“I don’t know,” Luna said, delicately sipping more tea. Celestia recognized it as a way to buy herself time between sentences, and basked in the amusement of knowing her little sister so well. “I just think she’s nice, is all."

“Nice?” The solar queen purred, quirking an eyebrow. It was a simple gesture, and yet it sent the dusky alicorn to squirming, pink and violet rushing to her cheeks. Celestia continued. “Yes, very honorable and honest and well-intentioned, this unicorn. Though her manners leave much to be desired, for a princess…”

“She’s perfect the way she is,” Luna huffed, immediately regretting her outburst. Her face could hardly get any redder. “I mean— she suffices. Not every princess is born to wear silks and sing and please. Amore is strong and brave, and will defend her country well, I know it.”

“Do you?”

“Wipe that smirk off your face now,” The younger of Equestria’s sovereigns frowned, threatening to spill tea all over her sister’s finery, though a wide grin broke across her flushed face. Celestia barked out laughter as she stepped away. Outside The Everfree’s dining hall where the sisters shared their breakfast the sky blushed a pretty pink, seeming to match the general mood of the castle; even as the heavy silver bells of the stout Dawn Tower heralded the day and called for the Queen to raise the sun, a sense of excited restlessness buzzed through the capital.

Celestia made to walk past the table and to the exit, her horn alight with golden radiance. She stopped by her sibling’s seat and tenderly kissed her cheek as she departed. “Don’t be late for the ceremony. Starswirl will expect us an hour before, to practice your song and the traditional crystal crowning ritual.”

“I won’t!” Luna called out as her sister left the room. It’s just a song, like I’ve sung before at festivities. So why did her tummy feel so funny when she thought about performing for their northern guest?

__


This is wrong, wept the grass, and the soil and sky pulsed in revulsion. Like an instrument forced to play disharmonious tunes the world turned a bruised red, as the goddess broken and lame twisted reality to her will.


The Alicorn of Night’s royal voice spread beyond the confines of Starsgrace, though not to be heard the way words are; hers was a song to be felt, a chill that slipped under fur and pelt and skin and froze around your bones, winter’s kiss. Celestia was frozen in place, enraptured in the spectacle, a sight as vile and beautiful as Equestria had ever seen, and through it all the click, click, click of hoofsteps, slow, calculated, deliberate and closer, closer, closer. Goddess and mortal huddled together as a horror of their own creation was birthed amidst blood and crystal shards.


The Moon rose higher, impossibly dark, a ring of void plastered on the sky. Below, her patron alicorn stepped past Starsgrace entrance’s awning, draconian wings spread, her sharp talons reaching upwards, imploring her to rise higher still. Darkness cloaked her, smoke and shadow, and the very stars burnt themselves on her hair. The entity spoke a w̴o̴r̸d̸.


The Eternal Night stood before her sister, righteous in her violence. A snarl burst through Celestia’s tears, and a bout of flame erupted from her horn, sudden as daybreak.


__


A flash of golden magic, and the Lady of the Day was back in her gardens.


All around her, marble fountains hummed the same familiar melody of rushing water, but her dearest home was not safe from this nightmare. The Everfree was tinted a violent red, and all around her ponies looked up and gawked, pointing up with trembling hooves at the intruder in the sky.


Celestia guessed her respite wouldn’t last long. Nor did it. The last few sparks of sunlight were still fading when the first few members of her court rushed to her, shocked to see their beloved queen so disheveled. Her little ponies needed her, she knew; the girl in her might cry and scream and rip out her hair, but before she was a mare she was a queen, and a queen belongs to her people, not to herself. The Golden Sovereign stood with a calm she didn’t feel, and briefly thought of a serpent shedding its skin. “See that my companion receives the best of medical care, I beg. Commander Aquamarine, summon a war council. Lords, with me, if you please.”


