Celestia sat with her back to the fire as she gazed up at the moon. The night was beautiful, as dark and mysterious as it had always been. The stars sparkled against the blues and purples of the cosmos, whispering to each other in tones nopony could ever understand. The moon was the brightest object in the sky, despite the shadow that crossed over its pits and crevasses.

The princess’ eyes strained as she examined the stars. There, gathering around the moon, came a small group of the fiery sprites. Celestia gulped as the stars grew close, circling the moon in a celestial embrace.

She checked her calendar for the twentieth time that day, tomorrow was indeed the eve of the Summer Sun Celebration. Her breath caught in her throat as she remembered Starswirl’s proclamation, “On the longest day of the thousandth year, the stars shall aid in her escape, and she will bring about nighttime eternal.”

A thousand years since she had seen her sister, yet it felt so much longer. Her eyes flickered between the moon and the stars approaching it, knowing that the enchantment on the moon was nearly broken. She could feel the power building, the spell breaking, and she allowed hope to well up within her.

But the time had not yet come. Celestia rose high into the air, the power over the sun and the moon sweeping out of her. The moon flew in an arc across the sky, falling beneath the horizon as the sun rose to take its place. She looked up at the sun and basked in its warmth. It was her comforter, her shelter…

Her prison?

A splash of green smoke disturbed her solitude. It spun around and reformed into a page of parchment with a flash of light. Celestia smiled as she took the letter in her telekinetic grip. It was a letter from her most faithful student, via Spike. Her eyebrows rose as she read through the letter, it was a warning about the return of Nightmare Moon. Celestia chuckled, great minds do think alike.

She paused as she read the letter’s call to action, “Something must be done to make sure this terrible prophecy does not come true!”

Celestia’s blood ran hot as her eyes backtracked over the text. No. No, the prophecy must come true! It must!

The princess took a deep breath in through her nose. She let it out slowly, bringing her blood pressure lower with the act. Twilight Sparkle did not understand, how could she?

She summoned a sheet of paper to herself, alongside an inkwell and a quill. She wrote swiftly and meaningfully, hiding her intentions under a shroud of humor. Twilight Sparkle would go ahead to Ponyville to inspect the preparations for the Summer Sun Celebration, and hopefully make some friends.

Hopefully.

Celestia sighed as she signed the letter. She hoped that she would not need the Elements of Harmony to succeed, it would break her heart.

She laughed humorlessly, how ironic for the thousandth Summer Sun Celebration to be held so close to the palace where Luna’s rebellion had taken place. Perhaps it was fitting, she mused, for everything to end where it had begun so long ago.

Luna. How long had it been since she heard that name? Too long, she decided, too long in coming.

Her day proceeded like any other. The courtiers with their complaints, the servants with their doting, the subjects with their fawning… It was a day a full thousand years old. Celestia glanced at the clocks repeatedly, watching the hands inch through the afternoon. Two o’clock, four o’clock, six o’clock…

The time to raise the moon came late into the evening. The warm summer night fell over her kingdom softly, the stars peeking out individually. The moon rose, still encircled by a ring of starlight. Celestia spent the entire evening watching the moon, waiting for any sign of movement. As the witching hour passed, her diligence was rewarded. The moon flashed, and the dark shadow of The Mare in the Moon faded.

Celestia’s wings spread wide as she rocketed towards the Palace of the Royal Pony Sisters, deep within the Everfree.

Magic had already taken hold of the ancient ruins, swirling and shining and sparking. A scream of effort tore through the chaotic forest, sending even the most destructive ursa major running to its cave. Celestia’s heart skipped a beat; she had not heard that voice in so long, so very long.

In the highest room, in the tallest tower, lunar magic flashed. Celestia rose up to enter through a window, and her heart leaped at the sight.

Across the room sat an alicorn, breathing heavily. Swirls of blue hair floated freely in the air, wafted about by the residual effects of her teleportation. She rested, clearly exhausted from her ordeal.

Celestia took a tentative step towards the alicorn. “Luna?”

Luna flinched in surprise, as if just noticing the other pony in the room. “Sister?”

