Attempt One

Light, hot and pressing and fractured under a thousand wayward refractions, flies off a chunk of crystal and into Luna's eyes.

She winces, pulling her head further back into the carriage, black curtain sliding shut over the window and cutting off the light. She'd been trying to catch a glimpse of the City for the past ten minutes, to no avail: every angle she'd looked at had sent a searing beam towards her eye, as if the City was trying to hide itself from sight. The rays of the sun'd caused the city to practically glow with light: rays and strands of the stuff had been threaded across the air like cobwebs.

It was only now that Luna found herself asking the obvious question: What sort of fools would build a city out of crystal?

And not just the city, but the roads too. Her carriage ride after passing through the barrier had been nothing less than eerie: the crystal road was so smooth, so frictionless, that her carriage seemed to glide in place across it, giving her the strange illusion that the carriage wasn't moving at all. Luna wasn't even sure if the wheels were turning, and thinking about it, she couldn't hear them squeaking.

Her ride up to the north, to join her sister's retinue, had become dull in its final hours. Luna had been looking forward to seeing the city for herself, to seeing if the reality of the City lived up to its reputation for perfection.

And perhaps it had: it was so perfect that you couldn't even see the damn thing.

"Princess Luna!"

She wasn't sure where the guard was, or even if he was one of her guards -- though the accent was distinctly southern Equestrian.Her carriage was meant to have stopped in front of the great castle, and the sheer strength of the light flooding past the curtains had been enough to tell her that it had.

She closed her eyes, the light from her horn like a candle against the sun as the carriage's door opened. Something took hold of her hoof, helping her out. She nearly slipped when her hooves touched the floor. It was just as polished as she'd imagined.

The journey into the castle itself was mercifully short; her teeth had been gritted throughout the entire walk, her wings twitching as she followed the guard's voice through a world of glaring light, even with her eyes screwn shut.

Attempt Two

She—and you could tell from her gait that it was a she—strode forwards unbothered by the stares or whispers from the crowd of crystal ponies, unconcerned by the occasional mare swerving out of her path.

Why they did so was obvious: the mare was clothed from head to hoof in a thick, black clock through which only the tip of her muzzle extended, blue as a deep pool. She was of just above average height, though something inside the head of her cloak bulged the cover further out. It was this which drew the most glances.

There was also where she had come from—the alleys—and where she was heading too—the castle. A pair of crystal guards noticed her approach and turned smartly round to greet her, spear tips and armour segments glinting in the early evening sunlight.

“Halt. Your kind is not—” She threw back her hood, and they retreated, fast. “Princess Luna.”

Luna ignored them too, horn glowing as she tugged the castle’s door open and passed inside. They clattered close behind.

It took a full half-an-hour for the courtyard to recover from all the gossipers and rumour mongerers.

Inside was a faster thing: the buzz of her own Equestrian guards found her immediately, flocking around her like hungry ducks to a piece of bread. For the most part, she ignored them too, making her way towards the central stairs with the gaggle crowding round ehr each step of the way. Their questions went unanswered; their requests went unheeded.

And yet, a stride away from the stairs themselves, she paused and spoke with a voice that carried despite the quietness of it: “

“Our Sister told us you would be seeing the play all of this afternoon, your majesty.”

“Well, therein lies the problem.” Luna’s horn finished glowing as she dropped the cloak into his outstretched hooves. “I needed to see the play, and every last building’s swamped with light during the day.” She stormed past him, but paused on the first step and muttered, “What sort of fools make a city out of crystal?”

Attempt Three

The only parts of the play Luna was aware of were the voices; the light streaming in through the crystal walls and ceiling, though less intense than outside, was still enough to make the room, actors and audience blinding. The world before her squinting eyes was light, and nothing else.

And thinking that she liked them not,

Roseta spoke onto the mob,

Vowing to put their claims to scorn:

To find again the sunken hoard

Of old King Platinum.

Luna wanted to yawn -- ached to, in fact -- but she couldn’t. She had no clue if anyone was watching her given the opaqueness of the light, and another diplomatic slip up was something her sister wouldn’t tolerate. She’d been sent here to smile and look pretty, to be as close as possible to a princess of the Crystal Empire in some machination of Celestia’s designed to win support for her mission.

In practice, it just meant that when her nose itched, she couldn’t scratch it. Celestia had also somehow managed to find a dress in her size that still scratched against her coat intolerably. And it chafed against her wings. The colour was ugly, too, but a close enough match to the traditional Crystal Empire colours that she’d been forced to wear it nonetheless.

Luna suppressed a groan and smiled weakly, knowing that she should have double checked the wagons they’d brought with them.

She journeyed down into the rock,

Down far beneath the frozen top,

Seeking her way through ancient mines

That had been carved before the time

Saw creatures made of crystal rock

Who stretched on crystal river banks

Where trees and crystal flowers grew

Attempt Four

It is four hours past sunrise, and the City of Light is living up to its name. Thick and almost tangible sunbeams stretch across the air in great, gleaming bands of colour. It is a folly now for anypony not made of crystal to step outside, as the light has already passed blinding by, and is approaching searing.

And Princess Luna is not made of crystal, and so Princess Luna is confined and bored.

The metallic rattle of booted hoof against crystal floor stalks her as she walks down a corridor, bouncing off the walls to disappear up into the ceiling, returning distorted and confused. The inside is quite light, the walls being translucent, made up of misty shadows of the room next door. It is almost like being in absolute darkness: she can see barely less than a foot ahead of her, and the world around her seems insubstantial, like its being hurriedly painted into being a few feet ahead of her.

Luna pauses at a trident-split inside the corridor, uncertain of which fork would take her down. She’s been trying to reach a dungeon or basement or something for the past half-hour, ever since it had been revealed that the light which was making her wince at dawn would only worsen as the day went on, and that the Knight’s tourney she’d been scheduled to appear at might well be the end of her days of sight.

Luna curses under her breath whichever idiot thought to make a city out of crystal, and heads left. It feels more like the downwards direction, more like the route that’ll take her towards an underground some part of her mind’s convinced is more sensibly lit. 

She doesn’t quite trust that part, but follows it nonetheless. It’s something to do.

Sorry.