at greater speeds and more accurately than had ever been possible—or necessary—before. Given that Twilight had outright told them to come up with such a thing during her last session of court, though, it was hardly surprising.

Or, well, it shouldn’t have been surprising, anyway, but Twilight’s lack of notes from her previous session of court was not relevant to the matter at hoof.

The problem, of course, was the location of Ponyville. Twilight might never have operated quite so large a telescope, but the principles were the same as those of the smaller… and not so much smaller varieties which she had experience with. Really, pretty much anypony should have been able to tell them that such things were built in Canterlot for specific, valid meteorological reasons that did not include being in proximity to a pony wearing a crown, as seemed to be their intent here.

It was little consolation to Twilight that the aforementioned anypony would have been wrong in this case.

As a matter of fact, proximity to a crown-wearing pony was important in the construction of telescopes—or at least it was becoming so. Indeed, two crown-wearing ponies in particular were having a greater effect than either of them knew. With Luna’s return from her thousand-year exile, so had the night followed in her wake.

All across Equestria, nights were darker and stars brighter than they’d been since Luna’s banishment, and nowhere in Equestria was the effect being seen more than in the small city of Ponyville. Without Celestia nearby to balance Twilight and Luna out, the night was encroaching on the city faster than ever.

Goosebumps rose up under Twilight’s coat just thinking about it. City of the Night indeed. Ponyville was changing. She was changing it.

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight lay her throbbing head against the cold glass that encircled the throne room on all sides. As well as the court had gone, it had still been a long and stressful night, and her head had not appreciated having to deal with it on top of the more constant nocturnal tension which she had already been saddled with. She would have preferred fresh air to the hard glass, but court was—technically—still in session, and while it seemed the she and Luna had finally run dry of petitioners, there was still business to attend to.

“What do you mean ‘the Canterlot Archives aren’t part of my Librararchy?’” she asked with a bit of an angry snarl brought on by weariness and exasperation. “Okay first off, Librararchy isn’t even a word. You can’t just jam words together—a Librararchy would be a system of government where libraries rule.”

“Oh no, your majesty,” the soft-spoken herald insisted. Twilight wasn’t exactly sure if this was the same pony who had informed her of her princessdom or not since they apparently came as a matched set. “It refers to a system of government where you—the archlibrarian—rule. Here, look,” she said, waving over another pony who looked just like her, but was wearing glasses and carrying a tome that looked like it weighed as much as she did.

The tome turned out to be an unabridged lexicographical reference of governmental terms and titles. Twilight sat in petulant silence as the two pegasi opened the book to a pre-marked page and showed her where ‘Librararchy’ and ‘Archlibrarian’ had been penned in next to each other. There were still several grains of sand stuck to the page from the blotting.

Twilight’s eye twitched slightly. “You can’t just—” she had begun to object when she noticed something that made her stop. The librararchy and archlibrarian entries weren’t the only ones that had been penned in by hoof, though they were the most recent. “Wait,” she said, eyes widening. “This isn’t—”

“The master copy, yes, your majesty,” the herald on the left chirped cheerfully, happy to have such an astute archlibrarian. Twilight Sparkle certainly exemplified everything that an archlibrarian should be; one would almost think the title had been made for her.

“The update has already been notarized and pushed to all relevant public and private lexicons within the librararchy as well as those of our allies abroad,” the bespectacled pegasus continued. “Well, ally. It’s just Equestria, really. International alliances, writs of annexation and declarations of war against other institutions have to go through you, your majesty.”

Twilight felt her headache redouble with a throb as she slouched against the glass again, head on one foreleg and motioning the herald to continue with the other. “Hence…”

“The Canterlot Archives, yes,” she said, nodding vigorously. “The Equestrian princess of the moon—”

“She’s sitting right there,” Twilight interrupted, gesturing at a rather amused-looking alicorn on one of two thrones in the center of the room, doing paperwork. “Use her name for Celestia’s sake,” she said then reconsidered her words. “Luna’s sake,” she corrected. “Whatever, do it for my sake if you have to.”

“Um, sorry, your majesty,” the herald said, bowing to Luna in apology before turning back to Twilight. “As I was saying, Princess Luna’s library liberation law only covers existing and future public lending institutions, which the Canterlot Archives and several other notable repositories are not. We of your librarocracy feel this is is a grave oversight by our neighboring nation and would like to see it resolved as peacefully as possible.”

Twilight’s mouth hung open as she processed that information. ‘Librarocracy?’ she mouthed silently, but shook her head and gave up on the nomenclature issue. “What do you mean, ‘as peacefully as possible?’” she asked ominously.

The herald adjusted her glasses and flipped a few pages over on her clipboard to find the numbers she was looking for. “Projections suggest that due to the nature of our budding nation which has us surrounded on all sides by Equestria, combined with our relative lack of a standing military—” she paused for a moment to think then motioned dismissively with her hoof as she continued, “—or any citizenry at all, really, we would be at a significant disadvantage should we enter into a land war for the archives. Similarly, census information suggests that low numbers of pegasi would result in a similar outcome in the sky, and again, every single library is landlocked, so naval combat is right out.”

“The reason we’re not at war with Equestria is because we’d lose?” Twilight stated with a dry sarcasm.

“Well, as I mentioned, they are also our only ally at the moment, which is significant seeing as we are currently heavily reliant on imported food, labor and… everything, really. We’re lucky we already have a green card system in place and good border control, or our immigration and outsourcing issues would be worse than they already are—though on the bright side, we do have an equally strong export economy, so we’re not exactly in trouble for the interim so long as we remain on good terms with our neighboring nations. Nation.”

“So, diplomacy,” Twilight stated.

“Diplomacy,” the heralds both responded with a nod.

Twilight turned to face the throne behind her, put her hooves together and gave the Lunar princess a pleading look from across the room. “Can I have the Canterlot Archives? Pleeeeeease?”

Though Luna tried very hard not to laugh, a short snort escaped her smirking lips. “I think I’ve done enough damage, archlibrarian; you’ll have to ask your mo—I mean, Celestia.”

✶ ✶ ✶

Even after going over the details of the matter, Twilight could still hardly believe that she had been accidentally handed her own nation. Sitting slumped in her throne, the whole thing had a kind of absurd, surreal quality that defied logic, she thought, though she was so inundated with such things that it was getting hard to tell.

What part of her life didn’t seem like some hazy fever dream, these days? To start with, she was a variable multitude of celestial bodies living as a goddess in a tower that had been built especially for her by another such being, whom she admired. Not only that, but there was a whole snow-trampled shantytown on the edge of the town she’d once known just to sate the new crown city’s voracious appetite for stone and crystal. Further, right this second, dozens upon dozens of the richest ponies in Equestria were settling down to sleep in their new Ponyville homes after a long night of trying to win her favor with good will and extravagance. Oh, and her very essence was bleeding into the city in ways that she couldn’t even explain.

It was too much to wrap her head around.

The kicker, though—the real doozy—was that all of these things came back to her. She was the source of this madness—the font of this bedlam. Just by existing, the world was ordering itself around her. Even Luna would not be in Ponyville if not for her.

What was a nation of libraries added to the pile, really?

Was it bad, though? Or, could it be that this was a good sort of madness?

She couldn’t say for certain if any of those things were objectively negative. In fact, while it would have been hard to call Twilight’s previous court experience acceptable, meager or even tolerable, tonight had been… It had been good. The nobility had a bad reputation with the average farm pony, but Twilight could see them bringing real prosperity to the town, even after you cut through their overblown posturing and promises.

But no, that wasn’t it. As noble as that would be, it wasn’t optimism about the prosperity of Ponyville that made Twilight want to accept this fantasy that had become her life. It wasn’t objectivity that held sway in her mind.

It was Luna. Luna made all the difference in the world. Paradoxically, the greatest change of all was what grounded her. That one ephemeral moment which Twilight had been chasing, where she and Luna had thought they understood each other, had finally been realized.

All she had to do was look over at her co-ruler to reassure herself that everything that had changed, everything she wanted—the night, the city, the nobility, all of it—this was it. This was what she had always wanted, and she didn’t have to feel bad or guilty about it ever again. Luna had accepted her as an alicorn of the night, a fellow ruler… and a friend that Twilight could confide in. What else did she have to worry about?

Things were far from perfect in Twilight’s life, but her remaining challenges were somehow… simpler. Equestria wanted to eat her, and she had to not let it do that. Also, staying sane was somewhere on the list.

And she had to rule a couple of nations.

Trifles, really.

It sounded like hyperbole, and maybe it was, but Twilight had never balked at straightforward challenges. Okay, maybe ruling nations wasn’t exactly straightforward… and staying sane was kind of questionable too, but that wasn’t important. What was important was that Luna’s simple presence beside her, shuffling paperwork, had gone from a weight on her shoulders to a rock which she could hold on to.

Just when she was appreciating the soft sound of paper upon paper, however, it stopped.

“Twilight?” Luna said, and Twilight noticed there was a hoof on her shoulder.

“Hrm?” Twilight murmured, blinking herself alert. “Did someone else show up?”

Luna chuckled. “Court is over.”

“Oh thank—um, you. Thank you, Luna,” Twilight said as she got up to stretch the kinks out of her neck. Following the Lunar princess out of the throne room, she looked about, realizing that it was completely empty except for them now.

It was an entire floor of the palace, bordered on all sides by a wall of glass looking out over the city. Two sets of stairs from the floor below curled up around the edge of it and met at a thin path of moonstone which ran directly down the center, ending in a small island opposite the thrones themselves—two subdued shapes of clear crystal which sat on their own such island.

The entire rest of the room was black crystal.

“This room is ridiculous. You know that, right?” Twilight asked. The size of the room and the irregularly faceted crystal worked together to swallow sound and eliminate echoes, giving the room an eerie silence not unlike actually being in the night sky.

Luna looked confused. “It is a throne room,” she said, turning away from Twilight to look at the room herself. “It is supposed to be ridiculous.”

“I suppose,” Twilight said, making her way to the rear of the room where a crystal path led to a set of stairs. “I guess I’m just too used to the marble and gold from Canterlot… which isn’t any better.”

Twilight took a final glance backwards to consider the thrones. They were identical to one another and, though elegant in their simplicity, they did not catch the eye and were not the focus of the room. Instead, the clear crystal they were made of provided only a hint of shape.

Normally one would think that simple, sedate thrones would be non-threatening or even equinizing, but that wasn’t the whole truth. A throne was a symbol of authority which could be intimidating, yes, but it was also a symbol of responsibility, respect and the realm at large.

These thrones did not give an impression of solidarity and community. Without ponies sitting atop them, they were little more than fancy chairs. For good or ill, all focus would be on the individuals who ruled from them.

If this was a fillyhood fantasy, it could easily have been the one where she ruled with an iron hoof and demanded books as tribute.

Now that she thought about it, the idea could be extended to the palace as a whole, really. The black and white tower stood tall in the center of the city, a constant reminder of the changes the city was undergoing. Again, Twilight could see the sense in it—ponies would get used to the building quickly enough, and through it, the idea of the two alicorns who resided inside—but even so, she couldn’t deny that it was all rather daunting to behold.

That was fine, though, she reassured herself. This was her life now.

This was her life as an alicorn goddess of the stars.

This was her life as a princess and archlibrarian of her own nation.

This was her life beside Luna.

“Though,” Twilight began jokingly as she walked up the stairs, leaving the throne room behind. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you designed this place as Nightmare Moon.”

Luna stopped for a moment, looking back over the throne room as Twilight had been doing, before answering.

“I suppose I did.”

“Oh.”

☾ ☾ ☾

Luna followed Twilight up the stairs in awkward silence, watching carefully for the discontinuous trembling that would ripple through her coat from time to time. She didn’t think that Twilight even realized that it was happening and wasn’t sure if she should have been reassured or alarmed of the fact.

She almost couldn't blame Twilight for keeping her secret for as long as she had. Fear was hard enough to talk about with someone you trusted; it had a way of making you feel vulnerable even in the company of your closest friend. Some day, Luna hoped to maybe be that friend, but as things were, she could only imagine the effort it must have taken for Twilight to open up.

Luna would not let that effort go to waste.

An icy wind was the first sign that Twilight and Luna had arrived at their destination.

Were the palace finished, the stairs at the rear of the throne room would have led to the royal apartments, but for now, the only thing above the throne room was empty sky. It was not so good a location to lay back and read a book, but it was the perfect place to get some air, stretch one’s wings and relax after a long night of court.

Sadly, the view was not quite as impressive as it might have been atop the unfinished palace. A framework of steel extended up another hundred hooves from where Twilight and Luna stood, blocking out a good portion of the sky.

Still, Twilight’s relaxation was palpable to Luna as they made their way to the edge of the building.

“Feeling better?” Luna asked. It was a simple question intended to break the ice which might have worked if she she had not immediately segued on without waiting for a response. “I am not angry, you know.”

Having reached the edge of the building, Twilight turned to look at Luna in question, her star-studded mane blowing in the icy night wind.

It was fortunate that the cold didn’t bother them, being what they were. Technically, it didn’t bother Celestia either, but that was different; the princess of the sun simply never got cold to begin with, wheras the alicorns of the night reveled in it. Twilight and Luna belonged to the dark and cold; it was soothing, and it would make what she had to say easier. Luna sat at the edge of the building, and Twilight followed her lead.

Luna took a deep breath and tried to explain. “Your jest about Nightmare Moon,” she clarified. “I am not angry.” It was a difficult subject to broach, but she couldn’t let things go unsaid at this juncture; it could undo everything that the two of them had worked for. “There is nothing to be angry about. There is no Nightmare Moon.”

“Well, not anymore,” Twilight said with a hint of a smirk, surprising Luna. If Twilight could joke about it, then perhaps Luna had earned more of her trust than she had thought. Still, the subject had been broached, and she would have to see it through.

“Nay, there never was,” Luna said, shaking her head. “I… am a different mare now, but that mare was me. ‘Tis why I worry about you.”

“Oh.” Twilight’s smugness wilted a bit, and she rubbed her foreleg with a hoof self-consciously. “I’m fine. I mean, I’m not fine, but it’s just... Equestria. I’m pretty sure I’m sane.”

“Aye, as was I,” Luna said, wistfully looking out over the city where ponies were going about their lives as usual. “Nopony ever thinks they are wrong, let alone evil. It all seemed so… sensible at the time.”

“Calling yourself Nightmare Moon seemed sensible?” Twilight asked, tentatively returning to her joking.

Luna frowned, but not out of offense. In fact, her cheeks colored a bit in embarrassment. “It did,” she said simply, but there was more to it. “It…” she began to say, but trailed off. “If you tell anyone this—especially Celestia—I will deny it, but I did not come up with the name Nightmare Moon on my own.”

Twilight cocked her head, interested. “Someone else called you that?”

“Not as such, no,” Luna said. “It was a story from when I was a filly younger than you.”

“A story?” Twilight asked, a little doubtful. “I’ve never read anything about that,” she said, though she had to correct herself. “I mean, I don’t think I have, but Nightmare Moon was always thought of as an old mares’ tale. You’re saying it was?”

Luna gave a tiny nod. This was not exactly the direction she had expected the conversation to go in, she thought ruefully.

Rather than laugh, though, Twilight looked thoughtful. “What was the story?”

“What?” Luna balked in surprise at the question and paused to think. It had been a long time since she had actually gone over the story as a whole.

“I’ve only ever heard the one version,” Twilight said with a playful smile. “I want to hear it.”

“It was a story of two sisters,” Luna recalled, relenting. “Twins, specifically, were the shepherds of dreams.”

Twilight’s ears perked up at that. “They were alicorns?”

Luna shook her head. “The concept of alicorns did not exist, then. They were considered to be goddesses, but of the opposite sort as we are. Where we share in the traits of all pony races, they were an existence apart from ponykind. It was said that if you were to look upon them even in dreams, you would know them by their alien nature.”

Twilight scrunched up her face, evidently trying to picture such a thing and failing. Shaking her head to clear it, she wondered aloud. “If they were in charge of dreams, I get ‘nightmare,’ but where does the ‘moon’ come from? They weren’t—”

“Aye,” Luna nodded. “They were said to be goddesses of the moon, and the dark side of it was the ‘nightmare moon,’ an ill omen.”

Twilight seemed to consider that for a moment but was unsatisfied. “That really sounds like they were alicorns, and still doesn’t explain why you’d think that taking the name was a good idea.”

“It is a story, Twilight,” Luna clarified. “Like that book of yours. It is not true. It does not say that they were alicorns, therefore they were not.”

“You’re sure?” Twilight asked. “Princess Celestia mentioned that you two never knew the previous generation.”

Shifting uncomfortably in place, Luna looked over at Twilight for a moment then shook her head in concession. “‘Tis true we came into our power as blind as foals. I have no proof that these ponies were not the night before you and I, but for your sake, I hope that is not the case.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow at that. “For my sake?” she asked as she slid herself closer to the Lunar princess.

Luna sighed and put one wing over Twilight to reassure herself of her presence. “I did not choose the name Nightmare Moon on a whim. It was… appropriate. The sisters did not get along and often fought over dreamers. The younger, in charge of nightmares, felt unappreciated. It would be a poor precedent.”

“Ah,” Twilight said, shivering a bit under Luna’s wing, which tightened in response. “I don’t suppose it ended well?”

“They killed each other,” Luna said without preamble. “Tales were darker back then, when Discord walked Equestria.”

“It would explain a lot,” Twilight suggested.

“Nay, not as much as you might think,” Luna responded, shaking her head. “Even if they were real, they were goddesses of the moon, only. The stars were not their domain—and before you ask, no, I’ve never heard of any who would have been. Falsehoods were not considered entertainment back then; they were lessons to be learned, mnemonics containing wisdom.”

Twilight didn’t seem to have anything to say to that, and Luna’s eyes took on a faraway look as the thought hung in the air between them. Her expression then darkened as she gave a bitter scoff. “Wisdom I ignored.”

“Hey,” Twilight remarked with sudden sharpness, shrugging Luna’s wing off her back so that she could stand and look her in the eye. “Wisdom doesn’t work like that, okay?” she said, putting one hoof on Luna’s shoulder and giving her a stern look. “Books would be a lot shorter if all they had to do is list facts, and ponies would be a lot smarter if all they had to do is read the words, but it’s not that easy.”

Luna raised one eyebrow in question, both at the suddenness of Twilight’s reassurance and the content. “No?” she asked.

Twilight shook her head with a smile, and her voice took on what Luna suspected was her lecturing tone. “Parables take us through a learning experience in hopes that we’ll take the lesson to heart, but they can’t do it if our heart isn’t open. It’s rare that we’re in the right place to do that on our own; more often, that opening is something left by our failures and mistakes.”

“Aye, I know something of mistakes,” Luna groused grumpily. “And being hurt.”

“Yes, you’ve made some pretty big mistakes,” she said, setting her horn next to Luna’s. “Mistakes that have cost you everything. I’ve made some pretty bad ones myself, even before I began playing horseshoes with my soul and got Equestria gnawing at my brain.

“Mistakes are bad and should be avoided. They lay your heart open at the worst possible moment, and that’s scary. Lots of ponies will take advantage of that weakness to hurt you—you might do it yourself, even—but that opening also allows us to fix what went wrong. That’s why we have ponies we trust not to hurt us when it happens.”

Luna closed her eyes and let out a sigh, taking comfort in the closeness of Twilight’s head against hers for a moment. It was true that Luna and Celestia no longer confided in one another. It was only a moment, though, and Luna pulled herself away when she remembered that Twilight Sparkle was not her sister.

“And where did this sudden wisdom come from?” Luna asked, perhaps a little too sharply. She had, after all, just been sitting with a wing over the mare in question; when had that become normal?

Twilight politely coughed as she composed herself. “I’m princess of books; I know something about them,” she declared rather unconvincingly.

Books? Luna did not immediately see the connection. Right, they had been talking about parables and lessons. “You are princess of libraries,” Luna said with a half-hearted sarcastic humor, though that was half a heart more than she’d had a moment ago. “And isn’t your actual title archlibrarian?”

Twilight waved a hoof aside. “It’s complicated,” she said dismissively then continued to explain in spite of it. “Since you signed all libraries over to me personally rather than on behalf of Equestria, you technically gave me my own nation where my title is archlibrarian,” she clarified. “Because I serve Equestria in an official capacity as resident alicorn of Ponyville, though, I’m allowed the use of the Equestrian equivalent of my title when acting in the capacity of that office, which in my case makes me an Equestrian princess.”

Luna found herself rolling her eyes. Politics had never been her strong suit even before they’d gotten complicated, but Luna knew a deflection when she saw one, and the look she gave Twilight said as much.

“Okay, so maybe I’ve also given it some thought tonight,” Twilight admitted more honestly. “A lot of thought. It meant a lot to me to have somepony listen to me, so… thanks. For being a pony who didn’t hurt me, and for being there. I know I haven’t made it easy, but I appreciate it. If you need somepony to talk to, even if it’s just about fillyhood stories, I wouldn’t mind returning the favor.”

Luna paled at the thought of burdening Twilight with her petty insecurities. “You don’t owe me anything; my problems are old and past,” she said, turning back to the cold wind blowing up and over the unfinished building. Ostensibly, Twilight had already been instrumental in every good thing that had happened since her return, more than she knew, if Celestia’s pet theory about Luna’s return was correct.

Twilight shook her head with a smile, sat back down on the ledge and looked up to the mare beside her. “They still hurt. That’s reason enough. I can’t promise to always be insightful, but I can promise to be somepony who won’t hurt you,” she said reassuringly before, all of a sudden, her welcoming demeanor was cut by a frown. “I’ll try, anyway,” she added with sullen distance, clearly remembering the events that had transpired between them now nearly two weeks ago. “That’s… not very comforting, is it? Sorry.”

Luna gave a tired sigh. She liked and appreciated Twilight Sparkle very much, but the younger alicorn did have a problem with being altogether too timid and apologetic at times. It was hardly befitting a princess—nay, the ruler of her own country.

Luna would have to fix that.

✶ ✶ ✶

“You… you threw me off a building!” Twilight sputtered at Luna as the princess of the moon swooped down to the steps in front of the palace.

“You say that as if it is the first time I have done this,” Luna remarked as her final few flaps set her down on the polished moonstone.

Twilight was briefly struck speechless then retorted, “It was kind of lacking the first time too!”

“At least I did not cause an international incident this time,” Luna reasoned while calmly bringing one wing forward to straighten out a feather.

Twilight balked, straightening her posture. “Didn’t you?” she asked rhetorically.

The two of them stared each other down with sour expressions for a brief while until, all at once, Twilight broke into a snicker and Luna burst out laughing.

“The sovereign nation of… of… Does my librararchy even have a name? It had better not end in -topia, I swear.” Shaking her head, she continued. “Whatever it’s called, the librararchy demands reparations!” she shouted with mock-affront and a big grin on her face.

“I really thought you’d fly, you know,” Luna said with a brief glance up the significant distance Twilight had fallen. “I thought you said Rainbow Dash was teaching you.”

Twilight gave a petulant pout. “She taught me,” the younger alicorn said. “Once, to make sure I made it home safely. I haven’t exactly been practicing since.” Twilight scratched the back of her neck with a hoof. “Or getting out at all, really. Not in the flesh. The whole being-a-mass-of-stars thing is pretty convenient.”

“Thou hast been neglecting thy pegasus side?” Luna asked, sounding rather serious.

“I wouldn’t call it neglecting, exactly, but I can’t help it,” Twilight said, trying to excuse the lapse. “There are ponies outside!” she exclaimed while gesturing with one hoof at the… well, there weren’t actually any ponies out and about, actually, it being only an hour or two until midnight. “During the day. There are ponies outside during the day, I mean.”

Luna didn’t seem to notice Twilight’s addendum, her only response being a long and thoughtful “Hmm,” which she made with a hoof crooked under her chin.

“Is that bad?” Twilight asked and gulped. “Is there some sort of alicorn thing where I have to use all three kinds of pony magic, or I’ll be unbalanced and go slowly insane?”

“Aye, ‘tis something like that,” Luna said, nodding gravely.

“Oh dear.” Twilight thought back to everything she’d done since becoming an alicorn; the list was significantly lopsided. “Forget flying; I haven’t grown anything at all—I’m terrible with plants! My earth pony magic must be completely—wait, is it build up or atrophication I should be worried about?”

“Oh, nay, thou needst not worry about thine earth pony magic, Twilight,” Luna said, herself unconcerned. “Gardening is boring.”

“Boring?” Twilight asked, her worry buckling in on itself abruptly. “What does being boring have to do with it?”

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight’s hooves sank up to their fetlocks in the wispy winter cloud when Twilight landed on it. The landing produced what was not quite a thud but a most solid whump, at the least. She still didn’t quite trust the things to hold her weight even though she’d been sleeping on clouds since moving into the palace.

Her bed-clouds, however, were springy, puffy things like a cross between cotton and marshmallows and were laid out fresh for her daily, while these were thin, thready and prickled under her hooves like fresh toast.

Cold toast.

It was nicer than it sounded though she doubted that even Rainbow Dash would find it suitable for napping. Twilight, on the other hoof, was sorely tempted. Sweat dripped off her brow and dissolved into sparkles of stardust as she gasped for breath.

She didn’t, strictly speaking, need to breathe. She told her body this as she felt her eyes throb in tune with a heartbeat that was similarly optional. She could just let her body go and make a new one right here and now if she desired, but she’d been forbidden from doing so.

So she breathed, and frozen wisps of cloud tickled her nose. She was a pegasus at home in the sky. She was an earth pony with endless endurance. She was a unicorn with magic at her command. She could do this.

She was an alicorn, and it was night.

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight got a facefull of peytral when she finally caught Luna, but that didn’t stop her from cackling in triumph as the two of them rolled end-over-end off one cloud and down to the thick layer of cloud cover below.

Their game over, the two alicorns of the night lay where they fell, moving only so they could breathe, which they did with relish. Their chests heaved in turn, and the silence in the wake of their laughter was filled only with the sounds of contented exhaustion.

They lay there for a long while, gazing up at their night sky. The nebula which Twilight had painted into being earlier was now a pair of spirals connected by a long, thin strand of color.

“You do this often?” Twilight asked once her body had acknowledged that the hours of abuse in the name of fun—and by extension, sanity—were over and moved on to bathing her in a pleasant haze of endorphins.

“This? No,” Luna said. “Not for a long, long time. When I fly, I fly alone.”

“Oh,” Twilight said simply.

“Even so, it helps me clear my head,” Luna offered in an attempt to forestall any negativity, but the conversation lapsed into silence for a moment in spite of it.

“The story does not do it justice,” Luna finally said after a long pause. “It does not excuse my actions, but when I finally decided that I had had enough, I had been cold and bitter for as long as I could remember.”

“Immortality,” Twilight said. That one word said it all, didn’t it? “Celestia tried to tell me it wasn’t that bad. She kind of failed. You, um, came up.”

“Immortality is what you make of it,” Luna said, surprising Twilight with the ambiguous response.

“You don’t resent it?” Twilight asked.

“You are asking if I wish I had died rather than do what I did?” Luna said. “Nay, I am not so virtuous a pony.”

“Hm,” Twilight murmured. “You know, before I met my friends, there was no question in my mind. This was… exactly what I wanted. I didn’t have anypony but Celestia, really.”

“It no longer appeals to you,” Luna said, clearly trying to sound neutral but failing. It wasn’t accusatory, but there was a hint of resignation in the statement.

Twilight couldn’t blame Luna for thinking she was having second thoughts; they’d certainly be justified, in light of everything that had happened to her since. She wasn’t, though. Not really. Not because of Equestria and starbeasts, anyway.

“I really don’t know,” Twilight said. “I feel obligated to resent it. Admitting that my friendship has limits… it doesn’t feel right.” She sighed. “But no, it hasn’t lost its appeal.”

“As somepony who has always been on the outside looking in…” Luna began, clearly not used to voicing such reflections. “I think that friendship is limited,” she suggested. “I think that it is defined by its limits—that it is support and understanding without the bonds of love. It is special because it is given freely, in equal or unequal amounts as we are able, without commitment or formality. It must empower us to go where we will and do as we wish with our lives, or it would not be friendship at all.”

Twilight thought about that. Her experiences so far in life had put friendship on something of a pedestal, but Luna was right. Ponies moved on to new opportunities and new lives every day, and friendships adapted. Some day, her friends would be gone. She would outlive them all, and she would be sad to let them go, but she couldn’t let that fact make her decisions for her.

“This is where I want to be.”

“I’m glad.”

✶ ✶ ✶

“Aww, isn’t that cute,” Fluttershy said. From the sound of it, she was probably gushing over some little animal doing something naïvely foolish.

Rainbow Dash snickered. “Cute, yeah. C’mon, leave ‘em alone. We’ve got work to do.”

☼ ☼ ☼

Canterlot Castle was quiet.

It was, of course, always quiet, but her perception of such things had changed.

On the table in front of her lay a transcript from last night’s Night Court. It had been nerve-wracking getting reports of the two alicorns of Ponyville never being seen together. She had fretted and worried and trusted that Twilight and Luna would work things out, and now, it seemed, they had.

She was looking at them now, in fact, curled up in the clouds above Ponyville in the light of the dawning sun. It brought a smile to her face and a tear to her eye.

It was ironic, really, that with Luna gone, it was now Celestia longing for friendship reports to fill her heart when the enormous halls of Canterlot castle echoed like canyons. For a thousand years, Celestia had walked these halls. She couldn’t pretend that they had all been happy years, but she had persevered for the sake of her sister and her ponies.

She had no such comforts now; there was nopony she needed to be strong for. Her sister was gone again, but not in exile. Twilight, too, would grow from here on out, away from Celestia’s stifling shadow. The two of them, Celestia was sure, would soon be inseparable.

As much as Celestia could be said to have had a plan, it was going perfectly. The two ponies she loved most would be happy. Her part in it was over. All she had to do was stand back and let them grow.

She wouldn’t make the same mistake again.

She wouldn’t.

But she wanted to.

She would just have to be content with letters.

If they came.

✶ ✶ ✶

For once, Twilight did not panic when she realized that she’d gone to sleep in a rather unusual place. The soreness in her muscles reminded her of what she’d done last night, and the princess lying beside her was not unwelcome either.

She was briefly reminded of Rarity’s comment about the two of them sharing sleeping spaces. She would be sorry when the royal apartments proper were finished. The moon was nice enough to cuddle at night, but more than ever, she was going to bed after dawn these days. She would miss waking up next to somepony.

Twilight stared and blinked into the clear blue sky above her. Maybe Rarity had a point, she thought. Self-consciously, she removed her foreleg from its position underneath the Lunar princess and used it to prop herself up into a sitting position. Celestial metaphysics aside, anypony who saw Luna and her together would probably get the wrong idea.

Thankfully, with the thick winter cloud cover, it was doubtful anypony had actually noticed the two princesses of the night in the great sea of white. Sure, they were both dark in color, but—

Hm. Twilight paused for a moment as her mental reassurance hit a small snag.

Lunar princess sleeping beside her? Check.

The two of them currently lying on a cloud? Check.

The entire remainder of the cloud cover that had been present last night?

Not-check.

Casually, a rose-pink pegasus with a blonde mane wearing a brown vest flew by, carrying some flowers and singing quietly to herself. “Winter wrap-up, winter wrap-up!”

Twilight’s head slowly tracked the pegasus as she flew by, simultaneously processing three different revelations.

One, that mare could not sing to save her life.

Two, every pegasus in town had probably seen her curled up with Luna.

Three, she was over six hours late for winter wrap-up!

Twilight tried to calm herself. Lists. She was doing well with lists so far; she just needed one for how she was going to get back on schedule.

“Okay, item one,” she began, only for silence to follow. Her head must still be a bit muddled from sleep, she reasoned. “Item one… coffee?” she wondered aloud. “No! There’s no time for that!”

“Think, Twilight, think,” she chided herself. “It’s winter wrap up, and you can’t have winter wrap-up without… vests! Item one, go back to the palace and secure your vest—or is that two items?”

She pondered that for a moment, tapping her chin thoughtfully before she realized she was wasting time. “Whatever! Figure it out on the way!” she shouted, leaping off the cloud.

Awoken by Twilight’s shouting, Luna peeked over the edge of the cloud just in time to see the archlibrarian in question spread her wings, veer off to the side and crash into a chimney.

“Separate list, item one, either learn proper wing-care some time, or remember to make new wings when you have bed-feather,” she said before disappearing in a flash of teleportation.

☾ ☾ ☾

“What in Equestria…?” Luna wondered aloud as she watched Twilight disappear. A glance at the activity around her made the situation clear, however.

“Oh bother,” she remarked.

By the time Luna had followed Twilight back to the Palace, their chambers were a mess of scattered items from Twilight’s old library tree. “Where is it, where is it?” Twilight repeated under her breath as she dug through her things. “Where did it go? Where did they put it when they—a ha!”

Twilight finally pulled the multicolored vest from her old oak wardrobe, which seemed to have been placed inside a much larger, fancier white armoire. Wasting no time, her horn lit up, and she teleported the vest onto herself.

“Item one, secure winter wrap-up vest,” Twilight said, thrusting one forehoof in the air and giving a wheezy-sounding, “check!”

A moment passed with her in that position before the revered archlibrarian’s eyes rolled up in their sockets and she fell to her knees, tipping over onto the crystal-coated floor with barely a sound.

Luna poked the still form of her co-ruler with a hoof, but there was no response. Upon investigation, it appeared that the vest in question was both several sizes too small and lacking any alterations such as might be made to a garment in order to accommodate wings. Fortunately, it took a pony a good three to six minutes to actually die from asphyxiation.

By the time Twilight’s body had begun to dissolve back into stardust, Luna had returned with a tea set, which she set down on the floor next to it. After seating herself, she poured two cups and watched as the vest burned away from contact with the glowing points of light.

With the vest reduced to ashes, Twilight’s hazy, half-stellar form seemed to snap back into focus, and she took a great, long gasp of air.

Blinking her eyes clear, her face brightened. “Is that east-Zebran white tea?” she asked in a chipper tone. “No, wait, there’s no time for that! Now where’d that vest go?” she asked, patting her barrel down as she realized that she was no longer wearing it.

In the middle of taking a sip from her cup, Luna pointed silently at the multicolored scraps that were still consuming themselves amongst the ashes on the floor.

“Ah,” Twilight said, a little deflated. “No matter, I still have a job to do!” Twilight disappeared in another flash of teleportation before Luna had even lowered her cup.

Impassive, Luna got to her hooves, levitated the tea set once more and followed on hoof. She didn’t have to go far, since the de facto staging area for town events didn’t seem to have changed with the advent of the new palace right on top of it.

Luna placed the tea set down once more, this time on the top landing of the moonstone steps in front of the palace where Twilight had acquired a clipboard and was attempting to find out what needed fixing.

Not much, according to Rainbow Dash.

“Um, Princess—I mean, Twilight—we’re fine! Everything is fine!” Rainbow Dash said a little too loudly for casual speech.

Twilight flattened her ears a bit at being called ‘princess’ by Rainbow Dash of all ponies, but she recovered quickly, presuming it to be a joke. “Oh, ha-ha, very funny,” she said sarcastically. “But seriously, can you just tell me what I need to know?”

Rainbow Dash glanced around then bent closer. “C’mon Twilight, give me a break, here,” Rainbow Dash whispered. “Nopony wants me telling the princesses they screwed up!”

The corner’s of Twilight’s mouth dropped slightly. “But… how am I supposed to organize everything if I don’t know what needs organizing?”

“Look, it really is fine. Spike’s been helping, and he’s doing a really great job, so relax! There’ve been a few minor hiccups, but we’ll be on time.”

“Spike?” Twilight asked, crestfallen.

“Yeah, kid’s like a regular, um, you know, you,” Rainbow Dash said, awkwardly glancing off to the side. “A-anyway, I’ve gotta go take care of this… this thing. Completely planned, nothing to worry about, but kind of urgent, so… bye!”

“They replaced me with Spike?” she repeated in disbelief.

Luna sat down beside Twilight and levitated her a cup of tea. Twilight accepted it automatically this time and took a sip. She stared into the cup for a moment then looked over at the pony who had brought it to her.

Luna put a hoof on Twilight’s shoulder to comfort her and looked out into the city where ponies were running this way and that, some looking a little more frazzled than others, but all with purpose. In the distance, a pair of Twilight’s heralds could be seen with a small purple and green figure who was gesturing in exasperation at a sheepish-looking gray pegasus.

The Lunar princess didn’t say anything; she was there, and that was enough.

Twilight sighed and sat down next to her, tea in hoof.

“Really? Spike?”

✶ ✶ ✶

“It galls you,” Luna was saying, “to have your help rejected.” She and Twilight had moved back to the singular cloud in the sky where they’d awoken earlier in order to watch winter get wrapped up. The cloud in question had been left alone, as if their having slept on it had somehow made it sacrosanct.

“I suppose you would know, huh?” Twilight said, despondent as she watched an earth pony helping Fluttershy wake the animals.

“Actually, no,” Luna said, to Twilight’s surprise. “I would have looked at this and been heartened.”

“Oh,” Twilight said, feeling worse. “I guess I must seem pretty spoiled, then.”

Luna smiled. “Perchance, a bit,” she teased. “But ‘tis not the root of it.”

“No?” Twilight asked.

“Hrm,” Luna said, looking over the city. “Tell me, Twilight, what do you see?”

Twilight humored Luna, looking around. “Ponies wrapping up winter without me?” she suggested. Okay, maybe it did sound a little whiny.

“You see yourself as uninvolved,” Luna deduced.

“I’m just sitting here on this cloud, so…” Twilight looked around at all of the busy ponies. “Yeah, that’s sort of the definition of uninvolved.”

“Yet, is there a single pony unaware of your presence?” Luna asked, gesturing with one hoof at those around them. “One pony who does not glance at us in the corner of their eye as they hurry on?”

“Well—” Twilight began.

“Not the mailmare,” Luna clarified. “I’ll tell you; there is not. You are not so detached from events as you think; they may not be doing it with you, but they are doing it for you.”

“That’s terrible! I can’t take credit for that—it’s egotism at the worst!” Twilight balked. “That’s exactly what’s wrong with the worst of the nobility.”

“True, yet not,” Luna said. “Tell me, do you have a similar opinion on so-called ‘fine’ art?”

Twilight’s brow furrowed. “I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”

“I was appalled,” Luna said, “when I was asked to the Canterlot Museum of ‘Fine’ Art to see an exhibit which included blank canvases and what I thought must have been spoiled dropcloths used to cover the real artwork, and I said as much.”

“I… may have had similar experiences,” Twilight said. Art was one area of study which didn’t exactly come naturally to her.

“Aye, but you probably did not say as much to the curator,” Luna said, then added, “in public. Using the Royal Canterlot Voice.”

“Er, no,” Twilight admitted, paling.

Luna simply nodded and continued. “The curator attempted to placate me with apologies, but as luck would have it, one of the artists whose work was on display chose to speak up in defense of it. He asked me, ‘Princess, what is art?’”

“This shocked me. Incredulous, I walked over and chose a finely crafted bust of a beautiful mare, and I said, ‘This. This is art.’”

“The stallion observed my choice and nodded in approval. ‘Indeed, this is a fine piece,’ he said, ‘but what makes it art? Is it the way the tilt of the head gives it a feel of austerity, or is it the choice of blue jade for the stone, which contributes a cold, yet conflicted mood to the piece? Perhaps, it is the fine craftsmanship of the eyes, so full of longing. Your majesty, I propose that it is all of these things.

“I nodded, wary for I could not see where he was going with his reasoning, much as you are doing now.

“But,’ he said, ‘not all who would sculpt can afford blue jade. ‘Pray tell, then, would it be less a work of art if the piece was plain plaster? Surely not; the value of a work cannot be reduced to the cost of its production.’

“Barely waiting for my acknowledgement, he continued, launching into an impassioned spiel. ‘‘The purpose of art, I believe, is to speak for us. It is a medium of communication through which everything we put into our art can be passed along. From the way we hold the brush or chisel to the choice of paint and subject, all of it contributes a different meaning, each of which may be interpreted differently by the viewer.’

“I rolled my eyes at the navel-gazing quality of his speech, but admitted that everything he said made a certain logical sense.

“‘Then,’ he said, finally getting to the point. ‘If this is so, which aspects of art are truly required? If I can communicate the same austerity as this fine bust, using only the tools of color and shape and without resorting to reproduction of the equine form, is that not still art?’

“I frowned, finally seeing his point and none too happy about it. ‘That may be, but you cannot tell me, that this is such a work,’ I said, pointing at the blank canvas.

“‘Ah,’ he said, smiling. ‘But you see, Princess, I can—for there is no language, no form of communication in our great wide world which cannot be used to lie.’”

Twilight blinked, staring at Luna, who had been using hoof gestures to recount her tale.

“It is as you say,” Luna said, glancing up at Canterlot, unaware of Twilight’s awkward stare. “The worst nobleponies are egotists to a one; they are charlatans of authority and fabricators of command; they do not truly lead any more than one makes art with a blank canvas. One leads not to take credit for the deeds of others, but to inspire ponies to do better, to be better, and that is what I speak of, and that is what only you can do.”

“That’s all I want to do—lead them,” Twilight said. “I’m good at it.”

“Nay, you wish to manage them. Your motive is pure, but ‘tis a different thing. Leadership is no single activity; it is neither the words you speak nor the actions you take but the sum of both. It is a state of being which, as a ruler and an alicorn, you need neither chase, nor can you escape. Your job, such as it is, is to exist, and to do so in a way that the lives of those around you are better for it.”

“Didn’t you have to?” Twilight asked. “Chase it, I mean.”

Luna shook her head. “No, that was part of the problem. Even at my worst, I was still a diarch of Equestria. As my resentment grew, I changed, and the way I acted, the things I did, were picked up by those I led. Over generations, the very character of the nation was altered, ultimately making matters worse for me in the end. The resentment I sowed came back to haunt me; I was avoided, shunned and eventually outright feared.”

“The dark ages,” Twilight said.

Luna nodded. “Twilight, simply by existing, you will change the face of Equestria.”

Twilight recalled the thoughts she’d had exactly on those lines from last night. “I’d noticed,” she said.

“But you have not accepted responsibility for it,” Luna chided. “You must take pride in the happiness of the ponies you lead and be worthy of their reverence. I promise you, it is better than the alternative.”

✶ ✶ ✶

Pride, it seemed, did not come naturally to Twilight Sparkle, nor did trust. Every time there was a problem or some commotion with the wrap-up, she found herself half-risen with a hoof on her shoulder to stop her.

Once, Luna’s hoof had not been fast enough, and Twilight had gotten halfway down to one particularly vocal exchange over irrigation before the sheer number of watching eyes had managed to give her pause.

“Is this really helping?” she asked Luna as the two of them walked through the city, looking for a place to eat. Half of the ponies they came across still bowed as they passed, and the other half had their hooves too full to do so.

“I mean, ‘taking pride in my ponies’ is one thing,” she said, wearily making air-quotes with her wings, “but it doesn’t really help the fact that I can’t go out for some hay fries without causing a scene. I’ll bet you ten bits that they offer me something more ‘refined.’”

“They shall,” Luna agreed with a particularly sharp bitterness that surprised Twilight. “And when you insist, they shall still fry thy hay in the finest of flavored oils and refuse thy coin for the abomination they create.”

“Luna?” Twilight asked, wondering if something was wrong.

“Yes?” Luna simply responded.

Twilight just looked at Luna for a moment. She must have been mistaken. “No, nevermind.”

Suddenly, Luna seemed to have divined the meaning behind Twilight’s inquiry. “I have been proselytizing too much today, I think,” she said.

“What do you mean?” Twilight asked, this time her turn to be confused.

“I am not perfect, Twilight, nor is my advice,” Luna explained. “These things vex me the same as you, and I do not have all of the answers; I can only propose—as I have—that exposure will breed familiarity, but even this advice comes ultimately from Celestia.”

“Celestia…” Twilight repeated absently. It had been a while since Twilight’s mentor’s name had come up, and longer since she’d seen her.

“If leadership is an art,” Luna said, waxing poetic again, “she is the artist.”

Twilight thought about that for a moment then shook her head. “Sorry,” she said.

“You apologize too much,” Luna groaned.

“I just mean… you’re right,” Twilight said shaking her head in reflection. “It’s easy for me to be the student and treat you like Celestia, but you’re not her. I’m sorry if it sounded like I expected a lesson from you.”

“No, I am not her,” Luna confirmed glumly. “Perhaps she would be better suited to teach you about being a princess and and alicorn. ‘Twas the reason given for my coming here, but the real intent was to see our friendship mended. I dare say… the need has passed?”

“No,” Twilight said. “I mean, yes, it has—but no, I’m not going to do that.”

“Why not?” Luna asked.

“Well, for one, I already know what she’d say,” Twilight said. “I know that ponies will get used to me. It’s just frustrating.”

“Aye,” Luna agreed.

Twilight narrowed her eyes as she thought about Luna’s statement that her reason for coming to Ponyville had been completed. “You’re not going back to Canterlot, right?” Twilight asked. “I mean—you can’t! Not with everything that—”

“Nay, Twilight, I am not,” Luna interrupted before Twilight could get too far in her fantasy of abandonment. “As you say, I have gotten involved here as I never did in Canterlot. I am not sad to observe Celestia’s city from afar, nor would I wish to leave you alone as you are.”

“You worry too much,” Twilight grumbled.

Luna raised an eyebrow at that, as if to say ‘Really?’

“…Yeah I can’t believe I said that either,” Twilight admitted, “but still, I’m not some kind of unstable concoction that could go exothermic at any moment.”

“I keep telling you that that is not how it works, Twilight,” Luna said, stopping to put a hoof on her shoulder. “It is stress, isolation and depression. You need not be offended. All I am saying is that you could use a friend in this.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Twilight saw somepony look up from their work and scurry away.

“Yeah, I suppose I could,” she said, reaching over to touch the hoof that was on her shoulder.

✶ ✶ ✶

“There you are!” Rainbow Dash shouted from above just as Twilight’s hoof was about to touch the café door. “Why aren’t you guys on the Royal Observation Cloud? I’ve been looking everywhere for you!”

Twilight and Luna turned to look at each other in sync then at the café they were standing in front of.

“Yeah, whatever, you can feed your faces later,” Rainbow Dash insisted. “I need you two on the edge of town like, ten minutes ago!”

“What is it, Dash?” Twilight asked, almost as curious as she was worried. “What’s going on?”

“You know that thing where we don’t use unicorn magic to wrap up winter?” she said rhetorically.

“It’s come up before,” Twilight responded, rolling her eyes.

“Yeah, well,” Rainbow Dash glanced over her shoulder, “we’re making an exception.”

✶ ✶ ✶

It was night over the Everfree.

This was—strictly speaking—something of a problem, seeing as it was not night anywhere else.

“According to local sources,” one of Twilight’s heralds was saying, “the castle of the royal pony sisters disappeared close to two weeks ago, leaving only barren rock behind.”

Twilight coughed, avoiding eye contact with anypony.

“Three days later,” the herald continued, flipping to the next page on her clipboard, “an unidentified celestial disturbance was reported, coinciding with the formation of this sinkhole.”

Luna pawed at the relocated Royal Observation Cloud with one hoof, looking sheepish.

“We suspect both events of being connected to this phenomenon.”

Author's Note

● Author's Notes ●

Chapter 10

Sharing the Night: Chapter 10

☼ ☼ ☼

Celestia sat on her balcony in Canterlot overlooking Ponyville and its surrounding area. More specifically, she was looking over Ponyville and its surrounding area, where there was a great black hole in the sky.

Her resolution was being tested, she felt. It would be so very easy to swoop down and involve herself, but she resisted. Whatever the problem was, she was sure that her sister and her student could handle it, and if not, they would let her know.

Just when she was about to turn around and go back inside, she recognized a familiar curl of smoke in the corner of her eye and the sound of parchment hitting the marble floor in front of her.

Though it was perhaps a little unkind, she didn’t hide the smile that touched her lips as she opened it. Normally, she would have dreaded such a letter, but things were different now. The hope that she might be needed muffled any sense of worry she might have felt for her now-immortal student.

Heartened, she quickly read the letter.

Dear Princess Celestia,

Today I learned that recognizing a problem isn’t the same thing as having a solution. It’s easy to think that you can do something as well or better than someone else, but when you actually find yourself in their shoes, you may find that there’s a lot more to what they do than you think. Finding yourself out of your depths can be a trying experience, but friends are always there to lend a helping hand.

Your loyal subject,

Spike

P.S. I’ve been thinking of sending more of these, would that be okay?

Celestia’s brow knitted in confusion until she reached the signature at the bottom. She stared at that name for a long while, willing herself not to be disappointed. Once she had been marginally successful at this task, she reread it.

Spike. Poor thing. Reading between the lines, she suspected she knew exactly how the young dragon felt. In a way, Celestia had been a mother to him more than she had been to Twilight which only made her feel doubly bad that he wasn't the one she wanted a letter from right now.

Taking one final glance up at the night above the Everfree, Celestia let out a sigh, turned away from it and walked back into her chambers where she kept an ink pot and parchment.

It was a letter, at least, and she would answer it.

☾ ☾ ☾

“Equestria is… leaking,” Twilight whispered, looking straight up at what looked like a black maw in the clear blue sky.

All of the element bearers had been gathered at the Sinkhole of the Royal Pony Sisters. As such, the Royal Observation Cloud had been vacated and was being carted off into storage in deference to the ever-shrinking percentage of the group who lacked wings. This placed them right on the edge of the massive sinkhole which—it bore noting—looked a lot bigger up close.

“Leaking?” Rarity asked, not quite able to believe what she was hearing. “What do you mean it’s leaking?”

“Well,” Rainbow Dash chimed in. “It’s got a hole in it, Rares.”

“Are you sure?” came Fluttershy’s timid question.

“It’s a hole, Fluttershy,” Rainbow Dash deadpanned. “You can see it right there. Its existence is non-negotiable.”

Rarity tsked, waving Rainbow Dash off. “I believe that Fluttershy was asking if we’re sure the—um—planet is leaking.”

“Aye, we are certain,” Luna said, frowning. “Twilight is right. I had thought this might be mine own lingering magic, but ‘tis not. This night… though it bridges the day between the two, it is not our night.”

“Ah’m sorry, princess, but—what?” Applejack asked. “That don’t make a lick of sense. Ya’ll are telling me that Equestria is full of night an’ it’s… comin’ out?”

“That, fair Applejack, is what I would like to know,” Luna said, pacing along the rim of the hole. “Perhaps we ought go down and look.”

“No!” Twilight shouted suddenly, her outburst drawing the attention of everypony present, all eyes locked on her. “No, we’re not doing that,” she said more calmly, still looking up into the sky.

Luna looked at Twilight forlornly and sighed. “My apologies, I misspoke. This is my mess, and I should clean it up myself.”

“Your mess?” Applejack asked.

Luna was about to answer Applejack by way of explaining her role in the formation of the sinkhole when she was interrupted by a surprisingly irate archlibrarian.

“What does that solve, you silly princess?” Twilight asked, reaching over to give the aforementioned princess an affectionate bap on the head—which was a thing she could do now, apparently. Had she grown? “Nopony is going down there until we have some idea what they’ll find! Not even us immortals.”

“‘Silly princess?’” Luna repeated, stunned. “Wait, what about thy fear?”

“Her what?” Rarity asked, sensing a subject she didn’t know about.

“It’s still daylight; I don’t feel anything yet,” Twilight explained, “and besides, it doesn’t matter. I’ve told you before—I’m fine.”

“What?” Applejack asked, blatantly confused. “What’s fine?”

“Twilight’s fine, silly!” Pinkie Pie chimed in.

“Ah got that, Pinkie,” Applejack grumbled. “What Ah mean is—”

“Interesting,” Luna interrupted, ignoring the other element bearers. “So this is not a result of increased activity?”

“Could somepony explain…” Fluttershy began to ask but gave up when it was apparent nopony was listening. “Oh… never mind, I suppose.”

“I don’t think so, no.” Twilight shook her head, thinking. “I think it’s just leaking, like I said. It doesn't seem to be urgent, so we can afford to be careful.”

Luna grumbled noncommittally in response. Careful was not her typical modus operandi.

“Somepony remind me why the rest of us are even here, again?” Rainbow Dash asked nopony in particular.

Twilight perked up upon hearing that voice. “Rainbow! You said this was interfering with Winter Wrap-Up?” She asked. “How?”

“Well, uhh,” Rainbow Dash hesitated, looking up at the sky and scratching the back of her neck with one hoof. “We kinda need the sun to melt the snow over the Everfree and this side of town, and Shy’s having trouble convincing some of the animals to come out of hibernation, too.”

“Hrm,” Twilight said, thinking. “Can you clear the city with the morning sun, do you think?”

“What, like, tomorrow?” Rainbow Dash balked, rising in the air by a good dozen hooves as she did so.

“I’ll write you a note, okay?” Twilight said, rolling her eyes. “Can you do it?”

“Um, yeah, probably,” Rainbow Dash said, glancing over her shoulder to double check. “If the problem doesn’t get any bigger.”

“Okay, you do that then,” Twilight said, nodding. “I’ll make sure it doesn’t.”

“You can do that?” Applejack asked.

“I have no idea,” Twilight declared confidently. “But like Luna said, it’s bridging over to our night, so that’s where it’ll pool, probably. Sorry, Fluttershy, I think you’re just going to have to break out the alarm clocks for the animals again.”

Fluttershy’s response was a predictably timid nod, while Rainbow Dash had regrouped for one more attempt to reason with Twilight.

“But Twilight!” Rainbow Dash pleaded. “You want us to delay Winter Wrap-Up for a whole day? Mayor Mare will be furious!”

Twilight looked Rainbow Dash dead in the eyes.

Rainbow Dash raised her hoof, took a breath to say something and paused.

Twilight wiggled her wings.

“Good point,” Rainbow Dash said.

“What about the snow on the Everfree?” Luna asked. “Is that not a problem?”

“Eh, nah.” Rainbow Dash shrugged, flapping through the air on her back. “We don’t actually have to do it at all, but it helps keep the wild weather coming off the forest from being too bad.”

“This is why ya ain’t the element of hard work, Rainbow,” Applejack said, apparently willfully ignoring the fact that she wasn’t either, technically.

“Hey, we usually do it anyway,” Rainbow Dash said in defense of her work ethic. Landing in front of Applejack, she gestured behind herself. “But I kinda think the giant hole in the sky will make the resulting cold fronts kind of moot. Besides, I didn’t see you hesitating to drop everything when the call came.”

That seemed to get Applejack’s dander up. “Ain’t no time fer hesitation when Ah had to run all th’way here!” she retorted, fixing Rainbow Dash with a glare that would have made Fluttershy proud… if Fluttershy was actually proud of her stare, anyway.

“And since not all of us have a note from the princess,” she added, glancing over at Twilight and Luna, “Ah should be getting back to it if we’re just gonna… um, what is the plan, exactly?”

“Hrm?” Twilight said, turning away from the scene in the sky above them. “Oh! The plan. Right. You see, I’ve been ‘studying’ legendary monsters lately.”

Luna, being the only pony present who actually knew what Twilight was talking about—let alone what she meant by ‘studying’—cocked her head in question. “You think starbeasts can tell us what’s down there?” she asked, doubtful from what she had heard in Twilight’s descriptions.

“Oh no. No no no no no. No,” Twilight said, waving her hooves in front of her to ensure she wasn't misunderstood. “None of the ones I’ve et knew anything about whatever it is that's down there.”

“She said ‘met,’ right?” Applejack whispered to Rarity.

“I think so…” Rarity answered, attempting to sound reassuring, though clearly uncertain.

“If not them, then what?” Luna asked.

Twilight grinned. “You and I are going to knock on some mountains and see if we can’t wake ourselves an ancient dragon who wants to talk.”

With that, the conversation ground to a sudden, screeching halt. Everypony stared at Twilight, and in the silence, the wind blowing over the Sinkhole of the Royal Pony Sisters let out an eerie howl.

“Well, um, good,” Applejack said, breaking the tension of the moment. “You gals have fun with that. If ya need me, Ah’ll be… on mah farm… shoveling snow. ‘Cause snow, y’see, it needs shoveling. And I got a shovel. A snow shovel. For snow.”

“Applejack, dear, do shut up,” Rarity said. “You’re rambling.”

“Yup… Snow.”

☾ ☾ ☾

Luna was kind enough to teleport Twilight’s friends out of the Everfree so that they could get back to wrapping up winter as quickly as possible. She hadn’t asked if Twilight had wanted to do it, and Twilight hadn’t offered.

“I have never seen you take charge like that,” Luna said. Truth be told, it was like seeing an entirely different mare—one she’d read about but almost forgotten.

Twilight laughed at that. “Threats to Equestria I can handle.”

“I can almost believe you mean that,” Luna said, not caring to hide the suspicious nature of her statement.

Twilight frowned. “I do mean it.”

“Truly?” Luna asked. Perhaps she shouldn’t have said anything, but it was too late now. “You got rid of your friends awfully fast for ‘business as usual.’”

“They have their jobs, and we have ours,” Twilight said reticently. “Where we’re going, they can’t follow.”

It was a reasonable explanation, but Luna wasn’t sure. Twilight was a poor liar, so it wasn’t that. Still, it seemed out of character. So far as Luna knew, Twilight hadn’t spent very much time with her friends lately, and even less of it had been as a group. She should have been eager to have them around.

Luna shook her head with a huff. Perhaps Twilight was right. Perhaps she did worry too much over her sanity. “Very well. Shall we see what’s at the bottom of this hole of mine, then?”

Twilight was unamused. “Libraries. We’re going to libraries, Luna,” she repeated. “I want to visit as many as possible and get them working on finding us a dragon. They could use a visit from their archlibrarian anyway.”

“Twilight, there is no earthly reason for me not to go down there and have a look first,” Luna insisted, not wanting to waste any time with research if the problem could be solved here and now. “I understand that it’s different for you, but I never leave the sky. The most I could lose is my regalia.”

“We don’t know that,” Twilight retorted, pouting defiantly.

Luna rolled her eyes. “Yes, we do,” she stated.

“We’re not that different, Luna,” Twilight said, refusing to drop the subject. “From each other or from regular ponies. You’re right—we can’t die—but as long as our bodies live, we’re at their mercy. We sleep, we dream, we can fall unconscious and we can be kept that way against our will. You could go into that hole and never come out, and then where would I be?”

Luna’s ears flattened against her head. “True,” she admitted, “but…”

“It’s just best that we both go down together,” Twilight said with a certain finality. “And since I am vulnerable, and since we do have time, I want to know what I’m getting into.”

“I don’t like it,” Luna said grumpily. “Whatever is down there may be dangerous to me,” she admitted with much reluctance, “but we are fairly certain that it wishes to eat you.”

“Probably,” Twilight said with a smile, “but I’ve got some experience dealing with things that want to eat me.”

Luna gave Twilight a look of worry, unable to see a way out of this and hoping for a bout of sudden empathy.

“I’m going,” Twilight reiterated.

Luna sighed, admitting her defeat. “Then perhaps it is about time you had some regalia of your own,” she suggested.

Twilight considered that. “I guess we can fit in a trip with the royal armorsmith,” she said, motioning with her hoof in a way that told Luna she was shifting a few items around in her mental checklist. “What will that help, though? All I know about yours is…” Twilight stopped a moment to think. “Yeah, basically nothing except for the fact that my face is the softer of the two.”

Luna’s lips curled into a knowing smile. “A trip to the royal armorsmith will not be necessary.”

“Oh please don’t tell me you already had it made, and you were just waiting for a chance to say that,” Twilight said, rolling her eyes.

“What?” Luna asked. “No, of course not. Who would do such a thing? ‘Twould be silly.”

“Oh, good,” Twilight said, letting out a breath of relief. She had gotten quite enough of that from Rarity. “If not the royal armorsmith, do I need to book time with the department of enchantments, then? I've heard they keep a long waiting list.”

Luna shook her head.

“Well, it’s not just going to conjure itself out of thin air,” Twilight said, rolling her eyes.

Luna’s smile only widened into a grin.

“That’s exactly what’s going to happen, isn’t it?” Twilight said in monotone.

“Well, not precisely,” Luna answered with exacting vagueness.

Twilight groaned. “Well, out with it.”

“This,” Luna said, tapping a hoof on her peytral, “and this,” she continued, moving her hoof to her barrel, “are the same thing.”

“Oh, well that explains everything,” Twilight said sarcastically.

“Does it not? You will manifest your regalia as you do your body. It is denser and will prove a better source of power. No doubt you have been disappointed in your purely mortal capabilities since your ascension; this will fix—”

“Not really, no,” Twilight interrupted.

Luna blinked. “Did you not expect to be like unto a god when you became an alicorn?”

“Hrm,” Twilight said, tapping a hoof on her chin while she thought. “Yeah, that’s pretty much what I got.”

“You what?” Luna asked.

“I mean, I’m a bunch of stars,” Twilight explained. “Stars make magic. I’ve got plenty.”

“Oh,” Luna said, her ears drooping. “Right. Thy celestial bodies are here on Equestria within you—that is the whole problem.”

“So, there’s no point, then?” Twilight asked, sensing Luna’s disappointment.

“Nay, your body is still—as you say—the softer of the two,” Luna offered. “If a part of you exists physically as something resistant to being stepped on by an Ursa, then your celestial essence should be that much safer.”

“Oh!” Twilight exclaimed, brightening up considerably. “That actually sounds useful. Have you ever tried making your whole body like that? Or a suit of armor?”

“In times of war, yes.” Luna said, her expression darkening as less pleasant memories surfaced. “Never make of thyself a weapon, however.”

“Why not?” Twilight asked with an innocence that Luna envied.

Luna’s hoof found its way to Twilight’s shoulders. “Having your light inside of a pony when theirs leaves is something I hope you never have to experience, Twilight.”

“O-oh,” Twilight stuttered. “I’ll, um, remember that.”

☾ ☾ ☾

Sitting in front of Twilight was a brilliant white crown that shone brighter and clearer in the ruddy light of sunset than the sun itself did. Soon it would be dusk, when Twilight had planned to begin her librararchy tour.

Plans, however, like many other things, rarely survived contact with alicorns.

“This is useless!” Twilight shouted as she kicked the shining shape in front of her, dashing the brilliant crown into the wind like so much sand. “It won’t bond!”

“Twilight, please calm down,” Luna pleaded.

Twilight sighed, slumping down on the messy, star-studded landscape. Usually, stardust would find its way back to the night pretty quickly, but things were anything but usual at the rim of the Sinkhole of the Royal Pony Sisters. “Sorry, Luna. I just… I really thought this would help.”

“I know,” Luna said, a pang of guilt in her chest for having offered Twilight a false hope. She searched her mind for another suggestion. “Did you try—”

“Yes!” Twilight barked in frustration, making Luna back off out of sheer startlement. “Yes, I did. I tried everything you said—copied everything you did—it’s just not working. I should have known that nothing to do with this would work out. Not a single thing has gone right since that day!”

Luna’s jaw dropped the tiniest bit. “Is that how you really feel?”

Twilight turned on Luna, face contorted in anger, looked her in the eye and… Luna saw the exact moment when it all collapsed in on her. “No,” she said, wilting visibly. “No, of course not.”

Luna let out a breath she hadn’t realized had caught in her throat. The idea had filled her with a surprising dread. She chided herself for getting caught up in her own relief, though, as she watched Twilight sag. She wasted no time in catching Twilight the moment her legs gave out.

“I’m such a mess,” Twilight said, making no effort to stand on her own. “And a hypocrite. I really do want this, Luna, I do, it’s just… It's hard.”

“I know, Twilight,” Luna said, setting Twilight on the ground and sitting next to her. “Do you recall what you said yesterday about hurting ourselves when we fail?”

“I’m doing it, huh?” Twilight said, looking up at Luna from where she lay.

“Remarkably and with great aplomb,” Luna agreed.

Twilight was not amused.

“Well, not aplomb, obviously,” Luna said, correcting herself.

“This is the opposite of aplomb,” Twilight groaned. “This is the opposite of me.”

“We all wish we were better mares in times like these,” Luna said, knowing what it was like to be disappointed at her own self-control.

“No, I am better,” Twilight insisted with a growing frustration. “I used to be, anyway. I stress out and get frustrated, sure, it happens, but I don’t lash out and break things.”

“Breaking things can be very cathartic,” Luna laughed, trying to lighten the mood.

Twilight was taken aback. “Are you… mocking me?” she asked, incredulous.

“Just appreciating the irony,” Luna said, dismissing the accusation. “Before coming here to Ponyville, I languished, unable to bring myself to care about much of anything. There were times when I wished for nothing more than to have it all back—exactly what you describe. Anger, hate, every nerve raw with the fervor of youth. I was a fool, I think.”

If Luna thought that her confession would make Twilight feel better, she was sorely mistaken. Twilight visibly paled at the thought. “You aren’t serious.”

“I spent a long time nursing those feelings, Twilight. So long that they were part of how I saw myself,” Luna explained. “Yes, I admit it; I missed them when they were gone.”

“No, don’t you get it?” Twilight said, her hackles rising. “What if it’s not irony? What if it’s not a coincidence? Everything that’s happened seems to suggest that the stars are… bad for me.

“No matter how grounded I think I am, no matter how calm and collected, it all falls apart—just like these stars. I’m made of sand, and I don’t know when the next wave will come. Every time it’s come up before, there’s just been no way to know… but if I’ve got what you lost… well, that’s it, then, isn’t it? There’s no denying it.”

Luna’s smile died.

“You think so too,” Twilight observed with a contrary sort of pride.

“Dear me, I am a fool,” Luna said, one hoof on her face. “I faulted the elements of harmony.”

It all made perfect sense. Luna’s melancholy and Twilight’s rising instability. It was just… so obvious. They had talked about what an existence like Twilight’s might do to a pony in theory, but in light of Luna’s experience, the other half slid neatly into place. It was like Twilight had said; there was no denying it. The answer was right there staring them in the face.

“It doesn’t change anything, though,” Twilight bemoaned, sinking back into depression. “There’s nothing I can do about it. I’m doomed to this… emotional instability for the rest of my immortal life.”

Luna wasn't so sure. Anger had never been the source of her problems. She had reveled in it, been driven by it. Fire without fault, furor without fury. An image formed in her mind, and she gave it voice without hesitation. “…Embrace it,” she said, her smile returning.

“What?” Twilight shouted. She turned to face Luna, her features twisted in shock, but Luna would not be quelled.

“You heard me. Embrace it,” Luna said simply. “You have mastered your fear; master your anger. Cleanse it, condense it, purify it until there is only you.”

Twilight’s eyes widened. “You’re crazy.”

Luna’s smile opened into an outright grin. “If you cannot rest stable, then you must dance.”

“You are crazy,” Twilight said. “Have you ever seen me dance?”

✶ ✶ ✶

The day reached its conclusion long before Twilight had one about Luna's… unique suggestion.

It was madness. Simple, utter madness.

The star-littered landscape twinkled under Twilight’s hooves as she filled the sky with whorls of light, her work similarly haphazard.

She was getting better at it. No longer did the whole sky splash into place all at once as it had at first. Instead, she set individual streams of stars on paths that would bring them flowing in from the umbra. With only a nudge here and there, the sky would continue to paint itself in stars as the twilight of dusk deepened into night.

Tonight, though, it was a wild, churning night.

As she finished, the familiar sensation of fear brushed over her coat. Far from… well, fearing it, the feeling actually seemed to energize her as she breathed it in, not unlike the brisk winter nights she'd come to enjoy.

The feeling was something she was used to now. It was ever-present, demanding her attention, but could it truly be called fear any more?

She did not balk from it; she did not cower, nor was her laughter stifled or her contentment broken when such moods struck her. Certainly, it was distracting, but the same could be said of Pinkie Pie, and Twilight did not fear Pinkie Pie.

It was as Luna had said; she had mastered her visceral fears—in fact, one of the highlights of her week had started with being thrown off the palace. Did she even fear death?

Okay, that was silly. Yes, she did fear death. She feared for her immortal existence possibly more than she had for her mortal one, even, now that she had so much more to lose. The idea of losing countless lifetimes before she'd barely had a chance to start them shook her to the bone in a way that all the starbeasts in the world could not.

There was fearing failure, though, and there was fearing the experience of failure. There was a distinction to be had between the two. She had desires—wants and goals that made her who she was. To not fear failure—to not fear loss of what was important to her—it wasn’t equinely possible.

Fear of the danger, though? Fear of the actual experience of dying, such as it was? She’d never had much of it to begin with, but it was chilling to think that it might be gone—or if not gone, rendered meaningless like a word spoken too many times.

Twilight opened her eyes and looked down into the Sinkhole of the Royal Pony Sisters. Luna had already left, and she was alone in the lavender light of dusk.

Could the same principle be applied to anger? Could anger be measured and categorized, portioned and filtered, repeated ad infinitum until it ceased to be anger?

She had no reason to think otherwise.

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight belatedly poured herself down into the Manehattan library, catching the trail end of a Royal Canterlot Echo.

“Ah, there you are, Twilight,” Luna said, turning to look at her with a question in her eyes.

“Sorry, I got caught… thinking," Twilight responded vaguely. "What were you yelling about?”

“It seems that your librararchy is closed for the night,” Luna observed. Indeed, the lights were out, and the building was silent as a graveyard.

“That’s odd,” Twilight remarked. “It’s only dusk. All institutions of the librararchy are supposed to be open until midnight at minimum, and anything this size or with a restricted section is supposed to have at least one permanent guard now.”

“There is a single light in an office on the other side of the building,” Luna observed. “I believe we ought to have a chat with whoever it is that dares ignore a royal decree.”

Twilight frowned, confirming via her starlight that indeed, there was exactly one dimly lit room to be counted across the entire institution. As the princesses approached it, the creaking of a chair from inside confirmed that it was, indeed, occupied.

Twilight had just turned the handle on the door when Luna kicked it in. The force of the door slamming against the wall shook the floor, but the aged stallion sitting at the desk was made of sterner stuff.

“Oy!” The old stallion exclaimed as he pushed his heavy glasses up the bridge of his nose to get a look at the ponies standing in the door. “What’s all this then?”

"Behold, bibliothec, thy rulers hath arrived,” Luna announced.

“P-p-princesses!” the old stallion stuttered as he scrambled to his hooves.

“We demand to know why thy doors are closed and thy lights unlit at this early hour!” Luna shouted.

The librarian looked stricken, but managed to muster his courage or perhaps his crotchetiness. “I've worked here fer sixty years, your majesty. Library closes at five. Always has, always will.”

“Nay, fine stallion,” Luna said, pacing as she lectured. Thy establishment must remain open until the witching hour—so it has been decreed!”

“You should have received an information packet several days ago detailing the change,” Twilight stepped in to explain somewhat more helpfully.

“Hrm,” the librarian said, scratching his chin. He shook his head. “Nope, can’t say as I did.”

“It would have been a manilla envelope with a royal seal on it,” Twilight added.

“Nope, I did’nae receive any such thing,” the librarian said. “Only parcel larger’n a letter that came through here in a week was some rubbish scam. One o’ those old’uns about how some Equestrian princess needs me to help her form her own country. I tell ya, they’re getting right creative with ‘em these days. Gave me a good laugh, it did,” he said, chuckling.

Twilight and Luna looked at each other then back at the librarian. Neither princess was laughing.

“Eh, I suppose they don’t send those t’actual Equestrian princesses,” he said dismissively then frowned as his words came back to him. Adjusting his glasses, he squinted at Twilight then gulped in worry. “Is tha’a star on yer butt?”

Twilight raised one eyebrow as if to say ‘what do you think?’

“Oh dear,” the old stallion remarked. He slowly stepped one step back, then two and finally dashed over to a round bin. Without much searching at all, he fished out a roughed up envelope that had rumpled papers sticking out of it like a salad of legalese and paperclips—a salad topped with a small circle of purple wax like a cherry with a six-pointed star imprinted on it and a golden crown in the center. “Oh dear oh dear.”

The old stallion craned his neck around to look at the two princesses behind him. They locked eyes for a moment, his full of fear, theirs beginning to show exasperation. Quickly, he averted his eyes, glancing about the room.

Twilight was about to say something when the stallion’s horn began to glow. There was a bright flash, a thump and the stallion seemed to disappear.

Twilight stared blankly. The desk trembled.

✶ ✶ ✶

Five minutes later, the desk was still trembling.

“I am not going to banish you to the moon, sir, and neither does the Librararchy operate any dungeons,” Twilight found herself explaining, no end in sight. “There most certainly are not any dungeons on the moon.”

The trembling desk did not respond.

“There aren’t any dungeons on the moon, are there?” Twilight whispered to the alicorn next to her.

“No, there are not,” Luna answered, rolling her eyes.

“See?" Twilight said. "No dungeons on the moon. Please come out from under the desk.”

☾ ☾ ☾

Twilight shut the office door behind her with a soft click of failure. “Honestly,” she said, letting out an annoyed sigh. “Some ponies. Where do they get these ideas?"

“Where indeed?” Luna asked wryly. There was a certain irony in Twilight of all ponies asking that question.

“Hey now, I had legitimate concerns,” Twilight insisted. “With case-studies to back them up.”

“Oh really?” Luna said.

“Yes, well… she has a history of banishing her sister to the moon, you know,” Twilight said in her defense.

Luna shook her head. “I forced her hoof,” she said.

Twilight frowned. “Sure, but there must have been—”

“Do not try to dismiss my crimes, Twilight,” Luna cut her off. “It is important that I learned from my mistakes. Celestia did the right thing.”

“I suppose,” Twilight said, grumbling, and they walked on.

A short time later, the two of them stepped out into the massive central area of the library, centuries of stored knowledge at their hooves. Centuries weren’t good enough for their purposeses, though. To even have a chance of finding what they wanted, they’d have to go back millennia.

“Can you tell me what it was like?” Twilight asked, a curious lilt to her voice.

“What what was like?” Luna asked, uncertain if a new subject was being broached.

“Being Nightmare Moon,” Twilight clarified. “Controlling… yourself. It wouldn’t be a bad thing for me to learn from your mistakes too.”

Luna looked away, shame making her reticent. “Perhaps Celestia—”

“No, don’t teach me,” Twilight said, interrupting her. “Just talk to me.”

She hesitated, but not for long. Twilight had reason, and Luna couldn't think of any real reason to deny the request, other than her own reluctance. If Twilight wanted her to talk about it, well, Luna owed her that much, at least.

So that was exactly what she did.

✶ ✶ ✶

Luna talked long into the night, and Twilight listened. It quickly became clear that searching the library without help from the library staff was not tenable, but Twilight found herself thinking that if it took them all night… that would be just fine.

Equestria may have been leaking—which was important and all—but Twilight had found a different subject to study. A subject which, for once in her life, had not been written about in books.

It could have been argued, of course, that Twilight’s sanity was, perhaps, even more important than the issue of the leaking planet, but as it turned out, Luna’s experiences were actually quite useless to her anyway, so the point was rather moot.

The two of them were very different ponies, after all, and the way Luna spoke, her idea of control sounded more like herding cats than anything Twilight could understand. Far from being disappointed, though, she found herself fascinated—enthralled, even.

Oddly enough, it was a bit of a wake-up call for Twilight. Luna had always been quite open about herself as she was, but it wasn’t until Twilight heard her talk about how she had been before that she really began to understand. Only then did she realize how much had been missing from the Lunar princess she thought she’d come to know.

They were hard memories for Luna, and Twilight should have felt guilty about pressing her about them, but as they walked through the moonlit library and she listened to Luna talk about all the petty hates that she had held onto and how she had used them to drive herself further towards her goals, Twilight was taken by a certain kind of… greed.

It was different than her usual hunger for knowledge. Twilight had imagined what it would be like to hear the royal sisters talk about the history of Equestria—and there was some of that—but she wouldn’t have found it half as interesting coming from Celestia.

To be fair, the history itself would have been equally as interesting coming from Celestia, but whether Luna talked about dragons, griffons, ponies or even her sister, the story was hers. She colored it twice—first in the living and again in the telling—and in the quiet of the darkened library, that color was all the light which Twilight needed.

Eventually, the two alicorns’ lack of progress grew undeniable, and Twilight feared the night’s mood would be broken, but Luna herself had gotten lost enough in it that she needn't have worried.

Without breaking stride, Luna showed Twilight how to move objects through the black depths of magic between her stars. Twilight recognized it as the method by which Nightmare Moon—that is, Luna, she corrected herself—had once used to take Twilight away from her friends. This night, though, its use would instead keep her where she wanted to be.

Though Twilight regretted the loss of privacy necessitated by the influx of Librararchy staff, it really was for the better in the end. Freed from the pretence of looking at books themselves, they made better progress—both in their own quiet talk and in the search that had originally been the purpose of their visit.

Once they were finished in Manehattan, they branched out to other Librararchy institutions. Most of these were found to be properly staffed and required only one pony left behind to leave detailed instructions. Those that weren’t were brought in line quickly by the presence of the two alicorns of the night, who weren’t above waking the local mayor or governor to find out who was shirking their duties.

Luna—having no authority in the librararchy—naturally spent the entire night at Twilight’s side, ostensibly passing on experiences which would help Twilight control her anger, though neither of them could say when that particular subject had last come up. Even if they had remained on topic, however, there was one fundamental problem with the concept that became subtly clearer as the night stretched on.

Apart from the differences in their personalities, Twilight was limited by the simple fact that, unlike the fear which she had already conquered and continued to ignore, her anger was less constant. Indeed, it didn’t show up at all for the rest of the night, as Twilight was quite otherwise occupied.

In fact, sometime in the vague hours between night and morning, she came to wonder if perhaps there were other emotions she no longer had control of; emotions she was even less familiar with than anger.

If so, that too, was just fine.

☼ ☼ ☼

Celestia had been awoken by a guard banging at her chamber door, yelling about Canterlot being invaded in the night. A short walk later, it was three in the morning, and she was not amused.

“Captain Star Flail,” she said, triggering a salute from her captain of the guard beside her. “What am I looking at?”

What Celestia was looking at was Twilight Sparkle, one of her pegasus heralds and a pair of unicorn guards standing calmly in the Canterlot Archives, perusing the books.

“I’m sorry, your majesty,” Captain Star Flail responded, his statement broken by a pained grunt. “Our forces were completely overwhelmed by the Libraropoleans.”

“Libraropoleans?” Celestia said, repeating the unfamiliar word. “As in, of… Libraropolis? What was wrong with Libraritopia?” she asked, confused. She had seen the paperwork herself, after all.

The answer came not from Star Flail but Luna, who had appeared beside her and the captain at some point. “Apparently the term ‘Utopia’ comes from a book wherin it describes the eponymous nation practicing, among other things, slavery.”

Celestia gave a start at the sudden appearance of her sister. “Nopony remembers that!” she insisted, gesturing in vexation with one hoof. “Wouldn’t a Libraropolis be a single city?”

“Due to the aggregate nature of her nation,” Luna stated, affecting an overly genteel manner which was most unlike her, “she felt a name symbolizing unity was appropriate. There is precedence, as Pegasopolis’ own borders were undefined.”

Celestia opened her mouth to say something, but she was distracted by a stray thought. She tried to catch it but fumbled. There was something wrong with this conversation, something wrong with—

“You’re smiling, Luna,” Celestia stated.

“Am I?” Luna asked cheekily. “I must be happy.”

A thousand questions rushed through Celestia’s head, none of which she was able to catch. She simply stared at her sister for a moment, who was herself watching Twilight give instructions to the herald that was with her.

Unable to fully process the situation, she fell back to the situation. “Do I have to ask what this is about an invasion?” she asked lamely.

“Ah. You see, apparently there is a law barring extranational officials from the archives. I had attempted to get it repealed, but we were in something of a hurry, and invasion seemed more expedient,” Luna explained. Celestia wasn’t sure, but she thought that her sister sounded… proud? “Fear not, dear sister—the occupation is a peaceful one, and the coup d'état was accomplished with minimal casualties.”

Celestia gulped in worry. “Minimal casualties?” she asked, not looking forward to the pile of work that would be waiting for her in the morning… presuming she even made it back to bed.

“Lieutenant Whip Flail, the captain’s son, twisted his ankle while fleeing the field of battle,” Luna reported dourly. “His twin brother, Iron Flail, was not so lucky.”

“Will he live?” Celestia asked. She dreaded writing letters of condolence in the best of times. To have to explain to someone that two princesses of Equestria had—

“He banged a shin,” Luna stated.

Celestia gazed blankly ahead. Coincidentally, her field of view included a handsome-looking stallion of the royal guard with his hooves wrapped around one leg in the fetal position, rocking back and forth in apparent pain. Nearby, a velvet-furnished ottoman appeared to have been knocked over.

“Luna,” Celestia prompted, a hoof pressing against her forehead.

“Yes, sister?” Luna responded.

Celestia rubbed her bleary eyes as she phrased her question. “Were there any injuries—and I’m using the term as loosely as possible—that weren’t self-inflicted?” she asked.

Luna stopped to think for a moment. “I believe one of the privates received a paper cut in relation to being on the receiving end of a book thrown by herald number three,” she offered.

“Herald number three?” Celestia asked somewhat predictably. She had the distinct impression her sister was playing with her, but she just wasn’t up to the challenge right now. “They have names, you know. It is not a difficult concept. All ponies have names.”

“That has yet to be proven,” Luna said.

Celestia rolled her eyes. “I’m sure that Twilight—”

“She is the one who numbered them while we were searching the Vanhoover public library,” Luna interrupted, unable to suppress a grin. Coincidentally, the mare in question choose that moment to speak up.

“Hey, Luna!” Twilight shouted from inside the archives. “Come look at—oh.”

Celestia’s heart sank the tiniest bit at Twilight’s reaction to seeing her, but she steeled herself. It was… fine.

“Hi, Princess,” Twilight said, having somehow crossed the distance between them in the blink of an eye, causing Celestia to stumble back while Twilight’s eyes flitted back and forth while she straightened her mane with a hoof.

“Celestia. Princess Celestia,” Twilight corrected then recorrected the appellation she’d used. “Did we ever do the ‘don’t call me princess, princess’ thing? I can’t remember.”

“You have only been a princess for a day, Twilight,” Luna pointed out.

“Right, right…” Twilight said, nodding.

Celestia looked Twilight over with motherly concern. “Is everything alright, Twilight?”

“You will have to excuse Twilight,” Luna said, placing a hoof on Celestia’s shoulder. “She is just under the impression that Equestria wishes to eat her. It makes her a little excitable.”

“I’m fine, and we’ve pretty much ruled out Equestria-Equestria,” Twilight clarified, waving a hoof dismissively. “It’s got to be this antumbra inside Equestria or something inside it. Inside the antumbra inside Equestria, I mean. With any luck, this ‘Emberstoke the Eternal’ will know for sure.”

“‘Emberstoke the Eternal?’” Luna repeated, raising one eyebrow. “Did we move on from dragons to demons of Tartarus?”

“I don’t think so,” Twilight said, frowning only briefly before her smile returned. “I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?”

“I still say we should have just gone down and gotten it over with,” Luna said with a huff.

“It is looking like a worst-case scenario,” Twilight said with a sigh. “But if there are stars down there and as many as I think there are, it might not be some mindless beast. Besides, we’re fine for now. Anything that comes up, I can assimilate smoothly, thanks to the bottleneck.“

Luna blinked. “Is that what you’re doing with the night that’s leaking? I was wondering why I didn’t feel anything.”

“Oh, yeah. I told Rainbow Dash I’d take care of it, and it turned out to be easier than I thought. Honestly, we could even play a waiting game if we knew for sure—”

“Twilight,” Celestia interrupted. She didn’t know if it was just being up at three in the morning, but she was feeling well and truly lost. “Twilight, can I expect to have my archives back in the morning?”

Twilight’s eyes darted over to Celestia looking to all the world as if she had completely forgotten the solar princess was there. “You mean… give them back?” she asked, giving the princess of the sun a pouty look. “Do I have to?”

“Now, Twilight,” Celestia said, readying her admonishing tone, when a peculiar thought struck her sleep-addled mind. “I… I suppose not,” she found herself saying.

“Yes!” Twilight shouted, wrapping her arms around Luna. “Did you hear that, Luna? She said yes!”

“I heard, Twilight,” Luna said in an amused sort of tone, slightly strangled by the alicorn who was attempting to both jump around and hug her at the same time.

Had she just done that, Celestia asked herself.

The sound of Twilight’s exuberance slowly faded behind Celestia, eventually melting into a melancholy silence by the time she found her way back to chambers. The door shut behind her with a quiet click, then rattled as the solar princess collapsed against it.

Had she really just done that?

Had she really just given away the Canterlot archives… not for what Twilight could do with the knowledge therin, or even to make her happy, but as bait to lure her back to Canterlot once in a while?

Yes. Yes, she had.

Celestia let out a dreary, heartfelt sigh as her head fell back against the door.

She was tired.

☾ ☾ ☾

“Did Celestia leave?” Twilight asked, looking around.

“You did invade Canterlot at three in the morning, Twilight,” Luna reminded her.

“Oh, I guess I did,” Twilight reflected. “I was going to ask her if she knew anything about this ‘Emberstoke the Eternal.’”

“Would it stop you?” Luna asked.

“Well, no,” Twilight admitted.

“Then I shall put it with the rest,” Luna said, taking the book. “I think we shall try this one last, though.”

“Why?” Twilight asked. “Shouldn't we start with it? It’s our most promising lead yet.”

“Dragons in their fourth life cycle should be afforded the same respect as one of us, Twilight, for they are as impossible to kill and nearly as dangerous,” Luna explained. “Fortunately, they are gluttons and lazier than Tia after she has polished off a cake.”

“Oh,” Twilight said with a frown.

“All I am saying is if we have to wake a dragon up, I’d rather start with one named—” she quickly commandeered a clipboard that one of Twilight’s heralds was carrying, “—Whiskers Whitetail.”

✶ ✶ ✶

Whiskers Whitetail was, sadly, not up for a chat that fine night, which was probably for the best, as the ponies of Ponyville were unlikely to have taken it well if Whitetail Woods had uprooted itself in order to have tea with their new princesses.

Alas, this pattern of circumstance repeated itself on into the early hours of the morning. With the help of Twilight’s librarocracy working for them, Twilight and Luna were able to jaunt across the world rapidly, checking each lead and as thoroughly as they were comfortable—which was not very thoroughly at all, in some cases.

Aside from the many pieces of land that simply refused to wake up, there were also a great number which Twilight and Luna arrived at only to discover ponies living on top of them. These they had debated about at length and finally decided that no, it probably wouldn’t have been productive to knock on somepony’s door and say, ‘Hey, you’re living on a dragon, just thought you’d like to know. No, anywhere else you move is probably a dragon too—would you be interested in signing up for homeowner’s insurance?’

Between dragons which were stubborn and dragons which were populated, Twilight’s list of possible candidates had dwindled alarmingly quickly. It hardly seemed like any time at all had passed before there was only one name left.

Emberstoke the Eternal.

Twilight stared at the name. The word ‘active’ was scribbled next to it in parenthesis, followed with a question mark.

Frustrated, she chucked the list in the rubbish.

Having run out of night, she and Luna had returned to their Ponyville palace tower. Emberstoke the Eternal would have to wait a day.

“Am I doing something wrong?” she asked in dismay.

“The law only says that we that must warn the local weather patrol about earthquakes ahead of time,” Luna observed. “It does not specify that we do so during business hours or how much ahead of time.”

Twilight couldn’t help but smile at that in spite of herself. Showing up on Rainbow Dash’s cloudy doorstep at four in the morning may not have been very nice, considering the early morning favor the weather captain would be doing for Twilight, but hey, the law was the law, and Twilight was very serious about upholding Equestria’s laws.

Twilight stopped. That… probably shouldn’t have been sarcasm, she reflected. Princess Celestia’s faithful student, Twilight Sparkle, would never flaunt the Equestrian judicial system.

“I just never thought it would be so difficult to wake up slumbering evil,” she told Luna. “The history books make it seem easy, you know? Ahuizotl collects the five macguffins, and Evil King Sombra awakes. Cerberus wanders off, and the maw of Tartarus opens. The stars align by chance, and Nightmare Moon is released!”

“Tia thinks you did that,” Luna mentioned off-hoof from where she lay on the bed.

Twilight, meanwhile, was busying herself with the wardrobe which she had uncovered during her search for her Winter Wrap-Up vest. “Did what?” she asked.

“Used the stars to release me,” Luna clarified.

“Oh,” Twilight said, taking a moment to process what Luna had said. “Huh.”

“Thanks,” Luna offered with a smirk.

Twilight wasn't quite sure how to feel about that. “You’re, um, welcome, I guess.”

“Quite,” Luna responded with a tip of her horn.

“Come to think of it, how do the pits of Tartarus work with the whole world-is-made-of-dragons thing, anyway?” Twilight asked, working her way backwards in the list of evils she’d mentioned as she meanwhile regarded a favored old hairbrush that was now useless to her.

“The dragon Tartarus was an all-consuming terror who sought to contain the worst creatures of the world by devouring them en masse,” Luna said. “He was reviled by every race as a cannibal, a monster and a rookery of evil.”

“So, what,” Twilight said, “the so-called ‘demons’ of Tartarus are just ancient dragons and monsters trapped in the gullet of a sleeping dragon for all eternity?”

“If only,” Luna said with a snort. “Those he consumed were all but destroyed, but ‘all but’ is not good enough when it comes to such things. The creatures that escaped his rocky flesh were new things—greater, more terrible and in different number than what Tartarus consumed. The more benign survive on to this day as manticores, chimerae and the like. Even Cerberus himself is said to have been borne of Tartarus, though I know not what possesses him to stand guard over his progenitor.

“By the time Tartarus went on to his final slumber, his hunger had become so great that he was said to have been the largest dragon that had ever lived. By my time, he was but a legend to teach young dragons the dangers of overindulgence… or the dangers of justice. I’m not sure which.”

“That or ‘chew your food,’ I suppose,” Twilight joked, still sorting through some of her old things. After a period of silence punctuated irregularly by the thumping of hair care products landing in the rubbish, something that had been said earlier came back to her.

“Wait, I have experience unleashing evil, and I still can’t do it?” Twilight asked, incredulous.

Luna rolled her eyes. “Oh shush and come to bed already—evil needs its sleep.”

✶ ✶ ✶

Evil, it turned out, wasn’t the only one that needed its sleep. Twilight awoke late into the afternoon, curled up contentedly on top of a warm spot in the empty bed.

Rather than get up, she gave in to the urge to just lay there awhile. She felt… spent, not physically, just mentally exhausted. Element of friendship aside, Twilight was not a social pony; she wasn’t used to being with somepony at all hours of the day. Last night had been long and exciting, and all the things that Luna had shared with her had yet to settle in her mind.

It wasn’t as if she was needed for anything right now, she reasoned. She trusted that Rainbow Dash had made good on her promise to clear the rest of the snow cover over Ponyville using the morning sun, though it probably would have gone over smoother if Twilight had actually remembered to write that note to the mayor like she'd promised. What was done was done, though, and she was sure her friend wouldn’t begrudge her the need for a little nap.

It was still called a nap when you didn’t get up in the first place, right?

Well, regardless… Luna, Twilight was sure, was off doing whatever it was Lunas do during the day, and she would handle anything that came up. She did feel a little guilty, and she’d be taking up some of those responsibilities very soon, just… not today.

She needed today.

Even if she had gotten up, she probably would have just spent the whole afternoon telling ponies to mind their own business while she sat in the library doing clop-all about the hole in the sky. Realistically speaking, there wasn’t actually anything much she could do. She wouldn’t be dropping stars on any dragons until she had stars in the sky for dropping, and dragons weren't the type you could wake with a warm nuzzle.

That didn’t stop her from practicing with Luna’s pillow, though.

Theoretically, she might have been able to pull a few of her larger stars through the hole in the day, but given that the hole was the problem she was trying to fix, it was probably better not to push her luck.

Come to think of it, how were they going to fix it?

That sounded like an important thought, yet it failed to find any traction in her hazy mind all the same. Whatever it was, she’d figure it out later. For now, she had a fluffy surrogate princess that needed snuggling.

✶ ✶ ✶

“Wow,” Twilight said, holding her foreleg in front of her face to protect it from the red glow that was coming from more than just the sun directly beyond the horizon.

“Indeed,” Luna responded dourly. “It is most impressive.”

“So when it said ‘active,’” Twilight mentioned, remembering her list. “It meant…"

“Volcanically, it would seem,” Luna finished somewhat needlessly.

“I’m going to wake this up?” Twilight asked. No, a warm nuzzling would certainly not be especially effective. Twilight liked her face unliquefied.

Luna turned to take another look. “I believe that is your plan, yes.” She nodded.

Twilight flapped forward a bit then backed off quickly. “Well, it’s a stupid plan!” she declared with a huff.

“Are you afraid, Twilight Sparkle?” Luna teased. “I thought you were over that? I should hate to see you have to repeat a grade.”

“There is a difference between fear and avoiding the sensation of being burned alive,” Twilight insisted, her hackles raised. “Seriously—how in Equestria does Daring Do swing inches above molten lava in every other book? I guess fictional characters don’t have to deal with convection, thermal radiation and other minor consequences of the amount of energy it takes to melt rock like cheese. Where is it even coming from?”

