Cerulean Nocté was a remarkably well-respected stallion in Equestria. He had travelled much of the country, and other countries as well - the Crystal Empire, the Dragon Lands, Yakyakistan and Saddle Arabia to name just a few. He had a number of different law and politics-related university degrees to his name, could speak half a dozen languages fluently and another dozen with some additional thought and effort, and had met some of the most extraordinary ponies in Equestria of the time. He was even acquainted with William Neighsphere, the renowned playwright at the top theatre company “The Princess’s Ponies”.

Most ponies assumed that this was why Luna employed him as her personal assistant. To be fair, many of those reasons did play a part in her decision. But there were other reasons too, that were far more important than the ones known to Equestrian society.

“Nocté!” Luna called.

He sprinted into Luna’s study at her command. “Yes, Your Highness?”

The Princess of the Night was already wearing her saddlebags, her blue-black protective armour and her long black travelling cloak, ready to depart from the castle in a few minutes’ time. She had laid out various artefacts on a wooden desk that was painted blue and inscribed with her cutie mark, as well as different stars and constellations that only somepony with a keen eye or a talent for stargazing would recognise.

One of the items was a mirror with a gold frame, with a fleur-de-lis pattern; the second was a little clockwork amulet, appearing to be made of copper; and the third and final artefact was a plain brown book with both Celestia’s and Luna’s cutie marks on the front.

“We have made a few preparations, in case the situation should go awry whilst We are travelling,” Luna explained.

“What are each of these?”

She pointed at the mirror first. “‘Tis a scrying mirror, you should know the ones. They give glimpses into the past, present and future. Call Our name and ask Us how We are. The mirror will show Our location and what We are doing at that moment in time.”

She gently placed a hoof on the amulet next. “A spare Sun and Moon Amulet. If We are unable to control the moon for any reason, this amulet shall help anypony with magic to bring the dusk or dawn. The Lunar Guards shall be able to help you if such a situation arises.”

Finally, she opened the book to a blank page. “If We are in any danger, use this book to inform Our sister. ‘Tis faster than sending a letter. She will know what to do.”

“Yes, Your Highness. Is there anything else that I need to do whilst you’re gone?”

Now, Luna felt a severe pang of guilt at leaving Nocté behind with so many responsibilities at such a short notice, but she decided not to mention her emotions. Instead, she said, “Look after thyself.”

“You as well, Princess,” he replied.

She smiled wryly. “We shall, Nocté. We shall.”

They hugged each other, and Luna hastily passed a small slip of paper to Nocté, who tucked it under his wing. Without even reading it he had a rough idea of what it would say. Most likely it would be a brief reminder of everything that he had to do whilst she was gone, along with some other words of encouragement. The thought made the stallion smile. Luna had a lot of interesting little quirks and customs that made her, in his opinion, a wonderful pony to spend time with.

They said one final goodbye, and Luna glided out of the room, walking through the halls of the castle until she reached the entrance. Waiting for her were two bat ponies in the usual Lunar Guard armour, with a royal carriage behind them. Usually, Luna would choose some other mode of transport, but the journey ahead was long and laborious, and so the Royal Guards would help her on her way.

Each of the guards saluted to Luna, and she nodded back. “To Canterlot Castle, please,” she said.

The moment she had all four hooves on the carriage platform, the bat ponies spread their wings, and took off into the sky.

The journey did not take as long as Luna had expected it would, perhaps because the wind was blowing in the same direction as they were travelling. All she knew was that the tall towers and spires of the castle on Canterlot Mountain grew ever closer as the minutes passed, and that her sister would be waiting for her to arrive.

And yes indeed, Celestia was waiting.

When Luna finally arrived she was welcomed into the castle by a few Solar Guards and servants, who quickly took the equipment that she had packed, presumably to somewhere that it would be kept out of the elements. She was taken to Celestia by one of the Solar Guards, although he left the moment that the sisters reunited, to allow them to have some privacy.

“Celestia!” Luna cried, holding her sister close.

“Luna! My goodness, we rarely see each other face to face these days.”

“I know, Tia.”

