Celestia was travelling. She didn’t really have a goal at that time, because as far as she knew then, the world was only composed of her, her little sister, the ground under her hooves, a lot of water and the huge blackness all around. It had always been that way and she never really considered it could be any other way.
At first, she had stayed with her little sister, to keep her company, and to have some company, but they didn’t go along that well.
First, it was usually necessary for Celestia to stay away from Luna from time to time, as her sister seemed to need the darkness to rest, which wasn’t practical with Celestia being surrounded at all time by her natural halo of light that was both too bright and too warm.
But even more, Celestia would spend most of her time building stuff with the dirt and water all around, mostly a wall or some basic forms like a cube or a triangle, because she found those to be beautiful. She would build an incredible amount of them as she was very proud to have created something that perfect.
Luna, however, never built anything. She tried it a lot of times, but eventually stopped because she always failed at creating anything “good”. She would, however, always destroy anything Celestia would have created. She was very good at it. Then Celestia would get angry, Luna would apologize because she would feel guilty for having made her big sister angry and Celestia would forgive her little sister.
There was no point fighting: she had enough dirt and water to build countless things, and more time than she was able to even consider. So both sisters would just move a little further away and the circle would begin once again, and again, until Celestia got bored.
For all those reasons, Celestia had begun her journey to nowhere, as there was seemingly nothing anywhere to go to. She walked for a long time, which could have been a few minutes or a few millennium as there was no way back then to measure time and there is no telling that time didn’t even flow differently. Still, the very stubborn Celestia decided she wouldn’t stop until she had found something, anything to make the journey worth it.
That hope was an illusion at best. Each one of her steps only made her halo of light go a little further away, revealing some new dirt to walk on and, sometimes, a bit of water, but nothing else.
More time passed and Celestia’s legs got tired of having walked for so long. She was all alone, but she didn’t mind, as she had really nothing to be afraid of. She decided to take a quick nap and to keep on walking when she would wake up.
She lay on the ground, just next to a big puddle and closed her eyes.
At one point, she woke up, but was still sleepy. There was no reason to get up immediately and she decided to sleep a little more.
Then, once again, she regained consciousness, but was too lazy to even open her eyes. She was happy just sleeping and decided there was no hurry whatsoever.
She slept for a very long time, at a time long ago when it didn’t matter whatsoever. But at some point, she finally woke up from her long sleep from a tingling sensation.
She then discovered something new.
Just before her eyes were very tiny creatures moving all around and some little green stuff had covered the ground. Celestia didn’t believe it at first, but soon became fascinated by those little wonders. She had no idea where the creatures had come from, why they were there or what they were, and honestly Celestia didn’t care at all, as the enchantment was too great for her to wonder about such petty questions. Never had she witnessed such a spectacle, neither had she even imagined that such a thing could exist. Life was a concept her imagination hadn’t conceived until then. She jumped in the air in excitement, scaring the hell out of the little creatures who had always believed that she was nothing more than some sort of a mountain.
“Luna! Luna!” shouted Celestia as she began to run in the direction she had come from initially. “You’ll never believe what I’ve discovered!” she said, as much in the hope to tell her sister as for herself.
It took, of course, a pretty long time, actually way too much time, for Celestia to find her sister again, but she eventually did and began to drag her to the site where were her newfound wonderful tiny creatures.
“You’ve got to see them, it’s amazing!” Celestia said, as they were both travelling through the deserted landscape. “They are like rocks, but not rocks, because they move on their own and they make weird noises and they are so cute!”
But she quickly found herself unable to find the creatures again. She had followed her footsteps on the ground, which was easy, but at the end of the trail was nothing. She could see the little hole her body had formed in the ground next to the water, and she was even able to feel some rest of the warmth of the ground that she had been heating for all that time by simply staying there.
Finally, after having literally turned the ground over, she found the corpses of the creatures that had fled underground when the light had disappeared in the hope of finding some food and heat. There weren’t many corpses, and, of course, none of them were moving anymore. As for the green stuff, it had disappeared a long time ago and there was no trace of it whatsoever.
Celestia didn’t understand. She tried to push a corpse to make it move on its own, but obviously failed. Being still young and pretty immature, but having at least understood that the creatures were gone, she eventually just silently cried, as it was the only way she knew how to react when facing such an event.
