“Congratulations on another victory that should have been thine,” Princess Luna remarked to her sister, co-ruler, and, as of recently, endless source of frustration.

“Excuse me?” Celestia turned away from the newest stained glass pane that had just been finished.

She was standing in one of the most ancient halls of Canterlot Castle, where she was inspecting the craft that had gone into the depiction of Equestria's recent victory over the changelings. Though the workers would not openly admit it, they had been relieved to be able to make a commemorative window that only featured two ponies, rather than Twilight Sparkle and all of her friends, for once. The stylized images of Shining Armor and Princess Cadence fit together perfectly, surrounded by a heart-shaped aura. The darkness of the changelings and their queen was beautiful in its own way as well, particularly in contrast with the expanding ring of pink magic that was expelling them from the portrait.

“Chrysalis was within thy grasp,” said Luna, “and yet the day was won by Mi Amore Cadenza. Tell me that is not ridiculous.”

“Luna, you weren't there.” Celestia's brow was starting to furrow. It had been doing that a lot lately whenever Luna came by to speak to her. It had been difficult enough to adapt to living together once again over the past couple years, but in the weeks since the attack on Canterlot, they had both been on edge, alternating between arguing with and ignoring each other, over everything from affairs of state to palace noise levels.

“But,” she continued, “you should still be aware that the queen had been feeding on true romantic love for months, and the room was full of innocent ponies besides. It's not like I could have let out my full power there. There would have been nothing left but scorch marks.”

“Ha!” Luna laughed sharply. “Such tough talk, Celestia! Thou knowest the truth though.” She stepped up to her big sister, nearly muzzle to muzzle. "'Twas thy failures that allowed any of that to happen in the first place.”

Celestia closed her eyes and took a deep, calming breath. “Little sister,” she said, “did you really just waltz in here to say that I am a failure?”

“Nay, I have plans to discuss.” Luna's hoof scuffed the carpet, as if she were preparing to charge. “But come to think of it, I would not be surprised 'tall if a dragon could literally dance a waltz into this chamber and conduct all manner of mischief without thou being able to stop it.”

“I know what this is about.” Celestia would have only looked slightly perturbed to most ponies, but she still would have been the same calm, loving, patient Princess she always was. To Luna, however, it was clear that she was on the verge of hitting something, in a very kind and understanding, but nevertheless very forceful, manner.. “You're feeling guilty because you weren't there to help.”

“Preposterous!” Luna's shout drew the attention of the two guards, obviously new recruits to replace their recent losses, posted outside the door. They quickly resumed looking outward in stony silence when they saw the expression in her eyes.

“Where were you, again?” The volume of Celestia's voice rose as well, along with her stiffly straightening neck.

“I was asleep! Forgive me for being tired after spending the night patrolling all of the earth and sky for a threat that, thanks to thee, already lay within these very walls!”

“And the sound of two armies fighting wasn't enough to wake you up?” Celestia asked. “Are you that lazy?”

Luna faltered for a moment. She was slightly unprepared for the generous and good-natured Celestia to start making caustic comments of her own. That only made her angrier though, enough that her wings unfolded and stiffened to the tips.

“I sleep in the caves near the mountaintop,” she said. “It brings comfort to me to repose up there where the bats reside.”

“If you didn't feel such an overblown need to be so cold and distant,” said Celestia, “then maybe you would have been able to do a little more. Didn’t your time in Ponyville teach you anything? Don't project your own flaws onto me.”

“I am doing no such thing!” Luna jabbed Celestia's golden, bejeweled collar with her hoof, creating a tink sound that reverberated with earth-shattering volume in the expansive hall. “I nearly lost y—thou nearly died, and thou art doing nothing about it! And thou namest me 'lazy'?”

“Just because what I’m doing isn’t obvious to you,” Celestia said, her voice quavering slightly as she forced it to stay gentle and warm, “doesn’t mean I’m doing nothing.”

“Why then keep to such secrecy even from me?” Luna demanded. “I am thy flesh and blood! I can help, if thou wouldst but let me! I know thou dost not trust me fully, and rightly so, but it is ludicrous that all I have been able to see is thou conducting the business of government as if nothing has happened. So why?”

