Princess Celestia looked sadly at herself in the mirror. Loved and adored by her subjects, with the finest food and entertainments at her hooftips and absolute power over the life and death of everypony within Equestria, she had almost everthing she wanted. Except for her sister and fellow alicorn Luna, that is. After the first few years she had forgiven Luna for her attack on her and her disgraceful behaviour, and wanted to bring her back from her imprisonment on the moon, but all her royal advisors had been united against it, warning her that if she brought Luna back, she risked unleashing Nightmare Moon once more, and that another battle might find her on the losing side and all of Equestria plunged into eternal night.
Without sunlight, they pointed out, all plants would die and Equestria would freeze in an eternal winter. Everypony might last for a while once the last plants were gone if they were able to stomach eating meat, but soon even this would run out and they would be forced to kill and eat each other before the last few canabalistic survivors finally and agonizingly starved to death. No, they said, Luna is not rehabilitated and it would be madness to take the risk that she was. Whilst she could overrule them, she sadly decided that they must be right. She would have to live on through eternity without her sister by her side.
Nor could she ever have an alicorn daughter or try and get others to have one for her. It was too risky, far too risky. At best it would be like having Discord back in Equestria making mischief again. A very young alicorn would not be able to fully control his or her powers and would be wildly impetuous,be it turning clouds into cotton candy, abolishing gravity or worse. At worst it would tear apart the whole of Equestria in a fireball of destruction
. She sighed, and walked into the High Court of Equestria where once a week she pronounced verdicts upon ponies guilty of the most serious crimes. Whilst the crime rate in Equestria was low and the Queen tried to be merciful where possible, there were those who deserved punishment. Facing her were a pegasus stallion, his winds bound to his sides, and a unicorn mare. She looked them up and down. "As everypony knows, unicorns and pegasui are not allowed to have foals, in case one of them becomes an alicorn. Howver I will be merciful, the mare Purple Flower is to be discharged, whilst the stallion Big Wing is sentenced to be sterilized so as to prevent him having any foals before being discharged. Take them down."
The stallion spat on the marble of the courthouse floor in his disgust. "I was going to have a family, you bitch! Why do this to me just because of who I fell in love with? Why?"
"Because there is a small chance of your lover giving birth to an alicorn foal who could do as much damage as Discord even without meaning to. Twenty lashes for contempt of court.." Two unicorns approached the pegasus, their horns glowing and heavy horsewhips beside them. As Celestia left the courtroom she heard the lashes of the whip and the screams of the pegasus as they lashed his flanks. She trotted back to her chambers and concentrated hard on the sun, gripping it with her magic and making it set. Next she felt for the moon, and pulled it up into the sky. It looked so beautiful, sitting there like a silver coin floating in the sky, but every time she looked at it it brought sadness. She knew that somewhere up there was her sister, with nothing to do but wonder around the moon with nopony to talk to, the ruler of an empty and lifeless world of dust. And it hurt being without her for the last year but she knew that it was far too early to risk bringing her back. Then she had an idea that was so simple that she wondered why she had not had it before. If she could not have her sister back...then she would make a sister instead. All she needed was the right pony.
Luna Eclipse, who much prefered to be called Eclipse since the Nightmare Moon incident was in her dressing room in Cloudsdale, looking at herself in the mirror.She extended her purple wings and used the plain wooden horn she was wearing to scratch a little itch on her cutie mark, which was two masks, one happy,one sad,showing her skills upon the stage. Under Princess Celestia even for an actress playing the part of an alicorn the censorship of stage plays was light;nothing libelous about the monarchy;no clopplays as that was considered an insult, and for a pegasus playing the part horns had to be fake and made of wood to make it clear that the wearer was not really an alicorn. Even with these restrictions it was still possible to make plays that ponies would still pay good bits to watch. The door opened and two of the golden helmeted Day Guard came in. "Luna Eclipse, you have been summoned to the palace on the orders of the Princess herself. You will fly there with us now." Eclipse's mouth dropped open.
What have I done? Either she loves my acting and thinks I deserve an award, or I screwed up bigtime and she's angry with me. What if she makes me leave the stage and puts me to work in the clouds?They flew to Cantalot Castle and she was greeted by a team of unicorn maids and a courtier unicorn pony with three diamonds upon her flank. "My name is Pretty Rariety," she said in her cut glass accent. "Servants, I want this pony to be washed, rubbed down, preened and cleaned so that all her beauty is brought out. That will be the first stage in her transformation."
