I: All the world's a stage

The Princess and ruler of Equestria, Celestia, strolled to the balcony of her boudoir, high above Canterlot, to watch the setting sun. It was a solemn moment for her…for, when she raised the sun the next morn, it would be the one-thousandth year of her sister’s exile on the moon. One thousand years of relative solitude, amongst a sea of ponies… Certainly, she had her fair share of disciples and protégés, but none of them could truly understand her. How could they? She who was seemingly timeless and immune to the rigors of age? No matter how she tried, she always ended up seeming aloof, untouchable to the common pony, just like her sun…

She sighed, deep in reflection, only for a green wisp of smoke to materialize before her as a scroll, bearing the seal of her current protégé… It read:

My dearest teacher,

My continuing studies of pony magic have led me to discover that something really bad is about to happen! For you see, the mythical Mare in the Moon is in fact Nightmare Moon, and she's about to return to Equestria, and bring with her eternal night! Something must be done to make sure this terrible prophecy does not come true. I await your quick response.

Your faithful student,

Twilight Sparkle.

Celestia gasped slightly at this, somewhat surprised that the young mare had stumbled upon such a secret. Though she shouldn’t have been too surprised, she remembered, upon discovering her, Celestia realized that she would likely be the strongest unicorn in ages. Perhaps ever? A gentle chuckle escaped her… If she only knew the half of it! Nevertheless, a thought crossed her mind… What if Twilight Sparkle is right? What if sister is returning? Without being able to use the elements of harmony, what if she does indeed return as Nightmare Moon, instead of my beloved sister? There was only one thing to be done, if Equestria had any hopes of surviving as it now was…

Quickly grasping a quill of her own, in her golden aura the Princess quickly, but immaculately, wrote her response:

My dearest, most faithful student, Twilight,

You know that I value your diligence and that I trust you completely...but you simply must stop reading those dusty old books! My dear Twilight, there is more to a young pony's life than studying, so I'm sending you to supervise the preparations for the Summer Sun Celebration, in this year's location: Ponyville. And I have an even more essential task for you to complete: make some friends!

With a spark of magic, the scroll burst into green flames, to be returned to Twilight’s assistant, the drake, Spike, instantaneously. She cocked her head to one side for but a moment, there were things that must be done before her sister’s return…

Suddenly, mid-thought, Solar-Princess vanished without a trace.

It had taken me years to secure passage across the sea that separated my homeland, from the distant lands to the southeast! Now, I stood upon the top of  the tallest mountain I had ever seen, deep within the Himallamas – a range of mighty mountains in the land beyond. So high was the mountain that the natives refused to go more than half way up… They were a most unusual breed, not unlike the Cervinus that they shared land borders with to the north, they had long necks and two hooves at the end of each leg, instead of one…how odd? One would think that their long, fuzzy coats would protect them from the cold, but now that I stood at the top, I saw why they refused to follow me the whole way… The air was dreadfully thin, to the point where I wondered if any other living creature could breathe this high up. Because of the thin air, my breath instantly froze, coating my dark-brown muzzle in the tiniest ice crystals.

Indeed, the spire of rock was so high that as I stood at its peak, I watched the sun settle over the horizon, taking note of the curvature of Equis beneath my hooves…I felt as though I were sitting at the edge of space. Indeed, at that moment I was as close to that great, dark void as I ever had been. Even in my hay-day, I could not dare to touch it with the mightiest of efforts! That never stopped me from trying though…on more than one occasion, I made it so high that though I stopped flapping, I did not fall, nor did I slow dramatically. Now that I am older and wiser, I know that the only reason I did not asphyxiate was thanks to a subconscious magic spell running through my veins, pouring life-giving oxygen directly into my blood, much as it did now… As I drew in a deep breath of the frigid air, a tingling sensation ran up my spine, causing me to twist my neck around toward the east. There, I regarded the moon opposite of the sun, at the other edge of Equis. However, as I did, the face of the mare on the moon vanished! A spark of elation jumped across my synapses…

“Luna!” I exclaimed as a tear formed at the corner of my eye, “My sister, you return!” I laughed like a maniac, not in a thousand years had I felt such pure joy, “I am alone no more, my exile is over! Sister I am coming home!”

It seemed almost prophetically ironic, as I thought about it, in the days leading up to my returning to the coasts of Equestria. I had spoken to Celestia metaphorically, but now that I thought about it, it had been exactly one thousand years since Luna’s banishment. One thousand years since I had bid farewell to the land of my birth… In the short decades after I was dethroned, the kingdom had changed so much, now I wondered what had become of it in the centuries since I had left? In what ways had the kingdom changed? What new works of art and architecture had ponydom created? I wondered if I would even recognize my old home?

The answer, I found was not the one I wanted…