Celestia's own wings flared outward now. She drew her body up further, taking full advantage of her greater height, and Luna felt a primordial, irrational fear. Celestia's white coat seemed purer, the soft, luminescent colors of her mane brighter. It brought to Luna's mind visions of the eerie calm that had radiated from Celestia’s very soul when she had used the Elements of Harmony to banish her from Equestria. No anger or hate in all of Luna's years had ever compared to that sorrowful, determined look of tranquility. It was an easily-swallowed fear, since Luna had felt it many times, but it was there nonetheless.

“I don’t know,” Celestia said simply. “Maybe because you’re still so full of fear. You’re afraid that you're not strong enough either. That's the question that keeps you up well past dawn every day, isn't it?”

“I am not afraid!” Luna backed away and began to pace, conveniently allowing her to avoid her sister's eyes. “Afraid for thee, perhaps, but of nothing else in this world, nor any other.”

Lowering her voice drastically, to be absolutely certain that the guards did not hear, Celestia whispered. “Ever since mother left, you've worn such a brave face, just like she told you to. It has worked well for a very long time, but you don't have to wear it around me. It's okay...”

“Mother is dead,” said Luna, too angry to think of lowering her voice at all, “and thou shalt be as well unless thou takest the military threats to this realm more seriously.”

“How can I possibly—” Stopping herself short, Celestia sighed and rubbed her forehead with her hoof. “Luna, we are having the exact same argument we did a week ago. You said you had plans to discuss—let's just discuss them.”

“That suiteth me,” said Luna as she stopped pacing in front of the new window Celestia had been admiring. “I am going to visit Twilight Sparkle. We are well past due for our monthly grammar lessons, and I wish to socialize with her for a time. Perhaps a night or two, if thou canst manage without me that long. Have thou any message for me to give?”

“I did just fine for a millennium without you,” Celestia said, a cold edge sneaking into the warmth and grace she always forced into her voice by will and habit. “I believe I will be okay. Just give her my regards.”

“Thou callest this 'just fine'?” asked Luna. She shook her head and started to walk away. “I—I shall see thee soon, dear sister. Leave the light on for me.”

“Always,” Celestia answered automatically, though it would take far more than that for her inner tranquility to return. As Luna walked through the doors, Celestia began the ritual search for morning coffee... and scribbled a quick, hurried note to the guards at the castle gate.

“Oh, and that window is ugly,” Luna called back, letting loose a parting shot. “The greens and pinks chosen do not complement each other, and the heart motif was tired and cliched even in my time. I would replace it at once.”

Several minutes of stalking darkly through the halls, causing servants and nobleponies to scatter like mice out of her path, and Luna finally reached the castle’s exit. Descending the steps from the castle to the courtyard, Luna groaned when she saw what was already waiting at the base, no doubt thanks to Celestia. A sleek, shining golden chariot, flanked on all sides by strapping mares and stallions in platinum and gold hued armor, had been pulled up. She considered taking to the air, but one of the royal guards saluted her and informed her that the transportation for her voyage had been arranged. There was no way to avoid this with dignity intact. Muttering silent curses at her sister, she returned the salute and mounted the chariot.

Later that day, a giant, amorphous, blue blob was ponderously making its way through a fully-ripe wheat field, absorbing whole sections of it, so that stalks of wheat danced and dissolved inside its translucent body. The detachment of royal guards stood ready, spears set, in defense of a family of earth pony farmers. The guards would have attacked the thing long ago, except that their charge, Princess Luna, was hovering in the air, wreathed in golden fire, and kicking great bursts of it at the creature with her front legs. She used her magic to form a light blue barrier around the fire, but the concentrated heat, and the occasional stray lick of flame, kept all the other ponies at bay.

The blob tried to roll away before the onslaught, but Luna pursued it. She burned it until it sizzled and popped, splitting into dozens of smaller globs. They stopped moving after a few seconds of quivering, then they boiled away to nothing. When the last of them were gone, the aura of fire surrounding the Princess vanished, and she swooped down to where her guards were set. The extended family was cowering with their knees and heads bowed to her. Though the small blaze behind Luna was contained, the magical field that held it was transparent, so the fire still illuminated her with long, haunting shadows. Her severe countenance only magnified the effect.