Luna looked at one of the corpses, but couldn’t really differentiate it from another rock. It was merely a more complex rock. Because it was what she knew how to do the best, she destroyed it and then began to comfort her big sister and apologized, mostly out of habit because she didn’t really know what was going on.
But after some time, Luna had to return to the darkness to rest and Celestia stayed on her own, trying to figure out what had happened. When she gave up, as it was way beyond her capabilities at the time, she then hanged to a new idea, a very simple one.
She lay on the ground once more, at the very same place than before, and decided to sleep once again, in order to make the creatures come back.
It took a long time for her to find some sleep, as she would wake up almost every ten seconds to see if the creatures were there already, with the same disappointment at first, and then the same determination to go back to sleep until her little tiny creatures would have come back to her.
By chance, she fell completely asleep under the anxiety of the wait and slept for a very long time once again.
At one point, she opened her eyes, and saw some green stuff on the ground. Just a tiny bit of green stuff, but green anyway, and she smiled just by seeing that color as her world had always been mostly white, brown and grey. She shut her eyes again, knowing for certain, this time, that the miracle would happen once more.
And it did.
When Celestia finally woke up again, at the end of her long sleep, all her surroundings were green, and there were once again creatures moving all around.
They were just beautiful. This time, Celestia decided not to move one bit, to observe them, and by doing so discovered so many wonderful things.
For example: the creatures seemed to never follow the same path. It was absolutely impossible to predict which direction one would take. Also, the creatures were eating the green stuff, but the green stuff wasn’t eating them. Celestia felt like trying to eat the green stuff too, but decided against it because she feared it would make the creatures disappear once again. So she kept observing for a while.
The creatures were very complex. They could actually be split up into different types. Some were faster, other tended to stay still for a very long time. Some would wear a rock or some dirt on their back, other would wander around completely naked. Some other would use the dirt to build some sort of little structures, but most were just moving aimlessly, most of the time in Celestia’s direction because it was warmer near her.
After a while, having seen enough, and somewhat tired of staying in the same spot for so long, Celestia began to slowly, and very carefully, stand up. But when she tried to take a few steps back, to observe all the creatures from afar, they all began to panic as the cold darkness was covering them. They all tried their best to go back into Celestia’s light, where it was warm and safe.
Celestia tried to take a few steps back again, and the same phenomenon happened. Only then did Celestia understand that it was her light and its heat that was enabling the creatures to exist. She tried to comfort the tiny creatures as much as herself:
“Don’t worry, I’m not going away. I won’t let you down this time.”
But at the same time she was saying those words, she also felt she couldn’t just stay there for all of eternity, because she wanted to go find her sister and show her the wonderful little creatures.
She decided to try a new approach and used her magic to create a little ball of energy. She concentrated her powers, a tiny ball formed at the end of her horn and began to float over the ground, emitting both heat and light.
Then Celestia took a few steps back, but the creatures didn’t panic and, which could almost feel disappointing, almost didn’t seem to notice she had moved. She went a little further away, but the creatures just stayed under the ball of energy, moving in their happily fashion.
“You stay there, I’ll be right back!” said Celestia, before running away to find her little sister, not without turning back at least a dozen time to make sure the creatures were alright.
Finding Luna took some time, but Celestia eventually succeeded and brought her sister back where she had left the creatures. This time, under the guard of the ball of energy, they were still there, more alive than ever, and even more numerous than when Celestia had left.
“You see?” asked Celestia with a very proud tone. “I told you it’s incredible.”
It truly was. The colors, the different shapes, the little noises those creatures would do when moving were all very new and absolutely mind blowing for the little filly. This was a sight she had never faced before, and a wonderful sight nonetheless.
She came closer and tried to catch one of the creatures with her hoof, but ended up crushing it instead. She immediately retracted her hoof, but the creature wasn’t moving anymore. She felt bad, because she didn’t want to destroy the tiny creature.
“Maybe you should just observe them.” said Celestia.
But as she saw Luna slowly retreating into the darkness under the guilt of her action, she went to hug her sister.
“Don’t worry, I’m not angry at you.” she told her. “You don’t have to go away if you promise to be careful, okay?”