Her voice rang out hollow within her skull, playing out in autopilot. Command came easy to her, though nothing felt quite real to Celestia as she stood laying down orders for the crowd around her; even as freshly-shed tears dried upon her cheeks, the Queen of Equestria begrudgingly played her role, prim and pristine as ever. She strode through the ancient halls with an escort around her, and had the royal herald announce the resuming of Day Court two hours hence. Celestia prayed she had two hours to figure things out, and a second to mourn besides. Surely whatever deity amused itself with her torture could spare her that much.


__


The Red Morning regrettably marks the beginning of one of the cruelest chapters in Equestrian history, where a conflict for the throne would bleed the country for the first time in half a millenia.


Back at the capital, it must be said Queen Celestia did a masterful job of getting her subjects back into a semblance of calm, even as the sky burned a bloody red overhead. That gentle ruler that would flinch and protest in the face of war now found within herself the strength to confront it; her love for their people and her determination to fulfill her role as Harmony Incarnate left her no choice but to soothe the wrathful colors that tainted her beloved landscapes. It was thus that The Everfree readied itself for battle and the castle’s ancient defenses went up, awaiting a charge. Her Radiance had already lost both lover and friend to inaction, and would not sit idle while the darkness of night took away her sister and her kingdom.


Back at Starsgrace Palace, similar preparations were being made…though not just for war. A celebration was in order, and as the Alicorn of Day cowardly fled the scene, night-dwelling ponies looked up and rejoiced. She rises, they’d tell each other, crying with unbound glee. She rises, she comes, see how her wings swallow the light. Mother, Mother, Mother!


That beautiful palace to the west had become the capital for batpony culture during the last century, where Amore and Luna restored such forsaken ponies and gave them a home to be proud of. Easily more than two thirds of the villages and towns that sprouted around the lakeside castle were populated by batponies, and though this land housed other communities, there was still a divide between those who preferred one Sister over the other, for reasons innumerable and petty. It was there that they gathered now, folks who thought themselves spurned by The Everfree and its court of pomposity and wealth. Starsgrace’s Great Hall was full to bursting, and we have no lack of accounts of what transpired there, on this darkest of days.


The eclipse’s crimson light slithered through the windows like an uninvited guest, but within Starsgrace’s throne room someone shone brighter still: Luna Asteria of Equestria, whose hooves spread icy cold wherever they stepped, approached the two royal seats with unnatural grace, and every eye in the room could only stare, transfixed by her dreamlike strides. Ahead, reality itself seemed to distort and pulse, the small thrones (a mere echo of the Twin Thrones of Equestria proper) lost their shape the way a reflection twists when you step into the waters. In their place now stood but a single confection of crystal and obsidian, a royal seat worthy of an empress.


“I claim you,” the Goddess of the Night spoke, standing over her throne. “Your crown and your might, your worship and your dreams. Your innocent, your weak, the sickly and the afraid,” her voice boomed out, clear as starlight and sweet as home, “I claim you all. It is you I devote myself to, and your children who will inherit the earth. No more shall the Sun reign over me and mine. Listen to my call and rejoice: the Moon rises!”


“She rises!” A thousand voices cried, parents and foals alike, the whole palace bursting into tearful cheers and calls to battle, even from those who stood outside the castle grounds. “Will you serve me loyally all your days, to defend my rights and my realm against all foes, to protect my people and punish my enemies, now and forever?” The Dreamwalker demanded and her folk rose to the call, great and small. “Now and forever! She rises, and may she never set!” They could all taste it then, the birth of the new world, the chains of reality coming undone, their sweetest dreams stepping into the light.


“Then rise, and rise with me,” Luna called out, ecstasy rushing through her veins as she embraced her rebirth. No more would the goddess abide by the restraints of the celestial cycles, she decided; as large as when full and as dark as when new, the Moon released the fullness of her power, transcending, ascending, unrestrained and unbound. The younger alicorn would snatch the holy quill and rewrite the laws of the cosmos, to claim what was hers with ice and blood. “Behold our glory, and be witness to the night that never ends!”


Countless voices rang out, the very stars seeming to descend from the heavens to settle upon Her Majesty’s brow, as beautiful and mighty a crown as Equestria had ever seen. And so it was done.