“Is anypony injured?” she asked them quietly but clearly. She kept her volume much lower than she usually would have when addressing her subjects, out of concern for the tiny foal crying in a cradle. The family shook their heads. She addressed the pony that looked to be the oldest. “We are relieved. We decree that thou and thy kin will be compensated in full for the damages done today. Go to the nearest judiciary and tell them this when thou seest fit.”

Luna considered extending her hoof for the head of the household to kiss, but she doubted that he would have any more idea what to do than the villagers of Ponyville had. Celestia stands too little upon ceremony, she reflected. She contented herself with commanding them to rise, and imparting the Traditional Royal Farewell. She let loose a burst of pale light from her horn that brought a brief sensation of warmth and calm to all those present. The foal stopped crying for a few minutes, and the rest of the family stopped shaking. Then, without a further word, she turned to leave them. She stood in the field with her entourage, in order to make sure that the fire ran out of fuel, and did not damage the farm any further. Her face was an impassive mask the whole time. Once this portion of the field was finally nothing but embers and ash, Luna cancelled her spell and set off again for the highway. The earth ponies watched the Princess and her guards leave. Several of the family members nodded and smiled at them. One, however, was muttering under her breath as she slammed a hoof down on a rake that had been caught in the flame, finishing its destruction. Another pony simply concentrated on quieting the infant who had resumed crying.

“It was just a gel, Your Highness,” said the leader of the ponies-at-arms, once the group was out of the family’s ear-shot. She had completely forgotten his name, she realized. “With all due respect, you should have let us take care of the creature ourselves. We were ordered to see you safely to Ponyville, after all.”

“We saw how the guard handles matters at the wedding,” Luna replied with a harsh glare at her subordinate. He gulped as she continued. “Our safety was not compromised, and we are in no hurry. A brief foray to aid our distressed subjects is an acceptable delay.”

“I—I understand, Princess,” he spoke again, with a brief stutter. “But gels have never harmed a pony. We stop almost all of them anyway, though. Only a couple slip through every year, and all they do is eat some crops, then return to the Everfree Forest. I don't think it was worth the risk, especially since you almost set the field on fire.”

“Thy opinions were not sought after,” said Luna with a loud huff that sent tendrils of smoke out of her nostrils. Her speech picked up a magical amplification to it, the traditional Royal Canterlot Voice, which added significant force and volume to her already-strong statement. The other guards silently implored the one who had been speaking to shut up. They soon arrived at the road and took up their positions, except for Luna, who did not mount the chariot.

“All we require are direct answers to these questions,” she continued. “Where exactly in the forest do these gels reside, and what are their numbers?”

They were all silent, except for one pony who coughed.

“How can you not know!?” her voice approached full volume. “Have there been no scouting missions? No pursuits?”

“No, Your Highness,” said another guard. She whirled to face him, and he did his best to keep from cringing. “Rather, we, uh, did send some, but they did not find any useful information. Again, because the gels don’t directly harm us, we’ve been trying to focus on threats that do.”

“Then those scouts are as weak as your dolt of a Captain,” she spat, causing the soldiers to bristle at the insult to Shining Armor and their comrades, but they kept their peace. She began to pace back and forth as she launched into a rant that seemed to be only partially directed at them. “The more I think about it, the more I realize that he shares a great deal of the blame. If he had not neglected his paramount position with a hasty marriage of the highest profile, the security of Canterlot would never have been compromised. But,” she began to shout again, “Celestia is the worst of all for allowing it. Softer than jelly beans, all of you. One defeat by an overweening changeling, and suddenly she is terrified for our safety and sends six ponies on a voyage with us to Ponyville. Does she think us that powerless? Or does she assume we must be spied upon constantly?

“This is not your concern! As your Princess, we command you to return to Canterlot at once!”

“We can't do that...” the leader said. “We are of the Day Guard, and so Princess Celestia's orders supersede those of Your Highness...”

“Perhaps so, but my power supersedes yours.”

