Five centuries ago, Emerald used to be a dragon called Spike.
When Spike was one year old and not much of an assistant for anypony yet, and he lived in Canterlot with Twilight Sparkle's family. They had a rather big sandbox; it was for the foals to train telekinesis precision and dexterity. The siblings still used it sometimes.
The sandbox was on their balcony to avoid the mess, and had been covered and untouched since the first snow of the season. Now that Canterlot’s snow was cleaned by the city’s unicorns, Spike jumped onto the sandbox and started creating a replica of their home. His hands were dexterous and he spent dawn to dusk mastering the art of construction with sand and water.
When he was finally done, the house replica was as tall as himself. He called all the family to see his proclaimed ‘magnum opus’. They were all very impressed on how beautiful and accurate it was, and covered him and his re-creation in compliments, much to his delight. It lasted for two weeks until a spring storm defeated it with strong gusts of wind. He wanted to build it again, but this sand was for the foals, and they still used it sometimes, so Spike reluctantly let it go.
Equestria was in turmoil with the strange, cryptic news. The rulers had announced the world that there was going to be a week without day or night, starting at the Spring Equinox, a preparation for further changes to come. They would explain it all at Solstice Park in Canterlot, which was the traditional place for public solemnities in the capitol.
Thousands of ponies gathered for this, many of whom from out of town. Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, and Prince Emerald walked onto stage. Nobody was quite sure what to expect. The rumors about Princess Celestia’s health were back the last few days, but she was there, and she seemed okay.
Princess Luna was sitting at the middle. She was just a hoof taller than Celestia, dark indigo coat, and had an ever flowing mane much like her sister’s, that was mostly black, sporting many starry nebulae that were the same cyan as her eyes. And yes, her eyes, of the ponies who had the honour of looking into in her eyes, they could feel how Luna’s eyes carried some deep care with determination, and also had the power to infuse anypony with a calming clarity, a soothing feeling that many treasured for the rest of their lives.
The night sister stood and stepped ahead while Celestia and Emerald sat up, one on each size. The puzzled murmurs of the ponies in the audience died quickly at this cue. Her soft voice was heard by everypony who wanted to listen. She greeted all ponydom, and finally, went to the point. “At the beginning, there was no sun and no moon. There was, however, a chaotic energy in the skies that used to be constantly stirred by Discord. We eventually harvested this energy and shaped it into the sky bodies that everypony knows today. As they were the creations of myself and Princess Celestia, they respond to us and it’s very difficult and taxing for anypony else to handle them.”
Celestia stood and walked a step ahead, as her sister sat down. Not many centuries ago, Celestia’s coat, not her mane, was white. While well groomed and smooth, the burnt light gray of her coat in contrast with her mane did suggest a late stage in life. Her ever flowing white mane had four thin multi-colored streaks. It was, as most ponies knew, a homage to one of her students of olden times, Twilight Sparkle. Her violet eyes had the strange power of filling her subjects with a warm enthusiasm about everything in life, that was seasoned by her vast wisdom.
Celestia continued what Luna was saying. “There was, however, that thousand year period in which Princess Luna was in the moon. I had made a decision that was painful for my sister that I could not undo, and I knew it. That decision was also very painful for everypony in Equestria if I did not raise the moon as well, so I eventually decided to bear both it and the sun while she was away. Since these troubled times, we have forgiven each other and ourselves. But my body and my magic have not forgiven me. I have been blessed with the honor of serving everypony in Equestria for fifteen centuries, and now I’m unlikely to start a sixteenth. Today is the day my successor, Prince Emerald, starts holding the duty that most profoundly affects Equestria.”
Emerald stepped ahead. He had a vividly purple coat and a relatively short green mane. He was an alicorn just like Celestia, and, more importantly, Luna. He had been a pony for much longer than anypony in the audience ever lived, so long that he started having trouble remembering what his life as a dragon had been like. His cutie mark was a bright green flame. He had chosen to keep his eyes as they were originally from his previous form, earning his current name, but that had had the side effect that fewer ponies who met his gaze could connect with his incredibly invigorating aura of dedication and resolve.
“Like everypony else in Equestria, Celestia’s is the only Sun I have ever known.” He started. “And it will now be my duty to bring the daylight to all of you. While we know I can raise her sun, my life would be shortened even more rapidly with the daily strain. Princess Luna and I, then, will re-create both the sun and the moon.”
