As Princess in charge of night rather than day, Luna's sleep cycle revolved around the night shift. She didn't truly need sleep as an Alicorn demi-god, but she appreciated just how relaxing it was to curl up in bed. Six days out of seven were not too exhausting given that she simply sat night court of the palace, dealing with late night emergencies, or more often just reading.
She'd stayed up late (early) last night though, for on one day out of seven she liked to explore how changed the night had become in a thousand years. Nightclubs were a nice invention. So were twenty-four hour licensing laws. Overnight trains. Late-night eateries.
If she didn't know better she could almost suspect Celestia had encouraged ponies to enjoy the night more just to prepare for her return. On the other hand, ponies did seem a little different after a thousand years. Artificial light was much better these days. Luna could almost compare her sky to the cities below. The twinkling distant stars of Manehatten, the small but bright light of Ponyville... constellations on the ground.
If she said so herself, Luna felt that the night was more beautiful than ever before now she was back. Light pollution had become a thing of the past - Celestia's power over night having never quite been able to make the stars and moon penetrate the neon glows of streetlights in big cities. But the night was the night. And the day was the day. And today it was time she had a nice sleep. Sunset wasn't for another twelve hours... Celestia would wake her in plenty of time...
"Luna! Wakey wakey!"
The black Alicorn groaned.
"...Celestia? Is it sunset already? I feel like I just..."
She blinked, still lying in her bed.
"...Is that you Celestia?"
"Of course it is, you silly filly!"
The white royal Alicorn seemed normal at first. Until one noticed she was one-eighth her normal size.
"You seem kind of, well, small."
"Of course! Discord made me fun size!"
Luna's half-awake mind received a jolt of adrenaline at hearing that word.
"...Discord?"
"Yeah! That guy who used to run this place before us! He's back and everything's all fun now! Well, at least here and Ponyville!"
"Sister... You've been corrupted..." Luna gasped.
"Oh, but I prefer to say 'converted', my little pony."
Luna blinked.
"...Where is he?" She asked the air, since Celestia was now turning her head three hundred and sixty degrees while giggling.
"Very. Close. By."
Luna groaned as Celestia leapt up and walked on the ceiling.
"Get out of my bed."
Discord, now lying beside her, chuckled.
"You get out of mine. This is my kingdom once more..."
"It's a principality!" She snapped, moving out of her bed and facing the lounging spirit of disharmony.
"Temper temper, my dear. But I understand your displeasure. I have been most unkind to you this day. While Ponyville and Canterlot are the first to be blessed with the delightful chaos of... well, me... you alone of all those hundreds of thousands of ponies..."
"Combined populations of Canterlot and Ponyville barely exceed ninety thousand!"
"...tens of thousands of ponies... Honestly, this was your capital? Manehatten has millions! Oh well... Where was I?"
"Leaving, and turning everything back to normal!" Luna shouted, focusing magic in her horn... And shooting out nothing but a small spark.
"Great if you want to send a letter but I'm afraid Magic is tied to Harmony, and what with all my chaos and what I did to the new bearers of those elements..."
Luna felt panic rise.
"...What did you do?"
"I made them fun! Loyalty turned Traitor, Laughter turned so serious, Generosity so greedy. That one was good actually, it always used to be a weakness, as I once told a very bald being. What else. Oh, Kindness, I made her unkind. Quite tricky... Honesty, well, she's a liar now. And as for Magic... She'll break."
"And... What about Celestia? Why am I really not being affected?"
Discord chuckled.
"Well, Celestia has been making changes in the castle after I converted her to being over nine thousand percent cooler. And... Well, it has nothing to do with you being contaminated with the blasted Elements of Harmony until I defeated them. Okay, it was at first, but... Having a straigh mare to all my fun is a vital element! Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go back to my new capital of chaos before Twilight Sparkle arrives back home. And Celestia? It's time to lower the sun..."
"It's three in the afternoon!" Luna protested, but as Discord vanished, the now smaller white Alicorn lowered the sun.
Luna quickly raised the moon, fearing that no celestial bodies in the sky would incite panic in the cities and towns Discord hadn't found amusing to affect directly yet. She still had magic for that, but... She could feel she was weaker. Celestia was weaker, and the two sisters shared power in more ways than one.
"Whee! Now it's sunrise time! Move the moon, Luna!"
Luna did so.
"Ugh... Take over the moon for now, Celestia. I'll get it back later..."
"You're the best, Luna! Can I paint it?! Can I can I can I?!"
