Titanomachy

Celestia

It was a long night for Celestia. While she technically didn’t need to sleep it was a refreshing pleasure that she had grown used to having since the return of her sister. Despite her best efforts (thousands of counted sheep, liters of warm milk, and eventually a trashy romance novel read in a warm tub) the sun began asking for the dawn and she still had not slept one wink. Reluctantly, the alicorn hoisted her bulk out of the feather-bed and walked to her private balcony. This was a simple matter of a few meters but her head never lifted above her withers. Looking to the southeast she felt for her heavenly counterpart. She was there, waiting to be lifted above the horizon and bring forth the day. Her sister had already begun her part in this daily transition, half of the moon was already out of view, what was left was a burning crimson crescent dropping out of a indigo sky.

Comforted by the stability represented by the twice daily ritual, she reached out for her sun to propel it into the sky. It was like walking into a glass door that was too clear to be seen. Her magic, instead of sliding the sun smoothly into place, slammed into the massive sphere of heat and light. Stunned, she wobbled on her hooves for a moment. As her focus returned. her face twisted with fear, “No. No, not this,” she moaned. She reached out for her other half again, this time cautiously. She could feel it, sense it completely without any problems but when she tried to apply her magic to lift the heavenly body nothing happened. Straining she brought the entirety of will to bear, slowly ramping up the force so as to not lose control. Her vision whited out and her body shook, she held nothing back. In the midst of this effort, she more felt than heard a crackling coming from her horn. Before she could do more than open her eyes wide there was a sharp ‘plink’ and a line of cold lightning shot from the tip of her horn to root of her tongue. Landing heavily on her front knees her eyes rolled back and she collapsed.

Celestia woke up in her huge, soft bed. “Oh, it was just a terrible dream,” she said to herself with a surge of relief. “I guess I did get some sleep after all,” she thought as she opened her gummed together eyes. What she saw first was a shallow glass set beside her bed. It was filled with of some sort light pink juice with a chunk of opaque ice at the bottom. Not thirsty at the moment, she dismissed the refreshment from her mind and looked around the room. The alabaster walls were painted violet and pink with the light of an impending dawn. Concerned that she had overslept, she started moving to get to her feet and was interrupted by a most welcome voice.

“Oh! No Princess. Please, don’t get up.”

“Twilight,” she croaked with a smile that faded as she heard how rough her voice was.

“I came as fast as I could, Princess.” Her student quietly approached the bed and came within Celestia’s field of vision. The worry on her face further dampened the alicorn’s cheer at seeing her protege.

“If you are here, my dear student, then I must be quite tardy in raising the sun today. We can talk as soon as I take care of my duty.”

The expression of gentle concern on the unicorn’s face deepened to fear for a moment. “You...you don’t remember what happened?” Her eyes darted from Celestia’s face to the glass of juice and back.

The glass was important, according to her student’s eyes. Giving the presumed beverage a second look she remembered that ice did not sink. With a sinking feeling she remembered her ‘dream’ and noticed the elegant corkscrew pattern spiraling along the mysterious white chunk. A white chunk with dark discoloration on the blunt end with a deep red core. “Mirror.”

“Your highness, maybe now isn’t the best...” Twilight trailed off seeing the fear and need in Celestia’s face. “It isn’t as bad as it looks, I promise.” She said as she lifted a small mirror in front so her mentor could see.

Celestia’s face was stained pink with crusts of deeper red ringing her eyes. It was obvious that someone had tried to clean her, but their urge towards gentle care was stronger than their need for her to be perfectly clean. Above her face she saw what was left of her horn, the top third was simply gone. The stub was covered in a comically large bandage covering what must be the ragged edge of her broken horn. She remembered pushing against the sun will all her might and the strangely small sound that presaged her humiliation.

“We can get you cleaned up properly now that you’re awake, Princess.”

“Celestia,” the alicorn replied in a small, tired voice.”