The three alicorns moved to sit in a triangle position, facing the center of that triangle. They closed their eyes, their horns lit. There were many murmurs among the audience, wondering what was about to happen, and most heads were looking up to the sky now.
Emerald found himself walking on some invisible ground with Equestria far below. This made him reflexively flare his wings, and then he noticed… that they were little colt wings. That was awkward. He had never been a colt, and when he was a dragon that size, he didn’t have wings either. He stared at his pudgy hooves, then at his flank. He still had his cutie mark, too.
Looking ahead, he saw Celestia and Luna too. They were both fillies, the same size of normal pony foals, even if they had their cutie marks. A quick look and he was also a foal, something he had never been.
It seemed to be the top of a very large dome ceiling. Behind Luna, the moon was a sphere just a few meters away, about four times taller than her. The sun was blindingly bright and hot behind Celestia, probably the same size. He wondered, weren’t these spheres supposed to be many times bigger?
He didn’t have time to ask, though. Just as he noticed the sisters’ grin to each other, they bucked their respective spheres. It all became a huge explosion of stars going everywhere, including his way. He couldn’t figure out how, but it pushed them across the transparent surface they were stepping on.
They were falling now.
Fast.
The two fillies were laughing heartily, not minding the fall at all. He always knew when Luna was truly amused, and that was definitely the case.
The wind from the fall was strong, and his foal wings seemed useless to even do some steering. He struggled against the upthrust, and turned himself many times over until he achieved some stability and could watch the other two. He noticed their hooves were spread wide open for stability, and they actually could do a little steering, so he followed suit.
Luna reached her forehoof out to Emerald. “Come on, Spike!” Only the sisters called him that.
Emerald stretched his forehoof and somehow managed to come closer to Luna. Their hooves locked. A few seconds later, Celestia grabbed his and Luna’s other hooves. He calmed down with that, and even shared a giggle or two… then he looked down again.
They were directly above the Everfree Forest. From this high it looked like Canterlot was just a fifteen minute trot away. What impressed him was that it was no longer day… but it wasn’t night either. It was flickering between both, as a really strong thunderstorm of silent lightnings. There seemed to be numerous lightnings in chaos that would erratically brighten the land below them, but very rarely fade for long enough to make it darker than twilight.
“Is that how it was? And… How are we going to get out of this?” He managed to ask. It seemed like the fall would take a few minutes, but he wanted a backup plan sooner.
Celestia smiled. “Yes. That’s the sky as we used to know it.”
“Look up.” Luna pointed up with her head. “We couldn’t stay up there anyway, not for now.”
Judging by the fragments, little could be made about where the sun or the moon used to be except that they were close to zenith. The stars were unruly fish in a rising tide, roaming across the sky. There were so many of them. Many of them were fireflies that exploded and disappeared, only to reappear somewhere else that just couldn’t be spotted amidst the chaos.
“This is the chaos you mentioned…” Emerald muttered.
Luna nodded. “The sky part of it, yes.”
“Let’s get back to Canterlot now.” Celestia declared excitedly. She vanished as if pulled into nowhere as soon as she finished this sentence.
“But… but HOW?” His now free hoof reached for Luna’s.
“Didn’t you see the signs?” Luna giggled. “Just wake up, love.” She replied with a peck.
Emerald opened his eyes. Centuries of practiced decorum kept him from jumping at the sudden wake-up. The chaotic lights he saw in his dream were still there. Celestia had her eyes open and slightly squinted by a wide smile she didn’t bother to contain. And Luna opened hers, looking back at Emerald with a smile that was nearly as wide.
As he walked back to Luna’s left side, he couldn’t help but compare the filly he had just seen with the Celestia he knew now. The years had been much kinder to Luna. Celestia’s coat was grayer, Though still beautiful, and the original pink mane she had had screamed energy, unlike the current white that showed her age, despite the stubborn stripes she magically kept. Now that smile, she did seem a century or two younger with it.
Emerald turned his attention back to his wife, who was halfway done with her conclusion speech. “…and we will have a new sun as well. Prince Emerald’s sun. In the meantime, for all the hardships that the lack of day and night can bring, I humbly ask you to think of your ancestors, who lived with a sky like this for five years until Princess Celestia and I managed to create that cycle. Thank you.”