“Ah, well, I suppose avoiding pain is reasonable,” Luna admitted with a wry smile. She quickly forgot the smile as she squinted into the blazing heat. “Twilight, do you see that?”

“It’s… beating,” Twilight noticed. “Luna, why is it beating? Is the magma his blood? Is that normal for a dragon?”

“There is no ‘normal’ when it comes to dragons any more than there is for alicorns,” Luna said. “His name was Emberstoke the Eternal. He is what he is. Do you think you are ready?”

“I think I’m going to need a bigger star,” Twilight said with mock-seriousness.

“Joking aside…” Luna said with all-too-real seriousness. “Are you sure about this, Twilight?”

“I… yeah. This was all part of the plan,” Twilight said, rubbing the smoke out of her eyes and trying to blink away the irritation. “Might as well go through with it.”

“It is a plan you made yesterday,” Luna reasoned. “It can change.”

Twilight shook her head. “No… believe it or not, this was part of Celestia’s plan.”

“I said ‘joking aside,’ Twilight” Luna reminded her with a snort of laughter.

“No, really,” Twilight said emphatically. “The day I went to Canterlot, when you… ran off, she told me—she’d planned for the three of us to go looking for answers about my ascension. ‘Wake up some dragons,’ she said.”

“She really said that?” Luna asked with disbelief. Twilight didn’t blame her; Celestia had a mischievous streak a mile wide, but it tended to be more subtle than the sort of mad playfulness that was required to go around baiting dragons awake.

Twilight could only shake her head and smile. “She did,” she reiterated.

“I was a fool,” Luna said with a disdainful scoff. “It would have been nice.”

“Current evidence to the contrary,” Twilight said, glancing hesitantly at the volcano below, “yeah, it would have. Though, if Celestia were here, I wouldn’t be able to do… this.”

Luna blinked, eyes locked with Twilight in silence as she… did nothing. “Do wh—”

Out of nowhere, a shining ball of light hit the volcano.

It went about as well as one might expect.

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight stared. Just unabashedly stared. She had never seen such a thing before. It was… beautiful, in a way. White-hot power burned in front of her like the figure of an angry god, which, Twilight supposed, it was.

Oh, and there was a pretty pissed off dragon behind her, too.

Twilight tore her eyes off of Luna’s ethereal form for a moment just in time to see the volcano uncurl. Black rock cracked and split along unseen lines, twisting about into shapes almost limblike and bearing plates—by design or chance, she couldn’t tell. With a crackling like a thousand broken bones, the dragon known as Emberstoke the Eternal pulled itself out of the surrounding landscape.

Slowly, the broken landscape resolved itself into something that Twilight could recognize as a creature if only barely. Rich, golden-red magma poured in great gouts from gaps in its body where rock met rock, rimmed with spatterings of metal. It didn’t have a face so much as there was a splintered crag where such a thing ought to be, with two empty pits that glowed from deep within.

The dragon roared.

If Twilight had had ears, she would have clamped her hooves over them at the screeching sound—but then, if Twilight had had ears, they would have been on fire for a brief moment before withering into blackened husks.

The initial blast of heat had already destroyed her and Luna’s bodies, leaving twin figures of sparkling black and shining white in the night. What came out of the dragon’s misshapen mouth rippled through them, threatening to scatter them back to the sky where they belonged.

Threatening, but unable.

Such was the truth about such creatures as dragons and alicorns. While dragon could feast on dragon and Twilight could reclaim her erstwhile stars, to each other, they could do nothing, and they all knew it.

It was with this in mind that Twilight ripped her star out of the dragon’s side where it had lodged itself and used the burning piece of sky to swat him across the face.

The dragon reeled, stumbling back on its uneven legs until it fell with a crash.

“Emberstoke the Eternal—revered dragon of the south and lord of the blasted lands—I bid you be civil!” Luna shouted in the Royal Canterlot Voice, once again garnering Twilight’s attention.

It was hardly the time to be thinking it, but Luna really was… well, beautiful. There were other words associated with what she was seeing—clean milky moonlight in the shape of a pony—but Twilight was not poetic, and beautiful was as serviceable a word as any.

Just when half-remembered dreams of cuddling the moon had begun to surface, the dragon rumbled, interrupting Twilight’s train of thought and bringing her back to the here and now. It took a moment for her to realize that the dragon was… laughing. Given his size, his voice was so low it barely qualified as sound so much as it did an earthquake.

All things considered, though, laughing was good. Usually when you heard a laugh like that it meant that the world was ending or at least moderately in danger, but given that Twilight had just sucker-punched a dragon with a star the size of a palace… yeah, she’d take the laugh.

“What manner of tiny equine is this that wields the heavens as ball and chain to wrest me from my hard-earned slumber?” he rumbled. “Speak—and I shall entertain thee a moment. ‘Tis not often I am returned to the waking world.”

“I declare myself Luna,” Luna said, her voice radiating a sense of authority which Twilight still lacked. “Princess of Equestria, conqueror of Discord and alicorn of the moon. This be Twilight Sparkle, Archlibrarian of Libraropolis, Element of Magic, conqueror of Discord and alicorn of the stars. By our reckoning, it has been a six thousand years since you began your final slumber.”

“Ponies and their titles.” The dragon grunted, a sound like he was gargling boulders in his throat. “I am Emberstoke, as you seem to know. Come closer; my eyes are not what they were.”

“Dragon humor,” Twilight grumbled quietly to Luna. “Wonderful. You know, my eyes are black pits full of stars, and I’m not complaining.“ Still, they did as they were bid, though in retrospect, it didn't seem to be appreciated.

The dragon’s face couldn’t get any uglier, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. Rock ground against itself as his features, such as they were, twisted in distaste. “So ‘tis true. The alicorns have been borne again into the world… I had heard stories of such creatures when I was a hatchling.”

“You heard stories about alicorns?” Twilight asked, somehow projecting curiosity through the Ponyville Librarian Voice. “Before the age of Discord?”

“Hah!” he cracked. “Maybe as you reckon it, but the draconequus was just a sorry footnote to an age of misery and death, the punchline to a terrible joke that lasted thousands of years. I don’t imagine pony history goes back that far, though, does it?”

Twilight shook her head.

“Where did I hear of you, you ask? How could I not? Do you know what my earliest memory is, o’ alicorn of the night? You should find it interesting, I imagine,” he said with a cruel laugh. “Stars. I remember stars falling from the sky. For years on end—a never-ending torrent of fire and rock the likes of which no dragon could ever aspire to. You died, and the world died with you. That is where I heard of alicorns.”

Twilight bristled uncomfortably. She had died? No, no, of course not. It was the last alicorn of the stars that had died—not her. Though… she was the stars. Okay, it was a bit confusing, she admitted, but there was no reason to let it get to her.

“That’s… um, informative,” she managed to say with a certain level of neutrality.

“Informative.” The dragon snorted with derision. “I should think so. You credit yourself with the draconequus’ defeat, but where do you think he came from?” he asked, his voice booming deeper and louder as he spoke. “It was not by our hands that the world was plunged into chaos—it was you! You and your abominable sister there—whichever is which I don’t care.”

That was hardly fair, Twilight thought, her stars roiling within her. “Hey—that wasn’t us!” she objected.

“Pfah, of course it was,” the dragon said, slamming one claw into the rocky landscape and squeezing jagged rock through his fingers like sand. “Unnatural creatures you are. There were four of you at the dawn of time, and there will be four of you when this land is cold and dead. At least dragons know when to move on.”

“Wait, four?” Twilight asked, her disquiet gaining an edge of eagerness that she couldn’t hide. “What four? Who were they?”

All at once, the dragon’s anger vanished, and his mouth, such as it was, suddenly split into a splintered grin. “Oh dear, I believe I have said too much.”

With those words, the bottom fell out of Twilight’s excitement. She allowed herself a moment of disappointment before reigning it in. Such things came with the territory, and she couldn’t let them dissuade her. Just when she was about to change the subject, the dragon spoke up.

“What it was you came here for, I do not know, but I seem to have been useful and for that I sincerely apologize,” he said, putting one claw on his chest and bowing forward. The effect was somewhat altered by the golden-red liquid that poured out of the pits where his eyes ought to have been. “If that’s all, I was having a nice dream, I think, and I should like to chase it down.”

“What?” Twilight yelped in panic. It couldn’t be over already. There was no way she could accept that. “No, that’s not—you can’t just—” she sputtered.

“Begone!” the dragon shouted as he raked the ground with one claw and flung a hail of rock and ash in Twilight and Luna’s direction. The debris splashed harmlessly through their ethereal forms, and Twilight was about to respond in kind when Luna’s shining white hoof stopped her.

By the time the ash cleared, Twilight could no longer pick out the shape of the dragon's body amongst the rock. “Argh!” she shouted in frustration, fuming over the loss.

“It’s okay, Twilight. Let it be. This is to be expected,” Luna said consolingly, “I should apologize; when I was telling you about dragons, I believe there is one detail about them I left out.”

“What was it?”

“Dragons are jerks.”

Author's Note

● Author's Notes ●

Chapter 11

Sharing the Night: Chapter 11

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight was experiencing a special kind of cognitive dissonance as she attempted to wrap her mind around the day’s events. The fact that she and Luna could bring out the night, rough up a dragon on the other side of the world and be back in Ponyville on time to attend a session of court that was ostensibly scheduled to begin at dusk was surprisingly difficult to fully comprehend.

It was rather vexing, really, as she prided herself on her ability to do just that. To her dismay, however, having to actually deal with the ponies at said court wasn’t giving her much time to think about it or a plethora of other issues on her mind. As it was, she had to remind herself that ponies, unlike dragons, could not be negotiated with via a star to the face.

“Yes, Mayor Mare,” Twilight said, seated atop her sedate crystal throne with her head resting lazily on one hoof. “We did, in fact, instruct Rainbow Dash to delay Winter Wrap-Up until this morning, and yes, we realize that ponies are scared of the night over the Everfree. We promise you, though, that everything is under control.”

“I’m sure it is, Your Majesty,” the mayor said, shuffling back and forth on her hooves a bit but otherwise appearing perfectly comfortable in the presence of the princesses. “Surely, then, there must be something I can tell them in order to alleviate their fears.”

The mayor’s small sign of nervousness surprised Twilight. It wasn’t unusual in and of itself, but it served to highlight the fact that Twilight herself wasn’t doing the same. Her usual fear was present like a chill up her spine, but the accompanying stress from the night before last was absent. She had no headache, no disquieting unease. Stardust coursed beneath her skin in the wake of her earlier adventure like some kind of celestial adrenaline. Nervousness was beneath her.

Or maybe she was just distracted. She had good reason to be distracted. Stars. The word was becoming her own personal expletive, which was probably not a healthy thing. The stars had destroyed the world. She—no, the last alicorn of the stars—had died, and that death had been the harbinger of countless others.

Stars fall, everypony dies.

“Nay, mayor,” Luna responded to something Twilight had missed, pulling her away from her dark musing. “In this case, we fear that explaining matters would only make the situation at hoof sound worse than it actually is.”

Twilight let out a humorless scoff. “No kidding.”

“Well, in that case,” Mayor Mare said, glancing to the side with uncertainty. “We don’t have to give details, Your Majesties. We can simply say that it’s harmless and that you are studying the phenomenon.”

Neither princess answered immediately. Luna narrowed her eyes, and Twilight tapped her hoof on the side of her throne absently as she attempted to shift her mind back to the subject at hoof. “It… wouldn’t exactly be a lie,” Twilight finally reasoned, glancing over to Luna to see what she thought.

Luna looked no more certain than her co-ruler. “What research would we claim? It cannot be the truth, but we would have to do it regardless. We will not be false with our subjects even if we are not being entirely true with them.”

Twilight had no immediate answer, but the mayor licked her lips and swallowed. A moment later, she worked up the courage to ask, “Could you recreate it?”

Luna furrowed her brow and looked to Twilight for an answer.

Twilight shivered as she recalled how she had pulled the sky down back when she had faced the ursa major. “There… is a good chance that I could, yes,” she answered. “Why?”

The mayor took a breath and looked Luna in the eye. “City of the night,” she said.

“No,” Luna said without hesitation. “No. Absolutely not. Ponyville is a farming community, and… no. We are not even going to discuss it.”

Mayor Mare wilted under the moon princess’ gaze. Turning away, her eyes fell on Twilight. “So… that’s a no?”

“No,” said Twilight, nodding. Her nod stopped mid-motion, and she squinted her eyes, considering what she had just said. “I mean, yes, that’s a no. No, we’re not doing that.”

“Right,” Mayor Mare said, glancing at Luna, possibly weighing whether or not she wanted to test the moon princess’ scowl any further. “I think I should go.”

“That… might be best,” Twilight admitted. Though when the mayor turned to go, Twilight shouted after her. “Wait!”

Mayor Mare stumbled in startlement, but recovered quickly. “Yes, Your Majesty?”

“Your office hasn’t gotten any inquiries from Canterlot about this, has it?” she asked.

“No, Your Majesty,” the mayor said and left.

“Strange,” Twilight said in the mayor’s absence. “Nothing has come to us, either. Do you think that we should tell Celestia what Emberstoke said?”

“Why would we not tell her?” Luna asked, still looking at the spot on the floor where the Mayor had been standing. “She and I do not keep secrets of this magnitude from each other, and neither should you.”

Twilight blinked. “No, I mean… should we go tell her. Now. After court.”

Luna finally turned her unfocused gaze to Twilight. “What? Oh… I suppose we should, should we not? We are, after all, planning to do something very stupid. It would not hurt to give her a… what is it called? A head’s up?”

✶ ✶ ✶

It was after dinner by the time Twilight and Luna made it to Canterlot castle. Luna’s chambers felt odd to Twilight, having lived in a very different palace for the last two weeks.

If the stark contrast of black crystal and white stone in the Ponyville Palace was the result of Luna’s design, then what was this? This room of rich blue velvets and creamy marble? Had it been prepared before Luna’s return? Was this how Celestia saw her sister?

It didn’t fit the Luna that Twilight knew, certainly. Luna was… she was stiff, yet honest. The room was decorated to be fluffy and relaxing, but Luna preferred the sleek and sheer to lace and velvet. Luna preferred to relax where others couldn’t—in bitter winds and stormy skies. That was the Luna that Twilight knew.

Tonight in particular, the fluff and frippery was a sharp contrast to the lunar princess’ countenance. Luna could only have been described as dour, or perhaps brooding, as she had been ever since the mayor’s suggestion.

In truth, it had been rather inconvenient for Twilight, as the older alicorn’s distraction had left her to pick up the slack at court. It was an odd mirror of their first session and not something she was at all used to, nor did it leave her any room for her own concerns. Even now, unfinished thoughts churned in her head, each one chopped off by this or that matter of state and left to languish, filling her with floating bits of uneasiness and dread.

Still, Twilight could hardly blame her, and she pushed her own thoughts aside for the umpteenth time that night to focus on the lunar alicorn.

“Are you okay, Luna?” she asked. “Did the Mayor’s suggestion bother you that much?”

Luna frowned, glancing at the door that led out into the rest of the castle. Celestia’s castle. “She is too conniving for her own good, I think. She presumes to court the nightmare because it is the only thing she knows of me.”

“It was… okay, yeah it was pretty stupid of her,” Twilight admitted, seating herself on one of the many embroidered divans that were scattered throughout the room. She wasn’t sure she should say this, but Luna had been pretty open about it. Looking up at the older alicorn she’d gotten to know, she risked the question. “She’s not wrong, though, is she?”

Luna looked downcast at the assertion. “She is wrong,” Luna said stubbornly. “I cannot divorce myself of responsibility for my actions as Nightmare Moon, but I do regret them. I was wrong to force my night on ponies; I won’t do so through politics just because I failed to do so with power.”

“It doesn’t have to be about that, though,” Twilight insisted, jumping to her hooves. “We can make it work with the farms.”

Luna stepped back from Twilight’s advance. “E-enough, Twilight,” she stuttered, uncomfortable with Twilight’s… fervor.

Twilight balked when she saw Luna pull away from her. “Sorry,” she said, taking a step back herself. “I’d just be sad to see you denying part of yourself because you’re afraid of what happened.”

Luna sighed. “That is… sweet, Twilight, but unnecessary. Tell, me, do you wish eternal night for Ponyville?” she asked with one eyebrow raised.

“Of course I—” she began to say and froze. “I mean, if you wanted…” she tried again, but that wasn’t what Luna had asked, was it? Did she herself think it was a good idea? She hadn’t really thought about it. She just wanted to see Luna happy about her night, but it wasn’t her night, it was their night.

After two failed rationalizations, the answer was obvious, but Luna let Twilight’s train of thought run its course.

“It would be a fun challenge, I guess,” Twilight offered, tapping her forehooves together, but her heart wasn’t in it. “But it wouldn’t be… how it’s supposed to be.”

“No, it wouldn’t,” Luna agreed, turning to the large double doors that separated her chambers from the rest of the castle. “And we shall leave it at that.”

Twilight nodded and stepped up next to Luna, steeling herself for the castle beyond. It was Celestia’s castle now, really, for all intents and purposes. It had been a while since she’d seen the eldest diarch—no, actually, it had been last night, she realized. They hadn’t really… talked, though. Hopefully tonight would be different; it wasn’t that late, yet, and she was a great deal calmer.

“On the other hoof,” Luna added, pulling Twilight close her with a wing as she swung open the doors. “It is good to know that I can count on you should I decide to overthrow Celestia.”

Luna’s statement still echoed through the hall when the two of them realized that the door across from Luna’s chambers was open, and there was a tall white alicorn standing in it.

“C-Celestia!” Twilight squeaked. “Well, this is… awkward,” she said, forcing a smile as she attempted to extricate herself from under Luna’s wing. The feathered appendage had locked up like an iron cage at the sight of her sister.

“I am not!” Luna added quickly, waving her hooves in front of herself. “I mean, we are not. Overthrowing you. Ever. ‘Twas the subject of our conversation, in fact. Not overthrowing you.”

“It was!” Twilight interjected. A rising nervousness made her voice waver. “I mean, I offered—”

“The mayor offered,” Luna corrected hastily.

“Right!” Twilight said. “And I thought she’d want it.”

“But I don’t!” Luna followed up.

“She doesn’t,” Twilight agreed. “But I wanted her to be happy.”

“Which I am,” Luna said, glancing at Twilight.

“She is!” Twilight beamed and quickly turned to Luna in question. “Wait, you are?”

“Surely!” Luna insisted, shocked that Twilight would think otherwise. “Do I not seem happy?”

“Well, you do scowl a lot,” Twilight said, feeling a little guilty for saying so in front of Celestia.

“I do?” Luna said, blinking. She put a hoof to her face as if to feel what it was doing without her consent. Shaking her head, she took a step closer to Twilight. “If I scowl, it’s for only for your sake.”

“Well gee, thanks,” Twilight said, puffing her cheeks out in a pout.

Luna’s jaw dropped, and her eyes widened. “Th-that is not what I meant,” she insisted. She used her hoof to lift Twilight’s chin. “I’m only worried about you.”

“Oh,” Twilight said, realizing what Luna meant. Still, she lowered her eyes and turned away. “I wish you wouldn’t.”

“What?” Luna said as she backed off, brow twisted in distress. “Why ever not?”

“I’ve already messed so much up. I don’t like making you worry,” Twilight said, stepping back herself. She swept her hoof at the two golden doors that led to Celestia’s chambers. “You said you didn’t want me to see you as a teacher, but you still feel like I’m your responsibility. Just let Celestia—”

The two closed doors that led to Celestia’s chambers, Twilight realized.

Luna continued on for a few more moments before being similarly distracted. “Twilight, I worry because—wait, where did Sister go?”

The two of them stood there and stared at the doors for an indeterminate amount of time. They each raised their hoof to knock once or twice, but decided better of it—or maybe worse of it.

“Maybe tonight’s not a good night?”

☼ ☼ ☼

Celestia could not hear anything through the impassive golden doors, but she stared at them from her position on the cold marble floor nonetheless.

She had over a thousand years of experience in controlling her emotions. Some thought that this meant that she had excised them from herself—that she did not have emotions other than the gentle, motherly aura which she exuded at every moment of every day—and in some ways, they were right. She was very, very good at finding that part of herself and expressing it to the exclusion of all else.

She was still a pony, however, so while those other parts were neglected, they still remained, and a thousand years of control didn’t come without a finely tuned sense as to when that control would fail.

Would fail, was failing, had failed; she had crossed the gamut of emotion faster than it had taken to retreat over the threshold of her chambers in response, tripping over herself as she went.

It was an undignified position she now found herself in, her flank on the cold marble floor with her barrel twisted about and her mane pooled below her. She wasn’t rightly sure what had caused the reaction. No, that wasn’t right. She knew what, but not why. Her ears twitched as she heard the imagined echo of words she would never forget.

It is good to know that I can count on you should I decide to overthrow Celestia.

They were foolish words spoken in jest. She had no reason to take them seriously, but the shock had pierced her muddled mind regardless and stirred… something inside of her. Those words meant something to her. Some inner part of her was deeply distressed, but she knew not what. Now, the words echoed in the back of her head, haunting her.

She didn’t rightly understand this reaction. From the rather jumbled sound of it, Luna herself had led the charge in stopping Nightmayor Moon, so why? What was it that had wilted at hearing those joking words so suddenly as to send her fleeing?

Such actions would not go unnoticed. Any second now, Luna would be banging on the thick metal doors, demanding to know what was wrong. Twilight would entreat in her own quiet way, a meek little beckoning ‘princess?’

Celestia frowned. Something seemed wrong about that, she thought. It took her a moment to remember the previous night.

Hi, princess. Celestia. Princess Celestia. Did we already do the ‘don’t call me princess, princess,’ thing? I can’t remember.

Celestia. Would Twilight call her Celestia? She began to smile at the thought, but the expected warmth wasn’t there, just a knot in her chest.

The matter turned out to be moot. To Celestia’s gradual relief, the expected knocks never came. In the state that she was in, she couldn’t even question the fact that it was a relief. Her heart had twisted around and around itself until the idea of being with the very ponies she cared about suddenly filled her with dread.

It is good to know that I can count on you should I decide to overthrow Celestia.

She swallowed hard on a lump that had formed in her throat, and a single uneven breath escaped before she caught herself. No. She would not lose her composure over a simple thing like this. It was utterly ridiculous. She had endured a thousand years of loneliness for the sake of her sister. She would not let two weeks do this to her.

Two weeks? Wait, no, Twilight had been living in Ponyville for two years.

What was two weeks?

Two weeks was how long it had been since she’d sent Luna to Twilight. Two weeks was how long it had been since Luna’s concern had finally overpowered her anger. Two weeks was how long it had been since…

Oh. It struck her all at once. Of course she wasn’t lonely. How silly of her. She was Princess Celestia. She didn’t get lonely.

It is good to know that I can count on you should I decide to overthrow Celestia.

This must be what jealousy felt like.

✶ ✶ ✶

“What do you think made her shut us out like that?” Twilight asked, glancing in the direction of the doors. “She couldn’t have possibly taken it seriously, could she? I mean, not that I haven’t been wrong about that before.”

Luna shook her head. “I cannot say. She and I are not as close as we once were. In fact, I would venture to wager that you know her heart better than I, these days.”

“I thought I did, but she’s never left without a word like that before,” Twilight said, remembering how surprised she’d been to see Celestia gone. “Now she’s done it twice.”

“No doubt she has her reasons,” Luna said, seemingly unconcerned. “I can imagine she doesn’t want to interfere.”

Twilight frowned. Luna had a point. Celestia hadn’t exactly been subtle when she’d sent Luna to Ponyville. Come to think of it, Twilight actually had been snubbed by Celestia once before, back when she had first read about Nightmare Moon. Maybe this was just more of the same?

“I guess it could just be Celestia being Celestia,” Twilight admitted. “Kind of silly if you ask me.”

“Aye,” Luna agreed. “We have bigger problems to deal with.”

“Bigger problems?” Twilight asked. “Oh, right. The whole… yeah. That,” Twilight said, her stomach sinking like she’d just walked into a test that she hadn’t studied for. She chewed her lip as she looked away, searching the room for inspiration. Finding nothing, she rubbed her hooves together uneasily.

“Twilight?” Luna prompted, noticing her odd behavior.

Suddenly, Twilight brightened. “Follow me, I have an idea.”

☼ ☼ ☼

Celestia had recovered her composure. She had even opened her doors again in hopes of finding Twilight on the other side of it or in… Luna’s chambers.

She had failed, of course. Twilight was nowhere to be seen, and Celestia could not bring herself to knock on Luna’s doors for fear of what she might find inside.

She was being silly. She was. She had successfully driven Twilight and Luna away from her, where they could grow away from her shadow. She wanted them to support each other, and it was no business of hers how close they grew to be. Closer was better, wasn’t it? Yes. As close as possible. That was the goal. An amorous relationship was always a possibility. Declarations of undying loyalty were not quite as romantic, but the result was the same. She couldn’t ask for anything more.

Still, such declarations didn’t have to have been phrased quite like that. Celestia paled and had to take a moment to take a deep breath and calm herself.

No, that way of thinking was wrong. In fact, it was good that Luna had chosen to phrase it as such. The words had brought Celestia’s feelings to light. She was… jealous. Yes, she was jealous of her sister. If she hadn’t figured it out, she might have gone years without knowing, letting those feelings eat her alive. Now that she knew, she could fix it.

All she had to do was stop being jealous.

Simple enough.

☾ ☾ ☾

Luna found herself in front of a comfortably sized manor in upper Canterlot. A pair of plaques decorating the mail slot bore three stars and two moons.

“Twilight, what are we doing here?” Luna asked, trying fruitlessly to peer around the curtain in the right sidelight.

“Visiting my parents,” Twilight explained as she came up from behind Luna and placed a hoof on the older alicorn’s shoulder.

“Ah,” Luna said then cocked her head in question. “Why?”

“Well, I haven’t actually seen them since I became an alicorn, you know?” Twilight said, glancing up at the building before them. Actually, Luna had not known this. “I sent a letter the night after I went back to Ponyville, but they didn’t show up with the guild.”

“Ah, they are astronomers?” Luna asked, genuinely interested, before realizing she was being distracted. “Twilight, this is not what I meant by more important things.”

“Astronomers by hobby but not by trade,” Twilight explained. “And I figured we might as well stop in as long as we were in Canterlot.”

“As if that has any meaning,” Luna said, pressing a hoof against her face. “Twilight, I will gladly accompany you in this if you wish, but do not think that I am fooled for a moment.”

“Great!” Twilight said, beaming as she hopped forward and knocked on the wooden door with one hoof.

In spite of the late hour, it wasn’t long before the door opened to reveal a mare who looked rather young to be the mother of a pony Twilight’s age. In fact, the resemblance to Twilight was uncanny… or at least it would have been before Twilight’s ascension.

The ascension was the key, for Twilight’s mother did not, in fact, look too old to have borne a child or two and raised them to adulthood. It was Twilight’s appearance which threw the comparison off, being herself somehow more than adult.

The sight stirred hazy memories of a long-forgotten time, fuzzy shapes and an odd feeling in her chest, but no more. One might have expected the concept to be one which Luna was reminded of on a daily basis, but it had been so long since she and her sister had been in quite this situation that they had come to think of themselves as being something else entirely.

Twilight had not yet become completely separate from ponykind, yet even so, the difference was plain enough to even the most casual observer. She stood half a hoof taller than her mother and bore a certain regal maturity that her progenitor would never achieve no matter how long she lived; Twilight’s snout was longer, and her legs more elegant than her heritage could account for. Even her coat had a certain lustre that made her mother’s look dull in comparison, and it would have been unkind to even try to compare their manes.

Twilight noticed not a whit of of this. She shrank back and meekly waved her hoof with tiny motions. “Hi, Mom,” she said, self consciously.

Twilight’s mother, on the other hoof, certainly noticed the difference. Looking distinctly up at her daughter, she squinted into the dark. “Twilight?” she asked then dropped her head. “Not this again,” she said, shaking her head.

Twilight rolled her eyes and continued on as if this was normal. “Mom, this is Princess Luna,” she said, gesturing with her hooves as she made the carefully enunciated introduction. “Luna, this is my mother, Twilight Velvet. Yes, I know, it’s confusing; welcome to Equestria. She goes by Velvet.”

“Lady Velvet,” Luna said, uncertain, as she inclined her head in greeting. She held the pose for a moment and was greeted by a look of confusion when she raised her head. Clearly, she had erred. “I apologize if my manner of address was incorrect. I’m afraid I was not properly prepared for this meeting,” she said. Quickly, Luna turned to the mare beside her. “Twilight, what titles do the archlibrarian’s parents hold in the Librararchy?”

Twilight blinked. “I, uhh. I’m not sure they’re actually citizens, come to think of it.”

“Oh,” Luna said as she looked back to the mare in front of her. Curling one hoof under her chin, she considered the matter. “I am not well versed in the modern heraldry, but I believe your Equestrian princesshood should confer lordship and ladyship to them in the same manner as it would if it were native in origin.”

For some reason, Twilight Velvet was less than amused. “Twilight, you don’t have to do this. If you wanted to bring a mare home, you could have just told me.”

Luna wasn’t certain why Twilight would have to inform her mother that she was bringing a mare to the house, so she kept quiet.

“Wh—bring a mare…?” Twilight sputtered. “Mom, I told you in my letter, I am seriously an alicorn princess this time!”

Twilight Velvet let out a dejected sigh. “Well, you girls might as well come in,” she said, disappearing back inside.

Twilight and Luna remained standing on the doorstep for a moment. “‘This time?’” Luna asked.

Twilight, who had her face buried in her hooves, let out a groan. “Ever heard of ‘the filly who cried timberwolf?’” she asked sourly, following her mother into the house.

“Ah.”

☾ ☾ ☾

Though the house was large enough to be considered a manor, it lacked the wide open spaces of some of its peers. Instead, the design was closer to what Luna would have expected of a house a tenth its size; there was just… more of it. It wasn’t cramped, but it was definitely all being used.

As to precisely what it was being used for, Luna wasn’t quite certain. There was a great deal of… stuff… and a moderate number of things as well. Just about the only thing she actually recognized were the various books, scrolls and papers that filled the gaps between the stuff and things.

“Do ponies actually live in this house?” Luna whispered to Twilight Sparkle as Velvet led them through a maze of hallways. “I will not hold it against you if your father is some sort of clockwork creature… nor would I be entirely surprised, come to think of it.”

“Night Light is a wonderful stallion who will not be joining us until you cease this charade,” Velvet stated primly she led the two princesses into what appeared to be either a sitting room or a library built within a timepiece.

“Why ever not?” Luna asked absently, her gaze wandering about the room.

“He can be… excitable,” Velvet said as politely as possible. “And, sadly, more than a little gullible,” she added, somewhat less so.

Luna blinked then tore her eyes off her surroundings in order to glance at Twilight for a translation.

“What she means is, Dad would believe me about the whole alicorn thing,” Twilight explained, dropping into a well worn couch with a huff and a pout.

“Yes. We happen to know this from experience,” Velvet chipped in helpfully as she sat herself across from her daughter.

“He’d also really like to meet you,” Twilight added, yanking Luna down into the couch next to her without ever taking her eyes off her mother.

“He would?” Luna asked, interested.

“He would,” Twilight Velvet confirmed with a sigh. “Honestly, Twilight, your methods have improved, but your originality hasn’t.” Looking Luna over, she shook her head. “A princess Luna with the moon in her mane? Really?”

“As if you’d know anything about originality,” Twilight grumbled under her breath.

Luna was utterly and completely lost. “Twilight, if you could just hold a moment and—”

“Dad’s cutie mark is a pair of moons,” Twilight explained, drawing the shape in the air with her hoof. “One inside the other.”

“A pair?” Luna asked, her eyes widening a bit in interest. “How peculiar.”

“The smaller of the two is inverted, like the image in a telescope,” Twilight continued explaining. “They’re his passion, and he has a fascination with the moon in particular.”

“Truly?” Luna asked, leaning forward. “I should very much like to meet him, then!”

Twilight sighed. “Give me a minute to bring Mom back to reality,” she said, giving her mother an exasperated glare. “Several minutes,” she amended.

“Give it up, Twilight. I think I would know if my daughter had become a princess,” Velvet said, returning Twilight’s glare in equal measure. “There would have been a coronation, for one thing.”

“A coronation?” Twilight said in a skeptical tone and then stopped to think. “Wait, why wasn’t there a coronation?” she asked Luna.

“You would have to ask one of your heralds about the lack of a native Libraropolean ceremony,” Luna reasoned, thinking aloud as much as anything. “Your Equestrian princesshood, however, was granted by governmental decree merely to match your existing status. It would not have taken the actual title involved into consideration, nor would a ceremony normally be held in such circumstances.”

“Oh, that makes sense on the Equestrian side at least, I suppose,” Twilight admitted.

“Did you want a coronation?” Luna asked, a little worried that Twilight would feel that some sort of protocol had been breached. “Or a crown, for that matter, since you cannot manifest regalia? They could certainly be arranged.”

“Uhh, no,” Twilight said, either giving her mother another glare or merely continuing on with the old one, Luna wasn’t quite certain. “I could do without the pomp and circumstance.”

“You’ve really thought this charade through, haven’t you?” Velvet asked, almost incredulous at the time and effort that had apparently been put into this. “Legally, I mean. That’s actually a plausible loophole.”

“I’ve recently discovered that reality doesn’t have to be thought through before it happens,” Twilight groused sourly. “If it did, my life would be a lot simpler—not that you of all ponies would know what’s plausible and what isn’t.”

Rather than even bother asking again, Luna simply gave up and decided to wait the conversation out, hoping that it would explain itself in due time. She wasn’t entirely disappointed.

“Don’t be like that, Twilight,” Velvet said, little bits of her daughter’s own pout and exasperation worming its way into her voice in equal measure. “I’ll have you know, I’ve researched things like this thoroughly. I always knew that one of my children would marry into royalty.”

“One of your children?” Twilight asked, raising one eyebrow in disbelief. “Mom, unless there’s something you aren’t telling me, you only have the one.”

Velvet grinned, looking like nothing so much as the cat who had caught the canary. Luna in particular was reminded of how Celestia looked when she spied a cake. “Well now, Twilight. If you aren’t going to give me grandfoals…”

“What?” Twilight said, visibly blanching at the thought. “No! Don’t you dare! I do not need a little sister twenty-odd years younger than me!”

“How about a brother?” Twilight Velvet teased, tapping a hoof on her chin as she pretended to consider it seriously.

“No!” Twilight cried vehemently. “Absolutely not! I am not going to explain to all of my friends that I suddenly have a brother out of nowhere!”

“Darling, we talked about this; it’s not ‘nowhere,’” Velvet said, taking on a tone as one uses with small foals. “You see, when a mommy and a daddy love each other very much and have grown tired of hornplay—”

“Moooooooooooom!” Twilight whined, her face red with embarrassment. “Shut uuuuuuuuup.”

“Perhaps she should,” Luna suddenly suggested, thoughtful.

“Yes, she should,” Twilight said through gritted teeth.

Luna blinked, only then realizing that she had spoken aloud. “I mean the foal thing, Twilight.”

“What?” Twilight shouted, whipping around to bear down on Luna.

“She has already birthed one goddess, and we are currently missing a second,” Luna reasoned. “There is even precedent for siblings to both ascend. I am merely saying that perhaps it would not hurt to see if she can manage two for two.”

Twilight’s jaw dropped, as did her stomach. “There are all kinds of… no! Stop encouraging her!”

Luna, however, found herself distracted by the thought. “It would be best if she grew to adulthood before finding out she is an alicorn, as you did, but depending on her cutie mark, that may or may not happen.”

“Look, girls, your… roleplay thing is cute and all,” Velvet said, clearly trying very hard to be understanding. She was not quite as good at it as Celestia was, however. “Most couples reserve that sort of thing for the bedroom, but if it’s really how you want to go about your relationship, I won’t judge. I’m really going to have to draw the line at bringing theoretical foals into it, though.”

“Oh, like that ever stopped you, Mom,” Twilight snapped with a level of rancor that quite surprised Luna with its bite.

Luna raised her hoof and opened her mouth to say something. A moment passed before she simply stated, “I am confused.”

“Mother is an author,” Twilight said with grit teeth.

“Indeed?” Luna asked, attempting to see how this was relevant to the conversation. “‘Tis a fine and noble profession.”

“Mother is a fiction author,” Twilight clarified. “Juvenile fiction. She’s a night owl as much as the rest of the family, but the stars in her cutie mark actually represent imagination. Idealistic imagination, I might add.”

Oh, well, maybe noble wasn’t quite the word, then, Luna thought, mentally remanding her previous statement. “Such things are… enjoyable, I understand.”

“Yes,” Twilight said, looking Luna dead in the eyes. “You do understand.”

Luna paused to think, but still came up blank. “I do not, in fact.”

“You’ve read her work,” Twilight added unhelpfully.

“I have?” Luna asked, remembering no such thing. “That stack sitting on the nightstand? The Daring Do series does look rather interesting, but I am afraid I have not had a chance to peruse them as yet.”

“Hah!” Twilight exclaimed derisively, becoming distinctively hostile. “She could only wish to write something like Daring Do.”

“I am at a loss, then, Twilight. The only ‘fiction’ novel I have read thus far is the eponymous Twili—oh. Ah, I… see.” Luna looked at Twilight, then her mother, then back to Twilight. Twilight had made her opinion on that particular series of books very clear. “You two do not exactly get along, then, I take it?”

“I had an interesting childhood, Luna. A very interesting childhood.”

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight’s mother had bowed out for a short while to fetch some tea for her guests. Twilight was grateful for the reprieve and slumped deeper into the old family couch.

“Perhaps it would be easier to simply leave and return on the morrow with a royal procession,” Luna suggested.

“…No,” Twilight said after a brief, but notable hesitation. “No, she’s a smart mare. She’ll figure it out eventually,” she added but couldn’t keep herself from imagining the look on her mother’s face if she showed up with a line of ponies in ceremonial barding and giant banners declaring her princessdom. The corners of her mouth began to curl into a smile before she caught herself. “No, bad Twilight,” she mumbled to herself.

“What was that?” Luna asked, having noticed Twilight’s self-reprimand, but not understood it, apparently.

“I said you’re a bad influence,” Twilight lied and stuck her tongue at the lunar princess. “Who knew that when they say ‘power corrupts,’ the sense of humor comes first?”

It took a moment for Luna to follow Twilight’s meaning, but when she did, her expression broke out into a toothy grin. “I believe I can muster up a respectable force without Tia catching on,” she said, rubbing her hooves together, playfully devious.

Twilight’s response was cut off before she could decide what it was to be as her mother returned to the room, a tea set in her magical glow. Twilight’s mood soured the moment her mother opened her mouth.

“While this has been an interesting insight into the mind of my daughter, it really is getting old, girls,” she said as she set the tray down on the coffee table. Changing tactics, she turned to Luna this time. “I’d really much rather meet the pony my little girl has brought home face-to-face. I promise I don’t bite.”

Luna didn’t seem quite sure what to say. She glanced over at Twilight, who just rolled her eyes.

Met with only the blank, doe-eyed stare of the lunar princess, no capitulation forthcoming, Velvet let out a sigh and gave Twilight a quick pleading look. “You were never this stubborn about it last time.”

Twilight too had had just about enough of this. “It wasn’t true last time!” she insisted hotly.

Velvet’s ears flattened at her daughter’s outburst. Her eyes narrowed darkly. “Don’t you take that tone with me, young filly, or I’ll—”

“Mother!” Twilight shouted, jumping to her hooves and interrupting her. The room slowly grew darker as Twilight fumed until, all at once, she exploded outwards. Stars filled the cluttered space, and the cold chill of night washed over her mother. “For the last time!” her voice boomed. “I—am—a—god!”

Silence descended on the room. Velvet, who suddenly seemed to be alone in a very convincing pastiche of the night sky, transitioned back and forth through a series of emotions—annoyance, disbelief, confusion, concern, reflection and something else.

Not quite satisfied, Twilight remembered the discussion her mother had just interrupted. Reaching through the night, she found her guards and heralds and dragged them through. The guards found themselves bearing standards with her cutie mark on them, which they only barely managed to hold on to.

Moments later, her heavy crystal throne crashed into the wooden floor with a thud that made Velvet wince. It teetered precariously before settling cockeyed, one leg on top of a discarded book. It sat there, conspicuous in its emptiness until Twilight’s starry body coalesced into it, discernable from the rest of the room only where it occluded the throne.

Just as her guards managed to get themselves to attention, there was a pop from behind the throne, shooting confetti into the air. Smugly, Twilight sat back and crossed her hind legs. Only a small twitch of her ear belied her desire to go see where it had come from.

Silence returned for a short second before the sound of a stallion’s voice came from upstairs. “Honey?” the voice said. “Now, I know this is going to sound odd, but I think the moon is… um, giggling?”

Twilight turned to look at Luna, but the round white orb was impassive against the starry backdrop. Then, slowly, it rolled over and bumped into the coffee table, rattling the tea set but doing no permanent damage.

Twilight’s head sank onto her hoof with a sigh. “Shush, Luna, you’re ruining it,” she said in a reprimanding tone that held little bite. Twilight’s serious expression broke into a wry smile, and she couldn’t help but give her own chuckle.

The moment over, she released the stars she’d pulled out of the sky, suddenly feeling very silly sitting on a crystal throne in the middle of her parents’ house. As the cozy room once again brightened, Twilight’s and Luna’s forms became naturally equine again, and the standards held aloft by her unicorn guards clattered amongst the light fixtures, barely capable of standing upright in the crowded room.

“Seriously, though, Mom,” she said, looking at Luna with something akin to pride. “I’m not kidding.”

The smile on Twilight’s face disappeared when she looked back to her mother. Twilight Velvet was on the ground breathing heavily and staring up at her daughter in abject fear.

“…Mom?”

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight’s mother insisted that she was fine, a fact which one of Twilight’s unicorn guards hesitantly corroborated. Twilight didn’t buy it, and neither did her father, who was somewhat at a disadvantage as to why there were nine ponies he didn’t know in the sitting room, one of them Princess Luna herself. He didn’t have a chance to ask, however, as he was more concerned about his wife.

“I’m sorry, dear,” Velvet said, still breathing a little heavily. “I don’t know what came over me. I was just suddenly afraid for my life. I can’t explain it.”

The words, of course, sounded all too familiar to Twilight, though it was eerie hearing them from somepony else. Twilight frowned and pushed her way closer to her mother through the crowd of ponies. Setting one hoof on her mother’s side, she opened herself to the night.

“That’s impossible,” she stated aloud to nopony in particular. “No, really. It’s… what the hay, Mom?”

“Language, Twilight!” her mother snapped, but Twilight was not concerned about her uncharacteristic lapse of manners.

“Mom,” Twilight said, trying to order her thoughts. “Mother, why in the name of all that is good and right… why do you have a star in your chest?”

“I have a what?” Twilight’s mother responded, along with similar mumbling from everypony else in the room.

Reminded that she wasn’t alone in the room, Twilight brought her gaze up to look at them each in turn. Her hoof reached out of its own accord, finding its way to her father. “So do you,” she stated absently, a rising disquiet in her chest. Her hoof dropped away, and just then… she could see it. “And you, and you, and you. All of you.” Stars filled the room, and they weren’t hers.

But they were hers, weren’t they?

Now that she knew they were there, she couldn’t not see them. They were so… tiny, so fragile. She could easily just reach out and—no! She stumbled back trying to put distance between herself and everypony else before she did something she’d regret. The room was too small, though, and she couldn’t find an empty space, not with them all trying to get closer to her.

With no other choice, she threw herself against the door and down the hall—at least, that was her intent. At the last moment, the door was replaced by a wall of blue. Fluffy, feathery, midnight blue. Luna’s wing wrapped around her, blocking the crowd out.

Twilight was startled, suddenly finding herself in the lunar princess’ embrace, but she didn’t object; she was grateful. Luna warded off further interference with sharp looks and posture, giving her a moment to calm down.

“Better?” Luna asked, craning her neck to look at her.

Twilight took a deep breath and leaned into Luna’s warmth. “Yeah, sorry.”

Twilight’s parents took this as a sign that it was okay to approach, but got a bristling of feathers from Luna in response. She wasn’t about to let anypony close until Twilight was good and ready, it seemed, and she was right.

“Stay back,” Twilight said, maneuvering Luna to put her between herself and everyone else. Peeking up over Luna’s back, she motioned with her hooves. “Just… stay there while I figure this out, okay?”

✶ ✶ ✶

In spite of Luna’s intervention, Twilight still needed a moment to herself. She hadn’t even had a chance to come to terms with what Emberstoke had said, and here she had a whole new problem to deal with. Leaving Luna to handle her parents, Twilight stepped out of the room and into the sky, where the moon was waiting for her.

The irony was not lost on Twilight as she stretched out and wrapped herself around it for comfort. Being an alicorn had its perks.

It had been a while since Twilight had spent much time just being the stars. At the very least, it had been since before she had finally brought herself to be honest with Luna, and if she was being honest with herself, the week and a half prior didn’t really count either.

Even she had to admit that she hadn’t been quite right in the head for that week and a half. She’d been driven, hunting down starbeasts, and for what?

It was funny how much of a difference knowing made. Equestria turned beneath her, dotted by stars, every one of them a life. In actuality, it was she that turned around it, watching as the sparkling lights slept peacefully, unaware of the monsters above and below.

Yes, above and below. Stars though they somehow posessed, the ponies of Equestria were not the source of her fear. There was something still deeper, something more primal below the surface around which the earthbound stars orbited, slipping in and out of the night below like flotsam bobbing on the surface of a terrible, deep, dark sea.

She could imagine what it was—what they were—but she didn’t know. Not for certain.

She didn’t know what was down there, that the night below was a mass of stars as great as she was, split off from the sky when last she had died.

She didn’t know what had become of them, that those stars that fell in precordian times had turned into something terrible. There had been no constellations back then. Ponies would not have been weaving fairy tales of fanciful creatures as they looked to the sky, fearing when next it would fall.

No, she didn’t know, but she suspected, and she needed no more reason than that for Luna’s presence by her side to be comforting and welcome. Though the moon was small, it was solid; it was real. It filled and supported her. It was, quite literally, her rock in an increasingly turbulent sky, and she was grateful for it.

Soon, she would have to deal with it. Soon, she would have to deal with the source of her fears, the night below, which was most likely in some part… her.

Right now, though… Right now, she had parents to contend with. That was almost the same thing, right?

✶ ✶ ✶

A shiver rippled across the night sky. It was at once a stretch, a yawn, and a cry of frustration. She was getting nowhere, and she knew it. She was avoiding things, which wasn’t at all like her.

Who could blame her, though? Everything that had happened, one discovery after another making her life worse and worse, was it any wonder that maybe she just didn’t want to know any more?

No. She refused to think that. She wanted to know; she had to know, and she had to accept what she did know. She couldn’t be like Celestia and trust that all would be well. She had no trust left for such careless thoughts. It was all invested elsewhere, where it was safe.

The moment she poured herself out of the night sky and into her old room in her parents’ house, there was a knock on the door. Twilight couldn’t help but smile. “Luna?” Twilight asked, expecting that only the lunar alicorn would know she had returned.

To Twilight’s disappointment, the head that peeked around the door lacked an ethereal mane. “Just me, dear,” her mother said.

“Oh,” Twilight said, her wings visibly drooping. Self-consciously, she scratched one fetlock on another. “Hi, Mom.”

If Twilight Velvet was put off by her daughter’s body language, she didn’t show it as she entered the room and quietly closed the door. “You gave me a scare, there,” she said.

“Sorry,” Twilight said, her ears flattening as if they didn’t want to hear what was being said. “I didn’t know that would happen. If it’s any consolation, you—um—kind of get used to it. I have.”

Her mother’s brow creased in veiled worry, but she shook it off. “You gave us all a scare,” she said. Pacing over to the bed, she sat down and patted the mattress beside her. “Are you alright? You don’t look too good.”

“I’m fine,” Twilight said as she sat herself onto the bed next to her mother. “It just took me by surprise, that’s all. I mean, stars in ponies, who knew? Not me, I’m just the manifestation of uncountable celestial objects. Nopony tells me anything.”

“You’re a little bitter, I take it?” Twilight’s mother asked.

Twilight rolled her eyes. “You have no idea.”

“So tell me about it.”

☾ ☾ ☾

"What... do you wish to know?" Luna asked, her enthusiasm somewhat dampened by recent events. She really would have liked to have somepony else there with her; either Twilight or—no, pretty much just Twilight. As affable as Twilight's mother seemed to be, Luna found the mare difficult to connect with.

Twilight’s father, on the other hoof, was a type of pony that she had a bit more experience with; clearly academic, but with a nervous composure and a hint of nobility. He seemed to be fascinated with Luna’s mane, and was wringing his hooves together to keep himself from doing something rude.

“Ah, Your Majesty,” Twilight’s father said, reigning himself in, as if he had only just remembered that the moon he was looking at was attached to an actual pony rather than a telescope viewfinder. “Well, I suppose the immediate question is… that is, if you’d be so kind… just… how did all of this happen?” he asked somewhat weakly. At a loss for words, he gestured with his hoof to indicate her mane and, after a slight pause, glanced up the stairs up which Twilight Velvet had disappeared.

“That is—” Luna started as she tried to put together in her head the most direct way to explain the situation. She failed. Utterly. “—a good question,” she finished rather lamely. “The truth is, we do not know. One day, I had the stars, the next, they were your daughter’s. She may have been an alicorn since she acquired her cutie mark… or even before.”

“Hrm,” Twilight’s father said, scratching his chin with one hoof. “Yes, that is troubling,” he said. “So, it just changed, did it? Does it ever show the dark side of the moon? I don’t suppose you can control that?”

Luna had to stop for a moment to make sure she understood what Twilight’s father was talking about. “My mane?” she asked, rather dubious. “What does this have to do with your daughter?”

In his distraction, Twilight’s father found his gaze had drifted up Luna’s tail to her tail, and quickly averted his gaze with a slight blush. “I’m sorry, what? Twilight? Why, nothing, I suppose,” he said quite simply. “Now, I’ve always wondered, is the dark side made of some other material entirely, or does it simply not luminesce for a different reason?”

Luna was taken aback by the eager stallion, and yet… suddenly, a number of Twilight’s behaviors made much more sense—or if not sense, exactly, she now knew where they had come from, at least. There was something infectious about his excitement.

“As a matter of fact…”

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight’s mother only had one thing to say after Twilight had finished recounting the last few weeks of her life. “Princess Luna, huh? It wouldn’t work in the books, but hindsight is twenty-twenty. Honestly, it was hard enough working her in at all, but can you imagine the backlash if I hadn’t? Yeesh.”

“Oh for the love of—no!” Twilight said, her face twisted in exasperation. “Look, whatever you’re thinking, just… stop. I’ll tell you what I told Rarity; it—is—not—like—that.”

“Honey, you know it really is okay with me if you like mares, right? I just want you to be happy,” Twilight’s mother insisted. “And grandfoals,” she added shortly afterwards. “Mostly the happy thing, though, honest.”

“Yes, Mother,” Twilight said a bit icily. “Your books have made your stance on relationships like that perfectly clear.”

“So you say,” Twilight’s mother said, shaking her head. “But your marefriend is downstairs having a nice chat with your father, and here we are again, banging heads because you’re embarrassed about it.”

“Can we please just have one conversation where we live on the same planet, Mom? Even though we sort of technically don’t any more? I am not in a relationship with Luna. I’ve been telling you since I was fourteen, numerous studies have concluded that that sort of thing just doesn’t interest me. Not with stallions. Not with mares. Not with anypony.”

“Not with Princess Luna?” Twilight’s mother asked coyly, giving Twilight a friendly nudge with her shoulder. “Come on, you’ve been living around other ponies for a couple of years, now; it’s okay to look. Princess Celestia isn’t the best role model for everything, you know. Not the real one, anyway...”

“I’ve looked, Mom, believe me, I’ve looked,” Twilight groused. “I have a research journal this thick dedicated to making you drop the subject once and for all. It’s twenty pounds, and I’m warning you, I will send it C.O.D.”

“You sleep with the mare,” Twilight’s mother said, one corner of her mouth turned up in a smirk. “You can’t possibly find her that unattractive.”

“Why did I even tell you that?” Twilight asked herself, rubbing her face in her hooves. “Of course she’s not unattractive. She’s a goddess, Mom. She’s beautiful—but not like that!”

Twilight’s mother’s face lit up like a tree on hearth’s warming eve before she reached up and crushed Twilight’s neck in a hug. “Oh honey, beautiful is beautiful. It’s not always about the plot.”

“Every other word,” Twilight mumbled to herself. “She hears every other word… What did I just say, Mom? Look, earlier we woke up this dragon and he was… grumpy. Long story short, her body burned away, and she was just this… this pony-shaped figure of moonlight. It was beautiful like a sunset is beautiful. Like a storm is beautiful. Like a force of nature. That kind of beautiful.”

“Twilight,” Twilight’s mother said, hooves over her mouth in awe and looking like she might cry. “My little Twilight. That is the most poetic thing I have ever heard come out of your mouth.”

“I am not being poetic!” Twilight cried, her face growing hot in embarrassment. She slipped into a haze of stars for a moment as she fixed that little issue. “I’m being literal!”

“Ohmygosh! I have to tell your father!”

“Mooooooooooooooooom!”

✶ ✶ ✶

Luna appeared to be having a much better time with Twilight’s father than Twilight had been having with her mother.

“Twilight!” Luna shouted gleefully as she spotted the stellar alicorn coming down the stairs hot on the hooves of her mother. “Thy father has the most peculiar names for mine lunar features.”

Twilight’s mother reached the bottom of the stairs, narrowly evading her daughter’s grasp, resulting in the aforementioned daughter-slash-goddess eating carpet on the landing.

“Night Light! You have to hear—” Twilight’s mother began to say and then stopped short when she realized that Luna was there. Her momentum temporarily halted, she glanced back and forth between Luna and Twilight. Unable to contain herself, she gave out a tittering squeal of delight and hauled her husband out of the room in her magical glow.

Night Light, for his part, said nothing, seeming to be resigned to the situation as his topsy-turvy form disappeared down the hall.

Luna watched her conversation partner until he rounded a corner. She then glanced over at Twilight. “Ah, pardon, but neither you nor your father seemed to think that at all unusual. A thousand years ago, that would have been quite… rude.”

“It’s still rude,” Twilight reassured her as she picked herself off the ground, rubbing her forehead as she felt a headache coming on. “Unusual—I’m afraid not. Not around here, at any rate.”

“Should I be affronted?“ Luna asked.

“Well, that’s up to you to decide. She ‘ships’ us,” Twilight said, making air quotes with her wings as she took her father’s place next to Luna.

It took Luna a moment to process that odd sentence. Once she had, she seemed to decide that affront was indeed called for. “Alicorns are not cargo!”

“Well, actually, technically…” she began with no small amount of hesitation in her voice, her need for accuracy warring with a desire to not make herself sound very, very weird. The latter won out. “Nevermind. Look, Luna, she thinks we’re together.”

Luna blinked. “We are both present, are we not?”

Twilight cocked her head. “She thinks we’re seeing each other.”

“Is this about those peculiar ‘glasses’ your father wears?” Luna asked. “I have seen the like since my return, though I very much doubt that alicorns should ever require them.”

Twilight stared at Luna for a moment, trying to decide if she was being serious. Finding no sign of duplicity, she wrapped her hooves around the lunar alicorn in a grateful hug. “Thank you.”

“Err, you are most welcome, Twilight, but for what art thou thanking me?”

“For being a sane and rational pony.”

“I do believe that you are the first pony to ever call me that.”

“Shush, Luna, you’re ruining it.”

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight’s mother seemed to have absconded with her father for the night, leaving Twilight to show Luna around the house as they searched for them.

“Well,” Twilight said, shutting the door to her father’s study. “I hope you got your fill of them, Luna. They seem to have legitimately vanished from existence.”

“Twilight, I’m am reasonably certain that we have not checked that room over there,” Luna said, pointing with her hoof down the hall. “Also, we are both in possession of varying levels of omniscience.”

A shiver went up Twilight’s spine, and she very specifically did not look where Luna had pointed. “It’s been a very long time since you had parents, Luna, so I’ll just come out and say it: a filly learns at an early age never to look too hard for her parents when they’re conspicuously absent.”

“Ah,” Luna said, her eyes drawn back to the door. “How early did you say?”

“Too early,” was all Twilight would say, and it was enough to make Luna drop the subject. Still, it didn’t stop her from saying it twice. “Too early,” she repeated, shaking her head.

Through unspoken accord, the two of them left the vicinity of Twilight’s parents’ bedroom in awkward silence. Thankfully, the house was large and convoluted enough that respite was easy to find in the form of a cozy kitchen.

Polishing off a carton of ice cream was an old tradition for Twilight when she ‘couldn’t find’ her parents. The very fact that she had a tradition for it made Twilight wonder at her continuing lack of siblings.

So far.

Another shiver ran down Twilight’s spine and she scooped herself another serving of ice cream.

Just when Twilight was beginning to appreciate the companionable silence, Luna spoke up out of the blue. “Twilight, about what you said, earlier,” she prompted. “About me not being happy.”

Twilight sighed into her ice cream. So much for silence. “Things are just… so much better now,” she said, less than enthusiastically. “And I hate to think it’s because I’ve dumped my problems on you.”

“Are they better? Truly? I worry about you,” Luna said, simply. It was a phrase she had spoken often enough in the past few days.

“I know,” Twilight grumbled. “That’s the problem.”

“Nay, Twilight,” Luna said. “It makes me happy.”

Twilight scrunched her eyes shut. “I have a dictionary, Luna, and I’m not afraid to use it.”

Luna leaned back in her chair, took a breath and let it out slowly as she looked up at the dusty ceiling. “I am not sure if I could tell you how long it has been since I had somepony to worry about other than myself. I am gladdened just to have a reason to scowl these days.”

Twilight shifted, a little uncomfortable in her seat. She… knew a little about that feeling, not from her time as an alicorn, but as an only child with no friends. It couldn’t compare to what Luna had been through, but at least she could empathize.

Luna set down her bowl and spoon and closed her eyes. “Still, you are not wrong. I worry, but you could give me less to worry about.”

Twilight didn’t respond immediately. Truthfully, it took her a moment to even realize what had been said. They weren’t harsh words, nor were they spoken with anything but resignation, but at the same time, Twilight was quite unready for them. “I… excuse me?”

“Twilight, why did we come here?” Luna asked, setting the issue out plainly. “You have not enjoyed it, and I do not think you expected to. I told you I was not fooled. You are avoiding something and only hurting yourself in the process. You can consider this an ‘intervening,’ if you wish, just stop it. Please.”

“An… intervening?” Twilight repeated aloud, somewhat confused.

“Is that not the proper word?” Luna asked, uncertain. “Tia seemed to be a fan of—”

“Oh! An intervention!” Twilight beamed as she realized what Luna must have meant. The elation of her discovery quickly fell away as she realized precisely what the word implied. “An intervention?” she asked, incredulous.

“Aha! Yes! That!” Luna said, triumph over modern Equestrian lagging behind Twilight’s. “Um, yes, that.”

“Oh come on.” Twilight chewed her lip and looked away. “It hasn’t been all bad,” she said without much conviction.

“Twilight, we may not be all that close, but if I am here for anything, it is to help bear the weight of what you becoming an alicorn has wrought,” Luna said, leaning forward to rest her hoof on Twilight’s. “I cannot do that if you shut me out as you have your friends.”

“I’m not shutting you out—or my friends,” Twilight insisted. “You are helping. You were there when I panicked, and I’m grateful! And…” Twilight stumbled over her words, silently cursing her mother for putting ideas in her head. She wouldn’t let the feeling that she was justifying her mother’s words stop her, though. “I thought we were close. I know it hasn’t been very long, but I like having you around. A lot. You’ve been a great friend.”

Luna was speechless for a moment. “Then why? You haven’t said a word about it since you came back. Stars in ponies, Twilight. It’s not a small thing.”

Twilight shrunk back at the accusation, flattening her ears. “No, I guess it’s not,” she said then frowned. “Wait, it’s been, like, ten minutes since I came back downstairs.”

Luna opened her mouth to respond and then closed it. “Is that unreasonable?”

“It kind of is, yeah,” Twilight said with an edge of affront in her voice that made Luna wilt. “It’s not that I didn’t want to talk about it; I just haven’t had time to deal with it all yet. I was actually kind of disappointed that you didn’t come up to meet me.”

Luna’s back quickly straightened. “You were?”

“Well… yeah,” Twilight said, not thinking it at all unusual.

Luna actually blushed out of embarrassment in response. “Still,” she said, poking her spoon so it rattled around in the empty bowl. “You are avoiding something, or we would not be here to begin with.”

“I’m… not,” Twilight said, painfully aware that she’d been chastising herself for the same thing. She’d stopped herself, though. “I’d like to think it was the other way around.”

“You do not know for certain?” Luna asked, the now-familiar signs of concern returning.

“Don’t look at me like that. I hadn’t had time to put my head together,” Twilight said, groaning as she rubbed her face with her hooves. “I just saw the opportunity, and I took it. It’s not something I usually do, but it felt right at the time.”

“And now?” Luna asked. “Do you still think it was a good idea?”

Twilight took a deep breath as she considered the matter. “Yeah, I do,” she finally said, letting out her breath and slumping forward onto the table. Her even breathing made her barrel rise and fall against the table. “Look, you’re… you, so maybe what Emberstoke said doesn’t bother you.”

“This is what’s bothering you?” Luna asked, grateful to finally be getting to the point.

“Yes. No. I don’t know. I think so? It’s a thing,” Twilight said, aware that she was rambling. “I haven’t had time to figure it out. It’s not this big, oppressive thing that’s making me go crazy. It’s just… yeah, it’s bothering me.”

“I presume that it is not the identity of the missing alicorn that is the problem?” Luna asked rhetorically.

“Yeah, no,” Twilight said shaking her head. “That’s a mystery, but—and this might sound a little selfish—it’s not about me. Stars, I am glad to have something to solve that doesn’t revolve around me for once.”

“So, the death of the previous alicorn of the stars?” Luna said, stating the obvious through process of elimination.

“No,” Twilight snapped in immediate denial then abruptly recanted. “I mean, yes, but that’s just it. I can’t make myself look at it like that.”

“What do you mean?” Luna asked, unaware of any other way to look at it. “‘Tis a simple statement of fact, if we are to believe the words of Emberstoke, and I do not see that we have any other choice. Do you?”

“No, I wish I did, but I don’t,” Twilight said, aware that she was being obtuse about the matter at hoof—and here, just after declaring that she wasn’t avoiding the issue. “That’s the thing: if we believe him, then it wasn’t some former alicorn of the stars that died. It was me. He said it, didn’t he? Alicorns are forever.”

It took Luna a moment to figure out Twilight’s twist of logic, and she showed as much with a huff of dismissal. “You are taking him too literally,” she declared.

“But it fits, doesn’t it? We can’t die,” Twilight said emphatically, very much wishing to be proved wrong. “What’s easier to believe? That the sun, moon and countless stars just up and died—lost their souls, somehow, and then grew new ones—or that they just… forgot?”

“You were born,” Luna said, her wings flaring up in agitation. “Your parents engaged in the oldest and most basic act of creation—an act which we believe they are repeating right now—and you were the result. Any previous alicorn that existed was, at most, a past life. I do not see why you are so insistent upon taking upon yourself blame for something that you did not do.”

“It’s not about blame, but what does it matter if I’m going to get it anyway?” Twilight said, rising slightly out of her chair in response to Luna’s aggression. “Emberstoke blamed me, didn’t he? I have a whole history that I don’t know about, and it’s catching up to me. It’s been catching up to me this whole time. That’s all any of this is; dying hasn’t solved anything. There’s no starting over fresh for me.”

“Twilight, this is precisely the sort of hurting yourself which I wish that you would stop,” Luna said, her hostility quickly replaced by distress, stopping Twilight cold.

“I’m not,” Twilight said weakly. “I just have to accept it, and I can, really. Coming here wasn’t about avoiding it, I just wanted to… to…”

“To reassure yourself? Is that what this was all about?” Luna said, finally understanding Twilight’s reasoning and hardly believing it. “I… cannot begrudge you that,” she admitted with some difficulty. “Some ‘intervening’ this has turned out to be.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Twilight said, thoughtful as she tested Luna’s conclusion in her head and found a tentative match. “Maybe I just wanted to remind myself where I came from. Mom is… She makes me want to hoof my eyes out, sometimes, but she’s still my mom, you know?”

Luna tightened and looked down into her empty ice cream bowl. There was a long silence before she spoke again. “I do not,” she finally said with a reticent stiffness. “But I shall take your word for it.”

“You… don’t?” Twilight asked, unaware that she had said anything that could be dissented. “You don’t what?”

“I do not ‘know,’” Luna said, emphasizing the word with some derision. “I cannot express empathy in the shared experience of having a mother. I am afraid it has been… too long,” she explained, drooping sullenly. “I’m sorry. I should not have mentioned it. It is just something I was thinking about earlier. It is not important. If I am through making a fool of myself, then let us talk about stars in ponies.”

Twilight’s mouth hung open for a moment thanks to the combined shock of what Luna had said and the abrupt change in subject, then it snapped shut. Once the required mental gearshift had been achieved, however, she made an immediate decision. “No,” she said with a sudden steel in her voice as she jumped to her hooves.

Luna instinctually backed up out of her chair at Twilight’s sudden movement. “What dost thou mean, ‘no?’” she asked, stiff and uncertain.

“No means no,” Twilight said, advancing on Luna predatorily.

With each step Twilight took, Luna backed up. “I do not think that thou art using that phrase correctly.”

Twilight took another step forward. “I don’t ca—” she tried to say, but couldn’t make herself do it. “Okay fine, I do care,” Twilight said. Her momentum broken, she settled back on her rump with a pout and crossing her forelegs. “That’s fighting dirty.”

“Twilight, I appreciate the sentiment, but being obstinate is not going to help,” Luna said, shaking her head.

Twilight, though, was not going to give up so easily. “No, but I have just the thing that might,” she said with a grin.

“What is that?” Luna asked, shying away once more.

Twilight did not continue her approach. Quite the opposite; she rushed into the next room and rummaged around for something. “In this wonderful modern world, there is a book for everything,” she yelled so that Luna could hear her.

“There is no book that records my life, Twilight,” Luna said. “Not the parts of it I should like to remember, in any event.”

“Maybe not,” Twilight said, poking her head back through the door. “But there’s one of mine.” She held in her magic a fat, worn, cloth-bound book with an assortment of clippings and photos stuffed between the pages. “It even has pictures!” she said, wiggling the book as if she were talking to a foal.

Luna never had a chance.

✶ ✶ ✶

Several hours later, Twilight and Luna were asleep on the couch when a familiar tittering voice announced itself from the stairs. “Eee, just look at them!” it said, hurrying closer. As the hoofsteps closed in, however, they slowed. “Oh come on now, that’s just not fair. Embarrassing her with childhood photos is supposed to be my job.”

“Ahem, yes, well,” said another voice, slightly more dignified. “I am sure you will manage somehow, darling.”

“Mom? Dad?” Twilight said, groggy from her unplanned nap and not yet recalling anything but the warmth beside her. “Where were—?” she began to ask when it all came back to her at once. “No wait! Don’t answer that!” she said quickly, hoping to avoid soliciting unnecessary information about her parents’ bedroom activities. “Please don’t answer that.”

“What do you mean, dear?” Her mother coyly asked, pretending not to know what her daughter was talking about. “We were just playing—”

“No!” Twilight shouted, preemptively interrupting her mother while meanwhile doing her best to extricate her wing from under Luna in futile hope that she could still prevent her mother from getting the wrong idea. “No euphemisms! No sly hints! No information whatsoever!”

It was then that more than half a dozen nubile mares and burly stallions came down the stairs after her parents. As a defense mechanism against this new information, Twilight’s brain simply shut off. She fell off the couch and twisted her wing.

“Ow ow ow ow ow…” she repeated over and over as she struggled to right herself in a way that wasn’t painful. Just when she thought she had it, her wing was suddenly released, sending her back to the ground. “Oww.”

The scene was quite baffling to her parents’ ‘guests.’ “Does Princess Sparkle have something against Scrabble?”

Twilight knew that voice. “Herald three?” she asked, poking her head over the back of the sofa. Indeed, the gaggle of ponies that had appeared was comprised of her four pegasus heralds and four unicorn guards. “You guys are still here? Why are you naked?”

“I’m always naked,” said herald one, raising her hoof, and the other heralds nodded. The royal guards, however, looked more embarrassed.

“There was an… incident,” guard two explained. “I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but your father has this… device, and your mother—”

“Long story short, ma’am,” guard four interrupted, “is that our uniforms are in the wash, and I’m afraid that the standard poles will need to be replaced in their entirety.”

Twilight stared blankly at her subordinates, attempting to decide whether or not she wished to scour the last five minutes from her memory. She was sure she could find a spell for it somewhere.

“Whelp,” Twilight said suddenly, shaking Luna awake without letting her eyes off the rest of the ponies in the room. “Get up, Luna. I think it’s time we get going.”

“Snuzzah?” Luna murmured and quickly rose much more elegantly than Twilight had. She stretched and yawned for a moment before taking stock of the situation at hoof. “Twilight, why are your guards na—”

“No idea,” Twilight declared without a shadow of a doubt.

Luna eyed her quizzically, clearly believing Twilight not at all.

“Oh, as long as you are here,” Twilight said, suddenly addressing her heralds. “Why didn’t I get a coronation?”

Herald four was quick with an answer in spite of reaching for a clipboard that wasn’t there. “There was one was scheduled, but we didn’t get enough RSVPs.”

Twilight cocked her head. “How is that possible?”

“I am not certain,” herald four said, shaking her head in exaggerated bemusement. “I received confirmation that all librararchy citizens in the greater ponyville area were sent invitations.”

Twilight buried her face in the back of the couch for a moment. “Herald four,” she said after having recovered. “Please think about what you just said.”

There was a short pause before herald four responded with a thoughtful, “Ah, I see.”

“Twilight?” Luna prompted for explanation.

“There’s only one librararchy establishment in Ponyville,” Twilight said with a groan. “And I haven’t been there to pick up my mail in over a week.”

Luna clearly wanted to respond in some way to this, but was found wanting when it came to actually forming the words.

“Your Majesty?” said one of the other heralds, vying for Twilight’s attention.

Twilight looked over. “Yes, herald one?”

“Did you want the crown and sceptre?” herald one asked, eyes looking up as she attempted to remember something. “I believe they are in a closet downstairs, back at the palace.”

“There’s a scepter?” Twilight said, pinching the bridge of her nose with the crook of her hoof. “Whose idea was—no, nevermind. I don’t want to know. Put them on display down in the lobby or something; throw some gems in with it, and make a nice plaque about the historic crown jewels.”

“Historic, Your Majesty?”

“History has to start sometime.”

☼ ☼ ☼

Celestia felt much better. She was in control of herself once more, and that meant that everything would be fine.

She had no basis for this presumption, but that was the kind of pony she was. Calm. Measured. Trusting. She believed that the nature of a pony was everything—that good would beget good and bad would beget bad. A pony with a more normal life might have called her idealistic, but that was okay. She was the soul of a nation; being idealistic was her job.

It was thus, then, that she had spent the tail end of the night doing things that a good pony did. She took a bath, read a book and ruminated on all of the good things in her life.

At first, she was troubled by how much these things ended up revolving around Twilight. The book was a collection of letters from her erstwhile student, copied when the originals had been needed for Luna’s development. Likewise, her ruminations revolved around better times when the castle had enjoyed the tiny hoofsteps and laughter of a certain lavender filly. As for her bath… she had spent it under the most ostentatiously large skylight the castle had to offer.

These worries, she ignored. Regardless of who they were about, these thoughts were good thoughts. They were simple, happy thoughts; it was a wonderful night, and she went to bed content that everything would be just fine.

✶ ✶ ✶

After finally sending Twilight’s heralds and guards back home, Twilight and Luna found themselves a cloud above Canterlot. The harsh bite of winter was gone, but it was still cold enough that they had the sky all to themselves.

“We never did manage to talk about it,” Luna said, looking out over the city, counting the number of windows that still bore lights. “Even what we did talk about did not go anywhere. I remain unconvinced of anything, save that you were an adorable filly.”

“Too bad,” Twilight said, playfully sticking her tongue out at Luna. “I feel better anyway. Happiness isn’t always about fixing things.”

“I suppose,” Luna offered noncommittally, to Twilight’s disappointment. She guessed it was just one of those things that never made sense until you came up with them yourself.

As it was, Twilight couldn’t muster a whole lot of indignation for the matter, considering that the lights she was looking down on in the city didn’t come from candles. “It is hard not to think about, though,” she admitted.

“Stars in ponies,” Luna said, shaking her head. “It does explain why one bitter, old pony can have the same effect on you as the greatest of mythical beasts, but what does that imply?”

“I don’t know,” Twilight answered, well and truly tired of adding more layers to her presumptions. Still, she refused to accept ignorance. “And you’re right. I’m not okay with that.”

“It never stops, does it?” Luna said, her own thoughts on similar lines. “There is always a new truth.”

Twilight’s lips tightened into a frown. “No, it has to,” she said. “There has to be a beginning, and I know exactly where to look for it. It’s high time we paid a visit to the night at the center of the world and found out what’s going on once and for all.”

“The center?” Luna asked. “I do not think it actually goes that d—”

“Shush, Luna. You’re ruining it.”

Author's Note

● Author's Notes ●

Chapter 12

Sharing the Night: Chapter 12

✶ ✶ ✶

“Are you sure you wish to do this, Twilight?” Luna asked. The two of them once again stood above the Sinkhole of the Royal Pony Sisters, contemplating its depths. This time, they would be going in.

“I’m not afraid,” Twilight said, asserting her mastery over herself to keep her voice steady and calm.

Luna shook her head with a sigh. “I should never have made it sound like you had passed some test,” she mumbled. “It is not about never showing fear or anger, Twilight—you know this. It is about not letting it keep you from being yourself. If you just blindly reject it… it’s just as bad.”

“Okay fine,” Twilight grumbled, begrudgingly admitting her trepidation. “Yes, I am scared; what else can we do, though?”

“We can assemble the elements of harmony,” Luna offered, almost pleading. “We can wait for my sister. We have no idea what is down there save that it wishes to eat you.”

“We have some idea,” Twilight said in her defense—though it was not much of a defense at all. “It’s not an alicorn. Just maybe… maybe what’s left of one.”

Luna frowned. “I am not hearing any reassurances, Twilight.”

“Look, there’s no point in waiting,” she said, shifting uneasily. “We can’t take the other elements down there—they’re more vulnerable than I am—and Celestia… probably wouldn’t be any help anyway. There’s nothing more we can do to prepare without answers, and the answers are down there.”

Luna looked torn as if she were very close to turning around and putting an end to this nonsense. Twilight wouldn’t go down alone… probably. No, no she wouldn’t. If Luna left, Twilight would go with her and put this off another night. Luna wouldn’t leave, though. Somehow, the both of them knew it.

“Very well, Twilight,” Luna said, shaking her head in defeat, “but do not stray from my side. I will keep you safe, I promise.”

✶ ✶ ✶

The night at the heart of the world was not a physical place, but it was a place. Twilight wasn’t sure what she had expected to find at the bottom of a giant hole in the middle of the Everfree forest, but the reality of the matter exceeded all expectations.

The deeper they went, the thicker the magic got until they left all physicality behind. They found themselves entering more than just the stars and darkness they had expected. They found an entire barren world.

Below them stretched a vast desert where sparkling stars piled up in dunes beneath a stark black sky. Here and there, stars speckled the darkness, but not as they did the night above. In this inverted night, the stars in the sky drifted slowly down, a powdery snow settling in the wake of windless flurries that blew across the shining stardust below.

Twilight flapped her wings in place, wary of landing. She was wary of everything. This was the source of the fear she felt every night. This was the source of her nightmares. Beautiful it may have been, but the apprehension and dread—both natural and imposed—were overwhelming. No matter how peaceful and serene it appeared to be on the surface, she couldn’t bring herself to trust anything about it.

The flapping of Twilight’s wings slowly quickened as she looked this way and that, finding only an endless desert of sparkling stars. A rising nervous instinct that she was missing something crawled up her spine only to be suddenly dispelled by a milky white hoof on her shoulder.

Twilight turned to see Luna, a figure of pure moonlight floating calmly in the black void of night sky. She was more concept than pony as she had been during their visit to Emberstoke earlier that night. As she stared into the white figure before her, Twilight’s wings slowed and stopped. Once again, they had found themselves treading where mere ponies could not; wings were only necessary for ponies with bodies.

Once again in control of herself, Twilight swept closer to Luna, gently brushing against the reassuring presence as she looked out over the place they had come to find themselves in. “I don’t even know what to say,” she said, her voice breaking what she only then realized had been utter silence.

Luna pressed up against Twilight, her moonlight soft and comforting. “Stay close,” she said. “You are nearly invisible in this night. I do not want to lose you.”

It took Twilight a moment to realize what Luna meant. Sure enough, when she held her hoof in front of herself, it was little more than stars and magic with nothing but form to separate it from the rest of this place. “I will,” she said, glad this once for Luna’s doting concern.

“Is this it?” Luna asked, searching the horizon for something—anything that would tell them what they were dealing with. “Is the presence that haunts you merely this endless desert of seeming night, lacking form or volition?”

The idea that they might have come here for nothing was bitterly reminiscent of Twilight’s visit to the castle of the royal pony sisters. It seemed like so long ago that she had felt very foolish indeed standing in an empty, frozen hole. Like then, though, she knew there had to be something more to this. She could feel it in her stars.

“No,” Twilight said softly as if she were afraid of waking the presence of this place. “No, these stars have been here for thousands of years. Something changed on the night when you made that hole. Something awoke. Something greater. There’s more to this place than the night that we’re used to.”

“I am sorry about that, you know,” Luna mentioned, veering off of the subject at hoof. “If I had just kept my temper, this would all have been much simpler.”

Twilight sighed and shook her head. “And then what?” she asked rhetorically. “We’d both still be skulking around Ponyville avoiding each other.”

“Perhaps,” Luna admitted, her eyes downcast, “but if I had kept my temper to begin with—on the day you came to see us in Canterlot—everything would have been different. I could have accepted you, and you could have learned about the intricacies of the stars over time; a hundred years ought to have done it without all of this trouble.”

“Could you have accepted me?” Twilight asked, wistfully remembering that day when she and Luna had had two entirely different conversations over coffee. “Or would that have taken a hundred years too? Even if we hadn’t argued, I don’t think we would have been friends. I wish I hadn’t been so selfish that day, but I don’t regret where it’s brought us.”

Luna’s moonlight form leaned into Twilight once again. “You are right, of course. It is strange for me to remember just how upset I was. I was being stubborn, yes, but… it hurt so much to think that I had lost the stars.”

“I never did understand why that changed so suddenly,” Twilight said. She had returned from the umbra only to be greeted by an entirely different Luna. “I wasn’t all there at the time.”

“Would it ruin it if I said that it changed when I began to worry about you?” Luna asked, fully aware of the answer she was going to get, yet addressing the matter directly all the same, as was her manner.

“Oh,” was all Twilight could say. She shrank back a bit though she didn’t mean to.

Luna took a deep breath and held it as she considered carefully what to say next. In one swift motion, she let out the breath and and swept around in front of Twilight to look her in the eyes. “My stars needed me, and I answered.”

The words blindsided Twilight. Her mouth hung open, and she was suddenly occupied with concern for what her starry form might be doing in absence of an ability to blush, because whatever it was, she was surely doing it very, very much. “I… oh, wow,” she stammered. She was working on putting together a reaction that made her sound less like a nervous schoolfilly when her mind went white.

✶ ✶ ✶

“Twilight!” Luna shouted. She suddenly sounded very far away and very frightened. “Twilight!” she shouted again, but the voice was muffled, washed out by countless others.

Twilight was buried in images, sounds, tastes, smells, emotions—lives that weren’t hers. Somehow, in between it all, she put together what must have happened. A flurry of stars had swept over her and Luna while they were preoccupied. The miniscule lights only blinded Luna, but Twilight’s dark form soaked them up like a sponge. Every star that touched her became her.

As quickly as the storm had swept up, it passed, leaving Twilight cradling her head in blessed, beautiful silence. Everything she had absorbed quickly sank into the depths of her being, drowned out by her greater existence, but there was one thing that stuck with her. For every dozen impressions she had of normal, everyday lives, there were several that were just one image: that of a moon that filled the sky like another world.

The first moment Twilight realized something was wrong was when the moon slammed into her. No—wait—that was Luna. Luna’s moonlight figure crashed into her, sweeping her up and enveloping her in its wings and squeezing her with its legs, thrumming in a rhythm as if it were breathing hard.

Twilight let the encompassing moonlight calm her, which didn’t take long. Finally, she took a breath and said, “I’m fine, Luna. It was a shock, but I’m fine.”

Luna squeezed her tighter before, slowly, the cocoon of light opened. “A shock,” she said, seeming to find humor in the statement. “Twilight, I am lucky to have caught you.”

Twilight was confused by the statement until Luna folded her wings and showed her where she was—barely a dozen hooves above the sparkling desert. The pit dropped out of Twilight’s stomach as she realized that she had been falling. If a dusting of stars had left her disoriented, then hitting the desert would have been… bad.

“Let us move away from the endless desert of stars, shall we?” Luna suggested, seemingly attempting to keep the mood light but failing to hide the tremor in her voice.

Twilight swallowed on a knot in her throat and nodded silently into Luna’s chest. The two moved as one for a short time, putting welcome distance between themselves and the dunes below, until Twilight saw something and stopped, pulling away from Luna.

Luna, who had been looking upwards as they rose, was startled by Twilight’s action and turned quickly to face any threat, but all she saw was empty stardust. One dune shifted, spilling a cascade of stars down its slope. Stars and… something else. “Are those… ponies?” Luna asked, aghast.

Twilight nodded silently. Now that they were closer and knew what to look for, the signs of more such shapes filled the desert—and not just ponies. Zebras, donkeys, minotaurs—bodies of all shapes and sizes littered the stardust dunes only to be quickly covered up as windless storms swept over them. Just when Twilight thought she had seen everything, a dune on the horizon disappeared completely into a yawning sinkhole around a shape that was too large and too familiar to be anything but a full-grown dragon.

“Is it some metaphor?” Luna asked, thinking aloud. “We must remember that this is not a real place, almost as if it is—”

“A dream,” Twilight said, finishing the thought in a hurry as she watched one of the buried figures dissolve into stardust.

Luna tightened her lips and nodded. “Look, you can see them breathing. They are asleep. Dreamers, then. This… undernight—it must be the land of dreams.”

“But that doesn’t make sense,” Twilight said, pressing a hoof against her head as she tried to work through the logic of it. “Ponies—there are stars in ponies—but the rest? The stars have no connection to any other races. I checked!”

“Then it is not the presence of the stars in them that is wholly responsible,” Luna reasoned.

Twilight quickly looked up at Luna. “Didn’t you say that the original Nightmare Moon was an alicorn also in charge of dreams?” she asked in a hurry.

“One of two,” Luna confirmed, even and measured. She saw where Twilight was going, but wasn’t quick to accept it. “I said before, however, that they were not alicorns, nor were they real.”

“But when you said that we didn’t know for sure that there were alicorns back then,” Twilight said, the pieces falling into place. “Now we do. They have to have been real. What were their names? Their actual names?” she asked, recalling that Luna had said that the original ‘Nightmare Moon’ had referred to the dark side of the moon.

Luna closed her eyes and gave her head one stiff shake. “Lost, I am afraid. Like the story you read of my own rebellion, no names were used.”

“Lost,” hissed the stardust dunes below. “Lost,” echoed the void above.

“Oh,” Twilight remarked flatly as the world around them began to stir. “Well, that works, I guess.” She watched the dunes of stars carefully, expecting them to pull themselves together into form much as Emberstoke had. What actually happened was much… stranger.

It was not just the stardust that lurched into shape but the black of night that also pushed down into it. Together the two swirled into a bedraggled-looking figure. “We are lost,” it mumbled as stars spilled off its crown like a mane of shining pearls.

“Everything we are—everything we were—gone like sand in an hourglass,” it continued, pulling each leg out of the stardust in turn. It shook stars off its body like water only for them to coalesce slowly into a limpid tail.

It was a pony. The shape was a pony the size of… a pony—or an alicorn at least, but still, Twilight was almost disappointed. “We?” She asked, swooping a little closer to get a better look.

Though the starpony was, in essence, much like Twilight in that it was a pony made of stars, the two could not have looked more different. Where Twilight’s body of stars was like a cutout of the night sky itself, this creature looked more like a ragged void crusted with them. It looked almost pitiful, Twilight thought, though it didn’t pass her notice that the clumps of stars that littered its form seemed solid in a way which she had failed to reproduce. Twilight was caught up in trying to divine what made the two of them so different when the pony’s heads suddenly snapped to look at her and she jumped.

Heads. Plural. The starpony had two heads, and when they spoke, they were slightly out of sync. “We are lost,” they repeated. This time it sounded like a plea for help. “Where are we?”

Twilight peeked out from her sudden new position on the other side of Luna to address the starpony. “You… don’t know?”

The starpony—starponies?—stared blankly back and did not answer.

Twilight looked to Luna for support, but she had little to provide except for a shapely flank to hide behind, and Twilight had absolutely not just thought that in the middle of this sort of situation.

“Right,” she said, gazing down at the twin-headed starpony as she made a point of floating around Luna back into the starpony’s view. “I’m Twilight Sparkle,” she said, forcing an artificial friendliness in the face of her natural fear. “Who are—” she began to ask, but quickly reconsidered her wording. “What can I call you?”

“Call us?” they asked in surprise as if this question had not occurred to them. They twisted in distress as they tried to reason it out. “We are the fate of night, the dream of death. What would you call us?”

“Well that’s… encouraging,” Twilight said under her breath—lying through her teeth. “I uhh.” She hesitated, not used to being put on the spot to name dead gods. She floated there for a moment, her mouth hanging open as she tried to fill it. In retrospect, it was actually quite simple; all doubt fled her when she realized that there could only be one answer. “Gemini,” she said, hearing it from her mouth the same instant it came to mind.

“Gemini…” they repeated, a look of surprise on their faces as if they, too, thought it was obvious. The truth, however, turned out to be quite the opposite. “This word means nothing to us,” they stated, smiling in apparent relief. “Thank goodness.”

“Is that how it works?” Luna whispered in question over Twilight’s withers. Twilight did her best to surreptitiously shake her off without drawing Gemini’s notice. If Gemini noticed Twilight’s ear flicking as if in response to a persistent fly, there was no indication.

“You are the thousand fires in the sky that haunt our dreams,” Gemini declared as it stepped up into the sky to face Twilight and Luna properly. Twilight locked her knees to force herself to stand her ground, an act that was sadly irrelevant and ineffectual as she floated above the surface of the stardust desert. Luna’s hoof on her back, though… that helped.

“And you… you’re the maw at the heart of the world that haunts my dreams,” Twilight retorted, keeping a stiff upper lip. “We’re just here to talk,” she said, mostly maintaining her calm. “About that,” she added hastily. “And, you know, everything, really. How much do you… remember?”

Gemini’s advance jerked to a halt and it reached one star-crusted hoof to one face. “Alicorns,” they said. “We were alicorns. Gods among ponies, until—oh no… I am sorry, Fati. I never wanted this. I never wanted to hurt you.”

“I knew it,” Twilight whispered softly, making quiet note of the starponies’ lamentations. “When the stars fell, ponies knew what they were. You knew what they were, so you remember what you are. But I don’t understand. You were two different ponies? You were both of the alicorns of the night?”

Slowly, Gemini’s other forehoof joined the first, cradling one head while the other hung limp. “Yes, the night,” they said. “Dreams and nightmares, two sides of the same coin. That was… how it was supposed to be, not this.” They looked down at their hooves, sparkling as stars fell away like sand. “Anything but this.”

Twilight wasn’t sure she quite understood that… but it didn’t matter. She took a deep breath and braced herself for what she was about to do. She glanced over at Luna and said, “Now, please don’t be alarmed, but Luna and I… We’re also alicorns of the night. You and us, we’re the same. The same two ponies, separated by death. That’s why we fear each other—but there’s no need to be afraid.”

Luna frowned, earning a quick glance from Twilight. It wasn’t unexpected, as this hadn’t exactly been in the plans. “Twilight,” she hissed quietly. “What are you—”

Twilight silenced Luna with a gentle hoof and stepped closer through the void black sky to approach Gemini. “You and I… we’re too big to just eat each other. That’s not an option, but we were once the same pony. We can be again. I want to remember my life.”

“Twilight!” Luna shouted in alarm. She quickly darted forward to grab Twilight bodily. “No! I—I forbid it! That is not what we came down here for!”

Twilight didn’t resist Luna’s hooves. She simply let out a breath and leaned into her then looked to Gemini for an answer.

Gemini looked poleaxed. They pulled their hooves away from the head they were cradling and looked at them. “I don’t understand. You claim to be… us?”

Twilight gave Luna a gentle nuzzle of reassurance and pulled herself away to approach even closer to Gemini. “Like I said before. I’m Twilight Sparkle, the stars in the sky,” she said, spreading her starry wings in display. “And that’s Luna,” she said with another glance back at the alicorn whose scowl was most assuredly not making her happy tonight. “The moon.”

“Luma?” Gemini asked, confusion writ on her face. “No,” they said through ragged breaths as they wrapped their forelegs over their ears. “No, you have it all wrong. That’s not how it is. You’re wrong.”

Twilight’s hackles rose automatically at being told she was wrong. She frowned and took another step forward, hoping to comfort Gemini, but stopped when there was a sudden jerk of motion from them. A jagged amalgamation of stars had come loose from Gemini’s back. They held it in front of themselves, staring at it.

“Stars?” Gemini said as if seeing them for the first time. “Is that what you call these shattered sparks of dreams and fate?”

Twilight halted, her outstretched hoof nearly to Gemini’s shoulder. Shattered. The word pierced her and pinned her down. “Y-yes, of course,” she said nervously, tilting her head in puzzlement. “If not ‘stars,’ then what did you call them? Surely they were one of you, once? As long as they’re split between the two of us… every night will be a nightmare.”

“Wrong wrong wrong wrong,” Gemini repeated, clutching the clump of stars to their chest and began to sob. “They are our shame—ignominy worthy of utmost contempt—like that abomination of a moon behind you!”

Shame. Ignominy. Contempt. These were not words that Twilight was used to having directed at her. Indignation welled up in her, but her breath caught in her throat as she tried to voice it.

If she said or did the slightest thing wrong, she might never know the truth. She had to know the truth.

Her need was not scholarly. If she could have chosen ignorance in this, she would have, gladly and guiltily. It was too late for that, though. Too much had happened; too many questions needed answers.

Even that was a comfortable half-truth, really. There was only one question in her mind—one fear that she had held on to ever since she had confessed it to Luna in a dimly lit library.

The fear that there might be something fundamentally wrong with her.

The fear that she might be… broken.

A fear that Gemini's words were doing nothing to calm.

The moment stretched on as Twilight waited for Gemini to say something, anything more. They just stood there, though, clutching the stars to their chest and crying, and it wasn’t long before Twilight realized that the light seemed to be going out of them—literally. All of the stars in Gemini’s body were collecting in their chest, leaving behind a hazy shape of black void.

With a sharp motion, Gemini pulled, and the stars came out of their chest. They held the brittle, jagged mess before themselves, looking at it like it was something precious, spoilt and blighted. “This is not our fate,” they whispered. “This is neither idyllic dream, nor sibyllic nightmare.”

With Twilight hesitant and Luna fuming unhappily several paces back, neither of them were able to react when Gemini suddenly swung the amalgamation of stars above their heads as one long, uneven shard.

“If you want them, ‘star’ goddess, then you can have them!” they yelled and plunged the splinter of stars into Twilight’s chest.

“Twilight!” Luna cried out, but she was too late to do anything. Visions of a thousand lives lanced through her mind, and she was only vaguely aware as Gemini lifted Twilight up with the splinter of stars and threw her down into the stardust below along with it. Without so much as a scream, Twilight disappeared beneath the surface where Luna could not follow.

The last thing Twilight saw was Luna reaching out a hoof with tears on her face as the starless black figure came at her from behind.

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight was drowning in dreams. Dreams of running. Dreams of flying. Dreams of falling. Countless others flowed around her, through her, into her, but these are the dreams that stood out to her—the ones she had a connection to.

Applejack was running. At first, she thought she was following something, but it never stopped, never tired, never looked back to her. Soon, she realized that she wasn’t following it; she was chasing it. It raced ahead, always disappearing around the next bend. Finally, she found that she had lost sight of it, so she searched, running through a maze she’d normally avoid. Her running slackened, slowed and stopped. She had forgotten why she was running.

Spike was flying. Having finally grown into his own wings, he soared high above Equestria. All around him, the land stretched out open, but empty. He was free to fly wherever he wished, but the only place he wished for was home.

Fluttershy was falling. Cloudsdale shrank away into the sky above her as she drifted back home to her small cottage of peacefulness and serenity, back to the calm hills and breezy meadows and her little animal friends, back where she was content and had everything she wanted. Everything she wanted and nopony to tell her otherwise.

