The time for night was upon her realm.
With a heavy sigh, Celestia crossed through her royal apartments to her balcony, then opened the trellised doors, stepping out to watch her little ponies below as they scurried about their end of the day wrap up.
Looking up into the heavens still hidden by her day, she artfully arranged the stars, recreating her personal favorite of her sister's beloved night skies. She deftly fixed the drift of the stars to match the pattern, save the four spoken of in prophecy who one day would aid in her sister's release from banishment. "One day soon," she thought to herself, a day she both fearfully dreaded and looked forward to with passionate hope.
She looked up at her beloved sun, smiling wistfully. “Farewell for a while my dear sun. Time to rest as the night takes her place.”
She lowered her sun with a slightly sad smile, then raised her sister’s moon with a sigh filled with hope.
“Soon sister,” she called out to the visage before her. “Soon the stars will aid in your escape, as I have long pined for, then I will see you again for better or for ill.
“I have missed you so much! I hope with all my heart you can forgive me when you return, even though it would seem you still hate me for what I have done. While I can’t find it in me to blame you in the slightest for your anger, I hope to Faust above you can still somehow find it in your heart to forgive me.
“Please, dearest sister, return to me, knowing I love you and will never again let you languish in anypony’s shadow, especially not my own. Know with all your heart that I will cherish you and stay by your side forever.”
With a final sigh filled with regrets, she returned to her apartment, closing the trellised doors behind her. Crossing to her desk she started her nightly ritual of reviewing the petitions on docket for day court the next morning, reading them one by one, then either signing each with either her approval or rejection while sorting them into two piles accordingly.
Most petitions were the usual power plays by the nobles of her realm, some more subtle than others. Though after a thousand years of dealing with their machinations, she was rather familiar with even their more subtle schemes. Some of these she still allowed if the outcome justified it, bringing needed care or services to her beloved little ponies. Others she did not, especially those that blatantly only served the interests of the requesting noble.
Others petitions were from her little ponies themselves, seeking aid or redress for wrongs perceived or committed by others. Others, seen less often but more compelling, were petitions seeking outright aid for events caused by acts of nature or aggressions from outside the ponies realm.
One such case especially caught her attention.
A mare was requesting assistance in setting up an orphanage in her area, a rural village with outlying farms that bordered one of the realm’s surrounding kingdoms. Celestia had lately been receiving reports of raids along the border with that kingdom. Excursions from that kingdom had been noted against the nearby small settlements of her ponies. She had, of course, dispatched troops from her guard to investigate and deal with whomever they found as needed, but so far they had found nothing on their arrival but missing ponies and in some cases completely razed farms, usually with the foals tucked safely away on the properties in hidden shelters that were known only to their extended families.
In most cases the families had the resources to take them in; but in the few cases where they could not, her guard had returned the young ponies to Canterlot where she had them placed into local orphanages to provide them with care.
She wanted to send her guard into the offending kingdom and let them deal with the miscreants who were attacking her beloved little ponies. But she dared not risk sending in her troops in an action that would clearly spark all out war with that warlike neighboring nation. While she personally had the power to lay waste their entire nation for their outrage, she did not have it in her heart to once again destroy the innocents in a land for the sins of the few who were to blame.
Not for the first time her thoughts turned to her need to establish a corps of magic users, a corps whose members could do what she could not. She needed a corps of mages who could bring the fight proportionately to those who threatened or did actual harm to her little ponies without the need to actually bring her full might against the entire nation that housed the miscreants. She dreamed of a corps of Battle Mages within her guard that would be her presence in those circumstances. Her dream of a corps of mages so powerful and so well trained in battle that she could send them out, one mage for one mission, knowing they would return having shown the might of Equestria without her presence. And additionally, they would show she was not alone in being able to inflict terrible harm upon those who threatened them. Let her enemies know that any pony may be capable of showing terrible wrath upon those who saw them only as helpless prey for their slaughter.
She would have the entire world of Equis know this. No longer were little ponies the prey species as they were so often in the days of old. Now, they were the preeminent species on this world, and she would see them given the respect, and if not that the fear they deserved for their place in her world order.
Signing off her approval of the mare's request, to be dealt with in the next morning’s court, she took another scroll from her desk and signed off on it as well, finally approving the formation of the Battle Mage Corps she had been dreaming of for some time. She would pick the brightest and most proficient of her mage Guards and train them in the arts of magical warfare and battle, teaching them tactics and techniques she had learned from her sister so very long ago when her beloved sister was the powerful Marshal of all Equestria’s vaunted forces, and the bane of all who stood against them.