Celestia dared to hope once more. “Yes. Yes, Luna, I’m here!”

Blue locks of ethereal mane flowed over Luna’s face, hiding her eyes. “So, my sentence has passed?”

Celetia pursed her lips. “Yes,” she said hesitantly. “You are free. After all this time, Luna, you are free!”

Luna turned to Celestia, one eye becoming visible underneath her mane. “Free? Free to be what?”

Celestia looked back at the visible eye. Green, hard… draconic. “Free to live once again, Luna. Free of the shame of your rebellion and the fear of your subjects!” She lowered her head down to her sister’s level. “Free to be family again…”

“Shame?” Luna’s lips trembled. “Sh-shame and fear?”

“It’s over, Luna,” Celestia soothed as she drew closer. “We’re together again.”

“Ha.” Luna turned towards Celestia with a gleam in her eye. “Why should I feel shame?”

Celestia halted. Her heart began to race as she noted the dark armor still covering the body of her beloved sister. Luna raised her head, staring straight into her sister’s eyes.

“Shame for wanting what is coming to me?” she asked. “Shame for finally stepping out from under your shadow?”

“Luna, please,” Celestia begged. “Think about what you’re saying-”

“I’ve had one thousand years to think, Celestia!” Luna barked. “One thousand years to think about how I was shunned! How I was feared!”

“That’s in the past!” Celestia staggered back under her sister’s verbal assault. “We can start anew...”

“No we can not!” Luna roared. “You made that choice for me when you banished me to the moon!”

Luna spread her wings and lowered her horn at the Princess of the Day. “Do you have any idea how lonely it is to spend a thousand years alone!?”

“Yes!” Celestia shouted. “To watch generation after generation pass me by, to see friends die and die again, to know that the only person who could understand what I’m going through is locked up by my own doing? Yes, I know how it feels to be alone!”

“Don’t you dare compare your experience to mine!” Luna snarled and turned away. “I was unable to feel, to see, to experience anything! You left me dead!”

“Please, Luna.” Tears sprang into Celestia’s eyes. “Please come back to me. Let it go!”

“To let it go would be to make all those years of torment meaningless!” Luna screamed. Her horn glowed with arcane magicks as she glared Celestia down.

“No, Luna.”

Celestia’s soft voice broke over the hum of Luna’s horn. A blue eyebrow was raised, a lip cocked in the beginning of a sneer. Luna waited for Celestia to continue with breath held, not willing to miss a single sound.

“It would make our years of suffering worth it.”

Luna pawed at the ground, her sneer morphing into a grimace. She charged at Celestia, gathering magic up as she ran. Celestia did not react; she stood stock still with a look of agony on her face as her sister thundered on. The Princess of the Night roared and shot a beam of moonlight at the motionless alicorn.

Celestia gasped as she felt her body come into contact with the spell. She recognized parts of it. It had elements of the teleportation spell that Spike used to send letters. Its power was amplified by alicorn magic to send an even larger object over greater distances.

Elements.

Luna had spent her time on the moon creating a new spell that emulated the effect that the Elements of Harmony had on her.

Luna always was brilliant when it came to magic.

Celestia looked down at her hoof, watching it turn to blueish-white smoke. The rest of her body quickly followed suit. The last thing Celestia saw before being teleported away was her sister’s face.

Panic set in on Luna’s features. Was it panic that the spell wouldn’t work, or horror at what she had done to her sister? Celestia hoped that there was a little bit of the latter in Luna. It meant that she wasn’t completely gone.

Sharp pain shot through Celestia’s core, and she found herself flying through Equestria. She passed by Ponyville on her way to the sun and saw her faithful student hiding from the party taking place in the library. Her heart sank. If Twilight Sparkle did not find the Elements of Harmony, all was lost.

Why had she been so aloof? Why did she not simply tell Twilight that the fate of the world, and her sister, rested on the unicorn finding friends? Why did she think herself able to manipulate events to such a degree?

Celestia supposed that it had been pride. A self-assurance that she could bring Luna around herself. A certainty that now faded from her heart as she sped towards the one object that could ever truly contain her forever.

