The Moon's Precious Little Star

About a week had passed since Princess Luna unofficially adopted the young Orion. Though there was no doubt in her mind that he made her happier than she had been in a while, taking care of a foal was much harder than the princess thought. While they were asleep during the day, Orion would wake up either from punching himself in his sleep or soiling himself that she would then have to clean up, plus several others. She couldn't even leave him with the maids that knew of his existence to find somewhere she could get a few moments of sleep as he would throw a temper tantrum until she returned. What vexed her the most, though, was when she was conducting her royal duties, Orion was as quiet as a mouse, and the maids wouldn't have to do anything except watch out for her sister.

Speaking of Celestia, her interference was making it harder to take care of the unofficial prince. The sun princess has a rather annoying tendency to barge into her sister's room without warning. To make sure her sister wouldn't discover Orion by accident, Luna placed several early warning spells along the corridor that led to her room that would only react to the magical signature of her sister. The largest precaution that she took was a secret chamber hidden beneath the floor of her room that was completely soundproof. If Celestia approached the night princess' bedroom for any reason, Luna or the maids would know well in advance and hide Orion, leaving Celestia entirely in the dark regarding his existence.

While thinking of the past week and finally getting one over her sister, Luna forgot where she was and started to chuckle to herself.

"What are you laughing at, Lulu?" Celestia asked, reminding Luna she was dining with her sister.

"Just a weird dream we had last day," Luna quickly explained.

"Oh, care to share it with me?" The sun princess asked excitedly, annoying the night princess.Damn it, I forgot that since she can't view dreams as I can, she was always curious about other ponies' dreams. Luna thought to herself and tried to come up with something quickly, but she was drawing a blank for all her experience involving the dreamscape.

"What were thou saying about the Canterhorn?" Luna asked, hoping that it would deflect her sister's inquiry. Celestia glared at her sister for a moment, taking particular note of how she tried to deflect her question, but it was Luna's decision to reveal what her dreams were, and it was no business of her to pry; she let it go.

"I was saying that the Canterhorn would be a perfect place to set up the new capital of the kingdom. No longer would our little ponies need to brave the Everfree to attend court, and we wouldn't need to risk the lives of the guard to keep the pathways open." Taking a bite of her blueberry pancakes, Luna tapped her chin with a hoof and thought about her sister's proposal. The Canterhorn would indeed be a better place than the Everfree. Perfect was pushing it a little in her mind as building on the side of the tallest mountain in all of Equestria would most definitely provide unforeseen challenges. While Luna thought of all the negatives of the proposed location, structural integrity being the biggest concern for her, she found that the benefits outweighed the negatives. Given that they would build it on the side of a mountain, the capital would have a natural defence against conquering armies, and only aerial forces could hope to take the city. Assassins would have a hard time getting to them, and most importantly to Luna, a system of caves that her bat ponies could live in so they could hopefully start to mingle with the rest of Equestrian society and would no longer be looked upon with suspicion.

"We think thou has picked a most wonderous place, sister and that thine subjects would agree," Luna excitedly exclaimed.

"I'm so glad you agree with me, dear sister, but seriously Luna, no pony uses old Equestrian anymore. Could you at least try to speak modern Equestrian?" Celestia asked with a sigh.

"I'll think about it, but no promises," Luna plainly stated.

"That's all I ask, Lulu. By the way, I've noticed that you seem to be more and more tired each time I see you, is something keeping you up?" Her sister's question nearly made the night princess choke on her food. Taking a large gulp of water to help her food down, Luna looked up at her sister, and the warm and motherly smile that usually put ponies at ease sent a chill down her spine.

"Honestly, sister, I'm worried about the cults dedicated to you," Luna stated on the fly, lying through her teeth, though it wasn't a complete lie. Luna was indeed worried about the cults; she and her sister forbade the worship of them as gods for a reason, and yet there was an alarmingly large number of ponies that ignored the law and worshiped them anyway. It wouldn't be so bad and would have only amounted to a minor annoyance if it wasn't for the fact that many of the cults dispised Luna and, by extension, her bat ponies: Threatening her and them on several occasions. What worried the princess of the night the most was if they could hold their laws with such callous disregard even though they thought Celestia was a god, what else might those ponies be capable of, and how far would they go for their beliefs? "I fear that one of these days, they will do something drastic, and we'll be unprepared to stop them!" Celestia let out a tired sigh and nodded her head.