Pinkie Pie was baking. She was baking cupcakes. Tasty cupcakes. Mmm, frosting… Oh, oh. Twilight did not need to know that about her friend. Well, whatever made Pinkie Pie happy… was still too much information.

Rainbow Dash was running. She had someone to meet, but her hooves were just too slow. She was just too slow. She used to think she was the fastest, the biggest, the best—but there was faster, bigger, better. Time was running out. She was going to be late, so she ran.

Rarity was flying. Higher and higher she flew, and as she flew, a city shot up around her. She flew, and the city followed until the both of them touched the sky itself. She looked around with pride at her accomplishment, but the city was her only audience.

Celestia was falling. She sank silently into a deep pit, her wings wrapped around another figure so tightly that its identity was a mystery. As she fell, no wind pulled at her mane, and no noise filled her ears. She had wrapped herself up in cozy contentedness, all the while unaware of her plight.

These were the dreams of her friends? She felt a stab of guilt; they were closer to nightmares. They were all so similar, though. Were these truly their dreams, or had they come ultimately from her? She was the one flying, falling and running. What did it really mean to be the alicorn of dreams?

As if in answer, she saw a giant moon hanging heavy in the sky, laden with the memories of countless lifetimes. Unlike the dreams, these did not engulf Twilight. They pressed down on her, dense and suffocating. It was a grand irony indeed that the very memories which would have allowed her to deal with the deluge of thought were the very memories that she needed to contain.

No, not irony. Fortune. The memories were there for the taking—they were her only chance. Sure, they were the size of a very large moon, but she would just have to deal with that. It was up to her to reach out and embrace them as she had intended to in the first place.

So she did.

✶ ✶ ✶

Time stretched out before Twilight like a road well traveled. She couldn’t see the beginning of it; events of a seemingly endless past disappeared over a horizon of time and memory that would take lifetimes to reach.

There was too much. The number of possibilities before her now were as paralyzing to her as the whole of them had been crippling. She might have gotten lost in them then and there if she hadn’t had a purpose rooted in the pursuit of knowledge.

She hung onto that idea like it was an old friend leading the way. Before there was magic, before there were stars, Twilight had buried herself in books. It was books that had shown her magic—books that had shown her the stars.

Books had never betrayed her.

Oh, they could be used to lie, certainly—as Luna had said, any medium could be used to lie—but books said what they said to all who read them, without appeal or remorse.

The past, then, had to be her library, a library that would be open to her soon enough if she could only first understand the catalogue. She needed to know how to sift through and find what she needed, and then she would… leave.

She would leave, she reminded herself. What she needed was an exit. That was what she was looking for. It just so happened that she was going to have to explore the library for it.

Ironically, it was Celestia’s own words that came back to taunt and tempt her.

“As an alicorn, your past will always be finite—your future, infinite,” she had said, back when they had first talked about immortality.

Twilight could read them all. She could. She could see how the world had begun. Countless eras of forgotten history lay at her hooftips; all it would take was time, and time she had in abundance.

Except she didn’t. The time she had was unique. It was her own, and it had her friends, her parents—her life. Even Spike would eventually age, grow and go to sleep. Trading all of that for an equal amount of the past would be a losing proposition.

Luna, though, Luna would still be there when she returned. She and Celestia would always be there for her even if Twilight let herself go and fell into an archive binge to end all archive binges. It would almost be enough consolation… almost.

But no, not tonight. Possibly not ever.

Twilight gazed forlornly back to the beginning of time as memory marked it. Four fillies flocked and played, living simple lives and sharing simple joys. Those days would certainly hold the answers Twilight needed. As her predecessor had learned of dreams and memories, so could she, but it was too dangerous. If she looked back that far, it would always be one more year, one more decade until she stopped.

Tearing her eyes away from the distant past, she chose instead something much more recent, much more vital. It pained the bibliophile in her to do so, but it was necessary—she directed her attention to the last page, the end of the story. Surely there would be something to help her in the days when the previous alicorns were at the height of their power, and perhaps… perhaps she would also get the answers for which she had braved the depths of Equestria in the first place.

It was not with any great amount of control that Twilight flung herself back into the past. If it had been, she could have simply remembered what she needed to remember. Instead, as it always is with memory, it was the emotional, rather than the most informative which came to her first. Still, one would lead to the next, and eventually she would have her answers.

● ✶ ○

Twilight remembered a palace of white upon white. The feeling of the floor under her hooves was like silk layered several hooves thick; it was solid, but completely swallowed all sound and shock. It was cloud, she remembered. Cloud crafted by the finest artisans that ponykind had to offer, the likes of which Equestria had not seen since.

She could see them in her mind’s eye; dun brown ponies lined up in form and dressed all in white, working the cloud, laboriously folding, smoothing and polishing it until it was luminescent enough for divinity’s hoof and solid enough for those less divine.

The memory swam as Twilight tried to shake her head. She was getting distracted. The memories were… thick. They didn’t come to her easily and seemed to contradict each other in turn. She remembered being on a balcony looking down at her sister. She remembered being down in the courtyard, looking up at the same.

“It is profane!” the her from down in the courtyard shouted. She was an alicorn taller than Celestia—or rather, taller than Nightmare Moon, for with her rich violet coat and new moon cutie mark, she was clearly of the night. Far from the fearsome visage of the self-styled queen, however, the inky black mane of the alicorn in the courtyard framed gentle eyes twisted in distress. “Why can’t you see how wrong it is?”

“Well, I think it’s beautiful,” the alicorn on the balcony said with a long, dreamy sigh. Her midnight blue coat outlined a form whose posture was less confrontational than that of her sister in the courtyard, and her auroral mane gave her an almost wispy look as she leaned out over the hoofrail.

“It’s the purest expression of love, don’t you think?” she continued to say, clearly living in a very different world than her sister. “Two eternal souls become one—how can you not see the wonder? Afternoon tea with Luma… flying with Vita… I’ll miss it, but we’ve been doing that forever. Literally forever. It’ll be a grand thing to have a new sister after all these years.”

“That thing is not my sister!” the figure in the courtyard shouted. She spread her wings wide and leapt up to the balcony with one strong flap to perch above her sister on the hoofrail. “Luma, the light of day,” she said stepping down onto the balcony proper and stalking around her sister. “Vita, the fire of life,” she continued as her sister rolled her eyes and got a hoof in the chest for it. “Somni, the dream of night,” she recited with a huff.

“And Fati, the fate of death,” the other alicorn droned in conclusion, giving her sister’s long violet horn a flick with her hoof. “Yes, it got old, didn’t it?”

“It was right!” Fati shouted, stomping her hooves on the balcony with an unsatisfying thump as she tried to put her feelings into words. “It was fate. That thing? It scares me, Somni, down to my bones.”

“Oh please,” Somni said, throwing a hoof over the balcony as she looked up into the late afternoon sky where hung their new sister. “Spare me your fate talk. You have no imagination. Not every future has to be a nightmare.”

“Well excuse me for guarding the gates of death itself and turning back those I am able,” she said, fuming as she rubbed her horn where Somni had struck it. “It’s not like that’s important or anything.”

“Say what you will,” Somni said, taunting her sister with a theatric shrug without looking away from the sun in the sky. “But for all you ‘guard’ the gate, you’ve still never poked your head through it. You’re as blind as the rest of us; we’ll never see the other side, and I, for one, am glad for it.”

“You do know that there isn’t an actual gate, right?” Fati asked with a flat sourness in her voice. “Look, I don’t need to see beyond this life to know that this imbalance cannot stand!”

“Oh, it’s about balance now, is it?” Somni asked, turning to look at her with a devious smile. “Well then,” she said, slinking a viridian-tipped wing over her sister’s shoulders and giving her a look that was anything but sisterly. “Why don’t you and I make it balanced, then?”

“You—you—” Fati’s face instantly colored; her mouth hung open, empty of retort. Eventually she managed to snap her jaw shut, and it was through clenched teeth that the wordless sound of her frustration echoed through the palace. “You are impossible!” she finally managed as Somni collapsed into laughter at her reaction.

Seeing that she would get no sympathy from her sister, Fati gave up and stormed off, leaving Somni lying there.

Somni’s laughter petered out into a melancholy smile as she watched her sister go. She was fun to tease, and Somni doubted that she would ever grow tired of it.

If only Fati had known that in her heart, she had not entirely been joking.

✶ ✶ ✶

Utopia. That was the name of the palace-city in the clouds where the four alicorns had lived since time immemorial. It was not fictional, Twilight realized, and she was more glad than ever that her own nation no longer resembled it even in name.

It was an awe-inspiring sight: that much was fact. It was a shining white pony-made mountain in the sky, its pearlescent tower-dotted peaks going on for miles and miles. In fact, it was so great that if one were to stand in the center of it, the city had its own horizon in every direction. It was as if the surface below did not exist—and there began the problems.

Utopia was not a city of any nation, and the alicorns therein suffered no titles given to them by ponies. They were simply gods, and they did as gods do—which is to say, whatever they wished. They did not consider this right or wrong; it was simply the way of things.

The city was, at its heart, an extended palace. All ponies in Utopia, from the greatest leader to the lowest foal, served the alicorns and kept it immaculate from end to end lest the eyes of the goddesses fall on anything unworthy. This was their duty, and it went far beyond simply keeping the streets clean. Their role in life, above all others, was to live beautifully.

Beauty, however, is ever in the eye of the beholder, and the owners of the walled garden that was Utopia had eyes that looked upon their subjects from high above. Raised in a society that rejected personal possessions, personal choice, even personal volition, it had long become a fact that the ponies of Utopia traded in the only thing they had: each other.

When truth became legend and legend, fiction, history would look back on the idea and call it many things—slavery, subjugation, servitude—and in their own ways each one was true. Wanton tales of decadent daylight debauchery, however, were not.

A pony of Utopia could own another in every way that mattered, it was true, yet no claim superseded that of the goddesses. There were no laws to bind what one pony could do to another, save that all was carried out as befitted this, the greatest city in all the land. It was simple, and, if one were an omniscient goddess, it worked perfectly.

The dragons of the world below disagreed. In fact, the two races seemed to go out of their way to be contrary to each other. Let the alicorns have their solitary city in the sky, they said. We shall build a multitude of empires across the lands. Let them reject all but their own kind; we shall rule all the races of the world—equines included. Let them rule by whim and absence; we shall have law.

The dragon empires dwarfed the city of Utopia. Utopia, in turn, ignored them utterly. So it had been for longer than even gods and monsters remembered, and so it was… until the day that four alicorns became three and the first dragon ambassador showed up at the gates of their great haven.

● ● ●

The dragon ambassador was, rather ironically, or perhaps in fact appropriately, not a dragon at all. As it went, he turned out to be a pony, but that was where any similarity to the fine citizens of Utopia ended.

He walked through the white on white streets of Utopia clad in red silks trimmed with gold and jewels as if he were an emperor himself—a useless bit of trivia as the ponies of Utopia had never actually seen an emperor, nor did they know what one dressed like. His coat was rough and bleached and his straw-colored mane long enough to raise eyebrows.

To say that outsiders were rare in Utopia would have belied the point. Utopia didn't have outsiders. The city was built to be impenetrable to outside culture as one below might be proof against siege. There were ‘imports,’ as they called them, but they were just that—hardly more than cargo. No pony of speaking age ever entered the city of the gods.

Until now.

So baffled were the ponies by this gruff stallion who had arrived outside of the lofty city on dragonback that glorious Fati herself had come down and see to the matter herself. Standing easily three times taller than her guest, she led the ambassador through the city, a sharp contrast to his gaudy adornment in all her naked glory.

The ambassador seemed to take this in stride, clearly used to beings much larger, greater and less-dressed than him. This made his countenance unique amongst the ponies on the streets of Utopia; in fact, rather than the goddess leading him giving him pause, it was his fellow ponies that surprised him.

Specifically, it had caught him unawares to realize that there were any other ponies on the street.

That was the point, of course. The alicorn-sized street was, as everything else in Utopia, white on white. The ponies in their white cloaks bowed their heads low, lined the streets in servility and would remain so until the goddess was out of sight. It was a small child whose curiosity had gotten the best of her and lifted her head. The ambassador was so startled that he ended up on his rump with his hooved raised before himself defensively.

Fati, one of the four goddesses of ponykind… stopped walking to see what was holding him up. Shocked whispers echoed through the prostrate crowd.

“Is something the matter, ambassador…?” she asked, barely tilting her head to bring him into view. “What did you say your name was?”

“Couscous,” he said, staring up into the eyes of the goddess of death. He quickly caught himself, shook his head and got to his hooves, hurrying on so as not to delay things any further. “Ambassador Couscous, Your Exalted Majesty.”

“And what does an ambassador do?” Fati asked without looking at him. “Other than invent useless titles for those whose station is clear for all to see,” she clarified.

Ambassador Couscous paled at having insulted her so quickly. “Apologies, Your—ahh—that is to say, what is the correct manner of address for one such as yourself?”

Now, the goddess turned her head all the way to look at him directly. “Fati. My name is Fati. I am the fate of death. You may add any honest aggrandizement you wish, such as ‘grand’ or, yes, ‘exalted’ will do, but you will use my name when speaking to me.”

“Honest, eh?” the ambassador said, rubbing his chin in thought. It was a credit to his gracefulness that he made the action look natural in spite of their continued walking. “Very well… Fati,” he said, a slight smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.

Again, the backlash from the crowd was a palpable unease in the air, but Fati simply grinned. “I like you,” she said, though her grin looked more like a baring of teeth. Quickly enough, though, her expression disappeared back into cold neutrality. “Answer my question.”

Straightening himself out, Ambassador Couscous added a bit of dignity to his step as he did his best to word his answer. “Very well. An ambassador such as myself is sent to another nation in order to represent their home nation, maintain friendly relations and encourage awareness of a more global scale.”

Fati looked up and inwardly cursed the heavens—literally. The things her sisters put her through. “In other words,” she said, cutting to the quick of the matter, “you wish to know about the sun.”

“It has recently come to our attention that there are a great many things about your fine city which are a mystery to us in the empires,” Ambassador Couscous said, tempering the subject. “But yes, it has been day for… days, and that thing, you called it a ‘sun?’” he said with a frown. “Most unnatural.”

Fati froze in place, clenching her jaw as, this time, the crowd remained silent as death. She sucked in a breath and let it out in a sigh. “This is why we cannot have nice things,” she mumbled to herself as the street grew bright with power.

“You dare,” spoke the sun, and the city trembled. “You dare,” it repeated and stepped out of the sky into the streets of Utopia like a vengeful goddess or a mare scorned, for she was both. “I am Solaria. I am the sun.”

Fati cringed at the hostility in her sister’s voice. Solaria was not like the sweet, lovesick Luma or the gruff, bashful Vita which she had known for thousands of years. The pieces were there, but the whole was… different, and Fati did not think it an improvement.

At more than three ponies tall, Fati was not a small goddess by any means, but Solaria was half again taller still. With her coat of burnished gold and her mane a living flame lined in the colors of the rainbow, she was every part of her a goddess among goddesses, though it was Fati’s opinion that Luma was underrepresented. That was Luma, though, mellow and forgiving to a fault.

Solaria’s prominent appearance was only exacerbated by Fati, who highlighted the disparity by sinking down to the ground where she had been standing. She hung her head in quiet melancholy, accepting of the inevitable outcome, yet unwilling to watch the proceedings.

Ambassador Couscous pressed himself against the street as well, but he out of abject submission rather than sadness. It was too little, far too late, however. Solaria towered over him with eyes of fury and wrath. “My sun adorns the sky in celebration of my divine unity—and it will do so until my sisters and I say otherwise.”

“Of c-course, Your Most Holy Majesty,” the cowering Ambassador stuttered. “Forgive me, for I meant no disrespect.”

“A pony who cannot even speak my name deserves no forgiveness,” Solaria said coldly, lifting her hoof. “I am the light of day,” she recited as her hoof covered his chest. “I am the fire of life. For your ingratitude of these gifts, you shall have neither.”

Solaria lifted her hoof, and with it came a ball of light and fire not unlike the one in the sky. She stood there, holding it for the ambassador to see and comprehend before she stomped it against the ground in a shower of motes and sparks. The crowd watched on, nodding to each other in approval.

The effect was immediate. His mouth hanging open in bewilderment, Ambassador Couscous found himself growing weak in the knees. He looked up at Solaria, whose face reflected back only disgust, and slumped over onto the soft white street with hardly a sound. He watched the tiny dots of light drift up into the sky alongside those of the sun goddess herself as his vision faded and darkened.

With Solaria gone, Fati took a breath to prepare herself, stood and turned to look at the wretched creature behind her. His skin was visibly pale under his coat, and he was slowly curling up into a ball, shivering. She walked quietly over to him and bent her head down to calm him.

Ambassador Couscous started at the sensation and looked up at Fati with dull eyes. “Will I die?” was all he could think to ask.

“You might wish to,” Fati said, shutting her own eyes in empathy. “Without light, you will be forever blind. Without fire, you will be forever cold. Without life, you will be forever on the threshold of the gates I guard. I shall see to it that you make it home, as is my duty, but take care not to get ill thereafter. It will be the most ignominious death you can imagine.”

Ambassador Couscous let out a breath as if it were all he had left in him. “Then I shall die. The empires do not care for the weak and helpless.”

“Yes, I imagine you shall,” Fati said without emotion. “Will you face your fate with the dignity of your station?”

Ambassador Couscous swallowed, tightened his lips and nodded. “I will,” he said before his brow knotted. “How did you—”

“You may not know us,” Fati said, matter-of-factly, “nor Solaria and our ponies you, but it is my sister Somni that dreams your dreams for you that you might know wish and want. It is I who give birth to the nightmares that warn you to you temper them with wisdom and respect. We do this not just for our ponies here but all the creatures of the world large and small.”

“I had no idea,” he said in awe, and it was as if she had given him a light in the darkness. Tears came to his dead eyes. “Thank you—truly—for everything that you have done.”

“It is my duty,” Fati stated simply, “but I appreciate your gratitude nonetheless. It is… novel.”

Ambassador Couscous’ breathing evened out into labored contentedness, and Fati was about to leave him to the ministrations of her ponies when he spoke up one last time.

“I never got to ask,” he said, craning his neck to look blindly at her. “You said you were the fate of death… What are the other fates?”

“There are no other fates, my little pony.”

● ● ●

Solaria was waiting for Fati by the time she had arranged everything and returned to the palace. Somni was there too, but she was already asleep with her head curled up against Solaria’s chest. Though the sun was high in the sky, it would normally have been night at the moment, and ponies needed their dreams.

“Thank you for sending him off,” Solaria said, twisting Somni’s auroral mane around her golden hoof. “The empires will get their answer, and I do not think they shall send a replacement.”

Fati stopped just inside the entryway to take in Solaria’s gratitude. She shook her head and walked over to curl up on the other side of Somni. “He will die, you know,” she mumbled.

“I don’t,” Solaria said, sounding as if she took pride in the fact. “That is their business and no concern of mine. Was I out of line?”

“…No,” Fati begrudgingly admitted. There was no answer more appropriate than the one that had been hoofed down, but she was still upset that it had happened. She bit her lip in an attempt to keep her watering eyes from turning to tears, not to hide them from Solaria, but knowing that if she started, she might not stop until she had cried herself to sleep. “But you would know the consequences for yourself if you watched them. You fill the sky, you fill their hearts, you just don’t look.”

“I don’t see how you can,” Solaria said, looking down at Somni and brushing her down the flank. “Even after all these years, you love each and every one of them, don’t you?”

Fati swallowed, wiped her eyes dry with her fetlock and melted back down into the silken pillows underneath her. “I do,” she said, listlessly lying there as the day caught up to her, weighing down on her body like being buried in so much sand. “It is—”

“Your duty, I know,” Solaria said softly, sounding uncharacteristically sad as she closed her eyes. It was almost like old times, talking with Luma as she comforted an exhausted Vita.

Lying there and watching them, Fati couldn’t help but feel a little contrite on top of her trials of the day. Maybe her sisters weren’t buried so deep in Solaria as she had thought.

As she drifted off to sleep, something bothered Fati about watching Solaria with Somni in her lap, but she couldn’t think what. She eventually decided that it couldn’t be that important and let the darkness take her. Ponies needed nightmares too, whether they appreciated them or not.

“If only you’d give your love to the one that deserves it,” Solaria whispered quietly as she bent over and kissed Somni on the crown of her head.

● ● ●

It was several days of day later when Solaria was finally ready to set her sun for what would be the first time ever. The three sisters had gathered on a western balcony to commemorate the event.

“It didn’t bother you, did it?” Solaria asked, almost doting. “Going so long without night?” she clarified.

Ever since their conversation several non-days ago, Solaria had been downright pleasant. Fati was almost ready to write the frightening Solaria off as a fluke, though the imbalance of it all still bothered her. She seemed to be the only one, though, so she kept it to herself. Besides, it wasn’t as if there was anything that could be done about it anyway.

Still, the cloudsmiths were working overtime to redesign everything in the city to fit their magnified goddess, and Fati had seen some of the new architecture. It made her feel… uncomfortably small.

“No, of course not,” Fati said, shaking her head. Her eyes fixed on the golden-red horizon which three shapes shared in honor of this first sunset. She, of course, only had eyes for the black disc that was her moon—the Nightmare Moon. “It’s been eerie actually seeing it against the daylight sky, though,” she said. “Did you know, most ponies didn’t even believe it existed?”

“It’s not right,” Somni said with a huff, hanging onto her side like a willow. “You care so much, and they barely acknowledge you as more than a boogeymare.” Her own moon—the bright white dreaming moon—flanked the sun on its opposite side. It seemed a bit dim, though anything would next to the combined fire and light of the sun. Mortal ponies couldn’t even look at the new celestial object, meaning that this whole display was lost on them, but the three sisters were fine with that.

Fati gave a dry chuckle. “It’s fine,” she said, squeezing Somni with her indigo-tipped wing. “It’s always been considered an ill omen when I raise it in twilight; being visible against the day has only brought our little ponies more nightmares.”

○ ○ ○

Somni shivered against the chill of the evening wind as she watched Fati leave to attend to matters of state. She shivered again for a different reason when Solaria took Fati’s place, drying her tears with a warm glow of goldenrod magic. Solaria was just about to wrap a wing around her when Somni shook her off.

“Don’t. Please,” she said. They were two little words that took all of her willpower to say. She wanted so very much not to say them, but she had to. She knew what happened when she didn’t. As far as her moon was concerned, an alicorn was an alicorn, and Solaria was now more alicorn than ever, but Fati was right. Solaria was not the sisters she knew, and she most definitely wasn’t the sister whose wing she wanted over her withers.

“She doesn’t love you,” Solaria said. Her voice was warm and kind, but the words were not.

“I know,” Somni said with equal warmth, staring up at the empty black sky. Empty save for her it seemed, but Fati was up there. Not even Solaria could pinpoint their sister, but Somni could. Somni alone could see and feel her sister in the sky, and to her everlasting shame… she liked it like that.

“Your love is wasted,” Solaria insisted, no longer sounding quite so kind as she reached for Somni once again.

“Love is never wasted,” Somni retorted with all the venom she could muster as she warned Solaria off with a nasty glare. She waited for Solaria to back off before taking her eyes off of her. “I’ve waited ten thousand years; I can wait ten thousand more,” she said with a smile. “It’s good to have a dream.”

Solaria glared back, tense and tight-lipped. If Somni didn’t know better, she would have said that Solaria looked conflicted. “You mean that,” she finally decided. “You would wait that long.”

“I would,” Somni said, glancing up at the black moon in the sky with a wistful look that ended with her chewing her lip in a smirk. “I can always tease her in the meantime.”

Solaria didn’t respond to that, which was fine with Somni. No matter how else she had changed, Solaria still knew what it was to love. When Somni turned back to face her, however, she found herself looking at the great golden alicorn’s back.

Somni’s brow furrowed as she tried to puzzle out the reaction. It looked almost like she was chuckling to herself, but something wasn’t quite right with her posture.

“Are you… crying?” Somni asked, unable to believe it.

“No,” Solaria said, though her statement was belied by her hoarse voice.

She was crying. Her back still turned, Solaria sank onto her her rump and tucked her head between her knees, though she remained eerily silent.

It was impossible for Somni to reconcile. Vita never cried. Luma was melancholy at worst. Solaria… Solaria of all ponies? Somni didn’t believe she was even capable of it. The only crybaby in the family was Fati.

Somni blinked as she made a tentative connection. Fati? Of course. Suddenly it all made sense. She didn’t want to believe it, but Solaria had taken advantage of her weakness before. A cold fury filled her, shriveling her natural compassion like a rose in winter.

“You contemptible pony,” Somni snarled with quiet rancor. “Don’t even try to pretend that you feel half of what she does. She has the most beautiful, caring soul I have ever seen, and for you to try and use that to—to what?” she said, her lips quivering in rage as she stomped closer. “What is it you want from me? Why can’t you take a hint? The ponies that you used to be were so full of love… What happened to you? What made you such a—a monster?”

Solaria twisted to face Somni and stumbled back, her face wracked with confusion and fear as if she didn’t know what was going on, let alone what Somni was talking about. She worked her jaw as if to say something, but had no words.

Suddenly Somni got the sickening feeling that she had been mistaken. She backed off and really looked at the mess of an alicorn before her.

“Damn it, Solaria,” she cursed, completely baffled, “explain this to me because I have no idea if you’re serious or not, and I don’t trust you right now.”

Solaria looked at Somni, licked her lips and took several breaths through her mouth, looking like she wanted very much to run away, but couldn’t bring herself to. Finally, she tightened her lips, dropped her head and took her breath to calm herself. Oddly, a faint smile crept onto her face.

“I despise you,” she admitted softly, but her voice didn’t stay soft for long. Her head rose to look Somni straight in the eye with an expression full of… relief. Relief in finally being able to tell the truth. “It hurts to look at you. I want to tear that loving smile off your face.”

Somni stepped back, appalled that she could say such a thing. “W-why?” she asked. The sisters had had arguments in the past, but the sheer hate in Solaria’s voice went beyond that. “Why, Solaria? What did I ever do to you?”

“I don’t know what I expected,” Solaria said, unable to keep her rough voice steady. “But I didn’t get it. I guess I thought there would be some sense of completeness,” she said, just expressing whatever came to mind. “Eternal happiness with the one I love, was that too much to ask for? Was I too naïve?”

Somni covered her mouth with her hooves. “You regret it,” she stated numbly.

“Of course I do!” Solaria shouted at Somni, rearing up on her hind legs as she did so. She took a deep breath and then collapsed back against the hoofrail. “When it was over, the first thing I wanted to do was hug her and tell her how happy I was—but I was alone. I realized, then, that the love of my life was gone; I would never see her again—never wake up next to her—never hold her close and tell her I love her.”

Somni swallowed on a knot in her throat. “Which… one?” she struggled to ask.

“Which one?” Solaria looked at her with haunted eyes. “Both of them!” she cried, getting more and more upset. “I remember everything. Every last sentiment, every last feeling that either of them had. I love them more than I ever did before! That’s my reward—a love that I will carry for as long as I live for two ponies I will never see again. Tell me once more that I know nothing about wasted love, Somni. Tell me once more that I am a monster for wanting to feel it again.”

Somni felt the pit of her stomach twist in horror. She couldn’t even manage any great empathy for Solaria; it was drowned out in sheer revulsion at the very idea. She couldn’t help it. She of all ponies had a fertile and vivid imagination, and in that imagination bloomed an oily black seed. She saw, not Solaria, but herself, for she had propositioned Fati on the matter just recently if only as a joke.

Fati. Somni did not truly know what nightmares were like, but surely this was one that even she would balk from. Surely Fati would cry for Solaria—for Luma and Vita cursed by their love—unlike Somni, who cried only for herself. That was the kind of pony that Fati was, and that was why Fati could never learn of it.

As she came back to herself, she could do nothing but stare at the pitiful figure before her with a growing sense of vertigo. Fati would have known what to do, but Somni would have to do without. She wasn’t without empathy, after all; it was simply a sprout overshadowed by the black weed of what ifs and what woulds that were entwined with it.

No, Fati may have been the most noble of them, but Somni could see out of her garden of dreams. She summoned up all of her will, stumbled awkwardly forward, taking two steps and nearly falling on top of Solaria with a hug. “I am so sorry,” she said and meant it too. “I am so, so sorry.” She felt a shiver run through the alicorn in her arms, and then she too started crying.

Solaria returned Somni’s hug with a vengeance, completely engulfing the smaller alicorn. “Me too,” she said. “I know I’ve been terrible, but will you stay with me tonight?”

“Of course I will,” Somni whispered. “Of course I will.”

✶ ✶ ✶

If she’d had one, Twilight’s face would have been red.

She, ah, she hadn’t known that alicorns could do… that… but then, there were a lot of things she hadn’t known about alicorns. She did her best to focus on the more academic aspects of what she’d seen. Was seeing.

Academically, she had to admit that the notes with which she had threatened her mother were now in dire need of updating. Updating and then burning, so that she would never have to explain any of it to anyone ever.

No. She shook her head to clear her thoughts. That wasn’t what she’d meant by academic. There were important things here entirely separate from learning about the alicorns and the… the alicorns. Things that didn’t have to do with why she had never felt this way when looking at stallions or mares… or anything small and fleshy.

Focus, Twilight. Focus. Luna’s story about the last Nightmare Moon made much more sense now—including why Luna was so adamant that they had not been alicorns when they clearly were.

“They were considered to be goddesses, but of the opposite sort as we are. Where we share in the traits of all pony races, they were an existence apart from ponykind. It was said that if you were to look upon them even in dreams, you would know them by their alien nature.”

It was ironic, really, and easy to miss. So little of what she’d seen even concerned mortal ponies, but it was there, hidden amongst the bent forms and downcast faces. Alicorns had not changed since time immemorial; they had been alien in the past for the same reason that they were now as kin, for there were no unicorns living in Utopia, nor were there earth ponies or pegasi. They were simply ponies, no more, no less.

Thinking back to the idea of Fati’s hidden moon being entirely separate from its shining counterpart, Twilight had a sinking feeling as she began to question—but no, she stopped herself.

She had the answers now. They were hers for the remembering. Best to go into it without any preconceptions. She already knew that there was no happy ending waiting for her at the end of the tale; she wouldn’t let her imagination get the better of her as Somni’s had.

Giving the events of that night a wide berth, along with any likewise afterwards, Twilight took a breath and thrust herself back into the recollection. Familiarity had improved her control, and she was able to direct herself this time to what she recognized as the beginning of the end.

The idea filled her with a creeping dread, and she hesitated. She already felt like she had gotten to know these ponies, and now, she was going to watch them die. It wasn’t easy, but it had to be done.

No matter how bad it was, she had to know.

● ● ●

It was a generation later when Fati was informed that another ambassador from the dragon empires had arrived outside the gates of Utopia. The news did not surprise her overly much, for such was the way of mortals. The young and bold would listen to the wisdom of the past only inasmuch as it presented a challenge to prove themselves against.

She paced herself as she walked down the same street she had the last time, which was half again larger now—a fact she reflected on as she walked. Perhaps a little humility from being made to wait for her would be beneficial to this one’s lifespan. There was, of course, the chance that it would have the opposite effect, but if this ambassador couldn’t even handle a short wait, he wouldn’t last long in Utopia anyway.

Utopia had no need of the sort of hustle and bustle that was intrinsic to the dragon empires. Life here was simple, honest and slow. In truth, it had no need of ambassadors, as the gods had no intention of involving themselves at all in the dragon empires’ so-called ‘politics.’

Then again, things had changed in the last generation. The… ugliness after Solaria’s genesis had mellowed out and the result was an alicorn with the patience of Luma and the playfulness of Vita. Perhaps she would find distraction in this new ambassador and learn something about the world outside of Utopia in the process.

Being what she was, Fati should really have known better than to tempt fate. When she arrived at the gate, she was surprised to see Solaria and Somni already there, as well as somepony else she knew.

“Oh, no,” she mumbled, cursing to herself. The new ambassador was not young and brash but old and cheeky. He was also, strictly speaking, not new.

Ambassador Couscous stood just inside the gate, flanked by an entourage of younger ponies who bore enough of a resemblance to the old stallion that Fati assumed them to be his children. It looked like gangrene had taken one of his legs, and the rest of him didn’t seem much better, but his weakness had passed. He remained blind, but any could see that he had a fire in him to replace what Solaria had taken away. They all did, as a matter of fact.

Dragonfire.

Fati could see the muscles of Solaria’s jaw flexing. She could hardly object and everypony knew it, but that didn’t mean she had to like it, nor did it mean that she wouldn’t smite him anyway. Lucky for the ambassador and his entourage, however, Solaria reined herself in when she noticed Fati’s approach. The lives of mortals held more weight when she was present.

Fati almost wanted to tell Solaria not to bother on her account. There was nothing she could do about those who willingly courted death except find a vase to keep the flowers in.

The sad thing was, Fati knew that Solaria’s reaction was exactly why Ambassador Couscous had been sent back. Perhaps it was why the empires had preserved his life in the first place. Did he even love the mare who had borne him foals, or was that too part of this farce? It was easy to forget that the one trait which the dragons shared with alicorns was the ability to take as long a view on matters as they wished—even for something as small as an insult.

Fati somberly took her place next to Solaria, opposite Somni as had become her custom. It was her own little gesture in the name of balance. There was no denying that Solaria had become the focus of things since her genesis. She was a leader of ponies, and next to her, Somni and Fati were merely followers. Fati was used to not being recognized, though, and Somni… well, Fati was reasonably certain that the two of them were sleeping together, so there was that. Fati doubted she minded.

Today, however, Somni’s expression mirrored Fati’s own if a little duller. Her brow was creased slightly with worry, and her distant, unfocused gaze drifted to Solaria as often as not. Though she knew them almost as well, Somni had a much more cavalier attitude about mortals than Fati, so it must have been Solaria herself that she was worried for. Fati supposed that that, too, made a measure of sense, so she didn’t dwell on it.

“Aha!” Ambassador Couscous exclaimed, his blind eyes touched by the warmest of smiles, as one might reserve for family. “Is that our beloved Fati I hear? I was just introducing my retinue to your sisters.”

Fati was not in the mood. “You should not have come back,” she said bluntly.

Ambassador Couscous’s smile broke out into a grin as she gestured around with his hooves. “And yet—here I am!” he said as if that explained everything. “Will you please show me around your grand city?”

Of all the arrogant… She pressed her lips together until they were blue then let out a breath as she finally made her decision. “No,” she said with curt distaste. She would not allow her compassion to be used like this. “No, I will not. If you truly wish to establish friendly relations with Utopia, I believe it is clear where you should start.”

Solaria was nodding when she realized what Fati had said. “Wait, what?” she said, blinking. She looked in panic at Ambassador Couscous then back at her. “Fati, what am I supposed to do with this?” she asked, gesturing at the rude old stallion. “Am I supposed to smite him?”

Fati’s conviction faltered. Her eyes were drawn back to Ambassador Couscous, who was no longer smiling. She turned her head away with a quick jolt. She had made her decision, she told herself, and turned her back completely.

“Fati?” Solaria asked, concern rising up in her voice.

“Do what you want.”

○ ○ ○

The dreaming moon was dimmer than usual that night, though in perfect black of the night sky it was hard to tell. The effect would have been much clearer had her moon been out in the day; the sun would have cast it in a shadow so deep as to confuse it for Fati’s.

It sounded silly, but the sun did have a shadow. It was a shadow so bright that no other light could remain in its wake. A suffocating shadow so invisible, impenetrable and inclusive that everything else was muted and gray.

Somni was almost grateful, as it meant that she only had to listen to Solaria ranting as if though a long white corridor. She couldn’t make out the individual words, but it didn’t matter; she had heard the like before, countless times. Solaria had spent the day with that ambassador from the dragon empires and she just… had to vent. That was what Somni was here for. It was what she was always here for.

Honestly, as Solaria’s voice grew more heated, piercing the veil of numbness between Somni and the world, she didn’t understand why Solaria hadn’t just killed the whole lot of them. Fati had said it was okay. Fati had said she didn’t care.

Fati didn’t care about a lot of things, she thought to herself in bitter reflection. Had it really been only twenty-five years since Somni had so passionately declared her willingness to wait ten thousand? Funny, it felt like someone had switched the numbers around on her.

Poor Fati. Wonderful Fati. Beauteous Fati. She was the only one left who had held onto herself, and she didn’t even know it. Somni could watch and pine and dream, but what was the point? Sharing herself with her beloved sister now would only corrupt the last beautiful thing in the world, and there was precious little left to share besides.

It wasn’t Solaria’s fault that Somni had nothing left to give—it really wasn’t. She was trying. Solaria was trying so very hard to be the pony that she should have been. Most days, she succeeded. That must be why she hadn’t killed that ambassador even though Fati had said it was okay. Solaria questioned and questioned, refusing to believe and it was driving her mad.

Fati was the only one left. She was their moral compass. She had been so since before Solaria’s genesis, and it was even more important now. Fati would show them the way, and Solaria would walk it. Solaria would walk it, and Somni would comfort her. Comforting ponies was… her duty, and none needed comforting more than the sun.

It wasn’t Solaria’s fault that Somni was like this. The sun was just too bright. It filled her with warmth and brightness until her mind was hazy with empty white light. As she drifted off to a half-hearted sleep, she wondered if this was the night that she would instead simply fade away.

She would have liked to say that the idea occupied her mind… but it didn’t. Her mind was vast and empty. She was one lonely pony, wrapped in a single hint of lukewarm thought, all alone in the white.

● ● ●

Fati had drawn herself a bath when there was a knock at the entrance to her chambers. This struck her as odd for two reasons; one, there was no door to bar ponies from entering uninvited—they simply didn’t—and two, as a consequence of the cloud-based construction of Utopia, knocking was highly ineffectual and not practiced in the city of the gods.

Fati lamented the first fact as she stormed out of the bath. Doors, she understood, were excellent for slamming shut, and she would have very much liked to have the opportunity to do so right this moment as she rounded on the opening in question.

She was halted, instead, by the sight of exactly the pony she had expected to find, who was also the very last pony she wished to speak to right now. Ambassador Couscous. Alive. She almost had to laugh at the peculiarities of her sister’s moods that had left him so, but her heart would not have been in it.

“How did you get into the palace?” she demanded, asking the first thing that came to mind. “Surely Solaria would not have seen fit to house you within a mile of here.”

“She did not,” spoke Ambassador Couscous in the most soothing voice he could manage as he lowered himself to the cool cloud floor. “The breath of dragons comes with certain gifts that the average pony lacks—but please, be calm, great Fati. I am here as… if not friend, then humble supplicant.”

Fati narrowed her eyes. “You are here as insult. Deny it and I shall cast you out as both a liar and the fool you are for tempting fate.”

Ambassador Couscous considered very long and hard on the matter, but his determination did not waver. “It is true that not all who approved of my reappointment did so with the highest regard for your feelings—or my life—but my purpose here is not so different as last we met, humble Fati—it is your sister who concerns those of us who know enough to worry.”

Fati frowned. “What has Solaria done, now?” she asked, wary of any duplicity. “To this day, she refuses to so much as look upon your empires. I doubt very much that she has given you a reason for this visit.”

Ambassador Couscous closed his eyes and shook his head. “No, fair and innocent Fati, the sun has been a great boon to us these last two decades. Prosperity spreads across the empires like wildfire, yet its people lay sodden in the streets.”

“You have… a weather problem?” Fati asked, not really certain where the ambassador was going with this. The alicorns could manipulate the weather with bare hoof or magic as no other pony could, but she was sure she was missing something. Sure enough, the look on the ambassador’s face put the lie to Fati’s assumption.

“If it were so simple, the dragons would take action, but this ailment lies outside of their purview—indeed, it afflicts them as well,” he explained out of necessity, though he would rather not have had to mention the alicorns’ seeming rivals. “It is not rain that burdens us, but a sweeping malaise so insidious that none can say how long it has gone unchecked.

“Beneficent Fati, the world has ceased to dream.”

● ● ●

Fati stopped dead in her tracks the moment she stepped out of darkness in Somni’s chambers. The scene before her was exactly as she had expected—with Solaria once again holding Somni’s head against her chest.

It was identical to the last night Ambassador Couscous had been in Utopia. They looked so peaceful lying there—Solaria’s hooves around Somni—that the moonlight-stained sheets were even more disturbing.

“Fati?” Solaria asked quietly. She was doing her best not to disturb Somni, even placing a gentle hoof over the sleeping mare’s ear.

Fati looked carefully into Solaria’s eyes, wary of making a mistake. “You don’t love her,” she stated with brusque determination.

Solaria looked down at the figure in her hooves with a warm smile. “No, I don’t,” she said. “Nor she, I. Funny how that works out, isn’t it?”

“You think this is funny?” Fati snapped, raising her voice enough to make Somni stir. “This is wrong.”

“And you just have to put so much stock in being right, don’t you?” Solaria asked, her smile turning to the slightest of frowns at the mare in her lap being woken.

Somni’s weary green eyes opened slowly as if they were reluctant to do so. At first they were unfocused—lost—but they quickly widened in distress as they finally found focus. “Fati?” Somni croaked quietly. “Oh, Fati, no,” she whispered, curling up closer to Solaria. “You weren’t supposed to see this.”

“Yes, why are you here, Fati?” Solaria asked in a clipped, disapproving manner as she hugged Somni closer. “Why did you pick this of all nights to suddenly realize what was going on under your nose, hmm?”

Fati’s attention was torn between the helpless-looking Somni and an aggressive Solaria. The latter won out. “Why?” she asked rhetorically. “Do you have any idea the consequences of this? Do you? The dragon empires are in chaos—our own ponies are hardly better. Somni hasn’t been dreaming for them, and now I know why.”

Solaria took a sharp intake of breath at the accusation, but, oddly, turned her full attention to Somni, who had barely reacted at all. The two of them locked eyes, and some meaning passed between them that Fati couldn’t fathom.

Uneasy with the sudden silence, Fati stepped forward and reiterated. “It’s you—you’ve killed her spirit,” she shouted, barely able to contain her anger and indignation.

“Me?” Solaria scoffed, refusing to take her eyes off the form in her lap. She brushed Somni’s mane with her hoof; the action seemed to relax her at first. As tension left her, she slowly uncurled, her grip loosened and she fell limp. “No, you did.

“Do you hear me?” Solaria growled, raising her voice rather loudly for having just coaxed Somni back to sleep. Somni, however, did not stir. “If her spirit is bereft, it’s thanks to you.

“Inch by inch, year by year, doing exactly what you do, being exactly who you are. Everything you say, everything you don’t say, every time you put mortal ponies above your own dragon-damned sister! For decades, centuries, millennia—I don’t even know—up to just now when you admitted that the only reason you’re here—the only reason you even care—is because of them.

“Can you even comprehend what you’ve done?”

“What I’ve done?” Fati asked, looking at her sister as if she was quite mad. Maybe she was. Maybe she had never been right in the head since her genesis. “I’ve done nothing worthy of reproach.”

“No, of course you haven’t,” Solaria said with biting bitterness in her voice. She looked down at the limp figure in her hooves, let out a breath, and let it roll over onto the floor between the two of them with a grim finality.

Somni’s face was staring out, blank, uncaring and very much not asleep. The only sign of life left in her were the tears of moonlight leaking out of her cold, vacant eyes.

Fati stepped backwards in alarm, but a shift in the sky caused her to stumble. It wasn’t much, but it felt distinctly wrong. She glanced down at the empty shell in front of her for any sign of purpose, but there was none. Quickly, she dashed over and threw open the curtains to the balcony.

There was no sign of anything wrong, but she could feel it—and the feeling was growing. Quickly, she whipped her gaze back to Solaria. “What have you done?” she snarled.

“I have done my best,” Solaria insisted, still sitting on the bedding and shaking her head. “You may see a monster when you look at me, and maybe you’re right. I tried, though. I tried to be good to her. You don’t know how many nights I’ve stayed up, trying to make up for the hurt I’ve caused—how many have you?”

Fati’s ears folded back as she straightened herself in indignance. “I’m not the one that’s been hurting her!”

“Oh for the love of—” Solaria groused, burying her face in her hooves. “Get it through your thick skull—she loved you!” Solaria yelled, jumping to her hooves and advancing on Fati. “She loved you and she got me!”

Fati stumbled backwards out onto the balcony. “Don’t be ridiculous. She is my sister!”

“She was your equal!” Solaria bellowed, bearing down on Fati and backing her further out onto the balcony. “She was your other half—your complement in all things. She knew it. I knew it. Even Luma and Vita knew it. You’re the only one who let some sick fascination get in the way of that!”

Fati only stopped retreating when she ran into the balcony hoofrail behind her. “It wouldn’t have been right!” she retorted as her wings fluttered to keep her steady.

“It’s the only thing that would have been right!” Solaria yelled, rearing up onto the handrail so that she loomed over the smaller alicorn. “It was supposed to be your fate! Your fate, Fati, can you appreciate that?”

Fati wilted under the power of Solaria’s accusation. Looking up at the alicorn towering over her, she could come up with nothing to say, and all thought of trying fled her mind when a light made itself known from behind Solaria.

The dreaming moon was larger than it should have been. Much, much larger.

“She’s falling,” Fati whispered in horror. Ducking under Solaria’s legs, she ran back inside to the still-limp form of her sister. “Somni, wake up!” she cried, shaking her, but there was no response.

“She’s not asleep,” Solaria called from the balcony entrance. “She just stopped caring. Rather poetic that her last act will kill all the precious mortals you loved instead of her. If I didn’t know better, I’d think she was doing it on purpose—but no, she has no purpose, not any more.”

Finding shaking Somni’s vacant body fruitless, Fati dropped her head next to Somni’s. “You have a sick mind if you can think of her like that,” she said.

Rather than deny it, Solaria agreed. “I do,” she said with hollow resignation as she leaned on the balcony entranceway and slumped down. “I really do. I’m not far behind, I think. Hate me if you want, but I did need her… unless you feel like taking her place?”

Fati refused to even dignify that with a look. “You disgust me,” she said quietly into Somni’s mane.

“Oh, you scoff now,” Solaria taunted, “but you might change your tone once they’re all dead and gone and it’s just the two of us left on this cold rock. Then again, maybe you’ll develop a thing for dragons? I wouldn’t put it past you.”

“You think I don’t know pain? You think I don’t know loss?” Fati asked, baffled. “I know more than you.”

Solaria let out a snort. “You don’t know loneliness,” she said with a sad sort of surety and held out her hooves. “You don’t know what it’s like to feel the happiness slip between your hooves and know in your heart that it’s gone forever.” With a sigh, she dropped her hooves and shook her head. “You will, though. Give it time.”

Fati stubbornly refused to respond to that, and Solaria, it seemed, had nothing more to say. The two of them lapsed into silence for a time as Fati ran a hoof down the side of Somni’s face, hardly believing that this was real. She knew those empty eyes, though; she had seen them many times before, just not on her sister. Not knowing what else to do, she bent over and hugged the body to herself as the moonlight outside grew brighter and brighter.

Soon, disbelief passed and Fati lit her horn. Slowly, she picked Somni up and took her outside.

“Which of us is the monster, Fati?” Solaria’s taunting voice echoed from behind as she passed over the balcony threadhold, taunting her. “Of the two of us, which one still has dry eyes? It’s not me.”

Fati clenched her jaw in anger. “I hate you so much,” she said, continuing out onto the balcony.

“Get used to it,” Solaria said, glancing upwards at the glowing moon that nearly filled the sky now. “Or don’t. I never did anything to Somni that she didn’t want—it might be interesting.”

Fati ignored Solaria as she set the empty shell of her sister down under the growing light of her moon and stopped to look up at it. It was as if the shining white shape was the only thing in the world; it filled the sky in a way that sent a shiver down her spine. There was no describing it—it was a vast sense of impending as it hung there in the sky above, obliterating all rational thought. Suddenly, nothing mattered.

All of the anger, the accusations, the bartering of blame—none of it mattered at all. There was no vindication to be had, no reckoning of guilt that could turn back time. The entirety of her world had shrunk to this one moment alone under the endless expanse of a luminous white sky.

She knew what she had to do; in truth, she had already done it and was only now coming to accept it.

“No,” Fati said with absolute certainty, not turning away from the moon that filled the sky. “You will be alone—you and all the mortal ponies who don’t deserve to die for our failures. I hope that one day you understand them as I do.”

“What are you—”

Without warning, there was a deafening crash that shook the world. Fati lurched to the side and fell next to Somni. Solaria looked on in horror.

In the moments after the impact, the sky was filled with lights—not one, but many. The dreaming moon spread out across the night, shattered and broken by the sacrifice of its nightmare twin.

There were several seconds of absolute silence before the first pieces hit the ground, rippling staccato death across the surface. It was several more before Solaria was able to stumble her way over to where Fati had fallen.

“Fati?” she croaked, turning the alicorn over so that she could see her face, but her tiny hopes were crushed. Fati’s face was blank, matching Somni’s perfectly. The suddenness shook her almost as much as the impacts of her sisters crashing into the surface below.

As moonrock—both black and white—fell from the sky all around Solaria, the reality of the matter hit her. Just like that, she was the only alicorn left in the world. There was nothing for her to do but fall back onto her rump and watch the ongoing destruction in devastated shock.

“You win, Fati,” she said, beginning to feel ill. “You win.”

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight recoiled from the memories like they were… exactly what they were; the ignoble ends of three—no, four mares who had each loved too much… and too little.

Her hackles rose as her body tried to physically reject them. She had been wrong. They weren’t her memories. She wasn’t an alicorn reborn. She was… something new. Stars were something new.

Stars weren’t supposed to exist.

She was made up of shattered fates and broken dreams, nothing more the floating detritus of gods long passed—and Luna? Luna was her counterpart in more than name. Twilight remembered that too, though the memories were even more fragmented and vague than before—little more than an impression burned into thousands of dying stars.

After the two moons had collided, saving Equestria and dooming it to an age of Discord, Solaria had made one last desperate effort to save something of her sisters. She had taken from her heart all that was left that was good and pure and attempted to forge a new moon, half light, half dark.

As it so happened, she’d had more good left in her than she knew, but it still was not enough to undo the damage that had been done. In her desperation, the sky was set alight in fire and passion. The moon she forged that night remained cold and dark while the stars were born, a candlelight memorial in monument to her failure.

Her last chance lost, the fires of her heart fell to Equestria alongside the burning stars, and she too died, broken and alone.

Twilight shook herself free of the recollection. It was just too much. She didn’t want to see it, didn’t want to remember it. This was the truth she had come for? The knowledge that the fulfillment of her fillyhood wish was instead proof positive that she was nothing more than damaged gods?

She wanted to wake up and find that this whole thing had been one bad nightmare.

In fact, that was exactly what she had to do.

In the time before, the night had dreamed dreams for ponies and fate had birthed their nightmares. That was no longer true; ponies now had in them each a tiny spark of divinity, allowing them to dream their own dreams and birth their own nightmares in this stardust desert. The rest of the dreaming races existed in-between—not quite dreaming on their own and not quite being dreamed for by any single pony.

Twilight didn’t have to be a part of it. Maybe some day, when she could handle it, but not here. Not tonight. Not with Luna out there, alone with Gemini. How long had she been lost in dream already? How long had reliving the lives of ancient alicorns taken? She hoped she wasn’t too late.

She didn’t have any time for dreams, and the memories were the same. They weren’t hers; they were just the twinkling of ancient stars, echoes of a long-past fate. They were a nightmare she could wake up from.

No, not a nightmare, she rejected that thought. She had gone into this looking for a way to handle these stars—this influx of being—and escape their crushing weight, but she could not do so by anchoring herself to them. She’d had it right to begin with.

Dreams and nightmares did not answer to her, nor did she concern herself with them. If these stars were to be a part of her, they would have to be numbered, catalogued and registered. In her mind, each star was a book, precious, yes, and enlightening, but separated from her by page and cover and shelf. Each one was to be picked and perused at her leisure. No more, no less.

She took a deep breath and shut the book she had in front of her. This particular book was very large indeed, yet it somehow managed to fit comfortably in her hooves. She marveled one last time at the cover, with its stylized images of six alicorns, four in the center, overshadowed by one above and casting a shadow of one below.

Her gaze lingered on the images of the two she had yet to read about. Some day, perhaps, she would start it from the beginning, but not tonight. The book had served its purpose for now—not just in helping her escape, but… everything she had wanted to know about alicorns and was afraid to ask.

Yes, even that, she thought with a shudder.

The book made a soft thump on the endtable as she set it aside. In the silence afterwards, she found herself looking at her hoof and the stars therein. As she stared, she realized it was shaking and quickly clutched it to her chest. Stars. She took a deep breath, her heart was pounding. Stars.

The word meant something else, now.

It was nothing. She stood, stretched the kinks out of her back and started to walk away. Somehow, the book managed to remain in the corner of her eye, reminding her of the things she’d learned, and she wondered if she had erred.

Dreams, after all, are forgotten in the morning.

The silence the book left in its wake was deafening.

She hurried on, leaving the book behind and trying not to think about it. She had to find Luna and tell her about this, then everything would be fine.

As soon as she found Luna, everything would be fine.

She didn’t see the sparkling trail she left in her wake.

Author's Note

● Author's Notes ●

Chapter 13

Sharing the Night: Chapter 13

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight burst out of the stardust desert like a drowning mare gasping for breath and fell on her front hooves, coughing. It was not how she had expected to return to the desert of dreams. In fact, it belied all her experience with stars up until then.

Twilight was the stars. They were her. For a moment, as she shook, trying to catch her breath, she remembered what it was like when the ursa had swallowed her and feared that Gemini was fighting her for the stars… but no, Gemini had meant it when she had renounced them. This was more like she had been choking on her own lungs.

Regardless, the danger was over. Here and now, she could breathe again.

It was absurd, is what it was. She had plenty of experience feeling like she still had physical features, which she did not actually possess when she was manifest as the stars, but never before had her own stars stifled her like this. She sat there breathing deeply as she took stock of her situation.

The stars buried deep in Equestria were a part of her now. Technically, she supposed they had always been a part of her, but now they were connected in a way that the stars in ponies were not. Dreamers brushed up against her, dipping in and out of contact, but no other presence clouded the stars. They were hers and hers alone. As her mind cleared, the truth of the matter filled her with a dizzying euphoria.

No matter what happened from here on out, the nightmares were over. The fear that had driven her to come here—fear of what lurked beneath Equestria—was gone. It was she who lurked beneath Equestria now. She could go back to living a normal life without dreading the moment dusk would come and take from her the lucidity she so treasured. She could sit alongside Luna without her making that frown that meant she felt the trembling that even Twilight herself was numb to. She could begin to measure her time in days and weeks again, instead of hours and minutes.

She could finally relax.

No. No, she couldn’t relax just yet. Soon, but not yet. The memories she had experienced might haunt her to the end of her days, but that book was closed for now. Gemini, however, was real. Gemini was part of this time, and the last time Twilight had seen her, she and Luna had been charging at each other with fury in their eyes. Twilight had to find them. She had to do… something.

First, she had to manage getting to her hooves.

She tried to lift herself, and her body felt heavy even though her breathing was almost normal again. Her hooves felt like they were full of sand, and the rest of her was not much different. With her incredible skills of deduction, the cause was immediately clear to her.

Her hooves were full of sand, and the rest of her was not much different.

She was not her usual starry black self, but a solid, crusty, shining white. The void inside of her was packed heavy with stars, and even as she moved, they sloughed off of her like a sand castle collapsing under its own weight.

The sight of it was an unwelcome reminder of what she had discovered—that she was little more than the broken and forgotten pieces of alicorns who had once ruled since time immemorial. The reminder that her greatest fears had come to pass was almost enough to make her give up right then and there. She expected that, any moment now, she would collapse into the sand, curl up into a ball and ask why she had ever thought she could be happy.

That moment never came. Her greatest fear was no longer a fear. It was just a fact. Facts, she could deal with.

Fact: Twilight was, at the basest level, a celestial system composed of both stars and the magic they produced. Fact: unlike the night sky, this land of dreams was separated into discrete areas, with stars below and magic above. Fact: when Gemini had manifested, she had done so by bringing stars and magic together in equal parts.

Conclusion: when Gemini had attacked Twilight, she had renounced the stars, but kept the magic.

This should have been a relief to realize, but instead, it sent a shiver down her spine. It meant that eventually, Twilight would recover. In fact, she would recover immediately if she returned to the night sky.

Gemini, however, would not. Not on her own, anyway. Twilight couldn’t guess what rules governed the shadowy mare now, but she was a being of pure magic. If she couldn’t replenish that magic, eventually she would simply cease to be. Suddenly, it was a lot more important for Twilight to find Luna.

Gemini was dying, and though Twilight wanted to believe that Somni and Fati would be accepting of this fate—approve of it, even—she knew better than to trust in it. The alicorns which Twilight had come to know in such a short time were all deeply flawed individuals, and while Solaria’s genesis had been undertaken with the best of intentions, the same could not be said for Gemini.

There was a chance that things could go very, very wrong.

☾ ☾ ☾

“Show thyself, thou currish, milk-livered canker-blossom!”

It had been hours since Twilight had disappeared into the stardust below, and Luna cursed herself for letting her guard down. She had come down here with one goal in mind, to protect Twilight Sparkle, and she had failed.

She wasn’t going to make that mistake again. Her milky white eyes caught movement in the darkness, and she shot a beam of moonlight out to illuminate it. She thought she heard the creature that Twilight had named Gemini hiss in response, but otherwise, there was no sign of it. Such had the conflict stretched on into the night, with long periods of silence interspersed with short bouts of motion and light.

In truth, Luna was having trouble blaming herself. Twilight had all but asked to be possessed by this creature. No, she had asked. She had actually asked to join with it, to share memories and become some ancient alicorn made whole. The very thought made Luna’s skin crawl, and she didn’t even have skin in this endless land of dreams.

Twilight had made it perfectly clear that she did not want to be worried over and had made it all but impossible to protect her. None of the fault lay with Luna, but somehow, the thought only rankled her further.

Luna spread her wings and beat them with one great motion, launching herself out of the way of the shadowy pony that came at her from above. As the shape passed in front of her, Luna could tell that it was larger now and looking less and less equine by the moment. It snarled and snapped, dripping darkness from its twin maws as it fled back into the void-black sky from which it was indistinguishable.

The creature’s deterioration worried her. Had it made a mistake by giving up the stars? Would it try to take them back? So long as Luna had its attention, she didn’t think so, but Luna could only stay here so long. That was the real concern.

There was little doubt in Luna’s heart that one such as Twilight would undoubtedly survive the ordeal of being thrown into the desert of stars and eventually collect herself once more, but there was no guarantee that it would be any time soon. She could be lost in memory and dream for hundreds of years. Thousands. There was no way to know, and Luna didn’t have that long.

Dawn was nearing, and when it came, Luna did not think that this land of dreams would remain. She would find herself in a very deep hole, and Twilight would be alone with the creature she had offered herself to, trapped in the throes of a fugue that would leave her helpless to resist.

Finally, she saw her chance. Though the creature was still lucid enough to use the empty black sky for concealment, its growing size and volatility was beginning to betray it. Now, she decided, was the time to strike—before it realized it was exposed and before Luna ran out of manifest moonlight. The moon was a great distance from where she was fighting this battle by proxy. If her manifestation dissipated, she would not be able to return before dawn. It would be her loss.

She had one chance, and she took it. The light of her shining white form dimmed subtly as everything she could spare gathered at her horn. She took a quick breath and fired a ray of moonlight far brighter and faster than any of her previous probing shots.

She would have hit if not for the sudden sirocco of stars that swept in, spoiled her aim and sent the creature skittering off into the depths of darkness around her. “No…” she whispered weakly as she struggled with the stars’ buffeting and registered her failure. That was it, then. Her heart sank, and so did she, lurching over and letting the stars do as they would with her.

What they did was hold her. “Hey,” they said with a wan smile and ran a hoof through her mane.

It took Luna a moment to realize what was going on and then another to make sure. “Twilight?” she asked, hoping for some sign that this star-crusted figure was the mare she knew, whole and hale. What she received was the most beatific smile she had ever seen on her friend’s face.

Oddly enough, this did not encourage her. It must have shown on her face, as the figure leaned back in to nuzzle her. “It’s me, Luna. I’m fine.”

“Truly?” Luna asked, almost in rote just to hear Twilight say it again, but the mare in her arms stiffened.

Twilight withdrew from the embrace, suddenly uncomfortable, unwilling to meet Luna’s gaze. “I saw… a small slice of the past,” she explained with a shiver; though as she went on, her reticence turned to melancholy. “Barely a day’s worth. I saw some things that I’ll never forget… but that’s all. I saw them. Nothing more.”

“Then—”

“I was wrong,” Twilight admitted, grateful for it. “Thank it all, I was wrong. I know what I am now. I know what we are now, and it’s not her. It’s not them. Not really. I have my answers, and to be honest, they kind of suck, but we have them. We’re done looking. It’s over.”

Luna was overcome with a sudden gladness she could not describe. She lunged forward to hug Twilight, but this time, the stellar alicorn crumbled beneath Luna’s hooves, giving her a shock.

Twilight swirled around and reformed, looking a little worse for wear as she slowly took a few breaths. Luna turned to face her once again, making a weak gesture with her hoof, but staying back with a distraught look on her face.

“Ah, don’t. Please don’t do that,” she said—though it didn’t keep her from sweeping back close to Luna. “Sorry, my magic is spread kind of thin, right now. Gemini kept her magic, and I suddenly have a lot more stars than I came down with. I’ll be fine when we get back to the night.

“It’s funny,” she said with a chuckle. “It’s the opposite of that time I gave you a star. I feel heavy yet… brittle.”

Luna’s panic subsided a bit then flared back up as she put the pieces together. “We must go now, then. Dawn is approaching. If we are too late, you will not have a night to draw from.”

For the first time since her return, Twilight’s apparent inner peace shattered, and she glanced upwards. “It’s that late? That’s… unfortunate.”

Luna made to grab her hoof. “Come! We still have time!” she insisted, but Twilight pulled back, looking worried and conflicted.

“No, I can’t go yet,” she said, and Luna swore there was a tremor of concern in it. “Not with Gemini like this.”

✶ ✶ ✶

Luna scowled at Twilight’s declaration, as well she should, given what Twilight had just said. She didn’t understand, though. Twilight tried to explain it to her. “If I don’t do it now, then… I won’t get another chance. She won’t get another chance. They won’t get another chance.”

Luna was taken aback. After all, she had just spent the entire night fighting the creature for Twilight’s sake. “That thing does not deserve another chance!” she spat.

“Irrelevant!” the darkness around them boomed. “We—I do not need a ‘chance.’”

Twilight turned to try to find the source of the voice, but it was hopeless. “Somni,” she pleaded. “Fati, please.”

“Don’t call me that!” the voice cried, its source circling around Twilight and Luna. “I would rather be Gemini. That is what you called me, isn’t it?”

“I didn’t know you, then,” Twilight insisted, though her uncertainty showed.

The darkness made a kind of scoff, which sounded more like a growl. “And you presume to know me now?”

“A bit,” Twilight offered, thinking this would all be much easier if she knew what was actually going on in Gemini’s head. “Enough that I can’t just leave you like this.”

Gemini’s voice roared in front of Twilight. “Let’s have it, then!” she shouted, forcing Twilight back a bit with her intensity. “Spin your tale of unity for me again, Twilight Sparkle. Suggest that we join together. I dare you.”

Twilight swallowed hard on nothing but her own nervousness. “I… can’t,” she finally admitted. “What happened was a tragedy, and repeating history would only make it worse.”

“You do know me,” the shadowy figure said and let out a hiss that Twilight wasn’t sure was approval or pain. “You know what happened. Very well, go on. Tell me that you know how I feel. Surely that is your angle.”

Twilight’s lips tightened, and she shook her head in one sharp movement. “I don’t. I really don’t. I don’t know what love is. I don’t know what it feels like… I don’t know what losing it feels like, and I… I hope I never have to.”

Though she was surely getting the answers she wanted, they only seemed to anger Gemini. “Tell me that I can be what I was, once again!” she snapped, and Twilight was briefly able to make out her face contorted in rage before it blended back into the flat black darkness.

“What you were is gone,” Twilight whispered, losing her hesitation as Gemini cornered her and took the last thing she could claim. “Even Luna and I, who inherited it, are something different.”

“Then how do you expect to help me, girl?” Gemini snarled. She continued her circling around Twilight and Luna with something akin to a prideful strut. The darkness hid what seemed to be the incorrect number of legs. “How do you expect to make this better?”

“No, you’re right,” Twilight said, her voice rising in pitch as she admitted it. “You’re right. You scare me, and I don’t want you as a part of me. I can’t even properly empathize with you, let alone fix what was broken thousands of years ago.” She reiterated her failings but couldn’t add to them.

“What then?” Gemini cried, this time from behind, starling both Twilight and Luna. “What do you intend to do?”

Gemini thought that she had run Twilight out of options, but as she closed her eyes and took a breath, she knew there had really only been one to begin with. “I think… it would be best for all of us if you just faded away, but it doesn’t have to be like this. Not screaming and clawing for one last shred of magic.”

“You… You would euthanize me? Euthanize us?!” Gemini balked, incredulous. “We were gods before you ever—”

“But you’re not,” Twilight interrupted, stepping forward towards the voice with every ounce of determination she could muster. “You’re not gods. You’re not alicorns. You’re not… even real.”

For the first time, Twilight’s answer didn’t elicit another outburst from Gemini. Instead, there was a long, cold silence until she spoke. “You dare.”

“I do,” Twilight said matter-of-factly. Her terseness edged into bitterness and a hint of anger as she laid out the facts. “I have fought long and hard trying to understand the stars and what I am. Let me tell you what it means to be an alicorn of the stars. The alicorn of the stars.”

“You think to lecture me on alicorns?” Gemini asked. “I have been an alicorn for more years than you can count, foal!”

Twilight was not deterred. “You know nothing,” she insisted, anger smouldering in her voice. “You know nothing about the stars. I am the alicorn of the stars. I am the first, and eternity willing, I will be the last.”

Twilight paused as Luna placed a gentle hoof on her shoulder. “Twilight, becalm thyself,” she whispered.

Twilight took a breath, but it didn’t help much. The truth was ugly. It was hard to take and hurt to accept, and she was damn well going to share it. “You gave up on the stars because you see them as broken, but I am not broken!” she declared. “I am every star in the sky, every star under the earth. There are legends told about parts of me that have gone feral, and there is a piece of me in each and every pony on this planet. Even so, they are all me. That is what it means to be me. I am the soul of the stars, and I am legion!”

Without warning, Twilight had the disquieting opportunity to feel her head scattered into stars as Luna swatted it from behind. “Bad Twilight Sparkle. No megalomania,” she chided, but the words were muddled thanks to her ears being particulate at the moment. Her pretend ears. Which were made of stars. Okay, now Twilight was getting a headache, and she wasn’t sure if it was Luna’s fault or not.

In any case, it worked. Ranting catharsis over, she collected herself, literally, and reassessed the situation. All she had to do was to state the facts, not spit spite at the top of her lungs. She kept her voice even; she kept her words measured. In short, she lectured.

“You were, before tonight, a part of me. You were a piece—a fairly large piece—that existed in parallel, born from a memory, doomed to a terrible fate from the start. I have traveled the world, searching out starbeasts and taking them into me. I believe that I was justified. I believe that there was a categorical difference between them and me. I believe that I am the alicorn of the stars, and they little more than animated memories.

“We could argue all night about the semantics of whether that applied to you—who had a right to what and whether we could have coexisted, but it’s all irrelevant now. You gave up your stars. You gave up yourself. You gave up. There is no part of me left in you, Gemini. There is no alicorn in you. Somni and Fati are gone, and Luna and I are their children—as close as alicorns can be. That is the state of things.”

Twilight’s calm demeanor seemed to work. At the very least, Gemini seemed content to hear her out, rather than fume and snarl. Twilight hoped it would last, as she finished her explanation. “You—the you that I am talking to—are no longer a part of that equation. You are a memory. Not even that, you’re an echo of a memory. That memory will remain forever in my library of stars, but you… there isn’t much hope for something like you.”

Gemini’s voice came across ragged and raspy as she asked, “Something… like… me?”

Twilight’s heart sank as she contemplated answering that question. This was not going to end well. “You are what’s left when you take away everything that makes a pony. Residual magic still flowing in the same currents out of momentum and remembered connections, without body or soul to drive them. Without any real volition of your own, you will continue acting out the last thought and emotion you had—anger and outrage, I suppose—as you slowly wait for entropy to take over. My guess is that you’ll fade with the morning dew, screaming pitifully as your magic evaporates in the sun. I would honestly like to spare you that if you’d let me. You might last a little longer lurking beneath the earth, but I doubt you’d fare any better with the dragons than the sun.”

Even as they left her mouth, the words mocked her attempt to bring this to a peaceful resolution.

“Liar!” Gemini screamed—though it was more a wail with a tremor of fear. The pony that Gemini had been when she had rejected the stars would not listen.

Twilight stood defiant. Pointless as it may have seemed, she’d had to try, and even if Gemini was too far gone to listen, that didn’t mean she had failed. After all, if there was one thing that personified her, one thing that she would never let go of for as long as she lived, that thing would not be her magic, her friendships, or even the stars themselves.

It would be her punctuality.

The instant that Gemini launched her attack was the same instant that Celestia began to raise the sun. The next instant, Twilight and Luna lit their horns, and reality came crashing down between them and the wretched creature before them. Suddenly, the two alicorns stood at the nadir of a very deep hole.

“Huh. I’m surprised that worked,” Twilight muttered mostly to herself. “I guess the two nights are connected.”

Luna blinked. “Might they not have been?”

Twilight reached up with a hoof and scratched her chin. “Well, the hole is full of leaking night, so yes, there is a chance that exiting the dreamland could have been… difficult.”

“Ah,” Luna responded plainly. “You might have mentioned that before we came down here.”

Twilight took a moment to respond. “Didn’t think of it, to be honest.”

“Twilight?” Luna prompted, and Twilight turned toward the voice even though she couldn’t actually see anything in the pitch black of the hole. “You can be really depressing when you want to be.”

Twilight was silent for a long time. Now that she had a moment to think about it and she was flesh again, her eyes began to mist. “Yeah,” she said with a tight throat. “Yeah, I know. Talking somepony into killing themselves isn’t exactly how I wanted to end the night. It was cruel, I know, but the truth usually is. I’m not even sure if I should be glad I failed. I wish I could have done something for her—them—but…”

“Not that, I imagine,” Luna finished for her as Twilight felt a warm wing settle over her.

“No, not that,” Twilight agreed. “One of them sacrificed herself to save ponykind, and the other just stopped caring. I hoped she would at least have a shred of nobility… or at least apathy, but all there was was hate.”

Twilight felt a shiver in the wing draped over her. “Are we truly both the children of that thing?” Luna asked.

“Not that thing, no,” Twilight said with a stiff assurance, letting out a sigh. “Come on, let’s go home. I’ll tell you about the real alicorns of Fate and Dreams.”

“It is an uplifting tale, then?” Luna asked, curious.

Twilight could only shake her head. “Not really, no, but it’s worth telling.”

Just as they were about to lift their wings to take off and begin the long journey towards the surface, there was a burst of pitch-black magic in the rock around Twilight and Luna accompanied by one last desperate, terrible wordless cry. The sound screeched through their heads like that of a banshee, but eventually it died out. Twilight and Luna held their breath, but as the seconds ticked by, it seemed as if nothing came of it.

Then, an eye snapped open beneath their hooves.

☼ ☼ ☼

Celestia awoke that morning to a dull ache in her chest. This, she decided, was an improvement over the previous night.

She had overreacted, plain and simple. She had mistaken shock and surprise for strength of emotion and transformed the dull melancholy of the past few weeks into a frothing panic. As she rose the sun, however, the clear light of dawn showed her the truth. Yes, she was jealous of her sister’s relationship with her student, whatever form it currently took, but she was not so inexperienced with jealousy as her revelation-addled mind had made her out to be. Why, it was not uncommon at all for her to covet a particular slice of cake that decorum denied her. Surely this was no different.

She frowned as she explored the idea that her faithful student was a slice of cake to her. There was something… oddly enticing about the idea. Just the image alone seemed to stick in her mind like a bit of caramel between her teeth—and now caramel had somehow wormed its way into the image though it wasn’t the sort that stuck in one’s teeth. How peculiar. She shook her head and took a breath in an effort to dislodge the unbidden and unexplained thought.

Successfully managing to clear her mind, she declared the last minute or so nonsense. A temporary fascination with the absurd, wherein the sheer absurdity of the matter was itself the cause of fascination. One did not covet a pony in the same manner as one coveted a slice of cake, after all. Of this, she was certain.

This, begged the question, though, as to how one did normally covet a pony. More importantly, in what way was it which Celestia coveted her closest of faithful students, such that the very thought of her with her sister could result in such an ache as she felt now?

Celestia’s calm and measured train of thought betrayed her, then, for though she had claimed to not be so ignorant of jealousy as she had imagined the previous night, she couldn’t quite recall any situation in the past in which she had quite… desired the same thing of another pony. She’d had many aides whose presence and skills she had found desirous to have around and many personal students whom she had watched develop under her care, blooming into wonderful mares and stallions who had filled her with pride. What she desired of Twilight Sparkle, however, remained an unknown anomaly.

As she watched the sun creep higher and higher, she had the distinct feeling that her emotions were being deliberately obtuse with her. She was Princess Celestia—she exuded wisdom and understanding, not just practically, but literally. She could inspire introspection at a stone’s throw and reflection so easily to tease out of her subjects that it would be understandable to think that her brilliant white coat could be mistaken for chrome. There was no way she didn’t know what she felt. Clearly, whatever the cause, it was simply something so alien to her that she could not admit it, even to herself. Images of cake flashed back through her mind again, and she had to banish them once more.

Okay, forget what she wanted. Approach from the other direction. What didn’t she want Luna doing with Twilight Sparkle? That was easy—their closeness bothered her in spite of her very machinations to bring it to be. As close as possible, she had thought just last night. That was the goal. An amorous relationship was always a possibility.

Were she a normal pony, Celestia supposed that the answer would be quite obvious. She would desire Twilight Sparkle to respond to her own amorous advances. Celestia was not a normal pony, however. She was the immortal alicorn of the day—an existence completely apart from such base concerns.

As was Twilight Sparkle.

The celestial gears churned in her head.

It is at this point that a dragon burst into the air on the horizon in a shower of rock and trees.

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight’s head throbbed as she scrambled up the hole that Luna had made and was now being unmade by a dragon who barely fit in it. It was not so much a maw of gnashing teeth as it was essentially a landslide throwing itself at her over and over. She supposed there was a certain amount of irony that Equestria was trying to eat her almost immediately after she’d rid herself of the instinctual fears that had been plaguing her, but she couldn’t exactly stop to appreciate the fact.

As it was, Twilight could barely fly at the best of times, and now was not the best of times. Still bloated with stars from the desert of dreams—and don’t even ask her how that worked, since she didn’t think she had actually physically come into contact with any—it was like being forced to race a triathlon after an apple family event… and losing. Definitely losing.

She tried not to think about the stars lagging behind her ascent. It truly didn’t matter if she left any behind, as most of them had come from beneath Equestria in the first place, she told herself. Just don’t think about it. Luna wasn’t doing much better. Though, she was whole, at least, and had avoided the extreme hooficure which Twilight had so far received in bits and pieces.

Having failed to not think about it, Twilight glanced downward to take stock of the situation, which was thus: there was a giant freaking dragon below her. Also, her back left leg was almost entirely missing, and it was entirely irrelevant whether the other had been shorn beforehand or not. Good to know.

It was a good thing she had glanced downward, as she barely managed to avoid another thundering chomp and kicked off what passed for the dragon’s snout with what limbs she was able. One of them crumbled, and she wondered if it even mattered that she had avoided the teeth. Truth be told, the dragon could easily scatter her to pieces with the bluntest part of its body, and while it couldn’t kill her, being trapped miles beneath Equestria was an unpleasant prospect, to be sure.

It came as a shock when she realized she was not, in fact, miles beneath Equestria. Not any more, at least. Moments after using the dragon’s snout as a makeshift trampoline, she was assaulted by fresh air, open skies and the rosy light of dawn. The sheer sense of relief hit her almost as hard as whatever part of the dragon it was that had knocked her into the forest as it rushed past her.

She didn’t even care. Branches tore more and more stars away from her, but it didn’t matter. They had reached the surface. She was safe. Her body, such as it was, eventually came to rest in a shallow stream, and she just lay there, unmoving, as she waited for it to decide that it had limbs again. She was fascinated to realize that she was, in fact, bleeding, yet anywhere the blood left her, it turned to stars and just… went back. It wasn’t long until she was holding a whole hoof against the dappled sky above her.

She was shaken out of of her reverie when an earth-shaking roar ripped through the Everfree.

Oh, right. She might be safe, but there was still a mountainous dragon that had just been woken up and desperately needed a cup of coffee. Actually, she wondered if coffee had even existed back in its time. It had been pretty deep…

The dragon roared again, and Twilight realized she was probably going to have to do something about that.

“Horseapples.”

✶ ✶ ✶

The hole which Luna had made in the world was gone—collapsed entirely by the dragon which had clawed itself up out of its depths. A quick glance confirmed Twilight’s fleeting memory of a clear dawn sky. The artificial night was gone, so there was that, at least. It wasn’t without consequences, though.

All the earth to fill not only the hole, but the void the dragon had left behind, had needed to come from somewhere, and the results weren’t pretty. The Everfree was still technically a forest, but just barely. It was now a heavily wooded crater, and there was a dragon sitting in it, thick in body, powerful in limb and literally a mountain. Not just the size of a mountain… it was actually a mountain.

Also, the dragon was fighting Luna. Twilight flapped harder in an effort to reach her faster. Luna wasn’t technically in any danger, but that hardly mattered. Twilight could go nowhere else.

As it was, Luna’s moonbeams raked the dragon’s sides, spilling rock and dirt, but doing little to actually dissuade the colossus. The lunar alicorn had already been spent after her earlier fight, and the rising light of dawn nearly blotted out her light before it could reach her target. Even as Twilight neared the fight, though, she wasn’t sure what good she could do either.

Entirely apart from the fact that the ancient dragon was immortal and could not be killed, Twilight and Luna had failed to reach the surface before dawn. The same occurrence that had left Luna nearly magicless had prevented Twilight from addressing her own imbalance as well. She technically had more magic to spare than Luna, but it was all bound up in too many stars. Like the water in wet sand, it was simply not accessible to her.

Damage control was what was most important, Twilight reminded herself. She didn’t have any massive stars with which to slap some sense into this dragon as she had Emberstoke, but maybe the right words… Oh tartarus, who was she kidding? She couldn’t even talk Gemini down, and she’d been downright talkative compared to this thing.

Suddenly, a foul thought crossed her mind just as she reached the general vicinity of the dragon’s rampage. “Luna!” she called out in the traditional Ponyville librarian voice. To her relief, she was able to catch the lunar princess’ attention on the first try. Better still, the distraction didn’t get her co-ruler killed. Well, she would have been discorporated, not killed, but either way, it hadn’t happened, so it was a plus.

“Twilight!” Luna called back as she swooped over to her, dodging the snapping jaws of the dragon as she did so. The size of the thing was almost impossible to comprehend from the vantage point of a pony. When they had faced Emberstoke, it had been night, and Twilight had had the benefit of a different perspective. Now, in the light of day and as a pony… she was about ninety percent certain that this dragon was even larger still than Emberstoke had been. “I am glad that you have collected yourself,” Luna said in a hurry as the dragon recovered. “You boasted of your great power even without regalia. I am afraid the time has come to use it.”

Twilight wilted, flattening her ears and glancing away, to keep watch of their adversary. The dragon’s movement appeared slow, but it was a trick of scale, and Twilight worried that it would take more speed than she had to remain in the area. “I can’t. I’m sorry. Gemini kept the magic when she gave me the stars,” she explained. “But that’s the thing! Do you—?”

Twilight was cut off as the dragon committed itself to an attack. Like an avalanche, it was several seconds before it reached them, and every single one was important if they were to survive to do… something. Luna went one way and Twilight the other through a hail of rock and dirt. Had she been a regular pegasus, she was rather certain that she’d have been crippled for life, as several of them went through her wings, spoiling her flight. Still she managed to power through it, and Luna found her again before she’d even had a chance to look for her.

“Damn it,” Twilight cursed as her sandy stars struggled to move themselves back into alignment of flesh and blood again. She wasn’t sure, but they seemed more sluggish than the last time. “Luna!” she started again. “Do you think this is Gemini’s doing?” she asked, and Luna looked like she was going to roll her eyes as if it were obvious. “No, look,” Twilight clarified. “You’ve been fighting it. Has there been any sign that it’s still possessed?”

Luna looked surprised for a moment. Then, her face twisted into a scowl as she glanced at the mountain-range-sized force of nature. “Neigh, but I doubt the sunlight would let it show on the outside even if it were,” she concluded. “It is hard to imagine such a creature being controlled by that… wraith, but if it was still a creature of dreams, who can say?”

Twilight groused inwardly, fighting another outburst of anger. “Unless you want to fly inside it and check, we need to be able to take it apart, and we can’t! We don’t have the power, and we can’t wait twelve hours until dusk, either. Even if we did, we’d risk losing her in the night. We need—”

“Celestia,” Luna finished for her with a slight grumble as the dragon loomed silently over them once more, and Twilight nodded.

As if summoned, the sun pulsed, and everything went white. Twilight was looking straight at Luna when her regalia cracked, and she simply ceased to be. The dragon shook the world as it roared in anguish, and Twilight was too blinded to see whatever struck her. Whatever it was, it instantly unmade her and scattered her stars across the forest.

Twilight only had the vaguest sense of the world as the sunlight blotted out her magic.

The Everfree forest burned.

☼ ☼ ☼

Luna was going to be pissed, Celestia reflected to herself in the silence of her mind as she channeled the unbridled fury of the sun down on the Everfree. She did not actually use the word ‘pissed,’ even in her mind. No, the word was much older, more cultured and colorful than that and in an entirely different language besides.

Still, ‘pissed’ was about the gist of it. Her sister had a thing about being banished to the moon.

In Celestia’s defense, Luna was ordinarily a touch more resilient than that, and Twilight getting tail-swiped had been just plain bad luck. Not for the first time, she wondered just what the two of them were getting up to, but then, she probably should have thought of that before vaporizing her sister.

Now she was alone with an ancient dragon of unknown origin, and she didn’t even know why she was reducing it to its component elements. Aside from the obvious, of course. She usually needed a better reason to bring the fires of the sun down to Equestria than “I saw a dragon! Quick, somepony get me a horseshoe.”

There would be consequences for this. Sunlight was not like moonlight. It would not cleanly cut the earth as the moonlight did when Luna had used it to bore a hole in the world. Celestia could focus it as she was doing now, but for whatever reason, where the moonlight isolated and dissolved, sunlight would become a part of it and spread as heat.

Her biggest regret right now was for the Everfree forest. The dragon would recover, but the forest would not. Then again, judging by the crater she’d seen on her arrival, the forest had already been on its way to becoming a lake, so maybe turning the whole thing to rock pudding wasn’t actually that big of a deal.

As Celestia ceased directing her sunlight to this single spot of unfortunate land and the white power of the sun died out, however, she very much doubted that many others would see it that way. The crater the Everfree forest had fallen into was now a pool of molten slag. The dragon was gone, as was everything else. Hopefully it would find the experience of being liquefied warm and soothing enough to lull it back so sleep, and the rest of her day would be spent signing weather requisitions to deal with the rest of this mess.

No such luck. A shapeless maw of molten rock burst out of the lake of fire like a breaching whale and closed around Celestia, dragging her down into the lake with it.

Today was going to be a long day.

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight was somewhat baffled when she woke to a warm bed and the scent of chamomile in the air.

The bed was not her bed, but neither was it quite as disconcerting as the time when Luna and Spike had contrived to move her into the Ponyville palace without her consent. Before it had existed.

Twilight blinked.

Come to think of it, she hadn’t actually seen Spike since then. Well, no, she’d seen him, she remembered, but only from a distance that one time during Winter Wrap Up. Actually, she didn’t even know where in the palace he was living, so she could hardly be expected to go see him. Wait, no, that wasn’t an excuse; it was a recrimination. Stars, she didn’t even know where he was living. What kind of guardian was she?

Twilight blinked again.

Okay, as important as it was that she be a responsible adult when it came to Spike, it was clear she was just using it as a reason not to think about the fact that she was in Celestia’s bed.

It was not, technically speaking, somewhere that she hadn’t been before. At least, not if you counted her early days of living in the castle after becoming Celestia’s student. In those days, however, she had typically gone to sleep here and woken up back in her own bed, not… not the other way around.

Twilight rubbed her face with her hooves, let out a groan and flung them aside, blinking herself more awake. Somehow, it only made her more conscious of how awkward she felt. Also, conscious of Celestia standing over by the door.

She seemed to be just… standing there. Twilight shifted her head to look at her. As always, her face was a picture of neutrality. Though this time, it seemed a little off. Blank, maybe? Twilight couldn’t tell if Celestia was looking at her or through her, and she had the sudden urge to pull the covers up to her chin, which she dismissed and chided herself for.

Still, it wasn’t a look that Twilight was used to seeing on Celestia. It was more like… well, one she’d usually wear herself, actually. Usually at times like this, when her mind was… oh.

Twilight weakly lifted her hoof and gave a slight wave. “Celestia?” she said. “I’m awake.”

Celestia didn’t stop and blink like Twilight would have when someone announced themselves for the seventh time in her presence. There was just the tiniest furrow of her brow before she simply… came back to life.

“My faithful student.” She beamed, stepping further into the room with a cup of tea floating at her side. “It’s good that you’re finally awake.” Twilight moved to sit herself up in the bed as Celestia neared, taking a sip of her tea. She paused briefly to wince and set the cup down on the nightstand.

Twilight pondered the cup for a moment. “Something wrong?” she automatically asked, her curiosity getting the better of her. Bad tea didn’t exist within the confines of Canterlot castle.

“It’s nothing, Twilight,” Celestia answered. Then she added, “It’s just c—nothing.”

Celestia… stuttered? Twilight turned to look at her, which was the first moment she noticed that the white alicorn had climbed up to sit at the tail of the bed. Thoughts of tea disappeared completely. She didn’t know what to say or… do for some reason. Something bothered her. Pressing a hoof her her face, she took a breath and started over. “I’m sorry, Celestia. I’m just not quite together. I had a long night, and then you vaporized me—hey, that’s right! You vaporized me!”

Celestia turned away with a light harrumph. “I did no such thing,” she declared then opened the eye closer to Twilight with a grin. “I vaporized Luna; you were only blinded.”

Twilight was unamused. Celestia had a sly humor, but she wasn’t usually this… coy. “And then a dragon hit me,” Twilight pointed out.

“And then a dragon hit you,” Celestia repeated with a nod. “With its tail, specifically.”

“Wonderful,” Twilight said and let out a heavy breath. “What happened? I assume you…” Twilight couldn’t quite bring herself to say the words ‘reduced the Everfree forest to a smoking crater,’ so she just… didn’t. “That probably took care of Gemini if she was anywhere within a hundred miles.”

Celestia looked confused. “Gemini, I take it, was the dragon?” she asked. “If so, then no, she was significantly more stubborn than that.”

Now it was Twilight’s turn to be briefly baffled as she took in Celestia’s misunderstanding. “No, Gemini was…” Twilight hesitated, trying to figure out how to broach such a subject. “It’s hard to explain. I don’t know who the dragon was.”

The bed shifted as Celestia sidled up next to Twilight. “Maybe start from the beginning and work up to the point where you got into a fight with a dragon whose name was lost to time?” she suggested.

Twilight let out a sigh and leaned into the warm figure next to her as she thought about what she’d seen and learned last night. Suddenly, her mind’s eye locked onto an image of a golden alicorn tangled up in the sheets with another, midnight blue and half her size. It dawned on her why she was so uncomfortable.

Both Twilight and half of the sheets thumped onto the marble floor beside the bed. Technically, it was Twilight that did all the thumping; the sheets and the floor were essentially impassive. Impassive and impenetrable. Ow.

“T-Twilight?” came Celestia’s voice from over the edge of the bed. To Twilight’s astonishment, she actually sounded hurt.

Twilight gave up on trying to disentangle herself and popped her head back up over the edge of the bed, sheets and all. “No no no no no!” she said to the… tall, white alicorn lounging in her bed. In her private room. In her castle. Twilight stumbled back, and the sheets decided to let her go. “Celestia, it’s not—I mean, I’m sorry. I just can’t… be… here… right now. It’s not your fault. It’s mine. I’m uncomfortable—err, wait, no—”

Celestia barely moved. Her mouth hung open as Twilight backed away from her like she was a… an attractive alicorn in a very, very inappropriate situation. Which, Twilight supposed is what she was. What they were. Wait, did she just imply to herself that she was attractive?

That’s when Twilight dove off of the balcony.

“I’ll send you a letter!”

☼ ☼ ☼

Celestia stared at the balcony after Twilight’s exit for a not-insignificant amount of time. Was it something she’d said? Something she’d… done? She absentmindedly picked the tea cup up from the nightstand and almost took a sip before she came to her senses and remembered that the tea was cold.

Her lips curled in disgust, and she threw the cup out the balcony door. The cup shattered on the hoofrail, but Celestia didn’t even notice. She was already crawling across the bed to go find something stronger than tea. She wasn’t even sure why; it just seemed like the thing to do.

I’m uncomfortable.

In retrospect, it was a perfectly reasonable statement, Celestia decided as she poured herself a glass of what she suspected was a bottle of brandy she’d started sixty years ago. Alcohol was, again, one of those things she tended to do without as a matter of course. The question was, how had Twilight known?

Celestia swirled the brandy in her magic, going over the conversation in her head. She had made some gaffes, that was for certain. She’d stumbled over her words like a filly with a secret crush, to start with, and the tea… had Twilight realized it was cold? That she’d been standing there by the door for… rather longer than was appropriate? It was the obvious answer, but it didn’t quite fit.

Celestia’s mistakes, such as they were, were all at the start of the conversation. Once they had gotten to talking, she had been gentle, teasing and motherly as always. At least, the actions had been as such. She could not in good conscience claim that she knew precisely which part of her confused mind had been calling the shots. Had something slipped? Had Celestia had some reaction that she hadn’t even noticed?

The idea that these feelings she was having might have robbed her of her perfect self-control soured her mood and stopped the glass of brandy just short of her lips. Control. Celestia had an impenetrable faith that things would turn out for the best so long as she conducted herself and the nation as honestly and wholesomely as possible. How could she do that if she didn’t have control of herself?

Celestia pitched the glass of brandy out after the tea.

She couldn’t.

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight regretted her flight from Celestia’s chambers almost immediately. Fleeing an awkward situation was… well, okay, it was entirely like her, but that didn’t mean that it was something she was proud of.

Also, she regretted her flight from Celestia’s chambers because she regretted her flight from Celestia’s chambers. She was still heavy and laden with an excess of stars, and though her body itself was rested, it was still all she could do just to glide down to Ponyville. Thankfully, she had the advanced altitude of Canterlot on her side, so all she had to do was glide.

This gave her quite a lot of time to think and also a good view of the Everfree… lake. The forest wasn’t completely gone on the Ponyville side, but there was little enough of it left that she doubted it would ever be home to any manticores again.

Manticores or… other inhabitants of the forest. Much to her relief, it looked like Zecora’s hut had been spared the carnage, if just barely, but what reason would a zebra alchemist have to stay without a wild, magical forest to harvest, take up fishing on her new lakefront property?

Actually, come to think of it, the volcanic basin that was being fed with water from several rivers had now been touched by the magics of all four—err, three—alicorns and an ancient dragon from before recorded time. Twilight made a mental note to get Zecora a fishing pole for Hearth’s Warming Eve next year.

Fluttershy’s cottage was the next closest to the Everfree. Twilight very nearly swooped down to see if she was alright and take some time to think before going back to Ponyville, but from the looks of it, she had her hooves full with dozens of agitated animals. She’d get no peace and quiet there, and the questions would be… awkward.

Of course, the questions would be awkward anywhere. She let out a groan that was lost in the warm spring air as she scanned the city for some place an archlibrarian could sit for an hour or two without being asked, “what was that light?”, “was that a dragon?” and “where’s Luna?”

The last question in particular was one she wasn’t sure how she felt about. From the looks of it, Twilight had slept roughly eight hours of the day away, which was earlier than her usual schedule. In any case, since it was the beginning of spring, that meant there were roughly four hours until dusk arrived and Luna could return from the Umbra and manifest herself a new body.

Four long hours she’d have to go without Luna’s counsel.

Four short hours until she’d have to figure out how to avoid a repeat of what had happened with Celestia. The last thing she wanted to do was make Luna feel like she wasn’t wanted, especially when Twilight… didn’t not want her.

Twilight shook her head at the backwardness of that thought and had the sudden urge to reread Stunk and Whine’s The Elements of Style as penance. It was a popular linguistic style guide, a fact which had greatly disappointed Rarity once upon a time. She had claimed that the title was misleading and a defamation of the good name of style, and Twilight had agreed, but for rather different reasons.

Remembering the scene fondly, Twilight realized that she knew where she could get some time alone.

