To Chase The Shadows of Redemption

"I just don't understand how you can defend this blatant disrespect against my night! The night is not given the reverence it deserves. The ponies of Equestria revel in the light and day, while they shun the night!"

Celestia's face indicated that she had other thoughts entirely. "Luna, you must understand that ponies have always feared the unknown, this has nothing to do with appreciation, but of comfort and familiarity. The day's security cannot be blamed for this!"

"And if our ponies could just push past such slight discomfort they could discover a new love, that of the beauty of the night, or the majestic sight of the stars!" Luna was seething now. They had already been at this a while now, and it was one of many increasing instances that took place over the past few weeks. While it had originally started in private, and continued to be right now, it had started bleeding into public affairs at the worst of times in the ugliest of ways. Any pony with a modicum of awareness in the Everfree had already keyed in on the internal turmoil.

"What's worse is the fact that the fears are unfounded! Yet you refuse to help me push our ponies into elevation and understanding!"

"Damn it Luna! We will not force agenda on our subjects in that manner! Can't you see that pushing them has only resulted in the recent disfavour?"

"You've been nothing but adversarial! Of course things aren't going to go over well when we aren't a united front!"

"Your jealously blinds you Luna! That's what this is really about, isn't it? Misplaced jealousy."

"You have no right to speak to me like that! How could you dare pretend to understand?"

"Infantile..!"

A drop of blood spilled down onto the floor, rolling down Luna's cheek, both ponies stunned for different reasons.

"How dare you..." Luna spat out more blood in the direction of Celestia. Celestia had a pale look on her face, and looked down at her hoof in disbelief, by the time she had looked back up Luna had already turned and faced away from her.

"Wait sister, I didn't mean to...!"

"We're done talking here, Celestia. I won't take this disrespect any longer."

Luna teleported away.

Two months later

Twilight Sparkle began her journey west.

Two months of planning, an intermission at Ponyville by request of Celestia, getting to know the ponies there better and multiple emotional farewells.

The gentle rustle of leaves, a melody of bird-song, and the crisp fresh air of the forest.

The plan, which had only been recently revised when Twilight had found out about a new spell that would help locating Luna, had come into fruition. Twilight had initially enjoyed the start of this journey, as it involved a lot of studying. Magic for detection, and detailed maps to figure out the best paths to take. It all came down to finding one specific spell: Krazor's magical density detector. Under normal circumstances, it was used and invented in the past to measure the level of magic applied with enchantments. With some tweaking by Celestia, they had figured out a variation of the spell with allowed a massive scale for locating.

Each step revealed a new sight of Equestria, and while Twilight had never been the type of pony to ever chase adventure, the past few months had prepared her mentally for this. So now she could enjoy it a little.

Celestia had enchanted four small magical pillars with a specific signature, and also made sure that Twilight knew and could cast the location spell by the time she left. Once the spell was confirmed, it made planning a whole lot easier. Twilight had calculated the most effective towns to visit - since travel through main roads would be fastest. These towns were located in such a way that Twilight could scan the most area possible without wasting time. If the initial casting failed it would be a massive and unfortunate delay to repossess and move on to the second route planned out for new towns to check a different area entirely, but such was the quest that she was on.

Twilight looked at her map again. Rydenbrook was the first town she was to visit and place a pillar safely therein. If she paced correctly, she'd be heading towards the second location within four days. That trip was when the real adversity would hit, being estimated to take around twenty. Twilight hoped she would not slow down too much at any point, but knew it was unrealistic for everything to go perfectly smoothly. Especially since she was new to travel on this scale.

That didn't change the fact that she would complete this mission. Seeing her mentor - Celestia, in such a heartbroken manner had imprinted on her heart the certainty on which this needed to done.

In the courtroom of Canterlot, Celestia heard from her subjects and offered her judgement.

Her presence of body and voice were about all that were really there.

In a turbulent sea of thoughts, she constantly switched between listening, speaking, and ruminating about the past few months. Was sending Twilight really the right idea? She was glad she had gotten her to soften up on Ponyville and the other elements before leaving, but she was still quite young for this kind of duty. The sense of determination she had sensed had cooled her doubts, but they kept on flaring. It didn't help that Twilight needed to find Luna and potentially confront her. She had told her that if she spotted Luna at any point she could just come straight back and tell Celestia the location, but she realized now she should've been more strict and ordered her not to interfere with Luna. Who knew what kind of mentality her sister had anymore, and the danger was that Luna recognized little after so much had changed over time, which was basically everything for Luna save the heavens at this point.

Luna had been raising the moon since being back, and the implications were not lost on Celestia. It made sense after all, Luna practically existed to do so, just like Celestia did with the sun, but it was a complete giveaway that she was back if she had ever been trying to hide her presence.

It has also finally settled in her mind that the reunion she had been dreaming of wasn't going to be pretty to start, to say the least. If Luna had really wanted to make amends from her side of things, she would've approached Celestia by now. Celestia started tapping her hoof on the throne.

Mistakes were made a millennium ago. She had certainly done and said things that were regrettable that echoed over even to now in memory. Blame was such a fickle thing, and to place it was to ruin everything. It didn't matter who had done or said what, Celestia felt sorry for what had happened and that was it. She have changed since then. She had to believe this.

One by one the petitions came and went. She tried to be involved mentally but it never was truly there. One poor old mare had practically begged for bits for a local foster home that she ran, and Celestia had granted it almost immediately.

"Family is important my little pony, and everyone in my kingdom deserves to be surrounded by it. The struggles of your home are well understood, and I will try to alleviate them as much as I can. I will personally fill in the details later to make sure you get the resources you need."

The old mare had teared up and made a scene, and Celestia smiled to herself that she could still help sometimes.

The cynical part of herself reminded me of how hollow it really was. Her relationship with Luna was in tatters and here she was preaching about family values to her ponies. It made her sick. She quickly realized that she wanted nothing more than to turn it in for the day. Using this poor foster home as a proxy, or any other heart wrenching story that walked into my halls and applying merciful judgment to those who asked for it, when she would never be able to help them all. Selective and preferential treatment. They were proxy for Luna to me in some vague way, and her decisions were a scream out into the void for another chance.

When dinner time finally arrived she could barely eat.