Author's Note: So this is an un-beta read story. A little attempt at some dark pony fiction. I'll warn the end starts to get weak or choppy but I hope it's palatable.
Gold clad hooves delicately glided over the polished marble floors of the castle. The halls of the massive home to the royal's seemed far larger as darkness consumed where the light of the newly risen moon did not touch and the weak glimmer of sparse lamps could not reach. Each corridor was now a gaping chasm into the aether of which she did not dare prod. Despite the solar regent's stalwart demeanor the shadows would always be something to rattle her core.
And as such a small personal admission lifted within her mind she felt urged to clarify her fear. It was never of night or being without the comforting orange glow to which she was born. It would never be anything tied to the night for the cyclical pregnancy of the moon in counterpoint to her sun had always brought serenity. The sight of the stars over taking the sky amidst ribbons of pink and peach that cascaded into velvet blue was and artwork she long admired her sister for.
No it was the shadows she feared. The clustered masses of void incarnate that hung above her head and forced the grand ruler of the sun itself to lift her hackles and draw her wings that much closer to her body. It was this embodiment that caused her to become unsettled for the very shadows, those impenetrable at a glance, were tied to the deepest roots of fear within Celestia. The dark little ink stains represented the malicious creature which had taken hold of her sister and forced the pale coated mare to turn her own kin away in exile. It represented the millennia of crushing guilt and loneliness and sorrow that the alicorn princess had endured in the wake of it all. It was the depiction of what Celestia herself had forced Luna to turn to in her dire neglect of her sister.
To lose a family member, a sister closer than any other being within Equestria, and to do so with one's own magic because she was too blinded by her own light to notice when the very person she cared more about than life itself was aching was knife to Celestia's heart. That very knife had been turned for a millenia and had left a wound deep and ragged in her chest. She never desired to feel such a torment again and dare not to condemn her dear sister once more to the hell of solitude and the embrace of malice. With any force of will and conscious effort she never would. It would be this effort that drove he now to the depths of the castle, winding through countless halls and down sloping stairways into the hidden pocket of a personal chamber that not even her most trusted of confidants knew of.
Only the light of her horn illuminated the ancient steps that had so painstakingly been carved within the mountain walls. Soon enough her hooves came to the landing at the bottom and left her before a heavy door engraved with the joined symbol of both her own and her sister's cutie mark. Celestia took her time to admire the coupled image of the moon cradled within the sun and turning the entire image into one of the moon in the stages of wax or wane when viewed from certain eyes or simply Luna's crescent from another.
The elder alicorn felt her stance straighten as she stared at the depiction. The moon tucked so neatly within the ring of the sun, protectively encircled by an aurora of light. It was what Celestia strived for now. To protect her younger sister and see that she never befell the horrors again. Taking in a heavy inhale of the chilled cavern air the ruler of the sun dipped her head and allowed her horn to rest against the door, her magic flooding forward and illuminating the etch within the stone. As each curve and point lit with the gentle golden hue of her influence the door let out a groan and parted, it's pace slow though smooth upon it's tracks.
With it's maw parted wide enough for Celestia alone to step through she entered the space beyond and greeted almost instantly by the soft glow of crystals which illuminated the small simple laboratory.
It's lay out was nothing grandiose, more on par with a local doctor's lab, but it held everything Celestia needed for her work. Pausing near the now sealed door she removed her embellishments, carefully laying aside her crown and brooch with her golden shoes, before moving deeper into the lab and towards the rustling that grew more frantic with each passing moment.
Positioned in the very back of the cave was a cell built into the wall, it's heavy iron barred door offering a view within to the pony bound tight in ropes half hidden beneath a canvas cloth. Celestia stood before the cell door, watching as the smaller figure shifted and thrashed as consciousness took hold of them, listening to the mare's muffled cries as she attempted to call out for aid or simple acknowledgement of where she was.
"Do not worry little one, you needn't worry."
All at once the panic in the mare's body evaporated as Celestia's words met her ears. Whatever situation Silver Spire was in could be forgotten now that the princess of light was there. Whoever the fiend was that had kidnapped her and trussed her up was going to pay the moment Celestia took custody of them. The cream coated unicorn could only thank her lucky stars that she had been found before anything terrible happened.
The mare attempted to voice her thanks as she heard the door to the cell open and the delicate hooves of her savior enter but the gag was holding firm in it's place and all that came out was a mess of garbled good intentions. She relaxed as her body was enveloped with magic, the feel of the ruler's magical aura calming and warm like a summer's breeze across her coat. It made the blue maned unicorn long for the use of her own magic though and want so badly for whatever dampener was upon her horn to be removed.