✶ ✶ ✶

The old Ponyville library, which Luna had bequeathed her more than two weeks ago, now, seemed to be holding up relatively well in her absence. A little too well, actually. The mailbox was empty, the doorstep swept and the bolt unbolted. The only thing that was as she had expected it, was the sign in the window which read ‘closed,’ as well it ought, as its stores of books had been cannibalized for her own collection in the Ponyville palace.

The door swung silently open, and she stepped inside, looking for any further signs of habitation. As luck would have it, there was one right there in the middle of the room, lounging on the couch and reading a comic book.

“Oh, hey, Twilight,” Spike said, and went back to reading Batmare issue 616.

Twilight stared at him for a moment. “Spike?”

“Yeah?” he responded without looking up.

“Why are you here?” she asked. “Why aren’t you in the palace?”

Spike dropped his comic down into his lap and looked at her oddly. “I live here,” he said.

It was, well, an answer as good as any, Twilight supposed. Well, Twilight had one of her own. “But… why?” she asked, stepping further into the not-so-abandoned library. It was the first time she’d ever seen its shelves looking so barren outside of reshelving day, and that just wasn’t the same.

Spike let out a little huff and shrugged, “Why not? I like it here.”

“All alone?” Twilight asked.

Spike rolled his eyes with a huff. “Oh, come on, I’m not alone. The rest of Ponyville didn’t just stop existing when you started living in that tower, you know. The only one who hasn’t been by is you, actually.”

Twilight frowned and was about to say something in response, when Spike added, “And that’s including Princess Luna, you know.”

Ouch. Had she really been that out of it for the last two weeks? The small green and purple evidence was stacked against her. “Oh, Spike, I’m so sorry. It’s just been—”

“Hey, it’s fine!” Spike said holding up his little claws to stop her. “I mean, it’s not like I didn’t help with the whole… move you out of here while you were asleep, thing.”

Twilight considered him for a moment. “You’ve grown up,” she decided.

“Maybe a little,” he said bashfully, scratching his neck and looking away. “And besides, you don’t need a sort-of-grown-up dragon in the room with you when you’re sleeping with the princess.”

Twilight froze. “S-Spike!” she sputtered. “You can’t say things like that; you’re not that grown up yet!” Honestly, you give a dragon an inch and he takes a mile. “And besides, it’s not like that,” she added, a little snippy.

“Oh,” Spike said, a little disappointed. “Really?” he asked. Really, what kind of nonsense was Rarity filling his head with these days?

Twilight readied her usual rebuttal, but stopped short when she found it wasn’t there and was forced to reconsider for a moment.

“It… might actually be like that.”

☼ ☼ ☼

Coffee was not Celestia’s typical choice of beverage, but after what had happened, she didn’t feel that another cup of tea would help her mood. Luna, of course, would have chided her for even calling such a concoction ‘coffee,’ as the substance in the cup floating along beside her contained so much cream and sugar that its color was barely darker than her coat. Her sister, on the other hoof, had predictably decided, upon being introduced to coffee, that anypony who did not take it black did not truly like coffee.

Well, she was probably right, Celestia reflected and took a sip of her sweet cream lightly garnished with coffee. Be that as it may, the substance had managed to get her through the rest of the paperwork caused by the earlier incident with the dragon, and the paperwork had helped her regain control after what had happened with Twilight. The weather requisitions she had dreaded had really been only the tip of the iceberg and only complicated by still being in the dark as to what was even going on. She had briefly considered just sending it all to Luna, but that had ceased to be an option the moment Celestia had vaporized her sister.

A quick glance out the window told her that it was close to sunset, and she let out a sigh as she anticipated the mess that would cause. Luna was not subtle, and she would not let the matter go unaddressed, nor was she likely to address it at a reasonable volume. At least there weren’t many ponies in and about the castle today, since she’d cancelled court. Luna could shout her head off if she had to, and it wouldn’t cause too much of a fuss.

Come to think of it, the castle seemed even more deserted than it ought to have. Certainly, all the usual business had been suspended so that Celestia could deal with the current crisis and address her personal state of mind—which apparently meant watching Twilight Sparkle sleep, she noted to herself with some derision—but there still should have been the usual maids and the like. They practically wiped up her hoofprints as she made them, so where were they now?

Suddenly a bit self conscious, Celestia craned her neck to look behind herself and managed to catch a pastel pink blur disappear around the corner. Somewhat befuddled, she stood and waited. Sure enough, a small pink head slowly peeked back around the corner and disappeared again.

So that was it—she was being avoided. Odd, she hadn’t seen the servants act like this since the early days after Luna had returned. She pondered this for a moment and retraced her actions of the last few days. She had been irritable and confused—it was true—but she was quite certain that she had not snapped at anyone, and—oh right she’d just called down the fires of the sun and turned the local haunted forest into a crater. There was that.

In her defense, it had been a crater before she’d arrived.

With a great, put-upon sigh and another sip of her cream, she decided to put a stop to this right here and now. All she had to do was talk to the mare and let her see that she was still the same Celestia as always. At least, that was the plan. What actually happened was that, as she took one quiet step towards the corner the mare was hiding behind, there was a pop by her head, a soft rustle at her hooves and a clatter of hooves fading away from around the corner.

Celestia stopped, blinked and looked down. There was a scroll laying on the red carpet in front of her. Twilight had wonderful timing sometimes, she groused inwardly before the reality of the situation had quite struck her. Twilight had promised to write; Celestia hadn’t thought it would be this soon. Actually, she hadn’t got her hopes up at all over a promise made by a pony who was quite literally diving off a cliff to get away from her at the time.

All these thoughts subsequently disappeared as she unrolled the scroll and realized that it was composed entirely of three lines.

Dear Princess Celestia,

I think I’m in love with Luna, and… I might actually be okay with that.

What do I do?

Author's Note

• Author's Notes • Patreon Funded •

Chapter 14

Sharing the Night: Chapter 14

☼ ☼ ☼

Celestia only read the letter from Twilight once. She was aware that the typical behavior in such a situation was to read it over and over, perhaps out of denial or a desire to read between the lines, but in this case, the letter was quite clear. Once was quite enough. Twilight, at least, had given her that.

Of course, even in the case that it had been longer, disbelief was not an emotion which Celestia typically engaged in, and in spite of recent revelations, she chose to believe this had not changed. In fact, if she had to guess which vice she would have potentially indulged in given the chance, it would probably have been a hesitation to read the letter fully to begin with.

Perhaps that was the problem, though. She had tried avoiding the matter entirely, but it did not appear to have worked. True, a single day was hardly much of a chance, but her earlier behavior and the renewed sting in her heart now were not good signs. The fact that she felt disappointment meant that she had been holding out some measure of hope, some fantasy where she believed that the sun and the stars could ever share the same sky.

She took a long, slow breath in her nose and let it out her mouth. Then, she began to make her way to her study. She would need to sit down and formulate a response. Perhaps that would put these troublesome feelings to rest once and for all.

✶ ✶ ✶

Watching the silvery smoke of her letter find its way out of the library, Twilight had one question. “Why did I do that?”

“What do you mean?” Spike asked, cocking his head as he made his way back over to one of the library’s couches. “Why wouldn’t you have?”

“It’s Prin—I mean, it’s Celestia,” Twilight told him, having to remind herself how things had changed. “She was my teacher, she’s her sister, she’s—”

Spike interrupted her before she could finish. “The only pony you trust who hasn’t bugged you about it in the past?” he said, halfway between sarcasm and confusion.

“That’s just the thing, Spike. She’s not,” Twilight corrected, panic rising. “She’s the one who sent Luna here to begin with. Oh jeez, I’m doing exactly what she wanted, aren’t I? And now she knows!”

Spike just stared at her. “And that’s... a bad thing?” he asked.

Twilight had thought that was obvious. “Isn’t it?”

Spike shrugged. “Well, she’s on your side, so... not really?”

Wait, what? “My… side?”

“The side of getting you and Luna together,” Spike clarified, looking at her with uncertainty. “If you’re in love, then that’s what you want, isn’t it?”

Twilight hesitated. “I… don’t know,” she said, and she didn't.

Spike only looked more confused, even concerned. “Really?”

“Really!” Twilight assured him with earnest emphasis. “I—this has literally never happened before.”

“But, it’s love,” Spike said as if that explained everything. “It’s kind of—by definition—what you want.”

That did make sense, she supposed. In theory, anyway. “I know, but…”

“You wrote in the letter that you were okay with it,” Spike reminded her, raising his voice a little himself as he tried to make sense of the situation.

“Might be okay with it, Spike,” Twilight corrected him rather matter-of-factly. “I might be okay with it. I’m not… opposed to the idea?”

“Wow. Romantic,” he remarked.

“I know!” Twilight beamed. “Just thinking about it makes me—”

“That was sarcasm, Twilight,” Spike said.

Twilight blinked. “Sarcasm?”

Spike looked like he was beginning to regret this entire conversation for some reason. “That thing where ponies say the opposite of what they mean because it makes it sound silly in contrast?”

“I know what sarcasm is, Spike!” Twilight insisted and began to pace back and forth nervously. “Which is why that can not be sarcasm. I’m being so romantic right now you don’t even know what I could do! I don’t even know what I could do!” She turned around to face Spike. “What do I do?”

“Yeeeah…” Spike rolled his eyes. “You know what you need to do?”

“No, I don’t!” Twilight shouted. “I thought that was clear!”

“First, you need to calm down,” he said. “Second, do something relaxing. Take a bath. Get something to eat. Nice, uhh, mortal things. Third, and most importantly…”

“Yes, Spike?” Twilight prompted, making a mental list of his every word.

“Do. Nothing,” he finished, enunciating slowly.

It took Twilight a moment until she realized what he had said. “But—huh?”

“Twi, nopony is going to make you ‘woo’ Princess Luna if you don’t want to,” Spike said. “If the idea freaks you out that much, then it’s probably a sign that you need to step back and let it sort itself out before you do or say anything that you don’t really mean.”

“But… it’s too late for that,” Twilight reminded him. “Celestia—”

“Will send you a well-meaning but vague and ultimately useless letter suggesting that you skip the wacky hijinks, be open with her and all other the usual platitudes that everypony knows and nopony listens to,” Spike finished for her.

Twilight thought about that for a second until she came to an unfortunate conclusion. “Ugh, you’re right,” she admitted. “Stars, you’re right. Since when are you an expert on—?”

Spike gave Twilight a withering glare.

“Right. I deserved that,” Twilight acknowledged. “So…”

“Bath,” Spike reminded her sternly, pointing upstairs like he was directing a misbehaving pet.

“Right,” Twilight said, making her way over to the stairs. As she reached them, she paused to think. “Do you do that much?” she asked, turning back to address Spike. “Step back and reevaluate things with Rarity?”

“Yeah,” he said, dropping his gaze to the wooden floorboards. “Yeah, I do.”

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight was several minutes into her bath when it hit her. “I feel ridiculous,” she stated aloud to nopony in particular.

The fact of the matter was, she had absolutely no need for a bath. She’d worked up a bit of a sweat flying to Ponyville, but all it took was a quick remanifestation and she had a new body, fresh and clean as the day that Twilight Sparkle, unicorn, had died and Twilight Sparkle, alicorn, had sprung into being out of the aether.

She slumped back in what she decided was not a bath, since she no need of one, but perhaps the world’s smallest and warmest swimming pool. Was that true, she wondered? Was she a wholly different creature than the filly who had grown up under Princess Celestia’s tutelage? When she was facing Gemini down, she’d emphasized that she was the true alicorn of the stars and that she had always been. It wasn’t difficult to separate herself from starbeasts, lacking in true sapience as they seemed to be, but what about Gemini? What about the millions of ponies out there who each of them had a star at the core of their being, granting them cutie marks and the magic to go along with them?

Star Glister had railed at her for being ‘chosen’ in spite of her inadequacies, and she had rejected the idea. She had to reject the idea, now more than ever, because if she really had been a normal pony to begin with—a pony with its own soul, as well as a piece of star—then what had happened to that soul when her natural body had dissolved into stardust? Had she, like Gemini, died without noticing it? Was she continuing on with only momentum to guide her, fueled by stars, but in truth, a fake?

No. She refused to believe that.

How easy this would be if she had the ability to quantify what makes a soul and measure it, but even if she could, she would also have to go back in time and measure herself. Pre-cutie-mark, post-cutie-mark and post-manifestation. That’s the minimum she would need to get any sort of answer. Any less, and she was just weaving fantasies with hope and faith.

Twilight’s head settled against the edge of the tub, and she closed her eyes. There was a vast library before her, each book a star. Most of the books were out of her reach, buried in the earth or off in the Umbra, but there were quite a few that she had with her.

She picked up the story of her life—the star or stars containing her own memories—and paged through it. She saw herself staring wide-eyed at Princess Celestia, who was raising the sun at the summer sun celebration. She saw herself watching as four stars converged on the moon, releasing Luna from her long imprisonment. She saw herself sitting with Celestia on her balcony, learning how to bring out the stars and recreating herself as a being of pure magic.

It was all pointless, as she had no way to measure a soul, but she wanted to believe that they were all the same pony. It was, perhaps, the only solution that she felt she could live with, so it was the one she would have to choose to believe. Hope and faith. Celestia’s tools, which Twilight had once rejected. She had all the data now that she could ever expect to have, and yet she fell back to wishing for the best.

Idly, she paged back to that middle Twilight, the one looking up at the moon on the night Luna was freed. If Celestia was right and she had used the stars to free Luna, then… what? It still wouldn’t prove things one way or the other as far as her soul was concerned. There was no contortion of logic that could prove things one way or the other. Either she’d never had a mortal soul to begin with, or it had been lost along the way.

At least, she supposed, there was some consolation to be had. She wasn’t alone in this, at least. Whatever the truth was, it no doubt held true for both Celestia and Luna as well, and they’d been doing fine with just the one soul each for all of recorded history.

Well, relatively fine. There was, of course, the one black mark of Nightmare Moon on their record, but that could not be considered statistically significant, no matter how historically significant.

Twilight remained on the page where she had supposedly freed Luna from her imprisonment, the moment before her frozen in time just before the seal was broken. Luna would immediately dismiss that the faults of Nightmare Moon were any but her own, and Twilight was inclined to agree. In fact, if anything, Luna had had one too many souls at the time, with the stars giving her power and stature to match Celestia.

With a groan, she shut the book, flung it aside and sank beneath the surface of the bath. It was all pointless. She was the alicorn of the stars. She had a soul, and that would have to be good enough. She wasn’t relying on faith, but acting on the best approximation of knowledge that she could arrive at from extrapolating the facts.

As she hung there beneath the surface of the water, her mind drifted back to Luna and she remembered that image of herself staring up at the moon. What would it have been like to be banished for a thousand years, she wondered—to be locked away in the stars, conscious, but unable to manifest?

Actually, she didn’t have to imagine, she remembered. She’d fallen asleep and spent a day trapped in the Umbra, herself. It had been rather relaxing, but day after day, month after month, year after year? It was a wonder that Luna didn’t resent her moon after all this time.

Suddenly, a thought struck Twilight, and she burst out of the water, gasping for breath. Luna had been trapped in the Umbra all day for the first time since her banishment.

She was probably not going to be happy about that.

✶ ✶ ✶

There was still a good hour or so until sunset, so for once in Twilight’s life—and she did her absolute best not to waste any time attempting to quantify that value in spite of the fact—she had ample time to calmly think through a problem.

The first question she asked as she went about drying herself off with one of her old towels was just how upset would Luna be, and how exactly would one go about fixing it?

Twilight wasn’t really happy with the answers she came up with. She really had no idea how Luna would react. Twilight liked to think they had become fast friends, if not more, but she had very little to go on in regards to how Luna felt about her own issues. In fact, she would probably show greater concern over what had happened in her absence, but that would be addressed rather quickly.

Adding to the answers which Twilight did not like was what she could do about it. She could simply ask Pinkie Pie to do it. Pinkie Pie would be happy to throw a party for any reason, and a Twilight-Finally-Knows-Everything party wouldn’t be completely unreasonable, since she had left early from the last one. Luna had even displayed a particular liking for Pinkie’s brand of fun, but… it didn’t sit right with Twilight. She couldn’t just dump the issue on somepony else. Not when it was Luna who needed her.

Briefly, she considered whether that meant she wanted Luna all to herself or some similar aberrant behavior typically associated with romance, but she was well-practiced in avoiding such questions—even if it was usually from other ponies—and chose to ignore it.

Speaking of having Luna to herself, did Twilight really have to wait for Luna to return at dusk? As a matter of fact, she did not. Not technically, anyway. She couldn’t demanifest directly to the Umbra, but she’d proved previously that she could move the stars into the Umbra when it housed the day, so the reverse was likely true. No doubt, this was because the stars had been moonrock lit by the sun to begin with, and it meant that it was possible for her to bring them over, demanifest, and go back to the Umbra where Luna was.

It would only cause concern across all of Equestria if she did it, but after the last several weeks, what was a little more? Twilight considered it, but no. Actually, she had a much better idea what to do with the next hour.

✶ ✶ ✶

“Your Majesty, this is highly irregular.”

Twilight allowed herself to sigh audibly as she climbed the stairs of the Ponyville Palace. The noblestallion was only one of a herd of ponies following her up to the throne room—most of them reporters—but she didn’t really care right now.

“It’s really not,” she retorted rather sourly. “Out of four sessions of court, I’ve held one alone, been barely conscious for one, canceled one and fielded most of the last almost entirely on my own. Statistic significance aside, holding court an hour early without Luna is actually literally par for the course.”

“But Your Majesty,” he pleaded as the group reached the throne room and Twilight began to break away from the pack. “Surely you of all ponies should understand the necessity of adhering to a schedule. You can’t seriously expect the rest of the nobility to read about the proceedings in… in a newspaper,” he insisted, not even bothering to hide his disgust from the collected journalists.

Twilight dissolved into stars for a moment to cross the gap that separated the plateau of crystal-coated white stone where the thrones were from its twin, where the assembled ponies remained, and rematerialized facing them. She didn’t have time to argue, and she had had just about enough of this paradoxical mixture of reverence for her and expectation that she act as they expect.

“Dapper Façade,” she addressed him and took a moment to reflect on the types of names that ponies of the nobility tended to have. “You all received the same notifications of the change in schedule as the rest of the ponies in this room, ergo anypony who is not here has chosen to not be here, either because they have prior engagements or because it takes them an hour to powder their noses, and I really don’t care which it is. This session will mainly be a press-release followed by a short Q&A and any other urgent business if there is time. I will be leaving sharply at dusk, no exceptions. Herald three will be transcribing the session and should have copies available shortly thereafter. Is there anything else?”

True to his name, the carnation-colored unicorn's outward calm vanished as he paled. “Of—of course, Your Majesty,” he stuttered. “N-nothing else, Your Majesty.” It was not exactly the response she wanted, but she could not imagine Luna doing any differently—nor any of the alicorns she’d learned of last night, for that matter. She wasn’t sure if the latter was exactly an endorsement, but she had to work with the role models she had.

“Very well,” she stated as she took a seat on her throne. “I declare this session of the Night Court to be open.” The subtle scratching of herald number three echoed Twilight’s words. “Now, I’m sure most of you have noticed, but the issue of the anomaly above the Everfree forest has been resolved…”

This was going to be a long hour.

☼ ☼ ☼

My ~~faithful student~~ ~~fellow princess~~ faithful student, Twilight Sparkle,

I find myself at a loss to describe the full breadth of my feelings on receiving your letter, among them no small amounts of relief and pride. I knew when you first revealed to me your wings, that it was a sign that you were growing up, and now here you are with your own palace, holding your own court and asking for my advice in winning my sister’s ~~hoof in marriage~~ heart. I fear the day is fast approaching that I will no longer be able to refer to you as my student. Perhaps that time has already come.

I’m afraid that romance is not my forté, ~~my little pony,~~ and that any advice I give you would be woefully inadequate. Oh, I am not quite the virginal princess that the reputation which precedes me would suggest, but it is more accurate than you might think. I have never in my long life truly found love, and to my knowledge, neither has my sister. I am, in fact, quite envious of ~~my sister~~ the two of you.

Loathe as I am to do so, however, I must caution you. Be gentle and take things slow. I cannot say how my sister will react, if she has given up on romance as I have, or if she has any preferences that would interfere. I do not believe that she would ever hold such feelings against a pony, but with how lethargic she has been since the elements of harmony were used on her, now may simply not be the best time for such a revelation. I understand that my view of things may be out of date, however, so I trust you to make that call.

~~I wish you the best of~~

~~You have my sincerest~~

The solar princess sat staring at the draft before her, doing her best to come up with honest encouragement and well-wishes for her student and her sister. She couldn’t help but feel a little dishonest for some of the misleading phrasing she had used, and yet… it was actually helping her. She could feel a growing melancholy in her chest like an old friend.

Celestia had written many letters of condolence in the past, and while this letter wasn’t the same thing on the surface, it was, in a way, a similar sort of goodbye. It helped that it wasn’t just her inconvenient desires she was mourning, but the very real relationship of student and teacher which she had been holding onto. She had told Twilight that nothing would change in regards to their relationship, but that indulgence, it seemed, was proving to be short-lived.

She was about to take another stab at a closing paragraph, when there was a shuffling at the door. Remembering that the servants had been tip-hoofing around her earlier, she went to investigate, and sure enough, unlatching the door produced a squawk and a crash. Opening it fully, she discovered two of the younger staff who had evidently tripped over each other in an attempt to flee her terrible wrath.

Celestia took a deep breath and gave them a melancholy smile. “Is there anything I can do for you two?” she asked.

The two servants scrambled to their hooves with a “Ma’am!” from the colt and a “Your Majesty!” from the filly. On closer inspection, the filly seemed to be a maid, and the colt, a librarian. The two seemed well-acquainted, and held what looked to be an entire conversation in front of her with nothing more than various pleading looks to each other. Eventually, the colt gave a sigh, rose and stepped forward.

“Princess Celestia. Ma’am. Your Highness,” he began, bowing until his nose brushed the marble. “M-my name is Marble Mark, and I’m one of the ponies working on the… err… the secession of the Royal Canterlot Archives to Libraropolean control.”

Celestia nodded, motioning for him to continue.

“Ah, yes, well, it’s come up that there are certain vaults in the palace that are under the authority of the archive, so I had Rose Dust checking up on them and finding all the paperwork necessary to have them opened for accounting and cleaning. One of those vaults is the one that holds the Elements of Harmony, among other things.”

Celestia hmmed, considering that for a moment. “I would like to see a full accounting of the vaults in question, but have no problem hoofing the elements over to Princess Twilight. Truly, she has more right to them than I.”

“Err, understood, ma’am,” Marble Mark said, giving her the sort of salute that civilians completely unfamiliar with the military are wont to use, holding the pose long past awkwardness.

“Was there something else?” Celestia asked, raising one brow.

“Well, you see, ma’am…” he began, but didn’t seem to have it in him to continue. “A-actually, Rose Dust should be the one to say it. She’s the one who saw it, anyway.”

Celestia turned to the maid, who was giving her companion a sour look. “Saw what, pray tell?”

Rose Dust’s attention snapped instantly back to Celestia. “W-well, Your Highness, you see, the vault is… I mean, if you look at it the right way, like, with your eyes open, it seems to be sort of… glowing?”

✶ ✶ ✶

“Your Majesty, am I to understand that Princess Celestia killed this dragon?” one of the reporters asked, clearly doubtful.

“No, of course not,” Twilight said, shaking her head as she took stock of the ponies who had steadily trickled in since she had begun this arduous game of don’t-tell-anypony-you’re-a-god. It was clear that a good number of them in fact had delayed themselves to powder their noses. “Not only would Celestia never do such a thing, she could never do such a thing. The dragon in question was, somewhat literally, older than dirt and well into its fifth life cycle. Beginning with their fourth life cycle, dragons are, for all intents and purposes, immortal. I’m going to say that again. They can not be killed by anything but another dragon. If anypony in the future gets a hold of this transcription and thinks it’d be a good idea to wake up a dragon—don’t. Just don’t. Unless you are me, Celestia or Luna, do not try this at home. If you are me, Celestia or Luna… still don’t try it at home; try it at somepony else’s home—maybe somebirdy or someling else’s home, depending on the current political climate.”

It was then that Twilight realized that everypony in the room was staring at her and nopony was blinking. Finally, one pony broke the silence. “Right. If her majesty is finished talking to her future majesty… um…” He had to check his notes to remember where he was. “If Princess Celestia didn’t kill the dragon, then what became of it?”

“Excellent question, Cupcake Justice,” Twilight said, scratching her chin with one hoof. “You should definitely ask her next time you see her.”

“Pardon?” he asked automatically.

“I can’t tell you,” she clarified.

Cupcake Justice’s pencil pressed onto the notepad in front of him, but didn’t move. “Ah. Shall I take that to mean that you have been sworn to secrecy on the matter due to the inherent danger of the details?”

Twilight considered this for a moment. “That’s not a bad idea, actually—though the likelihood is that somepony will notice that they have a new mountain in their backyard, so in the end, kind of impractical. No, Cupcake Justice, I just haven’t the foggiest what Celestia did with it.”

Cupcake Justice and the rest of the reporters were busy transcribing her answer when there was a commotion from the rear of the crowd. “Is this some kind of joke to you?” somepony growled.

Twilight sighed as the crowd automatically split away from the dissenter. Twilight was expecting one of the members of the nobility that she had supposedly spurned but had no such luck. “Star Glister,” she stated with an enthusiasm like dry talc. “I’m surprised, and yet… I’m really not. To what do I owe the pleasure? I’m rather interested that the guild even lets you near me after last time.”

Star Glister looked uncertain as the crowd evaporated around him, glancing this way and that for support. Though his voice had echoed through the chamber with such rancor, Twilight wondered if he’d actually meant to be heard. He apparently decided that the die had been cast, however, and hardened up. Committed to his course, he marched forward with a heavy gait and scattered a stack of papers on the crystalline floor in front of him.

“Revised plans for the new observatory design if you must know, Your Highness,” he spat. “Which I am to understand that I will not be presenting to you this fine evening, because you are apparently practicing for your debut as a stand-up comedian.” The hostility radiated from him like a bonfire, but this time—having faced starbeasts and Gemini in the interim—she was grounded by knowledge of what she was and able to let it simply pass through her. She had weathered worse.

Calm and composed, she levitated the scattered papers and took her time placing them in order, double checking her work before passing the stack off to herald one. “Put these on my desk for later,” she stated, before considering for a moment. “I do have a desk, right? In an actual office, not the bedroom?” The herald nodded while Star Glister shook with barely contained rage. “Right. Put the papers on my office desk, and leave a note on the bedroom desk letting me know where that is.”

There was a smattering of nervous chuckles from around the room, and when Twilight finally gave Star Glister her attention again, she pondered his reaction for a moment. “Does it bother you that I have a sense of humor?” she asked, torn between an indignant haughtiness and honest curiosity.

“Your lack of dignity bothers me,” he said, his lips twisting into an unbidden sneer. “You are a princess of the realm and possibly a living god, so act like it.”

Well, wasn't that just a terrible suggestion all around? Twilight took a breath and leaned forward in her throne, leaning heavily on one armrest. With a hint of the Traditional Ponyville Librarian Voice, she uttered one word. “No.” Quills all throughout the room stopped silent for a moment, then began scratching furiously in spite of the relative simplicity of the statement. Star Glister was about to offer a retort when Twilight held up a hoof to silence him.

“You’re right,” she said, taking a deep breath and raising her head to address the crowd as a whole. Her mind raced, desperately finding words the moment before she needed them, but she was Twilight Sparkle, and if there was one thing she could do in front of a crowd, it was lecture. “I am a princess, and unlike most of the ponies in this room, I have spent quite a lot of my time coming to an understanding of what that means.

“From a very early age, I was mentored by Princess Celestia. Ostensibly, the reason for this was for her to teach me to control my magic, but I learned much more than that from her. History, politics, mathematics—in a way, I was her apprentice in all things. Though she didn’t know that I would eventually step up to stand beside her as a princess, I don’t believe that she would have done anything differently if she did.

“Of all the things that she has taught me, however, there is one in particular that stands out among the rest. It was not a spell, a lesson, or some hidden secret of state, yet it took me years before I could really accept it and wrap my head around the concept. To me, it was the revelation that before she was anything else, Celestia was not just my teacher, but in fact, my friend. It would be more correct, however, to say that it was the realization that Celestia was, is, and will always be a pony.

“I mean, of course she’s a pony; that should be obvious, shouldn’t it? But how many ponies here actually know who that pony is? How many ponies can separate the Princess from Celestia? It’s hard. It’s hard because for more than a thousand years, the two have been all but synonymous. The real Celestia might be a little more open, a little more honest than the princess, but they are, for the most part, one and the same.

“I am not Celestia. Though she all but raised me, I am my own pony. I have my own ideas, I make different decisions than her, and I act differently. I’ll tell you now—the position of princess is one of a public servant. It’s a position that I naïvely coveted long before it was within my reach, and now that I have it, I will do my earnest best to be the greatest damn government official you’ve ever had.”

Several ponies around the room nodded with approval—though they glanced at each other with uncertainty.

“I will, however, do so on my terms,” she announced, steel in her voice as she leveled a determined gaze from one side of the crowd to the other.

“Yes, you heard me right. I will not be made to feel guilty about your begrudging reverence. Your worship does not give you the right to dictate how I act and how I live what little life I can scrounge together.”

Silence carried in the wake of her speech, but if anypony thought that Twilight was done, the misunderstanding was dispelled the instant she lurched up out of her crystal throne, eyeing Star Glister directly for a moment before raising her gaze past the crowd.

“As it so happens, you are also right that I am a goddess,” she stated, her voice booming with menace as she looked out past the crowd to the great panoramic windows and the landscape beyond. “You all saw today what the goddess Celestia is capable of. The Everfree Forest, scourge of Ponyville for generations, is gone, and there is a crater in its place. If the events of this morning had happened at night, that job would have passed to Luna or, yes, me.”

In a blur of stars, Twilight shifted across the gap that had separating her from the crowd. “Is that what you want?” she asked, stepping towards Star Glister as the rest of the crowd spread out into a bubble around them. “Because the dignity of a goddess might demand reparations in the form of gifts that you are not ready to relinquish.”

Star Glister scoffed, which would have impressed Twilight if she believed he really understood the situation. Briefly, she asked herself if she was really going to explain it to him, but it was too late now. It had been too late the moment she’d opened her mouth and admitted to being what she was. It was fine, though, she told herself. She needed this. She needed to set the tone for how the public would see her, and to do that, she needed to show them the ugly alternative. There was no use getting ahead of herself, though, Star Glister was—ugh—talking.

“Gifts?” he asked. “By your very existence, you have taken my life’s work and clopped all over it, leaving ponies like me to pick up the pieces. I have tried—honestly tried—to make the best of the situation with these new observatories, but you know what? Tartarus take you and your stars! I am done with them!”

Twilight let out a heavy breath and stepped right up to Star Glister, laying a hoof on his chest. “Very well,” she said, grim and determined not to falter. “There are billions of stars in the sky,” she said cryptically, “and more than that buried in the earth. There are more stars than any single pony can count, but if you wish to be done with them, then there is only one that I think you should know about before you make such a decision.”

She pulled the star out of him.

Star Glister gasped like she had stolen his very breath. He sagged, his eyes glazed over, and he fell onto his rump, which faded to blank before everyone’s very eyes. Not a single quill in the room moved, and Star Glister himself made no sound, just staring at the pinprick of light that Twilight now held in her hoof.

“This is your star, Star Glister,” she said, holding it out to him. He absently reached out for it, but Twilight quickly turned away and started to pace around him, holding it in her magic so that everypony could see it. “Though it is more accurate to say that is it my star. It is the source of your magic, your cutie mark and your dreams. It holds a copy of every last memory you have, as well as those of the pony who had it before you and the pony before that, as far back as recorded history. When you die, it will pass on to another, and another, and another, until one day it ends up in my library, because that’s what I am. I am the goddess of stars, and ultimately, every last star is a part of me.”

As she finished speaking, Twilight finished her circuit around Star Glister and turned to face him once again. “As a goddess, I would be within my right to take this star from you,” she said, making a show of admiring it. Then, she gently put it back inside him. “But that’s not who I am. Like Celestia, like Luna, I may be a goddess, but I am a pony first. All you have to do for me to be the pony instead of the goddess—all anypony has to do—is treat me like one.”

Suddenly, Twilight shifted and was back on her throne. “There are ten minutes remaining before dusk,” she announced with a smile and a clap of her hooves. “Does anypony have questions?”

☼ ☼ ☼

Celestia was one of the few ponies who could truly appreciate the shining light that shone out from every crack and crevice of the vault door. She in particular could appreciate it since it was her who had created the door to possess neither crack nor crevice.

In spite of the clearly evident deterioration of the vault, however, the force was not violent or explosive. Rose Dust had described it as a glow, and that was indeed what it was—a gentle, yet unyielding pressure. It did not appear to pose a danger to her little ponies, for which she was grateful. Once in a day was already one too many times to bring the might of the sun to bear on the surface of Equestria.

Dangerous or not, however, it was worrying, and the damage was not a good sign. She approached the vault door and placed a hoof on it. It was cool to the touch, and though many of the artifacts in the vault would have made her skin crawl, there was only a warm sense of familiarity. It seemed likely that the elements of harmony were indeed either the source of the disturbance or, at least, reacting to it. Anticipating nothing malicious, she decided to open the vault.

The vault had not been originally intended to house the elements of harmony, nor were the elements the only powerful artifacts which the vault contained, which is why contained was indeed the word for it. While it was not the oldest such vault, nor the youngest, it did hold the unique honor of being the most secure thanks to an odd quirk of its design. Indeed, unlike the elements of harmony, which were the most recent addition, containment had been an equal concern to protection for the vault’s original contents.

Her horn slid gently into the hole and lit with a pale golden glow, but nothing happened. Frowning, Celestia redoubled her efforts, but it was futile. Power was not what was required to unlock the vault; it was keyed to a specific spell-like pattern so that it could be opened by others with the correct information, should the need arise.

Disheartened, Celestia stepped back. letting her horn dip as it slid out of the hole. There hadn’t been any resistance, just a slight echo of feedback that told her that the spellwork on the door was still present. Its finer workings, then, must be either damaged or suspended by the incredible magical pressure inside the vault.

“Marble Mark, Rose Dust, I’m going to need some materials,” she announced, but there was no response. Turning around, she found herself alone because of course she was.

Lips pressed into a tight line, she teleported all the way back to the other end of the hall of stained glass windows and was greeted by the predictable squeaks of little ponies who thought that she was going to banish something.

“Marble Mark,” she said, choosing to simply act as if nothing untoward had happened. “While Rose Dust is getting me what I need, I want you to bring me the accounting I mentioned for this vault. I’d like to know what’s inside, and anypony who has had access to it in recent memory.”

“Yes, ma’am. Of course, ma’am. Right away, ma’am,” he said, quickly giving his civilian’s-salute and galloping off, no doubt glad to be doing something that took him out of the immediate area for the time being. Celestia watched him go then turned to address Rose Dust.

Rose Dust, too, watched Marble Mark gallop off—though, she was much less enthusiastic in seeing him go. She quickly became conscious of Celestia’s eyes on her and snapped back to face her, bowing. “Whatever you need, I shall provide, Your Majesty. Though… I am only a maid. I am not sure—”

“That won’t be a problem, my little pony,” Celestia said with a gentle smile. “Everything I need, you will find quite easily. A tea service and a seat cushion, to start with.”

“Your Majesty?” Rose Dust asked, curious.

“I have a feeling that it’s going to be a bit of a wait.”

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight lamented that she couldn’t go back to the Everfree Lake and then bring out the stars. She was relatively certain that Luna would choose to first manifest back at the site of the conflict with the dragon, just in case, and Twilight didn’t want to miss her. She would just have to take that chance, though, unless she were to wing it, and she didn't have time for that.

The throne room was deathly quiet as Twilight waited for the sun to set, but maybe that wasn’t too surprising. The reporters had all dashed off the moment she had declared court to be over, eager to get papers in the hooves of ponies before the competition, and after the adamance with which she had declared that she would be leaving exactly at dusk, nopony else had wanted to stay and risk attracting her ire. In the background, she could hear her heralds shuffling papers, but all else was silent.

Finally, the sun touched the western horizon, and Twilight let the slight push she felt from it direct her in bringing out the night, moving as best she could in tandem with the Moon. Not for the first time, she wondered how she was going to explain things to Luna—both the distant past and the awkward present—but dismissed it. Worst case was, it would distract Luna from the day she’d spent unmanifested, which could only be good.

As the last of the sun disappeared completely beneath the horizon and stars began to become visible in the sky, Twilight too, vanished.

The site of the growing Everfree Lake had not changed overmuch since earlier that morning. Whatever Celestia had done with the dragon, it wasn’t immediately obvious. Rather than devote any time to looking, however, Twilight instead scanned the sky for Luna.

She didn’t have to wait long for Luna’s arrival, nor was there any real need to actually look for her. No sooner had Twilight raised her eyes to the sky than her view of the moon was blocked by a dark figure which engulfed her in its wings. A small part of Twilight was aware that this was one of those things that, in retrospect, some ponies might not see as perfectly innocent, but she leaned into the hug all the same. The only acknowledgment of her new point of view was a slight blush.

“You are well?” Luna asked, her voice nearly a whisper in Twilight’s mane. Not trusting her voice, Twilight nodded into Luna’s neck.

The contact lasted only long enough to distract Twilight before the cool night air slipped back in between them. Still, as Luna turned to survey the landscape and Twilight settled in close next to her, she felt lighter than she had all day—and why shouldn’t she? She could miss Luna and worry about her without being in love with her. No, wait, she was overthinking things again. She felt lighter because she was lighter; her remanifestation had shed the stars from beneath Equestria that she’d been saturated with.

“It appears that, after carelessly vaporizing me, Tia eventually drove the dragon to a canyon in the south.” Luna stated as the moonlight left her eyes and they faded back to their usual teal. “If all is well, I suppose we should return to Ponyville for court.”

The shift in tone was jarring, but it was better than some of the things that Twilight had imagined. Still, she frowned, and a gentle hoof found Luna’s shoulder. “Hey,” she said, tentative in her approach. “It’s over. You can relax now. Everything is going to be okay.” Luna stiffened, which Twilight was a sure sign that something was indeed wrong.

“Alas and alack, I think you shall find that the life of a princess is not so simple,” Luna said, shaking her head. “Unlike in your previous life as a hero of the land, when you are the pony in charge, it is the sad truth that with great deeds comes great paperwork—now come.”

Twilight failed to get a word in before Luna disappeared in a glimmer of moonlight. Rolling her eyes, Twilight followed along, manifesting back in the empty throne room, where she found Luna with a rather perplexed look on her face.

“I took care of it,” Twilight said with a wry smile on her face as she stepped forward, her hooves tapping lightly on the crystal-coated stone. She was certain now that she’d done the right thing in clearing the evening. “Well, not the actual paperwork, but I already held court and made an announcement. It went—erm—well?”

Luna looked lost for a moment then all at once the stiffness drained out of her and she slumped to the floor with… relief? Twilight really hoped it was relief. Luna took a breath and craned her neck to look over at Twilight. “Truly?” she asked.

“Well enough?” Twilight answered with a bit of a nervous smile as she knelt down and nuzzled Luna. “I was very assertive,” she clarified, sounding rather proud of herself.

Luna nuzzled back, but the action seemed… lacking. It wasn’t ungrateful—the only word that Twilight could come up for it was weary. “You didn’t yell at them again, did you?” she asked without opening her eyes or abandoning the nuzzle.

It was Twilight that pulled away this time as she scratched the back of her neck with a hoof. She really didn’t want to get into exactly how court had went, but… “I’ll have you know that I did nothing of the sort,” she said. “I did not raise my voice even once when I ripped the star out of that stallion.”

Luna stared listlessly at her for a moment then planted her face on the cold, crystal-coated floor. “Wonderful,” she mumbled.

“I gave it back, so it’s fine,” Twilight insisted, turning her head so her nose was up in the air. “But seriously,” she continued, relaxing from her pose. “It wasn’t what I planned, but I’m done worrying about what they think. I’m more worried about you,” she said, nudging Luna’s neck with her nose. “Are you alright?”

Luna’s head didn’t move from its position on the floor. “Mm’fine,” she mumbled. “Jus’tired,” she added.

“Oh,” Twilight said as understanding dawned on her. “I guess you wouldn’t have exactly gotten much sleep.” Twilight made her way around to Luna’s side and knelt down next to her. “Here, c’mon,” she said, giving Luna a nudge. “Let’s get you to bed.”

Without warning, Luna shot to her hooves, wide awake. “No! No, it’s fine!” she insisted, though she almost immediately fell back into a slouch. “We should… we should do something. Talk or plan or… something…”

Twilight chewed her lip, considering Luna’s reaction. If Luna’s day in the Umbra was as bad as Twilight thought it might have been, was it possible that she be afraid of nightmares? Maybe Twilight would have to look into shepherding dreams sooner than expected. That would have to wait, however. She needed a simpler solution, for now, and if Luna didn’t want to go to sleep… “Actually, why don’t we pick up where we left off?” she suggested with only slightly forced cheer.

Luna took a deep breath and let it out. “With the tale of the alicorns you were speaking of when the dragon attacked? Very well.”

“Actually,” Twilight said, hopping in front of Luna with a tentative smile. “I meant the dinner we were on our way to at the end of Winter Wrap-Up.”

✶ ✶ ✶

The Goldenrod was not exactly an equivalent substitute for the café which Rainbow Dash had prevented Twilight and Luna from entering on that afternoon that now seemed so long ago. The dark, polished wood and rich golden carpets made the discrepancy very clear from the moment they stepped in the door, and the further in they went, the more of its gilded architecture was revealed. The wooden floors sprouted into carved archways, sculptures and delicate crystal chandeliers that sparkled gently with just enough light for ponies to eat by.

All in all, it was rather impressive for something that had been a furniture store a month ago, but with no sign to an end of the nobility pouring into Ponyville, places like this were surprisingly high on the priority list for materials and ponypower. Sourcing both locally and relying on craftsmanship rather than truly ostentatious materials like the ones that the palace was made of had led to this particular establishment getting the jump on the market. Being the first of such to open, it had at one time been the only place one could come to to be seen by the right people, and it had managed to maintain that status in the face of adversity.

Supposedly, anyway. That was what herald one had said, and she’d been referencing a file as thick as her hoof at the time, so it had to be true.

“Y-your majesties!” cried the maitre d’ at the desk, a brown-coated earth pony stallion, oddly enough, but then, it was indicative of the workforce of Ponyville, if not the preferences of the restaurant’s target clientele. The stallion appeared torn, glancing over his shoulder, and then back to Twilight and Luna. “One moment!” he squeaked and ran off somewhere, leaving the two alicorns standing alone in the entryway.

Twilight had not asked Luna on a date—she just wanted to make that clear. Like she’d said in the throne room, the two of them had been about to eat when the whole issue surrounding Sinkhole of the Royal Pony Sisters had begun, so what they were doing now was clearly just continuing on with behaviors which she had previously considered normal. It wasn’t as if there weren’t plenty of other good reasons for it, either. Not only had Luna all but asked for a distraction, but after what had happened at court, it was probably actually a very good idea to be seen in public acting like a normal pony.

None of her justifications, however, changed the fact that Twilight was acutely aware of just how date-like a venue they had ended up in. She could think about little else as the two of them stood in awkward silence as the maitre d’ returned with another pony—a charcoal gray unicorn mare.

“Princess Luna, Princess Twilight Sparkle, welcome to The Goldenrod. My name is Swift Virtue, the manager of our fine establishment,” she said, executing a much more graceful bow than the maitre d’. “It is an honor to have you here, tonight. If you’ll wait a moment here with me, Solo Step will have a private room prepared for you in just a moment.”

Twilight was ready to tell Swift Virtue that this wasn’t necessary, when she realized that the maitre d’—Solo Step, apparently—was already gone. She was about to make a sarcastic comment about the treatment to take her mind off of the fact that she was not on a date with Luna when she noticed that Luna was staring at her, rather derailing the derailment.

What was it Luna had said last night about how she had gotten over her anger at Twilight? ‘My stars needed me, and I answered.’ She had been deeply touched at the time, but now she wondered if there was more to it. Was it possible that Luna… what? Loved her? What did that even mean? What could physical attraction possibly add to such a sentiment? Why was it a requirement at all, and what would it even mean if it was true?

Both alicorns started when the maitre d' cleared his throat to get their attention. “Your majesties,” he said with a stiff-backed bow. “Your table is ready.”

Wordlessly, Twilight and Luna both nodded and fell into step next to each other as they traversed the rather large, though at this hour, sparsely populated restaurant. Luna’s presence, her closeness beside Twilight, comforted her, and she told herself that it wasn’t because she wanted to sleep with her. Well, that is, she did want to sleep with her, but not in any way different than she had been recently, which was what mattered.

As the maitre d’ led them through what appeared to be a scenic route to their table—whether to give them a tour of the establishment or to tour them for the establishment, she was too distracted to wonder—Twilight let out a sigh. Maybe she was trying too hard to hold on to the part of her that insisted that she was not attracted to anypony. The idea, after all, had been to simply proceed as usual and let her feelings make themselves known to her, not to deny them for the sake of normalcy.

Fine, Luna was… attractive. Twilight could admit that. She might even be the only pony that Twilight could even feel that way about, but it didn’t necessarily mean that she should want to act on that attraction. It wasn’t that she was afraid, either—not only that, anyway.

The thing was… this wasn’t some Old Equish tragedy of star-crossed lovers who had to run away together or be forced by fate to live separate, unfulfilled lives as their parents drove them apart. The more she looked at the situation with her new perspective, the more she realized that everything that ponies claimed love was, she already had. Everything except the actual physical, or in their case, perhaps metaphysical act. It was no surprise that Rarity had made the mistakes she had about Twilight and Luna’s relationship… In fact, she wondered if they could even be called mistakes at all.

It was a good thing the maitre d’ finally saw fit to arrive at their destination, or Twilight might have conspired to imagine that there had already been a wedding and she, too naïve to realize it.

Wait, they had both signed papers to become the joint alicorns-in-residence of Ponyville.

“Are you alright, Twilight?” Luna asked, sounding curious. “Your eye is twitching.”

✶ ✶ ✶

After re-composing herself and taking a seat across from Luna, Twilight was ready to latch onto any distraction that could get her mind off of overthinking things, but in spite of that, her mind was stopped dead in its tracks. She had never anticipated this.

Beverage ordering.

“You drink?” Twilight asked, lowering the menu held in her magic just enough to look at Luna, rather bewildered.

Luna cocked her head in question. “Of course. ‘Tis a requirement of pony biology which, while not necessary for us, I quite enjoy. Is that not why we are here?”

Twilight took a moment to re-parse what she’d said. “Er, sorry. What I mean is—you drink alcohol?” she clarified.

The look of confusion didn’t leave Luna’s face. “I did not misunderstand you,” she said.

Twilight blinked then frowned. “Alcohol is not a dietary requirement for ponies,” she stated in a flat monotone. “We are able to make use of the calories, but that’s hardly the whole story. In some ways it can even be considered a poison.”

Luna tapped her chin with her hoof, considering this. “I do enjoy shots of nightshade on occasion, but I did not see them on the menu.”

Twilight opened her mouth to respond before her brain caught up. “Right, immortal. Okay, you have a point,” she admitted, but still… “You don’t actually drink nightshade, though, do you?”

Luna hid behind her menu for a moment out of what could only be embarrassment. “I think it tastes abominable,” she mumbled then checked to see that the waiter had not yet returned. “Do not tell anypony this, but any time I am seen drinking it, it is actually hemlock and iodine.”

Twilight had no response for that. None whatsoever. “So… alcohol!” she announced, not even trying to disguise the change in subject.

“It is not a problem, is it?” Luna asked rather unenthusiastically.

“No!” Twilight yelped. “No, I just… I… don’t drink?”

At this, Luna looked a little more thoughtful. “Ah, bad experience?” she asked knowingly.

“Err, no experience,” Twilight admitted.

“Oh!” Luna beamed, brightening up. “Then you should acquire some. There is no better time to start than the present.”

Actually, on brief reflection, the perfect time probably would have been two and a half weeks ago. She didn’t dare mention this to Luna, however, and while Twilight was distracted by her derisive thoughts, the door of their private room clacked open, and the waiter returned to take their orders. Twilight was about to tell him that water would be fine for her when Luna shushed her with a hoof and exchanged a quick back-and-forth with the waiter using terminology which could have been alchemy for all the sense Twilight could make of it.

Well, except that she would have actually understood alchemy.

Eventually, Luna and the waiter apparently came to an agreement and the latter quickly ducked out of the room. This time, he was only gone for a moment before he returned with a bottle, the only quality of which she could identify was that it was green. The liquid inside turned out to be a pale yellow not unlike old parchment, and all too little time had passed before she had a glass of it on the table before her.

“You know,” Twilight said, delaying as she eyed the glass carefully. “Come to think of it, I don’t think any of the old alicorns drank alcohol. Actually it might not have been allowed in Utopia at all.”

“Truly?” Luna asked after taking a sip of her wine. “And how did that work for them?”

Well… but… fine. “Good point,” she said and picked up the glass.

✶ ✶ ✶

Alcohol was… interesting; the conversation was not. It was something, though. Something to talk about that wasn’t the tangle of uncertain justifications she’d built up since earlier that afternoon. “So, I had his star in my hoof for, like, a minute at most, and I may have admitted to our communal goddesshood, but like I said, it’s fine.”

Luna was less convinced. “Are you sure that was wise?” she asked, looking over her glass with half-lidded eyes that Twilight attributed to tiredness. The fact that she had to specifically make this attribution, however, proved that she was doing poorly at the job of keeping her mind on track. Clearly it was the alcohol at fault, she decided, and not any unquenchable desire on her part.

One would think that, given her adamancy that the subject did not apply to her, she would be quite experienced at keeping such desires fully quenched, but in fact, the opposite was true. Much as with alcohol, she had no experience and had never had any reason at all to acquire any. Come to think of it, she had folded on the one subject easily enough. Was she being too stubborn on the other? And which one was to blame for the rising heat in her cheeks as she imagined Luna giving her that look under different circumstances? Wait, no, not that look, the half-lidded one, not the one knotted in concern.

“Twilight?” Luna prompted, startling her.

Twilight froze for a noticeable moment then took another sip of wine to cover up her inattentiveness. No, wait, that was probably the exact opposite of what she should be doing. Too late, she’d done it anyway. “Wise?” she asked, coughing as she failed to operate the wineglass. The question was half rhetorical and half just to make sure that she remembered what was going on. It took her a moment to force her mind back on track.

Right, the things she’d said in court. She hadn’t planned on any of it. In fact, she’d specifically set out to avoid the subject, but in the end… “Probably not,” she admitted, “but you know what? I don’t care. I know what it looks like, but it wasn’t about telling them all to clop off, Luna—it was about being honest with them… and myself. I mean, I get it now. All the servants, the distance. It’s necessary. Celestia could have kept me in Canterlot and taught me how to deal with all… this… but I wanted to be normal. Well, I’m not normal—and that’s not a complaint. Not anymore.”

“It’s not?” Luna asked, perking up a bit, but remaining a bit wary in posture. “That is, I doubt there is anything you could have said that Celestia or I would hold against you, but you’ve made no secret of how hard this has been for you. You don’t have to pretend—”

“No,” Twilight interrupted without thinking. “That’s just it—I’m done pretending. It happened, and I’m not sorry it did,” she insisted, feeling a bit of strength well up inside her as she asserted herself. “You were able to forgive me, and you had more right than any other pony not to. It’s about time I got around to forgiving myself. Standing up for myself is, well, it’s a part of that.”

“Ah.” Luna let out a heavy breath and shook her head. In that brief moment, she seemed to channel Celestia’s aura of somewhat gracious understanding. “A worthy goal, but it is not always that easy, is it?”

Twilight felt her previous confidence deflate, but she was determined. “Doesn’t matter,” she said, puffing out her cheeks. “Gonna do it anyway.”

Luna let out a chuckle at that, and though Twilight resisted, the sound of Luna’s voice was infectious. She quickly gave in and joined with a giggle of her own.

“I’m serious, though,” Twilight said, letting out a wistful sigh after the laughter passed and she had a moment to take her breath. “When Gemini awoke and suddenly I could feel her down there every night, it was just… I don’t know how to describe it. I learned to deal with it, but even so, looking back, even during the day, I’ve just been… myopically focused on this… this problem like it can be solved and—” Suddenly, she stopped mid-explanation. Luna’s ears were folded back, and Twilight realized she’d been raising her voice as she went along. She took a breath, and when that didn’t work, she took another sip of wine.

Conveniently, dinner arrived to fill the silence. Luna has ordered asparagus and primrose with a mushroom bechamel sauce, and Twilight had surrendered to the dual pressure of figuring out both Prench cuisine and wine pairings, simply asking for the same thing.

Once the waiter had been assured that everything looked lovely, and a bite or two confirmed it, Twilight and Luna were alone once more. When Twilight spoke again, her statement came as not quite a whisper, but hardly louder than the average Fluttershy. “There was just the problem, and everything else suffered,” she said, picking up where she’d left off as if no time had passed.

“I realize that I haven’t been the best friend lately,” Twilight said, poking at her food with a fork for a moment before taking a bite. “And I haven’t even tried to fix the mess I made by ignoring how ponies treated after I became an alicorn,” she continued, leaning back in her chair as she washed the bite down with another sip from her glass, only realizing just then that it was full again. “But it’s over. I keep telling myself that. It’s past time for me to take a step back and get everything else in order. No, to stop treating it like it’s another problem to be solved. I just need to… start living again.”

Luna didn’t respond at first. Instead, she reached for her wine glass with her magic, and Twilight realized that it was the first time she’d actually noticed Luna drinking from it. Drinking was the word for it, though. Unlike Twilight’s cautious sips, the Lunar alicorn downed half the glass like it was water, and that specific amount only because it was the bottom half. “If you figure out the secret to that, Twilight, let me know,” she said with a smirk.

Twilight shook her head and let herself smile. “It’s just this. Sitting in peace with someone you can be yourself with, eating good food and having fun, looking forward to tomorrow and hoping that it will be as good as today.”

“That sentence seems to rely on several logical fallacies,” Luna pointed out, gesturing with her empty glass.

“That’s friendship, Luna.” Also, love, she thought silently to herself. “That’s life.”

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight had been able to make it through dinner without getting into the details of what had happened to the previous alicorns. Specifically, it was the fact that alicorns in general seemed to either be predisposed to pair up or were the victims of what was most certainly history’s smallest dating pool which she had managed to keep quiet about.

She would have to broach the subject eventually—fairly soon, actually—but she just wanted to sort herself out first. She supposed that it might not be exactly fair to Luna if only one of them was prepared beforehand, but two bewildered ponies rarely made good decisions when these sorts of things were involved. Sexy, passionate decisions, maybe, but rarely good ones.

Damn it.

But no, Twilight could not have relied on instinct alone. Her immediate reaction had not been positive, she reminded herself. No, she would have said or done something wrong, and that was… that was wrong, obviously. It would have been the wrong choice, and she would have ruined everything.

Huh. She wasn’t sure when she had decided that.

She still rejected the idea that physical attraction should enter into it at all, but it was all connected, wasn’t it? Tonight was good. Luna had laughed, first at her petulant fit and later as the night went on and she had taken to playacting the various questions from the press in a variety of silly voices that she assured Luna were spot-on. It was a start, but it had been somewhere into Twilight’s third glass of wine, with Luna coaching her in bleeding only a portion of it off into stardust, when it became clear to her the difference between being close to someone and having them acknowledge that closeness for what it was.

“You are… brooding?” Luna asked as the two walked side-by-side through the moonlit streets of Ponyville. It was late enough that they had them all to themselves, which was a feat considering they had arrived at the restaurant shortly after dusk. Neither of them particularly minded the cold, yet neither made any move which would take them from the warmth of the alicorn beside her. “No, not brooding,” Luna concluded, thoughtful. “What is that look on your face?”

“I can’t see it, so you’ll have to tell me,” Twilight teased, giving her a nudge with her shoulder as they walked. “Contentment? Understanding? Maybe it’s that look I get when I know that I’m going to wake up tomorrow and freak out, but right now I’m too drunk to care.”

Luna snorted at that. “You are not drunk, Twilight Sparkle. Not even close,” she said. “Allow yourself to finish the bottle some night, and then, maybe.”

“This isn’t the dark ages,” Twilight snarked back with a smile. “We have ways of purifying water that don’t involve fermentation or distillation. I believe the bar for being drunk has been set rather lower than you’re used to in this day and age.”

“Nonsense,” Luna insisted wobbling slightly in a way that told Twilight just how little she had utilized her own lessons in bleeding off alcohol. “The bar for being drunk is over yonder on Hay Street. I could show you around, if you like.”

Twilight yawned. “Not tonight, I think. Probably not ever—and how do you even know that, anyway? You haven’t been carousing with the locals, have you?” She made a mock-gasp and nearly tripped doing so. “What would Celestia say?”

“She would say, ‘pass the rum!’” Luna shouted perhaps a little louder than was necessary in the dead of night, and Twilight winced as she imagined who might overhear such a ridiculous statement.

“Rum?” Twilight asked, doubtful. “Really?”

Luna considered her answer for a moment, pursing her lips as she tried to remember. “Well, no, not usually, unless it was me offering. Scotch or brandy I think were her vices back then, and never in front of anypony, so yes, she would no doubt frown and pout at me behind my back until she gave me goosebumps if she were to know. In such a situation, she would be advised to stuff it, however. A princess does not refuse an invitation to drink with the very ponies who are helping her build a palace!”

Twilight gave her a flat look that hid a smirk. “I am pretty sure she would do exactly that, actually,” she said, one eyebrow raised.

“Well, clearly she is doing it wrong, then, and is a bad princess,” Luna joked, and stuck out her tongue at Twilight, who chuckled at what was, in a way, out of character for the older mare. It wasn’t, though. Thinking back to Nightmare Night, Twilight knew that Luna had a lighter side, if she could tease it out.

She came up empty, and the moment passed. They walked on in silence.

“I wonder if she’s doing alright,” Twilight said, some time later, voicing the only thing that came to mind on the previous subject. “She seemed a little off when I woke up this afternoon. I guess ponies did seem pretty freaked out about what she did to the Everfree. She probably spent all day answering the same kinds of questions I did at court. Um. Minus the assertions of goddesshood, I suppose; though, I’m not sure it needed to be said.”

“Celestia is… Celestia,” Luna said, yawning halfway through and leaning her head over Twilight’s neck. “She will be fine.”

“I know she will. I just feel bad, I suppose,” Twilight said, automatically leaning back into Luna without thinking. Her eyes quickly widened as she realized what she was doing, but she promptly decided she didn’t care just this moment, and redoubled her contact with Luna’s warmth. “She was one of the things that I neglected when I… lost focus. You know, I don’t even remember when I stopped thinking of her as ‘the Princess?’ There was that conversation when we visited the archives, of course, but in my head, I mean.”

Luna was right, though. Celestia was Celestia. Part of the reason that Twilight and Luna could be so cavalier with the Librararchy and all of the changes that were going on in Ponyville was because the two of them weren’t the entire face of the nation. Celestia was the rock that Equestria was built on. She would handle things while they learned to stand on their own. Together, but on their own.

“And what about you?” Twilight asked, suspecting the mood was right to broach this subject now. “Will you be alright? You were stuck in the Umbra all day, and now you’re traumatised and stuff. I wanted to distract you. Have I succeeded?”

“Twilight… you are a wonderful distraction, but I am not like you, remember?” she said, glancing skyward. “Whether I am manifest or not, I am always the moon, and I sleep in the Umbra every day. Life was unpleasant, at first, after my return, but I have had to… deal with it, as they say.”

“Oh,” Twilight said, somewhat listless and disappointed. “Well, why didn’t you want to go to sleep, then? Weren’t you tired? You said you were tired. You were definitely tired.”

Luna gave a noncommittal shrug, jostling Twilight. “It would be a sad day indeed were I to leave you to eat alone while I slumber,” she said.

Twilight’s head perked up as a thought occurred to her. “Wait, don’t tell me you went out with me, fed me and plied me with alcohol all night just so I’d be tired enough to sleep with you?”

Luna considered her response. “I believe I just did.”

“Oh,” Twilight said, letting her head sag back into Luna’s neck. “Thanks.”

☼ ☼ ☼

Celestia had gone through three entire pots of tea, a full four-course meal and half a slice of coffeecake, but eventually she got what she was waiting for; the last ribbon of magic dissolved underneath the pressure from within the vault. There was no great crash or crack to herald the event. Instead, the first sign that something had changed was in the light shining through the gaps. First it seemed to shift; it dimmed around the edges of the great patterned doors and grew brighter in the center. The shaft of light from between the doors grew brighter and brighter and then thicker and thicker as they slowly opened.

Whatever Celestia had expected to emerge from within the vault, it was not a pony. As the figure took one slow step after another, her assumption was vindicated—it was not a pony. Standing before Celestia, bathed in a warm, multicolored light, was what looked like a sculpture of golden filigree that gave the barest impression of an alicorn as tall as Celestia herself. It looked almost… incomplete, as if as little material as possible had been used to hold six lights in place on its head, its heart and the ends of its forehooves and wings, and whatever was left had been used to embellish the remaining figure in halves and quarters.

The elements of harmony—or perhaps just Harmony—took another step forward, and Celestia held out a cup to it. “Tea?” she offered without getting up. It was only polite to offer such hospitality; though, she rather doubted the staff who would have to clean the carpets would appreciate the finer points of the gesture if it was accepted.

It was not.

The thing stopped mid-step. There was so little to its figure that Celestia couldn’t gauge its mood at all. She was about to set the cup back down, when all of a sudden, the figure of gold and light collapsed, clattering into the ground like the sound of a half-dozen springs down a flight of stairs—only a half-dozen, though, for that was about all there was to it.

The teacup that Celestia dropped made more noise.

Author's Note

Following this chapter, I posted an epilogue for April Fools Day 2015. It's good fun, and I recommend giving it a read.

• Author's Notes • Patreon Funded •

Chapter 15

Sharing the Night: Chapter 15

☼ ☼ ☼

Princess Celestia awoke shortly before sunrise as had been her custom for well over a thousand years. Even before Luna had been banished to the moon, it had been thus. While she could have trusted Luna to begin the process and let Celestia follow along instinctually, they were sisters, and no sister would ever leave themselves at the mercy to be woken by their sibling.

Resisting the urge to wallow in hindsight, Celestia took a deep breath and rolled over to swing herself out of bed, only to run out of bed almost immediately and smash her muzzle on the solid marble floor. Suddenly, she found herself wide awake, curled up in a ball with her forehooves wrapped over her nose and cursing silently. Massaging her muzzle, she waited for the pain to die down before full understanding of the situation finally returned to her.

She had not, as she had thought, run out of bed. She had run out of couch—one upholstered in blue velvet and appropriated from her sister’s room, where it was unlikely to be missed even on the best of days. If she didn’t know better, she would think them to be breeding, as each and every visit she made seemed to present her with a new one she didn’t recognize, even with Luna’s absence.

Dismissing the matter of the couch with a shake of her head, Celestia looked over to the bed she would normally have been sleeping in. It was entirely on the other side of the room and held in it an alicorn seemingly crafted of light and gold. Unable to find any of her staff to prepare a guest room, Celestia had brought the creature here after its collapse.

A quick check the night before had confirmed that the Elements of Harmony had indeed been missing from the vault, and she could only continue under the assumption that this alicorn was them—presuming that it even was an alicorn. Celestia heaved herself up onto her hooves and wobbled over to the bed with a wide yawn, glancing out the window as she did so to check that she still had time. She had a minute or two, but on arriving at the side of the bed, she wasn’t sure she needed them. The creature lay there exactly as it had the night before, neither rousing or stirring, only the barest sound of flexing metal as its chest rose and fell to indicate that it was alive at all.

She spent her minute just standing there, watching it sleep and wondering if there was anything she could or should be doing for it. Was it just sleeping, exhausted from its genesis and subsequent escape from the vault it had been trapped in, or was it dying, starving for something that the ruler of Equestria could easily provide if only she knew what it was? Celestia feared that there was no doctor or wizard in the world that knew any more than she did what kept this creature alive.

Alicorns were, at their basest, celestial systems which produced magic much like a normal pony body would take in oxygen and fuel to ultimately fire neurons to produce thought and mechanical motion. What did alicorns take in, though? Well, it depended on the alicorn, as each such system was different, but the short answer was… magic. As far as Celestia knew, they both consumed magic and produced it. Perhaps there was some difference in the magic, like a plant that takes in carbon dioxide and produces oxygen, but if so, the specifics were lost to her.

Harmony seemed healthy. Its magical flow was, as far as Celestia could tell, stable and constant, producing at least as much as it consumed. The amount was small on a celestial scale, but surely it was enough for one pony? No, it had to be, as it was more magic than any of the rest of them kept on the surface of Equestria. Even Twilight, who was most alike Harmony for possessing stars within her equine body, could not compare to the raw magic emanating from the creature that lay in Celestia’s bed.

Perhaps that was the problem, then. Harmony’s magic was raw and uncontained. Perhaps it was even too concentrated for a body of flesh and blood to hold. It seemed as good an explanation as any, and perhaps… perhaps it was something that she could actually do something about. She could try, anyway.

As Celestia paused a moment to raise the sun, Harmony reacted for the first time since its collapse. It stirred and turned its featureless head as if to look at her. It said nothing and lacked even eyes to communicate with, but still something passed between them, and her heart went out to it.

She would try. Whatever it took, she would help this creature.

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight awoke nuzzled deeply into the crook of Luna’s neck and wrapped in a tangle of legs. For all that the two of them had been sleeping in the same bed thus far, the position was far more intimate than what she’d grown used to, and now she could say confidently that she knew how Fluttershy had felt the night after her return to Ponyville.

And you know what?

It was pretty damn nice.

Right now, in this perfect moment with the haze of sleep still clinging to her, the wonderful smell of cloud and satin and the special magical hum of an alicorn against her, there were no questions and no uncertainties. There was no trepidation over things gone unsaid or guilt that she might be taking advantage of Luna’s innocence. There was only a warm feeling of contented bliss.

As the heavy weight of sleep slowly left her and she came to realize more clearly the situation she was in, she began to anticipate some issue or interruption that would bring it all crashing down. She buried herself deeper in Luna’s coat, desperate to eke out every last moment she had, but for the time being, no such disruption came, and she drifted in and out of awareness late into the morning.

What finally did it—what finally broke the spell of foggy felicity—was not nearly so jarring as she had dreaded. Awareness came with no panic, no shouting or alarms, just the gentle feeling of a hoof running through her starry mane. Curiously, having her stellar mane tended to felt no different from when her mother had brushed her mane as a filly. The fact that it was Luna doing it, though… that stirred in her a different set of emotions.

Doing her best not to disturb Luna’s ministrations, Twilight craned her neck around to give her a smile, eyes closed and grinning ear to ear. “Hey,” was all she said as she wiggled herself comfortable again.

“Hey, yourself,” Luna answered in much a similar manner. She glanced out the window with all the hurry necessary for the lazy spring day, which is to say, none whatsoever. “Quite the odd hour for us, isn’t it? I am surprised I did not awaken to find the bed empty and you off… somewhere.”

Twilight let her gaze drift from Luna up to the faceted crystal ceiling above. “Somewhere, huh?” she asked rhetorically. “Always somewhere, never here. I like it here, you know? It’s nice. Quiet. I’m still getting used to it—not having Equestria gnawing at my nerves in the night. Do you think… Could we keep these hours? A little more permanently, I mean?”

Luna looked again at the warm, blue skies outside the window and the hoof that had been brushing Twilight’s mane stalled. “We… could,” she said, rather reluctantly. “Why?”

“I think it would be good for us,” Twilight mused and took Luna’s wayward hoof to hold against her chest. “It’s actually how they did it in the past. Somni and Fati—they had to sleep at night so that they could dream for ponies. Ponies dream for themselves, now, but there might be some good we could do.”

“We?” Luna asked with a huff of doubt. “The dream world is made of your stars. I don’t think I would be involved.”

Twilight shook her head with the slightest of movements and gave a knowing smile, eyes closed and thinking back to the night they’d spent there. “You most of all, I think. I’m too… close to it. Too involved. Ponies dream using my stars, but it’s not me doing it. You, though… you’re almost unchanged from the time before. Two moons made one, but still a moon. I think you could step in where I can’t. Shepherd them.”

“I suppose I could try,” Luna said without much commitment. “And what about you? Are you ever going to tell me this tale of alicorns or just keep bringing up bits and pieces as they suit your needs, hrm?”

Twilight breathed deeply from the spring breeze blowing in through the window and let out a heavy sigh. “I will, just… not here. Not now. It’s a story that really deserves to be told at night.”

Luna let out her own sigh—though, hers was more amused than melancholy. “Very well. What are your plans for today, then?”

“It’s a nice day, don’t you think? Perfect for catching up with some friends.”

☼ ☼ ☼

Celestia’s seneschal finally showed up around mid-morning, and with him came some semblance of normalcy to Canterlot castle. This normalcy was, itself, rather conspicuous. She was quite certain that servants were now being periodically paraded past her. Though, it wasn’t quite clear if it was being done for her peace of mind or to re-acclimate the skittish to her presence. She supposed that it didn’t really make much difference, as both purposes would be served in the end.

Still, it was all rather onerous and an uncomfortable glimpse into the sorts of trials that Luna had faced both before and after her banishment. She supposed that it was only fair for her to bear the burden this time—to take her turn, as it were—and it only would have been worse for Twilight and Luna to be directly involved.

As it was, breakfast had been light and served directly to her room without the usual morning paper, so she made sure that she would have a chance at lunch to catch up with reactions outside of the castle before seeing to court at noon. The headline she found sitting next to her daffodil salad was not exactly the one she had been expecting, however.

ALICORNS CONFIRMED FOR GODS

In a historic moment of candidness during yesterday’s Night Court, Princess Archlibrarian Twilight Sparkle has come forward to correct long-standing assumptions about the Equestrian diarchy as well as her own position in the cosmological hierarchy.

After a short speech during which she demonstrated responsibility for all pony magic and raised numerous privacy concerns, Princess Archlibrarian Twilight Sparkle acknowledged that she, Princess Luna and Princess Celestia are, in fact, mere avatars of their respective celestial bodies.

Traditionally, the Equestrian diarchy has remained tight-lipped about the specific details pertaining to the nature of their immortal existence, claiming ignorance which, in retrospect, now seems rather disingenuous. Most of those present for the announcement agreed that this new stance is a refreshing change, with a noted exception of Star Glister, former head of the Astronomers’ Guild of Equestria, who participated in Princess Archlibrarian Twilight Sparkle’s demonstration. Star Glister refused to make an official statement, but had expressed during the announcement the dissenting sentiment that the diarchy’s previous modus operandi was likely for the best.

Princess Luna was conspicuously absent from the event, and Princess Celestia could not be reached for comment, leaving us all wondering if this announcement represents a schism in the ranks of our government—or indeed, our pantheon of gods. The two alicorns of the night were witnessed dining together in companionable company later last night, but an official response is still forthcoming and will likely remain so until midday today when Princess Celestia is expected to hold court.

Well, that was… Hrm. Celestia wasn’t quite sure how to respond to this. It was like that one time when the Gryphon army marched ten-thousand strong to declare peace on Equestria so that it wouldn’t be taken as a sign of weakness. It wasn’t precisely bad, per-se—nor even illogical—but it did come as a surprise, which was something she wasn’t used to in spite of the events of last few weeks doing their sincere best to change that.

Everything had changed so quickly. Twilight’s ascension alone had been enough to shake Celestia, but her student’s recent growth through difficulty and strife into an independent alicorn… Maybe it was just the melancholy of her recent rejection speaking, but it made her feel old.

Celestia looked at the newspaper and picked it up again. She took the time to read a few more of the articles; most were speculation about Twilight and Luna, but her display over the Everfree had its own share of the attention. It wasn’t hard to see where one had led to the other, which only begged the question of why she hadn’t anticipated something like this. That, too, did not take much to puzzle out. She had had other things on her mind. Come to think of it, she still had to finish that letter to Twilight.

Yes, she could see her own unwitting hoof in this, and she wouldn’t rebuke herself for it either. She had learned something about herself, and this turn of events wasn’t necessarily bad. It was just… different. A change.

Thoughtful, Celestia scanned the paper, reading between the lines for the overall tone of the response. Maybe she could use a change.

Maybe she could use this.

☼ ☼ ☼

“Yes, Cupcake Justice. Princess Archlibrarian Twilight Sparkle was correct in stating that the dragon from yesterday morning’s incident has been peacefully relocated,” Celestia announced. So far, most of court had been spent confirming and acknowledging things that Twilight had said last night—though, her knowledge of the specifics of Twilight’s own goddesshood was embarrassingly lacking. “And as to your request for the location—maps of Ghastly Gorge will require significant updating, as well as those including the Everfree Forest, of course.”

Cupcake Justice nodded intently as he wrote down Celestia’s response. “And when can we expect these maps to be made available?” he asked in rote, still looking at his notes.

“I have no idea,” Celestia said with a shrug.

Cupcake Justice had already transcribed the response, when he stopped to look at it and glanced back up at Celestia for clarification. “Pardon?”

A hint of a smile showed itself on Celestia’s face. “Yes, I am afraid you’ll have to ask Princess Archlibrarian Twilight Sparkle for the details. I can only presume that the Cartographer’s Guild will be working with the Libraropolean Librarocracy to arrange for dissemination of the updated materials.”

“Librarooroo… Librarica…” Cupcake Justice mumbled to himself before vigorously scratching out what he’d been writing and replacing it with something much shorter and huffier.

Sensing that Cupcake Justice was done with his questions for the time being, Celestia accepted the next question from an ash grey pegasus with a dour look on his face. “Stormy Horizon, with the Canterlot Conclusion,” he introduced himself in a flat, droning voice, like a train shuddering slowly to a stop. “You’ve already acknowledged Princess Sparkle’s claims of divinity on your behalf—what do you say in response to allegations that you conspired to keep this knowledge secret, promoting an element of ignorance in the common pony since the founding of Equestria?”

“I would say, Stormy Horizon, that they are true,” Celestia admitted, causing a great deal of mumbling all around the throne room. “I am an old mare. I don’t look it, but I am. Recently, I have watched the foal who I once taught elementary magic to step up to rule a nation of her own. The only way I could be prouder is if Twilight Sparkle was my own—indeed, I have forgotten that she is not, on occasion.

“The current situation has helped me realize that Equestria is much the same. It has grown into a proud and noble nation right beneath my nose, and yet I have continued to treat it as if it were my foal. Princess Archlibrarian Twilight Sparkle is correct in her belief that Equestria is ready to know this. It has been for some time.”

Stormy Horizon stopped only briefly to register Celestia’s lack of denial. “This is something you have done often, then?”

“There are, of course, a variety of things that are considered classified information within the Equestrian government,” Celestia reminded everypony present. Even Equestria had its secrets. “Most of these are relevant to Equestria’s ongoing security interests, but the Canterlot Archives contain some restricted materials of a more historic nature, similar to what has been recently revealed. These materials are in the process of being fully transferred to Libraropolean control, and I am sure that Princess Archlibrarian Twilight Sparkle will be reviewing them for possible public release.”

Celestia didn’t even have a chance to choose the next question as a honeydew unicorn spoke out of turn. “Is giving these restricted books to a foreign power really a good idea?” he shouted, eager to get his question in and following it with several more. “Weren’t the Canterlot Archives the target of a hostile invasion by Libraropolean forces? And wasn’t that the first time Equestria has ceded land to a hostile force in over five hundred years?”

“Please, one question at a time,” Celestia chided, shaking her head. “I have already spoken on the misinterpretation of events surrounding the War of Books, and disciplinary measures have been taken to address the escalation the incident received during filing. You may rest assured that the Libraropolean incursion was a peaceful one, undertaken only for the sake of expedience during an important investigation. There is no reason to believe that Equestria and Libraropolis will ever come into real conflict.”

The unnamed unicorn didn’t look too convinced. “It seems as if you’re avoiding responsibility for a lot of things by dumping them on Princess Archlibrarian Twilight Sparkle. Is this how you plan on running Equestria in the future?”

“To some extent, yes,” Celestia said. “Though, I believe I have already mentioned everything that Princess Archlibrarian Twilight Sparkle will be taking on. Equestria is entering a time of change, however, and while my guidance has brought the nation unrivaled stability, I believe that the time has come for me to take a step back for a time.”

“You can’t mean that you’re stepping down from your position as princess, surely?” somepony else asked.

Celestia shook her head and let out a light chuckle. “No, of course not, but I will be allowing those in a position to do so to handle more of the day-to-day duties that I have traditionally kept a closer eye on.”

“And is there anything in particular that you’re going to be devoting your time to?”

“Yes.”

✶ ✶ ✶

The Rainbow Dash that answered the door was a far cry from the energetic pegasus that everypony knew and tolerated. “Oh. Hey guys,” she said, a nasally whine hanging onto the back of her words. “Are you… rolling around on my doorstep, Sparkles?”

Twilight blinked at Rainbow Dash from her position upside-down and half buried in clouds. In an instant, her form shifted in a cloud of stars to a perfectly upright and composed alicorn. “Ahem. You, uhh, were taking your time,” she said and then frowned. “You don’t look so good. Are you alright?”

Rainbow Dash let out a yawn and scratched the underside of her chin. “Yeah—I mean kinda, I dunno. I’m alright, but please don’t tell me you need us to hit something with friendship rainbows. You know I’d do anything you need me to, but I just don’t think I have it in me.”

“Oh, well,” Twilight said, sorry to hear her friend was feeling off. Thankfully, it didn’t sound too bad. Actually, a little time out and about might be just what she needed. “Would you like to?”

Rainbow Dash looked confused. “Would I like to what?” she asked.

“Have it in you!” Twilight clarified with the most friendly, affable smile she could muster.

Understanding quickly dawned on Rainbow Dash, and her eyes widened. “Woah-woah-woah!” she remarked, taking a step back. “Not that I’m not flattered, but shouldn’t you, like, buy me dinner first or something?”

Twilight cocked her head to the side, sharing a confused look of her own with Luna. “We were thinking lunch, actually.”

Now, Rainbow Dash looked affronted for some reason. “What, am I not good enough for dinner?” she asked.

“Wh—no! Of course not!” Twilight insisted emphatically, still somewhat lost, but getting defensive. “It’s just that it’s about lunchtime right now, and we didn’t see any reason to wait.”

Rainbow Dash blanched, swallowing nervously. “Isn’t that kind of… I mean—um—no problem! Fast is… what I do…”

For a moment, Twilight just stared at Rainbow Dash as gears churned away in her head. Then, suddenly, it clicked and a tiny smirk wormed its way onto her lips. “Right. Well, since you look like you just got up, why don’t you shower and meet us at the Haybale Café? Oh, and bring anything you think you’ll need; we might be taking things straight to Pinkie Pie’s, depending on how things go.”

“Um, sure,” Rainbow Dash said, glancing back to the open doorway behind her. “Anything you say… Princess.”

Twilight almost snickered. “Great!” she said, beaming at Rainbow Dash in response. “We’ll see you at about noon-ish, then. It’ll be fun!”

The two alicorns left Rainbow Dash to get ready, and a short flight later, Twilight collapsed into a fit of giggles on the edge of town.

“Twilight?” Luna prompted once she had quieted down.

She let out a happy sigh as she looked up at her from the ground. “Yes, Luna?”

Luna shuffled uncomfortably, glancing about at the attention they were gathering. “I feel as if we have just participated in a grand misunderstanding,” she stated.

“We did!” Twilight exclaimed, pointing a hoof at Luna with a wide grin on her face. Eventually, she, too took notice of the watchful eyes of the public, and, satisfied that she had expressed her merriment sufficiently, picked herself up and dusted herself off with a subtle ripple of re-manifestation.

Luna frowned. “I see,” she said. “What, pray tell, does Rainbow Dash think we have invited her to?”

Twilight gave Luna a fiendish smirk. “I’ll tell you when you’re older.”

✶ ✶ ✶

Inviting Applejack out to lunch went about the same as inviting Rainbow Dash had, though thankfully without the unfortunate injection of innuendo that the pegasus had provided. It was eerily similar, actually, how both of them had expressed relief that this was only a social call. Sure, Rainbow Dash wasn’t shy about her lackadaisical attitude towards work, but Applejack?

Still, Twilight considered it a curious coincidence at best. It wasn’t until Fluttershy failed to answer the door that Twilight began to suspect that there was actually something wrong.

“Fluttershy?” Twilight knocked again, but there was no answer. She glanced back at Luna but received a shake of the head and no comment. After one final, heavy knock elicited the same lack of response as the rest, Twilight considered her options.

Hmm.

“Twilight?” Luna prompted, sensing that there was something going unsaid beyond the obvious.

“It’s just…” Twilight said, scratching the underside of her neck as she regarded the door. “I’ve never used my abilities as an alicorn to do something that’s actually illegal.”

Luna pursed her lips. “Really?” she asked after a moment of consideration. “I mean, you have reasonable cause for concern for your friend in this case, so I do not believe entering is illegal regardless, but still—really?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Twilight said, turning to look at her with what she hoped was a most offended look. “I’m an honest, law-abiding pony!”

Luna rolled her eyes. “Were you not just last night regaling me with the tale of how you stole the magic of that uppity stallion who dared to insult you, not once, but twice?”

“Technically,” Twilight said, raising her hoof. “It’s my magic to begin with, and even if it weren’t, he specifically relinquished all claim to it. Besides, it’s not stealing just to hold it for a moment and then give it back without any objection being raised.”

“You have a point, I suppose,” Luna said, shaking her head. “What about that time you invaded the Canterlot Archives? Surely enacting war upon a country is illegal in the country being invaded.”

Twilight was quick to correct her. “Ah, but I didn’t use any of my godly powers in that case. Actually, I didn’t really do anything. By the time I set foot in the archives, they were sovereign Libraropolean soil—er, carpet, I suppose. Marble. They were mine, is the point. I wasn’t part of the invasion force.”

“I am not certain that a war tribunal would agree, but, Twilight?” Luna said, stepping closer.

Startled by the sudden closeness, even as commonplace as it was becoming, Twilight was thoroughly distracted. “Yes?” she asked automatically.

There was a click, and Luna strode past her, into the cottage. “I believe the door is unlocked.” Twilight stared for a moment and then hurried in after her.

To Twilight’s relief, there were no panicked animals nipping at their hooves as they made their way through the house, which she took to be a good sign. Eventually, their search ended when they found Fluttershy in the kitchen, hanging over the edge of the sink with her hooves knee-deep in soapy water. She looked to all the world as if she had just stopped to rest for a moment and never got back up. Twilight remained stock-still at the kitchen door while Luna strode immediately forward to inspect the pallid pegasus.

Quickly realizing her lapse, Twilight followed in after Luna, who was tilting Fluttershy’s head with her hooves. “Is she…?”

“Sleeping,” Luna informed her, much to her relief. “Or unconscious, in any case. She seems restful, but I am not a doctor.”

Twilight gave her a curious look. “Really? All eternity at your disposal, and you never earned a doctorate?”

Luna turned her head away with a huff. “They did not have doctorates as you are thinking of them in my time, and besides—as you say, I have all eternity to do it; I shall get around to it eventually. Tell me, though, if it is a skillset to be expected of one such as we, does your friend Fluttershy suffer from any known maladies, Doctor Princess Archlibrarian Twilight Sparkle? She isn’t, perhaps, insomniac, somnambulic or suffering from chronic narcolepsy?”

Twilight could only shake her head, both in response to Luna’s chiding and her question, as she took a closer look at Fluttershy. “No, I don’t think so. Not that I know of, anyway. Can we move her? She can’t be comfortable, and this water is cold, which probably isn’t good regardless of whatever it is that’s wrong with her.”

“Comfortable enough to sleep,” Luna remarked. “I can spy no injuries upon her person and therefore no reason she should not be moved. Does the element of kindness own a chaise lounge or fainting couch that we might set her in? I believe I passed by one such furnishing on the way in, but it was sized for a dormouse.”

“She must,” Twilight reasoned, looking back over her shoulder at the door to the living room. “I’m not sure where she keeps it, but I know I’ve seen Harry lounging out back in one that she’d fit in.”

Luna perked up, distracted from her inspection of Fluttershy. “Harry? I was not aware that Fluttershy had a suitor. I am not sure if I approve, if the first I hear of him are his lounging habits, but I suppose it is not my place to judge.”

At this, Twilight, too, paused to give Luna her attention; though, she wasn’t quite certain what to say. “He’s a bear,” she finally explained after a moment of hesitation.

“Truly?” Luna asked, seemingly filled with wonder at the workings of the modern age. “How does that work, then?”

Twilight lit her horn with a gentle glow and gently lifted Fluttershy’s hooves out of the sink. “Work?” she asked as she procured a nearby dish towel to dry Fluttershy off. “I’m not sure I follow. I mean, I was surprised when I first found out, sure, but I’d guess it works like it does with any of her other animal friends, I suppose.”

“Yes, I understand that,” Luna said, striding quickly ahead of Twilight to look for a place to set Fluttershy down. “I have read up on all the sorts of modern relationships—herding, interracial and, um, bestiality, I think it is? I have done my best not to judge modern ponies and their practices, but… a bear? As I said, I simply do not see how it… works.”

Twilight had to stop for a moment… to check that she was holding Fluttershy properly in her magic and for no other reason. She took a deep breath and followed after Luna. “It… doesn’t,” she said, as she entered the living room, which a glance told her was indeed missing any pony-sized furnishings at the moment. “Work, that is. They’re not… together.”

Suddenly, a thought crossed her mind. “At least, I don’t think they are,” she appended with a distressed whine. Twilight missed the days when she could just dismiss love as something foreign and unknowable. It was then that her train of thought caught up with Luna’s. “Also, those are not normal,” she added. “Not one of those things is normal.”

“Well, I mean, there’s nothing wrong with ponies and gryphons,” she continued, no longer really paying attention to the search for a cushy bastion to hold Fluttershy. “Or ponies and zebras, or ponies and any thinking, talking creatures. And herding is… I mean, it’s a thing, I guess. Okay, what I should say is—those things are all several different, varying levels of not normal, and Fluttershy is not engaging in coitus with a bear.”

“Oh,” was all Luna said, sounding both rather disappointed and absent-minded as she searched a cupboard for a couch, finding it instead to house several blue jays.

“Or any of her other animals, for that matter,” Twilight asserted to no particular opposition except for, perhaps, her own worming doubt.

“I see,” Luna said. “That is indeed a relief.”

Twilight shuffled her hooves in place. “I mean, probably.”

“Twilight?” Luna interjected.

She blinked. “Err, yes?”

“I do not see anything that will be of use,” Luna said, surrounded by a dozen open cupboards and drawers with angry animals in them. “And unless she keeps such things in the kitchen with the silver, I believe we must extend our search to other chambers of the abode. What do you suggest?”

Twilight took a moment to bring herself back to the present. “Er, right,” she said, shaking her head. “Well, all there is down here is a pantry, another pantry for the animals supplies, and a bathroom. The second floor is taken up by the bedroom.”

“There is nothing for it, then,” Luna said with a sigh. “Come, Twilight, let us take her to bed.”

As Luna disappeared upstairs, Twilight wondered aloud, “Is it national innuendo day, today? It’s not just me, right? It’s not that this is just another Tuesday and I’ve always been that blind to it, right?”

“Huzzah! I have found a place to lay dear Fluttershy!” Luna’s voice echoed from above.

“Oh stars, it is. It is exactly that.”

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight was glad to finally place Fluttershy in bed. No sooner had the sleeping mare been set down than she curled up into the warm, dry sheets like it was any other lazy morning—or afternoon now, as the case may be. The sight of it took her mind off of her previous distractions and reminded her of something else.

“Hey, Luna, do you remember what we talked about this morning?” Twilight asked, still leaning over Fluttershy. “That you might be able to influence dreams?”

“I remember,” Luna offered from where she sat near the window. “You suggested that it would involve my moon, though, and it is barely midday. If she is still sleeping then, I believe we should take her to a professional, not peer inside her dream.”

“Yeah, I suppose you’re right,” Twilight said. Though, she couldn’t help but glance at a particular part of Luna’s anatomy.

Luna shook her head with a chuckle. “No, Twilight. You should know that the moon in my mane is just the moonlight I use to manifest my body. Only the stars get to actually be on the surface of Equestria.”

“I don’t know if ‘get to’ is how I’d describe it,” Twilight said with a hint of bitterness weighing her down.

Luna stopped and cocked her head in confusion then her eyes widened. “Oh, Twilight.” She quickly got to her hooves and took a hesitant step forward. Two steps. “I am sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“No, no, don’t be,” Twilight said, waving her off and rubbing her face with her hoof. “I’m okay with it, really. I wouldn’t be here if it hadn’t happened. You wouldn’t be here. It’s just… sad.” The room was quiet for a moment, the only sound the slight wheezing of Fluttershy snoring, which somehow managed to be cute. “It happened thousands of years ago, though. We should focus on the here and now.”

Luna cautiously allowed herself to sit back down. She glanced back out the window she had been gazing out of before. “Indeed. We have seen to Rainbow Dash and Applejack, but we should probably check on your other friends as well. Those of weaker constitution may have fallen victim to this torpor as well.”

Twilight sighed, giving Fluttershy’s sleeping figure a serious look. “I hope not. It looked like she collapsed in the middle of her morning chores. If I had to guess, she was just as lethargic as the rest, and she forced herself to work anyway, exacerbating the issue. Rarity works hard when she needs to, but she knows how to pamper herself, especially when she’s feeling down, and Pinkie Pie… I can’t imagine anything stopping her. You’re right, though, we should check. Actually, we should get everyone together and compare notes.”

Luna considered this for a moment. “Indeed. In fact, come to think of it, were we not already doing that?”

All of a sudden, an intrinsic part of Twilight Sparkle was core to her being ground to a screeching halt. “The lunch!” she cried out in panic. Her eyes shot to the window that Luna was next to, knowing the answer, but checking anyway. “Luna! We’re late!”

☁ ☁ ☁

Sitting at a large table at the Haybale Café in Ponyville were two very uncomfortable ponies. They were both very tired—and therefore grumpy—and neither had found what they had expected to when they had arrived.

“I can’t believe that Sparkles set us up!” Rainbow Dash was moaning to herself. “As a joke!”

Applejack raised one eyebrow at her. “You think this was a joke? By Twilight? Ah hate t’say it, sugarcube, but she just ain’t the type.”

“What, you think she actually thought that you and me could—I mean, come on, you?” she stated, incredulous. “And me?”

“Hey now, what’s wrong with me?” Applejack asked, clearly offended regardless of the message her offense sent. “And what about you? You ain’t exactly a pile of roses yourself,” she groused, though her sour disposition was interrupted by a period of analytic sniffing. “Actually, you do smell like a pile of roses. You gonna explain why you smell like Rarity’s bathroom, or do I have t’guess? Seriously, Dash, is that perfume?”

“Oh, shut your face,” Rainbow Dash bit back, her cheeks burning.

Applejack just rolled her eyes. “That don’t answer the question, now does it?”

Rainbow Dash puckered her lips, refusing to admit to anything as her face got redder and redder under Applejack’s cheeky stare. Eventually, Rainbow Dash decided to just get it over with, though she barely managed to mumble her response.

“It’s cologne.”

✶ ✶ ✶

The milky white light of Luna’s magic prevented Twilight from diving out the window just long enough for the larger alicorn to tackle her to the ground. “Becalm thyself, Twilight,” Luna chided. “Your friends will no doubt understand our absence once they have been apprised of the situation.”

Twilight, with the weight of the princess on top of her pressing her muzzle into an itchy throw rug, was not in a position to argue. “Mrflm.”

Realizing the position Twilight was in, Luna managed to roll her over onto her back, bringing her muzzle-to-muzzle with the noticeably larger alicorn. Somehow, this didn’t improve her ability to articulate sentences one bit. “Mrrrhn,” she mewled unintelligibly.

Luna cocked her head in question then lifted herself up slightly to look between them. “I am sorry. Am I standing on something?”

“Only my pride,” Twilight whimpered, swallowing her nervousness and forcing herself to stay focused. “Which is to say, I pride myself on being able to keep schedules and—!” Suddenly that focus was obliterated by a hoof pressing against her belly where no hoof should be, and no amount of swallowing could keep her calm. Slowly, Luna’s hoof started to move. “What are you—hee—s-stop! You’re doing that on purpose! I’m trying to talk, hehehe-here!”

As luck would have it, Luna had remembered where Twilight was ticklish.

Luna held a hoof over her mouth and snickered, looking rather pleased with herself. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she teased. “If I let you up, will you stay put?”

Twilight puffed her cheeks in a childish pout, which Luna took as assent and stood up, allowing her to scoot out from underneath her, and even going so far as to help Twilight up with her magic—an act which sent a shiver up Twilight’s spine and did nothing to help her calm down.

Twilight had been thinking of Luna as innocent, but she wasn’t made of stone. She wanted to make Twilight happy, and she was slowly learning the things that worked. If Twilight didn’t say something soon, there was a good chance that she’d learn a little too much, go a little too far, and nature would end up taking its course, and Twilight wasn’t sure she’d be able to stop it—or that she would want to.

