To Chase The Shadows of Redemption

Celestia finished up the draft for the official expansion of the Canterlot royal foster home. It would be just across the street from the established one, on a vacant plot already owned by the royal family. She had also scheduled a day of local visits, attending to the foster home to secretly to see how the filly was doing as well as if she was acting up at all, of course it was all on a long list of public appearances she was going to soon. It was something that was much needed lately, a welcome refuge from the recent nonstop work inside the castle. She smiled briefly as she imagined going out with Luna on a similar type trip, the two sharing witty banter in-between the more attentive parts of the day where they could not.

To her side lay a newspaper tucked carefully with the rest of her material, one of which that had circulated around the nation by this point. It read 'Disaster at Riftly, small town suffers horrific fate' in the headline. She had personally combed through the fine text to make sure every aspect of it fit the narrative she had envisioned. To her relief, it had. The populous had responded as per expected, with grief and many small donations made to those whose families were affected in other communities. She had also been surprised to learn that it took a lot longer for any pony to find the wreckage. A full three days, in fact. Good.

She finished her coffee and started organizing what she had finished for today, casting a sidelong gaze to the window and the wonderful winter world that lay just outside.

For a while now the accounting side of her government had been running at a solid surplus. She had built up a sizable moat per se, and she foresaw having to use some of it in the ensuing events to come. It was always good to be ready for any obstacles or emergencies, but there would be a concerted effort to increase the dispense back to the community for some time.

Checking the time, she prepared to head for her meeting with the team working on Luna's recovery. After she would be attending a private spa session. She needed that more than anything after how much had stacked up on her plate recently. But for now, she had to prepare herself for whatever they would explain to her. She hoped it didn't soil the mood for the after party.

Escorted by guards, she made for the room just past where Luna was currently being kept. She felt it was wrong to do everything in front of her when she was out like this, even if she wouldn't hear a thing or really be present. Besides, it just felt right.

Making her way into the smaller room which had been converted into a simple meeting room, she saw that they were already seated and ready. A small package lay on the table. With grace, she dismissed her guards and then closed the door behind herself as she made her way to the table to sit down.

"Please relax everypony. I appreciate the fact you have organized the work so far for me in text. Please, give me a moment to go over it before asking any questions about how we'll proceed while I may also do so in turn."

Opening the sealed folder, she began reading and digesting the contents. The outline of several theories were provided, as well associated explanations logic wise in relation to the magic they observed so far. At the bottom was some form of request that Celestia wouldn't bother with yet. Among the list provided, a few of them stood out: Nightmare Moon's essence trying to revive itself through an automatic curse, Luna having been attacked by an assailant curse user since returning, in which she responded with some kind of magic to prevent the curse from destroying her and the result mixed to the strange phenomenon they see now. It went on. They had the audacity to list a potential reason for this was that Luna's true magic being inherently to steal life energy in the first place. She had almost grit her teeth at that. Were they implying that Celestia had given life to all, while Luna only existed to drag her creation and warmth back down into the darkness like some greedy demon?

She refused to allow those thoughts to stay around, because she knew they were simply being thorough. That only helped a little. She would not allow feelings to spill over and start effecting their professional judgment. That would be the worst case scenario, in fact.

There had even been one that almost made her laugh if not for the seriousness of the topic. Some hypothesis that the divine nature of stars and night had continued to act as a force like they had in assisting her escape from the moon, as an actual being with agency, and had used the divine connection both sisters held to their respective part of the day to continue to influence her. Celestia threw this out immediately, knowing that it was not quite the case due to her own experience within her realm and conversations with Luna in the past.

Finally, she came across the main theory that they had marked with emphasis. While this had been something they had already discussed, they went much further into detail and solidified the spoken conversations into a polished and written form, adding on more while organizing everything they had gone over so far.

One such excerpt, the main bulk of it which had been highlighted caught her eye in particular.

"We put forward and posit that an alicorn soul may be an inherently greedy thing. That it special enough in complexity in in comparison to a more regular soul. This is evidenced by the long lives of alicorns versus that of most ponies. We lead this into a mechanism for which it recognizes that it is damaged in some way, and as a result uses some form of cursed magical reactionary application to steal the life around it in some last ditch effort to survive. We have zero knowledge or ability to know if this scales from mere longevity extension to an actual restoration of the soul if there's enough life energy to be taken in. It is all unknown as of now. As pointed out in every angle presented thus far, the cursed aspect has the signature of Luna in some capacity, so it cannot be denied that her influence has some degree of impact. Whether this was forced on her and she managed to adapt to it and cause this to prevent complete disaster, or to it simply being the base case which is aforementioned above. This point is a critical fact of which we must keep in mind for the remainder of the time spent on this.

While Celestia certainly had no idea if this really was the case, she accepted that it did indeed seem to be one of the more likely causes of whatever this was.

It was after finally going through the bottom properly and not skimming it that she resumed the conversation.

"Firstly, I must say you've all done good work. These points certainly make sense, even if I have my reservations about the lines of logic in quite a few of them. We are going to move forward with your main hypothesis in mind as the cause so that we can make progress. If it turns out to not be the case and we wasted time, I will accept all of the blame. Furthermore, I will be accessing archives of which few ponies even know of, in search of knowledge around the soul since we are so certain that it must centred around that. I will pass along any information that I believe has any value if it I find any.

"Now, as for your proposal at the bottom. The danger this presents does not sit well with me. But you were correct to list our lessening time availability as a reason for moving forward with it despite the risk. I will spent today ruminating over it and give an approval or not by tomorrow."

The rest of the conversation flowed easily now that all of their ideas had been shared, and Celestia quickly dismissed them after checking for no misunderstandings on her part.