~~~~~The Obsidian Temple, somewhere in the Ki-Lin Kingdoms~~~~~

"What an incredible place." Luna said softly, as their hoof-steps echoed in the cavernous hallway around them. "I have not seen arcane work of this scale... well, ever. How long did this take to build?" She asked incredulously, eyeballing the minute and intricate silver work that was inlaid into the very walls. "Focus points, energy capacitors, energy directors, absorbers and deflectors. Arcane inscriptions, symbology thousands of year’s old, using formula from the earliest days of Unicornia!" Luna rambled on, much to the quiet amusement of her sister, who was sounding an awful lot like a certain faithful student right now.

The very thought of Twilight stymied Celestia's momentary good mood, and she shook her heads in sadness. The work of restoring her mind will be great... she thought, with no small amount of regret. We may need to ascend her ourselves, just to give her the time. It would have been far better had she merely been able to complete the spell herself. But greater forces were at work here, and there was little Celestia could now do. What few remaining aces she possessed all came with their own set of dangers, and all of them would demand a price in blood she had spent two thousand years determined not to pay.

The words of prophesy still rattled around in the back of her mind - words she had been determined to prove wrong. Free will was powerful enough to upset even the machinations of a long dead demon of Tartarus. She would not allow any creature, any force of the universe to decree her actions - she had already sacrificed too much as it was. She drew the line at Twilight Sparkle.

The two sisters continued down the cavernous hallway, and the air became... thicker as they walked. The entire place reeked with magic in a way that made their coat hair stand up on end. "Sweet Harmony." whispered Celestia, licking her lips nervously. "There's enough power here to blow this entire forest to kingdom come." she whispered, not even daring to activate her horn for fear of setting off some kind of magical catastrophe. "It has to have been gathering power for centuries, but how?" She wondered aloud, and Luna simply shook her head - having no answer of her own.

The hall eventually gave way to a set of double doors, inscribed with a set of magical seals. Celestia was about to open her mouth when each of them began to glow subtly at their approach. Recognition seals. She thought, with a sort of detached observation. They were designed to 'know' us. That in itself was disturbing - it suggested the builder of this place had known their magic well enough to task locks to respond to it. There had been precious, precious few such individuals throughout history - or at least, few such who she knew about.

The doors swung open without a touch, revealing a massive spherical room which had to be at the center of the temple. The room truly was spherical, as though a ball of obsidian had been hollowed out from the center of a truly massive block of the stuff. only a single narrow bridge of stone connected the door they had walked through to a center platform of the room- where two dark figures stood side by side.

One of them appeared roughly fashioned from solid granite - though its form was clearly that of a pony, no details could be seen of it due to the cloak and hood that fully enveloped its body and head. It stood in the very center of the perfectly circular platform that hung seemingly unsupported in the center of the room. The other figure was very much alive, however. It was clear from this distance that it was a mare - a thestral no less.

Celestia turned, and nodded to Luna. This was her responsibility. Luna nodded in return and slowly proceeded down the walkway, with Celestia in close attendance to her. Before either could speak though, a soft voice came from the thestral mare. "I always wondered what it would be like to meet you, Princess Luna." Her words were gentle, and sounded... cracked. As though she had been crying for a very, very long time now. "Progenitor of my race. Our goddess, our Queen. Now you are here, and all the things I've always wanted to say seem... meaningless."

Luna stepped forward, sitting at the edge of the platform. Luna's gaze was calm, and she spoke in a gentle - caring sort of voice. "My child, no words are meaningless. Even words of anger and hate can be important." Luna paused and lifted her head a little more. "I am not the queen you may have awaited, but you are still one of my beloved children." Her words rang with gentle conviction, and echoed off the perfect surfaces of the sphere around them.

The thestral lifted her head and blew out a soft sigh. "I know." She whispered softly, her eyes closing. "After your return, I could feel your touch in the night - the sweet kiss of moonlight upon my brow. For all of my crimes, for all of my mistakes, I knew you would forgive them all. I knew it like I had known no other thing in the world." She turned slowly, and regarded them with her calm golden eyes. "I am Moon Dancer. Or I was, once. In recent years, I have been called Shadow Dancer - after I swore myself to Umbra in my despair at the loss of my Nightmare Queen."