The other ponies had only enough time to widen their eyes in shock as Luna's horn prepared a spell. With a flash of blue electricity, a wave of magic swept over all of them, and their eyes grew too heavy to keep open. Five slumped to the ground, heavy armor and weapons clattering on the pavement., but the leader, a middle-aged, red-coated unicorn, flicked his horn to life in time to counter the effects of the spell on himself, although too late for his comrades.

“What is the meaning of this?” he shouted. “We are your loyal subjects! Why do you assault us, Your Highness?”

One of Luna's eyebrows cocked. She had put a great deal of force behind that spell, yet one of the ponies had resisted it. She studied him briefly. His red hair was close to the color of rust, and his dark brown, streaked mane gave the appearance of even more advanced rust on his head. His eyes were a rare bright yellow color, which meant that the defensive aura he was projecting around himself was also yellow.

“Because we have a mission to complete,” she answered. “Alone. And we require a head start before Celestia discovers it.”

“This is a serious matter that the two of you need to resolve,” the guard said gruffly. “Come back with me and we will sort it out.”

“No,” Luna said. “And take care of the tone thou takest when speaking to us.”

“Then I hereby challenge you to a magic duel, Your Highness,” he announced, making sure his posture was firm and his back was straight as she stared at him in disbelief.

“A ma—, a magic—” A riotous roar of laughter burst out of Luna's throat. “A magic duel!? We are the Element of Magic! What dost thou hope to achieve by a duel!?”

“No,” he said, putting all of his years of training in facial control to the ultimate test. “The unicorn Twilight Sparkle is the Element of Magic. I can and will defeat you, if I must.”

“A brave sentiment,” said Luna with complete seriousness. “Tell us thy name, that we might record it in the epic which we are composing of our deeds.”

“I am Sergeant Gethsemane Heartstrings,” he said as he removed his helmet, allowing his reddish-brown horn to be completely free. “My terms are these: If I win, you come back to Canterlot with me with no further trouble. If you win, we part ways here, and I tell Princess Celestia that I don't know where you went. Do you accept?”

“Gethsemane.” Luna rolled the sounds around in her mouth. “That is an ancient and noble name. We once wrote of a pony hero who bore the same title. The hero of the third battle of Cloudsdale, if we recall.”

“I wouldn't know,” Gethsemane said. “It was my grandfather who cared about myths and history and stuff like that.”

“That is a shame,” Luna remarked. “Thou sharest much of their spirit. If there were more ponies like thee in the guard, we daresay that Equestria would be in far less dire straits than it currently is.

“In any case, we accept thy challenge. And we shall limit ourselves only to spells which it is possible for a mortal to master in his lifetime, out of deference to thy limitations.”

“Oh, thank you,” he said through gritted teeth, striking a steady stance. “Were you the Element of Kindness or Generosity too, by any chance?"

Luna ignored his sarcasm and dropped into a stance as well, all traces of mocking and mirth now gone from her appearance. Being the challenged party, it was traditionally her right to declare the draw and decide who went first. She allowed him to cast the first spell.

Gethsemane summoned a red dot, which scrawled his name in elegant, cursive, sparkling script in mid-air. Luna admired it for half a second, then wrote her own name plus her full list of noble titles using her own pale blue dot. They almost couldn't see each other through the long, glowing list.

Taking her turn, the Princess cast an animation spell on the armor of one of the unconscious guards. With turquoise light surrounding his armor, the snoring guard began an intricate rear-legged dance.

Sweat began to drip from his body as the Sergeant intensified the brightness of his horn, forcing out enough magical power to animate another suit of armor. Using his own yellow telekinetic field, he made the second unconscious pony dance with the first, mirroring his movements almost perfectly. The sleeping ponies twirled like puppets in a mockery that would have made him laugh in nearly any other situation.

Dismissing her spell, Luna waited for her opponent to begin his turn. He gratefully, let his snoring subordinate go, setting her down as carefully as he could and quietly apologizing for the embarrassing display. He then drew on one of his latest tricks for his next spell. Gathering the drops of sweat from his body, Gethsemane condensed them right before their eyes, his yellow magic forcing the water to mix with the air until a tiny blue storm cloud formed at eye level in the distance between the two ponies.