Luna nodded in agreement. For the first time in her life, Luna had found something new that she didn’t feel like destroying. Well, she kind of felt like it, but at the same time, there was something so wonderful about all those tiny things moving on their own that was making her want to watch them for all of eternity.
So, for some time, both sisters watched the creatures move around under the ball of energy. And after a while, Celestia had a new idea.
She had observed that the creatures would never go away from the light and mostly never approached the bordure of the light. She wondered why and decided to experiment. She created a second ball of energy and placed it a little further away from the first one, in order to expand the light.
It took some time, but as she had thought, the creatures began to go into the new light where the ground was becoming warmer.
At that point, however, Luna began to feel indisposed because of all the light and heat that not only her sister, but both balls of energy were creating. She showed her big sister she couldn’t stay much longer, as she needed to rest, but wanted to keep watching the creatures at the same time.
Celestia understood, but didn’t really understand how to solve the problem.
So, this time, Luna just head back to the darkness and Celestia stayed in the light.
When Luna came back, the creatures as well as the green stuff had colonized the space lit by the second ball of light and some new elements had appeared, like red stuff in the middle of the green stuff, and some more diverse creatures. Luna found it absolutely amazing and Celestia agreed.
In her opinion, it meant that there was only one logical step to take at that point, as she had observed that the more light she was creating, the more wonderful the creatures were becoming. She looked however at her little sister, and Luna looked back at her.
“Maybe I shouldn’t do it after all.” Celestia said.
And she was really thinking it. Because the more light she was creating, the more inconvenient she would make the world for her little sister. At this point, Celestia felt like she had had enough fun with the tiny creatures and that it wasn’t worth going any further if it meant Luna would have to pay the price.
But in Luna’s look, she read another message entirely. Luna’s eyes were literally glowing with curiosity and an infinite amount of expectation. Of course the little filly knew what it would mean for her, but she was feeling, for the first time, like she was building something with her big sister, even if said big sister was doing mostly all of the work. That feeling was something she couldn’t just give up like that.
“Are you sure?” asked Celestia.
But Luna was sure.
So Celestia focused and began the creation of a giant ball of light. At first, she made it the size of her head, but it wasn’t big enough in her opinion. So she made it her own size, taking the two previous balls of energy inside it, but it wasn’t big enough in her opinion. She decided to make it way, way bigger so that the creatures would be incredibly more awesome and soon it took gigantic proportions, covering most of the sky above both sisters’ heads and providing a gigantic amount of light and, more importantly, heat.
As was to be expected, that heat was too much for the creatures to handle and they began to panic, tried to find cover underground, but the ground itself was overheating. All the green and red stuff caught fire, covering the landscape with flames.
Celestia panicked too. She stopped the growth of her huge ball of energy and was even able to send it as far away as possible, but it was already too big not to keep on overheating everything. In one quick glance, Celestia saw all of her work, every little thing she had taken so much happiness in watching grow and had become attached to, absolutely everything disappearing in a matter of seconds under her eyes.
And suddenly the huge ball of energy disappeared, leaving only Celestia’s little halo of light left in the middle of the darkness.
Shocked at first, Celestia eventually figured out that the miracle hadn’t occurred on its own and looked at her little sister who was lying on the ground, exhausted.
Where Celestia had only known how to build things, Luna had always been very good at destroying them. Having understood that the huge ball of energy had become a problem, Luna had decided to take action and had destroyed it.
Now, both sisters were looking at each other. Luna’s look was saying:
“Please don’t be angry… I really thought it would help you.”
And Celestia’s look was saying:
“Thank you so much! I wouldn’t have been able to handle it without you.”
But due to the circumstances, neither of them said any word. Only the silence ensued. A long, awkward and somewhat painful silence as both Luna and Celestia were pained in the knowledge that all the wonderful little creatures had probably disappeared with all the heat and light.
“I guess we will have to try again…” said Celestia.
But the tone she had used to say those words was a clear indication of the lie that lay within. She didn’t feel like trying again. She didn’t feel like building anything anymore for that matter. For the second time, she had destroyed everything, be it without any evil intention, but destroyed everything nonetheless. She was sad and disappointed in herself. She thought that, maybe, the creatures were too good for her to have the right to watch them and that, maybe, it was meant to be that it would never work.