The Alicorn of the Day found herself bound, body and soul, to the sun. The light seared, and the heat burned. She felt herself in total agony, a stark contrast to the emptiness that Luna had experienced. Her unbreakable flesh boiled in the fiery center of the sun. Her immortal eyes were unable to shield themselves against the never-ending glow of daylight. Her regal mane caught fire, yet never burned out.

Celestia screamed.

The tears in her eyes evaporated the instant they were shed, yet they kept coming. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think clearly. The only thing that kept flashing through her mind was her sister’s face, poisoned with jealousy. The sight of Luna standing firm, refusing to lower the moon. The black armor of Nightmare Moon, shrugging off blows from the Dayguard. The panic of her little ponies as they fled from the castle, terrified at the sight of their princess gone mad.

“It’s over, Celestia!” Nightmare Moon crowed. “The night shall last forever!”

“Luna, please!” Celestia shouted. The Elements of Harmony circled about her head, glowing with holy light. “Don’t make me do this, not to you!”

“You foal!” Nightmare Moon spat. “You cannot use the Elements alone! They require the magic of friendship to activate!”

“I’m not alone, Luna.” Celestia walked up to her nemesis, her eyes hard and her mouth trembling. “I am here, right beside my best friend in the whole world.”

Nightmare Moon’s eyes widened. “No… No, you can’t-”

The Elements flashed in a rainbow of color, spinning around the black-coated alicorn in a tornado of magic. The light shone like the grand finale of a magician’s fireworks display, and shot upwards. Celestia gazed at the moon, and the dark stain that now adorned it. The Elements of Harmony turned gray and dropped to the ground around her, save for the Element of Magic, which vanished in a puff of smoke.

Celestia stood alone.

No words could ever truly capture the agony Celestia felt, though many poets would later try. She despaired of ever being reunited with her sister, or being able to save her subjects from the threat of eternal night.

A song broke through her pain.

Her burning ears perked up at the sound. It was like a thousand voices crying out in joy, the sound of a grand victory. Her heart rose in her chest as she felt her magic shackles fall loose at her sides. With a blast of power, she shot forth from the sun. Her horn glowed as she dragged it with her, arcing it across the sky and towards Equestria. The sun rose, revealing a country thankful for daylight’s return.

Her eyes fell to the small town of Ponyville as ponies piled out of their homes to celebrate the return of the sun, and their princess. She did not stop there, however. She sped on to the Palace of the Royal Pony Sisters, hidden deep within the Everfree Forest. Her eyes alighted on the highest room of the tallest tower, where the Elements of Harmony had been used.

“Gee, Twilight,” said Applejack, the apple farmer that had catered for the Summer Sun Celebration. “I thought you were just spouting a lot o’ hooey… But I reckon… We really do represent the Elements of Friendship!”

“Indeed you do!” Celestia said as she appeared amongst them. The newly minted Element Bearers bowed before her, except for her faithful student. Twilight Sparkle rushed up to nuzzle her and Celestia returned the gesture in kind.

Relief washed over her body, Twilight had exceeded even her wildest imagination. The Elements of Harmony had been transformed, made even more powerful by the friendship shared between the six ponies. Their magic could tame the toughest monster, cow the most fearsome beast. They smiled up at their princess with a hefty helping of pride in themselves and each other.

Celestia’s eyes widened as she caught sight of something she didn’t dare dream of, Princess Luna, lying on the ground a short distance away. She approached the prone figure hesitantly and kneeled down beside her. She once again asked Luna to return, to be free…

To be her friend.

Tears leaked from Luna’s eyes as she leapt up to embrace Celestia. “I missed you so much, big sister!”

Celestia gasped in delight. “I missed you, too!”

And there, in the ruins of their once-grand palace, deep within the Everfree, in the highest room of the tallest tower, Celestia and Luna touched for the first time in a thousand years.

Celestia wept with joy.

Author's Notes:

This was made in an effort to wrangle some Emotion from my own writing. Practice, really. I tend to be far better at conjuring up plots than I am at writing characters you can feel.

Of course, I doubt i'll ever be one of the emotional greats, my mind doesn't work like that.
I hope you enjoy the story regardless!