My transformation? Eclipse thought as they took her to a small pool of warm water, scrubbed her, dried her and cleaned even her hooves. Maybe they just want me to look good in the sight of royalty. That must be it. Then a maid said "Hold still, Princess, we're going to have to paint over that cutie mark until a safe spell can be developed to change it." They gently painted it over with quick drying paint so that she now had a crescent moon for a cutie mark. "I'm not a Princess, and why are you giving me Luna's cutie mark for?" Silver shoes were placed upon her feet and then a horn was brought in. Eclipse stared at it. It looked far too real to be legal. "I...I can't wear that, I'd be breaking the law in a big way, and in the royal palace too. I'd rather not have to see the inside of the royal dungeons."
"Don't worry, " Pretty Rariety said. "The Princess Celestia wants you to wear this. It's made from horns taken in secret from unicorn skulls centuries old and made into a single horn through fine workmanship and some royal magic so not only can it attach magically, but..." She paused. " It has some weak magic within it that even a non unicorn can focus on and use. Not enough for anything mighty, certainly not enough to move the moon, but enough to pick up light objects." Pretty Rariety attached it and placed a crown upon her head.
"I must look exactly like Princess Luna now! What play do you want me to act in for the Princess?"
"Oh, this is not a play, your name is Luna now. The Princess Celestia misses her sister so much that you...you have been chosen to be a replacement sister."
Eclipse stared at her wide eyes. "A replacement sister? I can't do this, I'm not a princess and I'm certainly not Luna. I don't have any of her memories or her habits, I'm not an alicorn and don't know how to rule. I'm just a pegasus who knows how to act. Why do you want me to do this?"
Pretty replied "Surely you know how our Princess has been behaving since Nightmare Moon was banished? She's not the same pony, she's a lot harsher.In the last decade, a score of statues have joined Discord in the palace yard. That's more ponies that have suffered that fate in the last ten years then in the last three centuries. When her sister was by her side, it was unheard of for her to forcibly sterilize or geld ponies and to have them whipped and beaten until the blood ran from their flanks. It was totally and utterly unheard of her to order the wingbones of errant pegasui broken, robbing them of flight, or to order unicorn ponies to have a ring stuck to their horn that drained their magic. The palace dungeons were unused except in a few cases for those who were awaiting trial. Now they are full, with large numbers of suffering ponies kept underfed and locked away from the light of the sun. Most of them do not deserve it. And it's not just criminals who suffer. It used to be that nopony would be allowed to go hungry even if they were poor. Celestia abolished the benefits that kept crime at a very low level and since then ponies have had to steal and rob to stay alive, and some are turning to drugs such as Speed and Trot."
"We are all worried that if something is not done and done quickly, either Celestia will recall her sister or worse, she will transform into a Nightmare Sun. We love Celestia, we all do, but we want the old sweet, kind, merciful Celestia back who ruled kindly and with little need for fearsome punishments. And you are the way to do it. If you can be Lunaish whenever Celestia is there by your side then slowly Celestia will soften and release most of the imprisoned ponies and start turning back into her old self. Oh, she knows who you really are; we would not dare do this without her permission...but a part of her will think otherwise. As time goes by, thanks to you the old Celestia will shine again but we cannot have you telling anypony who you really are who does not already know your secret. It would not do for somepony to fail to treat you with the respect due to a Princess; it would shatter the illusion and cause Celestia to regress. This won't be easy but you must stay in Luna mode all the time for the sake of us all."
"Will I...will I be given access to all of Luna's private papers?" Eclipse asked.
"Of course, we want you to study them to make you better at your role. Behind that door is Princess Celestia and she is waiting for you. Don't get scared or flustered;threat her as she and you were at the same level. Don't be insulting obviously, but don't be groveling either, remember, that you are a princess now. Oh and..." her horn glowed red for a few seconds. "That was a spell to give you Princess Luna's voice."
Eclipse trotted up to the door and pushed it open. Celestia looked her up and down, cantered forward and hugged her with her hooves telling her "Luna, it's, it's so good to be with you again. I've missed you soooooo much." The angry look Celestia had in her eyes faded. "Let's have lunch and then you can go back to your royal suite of rooms. What was it like up there all alone on the moon?"
"It was horrible. Of course as a goddess I could not choke or starve, cook alive or freeze, but there was very little to do, nopony to talk to and no colour anywhere except for our planet and when I looked at that it made me really homesick for everything I'd lost and most of all for you, Tia."