Celestia could not help it - she hissed in response to these words, and found herself suddenly fixed with an icy glare from Luna. Celestia's mouth snapped shut and she turned her head away, blushing in shame. Luna rolled her eyes at her, then turned her regard back to the thestral. "Forgive my sister. She has been under a great deal of strain, lately." Luna's gaze was calm, and her voice still gentle. "So. You serve our enemy, yet you speak to me as a friend. You will forgive me if I find the situation a bit curious, Moon Dancer." Her tone was light still... but there was a dark undercurrent to it now.

Dancer smiled faintly. "Don't worry about it. I'm surprised she didn't try to kill me. An obedient servant to both the Shadow and Nightmare Moon?" She paused for a moment, then chuckled drily. "Yes, this is all quite curious isn't it? Much has changed since I met my beloved." She shook her head slowly - her dark mane frazzled and unkempt. "So much has changed. So much has been lost." She reached up to her ear, and Luna saw the tiny golden ring and charm which often indicated a thestral was partnered - permanently - to another.

Luna's eyes widened and she took a step forward, then another and another - walking over to the thestral mare who sat upon the platform. A moment later, and her hoof was on Dancer's cheek. "I am so sorry, my child." she said, her voice full of heartbreak and sorrow. "So sorry that I have failed you." Her tone was a whisper, and Dancer looked up at her in shock and astonishment. A moment of some undefinable emotion passed, and dancer flung her hooves around Luna's midsection, burying her face into the dark blue coat.

Luna silently wrapped wing and hoof around the thestral, and held her close. A soft sound of sobs came from Dancer, and Luna's gaze was sad and pitying. Celestia sat there watching, and felt an ache clench around her heart for the poor pony. Luna spoke again, gently. "The darkness has no hold over you anymore, my child. No more than it does over me. You are mine and I claim you as such." Her words thrummed with power and a sudden gasp that echoed off the walls was torn from Dancer's throat. Luna's mane suddenly lit with the deep colors of the midnight sky and sparkled with a thousand tiny stars winking within. It flowed and licked at the air as though some unseen wind was blowing through it, and Dancer's body went stiff as a board for a few agonizing moments as a small ball of black energy pooled into the air... before her body went limp in Luna's hooves, Dancer's breathing coming slow and fast. The tiny ball of energy suddenly sublimated and was gone.

Celestia stared at her sister, taking a hesitant step forward. "Did... How did you...?" She whispered softly, wonder coloring her voice softly. "Luna, did you just..." She couldn’t say it - for the first time in nearly six months, the thrill of hope surged through her veins like an electric current.

Luna spoke softly, her hooves brushing back the frazzled mane of the thestral. "I doubt what I just did would work for Twilight, sister. When I say that all of her kind are my children, I do not jest. I am a part of them in a way, and they are a part of me..." Her words trailed off into a soft whisper, Luna keeping her head firmly turned away from Celestia's gaze. "I did create them, after all." Her words were imbued with a deep sadness, measured only by the soft joy that she displayed on her face as she looked down on the mare in her hooves.

Dancer slowly stopped breathing heavily - her eyes staring at Luna as wide as saucers. "Goddess..." She whispered like a devotional prayer. "You... I cannot feel it any longer. The Shadow is... gone. Just like Moon said... " There were tears, but Dancer did not seem to notice them. She leant into the stroking hooves of Luna, and spoke gently. "So she was right, all along." Moon Dancer said, slowly reorienting herself to stand on her own four hooves. "Thank you, my Queen." She whispered, bowing her head before Luna.

Luna smiled gently, and tucked her hoof under Dancer's chin. "Thank me by telling us what is transpiring here, child. It seems there is much we do not know." She looked over at Celestia. "And much we must learn if we are to know true victory." she said with a quiet conviction, and Celestia nodded her approval.

