The twilight of dawn was just starting to become visible on the horizon. Celestia gazed towards it with a small smile. Her fur was white with a very light tone of grayish pink, and her ever-flowing mane was a bright white, with only thin stripes of cyan, lime, lilac, and pink punctuating them. The stripes were a homage to one of her students from a few centuries ago, Twilight Sparkle. Her current student was supposed to come any second now. Today they were going to take the most significant step of their training.
A soft flap of wind and quiet footsteps sounded beside her; Emerald had arrived. He was almost as big as her, his horn was almost twice as thick and about half a hoof shorter.
"Good morning, Celly." Emerald's said with the warm yet trivial tone of greeting family.
"Good morning, Spike." Celestia responded in a slightly more maternal tone.
Emerald was an alicorn just like Celestia, and, more importantly, her sister Luna. He had been a pony for many centuries now, so long that he started having trouble remembering what his life as a dragon had been like. His purple fur and short green mane were colored true to his original form, and even his ears were lighter green after his original side spines. His cutie mark was a bright green flame, which was no surprise. He chose to keep his eyes as they were originally, earning his current name. But right there, right at that moment, it was only family, and they could call the fond nicknames they had among themselves.
Celestia raised her head slightly, pointing it towards the faint light on the horizon. "I think you can take the lead today. Want to give it a try?"
Emerald sighed in hesitation. He was somewhat expecting this, because she had basically sat back through most of the previous dawn. "Sure. Let's go."
He lit his horn, projecting his mind though the whole sky above him and then down towards the eastern horizon. Originally, it had felt like he was spreading himself thin through the world around him; it had been overpowering and a bit suffocating. But more recently it had begun to feel more like he was taking flight and had a broad view. It was peaceful in its own unique way.
His mind travelled through the sky. He could feel Celestia's magic close to his own, and he could tell she was really just watching this time. His powers gathered the spread light on the horizon, and pulled it up a bit, as if it was a cut piece of paper.
He expected it wouldn't be much different, like exchanging positions in a tug of war. But it was so much harder! He was realizing that the rope he had been pulling all this time wasn't the sun, but Celestia. The light didn't budge.
He tried to mentally reach for Celestia's advice, but the only thought she offered was to remember what he had learned from the first few lessons. In fact, they had focused on having him understand Celestia's energy so he could accompany her when she would raise the sun, otherwise he wouldn't have any grip on her magic.
So he started probing for the sun energy, behind the thin arc of light. He found an energy much like Celestia's, and he thought of her as he tried to pull it up. It was a bit different, though, this energy had even more heat, which was expected. Its abundant shine also carried a different feeling, a specific trait that Celestia had, which was much more pronounced in this creation of hers. It was generosity. This instantly sent his mind to his hatchlinghood crush, Lady Rarity. This caused a sting of guilt, which in turn distracted himself back into his normal body.
Celestia opened her eyes a couple seconds later, only to see Emerald with a blush and looking aside with a look of embarrassment on his face. She couldn't help but giggle at that. "Really, Spike? It's so silly to feel guilty about this… You know Luna doesn't mind."
"You're right, Celly." She knew his wife Luna as well as he did. He was only embarrassed about his own reaction to that thought. "I'm sorry, I failed."
She shook her head with a smile, and sat back down a couple hoof steps closer to him. "No, you didn't. Come now, let's give another try."
Nodding, he sighed, and closed his eyes. For all of Equestria, the rest of this sunrise proceeded as normal, only three minutes late.
The royal sisters had announced the world that there was going to be a week without day and night, starting at the spring equinox. The Solstice Park was the traditional place for public solemnities in Canterlot, and they would give further details there and then. Thousands of ponies were gathered there for this. While they weren't sure what to expect, most had heard rumors about Princess Celestia's health and feared the worst. But she was there, and she seemed okay. To her left stood Princess Luna, then, Prince Emerald.
Trumpets announced the beginning of the speech. The murmurs of the ponies in the audience died immediately.
Luna spoke up first. "At the beginning of Equestria, there was no sun and no moon. There was, however, a chaotic energy in the skies, an energy that we harvested and shaped into the sky bodies that everypony know today. As they were the creations of myself and Princess Celestia, they respond to us and it's very difficult and taxing for anypony else to handle them."
Celestia took from there. "There was, however, that thousand year period in which Princess Luna was in the moon. I took charge of the moon and the stars, hard as it was, both because it was the best for all of Equestria given the circumstances, and because it was about the only thing I could fix about the decision I had made."