Luna sat at the middle of the sky, training her deflection and redirection spells as the light energy fragments roamed around her. Her filly exterior could not hide the centuries of age impregnated in her body language. Her memory of her imprisonment was foggy on the details and duration, but strong on her feeling of impotence. But there she was, mastering the chaotic heavens like how it was in the beginning, and this time she already understood everypony’s relationship with the night.
He appeared after several minutes, again as a colt. They greeted by nuzzling affectionately, but Emerald got hit by a roaming fragment in the meantime.
“Ow!” Emerald yelped. “These things are too hot!”
“Don’t worry, Spike. They feel a bit painful, but they don’t actually hurt you. Look at your flank.”
Emerald looked behind and indeed, there was just the normal purple fur, and his tail was as green as always. No mark or scorch where he felt the pain. Speaking of which, this pain faded as quickly as it came. Before he could offer a reply, Luna continued.
“Your cute foal look is just appearance, you know. You have your usual magic. Can you cluster a few of these fragments together? I’ll protect you.”
“Thanks, love.” He looked around, feeling like he was staring at the chaos of flies on a pond at a summer sunset. It was hard to pick one, they were just too erratic! He used his telekinesis in the general area in front of him, and pulled about ten fragments, sizes varying from his hoof step to his head. They flickered and shimmered wildly, blinding him a couple times.
“Look at me to not get blinded, just keep holding them.” Luna suggested. “The smaller ones are pulsating too fast, that’s no good. Now, it’s easy to merge them together, you just have to clamp strongly enough. Take your smaller ones and merge them until you get about the size of your biggest.”
“So I have to blindly manipulate objects that pulsate randomly? That’s the hardest telekinetic tact trick I can think of!” Despite the protest tone, he was excited about this idea, and it turned out to be… not that hard. He was good at telekinetic tact. Once he had four balls about the same size, he looked at her, holding them a hoof ahead of his chest.
“Good. Now we stabilize them before merging any further. Pick one and give me the other three.” She received the merged fragments, he kept the original reference size. “Good. Now breathe with it. Inhale when it gets bigger, exhale when it gets smaller.” As she spoke, he was already on it. “You’ll slowly get control of it, then make your breathing movements longer until they’re stable.”
“Wow.” Emerald muttered in surprise. The particle pulsated at that word. “What?” It pulsated again. Then he realized that it was now completely tied to his breathing, even as he was speaking.
“It’s yours now.” She whispered. She wasn’t very close to him, but he heard it clearly nonetheless. “It’ll behave as you please, or just stand there, pulsating after your breath, if you leave it.”
“Until it gets knocked in motion like a marble ball?” He asked curiously.
“Yes. It almost happened a few times already.”
Emerald looked around again. The roaming spherical fragments were being redirected by Luna every other second. “You two…” He mumbled. “You two made such a mess here! At least when Twilight scattered her books about, they wouldn’t try to knock me out…”
Luna giggled. “I know. Don’t feel bad. We know how much work it is to put them together, and I’m here with you doing the same.” She stood up and gave him another sphere. “Let’s stabilize and merge the other three.”
The sheer number of fragments was intimidating. He pressed on, determined to find as many fragments and put them together in his, well, not-snowball. Stabilizing the fragments took almost a minute at first, but he soon could do it in just a few seconds. Also, looking directly the fragments wasn’t an issue for long, as if he was getting used to their erratic shine explosions.
Many hours later, they had to wake up. That wasn’t a restful sleep at all, though, since their dreaming selves did so much work. Their normal centuries old alicorn bodies had been laying in their sleep cuddle throughout. Yet, they felt the need to stay there for several minutes for some actual resting, plus, just enjoying each other too.
The ambient light was still shimmering a lot, but there were no more of these split-second moments of darkness anymore. The two full moons on the sky were sitting still at almost zenith, nearly touching each other. Other fragments would hit these moons and bounce off, doing little to move the towering moons.
When they finally walked out of their room, the table was different than usual, snacks and munchies instead of the usual hearty meal. Many of the options were moist bittersweet pastries, much to the delight of Luna, and there were many crunchy sweeter snacks, just like Emerald liked it. None of the options were very filling, though, as they would have to get back to sleep not long after that. Yet he unceremoniously ate all of his snacks in ten seconds flat.
