“Are you sure you really want to do this?” Luna asked Celestia. The princesses had carefully locked the entrance of the royal laboratory before setting up all the necessary accessories for what could be one of the most perilous attempt ever made to invoke the lost memories of the past. “And what if it fails?”

“It won’t fail,” claimed Celestia boldly. “And even if it does, I risk nothing if you shut the beam down right on time.”

“Wrong!” Luna replied. “You risk your essence being trapped in some remote corner of the ethereal plane. It would take years for me to find it, and many more years to figure out the right formula to reunite it with your body. Who would lead in the meanwhile?”

“Oh, please, dear sister! Don’t be so glum. You know very well who would…” Celestia winked maliciously at Luna. “Besides, with the help of Three, you’d probably locate me quickly.”

“Besides, are you sure you will be able to make contact with his soul? He’s been dead for such a long time…”

“Three has assured me he never burnt his thread. His spirit still tarries within the bounds of this world, but nopony knows where. We desperately need his help. He alone had discovered the right way to deal with this predicament, though he never wrote it down, and I've forgotten the words. It would take way too long to search for him in the heavenly regions. Time is running short. Shall we begin?”

“Why didn’t you ask Three to summon him in his lair? It would be much safer, we wouldn’t need all this stuff…”

“You know very well that he has not the power to. All he can do is keep the shorn thread stored away, but he does not know where the spirit lingers, nor can he call it up at will. We must cope by ourselves.”

“I perceive that nothing can deter you,” admitted Luna, vanquished. “So I suppose we would better get this over with, yes.”

“Remember: four minutes, no more! Switch the beam off immediately after, and read the final incantation. Mark my words!”

“Aye aye, sis!” Luna replied, in a vain attempt to mask her concern behind a quip.

With that acknowledgment, Celestia trod inside the magic circle. Luna headed to the nearby workbench, and flipped the switch of an odd contraption, partly wooden, partly metallic, with a large bulging lens directly aimed at the Sun princess; immediately, a ray of pallid, yellowish light sprung forth, permeating through the body of the alicorn. Nothing happened for a brief instant, but all of a sudden Celestia stiffened, and her eyes began in turn to glow with a white glare. She’s gone, said Luna to herself as she began to count the seconds down, I can no longer perceive her mind inside her body.

Two hundreds…

One hundred and fifty…

One hundred…

Unexpectedly, what she had feared since the beginning of the experiment happened. There was a thunderous explosion and a downpour of debris as the ceiling sundered; a blinding shaft of prismatic light descended from the sky, and fell directly over the rigid body of Celestia. It easily neutralized the comparatively faint beam coming from the apparatus, and the alicorn began to rise slowly, almost reluctantly, as if she was trying to clutch the ground despite the efforts of an unknown force to lift her forcefully.

“Nooooo!” shouted Luna hysterically. She fumbled the switch back in place; the yellowish light faded, but the rainbow did not; on the contrary, the intensity of the bright, multicolored shaft seemed to increase further. Celestia’s shape reared up and was suddenly sucked in. Stretching her wings, Luna took a tremendous and desperate leap; she barely managed to catch one of the hind legs of her sister just before she disappeared entirely through the vast opening above, and both crashed below with a loud thud. They tumbled on the floor, and ended up smashing into a wall. The dazzling shaft retracted and vanished; shadow and stillness returned to the room: it was over.

When a bruised Luna came back to her senses, she was partly lying over her sister. The first thing she felt was an excruciating pain inside her brain. Ooooh my head… She ducked her face into her front legs in a hopeless attempt to ease the pervading pang. How many minutes have I fainted?, she asked herself. There was a blank. Then: by the great crescent, she shuddered, the time is way past. She’s going to be trapped! Quick… Folding back her wings, all her limbs aching from the heavy fall, she laboriously stood up on all fours, shambled to the workbench, rummaged frantically in the midst of strewn grit, rubble and splinters of glass; eventually she got hold of a parchment, that she unrolled. She hastily read a formula, as her horn glowed with fluttering patches of light. When she finished, she cast a anxious look at Celestia and waited for a sign.

The white-furred princess stirred and opened an eye: her iris had recovered its usual amethyst hue. Luna sighed in relief. “What happened?” asked Celestia feebly. “I feel so weak and broken, as if I had been drubbed to death.”

“You were almost sucked in by an ethereal vortex,” explained Luna. “I brought you back by the skin of my teeth: one tenth of a second later, you would have been forever lost. But let not speak further of it: you’re here and whole, that’s all that matters. Could you meet him? Do you remember?”