"Your right, Luna; it indeed worries me that our little ponies would break the law as they do, but what can we do about it?" Celestia asked the younger Alicorn. Luna rolled her eyes at her sister's response; it was the same one every single time this subject was brought up. Every time Luna voiced her worries about the cults, Celestia would tell her there was nothing they could do and would shrug her shoulders and wash her hooves of it, almost as if she was incapable of making a hard decision.

"What we do is crack down on them!" Luna yelled as she slammed her hoof onto the table, knocking over their glasses and spilling their contents all over the food. "We can't allow our subjects to break the law so brazenly and get away with it! What sort of message does that send, TIa!?" At first, Celestia didn't say anything after her sister's outburst; instead, she picked up the knocked-over glasses and calmly placed them back onto the table.

"Luna, we can't allow ourselves to become tyrants. We can't ignore the fact that many ponies see us as living gods. We may not like it, and we can make all the laws we want to try and dissuade them, but in the end, we can't solve all of our problems by throwing them in the castle dungeons!" Celestia stated in a soft but authoritative voice.

She's never going t listen to you, she's never going to take what you say seriously. why allow yourself to go through this every single day? Why not just let go and let me do what you want! A voice sounded said in Luna's mind. Images of Celestia lying broken and defeated at her hooves flashed through the princess' mind; an eternal night, fear and respect from her ponies quickly followed suit. Shaking those thoughts from her head, Luna stood up and turned away from her sister.

"You can only say those things because your ponies aren't the ones in danger!" Luna cryptically said over her shoulder and left the dining room before her sister could say anything.

Throwing the door to her room open, Luna ordered her guards that under no circumstances was anypony to disturb her, not even if it was her sister. When they gave her a quick salute, she closed the door and made sure she locked it not only with a key but also magically before trotting across the room and towards the bookshelf on the opposite side. Luna had a wide assortment of adventure and action novels on her shelves, always wanting to go on adventures herself when she was but a filly. While she would usually pick one of the books to read as she curled up underneath her blankets before falling asleep, they weren't her target today. Looking over her shoulder, the princess of the night cast several anti-observation spells to make sure no pony was invisible in the room watching her. She also made sure her sister didn't place any observation spells of her own. When her sweep of the room was complete, she was sure she was in the clear. Luna pushed the bookshelf aside, revealing a chain behind it; Luna lit her horn and used her magic to pull the chain. Behind her, the sound of stone scraping against stone could her heard. Pushing the bookshelf back into place, Luna walked over to the entrance of her secret chamber and performed another magical sweep. Satisfied that her sweep again provided negative results, the night princess stepped inside the tunnel.

When Luna was clear of the entrance, she pulled another chain on the wall at the bottom of the stone steps. Ducking her head to make sure her mane didn't get caught, the princess watched as the entrance closed shut. Luna checked to make sure the entryway to the tunnel sealed correctly, and when she was sure it was, she trotted down the tunnel until she came upon a small room. The chamber was just big enough to hold the princess and two other ponies comfortably, and on either side of a crib in the middle of the room were the only other two ponies that knew this room existed. One was a bat pony with vibrant red fur and a bright silver mane, the other was a pegasus with a silver coat and a red mane, and both of them were castle maids. The two maids were the main reason Luna believed her bat ponies could one day join the rest of Equestria without being shunned as they were twins. Their father was a thestral in her nightguard, and their mother was one of the castle maids. How The two of them met and found any tie for romance given their different schedules still eluded the princess. The bat pony's name was Silver Wind, and her sister was called Crimson Mist.

Silver Wind was currently standing over the crib and jangling one of the toys Luna asked the two of them to buy in secret over Orion's face. On the other hoof, her sister was using the feathers of her wings to tickle the young colt. It seemed that the two of them competed to see who could keep the prince's attention the longest. Leaning against the wall, the princess watched the two for a few minutes; it warmed her heart to see them take to Orion as quickly as they did and gave the night Alicorn hope that the rest of Equestria would accept him as quickly. Luna cleared her throat and watched with amusement as the toe maides jumped away from the crib as if they were two fillies who got caught with their hooves in a cookie jar. Silver Wind even hid the toy underneath her wing.

