Celestia was alone. She knew that now. She had walked around the whole world, it seemed, but if there was anything on the planet beside her, she didn’t know where to find it.

Which wasn’t to say that the effort had been wasted. She did know where to find rocks now—there were plenty of those lying around—and she could track down an awful lot of water, if she cared to look for it. That was pretty useful to know, so she didn’t have to feel all that bad about being alone. The knowledge was even comforting in a way, as she knew for absolute certain now that there was nothing else around beside her. And rocks. And water.

She did feel a little lonely now, though—for precisely the same reason.

In the end, nothing much had changed. She kept on walking, and walking, and walking, just as she always had. It was a habit now, if nothing else. She stopped briefly by a rock-filled lake to skip stones, and came back another billion steps later to see if she’d gotten any better at it. She was up to about five skips now, which seemed pretty good to her. If, in another billion steps or so, she found another lake, she could think about working her way up to six.

And time passed.

Now and again things would change. Little things, mostly. Sometimes it was colder and sometimes it was warmer. Clouds would gather in the sky, enough to swallow up her sun, and water would fall from above. Strange to be sure, but Celestia didn’t mind. Often enough, there were rocks she could hide under until it passed and her sun shined again, bright and hot as she liked. She liked the little changes, really. Something had to be causing them, and if it wasn’t her or her sun, then perhaps there was someone else out there. The world was a big place, after all. Maybe she had missed them the first time around.

Even if she hadn’t, though, there was plenty else to discover on her travels. For a time the world seemed to be covered in snow, which was much like water except white and solid. Celestia didn’t much care for it—too wet and cold for her tastes, and it made walking hard. Still, it melted easily in the light of her sun, so she kept it burning while she walked and it passed soon enough. She didn’t mind all that much. The whole affair had only lasted about a few trillion steps, if that.

A drop in the ocean, as it went.

Really, the most interesting part of the snow was how much else it had changed. Everywhere she walked now there seemed to be little patches of a fuzzy green stuff, mingling with stony gray rocks and dusty brown dirt. She wasn’t sure what it was, or where it had come from, but it was a new experience and Celestia was grateful for that much. It was better, at least, than another lake for skipping stones.

The patches were often fickle about the amount of sunlight they received. They caught fire sometimes, when she kept her sun burning too hot, and they turned an ugly brown when it didn’t shine brightly enough. It was an odd little quirk, and one she didn’t entirely understand, but she did prefer green to more gray and brown, so she took it upon herself to experiment. It didn’t take all that long to get the balance right. She found herself a happy medium a short while later: just enough sun to keep the fuzzy stuff vibrant and green, and herself warm and cozy. Her own comfort was a priority too, after all.

The fuzzy stuff seemed comfortable with the arrangement as well, and it grew and spread wherever she walked. Soon enough, she was no longer happening upon sad little patches, but entire fields, covering the earth as thickly as the snow had. Celestia rather preferred the grass—as she called it now—to the snow, since it wasn’t as cold nor nearly as damp... So she kept it. It would be hers now too.

The world seemed to be changing faster and faster, in billions of steps instead of trillions. New kinds of green stuff kept growing, wherever she went. Trees and flowers and more filled the world, until every land Celestia walked was a rainbow of color. It was a wonderful change of pace, if she did say so herself, and she found herself slowing down as the changes continued. Why not? She had plenty of time to get wherever she was going, and there was plenty to see now along the way.

It wasn’t long even before she spotted her very first creature, creeping along through the underbrush. It was a bit like her, in that it had moved and made sounds, and it did many other things that plants, rocks, and water would not. It wasn’t quite like her in most other ways, though. It was a smallish brown thing, without wings or hooves, and it didn’t like to talk.

“It is okay,” she said to it, in her softest and quietest voice. She held a hoof out to the creature and smiled. “I am—we are—we are not alone!”

Instead of jumping to meet her as she’d expected, the creature squeaked and scampered away. It disappeared into the underbrush, leaving no trace behind, and that was that. She wondered briefly if she ought to try chasing after it, but it didn’t seem to want her company, and she didn’t want to frighten the poor little creature any more if she didn’t have to.

Still, she stood there for a long while, just in case it came back.