“What? Er, I mean, thank you, but I - ”

“It’s just Celestia now.”

“What are you talking about?” Twilight asked, confused.

“I can no longer perform my royal duties, therefore I am no longer royalty.” Celestia said. “Why am I so calm about this?" she wondered to herself.

“We’ll fix this,” Twilight said with iron in her voice. “Unicorns get hurt like this all the time. It’ll be hard and it takes time but almost all of them get the use of their magic back again.”

The mirror, momentarily forgotten by the apprentice, lay among the rumpled bed-clothes. Celestia focused on it trying to move the tiny object. Her distinctive golden aura surrounded the mirror and it began to lift but at the same time a pain like biting down on a tooth’s nerve exploded through her horn and skull.

“Celestia!” Twilight shouted in panicked concern. Their discussion about protocol and proper forms of address was forgotten in that moment.

The all too mortal feeling goddess whimpered with the pain and ceased trying to use her magic. “You don’t...understand...Twilight.” She took a moment to catch her breath and clear her head. “I’ve never been hurt like this before. I can’t be hurt like this. Not if I still am what I was.”

“I still don’t understand, Princess. What do you-”

“I am more than just a pony with wings and a horn, Twilight, you know that.”

“Of course, you are an Alicorn - the goddess of the sun.”

“And as a goddess, I am immortal. I am nearly impervious to mortal threats. I am...I was as constant and unchanging as the sun itself. We sustain and protect each other.”

“Yes but-”

“Shush, my dearest student," Celestia interrupted. A tear ran down the alicorn's face. "If the sun no longer protects me from a simple monster and will no longer move under my command then I am no longer the Sol Invicta, no longer a goddess. I am just Celestia, a unicorn with wings. From now on I will age. Eventually, I will die.

Celestia forced herself to keep watching Twilight’s face. She watched her student’s universe shatter into billions of pieces. After that came the tears, she expected those. What she didn’t expect was her student’s jaw thrust out in defiance.

“No, Princess. I won’t allow that to happen.”

“My poor, little pony, no one can stop mortality. It’s ok, I’ve lived a long-”

“No. You’re wrong. You can sit up here and pity yourself if you want but I’m not going to stand by and just give up.”

Celestia smiled sadly, “I love you too Twilight, but it’ll be alright. I've still got the rest of a pony’s normal life-span left, maybe a little more. I'll be with you through this lifetime we now have to share.”

“Shut-up.”

Celestia paused at the phrase no one other than her sister had ever used with her.

“The horn surgeon will be here later today to evaluate you for re-attaching the tip. You will let him do his job and you will let me do mine.”

“And what do you think that is?” Celestia asked, taken aback by Twilight's sudden change in tone.

“To find out what’s really going on.” With that Twilight trotted angrily towards the door. “Don’t use your magic unless the doctor says you can. If you do so without permission, you might do more damage to yourself.” Twilight said these things without looking at the large, white mare. Her anger and fear were thick upon her voice and shown in the posture of her withers. “Get better soon,” she whispered before passing through the door.

Celestia lowered her head back to the pillow and closed her eyes. She had felt calm discovering her new-found mortality while Twilight was with her. Alone, she found that the thought of mortality now prompted a deep black terror. She laid there counting her heartbeats, thinking now that they were an inexorable countdown towards an unavoidable end. The former Princess shuddered as she silent tears grew into sobs. There would be no more sleep today.

Twilight

Twilight fought for composure as she left her stricken mentor's bedchamber. She knew the guardponies standing outside in the hallway, they were stationed at the palace back before she was sent to Ponyville, she couldn't allow herself to fall apart in front of them. She didn't think about where her hooves took her, she just placed on in front of the other to take her simply away from the scene that played out with the Princess. She came up short, finding herself in front of a pair of ebony doors emblazoned with the lunar crest. Not trusting her voice to her constricted throat she simply allowed her head to thunk against the solid wood.