Moon Dancer inhaled deeply and exhaled. "First you must understand the situation. Princess Celestia, your student is already too far gone to save with ease." She said in a quiet, knowing tone. Celestia stared at her as Dancer kept speaking, her voice calm and clear. "I know this will break your heart to hear. She has nearly given herself entirely to the Shadow- and before the end of today, she will be gone completely."

Celestia sucked in a slow breath, and closed her eyes - mastering her emotions in that moment. She would not cry, nor show weakness. Not now, for this thestral had not said it would be 'impossible' to save her. Sure enough, Moon continued to speak. "She is not beyond hope, Princess - but she is now beyond reason." Dance turned to the stone form - the look on her face oddly calm, serene even. "The path to victory will be a long and stony one. I know very little about most of it... but I know it begins here, with him." She pointed to the statue. "This temple was built for several reasons - but the most prominent of them was to preserve and eventually revive this pony." She turned resolutely to Luna, her tone slowly growing more confident. "I can tell you things about the Shadow as it is today, but only he knows the means by which we can defeat it."

Celestia nodded slowly, and Luna did the same. "So. How do we revive him?" She asked, her voice quick and sharp with each word she spoke. "If Twilight Sparkle is indeed under the sway of the dark power, we must move swiftly if we are to prevent civil war from tearing our land apart once again." Celestia kept her visage serene - no matter how much pain wracked her heart at this moment. She had not the time for pain. She would weep, she would mourn later - when they had a firm path before them.

Moon Dancer nodded, a slight smile on her face. "This room holds the key. It is designed to give you the guide you require, and then feed you the power to cast the spell. You need only call to it - and it will come." She gestured to the walls. "I must wait outside the temple... I am not an Alicorn." She said with a wry sort of smile. "I have secreted away quite a bit in the way of supplies. I'm going to build a camp - and when you have completed your task, we can discuss what must be done next like civilized ponies." She bowed deeply to them both, and scampered off out of the room.

Celestia's eyes followed her - and then she felt Luna's gaze upon her back. "She helped them corrupt her, Luna." Celestia said in a soft tone, her eyes narrowed slightly. Though within her heart, she raged without end. Celestia knew anger was pointless in this place, at this time - but that didn't help quell the fires within her. "She had to have been close to Twilight if she was so certain she is too far gone."

Luna's voice came softly. "Yes, it is likely she has done no small number of horrible things, Celestia. Yet are either of us so innocent? Have we not committed atrocious acts of our own?" Celestia winced away from that, and Luna stepped up to stand side-by-side with her, her voice oh-so-reasonable in tone it was like she was admonishing a student for being tardy. "We are neither of us innocent sister, as you well know. She wishes - in her heart - to atone. That is all I need." Luna finished, giving Celestia a frank and flat look.

Celestia reached up to gently rub her temple. "Yes, I suppose you are right, Luna." she said, suitably chastened by Luna's pedantic tones. Harmony knew she'd taken that tone with Luna often enough, and on much of the same subjects they were discussing right now. "We should focus on the matter at hoof." Her hoof waved airly at the stone figure that continued to stubbornly refuse to reveal its identity to them.

The two sisters walked onto the black platform, the both of them slowly circling the figure with eyes narrowed. Neither spoke for a time, as they reached out with ancient senses and even more ancient instincts. They 'felt' rather than 'saw' the magic flowing over, around and through the stone statue. They could 'taste' the power in the air and how it eagerly awaited the moment it would fulfill its purpose. Luna spoke first, softly. "I do not sense any malign magic here. Quite the opposite, I feel..." She frowned, suddenly. "There it is again. It is as though my memory is bumping up against things I ought to be able to recall, and find I cannot. This feeling is.... connected to this place somehow." She tilted her head around, glaring at the spherical walls of the room.

Celestia nodded slowly. "It's a memory spell. A very, very old one." She felt her tongue flick out and taste the magic on the air. "Memento Mortus. Death of memories. It was cast upon this place when it was built - and over time, the magic gathered and projected from here spread outwards. After sufficient centuries, it erased all but the very strongest of memories of the caster." She was speaking softly, eyes darting around the room as she tried to trace the invisible patterns in the magic that flowed through it. Damnit, just like Luna. I know this work. Intimately. Yet I cannot say why. She shook her head slowly, turning towards the figure. "When he is freed from this stone, the magic will cease to work."

