Princess Luna Kidnaps a Kingdom: 1: Luna Takes Action
Princess Luna walked silently through the halls of the massive Canterlot Castle, looking behind her every so often to assure herself she wasn’t being watched or followed. The dark blue alicorn had taken off the dainty silver horseshoes that she normally wore so that she could keep all noise in her wing of the castle to a minimum. Approaching a wooden door decorated with carvings of the moon, stars and planets, the princess took one last glance at the long hallway. Her bright blue eyes scanned the tall, stained glass windows, marble columns and sparkling clean, purple checkered floor. She was still alone. Slowly and carefully, Luna opened her bedroom door, wincing as it creaked. She sighed in relief as she entered and shut the door behind her, the feeling of safety coming back. Where did I put it, she thought. Crouching down to look under her bed, Luna found a plain wooden trunk with a lock attached, just what she was searching for.
“Here it is,” she whispered, dragging it out. If the contents of the trunk weren’t so important to her, she wouldn’t have taken nearly as much effort trying to keep them a secret. She knew that her older sister, Celestia, was very respectable, as the ruler of a country should be, and that she wouldn’t search through Luna’s possessions without permission, but Luna wanted to be absolutely sure that her sister wouldn’t find out what she was planning.
Luna’s horn glowed blue and a key appeared out of nowhere. She levitated the key to the lock on her trunk and turned it sideways. Click. The lock opened.
As the princess lifted the lid, a startling thought struck her. What if Celestia had figured out how to open the trunk and had seen what was inside? Celestia was the only pony in the kingdom of Equestria more powerful than Luna, and Luna still didn’t trust her completely after she had banished her to the moon for a thousand years. Okay, maybe I deserved it, Luna thought. After all, I turned into the evil Nightmare Moon and threatened to bring eternal night to her... no, our, land. It’s awfully difficult to forgive her, though. She knows perfectly well that I had turned back to good, yet she still seems reluctant to let me leave the castle and interact with the public. She visits important cities like Ponyville and Fillydelphia a lot while I am cooped up in here. Besides, I am nocturnal and only active at night, when our subjects are asleep. It’s not fair.
After a quick inspection, Luna concluded that Celestia hadn’t been through the trunk. She’s such a goody-four-shoes, Luna thought. Our subjects see her as a goddess and me as a demon. Even the ponies that know I mean them no harm don’t give me as much respect as they give my sister. Being gone for a thousand years means missing a lot. Society moves on without you, and why shouldn’t it? Still, it hurts.
Luna lifted several books and scrolls out of the trunk, followed by a quill and a tightly sealed bottle of ink. She spread her large feathered wings over the items to shield them from the view of other ponies. She glanced back at the door. Satisfied that there were no prying eyes looking through the keyhole, she turned back to what she was doing.
Her horn glowed again, levitating a book close to her face. The title read, “Advanced Teleportation Spells for Intelligent Unicorns”. She floated it carefully down to the floor and levitated the second book. It read, “Surefire Ways to Make Sure Your Spells Don’t Backfire”. That wasn’t the book Luna wanted either. She levitated a third book, titled “Using Magic for Idiots”. Luna had been skeptical of the book due to the unusual title when she had purchased it, but it had proved surprisingly helpful to her. Flipping it open to the table of contents, she reviewed which chapters she had read and which chapters might be useful for her to read. Setting the book down, she unraveled a large scroll that had been lying near it.
“Hmm, maybe I should make a few last modifications,” Luna murmured. The scroll contained blueprints for her plan. Months of work had been put into them secretly, in the safety and privacy of Luna’s bedroom. She had sketched hundreds of buildings in ink, and ponies for size comparison. It looks rather nice, Luna thought. Maybe I could have been an artist or an architect. Above her ink city was a gigantic semi-circle, and at its edge she had drawn a magnificent castle that was not unlike Canterlot Castle, her home. She sketched another window on the castle to indicate another room and stepped back to admire her work. Her plan was now ready to be put into action. It seemed inevitable that Luna would be caught, but a small part of her hoped that she would still be able to get away with it, or at least that it would last a long time.
“What time is it?” Luna asked herself. She looked at the small clock on her nightstand. “Oh no!” It was almost 5:20 in the morning. Celestia would be waking up now. She would have breakfast in the dining room with her, although it was dinner to Luna, then she would go outside to raise the sun and bring day to Equestria. Luna carefully laid her scrolls and books back in the trunk, locked it, and pushed it under her bed.
--
Luna sat at the long dining room table and ate silently. Her sharp silver fork pierced the middle of her hay spaghetti pile and lifted it to her mouth, but her mind was elsewhere. Princess Celestia sat across from her, eating a bowl of Trixie-O’s with a large glass of chocolate milk. Celestia was much taller than her younger sister, with a gleaming white coat and a flowing, multi-colored mane. Miss Goody-Goody won’t know what hit her, Luna thought. Suddenly she felt her sister’s eyes on her.