The Lunar Princess groaned.
"...Maybe later."
Luna raced through the castle, determined to find something. There was a seeing stone that could allow Celestia or her to watch anywhere in Equestria with their own eyes, even when the time for their semi-omnipotence of day and night respectively was wrong. It was normally kept in the throne room, and Luna hoped it remained unharmed. She had every expectation of finding a stone eyeball in its place...
But as she ran, the castle became... discomforting. For example, outside the throne room, two statues stood, made of solid stone.
"...These two statues... There were guards here."
"And there still are!" Discord grinned, popping out from behind them.
"They also used to be male! And I thought you didn't turn ponies to stone!"
"Oh, you think this was me? No, this was Celestia. She felt that guards stood still so long they might as well be statues. Then she realised that boys were icky... "
Celestia herself made an appearance.
"Oh, Hi Luna! I don't want to paint the moon yet, I just want something to play with!"
Her horn glowed, and the two statues seemingly vanished. In their places were two small, startled, fillies.
"W-Whats... Princesses? What is..." One former stallion tried, before the now-filly was grabbed by Celestia.
Both former guards squealed as they and Celestia vanished. The spirit of disharmony chuckled.
"Don't worry, they have plenty of toys. Celestia figured the maids should be made of something. So she figured felt and wool. Quite a lot of dolls..."
"This is insane..." Luna groaned.
"You're starting to understand! I'm so proud..." Discord taunted as he vanished.
Inside the throne room was no better. The regal chair was now a toilet... gold plated, but still a toilet. The four guards here had apparently been turned into two ballet dancers, a jackass in the box, and a seapony swimming in a giant glass of water.
The red carpet leading to the throne was now made of strawberry jam as well. The seeing stone remained unharmed, though. It sat on a pedestal, a perfect shimmering mirror sphere. One little burst of Alicorn magic and the mirror saw to anywhere in the domain of the two royal sisters.
And then she grew suspicious.
"...This is a trick. You left me sane because it seemed funny and because you couldn't, but if I watch the Elements of Harmony corrupted you get a shot at me, don't you?"
No one answered her. She sighed.
"Fine. Let's do this..."
Luna felt sane, comparatively speaking. Apart from the murderous rage and wish she'd just decapitated the damn statue all those centuries ago.
First she had observed the elements, as Twilight Sparkle tried to rally her friends. She had then moved to see the rest of the castle, which was natually in chaos. Trees walked around, watering the gardeners. The library was now full of picture books lying around, that when opened, revealed themselves to be the pages of the lives of ponies.
Each book currently ended on the same three pictures. The library staff and visitors all looking startled, a number of books falling to the ground where the ponies had been... and then a picture of Luna reading the book.
She sighed and gently closed what had apparently been a young dark blue-maned unicorn called Sunny Place, placing her beside the colt she had dragged to the library, a blond-maned Earth pony named Malestrom. This wasn't helping her...
...It probably wasn't helping Discord yet either. Not unless he planned to spend his entire rule with a murderous Alicorn chasing after him. Though he probably did.
She checked on the Elements of Harmony once more. To her dismay, Twilight was indeed breaking.
"...Keep it together, Twilight Sparkle!" She urged, but the seeing stone could only see.
And only watch as all the colour began to drain from her sisters student. From one of her saviours. From one of Equestria's last hopes...
...It was over.
That was it. The Elements of Harmony were overpowered. There were no more ancient legends, no hidden tricks. Celestia was an insane filly making the castle her playground. And she might as well have been trapped in the moon once more for all the power she had this day.
Even as her focusing magic faded, leaving the
Luna was startled to see a grey face staring back from the stone for a moment, until she realised she had stopped using it.
It was her reflection.
She'd been right. All Discord had wanted was to trick her. He stood behind her, a grin from ear to ear bearing his teeth.
"Problem, my little pony?"
She sighed.
And then she grinned.
"Oh... no. No problem at all."
She turned to face him. He was still grinning.
"You're just a thousand years too early to get the drop on me! You were close, but I remembered the golden rule - Don't feed the troll! Works on Celestia, works on you!" She taunted, as her colour came back.
Discord applauded politely, as his grin faded
"I applaud your tenacity, but that seemed quite a let down. You shrug it off by remembering the past. Boring. So cliché. So predictable. Still, you can't have any plan to save Equestria right now, that's predictable. Maybe once I corrupt Cloudsdale. I have a town hero to introduce... Then maybe you'll start thinking in chaos and then we'll try this again?"