Smiling as she signed the plan into law, she envisioned a time when even these so called subtle violations of her ponies and their realm’s sanctity would be a thing of the past.
With that hopeful thought, she completed her review of the rest of the next morning’s cases, finishing off her tea and slice of cake as she signed off on the last of them.
Retiring to her bathroom, she cleaned up and prepared for sleep, returning to her chambers and climbing into her canopied bed, drawing up the covers around her.
However, as she laid in her comfortable bed, her thoughts returned to her sister and her imminent return.
Celestia tossed in her bed as she tried to sleep, leaving her little foal, her little bun in the oven, restless too in her life giving cradle. In her mind she kept going over her sister’s reappearance, at least as a summoned spirit, after almost 1000 years of banishment. And she thought about her sister's actual return in just 20 more years, as stated in the prophecy she had uttered nearly a thousand years ago while under the power of Harmony following her actions against her rebellious sister. Her sister would return then, for better or worse.
And she feared the worst. Especially given the way her sister's specter was behaving, working to foment rebellion against their nation. The very realm they had built together over 1000 years ago.
“My dearest sister,” she sighed, rolling again in her bed, “I beg you, please forgive me when you return. I miss you so much!”
Closing her eyes and nestling into her pillow she finally succeeded in falling asleep. Sensing her mother’s relative peacefulness, the little foal within her fell peacefully asleep as well.
Sensing her mother’s tormented dreams, the little soul reached out to her, touching her mother's thoughts and worries. With a kiss from Harmony, she was sent into her mother’s dream where she saw the momentous thoughts that were stirring her restless sadness.
She saw her mother fighting with another like her, also an alicorn as they were called in her mother’s thoughts. The other alicorn was almost as dark as midnight, with a cloud backed crescent moon as her cutie mark. She was slender, tall and regal, her blue mane waving in the moonlight, stars twinkling in her mane like the stars in the night sky.
“Sister, you don’t have to do this! We don’t have to fight! Please Luna! Please don’t do this! Please come back to me, we can work this out, I promise!” called out her mother, her concern and love radiating from her to her wayward sister. She mumbled out her calls in her sleep as well, shaking slightly in her distress.
“Pshaw! As if I would ever believe another promise from you! You are a liar! You only care about your precious day, and everypony loving you! You abandon our old ways and arts, always seeking after new things, never enjoying what is. And you! You never cared for me, or for my beloved night! And you made others fear my beautiful night! I have worked so hard, pouring out my love for our ponies and you, crafting beautiful night skies for all to enjoy, marveling in wonder! But you! You made them hate me! So now you can all fear me and my night, sister.
“For behold! Luna is dead! Killed by your negligence, and you and your little ponies’ hatred! I am no longer she, but now…
“I am Nightmare Moon! Queen of the Night! And destroyer of the day! For tonight, in punishment of your actions, I am no longer your sister! Never again will you see the light of day, for from this moment forth…
“The Night shall last forever!”
Luna, or Nightmare Moon as she called herself now, laughed maniacally as clouds stormed through the night sky, lightning flashing through them as a backdrop as Nightmare Moon reared up now laughing triumphantly.
“And you, my no longer sister, are no longer needed. I will cripple but not kill you so you may watch in torment as all you loved withers and dies in the grip of my eternal night of terror!”
With that, Nightmare Moon flew down in attack against her now grief stricken sister, beams of arcane power launching from her horn as she tried to destroy her former sister.
Eyes clouded with tears, Celestia responded, flying up to meet her; dodging and diving through the air to avoid her attacks while launching arcane attacks in reply. The two sisters dove and dodged through the sky, wreaking havoc with their battle on the castle below them.
Befuddled, the little ponies of the kingdom looked on as the sisters waged war against each other, not understanding why the two sisters fought one another, or why Princess Luna looked so different and angry now. They watched in horror as the castle they had worked in for most of their lives was decimated, holes blown through it and towers toppled as they watched in despair.
Finally, Nightmare Moon landed a shot on her sister, launching the Solar Princess into the ground cracking the tiles in the throne room of their Castle of the Two Sisters, now exposed to the elements due to their fight.
Rising to her hooves with effort, Celestia reached out with her Magic, gathering The Elements themselves, holding them in orbit around her as she launched her own final attack in despertion at her screaming sister, who was almost upon Celestia firing a searing attack of her own.
The two energies collided, and for a moment it looked like the Nightmare would win as her raw power pushed back the beam from the Harmonic Elements.