The two sisters spent a minute talking about how much they missed each other and fawning over each other, before they made their way to a small reception room of sorts, with two red velvet sofas positioned opposite each other and a miniature wooden coffee table between them with little room for anything else. It was a hiding place for them, whenever they wished to spend time together without disruption. There were a few of these rooms around the castle, in locations that very few ponies besides the princesses actually knew the whereabouts of. It had been Luna’s idea to add these when the castle was originally built, and they had definitely been useful from time to time.

Luna collapsed onto one of the sofas, noticing how comfortable it was as she rested her head on a cushion at one end. Celestia laughed a little at the sight, then took her place on the sofa opposite. “Lulu, how were your travels?”

“Pleasant,” Luna replied. “Yet… I am worried.”

“Why should you be, Luna? This may not be a problem at all. This may just be a group of ponies attempting to create an elaborate hoax to annoy or frighten us. And if it is something more serious, we are prepared for that scenario.”

Luna frowned. Celestia seemed a little too relaxed about the situation, and she sensed that it was potentially a front to hide her true feelings. “Still,” she continued, “what if something does happen, Tia? Nocté can only run Everfree Castle on his own for so long, and Equestria needs both of us.”

“Lulu,” said Celestia quietly and gently, “if, and only if, something happens to you, Equestria will adapt, as will I. But for anything to happen, the pony behind this would have to defeat both the Solar and Lunar Guards who I am going to send with you.”

Luna smirked. “Are you sure? Some of the Solar Guards whom I have had the misfortune to meet couldn’t stop an invasion of chickens in the castle.”

Celestia deadpanned. The so-called Celestia and the Cockatrice Incident of Discord’s nine-month reign a few hundred years ago was not exactly something that she remembered fondly from her youth. Perhaps it was part of why he was currently encased in a stone statue in the Canterlot Gardens as punishment for his crimes. Luna reasoned that it was probably something closer to revenge than punishment.

“Luna, I don’t need reminding of that.”

“Sorry, Tia.” She paused, not looking her sister directly in the eye. Although the Royal Guards were usually instructed not to speculate about ongoing issues or be too vocal about their opinions surrounding unresolved events, some of the Lunar Guards had engaged in a little speculation and filled the princess’ head with doubt. “I still… I’m still hesitant to leave Equestria so quickly.”

Celestia reached forwards to rest a hoof on Luna’s shoulder. “Luna, don’t worry so. I will draw up a few plans in case anything should happen, but before anypony harms you they shall have to deal with me. And remember, we still have the last resort.”

“The Elements,” Luna nodded.

The Elements of Harmony were referred to as ‘the last resort’ by the two Royal Sisters for a reason: they were powerful, dangerous, and had the potential to do more harm than good if used in the wrong way or for the wrong reasons. The sisters had a general rule that if there was anything else that could be done to protect Equestria from a threat, they would always choose that option over the Elements.

“So, is there an actual plan, sister, or shall I just see what happens?” Luna asked.

“I’m thinking of one as we speak. If we think hard enough, we should finish with plenty of time to spare before you leave.”

“Of course.” Luna looked at the door. “Are you going to sleep soon? We could discuss this in the dream realm.”

Celestia shook her head. “Maybe it would be better at a time when we are both fully awake. If I spend all night talking to you in the dream world, then I’ll wake up as tired as I was before I went to sleep.”

“I forgot that you are not as able to cope with the late nights,” Luna chuckled. “Never mind. We shall speak about it tomorrow, then, once we have both had a proper night’s sleep. But first we have to sort out the sunset.”

“Naturally.” Celestia stood up, smiling. “Goodnight, sister.”

“Have a peaceful night,” Luna replied.

The two sisters hugged, before leaving their little hiding place and walking to a balcony together where they could lower the sun and raise the moon. They helped each other to fill the sky with stars that night, creating a beautiful scene above the city of Canterlot and the rest of the world.

Afterwards, they went their separate ways, to sleep, to dream. Luna had a room identical to her one at Everfree Castle, prepared for whenever she may visit unexpectedly. Unfortunately, she wasn’t able to fill the castle’s halls with lavender as she did back at Everfree, but she laughed to herself at the thought of poor Nocté trying to do the same.

She fell asleep very quickly that night, entering the dream realm as soon as she did so. The void was almost as beautiful as it usually was, but a sharp ringing nearly loud enough to wake her again filled her ears, and a thick black fog floated down the makeshift corridor.

A nightmare.