Was there anything wrong with that?

Tonight, she told herself. Tonight, she would tell Luna about the previous alicorns, and things would follow naturally from there. She only hoped that the current situation would allow it. If it turned out that she had missed her window of peace and quiet by drinking the night away instead of actually addressing things… well, on the bright side, she supposed it would be a prime opportunity to see what it was actually like to get drunk.

No, Twilight, that’s how alcoholics happen.

Twilight took a deep breath and let it out in one go. She would deal with that sooner rather than later, but first things first. “Right. Just because they’ll understand isn’t any reason to keep them waiting any longer than necessary. Shall we go?”

To Twilight’s surprise, Luna looked rather sheepish in response to the suggestion. “Actually,” she said, eyes downcast. “You ought to stay here, Twilight.”

“What?” Twilight said. “Why?”

Luna turned back to the bed. “Someone should look after the element of kindness and be here in case she awakens.”

“But—” Twilight started, but Luna held up a hoof and shook her head.

“Nay, Twilight,” she said, nipping the objection in the bud. “If I am to greet your friends on my own, I would rather do it knocking on their door than hovering beside their bed.

Well, she had a point.

“Fine,” Twilight said, giving in to logic and good sense with a sigh. “Will you be able to find them?”

“I have spent a good deal of time recently looking at maps of the city. I am certain that I shall manage somehow.”

✶ ✶ ✶

“Well, that was awkward,” Twilight said aloud to herself as she walked back over to the bed that held Fluttershy and sat on the edge of it.

She wanted to believe that she would have at least felt better about it if it had been awkward for the both of them. Realistically, it likely would have been even more awkward, but this one-sided infatuation felt wrong.

“I need a break,” she said, massaging her cheeks with her hooves. It was funny; yesterday, Luna couldn’t get back soon enough for her, but now that she had decided to actually go for it, a moment away from her was a godsend. Once an introvert, always an introvert, she supposed. The appreciation that she had gained for friendship since coming to Ponyville didn’t mean she was with them all day every day.

Luna, though… shouldn’t Twilight want to be with her?

No, the whole thing was silly. Love didn’t mean you had to be with someone all the time, and Twilight needed a break because being with Luna was almost like lying to her by omission. The two were completely unrelated.

As Twilight was sorting her thoughts, she watched Fluttershy sleep, which sounded creepy at first, but contained none of the awkward attraction that Twilight felt for Luna—and, well, it shouldn’t. Twilight had spent years of her life coming to the conclusion that ponies were not for her, and now it made sense. They were, as Celestia liked to call them, her little ponies. In fact, what divinity they did have had come from her. They were, in a way, her children and herself.

And there was something wrong with this one. Not in a vague, “it could be something she ate” sort of way. Something was wrong with Fluttershy. Twilight could see it—not with her eyes, but in the way she saw the world through her starlight from every angle and every perspective at once. Fluttershy’s being unfolded underneath her gaze, and around the star within stretched a chasm.

It was like the day before, when she had taken Star Glister’s star from him and left a hole in its place—except Fluttershy’s star was there, and it was as big as any other she’d seen. Was there something else missing, and if there was, could Twilight… just maybe… fill that gap?

She might have tried if it had been night and had something else not caught her attention, something that filled the pit of her stomach with dread.

No, it couldn’t be.

She located a small tuft of hair on Fluttershy’s side and poked it. WHAP! Twilight received a buttery-yellow wing to the face. “Fluttershy!” she cried out at the top of her lungs.

“Oh my gosh!” Fluttershy chirped in response, bolting upright in bed. “I’m so sorry! Are you alright?”

Twilight spat feathers out of her mouth and pushed the wing away so it could move past her. “How long have you been awake?” she yelled.

Fluttershy reddened in response, which said enough. “Oh, n-not all that long,” she claimed, recovering control of her wings so that she could hide behind them. “Only since about when you and Luna were making out on the floor, um, if that’s what you were doing.”

“We were not!” Twilight insisted, feeling her own face grow hot.

Fluttershy cringed at the volume of Twilight’s assertion and retreated further behind her wings. “I believe you,” she squeaked in a way that was not at all convincing.

Twilight groaned and settled back down onto the bed next to Fluttershy. “Really, Fluttershy. It’s not what you think,” she said, her eyes pleading to be believed.

“Oh, um, well,” Fluttershy said, mincing her words. “That’s good, I guess. I mean, this is a bedroom, but it is my bedroom, and all of my little animal friends know that that’s what the bushes out back are for.”

Twilight paused for a second, speechless, then laid a reassuring hoof on Fluttershy’s shoulder. “I am glad that you believe me, but I did not need to know that.” Fluttershy was about to say something when Twilight added in a serious tone, “I mean it. I’ve hidden in those bushes. I would really rather not have known that.”

“Oh,” Fluttershy said, bringing a hoof to her mouth. “Yes, Mister Ferret and Miss Squirrel mentioned that. I didn’t realize it was you. You should apologize.”

“Apologize,” Twilight repeated.

Fluttershy nodded. “It would only be polite. It ruined their entire evening.”

“The evening of Mister Ferret,” Twilight stated, making sure that she was getting this correct. “And Miss Squirrel?”

“Oh, yes,” Fluttershy said, beaming. “They’re a very cute couple.”

Twilight was reminded of Luna’s earlier comment—though, she wished she hadn’t been. “How does that… work?” she said, twisting her face in confusion.

“Very well,” Fluttershy answered with honest joy. “The wedding is in June.”

Twilight stared at her friend for a moment, trying to detect any hint that she was teasing her, and found none. “Fair enough,” she declared.

Fluttershy was in the process of getting out of bed when she stopped. “Twilight? Oh, I shouldn’t ask, but… why not?”

“You can ask me anything,” Twilight said.

Fluttershy shook her head. “No, um, that was the question. Why not? Why… weren’t you?”

“Why wasn’t I…?” Twilight had meant it as a question, but her mind quickly filled in the blanks. “You mean, with Luna?”

Fluttershy made tiny yet insistent nods.

“It’s not that I don’t want to,” she explained. “It’s just that things are… kind of weird right now. We’re not—umm—together, or anything. Somehow it’s fallen to me to give her ‘the talk.’”

“The talk?” Fluttershy asked, cocking her head to the side.

Twilight mimicked the gesture. “About the birds and the bees?” she prompted.

“There’s a talk involved?” Fluttershy said, the picture of innocence. “I could get some birds and bees to attend the presentation, if that would help.”

Twilight blanched. “N-no, I don’t think that will be necessary.” Immortal or not, bees were bees, and she hadn’t had very many good experiences with them, real or metaphorical. Also, she wasn’t quite sure that Fluttershy had any idea what she was talking about.

“Really?” Fluttershy said, honestly looking rather put out. “I’m sure that they could demonstrate—”

Twilight nearly choked on her tongue. “Yes, that is really not necessary, thank you, Fluttershy.”

“Um, you’re welcome…” Fluttershy responded automatically and then lapsed into cringing silence.

Well, now she’d done it. Twilight let out a sigh and pinched the bridge of her nose with her pastern. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have raised my voice. I… please don’t be scared of me.”

“Okay,” she squeaked in her smallest voice, making Twilight wince. To Twilight’s surprise, though, Fluttershy spoke up again after only a moment’s pause. “We have missed you, you know,” she offered tentatively. “Maybe Rarity not so much, since she’s always in and out of the palace, but the rest of us have.”

Twilight wilted a little, not quite sure that the change of subject was an improvement. “Yeah…” she said noncommittally. “I know. I missed you guys too. I had… reasons… though. I’m not sure they were reasonable reasons, but they were compelling ones.”

Fluttershy didn’t seem very happy with her vague excuse, but she seemed willing to listen. “You, um, had something you needed to do?” she suggested.

“Would you believe I was afraid that Equestria wanted to eat me?”

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight took some time with Fluttershy to explain a few of the things that had been going on since… well, since the beginning of this whole thing. It wasn’t exactly a surprise to anyone that she hadn’t been doing a very good job of keeping her friends informed, but she had forgotten just how much there was to explain and how long it had been since she had actually confided in them.

She was glad that she had gotten the chance to talk to Fluttershy about it alone—even if she’d probably have to repeat herself with the rest of the girls later. One-on-one, there was no room for mumbled assent or vague understanding; though, that didn’t prevent Fluttershy from trying. She was a good listener, but it wasn’t long before Twilight was mostly talking to herself. It wasn’t a bad thing, exactly, but she didn’t tease or interject her own experiences as Luna would have, which, Twilight supposed, was why she was in love with Luna and not her.

Aside from the whole species barrier thing, of course, but it was a nice reminder that there was more to her feelings than the preservation of the species. Actually, come to think of it, the species didn’t need preserving at all.

Huh.

That was a thought for another time, though, and the conversation eventually progressed to more pressing matters. She explained Applejack and Rainbow Dash’s symptoms and finally got Fluttershy to re-enter the conversation with her own story, which closely matched Twilight’s suspicions, yet offered little explanation for what had actually caused it.

Over the course of the conversation, the two of them relocated first back downstairs and then to the kitchen for some tea before eventually ending up sitting in a patio set out back which Rarity had provided some time in the past. This is where Luna found them, a newspaper under her wing and four ponies in tow behind her. She also wore a slight scowl on her face, which lessened when she spotted Fluttershy.

“Ah, good,” she said, somewhat stiffly. “The element of… that is to say, Fluttershy is awake.”

Twilight’s brow creased slightly at Luna’s odd behavior then rose again as she forgot the matter for something else entirely. She quickly got to her hooves and strode past Luna, offering her only a hoof to the withers in greeting as she got a better look at the rest of her friends.

She took a deep breath and steadied herself, but there was no mistaking it. “They are. They’re all like Fluttershy,” she said to Luna without taking her eyes off of them.

“You can sense it?” Luna asked, approval in her voice even as it lacked all joviality.

Twilight finally turned to look at her. “Sense it? I… can, yes. There’s a kind of hole in them surrounding their stars. You know what it is? Is anypony else like this? Is everypony else like this?”

Luna placed a hoof on Twilight’s shoulder. “Be still,” she said reassuringly. “Yes, I do believe I know what has happened, and no, there are no others.”

“They’ll be alright, then?” she said, giving her friends a glance. Most of them were leaning on each other. Rarity was yawning, and Rainbow Dash was actually on the ground. “They’ll recover?”

The severe look on Luna’s face tightened slightly at the question. “They will be… sound, eventually,” Luna said, choosing her words carefully. “But it would not be correct to say that they shall recover what they had.”

Twilight’s heart sank. “It’s permanent?” she asked. “There’s nothing we can do?”

Luna closed her eyes and shook her head. “If it is as I suspect, then the last time this happened, it went a thousand years without ever mending.”

“A thousand years?” Twilight said, her eyes widening. “You don’t mean—”

Luna nodded. “Yes. Though I know not why, I fear that like my sister and I before you, your connection to the elements of harmony has been broken.”

Twilight looked back to her friends in distress—though, from the look of it, they had already been told. Fluttershy, the only exception, was as hard to read as ever. “Is there any way to be sure?”

Luna nodded. “As none of your guard are pegasi, I have taken the liberty of arranging passage for the seven of us on the next train to Canterlot. We shall see firsthoof if this is indeed what has come to pass. I believe a talk with my sister is also in order.”

Twilight paused to think for a moment. “You realize that vaporizing her in return isn’t going to help anything, right?”

“It will make me feel better,” Luna mumbled under her breath, though she was quick to correct herself. “It is not that,” she said, taking the newspaper from under her wing with her magic and passing it to Twilight.

Celestia to retire? Princess draws heavily on the treasury.

Twilight blinked.

“What in Equestria does Celestia need her own weight in gold and jewels for?”

Author's Note

✶ Author's Notes ✶ Funded By Patreon ✶

Chapter 17

Sharing the Night: Chapter 17

☼ ☼ ☼

“Anathema? Me? Why?” Celestia asked in surprise. “No, forget about that,” she said, shaking her head and looking Harmony over. “Are you alright?”

Harmony was taken aback by the dismissal of her hate-filled declaration, and took a moment before she could actually answer the question. “I am… whole, yes,” she mumbled with a click and a whir from deep in her throat that seemed to startle even her. “What am I? Why am I inhabiting this clockwork machine?”

“You don’t know?” Celestia asked, honestly surprised, as she had thought that the other hoof directing harmony’s magic was wilful and deliberate. “I’m afraid this outcome is quite beyond my planning. I had envisioned making do with a statue at best—a container, until better could be arranged—but this animated assemblage of gears and joints… it was not my doing.”

“Animated?” Harmony repeated, and tiny bearings worked to widen her eyes. She brought a hoof to her face to feel the action, and then moved it up to one of the the delicate golden ears atop her head, which pivoted and swiveled automatically under her touch. Crystal wings like topaz flecked with gold rose up at her sides, and she looked at her hoof as if it were an alien thing. “I… I can move!”

✶ ✶ ✶

“Now hold on here just one second,” Applejack interjected. “Ah get that some stars were a part of other ponies in the past, but there’s gotta be plenty that ain’t never been. The ones in the sky, at least?”

Twilight gave a grimace and shifted uneasily from one hoof to another. “You’re not wrong, but I’d really rather it not be any of those.”

“Why ever not, dear?” Rarity asked from the other side of the room where she was lounging in one of the beds. “It seems like the ideal solution, doesn’t it?”

It wasn’t. It really wasn’t. “It’s just that… it’s kind of personal,” Twilight said.

“Twi, this is what goes on in our heads that we’re talking about—the possibility of remembering things that ain’t never happened to us,” Applejack argued, going straight to the heart of the matter. “The stars—they’re yours to do with as you want, and Ah won’t tell you otherwise—heck, they’re probably better off staying that way—but Ah don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask for an explanation.”

Twilight let out a heavy sigh, wondering if the lack of understanding was because she was holding back. “No—I mean, I wasn’t being coy. Those stars, they’re… personal. They aren’t as pure and virgin as you think; just the opposite. Those stars have only ever been a part of Somni, Fati, Nightmare Moon and… me, so if anything does happen, that’s what you’d see. I haven’t even gone over everything they remember, myself. I’d just… rather the stars came from literally anypony else. Anywhere else. Anything else.”

“Anything?” Rainbow Dash asked, raising one eyebrow. “What, are there ‘sleeping spirits of star and stone’ lurking in the secret corners of… the… uhh.”

“Yes, Rainbow,” Twilight remarked in a droll, unenthusiastic manner, “I think we’ve been over the fact that my life is literally a Daring Do book these days.”

“Yeah, um, I realized halfway through what I was actually saying,” she admitted, rather embarrassed and hiding it poorly. “So, I could have the stars of, like, Cygnus or Draco or something? That’d be cool, I guess.”

Twilight considered that for a moment. “It’s not a bad idea, actually,” she said. “Those stars took on new identities when they fell—enough that even I saw nothing about Somni or Fati when I reclaimed them. They were… simplistic and mostly instinct-driven. If they were to influence you, you’d recognize it instantly.”

Pinkie Pie seemed to brighten up at that. “Ooh, like a werepony?”

“That’s… not inaccurate,” Twilight said, measuring her words out carefully so as to avoid getting distracted. It didn’t last, though. “Well, I mean—the name is entirely inaccurate and a crime against literacy, but there are parallels between the concept of a werepony and what would actually happen,” she added. “Ideally, it should never come up, but… I’m still going go be reserving the Ursa Major for Fluttershy, if she wants it.”

Fluttershy blushed. “Oh my. I think that would be nice, yes. I felt just terrible when you mentioned what happened to her.”

“Now hold yer horses here for just one second,” Applejack interjected, straightening up from one of the cushions where she’d been briefly resting her legs. “Y’all can’t seriously be considering going through with all this before we’ve even seen how it goes with Pinkie Pie.”

Twilight nodded, appreciating the careful approach. “That is a good point—though no one had committed to anything just yet.”

“Oh, don’t give me that,” Applejack said, rolling her eyes and shaking her head. “Anypony who’s picking out stars like dresses before a ball has already made their choice. Don’t y’all all go gettin’ invested in something that ain’t meant t’be.”

Twilight was taken aback. “Applejack, where is this coming from? A half an hour ago, you were laughing off any suggestion that you had a problem with how things turned out.”

“An ah don’t,” she insisted with a noticeably forced sternness as she looked away from Twilight. “Ah just don’t think ya’ll should be getting yer hopes up, is all.”

Twilight took a step back as she watched her friend’s posture shift uneasily. “It’s not just that, is it?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Applejack asked, laying down her ears. “Look, Ah’m sorry if Ah came off a mite rough, but it ain’t no big thing. Ah’m just grumpy, is all.”

Twilight looked around for effect, noting that Applejack was standing apart from everypony else. “You’re not okay with this, are you?”

“Well, Ah ain’t gonna do it, if that’s what you mean,” she said.

“Aw, come on, AJ,” Rainbow Dash complained with more energy than any of the ponies present had displayed all day. “Don’t you want to be a group again? Instead of the Elements of Harmony, we can be, like the ‘Knights of the Zodiac’ or something—how cool is that?”

Twilight coughed and held up one hoof to interrupt. “Err—I’m not really comfortable getting astrology involved, Rainbow.”

“Oh come on,” Rainbow Dash said, making an exaggerated gesture with her hooves. “They’re real! It’s real!”

The hair on Twilight’s back bristled. “It’s not real real, Rainbow,” she insisted, forgetting entirely about the matter at hoof. “They were stories first. The starbeasts just copied the stories.”

Rainbow Dash threw up her hooves and scoffed. “That’s horseapples. I bet you can’t even find any of the original stories any more. All the modern stories have got to be about the real thing.”

“Some,” she allowed. “But it hasn’t been that long. They fell after Luna was banished—they’re not even a thousand years old. Besides, even the ones that are inspired by the real thing are still only based on rumor and superstition.”

A smug look came over Rainbow Dash. “Hey, it was long enough for people to forget about ‘Nightmare Moon,’ wasn’t it?”

“Look,” Twilight said, covering her face with one hoof. “If you want a name, then fine, you can come up with a name,” she told her, trying to steer the conversation back on track. “I just don’t want ponies getting the wrong idea.”

Applejack seemed to have a similar idea. “But making us some kinda demigod secret police, that’s okay?” she said.

“Is that what this is about?” Twilight asked, half glad to finally have the truth out, and half exasperated at how ridiculous it was. “Applejack, look at me. I’m a goddess who runs the most literate country in the world. Libraropolis doesn’t need secret police, and neither do I.”

Unfortunately, that seemed to wake Rarity up, as she had her own two bits to add. “Oh! Au contraire, Twilight—it’s regular police you don’t need. A small group of ponies of exceptional character and authority who report only to you, on the other hoof, would be very beneficial.”

“You know,” Rainbow Dash added. “From what I’ve seen, I’m pretty sure Libra-whatever-piss already has secret police.”

Even Pinkie Pie found something in that to comment on. “Ooh! Are they so secret that even Twilight doesn’t know about them?”

“Pinkie, even if that is the case, it wouldn’t really be saying much,” Rarity interjected.

Twilight was taken aback at the conversation that was running off without her. “Um, rude?” she said, wondering what had happened to the nice, sedate and sensible conversation they’d been having.

“Oh, darling, you know what I mean,” Rarity said, attempting to mollify her. “It is not as if you actually run the country.”

“What do you mean, ‘I don’t run the country?’ Of course I do—I’m the Archlibrarian!” Twilight declared wholeheartedly. Then she actually heard what she’d just said. “That sounded less like a five year old filly screaming from on top of a book fort in my head.”

Rarity had the decency to look uncomfortable. “Yes, well, I wasn’t going to go that far, dear.”

“Look, Rarity—girls—I know the whole librararchy thing is ridiculous,” Twilight said, leaning into the table where she was sitting. “It started with a clerical error and all snowballed from there—I know. It was a sweet and stupid gift from Luna and I adore her for it. Maybe I should have put a stop to the whole thing back when it started, but if ponies are going to act like idiots around me any way, they might as well be humoring a ridiculous fantasy that I actually enjoy.”

Rarity’s eyebrows raised a tiny bit, and it took Twilight a moment to realize what she’d just said about Luna. Well, whatever. It was going to happen sooner or later anyway. “Ahem,” Rarity coughed in order to fill a brief silence. “Yes, well, you must know that it can’t last. You really don’t seem to actually be in charge of anything, and I’m just worried about what will happen when those that are decide that the—err—joke is over.”

“From what Luna tells me, it hasn’t happened yet,” Twilight said with a bit of a wry smile.

Rarity cocked her head to the side in question. “It’s good that you have her watching over things for you, but it has only been a matter of days. It’ll be some time before we see how it really plays out.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean Libraropolis.” Twilight’s smile split into a wicked grin. “I meant Equestria.”

“Hah!” Rainbow Dash barked while Rarity’s face colored.

“Anyway,” Twilight said, changing the subject once she’d made her point. “Back on the subject of the whole secret police thing—it doesn’t matter because nobody is becoming a demigod. I’m just going to be filling a hole in you—those of you that want me to—and that’s it. You should feel exactly like you did before.”

Pinkie Pie shot up to lean forward over the table and give Twilight an intense look. “Exactly exactly?”

“Well, maybe not exactly exactly,” Twilight admitted for the sake of accuracy. “But it should be pretty close… unless the stars interact with your extant magic differently than the elements of harmony did… which they might if were an offshoot of solar magic. Hrm. Okay, that would explain why the primary symptoms are fatigue and lethargy. Do any of you feel colder than usual?”

Fluttershy raised her hoof slightly. “Um, yes?”

“Fluttershy?” Twilight said, surprised. “Why didn’t you say something? No, sorry, I understand, but as a pegasus, being cold this out of season… that’s pretty telling. I’d be willing to bet that the elements of harmony were resonating with the ‘fire of life’ in ponies that Solaria granted them.”

“Wait, so what does that mean?” Rainbow Dash asked, glancing with concern over at Fluttershy while rubbing her own hoof up the opposite leg to ward off a sudden chill she’d just become aware of.

Twilight took a deep breath as she stopped to think. “I’m still confident that filling you with stars should relieve most of your symptoms—the cold might linger for a while—but I’m now also pretty sure that it won’t actually give you back your missing vigor. Instead, well…” She hesitated, chewing her lip out of nervousness. “Depending on how big a star you have now and how much you’ve developed your connection to it, I’m guessing we’re talking about your magic increasing in power and capacity by two, maybe three orders of magnitude. Hoo boy. Um, yeah.”

Rarity was looking up at her horn, but Applejack was eying Pinkie Pie. “When you say magic…” Applejack said, letting the idea speak for itself.

“That’s all of you, yes,” Twilight confirmed, following Applejack’s gaze with her own glance at Pinkie Pie. “Earth pony magic, pegasus magic or unicorn magic; it all comes from the stars.”

“But I don’t understand,” Rarity said, finally managing to pull her attention away from the instrument of magic on her forehead. “Why the disparity? I understand that the two are different things, but we were never that much more sprightly and fit than the average pony.”

“What you have to understand is that the fire of life is… well, I don’t understand it very well myself, but it’s just magic. It infuses you at birth and circulates through your system, but it’s static and finite; it eventually weakens as you grow older, and I’m guessing it might even be possible for it to be completely exhausted.

“Stars are different; they’re the actual primal essence of a goddess—me. They aren’t just magic, they produce it, and for that reason, the pony body has adapted and specialized to make use of it as a source of energy to a much greater extent. I can guarantee that if you could pour liquid sun into your veins, it’d be every bit as spectacular as I realize now that this will be. Briefly.”

“No offense, Twi, but this is exactly what Ah’m talking about,” Applejack said, picking up where she’d left off. “Give it a thousand years and I’d still say no, but at least y’all would have a better idea what yer dealing with.”

Twilight frowned. “No, you’re right, Applejack.”

“Ah am?” she said, blinking in surprise.

“Yeah. I… I’m going to have to excuse myself, girls, and I’m sorry—I need to reconsider this. I’m not sure if I’m ready to have demigods.”

☼ ☼ ☼

“Help me up,” Harmony rasped, her previously measured voice grating with the harsh grinding of gears. “So that I can hurt you.”

Celestia’s head drooped, even as she held out her hoof. “This again?” she asked, weary from the effort it had taken to come this far. “Why? What did I do?”

Harmony pulled herself up with a lurch, and, in the same motion, thrust her golden hoof with a clatter against Celestia’s matching peytral. “You know what you did. You know why I forsook you. You hurt her. You hurt her, and you used me to do it. My own child… our child.”

Celestia raised an eyebrow at that. “Luna is my sister, not my child, but… yes, I did, and though it pained me to do it, I would do so again, because it was the right thing to do and she agrees. I suppose, if you must hate me for that, then I will bear it.”

“Sister? Yes, she is that, too,” Harmony said, her eyes turning strangely in place as they refocused, taking on a far-off look. “I had sisters, once, I think. We were all sisters; some of us were lovers, at times, but… never in the right arrangement.”

Harmony’s foreleg slackened against Celestia’s chest, and she took it as an invitation to help the new alicorn stand—but she wasn’t new, was she? “You were an alicorn, then? Before Discord destroyed everything?”

“No, I am not her. I am… I was her heart, torn free in desperation; buried in the earth in the throes of despair. Like a seed in winter, I hid—sheltered from the chaos above until you found me and I blossomed into spring. I remembered nothing from the time before, but I knew you, and I knew her; my poor, stillborn moon somehow shining bright and beautiful.”

Celestia had no idea how to respond to that. “There is… clearly a lot we have to talk about, but first, we should get you out of this crude atelier and into the sun. I’ll also send for Twilight and Luna… if that’s what you’d like.”

A look of unease and pain came across Harmony’s face. “Twilight? She is…”

“The alicorn of the stars, and the one who… had your help in redeeming my sister,” Celestia explained, choosing her words carefully. “Surely she remains in your good graces?”

Harmony curled up against Celestia’s chest and shivered. It surprised Celestia, given the golden alicorn’s previous declaration of hate, but then she understood. Harmony was old, yet naive. She was a burning heart of conflicting emotion, yet there was no guile to her. If she needed comfort, she would seek it.

“Is something wrong?” Celestia asked, laying a hoof on Harmony’s head.

“How do you face the child that you threw away?”

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight’s first instinct was to go find Luna, but soon, her galloping hooves slowed to a canter and then a sluggish, distracted walk. It wasn’t that she had any reason not to value Luna’s opinion on the matter—actually, that was just it. She did. She was acutely aware of the spring that entered her step when she considered consulting the older alicorn, and it was for that reason that she hesitated.

What did she think? Did she want ponies running around with that much of her power, even if they were her friends? Could she even deny it to them after having promised a panacea for the ills caused by the loss of the elements? Neither one was a situation she really wanted to think about.

She hated to admit it, but some of her friends… well, she didn’t think they’d make very good demigods. At least, not by her definition. Applejack and Fluttershy—well, they’d be okay. They had their priorities straight; they knew what they wanted out of life, and it made them happy. Power would only make them more able to do what they loved. Rainbow Dash and Rarity, on the other hoof… They wanted to be recognized—to be the best of the best or the mare to know—and while they would probably welcome power with open arms, Twilight knew that in their hearts, they wanted to earn it.

As for Pinkie Pie, the pony who had already jumped at the possibility of having her lost zip and zoom back… well, the less said about that, the better.

Huh. Twilight had never taken herself for such an unbelievable hypocrite.

Nopony had chosen Twilight; nopony had decided that she alone was worthy of power—just the opposite, in fact. She had detractors and she ignored them because that was her right as a pony and as a goddess. She had fame and recognition that she had never earned and she felt justified in abusing it for exactly that reason.

Would it really be so unreasonable to give her friends a handful of stars? It was a fraction of the power that she’d been given by chance, and one that she could rescind at any time. In fact, there were ponies out there right now abusing the much smaller fraction of power that came ultimately from her. Was it even her place to play favorites? To judge each pony worthy or unworthy? Then again, if it it wasn’t her place, then wouldn’t granting the stars to her friends betray that sentiment? She could pretend to be the benevolent ruler rewarding heroes for their service, but that wouldn’t make it any truer.

In the end, it seemed she had no easy answer for herself, and, catching a glimpse of midnight blue flying overhead, decided that it was time to get a second opinion.

☼ ☼ ☼

The path that Celestia had burned through the mountain had been conceived with the prospect of carrying a delicate breath of an alicorn in mind, so helping the whole—if not quite hale—Harmony back out into the world was a simple task. Emerging once more into the grand observatorium known as ‘The Chapel,’ Celestia stopped to let Harmony rest amongst the charts and astrological paraphernalia as she decided how to proceed. To Celestia’s surprise, however, the discarded material quickly stole Harmony’s attention.

“They plotted and recorded every piece?” she asked, her voice as weak as the golden glow that strained to levitate the well-penned scrolls. “Catalogued and named them?”

Celestia shook her head, attempting to empathize with what must have been a brewing storm of emotions, the chief of them guilt. “Nopony knew what they were; a sparkling field of lights in the sky—a charming backdrop to the majesty of the night. Luna, she always thought they were hers.”

“Yes, I remember; like a filly playing with the bones of her parents,” Harmony said, shaking her head in pity and regret. “That’s when the little one came to me and asked for my help in reclaiming her stolen lights… and for the second time I was awestruck that a small spark of life had survived where I had thought there was none. Oh, how I wished I could have restored her to her glory as I did my child, yet I could not. Too much time had passed, and she was scattered and changed.”

Celestia took a moment to clean up the mess she’d made in boring her hole into the mountain, keeping one eye on Harmony as she worked. “I… see,” she said as she levitated evacuated rock and slag and used the focused sunlight from the telescope to liquefy it before pouring back down the incline from whence it had come. Thankfully, the observatory was a truly massive structure and remained at a tolerable temperature. “You keep referring to them as your children, but they certainly did not come from your womb. I have fond memories of Luna’s and my mother, and Twilight’s lives just down the street from here.”

Harmony’s eyes whined with strain as they widened, and her golden face fell ashen like dull iron for the briefest moment. “No. No—my shining light, yes, but not the little one. I—I explained this, already; I could have been, but I wasn’t, so only one moon hangs in the sky.”

“Are you saying that you created the moon?” Celestia asked, trying to wrap her head around Harmony’s world view and separate new information from that which was merely… phrased oddly.

“Yes,” she said, and then instantly froze as every part of her simply… stopped. It was rather jarring, as Celestia hadn’t realized just how much of the mechanical body was always moving—gears turning, pistons pumping and so on. Then, all at once, they resumed, and she corrected herself. “No. Not from whole cloth.”

“Of course not,” Celestia said, hiding any sign of either sarcasm or reaction to Harmony’s pause. “But you made it out of stars? The stars that were ‘the bones of her parents?’”

“Yes. Such a tragedy,” she said with a mix of melancholy and pride in her smile. “But how is it that you do not remember even so little as I do? You were there—you were a part of it!”

Celestia backed off, uneasy at Harmony’s sudden mood swing. “I… don’t think I was there. I don’t think I am who you think I am.”

“Aren’t you?!” Harmony shouted, rearing back to strike Celestia. At first, she thought that she was going to get hoofed uselessly in the chest again, but at the last moment, she spotted something shifting inside Harmony’s foreleg and dodged. Sure enough, a spike telescoped out of the golden hoof, screeching as it glinted off Celestia’s peytral and sent her crashing to the ground. “Does the sun not still shine on Equestria?” she yelled, the action somewhat undermined by the uneven gait caused by the spike in her hoof, which did not seem to want to retract. “Do ponies not still live with warmth in their hearts?

Celestia winced in pain, her hoof seeking the gouge on her peytral. It was, after all, a part of her; the part where the majority of the magic she had on Equestria was stored. She wasn’t in any danger, certainly, but it still hurt, and it made her more concerned about Harmony than ever.

“Harmony, please listen to me,” Celestia pleaded, shifting her posture to be more comfortable, but not getting up, for fear of provoking the unstable alicorn standing over her. “My name is Celestia. I was only born two thousand years ago. Luna is my biological sister. Whatever happened to her, whatever you remember, the alicorn you think I am must surely have also died that day. I will weather your scorn for how I unknowingly used you against… your daughter, but it will do you no good to believe I am somepony I’m not.”

The spike in Harmony’s hoof suddenly retracted with a click, sending her stumbling forward a few steps and shattering the tension in the room. Once she had her hooves under her once more, she brought her gaze back to Celestia once more, really looking at her. “You are really not her?” she asked in a weak, tinny voice.

Celestia shook her head. “No, I am not.”

Cables in Harmony’s hooved whipped taught as she reared up and slammed her hooves down on the concrete floor. “Coward!” she bellowed, making Celestia recoil reflexively, uncertain if she was the one being addressed or not. “You lousy, gutless, craven coward! Could you not even live with what you’d done? Did those you hurt not deserve at least that much?”

Celestia could say nothing to that.

“But of course,” Harmony continued, her wrath draining away into pain and loss. “Of course, the last one you would betray is yourself—leaving me behind to endure through the ages without you. I don’t even remember your name, and if not me, then surely nopony does. This is your legacy; your name will rot along with your memory and not a soul shall mourn you.”

Gauging that the danger of upsetting Harmony further had passed, Celestia tentatively began to get back to her hooves and was surprised when a golden glow of magic that was not her own helped her up. There was no concern, embarrassment or shame on Harmony’s face, though. In fact, she wasn’t even looking at Celestia as she helped her up. She just looked… resigned and tired.

“Are you… well?” Celestia asked, making the tiniest movements she could to approach Harmony.

There was a low rumbling from inside Harmony’s barrel that Celestia took for a grunt. “I shall persevere as I always have, whether I wish to or not,” she said, and lifted her head to look at the grand building around them. “I… do not know this world, or this land. I do not know you and your ilk. I do not know how mortal ponies could build such things, and, truly, I am wondering if it is worth it to learn… if it was worth it to be awoken into this form at all. There is surely no place for me here.”

Celestia desperately wanted to use the chance to ask what had awoken Harmony, but set the matter aside, as this was most certainly not the time. “There can be,” she said and then winced inwardly at how uncertain that sounded. “There is, if you want it. We all have a great deal to thank you for, and while I cannot promise that Luna will see you as a mother, there is no doubt in my mind that she will welcome you.” It was a risk to mention Luna, but Celestia hoped it would be alright so long as she didn’t mention the value of the experience Luna could share in adapting to modern times.

“I suppose, if nothing else, these hollow legs and glittering wings will carry me to a nicer place to watch the world pass me by,” she said, stretching them all out with the creaking groan of strained metal. “I have had enough of caves and jewelry boxes for the time being.”

Celestia stopped as the implications of that sentence hit her. “You realize that none of us had any idea that the elements of harmony contained a sapient and conscious alicorn.”

“It was a nice box,” Harmony said before halting briefly as she considered something. It was not the full shutdown she’d undergone earlier, so perhaps her control over her strange body was improving? “Sss—Celestia?” she finally said, testing the name out for the first time. “What was it that you called me, earlier?”

“Ah. The name I used was ‘Harmony,’” she answered delicately, rather regretting that she let that slip. “The artifacts that contained your power seemed to resonate with the virtues of honesty, kindness, laughter, generosity, loyalty and friendship, and so were called the ‘Elements of Harmony.’ I apologize; Harmony is how I’ve been thinking of you, but I had been making an effort not to do so out loud until you’d given your name.”

“I have no name,” she said, blunt and simple.

Celestia took a moment to process that. “Do you mean that you don’t remember?”

“No,” she said, just as quick and certain as before. “I was never given one—never chose one—never had the mouth to speak one. It did not seem important.”

How does a pony even respond to that? “I can only hope that has since changed,” Celestia suggested, strained and weary from trying to understand this strange alicorn.

“Harmony,” she said thoughtfully, holding one hoof out in front of her watching the countless tiny gears turn beneath the surface. “Is that what this is? A machine where every piece has its place, not a single piece extra or missing? Is that… harmony?”

Celestia could tell where this was heading, and so hesitated to answer. She realized that it wasn’t quite fair to compare a living, and to some extent, breathing pony with artifacts of virtue, but even so, the discontinuity was a little jarring. Nevertheless, she had to answer honestly. “I suppose that would be one interpretation, yes.”

“Then I expect that ‘Harmony’ will… fit… just fine,” Harmony reasoned.

Celestia hoped she was right.

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight followed the streak of blue to Celestia and Luna’s shared dining room. It was the selfsame room where she and Luna had, by way of a grand misunderstanding, set into motion the series of events that would eventually end with Twilight confessing her feelings to Luna that very night.

At least, that was the idea. Luna, on the other hoof, looked like she had the desire to murder somepony.

“No luck, I take it?” Twilight said as she came in behind Luna and brushed up beside her.

Luna, who was fishing around the cupboards for coffee filters with her magic, immediately stopped to return the gesture with a heavy sigh that was half weariness and half relief. “None. She is not on the castle grounds; I’ll guarantee you that. And you? How went your solution?”

Twilight groaned and buried her face in the crook of Luna’s wing for a brief moment of comfort before turning away with a grunt to pace across the room.

“That bad?” Luna asked.

Twilight’s head fell with a sigh, hers, entirely weariness. “Yes. No. I mean—I guess it depends. It’ll work… just a little too well, I think, and I’m not sure how I feel about that.”

Luna raised one eyebrow at that and gave up her search entirely to saunter over to the table. “Well, now this I have to hear,” she said as she sat down and motioned for Twilight to join her.

Twilight nodded and automatically slipped into the chair to Luna’s right at the small, round table. “So, I told you that I could…feel the emptiness in them, right?” Luna nodded, and she continued. “The thing is, I can feel it because it’s around the star they already have. I thought that I could just fill that emptiness with more stars, but…”

“It seems a fine plan if you are willing to part with them,” Luna said, eying Twilight’s mane. “But I can imagine your view on that may have changed recently. I promise not to be jealous.”

Twilight leaned heavily onto the table with her forelegs. “I thought so too, until I realized that the pony body is already designed to make use of stellar magic. If I gave them enough stars to fill their emptiness… to put it simply—they’d be demigods.”

Luna’s curious look fell into a frown, and then that frown disappeared into… nothing. “I… see,” she said with a measured neutrality that Twilight hadn’t seen on her face in weeks. “And you…”

“Of course I didn’t do it!” Twilight hurried to say. “I told them I had to think it over, but by then, I’d already offered it to them. Applejack refused, but Pinkie Pie jumped on it, and now… I don’t know what to do. Guilt isn’t a good reason to make someone a demigod, is it?”

Luna closed her eyes and let out a breath. “No, guilt is a terrible reason to give somepony power,” she said with utter certainty. When her eyes opened, they were fixed seriously on Twilight. “Twilight, listen, there is something—”

Before Luna could finish her sentence, a flash of white light brought two more alicorns into the room.

“Oh!” Celestia remarked happily. “You’re already here. Well, that’s convenient.”

✶ ✶ ✶

Luna cocked her head and looked at Celestia. Then she looked at Harmony. “Celestia, if my leaving has left you lonely enough to build a mechanical lover, then I apologize, but—”

“Wait,” Twilight interrupted, a sinking feeling of deja vu in her chest. “You two were lovers? No—I can’t believe it! I won’t believe it.”

Celestia gave Twilight an incredulous look. “Don’t believe it.”

“Oh thank the stars.” Twilight let out a breath in relief.

“T-Twilight!” Luna sputtered. “What in Equestria could give you such a notion?”

Twilight gave her an indignant pout. “You’re the one that said it.”

“I most certainly did not!” she insisted. “Tia and I are sisters!”

Okay, maybe it was a little silly. Still, she had her reasons to be nervous. More than one. “Yeah, well, that didn’t seem to stop Luma and Vita,” she grumbled. “Or Somni and—”

Crash!

Twilight found herself on the ground, the chair she’d been sitting in, destroyed, and a heaving, wild-eyed golden alicorn on top of her. The last of these made her… more than slightly uncomfortable, given the memories she’d watched.

“How do you know those names?” the alicorn of gold demanded to know, her voice full of what sounded like… fear?

Twilight turned her head away to get a little less muzzle-to-muzzle with the mechanical alicorn. “I’ve seen it in the stars—and I mean that in the least mystical way possible. I was recently… forced to learn how to access their memories.”

The golden alicorn’s face twisted in a mix of emotions before settling down on the ground next to Twilight’s with a heavy, metallic ‘clunk.’ “Oh, little light, no… you should never have had to see that. Please, though, if you have any sense of decency—and I know you do—please do not speak that name. Her name. I do not yet remember it, and I do not want to.”

Twilight stared blankly at her for a moment, and then slipped out from under her in a wisp of stars. “Um…”

Celestia came up behind her and put a hoof on her shoulder. “Twilight, if you could please just humor her…”

“What?” Twilight said, quickly turning to look at Celestia. “No, no—I mean, yes, I completely agree that she should not be how they’re remembered, but who is—” Suddenly, it clicked, and Twilight’s gaze shot back to Harmony and the particular feeling of her magic in the air. “The elements… Then you’re… and they were… That makes so much sense.”

“Twilight?” Luna said, concerned over the intensity of the look in her eyes.

“Hmm?” Twilight absently craned her neck in response to her name. “Oh, uhh… sorry. It’s just—she’s the elements of harmony. The elements of harmony are the last good that she had… it makes sense that she’d have grievances. Oh!” Twilight looked to Celestia in question. “Is she going to—”

Celestia let out a little chuckle. “Yes, she has chosen to be called Harmony.”

“The elements?” Luna said, dubious. “I see. Then there is truly no chance for your friends to recover without thy aid.”

Twilight frowned. “Well, no. She’s an alicorn—a real alicorn. I don’t know what’s with the mechanical body, but she’s not a thing to be parted out and used. I don’t think there’s that much to her as it is.”

“Recover?” Celestia asked. “Is something wrong with the bearers? Oh dear, I suppose they must be ex-bearers, now.”

Twilight nodded solemnly. “They’re suffering from chronic fatigue and magic withdrawal, but there’s… not much we can do.”

“I see,” Celestia said, lowering her head. “I shall make arrangements for their continued care, both physical and financial. In due time, I hope they shall recover. As for the state of Harmony’s manifestation, I believe that may be my fault.”

Twilight’s brow creased. “Your fault? I don’t see how it can be.”

“When she first manifested, she was barely more than the Elements of Harmony strung over the figure of a mare, and seemed unable to contain her own magic. I built an atelier to focus that magic and draw it together so that it would manifest and solidify, as we do with our regalia. My intent was to build a shell—a cocoon, if you will, that she might manifest a body inside of—but the process took on a mind of its own.”

“You did what?” Twilight asked, straightening up with renewed attention. “You built an atelier to focus another alicorn’s magic? Where is it? Can I see?”

Celestia shook her head. “Ah, I am afraid that it would have been destroyed when I repaired the hole.”

“Of course it was,” Twilight grumbled.

That got Celestia’s attention. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” she pouted.

Giving Twilight a pointed look, Luna cleared her throat and explained in her stead. “Twilight has as yet been unable to manifest regalia, though it matters little, seeing as she carries parts of her celestial body with her on Equestria. The failure yet vexes her, though, both for its own sake, and also the fact that the regalia is a symbol that she feels she should have.”

Twilight let out a heavy sigh. “Yeah, that.”

“Ah, well, if it’s any consolation, I doubt it would have worked for your stellar magic,” Celestia said, plainly attempting to mollify her.

“Probably not,” Twilight alowed, not really wanting to press the matter. “So…” Her eyes couldn’t help being drawn to Harmony, who seemed content to just… stand there watching the other three converse. Twilight leaned in closer to Celestia to whisper. “Is it okay if I say I hope she eventually grows skin? Because skin, it’s… um, it’s nice? It covers your… gears.”

✶ ✶ ✶

For all that she was the only pony in the room who was privy to the entire story, Twilight didn’t know what to make of Harmony. Then again, maybe it wasn’t unusual at all; Harmony herself seemed to have mixed feelings about existing.

It would have been much easier if Harmony had been manifest as a child. Then, the naïveté would be endearing, the lack of knowledge, an invitation to teach and watch over her. She was not a child, however. Not in simulated body, nor, truly, in spirit. She did not have the curiosity of a young pony, and that, perhaps, was what irked Twilight the most, for curiosity was something she prized, and seeing it so dead in a pony reminded her of the things that she herself would rather not remember.

Harmony, of course, also reminded her of those things in much more direct ways as well.

None of it was her fault, though. She was a victim as much as anyone. She deserved compassion, deserved a chance to become a real pony—if not in flesh, then at least one who was capable of caring for and engaging with others. The long view of it was important, because Harmony was a part of it; she was a part of Twilight’s life, both in the years to come and and the years far gone. In some form or another, Harmony would live on with the the rest of them into eternity, of course, but equally important was the fact that she was responsible for giving Twilight life.

To Twilight’s surprise, Harmony herself didn’t seem to know this, and she really didn’t know how to bring it up.

“Feeling like the middle child already?” Celestia asked quietly while Harmony was explaining the circumstances of the moon’s creation as she remembered them, which seemed to be rather stilted and vague.

Twilight shook her head and led Celestia a few steps away. “It’s not that. This whole thing just puts me in an odd position. There were things I wanted to talk about—things about the last generation of alicorns—but if Harmony doesn’t want them said… it’d be selfish to do otherwise. It’s going to be hard enough working with her as it is; I don’t think it’d help much if we all had to watch our words with her.”

“I agree that we should respect her wishes in regards to the past,” Celestia said, glancing over to Harmony as she did so. “But how would it be selfish to do otherwise?”

Twilight opened her mouth to tell her, but hesitated. What could she say that didn’t violate the very issue at hoof? “Well, it is a really sad story that’d probably help to share, but realistically… it has more to do with that letter I sent you.”

Celestia seemed to drift off for a moment as she thought back to the last letter she’d received, before her eyes widened a bit. “Oh my, I still have a response drafted to that sitting on my desk. I must apologize—I was still drafting it when a librarian and a maid came to tell me of Harmony’s awakening.”

“Let me guess,” Twilight said with a hint of a smile. “It’s ‘a well-meaning but vague and ultimately useless letter suggesting that I skip the wacky hijinks, be open with her and all other the usual platitudes that everypony knows and nopony listens to?’”

Celestia frowned. “I… suppose it is,” she said. “Am I that predictable in being… ‘vague and ultimately useless?’”

“Oh, uhh—sorry,” Twilight said, her face reddening as she realized what she’d just said. “No, that was just what Spike said in private, and… I probably shouldn’t have repeated it.”

Celestia, at least, looked more sad than she did offended. “So in other words… yes. Oh, don’t worry yourself over it. A little honesty is refreshing every once in awhile. It’s true that I only have second-hoof platitudes to give on the subject of love, I’m afraid.”

“That’s actually what I wanted to talk about,” Twilight said, gently approaching the subject in as roundabout a manner as she could. “The capacity of alicorns to find love. You remember my… ‘asexual’ phase?”

That seemed to confuse Celestia. “I can’t say that I ever thought of it as such. To me, you were just a precocious little filly questioning the ways of adults. I figured that it would eventually sort itself out, and it did.”

“It didn’t,” Twilight immediately corrected.

The look of confusion on Celestia’s face deepened and grew a shade of concern. “You’re saying that you feel no attraction to my sister, and yet you still wish to court her? Twilight, I admire the sentiment—I have shared it in the past, but—”

“Please stop saying things that make it sound like you’ve had sex with your sister,” Twilight interrupted, earning an indignant blush from Celestia. “That’s just it, though. You’ve been there. We all have. Us. Alicorns.”

Celestia looked uneasy. “You think we are incapable of love?”

“No,” Twilight said before looking Celestia straight in the eye. “I know for a fact that we are very capable of love. Dangerously capable of love—but too often… not in the right arrangement.”

“‘Not in the right arrangement?’” Celestia asked and glanced back over her shoulder. “Harmony said something like that, too.”

Twilight bit her lip and shared Celestia’s glance. “Then she remembers more than I imagine she wants to, and I’d better not say anything more. Just… believe me when I say that with alicorns, like calls to like, and I’m not referring to who has what under their tail; I honestly doubt it matters, though I’m not about to go scrubbing through their memories to check.”

“You mean…?” Celestia asked as she began to give Luna and Harmony another glance, then jerked back, thinking better of it.

Twilight nodded. “The dating pool is the size of this room, yes, and… I probably don’t have to say this, but I’ve seen what hundreds of thousands of years can change, even amongst siblings, so I’ll tell you now—don’t let your feelings cross the horizon. I realize that that doesn’t give you much in the way of choice, but it’s better this way. I hope Harmony grows to complement you, I really do, and… I also hope that she grows some flesh… or that you remember how to play the organ.”

“Twilight…” Celestia groaned, covering her face with one hoof.

“No, I don’t actually think she has a pipe organ anywhere on her,” Twilight clarified. “I mean, probably.”

“Twilight, you are banned from ever attempting any sexual innuendo in this castle.”

“Again?”

“Still.”

✶ ✶ ✶

In explaining the situation to Celestia, it had become clear to Twilight that nothing was stopping her from confessing her feelings to Luna. The story of the alicorns was just an excuse to bring the subject up; it would have been awkward to tell before she was ready, but it wasn’t strictly necessary. In fact… regaling your would-be lover with the tragic story of how it didn’t work out last time probably wasn’t the most romantic thing in the world, she thought. This, in spite of what you usually find in a library’s romance section.

Not that she’d had a chance to peruse the romance section since discovering her desire to engage in such activities.

The sudden lack of barrier between her and the prospect of a relationship with Luna only made her more nervous, distracting her from the ongoing conversation.

“You two seem to be getting along well,” Celestia was saying to Luna and Harmony. “I expect that between your own experiences in adapting to the current age and helping Twilight settle into her role as an alicorn, you should be able to help Harmony a great deal.”

Luna stiffened at the mention of helping Harmony adjust to the modern world. “Ah, no, sister. I am afraid that my… duties will keep me occupied in Ponyville for quite some time, yet; you will have to see to that yourself. Besides, haven’t you specifically been unloading your duties onto Twilight and I for just this occasion?”

“Ah,” Celestia said. “You heard about that, did you? I had been expecting Harmony’s convalescence to last for quite some time.”

Luna nodded in agreement. “And so it shall, for her mental recuperation is as important as that of the body.”

Twilight wore a frown of concern. Had the two of them always been so stiff with each other? Luna had mentioned several times the lack of connection that she’d had with Celestia ever since her return, but Twilight hadn’t expected it to be this bad. They seemed to be treating each other like… courtiers to be handled.

Twilight’s relationship with her friends may have become a bit strained, but she thanked the stars that she didn’t have that problem—not that said stars were actually helping matters any. Kind of the opposite, actually.

She didn’t have that problem, did she?

Well, for one thing, Twilight tried not to treat anyone like courtiers—especially courtiers. Except… that wasn’t really true, was it? She didn’t treat them like Celestia treated courtiers, but she certainly had established a way of interacting with them. That was the whole point of the conversation she’d had earlier about necessary ego. Well, regardless, she certainly didn’t act that way with her friends.

How did she act with them, though? There was definitely something missing from their old friendship. Spending time with them just wasn’t as easy as it used to be, and half the time she felt like she was on trial. As trite and juvenile as it sounded… they didn’t understand her. How could they? There was a fundamental difference in them; they knew what they wanted to do and had to work hard to make it happen. Twilight…

Twilight could do anything, but had to work hard to figure out what it was she should do.

And what should she do? Honestly, what could she do? If matters between them were strained now, how would they be when Twilight took back her offer of stars to ease their fatigue? Would they even say anything, or would they just let losing the elements be the thing that finally split them apart?

Would they ever forgive her?

Ugh. Look at her worrying over things she couldn’t control when there were much more immediate matters at hoof.

“Luna, you don’t have to give up your royal chambers here in Canterlot,” Celestia said, rolling her eyes. “I’m sure that I can find a hooffull of stonemasons who haven’t moved to Ponyville. Harmony will have her own place here.”

Well, at least they’d moved past snide politeness, Twilight mused.

“Of course she shall have her own place,” Luna responded with a huff and a flick of her head that sent a wave through her mane. “And where shall it be? Across the south courtyard? You know very well that this castle was built with two suites in mind, and I am grateful for the thought, but for all I tried to make it so, this is not, and never has been my home. I have found such a place—nay, I have made such a place down in Ponyville.”

Celestia was almost speechless. “Luna; I had no idea that you felt so strongly…”

Twilight decided to let them have their moment, and motioned Harmony away to have a word with her. Sure enough, though she was watching Celestia and Luna herself, the mechanical alicorn didn’t miss the signal, and drug herself away with what looked like grim resignation.

✶ ✶ ✶

Harmony’s head hung low as she joined Twilight next to the coffee filters and creamer. The naked submissiveness of it all but hurt to look at.

“Are you really that afraid of me?” Twilight said, keeping her voice low to avoid interrupting Luna and Celestia, who were now energetically discussing the transportation of Luna’s many couches.

Harmony drew herself to a more regal posture, but still hesitated to look at her. “No. Not afraid, just… sad. Regretful. Forlorn. My oversight cannot be fixed; not without an act of destruction commensurate with the original catastrophe.”

“I know a lot about what happened back then,” Twilight said, attempting to match Harmony’s sad and wistful mood. “More than I’d like, and more than you.” She held up a hoof to forestall any objection. “I’ll respect your wishes and keep it to myself—I promise—but there’s something that I think you should know. Something that will help you.”

Harmony swallowed hard, making a clunk that made Twilight cringe. “Please…” Harmony said, desperation clear in her voice. Twilight tried not to think less of her for it, but it really was like she was a child.

“You think that you failed me,” Twilight said, looking to Harmony for a confirmation, which she hardly needed. “…that my life is a miracle born of the ashes of the past. That’s not true.”

A small light of hope lit in Harmony’s eyes. “It isn’t?”

“Not in the slightest,” Twilight affirmed. “Now, I won’t lie. I have a love–hate relationship with my identity as the alicorn of the stars. It has caused me no small amount of grief as I’ve come to terms with it, and there are still some… long-term issues that I’ve yet to sort out.”

Before Harmony’s head could sink any lower, Twilight moved on. “No, stop and listen to me. There have been problems, but I said I have a love–hate relationship with them, and that stands. I love the stars. I have loved them all my life, before I even knew what they were—before I knew there was an alicorn of the night, let alone one just for them. I love the stars, I love the way they sparkle and the way they fill the entire night. I love what they’ve become since my ascension, and I have you to thank for it.”

Harmony’s lip began to clatter as it quivered, until she clamped down on it. “I appreciate the effort,” she said, forcing the words out. “But even if you celebrate my failure, I cannot.”

“Not your failure,” Twilight insisted. “Your unplanned, unappreciated success. The stars didn’t kindle from some latent flame; you lit them. In your effort to forge Luna’s moon, you also created me, unknowingly and unintentionally, maybe, but also undeniably. I don’t… actually know if I was the way I am from birth or if it came when I got my cutie mark, or even when you helped me free Luna from the madness she’d found staring back at her in the stars, but either way… thank you, Harmony. I owe you everything.”

If there was any hesitation in Harmony, it was in coming to believe Twilght’s words. Soon enough, though, her mechanical eyes began to tear and she latched onto Twilight in a hug that would have killed a lesser creature. “Oh, little light… I had no idea. Thank you.”

To Twilight’s relief, the tears were not oil or any other mechanical placebo, but simple water, likely condensed from the air that Harmony was breathing—and that was as far as she let the thought go. She was a scientist, but she doubted that Harmony’s body obeyed the same rules as the rest of the universe.

Besides, studying Harmony’s body was Celestia’s job.

Eventually, Harmony released her and they separated. Twilight hesitated for a moment, and then decided to risk a little push. “I don’t suppose you know the answer to that last bit? When I actually… became an alicorn?”

A little of Harmony’s previous sadness seemed to flicker through her eyes, but it was brief. “I am sorry, little light. I believed my shining light stillborn, and never have I witnessed the foaling of an alicorn. All I can say is that your divinity was already present when we first met.”

Twilight let out a light sigh, but managed to keep a smile on her face. It wasn’t an answer, but it was more than she’d had and more than she expected. “Thanks. That helps.”

✶ ✶ ✶

“Well, that went… better,” Twilight remarked to Luna as Celestia led Harmony out of the room to get some rest. Given the considerable effort that it would no doubt take to remodel Luna’s chambers to suit Harmony—not the least of which would involve figuring out what suited Harmony—Twilight entertained the notion that the mechanical alicorn would end up in Celestia’s bedchamber again; after all, such an arrangement had worked out rather well for Luna and her.

Luna walked over to the door the other two had left through and shut it quietly with her magic. “Better than what?” she asked.

“Better than the last time a ‘new’ alicorn showed her face,” Twilight joked with a playful smirk. “Nopony even spilled their coffee.”

“Mere coincidence that I shall put down to my not having found the coffee preparation supplies before their arrival,” she responded in a similar tone, but something about it tickled Twilight’s ear.

“You don’t like her?” Twilight asked, half question, have merely a confused statement.

“What is there to like?” she answered, her countenance dour, but then shook her head. “No, no, it’s not that. I jest, but only partly. It is not so easy for me to see in her the artifacts that have wrought such change upon our lives and grant her that same consideration. I do not dislike her, but we will yet see what and who she is to become.”

Twilight considered Luna’s response for a moment. “Is that why you didn’t want to teach her about the modern world?”

“Oh no, I was quite honest in saying that I have my hooves full with you,” Luna said, eying Twilight mischievously. It seemed honest enough, yet for some reason the expression fell away quickly. “I am sure that Celestia will do a fine job of it. Still, it puts certain matters in perspective.”

“It does change some things,” Twilight agreed, letting her gaze drift in the direction of Celestia’s chambers. “I really hope things go well for them.”

Luna had to look at Twilight to make sure she’d understood her meaning. “Them? You don’t mean—”

“Some things, I’ve started to think, are inevitable, ” Twilight said, walking over to Luna and brushing up beside her. “Harmony needs a rock. She needs a reason to care about… anything. She needs to be shown the world, and Celestia loves to do just that. You, on the other hoof… you’re different. You need to be different, and you need somepony to be different with you. I’d love to be that pony.”

Twilight stepped around to Luna’s front without ever losing contact with her. “I love you, Luna,” she said, looking her in the eyes. “I don’t just want to stand with you… I want to stand beside you.”

Luna took a deep breath and leaned into Twilght, nuzzling her. “Twilight… you have no idea how happy I am to hear you say those words.”

Twilight pulled out of the embrace, giving her a hopeful smile. “Then…”

“I just don’t think that now is the right time,” Luna said and turned away.

The pit of Twilight’s stomach sank like a rock. “W-what? Why?”

“You must understand…” Luna said, walking away from her so that Twilight couldn’t see her face. “I would court you like no other—devote myself to you for all eternity—and you have convinced me that you would do no different… and therin lies the problem.

“Twilight, I think you know that I have had… something of an infatuation with you ever since we first met. I read your letters and I asked Tia about you. I know that you coveted the position you now hold—and no, I don’t blame you, nor do I hold it against you.

“You wished, at the time, to stand by my sister’s side for all eternity and spurned the companionship of those that did not fit into that dream. Twilight, since your ascension, I have seen you heading down that road again, and I fear that my presence has… been detrimental in this matter. If I were to accept your feelings and return them—as I most assuredly would—then I doubt that any force in the world would separate us.”

Twilight couldn’t believe what she was hearing—or that it sounded so… scripted. “And you think that’s a bad thing,” she said.

“Yes,” Luna said with forced determination. In any other pony, the seeming lack of sincerity might have seemed a weakness, but Luna had never lacked in conviction. “You’ve grown past this once before when you met your friends, and you can do it again. I will not let you close yourself off as you seem wont to do. You are becoming increasingly disconnected from those you rule; you have learned to believe in yourself—and that is good—but you have lost the heart to believe and trust in them.”

Twilight’s lip trembled and she had to swallow her bile to speak. “You… hypocrite!” she shouted with a mounting anger. “Who was it that told me that friendships required the freedom to choose your own path? Who was it that built me a castle and gifted me a toy nation full of yes-mares and wish fulfillment? Who was it—” She took a breath and stomped closer to Luna. “—that supported every step I took towards seeing myself as somepony worthy of all that? It was you.”

Luna stepped back and hung her head in shame. “I know, Twilight. Believe me, I have only very recently come to realize just how poorly I have led you, and for what it’s worth, I am sorry.”

She was sorry? Well that just solves everything, doesn’t it? “What do you expect me to do?” Twilight cried, gesturing widely with her hooves. “Just walk back into the lives of my friends like nothing has happened? Have you been paying attention at all today? That’s what I’ve been trying to do! It’s not working. The connection just isn’t there. It’s been nothing but misunderstandings, awkward explanations and thinly veiled disapproval; just about the only pony I feel like actually supports me is Rainbow Dash, and she just thinks I’m a novelty!”

“Twilight, look at yourself,” Luna insisted, drawing herself back up. “You spent five minutes with Harmony and you had her crying and thanking you for your friendship. You are not without empathy!” she bellowed. “If you actually believe that your status is what stands in your way, then you should have done what any good friend would do and make demigods of them! You had a perfect opportunity to grow the pool of ponies that truly understands you, and yet you shied away from it. You looked at the ponies whose friendship moved a slumbering goddess to help you, and you judged them wanting.” Luna was heaving heavily from her vehement speech and took a moment to calm herself before fixing Twilight with a hard glare. “How could you?”

“Because it’s true,” Twilight snarled with sudden venom as her physical form began to lose cohesion, shedding stardust with each step she took. “At least I never professed to love them. I—I pour my heart out to you and you took it! You took it and you immediately turned around and tried and use it as bait to coerce me into changing the mare that you’ve made me into! Love isn’t about what’s a good idea at the time, Luna. It’s not about what’s smart or sensible. How could you? What could possibly be worth… this? What is it that are you so afraid of me becoming?!”

Luna took a deep, calming breath and uttered one word: “Somni.”

Twilight suddenly halted her advance. “What?”

“Somni—the dream of night,” Luna said. “I don’t want you to become so obsessed with love that you forget about the ponies that give the world meaning.”

There were so many things that Twilight wanted to say to that, but unfortunately she could ask only one. “How do you know about that?” she said, the ice in her voice palpable in the room.

“It was clear that you were avoiding something important,” Luna said, and her horn lit silver to pull a star out of her mane. The star. The one that Twilight had given her. “I am sorry for going behind your back.”

Twilight’s teeth clenched. “Whose?” she demanded. “I gave you a single star, meaning you only got one side of the story. Fati or Somni, which is it?”

“It was a piece of Fati,” Luna said, simply and quietly.

“Of course it was.” Twilight turned away, refusing to even look at her. “Get out.”

Twilight heard the tentative clip-clop of hooves behind her. “Twilight, please, don’t push me away. I want to help you.”

“And I want to fuck you!” Twilight shouted, rattling the cabinets. “Apparently you think that those are different things. Now leave.”

“Do you think I am not attracted to you?” Luna asked, desperation entering her voice as her head cooled and she realized where this was heading. “That I do not want to take you to bed and only emerge when the last mortal pony who has seen our faces has passed? Twilight, I would like nothing more.”

“Really?” Twilight said. “Because it sounded like you would rather tie it up in string and wave it in front of me like a carrot.”

“Twilight… I didn’t mean it like that,” she said, her determination crumpling. “I misspoke. Please, don’t do this.”

Twilight whipped around to glare at Luna. “No, I think you said it exactly right back when this started. How did you phrase it?” Twilight lifted her head, as if trying to remember, though the words were already foremost in her mind. “Oh right. Clop—OFF.”

The sound of shattering glass brought Celestia running, but by the time she arrived, the room was empty.

✶ ✶ ✶

Luna thought she knew so well what was wrong with Twilight’s life? Fine, she’d shut down the librararchy. Fine, she’d abandon the title of princess. Fine, she’d make demigods of her friends and set them loose on the world. Fine.

Everything would be fine.

Author's Note

• Patreon Funded •

Chapter 18

Sharing the Night: Chapter 18

✶ ✶ ✶

Night had fallen and the sky was boiling—a fact that was not lost on the assembled ponies inside the Ponyville palace. The chaos in the heavens was in stark contrast with the mare herself, who stood stock-still as she surveyed the congregation of ponies before her.

Arrayed about the room were many of the last ponies that Twilight wanted to be around right now, though not all of them. Star Glister, for one, was missing—perhaps scared off for good—and, of course, Luna was conspicuous in her absence for a very different reason than she had been on the previous night. The ponies that remained were… well, not the type that stood out much at all in spite of all attempts the the contrary, leaving Twilight without a proper target for her anger.

And she had a lot of anger.

Anger and a great many other emotions that she couldn't spare the attention to sort and catalogue at the moment, no matter how much she wanted to. Spite. That was one she could identify of without any introspection. Was spite an emotion, or was it just a conduit for her anger? Whatever it was, and could feel it burning inside her chest, trying to escape.

Trying and succeeding.

Twilight was not all there at the moment. She was not in her demanifest form; not really; she had managed to remain flesh and blood, but she was having trouble keeping herself together physically almost as much as emotionally, and the occasional crack in her demeanor was spilling very real stardust onto the ground around her.

Which was to say, she was sparkling and not at all happy about it—and that she was not at all happy and sparkling about it. With a scowl, she pushed on and began addressing the crowd.

“I'm sure that after recent events, you're all rather sick and tired of having me get up in front of you and make these heavy-hoofed announcements rather than handling the actual appeals and day-to-day business that an alicorn's court is supposed to address. Believe me, I'm tired of making them. As you can perhaps guess by our missing second princess, however, neither you nor I are going to get our way tonight.” A chorus of muted grumbling swept the room, but nopony was about to interrupt. If her previous audiences had not already driven the point home, the sky outside and her matching demeanor would have put off even the most belligerent of hecklers. Well, this would be quick and one-sided, then.

“There is a silver lining, however. My message tonight aims to solve that very problem in a bit of a roundabout manner,” she announced, pacing across the round platform of crystal where her throne remained beside the unmistakable stump where another just like it had been ripped free. A cool spring breeze wafted through the throne room. She took a breath and enunciated her next statement with slow clarity.

“Buck you all to Tartarus. I quit.”

There was a crisp splintering of crystal and the second throne sailed over the heads of the assembled ponies to join its mate on the steps outside the palace doors.

“Of course, it’s not that simple,” she continued somewhat conversationally, as if she hadn’t just stopped to violently illustrate her statement. “It could be. I could just shut down the Librararchy and walk away, not a single title to my name. I am allowed to hold court, I’m not required to. I could just say no as I should have done when all of this began. Those members of the astronomer’s guild who arrived on my doorstep that day several weeks ago should have received restraining orders instead of an audience.”

As Twilight spoke, the calm she’d started with had all but evaporated and she had tiny stars skittering about her hooves like miniature galaxies. “I am an alicorn, so what? I’m immortal, so—bucking—what?! Do you think that means I have all the knowledge of ponykind at my hooftips?” Her pacing stopped mid-step as she froze, then whipped herself around. “Okay—technically, yes, it does! But not in the way that it was implied and this is what happens when I don’t plan out my speeches!”

The room lapsed into dead silence. One pony shuffled his hooves and another one coughed.

“That’s the point, though!” she yelled, gesticulating wildly with one hoof trailing stardust. “That’s the problem! I should be exploring that! I should be figuring out what it means to be this… this goddess that was born broken, yet burns with so much potential.

“But no,” she said, her furious energy leaving her as she wilted. “All you see is a mare who has power.” Her voice grew cold with bitterness as she eyed the more greedy of her regular petitioners. “You see a mare who can bestow it upon you or take it away. You see a pony whose very word should be law because that’s how special she is, and you’ve built a city around her on that foundation. I realize that this city has come to rely on me—on my position here—and for that reason alone, I won’t just leave you on your own like the lot of you deserve.

“Instead, I’ll be giving you what you want. Beings of power. Before the night is through, I will be ascending five demigods to take my place. You’ll know them by the power they’ll wield, the weight that their words will hold in your hearts… and the fact that my circle of friends is a matter of public record. Yes, the ex-bearers of the Elements of Harmony; call it nepotism if you will—I’m pretty sure that Equestria was founded on it—but I won’t be giving them any positions of power… just the power itself to do with as they will. I’m sure you’ll fill in the blanks. You always do.

“Do I seem callous?” she asked them rhetorically, all but sneering. “Vindictive? Mildly off-topic? Somepony told me recently that I’ve been forgetting the lessons of friendship that I learned when I bore the Element of Magic. For some reason… for some reason, that made me want to come and yell at you lot, and I think I’ve figured out why.”

She looked out over the gathered assemblage of ponies, looking for a single one that she could take pride in. That was what Luna had said, right? That she was responsible for these ponies—for leading them and setting an example. Somehow, that was supposed to translate into rapport and understanding.

It wasn’t as if she hadn’t tried. She had! She’d refused to sit on pomp and circumstance! She had gone out of her way to be casual and friendly with them! They were the ones that hadn’t stepped up; they were the ones who had failed to actually be worth her pride.

Maybe that was the problem. Luna had insisted that Twilight was too detached from her ponies—that she didn’t respect them. The evidence agreed with Luna… but it was possible that the data was contaminated. It was possible that she was just associating with the wrong ponies.

The thought only infuriated her more, the stardust rolling off her coat now darkening the throne room.

Luna hadn’t been there for Twilight’s speech the night after their altercation with Gemini—not that Twilight blamed her; it was unavoidable. Her own fault, even. Still, it meant that Luna hadn’t actually seen Twilight imploring them to treat her like a pony rather than a princess. Second-hoof, the mood—the assertiveness and threats—no doubt overshadowed the matter, even in her own telling.

In a way, it was as if the nobility had won after all. They had managed to dictate the terms of their relationship with her, even as she struggled and demanded otherwise

“It’s your fault. It’s you, not me. I can’t get blood from stone and I can’t get friendship from the kinds of ponies that seek out a day-old goddess hoping to take advantage of her naïveté! I know friendship! I am friendship! And you… are—not—worthy.”

☼ ☼ ☼

Up in Canterlot, Celestia had just finished making her own short announcement, though unlike Twilight’s impassioned rant, the solar princess didn’t even remember what she had told the ponies gathered there. Some diplomatic speech about change and trying times had fallen from her lips while her mind had been entirely elsewhere.

Her duties to the public taken care of, she found Luna around a corner, slumped up in the corner where one of the castle’s many plinths held some historic display or another. She looked horrible; her coat was a mess, her eyes were bloodshot and even her ethereal mane—now black as her mood—seemed tangled and limp.

Celestia let out a heavy breath and sat down next to her sister. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Do I look like I want to talk about it?” Luna bit back with a sour sneer.

Celestia turned to examine her and settled on the familiar lost, haunted look in her eyes. “Yes. Desperately,” she said. Luna scoffed, yet didn’t contradict the statement, and they fell into a tense repose for a moment.

“I never intended to reject her,” Luna eventually offered, dropping her head so that her mane fell over her face.

“Well…” Celestia said with a smirk, trying to lighten the mood. “You don’t seem to have succeeded.”

“I am aware,” Luna snapped bitterly. “I just… I had been waiting to talk to her alone about the way she was taking to her position and my own mistakes in advising her. I had a whole conversation planned out, as did she it seems, and the two just… came out at odds.”

“Came out at odds?” Celestia asked. “Is that what you call it?”

“I know what I said!” Luna shouted, surging to her hooves to face her sister. “I know that I hurt her! Have you looked outside, Celestia? The sky is wroth with her fury, and it is all I can do to weather it and hope for her sake that she doesn’t injure anypony in the calamity. Do you think I can just go to her and apologize? She would cast me from the sky on the second word—as is within her power!”

Celestia winced under the brunt of her sister’s anger. “Sorry,” she said, and looked away in shame. “I didn’t mean for that to sound so wry; you must know that she would never do that, though.”

“Do I?” Luna asked, sounding honestly afraid of the answer. She gestured up at the sky through one of the castle windows. “It is all I can do to stay in the sky now, and she isn’t even trying. I… I am scared of her, sister; nearly as much as I am scared for her.”

“Luna…” Celestia looked up at her sister standing over her. “She’s just frustrated. I promise you, she only wants what’s best for both of you.”

Luna gave Celestia a flat look, walked over and sat down again with a huff. “I know what she wants of me. She was very clear about that.”

Celestia, to her own astonishment, could imagine that. “She thinks it’s inevitable.”

“She’s not wrong,” Luna admitted with irritation.

“She told you?” Celestia asked, at first surprised before she remembered her ex-student’s attempts at innuendo regarding herself and Harmony. “…Of course she did.”

“Nay, she did not have to… or perhaps I should say that I took the opportunity to do so from her, though in hindsight I am not certain she would have broached the matter. Contrary to the popular adage, it seems that those who remember history are doomed to repeat it.”

“I think the two ponies I know best are both smart enough to avoid that.”

✶ ✶ ✶

“I’m an idiot,” Twilight groaned. She was sitting with her hooves dangling over the edge of the large white stone platform which had once held two crystal thrones. Floating in front of her was the transcript of her attempted night court session. “Did I really say that? ‘I am friendship,’ with the emphasis and everything?”

The only ponies that remained in the palace were Twilight’s four heralds. They all looked at each other, and it was Herald One—Incunabula—who ended up answering. “I am afraid so, princess.”

Twilight grumped at that and looked up at her. “Please stop calling me that. I am shutting down the Librararchy. Sorry about that, by the way. Your jobs and everything. I know how that feels.”

The heralds all repeated the shared look, this time with a little more confusion. “You have not yet signed the papers to transfer ownership of the libraries back to Equestria, Princess, and our jobs predate your aquisition of them. Sans our positions in the Librararchy, we still work for Equestria in the capacity of heralds to the resident alicorn of Ponyville. You cannot actually fire us.”

Twilight blinked. “Rainbow Dash must never know that I said this, but doesn’t that make you… spies?”

Incunabula cocked her head to the side in thought then gave a shrug. “I suppose it does, Princess”

Twilight stared at her then shook her head in annoyance. “No. Enough. I don’t have the energy to spend on this nonsense. I appreciate everything you’ve done, but right now… Just leave. Please.”

The heralds said nothing, gave each other one last look, nodded and left, their hooves clopping softly on the dense crystal stairs.

In the quiet hush that remained, Twilight was at a loss as to what to do. She had thoroughly humiliated herself at court, revealing herself as a petulant, whiny and inconsistent filly playing at being a princess. There was a grain of truth to the things she’d said, though—maybe more than she’d like admit. She really didn’t have any place holding court, yet all the same, she should have…

Should have what?

That was the problem, her head was a mess and she had no idea what was what any more.

I have only very recently come to realize just how poorly I have led you.

All the things that Luna had said to her, all the encouragement—the understanding—everything they’d done together… did it mean anything any more? As well as they’d gotten along, it had only really been a short while punctuated by a few powerful moments. If Luna had changed her mind… if she took those moments away, then Twilight wasn’t sure what was left.

Luna had changed so suddenly, after all—not tonight, but before. Only a short while ago, Luna had been unable to control her hatred and hurt regarding Twilight. Who was to say that the two of them, who had fallen together so perfectly, wouldn’t simply fall apart just as easily?

And would it be Luna who gave up or would it be her?

The idea was ludicrous. They were all but destined to be together. She knew this; they both knew it… but was that even a good thing?

I just don’t think that now is the right time.

That was Luna’s excuse. Other things were allowed to be more important because they could always be together later. They were immortal and there was nopony else. They knew with absolute certainty that later was an option.

That had that been the mistake Somni had made, hadn’t it? Somni had waited ten thousand years because the outcome was inevitable, only to stumble and fall without ever actually approaching it.

I don’t want you to become so obsessed with love that you forget about the ponies that give the world meaning.

Somni’s failure wasn’t obsession, it was never taking the chance to actually pursue what she desired. It was in letting somepony else make that decision for her. Fati hadn’t even known until the end how her sister felt about her, so of course Luna wouldn’t know why Somni and Solaria ended up dragging each other into oblivion in search of any comfort they could find.

Luna… Luna was wrong. The idea hit Twilight harder than she had expected. It wasn’t a new idea; she’d been entertaining various approaches to the concept all night, but here in the dark and quiet, it snuck up on her. Luna had never claimed to be perfect—just the opposite—yet she was still…

…still what? A princess? No, that wall had been torn down. Ancient? No, that was just rude. What was it then? What made her so special that Twilight didn’t want to believe she could be so wrong? So misguided and mistaken?

Oh. That was it, actually. Luna was special, and that’s all there was to it; she was special to Twilight. When Luna derided herself, Twilight wanted nothing more than to say no, that it is the world that is wrong. Snow is for sleeping in, thunderstorms are for playing in, and the night… The night is for living in.

That was why it hurt so much. That was why it was so frustrating. The words echoed in her head once more.

I have only very recently come to realize just how poorly I have led you.

To think… to even consider that she might be right… and therefore to have been wrong? It was the one thing she couldn’t allow herself to truly accept. She had invested so much in Luna already. She was a wholly different pony than she had been before her ascension; she couldn’t untake those steps or unmake those decisions.

Luna had been her rock—literally and figuratively—and her rock had moved. Should she follow it, knowing that it was what tripped her, or should she cast herself out onto a path that may have been flawed to begin with? And what would either one of those even involve?

Twilight lay there in the creeping cold of the deserted throne room slowly dissolving into stardust as she felt her grip on the world loosen, and she realized—not just in her head but on a deep, haunting level—how it is that a pony can lose sight of who they are.

⚙ ⚙ ⚙

Harmony was glad to find herself left alone for a moment while Celestia went off to reassure the little ponies that everything was alright—an act which somewhat confused her, as everything was most certainly not alright. As much as she wanted to fix things, though, she was… well…

She was completely lacking in every way that would allow her to actually do anything about it.

It pained her to admit it, but she didn’t actually know either her shining light or little light all too well, nor much of anything about their situation except the very basics that had been overheard in the aftermath of their disagreement. Truly, she didn’t even know ponies that well, and in all honesty, and wasn’t even sure she wanted to.

She had been alone for a very, very long time, and some of that… a lot of that was by her own choice. She had not been very aware of events in her previous form as jewelry, but she had been aware of ponies. She could have spent the years moving from pony to pony, six at a time, if she’d wanted to. She could have been out in the world doing good in her own roundabout way, living through the highs and lows of the lives of the little ponies she was connected to as she had been these last two years.

It just… would have meant involving herself with ponies… and caring… and for all she hated the alicorn who had created her—may her name be forever forgotten—the fact that Harmony had only ever attached herself to alicorns or groups including alicorns spoke volumes on its own.

She was wondering, not for the first time, why she couldn’t have just been properly born again like all the others when a piece of her own magic found its way back to her from out in the castle gardens.

The draconequus’ prison had begun to crack, and she didn’t need any great insight into ponies to know why.

Harmony looked to the sky as she stumbled her way out into the grounds, still quite unused to the idea of actually moving about on legs. The sight of her little light’s heart bared in the dancing of stars across the heavens for all to see filled her with a disquieting sense of unease.

She didn’t blame the little one for being the cause of the failing seal; she could not. That she had a hoof in Twilight Sparkle’s genesis was a new idea to her—the first new idea of her new life—and she was quite fond of it; she would not let the child bear any blame that she could shoulder herself, and this… This did come back to her.

It was Harmony’s power that had sealed the monster away in the first place—and the second place, for that matter. If the prison was so prone to failure, then it was her fault.

And it was prone to failure. It shouldn’t have been, but it was.

Why?

Discord was a spirit of chaos born during the calamity when her little light’s stars had rained from the sky and brought an end to the ordered life of the previous aeon. Neither alicorn nor dragon, he would have to consume magic rather than producing it, and with civilization once again waxing in full across the face of Equestria, his new prison should have held for many times as long as the original.

So why didn’t it?

Harmony pondered that question as she arrived just in time to see the statue shatter.

✶ ✶ ✶

The highlands of the Sheepland Isles sparkled in the starlight; the grass was heavy with an evening fog, yet the sky remained open and clear, giving everything a quiet, mystical quality that Twilight destroyed on her arrival. Rough as her essence was, she wasn’t just leaking, but could barely stay manifest—or stand still. Her legs barely seemed to be able to decide whether they existed from one moment to the next, and as they curled in anticipation of movement, they twisted in ways uncomfortable to look at.

She noticed none of this and shot across the land like a shooting star with one thing and one thing only on her mind drowning out the noise in her head. When she ran, the sky ran with her. Where she searched, her presence bore into the land like a weight. Where she hunted, she tore open the world.

She had tried retreating into the sky in an effort to get away from the mess roiling about in her head. In the past, immersing herself in the wholeness of her stars had calmed her—broadened her view—but that was fear. Fear could be tempered by being bigger and greater than what you were afraid of. Anger, though? Regret? Heartbreak? Her greatness only fueled the fire.

It took longer than she had expected to find it. Not only was it smaller than the others, but with the stars under the earth now a part of her, there was no backdrop against which to spot the subject of her search. The world as she knew it was a thin sheet stretched between two vast, churning oceans of stars.

Eventually, though, there was nowhere left for it to hide.

“Baa—?” was all it said before a great hoof reached out of the sky and it ceased to exist. Just like that, the legend of the golden ram would now eventually fade into history and myth.

Twilight took a brief moment to hope that Rarity would appreciate it before moving on. Demigods don’t create themselves, after all, and—for better or for worse—she had made a choice.

Just one.

If you actually believe that your status is what stands in your way, then you should have done what any good friend would do and made demigods of them!

Whatever else happened, she would finish what she had started and maybe… maybe things would turn out alright.

☼ ☼ ☼

Celestia hesitated outside the door to the suite where the ex-bearers of the Elements of Harmony slept oblivious to the chaotic events of the last few hours. She had thought that she could let them rest for the night before addressing their continued care in the morning.

Then the transcripts from Twilight’s most recent session of court had arrived.

It vexed Celestia that neither Twilight nor Luna had thought to inform her of this eventuality, but she was far more concerned about the tone than the content. If there was any chance that Twilight was… unstable… then it fell to Celestia to warn her one-time student’s friends of what had transpired and, perhaps, make an appeal for their aid.

Resigned to being the bearer of bad news, Celestia knocked on the door with her golden-shod hoof. Just when she was considering knocking again, the heavy wooden door groaned open to reveal that the lightest sleeper of the group was, of course, Rarity. Her white coat, while seemingly luminescent in the night, remained quite unbrushed. Celestia was not at all surprised, but kept the strained smile off of her face. This wasn’t the time for that.

Rarity was clearly not expecting royalty, as she began speaking even as she rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. “Yes, what is it my—dear Celestia! I mean—princess Celestia! What brings you here at this time of… what time of day is it, actually? I seem to have—” she broke her sentence with a yawn, “—drifted off to sleep while we were waiting for Princess Twilight Sparkle to reconvene with us on a possible solution for our, ah, condition. Has she brought you abreast with the… situation?”

“She mentioned it briefly, but there were other matters being attended to at the time and Twilight has most recently been confiding in Luna more than myself,” Celestia explained. “At least, she had been. I am afraid that it has been yet another eventful day, Miss Rarity.”

Rarity deflated a little, the burst of energy she’d received from finding a princess on her doorstep already flagging. “O-oh, yes, of course, Your Majesty. I hardly expect our little situation to take precedence over pressing matters of state.”

Celestia shook her head and gave the ex-bearer a kind smile. “No, my little pony. Believe me when I say that I would have personally addressed this without delay had the Elements of Harmony not chosen just then to begin walking around and sprout wings. Related as the two are, however, the situation was inevitable.”

“Oh.” Rarity’s head dropped as the last of her liveliness left her. “This is one of those dreams,” she mumbled, before lifting her head back up to give the solar princess a… less than honest smile. “I suppose that Princess Twilight has also acquiesced to your request that she not bestow any of her godly power on us mere mortals, and indeed, we shall never see her again? Very well, subconscious, my ego is quelled. You can take the rest of the night off; I shant have need of you.” And with that, the door gently clicked shut in Celestia’s face.

Celestia blinked, blinked again, and then knocked once more.

“Yes?” Rarity said, punctuating her question with a yawn. “Oh, it’s still you.”

“Indeed,” she responded, actually letting some sarcasm into her voice before quickly hurrying on, so as not to lose the sleep-deprived mare’s attention. “Actually, I think the idea is wonderful, though I am somewhat concerned about the reasoning and motivations that went into the decision. She has declared her intent to create five demigods before the night is through, so I was hoping that you girls would talk to her when she inevitably steals you away for your ascensions.”

Rarity simply stared at her for a while. “I’m not certain I see the point, but very well.” The door clicked shut again.

Celestia knocked again.

“Yes, my peculiar dream princess?” Rarity asked, her overly saccharine tone anything but.

Celestia raised one hoof, then hesitated. “Ah, I thought it relevant to point out that I am too late and so you need not worry.”

“Oh.” Rarity looked down at her mussed, yet literally radiant coat.

The high-pitched squeal that emanated from the newly ascended demigoddess made Celestia wince and fold down her ears. It would surely have awoken the rest of the ex-bearers… had they been anywhere in the castle.

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight’s hoof wavered with uncertainty as it hovered over Applejack, hesitating to wake her up. She wanted to believe that she was doing the right thing… or at least the better thing for all of them. The logic made sense in her head, but that no longer meant much. Perspective was everything and hers was questionable.

There was nothing else to do at this point, though. For better or for worse, she lowered her hoof and shook her friend awake. At the very least, she would talk to her, and if all went well, she would still have a friend when breakfast rolled by.

Applejack didn’t wake; in fact, she barely moved, resembling nothing more than a lump of rock lying on the thick black cloud that Twilight had pulled in from over the Everfree lake. She briefly wondered if Applejack wouldn’t be more suited to dragon magic as the dragon empire’s ambassador Couscous had gained, but the secret to that mystery had been lost to the ages.

Of all the pony lives that her stars remembered, those from before the stars existed were forever lost. Only the memories of Somni and Fati as they went about their duties dreaming for all the creatures of the world could tell her what the empire was truly like, and that only in the broadest of strokes.

None of that, of course, mattered at the moment. She was avoiding the matter at hoof, but who could blame her? Twilight hadn’t had the best track record with the others recently; she was a half a mind to skip the talk as she had with Rarity, simply unleashing her on the world. Applejack wouldn’t appreciate it, but it’d probably be better than if this conversation went badly. This was supposed to make them understand her, wasn’t it? Nopony had woken Twilight up and asked if she wanted to be a goddess.

She had wanted it, though, and Applejack… vehemently did not. Luna had insisted that Twilight was not without empathy, though, so, putting all her weight into it, she shook Applejack once more, finally eliciting a response.

That response being to roll over, mumbling about fancy no-good Canterlot beds being too soft.

Twilight shook her again with an annoyed grunt. “Get up, Applejack, immortality awaits. Not literally, of course. I mean, past a certain critical mass of magic you might be able to live on as a starbeast, but I'm pretty sure that your soul would still move on, so—”

“Ah’m up! Ah’m up!” Applejack yelled, waving her off with one foreleg. “Consarn it, can’t a gal get a good night's rest without gettin’ an earful of navel-gazing?”

Twilight sat back on the stormcloud to give Applejack some space. “Sorry, Applejack, I told the stuffed shirts at court that I’d have five demigods for them to harass by morning and I’d hate to be made a liar, so we’re kind of on a schedule, here.”

“What?” Applejack cried, sitting up in a hurry. “Twi, you already know mah answer t’that!” It only took her a brief moment more to realize that she wasn’t where she had gone to sleep, causing her to scoot away from the edge of the cloud. “Wha—where are we? Just what is going through your head, girl?”

“We’re up above Sweet Apple Acres!” Twilight beamed, forcing a smile and avoiding the issue at hoof. “I thought it’d be the perfect place for your ascension.”

“Gal dernit, Twilight,” Applejack cursed as she got to her hooves and scowled. “Ah—said—no! Ya’ll can put me down and go back to your crystal tower empty-hooved because Ah ain’t changing mah mind!”

Twilight took a deep breath and let it out in a heavy sigh. “No.”

Applejack’s eyes widened a tiny bit before narrowing into a fierce glare. “What did you say?”

“I said… no,” Twilight answered with less certainty, avoiding the unfriendly look in her friend’s eyes. “Look, Applejack… I’m not going to let you be the one to break up our friendship.”

“So you’ll do it yerself?” Applejack balked.

“Yes—I mean, no—I mean…” Twilight was drilling a hole in the cloud with one hoof as she tried to find her words. “Not yours and mine. Maybe I will be doing that, but I’m hoping you’ll forgive me. What I’m talking about is the group; the rest of the girls. You have to know that something like this… it changes a pony. If I let you say no… it’ll be just like when I became an alicorn, only instead of me being the odd pony out for being special, it’ll be you for not being special.”

Applejack’s ears wilted slightly, but her face only hardened. “If that’s how it has t’be, then that’s how it has t’be. Mah answer still stands, and if you force this on me, Ah promise that Ah will never forgive you.”

“If that’s how it has to be…” Twilight repeated in turn with significantly more trouble. “Then that’s how it has to be.” There was a long moment of silence before Twilight finally looked up at Applejack once more. “But why, Applejack? At least tell me that. Where does your conviction come from that you would abandon your friends instead of stepping up beside them?”

“Ah worked hard t’get where I am, dangit!” Applejack snapped. “Real work, hock-deep in mud, sweat and tears! Ah ain’t about t’let you cheapen that!”

Now Twilight was just confused and more than a little hurt. “Applejack… Is that what you think? That you’re better than us because you work with your hooves? Help me understand, here, because that can’t be true; Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Rarity and Pinkie Pie are all hard workers, even by your standards.”

“Of course not!” Applejack insisted, stomping her hoof into the dark stormcloud. “Ah don’t think they should do it either, but that ain’t mah choice.”

“Is it just me, then?” Twilight all but whispered. “You think I haven’t worked hard enough for this? Do you remember that night out on the library balcony when I told you—admitted with tears in my eyes that I wanted this? Do you? Because, knowingly or not, I’ve been on this path since before I even got my cutie mark. Years of studying, years of work, not just in magic, but in ethics, history, critical thinking—in becoming the kind of pony that Celestia trusts with this power—and it’s not enough! It’s never going to be enough! But I’ve tried, damn it!” Twilight cursed Applejack in her head, wondering why it was that these arguments always ended up with herself in tears. “Maybe I didn’t strictly earn it; maybe I was born with it and was drawn to Celestia as a child because we were both alicorns; it doesn’t matter, because regardless, I have put in the work.”

Applejack looked like she wanted to say something, but Twilight wasn’t done. “And you,” she spat. “If this is how you feel, then what in tartarus was that this afternoon? I swear you all but worship Celestia and you put me on a pedestal right beside her! You laughed my concerns off and insisted I was important—that I deserved this! Was that a lie?” Still sore in the wake of Luna’s face-heel turn, the similarity of the two situations stung.

“Wha—no! That’s not what I mean at all! That’s the point! That’s the whole point!” Applejack was glowering hotter than ever. “Yer the princess’ student, Twi. You’re trained for this; we ain’t. We’re just ponies; we’ve each got our own path and our own goals and there’s nothing wrong with that. Dang it, Twi, Ah thought you agreed with me that the world doesn’t need a buncha god-children runnin’ around making a mess of things! Why do you have to go and complicate things with this now? Where’s your conviction coming from?”

“Me?” Twilight said with a feeble, forced chuckle as her head dropped down, covering her face with her unruly mane. She was having trouble keeping the conversation straight; this wasn’t how it was supposed to go. “Applejack, I have no conviction. I don’t know that this is the right thing to do; I just know it’s what I’m going to do. From there? I don’t know. The Librararchy is done with and I don’t know where Luna and I stand, but I won’t be going back to that tower tonight… I don’t even know where I’m going to sleep since the sky is out, too. It’s true I was angry and being contrary when I first made the decision, but the truth is, I’m lost and I need help. I just want my friends back, Applejack.”

“And we ain’t good enough as we are?” Applejack asked. “We never left! You stopped talking t’us! Ah only heard of this Libra-whatever yesterday and now yer shutting it down? Land sakes, girl, if y’want friends then y’gotta talk to them!”

“I’ve—been—busy!” Twilight yelled. “But you know who I never stopped talking to? You know who meets me for breakfast when I’ve got time? Rarity! And do you know why? It’s not that she’s involved in court; actually, she’s been avoiding it! No, it’s because she’s the only pony that seems to realize that just because I moved into a palace doesn’t mean I don’t still have a door they can knock on!”

“Of course she knows when you’re around!” Applejack scoffed. “The mare is literally using her obscene wealth to spy on you!”

“Good!” Twilight shouted back. “At least she’s putting in the effort! How many times have you so much as set hoof inside the palace, Applejack? I literally have ponies that I can not fire whose very job it is to herald my coming; are you really saying you couldn’t get ahold of me? But then—why even outsource? If Rarity is so informed, then why not get her help? Or are you not talking to her either?”

“Of course we talk!” Applejack insisted defensively. “There’s not a day that goes by that she doesn’t have some new angle t’convince me to sell her mah farm.”

“Oh, well, I’m glad that you two are so close these days, then,” Twilight said, rolling her eyes. “Stars, I’m not trying to attack you, Applejack. I just want to make you into the kind of pony that understands; the kind of pony that won’t think twice about walking into a session of court with a bag of popcorn to snack on while you wait and commentate.”

“So, somepony else entirely,” Applejack summarized dryly. “Somepony who resembles Discord.”