Luna smiled inwardly at the miscalculation. Elemental manipulation was one of her strongest abilities. While his spell had caused a veritable heat wave of energy to form around his head, her counter barely drew a few sparks from her horn. With it, she not only expanded his cloud, but formed it into a funnel cloud, and then a miniature tornado, which she guided over to his fallen helmet. The helmet was sucked into the vortex. With delicate precision, Luna maneuvered the whirlwind so that when she stopped it, Gethsemane's helmet fell perfectly into place on top of his head. He grunted at the slight impact, but otherwise he did not move.

Now it was her turn again. Her entire horn shimmered with blue light as she took hold of the tornado and began to transmogrify its basic elements, piece by piece. She changed the very essence of the particles of air and water, forming them instead into sparks of yellow and orange fire. She spread the swirling, airborne mass of flame into a hollow ring circling above their heads.

Gethsemane watched it spin in the air, his jaw hanging open. He snapped it shut again when he realized that he would have to perform a similar spell. He grimaced, closing his eyes tightly and grunting as he wracked his body to come up with enough magic to do anything like what the Princess had done.

He collapsed. He looked up and saw the fire still rotating above him, having not changed or moved at all from all his exertions.

“That's something mortal ponies can do?” he said in disbelief.

“Indeed,” Luna answered. “Not easily, no, but we did not deceive thee. The duel was well fought. Know before slumber overtakes thee as well that thy defeat was honorable.”

The ring of flame transformed into a ring of blue lightning as she suddenly switched its nature to her sleeping spell. Gethsemane yelped in surprise but threw up a quick shield, putting all the energy he had left into countering the weight of the Princess's magic, which was bearing down on his mind like a mountain.

“Stop!” he shouted. “It is my duty to report to Celestia!”

“And thou shalt,” said Luna. “But first, thou must rest.”

The sergeant sank to the ground, finally snoring along with the rest of his squad. Just as she walked over to his sleeping form, the sun sank below the horizon. She watched him with both sadness and respect, and with a certain giddiness. Night had come, and the excitement of the duel had filled her with energy. She felt like she could stay up for a week.

“I shall remedy all of this,” she said softly.

Luna lifted herself up several feet into the air with her wings, spread her legs wide, and summoned all of her energy to create a magnificent moonrise tonight. The white orb was completely full. She made it larger than usual in the sky, making it cast a bright light over the entire the landscape. It drowned out many of the stars, but still, enough of them could be seen to let all ponies know that the night had truly arrived. “I shall remedy it even if I must burn the entire Forest to ash! I shall protect this land and make it truly mine again...”

She landed, then stomped off the road to the west, making her way to the edge of the Everfree with her heart set to a low boil. I had the Elements of Harmony once, she thought. I had loyal companions who believed in courage and honor. And I still possess the same virtues and strengths that I did then, do I not? Just because I do not have the Elements nor my fellow chevaliers anymore does not mean that I can not yet make a difference.

She paused to reflect on those ancient days, which she had not done in a long while. There was little reason to, with the magic of friendship warding off the worst evils in the world, and with the Elements of Harmony—their full power now unlocked—to defeat any that made it through. Back then she had to devote much more of her energy to combat than she had over the past year of her return from exile, the guard was smaller, and the threats were greater, but at least then she had known for sure that she was making the world safer. Up until recently, Equestria had apparently enjoyed centuries of security, yet they were still vulnerable to invasion? Monsters could still roam the land in relative freedom? With so many soldiers killed by changelings, and with many more whose morale had been shaken by Princess Celestia’s defeat, the situation could only get worse. Things do not have to be the way they were, but they should be better. ‘Tis not right. I have sat on my rear too long already, and it is time for me to do something.

Somewhere far, far down beneath her tough, powerful demeanor, Luna squealed with foalish delight. Adventure awaited!

Author's Notes:

The ease with which Luna overcomes the challenges she faces in this chapter is a deliberate nod to my source material, and not a sign of things to come. In fact, in just the next chapter, she faces a worthy set of foes, and in the third, she confronts a threat that she is not the least bit prepared for. Stay tuned!