"Haloo? T'was that a rap upon mine door?"

Twilight continued leaning her head against the cool door. She lost herself in the sensation of pushing her skull against the cool, solid wood of the doors. They opened without preamble, a slight indigo aura would have been visible if she was paying any sort of attention, which she wasn't. She stumbled as her balance was thrown off, looking for all the world like she was swooning. Luna was shouting her name, she knew somewhere in the back of her mind. "She probably thinks I'm about to collapse, that I'm weak," she thought to herself with a flash of embarrassment.

Twilight felt the goddess' neck twinning with hers, so that the larger mare's head was on her withers and her chest against her own. Her eyes, overflowing with tears now, were no use and she turned the supporting contact into a full-blown hug. Feeling the embrace returned was too much for Twilight and she let loose the grief that had been held under tenuous restraint. With a total loss of control and self-consciousness the unicorn sobbed and wailed for minutes while crushing herself into her friend.

She heard Luna ask her something but Twilight couldn't parse the words in her current state. She felt herself be led across the room and set down upon some sort of firm cushion on the floor. Luna sat alongside her facing the opposite direction, both able to face one another with the use of their flexible necks and yet providing the distance required for focusing. The alicorn pulled her flank into contact with Twilight's shoulder and vice-versa. Twilight laid her head on Luna's croup noting the large moist patch that covered Luna's withers. This embarrassment was enough for the unicorn to gather herself back under control. "I...I'm sorry Luna, I..j-just couldn't."

"Worry yourself not, my dear friend," Luna interrupted. She smiled what Twilight had previously cataloged as Luna's "I'm going to make a joke" smile. "It appears the tide has come in, for I am the moon and thine tears are salty as the sea." The truly terrible joke was enough at this grim time to help Twilight regain some of her composure - or at least groan at something other than her current misery.

In happier times (a day ago?) Luna would often seek out Twilight and subject her to, as the monarch of the moon put it, Royal Jests. Perhaps it was the changed language, perhaps humor itself had changed in the last thousand years, but Luna's jokes were universally terrible. The first challenge was determining if she was actually telling a joke or not. Luckily for Twilight she had noticed that Luna always smiled a certain way before attempting a joke. This had nothing to do with the fact that Twilight paid a great deal of nervous attention to the alicorn, at least that was what Twilight told herself about this. The second challenge was determining when to politely laugh as the punchline was not always discernible. The third was dealing with repetition. If by chance Luna stumbled upon a joke that was even barely tolerable she would tell it to everyone. Staff, guards, ambassadors, all of Elements of Harmony, even the petitioners at her next court would be subjected to what was usually some sort of esoteric pun. After receiving a letter from the dark alicorn containing a "best of" collection, Twilight began to privately wonder if these jokes were the real reason for Luna's shunning and the Nightmare Moon incident.

"Now," Luna gently requested, "What happened with Celestia?"

Twilight recounted her conversation with Celestia, interrupted at the emotionally difficult bits by crying jags, and eventually managed to convey the crux of the matter: Celestia believed herself mortal now and seemed to accept this as an unalterable fact. By the end her retelling, Luna's own tears ran down her face .

"Right she might be," Luna reluctantly confirmed. "We are proof against mortal threats as our lives are tied to the spheres above. It is my thought, belike, that real harm cannot be brought unto us without causing selfsame harm to our counterparts."

"Luna, the sun didn't rise."

"Tis still there, Twilight. I feel it calling out to rise. I've tried to summon it forth but it will not listen to me. The crux is that the solar orb is hale and burning bright. The Changeling Queen did nothing to wound the sun nor do I think she could."

"There has to be something else that could explain this," Twilight insisted.

"The only other way to cause such harm would be if she was divine as well; A goddess in her own right."

"Well, that's it then. She must be a goddess. She had both a horn and wings and she was the queen of her people."