She felt herself being moved as the bindings were undone and fell away, soon followed by the gag and the blindfold that had been biting into her skull. As the darkness fell away in the gentle amber light and her eyes adjusted accordingly Silver Spire could do nothing but smile as the sight of Celestia.
Before any word of thanks could be given properly though she felt herself laid upon a table and her limbs outstretched and secured with heavy clamps. All at once the gentle summer's breeze left her as Celestia withdrew her magic and stepped away from the table.
"Celestia...? What's going on? Is something wrong?" Why had her princess restrained her so? Was there something her captor had done to her that required immediate attention of some sort? Was there something amiss?
"No child, everything is quite alright."
Something sounded so off about her ruler's voice. True Silver Spire only had her glimpses of the white mare from the summer sun celebration but in comparison to how Celestia spoke with such levity and warmth there she sounded rather subdue now. Maybe even a little sad.
The unicorn could only lift a brow as she heard the sounds of equipment being shifted and squirmed in her restraints.
"Can I get up then? I don't like this very much."
"I'm afraid that cannot be done. And I'm sorry for it."
The alicorn mare appeared once more by the table, a syringe filled with a nasty looking concoction held in the tendrils of her magic.
Silver Spire swallowed hard and felt her stomach begin to turn. She had never been found of needles in any capacity and the way the taller mare was acting did not provide relief in the slightest.
"Celestia?"
The ruler did not respond, instead she positioned the needle at Silver's throat and gave a push. The sharpened end slid through the skin with ease and as it entered the vein the plunger was pressed and deposited the whole of the syringe contents. Celestia withdrew the syringe and took a gauze swatch from the near by table, holding the soft material to the miniscule wound.
Silver felt tears running down her cheeks. Call it irrational but needles were something she feared and the fact that the most trusted face in all of Equestria had forced one upon her made what should have been a simple sting into something so much worse. The tears only intensified as the spot began to burn. White hot fire was crawling through her system, propelled by each beat of her heart. It hurt far more than one should ever experience. It was agony. Silver threw her head back and screeched, so desperately thrashing in her restraints in an attempt to escape the fire that was consuming her.
Celestia stood back and watched, her normally vibrant eyes taking on a cool quality as she listened to the mare screech and sob. She knew the potion would not be easy to take but was a necessary step to take. Without it her work would be too fickle and too reliant on chance. This had to be perfect.
It took several long minutes before the howling shrieks of Silver's agony lowered into pitiable wails and finally soft sobs. It was time at last for the proper body of work.
Moving to the younger mare's head Celestia reared up and took the straps that rested there. Using her magic to hold the newly frantic unicorn's head she wove the straps just below the horn, cinching them tight to secure the weeping pony's head.
"Why?! Celestia what have I done wrong?! Why are you doing this?!" Silver Spire howled, fresh tears rising in her eyes as he head was bound and the thought of new torment by her ruler flooded her mind. Surely this had to be a punishment of some sort but for what the mare was at a loss.
"Why...? For Luna."
"What?" The cream coated mare felt her chest heaving, her wide emerald orbs darting to the face of the alicorn. Celestia seemed so distant in her expression. Far gone in her thoughts the pale mare took to stroking the soft cyan and cobalts of Silver Spire's mane with all the tender care her mother had once shown her. It made the unicorn's heart sink further as she made the connection and comparison between her own loving mother and the mare that could be considered the mother of Equestria. What drove a mother to this though?
"Do you know how she gives? Day to day she sacrifices for me and all of the land. Her time is spent flitting from one thing to another and foregoing sleep. I see it wear upon her despite how she attempts to hide it. She devotes her days to helping me split the load of meetings and correspondence and keeping by my side wherever she can. He nights, after her moon is raised, she sits vigil to tend to the flock of dreams of sleeping ponies. She dearly tries to help others find ease away from the nightmares that devoured her all this time. She gives and gives to try and make others see that she is not one to be frightened of, that she is not bitter, and loves this land as much as I. That she will not revert to the monster that was Nightmare Moon. Despite how her past resentment that started it all was justified..."
The alicorn took a heavy inhale and turned from the table to take a simple rig of metal from the table. She fiddled with it between her hooves as she turned back to Silver Spire, her words continuing.