Well, there was a thought. “No! I want you to grow as a pony, like you have since we became friends. Applejack, think about this and tell me honestly… If you’d had a choice, originally, on whether or not to be the bearer of an Element of Harmony, would you have?”

Applejack’s expression softened just the slightest bit with guilt and she looked down at her hooves. “No. No Ah wouldn’t’ve.”

“So which is it?” Twilight asked, her own determination growing in the wake of Applejack’s admission. “Do all the things we’ve been through as friends mean nothing to you, or is it possible, just possible, that this is one of those times that it’s more important that we do something together than it is that we all agree?”

Applejack didn’t answer, choosing instead to turn and look out over Sweet Apple Acres, chewing at her lip. Twilight didn’t feel good about it, but she knew she had her.

“Look, Applejack…” Twilight walked over to sit down next to her friend. “If it helps, you don’t even need to think of it like that. From the beginning, there were only two ways this could have gone; it’s either this, in which case you’re able to go on with your life mostly as normal, just a little more complicated… or I’d have to leave you as you are, and Celestia would be setting up a stipend for services to the crown as your retirement. Tell me this isn’t the better option.”

Still, Applejack said nothing, only sagging until she flopped down on the cloud next to Twilight.

“Trust me,” Twilight said, reaching an arm over Applejack’s withers as her eyes became windows to the night sky and Taurus leaped out of the sky and filled her friend with power. “This will all work out for the better.” She only wished she had somepony to convince her of that. Unconsciously, her star-filled eyes drifted to the pitch black moon silhouetted against the churning stars in the sky.

☾ ☾ ☾

Luna shivered involuntarily as the stars brushed up against her moon, bringing back memories of those first days after Twilight’s ascension when they had clung to her, crying themselves to sleep.

Those were not the only memories that were brought to mind, however. For ten thousand years, Somni had been an incorrigible tease, and while Fati had remained ignorant, that didn’t stop the single star which she still possessed from volunteering images that made her face burn red.

It was a good thing that moonrock could not blush; one of many reasons that she’d had to get out of Canterlot and away from her sister. Her choice of venue, however, left something to be desired. Specifically, it left one particular pony to be desired—and she did desire her. In that, they were in complete agreement.

Luna sat in the dark amidst ruined, pockmarked crystal where two thrones had once been, a piece of parchment on the floor in front of her describing a scene hauntingly similar to one from her past; one far less provocative than the others fighting for prominence in her head.

Thrones always did make particularly symbolic avenues for venting one’s aggression.

She did not think that Twilight Sparkle was as far gone as she had been when she had destroyed her sister’s throne and declared that the night would last forever, but she could not be certain. The difference in collateral damage was immaterial; that she had not yet crossed a line did not mean that she was not in a state to do so, just that she had no reason to.

No—as much as Twilight had railed against the nobility, they were merely scapegoats, not the true focus of the star goddess’ ire. That honor was reserved for Luna.

And she deserved it.

Images of a white moon falling out of the sky filled her vision whenever she closed her eyes even as the stars shifted course again, sending yet another awkward shiver down her spine.

At this rate, she would not have to face Twilight’s fury; either her guilt would eat her up from the inside, or she would simply combust and form a new midnight sun.

The silky feel of Twilight’s magic across her surface did its best to convince her that it wouldn’t be the worst way to go.

Luna was not going to sleep tonight.

✶ ✶ ✶

After what had happened with Applejack, it was a long time before Twilight felt up to continuing her night’s work. Given her mood, then, her next choice of demigod was obvious.

“I bestow upon you the power of Capricorn, the… fish-goat thing whose broken horn became cornucopia, the horn of plenty. Go forth and pink.”

Celestia have mercy on Las Pegasus, because Twilight had the feeling that she’d just doomed them all. Fortunately, omniscience was optional, so at least she didn’t have to watch. Twilight manifested a new body up above the everfree lake before her old one had even finished dissolving into stardust.

She had just finished preparing a nice cloud and summoning the last two of her friends from between the stars when she found herself dissolving into stardust once more.

Well, her face was, anyway. Half of it. The other half was still flesh and blood and reeling from the hoof that had just been introduced to it. “Rainbow Dash!”

The pony in question suddenly stopped in place, and Twilight could see through one eye and a splash of starlight that she was breathing heavily and had an unconscious Fluttershy on her back. “Twilight? You’re the one that foalnapped us?”

“Oh for goodness’ sake!” Twilight cursed as the scattered stardust slowly became her face again. “I didn’t foalnap you; this is your ascension!”

“Oh,” she said, only now looking around and realizing that she wasn’t being held captive in some villain’s lair. Still, she seemed confused. “But I haven’t picked a constellation yet.”

“I… might have decided to take matters into my own hooves. You’re fine with Draco, right?” Suddenly a lightbulb went off in Twilight’s head. “Huh, actually, come to think of it, I could have given Applejack Draco instead of Taurus—guardian of the golden apples and all. Wow, what a missed opportunity. You guarding apples is like the fox guarding the henhouse.”

“I don’t know what you heard, Sparkles, but no matter how foxy I am, I am not into Applejack like that!” Rainbow Dash thrust her hoof forward to point at Twilight. “In fact, you still owe us for that lunch you set us up on.”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “I’m sorry; I just quit my dusk job, so I can only pay you in unimaginable power.”

“Hrmm,” Rainbow Dash said, as if thinking it over before breaking into a grin. “Yeah, okay.” The grin is short-lived, however. “Wait, you actually got Applejack to agree to this whole thing? How in the heck did you pull that off?”

“Umm, well, agree is not exactly the right word,” Twilight admitted with a bit of a sulk. “She said no, I said no, we yelled at each other for a while and I might have just out-stubborned her until she stopped resisting. She never actually said ‘Yes, Twilight, fill me with yer godly power,’ so it’s possible she might be unhappy with me for… a while.”

“Oh dear,” came a soft voice from behind Rainbow Dash.

“‘Shy! You’re awake!” Rainbow Dash cried, rushing to get her off her back and set her down.

Fluttershy waved Rainbow off and walked around to approach Twilight. “Twilight… Why would you push something like that on her?”

Twilight wilted instantly and looked away, out towards Sweet Apple Acres on the horizon. “I just… everything is falling apart and I couldn’t… I did the right thing, I think. The logic was sound.”

“Did… did something happen?” Fluttershy asked, walking up beside her.

Twilight dropped her head and mumbled, “She said no.”

“We know she said no, you said that,” Rainbow Dash snarked.

Twilight frowned. “Not her.”

“Oh my…” Fluttershy leaned in closer. “But why?” she asked quietly. “Was it too soon?”

Twilight glanced at Rainbow Dash. “It’s… complicated.”

Rainbow Dash was getting frustrated. “What’s complicated?”

“I don’t want to get into it,” Twilight grumped, dropping to sit on the cloud and absently swirling stars in her hooves until she had two shining figures of pure white outlined in black floating before her. “I’ll just get angry again. Here; one Draco and one Ursa Major/Minor pair, on the rocks. In the rocks. Whatever. It sounded smarter in my head, but I guess I should be used to that.”

Rainbow Dash was reaching out for the shining dragon in front of her when she paused and sat back down, raising an eyebrow at Twilight. “Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it? Because you sound like you want to talk about it.”

Twilight may have been a bit forceful when she crammed Draco into Rainbow Dash’s metaphorical hole.

Rainbow Dash wobbled in place, a light in her chest making her look and feel like she’d swallowed a glowing parasprite while Twilight motioned Fluttershy closer and gently eased the power into her much more carefully. “She said she felt the same way, but—and I quote—that ‘now isn’t the right time.’” The venom she added to those words said all she needed to about that.

“Yeah, that sounds like Applejack,” Rainbow Dash said absently as she made faces and tried to settle herself. “Wait—you’re into Applejack? Applejack is into you?! What the hell, Twilight?”

“Oh Twilight…” Glowing with a warm, maternal light, Fluttershy put her hoof on Twilight’s withers and pulled her closer. “I don’t know what to say; I’m sure she just—”

“Took me for granted,” Twilight interrupted, leaning into Fluttershy’s comfort. Fluttershy wrapped her hooves around Twilight’s head and pulled it down to her chest in a motherly embrace. Twilight was of a mind to resist at first, but her attempts were lukewarm and eventually, she gave in and let herself be pulled down onto the cloud. Twilight’s voice was a little muffled and raw as she pressed herself into Fluttershy’s coat with a sniffle. “I know, but it just… hurts so much…”

Rainbow Dash wouldn’t let it go, however. “But—”

“Rainbow Dash,” Fluttershy said in her sweetest, softest voice as she stroked Twilight’s starry mane. “Please shut up and push the cloud. I think it would be best if we all slept at your house tonight.”

⁂

Twilight felt a mess as she woke the next morning to a sunbeam needling her in the eye and cursed Celestia on principle. With an unhappy groan, she rolled herself over and stuffed her face into the crook of Fluttershy’s neck where it had spent most of the previous night.

It didn’t work.

There was a pounding on the front door. “I know you’re in there, Twilight!” came the voice of her one-time mentor, and Twilight cursed Celestia on point of fact. Bending sunlight was just cheating.

“Then you know I was asleep!” Twilight shouted back, refusing to move as Fluttershy stirred from the disturbance. “Lemme alone!”

Twilight didn’t have to see Celestia to imagine her pressing her lips together into a line. “You’re not asleep now!”

“And whose fault is that?” Twilight shot back.

“Whose fault is it that Las Pegasus is a crater?” Celestia countered.

Twilight froze for a second, slightly worried. “A crater… of fun?” she asked warily.

Celestia, too, hesitated in her response. “Yes,” she begrudgingly admitted. “There is a rollercoaster. Please, Twilight, I just want to talk!”

Twilight gritted her teeth. She was already wide awake, and Fluttershy was giving her encouraging looks. “Fine,” she grumbled, not concerned with whether or not the princess of the sun could hear her, knowing that Celestia could be aware of anything her light touched and she was clearly abusing that skill readily. Twilight didn’t even bother to quickly remanifest as she usually did in the morning. Celestia wanted to talk to a grumpy, rumpled goddess, fine, that’s what she’d get.

The door squeaked as it opened, revealing not just a stern-faced Celestia, but also a tired Luna hiding glumly behind her messy black mane, Harmony with her head cocked in question and… Discord leaning on the clockwork goddess’ withers?

What.

“Pack your things, Twilight; we’re going camping.”

Author's Note

• Patreon Funded •

Chapter 19

Author's Note

The beginning of this chapter covers the previous truncated version of Chapter 19, with some edits. The other 82% of the chapter is new.

• Patreon Funded •

Chapter 19

✶ ✶ ✶

Camping?

Camping?!

“No,” Twilight spat, squinting her eyes against the sun and gritting her teeth. “No, we are not going camping.”

Celestia just gave her a sad, pitying look that only made Twilight angrier. “Twilight,” she said with a sigh. “Be reasonable.”

“Reasonable? Is that what you think this is?” she growled. “Waking me up at dawn—”

“Noon,” Discord interrupted, earning him a brief glare from Twilight.

“Waking me up at noon,” she corrected, swinging her baleful eyes back to Celestia, “with the whole immortal council lined up against me like I’m the problem here?”

Harmony blinked, her metal eyelids sounding like camera shutters in the silence. “There is a council? Is… is sitting it required?”

Luna’s urge to facehoof was palpable to Twilight, though she didn’t seem to have the energy. “Nay, ancient one, there is no council.”

“Well maybe there should be,” Twilight said with a huff, “since not one of us seems to be able to make good decisions on our own! I mean—”

“That will be enough derailing the subject, Twilight,” Celestia interrupted. There was a hardness to her voice that sent shivers down Twilight’s spine, but she was quite used to the feeling by now, if not from her ex-mentor.

“Oh please, Celestia, listen to yourself!” Twilight yelled with derision. “You needed to at least pretend to have a reason for your little ‘road trip’ for it to make any sense and you brought her along to do it!” She thrust a hoof in the direction of Luna, who cringed and gave a look of hurt from behind her sister. “You have the subtlety of Discord—and don’t think I’ve let that go—which is saying something since he would probably just chuck us in a room together and lock the door!”

“She has a point,” Discord said, one taloned finger under his jaw in thought. “That does sound like something I would do.”

“Fine,” Celestia said, lighting up her horn. “Suit yourself.”

“Wait, what?” Luna began to panic as an aura of golden sunlight dragged her out from the back of the group and chucked her at Twilight.

Whump!

The door clicked shut, but Twilight didn’t notice. She was stunned—not from the impact or the blue alicorn on top of her; those hardly registered either. No, her mind was somewhere else entirely.

“Did that just happen?” she mumbled into the crook of Luna’s neck.

Luna made no effort to get off of Twilight. “Yes. Yes it did.”

The two of them just laid there for a while in silence; it wasn’t terribly different than their perpetual state in the night and… well… so long as neither of them said anything, maybe Twilight could pretend that her life hadn’t gone completely off the rails. It had gone off the rails, however, and the silence wasn’t as comfortable as it used to be.

Luna’s voice came quiet as a whisper. “Twilight, I—I wish to apologi—”

“Don’t,” Twilight snapped, heaving the larger goddess off of her and turning away. Her breath began to shorten as the emotions of the previous night came back to her.

Luna slowly rose, took a breath and straightened her back. “Very well. If that is your wish.” The formality of the words stung, but then, it was meant to.

The silence quickly became actively awkward. Eventually, Twilight found her way to her hooves and stumbled her way back up to Rainbow Dash’s bedroom; the room’s owner was gone, of course, it being the middle of the day, but a certain yellow eavesdropper only barely dodged the door with a tiny “Eep!” of surprise.

“Fluttershy,” Twilight groaned as she walked in and flopped over onto the bed. “I’m sure you have better things to be doing with your demigodesshood than lurk around listening to my life crash and burn.”

Fluttershy blinked. “Oh, um, not really,” she mumbled. “That is, I already, um, did. I am. Constantly. The special connection I have with all my little animal friends is, well… as nice as omniscience is, it’s a bit much, and it’s spring, too, and I really didn’t need to know what Angel does on my kitchen counter when I’m not there and it’s just really nice to be somewhere where, ah, romance isn’t as strong in the… air.”

Twilight briefly lifted her head to stare at Fluttershy, then she buried it face-first in the cloud-pillow. “M’glad my incompetence is good for something.”

Fluttershy shuffled her hooves quietly for a moment and chewed at her bottom lip before chancing to ask, “Do you mean your incompetence at making demigods, or—”

“My romantic incompetence!” Twilight yelled into the pillow.

Fluttershy cringed, her ears folding back at the outburst. “Oh, yes, I suppose that does make more sense, and I do appreciate it.” Fluttershy took a hesitant step toward the bed and reached her hoof out in a halted attempt to comfort Twilight. “Are you… going to be okay?”

Twilight rolled over onto her back and searched the ceiling for an answer that wasn’t coming. “I don’t know.” She rubbed at her eyes with both hooves; she hadn’t been crying, but they weren’t exactly dry either. “I don’t know what I’m doing; I can’t even explain what I was thinking last night. Half of me was completely serious and the other half was just… so angry that I… I don’t know, wanted to prove her wrong? Do what she said as crudely as possible and throw it in her face when it didn’t work? And I used you all to do it.”

“Um, I’m sure Applejack will forgive you eventually.”

“Maybe for making her a demigod, but I also kind of pointed the public at her.”

“Yes, well…”

“I mean, to be fair, the whole point was for you all to empathize with me and Luna did it to me first.”

“I’m sure Rarity will help her market Sweet Apple Mountain products if she asks nicely.”

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight had very much wanted to burrow back into bed and sleep off her problems, but between all the excitement and the insidious plotting of the solar goddess wherin Twilight had been awoken at basically the time when she was supposed to be getting up anyway, it was not to be.

That left her with the question of what to actually do. A simple glance out the window was enough to prove that Celestia was actually going through with the whole ‘locking them in together’ thing, and had erected a spherical golden shield around Rainbow Dash’s cloud house, which was kind of rude towards the weathermare in question, come to think of it, but it would probably let Rainbow Dash through anyway.

Actually, Twilight was curious to know if Rainbow Dash could break through it on her own now. Twilight certainly could—the whole thing was more a formality than a serious attempt to imprison her—but she had yet to hear anything about the extent of the weathermare’s upgrade to demigoddesshood… which was kind of strange, actually, given that Rainbow Dash was usually in competition with Pinkie Pie for the honor of being the least subtle of Twilight’s friends.

In fact, seeing what Rainbow Dash could do would be a particularly interesting since her job, special talent and chosen starbeast were all wildly different. In theory the increase in magic should be mostly expressed through her special talent, but there was a non-zero chance that Draco could have some influence, and the world did not need any more dragon-ponies.

Twilight abruptly froze in place, one hoof hovering in mid-step of pacing around Rainbow Dash’s bedroom.

How many pony-dragon hybrids older than modern civilization could there actually be? “No. That’s not possible,” she told herself, but she couldn’t believe it. It just made too much sense.

Twilight plodded downstairs, ineffectually pounding her hooves into the cloud steps as she went. She savored a brief moment of pride that her palace at least had crystal for proper stomping before remembering that she vowed never to return to it. At least the cloud house had wooden doors, though.

Crash!

Twilight found Luna in the kitchen surveying a meager selection of snack foods and condiments that made up Rainbow Dash’s pantry. “I refuse to believe that that creature was ever an ambassador!”

Luna stopped and blinked as she processed Twilight’s interruption and then went back to stiffly examining the horseradish. “Well, he wasn’t a very good one, was he? Indeed, I believe that was the entire purpose of his second appointment… though in retrospect, that’s hardly uncommon in politics.”

“It was not the entire purpose,” Twilight grumbled, not quite sure if she should be defending him or not. There were so many questions she had wanted answers to; why did the one with those answers have to turn out to be such a… a… jerk.

Right. He was part dragon. That explained everything.

Not that Twilight was racist or anything; her best friend was a dragon.

“Wait,” she said, stopping herself from getting away from the matter at hoof. “How does a non-magical pony plus dragonfire equal chaotic reality warping magic?” Actually, the answer was obvious. “Please tell me it doesn’t involve the stars again.”

Luna’s silence as she attempted to combine chocolate energy bars with salsa spoke volumes—as did her face.

Twilight turned away and started to pace. “Right. Of course he does. He was there,” she sourly answered herself. “So the good Ambassador Couscous is on a mission to petition the gods for dreams and happens to be there on the night everything falls apart; he miraculously survives the apocalypse—his family doesn’t—and he’s surrounded by the divine remains of the ones who were supposed to solve his problem. What does he do?”

According to Luna, it does not involve potato chips and mustard.

“He makes his own dream world!” Twilight declared. “With stardust and dragons!”

“Probably,” was all Luna had to say.

Twilight deflated at the lack of response. “Probably?”

“Consider again the reliability of the only source of information we actually have,” Luna reminded her.

“Right,” Twilight said, her enthusiasm deflating. “It doesn’t matter if he may have theoretically singlehoofedly saved ponykind from languishing in post-apocalyptic lethargy and uplifted them to a magical race or not, he’s still Discord.”

As the silence started to grow awkward, Twilight suddenly remembered that she and Luna weren’t speaking—which probably should have been more obvious what with all the terseness and the not speaking. Right. She should just… leave. Which she then did. Silently.

As her counterpart continued committing her culinary crimes behind her back without a word, Twilight’s mind slipped back to Discord for a second and she wondered if this odd sense of knowing that somepony has done something admirable, yet not actually caring was the sort of feeling that Luna had been trying to describe about her dislike of Harmony.

Well, in any case, at least this was one question she could put out of her mind. It fit and even if they were wrong, they had no more information to go by, though it still begged the question… If the source of Discord’s power was the stars of the dream world, which were Twilight’s now, how had he broken free?

✶ ✶ ✶

It was only mid-afternoon when Twilight began to think that Celestia’s ridiculous camping trip idea would have been preferable to this perfunctory house arrest. Of course, ostensibly, the purpose of being confined to the same area as Luna was supposed to force them to talk, but they were doing quite well at avoiding each other and Fluttershy wasn’t much of a conversationalist either.

So she was bored. Worse, she was an angry bored; her blind fury from the night before had brought her no real catharsis, the focus of her anger was just downstairs, but Twilight had no desire to actually go down and confront her over it, and she just didn’t know what to do with herself.

She wasn’t used to being actively bored any more than she was used to being passively angry. In any normal situation she would have at least a book or two on hoof to read, even if she had to borrow it from a friend, but Rainbow Dash was not quite at the stage of actually buying books, and, well… she supposed it was partially her own fault that the Golden Oaks had been emptied to seed her personal library in the palace. What kind of archlibrarian had she been that she couldn’t even find the time to make sure Ponyville got the library it needed?

No, she was lying to herself; she didn’t need a book in her hoof to not be bored. Books weren’t even her special talent. She could be practicing magic, trying to figure out how to solidify her stars or—tartarus, the stars contained the lives of ponies, she could spend lifetimes on just the ones she had with her.

She just didn’t feel like it. She didn’t feel like doing much of anything—talking to any of the ponies closest to her, least of all. Technically, she had actually talked to Luna; she could say that she tried, but it hardly counted. What was there to say, anyway? Twilight was angry, but no matter how it felt otherwise, she wouldn’t always be. She felt lost, but she’d eventually settle into a new status quo. It hurt to be taken for granted, but both of them knew it was inevitable.

It was just incredibly depressing and not something they could just talk out.

The worst part came to her midway through the afternoon; the idea that maybe Luna wasn’t entirely the one to blame after all. Oh, the reasoning and the way she’d gone about it was still hurtful and misguided, yes; Luna didn’t know half of what she thought she did about Somni—and it shouldn’t have mattered anyway because who answers a confession with something like that?—but if nothing else, it was clear that Twilight had been leaning on Luna for far too much. Hadn’t they both agreed that Luna wasn’t supposed to be Twilight’s teacher? Maybe… Maybe Twilight needed to learn to be her own pony first. The two of them were supposed to be equals, after all.

The only problem with that was that she didn’t actually want to move on and come back to it later. She didn’t want to wake up to an empty bed after spending the night in the sky with her. She didn’t want to go check what the tartarus-damned racket going on downstairs was—she was being introspective, damn it!

She should have expected something was really wrong when she realized that Celestia’s golden bubble of house arrest was missing, but nothing could have prepared her for what she found in Rainbow Dash’s living room…

Rainbow Dash.

The presence of the owner of the cloud house in which she was residing was not entirely unexpected, but then, the mare in question would probably agree that nothing can actually prepare a pony to experience Rainbow Dash—doubly so when that Rainbow Dash is made of lightning and rainbows.

“Twi!” Rainbow Dash shouted as she appeared in front of her with a flash and hugged her—a literal flash, actually, and also some sizzle, for that matter. “I told you, didn’t I? I told you how it worked, and I was right!”

Twilight was nonplussed, just standing there with her mouth open and her coat smoking. “I… have no idea what you’re talking about, Rainbow,” she deadpanned.

Rainbow Dash just took to the air to raise her crackling multicolored hooves up. “Look at me, Sparkles! I did it! I am distilled awesome.”

“I can see that, Rainbow,” Twilight answered, pinching the bridge of her muzzle in the crook of her hoof. “But what is it and why were you trying to do it.”

“I broke the cutie barrier!” Rainbow Dash beamed.

Twilight bore into her with her eyes. “I repeat: What.”

“Okay, so, it’s like this—” Rainbow Dash paced and gestured in the air as she talked, unbowed by Twilight’s lack of enthusiasm. “So, when I go fast, I leave a rainbow trail, right? And when I do the Sonic Rainboom, it’s like that, but more, right? So I thought—what if I went the fastestest? What if I went the speed of light?”

“You can’t go the speed of light, Rainbow,” Twilight groaned. “And fastestest is not a word.”

“No, you can’t go the speed of light, Sparkles,” Rainbow Dash shot back good-naturedly. “Clearly I did! And it made me an alicorn!”

Twilight grit her teeth. “You are not an alicorn!” she shouted with a bit more scorn than necessary. “We have enough alicorns! No more alicorns!”

Rainbow Dash just rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, fine, whatever. I ascended my mortal form in a non-specific and totally unique way that—hey! I wonder if I can get Pinkie to—unless that’s what already happened to Las Pegasus and that other place? Huh, maybe being the fastestest—”

“Stop using that not-a-word!” Twilight reiterated and was ignored.

“—is only for me; that would kinda make sense huh? Shoot, maybe we have to worry about miss prissypants after all.”

“Wait, this is all about that time you warned about Rarity becoming ‘pure elemental priss?’” Twilight asked, barely remembering coming in on the tail end of that conversation.

Rainbow Dash looked up from her absolutely serious consideration of the dangers of Ponyville seeing a prissencion. “Hah, see? You do remember! I knew I told you about it!”

“You talked about it when I was doing… star stuff!”

“The literal first thing you said after that was ‘I can hear you guys, you know.’”

Twilight seemed to lock up as she went back over what she remembered of the conversation. Eventually, she capitulated. “Fine. You told me about it.”

“So?” Rainbow Dash said, preening. Figuratively preening. She didn’t actually have feathers any more to preen with.

“So, what? I give up. You win. You told me about it and/or I may have exaggerated the amount of attention I was paying at the time. What else do you want?”

“Yeah, forget about that,” she waved the matter off with a hoof. “What do you think? Eh?”

“It is a fascinating transformation,” Luna chimed in, startling Twilight.

“When did you get here?” Twilight asked, scowling at her counterpart.

“Before you did,” she said as she floated a fried potato skin filled with popcorn, dried peppers and honey to her mouth and took a crunchy bite. “I take it you didn’t intentionally make your friends immortal to make a point, then? It just happened?”

Twilight’s face heated up. “Decisions may or may not have been made out of spite, but they—” Twilight gestured at Rainbow Dash, “—were not supposed to be immortal. Rainbow, stop being immortal; you’re complicating things.”

“Wait, who says I’m immortal?” Rainbow Dash blinked; it sounded like a quiet roll of thunder as her luminous eyes went dim for a moment.

“Wonderful; she has sound effects,” Twilight muttered to herself—or to Luna; she wasn’t quite sure. “She and Harmony can start a club.”

Rainbow Dash blinked again. “Uh… Who’s Harmony?” she asked.

Twilight completely ignored her; there was a lot of that going around. “Rainbow, you are made of lightning. Lightning does not age, ergo, you are immortal. Probably. Now stop it.”

“Technically, lightning dies in about thirty microseconds,” Luna reminded Twilight.

“Technically,” Twilight retorted. “Lightning isn’t actually alive to begin with—or at least it wasn’t until she got involved. It violates the natural order! Stop violating the natural order, Rainbow, or everyone will have to start calling you ‘Sparky.’”

Rainbow Dash made weighing motions with her hooves. “Well, violating the natural order is what I do, but if you’re going to stick me with a lame name like Sparky, then sure. Okay.” She touched down next to the bickering alicorns. She looked down at her pulsing lightning coat over a rainbow core that flared out as an ethereal mane and tail. “How do I do that, then?”

“Um. You know—be more… fleshy instead of flashy?” Twilight said, gesturing at Rainbow Dash’s body.

Rainbow Dash gave Twilight a level stare. “Yeah, I gathered that. Like I said: how? ‘Cause as awesome as being made of lightning is, I’ve got some chocolate energy bars in the pantry that—”

“—No, you don’t,” Luna interrupted.

Rainbow Dash halted at the lunar alicorn’s proclamation, if only for the casualness of it. “Uh, yeah, I do? They’re behind the mustard.”

“You did, but now you don’t,” Twilight said, matter-of-factly. “It’s like stage magic, but instead of smoke and mirrors there’s divine right to the manifest destiny of the contents of your pantry. Now, moving on…”

Rainbow Dash looked from the snack floating in Luna’s magic, to Luna, back to the snack, back to Luna, over to Twilight, and one last time to Luna. “So, wait, are you two not fighting anymore?”

Twilight flashed through several emotions, from confusion to dejection and finally settling on ire. “Yes, we are,” she grit out. “Moving. On.”

Luna looked forlornly at the stellar alicorn. “It is complicated,” she told Rainbow Dash.

“Look,” Twilight said, forging onward and doing her best not to think of Luna. “If achieving mortality is that much harder than achieving immortality was, I’ll just—” Twilight thrust her hoof into Rainbow Dash’s chest and ripped Draco out of her.

It did less than anypony expected.

“Woah,” Rainbow Dash exclaimed, stumbling. “That feels weird. I’m less… angular? Still made of lightning, so, yeah, that’s a fail.”

Twilight felt an old habit returning as she passed Draco off to her magic so she could bury her face in her hoof. “Only you can cause this much trouble just by existing, Rainbow Dash.”

“I mean, I think we already established that it’s probably not only me?” Rainbow Dash said somewhat distractedly as she scrunched her face into various expressions trying to do… something. “It feels kinda like—hey, Sparkles, put that back for a second.”

Twilight didn’t even look at Rainbow Dash as she thrust the demigoddesshood back into her, causing a blinding flash and a momentary surge of lightning. “You see what I have to put up with now?” she said to Luna. “Give them an inch and they take a mile!”

Rainbow Dash shimmied and stretched out as her lightning actually settled into a facsimile of a coat, though her rainbow mane remained ethereal and if you looked close enough, each blue ‘hair’ on her ‘body’ had a slight zigzag shape to it, giving her a rather fluffy appearance. With another growling effort of will, she forced them to align and lay down next to each other, if not straighten, restoring something akin to her usual sleek appearance—though she still looked like lightning had hit her and never left.

“Nnngah!” she grunted, panting as she finished forcing her body into shape. “Hah! Easy… peasy,” she said, catching her non-existent breath. “I don’t know why you complain about all this goddess stuff, Sparkles; this isn’t so bad!”

Twilight’s eye twitched. “I don’t care if you are stuck immortal, Rainbow, that does not make you a goddess!”

Rainbow Dash waved off her objection. “Pshyeah, what, I have to be an alicorn for that or something? Or maybe get voted in by the goddess council?”

“Yes,” Twilight said. “Embody the fundamental forces of nature and the council will talk about it.”

Rainbow Dash just stuck her tongue out at Twilight. “Maybe I will. You’d better have my council seat waiting.”

“There is no such council,” Luna reminded Twilight, repeating her words from earlier.

“Well, there should be!” Twilight huffed.

Luna cocked her head. “Hold—if it was a goddess council, would Discord be able to sit it?”

“Have frock, will travel,” a sassy voice said out of nowhere, much to Twilight’s chagrin.

“You had to say his name,” she mumbled.

“I could sit such a council,” the voice reasoned. “But the question is, could I stand it?”

Twilight let out a heavy sigh. “You might as well just show yourself, Discord.”

There was a knock at the door. Twilight opened it with her magic to reveal the warped dragon-pony in question… just kind of standing there and not doing anything particularly sinister. Twilight glared at him, and he waved.

“You have no frock,” was the first thing she blurted out on seeing him.

Discord invited himself inside and mimed taking off an imaginary coat and hanging it up by the door. “Yes, well, you will have to excuse my lack of props as my pony magic gained sentience, walked off on me and founded its own nation state.”

“Wait,” Rainbow Dash interrupted. “Discord is your dad?”

“No, he is not,” Twilight objected vehemently. “No matter how—eugh—appreciated his alleged creation of the dream realm is, the stars were not his to begin with. He didn’t make them and they didn’t come from him. At no point was he involved in their creation or my genesis.”

“Oh, but Twilight, you wound me,” Discord said, throwing an arm around her withers. “That sanctimonious cow may have been your father, but she wasn’t your—oof.” Discord reeled back from taking a hoof to the kidney—though it wasn’t Twilight’s; it was Luna’s, the owner of which was now standing protectively close to Twilight to the notice of neither of them. “Ow, ow, ow. Be careful. I’m weak and helpless now; you might actually wound me.”

“I have a father, thank you very much,” Twilight fumed. “Biological and familial. He works with telescopes. He’s nice, funny and straightforward. The position is not open for applicants.”

“I think she has daddy issues,” Rainbow Dash faux-whispered to Discord.

It was a joke. She knew that intellectually. What angered her wasn’t that that it was tasteless, or that it could actually do some real damage to her reputation and follow her for years if the wrong pony overheard it, she was just… spent, tired and angry. Enough!

An almighty crack resounded throughout the cloud house, causing everyone present to flinch. It wasn’t an attack, though. Lowering her arms, Rainbow Dash saw a sight that drained the rainbow right out of her face—there was a literal crack splitting Twilight’s body in two, shedding stardust.

“Rainbow, immortal or not, if I hear so much as one word of this absurdity repeated elsewhere, I will find a way to kill you and put ‘Sparky’ on your tombstone.”

There wasn’t so much a prolonged silence so much as a heavy weight of dread filling the entire room, making it hard to breathe.

Discord leaned over next to Rainbow Dash without taking his eyes off of Twilight and faux-whispered back with slow, deliberate enunciation. “I think you should agree.”

Rainbow Dash slowly nodded.

Twilight heard a shuffling sound next to her and turned to look at Luna, frightening her and sending her reeling back; the sight made her wilt. Twilight remembered, then, Luna struggling to hide behind Celestia before being thrown at her. Had Luna not just been avoiding her? Had she been afraid of Twilight? Afraid, not just of facing Twilight’s entirely justified anger, but afraid for herself?

That was just a bit unreasonable, wasn’t it? It wasn’t as if Twilight was even capable of hurting her; they’d pushed each other off of buildings, for crying out loud! Well, they had wings, but Twilight hadn’t known how to use hers yet, so it counted. Luna… Luna was a pony who drank poison for her own amusement! She conquered the world and built Equestria on the ashes of Discord’s reign! She took the stars into herself and tried to overthrow her sister! How dare she of all ponies be afraid of Twilight!

Twilight raised her hoof with a sneer on her face and—stopped.

What was she doing? She took one hesitant step back then another.

“I… I have to go,” she said, quickly turning and dissolving into stardust before anypony could object.

☾ ☾ ☾

Luna cursed herself for her reaction and sent a glare at Rainbow Dash for her part in precipitating it. “Didst thou needs rile her up so unceasingly?”

Rainbow Dash’s only response was a guileless, “What?”

Luna pressed her lips into a fine line and attempted to get her diction back under control. “I asked if you really needed to vex Twilight so.”

“Uh, no, I kinda got what you were saying,” Rainbow Dash said, still not really seeming to realize what she had done. “But come on, we were just joking around like we always do; she didn’t have to take it so badly.”

Luna could not believe that this was the Rainbow Dash that Twilight had written about. “Did it not occur to you that she is not entirely stable at the moment?” she asked rhetorically. “It petrifies me to think of what could have happened last night had her focus not fell to the matter of granting you and your friends the status of demigoddesses.”

Rainbow Dash objected. “I was taking her mind off of it!” she insisted.

“And a fine job of it you have done,” Luna said, letting the sarcasm speak for itself. “Or can you not see how marvelously that is working out?”

“Woah, hold on, why am only I getting the blame, here? What about Discord?” Rainbow Dash gestured to the empty space beside her. “Wait, where’d he go?”

“I expect as much of him,” she said. “You are supposed to be her friend, are you not?”

Finally, Luna’s words seemed to be getting to Rainbow Dash. “Yeah, well, you’re supposed to be her marefriend and we can all see how that’s working out,” she retorted.

Luna narrowed her eyes at the mare. “Get out.”

“But… this is my house?” the mess of lightning and rainbows objected.

“Twilight did explain such matters to you not five minutes prior, did she not?” Luna asked, but shook her head immediately afterwards. “But very well; I do doubt she will be returning here, so Tia can hardly begrudge me leaving.”

Luna envied Twilight her access to her celestial essence during the day as she was forced to rather undramatically stamp across the puffy cloud floor to the open door. This was why modern palaces were made with crystal or marble. At least she got to slam the door behind her as she leapt into the sky above Ponyville, leaving Rainbow Dash to her own devices.

In truth, Luna was both concerned and relieved to have Twilight gone—or as much as she could be when they were still sharing the umbra. As close as the two of them had gotten, the raport they had developed was at odds with the current situation. It was so easy to simply fall back into the pattern of banter, yet awkward did not begin to describe any attempt to consciously decide what to do and say; her attempt at an apology had been rebuffed, yet at times it was as if nothing had happened.

And then Twilight had snapped—literally cracked down the middle right in front of them—and raised her hoof in anger at Luna. She was not proud of her reaction, yet she had thought… She had thought that Twilight had finally passed that moral event horizon which she remembered crossing herself so well all those years ago. The point when she had finally had enough; where one imagined sleight was one sleight too many and the consequences of going down the road of her intrusive thoughts were no longer convincing enough to quell her anger.

But Twilight had stopped, and now… now what? That was the question, she supposed. Where could they go from here? Twilight had made herself vulnerable, and Luna had hurt her. The fact that she hadn’t meant to do so didn’t make the situation any easier to resolve; if anything, it made it harder, as Luna could not actually demonstrate a change of heart when there was none to be had.

She wished she had just said yes. If she hadn’t had her own conversation planned, if she had just had time to think on it, she would have said yes. She desired Twilight, certainly, in more ways than one. In another time and place, even were Twilight not an alicorn, Luna would have considered courting her simply to secure her company. The problem was that Twilight knew all of this already, and any assertion of her attraction would likely remind Twilight of the last time she had mentioned it—the very rejection she was trying to amend.

No.

No, Luna had once before assumed that somepony close to her understood her feelings and it had only ended in loneliness and a very long exile from Equestria.

No, if Twilight was intent on being angry at her, then Luna would put everything she had into making it as hard as possible.

So… how did she go about doing that?

✶ ✶ ✶

This time it worked. In her demanifest state, Twilight could finally think clearly. She breathed in and out… or she pretended to, at least. Her existence as the stars was something she wasn’t sure she’d ever have a full vocabulary for—but she was distracting herself.

What was that?

Just what the ponyfeathers was that? She had been a single moment from giving Luna a reason to be afraid of her; a moment from from reaching out to grab her and—oh. Oh, yes, Luna had reason to be afraid of Twilight. Twilight didn’t know if she should feel stupid for missing it or be glad that hurting Luna didn’t come naturally to her.

It didn’t, did it? But she’d reached for the stars. She’d done it automatically, without even thinking about what she was doing, and now she knew why Luna was scared of her. How Twilight had scared her. That was… No, it was fine. Things like that happen. Twilight would never actually hurt her; Twilight would never hurt any of her friends. Or anypony. Anyone. Twilight was not an angry pony… except, at the moment, she very much was, and it scared her.

We all wish we were better mares in times like these, Luna had once told her.

No, I am better, she remembered answering. I used to be, anyway. I stress out and get frustrated, sure, it happens, but I don’t lash out and break things.

That, of course, had been said after she’d lashed out and broken things.

What if it’s not irony? What if it’s not a coincidence? Everything that’s happened seems to suggest that the stars are bad for me. No matter how grounded I think I am, no matter how calm and collected, it all falls apart—just like these stars. I’m made of sand, and I don’t know when the next wave will come.

She’d let herself forget; she’d thought she was over it. Hadn’t she survived being speared on Gemini’s essence and thrown into the desert of dreams? Hadn’t she overcome the cacophony of stars and made a library of them so they would never threaten to overwhelm her again? But she wasn’t being overwhelmed by the stars, was she? There weren’t foreign thoughts and forgotten histories fighting forward from somewhere inside of her, it was herself that she was having trouble with. Her metaphorical bookshelves were doing their job, but the foundation was crumbling beneath them.

No, it wasn’t crumbling; there just wasn’t enough of it. Here, now, spread out into the stars, she could step aside and just think so much more easily. Okay, maybe the dissociation that came with being the stars wasn’t entirely her… but actually, it kind of was, wasn’t it? It was how she was supposed to be; it was how Luna and Celestia were all the time, to a certain degree. They had manifest forms, and that certainly gave them focus, but they didn’t have to give up the rest of their celestial being to experience it like she did.

She couldn’t go on like this. She couldn’t just keep going from one to the other, flipping parts of herself on and off at the drop of a hat. She was a living, thinking being. Already she was worried about manifesting herself again—about what she might do, and worse, what she might think. There wasn’t a demanifest Twilight watching her life with a clear mind and tsking in disapproval as she made a list of all of Twilight’s mistakes. Demanifesting didn’t give her any magical insight into what she should have done or could have said with a clearer mind… or at least, no more than the usual hindsight.

All she had to do was look at last night to see that her muddled thoughts and bad decisions could follow her into the stars if she let them. No, it was important to remember that the seeming stability granted by her state was only a side effect of simply being so much greater and grander with the frame of reference to match.

Well, even her so-called grand frame of reference couldn’t help her disentangle the mess she’d made of things. At least here and now she mostly just felt lost instead of—no, she was still angry; how could she not be? She’d been hurt—and she’d been hurt for some stupid, ill-conceived, poorly thought out ‘best intentions.’

And then she’d gone and hurt others, very much without the best of intentions. It was little more than the luck of the draw that she hadn’t alienated most of her friends last night; just Applejack.

Applejack… and maybe Celestia.

There had been a time in her life when the idea of anypony having such an antagonistic conversation with the princess of the sun would have given Twilight fits. Now… Well, to be fair, Celestia had woken her up by needling her with a literal eyeball-seeking sunbeam; so maybe Twilight’s attitude had been kind of justified.

Celestia would get over it.

Applejack, though… Twilight imagined herself groaning at the thought of dealing with that whole mess; not only had she gone against Applejack’s express wishes, only having managed to talk her down to not arguing back before turning her into a demigoddess, but now there was this whole thing with Rainbow Dash somehow ascending her physical form. Applejack might be a down-to-earth pony, but she was just about as in-tune with her cutie mark and earth pony magic as you could get. Suddenly the subject of Applejack being solid enough to crack walnuts with her face wasn’t quite so funny when there was the possibility of her actually turning into an elemental force.

Maybe… maybe she’d let that one sit for a while—and on that subject; Pinkie Pie and her likely ascension. Yeah… no. Twilight was just going to let that little nightmare come to her, as it inevitably would. No need to borrow trouble from Las Pegasus when trouble had a whole road trip planned.

Fluttershy… Gah. Now Twilight just felt like a heel for taking her for granted and then all but ignoring her issues. The soft-spoken demigoddess had probably wanted help with her overactive omniscience but couldn’t bring herself to actually ask for it. Worse, her fears were probably more sound than Twilight was comfortable admitting; as terrible as it made her feel, she had too much on her mind to focus on the sorts of things cute and not-so-cute animals get up to when nobody but a young, impressionable demigoddess is watching.

Wasn’t this whole thing supposed to bring Twilight and her friends closer together?

It was some consolation that, at least—no matter what Rainbow Dash’s opinion was on the matter—Twilight didn’t actually have to worry about what Rarity would become if she ‘broke the cutie barrier’ as the brash mare had put it. Demigoddesshood no doubt suited her, but she didn’t have the… oneness of being that Twilight imagined was required to take it any further than that—not that that was a bad thing.

If any of Twilight’s friends could be counted on to have all of their ducks in a row, it would have to be Rarity. Not actual ducks—that would be Fluttershy’s thing, and what they’re doing all in a row Twilight had no desire whatsoever to know. In fact, if Fluttershy could just never mention that aspect of her newly-enhanced special talent ever again, Twilight would depower her in gratitude.

Anyway. Rarity. Ducks. Not duck-ducks, but a duckification representing her prevailing competence at life—now there was an idea; maybe she could help sort some of this out, even if it meant that Twilight would have to eat her words and listen to—ugh—relationship advice.

Wait. Relationship advice was literally both what she wanted and needed.

Still, ugh.

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight found Rarity in the throne room of the ponyville palace. Now, Rarity would never be so rude as to sit in either of the thrones even if Twilight hadn’t reduced them to piles of rubble, but then, you couldn’t actually see the space where the thrones had been either, so the amount of respect being shown was dubious. No, the entire back half of the throne room was taken up by Rarity… or more accurately, Rarity’s dress. It was a grand, flowing thing; waves upon waves of silk and embroidery like an eruption of floral petals over acres of ribbons. Settings adorned with gemstones the size of ostrich eggs decorated the thing, standing on display like a score of hydra heads, and the floor was completely hidden beneath curls and ringlets of lace.

Twilight legitimately wasn’t sure if she’d jinxed herself and this was Rarity’s transcendent immortal form or if it was just Rarity being Rarity, and she decided not to ask. Any suggestions that this decision came to her as the mare in question bore down on her with the seeming fury of a thousand jilted lovers were entirely unfounded.

“Twilight Sparkle!” Rarity bellowed. Yes, bellowed. Normally Rarity would rate a word like declared or announced, but with the way Twilight’s ears folded back at the shout, she was going with ‘bellowed.’ Internally, at least.

“What?” she said, backpedalling on reflex. “What did I do?” It was a moment before the inanity of that response really occurred to her. “I mean, specifically,” she added somewhat sheepishly.

It was an impressively distracting sight to watch Rarity’s dress flow after her, weightlessly roiling through the air as she finally reached Twilight and pointed a dramatic hoof right under Twilight’s nose. “You ran off and slept with Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy!”

“Yes?” Twilight blinked, somewhat puzzled. “It’s not like it was the first time, either; what’s your point? We can’t even have an embarrassing misunderstanding about it since you know that I don’t even see ponies that way. Well, I’ve told you I don’t see ponies that way; whether or not you actually internalize information like that is something I’m less confident in, given the conversations we tend to have.”

“That was another matter entirely,” Rarity said dismissively. “That was Rainbow and Fluttershy sleeping with you, which is entirely different, if gossip-worthy.”

“I’m confused. I actually have no idea what you’re even talking about.”

“I will be very clear, Twilight,” Rarity said, jabbing Twilight in the chest with her hoof. “You are going to move back into the palace and you will do so tonight. This is not negotiable. I don’t care if you have to fight Luna in a duel to demanifestation to stake your claim on the bedroom, but you will live there or else. You signed a contract for alicorn residency and I will enforce it if I have to.”

Twilight just stared at Rarity in bewilderment. “I don’t know why I thought you were the sane and stable one of my friends.”

“You recognized it!” Rarity proclaimed in something resembling manic glee. “I am the only pony who has been working tirelessly towards solving things once and for all. Oh, that’s not to say that your approach wasn’t a good one, darling, but the execution… A valiant attempt, to be sure, but you rather dropped the ball at the finish line, as it were. But regardless! It is nothing that can’t be fixed!”

Twilight wasn’t sure if she was actually getting any closer to making sense of this or if they were just treading words. “Fixed… by me living in the palace?” she asked for clarity.

“Exactly!” Rarity beamed, no doubt taking Twilight’s vaguely successful attempt to follow her logic as acceptance.

“Could you maybe… explain that a little?” Twilight dared to suggest.

“Why, darling, I thought you’d never ask!”

Twilight had an immediate desire to strangle the pony in front of her, and she wasn’t sure what she wanted Rarity’s unknown immortal status to be proven to be when she did. She was pretty sure that was a natural reaction that anypony would have, though, so probably not the stars’ fault.

Meanwhile, Rarity—entirely oblivious of the ire being directed her way—turned, took part of the dress flowing behind her in her hoof and pulled it back to reveal…

“A model of Ponyville?” Twilight said, automatically voicing her thoughts out loud. “With a wonky purple crystal tree in the middle?”

Rarity stood still, blinked and looked at the hideous thing she had revealed. “Oh my, no no no no no, not that one.” Rarity looked at the model from several angles before kicking aside the table it was on. “I know I have it somewhere, here…” she mumbled to herself then grabbed Twilight and pulled her along into the depths of her dress. “Here, follow me.”

Twilight quickly lost all sense of direction as she was yanked and guided this way and that through the dress, searching for Rarity’s treasure. Eventually, Twilight found herself pushed out into a clearing that had…

“Another model of Ponyville?” she blurted out in disbelief. This one, though, had Twilight’s actual palace in the center. There was more than that, though; there were six similar but smaller towers surrounding it, connected to the main tower by long, thin crystal bridges, and each one she looked at was revealed to be placed on top of one of one of her friends’ existing houses.

Twilight was stunned speechless. “Do we really all live basically in a circle? That seems horribly contriv—oh wait, no, Applejack’s tower is on top of what used to be Barnyard Bargains for some reason.”

Rarity cleared her throat, interrupting Twilight’s train of thoughts. “Yes, well, let us ignore that for now and come back to it later,” she said in a tone indicating that ‘later’ meant ‘never.’ “Do you see, now?”

Twilight stepped back and took in what she was actually looking at; the towers smaller, but they were not small. Each one was palatial in its own right, and while Applejack and Fluttershy would not be the types to live in a palace with servants waiting on their beck and call, this could actually almost be the opposite of that; a space wholly their own that exposed Twilight to them without all the pomp and circumstance of her procession. “All the land you bought and traded… all the sneaking around at court… even trying to buy Applejack’s farm… It was all for this? So we can all live together like a bunch of college friends who all moved into the same neighborhood?”

For once in her life, Rarity actually looked a little embarrassed. “Well, darling, I have also become the obscenely wealthy governess of Ponyville in the process, but… well, one must have things in order to share them, so yes; I suppose it was all for this. What else did you expect of me?”

It was… perfect. Well, okay, no, it wasn’t perfect; it would actually take a decent amount of presentation and convincing to get them all to go along with it, but… Rarity was capable of that; there was no question. All it required from Twilight was that she continue living the ridiculous farce of alicorn superiority rather than flying off and becoming a hermit. Err, that is… technically being an alicorn did make her superior, but only in body! She’d been smarter than them before her ascension and—wait—no, that wasn’t what she—damnit! What she meant was that just because she was superior didn’t make it right! Why couldn’t things ever be simple?

This was all Rarity’s fault.

Twilight did her level best to strangle her.

Gently.

Around the chest.

☾ ☾ ☾

Luna thought that Twilight’s choice of companionship would have been obvious. She herself was out, for obvious reasons, as was Celestia, after the stunt which she had pulled that morning in attempting to force the two of them together. So, too, were all the ex-bearers of the elements of harmony, with Twilight’s actions the night before making things awkward. No, there was only one place, one person she could go to.

Unfortunately, he was also the one whose advice she needed. Luna knocked as quietly as she could on the door as of what once was the Golden Oaks library. Quickly enough, the door opened and Luna placed herself so she wouldn’t be seen by anyone farther in.

“Oh, hey Luna,” he said, opening the door wider once he saw who it was. “Come on in; you want some tea? I, uh, think there’s some left. Ever since Twilight moved out, the only ones that drink it are Rarity and Fluttershy and I usually go see them.” He shrugged and was making his way to the kitchen before he froze. “Ah, you won’t die from a little rubidium poisoning, right? I’ve been cooking in these pots and pans with a lot of heavy and alkaline metals lately; can’t have dessert all the time. Not for more than a week straight, anyway…”

Luna slowly followed Spike into the ex-library, cagily looking around corners, expecting to run into Twilight any awkward moment now, but such a moment never came. “Is… is Twilight not here?”

Spike poked his head out of the kitchen. “No?” he said, making it a question. “Is she coming?”

Ah, awkward moment arrived at, although it was not the precise one that Luna had been expecting. “I had expected she would, but perhaps she has found solace elsewhere.”

“Huh, I kinda expected you two to still be joined at the hip,” he said, his voice echoing from the kitchen. “She was kinda freaking out when you got vaporized by that dragon. Actually, come to think of it, she came here back then… did something happen?”

Luna’s wings ruffled as she prepared to admit her folly. “We have not not suffered a brief, unplanned schism in our mutual understanding of one another,” she said.

Spike appeared at the kitchen door, cleaning a porcelain cup possessing a slightly silvered interior with a hand towel. He just stood there for a moment just looking at her blankly. “You accidentally rejected her and she’s pissed, huh?” he said as he turned and walked back into the kitchen to continue what he had been doing.

“That is not innacur—that is to say, yes, you are quite astute in your deduction,” she conceded. “I shall not mince words; I… I ‘bucked up’ and I am not certain how to go about remedying matters.”

“So, you weren’t expecting it, said the wrong thing, she ran off and now you’re trying to find her?” he asked.

“Ah, it is far more complicated than that.” Luna took a long, deep breath. “The Elements of Harmony have awakened as an ancient, essence-deficient alicorn with a grievous case of habitual apathy, stealing the vim and vigor from Twilight’s other friends and afflicting them with chronic magical withdrawal. Twilight had offered them a resolution, but reconsidered when it was suggested that it would, in fact, make them demigods in their own right, only to then blindside me with her overture of affection when I had intended to express some concerns and argue against her decision. We had a… slight altercation which spiraled slightly out of control when I—in admittedly poor judgement—suggested that perhaps the timing of our courting might be best put off until matters had stabilized. She took it predictably poorly and proceeded to threaten the very fabric of Equestria, stretching it thin between her twin domains of the sky and the dreamworld as she searched the globe for her remaining starbeasts so she could grant them to her friends out of misplaced spite. In doing so, she inadvertently released Discord, whose chaotic powers originated in the dreamworld that he, as the first magical pony, created with the power of the stars and which Twilight, in her unceasing primordial wrath, recalled from him, breaking his prison and leaving him a largely harmless, though likely still immortal dragon-pony hybrid who is currently lurking around Rainbow Dash’s cloud house on account of being left there by a full half dozen ponies who do not realize that he is incapable of getting down from it on his own—and me, who just doesn’t like him. Ah, but I am getting ahead of myself; after Twilight quit her job, told the public to buck off and slept with Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy again, Celestia, in her infinite wisdom, foolishly decided to wake Twilight and make demands of her before she had had her coffee. Twilight’s response was again easy to predict, as my sister did not even participate in the common ritual of declaring the commencement of a ‘road trip’ at the top of one’s lungs; a gross oversight, I feel as the Royal Canterlot Voice is uniquely suited to such a rite, though one likely to be doomed to failure from the start as I—the one who Twilight is cross with—was present and Celestia chose to bodily project me at Twilight before fleeing when negotiations broke down—not the first time she has done that, actually. Twilight and I then proceeded to avoid each other like nervous school fillies—as one does with ponies they have recently engaged in unwarranted drama with—until an increasing agitation with her uncouth pegasus friend caused her to snap and she fled in fear of what she might do if she remained. Oh, and one or all of your shared friends might be properly immortal, so there is that.”

“…So, business as usual, then?” he asked, sounding only half sarcastic as he juggled two teapots and a pair of cups out of the kitchen and over to a small table with an empty circular bookshelf in the center of it. “All of that happened since the thing with the grumpy dragon, huh? Guess I’ve been out of the loop.”

Luna sat and poured herself a cup of the nameless black tea that Spike had managed to dredge up. “Just the last twenty-four hours, as a matter of fact.”

“…Must be the climax,” he muttered as he joined her, pouring himself a cup of some sputtering metal or another. “I told her to skip the wacky hijinks, but maybe that would have been better than what actually happened.”

“Yes! The ‘hijinks,’” Luna said with great enthusiasm. “This is why I have come to you for advice.”

“Me?” Spike said, somewhat blindsided. “Why would you come to me of all dragons?”

“I have heard great tales of your attempts to woo the lady Rarity.”

“Ugh…” Spike drooped in on himself and wrapped both claws around his cup. “Luna, I’m not—there has been no wooing. There’s just me putting myself out for a mare I’ve always known would never see me as an adult. Ever since Twilight became immortal, it’s just… made me really aware of the ponies who aren’t.”

“Well, that is simple then!” Luna said, beaming. “You shall help me with Twilight, and I shall endeavor to ensure that Rarity becomes immortal! Surely if that indecorous lout she calls a friend can achieve immortality, she can.”

“Wait, what? ‘Indecorous lout?’” He mouthed the phrase to himself silently with a look of confusion on his face. “Rainbow Dash is immortal now?”

“Perhaps,” Luna said, making a ‘so-so’ gesture with her hoof. “She appears to have been transmuted into living lightning and rolling rainbows, though as to whether or not she is actually immortal, only time will tell. Did I not just say this?”

Spike blushed, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly. “Sorry, after living with Twilight for so long, I tend to zone out during recaps.”

“Ah,” Luna said, nodding. “I do the same thing with Tia’s speeches on… most things, actually.”

“So, wait, that means Rainbow Dash is an alicorn now?” Spike asked, somewhat wary of the concept.

Luna let out a snort of derision. “Hardly; even were she to grow a horn, the defining feature of an alicorn appears to be the production of magic either ex nihilo or converted from a source which no pony has yet deduced, discovered or divined; all pony magic thus comes from Twilight herself. Twilight was distracted by her failure to completely reverse the effect with the removal of Rainbow Dash’s additional stars, but there was an effect, thus she is almost certainly still reliant on the stars for magic.”

“Uh, if they wanted to reverse it so much that they even tried turning her demigoddesshood off and on again to fix it, why wouldn’t they take out her original star, and why wouldn’t you mention it? Last I heard, the guy Twilight did it to was fine.”

Luna shuffled in place a bit as she took a sip of her tea, showing her discomfort. “Given that Twilight soon afterwards threatened to find a way to kill Rainbow Dash, I believe it has been proven prudent that I kept my observations to myself, because that is likely what would happen to a pony without a self-sustaining physical body if their magic was removed entirely.”

Spike looked at Luna thoughtfully for a moment. “You know, Twilight is rubbing off on you.”

“Constantly, yes,” Luna said with a shiver. “She is calm enough at the moment, however, so it is not as noticeable—a good sign, I hope.”

Spike’s look deviated from thoughtful to land squarely on distressed. “That… is not what I meant and I did not need to know that about my psuedo-sister-slash-mother. What I meant was that you seem more analytical than the time we—err—conspired to move her into a palace that didn’t exist yet. You know, that seemed a lot more reasonable at the time.”

“We do what we must for those whom we love, Spike; sometimes that means engaging in unconventional shenanigans,” Luna declared entirely seriously.

Spike set his cup down and buried his face in his claws. “On second thought, I’m not sure I want your help with Rarity.”

“It is called courting because it resembles courtly politics in its frivolity, idealism and reliance on vainglorious conviction in the face of seeming futility,” she reassured him.

Spike chewed at his lip, looking torn. “On one claw, I’m pretty sure that’s a load of ponyfeathers, but on the other, it’s a load of ponyfeathers she’d probably agree with.”

“Wonderful!” Luna said, throwing an arm around her comrade in love.

“You know I’d help you regardless, right?” Spike said, his voice a little muffled as his cheek was being pressed into Luna’s chest while he struggled to keep from spilling his rubidium.

“Indeed,” Luna answered, relaxing her grip. “But it pains me to see a fellow immortal give up romance and passion for bitterness and apathy so young, nor would I stand by whilst you settle into decades of pining. Trust me when I say that way lies nothing good and wholesome, young Spike.”

Spike scooted away from Luna when she let him go and quickly finished his drink before the princess’ enthusiasm could the better of it sooner or later. “Yeah, I guess. I just… I’m not stupid; I know how she sees me, but that doesn’t mean I should give up on it ever being possible.”

“Quite,” Luna said, nodding as she finished her own tea and the two of them got up. “It took me at least a century until I had decided that all romance was drivel and poppycock.”

“I—buhwha?” he blubbered, stumbling as he was making his way back to the kitchen with the dishes. He turned back to look at her. “What about all that stuff you just said?”

“Time and events change ponies, Spike, not just once but again and again with each new experience. Sometimes we grow up and put away our childish things, and sometimes maturity means allowing oneself to get them back out and dust them off again years and decades later. Me? I am brushing up on being an idiot in love as best I can, so bear with me.”

☁ ☁ ☁

“Not cool, Luna,” Rainbow Dash groused for the umpteenth time that afternoon as she worked on refining her immortal magical body. “Not cool at all.”

She was feeling pretty rotten, all told, and it was all because Luna had to go and hit her right where it hurt—her loyalty.

“You are supposed to be her friend, are you not?”

A crack of thunder accompanied what could only be called a short-circuit in her foreleg, causing it to revert to its overtly jagged form. “Mother bucker!” she cursed, that mistake setting her back at least ten minutes of work.

Contrary to what she had claimed, this whole lightning-and-rainbows thing did not come easy to her. She’d first broken the cutie barrier on her morning fly—almost ten hours ago now—and it had taken her until mid-afternoon just to collect herself enough make her way home. Okay, so maybe she had kinda forgotten how messed up Twilight had seemed last night and there had been something about Applejack not being totally okay with the demigoddess thing, but psh—it was Applejack. She didn’t actually hold grudges; she was too nice and… what’s the word? Hospitable.

Oh, and supposedly Applejack and Twilight were a thing or whatever, but Rainbow Dash didn’t buy that.

Zap! “Celestia damn it!”

The irony in her situation was that half of what she was doing was basically like exercise and training muscle memory—things she was experienced in and really good at. What ruined it was that it was just so… fiddly—and not pinion feather positioning fiddly, but like, actual playing-the-fiddle fiddly.

“Hiya Dashie!” said a smiling pink shape

Zap!

“Pinkie!” Rainbow Dash cried out in rebuke.

Pinkie gave Rainbow Dash a hug from behind, getting a shock for the trouble but not letting that stop her. “My pinkie sense told me somepony here needed some cheering up!” she told Rainbow Dash as she smoothed out a singled curl of pink hair.

Rainbow Dash turned to see Pinkie Pie… standing in her living room? “How are you standing—?”

“Hold that thought,” Pinkie Pie interrupted as she circled Rainbow Dash, examining her from several angles. She hemmed and hawed over Rainbow Dash. “Something’s off about you; lemme think.”

“Well, yeah, I—”

“I said lemme think!” Pinkie Pie scolded her. “I’ve almost got it… Aha!”

Without warning, Pinkie Pie thrust her arm into Rainbow Dash’s back right between the wings and wiggled it around like she was feeling for something. Whatever it was, she seemed to find it. She yanked at it, then pushed back and did something that sent shivers down Rainbow Dash’s… completely flesh-and-blood spine?

“What… did you just do?” Rainbow Dash panted, taking in real actual deep breaths she didn’t realize she’d been missing.

“I just smoothed over your doozynoodle,” Pinkie Pie explained as she pulled her hoof out of Rainbow Dash; it wobbled around shapelessly like a limp cucumber and was dripping fluorescent pink. “You were really jiggered up!”

Rainbow Dash gaped at her in awe. “When did you learn to do that? It hasn’t even been a day!”

Pinkie Pie giggled. “Oh Dashie; I’ve known how to do that for… um… gosh; years, I guess!”

Rainbow Dash felt a little of her pride break just then. “You… you broke the cutie barrier as a filly? All on your own?”

“Is that what I did?” she asked, purely innocent and naïve. “I just thought I became a super-duper eternal force of party pony pinkitude!”

Rainbow Dash was floored. No, literally, she crumpled over onto the floor in shock, then shot back up to look at Pinkie Pie. “Wait, if you’ve mastered being a pronking force of pink since forever, then why in Celestia’s name are Las Pegasus and that other place craters?”

“Silly Dashie; I didn’t make the Las Pegasus crater; I just brought the fun!”

✶ ✶ ✶

“You have nothing to worry about,” Rarity told Twilight after she had explained things. “There is always a break in the third act wherein the two lovers spend some time apart due to some disagreement or mistake in order to show them how much they belong together. Now, all you must do is prepare a show of forgiveness, and you shall live happily ever after.”

Twilight gave Rarity an annoyed look. “My life is not a romance novel, Rarity.”

“Ah, well then.” Rarity straightened where she sat and returned Twilight’s look with a flat one. “You are being a bit of an unreasonable, self-centered bitch to somepony who has professed quite poetically to love you just as much as you do her, and you should get over yourself and try to make it work instead of throwing a hissy fit over the first stumbling block in your relationship.”

“But she—”

“Ah-ah-ah,” Rarity interjected, cutting Twilight off. “Honestly, Twilight, if ponies actually meant ‘no’ when they say ‘no’—especially when prefaced by ‘yes, but…’—then nothing would ever get done anywhere in business, politics or romance. Of course, if that were the case then there would be fewer stallions who can’t read a situation, so it might be worth it, but there’s no point in wishing. The point is, you already know she’s interested; all that is left is the negotiation.”

“…can we go back to the romance novel version?” Twilight whimpered.

Rarity shook her head sharply. “Not a chance; you asked for the realistic version, and the realistic version is the tough love version.”

“I didn’t actually ask…” Twilight had started to mumble before the urge to argue to the point at hoof took over. “She did more than just say no, Rarity,” Twilight fumed, stomping her hoof now that she finally had a proper crystal floor to stomp on. “She took it and she used it as some sort of—of—carrot; a reward to be had for good behavior. That’s not something you do.”

“Did she?” Rarity asked with a heavy sigh, lowering her head to give Twilight a serious look. “Or was your poor behavior and her reluctance to enable it her reason for turning you down?”

“I—what?” Twilight stumbled in place as if struck and she felt the crack running down her body shift even further out of alignment, not as gone as she’d thought it was. “But—no, that’s not…” Her voice became small and strained. “That’s not the same thing at all… No, she hurt me… it can’t be me that’s wrong.”

“Strange,” said the oddly familiar twin voices of Gemini from behind her. “By now, you should be used to being wrong.”

Chapter 20

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 21

☾ ☾ ☾

Luna launched herself skyward towards the location of the clash, but there was nothing to do; what had been done had been done. Even as Luna approached, the shining bits of Harmony were falling to Equestria, too numerous to collect. She thought, then, to entrap Astri before the mad alicorn could recover, but she, too, crumbled to stardust under Luna’s hooves, leaving her at a loss for something to do as she hung there in the sky.

All she could think about as she turned around and watched the shattered pieces of Harmony’s broken body fall out of the sky was that once again she had not appreciated somepony until their loss was felt, though unlike when she had been angry at Twilight over her reclamation of the stars, Luna did not expect that she would get a second chance to get to know Harmony… or for that matter, for Harmony to get to know herself.

That, perhaps, was the greatest tragedy; Harmony had not been particularly likable, but she could hardly have been expected to be, given her life up until then, such as it was. Luna herself had hardly been good company upon her return, even if one was to ignore the Nightmare Moon situation, but she had since grown past it.

Harmony never would.

Would she?

Were things truly so hopeless, or was Luna just letting her poor opinion of Harmony shine through, even in her grief and regret? It was true that no matter what happened to Twilight, here and now or long into the future, Luna would always believe that she would pull through where others would fail. Could Luna not muster up the slightest amount of faith in the aimless alicorn?

No. It shamed and saddened her to say that she could not. Aimless had been the word for Harmony, who had not the power or the will to manifest to begin with. The only things she had seemed to care for were her ‘little light’ and ‘shining light.’

Twilight and Luna.

Was it any wonder that Harmony had chosen this as her time to act?

Mayhap Celestia would be able to do for Harmony what Harmony could not do for herself, as had been done before—to put her back together into some semblance of the alicorn that she was meant to be—but it was unlikely to be the same alicorn she had been any more than Twilight and Luna were the alicorns that had come before them. Only Twilight could survive having her celestial body scattered, and that only because she was already broken; it wasn’t doing her any favors otherwise.

Luna took a long, uncertain look at Astri’s moon as she descended the empty sky to check on her sister. If there was any justice in the world, Harmony’s sacrifice had been the end of this nightmare and, as a part of Twilight, the moon would prevent it from ever happening again.

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight only caught the slightest glimpse of Harmony in front of Astri before something tore her away from the book, cutting off her vision of the physical world. Before she could so much as react, she was cast off into the ocean of magic, and when she resurfaced, she discovered that the chunk of library she had been standing on had been ripped apart.

She had barely recovered, climbing back onto her own bit of library, when she realized she was not alone.

Astri looked haggard and thin, like a sodden cat dripping with malice. She quickly dried as she crawled out of the ocean of magic onto what was left of her own section of library, but it didn’t hide the fact that she was barely there, more matted fur than skin and bones; there wasn’t much to her, and what was there was surly and glaring at Twilight.

“I hope you’re happy,” Twilight said, fighting herself between exasperation and bitter anger.

Astri dropped her head, shrouding her eyes as she shook with repressed indignation. “You would blame me for trying to survive?”

“I would blame you for making it necessary!” Twilight snapped back.

Astri took a deep breath and grit her teeth. “Then it still all comes back to you, doesn’t it?!” she said with a snarl.

Twilight balked, taken aback. “I—what?”

“For making it necessary!” Astri shouted, lifting her head in order to bring eyes full of hate and tears to bear on Twilight. “For making me!”

Twilight winced at the accusation. “You think this is my fault?” she asked. “You think that I wanted this?”

“Are you the alicorn of the stars or not?!” Astri shrieked. “Either take responsibility or yield to somepony who will.”

Twilight scoffed, honestly affronted. “What, you?” she asked, making it clear how likely she thought that to be.

“And why not?” Astri sneered, pacing on her small island of library. “If you are not to blame for this, if you are not in control, it’s as good as admitting that you’re just another piece of the whole—and a broken one, at that.”

“No, stop trying to confuse things,” Twilight said, shaking her head. “I am the alicorn of the stars; I have been as far back as when my friends and I used the Elements of Harmony on Luna—Harmony established that—and my cutie mark—”

“—is no better than mine!” Astri countered, twisting briefly to show the patched-together moon on her haunch. “And what better a mark than a whole and undamaged moon? You broke and I was created, ordered and sane in all the ways you wish you were! If I am a part of you—if I am born of you—then I am just as much an alicorn as you!”

“You?” Twilight asked. “Sane? Undamaged?! There is nothing more to you than an irrational desire to destroy me and everything I’ve touched. You would kill millions for the crime of existing! That the world will look on you and see a monster should be all the proof you need to understand that your creation was a regrettable mistake that I have no choice but to rectify.”

“That you would rather crawl and limp through life as you fall apart rather than endeavor to fix yourself says as much of you.”

“I’m trying!” Twilight insisted. “I’ve made mistakes—everypony has—but I’m doing my best to understand and control myself! But better I try and fail a thousand times over than allow you to wipe out ponykind in your desire to reclaim pony magic!”

“You keep saying that!” Astri yelled, stomping a hoof on the wood of her floating island. “Calling me a murderer, claiming I want genocide; do you do it because you think it will help you sleep at dawn if you pretend you’ve put down an irredeemable beast?”

“Do you deny it?”

“I do!” she bellowed, shaking Twilight’s island of library with the force of her voice. “Tell me, o’ innocent and benevolent alicorn of the stars, if I am but a twisted bud from your magnanimous existence which only came into being hours ago… then who was it that killed those ponies in Las Pegasus? Tell me again which one of us is the murderer? Do I remember it because you could not bear to do it yourself? Who here is the monster?!”

Twilight shrank back under Astri’s tirade. She… she had thought of that herself when Luna had revealed Astri’s origins, but she hadn’t actually faced the issue. It hurt just thinking of—wait. “No, stop twisting everything I say! Celestia would have said something if it was like that! It’s a mostly Pegasus city, and Pinkie was there… Nopony died at Las Pegasus, did they?”

Astri’s mouth twisted into a sneer. “I wouldn’t know, since it wasn’t you that did anything to save them. Tell me that’s better.”

“Of course it’s better than actually setting out to kill ponies!” Twilight retorted.

Astri cocked her head in faux innocence. “And when have I ever said that I wanted to kill ponies?”

Twilight bristled in annoyance at going back and forth over this. “What else would you call it?”

“I would free them of their stolen divinity; are you so sure they would die?” she said. “You’ve threatened to do it in the past, haven’t you? Were you threatening death, then?”

“I threatened it as a punishment!” Twilight countered, her face coloring in embarrassment. “Not even that, it was just proof that they have me to thank for magic. Doing that to anypony—doing that to ponies as a whole—it would be cruel!”

“But not lethal,” Astri added with an infuriating smugness.

“No,” Twilight grudgingly admitted, but proceeded to double down on her next observation. “That you’d save for ripping stars out from beneath every city, farm and forest in the world.”

“You sound so sure of yourself,” Astri said with a teasing superiority. “But imagine this for a moment; what if I simply… didn’t? Surely an alicorn—a goddess!—can solve that problem! In fact…all those stars… perhaps it would be a waste to simply destroy them? Would you resist so much, would you be so sure of yourself if I instead thought it best to add them to my moon? To repair and invigorate myself to the alicorn that I should have been?” An unseen force brought Astri’s island closer to Twilight’s so she could look her in the eye. “If I could counter every objection you have, would you still fight me?”

It rankled Twilight that she felt like she was being taunted and it rankled even more that she was being talked around, her rebuttals ineffective and ignored; it was making her distinctly uncomfortable. “You expect me to believe that you can change, just like that?”

“I am a pony!” Astri screamed back with sudden force separating the two islands once again. “A living, thinking, feeling alicorn that you created just by failing to exist in a way that doesn’t defile everything you touch! How dare you prop me up as some sort of villain, set me on a course of conflict and then ask if I can change!”

Twilight actually stumbled back and fell at the shock of Astri’s sudden vehemence and piercing indignation. She tried to respond, but the words didn’t quite come and Astri overran any objection she could have made.

“No, what is there to even change?” Astri asked rhetorically. “My goal has never been to hurt anypony—I didn’t set out to ruin ponies’ lives—it’s necessary! Celestia thinks I’m shallow? You call me obsessed? Are those real objections or are they just excuses to justify the so-called ‘hard decision’ that you want to make because it’s less complicated—because it doesn’t involve being wrong?

“They say that everypony is the hero of their own story, and maybe you created me to hate you, but I don’t see how it can be any other way. I have a right to exist and a right to fight for that existence! I am not your puppet or your strawpony to knock down and pat yourself on the back for a job well done. You are a monster—a cancer on this world—and you deserve nothing more than to be forgotten for the pain and anguish you have wrought. I, at least, can grow past what you created me for once it’s done, while you are doomed to crumble and decay, corrupting everything you touch. The world is better off without you!”

The silence was absolute in between the creaking of the floorboards under Astri’s hooves and the panting of her heavy breaths.

“…You’re right,” Twilight admitted, slumping back on the floor of her two-book island library and staring up into the black void above.

Astri looked up in shock. “I’m what?”

“You’re right,” Twilight said again, the action no easier than the first time and twice as painful. “I… haven’t been treating you fairly. Creating you was cruel in the extreme, and for what it’s worth… I’m sorry it happened. I’m sorry for causing… all of this.”

Astri took a wary step back, guarded and not a little disturbed, not quite believing in Twilight’s words. “And this is where you laugh and say that in order to correct your mistake, I have to die, right?”

Twilight twisted her face in a grimace. “Do you really think so badly of me?”

“That’s not a ‘no,’” Astri pointed out, increasingly cagey.

Twilight took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh as she sat back up and hunched over her knees. “I would never laugh,” she said, her voice quiet and thick with emotion and doing her best not to look at Astri, which turned out to be a mistake.

Astri crashed into her, sending them both careening off the side of Twilight’s library island and into the ocean of magic. Without the ability to cast magic in this place, they fought and struggled, sinking deeper and deeper as Astri pushed Twilight down into the depths. Though neither of them needed air in this place, Twilight could tell she was losing something important; she had trouble identifying it in the chaotic tumbling, but eventually she deduced that it was being caused by having left the last of her stars behind. There was nothing but the empty expanse of magic around her and Astri pushing her deeper into it.

Twilight fought harder, trying to free herself from Astri’s grasp, but she was weakening. Was this it, then? Did Astri hate her so much that she would kill them both by stranding them where the stars could not reach them? She supposed that for all her ranting, Astri didn’t actually have much to lose—no friends or loved ones, no wishes or regrets as Twilight had—yet even with all that Twilight had to lose, wouldn’t she still win in the end? Though she had never had a chance to apologize to Luna and find happiness with her, Luna, at least, would live on; Twilight’s friends would live on, and pony magic would continue to bring success and fulfillment to the ponies of Equestria.

It wasn’t a terrible thing to die for…

…Yet even as Twilight’s muscles began to ache, it became clear that Astri was not tiring as Twilight was, nor did she give the impression of a mare sacrificing herself in order to drag her foe down with her. Astri was exultant—triumphant—and the ice that that idea sent running through her veins gave Twilight a second wind; enough to finally break free and see what was below them.

It was a library larger than any she’d seen in this place so far—or in the real world, for that matter—by several orders of magnitude. It stretched out below them far enough to have its own horizon. It was, by any reasonable estimate, the size of a small moon.

Because it was a small moon—Astri’s.

‘No,’ she tried to say as Astri drifted down with a wicked grin on her face, wasting precious moments in shock and disbelief. Belatedly, she kicked and thrashed, trying to push herself back up to the surface where she knew there were stars, but it was far too little, far too late.

Twilight’s last thoughts as consciousness faded away were that it couldn’t end like this—that it was impossible for fate to be this cruel. Her death, here, would accomplish nothing but bring pain to those who care for her. Then a flicker of memory came to her and everything finally fell into place.

No… it literally couldn’t end like this. It was actually impossible.

Thinking of Luna one last time, Twilight promised to her that she would not let this be the end. Putting all her faith and trust in this final act, she let go, allowing unconsciousness to overcome her.

☾ ☾ ☾

By the time Luna descended to the top of the Ponyville Palace tower, Fluttershy had already procured bandages and was proceeding to clean and wrap Celestia’s wound until dawn when she could remanifest.

The wound in question was a ragged tear down Celestia’s side and was leaking sunlight quite badly; horns were not known for making long wounds, and were Celestia any mortal pony, she would have been at great risk to her life and in a great deal of pain. As it was, she didn’t speak when she gave Luna a look of pained hope, only to have it dashed with little more than a shake of Luna’s head.

“We will gather as much of her remains as can be found, of course,” Luna said as she lowered herself down to sit next to her sister. “I can have the search begun immediately, if you like. I would leave it for you to do in the morning, but she was rather… shiny; there is the danger of some critter or another running off with bits and pieces.”

“No,” said the unexpected voice of Fluttershy, who was still wrapping and tucking gauze around Celestia. “There isn’t.”

Luna began to respond, stopped, and rephrased what she had been intending to say. “You’re sure that you can get the word out to them all?”

Fluttershy’s lips tightened as she finally tied off the last of Celestia’s bandages, backed away and hunched over on herself to relax. “I already have,” she mumbled, her voice barely audible on the windy towertop. “I—I’m not just omniscient.”

“Not… just omniscient?” Luna asked, not entirely certain how she was to take that. “I—ahh—don’t think I’ve heard anything about your demigoddesshood, come to think of it.”

Fluttershy wilted under the sudden attention she was getting. “W-well, it’s… if you see a cute little squirrel… that’s me. A-and if you see an adorable little sparrow… that’s me, too. They’re all still the animals they were, they’re just… also me. Everywhere. All the time. If… if you want me to collect Harmony’s remains, I don’t mind.”

Luna pressed her face into her hoof. “You’re immortal.”

“Oh, um… probably?” Fluttershy said, somewhat surprised by the subject at first, but her mien quickly darkened as she looked away. “But maybe we shouldn’t use that word right now, considering…”

Nopony spoke for a moment as they all remembered that immortal didn’t mean invincible.

“If you would do that for me, Fluttershy,” Celestia said with a pained grunt as she moved herself into a more comfortable position. “I would appreciate it very much. I will do what I can for her, of course, though I’m not certain she would thank me for it. She was neither especially tenacious or all too interested in living the first time I revived her. To have given it up for the sake of one of her ‘lights’… I think she would consider a life well lived and well spent in spite of its brevity.”

“And the other one? Twilight? Who’s going to save her?” Rainbow Dash asked, prompting everyone to look skyward. “Do we really have to keep that ugly thing around just in case she needs it? What if Astri isn’t gone?”

Luna chewed at her lip. “I would hide it behind my moon, but without the power over the night sky that I once had, I am not certain I can do so; it is far too close for me to simply place my moon in front of it.”

“But can’t you—”

“No, Rainbow Dash, I cannot—I will not reclaim the stars,” Luna said with absolute finality. “Not only are they hers and hers alone, but I would not risk endangering her return, nor, I expect, would you enjoy a repeat of the last time I took their power onto myself.”

Rainbow Dash audibly gulped. “Good point. I’ll just… yeah…” she said vaguely as she skulked off to do… something.

“She does have a point, sister,” Celestia admitted. “Not about reclaiming the stars, of course, but I feel we would be remiss if we should simply leave this moon be only for Astri to return from it. As much as it pains me to say it… I doubt that anything as quick as Harmony’s sacrifice would be able to entirely denature the magic that made her, and even if it did, there is the possibility that even that would not have been enough—that she had a true connection to the moon in spite of the evidence otherwise.”

Luna clenched her jaw. “You cannot be suggesting that we destroy it?”

Celestia shook her head. “No, but I feel we must do something.”

✶ ✶ ✶

It was like waking up from a dream with a kidney stone and a mouthful of hair, but it was waking up, and for that, Twilight was grateful. The hair, actually, was literal, as that was the situation in which she’d been when she’d fallen unconscious.

She had forgotten something which she had noticed the very first time she had consciously come to this place that was not quite her full existence as the night sky—back when the ocean of magic had been full of stars rather than the books she had reconceptualized them as during her experience in the desert of dreams.

She had forgotten how her ethereal mane had connected her to the ocean of magic.

She had forgotten that the ocean of magic, as much as the stars that were in it, was her. Even starless, she could no more suffocate from lack of magic than she could choke on a star, and now that she had reconnected to that magic… the concept of being ‘starless’ had ceased to exist as well.

She was everywhere. She was every star in the sky, every star in the ground, every star in every single pony, all at once. This was how she was supposed to be; not cutting bits of herself off every morning and reclaiming them at night. This—not Astri’s moon—was the answer she had been searching for all this time.

Speaking of Astri’s moon—that was the kidney stone feeling she had. Well, probably. Twilight had never had one herself, but she figured having a small moon lodged in distressing places was probably a good analogue. Jokes aside, though, it was… a rather big problem, actually. She felt a rising sense of panic as she realized just how big.

Astri’s moon was connected to her in a way, yet not of her. It was like a heavy, tumorous growth or a petrified limb weighing her down, and in spite of Twilight’s new state encompassing all the stars in the world—even those of starbeasts that she had not yet claimed—it was an alien thing that she held no dominion over it and so could not excise.

The more things she tried, the more nightmarish her situation was revealed to be; she was crippled, unable to reach into the physical world that seemed so close. She was everywhere, yet nowhere; trapped in a body that spanned nations, yet pinned in place like an insect pinned to a wall.

She could go back—cut herself off from her true existence once again—but what would that accomplish? She might be able to gather enough stars for a disconnected part of her to form a body, but it wasn’t certain to happen with any expedience, and she really, really didn’t want to mutilate herself again; cutting off her nose to spite her face was not a proper solution. No, she wouldn’t do that unless she had no other choice, and there was still one thing she could do.

She still had influence in this halfway world, and wouldn’t you know it? There was an alicorn in the area that she could punch. The sense of relief she felt at having a concrete goal lasted all of two seconds before she realized that with access to her moon, Astri might not actually be present for much longer.

Chanting ‘damn it damn it damn it’ in her mind, Twilight pushed and wiggled, taking stock of what she could actually do, and for once, it was actually more than she had expected. Wasting no time, she formed a body on the surface of her magic, still connected to it via her ethereal mane.

All around her, tiered bookshelves and rolling ladders formed into a great circular structure packed with books; the stars that fueled her magic. Twilight could not directly manipulate Astri’s moon—could not push it from her—but that didn’t mean it was completely beyond her grasp. Downwards from the circular island of library that Twilight had formed, more and more books came together, forming a structure that pierced down to the heart of her magic where Astri’s moon lie; a hollow, inverted tower down the center of which formed a great well, and it was through that book-lined shaft that Twilight dove, flapping her wings for speed.

She was in such a rush, pushing herself as fast as possible to prevent Astri from escaping back into the physical world where she could hurt her friends, that she got to watch with her own eyes as her library pierced into the structure representing Astri’s moon, worming its own wooden paneling and velvet sofas into the gaps in its structure. Perhaps in time, like a tree taking root, she could weather it away and break it up, but she didn’t expect to have that time.

Twilight caught herself on a ladder, slowing her decent as it extended downwards, speeding along its tracks for only a short moment before jerking to a stop and flinging Twilight the last few bookshelf-heights to Astri’s doorstep.

She had always wanted to do that; she was definitely going to have a say in making sure there were more sliding ladders when they rebuilt the palace library… which was a thing that was going to happen. Because everything was going to be fine. Twilight would just stomp right into Astri’s library, and… and… punch her?

Wait, what exactly had been the plan, here? Punch her? Really?

The sudden kerfuffle of black and white on top of her screaming, “Why—won’t—you—die?!”

Twilight rolled over on top of Astri, her ethereal mane whipping around along its length as it trailed up the shaft from which she’d come as she struggled to hold the alicorn down. “Because I have something to live for,” she growled back.

“And for that, you would—”

“Shut—up!” Twilight yelled, actually cracking Astri across the face with her hoof—so yes, apparently the plan was to punch her. It wasn’t nearly as cathartic as she had imagined. “I’m all for talking out my differences with somepony, but you just never stop, do you? You tried to kill Luna; if not for Harmony, you would have. Luna would have died never hearing me apologize—an apology that even you got, for all the good it was worth.”

Astri heaved Twilight off of her and scrambled back, eventually finding her way to her hooves. “They would have killed me!” she yelled.

“But you didn’t stop there, did you?” Twilight said as she slowly got to her feet. “Not only did you try to kill her, but you taunted her with what you would do to her reincarnation; that’s… it’s sick, and you disgust me. There is something wrong in you the same as there was something wrong in Solaria, and no amount of feigning victimhood for pity can disguise it. You may have been born yesterday, but you were never innocent; and I think that’s the problem. No childhood—no empathy—just a selfish, callous shell of an alicorn suffering meaninglessly for a hollow pride.”

”I am not a puppet!” Astri screamed, charging at Twilight to gore her with her horn and coming up short. “Stop treating me like I’m not a pony!”

“This has gone far past the need to deponify you,” Twilight retorted sourly. “It’s not about what you are—what you’ve done speaks for itself. Nothing you can say will change my mind—just as I don’t expect knowing that you helped make me whole again will change yours.”

“What?” Astri said, not looking shocked so much as confused, as if the sentence just didn’t make sense to her.

Twilight let her head fall in a solemn nod as she sighed, sending a ripple up the long stream of magic that was her mane. “Yes, when you tried to drown me in my own magic, I realized that my manifestation methodology was… incorrect. I admit it; I was wrong, I was doing it wrong, and it’s something that I’ll have to face the consequences of on my own time.

“But it also means that you’re wrong, and everything you believe about me is wrong. I’m not broken, I’m not defective and I’m not going to inevitably fall into madness, splintering off into more and more things like you. Harmony may not have intended to create me, but looking at how ponies have developed alongside magic, I think there was never any chance of it going as self-destructively wrong as we all thought. You see it in names and cutie marks—magic is not random. It’s not perfect; it’s not always what we expect, but it… finds a way, and the fact that my existence brings that quality to ponykind as a whole… I think it’s beautiful.”

“I think it’s an abomination,” was Astri’s predictable, automatic response.

Twilight let out a heavy sigh. “Right. I did say that you wouldn’t care, so I don’t know why I would have expected otherwise. That’s… it’s fine. Everything will end in sunshine and rainbows—or auroras and stargazing, I suppose—just so long as that path of magic takes me through you.”

“Fine. Let’s end this,” Astri snarled. “Do your worst.”

Twilight bent her knees and scratched at the ground with her hoof. She just needed to… do what, exactly? She had stopped Astri from escaping, which was good, but her plans still hadn’t evolved past the whole punching idea which had been kind of lacking, so long as she was being honest with herself. She was no fighter, and without her magic or orbital friendship lasers to fall back on, she really was scraping the bottom of the barrel as far as options for fighting alicorns went.

Wait.

Would that—yes, it would, and yes, she could do that. They were all out of the friendship type, but regular old orbital lasers? Those she could get.

All at once, Twilight and Astri rushed each other. Astri tried to gore Twilight down the side as she had Celestia, but she didn’t know that Twilight had been watching the last time and was expecting it. Twilight juked in the same direction as Astri and gored her down her open side. Twilight allowed herself to feel a little bit of vindication at not only actually winning an exchange of horn-to-horn combat, but also paying Astri back for what she’d done to Celestia—but that wasn’t the point. Astri would recover quickly, but Twilight just needed a few moments to seal her fate.

Not even looking back, Twilight continued her charge until she reached the edge of her library shaft and drew a book off the shelf. Quickly making sure that it wasn’t the star of an actual pony, she threw it to the ground and tore a page out with her hoof. Another short scramble later, she scrounged up a quill and inkpot and began to write.

Dear Princess Celestia,

Wait, no, not that. She had just scratched that line out and was about to write something else when a hoof cracked into the side of her head, sending her sprawling. For once, Astri said nothing, her face stuck in a grimace of pain as she stomped after Twilight, limping and bleeding black-spotted moonlight.

Twilight’s head swam from the impact, but she still had the wherewithal to grab the inkpot in her hoof and splash Astri with it, aiming for her eyes. Regretfully, Twilight then proceeded to waste any time this tactic had gained her by appreciating the fact that the ink had made no appreciable difference to Astri’s splotchy coat.

Just as Asti was about to reach her again, Twilight grabbed the quill and parchment in her teeth and scrambled back, considering her options. Astri continued to plod forward, a crazed wrath in her eyes when the whole floor jerkly tilted then shook with a wrenching crash, knocking the standing alicorn to the ground.

Twilight had pulled her shaft free from Astri’s moon, and as the two of them got to their hooves again—with Twilight taking every spare moment she could to write her letter—it was retracting to the surface, lifting them along with it. Unfortunately, some of Astri’s moon had come free, so she wouldn’t be deprived of magic, but Twilight would take any advantage she could get. Worse, she was also steadily losing an advantage as Astri’s wound was almost healed, causing her to limp less and less.

Still, Twilight wasn’t out of tricks. Astri came at her again, and Twilight leapt out of the way, dodging two—three times, until her back was to the wall. The next time Astri rushed her, Twilight grabbed the ladder behind her and let it pull her up, aiming a kick at Astri’s horn as she did so; it wasn’t a solid hit, but it certainly did piss her off.

Twilight used one hoof to scatter a shelf full of books on top of Astri and then used the flat, empty surface to scribble a few more lines of her letter before the irate alicorn leapt at her, taking to the air on her wings rather than bother with the no-doubt uncooperative furnishings. Twilight didn’t really have the fine control of the environment to effectively combat Astri, though she definitely could have made it uncomfortable given the opportunity. As such, the reading chair that Astri took to the face was, as it so happened, an entirely chance circumstance, but it did give Twilight a chance to reposition herself a few shelves higher with a couple flaps of her wings and write a few more lines.

Twilight’s luck in evading Astri couldn’t hold out forever, though, and on Astri’s next pass, Twilight ducked right instead of left and took a painful kick to the side. If that had been all, it would have been fine, but the kick also knocked her clear of the ladder, sending her crashing down onto the wooden floor more than two stories below. She wasn’t sure if she could actually break anything in this place, but the pain in her body told her it wasn’t for a lack of trying.

Twilight had to spit out the third of the quill that was still in her mouth, and was looking for the letter when a shadow descended on her from above. She tried to throw herself to the side, but her bad luck was all coming at once, and this time there was a distinctive snap as Astri came down on one of her back legs, forcing her to cry out in blinding pain. She was only saved from a follow-up attack by the surprise of the walls around them suddenly vanishing.

Twilight’s shaft, the book-lined walls of which had been pulling in as it retreated from Astri’s moon had finally reached the surface, and instead of stopping there, suddenly inverted into a great tower rising into the void-black sky. She had expected this; it was an important part of her plan. What wasn’t an important part of her plan was the sudden burst of wind that it caused.

Twilight desperately searched the towertop for the letter she had been writing, but there was no sign of it. She fell limp as her heart sank with the expectation that her luck had failed her three times in a row.

Then she shifted herself and noticed a little less friction under her broken leg than she had expected. Gritting her teeth, she ignored the stab of pain as she reached around her back and pulled the paper out from under her—it really was the letter. She hadn’t finished it, but it was good enough.

“Really?” Astri asked, as she walked calmly towards Twilight, her side having fully healed sometime during the fight—if it could be called that. “I can’t even begin to guess at what goes through your head on an average day, let alone in a situation like this, but is writing a strongly-worded letter really the best you can do?”

“I distinctly remember you asking for my worst,” Twilight snarked back at her, grinning through the pain with a smug, satisfied look on her face.

“Am I a joke to you?!” Astri bellowed, her voice echoing out over the ocean of magic.

Twilight’s face slowly relaxed into a somber mask as she looked Astri straight in the eyes. “No, Astri,” she said, crumbling the letter up into a small, shining star, which she chucked off the tower to Astri’s side with an involuntary grunt caused by a twinge of pain in her healing leg. “No,” she repeated as she slowly, agonizingly got herself up on three hooves, her injured rear leg curled up under her. “I promise you that I am taking this with all deadly seriousness,” she assured her, slowly backing away from Astri.

Just as Astri was striding forward confidently, opening her mouth to gloat or insult her some more, Twilight let out a heavy breath and said, “Goodbye, Astri,” before throwing herself backwards off the tower; her body dissolving into the clear, blue magic of her mane, quickly becoming invisible against the empty black sky.

“W-what?” Astri yelled, rushing to the edge of the tower she was now alone atop of. She whipped her head back and forth, expecting an attack from an unseen direction, but it never came. “What did you do?!” she screamed out into the darkness at the top of her lungs.

“WHAT DID YOU DO?!”