Celestia went on. "Since these troubled times, we have forgiven each other and ourselves. My body and my magic, however, they have not forgiven me. I have been blessed with the honor of serving everypony in Equestria for fifteen centuries, and I'm unlikely to start a sixteenth. Today, the Spring Equinox of 1494, is the day my successor, Prince Emerald, starts holding the duty that most profoundly affects Equestria."
Emerald continued. "My energy is much different than Princess Celestia. While we know I can raise her sun, my life would be shortened rapidly and we don't have the means to create another alicorn at the moment. This situation requires the sun to be re-created. Princess Luna has also decided to take this opportunity to re-create the moon as well."
Once the short speech was given, Emerald, as instructed a few hours ago, positioned himself making a triangle on the ground with Celestia and Luna. He laid on his belly, and closed his eyes as to once again visit the skies, to witness first hoof what they were about to do.
Celestia and Luna faced each other with a meaningful smile. What they were about to bring had only existed when they were little fillies and called other ponies brothers and sisters. They closed their eyes and joined Emerald.
This was vastly different than the previous experiences. He used to only feel Celestia's presence, but now he could see her, and Luna too. They were both foals, the same size of normal pony foals, even if they had their cutie marks. A quick look and he was also a foal — something he had never been — and also had his own cutie mark.
All three were standing on the top of what felt like a dome ceiling. Behind his wife, the moon was a big sphere just a couple hooves away, if four times taller than her. Behind Celestia, the sun was the same size, brighter but not blindingly bright. This was confusing! If they were foals, weren't these spheres supposed to be many times bigger?
He didn't have time to ask, though. Just as he noticed the sisters' grin to each other, they bucked their respective spheres. It was in a strength that he never remember ever seeing they using, it reminded him of Applejack. After that, all he could see was a huge explosion of stars going his direction. He couldn't figure out how, but it pushed them across the transparent surface they were stepping on. They were falling now. Emerald incredulously watched the incredibly amused laughter of the two fillies, unsure if he was seeing the past or the present.
The wind from the fall was strong, and his foal wings were useless to do anything close to steering. He struggled, and turned himself many times over until he achieved some stability and watched the other two. Clearly they were okay with that, their hooves spread open, and doing what little steering the weak aerodynamics they had allowed.
"Come on, Spike!" Luna called, reaching her front hoof out to him.
He stretched his hoof and somehow managed to come closer to her. What was this? He didn't want to have to get used to a new body… again. Their hooves locked. A few seconds later, Celestia grabbed his and Luna's other hooves.
"Why are we falling? How are we going to survive this?" He managed to ask. It seemed like the fall would take a few minutes, but he wanted a plan sooner.
Celestia smiled and pointed up with her head. "We couldn't stay there. Look."
Little could be made from the fragments about where the sun or the moon used to be. The stars were roaming across the sky like unruly fish in a rising tide. There was so many of them! Many of them exploded and disappear like fireflies, only to reappear somewhere else that just couldn't be spotted amidst the chaos.
Luna took him out of this contemplation. "Now look down."
He could see that they were directly above the Everfree Forest. From this high it looked like Canterlot was just a fifteen minute trot away. What impresed him was that it was no longer day again… nor night. It was flickering between both, like a really strong thunderstorm of silent lightnings. The numerous explosions from the chaos above them would erratically brighten the land below them, but very rarely stop enough to make it darker than twilight.
"This is the chaos you mentioned…" Emerald muttered. They both nodded.
"Let's get back to Canterlot now." Celestia said. She vanished as if pulled into nowhere as soon as she finished this sentence.
"But… but HOW?" His now free hoof reached for Luna's.
"Didn't you see the signs?" Luna giggled. "Just wake up, love." She replied with a peck.
Emerald opened his eyes. Centuries of practiced decorum kept him from jumping at the sudden wake-up. The chaotic lights he saw in his dream were still there. Celestia had her eyes open and slightly squinted by a wide smile she didn't bother to contain. And Luna opened hers, looking back at Emerald with a smile that was nearly as wide.
As he walked back to Luna's left side, he couldn't help but compare the filly he had just seen with the Celestia he knew now. The years had been much kinder to Luna. Celestia's coat was grayer, Though still beautiful, and the original pink mane she had had screamed energy, unlike the current white that showed her age, despite the stubborn stripes she kept. She did seem a century or two younger with that smile, though.