"Twilight, 'tis more than a crown that makes a god. We know nothing of their species and the drones had wings and horns as well. To be divine she'd have to be connected to something, to be that thing in an essential way. Like me and my sister."

"I have to go. Now," Twilight said as she stood. That she was feeling a new surge of resolve was obvious.

Luna's face showed some mild disappointment as the close contact ended but it quickly vanished. "Where?"

"Isn't it obvious?" the unicorn replied. "To the library." Twilight then cantered off, leaving Luna alone on her cushion. She didn't look back so she didn't see the alicorn's face as Luna watched her go.

Luna

Luna watched Twilight leave until the unicorn rounded a corner and disappeared from sight. Sighing as she closed the door with a flicker of will, Luna again felt that "lack" she had noticed when the Elements had left for Ponyville after the wedding. She examined at the sodden patches of fur that now marred her coat. She felt deeply conflicted about them. As badges of trust and friendship, she cherished them. As a collection of tears and mucus stuck fast to her fur she was disgusted. She was never one for easy hugs and casual personal contact even before her...time...on the moon. After her time there, the wet and organic aspects of life in Equestria seemed all the more...messy. She got up from her bed and bathed for the second time that day.

When she was Nightmare Moon, she remembered faintly and with caution, she had discovered a truth about her alicorn body. She was able to focus her magic so that the essence of herself was no longer constrained into a solid form. Not only did this allow for her to augment her appearance but she was able to give up corporeality entirely. She could dissipate into a mist that moved independently of the wind, she could mold herself into totally different bodies, with effort she could even divide herself into multiple fully formed ponies with her mind spread out between the equinculi. She remembered that as Nightmare Moon she was delighted in discovering an ability her sister had not yet mastered and possessed no counter to. At this moment the thought scared her. She wondered if perhaps her body, something so central to her identity, was nothing more than a puppet. Also, for some reason she couldn't fathom, she felt mildly guilty washing Twilight's tears from her coat.

Once again clean, she donned her regalia and headed to her sister's private chambers. She estimated that it had been about an hour since Twilight had fled from this same doorway. After a moment's debate, she knocked with a small pulse of power. She wasn't surprised that there wasn't an answer. Their chambers were one of the few aspects of their domain that was not shared between the diarchs. Even Celestia needed her permission before legally entering Luna's private chambers; and vice versa, She grasped the handle with her will, causing it to glow, and then eyed the golden armored guards flanking her. She waited a moment, making sure they saw what she was doing and giving them a chance to decide and act. An ear flickered on the senior-most guardpony. It was a subtle motion since the guard required deniability, but it may as well have been a sweeping bow and a flourish to Luna. She opened the door and entered.

Her sister was not nearly as fond of lamps and candles as she was, Celestia's chambers were designed specifically to utilize the natural light of the sun for illumination. The halted cycle of the heavens had left the sky a gradient from indigo to bright pink where the sun lurked just under the horizon and the smooth stones of her sister's lair reflected this light as a murky twilight the color of a bruised plum. Her sister was still in her bed, facing the door and Luna herself, but her eyes were focused on a small glass of preservative fluid sitting on her bedside table. The macabre bit of glassware contained the the tip of her sister's horn. "You didn't answer when I knocked," Luna said as greeting and explanation of her breach of etiquette.

"I didn't need to. You have every right to enter as monarch."

Luna parsed Celestia's not too subtle abdication. "Stop spouting nonsense, Tia. Thou art just as much of a princess now as you ever were."

"Our monarchy was founded upon divine right. I am no longer divine, therefore I no longer have the right to call myself princess."

"Stars preserve me," Luna replied in frustration. "You are the queen of thespians sometimes, do you have any idea what effect your little pity party had on Twilight?"

Celestia, head still firmly on the pillow, focused on her sister's face as she deciphered her sister's mutilation of modern slang. "The term you are trying for is 'drama queen' and I am not one."

"Oh, then why was the term invented whilst thou sat alone on the throne?"

