It was a harsh sun-lit day when Canterlot was drove to war, a war that no eye could see and no normal ear could hear. A war of whispers, of silence and of doubt. All targeted against a Princess of Equestria, the longest ruling and most experienced Princess Celestia. You see, a few days ago, certain documents fell into certain hooves that before had been more certain about the benevolence of the Princess than they had been about the fact that Sweet Apple Acres made the best apples in Ponyville. But like all things, that certainty was impermanent and with those documents, turned to sour doubt.
Those documents contained details of many things, mostly actioned by the Princess against evil and foreigners, those did not matter so much. It was those that were targeted towards her own citizens that caused ponies to hate her. Mostly targeting powerful mages, a skillful manipulation occurred that removed those mages from Equestria. It seems that those had begun after one Arch-mage became paranoid and retreated from Equestria, possibly giving the Princesses enemies information. After that, her new arch-mage, Starswirl the Bearded begun to create spells without asking the Princess, including one that could raise the sun. This caused quite a moral dilemma, on one hand, she could get rid of the spell and look a tyrant or she could become more disposable as they wouldn’t need her to raise the sun anymore, giving her less political leeway. She opted for a third option, by encouraging Starswirl to study Time Travel, he eventually created a spell that let him go back in time to the beginning, the information that he could gather there would be crucial to map out the full history of the planet.
However, he did not create a counter-spell and remained at the start of a dark, lifeless planet before magic had become possible, leaving him to die of starvation. After that, all Celestia needed to do was look sad and mourn his disappearance. This then continued for several years, even taking place upon her own sister. The last time that this game had been played was merely a few years ago, when her student Twilight Sparkle was sent to the moon. This is where things went wrong, Celestia had underestimated her student. It was Sparkle who found the documents, copied them and spread them. Even now, Celestia was still trying to work out who had stolen them, the guard searching hopelessly to find any trace of the thief.
It was also Sparkle who found several of Equestria’s heroes and villains, then persuaded them to join her. This group was formed of The Elements of Harmony, Queen Chrysalis of the Changelings, Discord the spirit of Chaos, Shining Armour captain of the Guard, Princess Luna ruler of the night and Trixie Lulamoon travelling magician and new head of the Elements after Twilight’s banishment. It was this group who spread slander. The Elements used their lack of high court status to attract common ponies to their cause, mostly from Ponyville, Chrysalis infiltrated Celestias ranks using her changelings, Discord created, well, discord among the court posing as a rich noble, Armour kept the guard trained while looking for potential recruits in case it came to a military coup, Luna distracted Celestia and Lulamoon continued to lead the Elements in their efforts.
As for Twilight, she was preparing to face Celestia, no matter which form the battle took. She practiced speeches, created rumours, made connections, plotted and trained herself, both magically and physically. It all came to a head on a sunny afternoon, the guard had followed a lead from a orange vendor that a lavender pony had been seen entering and exiting a home in Ponyville, they waited and indeed Twilight entered the house. They arrested her, Twilight not putting up a fight, and then dragged her to Canterlot, coming into Court and presenting her before the Princess, they should have noticed the slight glow on Twilights horn when they took her out of the carriage.
In the grand throne room, Celestia sat upon her throne, unable to see that all the co-conspirators were in the room with her, her court now infested with changelings and recruits, her guard now subverted and even her own family turned against her. Blind to all this, she prepared to pass judgement on the pony that had served her best. Before the court she damned Twilight to death, for attacking the Princess in her sleep, a lie to give her the right to execution. That was when they struck, guards moved against guards, changelings subdued courtiers and both heroes and villains alike moved against Celestia, with a combined effort they subdued her, the magically attuned among them stopping her spells, the flightful preventing her flight and the earthly bound to punch her in the face and break her horn.
It all took place in a mere few minutes, but Celestia was laid low now broken in front of her student as the same judgement that she had wrought on hundreds of others, was now cast on her. Celestia was banished to the moon. the conspirators rejoiced, now secure in their victory they began to form a new government, made up of those elected by each settlement. With Luna now taking a smaller responsibility. The nobles attempted their own coup of this government a couple years later, from anger at being displaced as they were scrapped. That coup was much less successful than the plot that had formed this new government.
Looking at the moon today, you can see a unicorn in it, as clear as you could have seen the mare in the moon. I can not say what tales will be created about that marking, but what I can say is that it will take a long time for it to disappear, Celestia was banished for the total number of years that she had sentenced others, considering that those others included Luna and Discord the sentence will last around about fifty thousand years. In the mean time, I can’t wait to see what lies ahead.
Author's Note
This is the end of what I called the ‘From the moon’ series and also the end of my current spat of writing. I hope you enjoyed these past few weeks of daily updates, because they may not return for long while.