"Be at ease, you two; there's no reason to act like a couple of foals who got caught doing something they weren't." The two sisters relaxed when they realized that it was their princess that startled them. The two maids backed away from the crib with a bow to give Luna room. Peering into the crib, the princess could feel the argument she had with her sister fade away upon seeing her son's smiling face. The second he spotted her, Orion let out an incoherent babble and grabbed hold of his mother's snout. For Being so young, the colt had a firm grip and hung off of Luna's until she removed him with her magic. Orion began to whine and cry but soon quieted down when she cradled him in her wing. With her son securely tucked into her appendage, the princess and the two maids left the room and made their way back through the passage.

Exiting the secret chamber, Luna dismissed the sisters and hopped up onto her bed. Placing Orion near her bottom half, she opened her legs so he could reach her teat. In all honesty, she didn't need to do this as she had bottles she could use, but Luna liked to do this as it made her feel like Orion's real mother. Once he was finished, the night princess burped him and placed him between her front legs and gave him an affectionate nuzzle. Orion opened his mouth, yawned and lazily rubbed his face. Luna gave her son another nuzzle before laying him down on the bed and humming a lullaby. Once Orion had fallen asleep, Luna rested her head on the bed and started to drift off. A sudden pounding at the door woke her up. Furious that she had been disturbed when she gave her guards explicit orders not to let that happen, Luna wanted to get up and furiously scream at her guards, but she instead chose to try and ignore it to fall back asleep. Unfortunately for the night princess, all her hopes were dashed as the pony on the other side of the door pounded away again and much harder than last time. Now worried that the sound of a hoof slamming against her door would wake her son, Luna quickly bundled Orion up in the blankets so that the pony on the other side of the door wouldn't see him and walked over to the door, throwing them open and startling the pony on the other side.

"I thought I said I was not to be disturbed?" Luna asked as she glared at the two guards. "Yet I was still awoken from my slumber!" The princess grumpily stated as she turned her attention to the pony standing in front of her. The pony before her was not of the regular night guard but a member of the scout corps as he did not wear the intimidating and predatory dark blue and silver armour the ponies standing to her side were wearing. Instead, he wore a simple dark blue leather cuirass that covered most of his body and a silver circlet that all scouts wore to allow them to communicate over long distances.

"I beg your pardon, princess," The scout apologized with a bow. "We spotted some members of the largest celestial cults, The Disciples Of The Sun, moving through the Everfree; we think they're going to attack the thestral settlement!" As soon as the scout finished relaying his report, all the colour in Luna's face vanished.

"Swift Strike, go wake the captain!" Luna ordered the guard on the right. "Dark Night, go and rouse the night guard, all of them!" She ordered the one on the left. Both guards gave her a quick salute before flying down the halls to complete the orders the princess gave them. "Now, take me to where you last saw the cultists," The princess said to the scout.

I really should have gone to my sister for help, Luna thought to herself as she watched a group of ponies in red cloaks with a golden trim march through the forest from behind a bush. It wasn't just a few members as the scout had said it was, but the whole of the cult was here. The disciples of the sun were the cult that had the single most number of ponies that made up its ranks: easily ranging in the hundreds. All over Equestria, Ponies pledged themselves to its teaching, and it seemed as if every one of them had gathered here in this forest today. If it weren't for the pressing issue that they were marching on her subject with the intent to cause harm, Luna would have flown back to the castle and gotten her sister's assistance. Unfortunately, she had already assembled the entirety of her nightguard, and she couldn't ask them to sit and wait for her to explain the situation to her sister, not while their families were on the line. Letting out a tired sigh, she waited for the cultists to move on and out of sight before signalling the guard to follow.