But it did not come back, and eventually Celestia decided to move on. It was unfortunate, to be sure, but in the end the creature simply hadn’t been what she was looking for. It had been very close, though, and that gave her some cause for hope. She was still alone, but not quite in the way she’d feared. There would be other creatures out there, somewhere, and if she only kept walking she would find one more like her.

Which she did, millions and millions of steps later. She spotted them first on the plains—not a single creature this time, but an entire herd of them, in every size and color. She could hardly hold in her excitement as she ran to meet them. They seemed much more like her than the last creature had: standing tall and strong, on four hooves, their manes flowing in the breeze. They did not have wings, nor a horn as she did, but she could overlook that for now. If indeed they were truly like her, she could overlook anything. She couldn’t afford to be picky, when it came to companionship.

They watched her with wide open eyes as she approached, but it didn’t seem as though they were going to flee from her, and she considered that any improvement over the last time.

“I am Celestia!” she said to them, introducing herself just as she’d practiced. They did not respond at first, and instead gathered around her in a circle. They were smaller than her, she noticed, though not by too much. They stayed a good distance away from her, watching but not speaking.

Celestia frowned. This was not quite how she’d hoped the introduction would go. “I am Celestia,” she repeated, slowly, in case they hadn’t understood the first time. “Who are you?”

Silence.

One of the creatures stepped forth. It pointed to the sun in the sky, then to the yellow mark on her flank, which looked somewhat liked it. “Celestia?” it asked.

She smiled. This seemed promising. “Yes,” she answered, pointing at herself, then to the sun. She made her sun a little brighter, until the creatures had to shield their eyes from it. “I am Celestia.”

The creature turned to the rest of the herd and let out a resounding whinny. “Celestia!” it cried happily.

“Celestia!” cheered the rest of the herd, and when the cheering died down they edged slowly closer to her, eyes wide with curiosity now instead of fear. They oohed and aahed at her colorful flowing mane, and gasped in delight when she spread her wings out before them. She was only too happy to oblige their curiosity.

Of course she must have seemed as strange and new to them as they seemed to her.

One of the littlest creatures walked up, pressing through the crowd. It stared up at her, mouth hanging slightly open in awe. “Celestia?” it asked, motioning to her wings. She bent one down to the little creature, so that it could see them better, and its mouth opened even wider as it ran a hoof down her feathers. “Celestia!” it said, smiling up at her.

“Celestia.” She nodded, smiling back at the little creature. “I am glad you are enjoying yourself, little one.” And, more than that, she was glad that finally—finally—she’d found something else like her. Something that wanted to be with her too.

The creatures, as it turned out, did not know how to say much else beside her name, and were not much good for conversation. They neighed and grunted and whinnied, as their mood dictated, but they did not seem to know how to talk—which was just as well for them, she supposed, since there wasn’t all that much to talk about.

Still, they were eager to learn, and when she decided she’d call them ponies, they decided that they would call themselves that too. Other things they learned a bit slower, but she was always willing to teach them whenever they wanted. She’d given names to many things over the course of her travels, and the ponies seemed to enjoy hearing each and every one of them—even if they had trouble remembering which name went to what. Slowly but surely, their vocabulary improved. Or slowly, at any rate, if not also surely.

It was hard work, and often very sad. Ponies aged in what seemed to be the blink of an eye, and it didn’t take long at all for the smallest of them to grow tall. None of them ever stayed with her for as long as she would have liked. Always, always, they would stop growing, and soon enough after that it would happen: a deep sleep, from which they never woke. She grieved often during those times, for she loved the ponies very much. Whenever one of them went to sleep forever, they became another creature she would never know again, and in that moment she would remember what it was like to be alone.

There were some bright spots, though, in the grief. The ponies had many children, and even if some went to sleep forever, there were always new ponies for her to know and teach and love. It wasn’t a complete replacement for the losses, now that she had things to lose, but it helped. She taught them as much as she’d taught their parents, and a little more besides. She kept them warm with her sun when it was cold, and she kept her sun cool when they were too hot. Little changes, of the kind she’d come to appreciate herself. It wasn’t all that much, really, compared to the affection they gave her in return, but she did what she could, and she took comfort in that.

Celestia did wonder sometimes if there was still more for her out there, somewhere in the wide world. She didn’t travel all that much these days—she didn’t dare risk losing track of the ponies—but the thought of it would often cross her mind. So much had changed since the beginning, and she could not help but wonder if there were other creatures roaming the planet now, even more like her than her little ponies had been. Creatures with not only hooves, but wings and horns and good conversational skills. Not merely similar, but truly like her.