"It refers to..." She sighed. "Look, I don't have to explain it and I'm not in any mood or state to do so." She sat up. "Lu, look at me. I was beaten, I was foolish and didn't trust Twilight and nearly lost the whole kingdom for it. I am a laughingstock. Our subjects pity me. I'm dying. I've proven to them that I cannot keep them safe and now I can't even raise the sun. I called myself the princess of the day, undefeated. What am I now? I am no longer 'of the day' nor am I 'undefeated.'"

Luna's gaze was drawn, despite her best efforts, to the ball of gauze wrapping that bobbed in time with Celestia's words. "They're just words, Tia. Empty air. What matters is that you guide them wisely."

"You don't understand. Titles are part of what we use to shape perception. Just like the palace, the gala, the summer sun celebration. All those things exist for a reason, they helped me hold Equestria together when I was alone. It took generations for ponies to forget that one of us had...turned. The old capitol was destroyed, the country was in shambles. The tribes were coming apart again, I needed to become the god-queen. I needed to give them a sense of timeless perfection and insurmountable power. All that is gone now. Luna, I can no longer be what I was."

"They love you, they always have. They'll follow your lead because of that."

Celestia gave a single rueful chuckle, it was an ugly and self-pitying sound. "They loved me because of that mask I created and its gone now. They all know now that I am a fraud."

"Celestia, talk to Twilight. Tell me if she loves you any less for this." Luna said.

The white alicorn returned her head to the pillow as her sister's words hit the mark. "I am still in no condition to hold court."

"That's fine, sister. I may not be able to raise the sun but I can manage both day and night courts." Luna replied without relish.

"What about the sun?" Celestia asked her.

"Twilight's working on that," Luna said, thinking that was mostly true.

Celestia sighed, tired from the stress of the confrontation.

"I'll be going dear sister, be good for the doctors and get better soon."

"I'll try, Lu-Lu."

With that Luna closed the left and closed the door behind her. She had her sister's court to run.

The hall was jammed with petitioners, no doubt here to ask about the failed sunrise. She was thinking about what she should say to the public on this matter when the first petitioner, a vaguely familiar scruffy white unicorn in rumpled and soiled court finery came before her. He was desperately in need of a bath and looked like he had slept on a park bench. Normally she would never skip anyone in line for an audience, especially someone who looked so down on his luck. However, today was an emergency and she would have to put his petition aside until after the fears and concerns regarding the sunrise were fully addressed.

Discord

The sun failed to rise. That was not hard for Discord to sense. Between the drastic dimming of Celestia's soul and the angst and fear filling the population of Canterlot there was no way he could have missed detecting this. A few hours later he could sense the approach of the most interesting unicorn in the world. Discord waited eagerly for her to come within the Royal Library, in his "vision" her soul was an eye wateringly bright fuchsia mass roiling in emotional turmoil. Fear and anger warred with hope and resolve as she entered the marble entry hall. "Hello Twilight," he thought in her direction.

"Hello Library," she replied to his surprise. "Did she hear me?" He reached out for her mind and "saw" that she was looking around at the massive collection of tomes like a lover gazing upon their long separated mate. "I've missed you too," she said to the temple of knowledge. She smiled and the agitation in her aura seemed to decrease as she neared the card catalog. Discord wondered to himself how someone so emotionally discordant could be so orderly and meticulous when carrying out research. She was pulling cards a dozen at a time and noting the relevant information faster than most ponies could talk. He realized that he had never gotten to see her in her true element, it was impressive and just a little bit scary.

He skimmed along only her surface-most thoughts, not wanting her to catch him peeking. Watching Twilight as she worked, a blur of subjects passed through her mind: changelings, lists of kings and queens, histories of the other speaking races, a treatise on the nature of alicorn biology, a history about his war with the royal pony sisters, and unicorn medical texts? What in the name of Celestia's carefully plucked beard did this have to do with raising the sun? Her notes were similarly opaque, if detailed. Part of them resembled a primer for diplomats: They listed all of the civilized races of the world, their government types, the names of their monarchs, and the dates of their reigns. On some of these there were secondary marks denoting who knows what, they were far too organized and detailed for him to comfortably concentrate upon.