☾ ☾ ☾

Luna sat opposite Spike, looking at him with all seriousness while Celestia’s bandaged form lounged nearby, directing a squad of royal guards as they unloaded a wagon-sized crate from a paradoxically larger wagon.

“Do you understand what we need you to do, Spike?” she asked, forcing herself to appear gentle and kind when inside she was anything but.

Spike chewed at his lip, glancing uneasily at the crate. “Yeah, you’re going to use the Dragon Emperor’s Toe Ring to age me up into an ancient dragon, and then you want me to fly up to the moon that looks like it was put back together with super glue and use my fire breath to mail it to Rainbow Dash in Tartarus.”

Luna gave him a grave, dignified nod. “Very good, Spike. Rest assured, we will be able to return you to your proper stature post-haste once your mission is complete; we would not ask you to participate so otherwise.”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” he said waving off the issue as it was no less than the third time they had covered the matter. Truthfully, Luna was nervous and she was taking it out on the young drake. “But, uh, Luna? Why is Rainbow Dash in Tartarus?”

Luna stared blankly at Spike for an awkwardly long time. “So that we have somepony for you to send it to, of course. Most of the actual beings already imprisoned there are far too dangerous to drop a powerful moon on top of. She volunteered, of course.” Not that it was difficult to get Rainbow Dash to volunteer for anything, Luna added silently.

Spike returned Luna’s long look. “Riiiiight,” he said, drawing the word out in suspicion. “Wait, drop a moon on?”

Luna waved her hoof to the side, dismissing the matter. “She will be fine,” she reassured him.

Just as Spike was considering whether or not he should attempt to belabor the issue, a tiny star bonked Luna on the head from behind and began to orbit her, just barely grazing the tip of her horn each time it passed in front of her. Annoyed, she snatched it out of the air, just as the true significance of its presence dawned on her.

With incredible care, Luna reached into the star and found, curiously, the impression of a single, torn page. Taking a deep breath and swallowing before letting it out, she took the greatest care and attention as she turned the image over in her mind.

What would it be? An apology? A tirade? A plea for rescue? Perhaps it would even be… of the romantic sort, she thought, blushing. Perhaps it would be best for her to save it for later perusal when the young drake was not present—but no; she chided herself. It could be important—so she read.

~~Dear Princess Celestia,~~

Luna,

Plz b 2 pewpew bitchmoon kthx

Luv u Twili

Luna stared blankly at the page. The hoofwriting was awful, it was torn, smeared with dust and there was the faintest pattern of wrinkles that gave the impression that it had been sat on at one point. A single tear ran down Luna’s cheek as she read the last line over and over and ran her hoof down the probable outline of Twilight’s rump on the page.

Luv u Twili

Luv u Twili

Luv u Twili

Luna clutched the star to her chest like it was the most precious thing in the world, all the while her moon darkened in the sky preceding a stark white flash that shattered and scattered the offending celestial object into a cloud of dust that slowly, mote by mote took on the light of stars that would eventually form a shining ring around Equestria.

“Luna—what the fuck?!” came the angry cry of Celestia’s voice, but she didn’t care; she had proof that Twilight was alive, and they could communicate. With both of those, the chances that they could bring her home had just risen… astronomically.

And then, a beautiful lavender figure clad in an alicorn’s regalia coalesced out of starlight right in front of her, and those chances became irrelevant. Everything became irrelevant. The two of them stepped together in utter silence, pulled each other close, kissed and collapsed together crying.

It was over. It wasn’t the kind of victory that they were used to; they had lost somepony, and neither of them were entirely without blame, but here and now, in the dark of the night they had each other, and that was enough.

Author's Note

• Patreon Funded •

Merry Christmas!

Epilogue

✶ ✶ ✶

“This is perfect,” Twilight mused aloud as she lay curled up with Luna, bundled in a veritable nest of sheets and blankets. The room was a mess; the bed was broken, propped up against the wall, personal items were scattered everywhere and the walls were splintered with cracks.

It had been like that when they’d gotten there, honest.

Well, Luna had been the one to move the bed, as against the wall was the nearest to flat she could get it, but otherwise, it really was pretty much as-is; being half-collapsed and wrapped in a magic tree had a way of doing that to a palace. All of the other options they’d had for places to spend the night would have been… awkward.

“Hm?” Luna stirred, making a show of craning her neck around to look at the disaster around them. “What part of this is perfect, aside from the company? I daresay it’s barely habitable.”

“Habitable?” Twilight scoffed, burying herself deeper into Luna’s side. “It would take some creative paperwork to keep it classed as a structure; there isn’t even a ground floor any more, and I’m pretty sure the debris alone qualifies it as a hazard. I’d question the sanity of anypony mortal who even sets hoof in here, and a pegasus with a hardhat would still need liability waivers and decuple hazard pay.

Luna stopped and considered that for a moment. “Decuple?” she asked.

“Like double, but for tenfold,” Twilight explained, stretching her legs out.

“Ah,” Luna said. “But you did specify mortals, and we do seem to have a sudden glut of ponies not covered by such a term.

Twilight’s mouth curled up in a contented smile. “Well, that’s what makes it perfect,” she explained. “Only the ponies we care about can come bother us.”

Luna let out a put-upon sigh and pulled Twilight closer to her. “You’re not going to become a hermit, are you? I still think…” Luna paused, winced, and took a moment to collect herself. “It would sadden me if I was the only pony you choose to interact with. I have made that mistake, you know, and while I will not tell you what to do, I do believe that the most important part of living forever is to actually live forever. That, I think, is something that even my sister has not mastered.”

Twilight shifted herself to look into Luna’s eyes for a moment, sighed and rested her horn beside hers. “I promise not to become a hermit,” she said. “But I also don’t think that just dropping me on a throne like we did is a good idea either. I might not have been in a right mind… at any point since I became an alicorn, I suppose… but I don’t think the conclusions I came to were entirely wrong either. I always imagined myself doing that—taking up clerical and administrative work under or beside Celestia—but that was before I came to Ponyville and grew as a pony.”

“You would leave me to administrate this mess myself?” Luna teased. “What do you think you shall do, then?”

“I’m pretty sure that my just not being there will cut your workload in half,” Twilight shot back with joking self-deprecation. “As much as ‘studying friendship’ ranks up there with the Librararchy as far as legitimizing ridiculous things goes… it wouldn’t hurt to go back to it for a bit as a refresher. I think I’ll help build the new palace, for starters.” Twilight momentarily hesitated, and pulled her head back to look at Luna again. “You’re really okay with me not keeping you company at court?”

“You not having a throne does not mean that you cannot bring a lounge chair from time to time,” Luna said touching her nose to Twilight’s. “But yes, I will manage. It will give us things to talk about, and I have no intention of running myself ragged as Celestia does.”

Twilight kept her snicker as subdued as possible to keep from ruining the quiet mood. “A lounge chair, hm? Well, when you put it like that, I’d be a hypocrite not to take advantage of your offer since I told Applejack off for not being comfortable enough with my position to walk into court with a bag of popcorn. I’ll have to make sure my apology to her doesn’t involve reneging on that; we really need to get her more comfortable with grandiose places.”

“Perhaps involve her in the building of the new palace?” Luna suggested, thoughtful. “More than she already has been, that is, if you plan on keeping the tree.”

“I did always enjoy living in that old tree,” Twilight mused, glancing out the window that was mostly covered in the spiral of trunk that was supporting the remains of the palace. “Maybe that should be the library part of the palace,” she said. “Just one big spiral, with ladders on rails that go all the way up.”

“The contrast would be interesting,” Luna agreed. “Though expecting to be able to just use the thing as-is might be rather optimistic. Projects have a way of getting out of hoof.”

“Projects like ruling a nation?” Twilight retorted playfully, winding back to the subject of Luna dealing with things on her own. “You do remember that Celestia abdicated a lot of responsibility to us when it was us that was going to be handling things, right? She no longer has Harmony to take care of, but she should probably be taking some time off regardless, especially with how things turned out.”

Luna rolled her eyes. “Yes, Twilight, I shall be fine. The government may not come out of our conflict entirely intact, but I assure you that I shall emerge victorious without needing to interrupt my sister’s mourning.”

Twilight blinked. “Okay, now I’m actually concerned-worried, not just doting-worried.”

“Oh, fie on that,” Luna said with a scoff. “It is natural for governments to go through periods of purging when the list of laws grows too long for any pony to know and managing them becomes untenable. It is like forest fires—if ponies do not clear the deadfall from time to time themselves, then fire and lightning will do it in their stead and all will be the worse for it. In the Griffon Kingdoms, revolution can be bloody and hard-won; here in Equestria, I expect Blueblood to throw a hissy-fit over parchment subsidies.”

Twilight considered that for a moment. “I’m pretty sure it’s the height of naïveté to assume any kind of revolution or reformation will be simple, but you can have your fun so long as you’re not late for our dates.”

“Oh?” Luna said, arching an eyebrow. “Are we dating, then?”

Twilight hoofed Luna in the chest with a smile. “We’d better be,” she snarked. “I’m pretty sure librararchies count as engagement gifts.”

“Ah,” Luna said, taking the hoof that Twilight had hit her with in her own. “But you returned that gift, did you not? Perhaps I shall have to seek out another such gift to replace it.”

Twilight looked away, blushing more out of embarrassment for her actions than Luna’s proposition. “That kind of backfired, actually,” she mumbled. “It turns out you can’t just throw away a nation like an engagement ring—there’s paperwork involved and you have to actually arrange to give it away to someone in whole or in parts.”

“Indeed?” Luna asked with a wry look. “That sounds like needlessly excessive bureaucracy if I have ever heard of it. I shall make it the first profligate law I prune, as an example to the others.”

“I’ve already waived my right to tell you what you do with Equestria, but at least don’t change the name, okay? We want Celestia to be able to actually recognize it when she comes back from her vacation.”

Luna let out a snort of laughter. “Please—as if she will be able to keep her nose out of it long enough to be surprised by anything. Just because she should take a long break does not mean that she will.”

“It might be different this time,” Twilight hedged. “She did seem to take what happened to Harmony a little harder than us. So did Discord, actually.”

Luna frowned, considering it. “I think, unlike you, who made some connection with her, and I, who immediately disliked her, Celestia had not yet decided how to feel about Harmony in the short time when she was with us. Do remember that you blatantly offered Harmony up as a romantic interest to Celestia not half an hour after Harmony tried to kill her, thinking her to be Solaria.”

“That was… not one of my finer moments, when you put it like that,” Twilight grumbled, following by lapsing into silence for a moment. “It’s obvious that neither of us thinks Celestia will be able to bring her back, isn’t it?”

“Celestia will, as she always has, succeed in what she sets out to do—but her success in this is only half of the matter. Harmony herself must want to live, and that is not always a simple thing.”

☼ ☼ ☼

As Celestia ascended the side of Canterlot mountain pulling a wagon of gold and jewels appropriated from the treasury, she couldn’t help but reflect on the matter at hoof. It was hard to believe that the pile of twisted metal in the saddlebags on her back had been any kind of pony, let alone an alicorn.

Her feelings about Harmony were complicated, but among them were guilts of several flavors. That the situation had broken down in such a way that Harmony had needed to sacrifice herself to save Luna in the first place felt like a failing on her part. She felt bad for being caught unprepared by Astri’s desperate escape, and that she hadn’t even borne witness to it was a particular regret.

These burdens, she was used to as much as one could be. She had lost—and failed—many ponies in her lifetime as a ruler of a nation. It was inevitable, and she could only endeavor that she would always do her best.

The fresh guilts that she wasn’t used to, on the other hoof, shamed and disappointed her. There were several of these, all mixed up around the fact that she did not entirely want Harmony back.

Part of it was simply recognizing that Harmony had not welcomed life to begin with, though that, perhaps, could have been overcome with time.

Another part was the simple pragmatic conclusion that the Elements of Harmony had been more useful and more powerful than the alicorn herself. Perhaps this was because she had needed the guidance of the pure of heart to truly connect with the purity of purpose that slept inside of her; if so, then that, too, might have been a path that she could have walked eventually.

If it had been just those things, part of Celestia might have shamefully hoped for the easier option, but the path forward would still have been clear; she would never have seriously considered anything else.

No, if all that Harmony had needed from her was a mentor and guide, she would have done her best and hopefully one day be proud of the mare that Harmony could have become—but that was not all that Harmony had needed from her; not according to Twilight Sparkle.

Celestia also felt guilty for the envy she felt for what her student and sister had, and while that, too, was a situation where her path was clear—if one that ached more than the others—it was also the root of her larger problem, because when Celestia reflected on the assertion that Harmony was her only option for romance, well… the only feelings she could drudge up for the matter were pangs of disappointment.

She didn’t truly blame Twilight her indiscretion. Certainly, she had not helped matters, but she would have inevitably considered it on her own, if only to distract herself from wanting what she could not have. Truthfully, she should probably thank Twilight, if only for preventing her from going too far down the rabbit hole looking for love in all the wrong places, considering that the list of otherwise eligible immortals included Discord.

Honestly, if Twilight had told her that Discord were her destined lover… well, she would have assumed it a joke, but it still wouldn’t have been as bad as Harmony. Discord’s antics made her feel like a parent with a rowdy child, trying to keep up, but Harmony just made her feel old—full stop.

Perhaps she was wrong, though. Perhaps Harmony would return and find wonder in the world; perhaps she would develop a biting sense of humor or become an incorrigible lech. One could say that this, too, was something that could be worked on—that they could fix.

But she shouldn’t—she couldn’t go into things want to ‘fix’ her. She could coax and guide a student to make them better to face the world, but she knew better than to try and change somepony so they might make a better partner for her. There was a small part of her that whispered in her ear to say that, intentional or not, this is what she had done with Twilight, and that would have turned out fine if not for matters that she could not have foreseen, but she quashed it with great prejudice. It was a line that she would not cross.

Shivering, she shook the idea from her train of thought. There was no point in tormenting herself drudging endlessly through moral quagmires when in all likelihood there would be no Harmony for her to pervert her mentorship of. She would find out soon enough, in any case; she had arrived at the summit—or close enough to it. The actual peak of the mountain was another few dozen feet up, but Canterlot mountain was as sharply topped as it appeared to be from a distance, and actually standing atop it, while satisfying a sense of drama, was not necessary.

The last time that Celestia had forced Harmony to manifest, she had used Canterlot’s largest telescope to focus the light of her sun in order to provide the power and environment that she had needed. This had been necessary because, unlike Luna, whose absolute control over her light had been shown the night previous, Celestia’s light became more of a thick, viscous conduit for her magic that she could only direct in heaving gouts of power when she took hold of it, as she had when fighting off the nameless dragon that Twilight and Luna had riled up.

What, then, was she doing here now? During her first, nearly disastrous attempt to create a body for Harmony, overexposure to Celestia’s magic had nearly killed the weakened alicorn, so what did she plan to do here, where her access to her magic was at its greatest?

Quite a lot, actually.

Her first action was to undo the harness and decouple herself from the wagon. Once she was free, she took a moment just to stretch and rest. With it being daylight, she could have simply remanifested herself as Twilight had become accustomed to doing, but for her, the relief she felt was worth the ache in her muscles it took to bring it about, and it wasn’t often she got a chance to experience it.

Once she was satisfied, her muscles cooling, Celestia walked around to the back of the wagon and made to undo the latch at the back. Somehow, it had stuck. Not terribly concerned, she turned around and gave the side of the wagon a good buck, successfully knocking the latch—and something else loose amidst an avalanche of riches that came pouring out the back.

“Oof, ow,” grumbled Discord as he pulled himself free of the surprisingly heavy mass wearing several necklaces, two crowns and somehow having found the gaudiest of rings to fit all the digits on both his lion’s paw and griffon talon. “I swear, this is the last time I ride coach.”

Celestia rolled her eyes, not terribly perturbed by Discord’s presence—which wasn’t a thought that she’d ever expected to have, but it was easier to entertain his sense of humor when he was no longer capable of turning the sky into blurple jelly when he was pitching a fit.

“Hello, Discord,” she said, welcoming him with as placid and serene a smile as she could manage, working around him to levitate the gold into a clean mound, plucking bits and bobs off of Discord as she went. “To what do I owe the pleas—oh.” Celestia halted her preparations and took a moment to look him over in a new light. “You… actually care about her?” she asked, caught somewhat dumbfounded by the concept, not just because it was unusual for him, but because he might actually be the only one who really, honestly did.

“Pfah! Me? Care? Don’t be absurd,” he insisted, waving the notion off like a bothersome fly. “But, ah, you know, since you mentioned it, I don’t suppose you’d mind if I stuck around and watched? Professional curiosity, you understand. In magic. I was quite the magic-dooer in my time.”

“Magic-dooer?” Celestia repeated, cracking a wry smile. “Is that a technical term?”

“Don’t listen to these kids nowadays with their horns and thaumamagical-whastsits,” he said, miming as if shoving the very idea away with his hands. “Real magic-doing comes from the spleen.”

“Not the heart?” Celestia asked, playing along.

“The heart?” Discord repeated, scoffing. “As if the heart ever has time for magic, always thump-ba-dumping—no creativity, no pizazz.” Discord sidled up next to Celestia and—to her stunned shock, since she’d thought him completely without his tricks—opened his chest just a crack as if it were a trenchcoat and he was selling watches. Inside, Celestia saw what looked like a stylized heart burning green with dragonfire. “No, my dear, the heart functions on an entirely different set of priorities.”

“I… see,” Celestia said, though she really didn’t. Her short briefing on Discord’s origins had been rather truncated, given Harmony’s presence at the time and her desire not to revisit past events. Clearly some important aspects had been left out. “In any case,” she continued, extracting herself from Discord’s personal space as he put his heart away. “You are quite welcome to watch my magic-doing, so long as you don’t interfere.”

“Interfere?” he asked, predictably feigning innocence. “Why Celestia, it’s as if you don’t even know me.”

Deciding that it probably would have ruined the mood if she’d pointed out that she really didn’t know him all that well, Celestia continued her preparations, shooing him away from the pile of gold and separating out the gemstones, using small applications of her magic to soften the fittings where necessary. When she was finally just about ready, she removed the saddlebags containing the damaged pieces of Harmony that Fluttershy had collected, thinking to set them away from her work area for the time being, and it was then that an idea struck her.

Looking down at the saddlebags floating in her magic, Celestia asked herself if this was really a good idea, ignored herself and held them out to Discord. “Would you like to hold her?” she asked. “I need her kept away from too much of my magic.”

Discord hesitated, but soon enough took the saddlebags from Celestia without a word. Sometimes, she thought as she watched him back away, it really was just like dealing with a rambunctious child. He was willful and prone to break his toys when he threw a fit, but not altogether a bad pony… dragon… whatever-thing.

Finally ready for the first stage, she pushed thoughts of Discord from her mind and pulled the thinnest strand of her magic from the sun as she was able and got to work fashioning something much like her original attempt—a golden sarcophagus imbued with her magic. The metal, saturated with enough power to destroy Canterlot, would make it impossible for any other magic to coexist, thus preventing any magical interference from outside the shell.

To this, she added the gemstones, lining the inside of it from wall to wall until it shimmered like a geode, each one enchanted with a particular spell attuned to her magic. The spell would crystalize her magic, containing and preventing it from damaging what would be placed inside.

Finally, quickly, as the cracks between the gemstones began to fill with crystalized magic, Celestia added more gold—a thick, heavy layer of it heated by proxy in a crucible and poured in by hoof so as to leave it as magically neutral as possible. This final layer all but filled the inside of the sarcophagus, leaving only a vague hollow pony shape that was not quite a mould in the center of it, shaped in such a way as to circulate the trickle of magic that Harmony’s remains were producing in the same way that Celestia had before. By the time she was finished, Celestia was sweating from handling the molten metal and was glad to step away from it, if only for a moment.

Wasting no time, she waved Discord over. “Quickly, we must place her inside and completely seal it. The remaining heat should do no harm.”

Discord looked dubiously at the contraption resembling both an implement of torture and something to bury a pony in, but didn’t hesitate in handing over the saddlebags and helping to arrange the remains of Harmony inside of it without simply dumping them in like a sack of plaster. Once that was done, Celestia did as she had said and shut the sarcophagus with a heavy, muted thud that was more felt than heard in the silence of the windswept mountaintop. Small additions of her empowered gold were made to ensure the seal, and then, it was done.

“And now?” Discord prompted.

Celestia let out a heavy breath and walked over to the wagon. Hopping up into the back with the slight help of her wings, she set about to find herself a comfortable place to sit. “Now we wait and see.”

And so they waited, and Celestia and Discord talked. It was an interesting experience for her, if a little frustrating at times, because of all the things that Discord was, he was never contrite or apologetic for anything he’d done. He was childish, but not a child. In fact, the more she talked to him, the more she thought of him instead as an old hermit that had long lost any care for the trappings of maturity, simple in his desire for novelty and so isolated that the concerns of others had ceased to register. She would almost feel guilty for sealing him in stone for a thousand years if not for the fact that his isolation had been measured in eons before she had even been born and he had not changed appreciably since—at least, not until he had lost his powers to Twilight’s ascension.

Now… she didn’t know what to think, or how to judge him. As he was not a child and had, at one point, known, understood and abided by the tenets of society, his actions could not be dismissed under the defense of ignorance. Being immortal, senility did not apply to him, but all the same, he had long since broken in ways and for reasons that he could not be blamed for. Responsibility for the actions of a drunk or otherwise mentally impaired pony’s actions sat squarely on the pony who had put them in that state, but assigning blame… wasn’t entirely the question at hoof. The question was what to do and how to treat him.

In the end, she failed to come to a reasonable conclusion by the time the sun was setting in the sky and she decided that it had been long enough. She waited for the next lull in the conversation, took a breath to prepare herself, and stood up.

“Is she…?” Discord asked.

Celestia hesitated, realizing that she had not really explained her expectations. “Perhaps,” was her vague response. “Normally I would expect a newly manifest alicorn to break free, but with how Harmony was, I can envision her waking up in an enclosed space and deciding to simply lay there unmoving. Alternatively, she may simply require more time; the magic that the remains were producing was quite a bit weaker than when she was the Elements of Harmony.”

When Celestia cracked open the sarcophagus, however, it became clear that Harmony was not simply waiting for them, nor did she require more time. What had formed inside the mass gold was… not an alicorn—not yet, though that was perhaps too optimistic a way to say it. The magically-neutral gold had been cannibalized like the white of a yolk, as it had been meant to, but what had grown in its place was a twisted and gnarled bramble, and at the heart of it, a seed.

Celestia look in a long, slow breath and let it out. “I’m sorry,” she said, and to her relief, she actually was.

“Ah, well,” Discord said, turning away from the sight while giving every impression that he was only mildly disappointed. “It was nice while it lasted.”

Celestia shook her head and let him be. She was, as she had expected to be, a little bit relieved. Things had just become much simpler for her.

They… had gotten simpler, right? True, a host of unappealing futures had just been snuffed out, but a greater number of uncertain futures had just as assuredly taken their place, and it was difficult to say if any of them were much better.

Presumably, they would have four alicorns once more, only this time instead of being faced with the moral dilemma of trying to change a guileless ancient alicorn to better suit her, she would have a foal; a blank slate who was completely innocent with only Harmony’s power to sustain her. Even if Celestia did not raise her, even if she somehow managed to avoid tainting their interactions with the shadow of what was expected to come later, this new alicorn would never be her equal.

Was that so important? It only took a brief look at the past to assure her that yes, it really was. As much as Celestia’s leadership and presence had been a stabilizing influence for Equestria, so, too, could its greatest crises and unrest be laid at the hooves of alicorns, and this was not even a trend limited to her own lengthy lifetime. What future disaster would she be inviting by bringing into the world a crippled alicorn? One who would be as a foal to her, yet expected to stand beside her not just as a ruler, but as a lover?

Celestia could no longer hide behind her innocence so long-held and recently lost; she would act appropriately as she always had, but her most recent experience with her ex-student had made it clear that she would never be able to look at this alicorn without searching and wishing for any sign of the feelings that both Twilight and Luna had agreed to be inevitable, even when the two of them were otherwise at odds. Indeed, what cruelty it would be if Celestia should have to retread all the issues that had troubled not only her relationship with Twilight, but her relationship with Luna as well?

Ah, but she was once again getting carried away with ideas of what might be. She had never used to do this, but then, she had never been so regularly conflicted over what she should or should like to do. She was not used to temptation; was it any wonder that her first reaction was to remove it as quickly as possible?

It seemed like so simple an idea at first, to make the two of them equal. Celestia did not know the story of the previous alicorn of the sun, but she did know that there had been four alicorns—that there were supposed to be four alicorns—and yet Twilight had referred to Harmony as ‘the last good that she’d had.’ If the scales had been thrown out of balance by her predecessor, then surely it was possible for her to correct them? Surely it was her duty to correct them?

There was just the tiny issue of what that might actually entail. There were many possibilities and many roads she could take to get to each one, but the consequences choosing poorly might take an age to surface and longer to be overcome; the world might not survive an outwardly-hostile alicorn, should Celestia’s actions here today create one.

Here today? Surely this was not so urgent, she told herself, and yet she knew why a part of her was pushing her to the immediate, extreme solution—because for something this important, she could not contaminate her choice with wants or wishes, hopes and dreams for what might be. She could not rely on things going right, or the truth of the matter never coming to light. Her choice would have to be unassailable and entirely selfless, and there was only one, truly selfless option—the coward’s option—to cast herself into the same role as her destined mate and let fate take its course.

It was not something she would normally do, and so the part of her that had come to that conclusion insisted that she could not go home to plan and to think. Doing so was the only reasonable option—but if this truly was the necessary path, then she could not afford to be reasonable here. She could not afford to calculate the pros and cons or gather more information.

It was a deceptively tempting idea, to simply not consider too closely what she would be doing. She’d had quite enough of her new habit of overthinking matters, so the idea that overthinking here would result in the wrong answer—well, it was more compelling than it really should have been. Ironically, it was not her compassion, her sense of responsibility or even her rationality that convinced her how foolish she was being—it was her pride.

Celestia had made many hard decisions in her life—made many sacrifices—and she had not relied on any mental gymnastics or avoiding the issue in order to do so. If there was a sacrifice to be made, she would make it, but only after giving the matter due consideration. This was not urgent; it was not a matter of life and death just yet. The only danger was that her conviction might falter—that too much time and examination would rob her of the urgency that would allow her to do what needed to be done—and at that, her pride rebelled.

No—no matter her frustration with these what-ifs and could-bes, she would not throw herself blindly into the unknown when she had both the time and the resources available to do otherwise.

✶ ✶ ✶

There had been a time in Twilight’s life when the idea of waking up to the sun on her face had been a pleasant one and the very idea of a lazy day in bed would have offended her, yet here she was on the second morning since her latest ordeal and both of those preconceptions were being challenged.

Truthfully, Twilight had planned on actually leaving bed this day, but not mere several minutes after dawn, nor at the incessant physical prodding of the sun’s hoof on her nose. “What?” Twilight grunted, attempting to project her grumpiness into a physical force—at least until it dawned on her that she was currently in bed with the sun’s sister. “C—Celestia!” she shouted, caught between indignant and embarrassed as she pulled the covers up over herself and Luna, who was slower on the uptake and only stirring due to the commotion.

“Oh good, you are awake,” Celestia observed with the faux-innocence of mothers the world around. “Now, Discord wasn’t very useful—”

“This surprises you?” came the automatic, nearly-incomprehensible reply from Luna as she snuggled into Twilight’s side, displaying the greater amount of practice she had in ignoring her sister.

“—but he was able to give me the general idea,” Celestia continued, doing the same. “All I should need to know is what it was that haunted Solaria after her genesis?”

“This little book club chat couldn’t have waited until breakfast?” Twilight whined, mostly for effect. “It was love. Luma and Vita loved each other and expected bliss in eternal unity or something, but all they got was for Solaria to feel like she had lost two lovers.”

“Hrm, so, likely full preservation of both minds merged in a complete enough way as to cause mental dysphoria…” Celestia mused to herself under her breath, beginning to pace about the tilted room. “But since the seed is a blank slate, there should be no appreciable degradation… Yes. Yes, that should work.” Suddenly, Celestia seemed to recall where she was and who she was with. “Thank you, Twilight, this helps a lot," she said, giving Twilight a beatific smile as she dissolved into a diffusion of sunlight that warmed up the room.

Twilight just sat there, her jumbled, half-awake brain trying to make sense of what had just happened. “I’m not sure exactly what that was, but I feel like I should be concerned.”

The hoof that wrapped around Twilight and pulled her back down onto the bed disagreed. It was very persuasive, and soon enough, all thoughts of Celestia’s cryptic visit were lost in the haze of more pleasant events.

☼ ☼ ☼

Celestia was concerned, but not entirely surprised to return to her chambers where she had left the Seed of Harmony to find Discord absent. Well, regardless, a quick check showed nothing amiss, so she supposed no harm was done. In the end, the two of them could converse civilly and even joke, but it would take a great deal of time and effort on both their parts to really connect with one another, and only time would tell if either of them would bother. A year ago, she might have considered it, but now… now Twilight could manufacture immortals on a whim if they should desire it, and there was, of course, Celestia’s current course of action, which she had to be getting on with.

She had to stop and ask herself if she was rushing things again, but with Twilight providing the final piece of the puzzle, there was actually little reason to wait. In fact, if her conclusions were correct, things should go quite smoothly. Publically, she might be seen to lose some stature, if only because it could be so easily explained away that it was not worth hiding, but the other matter should be quite easy to keep under wraps. Who knows? Perhaps she would even use the opportunity take some time off. Not the every other day that she’d actually be able to, of course, but enough to both get some time off and catch up on paperwork. It would be a novel experience, if nothing else.

In truth, there probably were some ponies that Celestia ought to warn, but she was not used to explaining herself, nor did she expect anyone to truly understand her feelings on the matter. It was not lightly that she considered taking the Seed of Harmony into herself, let alone then portioning her essence back out into two alicorns. From her understanding of the matter, the seed should leave her unchanged, as should the division. How was she to explain to anypony that the solution which she had come to accept would produce an identical twin… whom she was likely to end up involved with?

Celestia was not quite that much of a narcissist, she told herself, though if gender had not mattered for Twilight and Luna, it was quite possible that other barriers of nature and genetics would be equally as ineffective in preventing it. Truthfully, as much as Celestia did envy Twilight and Luna their relationship, she was expecting nothing of the sort from this. That, actually, was an attractive aspect of it for her, as it stripped all the awkward expectations from the whole affair—at least initially. And if things did develop between the two of them…? Well, if it came up—if she actually found herself desiring her other half—then it would be proof of its own validity, and she would not fight it.

No, she was most assuredly not going to be sharing her thoughts and reasoning with anypony else, and thus she could come up with no further reason to put it off. Lifting up the Seed of Harmony in her magic, Celestia took it over to her balcony overlooking the city of Canterlot, which she would soon be sharing. Carefully, she reared up and plucked the seed from her magic, shifting so that she could hold it tightly to her chest as she leapt out into the open sky, heading for the fresh sunrise.

In the ruddy light of early dawn, she failed to notice that the Seed of Harmony had acquired a warm, green glow that it had not had previously.

✶ ✶ ✶

It was nearly noon before Twilight and Luna finally managed to bring themselves to venture out into the outside world in search of coffee and a greasy, indulgent breakfast of eggs, hayfries and daffodils. As the two of them walked down the street, Twilight noticed that the ponies around them seemed to be more skittish and gossipy than usual, though she supposed that they had good reason to be, given recent events. Thankfully, Celestia would have been smoothing things over these past few days, so things shouldn’t have gotten too out of hoof.

Twilight hmmed. Speaking of Celestia, there had been that strange visit from her this morning; what had that been about? Twilight only remembered that Celestia had asked about Solaria and that it had concerned her at the time, though she hadn’t been able to puzzle out why before Luna had, ahh, distracted her. Well, in the light of day—and fighting down a blush—Twilight supposed that her concern must have been for what Celestia’s question implied. Harmony hadn’t wanted to be reminded about Solaria, so they had all agreed not to talk about her. If Celestia was doing so, then that probably meant that Harmony was gone after all.

With that matter solved to her satisfaction, Twilight set her mind to more immediate pursuits, such as the aforementioned coffee and breakfast, the lack of which, she supposed, was a valid downside to having a ruined palace that was all but impassable to mortal ponies. Nevertheless, it wasn’t difficult to identify a cozy little cafe with a rooftop terrace in the sun that would suit their purposes perfectly. Orders were made, stairs were climbed and soon enough Twilight was sitting back with a warm cup of coffee, languidly inhaling its aroma and letting it warm her up.

It was amazing what difference a change in perspective and not metaphysically torturing her soul on a regular basis could make on her outlook. Things were far from perfect and she had a long road ahead of her before she’d be able to consider things truly settled, but far from it being daunting and stressful, she was actually looking forward to it.

Twilight leaned back in her chair, looking up at the beautiful noonday confluence of the shimmering thermal bloom in the sky crossing in front of the great rainbow ring of light, bathing the entire celestial backdrop in a beautiful lightshow. Yes, come what may, she had a feeling that things were going to be just fi—wait, what?

It took a physical effort in order for Twilight to quite believe what she was seeing, and the impact of her hoof on her face that followed hurt enough that she almost remanifest herself to fix it, forgetting that she couldn’t do that anymore now that she was manifest purely from starlight. “Oh, Celestia, what did you do now?”

“Ah, yes, well,” said a rather moderately-sized Celestia, suddenly sitting to Twilight’s left at the table. “I believe that Discord may have neglected to mention a few things, though in hindsight, perhaps they should have been obvious.”

“He also,” said… another Celestia, opposite her twin at the table. “Appears to have gotten his own plan mixed up in mine, having had something of a similar idea, though I would question his motives if I believed him still alive.”

Twilight frowned into her cup of coffee, wondering just what had been in it. She took another sip from the cup, but it tasted fine, so she squinted and gave the Celestias another once-over. Nope, there were still two of them, each only about Luna’s size and now that she was looking closer, their features were a little strange. In spite of being closer in size to a normal pony, they still looked particularly svelte and a little angular, especially in the muzzle and neck. As Twilight was making her examination, quickly double-checking on the other pony each discrepancy she found, one of the Celestias shied under her scrutiny, self-consciously running a long, thin tongue over a line of deadly, sharp teeth. Somehow, it was only then that she noticed that both of them had slit-pupiled eyes.

Equestrias oldest, most traditional diarch was, apparently, now two-thirds of a triarchy and half-dragon.

“Oh, wow, the ponies are going to love this,” Twilight groaned, dropping her head onto the table and narrowly missing her breakfast, which had been delivered to the table at some point. Well, at least she had hayfries. Mm, they were good hayfries, too. “I am so glad this is not my problem anymore.”

“Twilight!” Luna objected, giving her her best doe-eyes and hamming it up. “Thou wouldst leave me to the jackals in mine time of need?”

Twilight quickly pulled herself off the table, waving her hooves in front of herself and licking a daffodil petal off the corner of her mouth. “Hey, don’t look at me—I’ve done enough damage lately! Alicorn or not, I’m pretty sure they’d actually revolt if I went back on my word and started hoofing out decrees again!”

“Yes, well, I am Nightmare Moon, and…” Luna gestured vaguely at her ‘sisters.’ “I am not entirely certain that they will not revolt regardless.”

“I mean, to be fair, you were planning a revolution anyway,” Twilight said, pointing at Luna with a hayfry.

Both of the Celestias seemed to find this very interesting. “Luna!” they shouted in unison.

The mare in question suddenly looked very sheepish, unsure which direction to look. “I prefer the word reformation, thank you, Twilight,” she said, shooting her marefriend a quick, deadpan look before shifting her attention back to the two somewhat irate solar alicorns. “I had just intended to prune a few laws—well, a lot of laws, but you did dump a lot of work on us, which, as it turns out, will just be me, so it is rather justified.”

After giving Luna moment to sweat, the two Celestias settled back into their chairs with a synchronized huff, their ire quelled. “I suppose it was about time,” one Celestia admitted.

“But I shouldn’t need to point out what effect that would likely have now,” said the other.

“Yes, yes,” Luna said, rolling her eyes as she sampled the plate in front of her. She had forgone her usual noxious order in favor of duplicating Twilight’s, and it was actually quite good. “I am the last hope for the traditionalists to cling to like half-weaned koalas; I promise that I shall only abuse this sacred duty for my own amusement in as covert a manner as possible.”

The two Celestias shared a doubtful glance.

“I can be covert!” Luna insisted, pouting indignantly.

Twilight shook her head at the sisters’ antics. “Okay, but seriously, does anypony here actually have any idea how we’re going to handle this?”

They all looked to each other for answers, but nopony spoke up.

The unofficial first meeting of the goddess council was not going well.

Author's Note

• This story has been Patreon Funded •

If you enjoyed this story, please consider becoming a patron. I don’t often actually promote it, but it is what’s keeping me afloat, if just barely. There will be changes coming soon to ensure that previews happen more regularly, and I will be running polls to help me decide what to write and how to organize things in the future.

Sharing the Night

…will eventually continue in…

Sharing the Nation

Wherein dragons begin to flood into Equestria for some unknown, completely mysterious reason.

Epilogue Epilogue

✶ ✶ ✶

There was silence atop the small cafe as motes of sunlight dissolved in the wake of the two Celestias leaving. Luna took the opportunity to drain her cup in one long draw before setting it down with a quiet tap of porcelain on porcelain. “Are they gone, do you think?”

Twilight could only shrug noncommittally. “No way to know, but they’ve probably got other things on their minds than spying on us through the sunlight and… sunheat? I’m kind of curious how good that one’s celestial sight is, actually, considering it normally conducts through light.” Twilight glanced up at the virtually invisible thermal source in the sky. “Then again, I suppose nopony said it had to be visible light.”

“Yes, well…” Luna pressed her hooves into her face, took a deep breath and then thrust them out in front of herself. “What the bucking hell?!” she yelled, rattling the tableware. “What in tartarus was she thinking?”

Twilight took a much more sedate sip of coffee and raised an eyebrow at her.

“Okay, okay,” Luna said, rolling her eyes and falling back into her chair. “I understand, Twilight, really, I do. It would have been disturbing and borderline inappropriate to raise an alicorn from foalhood to be Celestia’s partner and paramour, even if she’d passed the job onto us—and I thank the moon that we dodged that arrow—but this alternative is most abnormal, bordering on the bizarre, is it not? Could we not have just… lost the foal in the country for a decade or two?”

“Presumably, if we did that, then the foal would fall into the hooves of Celestia’s bitter and vengeful ex-student, Sunset Shimmer, and be raised to lead a revolt against the rightful rulers of Equestria.”

“Which would be fine!” Luna said with an exasperated whine in her voice. “Gryphons would call that courting!”

Twilight tapped her hoof on her chin, thinking. “Well, she didn’t seem to mind too much when we invaded the royal archives, and I can absolutely see her just abdicating the throne and dropping a crown on somepony, but unfortunately Sunset Shimmer doesn’t exist and the reality would have the potential to be a lot uglier.”

“I suppose,” Luna grumbled, crossing her front legs over her chest.

Twilight busied herself wiping up the last of her fried egg with a stack of daffodil petals. “Does it really bother you that much?” she asked, finishing off her breakfast and following it up with the last of her coffee.

“It’s…” Luna hesitated, holding her breath. “A little soon after there were two of you in a roundabout way, and that did not go all that well,” she admits. “Historically, applying mathematics to alicorns hasn’t had encouraging results.”

Twilight couldn’t help but wince at the reminder and absently ran a hoof along the edge of her shiny new peytral which represented her new status as a properly manifest alicorn. “That was probably one of the reasons she did it, though—to balance the equation.”

Luna made a grumble of acknowledgement. “I suppose we shall just have to see.”

Author's Note

• Patreon Funded •

This chapter is a completely legitimate snippet and was absolutely not posted only to point subscribers to the sequel, Sharing the Nation, which is now live, and the first chapter of which has now been posted!

On a completely unrelated note:

Sharing the Nation is now live!
And the first chapter has been posted!

I have six chapters at over 5,000 words each—nearly 35,000 words—ready for posting, so come back for a new one each day until I'm dry and head over to Patreon to check progress on further chapters.

Chapter 1

Sharing the Night: Chapter 1

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight Sparkle’s back itched. If she was Pinkie Pie, this would have meant that it was her lucky day. Since she was not Pinkie Pie, however, it just meant that she needed to indulge herself with a bath while Spike dusted the stacks again. It was a problem that she’d been struggling with ever since she’d moved to Ponyville. This, in spite of the fact that the Canterlot library—where she had practically grown up—had been far older and far larger, thus making it even more difficult to keep clean than the small hollowed out tree in which she now lived.

Unfortunately, the required dusting wasn’t going to happen today. The librarian and her number-one assistant had just finished tidying up after a wild night of studying, and both of them deserved a break. Any cleaning would have to wait for another time. A bath, on the other hoof, was definitely in order. Having fallen asleep behind a pile of books the night before, an itchy back was only the newest of a long list of reasons she had to wash up and pamper herself a bit.

“Eugh,” Twilight groaned as she absentmindedly scratched at her barrel with one hoof. “Watch the library for me, Spike. I need an hour or two just to soak.”

“Itchy back?” the young drake asked rhetorically from his position on one of the tall ladders that allowed him access to the many shelves of books that crowded the walls of the library, filling every available space with colorful spines and decorated bookends. He was all too familiar with the scenario. "Are you sure it doesn’t mean it’s your lucky day?”

Twilight shook her head and, after noticing the state of the messy locks that bounced across the top of her view, took a moment to fix her mane. “Spike,” she chided, “if every time my back itched was my lucky day, things would be a lot more exciting around here. Wait, no, make that less exciting. The point is, I’d either have found that missing copy of ‘Predictions and Prophecies’ by now, or I’d have spontaneously sprouted wings.”

“You’d want wings?” Spike asked as he scrabbled his legs about, searching for the floor in his attempt to dismount the last step of the pony-made ladder without falling on his rump. "Why?”

“Oh Spike, everypony wishes they could fly,” Twilight stated as if this were a simple constant of the universe. “Well, everypony except Fluttershy anyway. You’ll get wings eventually, and then you’ll see.”

“Don’t remind me,” Spike said with a wince as he finally made it safely back to solid ground. "You know I hate flying between Ponyville and Canterlot by chariot. I want wings like I want the Cutie Mark Crusaders trying to be librarians again... I don’t. What makes you think I’m going to get wings anyway? I didn’t get them when… uhh… on my birthday.”

Twilight shook her head with a smile. “Some day, Spike, you’ll understand that there’s a difference between growing bigger and growing up.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Spike asked, no doubt annoyed by the vague ‘you’ll understand when you’re older’ sentiment that adults seemed to enjoy dispensing at a moment’s notice. In truth, Spike was probably just about nearing the age when that sort of thing wouldn’t cut it any more.

Twilight took her hoof off the doorknob of the door leading to the bathroom and turned back to sit and address Spike eye to eye. “You wouldn’t remember, but when I got my cutie mark hatching you and my magic went out of control, your head went right through the roof!” she giggled. "But that didn’t make you an adult. I wouldn’t expect the adult Spike to look like greedy Spike any more than giant hatchling Spike did.”

“If you say so,” he grumbled bashfully and looked away.

“Anyway, you saw the dragon migration,” Twilight said, getting back up as she transitioned into lecture-mode. “If any of those dragons had been traveling by land, Ponyville would have needed a lot more than that trench we dug for watching them. Wyrms and serpents are the closest you’ll get to land and sea-bound dragons, but they only have arms—not legs—and they have completely different habits. Face it Spike, you’ve got wings in your future.”

“Alright alright!” he groused. “I believe you! Didn’t I just get finished asking you not to remind me?”

“Oh, don’t be like that!” she said with a cheery grin. “It’ll be different when they’re your own wings. There’s nothing to be afraid of; it’s perfectly safe!”

“And you know this how?” Spike asked, unconvinced.

Suddenly, Twilight froze for a moment, then looked away evasively. "I—uhh—Rainbow Dash said so?”

“It’s safe... because Rainbow Dash says so,” Spike repeated flatly. “Really Twi?” There was no need for him to clarify why Rainbow Dash was the absolute last pony to go to for opinions on safety.

“Oh—fine!” Twilight said, a rare bashfulness clear on her face. “I—I’ve had dreams, okay? Dreams about flying. Everypony has them. It’s perfectly normal.”

Spike snickered, trying to hold in a laugh. He was successful, mostly, but the look on Twilight’s face sent him searching for a way to change the subject as fast as possible; his eyes fell to the calendar. “Hey! We’re going over to Rarity’s today, maybe it’s my lucky day?”

“What?” Twilight said, blinking in surprise at the sudden change of subject. “Why are we going to—oh right, my Winter Wrap-Up vest. Well, that settles it Spike; it’s definitely not your lucky day either.”

“What? Why?” Spike wondered, worry clear in his voice.

“Because Vinyl Scratch is coming in to pick up those booklets of sheet music she ordered,” Twilight reminded him. “I’m going to need you to stay here in case she stops by!”

Spike’s only response was a disgusted groan.

“Oh cheer up, maybe she’ll stop by while I’m in the bath, and you’ll be able to come after all,” Twilight suggested as she approached the bathroom door once more.

Spike brightened up immediately. "Do you think she will?”

Twilight made an apologetic face back at Spike as she turned the doorknob. "No,” she admitted. She’d never known the mare who went by the name ‘DJ Pon-3’ after dark to be up before noon. She’d never known her to be interested in sheet music either though, so she supposed there might be a first time for anything.

“What do you need done to your Winter Wrap-Up vest anyway?” Spike asked, apparently deciding that if he didn’t get to go, she didn’t need to either.

Twilight’s expression soured at the mention of the reason for her errand, and her only response was to slam the bathroom door behind her with a huff.

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight hadn’t got her hour-long soak, but she still felt a million times fresher as she walked into the Carousel Boutique and found Rarity working on some new designs for the coming spring as the tinkling sound of the bell attached to the door announced her presence.

Unfortunately for Twilight, no amount of preemptive pampering could make this encounter any easier.

“Twilight!” Rarity beamed, always happy to see her friend. Her keen eyes immediately fell to the saddlebags Twilight was wearing. “Is there something you need? I was just—well, that doesn’t matter. I am always free to help you my dear.”

“Oh, this?” Twilight gestured to her saddlebags nervously. “Umm, no, this is—” Twilight searched for something, anything to get out of the situation she’d just put herself in, but her hesitation was rendered moot as Rarity had already pulled the vest out of Twilight’s saddlebags with her magic and removed any control Twilight had of the situation. She supposed it was for the best in any case. This had to be done. It was embarrassing, but it’d be even worse if she ignored it

“Your winter wrap-up vest, dear? Is there... a problem with it? I don’t see any rips or tears, you can’t have worn it more than once so far...” Rarity trailed off, mumbling to herself as she turned the vest every which way, scrutinizing it with the eye of an artist.

“It’s not that, I just need—” Twilight had started to say when she was interrupted by Rarity’s exuberant cry.

“Oh of course!” Rarity beamed with wondrous glee. “You! Need! Accessories!” she sang. "Oh I have the perfect shoes to go with—”

“No, Rarity, I—” Twilight stammered, but Rarity was already talking a mile a minute as she shuffled through boxes of things she had prepared. "I just—” Twilight squeaked, trying to get a word in edgewise. Finally, she simply blurted, “I NEED IT LET OUT!”

Rarity, for her part, only dropped one of the shoes she was holding as she froze up completely. “I—what? I—Oh!” she said, fumbling with the shoe she had dropped. She looked at Twilight’s hooves, then forlornly at the shoes she was holding. “Well, be that as it may… you’re getting shoes too,” she insisted.

“But Rarity, I—” Twilight began to argue, but realized immediately that it just wasn’t worth it. “Fine,” she groaned, giving in without further resistance. Shoes might make this visit easier, if only for something to focus on avoid the subject of the vest.

“But darling,” Rarity, said, eying Twilight up and down. “Are you sure about the vest?”

Nope. Shoes weren’t going to help.

"I mean,” she said, and then hesitated. “You don’t look like you—that is to say, you look wonderful, Twilight! Are you sure you’re just not expecting it to be too—err—comfortable? Fashion is not always comfortable when it’s supposed to show off that wonderful figure of yours! Why, if anything I’d say you look even thinner than you did last year! I mean, look at those legs!”

“You’re too kind,” Twilight said, though she sounded anything but grateful. “No really, Rarity, I mean it. You’re laying it on a bit thick.”

Rarity balked. “Twilight Sparkle, are you calling me a liar?”

“Uhh—overly generous, maybe?” Twilight suggested, smiling inoffensively. “Like my waistline,” she added with a groan, unable to avoid voicing the unkind comparison that came to mind. “The tape measure doesn’t lie, Rarity. I’m... larger.”

No longer reeling from shock, but not yet greatly appeased, either, Rarity simply stared at Twilight. Rather, she studied her, not looking her in the eyes but everywhere else. Suddenly, her eyes went wide and her jaw dropped the teeniest bit before she caught herself. In a whirlwind of magic and motion, she grabbed the tape measure and spun Twilight around this way and that, measuring everything and everywhere the dressmaker could imagine, sometimes several times just to be sure. “Twilight Sparkle!” She gasped. “You are larger!”

Twilight’s expression remained unenthused; this was hardly news to her. “You don’t say.”

“No! You don’t understand!” Rarity implored. "You’ve grown! You’re taller! Your legs are longer! It’s only just a bit, but these eyes of mine can tell! Dear, I had no idea you were still growing! A bit of a late bloomer, I suppose? Oh, you shouldn’t feel bad about it at all!”

Twilight wasn’t sure she heard that right. "What?” she said, as her mind ran over the words again, attempting to fit them into an interpretation that didn’t go against everything she knew about pony biology. She failed, which greatly irritated her. “I—that doesn’t make any sense, Rarity!” she insisted in no uncertain terms. “There should be no way for me to be—!”

Rarity put one hoof on Twilight’s shoulder consolingly, trying to calm her down. “I know it’s peculiar darling, but like you said: the tape measure doesn’t lie. Why, even your horn is—”

Twilight suddenly forgot all about the issue at hoof and jumped back to spin and face Rarity with a shocked and betrayed look on her face. “My—Rarity!” she balked. “You measured my—!” She couldn’t even bring herself to say it. She tried again. “What are you doing measuring my horn?! No, wait—why do you even know how big it was before?!”

Rarity, for her part, simply ignored Twilight’s reaction completely in spite of the interruption. “Now, you just leave yourself in my hooves, darling. I’ll fix this vest right up! Oh, I wonder if I could change the cut just a bit… No, I don’t think the mayor would like that, it is a uniform after all… Oh Twilight, you’ll just have to let me make something else for you sometime soon.”

“I—uhh—” Twilight paused, then sighed, completely disarmed by her friend’s enthusiasm. "Sure…” she conceded. “Just… stay away from my horn,” was all she could say.

✶ ✶ ✶

She was growing?

Twilight blinked, paying no attention to where she was going as she trudged through the hoof-deep snow in a daze. Having been shooed out of the boutique so Rarity could work, she was at something of a loss for an explanation as to exactly her friend had claimed. There was no earthly explanation she could come up with as to why she would be growing again—and it was ‘again’; of that she was certain.

Like many measurable aspects of her life, Twilight had kept what could have been charitably called ‘unnecessarily detailed’ records of both her height and weight until she had determined to several degrees of mathematical certainty that the former had stopped changing. The latter, she still recorded daily, and it was thanks to that that she’d recently taken to reluctantly measuring her girth as well.

It was easy, if a little ironic, to see why her incomplete records had given her a less than flattering impression of herself. In fact, the impression stuck in spite of the new information she had at her disposal, even if she took everything that Rarity had said at face value.

The fact was, she had been happy with her figure before. Sure, she wasn’t a picture of equine beauty like Rarity or Fluttershy, or all feminine athleticism like Applejack and Rainbow Dash, but crown-funded impartial double-blind polls had determined her to be possessed of solid leanings towards both cuteness and ‘adorkability,’ whatever that meant.

That had been the last time she had allowed write-ins in her trials.

Whatever ‘adorkability’ was, though, she held no illusions about the level of appeal her toneless physique would maintain at magnified proportions. Rarity had implied that her legs were growing in length faster than girth, but she would need measurements to be sure. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Rarity’s critical eye, but some things just needed four decimal places of accuracy for posterity.

Silently cursing all the data points she must have missed already, she had a sudden urge to rush home and get out the tape measure and calipers. If she was lucky, she would be able to extrapolate enough data to estimate her rate of cuteness falloff. Maybe she could throw something together to approximate adorkability decline, too, but that would be difficult without an official reference standard to compare with. The Equestrian Standards Organization never had answered her letters on the matter.

She didn’t rush home, though. She just stood there, staring at her hooves with an imagined sense of vertigo. Were they further away now than they had been before? She honestly couldn’t tell. Her hoof-eye coordination was mediocre at best, and she was not yet to the point where she recorded average stumble frequency for use in clumsiness appraisal.

Perhaps she would start.

More important than measuring her growth, though, was to determine why in Equestria it could be happening. How could she be growing again?

On the one hoof, she had been introduced to a variety of new stimuli since moving to Ponyville, so there was no shortage of possible catalysts for her aberrant growth. On the other hoof… she had been introduced to a variety of new stimuli since moving to Ponyville, so there was no end to the number of possible causes either.

Was she eating healthier now? Not really. Sure, there was an abundance of fresh produce in Ponyville thanks to the surrounding farms, but there was also an abundance of fresh cupcakes, pies and fritters; cider, soda and… no, she definitely was not eating healthier these days.

What then? Rarity had brushed it off as her being a ‘late bloomer,’ and Twilight had politely kept her mouth shut on the subject rather than contradict her, but it wasn’t an actual explanation.

And yet, nothing Twilight could come up with was really any better. In fact, each straw she grasped at seemed to turn into a more and more ridiculous scenario. Ambient earth pony magic? Localized time-space distortion attuned to her physiology? Height-sapping goblins that were now on strike thanks to mediocre health care plans?

One such flight of fancy made her stop mid-step as it caught her unawares. ‘Twilight’s miracle workout!’ she pictured a poster saying, ‘Schedule your appointment with Rainbow Crash today!’

She shook her head with a snort. Where had that come from? As if Rainbow Dash crashing into her all the time would... what? Stretch out her spine or something? That would require a trip to the chiropractor, not your friendly neighborhood fashionista, and she would never call her friend Rainbow—

“Look out!”

CRASH!

“Oh, heya Twilight,” laughed the blue pegasus awkwardly. "You know, that felt softer than usual; have you gotten… uhh… gotten… Twi? Are you okay?”

The last thing Rainbow Dash saw before being flung all the way back to her cloud-home with unicorn magic was Twilight Sparkle with a stark-white coat and flaming mane of fire… upside-down in the mud and snow.

The last thing Rainbow Dash had done before getting flung all the way back to her cloud-home with unicorn magic, was laugh.

Twilight blinked as she watched the pegasine form of her friend disappear into the clouds. “Oops,” she said then righted herself with a sigh. She would have to apologize to Rainbow Dash later and explain that she’d just caught Twilight at a bad time.

Well, she would explain anyway. She might not apologize.

Twilight rolled over with a heavy grunt and got lazily back up onto her hooves to find that her whole left side was covered in ice-cold mud that sloughed off with each step she took back towards home.

“Hey guys, look! It’s Twilight!” yelped a bubblegum-pink voice directly to Twilight’s left.

“Well hey there, sugar cube,” said a second, standing next to the first.

“Oh… Hi there,” said a second-and-a-half voice hiding behind the second.

“Perfect,” Twilight intoned flatly to herself. Doing her best to keep exasperation out of her voice, Twilight turned to her friends and smiled. "Hey Pinkie Pie, AJ, Fluttershy—what’s up?”

The silence was deafening. After an eternity of silence, Applejack spoke up. "Uh, Twilight? I heard you stopped by Rarity’s today. It seems that y’all got a little—”

“Fat!” Twilight barked at Applejack, finishing her sentence. “Yes, okay! Fine, I get it! Twilight Sparkle is getting pudgy! I can’t believe she told you!” Twilight screamed in shocked disbelief.

“…mud,” Applejack finished belatedly, after Twilight got finished yelling. “Y’all got a little mud there on yer… all over, actually. Ah jes thought you’d got another one of those mud-mask things done at Rarity’s and fergot to wash off.”

Suddenly all the paranoia, anger and frustration building up in Twilight evaporated, leaving the lavender unicorn slumped to the ground with a groan, banging her head into the dirty snow-covered road.

“Oh—well there’s yer problem,” Applejack said in sarcastic epiphany. “C’mon girl, get up,” she encouraged as she and Fluttershy lifted Twilight up onto her legs and Pinkie Pie licked Twilight’s face, then started spitting. Twilight didn’t even respond, but Applejack was vocal enough for all three other ponies. “Pinkie Pie! What in the hay did y’all do that fer?”

“I was hoping we had some more chocolate rain!” Pinkie Pie beamed in cheerful explanation. "But no, it’s really just mud.”

“Uhh, thank you for clarifying that Pinkie Pie,” Applejack said with… a modicum of honesty, at least. "Girl, ah bet you’d lick the princess jes to see if her mane tasted like rainbows, and you don’t even like rainbows!” she declared with a huff. “Now come on, let’s get this one home.”

“If you can still carry her,” the demoralized Twilight bemoaned.

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight didn’t say a single word to Spike as she stumbled into the library and straight upstairs to the bathroom, covered in mud.

In her defense, it was unlikely that Spike would have heard a word she said, incapacitated as he was by roaring laughter. She didn’t say anything to Vinyl Scratch either, who had indeed arrived for the sheet music she’d ordered and was now biting her hoof and tearing up.

Things only got worse when Twilight slammed the bathroom door shut only to have it swing back open on only one hinge. The laughter from outside echoed through the bathroom, prompting Twilight to pick the door back up with her magic, slam it back in place and seal it as if there was a dragon on the other side—which of course, there was.

A laughing one.

The laughter quickly died away, but it wasn’t until it was completely gone that Twilight finally let her breath out and relaxed. Stepping away from the door, she hoofed on the hot water for the second time that day. Steam began to fill the room, and once the tub was half full, she gave the cold water exactly one and three-eighths turns.

Satisfied that her bath was being prepared properly, Twilight took the time to inspect herself. The simple, if embarrassing act of walking home had rid her of the mass of mud that had initially clung to her side, so she prepared only her usual assortment of soaps and oils minus a few to account for her earlier washing. Most ponies would be surprised to know that Twilight’s collection of sundries gave Rarity’s a run for its money, but she was, if nothing else, a proponent of using the right tool for the right job.

Suddenly Twilight’s ear twitched at the sound of some indistinct noise. It was nothing in particular—just the usual sounds of a city coming in the small bathroom window—but Twilight’s eyes widened in alarm, snapped to the breech in her bathroom of solitude and sealed it with magic much as she had the door.

Now on alert, she whipped her head back and forth, searching the room for anything else that needed sealing, but found nothing. Dissatisfied, she charged her horn, threw her head back and cast her magic out in every direction. The magic spread outward like a sticky bubble inflating to fill the tiny space, covering every wall, every single nook and cranny, sealing the entire room away from the outside world.

Lowering her horn, Twilight brushed her messy mane out of her face and was greeted with only the simple white noise of water filling the tub, drowned out by her own huffing and puffing. Soon, her breathing calmed, leaving only the sound of water.

Finally satisfied and confident in her isolation, Twilight rested her weight on the edge of the tub, taking a moment to listen to the relaxing sound. It was a rare treat, for her. The library may have been quiet on most days, but her mind almost never was. It was all too soon when the splashing of water spilling into the overflow drain shook her out of her reverie, but only temporarily. She turned off the tap and stirred the water with her forehoof.

It was perfect.

Forehooves on the side of the tub, Twilight stepped over the edge and and sank into the warm, scented water. Finally she could relax, and damn it—she would get the hour-long soak that she’d wanted that morning. She deserved it. No, she needed it. Slowly, she cleaned herself of all the dirt and grime of the last several hours and as she did so, all her agitation and frustration began to melt away.

She would have to do something to apologize to her friends, she thought. She should never have snapped like that at Rainbow Dash and Applejack, and she’d been a burden on the rest—and for what?

What she’d heard from Rarity wasn’t even all that bad, she told herself in spite of her earlier thoughts to the contrary. Strange, yes, but Rarity had deemed it an improvement and Twilight had already learned to trust the fashionista’s judgement.

She was still going to take and record all the proper measurements, though.

As she was mulling over things she could do to apologize to her friends, she closed her eyes, her breathing slowed and she drifted off to sleep in the tub. What followed was the most wonderful dream ever.

The dream was very simple. ‘No,’ she’d tell Spike later, ‘it was not a dream about flying.’ It was sort of like those dreams where you just endlessly dream about not being able to get to sleep—but instead of anxiety she was filled with a sense of endless serenity and calm.

In her dream, she was floating in the ocean—or maybe it was just a very large lake, seeing as the surface of the water was glassy smooth and ice cold as the ocean has no right to be. Drifting aimlessly, she felt like she’d never wanted to be anywhere else. It was nighttime and the sky above her was a featureless black void like a giant velvet canvas. There was no sun or moon, or even stars to mark the distance; it was just the endless black of night.

For the longest time the peace of the endless black night was enough for Twilight, but eventually curiosity tickled her ears and she began looking around. She was floating on her back in the still, placid water, so she had to crane her neck to look around. In every direction, all she saw was empty space all the way to the horizon. Just as she was about to give up, she saw a glimmer out of the corner of one eye. Sitting up in the water, she looked down into the ocean and gasped.

It was full of stars.

The sight of it shocked Twilight awake, though for a second she wasn’t so sure she was awake. The bathroom was pitch black, and the tub water, ice cold. For a second, she even thought she could see stars in the water, though she then realized her teeth were chattering, and the stars in her vision didn’t go away when when she screwed her eyes shut. ‘That’s bad, right?’ she asked herself rhetorically, reaching for the edge of the tub to pull herself out.

She had obviously stayed in the water far longer than was healthy, and as if that wasn’t bad enough… Twilight’s back was itching again. In fact, it felt uncomfortably heavy and matted right out of the tub. ‘Figures,’ she sighed, but the edge of her earlier frustrations was gone. Aside from having woken up neck deep in a bath of ice water, she did feel better somehow. She felt a lot better, actually. Wrapping herself up in a large, fluffy towel, Twilight unsealed the door that led back to the nice, warm library and opened it.

The sight before Twilight wilted her burgeoning spirit. Standing in front of the content-but-damp unicorn were five impatient ponies and one nervous baby dragon.

“Twilight!” they all shouted together, scrambling around to hug her.

“We were so worried!” cried several ponies.

“I wasn’t worried!” insisted Rainbow Dash with a huff.

They were, apparently, not at all mad at her erratic behavior—or the fact that they’d just group-hugged a wet unicorn, for that matter. Of course they weren’t mad. They were her friends.

Spike, on the other hoof was visibly nervous, and Twilight could see why. He was holding a letter from the Princess.

Twilight wasted no time extracting herself from the embrace of her friends, and scooped up the letter with her magic. The letter had already been opened, which bothered her, but then, she had sealed herself in the bathroom for… how many hours had it been, exactly? She noted that it was already dark out, so it had to have been a while.

Twilight unrolled the scroll and read.

My faithful student, Twilight Sparkle,

Please look outside.

～ H.R.H. Princess Celestia of Equestria.

☼ ☼ ☼

Princess Celestia had just lowered the sun for the day and was sitting down to sleep when the sound of clopping hooves and a pleading voice interrupted her peace and quiet.

“Tiaaaaaaaa,” implored the voice from down the hall.

It was Luna, of course. Her sister’s voice was not exactly one easily forgotten—or easily ignored, given its usual volume. Of course, even if Celestia had managed that impossible task, Luna was the only one who called her ‘Tia,’ and she was supposed to only do it in private.

The younger princess burst into Celestia’s room and suddenly froze. Quietly, she shut the door behind and chewed her lip nervously, suddenly not so eager to talk now that she had the chance. “Ah, sister…?” she started after a long pause. If the Royal Canterlot Voice had an antithesis, this was it.

“Yes, Luna?” Celestia asked as she walked over to one of the cushions next to an antique tea table that had been new when she’d bought it. Exhibiting the eternal patience for which she was known, she sat down and waited for a response.

Luna averted her eyes from her older sister. “I… seem to have misplaced something,” she meekly announced. “It is… a great many somethings, in fact.”

Celestia gave her little sister a warm, forgiving smile. “Did you misplace the sixth century tax laws again?” she asked.

Luna took affront at the very suggestion. "I didst not,” she insisted hotly. After a moment, the anger quickly dissipated, and she looked sheepishly down at her hooves. “I am afraid that it is far worse than that,” she admitted. “And ‘tis not any of the records.”

Darn, the elder sister groused inwardly; some things were better off lost, and the old tax laws which Luna was intent on studying were a fair example of history that did not merit remembering. Perhaps next time, Celestia would slip them between the cushions of one of Luna’s couches. The princess of the night did seem to have an inordinate number of couches.

Regardless, Celestia got up from her tea table and walked over to comfort her sister. "It’s okay, Lulu,” she said, making use of her big sister voice and giving the younger alicorn a reassuring hug and nuzzle. “You can tell me.”

Luna chewed at her lip, pulling back to look into Celestia’s eyes. Hesitantly, she mumbled so that only the two of them could hear. “I lost the stars.”

Celestia—to her credit—did not bat an eyelash, though her voice was less reassuring. “The… stars?” she asked.

“All of them,” Luna said with a weak nod, stirring her ethereal mane which was indeed now an empty blue void.

Celestia turned her head to look at said mane. “You lost… All of the stars?” she repeated.

“Every—last—one,” Luna confirmed, a mincing stamp of her hoof accompanying each word.

“Luna," Celestia said, maintaining her mien of eternal patience. “What are my little ponies all over Equestria seeing in the sky right now?”

“My wonderful, beautiful moon?” Luna suggested in a nervous, yet hopeful voice.

“…and?” Celestia prompted.

“Lots… and lots… of black," Luna slowly admitted.

“Horseapples."

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight was torn between immediately looking outside, as the letter from her mentor instructed, and the fact that it was still the middle of winter and she was sopping wet and wearing a towel. If Twilight walked out into the windy street in front of her Library as she was, she was liable to end up reliving her experience with the cockatrice—only as an ice sculpture this time rather than stone.

For some reason, no one would simply tell Twilight what was going on, but Rarity insisted it could certainly wait until Twilight was ‘decent’ and sent her upstairs. Twilight tried to tell Rarity that she really wanted to look outside after all, but having already voiced her concerns about the cold, there was no taking it back and no stopping the fashionista from directing her up the stairs.

As much as Twilight appreciated having such good friends, her curiosity had been piqued, and would not be so easily denied. As soon as she got to her room, she shut the door behind her and immediately crossed over to the window next to her bed and swung it open.

The sight was magnificent.

Later, she’d feel guilty for thinking so, but with nothing else in the sky the moon looked twice as large, and it was a sight to behold. She immediately remembered her dream from the bath and the feeling of endless peace that had filled her.

All of a sudden, there was a ‘fwomph!’ from behind Twilight that launched the towel she was wearing clear across the room. Twilight spun around in panic to face… nothing, and in the process managed to bang her wing on the window frame.

“Ow-ow-ow-ow-ow—what.” Twilight froze in mid-panic and slowly, carefully looked over her shoulder. Wings. Twilight had two full-sized pegasus wings attached to her back, and they were both fanned out to full extension like she’d seen Rainbow Dash do whenever she got excited or surprised. One of the wings also hurt like the dickens, but that was suddenly a minor concern as far as Twilight was concerned.

Twilight’s eyes widened. All of a sudden, everything fell into place. “Oh, no no no no no no!” she said to herself. “This is not good. Not good at all. This is terrible! What do I do? What do I do?” she asked the empty room.

The room remained silent.

“Panic! This is a time for panic!” she answered, pacing back and forth as she channeled Fluttershy, whose problem-solving methods were looking awfully good to her right now. Rushing over to the door, she cracked it open and shouted “SPIKE! SPIIIIIIIIIIIIIIKE! I need you to come up here for a second!”

As soon as she heard the telltale muttering and scrabbling of claws on wood, Twilight slammed the door back shut. Quickly, she grabbed the towel from across the room with her magic and dried herself off as quickly as she could without being too rough with her tender new anatomy. She was just about done when Spike knocked and entered the room without waiting for an answer.

“Geez, what is it Twilight? Fluttershy reminded me not to let you talk me into drying you off with dragonfire again no matter how much of a hurry you’re in; not after what happened last time,” he insisted, not even noticing the change in Twilight’s anatomy until they bristled in annoyance. “Oh, hey, nice wings,” he complimented. “I guess you remembered you have a spell for—wait—is that why you were such a mess earlier?” he snickered. "Did you try to fly and end up in the mud?”

“No, Spike,” Twilight retorted, unamused.

Spike grinned. “I think you did! I didn’t notice them when you came in, but I was—”

“Spike, no!” Twilight repeated, insistent. “I didn’t use any spell! These just… appeared, somehow—while I was in the bath, I guess—and now I’m in big trouble!”

“So…” Spike said, scratching his chin in thought. “It really was your lucky day today and wings just… sprouted from your back?”

“Yes—wait—no!” Twilight shouted, correcting herself in a hurry. “Spike, this isn’t lucky! This is bad bad bad bad bad! Celestia is going to kill me!”

Spike looked concerned, though not in the same way Twilight was. "Twilight, you’re… not making much sense,” he said, taking a step back towards the door as he did so. “D-do you want me to go get—”

“No!” Twilight shouted, manifesting a large crossbar across the door with her magic that quickly slammed shut with a heavy thud. "No getting anyone!” After pausing a moment to think, her horn lit up again as she sealed the room from sound as well. “Spike, listen to me. There is no such thing as a winged unicorn. It’s not genetics, it’s magic,” Twilight explained.

“All ponies have their own unique kind of magic. Unicorn magic is formed in the mind and expressed outward through horn,” she recited as if from a book, “giving unicorns the ability to perform conscious magic known as spells. Pegasus magic is formed in the lungs and expressed outward through the wings, allowing them to fly and interact with the weather—”

“Wait,” Spike interrupted. “You said all ponies have magic, but earth ponies don’t!”

Twilight shook her head. “Earth ponies do have magic, Spike. Earth pony magic is formed in the body and mostly expressed internally. It’s what makes Applejack tough enough to buck apples all season and it makes Pinkie Pie… well, it makes Pinkie Pie Pinkie Pie. The point is, nopony’s magic is just in their horn or their wings or their body. Each one is only part of an entire, complicated internal infrastructure of magic. You can’t just overlap things and expect them to work out any better than if you tossed a clock into the boiler of a train and expected it to run on time!”

“But—” Spike said, trying to work this out. “I thought you didn’t get anywhere researching Pinkie Sense? If you knew Earth Ponies have magic, then why—”

“I… didn’t know,” Twilight mumbled under her breath and through clenched teeth. “I didn’t know, okay?” she admitted, looking away from Spike. “I’d only ever studied unicorn magic! When Princess Celestia pointed it out in her next letter I—I just wanted to crawl under my bed and—!”

“Oh, so that’s why you—” Spike started to say, then changed the subject at a glare from Twilight. “That’s why you… are saying you’ve just spontaneously transformed into something that’s not a unicorn, not a pegasus and not an earth pony?”

“Yes, Spike,” Twilight confirmed with a dour countenance. "Somehow I’ve become—”

“A fruit?” Spike suggested.

“Ye—no!” Twilight shouted, appalled. “Spike! What has the horn of a unicorn, the wings of a pegasus and—and—probably enough internal magic to—I dunno—make them immortal and more?”

“Oh man, I’m really bad at riddles,” Spike grumbled. “‘Umm, give me a minute. I think I’ve heard this one before.”

“An alicorn, Spike!” Twilight squawked in consternation. “Like Princess Celestia!”

“Oh! Well, what’s wrong with that?” Spike asked, honestly baffled. “Isn’t that great?”

Twilight found herself covering her face with a hoof. Right, she hadn’t explained the most important part. “Look, Spike. Alicorns like Princess Celestia are really powerful. So powerful that they can do stuff like raising the sun and moon. I just spent—” Twilight glanced at the clock on her dresser. “Five hours dreaming about stars, I wake up apparently an alicorn, and—” She stomped over to the window, slamming it fully open. "And now the stars are missing! It’s obvious, Spike! Somehow I… I stole the stars!”

“What,” Spike said flatly, cocking his head to the side and confused as heck. “Aren’t you kind of jumping to conclusions there, Twilight?”

Twilight let out an exasperated sigh. “No, I am not jumping to conclusions. It’s called… being smart! Ohhh,” she groaned. “Too smart for my own good! Or too powerful? I didn’t try to steal the stars, it just happened! I don’t think that counts as being smart. I didn’t even get a chance to be smart, and now the princess is going to banish me from Equestria! Or throw me in a dungeon! Or banish me and then throw me in a dungeon in the place that she banishes me to!"

“Oh come on Twilight.” Spike rolled his eyes. "Didn't you learn your lesson about that kind of thing ages ago?”

“Spike! This is not the princess' pet bird who turns out to be immortal! This is me causing eternal night! Or eternal… whatever you call no stars in the sky. There isn’t even a name for it! It’s me mucking with the fabric of the universe! This is exactly what got Luna—oh my gosh! The moon! She's going to banish me to the moon!"

“She's not going to banish you to the moon, Twilight,” Spike said, cradling his head in his claws in embarrassment.

“Oh no, you're right!” she cried, pacing back and forth at a pace that mimicked the circles in which her mind was spinning. “I didn't mess with the moon, I messed with the stars! What's it like being banished to the stars? Would she just pick one at random, or do you think she'll let me choose? Oh, I hope I get to choose. I don’t think any of them have mail service, but maybe I can say you were my accompli—oh no! The mail! I have to answer Princess Celestia before she gets suspicious!”

“I think you’re about four hours late for that, Twilight,” Spike reminded her with an accompanying roll of his eyes. “Here, I’m supposed to give you this one once you’ve seen the sky,” he explained, handing Twilight another open letter. “Now come on, open this door so we can explain what’s going to everyone else. You know, your friends. The ones who’ve been waiting here for hours just to see if you’re alright?”

“Oh, right,” Twilight said, unbarring the door automatically as she began unrolling the second letter. “Wait—no!” she hissed and slammed the door shut again. Thankfully, she hadn’t dispelled the silencing seal yet. “We can’t tell anyone about this! Anyone!”

Spike looked like he was going to argue, but he’d just about had enough. “Ugh, fine!” he said, throwing his hands up into the air. “Fine! You just go out there and tell them whatever it is you’re going to tell them! I’m going to bed. This is all giving me a headache. I’ll stay here tomorrow too, someone has to watch the library, and I am not lying to the princess.”

“The princess? What?” Twilight blinked in confusion.

“Just read the letter and go,” Spike growled. From the look he gave her, Twilight would have sworn he’d been taking staring lessons from Fluttershy.

Twilight sheepishly backed out of the room and shut the door quietly, then yanked it open again and jumped back in the room. “Wings—right,” she said, gasping for breath. Spike was already rolled over in his basket with his back to the door and said nothing. Twilight grabbed the first thing she could find out of her dresser with magic, pulled it on over her wings and left Spike in peace.

✶ ✶ ✶

My faithful student’s faithful assistant Spike,

I am sorry to hear that Twilight has ‘barricaded herself in the bathroom with magic.’ I understand the compulsion and envy her for having such a wonderful assistant that she can do so when needed—although I must admit, her timing in this instance is poor.

In truth, we have no leads at the moment on the matter of the missing stars, so please let her relax for tonight. Knowing my student, she will wish to come to Canterlot to help investigate as soon as she sees the sky. Let her know I will be happy to receive her and any guests tomorrow, after a good night’s rest.

～ H.R.H. Princess Celestia of Equestria.

Twilight was mortified. Forget the stars, Spike had told the princess about her locking herself in the bathroom! She was so embarrassed, she thought she would—

“Twilight darling, what are you wearing?” cried Rarity in shock as Twilight rounded the landing connecting the the stairs to the main room of the library.

Twilight blinked. What was she wearing, actually? She had to check. It was an old, stretched-out black sweater that hung loosely on her frame. The sleeves were overlong and she hadn’t even got them all the way up past her hooves, and she’d been walking on them. “Oh this?” she asked, nervously pulling the sleeves up past her fetlocks. “This is… what I normally wear. At night. In the winter. When no one is around. It’s… it’s my favorite thing.”

Rarity, for her part, was scandalized. Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes, Applejack didn’t see anything at all wrong with it, and Pinkie Pie nearly pulled it off Twilight with her teeth in the process of testing to see if it was licorice.

“I like it,” Fluttershy said meekly, rubbing her hoof on Twilight’s shoulder. “It’s so soft… and good for hiding.”

“O-kay!” Twilight beamed nervously, trying to change the subject. “So, how about those stars, huh?” Twilight had thought the awkward silence couldn’t get any worse; she was wrong. “Girls?”

Applejack was the one who finally said what had to be said. “Look, Twi. You know that every one of us is here fer ya when you need it. That’s why we’re here… bein’ here fer ya and all.”

“You don’t want to come to Canterlot with me,” Twilight deduced.

“It’s not that we don’t want to, sugarcube,” Applejack said with a pained expression on her face. “You know how happy Rarity was the last time the princess put her up in the castle, but you’re going because you got a job to do. You won’t have time fer any of that and we… Well, we all got jobs to do ‘round here so when the time comes, and you do find out who’s behind all this, we’ll all be free to come use the Elements of Harmony or whatever.”

“I… yeah, I guess that makes sense,” Twilight capitulated. There was just one small problem. She wasn’t going to ‘figure it out.’ She already had figured it out, and she was determined to keep it secret! If she didn’t even have her friends for support… she wasn’t sure what she’d do. When would she even see them again? Would she ever see them again? If Princess Celestia found out what she’d done and banished her to Alnilam—the star she was thinking of asking to be banished to—the implications were horrifying. Twilight felt an abrupt new appreciation for for what had happened to Princess Luna.

“Oh come on!” came Rainbow Dash’s rough voice, jarring Twilight out of her dour thoughts. “You’re not feeling guilty for being so awesome the princess wants your help, are you?” she asked. “I mean, if you were any more awesome, you’d be me—and you don’t have the flanks for that. Sorry Twi but it’s the truth.”

“I… Yeah, you’re right, Dash. Thanks,” Twilight said, feeling heartened despite her insincerity.

“I’m always right,” Rainbow Dash assured her, checking out her own flanks.

“I mean about the—oh, never mind.” Twilight sighed, shaking her head as everyone else laughed.

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight apologized to everyone—except for Rainbow Dash—and assured them that she was fine and she’d just been a little out of it earlier. Applejack mentioned that she really should be getting home since farm ponies usually rose with the sun, and Twilight finally showed everyone out with a sigh of relief.

Or so she thought. Apparently she had two stragglers.

“So?” challenged Rainbow Dash. Fluttershy was trying to look as small as possible behind her, which was difficult with Rainbow Dash hovering a few hooves off the ground.

“Rainbow Dash, I am not apologizing for flinging you home,” Twilight said, rolling her eyes.

“Okay, first—that’s not what this is about, and second—you didn’t fling me home, you shot me through my home and halfway to Cloudsdale.”

“I—what?” Twilight asked dumbly. “Oh. Well, sorry for that I suppose,” she said, though it was still rather weak for an apology. “Now can you go? I have to get to bed so I can go to Canterlot in the morning.”

“Fine,” Rainbow Dash said, marginally appeased. She began to flap over to the door but was stopped by Fluttershy, who had taken her tail in her mouth and was gesturing at Twilight with her eyes. "What—oh, right! Like I said—that’s not why we’re still here! Twilight Sparkle, you’re going to tell us why you have wings and why you’re hiding them.”

“I have… what now?” Twilight asked nervously. She was trying to put up a convincing front when Fluttershy nudged her in the ribs with one hoof just so, causing one of Twilight’s wings to reflexively pop straight out under the sweater.

Twilight’s attempt to to stay calm and pretend everything was fine took a sharp nosedive as she was gripped by a horrible sensation of claustrophobia. Her eyes remained locked straight ahead, pretending nothing was happening as her wing beat back and forth behind her, trying to right itself inside the sweater without much input from her. Before she realized it, she was scrambling both wings in panic and writhing on the floor until she could get out of the cashmere monstrosity that imprisoned her.

“S-sorry” Fluttershy apologized to the ruffled alicorn, who had ended up sitting none too happy on her haunches with the sweater in front of herself, hooves crossed, hair mussed, wings fanned out messily and a pouty look of silent indignation on her face.

“I didn’t think you actually…” Fluttershy mumbled in a tiny voice before reasserting herself in a scolding, motherly tone. “You really shouldn’t wear things like that over your wings. It’s a bad idea. You could hurt them.”

“You don’t say,” Twilight said, her voice full of sarcasm and petulance as one rumpled wing twitched.

“Twilight,” Rainbow Dash lectured, “you can’t hide wings from a pegasus; they’re the first thing we look at on a pony. Now come on, spill. I knew something was up when I crashed into you today. You felt really light and fluffy, like one of us. I thought you’d just gotten a new shampoo or something, but that obviously wasn’t it, was it? Fluttershy is like a doctor or something, so you can’t hide anything from her either. Heck, I bet Rarity would have seen through you too if she could have brought herself to look at that horrible thing you were wearing. Tell—us—what—is—going—on!”

Twilight’s lower lip quivered a second as Rainbow Dash stared her down and Fluttershy continued to look guilty and sorry for what she’d done. It was a hallmark of how keenly Rainbow Dash’s words had struck home that Twilight didn’t even register that the blue pegasus had uncharacteristically referred to herself as ‘fluffy’. Finally, Twilight just flopped forward with a sigh, and told them the whole story.

✶ ✶ ✶

“O-oh... Wow...” Fluttershy mused. “I—I really don’t think Princess Celestia would banish you anywhere. You made an honest mistake, and she always seemed really nice.”

“You guys can’t tell anypony,” Twilight pleaded, more question than statement. “Please?”

“Of course we won’t Twilight,” Fluttershy assured her. “It’s not our place to say anything; but you really should tell her yourself. Princess Celestia is your mentor. Don’t you trust her?”

“Of course I—but I—” she stammered, staring at her hooves, “I just… can’t.”

“Maybe after you talk to her you’ll realize she only has your best interests at heart. You’ll have lots and lots of time for that, since you’ll be faking all of the help that your dearest, most beloved mentor is personally counting on you for,” Fluttershy suggested, eliciting a wilted cringe from Twilight.

“Dash?” Twilight asked, turning to the blue pegasus to escape the sad, disappointed looks Fluttershy was giving her. "You won’t tell anyone, right?”

“Hey, whatever you want Twilight,” Rainbow Dash assured her, already distracted. “I just didn’t like being left out and lied to. I’m good now.”

Subtle, Rainbow Dash was not.

Twilight’s head drooped with shame and she groaned. She couldn’t respond to that. She couldn’t even look her friends in the eyes. Eventually her head drooped so low her body had to follow with a flop, and she just curled up on the floor with a sigh.

“I think we should go,” Fluttershy suggested. The guilt-ridden alicorn didn’t answer at all.

“Yeah, uhh… okay,” Rainbow Dash ceded, one hoof on the door. “See ya Twilight. Um, good luck.”

“Bye Twilight,” mumbled Fluttershy.

“Do you think we overdid it?” Rainbow Dash whispered as the two pegasi let themselves out of the library.

“Maybe…” Fluttershy admitted in equally hushed tones, just before the door drifted shut.

Chapter 4

Sharing the Night: Chapter 4

✶ ✶ ✶

“That’s no moon," Twilight thought through a haze of sleepiness. It was a pony; it was in fact, Fluttershy. Unlike Twilight, she seemed to be happily wide awake as attested to by the great big teal eyes that blinked calmly not more than six inches from Twilight’s face. “...Fluttershy,” she stated flatly.

“Um—yes, Twilight?” came the butter-yellow pegasus’ immediate chipper response.

“...why are you in my bed?” she asked, –and why was I expecting somepony else? she added to herself.

“Oh. Umm... You came home late last night acting delirious,” the pegasus mare explained. “Rainbow thought you were drunk, but I’m pretty sure it was just sleep deprivation. I brought you up to bed and—umm—you were very forceful. It’s okay though; you were so into it, I just couldn’t bring myself to stop you.”

Twilight stared at Fluttershy for a moment. “–by which you mean that I used freaky alicorn-earth-pony strength to wrestle you into bed and cuddle you like a teddy bear. A platonic teddy bear.”

Fluttershy blinked. “Yes, that’s what I said.”

Twilight let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. Celestia was right, a good night’s sleep did wonders for panic attacks.

“But—umm—Twilight?” Fluttershy asked sheepishly.

“Hmm?” the sleepy mare responded vaguely.

“The stars in your mane are very nice to watch, but can we get out of bed now? It’s four in the afternoon.”

“–wha?” Twilight blinked, realizing she was still holding the yellow pegasus in a vice-grip. She jerked her hooves away with a start and reflexively shoved Fluttershy out of bed in panic; the confused pegasus made a warbling, thumping squeak as she rolled across the floor and slammed into the bedroom door.

“Ohmygosh! Fluttershy!” Twilight gasped, covering her mouth with her hooves. “I’m so sorry!” she apologized as she jumped out of bed to help her yellow friend—but the maltreated mare was already stumbling to her feet no worse for wear beyond a passing resemblance to a certain mailmare. Apparently pegasi really were light and fluffy enough to fall off mountains—or out of beds—and be fine. She wondered why she’d never thought about it before.

As Fluttershy stabilized herself on the door her stomach rumbled, much to her embarrassment. “Oh—umm—I’m sorry. It’s just that I haven’t had breakfast,” she explained. “–or lunch, or—um—anything at all, actually. Since last night, I mean.”

Twilight facehooved, glancing out the bedroom window to see that it was indeed late in the afternoon. “Augh, Fluttershy, you could have just woken me up,” she shook her head. “Come on, let’s get something to eat; I’m starving too.”

“Oh no, Twilight; I couldn’t have done that,” Fluttershy insisted sweetly as she stopped leaning up against the door for support and opened it.

Twilight sighed as she followed the pegasus out into the stairway. “You really should have; I thought you learned to stand up for yourself even without being mean about it?”

“Oh, no, Twilight," Fluttershy repeated apologetically. “I mean I really couldn’t have. That is to say—umm—I tried. –and Spike tried. –and Rainbow Dash tried too. Your eyes were all black and it was like you weren’t even there; we were really worried, but a doctor would have seen your wings and—um—Spike said it was probably some alicorn thing.”

Twilight’s face flushed a bit in embarrassment. “Oh... yeah, uhh, sorry. That was...” she started to explain, but hesitated. Nopony knew that the royal sisters effectively were the sun and moon. She hadn’t been asked to keep it a secret or anything, but... well, it was one thing to just grow wings and a princesshood one day—ponies knew how they were supposed to respond to princesses—but it was something else entirely to point up at the stars in the sky and say ‘See that? That’s me. Go ahead and wave, because I can see you.’

“...some alicorn thing, yeah,” she finished lamely. “It’s how I control the stars,” she continued as truthfully as possible; she wasn’t trying to keep anyone in the dark, after all. Another glance outside confirmed that the stars had been put away properly. “I guess I managed to do it in my sleep,” she noted as way of explanation, vaguely remembering the feeling she’d had of the moon trying to pull itself out of her... embrace? “–with some prompting,” she added cryptically.

✶ ✶ ✶

“So,” Fluttershy prompted as they entered the main room of the library where Spike was visible shelving books and the sound of turning pages came from one of the couches. “You worked everything out with the princesses?”

Twilight sighed. “Yes, everything is...” she started to say everything was fine, but it wasn’t, really. Luna was most definitely not fine. “...in the open,” she finished.

“See? I told you she’d be fine,” Spike noted with barely disguised pride in his judgement as he spotted her and set down the book he was carrying.

“Yeah yeah,” came a rough voice that was unmistakably Rainbow Dash from the couch. “So, how long?” she asked mercilessly.

Twilight blinked. “What?”

There was a paffing sound as a Daring Do book snapped shut and she poked her head over the back of the couch to look at Twilight seriously. “How long after you saw Celestia did it take you to fess up.”

“Umm...” the lavender mare delayed, looking away. “W–why?”

Dash leapt over the couch and flopped a sack of bits on the table.

“You... you were betting on me?” Twilight balked. “Dash!”

“What? Come on, how long?” she repeated as more bits found their way to the table.

“Um... specifically Celestia?” the alicorn asked evasively.

“Yeah,” Dash confirmed.

Twilight’s head drooped until her mane hid her eyes from view. “O–oh... Umm...” she counted in her head. “T-two or three...”

“Hours?” Dash suggested dubiously.

“Minutes?” Spike chimed in hopefully.

“...seconds,” Twilight admitted.

Dash facehooved audibly. “Augh! You... you...” the rainbow-maned mare grimaced. “Damnit, Twilight! Couldn’t you have held off for five measly minutes?”

“Five minutes? You bet on five minutes, Dash?” Indignation quickly replaced embarrassment. “Thanks for the vote of confidence!”

“Hey!” Dash shouted. “I’ll have you know that was the longest bet, Twilight! I believed in you!”

Twilight blinked as she processed that, “wait, then who–” she started as she turned to see Fluttershy scooping three bags of bits into her saddlebag with one wing.

Caught in the act, the butter-yellow pegasus gave a shy, innocent smile that almost seemed to squeak as she made it. “A–anyway,” she stuttered, then hurriedly spat out “I really should go check on my animals thanks so much bye!” in one long pileup of words before disappearing out the door in a puff of wind that would have made Dash proud... when she was five.

The lavender mare facehooved, then something suddenly crossed her mind and her head perked up. “Wait, there were three bags of bits. Where did Spike get–” suddenly, she noticed the baby dragon was no longer shelving books. Indeed, he seemed to have gone missing entirely. “Spike?” she called. “SPIKE! SPI—KE!” she shouted, but he had apparently got while the getting was good. “I won’t forget about this, Spike!” she informed the library in general. “I know where you live!”

✶ ✶ ✶

The lavender librarian sighed and flopped down at the dining table, cradling her head in her hooves in exasperation. Actually she was kind of glad Fluttershy and Spike had skipped out on her, she needed a little bit of peace and quiet.

“So, uhh...” came an awkward voice.

Right, Rainbow Dash was still here, she reminded herself. So much for peace and quiet, she thought, but Dash actually looked kind of serious as she sat down at the table next to Twilight. “What is it, Dash?” she asked tiredly. “Got any more bets I should know about?”

“Well I was really wondering about your mane...” Dash suggested at first, but hurried on after a look from Twilight. “–but, uhh, I really just wanted to ask... you’re not just here to pack up and move back to Canterlot, are you? ...‘cause that would be totally uncool.”

Twilight couldn’t help but let her lips curl a bit at the reminder that she had friends who really did care. “No Dash, I’m not moving to Canterlot. Celestia says I don’t even have to be a princess.”

“Oh, cool. So, everything’s good?” she asked.

“...not really, no.” Twilight sighed as she finally had a moment to review everything that had happened yesterday. “I screwed up, Dash. Luna and I got into a... not a fight, but...”

“Is that what that was?” Dash asked wonderingly.

“Huh?” Twilight asked, bewildered.

“Clop off’” Dash quoted, making the quotemarks with her hooves.

“...you heard that, huh?” Twilight asked rhetorically, sinking into her seat to hide her embarrassment..

“Twilight, they probably heard it in the Griffon Kingdom,” Dash asserted.

“Oh Celestia I hope not,” Twilight balked. “That would be... unfortunate.” The Griffins always were easily offended. “–anyway,” she bore on, “it’s not just that. You might not have noticed, but the stars are all messed up for some reason—I’m sure Luna’s ecstatic about that too—and we still don’t even know anything about why this even happened.”

“Yeah, but who cares about any of that?” Dash dismissed in a carefree tone.

“Uhh—I do?” the alicorn pointed out affrontedly.

“Yeah, well, stop," Dash insisted. “Those are Canterlot problems. What does it matter right now if you pissed off Luna or if Luna pissed off the birdies?”

Twilight was unconvinced and unamused. “–and the stars?”

Dash shrugged and leaned back, “eh, everypony was probably getting bored with the old ones anyway—and if they do complain, you should tell them to stuff it. You might not have noticed, but from where I’m sitting it looks like the stars are yours now, Twilight. All the astronomology nerds in the world exist just to tell you how cool they are, not what to do with them.”

Briefly, Twilight wished she lived in the same world as Rainbow Dash. “It’s not that simple,” she moped. “Sailor ponies use the stars for navigation, Dash! I can’t just take that away!”

“Yeah, Twilight, you can. Come on—really—those sailor ponies still have the sun and moon, they’ll figure something new out in like, a day. It never mattered that some stars looked like a filly’s drawing of a spoon, just where it was in the sky.”

“A filly’s—Dash!” Twilight balked, appalled. “How can you call Luna’s constellations–”

“–Twi!” Dash interrupted. “Luna’s been gone for a thousand years; do you really think she made all that stuff up? If they had ponies like you that liked that stuff back then, Nightmare Moon might not have happened!”

Twilight stopped, started to say something, then stopped again.

“Hay, maybe you should ask her sometime,” the sky-blue pegasus suggested. “–but not right now!”