Emerald turned his attention back to his wife, who was halfway done with her conclusion speech. "…and we will have a new sun as well. Prince Emerald's sun. In the meantime, for all the hardships that the lack of day and night can bring, I humbly ask you to think of your ancestors, who lived with a sky like this for five years until Princess Celestia and I managed to create that cycle. Thank you."
Luna sat at the middle of the sky, training her deflection and redirection spells as the light energy fragments roamed around her. Her filly exterior could not hide the centuries of age inside her eyes. Her memory of her imprisonment was foggy on the details and duration, but strong on her feeling of impotence. But there she was, mastering the chaotic heavens like how it was in the beginning, and this time she already understood everypony's relationship with the night.
He appeared after several minutes, again as a colt. They greeted by nuzzling affectionately, but Emerald got hit by a roaming fragment in the meantime.
"Ow!" Emerald yelped. "These things are too hot!"
"Don't worry, Spike. They feel a bit painful, but they don't actually hurt you. Look at your flank."
Emerald looked behind and indeed, there was just the normal purple fur, and his tail was as green as always. No mark or scorch where he felt the pain. Speaking of which, this pain faded as quickly as it came. Before he could offer a reply, Luna continued.
"Your cute foal look is just appearance, you know. You have your usual magic. Can you cluster a few of these fragments together? I'll protect you."
"Thanks, love." He looked around, feeling like he was staring at the chaos of flies on a pond at a summer sunset. It was hard to pick one, they were just too erratic! He used his telekinesis in the general area in front of him, and pulled about ten fragments, sizes varying from his hoof step to his head. They flickered and shimmered wildly, blinding him a couple times.
"Look at me to not get blinded, just keep holding them." Luna suggested. "The smaller ones are pulsating too fast, that's no good. Now, it's easy to merge them together, you just have to clamp strongly enough. Take your smaller ones and merge them until you get about the size of your biggest."
"So I have to blindly manipulate objects that pulsate randomly? That's the hardest telekinetic tact exercise I can think of!" Despite the protest, he went on and tried. It turn out to be… not that hard. He was good at telekinetic tact. Once he had four balls about the same size, he looked at her, holding them a hoof ahead of his chest.
"Good. Now we stabilize them before merging any further. Pick one and give me the other three." She received the merged fragments, he kept the original reference size. "Good. Now breathe with it. Inhale when it gets bigger, exhale when it gets smaller." As she spoke, he was already on it. "You'll slowly get control of it, then make your breathing movements longer until they're stable."
"Wow." Emerald muttered in surprise. The particle pulsated at that word. "What?" It pulsated again. Then he realized that it was now completely tied to his breathing, even as he was speaking.
"It's yours now." She whispered. She wasn't very close to him, but he heard it clearly nonetheless. "It'll behave as you please, or just stand there, pulsating after your breath, if you leave it."
"Until it gets knocked in motion like a marble ball?" He asked curiously.
"Yes. It almost happened a few times already."
Emerald looked around again. The roaming spherical fragments were being redirected by Luna every other second. "You two…" He mumbled. "You two made such a mess here! At least when Twilight scattered her books about, they wouldn't try to knock me out…"
Luna giggled. "I know. Don't feel bad. We know how much work it is to put them together, and I'm here with you doing the same." She stood up and gave him another sphere. "Let's stabilize and merge the other three."
The sheer number of fragments was intimidating. Looking directly at them wasn't an issue for long, as if he was getting used to their erratic shine explosions. After many hours of gathering, they had two moons. Other fragments would hit these moons and bounce off, doing little to move the towering moons.
Many hours later, they had to wake up. That wasn't a restful sleep at all, though, since their dreaming selves did so much work. Their normal centuries old alicorn bodies had been laying in their sleep cuddle throughout, yet, they felt the need to stay there for several minutes for some actual rest. Plus, just enjoying each other too.
The ambient light was still shimmering a lot, but there were no more of these split-second moments of complete night or day anymore. The two full moons on the sky were sitting still at almost zenith, nearly touching each other.
When they finally walked out of their room, the table was different than usual, snacks and munchies instead of the usual meal. Many of the options were moist bittersweet pastries, much to the delight of Luna, and there were many crunchy sweeter snacks, just like Emerald liked it. None of the options were very hearty, though, as they would have to get back to sleep not long after that. Yet he unceremoniously ate all of his snacks in ten seconds flat.