Before she and the night guard set out from the castle, Luna ordered the scout corps to get ahead of the cult and report back to her if there was a suitable location to set up and ambush. So far, none of them had reported back, and she was starting to get worried; while she had the utmost confidence in the scouts, the princess knew just how tenacious and dangerous this group could be. The princess of the night pushed past the bush she was hiding behind only to run headfirst into the cultists. For a few moments, the two of them stared awkwardly at each other until the cultist opened his mouth to call for his brothers and sisters. Reacting on pure instinct and as fast as possible, Luna spun around and bucked the robed pony in the jaw as hard as she could, no doubt shattering it in the process. The cultist flew through the air from the force of the buck and slammed into a tree before falling to the ground. Trotting over to the unconscious cultist, Luna looked him over to see if he was still alive. Leaning forward, Luna held her ear to the cultist's mouth, and when she heard faint, pained breaths, she let out a sigh of relief. While she may hate them for threatening her and her bat ponies, Luna didn't want to see any of them killed if she could help it. It just wasn't in a pony's nature to take a life; only the guard was trained to get over that aversion.

From out of the trees, one of the scouts sped towards Luna and saluted. The young thestral informed the princess that there was a large clearing a few kilometres away that the cultists were heading towards and that it would be the best place to ambush them as the trees on the sides of the clearing were too dense for a pony to get through. Thanking the scout, she ordered him to return to his unit as fast as she could. After giving the princess one last salute, he disappeared into the trees as quickly as he arrived. Now that she and the night guard had an ambush point, they no longer needed to skulk behind the cultists, and she ordered them to head towards the coordinates the scout relayed. As soon as the bat ponies started to move, Luna ordered two of them to escort the unconscious cult member to the castle for interrogation and get the royal surgeon to fix his jaw. The princess of the night watched the two guards haul the robed pony away towards the castle and shook her head. Why can't things be easy for once in my life? Luna thought to herself before galloping after her night guard.

Luna and the night guard managed to get ahead of the cult and reach the ambush point without any more incidents. Now all they needed to do was wait for the disciples of the sun to show up and surround them when the princess gave the order. Occasionally, one of the scouts would fly up next to the princess and relay how far the cult was; she would then tell the guard next to her the same information, and then he would do the same until the info came back to Luna so that along the way it didn't get messed up. Bout ten minutes later, movement in the tree line caught the princess' attention and the first of many robbed ponies made their way into the clearing.

One by one, the cultists came out of the tree line and out into the open, utterly unaware that the night guard currently surrounded them. Sometimes Luna could see the glint of metal underneath a cultist's robes; whether this was from a weapon, armour, or something else entirely, Luna couldn't tell.

"We should attack them now before they get too far in and we lose the leader," Dark Lance whispered into Luna's ear while pointing to the pony leading the group of cultists. Following the captain's hoof, Luna spotted the pony, who was undoubtedly the leader as his robes were much more elegant than the others, and an ornate golden sceptre floated beside him, allowing the princess to gauge that he was a unicorn.

"Nay, if we attack too soon, we run the risk of allowing too many to escape, and the cultists that fall here will be turned into martyrs for the others to rally behind. No, we attack when I'm confident that we can arrest all of them!" Dark Lance bowed before his princess and retook his position slightly behind her. Now that Luna had spoken her plan out loud, she realized that there was one glaring flaw with it, and that was the fact that the clearing was too small to hold every single cult member. Most of the cultists would be in the tree line waiting for their chance to either run or move up and attack the night guard; neither was in the princess' best interest to allow. While trying to think up a solution to that problem, Luna nearly forgot about an underutilized asset. "Shadow, front and center!" Luna ordered, and after a few seconds, the head of the lead scour popped out from the foliage overhead.

"What can Shadow do for you, my princess?" The lead scout asked in his raspy voice. Shadow was the head of the night guard scout corps and was a complete and utter mystery to the princess and the other guards. The thestral was almost entirely black; his fur and mane were a dark obsidian colouration that allowed him to blend in with the thing he was named after flawlessly: Only his deep red eyes stood out from the darkness.

"I want you to take the scout corps and move them behind the cultists. Once the guard and I engage them, I want you to prevent the ones in the tree line from escaping." After Luna finished relaying her orders, Shadow moved his head which the princess figured was a bow and slipped back into the foliage and out of sight.