Luna took off and flew through the corridors like lightning, following the trail of black fog to its source. It had a foul smell, somewhere between the scents of decaying flesh and sewage. Luna had a general rule that the worse the smell and the thicker the fog, the worse the dream was, meaning that tonight somepony was in complete distress. As the smell grew stronger, she knew she was somewhere close.

She flew past a door, then doubled back, noticing that the fog was billowing from under it like smoke. It seemed to be pouring through a door bearing a cutie mark of the sun in glory. Poor Tia, Luna thought to herself. She must be in a state.

She walked through the door, where nothing but horrors awaited her.

She recognised her own form, tormented by the dream, weak and injured and slumped against the stone brick wall of a room dimly lit by flaming torches. She had a black eye, a broken wing and several visible open wounds where the blood had begun to clot in her fur. A hooded and cloaked figure stood before her, speaking too softly for her to distinguish any words but just loud enough for her to realise that it was a stallion’s voice. A long spiralled unicorn horn was the only feature that she was able to see clearly, but the rest of him was shrouded in shadow and that long black cloak.

Celestia had a large metal chain around her that was attached to the opposite wall and prevented her from walking more than five feet in any given direction. She struggled against the chain, to no avail, watching as the stallion paced back and forth, his gaze focused solely on the dream version of Luna. He walked close to the dream Luna, seeming to whisper in her ear. She gave a small nod, glaring at Celestia as she did so. Sickly green and purple magic surrounded the stallion's horn, and bolted towards Celestia-

“Enough,” Luna said sharply.

The beam of magic seemed to freeze in mid-air, halfway across the room. The flames that lit the room stopped moving, as did the shadows on the walls and floor. The dream copy of Luna and the stallion turned to statues, but Celestia remained able to move and speak.

“Lulu?!” she asked fearfully.

The real Luna strode across the room to the hooded figure, artfully lifted a hoof to roughly where she assumed that his cheek was, and hit him across the face, hard. The resulting smack was a wonderful, satisfying sound to listen to; actually, it was music to Luna’s ears. He, along with the other features of the dream, disappeared, replaced by a serene woodland with a warm welcome light filtering through the green canopy to the forest floor.

“And I thought I was worried about all of this,” Luna muttered to herself. She was right. Celestia had indeed been panicking far more than she had let on.

“Lulu!” Celestia cheered, rushing over to hug her sister now that the chains around her had disappeared. “I - it seemed-”

“Real?”

Celestia nodded. “Yes.”

“No need to fear, Tia. It wasn’t real. Just a bad dream.”

“But what if it wasn’t just a dream?” she insisted. “You know as well as I that our magic presents us with visions from time to time.”

“True, but not every nightmare is a vision. You’re just worried, like I am,” Luna sighed. She knew that there was a small chance of Celestia being right, but she didn’t want to think about it. “Try to have a good night’s sleep, Tia. Try not to worry too much.”

“I’ll try, sister.” Celestia gave a half-smile.

Luna smiled and left the dream. She chased a few more, less horrific nightmares away; checked on a few ponies, including Nocté, who assured her that all was well at Everfree; then finally she returned to her own dream for a peaceful night’s rest.

She found herself in an endless wilderness, looking out across a heath that stretched for miles. All through the wild lands she watched as ponies frolicked and danced and sang under the light of the full moon, and as others observed the sky with wonder on their faces. One particular filly, a little greenish bat pony of about ten years old, soared into the air with dark purple bat wings, her purple mane and tail streaming behind her, whilst her father looked on with a fond expression below. Luna curled up on a soft cloud and smiled as she watched everypony relax and enjoy themselves, and most of all appreciate the beautiful night.

Author's Note

Hello, strangers.

This second chapter has been complete for literally more than a year I think, and I just sort of forgot about it because of school and stress and plenty of other things that aren't worth writing about here. Despite it being old, it's not all that musty-crusty; it still fits perfect with all of the lore of the Shadows and Stars AU as documented in my headspace, and it only needed a few edits here and there to make it flow better.

I'm excited to start writing Chapter 3, and I only have 1 week left of my exams. Although they are the priority, I'll be able to scribble down a few notes here and there in Google Docs and at the end of it I should have some fairly decent quality horse words for those of you who are interested even after all of this time. :)

Wishing you all well,

~ Angel