"With all she gives, now that I have her back it is only right that I can give something precious of mine to her. Something that she long ago desired and which took a millenia for me to realize how small a price it is to pay."
The unicorn felt an icy chill shoot down her spine as the rig neared her face. She had no clue what it might do but it looked unpleasant.
"Wh-wh-what did she want?" The cream mare managed to stutter out, hoping to delay the royal with more talk.
Celestia paused and allowed her eyes to meet Silver Spire's.
"For someone to appreciate her night... and I will make that so."
The alicorn mare began to attached the device to the unicorn's head, with much fuss and fighting managing to slot the respective dips of the speculum beneath Silver Spire's lids and dial the arms back and lock them. To the ruler who looked upon the scene she found it rather disturbing, this sight of flesh held by metal and forcing the unicorn's eyes wide, allowing an optimal view as the wild emerald orbs flitted about. It had to be done.
Silver quaked upon the table, crying out for somepony and anypony to save her, wishing so desperately to be released from the clearly unstable alicorn's hold and leave this pain behind. The cool air of the lab was beginning to dry her eyes and the lids felt strained. She just wanted to go home, return to her singing, maybe even contact her mother and make the trip to Baltimare and visit her and her brother. Why did she ever want to move to the country in the first place? Why couldn't she have just been contented with city life? Why why why why?!
Once more Celestia appeared over her, having vanished from view for moments long enough for the mare to panic and hope for a miracle. Now she loomed by the table, a dropper held in the cloud of her magic and aimed right for her eye. Silver Spire swallowed heavily, attempting to beg now for Celestia to stop, to come to her senses and see this wasn't right. Going so far as to say that such acts were not what Luna would want, anything to try and stop the princess of day, but all to no avail.
The liquid left the dropper, five doses in one eye and five in the other before it was pulled away. The last the tormented unicorn saw was the ceiling and Celestia's cold gaze before the world was lost in a wash of grey scale and blurs and the rush of pain.
Standing to the side the snowy alicorn watched, her breathing caught in her throat with anticipation. She followed the slow transition as the vein streaked white of the orbs darkened and grew in their contrast as onyx overtook them while slowly emerald faded away, it's brilliant hue warping from it's origin to that of opal pools shot through with liquid silver. It was as magnificent as the as the moon mirrored within the night sky, Celestia thought. Though it would never be as truly magnificent as her sister's patron.
Turning away she took hold of a vial upon the counter. This would be the final physical component before everything could be tied together. She took no time to wait for the mare's agony to subside before removing pouring the dark viscous substance down her throat, the task made easy upon the initial act due to Silver Spire's mouth seeming to have been contorted into a constant gaping maw bellowing anguish. Her screeching died momentarily with a fit of gurgling as the substance slithered down her airways but as she paused to attempt to cough and clear away the foreign syrup clogging her throat Celestia simply forced the vial further into her maw and upon withdrawing the crystalline container swiftly held Silver Spire's muzzle closed until the unicorn was forced to swallow the wretched liquid or further choke upon the foul substance.
For Silver the world had long ago devolved into mess of incomprehensible sensations. Washes of pain in varying magnitudes rippled over her body in entirety and though this would ebb in the slightest and leave the whole of her being throbbing with a dull ache at every moments pause between her pulse it flared to life anew at every peek.
At this point she did not give care to who her cries were going out to. She begged for her mother, wanting so dearly to be a young filly once more with a fever and held so close in her mother's warm embrace. The soft notes of her childhood lullabies filling her ears instead of her own banshee like wails. She wanted for her brother and to see all his little art works again that he did upon every surface. She just wanted to be home. To be anywhere but this fresh hell.
Outside of the mare's personal cell of Tartarus the ruler of day watched as Silver Spire began to change. For but a moment her heart ached amidst the elation she felt. Even as she loved her sister she loved her subjects as well and to watch now as the unicorn's form shifted to better compliment the night and fully erase the day walking creature she had been... stung. It was miniscule compared to the happiness that came with the fact that she would be giving Luna something truly precious and the understanding that to see her sister was given something special meant that Celestia had to surrender something dear but all the same it was there.
The little thread of regret as she watched the cream coat turn pallid and take on a silver hue while the blue hues of her mane bled into pitch and velvet night melted away as swiftly as it arose. This was for Luna, that was all she had to remind herself of. This was for Luna and in the end the sacrifice would make the means worth it no matter what they were. More and more the unicorn changed, her horn taking the resemblance of a polished star sapphire rather than the bone it was meant to be, her hooves losing their pale glimmer as ink overtook them, her ears enlarging and tufting just so.