Turning back to her mind she seemed to be pondering a section of her noble's list that was problematically blank. Bovines had no lands or kings of their own but were widespread within pony territories. Goats could not speak but they were as intelligent and crafty with tools as any other speaking race. She angrily scribbled dark question marks in these areas of her notes as this made no sense compared to the other races. A light flickered to life in Discord's old mind. "Oooh, she doesn't know about that, does she? Typical Celestia, brush all the ugly business under the rug and let it be forgotten."

Discord quietly, subtly, and oh so carefully whispered into Twilight's mind. "Mythology?" she mouthed along. "Maybe what I'm looking for is older than what it strictly held as History?" she thought while Discord aproved. Forgoing the card catalog on pure impulse she walked the several hundred meters to the mythology and folk-tales section of the library. Unlike her more usual haunts in this library, this section was an admixture of scholarly work and bedtime stories for little foals. Pulling one of the latter type of books off the shelf with her magic, Dark tales for scary sleepovers. She flipped to a random page. It was the beginning of a tale called "Grogar of the Bells." She sat down and read the story, alone except for a draconequus reading metaphorically over her shoulder.

"Was it true? Could it be true?" Grogar was the god-king of the cloven hoofed, the tale described him as greedy and uncaring of other species. Supposedly he could work great magics with the power of bells, a form of magic Twilight had never even heard of before. He was supposed to be immortal like the princesses, but wrathful and bent on expansion of his people's power. There was some sort of ritual involving a massive bell that would spread his power over all the land (there was some nonsense about eternal darkness that Twilight was sure was a confluence of the later Nightmare Moon saga.) According to this tale, while their armies clashed, he was confronted by the pony sisters before his ritual was complete and he was defeated by their combined power. As an immortal god-king he could not be destroyed so the sisters banished him to Tartarus along with his entire capitol city. As punishment for their war of aggression the cloven hoofed were dispersed, bovines and swine were taken as slaves but goats were not willing to surrender. So instead, the pony sisters cursed their entire species and stole their ability to speak from them.

Twilight shivered at the conclusion of the horrible tale. The descriptions of the goat-king and his atrocities were scary but the thought of the pony sisters as wrathful goddesses destroying entire cities, enslaving species, and cursing another for all time shook Twilight to the core. Discord watched as she wrestled with this image of her beloved princesses. She asked herself if it could be true and Discord whispered "Yes" to the back of her mind. He was pleased to be telling the truth, the truth could hurt ever so much more than a simple lie. He still had no idea what this whole thing was about, but if simple chance had led to him destroying Celestia's prize pupil's image of the alicorn, then so be it.

After finishing the children's book she began pulling multiple texts from the shelves in rapid succession. She mixed her reading of folk tales with academic criticism and analysis of the themes and elements common to each tale. It looked like some portions of tales were far older than the surrounding stories they were part of. Scholars were able to trace the origin of elements from the presence and absence of other elements and she was beginning to think that there were hints of pre-history hiding among the fairy tales. There were other monsters, perhaps gods and kings in their day. Erebus - some sort of shadow demon or cloud king, Gaia - a dragon or a volcano, Tierek - a half pony / half ape monstrosity. Discord was among them as well, more of a trickster than a despoiler in that bygone era. The common threads were that they were from the dawn of time, they were immortal, possessed of power at least as strong as an alicorn, and except for Discord imprisoned in Tartarus. Discord could feel her thrill of fear and excitement as the thought was born: "Tartarus, where all the secrets are buried. Where I have to go to find them."

"Oh, Celestia will have kittens when she hears about this," he thought with glee.