It is not always the brightest star that sits in the crux of a constellation. Certainly, it is usually the focus, and that which ponies see first. But that which sits in the centre, from which the other stars range and to which the other stars lead--now, that is not, even usually, a particularly bright star. Neither is it particularly dim. Most often, it is of a moderate brightness, mild and inoffensive. This, by observation and induction.
It is by a similar fact of nature, for a similar reason and by a similar process, that I write this account, and not Starcall. In fact, in all truth, it is Swords Dance who is the bard among us. Indeed, if Master Dancer--as he calls himself in such matters--has an history of these times to his name, it would no doubt be more palatable to any audience. I do not pretend to be skilled at such endeavours.
However: I am the bureaucrat, and so it is my voice that will be heard, preserved through the ages by biased chance. Therefore, attend to me, and I will tell you of the end of Harmony, which began on the thousandth Lonely Night.
Ah. But even this is likely lost on you, my reader of even a single generation hence. To you, the Lonely Night is a mythical thing; mysterious and strange. After all, what is even a night, to you? What has a night been, since that fateful last? I tell you, in no uncertain terms, that you will never understand--not truly--the night of my lifetime and a hundred lifetimes prior. And if even that cannot be understood, then perhaps I should lay my quill down now.
But try, my little pony: a night is a day. That is, a twenty-four hour period of time from one sun- or moonrise to the next. And try to remember that the sun is but an insignificant star among many, when I say to you that your sun was our moon, and our moon your sun. We rose when it grew dark and slept when it grew light. We toiled and played and lived under the moon, during what we called the blacknight, and shunned the bluenight, that was ruled by what we knew as the lonestar. You know it, too: it is the only star that reigns unchallenged, because separate. And such it was, to us: merely a wayward star. We knew and owned no sun, for it was a time of eternal night, under the Dread Queen of Equestria, Her Imperial Highness, Nightmare Moon.
Still, even alicorns must abide by certain rules, as I suppose this text will eventually illuminate. (Not by intention, I assure you: I am simply putting down my thoughts, a first-hoof account of what happened. But the nature of the events that transpired must, by necessity, point us toward that unfortunate conclusion.) First among my examples is this: although Nightmare Moon kept the lonestar--the sun--at distance, such that the bluenight was not as harshly bright as the day, but only dully lit as through deep water, she could not keep it at bay. As it always had and always will, the lonestar rose and set, and grew close and leaned away. The Lonely Night is what you know as the summer solstice, the Summer Sun Celebration.
So much for what it is. Simply, in your words: the longest day. But in ours: the longest bluenight. Is it possible for me to convey to you the terror of these words? To a race inured not by magic but by our very nature to a blacknight, what is light?
Have you considered it? Have you turned it over in your small, separate, uncomprehending mind? Do you see how different we are, and how little you will truly understand of my tale? But perhaps you have lost even those documents which speak of superstition. Perhaps even those have burnt in an unfortunate fire. Very well. I will present here a common legend as I was taught it, such that this account will be self-complete. Know, then--
A thousand years before this writing, and a thousand years again before that, the sky was ruled by a host of stars, all equal in brightness and size. At this time, the land was ruled in similar harmony by a pair of alicorn sisters. (The Dis which plague us, they say, originate from a time yet a thousand years prior.) But the elder was led astray by the whisperings of a star that would stand out from its fellows, and she learnt to wish the same. She made a compact with the star, and agreed to place it unopposed in the sky, sweeping all the others from their rightful places. The stars would have perished thus, if the younger sister had not discovered the plot and caught each and every one within her mane and tail. She saw her sister’s madness, but knew, too, that she--the younger and the weaker--could not, and should not, best her elder. So she fled into the sky and became the moon, the stars arraying about her, no longer equal, but brighter and dimmer or larger and smaller depending on where in her mane or tail they had fallen. By their power, she took half of the sky for the many. However, because they no longer stood, all equal, as they had, their strength was less than it had been, and they were forced to yield the other half of the sky for the one, the lonestar. Thus, the elder sister reigned unopposed throughout the land for a thousand years.
However, the younger was not idle through this time, but took care to grow strong and wise. She learnt from the stars, which taught her in benevolence and gratitude, and on the thousandth anniversary of her exile, returned in great glory and bested her mad sister. This, we remember simply as the Return--of the Rightful Ruler of Equestria, Her Imperial Highness, Nightmare Moon. It was now the elder’s turn to flee, for she had grown cowardly and vile in her compact with the lonestar and would not stay to meet her fate. She fled into the lonestar, and vowed revenge upon her sister and all the land. But Nightmare Moon, in her newfound wisdom, knew the many ways her sister might pursue the course, and, with her hard-won strength, destroyed utterly all of these that she could, keeping both the lonestar and her wayward sister from harming the land.
And so, a thousand years passed. A thousand Lonely Nights, marked by coincidence, tradition, or administration, as an anniversary of the Return. To step into that light was to be touched with the corrupting influence of the lonestar and the mad alicorn. It was to lose one’s mind, to no longer be oneself; to forget the greater whole--for the whole must be the only concern, against the Dis, or all would be lost--and to think only of the one. It was suicide. No; more than that, it was, in itself, death. And, by symmetry, the scholarly and the religious alike expected the return of the elder sister on this, the thousandth Lonely Night. What greater terror than this?
But I jest.
What was the Lonely Night but a long bluenight, after all? And what a bluenight but half of the night? It had been a thousand years, and then only by legend and hearsay. What did any of us remember? It was normal. It was our everyday--our everynight. If the lonestar had at some point been evil, its malevolence had long been lost to superstition. We did not cower in our houses, wretchedly waiting for the dread hour to pass. Our impudent yearlings darted out into the muted sunlight to test their mettle against old mare’s tales. Our deceprit elders warned only of ruined eyesight, and scolded for disobedience and mischief. If anything, we feasted. Elaborately. Ritually. This, too, without reason but custom.
In this, I think, my little ponies, we are not so different.
Now then, I think you are educated, if only minimally. We may try again:
It was the thousandth Lonely Night...
