The dark, cloudless sky glistened with stars that night. The dancing specks of light seemed to smile, and a brilliant, hanging crescent moon completed the picture. Chilly winds blew through the trees and crept up to the mountaintops. The sleeping ponies of Equestria would be thankful for their warm beds on this cold, peaceful night were they awake.
Princess Luna stood on her bedroom balcony, surveying the sky. The whistling winds blew at the pink frilly robe she was wearing, with her matching night cap fluttering restlessly in front of her eyes. She shivered, but continued to scan the shadowy heavens with a squinted, watery gaze. She would pan her head slowly to the left, then back to the right, and repeat. Time after time. Hour after hour. The stars had to be perfect. Everything about this night she was fashioning had to be perfect.
Her sleepy, but still very keen eyes darted to a dull looking patch in the sky. A blank spot on her infinite canvas. Completely empty, and devoid of happy starlight. Countless stars waltzed around it, but Luna merely grinned. She raised a hoof to her mouth and gave a sharp puff. A glittering stream of sparkling magic and dust expanded from her reach, ascending up high. Higher than the tallest mountain. Higher than the tallest spire in Canterlot. Eventually, the spell reached the sky and hung in the night air, flashing and gleaming. A carpet of new stars had been born. Luna chuckled happily as she directed her sight towards the newly formed star cloud.
"Now then, what are your names going to be...something pretty, but bold too?" The moon princess tapped a patient hoof to her chin, producing a steady cadence of clunks. They reverberated, all the way back to the extravagant bedroom behind her. Sprawled underneath a canopy of pink, blue and gold silk, in a tremendous king-sized feather bed lay princess Celestia. She had been snoozing for several hours now. She had promised her little sister that she would stay up and watch her work on the night, but her patience and wakefulness both had run thin long ago.
The hardworking Luna gritted her teeth as a horrific noise churned, breaking her concentration. Luna was having a much more difficult time working now that Celestia had begun to snore boorishly. The tapping of Luna's hooves slowed in pace. With each resounding clop of hoof against chin, Celestia's body twitched dramatically.
Luna heard the occasional very loud shuffle of a very large pony against a very cushy bed. Turning her head slowly, she noticed Celestia was staring, bug-eyed, right in her direction. Luna jumped a little bit, squeaking at the weird face her sister was making. Celestia was upside down, her head hanging off the end of the bed. Her multicolored mane spilled across the floor, placid and flat. She blinked, her mouth hanging agape. There was silence.
"...Oh hello there, sister. You're still up?" Celestia said, shattering the stillness. She caught a glimpse of her sister's face, and noticed she was wearing silver, crescent moon shaped spectacles.
"As are you! You scared me, big sister," Luna sighed. Annoyed at her sister's intentional commotion, she turned back to her starlit kingdom. "How long have you been awake?"
"I should be asking you that question!" Celestia guffawed. She flipped over onto her belly before leaping off the bed, bounding across the room to the balcony. She skidded on her gold trimmed hooves as she neared the ledge. The dark blue pony choked in surprise and flailed her front hooves everywhere, using magic to levitate several books and a huge telescope out of her sister's path. She squinted her eyes, peering at Celestia's smug face. The towering white pony was looking down at her, her big smirk now a frown. "Must you really wear those?" She gestured to the spectacles. "What good are they when half the lenses are missing? And you've never needed glasses before in your life. And your eyes are bloodshot. And you're not even reading. And-"
"They make me feel smarter, I think!" Luna cut her sister's verbal assault off, rubbing her eyes. They were indeed sore from lack of sleep. Celestia snickered mischievously. "And I need to be certain that every star and constellation, every single one, is absolutely perfect. Things could use some work, you see. No, I'm nowhere near finished..." Luna gave a discouraged huff, and turned her head to the stars yet again to scan. She began pointing at random clusters. Wearily, she dragged her hoof from one to another, listing off imperfections. "Lyra's looking slightly dim-"
"Better be careful Bon Bon doesn't catch you saying that..." Celestia quipped. Luna clacked her hooves on the ground with a sharp puff, and continued her droning.
"Shut up. You know what I mean! Although I must say, Vega's quite nice right now. But Spica's...err...well, what's not wrong with Spica? And for that matter, Virgo looks, erm...blocky. I don't know how else to say it, but something is off. I suppose that Orion and Sagittarius are passable for now...but, their east sides are a bit dull. Oh, whenever I look up, things only get worse! The Winter Starlight Festival only comes once a year you know and-"
"It's your time to shine, yes?" Celestia giggled warmly, putting on a proud grin. She shook her head and rubbed a hoof through her sister's mane. It was scratchy and tough, and the stars strewn across it flickered weakly. Luna hadn't been paying much attention to it for the past few days and nights. "Everypony will have their eyes on you. And, well goodness, you're a diligent one making all these preparations! But why not get some sleep? If you're dead on your flank tired, it'll reflect in the night sky..." Luna continued to anxiously spot the flaws in her creation, ignoring her sister. She deflated at the light of weak, unruly stars, but her heart nearly jumped into her throat when she noticed a very obvious, unsettling abnormality. She wondered just how she hadn't spotted it yet..She did a double take at the sky, but the oddity remained. She shakily raised a hoof to the lines of stars above. Celestia noticed Luna's sudden shift in attitude, blinking blankly.
"Sister...do you notice something...strange with the Big Dipper?" Luna said, her voice deathly quiet like the now windless night.
"Oh? Strange like what?"
"Like the fact that it's upside-down?"
"Well, not when you look at it like this." Luna turned to face Celestia, who was uncomfortably contorting her neck so that her head was upside-down. Luna jabbed her sister in the side, causing her to teeter and nearly fall over. "Goodness! You brute. But all jokes aside, yes, this is most troubling..."
"Of course it's troubling! How in Equestria did it just flip itself? I certainly didn't rearrange it..." Luna had begun flicking open books and nearly ripping several pages out in the process. Celestia merely closed her eyes and calmly shut them with magic. In response, Luna brought clumsily moving hooves to her golden telescope, which Celestia removed from her line of sight. The flustered princess glared at her much taller sister, who casually collapsed the telescope and packed it back into its box, while levitating the pile of books back to their bookshelf.
"Troubling, only because you're clearly not resting enough. Have you thought that, because you haven't been getting your sleep, you might be subconsciously moving things around?" Luna blubbered utter gibberish, but her sister brought a gentle hoof to her mouth before relieving her of her useless glasses with another levitation spell. "Hush, and go to bed. Sleep in late tomorrow, okay? Goodness, sleep the day away if you wish! But please get some sleep. Please Luna? We'll talk about this later." Luna grumbled before reluctantly spreading her wings and silently floating off to the bedroom, brooding. Celestia, however, did not follow. She merely turned and stared at the ominous reversed constellation. For an instant, the stars in the Big Dipper vanished, before erupting into a blinding white with a meaty, slicing sound. Celestia's eyes widened and she suddenly found herself on the ground, stricken with an intense migraine. Her eyes burned as though they were about to melt, and her skull felt liable to split in half. A female voice dug into her cracked mind, threatening to make her scream out loud.
"My princess, I expect a beautiful sunrise soon."
She moaned very softly, so that her sister would not hear her pain. The stinging and burning ravaging her head passed, and, shuddering, she stood tall once more. She gave one last look over her shoulder at the night sky before she went to join Luna. Her once shimmering eyes were glued to the floor, overflowing with gloom.
"That was...could this mean what I think it means? Has it truly been so long since that day...?"