Luna nodded a little, stopping at one end of the platform. "Then we have no choice." She stated, rather than asked. Luna planted her hooves solidly upon the platform and craned her neck high. "We shall have to risk it." She spoke clearly, her voice rising in tone. Her eyes narrowed and her horn began to glow with a cerulean light... All around the room, both sisters watched in awe as golden runes began to appear along the walls - alchemical and magical formula began to glow and hover in the air around the platform in hues of blue and purple...

Celestia stood opposite Luna, intuiting the intentions of the spell and called the magic of the sun to her. Sure enough, more runes and sigils glowed upon the walls - as formulas were conjured from the ether to hover about her horn in body in rich tones of gold and orange. "Remarkable." Celestia spoke in awe, her eyes trying without success to track the intricate spell work that was spreading like a spiderweb across the walls of the room. "I think all it requires is a touch of the divine, Lulu." She observed, pupils retracting to pinpoints. "We just need to give it a little push. On three?"

Luna nodded faintly, and both sisters closed their eyes in concert. When they reopened, Celestia's mane shone with the multihued power of the sun that flowed through her body and her eyes were simply bright fields of glowing white power. So too, were Luna's - and their manes undulated in concert with each other.

Celestia would never quite forget those next few moments. It had taken only the tiniest touch of her energy - and she presumed, only the tiniest of Luna's - to set the whole spellwork in motion. It had been like watching the most enormous spring in the entire world uncoiling in slow motion. The ripple of the energy around the place stretched and strained the very fabric of reality. Color and sound ran wild far worse than Discord had ever inflicted upon the world - yet they did so to the tune of a precise conductor.

This was not merely one spell, but a thousand of them all going off at the same time. The powers of dozens of unicorns etched into the silver, spells cast thousands of years ago triggering in a cacophonous symphony of magic. Waves of power flooded into the room from every possible angle - focused entirely on the figure in front of them. It was not merely restoring that pony to flesh - it was restoring his health and vigor, his mind and his soul. It was life magic at its most glorious, its most potent.

Were it not Celestia and Luna in here, there was no telling what the residual magical effects might have been. As it was, they were already ageless and effectively immortal, so life magic just rolled of their skin like dewdrops unless they were injured. As it was, Celestia felt all of the exhaustion and ache blown out of her wings and replaced with a warm and fuzzy feeling of relaxation. Had any other creature been in there with them... Celestia was not sure, but she would have been willing to lay good odds they'd probably live damn near forever.

All of these thoughts passed by in the blink of an eye - the magic was building to some earth-shattering crescendo all around them. White whorls of light flitted past and around their bodies to gather up around the stone pony - whose outer shell began to crack and emit a blinding white light in a precise sort of pattern along his joints. Celestia could not move, could not turn her eyes away. Every nerve in her body, ever ounce of instinct she had earned over thousands and thousands of years screamed at her that something important was about to happen...

Then there was a flash of light, as bright as the sunrise and an explosion of power that rippled out into the ground surrounding the temple. Celestia could feel it - like a giant stone dropped into the middle of a still pond, sending the water and waves crashing out in every direction. The entire world was light and magic that ensnared her senses and filled her soul with a sense of awe and wonderment...

And then it was dark.

Celestia felt her limbs go unsteady, and she sank to the ground onto her belly, panting heavily. She was fully energized, and still felt completely winded. "Luna?" She asked in a hoarse sort of voice, and got an unintelligible groan in response. It was the exact same sound Luna made when she woke up from a long night of drinking and Celestia had to grin. Still, had the spell worked?

There was a gentle sound of rustling cloth in front of them, and then a long breath inhaled. Neither sister could see through the darkness - all of the light in the room had banished away with the completion of the spell. That, and Celestia was still blinking away the bright red afterimages in her eyes from exposure to so much bright light. The cloth ruffled again and a soft chuckle, throaty and male came from the figure still more or less in front of them. A slightly rough masculine voice spoke softly into the darkness - one that sounded a little like gravel churning over under a shovel. "Now, what was that spell again...Oh yes, I recall now."