However, it seemed fate had other plans for the princess as one of the more inexperienced and young of her guard had gotten a little over-anxious. With blade held firmly in his mouth, the young thestral leaped from his hiding place in the tees and sped towards the nearest cultist. With minimal effort, the guard sunk his blade into the neck of his target. Blood poured from the wound, the artery in his neck severed by the sword. The cultist opened his mouth, but all he could do was spew up more blood. The guard pulled his blade free of the cultist's neck, and the robed pony fell over onto the ground with a dying gurgle. Standing in front of the cultists with the blood of one of their own staining his sword, armour and fur, the young thestral's heart raced and swelled with pride at his first kill, but he also felt unbearably queasy at the same time. All thestrals expected them to turn tail and run at the sight of a night guardstallion covered in blood. However, they would be wrong as, without hesitation, the cultists threw off their robes to reveal that they were all wearing near-identical replicas of the day guard armour.

"Disciples of the sun indeed," Luna whispered to herself. Turning her head to Dark Lance, she nodded, giving the captain the order to attack.

Leaping from her perch in the tree, Luna lit her horn, materializing an ethereal sword, and flew towards the fear-stricken thestral as fast as possible. The distance she needed to cross wasn't considerable, but no matter how hard she flapped her wings, the guard stallion still seemed so far away to the princess. As if in slow motion, the night Alicorn was forced to watch as one of the cultists ran her blade through the frightened thestral's chest. Unable to stop it, Luna watched as the young thestral turned his head towards her, and the look of fear in his eyes nearly broke her. Landing on the ground, the princess skidded across the dirt and scooped up the dying guardstallion in her hooves and away from the cultist, but not before removing the head of the cultist who killed him from her shoulders. Not wanting to miss their chance to be the one to strike down the night Alicorn, the cult members charged her but were thrown across the clearing by a blast of magic from the princess when they got too close. Keeping the cult at bay, Luna stayed with the dying thestral until the light from his eyes wholly faded.

"What do we have here?" A voice that was way too calm for the situation asked, drawing the princess' attention from the dead thestral. Slowly Making his way out of the frenzy of battle was the cultist leader. He wore armour that was nigh identical to Celestia's battle attire. His fur was the same shade of white as her sister's, and his mane, while not the same rainbow coloured as Celestia's, still flowed as if it was in the wind. It was most likely that the armour he was wearing was enchanted to make himself look as close to his god as possible, and if it wasn't for the fact that his flank was covered, Luna suspected his cutie mark would look identical to her sister's as well. "Oh, it seems one of your Tartarus spawn has died," the cult leader jeered. Luna gently placed the dead guardstallion on the ground and stood up, all the while never taking her eyes off of her the cultist.

"Identify yourself!" Luna ordered as she pointed her ethereal sword at the pony's throat.

"Oh, how rude of me," The cult leaser apologized with a mocking bow. "Allow me to introduce myself; I am Celestia Ascendant, a worshiper and chosen of the sun goddess, Celestia, and sworn enemy of her sister, the demon who stalks the night." After Ascendant was finished introducing himself, Luna could feel the dark presence in the back of her mind push forward. Just like in the dining room, her mind became filled with images of her standing victorious over the broken and bloody body of the pony in front of her. If luna was being honest with herself, it was rather tempting to let go and allow whatever it was to turn Celestail Ascendant into past, but she knew that if she did let go, there was no turning back and so Luna took several calming breaths, once again pushing the dark presence into the back of her mind.

"What pray tell makes you think you were chosen by my sister when she would never condone the acts you have taken?" Luna asked the unstable pony. It seemed that Celestial Ascendant wasn't expecting the princess' enquiry as his head shot up from his bow and stared at the Alicorn dumbly.

"You actually wish to hear my tale?" The cultist asked Luna, who nodded her head. "Well, then I shall be happy to regale you with the story of how the sun goddess herself saved me from death and chose me to put an end to your reign of terror!" Luna rolled her eyes as Celestial Ascendant started his story.