“Luna,” Celestia said, “What are you planning?” Luna’s fork clattered to her plate. Her eyes widened.
“Planning something, dear sister?” she replied. “What makes you think I am?”
“You’re smirking.”
“Am I not allowed to smile at the sight of my sister?”
“What are you planning, Luna?”
“I am not planning anything!” Luna insisted. She glared at her sister. “How dare you accuse me in such a way?”
“Okay,” Celestia sighed in mock defeat. “Have it your way... Lulu.” Luna gasped and shrank back with revulsion.
“Thou darest calleth us... I mean, you dare call me, ugh, Lulu?”
“Well,” Celestia replied smugly, “If you must act like a mischievous young foal, I must call you by a young foal’s name.”
“I am NOT planning anything, for the last time!” Luna snapped. She crossed her forelegs over her chest and pouted. Celestia sighed again, this time sincerely.
“Fine. I’m just awfully tired of having to pick up the pieces every time you decide to pull something.”
She acts as though I did something bad every other day, Luna thought. It reminded her of something that had been bothering her lately, something she had tried to push into the back of her mind. There was a short silence. Celestia dug her spoon into her cereal.
“Sister,” Luna said finally. She hesitated. “Do you... trust me?” Celestia put her spoon down.
“Of course I do, Luna,” she replied. “You should never doubt that I trust you.”
“If you trust me so much, how come you seem so reluctant to let me leave the castle and interact with our subjects?”
“What makes you think I am?” Celestia asked, shocked.
“You visit important cities all the time. You’ve been to all the major social events, from the Grand Galloping Gala to the royal wedding of Princess Mi Amore Cadenza and Captain Shining Armor!”
“You went to the royal wedding,” Celestia pointed out.
“I went to the party they had afterwards! I even asked what I had missed, and all you and the Elements of Harmony would give me was dopey grins. I only found out about the changeling invasion the next day!”
“Luna...”
Luna didn’t stop. She was angry. “Why didn’t you wake me up? Sure, the invasion happened during the daytime but don’t you think I could have helped? I’m the second most powerful pony in Equestria, for pony’s sake!” Tears stung her eyes.
“Luna,” Celestia said. “I didn’t want you hurt. By the time I found out about the invasion, it had already happened. I tried to stop the changeling queen, Chrysalis, but she overpowered me, and in case you had forgotten, I am THE most powerful pony in Equestria.”
“Fine,” Luna replied. If she argued too much, Celestia would only suspect more that she was plotting against her. The two royal sisters ate their meals in silence. Celestia glanced at a clock hanging on the wall.
“Time to raise the sun.” she said.
“Have fun,” Luna replied half-heartedly. Celestia stood up, stretched her swan-like feathered wings, and left the room. Nice going, Luna thought to herself. She’s on to me. Oh well. She probably doesn’t suspect it to be much more than an unannounced visit to Ponyville or a similar place. She doesn’t know that it’s so much more than that. It’s something much more important.
Once her plate was empty, Luna returned to her room. The early morning light shone through the tall stained glass windows, and normally it signalled Luna’s bedtime. Not today. Once again, she took out her trunk and unlocked it. It was time to act. Giving her spell books and scrolls one final review, Luna locked the trunk. She took a step back and took a deep breath.
Her horn began to glow blue, faintly at first, but it soon gathered strength, burning as bright as her sister’s sun. As the light began to turn white, Luna’s world began to glow and ripple. It was soon tinted blue, and the trunk began to glow brighter than the rest of the room. Luna moved her front left hoof forward, testing to see if the spell would react as she predicted. Sure enough, her hoof slowly moved forward, as if she were at the bottom of the ocean and fighting a strong current. This meant that Luna has successfully slowed time, which would make it much easier to complete her spell. Luna glanced out a tall window. A large bird was flying outside, suspended in mid-air. Luna watched as its wings flapped downwards, becoming slower and slower until Luna could barely detect movement at all.
Let’s see, she thought. The trunk is glowing, which means that it will teleport with me. What else do I want to take along? Luna slowly moved forward, swaying the smallest bit as she struggled against her slowed world. Those tapestries would make a nice decoration for my castle, she thought. The tapestries hanging on her wall began to glow. Hmm, it would feel a bit empty without my teddy bear, and my clock, my lamp... Why don’t I take my whole room with me? The room glowed brighter.
Luna made her way towards the nearest open window, a small one in the corner of her bedroom. It seemed to take an eternity to get there, but Luna’s spell had allowed her to move faster than her surroundings. Celestia would be frozen still, wherever she was. Luna’s eyes soon adjusted to the bright sunlight, and she focused her energy on the land before her. The blue glow spilled out the window and engulfed the land. It soon faded from the buildings and trees, but hundreds of spots of blue light were still visible. This, Luna knew, was where the ponies were. She waited a few minutes, and once she was satisfied that her magic had covered the entirety of Equestria, she moved on to the next stage in her spell. It was one of the most powerful and complicated spells in existence, but Luna was sure she could do it.