She was, after all, still young, and somewhat immature.
Also, at that very moment, she was sad and tired, which was more than enough of a reason to give up.
And then a sound caught both sister’s attention.
It was the sound of a creature moving. One of those very distinctive funny sounds that only those creatures were able to produce. Celestia went to the place where it was coming from and saw a few creatures that had survived come out of the ground and group around her, as the light seemed to reassure them.
A few tears ran down Celestia’s cheeks, but those were tears of happiness.
Not only was it wonderful that those few creatures had survived, but it seemed like many other had too and all around, in the darkness, the sound of the creature moving could be heard. And from everywhere, as it was their instinct telling them, all the creatures began to try to find their way to Celestia, as they were feeling that it was their best hope to survive.
But truly, Celestia was the one discovering a real hope. In a way, she discovered hope itself, because something good that she hadn’t expected had happened. Therefore, she understood that it wasn’t foolish to expect good things to happen. Even the most impossible one. Even expecting something as wonderful as life itself.
Also, looking around, she understood that the creatures’ existence wasn’t bound to the balls of light, at least not directly. She could feel the ground and the air all around her, still warm, still able to support life.
She heard somepony laugh from afar and saw Luna who was enjoying both the creatures’ existence and the darkness altogether. The little sister liked the darkness, and she liked the creatures too, but having them both at the same time was also something incredibly good that she hadn’t expected.
At that moment, completely reinvigorated by her newfound hopes, Celestia developed a plan.
She explained everything to Luna and together, they began to work. First, Celestia created some new balls of energy and everytime she went a little too far, Luna made sure the creatures wouldn’t be harmed by putting an end to it. Also, they always took long break between their different tries to make sure the creature would have gotten enough sun and heat to keep on existing.
Finally, Celestia created the sun, which was big and powerful enough to light the whole land, but distant enough not to jeopardize the creatures. Then, she made the sun move from left to right, so that everytime it would hit the horizon, Luna would know it was time for her to destroy it.
That way, Celestia was able to enjoy the creatures during the light of the day, and Luna was able to enjoy the creatures during the darkness of the night, as both had understood that a little bit of night wouldn’t hurt the creatures and later even found out that it was very profitable for them to have some non light time.
Finally, Celestia and Luna took all the time they could to watch and understand those living creatures and help them overcome all their problems. Very soon, some more complex creatures appeared, first in the water, but very soon on the land. They saw creatures with eyes, with paws, with dreams, with shells, with skin, with fur or even some creatures that seemed to be able to speak.
This is how Celestia came to share her light and created the sun, and why Luna came to create the night every evening.
From this point, the story is still long and eventually both sisters would distance themselves from all those creatures because of the tendency they had to fight amongst each other, a violence that neither Celestia, who could only understand creating, nor Luna who had fallen in love with life, could accept.
Nonetheless, even after having been greatly disappointed by the creatures they had spent so much time caring about, never did the two sisters cease to bring day and night for them to keep on existing.
As they have been for a very long time.
As they still do on that very day.
And as they will keep on doing for as long as life will exist for them to admire.
THE END
Author's Note
Well, what do you do when you have a lot of work to do? You write a story of course! And a lousy one to make it better.
I don't care, I like the idea, and I kind of like how it turned out. And it was fun to try to imagine a "creation myth" for that universe and put it into words, as it is something I've never done before, as much as I can remember.
Also, english doesn't have a word for "incendie" other than "fire"? Seriously?
"At that moment, completely reinvigorated by her newfound hopes, Celestia developed a plan."
=> in reference of rainbow fun factory (RDP)
Still, the story will probably too dull for most people (or everyone, it's laways so hard to judge a story just after having written it). Not enough emotions, not nearly eventful enough.
Well, no! I like my story without explosions and angst and... and I notice that I put something like an explosion and that both Celestia and Luna sort of cry at some point.
God is writing hard and frustrating!
Why do I love it so much?
Also... green stuff... as lazy as I know it is, I need to remember myself that it is the best compromise I could find to keep the balance of the text and due to my poor english skills, in those circumstances the lack of vocabulary to be exact.
Alternate universe because this isn't consistent with the most commonly agreed upon headcannon regarding Luna and Celestia's youth.