A familiar chuckle came from across the long table. "I'm glad you don't still like gemstones, Spike. These don't grow in crops." Celestia mused.
Before Emerald could come up with a witty reply, Luna had already seen Celestia, and couldn't contain her surprise with the new sight. "Celly! What happened with your mane? The stripes are gone and it's no longer flowing…"
"I know. I dropped the spell." She shrugged. "I'm taking this opportunity to try to live without any magic at all." As a matter of fact, she was using her hooves to eat. "It's easier than I thought it would be."
"Even combing?" Luna raised her eyebrow.
Celestia smiled. "Believe me, keeping the servants from trying to comb my mane for me was harder."
"Okay. Now how do I make this into a sun?" The purple alicorn stared at his moon in concern. That wasn't his goal at all and millions of ponies depended on him now, not to mention other creatures.
"Just merge more and squeeze harder." Luna replied. "It won't grow much bigger anyway. Just make sure you leave the smaller fragments for my stars, because splitting them up is more work."
"It sure didn't look like that buck was a lot of work." He remarked with a smirk.
"Bucking only works with bigger bodies like these." She pointed to their moons. "But do you really want to start over?" She positioned herself in front of hers with a smile.
"No!" He cried, then smiled. "Point taken."
Emerald realized the surreality of this undertaking. Was he really re-creating The Sun?
When Spike was only a one year old hatchling and not much of an assistant, he lived in Canterlot with Twilight Sparkle and her parents. They had a rather big sandbox, and Twilight loved using it during her foalhood to train her telekinesis' precision and dexterity.
The sandbox was on their balcony to avoid the mess, and had been covered and untouched since the first snow of the season. Now that Canterlot's snow was cleaned by the city's unicorns, he jumped onto the sandbox and started creating a replica of their home. His hands were dexterous and he spent dawn to dusk mastering the art of construction with sand and water. He tried to use his dragon breath to harden the sand as well, but it was still too weak to accomplish anything.
When he was finally done, the house replica was as tall as himself. He called all the family to see his proclaimed 'magnum opus'. They were very impressed on how beautiful and accurate it was, and covered him and his re-creation in compliments, much to his delight. The replica lasted for two weeks until a particular storm defeated it with strong gusts of wind. He wanted to build it again, but this sand was for Twilight, and she still used it sometimes, so Spike let it go.
Emerald looked proudly at the sun he was almost done with. It had a dominating, seemingly blinding shine, like Celestia's sun. On the other hoof, unlike Celestia's sun, he didn't have any problem looking directly at it.
He looked down to the surface, past the invisible ground they have been stepping on. "It's… It's day." He muttered. "I did it! YES!" He raised his forehooves in triumph with a whinny.
Luna was pretty far away, close to the horizon, working with some stars around there. The sky dome worked in strange ways, though, as she heard every word, and galloped back to him.
"It is. Congratulations, love." She kissed him. "It was easier than it seemed, wasn't it?"
He looked down at the ground surface again. "It was. It's clearly day down there. I'm happy for everypony, I didn't let them down." There was one issue was nagging Emerald. He noticed she was looking directly at his sun as well. "But why aren't we being blinded by it like it happened with Celestia's?"
"Oh. It's because I've been here with you while you created it. This sun is yours, but it knows me too. It instinctively protects us both." She tapped the sun with her hoof, to Emerald it almost looked like she was petting it. "There's something else too. Remember how hard it was moving Celestia's sun? Try moving my new moon."
He blinked. He tried to pull it closer to him, and… It soared! He ducked, the moon hit the sun, and the sun started hovering down the sky with this hit.
Luna chuckled. "Let it fall. We've been here for hours again, and it's probably noon anyway."
Emerald blinked, looking at the sun going. "That moon was… way lighter than I expected. But I guess the sun is going the normal speed." He smiled at her. "What a prank, love!"
"I'm not sorry." She smirked with a wink. "Besides, I can't make much progress when I can't see my fragments much."
"Oh! Do you want me to set it now?"
"No, no, no. Don't do it." Luna trotted closer to Emerald, as she spoke these words firmly. "Don't break the cycle. Let it be for now. Wake up, eat something. I'll get back for after sunset, since the moon is already high in the sky."