“Luna, no!” screamed Celestia, crying as she redoubled her efforts. The beam of Harmony responded in kind, pushing back against Nightmare Moon's power, pushing her beam back onto her, then finally overcoming her beam completely as she was swallowed her up in Harmony's glow.
“No!!” screamed out Nightmare Moon as the glow subsumed her completely. A lance of light shot out from the glow, piercing into the moon overhead in its lower half. A cratered shadow of the Nightmare's head appeared in a reproachful gaze on the surface of her moon.
“Luna!!” called out her mother, forehooves stretched out to the moon as she fell on her haunches, tears of lament falling from her like a bitter rain as she sat alone in their fallen castle.
Flashing forward, the little soul saw scenes from the sisters' fillyhoods as the elder sister continued her laments.
Two little alicorn fillies sat before a unicorn wizard, with stars and moons on his pointed hat and cloak and bells on both as well, as he taught them spells together.
The two sisters playing hide and seek, the elder seeking the younger who leapt out and tackled her older sister. Then the two then giggling loudly in a laughing ball of ponies as they rolled through the grass together.
Discord attacking their young regentdom, causing chaos throughout the land. The two sisters questing for the Elements, then finding them, dividing them between themselves and lighting out after Discord.
She saw the two sisters confronting Discord, demanding he return their land to its proper state and cease his harmful pranks while he laughed at them defiantly. Then she saw the sisters powering up their elements, encompassing Discord in a beam of Harmony, turning him to stone.
She saw the realm grow and prosper under the sister’s leadership, with Luna leading their ponies in war when needed against aggressive and powerful neighbors, and Celestia seeking peace afterwards while forging alliances against common enemies.
She saw their realm enter a time of extended peace once all their neighbors had been subdued, while ponies began forgetting that the younger sister was their protector in times of trial, their Marshal in times of war.
She saw the signs of the younger sister's growing resentment as more ponies forgot her, and her night, and her deeds, while they basked in the power of her sister’s day. One by one, she saw the younger sister's festivals were being forgotten.
The Night Festival of the Harvest Moon, celebrating the first of the harvests, was abandoned in favor of a new festival marking the Day of Harvest held the day following the harvest completion.
The Festival of the Longest Night, one of the youngest sister’s favorites of the year, was abandoned completely. She saw how, deep in her regret, the older sister reinstated it after losing her, in the hope that her sister would not be completely forgotten by her ponies. It was with consternation and regret that Celestia saw the official name replaced with the popular name Nightmare Night celebrating her defeat of Nightmare Moon despite her opposition to the practice. Even though Celestia still insisted on the official name at whatever Festival Celebration she attended each year, her little ponies insisted on using the other name everywhere else, turning even the festival she retained in her fallen sister’s honor into a complete mockery of her memory. She saw as her mother cried in her sleep at that final loss of her sister’s memory and legacy.
She saw the battle and banishment again, Celestia whimpering and weeping in her sleep as it played out.
She saw Celestia sitting in the garden with Discord’s statue after Luna’s loss, telling him if he would only promise to behave and not spread chaos through her realm she would happily let him go and call him a friend. She felt the loss in her mother’s heart not just for Luna, but for everypony she had lost to time, and her deep longing for a friend who could share eternity with her.
She saw her mom seeing her sister still as Nightmare Moon directing an uprising against her. She saw her mother thinking of her sister returning, finally getting to hold her beloved lost sister in her forelegs again, weeping on her sister's shoulder and begging her little sister’s forgiveness for failing her as a sister all those years ago.
Celestia woke at the end of that dream, her forelegs wrapped around a tear soaked pillow. Drying her eyes with a forehoof, she rose from her tear stained bed to start her day. She opened the trellised doors to her balcony, stepping out to face the visage of her beloved sister in the moon as her sister stared down with what Celestia felt as stinging reproach.
“Oh sweet sister, I have failed you so badly,” Celestia lamented to her, staring up into her stamped likeness on the moon’s surface. “But soon sister, soon. The time of your release is soon upon us, and though I fear your return, I also long to hold you in my forehooves and tearfully beg your forgiveness for my part in all this. You deserved better from me, and if Harmony Herself allows it you shall have it.”
With that she sadly reached out and guided her sister’s moon and her reproachful visage below the horizon, while reaching out and guiding her sun into the morning sky to greet the dawn and awaken her little ponies to the new day.
She watched for a few moments as below her little ponies stirred, rising and starting their days under her blessed sunlight. Then with a smile, she returned to her apartment to begin her day, closing the trellised doors behind her.