Suddenly, the darkness was pierced by a silvery glow of magic emanating from the horn of a unicorn. It lit up the room and cast the cloaked pony in brilliant silvery light. The unicorn spoke again in a clear, if still gravelly voice. "Bibbity Bobbity Boo!" His horn flashed like a camera's flashulb going off, nearly blinding the two sisters - who each had enough sense to cover their eyes with their hooves.

Celestia knew that voice. She knew that spell, like she knew her very soul - the backs of her very hooves! Luna knew that magical effect - no other unicorn, not for two thousand years of history had that same magical aura. There had been only one who did. The two sister’s minds reeled back, unable to accept the evidence of their ears and eyes, unable to believe in what was clearly impossible.

The sight of a unicorn with that luxurious and poofy white mane. That grey coat and stern but humor filled visage. The thick horn with its wicked sharp point. The sight of a pointed wizard's hat and a sky-blue cloak patterned with stars and moons, and bedecked with golden bells...

And that thing which was unmistakable, unforgettable, undeniably his...

The sight of that scraggly and curly white beard.

Then the torches sang to life again, this time blazing with cheerful bright red flames that cast that familiar figure into view. He turned towards each of them, his golden eyes as piercing as they had ever been. There was a humor in those eyes, and a wicked cunning. He spoke in the same firm and strong tones he had spoken with since the day they had met... all those centuries ago.

"Celly. Lulu." He said, with a love that transcended time and space written in his voice, and just a hint of mischief at the use of their nicknames. "It has been a very long time." He said in a tone of voice brimming with irony, his snow white eyebrow arching up suggestively. "My, how you two have grown." He said next, in a far more gentle tone - good humor rippling across his face.

"Impossible." said Luna, her tones awed and terrified in the same breath. "It cannot be. Thou cans't be..." She could not complete the sentence, her words tripping over into the old archaic forms of speech as she worked her jaw slowly.

But Celestia had no such doubts. she stumbled to her hooves and walked forward in hesitant steps. The unicorn that stood before them turned and smiled at her with just a hint of mischievous humor. The power he wielded written in every inch of his form for those who had the wisdom to see it. "Master..." She said softly, and fell to her knees before him. 'You're alive... How... how can this be?" She stated, almost unwilling to believe the words she spoke them - but she knew they were true. Knew it in the depths of her soul - where the tiny flame in her heart she had nurtured these past few months blazed into full form, a wildfire of Hope that filled her very soul with light.

The bearded unicorn reached out and stroked his ancient hoof down her cheek, just as he had done at their parting so many centuries ago. "I had business yet in this world, Celestia. Responsibilities I could not forsake, even for the Elysian fields which called to me." He said gently, and tipped her bowed head up with his hoof. "So I struck a deal with a cockatrice and an Empress, and sealed myself into the eternal stone. To await the day when Umbra would threaten the world I worked so hard to build." There was a fiery will in those golden eyes, and a grim sort of smile on his face. "Little did it realize what a mistake it was not to kill me when it had the chance."

Luna approached hesitantly, as Celestia stumbled up to stand before him... and the two sisters simultaneously embraced the grey unicorn, who let out a breath of sudden surprise. Both Alicorns laughed with childlike abandon and glee, and the pony between them soon joined in with a deep throated guffaw, wrapping his hooves around their necks to hug them close to him - rubbing their cheeks against his own, dropping all pretense of the stern and distant teacher for the moment.

"Yes, my most faithful students." said Star Swirl, the Bearded. He smiled softly, as those beautiful eyes shone at him, faces wreathed with smiles. His next words to the two sisters were reassuring. "I have come back to you..." he began quietly, embracing the Celestia and Luna with equal fervor as he whispered...

"At the turn of the tide."

Author's Notes:

Bonus points for whoever figured this one out.

And for all of those who have predicting instant Doom and Gloom for the side of the Light...

Oh ye of little faith. ;3