This stage of the spell was the main stage, by far the most important. Luna began to sweat as her horn became brighter and brighter. It felt like it was on fire, threatening to burn her mane to ashes. Whirrrr... The room exploded with blinding white light. Luna squeezed her eyes shut. Zzzzzap! KAPOW!
There was silence. Her horn began to make an odd sizzling noise. She opened her eyes. At first glance, it looked like nighttime. Luna looked down. She was standing in a small crater. The strange thing was, the crater was light grey, made of nothing Luna could ever hope to see on Earth. She was on the moon.
“YES!” Luna yelled. “Haha! I did it!” She looked up. A large stone castle loomed above her. To her right was a gigantic, air-tight glass dome. It stretched for miles and miles. She spread her wings and flew into the nearest window. This was the castle in her sketch, the one she had designed entirely on her own. She landed in an exact replica of her room in Canterlot Castle, with her possessions arranged exactly how they were on Earth.
“The artificial gravity seems to be working,” she commented to herself. “There’s plenty of air for the ponies to breathe and the carbon-dioxide-to-oxygen converter is up and running. I’d say this is a big success... if it lasts.”
Luna heard a desperate pounding on her door. “Oh. That must be one of my guards.” She calmly opened the door.
“Princess Luna! Princess Luna!” the bat pony guard gasped. He was a dark grey pony with bat wings and yellow, cat-like eyes and he was dressed in the armor Luna had designed especially for her guards. His large helmet rattled around as he spoke and he waved his forelegs frantically. “The castle has changed, your highness, and somehow it’s nighttime!”
Luna laughed. “No, it is not nighttime, Latenight. We are simply on the moon.”
“W-we are... moon? Simply? We simply... we’re... I mean, how did we... wha...?”
“Don’t get yourself so worked up, Latenight,” Luna giggled. “This is my doing. I intended for it to happen.”
“WHAT DID YOU DO?” the frazzled guard exclaimed. He quickly realized his mistake. “Oh, I’m sorry, your royal highness. I didn’t mean to yell. It’s just... Why the hay did you put us on the moon?”
“I didn’t put JUST us on the moon,” Luna replied, avoiding the question. She didn’t want her guards to know the petty reason behind her actions. “I put the entire country of Equestria, or at least all of its ponies, on the moon.”
“Where is Celestia?”
“Oh, let me revise my last comment, Latenight. I put all of Equestria’s ponies, minus Celestia, on the moon.”
“WHAT? Where is she?”
“My sister is back on Earth. I’m sure she can fend for herself, and I left all of Equestria’s plants, buildings, and animals there.”
“Why... Just... WHY?”
Luna sighed. “Do you promise not to tell anypony?”
Latenight was confused. He had never been asked by a member of the royal family to keep a secret, but he was very dependable and honest. He promised not to tell.
“I want to spend more time with my subjects so I can have a better public image. Celestia won’t let me out in public very often.”
Latenight figured there was a reason for this, but kept his mouth shut. He would have to choose his next words very carefully. “So... Let me get this straight. You want your subjects to like you, so you achieve this by holding them against their will on the moon?”
“I built an entire kingdom here,” Luna replied. “It has almost anything a pony could ask for, and what it doesn’t have, I can force them to ask me to conjure up.”
“You are forcing your subjects to like you, your highness?”
“Well... Yes.”
The bat pony guard thought for a minute. “You do realize that Celestia will find out about this, right?”
“Yes, but I don’t really care. I’m going through with it.”
“I don’t know, your highness,” Latenight said. “I don’t really like the idea of being trapped on the moon and forced to be dependent on you, and I’m sure the majority of your subjects would agree with me.”
“You’re one of my guards,” Luna pointed out. “You’re dependent on me anyway. I can easily fire you, and then where will you be?”
Latenight shuddered. “I have been working for you faithfully since your return to good after the Nightmare Moon incident. I have always done a good job and I would like to continue working for you.”
“Then choose your words more wisely,” Luna told him, “and do not question my actions.”
Latenight felt defeated. “Yes, your highness.”
“Good. You may return to your post, or wherever it was you came from, and inform the other guards of the situation... in an unbiased manner.”
“Yes, your highness.” Latenight spread his wings and flew away.
--
Luna wandered through the hallways of her new castle, mentally patting herself on the back. I did a better job than I thought, she thought to herself. It is truly amazing what a powerful creation spell can conjure up. Now, if I am correct, my throne room should be to the left of this hallway.
“Good morning, your highness,” a voice said as Luna entered her new throne room. The voice belonged to another one of her guards. He seemed to be glaring at her.
“Good morning,” Luna replied stiffly. If her guards were so unhappy, they didn’t have to work for her. Of course, they would be trapped on the moon either way, so it was better that they were. She sat upon her throne, self-satisfied, and planned her official royal announcement. Her subjects would probably be very unhappy at first, but Luna was positive that she could change their attitude and get them on her side.