Emerald woke up next to Luna, who was still sound asleep. They didn't plan to wake up separately, so he struggled a bit to manage to get out of bed without waking Luna up. Looking at the sky, he couldn't see her filly form, but he could tell where she was because faint stars close to the eastern horizon were being stabilized. The new sun was steering westwards. It was about five hours past noon.
This second session of sleep wasn't restful either, but he was feeling much better. His mission was accomplished, and he just created something that everyone wouthosld appreciate to the point of eventually taking it for granted. He greeted Celestia, who complimented his job and congratulated him with a proud smile. Despite Celestia's bright white curly mane making it conspicuous how her life was close to its dusk, her spirits were bright and happy, and that made her feel younger.
"I'm glad I accomplished this, but you're kind of making me feel like you passed on a curse, Celly." Emerald asked.
"It was a vacation-less job before Luna returned, Spike. That won't be the case for you." She sipped on a cup of green tea that was being held with her hoofs. "You did a great job. I wish I could appreciate it first hand, but now I can't look directly at it."
Emerald giggled. "I thought I just had weak eyes with your sun."
"Buck no!" She replied. "You have dragon eyes. They're sharper than a pegasus'."
He glanced once again at the sky, finding where Luna was through her stars. After a few stars, he noticed how it was taking longer than how it was when his sun wasn't done. "I can see that Luna is struggling to see what she's doing. I'll push the sun."
"What?" Celestia's eyes bulged. "No, no, don't do this!" She sounded concerned for the first time in weeks. "The cycle is back. All life in Equestria need this cycle. Let it run. You can't set the sun anytime we want a little shade."
Emerald blinked. Both sisters protested almost instantly and basically in the same way. It had to be a big deal. "Have… bad things happened before?"
Celestia nodded. "Well, you know the quarrel Luna and I had back when we were fillies. Some time after that, I also destroyed the sun in anger, and had to re-create it." She sighed. "This is a big responsibility. It affects every single pony. I know we had fun making that Big Bang of yesterday, but we could never do something like this under different circumstances. I'm probably not even going to reach next Summer Sun Celebration, Spike…"
He couldn't help but voice his conclusion. "Sounds like it kinda is a curse."
There was a few seconds of pause. She looked down as if gathering the words from a chest. "It's what you make of it. Everything in life is. I had my bad moments, but such is life." She looked into his eyes, back from her reminiscing. "I can honestly say I enjoyed it very much. The only regrets I have happened because I was overzealous about it." She paused for a second. "We had little time to prepare for my leaving, so you ended up being the only choice. But it's not good for anypony if you end up being a slave of this. Specially not for yourself. You always have the right to pass it on, just like I just did."
"But we'd need another Big Bang for that, wouldn't we?" Emerald asked.
"Don't let that stop you, Spike." Celestia's voice was firm and steamed with experience. "It's a good cause that you do what you love. Your life is too long to enslave yourself with the wrong duty."
"Point." He said simply, and got a mouthful of crispy hay, munching thoughtfully. It was a real meal this time, because he wasn't going to sleep soon, even though it was late afternoon. He would take time to readjust his sleep pattern, but, Emerald mused, so would many Equestrians.
"Isn't it nice to share the sky with my sister, though?" She suggested, softly.
"Oh, absolutely!" Emerald replied. "She's so fun! I had no problem up there. I even forgot all of Equestria was witnessing my swim-or-sink course on sun making."
She smiled. "You did much better than I did. You didn't even take a full day. I took almost a week."
He raised his eyebrows. "Really?"
Celestia nodded. "Really. You're good, and you're in good hooves." She stated matter-of-factly.
"I'm sorry. I didn't hear you." But he did.
Celestia chuckled and humored him. "You're good, and you're in good hooves."
Three months passed. Now that the sun was Emerald's creation, and he was more experienced, raising it was no longer difficult at all. He didn't need to take his consciousness to the sky anymore, he would just nudge it down with a head flicker and his magic, which is how he did most days. Not on Summer Sun Celebration, though!
Solstice Park had a record number of ponies this year. Celestia had passed away just three weeks before, and there was a life-sized statue for her across the park. This was the first public display of Prince Emerald's sunrise.
Luna and Emerald faced each other and took flight, slowly hovering to just a dozen hooves high. It included a difficult maneuver that they loved to pull off: their noses kept constantly in contact at flight. Right at the same time, the moon went down, and the sun went up.
It felt so right.
He happily tended his new sun for millennia, as did Luna to her new moon.