Prologue: Moonrise
~BlackRoseRaven
It was beautiful.
The eerie figure of an equine floated through the dancing shadows of a great dark void, in which shone a single speck of light. A perfect, beautiful circle that shimmered up from the ground, although it was only the ground insofar as it was below what the entity chose to be a featureless floor, a visible wound of white amongst all the black, neither solid nor liquid. Only light; a defiance of darkness.
The shadows roiled around this spot as the equine form circled it, and more importantly, the object sequestered within: a stone pillar, upon which sat a broken, colorless stone orb. The living shadow seemed to smile, dark eyes gazing upon this, beautiful mane of black fire roiling behind her as she whispered: "Finally."
There was so much magic here. So much incredible power and focus in the featureless pillar and its broken cargo. But there was no need for decoration in this non-euclidean abyss, where no one else could ever travel, where this secret had been hidden away.
But finally, it was ready.
The void stretched into the light, and the shadowmare followed the path of darkness to the pillar. She rose her insubstantial hooves to either side of it, as her wings spread, and her horn glowed with the brilliance of ten thousand suns, galaxies of stars springing to life through the eternal void all around her.
The orb trembled, then slowly rose, those broken pieces mending back together, color gleaming across the face of its surface like fire whisking across a field, like a wave crashing over a dam, like a great gasp of air bringing life back to a momentary corpse. A singular cosmic breath that gave new life to what had once been broken, so many long years ago.
Darkness wrapped up around the pillar as it shattered, and shadows swallowed all light, but all that channeled strength and beauty remained in the beautiful bauble, which fascinated the mare, outlining her inky black form in the sharpest edges of purest white. She offered it gently to the celestial void, and she watched.
She watched the planet ascend, and with it, the moon rise once more.