He told her of the time he was just a little colt playing in the field of his family's farm. A pack of Timberwolves had come out of the Everfree forest and began to attack his family. Running for his life, he ran towards the nearest town to get help but got cut off when the Timberwolves got ahead of him. Knowing that his death was not far off, he closed his eyes and waited for the inevitable; yet it never came. Opening his eyes, he could see that the wolved had been turned into as, and Celestia was standing over them, shining with a radiance that only a god could possess. The Alicorn departed in a brilliant flash of light without a word, leaving him alone. Later that very same night, he was having a nightmare about being torn to shreds by the Timberwolves when he was once again saved by the visage of the sun Alicorn, only this time she didn't depart immediately and spoke to him. She told him that he didn't need to be afraid, nor should he be ashamed of running. She said to him that he would do something to make up for it in the future, but until then, she would keep his dreams free of nightmares.

"And when I heard of you, the princess who skulks in the dark, I knew that defeating you was what I needed to do to make up for my cowardice as a colt and free the sun goddess from her burden!" When Celestial Ascendant finished his story, he expected to see a look f shock and surprise on the night princess's face, but instead, she started laughing. "What's so funny!?" Ascendant demanded of the princess. Managing to stop, Luna wiped a tear from her eye and looked up at the cult leader with pity.

"What's so funny, Celestial Ascendant is just how pathetic and delusional you truly are!" The cult leader recoiled as if the princess' words and tone physically struck him. "You aren't chosen. My sister defends all towns from the creatures of the Everfree when the guard fails to keep them in check. And what's really funny is that it wasn't my sister who saved you from that nightmare: it was me." The cult leader couldn't believe what he was hearing. He refused to accept the night princess was telling the truth.

"You lie!" Ascendant screamed and stomped his hooves like a foal. "I know I was chosen; I know that there was no way a demon like you could do something as kind as to save a colt from a nightmare!" Luna let out a frustrated sigh at the cult leader's temper tantrum as it seemed like there would be no getting through to him.

"Believe what you will, but the reality of the situation is that you wasted most of your life chasing a fantasy!" The words from the princess were the last straw as Ascendant drew his blade and roared with anger before charging at the night Alicorn.

Luna effortlessly sidestepped the cult leader's reckless charge and brought her blade down with the intent of severing Celestial Ascendant's head from his neck and ending this fight as soon as she could. Ascendant spun around on his back hooves and used his armoured horseshoes to block her strike, catching the princess off guard at his competence. Pressing his advantage, the cult leader wildly swung his blade at Luna, hoping to fell the princess with death by a thousand cuts. The Alicorn's long life had thankfully given her plenty of battlefield experience, and she parried every one of his stikes. Blocking one final blow, Luna spun around and bucked the cult leader in the chest, and while his armour took the brunt of the force, he was still left winded and skidded across the dirt. Not letting up, the princess launched a beam of magic at Ascendant, but she soon learned that the armour he was wearing protected him from magic bassed attacks as her attack was defected by it. Recovering from the buck to the chest, Celestial Ascendant fired off his own beam of magic at the princess; being that she as an Alicorn, it was foal's play for her to deflect the beam. Surprisingly even matched, the two ponies glared and circled one another, each one of them looking for the slightest chance to take the other out.

"Give up, Celestial Ascendant! There is no way you and your brothers and sisters can win this battle!" Luna yelled at the cult leader. "Look around; your forces are being slaughtered one by one!" Ascendant did as the princess said, and she was right. More of his brothers and sisters lay dead on the ground than night guard, and for each guard they slay, five to ten cultists would die. "If you surrender now, I can assure the fair treatment of your cult, but you will be put on trial for crimes against the crown." Celestia Ascendant didn't trust the night princess any further than he could throw her, but if the battel kept on going the way it was, the entire cut would be wiped out within the hour. Seeing no other option, the cult leader dropped his sword and knelt before the princess.

"I surrender," Ascendant despondently said, surprising not only the surviving members of his cult but the princess and the night guard as well. "You will keep your promise and spare my brothers and sisters, right?" Ascendant pleaded. Nodding her head, Luna watched as the other cult members dropped their weapons and were cuffed by the night guard before they marched them towards the castle. Letting out a tired sigh, the night princess allowed herself to relax and thought about how much she wanted to tell Orion about the battle, not that he would understand her at his age, but maybe once he was older, it would be an exciting bedtime story. Once the last of the cult members and the night guard left the clearing, Luna took one last look around the recent battlefield to ensure no cultist was waiting in ambush. When she was sure none were left, Luna left the clearing and practically skipped back to the castle.