Time passed slowly for Silver Spire, if it passed at all. Everything has stopped hurting, at least on its own, and left her in the wake of a dull throbbing ache. Her mind had long left, overloaded by the sensory assault. Now she simply viewed the world through a blur and contemplated the oblique strings of consciousness that interwove amongst one another and passed as coherent thought in the moment. They lead from her favorite color to the strange iron taste upon her tongue to the glancing query as to why the room suddenly seemed so much brighter since the mixture had been poured upon her eyes though it was left quickly in favor of the wanderings of what a cloud made of cotton candy would feel like to lay upon.
So lost in this world of personal ponderance the unicorn was she never noticed as the straps were at last removed from her limbs when the last of her spasms had ceased and the final strangled cry from her raw throat had slipped away. The rig about her head was taken away and all at once her world was dark and a small glimmer of relief found its way into her world as Silver Spire closed her eyes. Once more a hoof stroked her mane as another grasped something about the base of her horn before sliding it away. The dampener. It filled her body with the warmth of her magic once more. Maybe it was all over at last.
"Ce… Celestia. I-I won't tell." Words were difficult to form between her haggard mind and striped throat but if there was a chance, even the smallest of hopes, that this hell would end and allow her passage out into the world once more she would try. "I won't tell about this. Just let me go now, please?"
There was a long silence to fill the room as the alicorn continued to pet Silver Spire's mane. It grew to the point that the unicorn became nervous and slowly pulled her tired eyes open to look up at the pale mare. The eyes that met her gaze were set and cold and rang with the answer she dearly did not want to register before Celestia voiced it.
"No little one. I'm afraid I can't do that."
Celestia closed her eyes and dipped her head, the tip of her horn coming to rest at the base of the unicorn's own. It glowed with the light of liquid gold and spread warmth over Silver Spire's cheeks. The captive mare closed her own eyes once more and felt the tears slip past her lids. She had thought it would be over. She had thought maybe there would be hope.
From behind her lids she could still see the burst of light from Celestia's magic, she could feel the wave of the spell crash straight into her skull. Then everything went white.
"Luna."
The guardian of the night quickly lifted her head from the pillow between her hooves as she registered Celestia's voice. The moon was still high within the sky and there were dreams yet to guide, what was Celestia still doing up? Though such a questioned could be directed at the nightly ruler herself but that was not the matter at hoof. Standing from the padded bench she lay upon and turning to face her sister Luna showed a smile.
"Sister, what are you doing here this time of night?"
She watched as Celestia smiled in return and approached, her eyes soft and warm as always.
"I came to bring you something I found. I thought you would appreciate it."
A gift? At this hour? Luna let out a little laugh and trotted forward, rubbing her cheek against the day ruler's to show her affection.
"Dear sister this is a surprise. What is it? Show me."
All at once Luna was young again and dying to know the surprise her sister teased her with. Celestia only continued to smile as she looked towards the darkened archway at her back, calling out softly.
"Come out."
The blue coated alicorn lifted a brow and turned to gaze at the archway, opening her mouth to question just what Celestia was doing when her words fell away as shadows gave way to a figure. Delicate and lithe, coated in silver and bearing a mane of night sky stripes, eyes beautiful and silvery as the very moon she lift and just above them rested a horn that would leave a dragon at a loss to find such a gem in his horde. This creature's demeanor was so demure and elegant, each step careful and silent, and as she spoke her voice was pleasing and almost musical.
"Hello mistress Luna, I am Nightsong. It is a pleasure to meet you."
Luna was at a loss of words as she looked upon what she could only call a unicorn if just for simplicity sake. Her mouth moved and yet nothing came out long enough that Celestia gently nudged her side.
"Come, Im sure Nightsong would love to explain herself inside."
With another encouraging nudge the deity of the moon nodded and began to walk with her counterpart and this strange unicorn inside, her eyes moving swiftly back to the guest as they moved. Everything about her seemed so foreign save one small feature. Luna felt her brows knit as she couldn't place a hoof upon it at first but slowly found her eyes drawn to the cutie mark. A musical note wrapped in white chords. It seemed such a simple thing, a common trait amongst all races to have a music notes woven into their marks when their talent called for the art, she must have seen thousands at any time, but this particular mark seemed familiar. It may be just her tired mind running away with her thoughts but the mark seemed much too similar to the one upon the operatic singer Luna enjoyed watching since her return.