He vanished, and Luna blinked.
"Crap. He's right. I don't have a plan... And who am I talking to?" She said to the books.
The two books right in front of her. That somehow she could imagine glaring at her... a glare all the creepier by the strange genetic defect that left Sunny Place with blank white eyes, even if she could see perfectly fine...
"...Oh, right, yeah. Sorry about that. I... er, well... I do kind of have a plan but... You won't be books much longer!"
She darted from the library.
Then darted right back in to whisper to the book that once was Maelstrom.
"By the way, you should see some of the things she dreams about you! No wonder she used to keep fainting around you..."
She then darted back out, wondering idly if a book could blush.
"Okay, Luna, Cloudsdale... Well, he'll spend a good five minutes there. Think, something to encourage Twilight Sparkle... Aha! "
She raced to her sister's private study, finding many scrolls neatly organised on a shelf. All letters.
All from Twilight Sparkle.
"Sorry, Pike!" Luna said, her horn glowing as every letter began to vanish into the air...
"...Wait, no. What is that baby dragon called? Spines? Spark? Spock? Puff?"
She heard the telltale noise of Discord appearing behind her.
"Now, what was that you just did?"
Luna thought for a second.
"...Gave a dragon indigestion."
Discord blinked.
"That makes no sense whatsoever. I like it!"
And he vanished.
Luna resisted the urge to facehoof.
"For a spirit that likes to be unpredictable he's pretty easy to guess around."
He appeared again.
"What did you say?! Moi?! Predictable?!" He fumed.
"Yup. Open book!"
"Open boo... Such words! They wound me!"
"Oh, really?" Luna sighed, floating a hoof-file over and idly filing away.
"...Sarcasm? How very predictable!" Discord growled.
"Is it now? Well, you'd know..."
And then he grinned.
"This really is fun! I think I'll wait to after Manehatten until I corru... convert you! Now, what's the best way to put chaos there... I know! An airquake!"
He then vanished.
And Luna waited for the time to pass. There wasn't much else to do but that.
"Predictable."
She grinned as she felt power flowing back into her. She didn't need a seeing stone to know what Twilight had done. It was all back to normal now
She walked out into the castle, past the library that was... emptying of distressed ponies with sudden aversions to books. Past a number of guards who... tried to stand still but seemed a little too uncomfortable doing so. Looking out at a garden where...
"Put those flamethowers down now!" She shouted out of the window.
The garden staff cringed and bolted as she sighed. She winced as one of the devices, carelessly dropped, promptly exploded. She used her magic to extinguish the flames.
Okay, maybe not entirely normal yet, but she could wait for the time to pass. There wasn't much else to do but that...
...Except Celestia had taken a lot of ponies-turned-plushies into her bedroom to play.
"Oh my stars... That room is going to be very crowded and awkward."
She made her way to the opposite end of Canterlot.
Celestia was a little uneasy, but back to her old self. Dinner that night in the castle was somewhat tricky as something had happened in the kitchens that meant the cooking staff refused to set foot in there, and judging by the fact one cook had screamed in terror that the apples would eat Luna if she made her own food, it had been something nasty.
She'd last cooked food a thousand years ago. She was fairly sure she burnt it then as well. Of course, back then there wasn't the option of flying to the nearest city Discord hadn't reached and getting fly-thru for the entire castle. It seemed that bean burgers were not inducing terror in anyone but Prince Blueblood, and that was just his snobbish disdain for anything 'common'.
Luna pondered how he'd react to something deep-fried and battered from Clydesdale. It was far enough from Canterlot to be 'exotic', yet so greasy and fatty he'd perceive it as the lower-class food it was.
Yes, it could have been worse. Lukewarm burgers brought from fifty miles away were preferable to a diet of insanity. The world was back to normal on the outside, nopony had been killed (a few had been injured) and Discord was sealed away in his statue once again.
The trouble was the mental damage. She knew some ponies would see some major problems over the coming weeks. And she knew what part she could play. First, she ensured that Celestia took credit for guiding he Elements of Harmony. Second... She owned the night, and she could guide the dreams of her subjects.
The moon had been up for some time. Soon, ponies in Cloudsdale, Canterlot, Ponyville, and Manehatten (lightly affected in comparison) would try to sleep.
The Alicorn gazed up at her moon and her stars, then down at her other stars. The lights of civilisation. Lights of order. Lights of harmony. Lights she would protect from bad dreams to the best of her abilities this night.
She appreciated the irony that she would be saving harmony from nightmares...