Well...

It was a tempting thought, at least. It whispered often to her, in the back of her mind, but she’d long decided that her heart belonged to the little ponies she’d met first. They were a bit slow and more than a bit strange, and they passed on in what seemed to be no time at all, but Celestia loved her little ponies all the same. They were hers now, and so long as they wanted to stay with her too, she would take care of them always.

“Celestia! Celestia!” Windswift’s panicked shouts carried throughout the plains. The sound of his voice reached her before he did, though the stallion himself wasn’t all that far behind. Swift as the wind indeed. It was a good name for him, and one of the first the ponies had chosen for themselves.

“What is it, Windswift?” she asked, when he’d finally caught up to her. “Is there something wrong?”

“Dark!” Windswift gasped between ragged breaths. “Cold!” And then, in a very low voice, he whispered: “Sun.”

She looked to her sun, hanging still in the sky where she’d left it. “Sun...” she repeated slowly. “Where?”

It had been a great while since she’d ventured beyond the plains, but she remembered well enough the land Windswift had pointed her toward. Her little ponies had only begun to explore the boundaries of their world, and even Windswift never dared to venture too far away. Whatever it was that he had found, it was quite close to home.

Which wasn’t so bad, really. The most interesting things were best kept close by.

The rocky wastes had always been barren and dull, but it seemed somehow ominous now. The light of her sun grew dimmer and weaker as she journeyed further into the wastes, until it was blotted out altogether by the blackness that made up the sky. The air grew cool, if not cold, and it grew almost too dark to see, but still she walked on.

It was there, in the distance: a pale white disc, hanging in the sky with a soft light of its own. Hardly enough to see by, and not very hot, but so very much like her own sun. She had never seen such a thing before, in all her travels, and seeing it now made her very curious indeed. Someone else owned that sun.

Who?

The winds picked up speed as she walked toward the pale sun, whistling first and finally howling. If she listened close, they made sounds that might have been words—warnings, perhaps, to turn back—but if they were such she could not understand them, and she had no intentions of turning back.

“Who dares?” a voice roared, when at last she neared the pale sun. Lightning flashed and thunder boomed. “Who?”

“I dare!” Celestia shouted back. “I am Celestia! Who, then, are you?”

“I am Luna!” said the voice, and thunder crackled again in the sky. “Begone from this place! You are trespassing in my domain.”

Celestia looked around. The wastes were not a good place for growing or caring for things. All that existed here were rocks, and perhaps some water, if one cared to look for it. It was hardly worth owning, much less defending. “Surely this is not your domain!” she said to Luna. “There are far better lands than this to call your own.”

“All lands are my own,” came Luna’s reply. “This world belongs to me, and you are trespassing upon it. Again, begone!”

“But—”

“Begone!”

Celestia sighed. There was no reasoning with this Luna, it seemed. She’d been so hopeful at first, that Luna would be friendly. But if there was no other way to settle this peacefully, then her hooves were tied. Luna may have had a sun—the most like her of any creature she’d ever known—but Celestia’s obligation to protect her own little ponies came first and foremost.

She closed her eyes and summoned forth her own sun, as bright and powerful as she could make it, until rays of white light began to shine through the darkness and the storm around her fell silent. The pale sun beside her own—the last mark of Luna’s influence—grew even brighter, reflecting the light off her sun until it seemed a perfect copy.

“No, no!” Luna shouted. “Stop! I command you!”

Tendrils of shadow weaved throughout the sky, stealing the light from Luna’s sun, and briefly pushing back the light of her own, but Celestia stood her ground. Her horn glowed as she poured more power into it, and her sun burned hotter still, until eventually the sky settled into a balance between light and dark. Half of one, and half of the other.

There was enough light now to see properly, though, and in the shadowed half of the wastes, Celestia could just barely make out Luna’s form.

“You...” she whispered. “You are like me.”

“We are nothing alike,” Luna spat, her wings flapping in agitation. Her horn glowed blue, and the darkness pushed again against the light. “Take your moon now and go. It is too bright for my eyes.”

“Let us talk, at least,” said Celestia. “Please. Are you not lonely, out here by yourself?”