A familiar chuckle came from across the long table. “I’m glad you don’t still like gemstones, Spike. These don’t grow in crops.” Celestia mused.
Before Emerald could come up with a witty reply, Luna had already seen Celestia, and couldn’t contain her surprise with the new sight. “Celly! What happened with your mane? The stripes are gone and it’s no longer flowing…”
“I know. I dropped the spell.” She shrugged. “I’m taking this opportunity to try to live without any magic at all.” As a matter of fact, she was using her hooves to eat. “It’s easier than I thought it would be.”
“Even combing?” Luna raised her eyebrow.
Celestia smiled. “Believe me, keeping the servants from trying to comb my mane for me was harder, now that they a nurse to back their demands up.”
“Okay. Now how do I make this into a sun?” The purple alicorn stared at his moon in concern. That moon wasn’t his goal at all and millions of ponies depended on him now, not to mention other creatures.
“Just merge more and squeeze harder.” Luna replied. “It won’t grow much bigger anyway. Just make sure you leave the smaller fragments for my stars, because splitting them up is more work.”
“It sure didn’t look like that buck was a lot of work.” He remarked with a smirk.
“Bucking only works with bigger bodies like these.” She pointed to their moons. “But do you really want to start over?” She positioned herself in front of hers with a smile.
“No!” He cried, then smiled. “Point taken.”
Emerald realized the surreality of this undertaking. Was he really re-creating The Sun?
After a few more hours, Emerald could do the whole merge, stabilize, merge routine in several seconds as opposed to a couple minutes. He looked proudly at the sun he was almost done with. It had a dominating, seemingly blinding shine to everything around him, like the sun Celestia bucked. On the other hoof, unlike the old sun, he didn’t have any problem looking directly at it.
He looked down to the surface, past the invisible ground they have been stepping on. “It’s… It’s day.” He muttered. “I did it! Yes!” He raised his forehooves in triumph with a whinny.
Luna was pretty far away, close to the horizon, working with some stars around there. The sky dome worked in strange ways, though, as she heard every word, and galloped back to him.
“It is. Congratulations, love.” She kissed him. “It was easier than it seemed, wasn’t it?”
He looked down at the ground surface again. “It was. It’s clearly day down there. Am I your number one sun maker now?” He grinned.
“But you’re the only… Oh fine, you are.” She smiled back.
He noticed she was looking directly at his sun as well. “Why aren’t we being blinded by it like it happened with Celestia’s?”
“Oh. It’s because I’ve been here with you while you created it. This sun is yours, but it knows me too. It instinctively protects us both.” She tapped the sun with her hoof, to Emerald it almost looked like she was petting it. “There’s something else too. Remember how hard it was moving Celestia’s sun and how long it took? Try moving my new moon.”
He blinked. He tried to pull it closer to him, very softly and carefully, and… It soared! He ducked, the moon hit the sun, and the sun started hovering down the sky with this hit.
Luna chuckled. “Let it fall. We’ve been here for hours again, and it’s probably noon anyway.”
Emerald blinked, looking at the sun going. “That moon was… way lighter than I expected. But I guess the sun is going the normal speed.” He smiled at her. “What a prank, love!”
“I’m not sorry.” She smirked with a wink. “Besides, I can’t make much progress when I can’t see my fragments much.”
“Oh! Do you want me to set it now?”
“No, no, no. Don’t do it.” Luna trotted closer to Emerald, as she spoke these words firmly. “Don’t break the cycle. Let it be for now. Wake up, eat something. I’ll get back for after sunset, since the moon is already high in the sky.”
Emerald woke up next to Luna, who was still sound asleep. They didn’t plan to wake up separately, so he struggled a bit to manage to get out of bed without waking Luna up. Looking at the sky, he couldn’t see her filly form, but he could tell where she was because faint stars close to the eastern horizon were being stabilized. The new sun was steering westwards. It was about five hours past noon.
This second session of sleep wasn’t restful either, but he was feeling much better. His mission was accomplished, and he just created something that everypony would appreciate to the point of eventually taking it for granted. He greeted Celestia, who complimented his job and congratulated him with a proud smile. Despite Celestia’s bright white curly mane making it conspicuous how her life was close to its dusk, her spirits were bright and happy, contradicting it.