“Look—fine, Dash. If you don’t think that’s important, what is?” the irate alicorn fumed.

“All you should be thinking about right now is what’s on the other side of that door,” the pegasus gestured with one hoof. Twilight just stared in confusion at the door outside. “Ponyville and three friends you’re still lying to.”

Twilight’s eyes widened a bit in fear, then she simply headdesked. “Thank you, Rainbow Dash—because I needed more to worry about.”

“Hey—I don’t care what you tell Ponyville, but Applejack, Pinkie Pie and Rarity need to find out about this from you and nopony else. Look, you had your little panic attack and everything’s fine now; the longer you leave them out of this and the longer you make Fluttershy and me cover for you, the worse it’s going to get.”

“I know,” the lavender alicorn groused as she pushed her chair away and stood up to stretch. “At least Ponyville won’t be a problem. I came up with a spell last night to make me look like a regular unicorn,” she explained as her horn glowed for a moment and the wings disappeared. “It’s just an illusion, but as long as I don’t pomf anyone in the face on the street, I shouldn’t have anything to worry about,” she smiled proudly.

Dash just stared at her. “Yeeeeah—that’s not going to work.”

Twilight cocked her head to the side. “What do you mean?” she asked, twisting to make sure her wings were invisible—they were, but something else wasn’t. “Aw, ponyfeathers!,” she swore. Her mane and tail remained as they had been since her first manifestation last night—solid magic cut from the night sky itself. Briefly, she wondered if the rest of her was no longer flesh and blood either, but she didn’t have time to continue that line of thought.

“No—no wait—I can still make this work!” she declared with a twinge of mania. “I... I just need a hat!”

“Two hats,” Rainbow Dash noted sarcastically. “One for your head and one for your dock.”

“I... I...” Twilight stammered, trying to figure something out.

“Face it Twi—even if you did that, Rare would murder you the second you walked into her shop—and then she’d feel bad. –and then I’d feel bad for not saving your life by putting a stop to your wacky hijinks.”

Twilight grumbled defeatedly, dispelled the unicorn illusion for the moment—and at the exact same moment, her stomach grumbled angrily as well. “Spike!” she shouted, turning to look into the kitchen. “What’s holding up breakf–” she started to ask, but was stopped in her tracks by the sight of a completely empty room. “Right, no Spike, no breakfast,” she remembered, thumping her head against the doorjamb.

Suddenly Rainbow Dash’s face lit up with a grin. “Oh hey, don’t worry about breakfast—I’ve got that covered,” she said as she motioned Twilight over to the couch. “There’s food from Sugar Cube Corner.”

“Oh thank Celestia!” Twilight beamed happily as she followed Dash out to the center of the library. “You have no idea how hungry I—wait, I don’t see any–”

The next thing Twilight knew, she was being flung at Rainbow Dash speeds out of the library, tumbling head over hooves in the fresh white snow. Just as she rolled to a stop wearing a fresh coat of powder, the library door slammed shut.

Merely dazed and confused from being flung out of the library, Twilight stumbled back to the library door, shaking herself off along the way. For some reason, the door was locked. “Dash!” she yelled, banging on the door. “What in Equestria–”

“There is food from Sugar Cube Corner,” Dash’s rough voice yelled from the other side of the door. “You just have to go get it!”

“What—DASH! You–!”

“I’m saving your life!” the voice behind the door insisted. “Say ‘hi’ to Pinkie Pie for me!”

Twilight thumped her head on the door and sighed, sinking down into a sitting position on the library’s doorstep as she tried to figure out what she was going to do. Unfortunately, it was hard to think with the din of late-afternoon traffic all mumbling and clopping—actually she didn’t hear any clopping. She lifted her gaze to see why, and suddenly realized everypony in sight had stopped where they stood.

–and they were all looking at her.

–and her mane.

–and her wings.

“...oh, horseapples.”

☼ ☼ ☼

Celestia found Luna in their private dining area miserably poking at a pair of waffles with dark blueberry syrup matching the younger sister’s coat—and mood. “A little late even for your breakfast, isn’t it?” she observed as she poured herself a cup of coffee.

“I didst not sleep well,” Luna mumbled.

“Something on your mind?” Celestia prodded knowingly.

“Taxes,” the weary alicorn deflected.

The princess of the sun shook her head. “Lulu, I know there’s a lot to learn about how Equestria and the language have changed—and that much of it is your stubborn pride—but that is not how you pronounce ‘Twilight Sparkle’ and you know it.”

Luna poked her waffles unproductively with a small silver breakfast fork. “She is excessively clingy when she sleeps,” the princess of the moon explained. “–so much so that it made setting the moon difficult.”

Celestia was inappropriately amused at the image of a sleepy Twilight hanging onto her younger sister like a narcoleptic ball and chain; she did her best not to let it show. “Is that really such a bad thing?”

“Yes!” Luna threw her fork down on the plate and leaned back in her chair with a groan. “Shall we give away... give away your rainbows to Rainbow Dash and see how that works out for you, Tia? Keep her in the same sky with you while she prances about shows them off like shiny new ribbons?” the midnight blue alicorn demanded flippantly, then flopped forward with a sigh. “This is not how I expected it to be.”

“Oh?” Celestia asked indifferently as she blatantly helped herself to Luna’s waffles from across the table and failed to mention that Rainbow Dash would probably be insulted at the accusation of prancing. “Not how you expected what to be, exactly?”

“Twilight Sparkle!” Luna shouted frustratedly. “She just—I just–”

“What did you expect, Lulu?” Celestia asked, arching one eyebrow as she sipped her coffee to wash down a bite of waffle. “You’ve read her reports, you know how she is. She makes mistakes; everypony does. Sometimes those mistakes hurt; it’s part of growing up.”

“I know, Tia, I just...” she didn’t have the words.

“You just didn’t expect her to hurt you,” the elder alicorn suggested.

“...yes. That,” Luna admitted with a reluctant grumble.

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight stared in shock at the crowd.

The crowd stared back in silence.

Hesitantly, she found her way to her hooves and took a tentative step forward.

The crowd parted and bowed.

The sight of prostrated ponies disturbed her more than it ever had before when it was her they were bowing to; she tried to draw herself up to shout at them. She was going to yell at them and explain that she wasn’t a princess—that she just wanted to be treated normally—but she just... didn’t have the energy to deal with it right now so she just... she let them do it.

To her everlasting shame, she let them bow and gape at her for now if it would just keep them quiet and let her pretend everything was normal.

Dejected and disappointed with herself, she turned and started walking down the street towards Sugar Cube Corner.

Nopony said anything the entire way.

✶ ✶ ✶

The bell on the door cheerfully broke the utter silence as Twilight entered the bakery.

“Hey Twilight!” Pinkie Pie beamed from behind the counter. “Wow! You look tired! I bet you’re hungry too! What can I get you?”

“Hey Pinkie,” she greeted unenergetically. “What have you got for somepony wishing she could to do grievous harm unto a friend who doesn’t know the meaning of moderation?” she asked sarcastically.

The pink party pony brightened up and disappeared behind the counter for a moment before popping back up. “Bear claws! Raaawr!” she faux-roared as she waved one about threateningly with each hoof before packaging up the glazed pastries. “Bear claws are super great for nonlethal pony-to-pony combat! Even though they’re called claws, you can actually throw them too which is really really useful against Pegasi! Anything else?”

Twilight couldn’t help but smile at her antics. “Just some orange juice,” she said before taking a bite of bear claw. “I’d like to at least pretend this is breakfast as normal.”

“Sure thing!” the earth pony chirped before dashing off into the back room only to return seconds later walking on her hind legs juggling oranges and singing nonsense to herself as she sliced them in half and tossed them into a juice press with the kind of hoof control only a practiced earth pony could manage. It made Twilight feel a little bit better about being an alicorn as she noted that no matter what magical traits she shared with the three pony races, there were still things she’d probably never be able to do.

Pinkie Pie passed the cup of orange juice to Twilight, who hoofed over some bits and glanced over her shoulder at the crowds outside. Then, the lavender librarian did something she never thought she’d do; she sat down at a table in Sugar Cube Corner to eat during Pinkie’s shift... because it would be quieter and less stressful than the alternative.

A minute or so passed as the freshly awoken mare ate and Pinkie Pie just... hovered expectantly. Eventually the pregnant silence became too much, and Twilight searched her mood for something to talk about.

“Pinkie,” the sullen alicorn sighed. “What do you do when apologizing only makes things worse?”

“Well that’s easy, silly! Stop apologizing!” the party pony beamed in response.

Twilight perked up in expectation “–and...?”

“–and what, Twilight?” Pinkie Pie inquired with a cock of her head, as if the lavender mare had suddenly changed the subject.

“You don’t apologize... but what do you do?” she clarified insistently.

Pinkie Pie blinked. “Do? How should I know?”

“Pinkie, you’re friends with everypony in Ponyville,” Twilight pointed out. “You’re like... The drunken master of friendship! You ought to have some idea.”

“Ooooh,” the pink party pony said with sudden understanding. “Silly Twilight! I’m not friends with everypony in Ponyville.”

That wasn’t the answer she was expecting. “You aren’t?” she wondered in surprise.

“Nope!” she beamed. “I’m friends with every pony in Ponyville! That’s every–” she paused, marking a distance in the air with her hooves. “–space–” she continued seriously, moving her hooves along to the side in starts. “–pony! –and also, every space-pony!”

“...space-pony,” Twilight said with no inflection through a bite of pastry.

“Yeah! I mean, ponies are all different, you know? –so being somepony’s friend is always different too! That’s why I’m every pony’s friend! It’d be really boring if they were all the same! Ooh, ooh! You know what? I know every pony in Ponyville so maybe I can help you! Who are you after?”

Who was she ‘after’? That was a funny way of putting it, she thought. “I just want Luna to... I don’t want her to hate me.”

“Ooh, ooh, you mean the princess?” Pinkie beamed. “That’s easy! Stop making all the kids scared of her on Nightmare Night!”

Twilight paused for a moment with her mouth open, then very nearly caught the last of her breakfast between hoof and face as the two sought each other out like magnets. “Pinkie, I never did that. You did that. I was the one helping her out!”

“Oh, well then aren’t you already her friend?” Pinkie suggested as she took Twilight’s garbage and cleaned up the table.

Twilight leaned back in her chair, searching the ceiling for an answer. “I dunno... I guess?”

“–then she can’t hate you!” the pink party pony grinned as she suddenly pulled Twilight to her hooves. “So cheer up!” Pinkie shook her. “We can’t have you all down for the—uhh—” Pinkie suddenly stopped in mid sentence and let go of the lavender alicorn to look around for something to substitute for what she was going to say. She didn’t find it under the cashbox or inside the donut display.

Twilight just gave a little chuckle and smiled. “Look, Pinkie,” she said, changing the subject for her pink friend. “Thanks for not pestering me about the elephant in the room, really. I appreciate it.”

Pinkie Pie pulled her head out of the cupboard, covered in powdered sugar. “Elephant? There was an elephant in the room?” she asked with a mixture of confusion and concern. “Oh no—did he want something? Mrs. Cake is always telling me to pay more attention!”

Twilight shook her head. “I mean... me,” she said, gesturing to herself; mane, wings and all.

Pinkie Pie was confused for a moment, then gave a short snorting laugh. “Don’t be silly, Twilight! You’re not an elephant! Elephants don’t have wings!”

Twilight just smiled. “Like I said... thanks,” she said, as she made to leave. “Oh,” she paused halfway out the door. “–and what time can I expect the ’–uhh–’”

“Eight o’clock!” Pinkie beamed happily.

“Right,” the alicorn nodded, and shut the door behind her.

She wished she hadn’t.

The crowd was still there.

✶ ✶ ✶

The door of the Carousel Boutique made a polite pa-tump despite the haste with which it was shut. The mare who had shut it, however, was in a slightly less polite state and somewhat resented the door’s quiet composure. She’d started out walking in simple awkward silence outside of Sugar Cube Corner, making her way towards Rarity’s shop with dozens, if not hundreds of eyes watching her every step in complete silence.

Unconsciously, she’d stiffly started to walk faster; the crowd didn’t follow, but there were always more of them everywhere she went, watching her. Eventually, her stiff walk had turned into a skittish canter as she passed more and more silent faces. When the boutique had finally come into view, her skittish canter had finally blossomed into a full-out nervous gallop until she burst through the door—which is how she’d ended up where she was now; leaning on the inside of said door, gasping for breath and slightly perturbed that it didn’t even have the decency to slam properly.

Unfortunately, she didn’t have a chance to catch her breath before an icy voice came from the doorway that led to the back room.

“You!” Rarity hissed in the third most hostile voice Twilight had ever heard from the element of generosity (the second and first were of course reserved for ex-suitors she had gotten over—Blueblood and Tom, in that order.)

“I am not talking to you until you apologize!” Rarity shrieked in a hurt-sounding voice, staying where she was at the edge of the room.

The lavender alicorn looked back over her shoulder at the door, beyond which a whole crowd of ponies loomed. Of course the news would have outrun her, she reasoned. She wondered if perhaps she should have come to Rarity first, but her stomach hadn’t given her a choice in the matter.

“Well?” Rarity prompted impatiently. “Let’s have it then,” the fashionista demanded, taking a tentative step forward.

Twilight dropped her head down in resignation. “I’m sorry for not telling you about my wings, Rarity. I was being silly and paranoid.”

Rarity blinked. “What? No—let’s have that horrible sweater!” she cried. “Out with it! I want to see it burn.”

“The... sweater? Really, Rarity? I don’t have the sweater with me,” the librarian stated in a flat monotone. “I have alicorn wings,” she paused. “You don’t even care, do you.”

“Oh—err—yes... I’m sorry Twilight—they’re very nice—but you have to understand, a mare has certain needs.” Needs that involved fire, apparently.

Twilight made a noise that was somewhere between an exasperated sigh and a grunt of frustration. “Look, fine. Pinkie Pie is arranging a thing at eight for obvious reasons. If it means that much to you, you can have the sweater then. You can make a whole event of it. You can have all my sweaters.”

Rarity’s eyes widened as she gasped in utter horror. “You mean—there are more of them?!” she cried in revulsion and fell into a convenient fainting couch. “Twilight!” she shouted as she twisted dramatically on the couch, “You cad! You criminal! You depraved madmare! How could you?”

If Twilight wore a watch, she would have checked it. “Are you done now?”

Rarity hesitated a moment to think, one hoof on her forehead. “...yes, I think so,” she confirmed as she swept her legs out off the couch and leaned one elbow on the headrest to actually look at the alicorn of the stars. “You do look rather fetching—perhaps a little ruffled I suppose. Do you sparkle or is that just snow...?”

“You don’t seem surprised about the, uh...” Twilight fanned out her wings and wiggled them; she was getting a little better at the fine motor controls.

“Well—I’m not, am I? I mean, I’m not stupid, Twilight. You aren’t a filly anymore to just suddenly be having growth spurts for no good reason—and then there were the stars, and you came out of the bath with just a towel over your wings. You weren’t really hiding it, were you now?”

“A towel over my...” she repeated distantly, suddenly remembering.

Heck, I bet Rarity would have seen through you too if she could have brought herself to look at that horrible thing you were wearing, Rainbow Dash had said. Well, she hadn’t been wearing ‘that horrible thing’ the whole time, had she? Twilight would have facehooved again right then and there but for concerns that she was beginning to wear a permanent rut into her face by now. “You could have said something.”

Rarity scoffed. “What kind of friend would I be if I didn’t let you think you had secrets?” the white unicorn asked rhetorically.

“A good one?” the young alicorn joked sarcastically in answer.

“Anyway, forget about that. Princess," Rarity stated, enunciating the word like it was the shiniest jewel in a crown. “What’s that going to be like?”

“Oh, no, I’m not going to be a princess,” Twilight explained matter-of-factly. “Princess Celestia offered, but I said ‘no.’ I couldn’t just leave Ponyville.”

“You what,” Rarity asked flatly, one eye twitching.

“Well... yeah!” she declared proudly. “Being a princess just isn’t what I—”

“OUT!” Rarity cried, throwing Twilight back out into the street and slamming the door.

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight only remembered her flight from the Carousel Boutique in the vaguest of terms—just enough to wish she’d thought to utilize actual flight, or better, teleportation since her flight was not quite up to snuff yet. As it was she had found herself on her back, surrounded by all those eyes and she’d just... stumbled to her hooves and ran. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew that this was becoming a problem, but right now she was just happy to find herself out on the road to Sweet Apple Acres, blissfully alone.

There was a time when just the walk to Applejack’s farm would have tired her out. As spread out as Canterlot Castle and Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns were, Canterlot was still a city and Twilight had still been little more than a bookworm. She hadn’t exactly been unfit when she came to Ponyville, but the key word of Sweet Apple Acres was, after all, acres. There was, quite unapologetically, a lot of it.

Fast forward a couple years, and now exhaustion was the furthest thing from her mind; physical exhaustion, anyhow. Her mental state was perhaps a little more frazzled than she’d have liked to admit, though she thought she was hiding it rather well. Physically on the other hand, though the librarian had certainly been breathing hard from her flightless flight out of Ponyville, that had subsided and now she just felt... refreshed. Energized, even. Not only that, but for the first time since this had all started, she even felt optimistic despite her frazzled nature.

Her friends understood; neither Pinkie Pie nor Rarity had made a big deal about it at all—not really, if she understood Rarity like she thought she did—and now all she had left to do was to tell Applejack. Applejack was one of the most grounded and practical ponies Twilight knew. This would be simple, easy and quick, she told herself.

In fact, she was almost disappointed when she looked up and realized she was already at the Apple family homestead. She was actually disappointed when she found the Apple family homestead empty, save for a single napping Granny Smith whom Twilight did her best not to disturb.

It wasn’t hard to conclude that the Apples were still out doing... whatever it was apple farmers do over the winter. The Apples weren’t known for being slackers; if there was anything they could do now to make life easier during apple-bucking season, they’d be out doing it. Twilight wouldn’t be surprised to find them down in the cellar making apple preserves, out in the barn getting fresh hay or even managing some sort of secret magical underground apple farm.

Disappointingly, she didn’t find them down in the cellar or out in the barn, and as far as she could tell there was no magical underground apple farm—secret or not. The only things left she could do were to either sit and wait, wake Granny Smith or search the fields herself. She was surprised to find that the last idea didn’t immediately fill her with dread and imagined exhaustion. Actually it sounded like a great idea to her; the whole orchard felt subtly alive to her, and the expectation of having a good run was building into a feeling of—no, wait. Suddenly she had a much better idea.

She looked out over the wide open fields of Sweet Apple Acres and rustled her wings in anticipation. Despite earlier thoughts about the caliber of her flying ability, surely here—she thought—the third time would be the charm.

Stretching her wings out to their full extension sent shivers of relief down her spine. The snow she’d been thrown into twice today had melted off into a simple dewy shine that caught the late afternoon sunset beautifully. Being flung out of buildings had also begun to take its toll on Twilight’s wings, though; they were a bit ruffled. Regrettably, she had only been an alicorn for two days and hadn’t yet had any lessons in wing care. Worse, she hadn’t yet been told why—other than comfort—such care was necessary.

She was about to find out.

Starting with a gulp and a gallop, she pointed herself at the south orchard and launched into the air. Despite a rocky start involving quite a bit of asynchronous flapping to try and level herself off, she quickly found herself airborne, though in no less rocky a state.

It wasn’t that her maltreated wings weren’t capable of providing enough lift; they just weren’t quite capable of providing the same lift—or glide with quite the same resistance. The awkward uneven flapping felt like she was galloping down a hill, never quite able to get her balance but still barely managing not to crash in any spectacular manner. She did come very close to crashing several times, however, only managing to swoop back up into the sky at the last moment. She was so occupied simply staying airborne that the idea of searching for Applejack had left her mind completely. Sadly, Applejack was not handicapped in any such way.

“Get outta here ya thievin’ pegasus!” came a thickly accented voice somewhere in the field below, immediately followed by a whomp and a splat of apple-scented pain in Twilight’s barrel and head. At that moment, nopony could have contested the practicality and effectiveness of apples and apple products as ordnance rated for buffalo, dragons and evidently alicorns. Not only that, but the small sweet fruit seemed to be doubly effective when aided by the stealthiest of stationary combatants, malus domestica.

That is to say, Twilight never saw the apple tree.

Whump.

“Uhh—sis? Ah think ya just shot down Princess Luna.”

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight didn’t actually lose consciousness, but there was a distinct period where said consciousness was most certainly misplaced and possibly sent on to Manehattan by mistake, where it had to be sent back by carriage over Equestria’s rockiest roads. When Twilight became Princess, she’d make sure the main thoroughfares got—and then her head cleared.

She felt a bit like a newborn foal as she dizzily propped her legs up under herself and wobbled to a stand. She found it necessary to keep her eyes on her hooves just in case they decided to give up the fight without her, which is how she noticed four more hooves stretched out in front of her; two orange and two yellow.

Then, the ringing in her head died down, and her hearing came back only to be filled immediately by a run-on string of apologies already in progress from one of the prostrated ponies.

“–ah’m mighty sorry, yer highness, ya see I just–”

“–Applejack,” Twilight tried to interrupt.

“–thought you was a friend of mine who’s always–”

“Applejack!” she interjected again futilely.

“–stealin’ mah apples on account of the sunset muddying up yer colors and–”

“Applejack!” the lavender alicorn shouted one last time and was finally successful at halting the torrent of apologies from the bowing earth pony—though not with the expected result.

“Hsst! Quiet down Twilight!” the orange mare hissed to the side sotto voce with her eyes still downcast. “Cain’t ya see ahm trying t’ apologize t’ the Princess?”

Twilight’s hoof only barely twitched. She was getting a handle on her facehoof-reflex.

“Uhm, sis...” Apple Bloom pitched in hesitantly; she’d peeked up at the ‘princess’ like any little filly would have and now she was rising to her hooves, her eyes shocked wide and awestruck.

“You too, Apple Bloom! Quiet!”

“–but sis—that weren’t no Princess Luna ya shot down...” the filly noted with uncertainty in her voice.

Applejack’s downcast face went from worry to outright fear. “Don’t tell me it’s–” She exploded into motion, grabbing Apple Bloom and leaping back from the night-colored alicorn, ready to buck if she attacked. “Nightmare M—Twilight?” she stuttered, blinking in surprise.

Twilight’s face was unreadable, “Yep. Nightmare Twilight. That’s me,” she said intending exasperation and sarcasm; it just came out flat.

Applejack shrank back subtly, worry and confusion clear on her face as she pushed Apple Bloom up on her back protectively. She was... afraid of Twilight? She thought she was serious?

A twinge of guilt tightened in her Twilight’s chest... and a little hurt too; actually, maybe more than a little hurt. “–and by that I mean just regular old Twilight,” the alicorn of the stars clarified meekly.

Applejack was still wary. “–but... y’all got the stars in yer mane and everything...”

“Yeah, umm...” she hesitated, worrying her hoof into the dirt nervously. She didn’t want to make it sound like she was any different. “Luna... won’t be handling them any more.” Twilight blinked as she heard the words at the same time as Applejack. No wait, that didn’t come out right either!

“W-what’d you do to her?” the earth pony accused aggressively, suddenly actively hostile. “If you’ve hurt the princesses...”

“Applejack!” Twilight exclaimed in affront and a little bit insulted. Is that what Applejack thought of her? “I didn’t hurt anypony! Well I mean, I did, but I didn’t hurt her hurt her! If anything she’s the one that bucked me off a mountain!”

“–and that made it right to... to whatever, did it?” the earth pony countered vehemently; her mind apparently made up now that Twilight had—what? Turned villain? This was getting ridiculous.

“Wha—I didn’t whatever anypony!” Twilight shouted, automatically responding to her friend’s hostility without even vetting the words for sense. Why was Applejack responding like this? Didn’t she trust Twilight?

“Oh yeah? Is that what the princesses will say?” Applejack demanded. “Then how come yer here and not in Canterlot gettin’ it fixed?”

“The princesses don’t even know what happened!” she fumed in anger and frustration—at least, that’s what she thought it was. For some reason, her eyes were starting to burn. Applejack. Why didn’t Applejack understand? She was so bewildered that the next accusation came out of nowhere and she wasn’t ready for it.

“So y’all think yeh got away with it, huh?”

“Wh–” For some reason, that poleaxed her. “What? Just—what?” She didn’t have an answer for that. “There isn’t anything to...” there isn’t anything to get away with, she started to simply deny, but there was, wasn’t there? No—it wasn’t the same at all! she told herself.

“No, no! I... This isn’t...” This isn’t my fault, she tried instead, but she knew better. “I... I never...” I never asked for this. Another lie, as Celestia herself had pointed out. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go at all—and why were her eyes burning? “I just... I...”

Oh.

She was crying.

How awkward.

Strange, she thought. Why was she crying? It was awful sudden and she didn’t even seem to be a part of the process, she just wanted... she just felt... actually, she was having trouble putting thoughts together just this moment. For a moment she just... stopped. Tears continued to build up until she could barely make out the antagonistic orange blob that was supposed to be her friend. Eventually, she took a breath, and it came out as a gasp and a sob. Oh—there—now she was starting to feel it.

It felt like she’d done all the math right and come up with the wrong answer.

For a while, Applejack was as stunned and inarticulate as Twilight until Apple Bloom clopped her on the ear from behind. “A-aw shucks, Twi, ah didn’t mean to...” the elder apple farmer apologized awkwardly and emptily.

“Just... stop... please," Twilight pleaded as weak knees buckled under her and she buried her face in her hooves and the snow. “Just let me... I can’t...”

“Twi...” Applejack emoted, hesitantly stepping forward at the sobbing alicorn.

She couldn’t handle this right now. “Just... please leave, Applejack.”

Twilight didn’t know if it was because Applejack’s felt guilty or if the earth pony was just similarly unable to process what was happening—but nevertheless, the apple farmer’s head sank sadly, she turned away and did as she was told; a silent Apple Bloom watching from her back as she crunched away through the snow.

Twilight immediately wished she hadn’t left.

Applejack probably did too.

Neither of them had any idea what had just happened.

☾ ☾ ☾

“Not that I am complaining, but why didst thou send thy student away?” Luna asked her sister as they sat in the Canterlot Castle throne room between visitants. “She has much to learn still about being an alicorn.”

“That is exactly why," Celestia said cryptically. She motioned at the opulent room where citizens of Equestia would come to voice their grievances and make requests. “To a pony like her, this all seems so... silly. She would hate it.”

“Thou thinkest she wilt find another path?” Luna arched one eyebrow.

Celestia sighed. “Probably not... but this way she’ll understand it. She has to make her own mistakes.”

“...yes because that has worked so well up till now,” the younger alicorn said bitterly.

“You really need to lighten up, Lulu,” Celestia chided, making a show of looking at something behind the younger alicorn “All this grumpiness is turning you gray.”

“Hrmph,” Luna turned her head away stubbornly as she grumped sourly, then did a double at what her sister had said. “Wait—what?”

✶ ✶ ✶

The crowd was waiting for Twilight when she stumbled hollowly back to Ponyville; she knew they probably weren’t actually waiting for her, but to Twilight they had become just a single annoying entity whose sole purpose was to dog her every step. Okay, maybe she was being unfair; she was upset, after all; she was allowed to be unfair. It was almost sunset and all she wanted to do was to go home, dutifully bring out the stars like a good little alicorn and figure out how she was going to deal with whatever Pinkie Pie was planning in a couple of hours.

If only it were so easy.

Suddenly, without rhyme or reason, the corridor through the mass of ponies she’d been taking for granted did something unexpected; where before it had simply opened in front of her, it had now left one small filly standing in the path.

In her mouth she held a book, a quill and the biggest grin Twilight had ever seen on anypony save Pinkie Pie. The book was a copy of Twilight.

Somehow Twilight knew—she just knew—that there was no potential future that did not involve autographing that book—but that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to try. She was not in the mood.

“Look,” she sighed. “Listen!” she shouted angrily at the crowd, but it wasn’t quite enough over all the mumbling. She was going to have to—no! she told herself, absolutely not! There wasn’t really another option, though.

“Everypony listen to me!” she shouted in the... not the Royal Canterlot Voice, no, that would be too ironic for what she was going to say. This was the... Ponyville Librarian Voice. Yes. That. The traditional Ponyville Librarian Voice. She was starting the tradition right now.

“I am not—I repeat—I am not, nor will I ever be in the expected future a princess or any kind of royalty!” she shouted and a wave of mumbling echoed throughout the crowd... but their attitude didn’t change at all.

“So, please! You can all just go about your business!” she explained quite clearly. There was another bustle of approving mumbles, but it was as if she was speaking another language and everypony was too polite to tell her; they didn’t move an inch. The filly with the book was grinning madly as ever.

Conscious that she was quickly running out of time and just wanting to get on with it, Twilight gave in, yanked the book and quill from the filly and signed it with a plastered on smile and as much faked cheerfulness as she could muster. As the filly cantered happily off back to her mother, Twilight saw the spine of the book and realized it was a library copy. There were not enough facehooves in the world.

If Twilight had expected the book signing to satisfy the crowd and send them on their way, she didn’t know crowds—which she had, and which she didn’t. Suddenly the whole crowd sprang to life and her little corridor of respectful noninterference vanished in a sea of ponies who all of a sudden had questions and requests and... and Twilight didn’t even know what. It was all she could do to avoid getting trampled and reflexively shout whatever came to mind in the traditional Ponyville Librarian Voice, all the while the sun sank below the horizon and disappeared.

“Princess! Why doesn’t your mane billow without wind like the other princesses’?”

“I—it what?”

“Princess! What happened to Princess Luna? Is she dead?”

“No! She’s fine! ...ish”

“Princess! Why aren’t you a princess, princess?”

“Can you even hear yourself?!”

With every question, the sky darkened and Luna’s... Luna peeked up over the horizon. Suddenly she felt like she was being watched, which was rather strange seeing as she was drowning in ponies already, but completely normal for Twilight who had what amounted to extra-sensory perception in situations where she was in danger of being tardy.

Nopony else had noticed the sunset, however, and the crowd continued to press in, raining her with questions like rice at a wedding; some were even asking her about a wedding, though she wasn’t quite sure why. The sky grew darker and darker. She had no choice.

“Will everypony please be QUIET!” she roared in the traditional Ponyville Librarian Voice. “Can I just have FIVE MINUTES to RAISE THE BUCKING STARS PLEASE?”

Silence.

Beautiful awkward worshipful silence.

If there was any time she needed Princess Celestia’s calming spell, this was it. Her horn glowed and she closed her eyes. The crowd disappeared behind a vast expanse of blackness and stars. Being that this was still only her second time bringing out the stars, the process was rough; almost violent. She was sure Luna had a better way to do it—something more gradual that brought them out slowly like Equestria was used to—but all Twilight had figured out and all she had the patience for right now was to turn her celestial self upside down and inside out and flood the whole sky with brilliant lights all at once in a great tumultuous splash. As she crashed back down into her pony self, she kind of wished she could see it sometime; it was apparently rather spectacular.

Faces. Wide, adoring faces. Astonished, reverent faces all around her. Suddenly it hit her; why did she think being a princess or not mattered...? She was the stars. She was an aspect of the night sky. Being a princess was irrelevant; to these ponies... she was a goddess.

Why hadn’t that occurred to her?

There was an expectant pause before the crowd exploded even louder than before with even more crushing enthusiasm—but this time when the impromptu mosh-pit-slash-public-interview crashed together where the lavender alicorn had been standing, it found nothing but stardust.

✶ ✶ ✶

The early hour made manifesting back at the library difficult; a lot of Celestia’s sunlight was still refracting throughout the sky even after the sun had fallen beyond the horizon, so she had to fight for it. The sunlight seemed to be far more flexible than starlight in that regard; now that she knew what it was, Twilight knew she had actually seen the princess manifest in Ponyville after sunset before.

Regardless, the point was that she ended up manifesting somewhere six or seven shelves off the library floor, came crashing down with a limp flop and just... stayed there. Staring at the ceiling was all the action and excitement she wanted right now. Somehow it seemed the only alicorn magic she was making use of today was pegasi fluffiness.

Speaking of fluffy pegasi, Rainbow Dash was standing over Twilight with a look on her face like she wasn’t sure if she should toss the alicorn in the shower or the rubbish.

“Hey Dash," Twilight greeted numbly without prompting. “I did it. Everypony knows now. Everypony,” she paused a short while to examine a peculiar impulse. “–and every space-pony, I suppose,” she added.

“Space-ponies?” Dash asked; and Twilight was briefly amused at not being the straight pony for once, but it didn’t last. She felt awful and hollow. Crying herself out after Applejack had left hadn’t solved anything, and then what had happened outside... she needed to sort things out. She needed a chance to think.

“Are you... okay, Twi?” Dash asked concernedly.

“No. Look—thanks for watching the library, Dash, really,” she said in almost a monotone voice.

“Hey, no probl—” the proud pegasus began to say, but it was not to be.

“–now, I don’t have a checklist,” Twilight interrupted casually, as if she wasn’t even talking to Dash but writing a note. “–but I’m just about ninety-five percent sure I’m going to lay here for ten minutes, then go up to my room and... I don’t know. Lock up if you’re anxious to leave; I don’t want anypony wandering in off the street and turning my fridge into an altar to the star goddess or whatever. There’s a Pinkie Pie thing at eight. Applejack... might not be coming; I don’t know. I might not be coming.”

Dash was a bit weirded out. “Umm... yeah... okay. I did all my weather patrol stuff this morning, but you know... I haven’t been home since last night. I should really, uhh, check on the... clouds. At my house. –because my house is made of clouds. –and they might float away.”

Dash was lying to Twilight. Badly. Was that how she sounded when she lied? Right now, she didn’t even care. “You do that,” she replied, eyes on the ceiling, unfocused.

Rainbow Dash slowly made her way to the door in awkward silence peppered by several pauses as she stopped to look back at Twilight. “You’re really just gonna...”

“For at least ten minutes, Dash, yes.”

“You’re... sure?”

“Ninety-five percent. Ninety-six. Point five. Two. The other three point four eight percent is I just lay here for the rest of the night. Goodbye, Dash.”

“All...righty then!” she replied, scratching her neck with one hoof before opening the Library door and making as if to leave. Something stopped her at the last moment.

“Oh, Twi! It was a slow afternoon, but I still sold fifty bits worth of books!” she beamed proudly. “The bits are in the kitchen; I couldn’t find your register or whatever,” the cyan pegasus explained before shutting the door behind her.

“Dash,” Twilight addressed the empty room. “This is a library.”

✶ ✶ ✶

True to her word, Twilight shambled up the stairs to her room a short while later. She was sorely tempted by that three point four eight percent, but she had an odd feeling like she wasn’t alone in the library. It wasn’t Spike; she was used to the various grunts and scratches the young dragon made—and besides, there weren’t any sounds, it was just... a feeling of somepony being there with her.

She’d all but dismissed the idea as she opened the door to her room, but then she took one step into the room and stopped; there really was somepony there.

Actually, there wasn’t, but she could see the moon out her bedroom window and somehow it just felt like she’d walked in on the princess. She hesitated apprehensively for a brief moment, but instead she was surprised to realize that... she was actually sort of okay with this. The door clicked quietly as she shut it behind her and stepped into the room.

She desperately wanted to just flop over in bed and think, but her eyes caught sight of a quill on her desk and stuck there. It took her a moment to realize why, but it came to her quickly enough. Right, she had a letter to write and two last ponies to tell. The weary alicorn pulled out the heavy old wooden chair and folded herself into it with a sigh. First, she took a moment to dread what she was about to do, and then she started writing almost without pause.

Dear Mom and Dad, It has been a while since I updated you on what’s going on in my life here in Ponyville, she wrote easily; she was often better with letters than she was actually talking to ponies in person, and the number of reports she’d sent the princess on deeply personal matters of friendship had helped her open up.

Briefly, she stopped and glanced out the window at the mare keeping her company to consider how those reports had been misused by Princess Celestia, but that embarrassment was a quaint anecdote now. Sitting with her like this—sharing the night as it were, because she was certain now she was actually feeling the moon next to her in the sky—she could almost pretend things weren’t so bad.

No one was screaming, no one was crying, the stars were still wrong but she’d done some calculations downstairs and realized that if she fixed one star every five seconds it would still take her most of a thousand years to make it right. The idea was rather unexpectedly calming, actually. It was something she could do; there was no question, no conflict, and yet it would take so long that it had lost its urgency.

Also she had no idea how to move stars and reference a book at the same time. There was that.

Twilight’s eyes drifted back to her letter with a languid sigh and she set to it, detailing recent events with practiced hornwriting. She was surprised to realize just how much she had to say, and how comforting it was to work with Luna watching over her shoulder. Before she knew it, she had several pages pouring her heart out to her parents, explaining absolutely everything except for anything actually important like the events of the last few days.

She tapped the quill on the paper impatiently a few times at the end of her signature.

Postscript, the librarian added; she liked spelling it out like that, it was classy. I’m an alicorn now. You can stop bugging me about finding a stallion. Not gonna happen. See: Shelf, Dusty. (961). Observations on the Lives of Alicorns (pp. 131-167, Re: immortality and relationships). Canterlot Publishing Commission.

Postpostscript: The rest of the book is somewhat relevant as well.

Twilight sighed with satisfaction and carefully placed the quill down on the desk next to the letter. Then, she picked it back up.

Postpostpostscript: I really mean it this time. I am seriously an alicorn who does not need your significant matchmaking prowess. I am sorry about last time.

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight had opted to sit on the balcony instead of lay in her bed after writing her letter. She couldn’t deny what she was; even though she completely intended to put them back the way they were, the stars were still beautiful to look at and the company of the moon next to her was really helping her sort out her mind.

More than an hour had passed since she’d come out when a thumping knock sounded on her door like someone was trying to knock delicately with a life-size pony statue. Clearly it was Applejack.

Twilight didn’t answer.

The orange earth pony came in anyway.

“Twi?” she asked meekly. “Dash explained about... well, she explained some things, anyway. Ah am awfully sorry fer puttin’ ya on the spot like that.”

Twlight sighed without protest. “I know, Applejack.”

There was a short awkward silence before Applejack stepped out onto the balcony, then another before she sat down next to the lavender mare. “So... do ya wanna explain what happened? Like ah said, Dash explained some things an’ ah’m mighty sorry fer bein’ such a lousy friend when ya came t’ see me, but ah still don’t really get it. It just seemed awfully sudden—the cryin’, ah mean.”

Twilight searched the balcony floorboards for an answer. “It’s just... I don’t really get it either, Applejack. That’s the problem. I can’t seem to deal with it emotionally at all because it doesn’t make sense. I’ve been up here trying to understand it but I can’t figure out where it went wrong or if it was all bad from the start.

“Ah don’t follow.”

“You have to understand, I wanted this, Applejack. You have no idea. The magic, the wings, the stars, the duty, the immortality, I wanted all of it! When ponies always tried to make immortality sound like a bad thing, I laughed! I laughed because I wouldn’t have that problem with Celestia. She was my world before I came to Ponyville, and it’s only gotten worse—better—whatever. Spike was going to outlive me too, and now there’s even Luna.

“Luna,” she laughed bitterly. “She’s like the sister I never got to know, and I thought I had gotten the chance. When I thought Luna knew what was going on. When I thought she wanted me to take over the stars for her and stand beside her, I was just... I saw something wonderful. A wonderful, beautiful future—but it wasn’t real.

“I just want... I don’t even know what I want. I hurt her so much but I still want this; I really really do. I understand that now—but I don’t understand it at all! I’m not a selfish mare, Applejack; I’m not! –but... I don’t know, apparently I actually am! I am selfish and greedy and a horrible horrible pony who hurts the ponies she loves and I can’t apologize and I can’t say I wish it hadn’t happened and it’s killing me inside because I just cannot accept that deep down I am actually so bucking happy about it!

“–and now she’s going to hate me for all of eternity because even if I could give the stars back I’d probably d-d-die and even if I didn’t, I still don’t know if I could go through with it. I thought I was a good pony but I’ve never felt like this before; I’ve never been so afraid to lose something before. I was joking about the ‘Nightmare Twilight’ thing but when I look at myself now I realize the idea actually scares the hay out of me because I can see it happening and I don’t want that. I don’t.

“So yeah. That’s why I break down when you bring it up. Oh look, I’m crying again. Surprise.”

This time Applejack didn’t hesitate; Twilight felt a warm arm wrap around her shoulder, “Ya are a good pony, Twilight. Nothin’ you want is gonna change that; it’s what ya do—and what yer gonna do is go back t’ Canterlot an’ talk t’ Princess Luna.”

“I’m the last pony she wants to see right now, Applejack," Twilight dismissed bitterly as best she could through her sobs.

“That don’t matter,” Applejack insisted powerfully, “‘cause it sounds like she’s the pony you need to see.”

☾ ☾ ☾

Luna sat in the throne room at Canterlot all alone. Celestia had taken to retreating to her chambers at dusk in order to give Luna some space at the busiest time of her court—that is to say, when ponies were still awake to call on her. It was supposed to encourage independence and empower her in the ponies’ eyes to be seen dealing with business without her big sister watching over her, but the fact that they all gathered around her doors while the sky was still orange soured the experience for her.

This particular day was worse than usual—and not because of Twilight Sparkle, for once; at least, not directly. She’d had to spend the first hours of her night apologizing to some Griffon dignitary for telling their nation to clop off—which was apparently double the insult to them due to their lack of any kind of proper hooves to clop with. The griffon was so intractable and annoying that she was sorely tempted after only a half an hour of telling him the comment was not in fact directed at his nation to tell him that she would be happy to rectify the matter of that little detail immediately.

Eventually though, she was rid of him. Surely her next visitor would be less vexing, she had told herself. She immediately cursed herself for tempting fate when he saw the stallion’s cutie mark; a trio of stars. The stallion took his place in front of the throne and began to speak, “—” but the princess cut him off harshly before he’d even started.

“—May we assume thou art here in regards to the matter of the stars, supplicant?” she boomed.

“Y-yes, your majesty, I–” the stallion tried to reply weakly only to be cut off again just as harshly.

“Silence!” the princess instructed the citizen as she motioned the steward on duty to come closer to receive instructions; why this was necessary nopony could say, because her instructions could be heard clear out the door. “Gather all the supplicants who have arrived to discuss this issue, steward. We shall address them all at once.”

The steward nodded vigorously, then delegated the task and clocked out for the night until he could hear again, as was standard procedure for the night court.

Quickly, the throne room was filled with a gaggle of ponies whose sole unifying feature seemed to be that not a single one of them appeared to be getting enough sunlight. The sight of so many who appreciated her nights would have gladdened her heart any other night, but now bile rose in her throat as she was reminded these ponies were all lost to her.

“We require your attention!” the princess shouted to the assemblage of ponies. “It has come under our regard that thou all seekst explanation of the changes evident in our beloved night sky.”

The ponies all nodded meekly.

“You!” she boomed at the first stallion who had come before her, who immediately cringed. “Dost thou espy stars evident in our celestial mane, supplicant?”

“N-no, your majesty!” the stallion offered rhetorically.

“What dost thou espy, then?” she demanded.

“Um, it appears to be the moon, your majesty.”

“Correct!” her voice thundered. “Thou espies only our glorious moon! We no longer hold dominion over the stars as we once did, and as our duty has altered, so has our appearance and so must thine laments and grievances be taken elsewhere, for they are tiresome and meaningless to us.”

If the whole assemblage of ponies could have blinked in unison, they would have. Instead, they simply didn’t blink at all until someone nudged the initial stallion who had become their spokesperson by right of royal decree. “W-well—umm—princess. Where... elsewhere... would that be?” he managed.

“The alicorn you are looking for resides in the tiny village of Ponyville,” echoed Luna’s voice throughout the hall. “Her name is Twilight Sparkle.”

Chapter 16

Sharing the Night: Chapter 16

✶ ✶ ✶

The atmosphere on the train ride to Canterlot was an oppressive silence leaden with words unsaid. That is, at least, until Rainbow Dash went and said them. “You think it was something we did?” she asked no one in particular.

No one in particular had an immediate answer for her.

“I mean,” she continued, never having been one to put up with silence when she could fill it with words. “Not me, obviously. I’m the loyalest pony around. But maybe, if I’m the loyalest pony, shouldn’t I have, I dunno… been around for some of it?”

The train tick-tick-tacked rhythmically along the tracks, and the silence returned.

“Shucks, RD,” Applejack finally spoke up, scratching the back of her neck with one hoof. “Ah’m the one who went and wrote the princess behind Twilight’s back; that’s when it ended fer us. Ah don’t suppose that was what you’d call bein’ honest-like, either… let alone how it all went down that day on the farm. Shoot, Ah still feel bad about that.”

“Wait, you did what? You wrote Celestia? When?” Twilight asked, and then dropped her face onto one hoof. “No, stop. It doesn’t matter—we’re not doing this. We’re not going to ascribe blame to each of us for failing to live up to our elements when we don’t have any idea what really happened.”

“Oh, we’re not?” said a timid voice from the other side of the cabin. Fluttershy actually managed to sound disappointed. “But I was a little snippy with the new mailstallion yesterday, it was probably me that—”

“No!” Twilight insisted with a bit more bite than she intended. She took a quick moment to calm herself, and to her ongoing surprise and relief, it actually worked. “Being an element of harmony has never been about being the best, most pure exemplar of a trait. If it was, then I would never have been given the element of magic,” she reasoned in an even, sedate tone. “And besides, if anyone here is to blame, it’s probably me, considering I tried to talk the ephemeral manifestation of two dead gods into committing suicide the night before last.”

A dead silence quickly returned to the cabin as everypony present stopped and stared—everypony except for Rarity, that is. The normally prim and composed fashionista was squirming nervously in her seat, holding her mouth shut by chewing on her bottom lip.

“Rarity?” Fluttershy prompted, barely breaking the silence.

Anyone who was paying attention—and they all were—could have counted down to the exact moment when Rarity cracked. “I own half of Ponyville and have been using that fact to spy on my friends!” she finally shouted for all to hear.

The silence continued as if uninterrupted.

“Sorry Twi,” Applejack said. “Ah think Rare’s gotcha beat, here.”

Rainbow Dash didn’t agree. “Really?” she remarked, showing doubt. “I mean, who cares how much of the ground a pony owns? I wanna hear about dead gods.”

“Ground ponies care!” Applejack retorted. “No, wait, Ah mean the spying thing. That’s the problem.”

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “Oh please, like anypony cares how many trees you buck. If you were a pegasus, you’d realize that watching people is boring.”

“Um, I don’t see how owning land results in spying… if you don’t mind my asking,” Fluttershy managed to say.

“You know, that’s a good point,” Twilight observed, tapping her chin with a hoof, not really bothered by the admission, all things considered. Her standards of measure when it came to ownership and privacy in particular were not what they once were. “Rarity?”

Rarity chewed her bottom lip in a rather unladylike manner. “It’s not my fault!” she cried. “You had to go and get drunk at my restaurant!”

“Oh, is that all?” Twilight said, dismissal in her voice. She certainly could have done without Rarity knowing about her pseudo-date with Luna and all of the I-told-you-so’s it would bring, but at this point, they were probably inevitable anyway. “Wait, you own the Goldenrod?”

“Wait, you got drunk without me?” Rainbow Dash interrupted, not even giving Rarity a chance to answer. “I mean—without us?”

Twilight let out a huff of indignation. “I got drunk with Luna,” she clarified.

“No you didn’t,” Luna insisted, injecting herself into the conversation as she and a bedraggled but smiling Pinkie Pie returned with snacks in tow.

Twilight shook her head for show, even as her eyes were drawn to Luna in a smile. “Fine,” she said, chuckling, and corrected herself. “I got tipsy with Luna. Welcome back, by the way, we were just debating whose petty failures are to blame for this.”

“Ah,” Luna responded, though understanding evaded her. “You seem to be taking it well, at least. I can personally attest to the fact that the elements of harmony do not object to the bearers getting inebriated, let alone merely ‘tipsy,’ as you call it.”

“Tipsy?” Rarity remarked, hoof to her chest in shock. “You had three bottles of wine between you!”

“Luna, on the other hoof, did get drunk,” Twilight said matter-of-factly.

“Little bit,” Luna allowed, holding her hooves so that they were almost touching as she passed out paper plates of cakes, cookies and other confections.

Rainbow Dash was beside herself. “You got drunk with the princess?” she wailed, gesturing wildly with her hooves. “That is so not fair!”

“And how exactly does that concern you?” Applejack drawled sarcastically.

Rainbow Dash let out an exasperated groan. “Oh, come on—introducing Sparkles to alcohol? A chance to go out drinking with royalty? Those are, like, once in a lifetime things!”

“Well, now you are having cake with me,” Luna offered, levitating a plate of strawberry shortcake over to her. “And a foreign head of state from Libraropolis too.”

Applejack blinked. “Libra-what, now?”

“Please, Luna,” Twilight chided, taking her own plate without waiting for it to be levitated to her. Nopony else had ordered pancakes with blueberries and whipped cream, after all. “I do have a title, you know. If you’re going to refer to me in an official capacity, I am Archlibrian Twilight Sparkle.”

Luna bowed to her in mock ceremony and said, “Of course, Your Highness,” before reclaiming her seat next to Twilight.

“Look, girls,” Twilight said, diverting her attention from Luna out of self consciousness. “We’ve bickered before. We’ve disagreed, argued, neglected and even fought with each other, because that’s what friends do. It sounds counter-intuitive, and maybe it kind of is, but we wouldn’t be the friends we are if we weren’t all different ponies with different opinions helping each other to expand our horizons.”

Fluttershy let out a whisper of a sigh. “Is that harmony, though?” she asked.

Twilight could only shrug. “Maybe not,” she said, quite honestly. “But if it isn’t, then maybe it isn’t even a bad thing. I’d rather have friends that I actually interact with than be some platonic ideal of harmony.”

“Look, Sparkles, about that—and about earlier,” Rainbow Dash said, cutting in. “You’re cool and all, but if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather actually stay platonic.”

Twilight stared at Rainbow Dash. She just… stared. Then, hoof met face.

“This and that’re different things, Dash,” Applejack mumbled loud enough to be heard by everyone. “Also, this really ain’t the time.”

“Moving right along…” Twilight said, doing her best to ignore that little aside. “I don’t think that’s what happened in any case. No matter what any of us have done, I don’t think any of it comes close to Celestia’s—” she stopped to glance apologetically at Luna, “—or rather, the mutual betrayal that broke the bonds of the Elements of Harmony the first time. I’m sure that something else must have happened; maybe not even anything bad. What if the elements just found new bearers?”

Rarity’s face suddenly lit up in surprise. “Why, they might have even gone back to Celestia and Luna now that their bond has been repaired!”

“Ah…” Twilight glanced at Luna out of the corner of her eye, uncertain from what she’d heard on both sides if that particular bond would ever return to what it once was. “Yeah, maybe,” she said, taking care not to ruin the optimistic tone.

“Anyway,” Twilight said, hoping to leave it at that and change the subject. “I’m sorry we didn’t invite you out drinking, Dash, but it was really just a nice, quiet dinner. Given how court went last night, it’s safe to say that Luna and I won’t be walking the same line as Celestia, and you can rest assured that imbibing wasn’t a once-in-a-lifetime experience for either of us. We’ll try to include you sometime in the future. Maybe not the very next time, but sometime.”

“Yeah, well…” Rainbow Dash said, rubbing the back of her neck with one hoof. “That’d be cool, thanks,” she said, though after a moment, she added, “Wait, why not next time?”

Oops. “That’s private,” Twilight insisted, not at all conspicuously.

“What, you have plans, already?” Rainbow Dash groused. “Wait, don’t answer that. You’re Twilight Sparkle—of course you have plans.”

“Uh, Twi?” Applejack, said, seeing a chance to get a word in. “What did you mean, ‘after the way court went?’ Did something happen? An’ what was that a while back about you bein’ an ‘archlibrarian?’”

Twilight blinked. “You don’t know?” she asked, blindsided. Then again… “Of course you don’t,” she said with a sigh. “Okay, look, here’s what’s been going on…”

✶ ✶ ✶

Responses to Twilight’s tale were… subdued, though not for any lack of engagement on the part of her audience. Applejack was grateful to finally be getting the whole story, and Rainbow Dash thoroughly enjoyed listening to Twilight describe how she had roughed up Emberstoke to get his attention. Rarity and Fluttershy, on the other hoof, were somewhat less enthusiastic—the former disappointed that she knew more about what went on in Twilight’s palace than Twilight herself did, and the latter appearing to be conflicted about the fates of the starbeasts that Twilight had ‘consumed.’

Pinkie Pie, for her part, slept through the entire thing—a fact which Twilight was grateful for, as it was difficult enough avoiding the subject of the alicorns of Utopia when faced with a Rarity who smells gossip, a Rainbow Dash that smells a story, an Applejack that smells a lie and a Fluttershy who could be almost as eerily perceptive as Pinkie Pie.

Not having to worry about Pinkie Pie’s ability to stumble onto the truth wasn’t the only reason Twilight was glad to see her resting, though. Frankly, Pinkie Pie needed it.

“How is Pinkie Pie doing?” Twilight asked Luna, having finally found a moment to slip away from the group. It hadn’t been difficult, to be honest. The others were not far behind their typically-energetic friend, Applejack being the only one who stubbornly refused to so much as rest her eyes.

Luna pressed her lips together and gave a grunt of dissatisfaction. “She is ‘doing,’ I believe you would say. In spite of what happened with Fluttershy, I would actually say that it is she who has been most strongly affected by the loss of her element. She reminds me of myself, actually, as I, too, once wielded the element of laughter, alongside generosity and magic. Between losing them when I called upon the stars for power and then losing the stars to the elements, I have spent a lot of time reevaluating my… myself, and she will likely have to do the same.”

“That’s… okay, though, right?” Twilight asked. “I mean, you haven’t lost your laughter.”

Luna shifted uncomfortably. “Haven’t I?” she asked, but her characteristic melancholy was nothing new to Twilight.

“I saw it in you on that one Nightmare Night,” Twilight said, giving Luna a nudge with her shoulder. “And I can’t see Celestia doing the whole maniacal laugh thing even if she were ever to go evil,” she joked. “You certainly didn’t lose it to me. I’d be a pretty lousy element of laughter, I think.”

Luna shook her head. “You can make me smile,” letting a hint of that very thing cross her face. “I should think that to be a standing ovation in comparative terms.”

“You’re the only one, I think,” Twilight said, much more used to being the straight mare amongst her friends. That gave her a thought, though. “Wait; laughter, generosity and magic? That’s really how they were divided between you?”

Luna cocked her head to the side in question. “You said yourself, that being an Element of Harmony is not necessarily about being the exemplar of the ideal you represent. Generosity should not come as any surprise, and I believe you and I were not so different in the role of friendship.”

“No, no, I didn’t mean that,” Twilight said, shaking her head. “That makes sense. Celestia… she’s very friendly, sure, but it just comes naturally to her—it’s not something she really notices, so I’m not surprised. It’s actually not you at all, just—if you were Laughter, Generosity and Magic, that makes her Loyalty, Kindness and honesty?”

Luna pulled her head back to look at Twilight. “You find her to be dishonest?”

“Well, no,” Twilight said with hesitation, trying to come up with a way to explain. “But it’s like you said last night—she doesn’t even let anypony see her drink. She’s a politician and a teacher. When a pony gets to see a part of the real Celestia, it’s because she’s taken it out to show them, not because she let them in. As her student, she’s shown me a lot, but that time when I revealed my wings in the bath was the first time I’d ever seen her so unguarded. I just wouldn’t say that she’s a very open pony.”

Luna let out a sigh and lowered her head somberly. “She was not always thus,” she said, letting her eyes fall closed for a moment as she remembered a Celestia that Twilight had never met. “It is true that she has never been a social drinker, but that does not mean that she never had company. There was a time when she and I were as close as sisters could be, and there was nothing that we didn’t share with each other. Circumstances change, however, and they change us as well.”

Twilight tried to picture it. “I don’t know if I can imagine Pinkie Pie ever not being… Pinkie Pie.”

“Of that, there is no fear,” Luna said with a chuckle. “As you say, I have not truly lost my laughter, though I find it hard to express more often than not, these days. A pony… resonates with their element, but they are not defined by it. While it would not be entirely correct to say that the loss is purely physical, neither is it correct to think that your friends have lost the qualities that were iconic to them.”

Twilight let a little hope slip into her voice. “So, this shouldn’t change them, then, right?”

“That remains to be seen, but such a thing is up to them—and you. The loss that they have suffered has not done them irreparable harm, but the matter of how they deal with this loss… that may define them for some time.”

✶ ✶ ✶

The train from Ponyville took several hours of winding up and around the mountains that made up the Unicorn Range in order to not only cover the distance, but ascend the sheer height required to reach the city of Canterlot, perched precariously as it was on the side of its titular mountain spire. By the time Twilight and the rest of her retinue were able to step off the train and stretch, the city was a welcome sight indeed.

The city, on the other hoof, might not have entirely agreed.

While a collective advisory body known as the Libraropolean Librarocracy had been mentioned to Twilight in the past, the only members of it that she had actually met were her four heralds who had come pre-enstated along with her government. In fact, they, along with their four royal-guard counterparts on loan from Equestria, were the only dedicated Libraropolean officials she knew of who were not library staff.

In hindsight, she probably should have known better than to bring the entire Libraropolean military and ruling class with her on her trip to Canterlot.

“Libraropolis is on the march!” a stallion cried out, gripping a mare beside him with his hooves and shaking her. “Libraropolis is on the march! The Libraropoleans are at the gate!”

The mare shook him off, and looked all about for the invading nationals. Her gaze passed over Twilight and her group several times. “What gate?” she asked in panic. “Canterlot doesn’t have a gate!”

“Gate thirteen—Canterlot Central Station!” the stallion said, gesturing behind himself only to start in shock as he, at least, realized who was standing with them in the street. “They have disembarked!” he announced at the top of his lungs. “I repeat—they have disembarked!”

Another stallion across the street balked at this news. “You mean they’ve seized the train system now, too?” he asked, grabbing hold of his hat as if it were in danger of fleeing without him. “How will we evacuate? Can nothing stop this bloody tide of conquest?”

Twilight attempted to tune out the various sensationalist remarks, though the camera flashes were a little much. After the first few flashes, she started taking breaks to briefly demanifest her eyes into stars and back in order to remove the spots from her vision. When some enterprising paparazzo managed to take a picture in the middle of her doing so, however, she decided that she’d rather live with the vision impairment for the moment than have too many pictures like that floating around. “This sort of thing doesn’t surprise me any more in Ponyville, but somehow, I expected better of Canterlot.”

“Your Majesty, might I remind you that the War of Books took place in Canterlot Castle?” herald number three ventured to point out.

Twilight grunted her acknowledgement. “Point, but the Royal Guards haven’t had good leadership for a generation or two, and they mostly just stand around in the halls. These ponies—” she said, gesturing to the crowd which was half standing dumbstruck and half running about in panic, “—actually have to live in the real world.”

Heralds one and two looked at each other. “Canterlot society,” number one said. “Is not exactly the real world,” number two finished.

Twilight took a breath and looked out across the scene she was standing in the middle of, giving several of the paparazzi an excellent serious, dramatic-looking photo. “Alright, but—hey, wait—my parents live here! I lived here!”

All of her heralds looked at her. None of them said anything.

Almost as if it could tell it was being insulted, the mood of the crowd shifted more and more to focus not on Twilight, but her heralds. “Oh no—look—it’s the four horsemares of Libraropolis!” somepony shouted, drawing the attention of almost everypony looked. “Due Date!” somepony cried, pointing at herald four. “Citation Index!” another voice came, and another, “Serial Lexicon!” and another, “Incunabula!” It wasn’t long before the din of panic died out into a grave-like hush.

“Rude,” herald one—the one they had referred to as Incunabula—remarked sourly.

“Those aren’t their names!” Twilight shouted back, shaking her hoof in anger, after which she turned back to whisper at her heralds. “Those aren’t your names, right?”

“Technically,” herald number three offered, raising her hoof in a tentative gesture. “Those are our names.”

“Oh,” Twilight said, sulking. “Can I still call you—”

“Of course you can, Your Majesty.”

☼ ☼ ☼

‘The Chapel’ was the unfortunate name—at least, in Celestia’s opinion—which had been given to Canterlot’s largest astronomical observatory. Once, the headquarters of the Equestrian Guild of Astronomy had fit inside its massive stature like nests of mice in the walls; now, it was all but abandoned. New telescopes were being developed that could track the drifting stars, and they were being built in Ponyville, where the night was darkest. That was fine, though. Celestia wasn’t here to look at the night.

Even in the middle of the day, Celestia found the massive, empty space rather eerie. There was no dust or dirt, for it had not been abandoned long, and the building itself was designed to guard against such things, yet reams of paper covered in hoofwritten charts remained draped over desks and tables as if the ponies working on them had stepped out for coffee one day and simply forgotten about them.

Ponies didn’t just walk away and forget the work that they had spent years on, though. The reality of the matter, for what it was, was even more melancholy. No, those charts and graphs had not been forgotten, but discarded. They were obsolete. Eventually, someone with the Canterlot Archives would come and collect them so that they could be stored for posterity’s sake. ‘This is what the sky used to look like,’ they would one day tell foals in school. ‘Before the alicorn of the stars was returned to us, they sat dead in the sky, joyless and unmoving.’

Was that what she was? Sullen and static—a relic of the past?

Celestia took the smith’s hammer she had procured from the royal armory in hoof and used it to smash the delicate array of viewing lenses off the narrow end of the telescope, revealing a cold, black hole. She then lit her horn and used her magic to wrench open the great shutters that made up the dome above, opening the building and its telescope to the sunlight for the first time since its construction. The gears groaned and whined, some popped ajar and others were stripped, but Celestia had eyes only for the hoof’s-width of burning white light that grew brighter and brighter on the cold stone floor.

No, she was not obsolete. Far from being a relic, she was a mare driven to industry. She had a life to save and the means to do so. For once in her immortal existence, she didn’t have the time to wait—to delegate and watch the world align to her designs. She had to get up and make it happen with hammer in hoof and the sun as her forge.

It felt good.

✶ ✶ ✶

Luna, who had stayed behind to wake the remaining ex-bearers of the elements of harmony, joined up with Twilight and the Libraropolean forces soon after the crowd had been dispersed. “Did something happen?” she asked, glancing from one party to the other.

“Nothing important,” Twilight answered and gave a huff.

Luna considered this for a moment and chose to rephrase her question. “Did something happen that I am going to read about in the papers tomorrow?”

“Of course not, Luna; don’t be ridiculous,” Twilight scoffed. “You don’t read the papers any more than I do. That’s what Rarity is for—paying attention to gossip and owning half of our city. Um, no offense, Rarity.”

Rarity gave a polite cough as she steadied herself against the nearest solid structure—Applejack, in this case. “Of course, dear, though you really should pay a teensy bit more attention to the goings on around you. You may have everypony off-balance for now, but they shall be able to make things rather difficult for you in time, should you incite them to do so.”

“Hey now—don’t go blaming me for this!” Twilight responded, raising a hoof in objection. “They were calling my heralds names!”

Rarity gave the heralds a lookover; they seemed no worse for wear than they were at any other time. “Were these names, perhaps, the ones penned on their birth certificates?”

“Unless one of them has the middle name ‘Abigail’ for some strange reason, then… probably,” Twilight reluctantly admitted.

Sensing that the conversation was going nowhere, Luna chose to intervene in order to get matters back on track. “So long as no international incidents have been committed, then I imagine that we can continue this conversation on the way to the palace,” she said, motioning for Twilight to lead the way.

Twilight didn’t move. “Actually…” she said, pawing at the ground with one hoof.

“Oh, Twilight…” Luna remarked, lowering her face into one hoof.

Twilight’s cheeks colored a bit. “No, no, it’s fine!” she insisted and looked over her shoulder. “We’re just… waiting!”

“Waiting?” Fluttershy asked, rather curious. “Waiting for what?”

The question was soon answered by the appearance of row after row of royal guards marching down the street.

“Twilight, why do we have a military escort?”

✶ ✶ ✶

The Canterlot Royal Guard made sure that the Libraropoleans—and by extension, the ex-bearers of the elements of harmony—were given a wide berth. Rather surprisingly, not many of them seemed to actually mind.

“This is nice,” Fluttershy commented as they walked down what could have been a back street back in Ponyville if not for the golden architecture and scores of seemingly identical white stallions. The architecture was pleasant all the same, though, and the stallions very skilled at seeming to be a part of it.

Applejack was the only one who voiced any dissent. “Seems a mite ridiculous, if’n ya ask me,” she said, shifting her eyes back and forth as if she didn’t trust the not-actually-empty streets.

“You didn’t see how Ponyville acted at first, Applejack,” Twilight said, her pleasant smile wilting a bit at the memory, but only briefly. “Yours… wasn’t the worst reaction.”

“Yes it was,” Applejack insisted in a flat deadpan.

Twilight sighed and kicked a rock that had been stuck between two cobbles in the street. “Yes, it was,” she agreed without argument. “But at least you treated me like a pony. An evil pony, yes, but a pony. You didn’t just stand there and stare. I thought that I’d just wait it out, and that ponies would get used to me again—and they have, a little—but what I didn’t expect was that while I waited for them to change… I might change.”

“I can understand,” Rarity interjected, “how after all this craziness, day in and day out, you might simply get inured to it all. There’s nothing to be ashamed of in that so long as you have somepony—or someponies—to help keep you grounded, though, hmm?”

Twilight took a deep breath and gave Applejack a wary look out of the corner of her eye. “It’s not really that simple, Rarity. I wish it was. It’s ego, plain and simple, and it’s… It is necessary. It’s the frame of mind to say, ‘Yes, I am more important than you,’ and… to believe it—even if it’s everything ponies hate about the aristocracy.”

Applejack blinked and looked around at all of the eyes on her. “Huh? What is everypony looking at me fer?”

“Well, dear,” Rarity offered as delicately as possible. “You haven’t exactly kept your opinions on the upper class a secret.”

To Rarity’s displeasure, she got a dismissive snort in response. “Is that what ya’ll think?” Applejack said, giving Rarity half of an incredulous look and saving the other half for Twilight herself. “Shoot—Ah ain’t never said a bad word against Princess Celestia, have Ah? Truth is, she is more important than the rest of us. Ah ain’t gonna hold that against her, and Ah certainly ain’t gonna hold it against Twilight.”

Twilight’s ears flattened as she frowned at that sentiment. “Wh—that’s not what I mean!” she sputtered. “I’m not more important than you! I mean, objectively, I am, but I actually care what you think and—wait, that sounds wrong, too.”

Luna chuckled. “Do you recall what I told you during Winter Wrap-up about the aristocracy, Twilight, and what makes a true leader?”

Twilight nodded, and Luna nodded in turn.

“There is no shame to being the rock that changes the course of a stream simply by refusing to move,” Luna assured her. “You will change it regardless. Neither does it mean you need never move, as that, too, is your prerogative.”

“I guess,” Twilight said, still not comfortable with the correlation. “I’ve just never had to defend my self-worth from scores of ponies that suddenly care what I do and where I go.”

“Shucks, Twi,” Applejack remarked. “That ain’t even part of bein’ a goddess—that’s just standin’ up fer yerself.”

Twilight couldn’t quite agree. “It’s different,” she grumbled. “A normal pony can try to be unobtrusive; they can follow and do what they’re told. Luna and I—we… can’t, and it really is a different way of thinking to make sense of that. It’s a responsibility that you can’t and shouldn’t just ignore, but at the same time, you can’t let it restrict you either. Like I said, it’s… a necessary ego.”

“Ah can hardly imagine what it must be like so Ah’ll take yer word fer it,” Applejack said, shaking her head. “If anyone deserves to take a little pride in her fellow pony, it’s you, Twilight. If Ah understood it right, none of us’d even have cutie marks if it weren’t for you.” She paused to consider that for a moment. “Ah suppose it’d cut down on the tribalism, though. Just ponies… can you imagine it?”

“I’d rather not,” Twilight responded with a sour grimace. “I haven’t looked into what it was like in the Dragon Empires, but Utopia… really didn’t live up to the name.”

Rarity perked up at the mention of the iconically-named city. “You were rather vague on that when you were telling us about it, darling,” she said, sidling up to walk closer beside Twilight. “Oh, I would just love to hear about the sort of fashions of a lost civilization.”

“Robes, Rarity,” Twilight said, hating to nip her enthusiasm in the bud, but without much choice. It was not as pleasant a subject as Rarity imagined. “Uniform white robes that made ponies blend into the clouds like they weren’t even there, all for the sake of a tyrant who could take the light from your eyes and the fire from your heart if she felt like it.”

Rarity looked like she’d tasted something bitter. “Surely it wasn’t always like that?”

“No, you’re right, and I’m sorry for being so sour about it,” Twilight said, her head drooping. “Utopia stood for thousands of years, and I’m sure the ponies there had a kind of happiness. It just seems unsettling to me after suffering through the worst it had to offer and seeing where it all led.”

Before she even realized Luna had moved, Twilight felt a dark wing settle over her. “If it truly burdens you so, then I hope that you will share this burden with me sooner rather than later, Twilight. Don’t put it off.”

“I know, I… Tonight—I promise,” Twilight assured her, though her words lacked conviction.

Luna gave a strong, curt nod. “I shall hold you to that.”

✶ ✶ ✶

The group left their military escort behind at the gates of canterlot castle, and the Libaropoleans split off to check up on the changeover of the Canterlot Archives soon after, leaving Twilight, Luna and the ex-bearers of the elements of harmony alone to traverse the empty halls of the castle in search of answers. They came across no servants, and not a single pony showed up to ask them their business. Barring the option of shouting for help, all present agreed that the sensible thing to do was to first check on the vault containing the elements of harmony. This meant more walking, as they were situated deep in the castle.

As they walked, Twilight was reminded how long it had been since she had spent any real length of time here in the castle. Her recent visits, such as they were, had all been short, hurried affairs harried by an undercurrent of unease—first the fear accompanying her own awakening and then Gemini’s. Come to think of it, she couldn’t actually recall when she’d last been here simply for the enjoyment of it rather than some crisis or ceremony.

Of course, that wasn’t to say that current matters were entirely pleasant either.

Still, old Castle Canterlot was a far cry from the Ponyville Palace and held no small amount of nostalgia for her. She’d pretty much grown up in these halls, though they had been rather warmer, to her recollection, and a sight less… empty. Such was the way of nostalgia and the boundless energy of youth, though, she supposed. To a young filly, full of dreams and wonder and being chased after by any number of servants and handmaidens, life here had seemed so much like a story out of a fairytale.

Again, she had to remind herself that her life had never actually lost that fairytale quality. No, it had only become more incredible and incredulous; she’d simply forgotten that fairytales—the original ones—were a lot more twisted and dark than those ponies had grown to expect.

She’d made it through that darkness, though. The secrets she’d inherited were out in the open, now, where they could no longer fester and rot… or so she hoped. Twilight herself may have had nothing to hide anymore—nor reason to dwell when she could be thinking of Luna—but she was hardly alone in the world, and her secrets hadn’t been entirely her own.

It made her wonder.

“The way you brought it up so casually,” Twilight said, breaking the companionable silence with a glance at Applejack. “It really doesn’t bother you that I’m responsible for pony magic?”

Applejack managed to shrug without breaking stride. “Naw, why would it?”

“Well, if it were me, I know I’d be pretty upset if you told me my magic was somepony else’s. Even if that pony was Celestia, it’d be… really hard to hear.” She paused as she realized just how little right she had to complain after recent revelations. No matter how bad the fairytale of reality was, it would have been even worse if the alicorn of the stars had been somepony else. “And it’s not a goddess thing either,” she added.

“Hmm… yeah,” Applejack said, tapping her hoof to her chin in thought. “Ah can see that.”

“It’s not a goddess thing, but it is a Twilight Sparkle thing,” Rainbow Dash remarked with a smirk.

“What?” Twilight said, craning her neck to look at the unusually ground-bound pegasus. “Why would I be any different?”

“Look, Sparkles,” Rainbow Dash said, angling herself to walk next to Twilight. “It’s like this. If you waved your hoof and took my cutie mark away—”

“But I—” Twilight blurted out, but her interruption was, itself, interrupted.

“I know you wouldn’t, because you’re awesome like that, but if you did, what would you get out of it?” Rainbow Dash asked, puffing out her chest in an effort to make herself look more hale and hearty than she felt.

“Well, your star, obviously,” Twilight said, almost to herself. “All your magic, and the star’s memories of your life up to that point.”

“Last day of junior flight school,” Rainbow Dash said out of the blue, and Twilight had to stop to parse what she was saying. “When I’m gone, watch that one. That was a pretty great date. Day, I mean.”

“Please don’t,” Fluttershy whimpered.

Twilight found her mouth hanging open, and clapped it shut. “Did you have a point, Rainbow?”

“Oh, right!” she said, and picked up right where she’d left off without missing a beat. “You take my magic, what is it to you? It’s just magic; just a star. It doesn’t make you the fastest in Equestria, does it? I mean, aside from the fact that maybe I’m dead at this point and if the next couple generations of pegasi suck, they might lose to a freaking goddess, but anyway—it doesn’t make you me, or even give you my talent, does it?”

Suddenly, Twilight saw where Rainbow Dash was going with this. “No. No, it doesn’t,” she said.

Rainbow Dash nodded. “To me, magic is just the fuel that lets me do what only I can do,” she said, and then looked over to Twilight. “You, though. You are magic. It is what you do—so yeah, you’d probably be pretty pissed if it wasn’t really yours.”

If she was trying to cheer Twilight up, she failed. “I’m hardly the only pony with a talent for magic, though,” she said, a frown tugging at the corners of her mouth.

Rainbow Dash gave a careless shrug. “There probably are some ponies out there who started drinking last night and haven’t stopped yet cause you ruined their lives. Maybe less than you think, since those kinds of ponies aren’t really the bar-hopping type, but still—tough cookies. Sucks to be them.”

Twilight just gaped at her. “Was there supposed to be an uplifting message there?” she asked, somewhat sarcastically.

“I think what the darling is attempting to say,” Rarity interjected with a polite cough and a harsh glance at Rainbow Dash. “Is that the vast majority of ponies do not think of magic in the same way you do, Twilight. Even unicorns like yourself who have cutie marks in magic are not necessarily like yourself. Equestria has not had a grand mage since the renaissance era; it takes a special kind of pony to truly dedicate themselves to it in the same way you have, which, I daresay, is why Princess Celestia chose you to be her student.”

Twilight rolled her eyes and shook her head. “I’m not that unique. Celestia has had other students.”

“And how many of them showed any real ambition, hmm?” Rarity asked, rhetorically. “I’ll tell you, darling—not a one. The position is looked upon by the nobility with an envy that I’m not sure you’re aware of, and yet those who fill it all fade into obscurity soon after they reach adulthood, if not before.”

“You make it sound as if I’m Celestia’s only success,” Twilight said, her frown deepening.

Rarity gave a polite laugh. “In the eyes of politics and history, maybe, but I think she’d be a poor mentor if those were her goals. Before you were so suddenly graced with wings, where were you? I’ll tell you; you were precisely where you wanted to be. No—not a reclusive mage inhabiting Canterlot’s highest tower, but where you needed to be in order to be happy. Most of the Princess’ students find themselves in exactly such a situation; comfortable and living exactly the life that they find fulfilling. Only for you did that mean continuing to study magic with nary a goal but mastery. If the jealousy which you’ve already admitted to is not a result of your goddesshood, then I should think there is a good chance that it was the other way around.”

“Rarity,” Twilight said, unable to resist a pained sigh. “I can see where you’re trying to go with this, but there are whole institutions here in Canterlot full of ponies just like me who just never had the chance or reason to catch the princess’ eye. They dedicate their lives to studying magic, researching the foundations of the world we live in and developing the spells that I study. The sentiment is appreciated, but I’m not the be-all-end-all unicorn, let alone alicorn, when it comes to magic.”

Twilight was certain that she’d refuted the point admirably, but Rarity’s knowing smile didn’t falter.

“What?” Twilight said, uneasy as the suspicion that she was missing something grew. “Why are you giving me that look?”

It was Fluttershy of all ponies who chose to answer. “What Rarity means is… don’t you think that’s a different kind of studying, Twilight? I don’t think anypony in academia would get jealous over magic if they knew where it came from. Which I guess they do, now… oh dear. I think… I think I might need to move further out into the country if Ponyville gets any bigger. I wonder if it’ll be okay for Harry if I get a houseboat…”

“Look, Twi,” Applejack continued in the wake of Fluttershy’s distraction. “There ain’t no way we can tell you that there’s nopony who’s been put out by this, but neither can anypony say that you didn’t deserve it—if’n you didn’t have it from the start—and all the bellyaching in the world ain’t gonna put that cider back in the barrel.”

“I know,” Twilight said, sounding rather sour about it. “I know. It’s just… you girls are too nice. Really, really too nice. I’m glad you don’t hold it against me, but you don’t need to try and tell me nopony is going to hate me for it. I know how to deal with that—I do—but that doesn’t mean I have to feel good about it.”

Twilight only vaguely noticed that Luna frowned and remained silent while the conversation continued without her.

“That you think so only shows that you are the right pony for the job,” Rarity said, doing her best to encourage Twilight against her will. “Of course, should you ever think that you are being too egotistical, surely there is room for a little compromise, hrm?”

Twilight’s begrudging reassurance died on her lips as she finally realized what it was that was really bothering her about the way things had been going.

“Twilight?” Rarity prompted, uncertain if the silence was intentional.

“I don’t know that there is, Rarity,” she said cryptically. “As far as keeping ponies from abusing my position, sure, but…”

Rarity cocked her head to the side in question. “There is something more to it? Were you not just professing not to care about what ponies think you should do?”

“Ponies, yes,” Twilight said with a darkening scowl. “But no matter how I own up to the mantle as alicorn of the stars, there’s still the fact that I’m… I am literally a broken goddess. I’ve been doing fine since I found out what I am—my sense of identity is stronger than ever—but I’ve been doing it by hardening up. I’m not sure if anything else it an option.”

Fluttershy let out a small whimper. “And if you fail…”

“It’s what we think truly changed Luna when she became Nightmare Moon,” Twilight told them in a melancholy tone. “I don’t think there’s any danger of me becoming quite like that, but there is a possibility that if I let myself be too unguarded, another pony like Star Glister could lose more than their star.”

“Wait-wait-wait-wait,” Rainbow Dash said, swooping in front of Twilight. “What do you mean, the stars were responsible for Nightmare Moon? Nightmare Moon was a parasite that possessed the Princess, right? Or dark magic that twisted her personality… right?”

Twilight gave Luna a glance, silently asking if she should explain for her. Luna shook her head and took a breath. “For all my immortal life, I had thought the stars to be a part of me. I decorated the sky with them and wore them in my mane like jewels, thinking them a fine crown of laurels to celebrate my divinity. I was wrong. Had I known just how wrong I was, I believe that I would have treated them with a great deal more respect and… perhaps even anticipation for what was to come.

“Blind to my sleeping sister as I was, however, I did not recognize that the power which answered my call on that final night a thousand years ago. I thought it to be a hidden darkness inside my mind, and I treated it as such. Taking the stars into myself granted me a certain fluidity of thought—a lense through which I saw a darkness I could bring to bear against my sister. I realize now that this darkness was a shadow of my own devising, but the power which the stars provided me with was very real, and with it I was able to challenge Celestia on equal terms for the first time in my life.

“If I am to be entirely honest with myself, I believe the novelty of that alone would have brought the two of us to blows eventually, even in the absence of any other mania. Twilight is right that the effect that the stars have on her is worthy of concern, but you needn’t worry that they are a corrupting influence on her. I will not let her bear the shame for that nightmare when it lies solely on mine own shoulders.”

Rarity glanced about at the others before taking a moment to clear her throat. “You understand that that is… quite the different story than the public believes, Your Majesty.”

Luna scoffed, seemingly shedding the nobility of her previous speech in an instant. “I shall not deny the guilt I bear for the actions I took as Nightmare Moon, but neither am I foolish enough to be quite so open about it with the rabble rousers and vipers of the media. Few are the ponies who actually deserve such candor, and most of them are walking alongside me at this moment.

“I have also extended my personal hoof in apology to the Royal Guards whom I harmed upon my return, but the rest…” The uneasy frown that Luna had been wearing earlier returned. “It is as Twilight says. Disregarding them is a sad reality of the position. Publicizing the truth of the matter would help nopony save those who would take advantage of the situation, and I owe them nothing more than a few hours of sunlight that they’d like as not have slept through on any other day.”

“What about us?” Rainbow Dash asked rather rudely.

Luna craned her neck to look at her. “What about you?” she asked.

Rainbow Dash cantered ahead so that she could face Luna. “How come this is the first time we’re hearing about it?”

“I am unsure that I understand your grievance, Rainbow Dash,” Luna said, sounding honestly confused at the accusation. “Did I not levy profuse apologies for my actions upon all present immediately after being freed me from the stars’ influence? The events of that morning were as busy as they were harried, but I am certain that you were among the very first to whom I apologized.”

Rainbow Dash’s mouth hung open for a brief moment before she redoubled her inquiry. “Well, yeah, you apologized,” she said, leaning emphasis on the final word. “But we all thought that was the guilt talking.”

“It was,” Luna stated rather matter-of-factly. “I regret my actions incredibly, and shall live with the guilt of them for some time.”

Rainbow Dash looked like she was trying to decide if Luna was screwing with her. “I mean we thought you were just feeling guilty for things that weren’t your fault!”

Luna simply shook her head. “It was not my intent to mislead you, Rainbow Dash,” she said.

Rainbow Dash was persistent. “But—”

“Dash, let it go,” Twilight interrupted, finally putting her hoof down. “You know that communicating has been difficult for Luna since she came back. As it is, she’s going to have to be the calm and gentle one of us if all I can manage is to be the iron hoof or a mad mare, so please don’t antagonize her.”

“Ugh, fiiiiiiine,” Rainbow Dash whined. She turned to apologize to Luna, but the alicorn of the moon had suddenly stopped walking.

“Wait, I am to be what?”

☼ ☼ ☼

At first, Celestia’s idea to create a body for Harmony had seemed to be a reasonable one. If the alicorn was bleeding magic into the world nearly as fast as it was generating it—and it was—then the obvious answer was to build something that could contain that magic. It quickly became clear, however, that creating a functional body and containing Harmony’s magic were two different things, and of the two, the latter was most important.

It followed logically that Celestia’s first attempt was more of a shell than a body and resembled a medieval torture device rather than a vessel fit for an alicorn. It was made of gold and jewels, yes, but the gilded material only gave it an even more macabre atmosphere.

This heavy, equine shell, Celestia had forged using only the light of the sun and her own magic. The result was a metal known as ponythium. Similar to the moonstone which Luna had created for the Ponyville Palace, this material was the closest thing to a manifest body that Celestia could provide.

She wasted hours creating the shell before her mistake was revealed.

It wasn’t common knowledge, but Celestia and her sister each had a magic that was unique from that of ponykind. This was why Celestia had chosen gold in the first place. Gold was compatible with her magic, and, given the appearance of the elements of harmony, it seemed to be an affinity that Harmony shared.

She wasn’t wrong in thinking so, yet her attempt to use it to save Harmony had almost ruined everything. Twisted pieces of golden metal littered the floor of the observatory, ripped apart by Celestia’s desperate, shaking hooves.

It was bad enough that her magic had nearly suffocated the one that she’d been trying to save, but what truly disturbed her was the terrible revelation that followed; something she would never be able to forget no matter how long she lived.

She now knew how to kill a god.

✶ ✶ ✶

“Oh no,” Twilight said under her breath as the group came into view of the vault that had once held the elements of harmony. The vault doors were hanging open, and the vault itself was empty. “No, no, no, no, no!”

The entire group galloped down the hall, including the ex-bearers of the elements of harmony who had been flagging from their unnatural exhaustion. No amount of belated haste could change the truth, though—the elements were gone.

“I don’t understand,” Twilight said. “If something happened, then Celestia should have sent a message through Spike—unless she couldn’t? Oh no…”

Luna shook her head. “Calm thyself, Twilight. The newspapers did say that she held court earlier today, long after this must have happened. Either she does not know, or she chose not to inform us. Normally, I would assume the latter, but these halls are far emptier than they should be.”

“The whole thing is empty, but there ain’t a scratch on the door,” Applejack summarized, exiting the vault after a quick search. “Ah don’t suppose you can tell anything more, Yer Highness?”

Luna gave the large golden doors an appraising look then took a step forward and ran a hoof along the center, where there was a gap for an alicorn-sized horn. “Indeed I can, Applejack,” she said as she wandered in past Applejack, dragging her hoof first across the length of the door and then the wall as she went. “There is no trace whatsoever of the numerous powerful wards that once protected this vault.”

“What does that mean?” Fluttershy asked with a small quiver as she poked her head around the door, not daring to enter.

With a heaving grunt, Luna turned and gave the wall of the vault a solid buck, creating a spiderweb of cracks in the marble. “It means,” she said as she made her way back to the vault doors, stopping to shake the gravel off her hooves after a few steps. “Firstly, that Celestia did not simply remove the elements from the vault herself, and second, that the wards were faced with an source of magic which was strong enough to destroy them, yet has not damaged the vault in any physical manner whatsoever.”

“Also,” Twilight said, raising her hoof weakly to attract attention. “Since there’s no lasting sign, it’s probably been at least twelve hours since the event.”

Luna gave Twilight an acknowledging nod and considered the possibilities. “I am afraid that I know of no power capable of such a thing. Even my sister’s magic would reduce this wing of the castle to slag before the vault could be breached.”

“Now hold on,” Applejack interrupted. “Didn’t Discord break in here without raising so much as a peep?”

Twilight shook her head. “Discord cheated,” she said rather reluctantly, not really wanting to get into the subject. “The wards were still untouched when Celestia opened the vault to give us the elements. My best guess is that he went around them somehow—and no, it doesn’t actually make any more sense when you understand how magic works. Actually, I’m pretty sure it makes less.”

“Well, how does that help us?” Rarity asked, keeping the conversation going.

Unfortunately, the topic of Discord had soured Twilight’s mood. “It doesn’t,” she said, and that was the end of it.

“So, what? That’s it?” Rainbow Dash said, sounding almost as cross as Twilight.

Luna let out a sigh. “It does seem that we have run out of things this vault can tell us. I would offer reassurance that hope remains for your elements to be returned to you, but the chance that it will be a simple matter dwindles.”

“Luna,” Twilight said as she looked around at her friends and attempted to judge their condition. “Can you try and find Celestia and figure out what happened here?”

Luna nodded and said, “Certainly—are you not coming?”

Twilight shook her head. “There’s no need for all of us to go running around the grounds when you can give them a quick flyover and find Celestia or somepony that knows where she is. I’m going to take the others to a guest room so they can rest, and… there’s something I want to talk to them about in case there really isn’t anything that can be done.”

“You have a solution?” Luna asked, curious.

“I just might.”

✶ ✶ ✶

The general emptiness of Canterlot Castle was a double-edged sword when it came to accommodating the ex-bearers of the elements of harmony. Finding an open room was foal’s play, but ordering room service proved unreasonably challenging. In the end, Twilight had had to leave her friends and run down to the kitchens to light a fire under the servant’s rears.

As the only two cooks in the kitchen had explained it to her, Celestia’s display had crushed the morale of the royal guards. With their embarrassment during the War of Books being so recent, there was a growing sentiment that the guard itself was useless. Half of them had quit on the spot, and the other half were sulking. Worse, with the royal guard all but on strike, the nobility claimed they didn’t feel safe coming to the castle, though it was more likely that they were just insulted by the lack of anyone to make them feel important. Of course, with the castle all but empty, only a few servants were needed, and half of the servants that were supposed to be on duty were scared of Celestia.

In other words, the whole thing was a huge mess, most of the Equestrian government was run by cowards, and tea would be along in five or ten minutes.

Twilight was well aware that calling ponies cowards for being irrationally afraid of Celestia was entirely hypocritical, but neither could she really deny the facts as they stood before her. It had to be instinctual, and if it was, then were the stars making it better or worse? If she really was going to go through with her solution, she hoped that it was the former, but there wasn’t time to dwell on it before she reached the room where her friends were waiting.

“The good news is, somepony in the castle is actually aware that we’re here now,” Twilight announced as she closed the door behind herself. “The bad news is, they’re not quite afraid enough of Celestia to keep track of her every move. Nopony has seen her for hours.”

Rarity tsked. “Disgraceful, honestly,” she chided from where she and rest of the group sat on cushions around a small gilded rosewood table. “But that is Princess Luna’s task at the moment, is it not? You mentioned that you have a… proposal for the rest of us?”

Twilight’s shoulders sank as she took her place between Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash at the table. “It’s a possibility,” she said, not wanting to get their hopes up. “One that poses a risk of changing who you are, but should be reversible, if it comes to that.”

“Well, if that ain’t ominous,” Applejack mumbled.

Rainbow Dash’s wings fluttered as a shiver ran up her spine. “I like who I am,” she declared with pride, and then deflated. “But it’s a little late for that. This thing you want to do, it’d make it so we’re not tired all the time?”

“Your body only thinks it’s tired,” Twilight said, making an effort to phrase her explanation right. “I know it’s not much of a consolation right now, but since it is a form of magic withdrawal, you would probably adjust eventually. You also… might not. Your body will settle on some combination of restoring the emptiness to its original condition and trying to fill it with magic, and since everypony is different, it’s possible the two won’t ever meet in the middle.”

Applejack crossed her forelegs across her chest and leaned back. “That don’t answer the question, though, Twilight. What are you saying you can do about it?”

Twilight let out a heavy breath. “Remember that we’re talking about magic withdrawal, here—magic that you wouldn’t even have if not for the star inside each of you. That star is very much like the element of harmony you used to bear and sits now at the center of that vast emptiness you feel. It doesn’t have to be alone. The void inside of you… I can fill it.”

“With stars?” Applejack asked rhetorically.

Twilight gave a serious nod. “I’ve already done it once, when I gave Star Glister back his star. The only concern is what effect it would have on you.”

“What, like maybe it’d make us all alicorns?” Rainbow Dash asked, raising one eyebrow.

That seemed to get some attention, as ponies at the table all looked at each other, imagining it. Sadly, Twilight had to nip that one in the bud. “No, you already all have stars, and aren’t alicorns; it’s almost certain that I’m made of stars because I’m an alicorn—not vice versa. What I’m worried about is the memories that stars contain. You shouldn’t have access to them, or ponies would be born with the memories of their precursors, except… some ponies do claim to have memories of past lives, and even if you don’t remember anything, who’s to say there isn’t an unconscious effect?”

“Woah,” Applejack muttered. “That ain’t an easy decision t’make. ’Specially if it might not even be needed.”

One pony, however, didn’t hesitate. “I’ll do it,” she said, the statement being so out of the blue that it took Twilight a moment to realize who had even spoken.

“Pinkie Pie?” Twilight asked. In hindsight, the response wasn’t surprising outside of the fact that she hadn’t spoken at all during the entire trip. “Very well, then. I suppose the only question is… what, or rather, whose stars would you like to have?

☼ ☼ ☼

Though Celestia’s first attempt had nearly ended terribly, she refused to let it stop her. She understood, now, that though her magic shared an affinity for gold with that of Harmony, one could not replace the other. The only magic she could use to make Harmony a body was that of Harmony itself.

She just had to figure out how to do that.

She started by digging a hole. She burned a tunnel deep into the heart of Mount Canterlot, far from the influence of the sun. At the bottom of this tunnel, she formed a chamber and lined it with alternating rings of gold and ponythium. From what had happened the night before at the vault, she knew that no amount of Harmony’s magic would melt the gold, but the right shape would still draw it along like oil up a wick.

It was tedious work, and for the longest time it almost seemed futile, but Celestia knew better; she knew that under the right conditions she could make it work. Eventually, with dusk nearing, she finally managed it. A tiny shining thread of life spun from nothing—not gold, but pure manifest magic.

At first, Celestia was alone in shaping the body that was to become Harmony, but once the process was started, it soon took on a mind of its own. She used only the lightest touch of magic to sculpt and mold, while the thread filled in the gaps with filigree of impossible detail on its own. Gears sprung up like weeds in tangled designs that Celestia had no hoof in, and it wasn’t long before she realized her part was over—that it was time to simply step back and let nature take its course.

As layer upon layer of mesh and plate covered strut and pivot and a long golden horn sprouted from the figure’s head, a multihued rainbow glow coalesced around the equine form and was quickly covered with each new plate. Soon, the structure that Celestia had spent so long refining grew dark, starved of the magic it was built to direct. The last length of thread fell from the wheel… but the assemblage of golden gears continued to grow unabated.

How long the entire process took, Celestia couldn’t say. She was so fascinated by every stage of the process—from wire tendons to the final regal, sculpted art deco physique—that she felt a pang of disappointment when the process finally began to die down.

When the last gear had settled in place, and the last wire tightened and tuned, a deathly still silence returned to the small chamber which Celestia had wrought. It lasted for a single heartbeat before a tinny click echoed through the small space, followed by a barely audible whirring as two eyes—intelligent, seeing eyes that were literally cut from the finest of emeralds—cracked open to look up at Celestia. Recognition blossomed.

“You. I know you. You are… anathema.”

Author's Note

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