Celestia closed her eyes, and seemed to ponder. “Yes,” she said at last, “I recall clearly meeting him. He was so surprised to see me. After all these centuries, he looked like a wraith: I could see the stars shining through his body. I explained our quandary and then… then…” She hesitated, obviously straining her memory. “I can’t seem to remember anything more. As if I had drifted into a pit of pitch blackness. I am so beat…”

“The vortex…” murmured Luna. “I had to switch the psyphotic lamp out. It cut the link. I’m sorry, I really—”

“Hush! Don’t talk balderdash!” Celestia interrupted. “You had little choice. Besides, you saved me from a really painful experience…” She tried to reach one hoof and winced. “Or not!…” she added, smiling faintly.

“All of that to no avail,” sighed Luna once more. “Come on! We both badly need rest. I’ll accompany you to your room, and beg the guards to leave you alone until you feel better. I think I’ll do the same, at least until morn.”

Unlocking the door, Luna levitated her sister behind her; both princesses left the room, and disappeared from sight as they turned around the nearest corner.

Through the narrow chink left by the ajar door, a bright light poured in the gloomy corridor.

Celestia had been bantering with Starswirl the Bearded somewhere in the heavenly regions for a short while. “What do you think of my Equestria?” asked the princess.

“Not much,” responded the hoary unicorn. “I’ve lost almost any contact with the livings, but I’m sure you do your best to rule the land in peace and bliss. Did you, by the way, find out why my last spell was ineffective? As I remember it, it was beginning by… Hmmm… ‘A mark of one’s destiny, singled out, fulfilled.’”

“The spell was completed by a pupil of mine,” Celestia said. “Twilight Sparkle is her name.”

“Great job!” exclaimed Starswirl. “I hope I’ll be able to meet her some…”

He broke off as a faint but regular clop resounded in the void, as of hooves hurriedly approaching.

“Guess what!” giggled Celestia. “Speak about an alicorn…”

They both turned their head in the direction whence the pounding seemed to originate, but nothing was to be seen. Instead, the clop increased steadily in intensity, until it became a harsh  and almost deafening pounding, echoing in all the space around then. “What in Equestria…” shouted Celestia, alarmed. She stepped forward and unexpectedly fell with a yelp; she outspreaded her wings and flapped madly to recover her balance, but found her appendages unable to function, as if there was no air around her for their feathers to push against. She was plunging down, twirling, hurtling through the void and nothing seemed to be able to stop her. She yelled…

…And found herself lying on the cold floor of her bedroom, half-covered by her blanket, her coat clammy with sweat: she had dropped from her mattress. What a nightmare! she thought, as the dizziness was slowly receding. At the same time, she heard muffled clops dying away, as if somepony was quickly climbing up a nearby stairs. Who’s been using my private access? she automatically wondered. You fool! It must be Luna, she’s the only one to know about its existence. But what for? She slowly rose, her muscles still sour from yesternight’s experience, splayed and limbered her legs, then preened her wings hastily. Heading for the nearest mirror, she brushed her mane, and was about to tend her coat when she heard a ruckus in the corridor, as of many ponies rushing, followed almost immediately by the unmistakable voice of her sister, apparently discussing some urgent matter with somepony else. “When did that happen?” Celestia heard distinctly through the door, at the very moment that Luna was walking by the entrance of the bedroom. “Ten minutes ago,” responded a deep male voice, that Celestia identified as Polydorus, one of the deputy captain of the guard.

She rushed to the door and flung it open, barely in time to catch a glimpse of Luna and Polydorus as they were about to descend the first marble steps of the castle official stair, at the far end of her vision field. “Hey! Luna! Wait!” she shouted. The indigo alicorn froze and turned around, immediately followed by the officer. They both walked back towards Celestia, who trotted to meet them. “Hi sis’! How do you feel?” inquired Luna when she was sufficiently near.

“Mostly okay. Barring a general feeling of weariness, I’m alright. What’s up? Where were you going to? What where you talking about?”

Luna came closer to her sister and lowered her voice. “There has been a brawl in the kitchens. A maid has been assaulted. I was going to inspect the scene.”

“What?!?” exclaimed Celestia, baffled. “You mean… sexually?”

“No, as far as I know,” replied Luna. “She was merely somehow paralyzed and blinded, but apparently she’s otherwise unscathed. Magic, I suppose. Besides, it was reported that the attacker has made a mess in all the stores.”

“Let’s see that by ourselves,” proposed Celestia.

All three scurried off.

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