Dawn was ending. The sun was climbing into the sky, and the clouds that had been scattered across the sky like rose petals were fading into familiar white. The last vestiges of night were being chased from the landscape below, shadows streaming out across the fields to shelter in the valleys. Above, the moon had already dropped beneath the horizon, and the stars had long since been chased away. It was, on the whole, a very satisfying start to the day, made all the more perfect by the serene silence that graced the land.
"I finally figured it out."
Celestia, shepherd of the sun, sighed. A thousand years of solitude were rather habit-forming, and she still hadn't gotten used to the fact that she was no longer alone. Turning away from the vista spread out before her, she faced her sister.
"Is something wrong, Luna?"
Seated behind her older sister on a grassy mountain ledge, Luna shook her head.
"You weren't in the castle. But I remembered how you always thought the towers weren't quite tall enough to do the sunrise justice." She waved a dismissive hoof. "But that's hardly important. I just figured out what was bothering me."
Celestia blinked. "Has something been troubling you, sister?"
"No… not exactly. Something confused me, though. There's something different about you, Celestia. I've been trying to put my hoof on it ever since I returned."
Her sister frowned. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean."
"Really? Well, we'll see." Luna pointed a hoof at Celestia's confused face. "It's your eyes, sister. I remember when they were as deep blue as the noon sky on a cloudless day. But they're not anymore, are there? Nor the pink of a soft sunrise. Your eyes are the color of nightfall, sister. Of dusk. The Celestia I remember would never celebrate her own dwindling in such a way. So tell me, sister" Luna sat back on her haunches "when you became such a lover of twilight?"
Celestia started. "Twilight? I—my faithful student and I are—"
Luna cocked her head to the side. "Twilight in the general sense, sister. I'm sure whatever going on between you and that filly in Ponyville is entirely your own business."
The Princess of the Sun huffed. "I was about to say, my relationship with Twilight Sparkle, is that of a mentor to a gifted student, nothing more."
"Of course, sister. I never meant to imply otherwise." Celestia got the distinct impression that Luna was laughing at her behind her hoof. "I merely wish to know what caused the change. You aren't one to alter something to dramatic for capricious reasons."
Celestia sighed, pawing at the turf like a foal. "Must we discuss this now?"
Luna regarded her thoughtfully. "Yes, I think we must. I have a thousand years of catching up to do, you know. I need to start to somewhere."
"As you wish." There was a pause, and when Celestia spoke again, her voice was quiet. "There was… a mare."
Luna considered her sister's reluctance to meet her eyes, the tenderness of her voice, the nervous twitching of her wings. "You loved her."
"And she loved me. Our time together…" Celestia turned her head away. "The years passed quickly."
Luna sat down beside her sister, and folded a wing across her back. "I understand."
"She never cried, you know. Not once, in all the years I knew her. Not even at the end, when…" She shook her head. "I remember thinking how much better than mine her eyes must have been. So, when she passed, I changed my own to match hers. Perhaps I thought it would help. It didn't."
Celestia trailed off, and for a time the two sisters were silent. At last, Luna asked
"Can you tell me about her?"
"Not in a way that would do her justice. I've forgotten too much." Celestia's eyes were closed as she continued. "I remember her scent, and the way she breathed when she slept, and the way she smiled when she watched the sunrise. But I can't remember how her hooves sounded on the stairs, or the way she wore her mane, or even where I first met her."
"How long ago?"
"Nearly three hundred years."
"And… where there others, or…?"
"There were. But again, my memory fails. Sometimes, I can see the color of a mane in a flower, or hear a familiar laugh echo down a hall…" Celestia sighed, and Luna tightened her wing around her. "She was the last, you see. In time, I imagine I will forget her too."
Luna sighed. "It doesn't have to be that way, sister. Surely, you could do something else. Order some memorial built, perhaps."
Celestia snorted. "A portrait gallery, perhaps? Or a hall of statues? For all the court to come and gawk and try to guess what about these quite ordinary mares and stallions attracted the attention of the Princess of the Sun? What they might imitate?" She shook her head, the movement more of a convulsion than anything else. "No. What little I do remember is still private. If my memory fails me, it is my concern, and mine alone."
"I understand not wanting to put your heart on public display, sister. I do. But if you do not wish to forget, and do not trust your memory… then it seems you have no choice but to share. If not with Equestria…" Luna nuzzled her sister, just for a moment. "…then with family."
She felt Celestia draw in a long, slow breath. She felt Celestia nod, just once. And she felt a little of the tension leave Celestia's limbs as her older sister began to speak.
"I remember, once, we were sitting in the gardens, looking back at the castle. She said she could sneak into my chambers without the guards ever noticing. I didn't believe her…"
Luna smiled, and snuggled close. Above, the sun climbed still higher, shining down on the waking world. Below, farms were tended, shops opened, and lessons began. And between the two, two sisters shared a love story three centuries old.