“I have always been alone,” said Luna. “Since I first woke upon this world. It is mine by right, and you will not take it from me.”

“I don’t want to take it from you,” said Celestia, “I already have what is most precious to me.” She smiled. “Or so I’d like to think, anyway. But I have not come to take anything that is yours, Luna. I am here only because your presence scares my little ponies.”

Luna cocked her head. “Ponies?” she asked. “I do not understand. I have walked the planet for age upon age, and I rule over much, but I have never heard before of ponies. What are they? How do you claim to own them, when the world itself belongs to me?”

“Because I care for them,” said Celestia. “I’ve lived amongst them for a very long time, for so long in fact that perhaps it is they who own me now.” She smiled. “There’s more to having something than simply owning it, I suppose. Because I have them, I am no longer alone, and that is worth very much to me.”

“I do not understand,” said Luna. The darkness receded for a moment, and the pale sun grew a little brighter. “I am alone, yes, but is the world not great, wondrous, and wide? There is much to see and more still to do. Would you not rather own the world, as I do, than some ponies?”

Celestia shook her head. “I don’t think I would,” she said. She stepped forth into the darkness and held a hoof out to Luna. “Would you like to see why?”

Luna hesitated, recoiling from the outstretched hoof. “I...”

“You don’t have to, if you don’t want to,” said Celestia softly. “But the world is only worth so much, if you can’t share it with others. You have nothing to lose by meeting them, and everything to gain.”

“I...” Luna swallowed, then stood up a little straighter. She took the outstretched hoof in her own and nodded. “All right,” she said. “Show me.”

The ponies were afraid at first of Luna and the darkness she brought, but she did not move to harm them. Soon enough their curiosity overcame their fear. They gathered around her, as they had for Celestia in an age long past, and tittered in excitement.

“This is Luna,” Celestia told them. “She wanted to meet you.”

“I would not go so far as to say that,” said Luna quietly. “I was simply... interested.”

“Luna?” one mare asked, pointing at the pale sun in the dark sky. “Sun?”

“No,” Luna shook her head. “Not ‘sun.’ That is the moon. It belongs to me, as does all the land you walk on.”

The mare simply nodded. “Moon,” she repeated. She gave Luna a smile and nodded again. “Pretty.”

“Oh...” said Luna. “Well, I have not heard that said before, but I... suppose it is. I am glad you think so.”

Celestia, for her part, did not talk, but simply sat and watched as the ponies crowded Luna with their questions. They hadn’t asked nearly so many of her when she’d first met them, but they had learned quite a lot since then too, and she couldn’t help but feel a little proud of how far they’d come. Though perhaps she was a tiny bit jealous as well.

“Fly?” asked one pony, looking to Luna’s wings.

“Of course,” said Luna, flapping her wings until she rose into the sky. She grinned as the ponies all gasped in awe. “This is but a trifle,” she said, doing a few spins in the air. “I have many more tricks that I may show you sometime, if you’d like.”

Which, of course, the ponies liked.

Eventually the crowd of ponies dispersed, moving onto other novelties like how the plains would look in the dark instead of the light, and repeating all the new words they’d heard from Luna. They would be back for more questions, in due time, but for now Luna insisted she needed a break, and they could understand that well enough.

“Well?” asked Celestia as Luna sat down beside her.

“I am not sure yet,” said Luna. “But I am intrigued, I think. I may stay, for a while, to see more of these ponies you spoke of so highly.” She coughed. “Perhaps a little longer.”

“If you insist,” said Celestia, smiling. “I’m glad you like them as much as I do.”

Luna’s cheeks reddened. “I did not say that, you will notice.”

“Well then, we’ll see.” Celestia laughed. “We may be more alike than you think.”

“Yes, I suppose,” said Luna, and for the very first time she laughed too. “We shall see, then. We shall see.”

And, as they laid down together in the grass, closing their eyes to rest, Celestia couldn’t help but smile. She couldn’t remember how long she’d waited for this moment, since the beginning, but she’d finally found all that she’d ever wanted. It wasn’t quite final yet, and there was still so much more to discuss with Luna before it would be, but the end was in sight. It had been a long journey indeed, but Luna was hers now, and she would be Luna’s also. Neither of them would be alone ever again, if Celestia could help it.

And, for a long, long time after, she was happy.