To Chase The Shadows of Redemption

Celestia flew through Oblatio at night, casting nonstop magic to sear invisible lines into the city. It was exhausting.

A few ponies had seen her, but only for a moment. They most likely questioned their eyes and disregarded her presence as a mirage.

She'd been at this for a few hours already. So close... the final line would be connecting soon to finish the massive matrix structure.

A few minutes later and she saw the end, connecting the line to where it had already been worked on today.

Landing slowly and off to the side where nopony would see her in an alleyway, she fought to catch her breath.

This was too tiring. She hadn't gotten a break for the longest time now. She had gone straight from fighting the griffins all of yesterday to injuring her own soul and returning home, only to spend even more time working on this now.

Even basic magic was tiring her at this point. It was hard to admit to herself, but she knew she was reaching her limits. As much as she wanted to teleport straight back to Canterlot and retrieve Luna, she knew she couldn't burn herself out doing that right now. The slight leaking of her soul, as well as the unstable nature of it, and her own efforts was just too much right now.

She'd have to fly back, comparatively very slowly to blinking over, and use it as a rest period. It wouldn't do to not have the strength to cast the ritual. She knew if she just got some rest, it'd be possible for her. But it was needed. She wouldn't get both of them killed in stupidity.

After a few minutes her breathing had steadied, and she lifted off into the darkness and back towards Canterlot.

It'd take hours to get back. This truly was a marathon.

The time past slowly, yet quickly. Her movements were automatic and lethargic, using as little energy as possible as she traversed the empty countryside. She'd have to raise the sun for morning just before arriving at Canterlot.

For once in her life, she truly didn't want to have to do what she was born to do. The spell to move her celestial object, the sun, was something anypony could cast if they knew how to. Of course, in modern Equestria, that meant that quite literally only Celestia and... Luna knew it. But in the past many had known it. What mattered about the spell the most was affinity. The more you lacked the affinity towards a celestial object, the harder it was to move. She surmised that, in the ancient past, when other ponies would group up together to move the sun and moon, that any given ponies natural affinity to do so was zero to twenty percent at most, for what was naturally occurring in the randomness of pony variance. If you had to get unicorns who had almost zero affinity to move the sun, it would quite literally take tens of thousands of them. But if you got a group of around fifty who were in the ten to twenty percent range, they'd be able to do it. That was actually exactly what it used to do, before Celestia ascended.

Celestia, of course, had an affinity of one-hundred percent. The spell for her used less magic than it would for any other being, and that would never change. It wasn't possible for it not to be so. But... even with that perfection, she was one pony. It'd still take a significant chunk of magic to raise the sun, something she couldn't afford to waste right now.

Still, it could be far worse. She had already gotten the worst done half a day ago. The spell to move the moon was the same as moving her sun. It was also the complete opposite of her being. She quite literally could not have any less affinity for it. She was a zero with unlimited zeroes after the decimal point. Luckily, she had done it before injuring her soul. She didn't even think she could move the moon anymore at this point unless she spent hours recovering before trying, an idea that gave her some fright. She figured that moving the moon used twenty times the pure magical output as moving her glorious sun. It'd be closer to a hundred times normally, but she had quite literally been casting the spell for over a thousand years. You could not achieve better mastery over it. That had saved it, to some degree.

Well... she knew that she'd have to do it. The cycle of day and night could not be broken. This was something wound deeply into her very existence. She just knew it had to be. That didn't make having to do it any less dreadful.

Celestia derived much satisfaction from moving her beloved sun. Even at the darkest of days in her life. Today would be the first time that she could really truly remember not wanting to move it.

It was as she was lost in her thoughts, and after hours of flight already, that she felt it.

She stopped in mid air.

Reverberating waves of magic she couldn't recognize was shaking Equus. It wasn't actually shaking anything, but any unicorn that could sense the fluctuations of magic in the air across the planet was most likely feeling this right now. It was coming from the direction she was heading.

Something... was causing one of the most powerful magically energy spikes she had ever felt in her entire life. It was extremely far away, whatever it was, and the fact that she still felt it so strongly from this far meant it was an unbelievable feat, whatever it was. It shook the foundations of the planet. The magic was entirely unrecognizable. Whatever it was, it wasn't something she had ever felt or seen in her long life. At least in a very long time... which meant...

Pure panic surged through her. No... it wasn't possible, right...? Discord couldn't have broken out already... could he?

It was the only thing she could think of right now, or the only individual capable of this to be more precise, that could generate this kind of power. If alicorns were a level above regular ponies, then Discord was a level above alicorns. Only the Elements of Harmony could be said to be above or at the same level of Discord. Celestia had no doubt that after being sealed for so long, he would be itching to use his power to the fullest. His god-like powers....

Horror filled her like no other. There was no way she could deal with Discord right now. Even if she was fully healthy. This was an unprecedented disaster. She could get Twilight to form a connection with the elements of harmony! She may not have before because Luna had come back already purified, but she was friends with those ponies in Ponyville at the least.

Maybe... just maybe she could salvage this and help Twilight deal with Discord. But... that would be the same as sacrificing Luna, would it not? She had chosen this path due to the glaring evidence that she was utterly out of time in the first place. Maybe, just maybe, she could save Luna and then they could work together to banish Discord again! That made sense as well, but if he found out what was going on.... Perhaps her diminished presence and weakness would actually be of benefit here. He most likely wouldn't be able to spot her out nearly as easily because of it. Yes, that's right... she could do this away from his prying eyes and catch him unaware.

Celestia continued flying back towards Canterlot, entirely new dilemmas filling her mind. Whatever was coming, it was clear, this was one of the most important junctions in Equus history.