“I’m glad I accomplished this, but you’re kind of making me feel like you passed on a curse, Celly.” Emerald asked.
“It was a vacation-less job before Luna returned, Spike. That won’t be the case for you.” She sipped on a cup of green tea that was being held with her hoofs. “You did a great job. I wish I could appreciate it first hand, but now I can’t look directly at it.”
Emerald giggled. “I thought I just had weak eyes with your sun.”
“Buck no!” She replied. “You have dragon eyes. They’re sharper than a pegasus’.”
He glanced once again at the sky, finding where Luna was through her stars. After a few stars, he noticed how it was taking longer than how it was when his sun wasn’t done. “I can see that Luna is struggling to see what she’s doing. I’ll push the sun.”
“What?” Celestia’s eyes bulged. “No, no, don’t do this!” She sounded actually concerned for the first time in weeks. “The cycle is back. All life in Equestria need this cycle. Let it run. You can’t set the sun anytime we want a little shade.”
Emerald blinked. Both sisters protested almost instantly and basically in the same way. It had to be a big deal. “Have… bad things happened before?”
Celestia nodded. “Well, you know the quarrel Luna and I had back when we were younger. After I sent her away, I abandoned the sun. I had never met the three races at that time, but I noticed when the unicorns took it over. I could sense how they all had to do it together for it to work and it was still difficult, but I was too deep into my own frustration to care. Around the times the Windigoes were getting the best of the those ponies, I went and destroyed the sun in anger. I had to rebuild it later.” She sighed. “This is a big responsibility. It affects every single creature, even those who live in caves. I know we had fun making that Big Bang of yesterday, but we could never do something like this under different circumstances. I’m probably not even going to reach next Summer Sun Celebration, Spike…”
He couldn’t help but voice his conclusion. “Sounds like it kinda is a curse.”
There was a few seconds of pause. She looked down carefully gathering the words as if from a chest. “It’s what you make of it. Everything in life is. I had my bad moments, but such is life.” She looked back into his eyes, back from her reminiscing. “I can honestly say I enjoyed it very much. The only regrets I have happened because I was overzealous about it.” She paused for a second. “You were the most obvious choice because you’re so close to Luna. But it’s not good for anypony if you end up being a slave of this. Specially not for yourself. You always have the right to pass it on, just like I just did.”
“We’d need another Big Bang for that, wouldn’t we?” Emerald asked.
“Yes, but don’t let that stop you, Spike.” Celestia’s voice was firm and steamed with experience. “It’s a worthy cause that you do what you love. Your life is too long to enslave yourself with the wrong duty.”
“Good point.” he said simply, and got a mouthful of crispy hay, munching thoughtfully. It was a real meal this time, because he wasn’t going to sleep soon, even though it was late afternoon. He would take time to readjust his sleep pattern, but, Emerald mused, so would many Equestrians.
“Isn’t it nice to share the sky with my sister, though?” She suggested, softly.
“Oh, absolutely!” Emerald replied. “She’s so fun! I had no problem up there. I even forgot all of Equestria was witnessing my swim-or-sink course on sun making.”
She smiled. “You did much better than I did. You didn’t even take a full day. I took almost a week.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Really?”
Celestia nodded. “Really. You’re good, and you’re in good hooves.” she stated matter-of-factly.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you.” But he did.
Celestia chuckled and humored him. “You’re good, and you’re in good hooves.”
Three months passed. Now that the sun was Emerald’s creation, and he was more experienced, raising it was no longer difficult at all. He didn’t need spend minutes in concentration, he would just nudge it down with a head flicker and his magic, which is how he did most days. Not on Summer Sun Celebration, though!
Solstice Park had a record number of ponies this year. Celestia had passed away just three weeks before, and there was a life-sized statue for her across the park. Many homages were planned for her for the day. More importantly, this was the first public display of Prince Emerald’s sunrise.
Luna and Emerald faced each other and took flight, slowly hovering to just a dozen hooves high. It included a difficult maneuver that they loved to pull off: their noses kept constantly in contact at flight. Right at the same time, the moon went down, and the sun went up.
It felt so right.
His new sun lasted for millenia. He happily tended it throughout, as did Luna to her new moon.
