Something fell to the floor; one heavy crash followed by five thuds that rang like stone striking stone. She fell too. She was bleeding badly, the burnt-skin smell acrid in each breath, but darkness came as the world wobbled around her like a porcelain vase about to topple… 

[hr]

“Your highness?”

She woke, and realized she was waking, and wild hope surged. [i]It was a dream, let it all be a dream, I’d forgive you any nightmare if I could just hold you now–[/i] but she was in a shattered throne room dimly lit by torchlight, and a pedestal bore six colorless lumps of stone, cold as corpses to her magical sense. She was on silken bedding; she saw the stitches running up her left foreleg and ointment on the red patches of skin with hair burnt away, but she had not been moved from where she had fallen. A hole in the ceiling showed scattered stars in wild disorder, and most of the moon, and… her sister’s face, that dear sweet face burned into the sky like an epitaph. Her throat tightened against her breath and she squeezed her aching eyes shut again.

“Your highness? I am so sorry, please forgive us, we would not disturb you if we had any choice…” It was her unicorn seneschal. “We tried over and over to raise the Sun; we have failed. It does not respond to us. It does not… seem to [i]want[/i] to respond.”

“How long?” she croaked in a voice of ashes.

“Three days by the tower clock, your highness. We could not bear to disturb your rest, but the plants are wilting, the winds unresponsive to the pegasi. We need you.”

She allowed them to insult her grief by coaxing her upright, and escorting her to the grand tower. She mounted the steps slowly, supporters fore and aft. When she reached the parapet, she heard the intake of breath from the assembled crowd, then a cheer. A cheer that ground her heart to powder. She winced, and her seneschal motioned for the crowd to be silent.

She sought within herself for the power. She had lost so much, now that the Elements were silent and dead to her. Would the Sun spurn her likewise?

But first the Moon had to descend. It fought her; it did not want to leave the sky. She wanted to kneel and beg it to go, to release its distant prisoner, to roll backward through the sky and undo the days and make everything a might-have-been, with one more chance to avoid it all… She pushed with more force then she could spare, then there was a hint of movement, and the orb and its frozen face were sliding down the sky and under the earth like a burial [i](no no not that no)[/i] and now the sky was clear and dark.

She reached out to the sun, but it was heavy, and her love was a sad sundered thing that could not speak to it as before. As she strained in despair, she saw the faces in the crowd; they were expectant, tense, hopeful, their concern for her as one with their need for crop rotation schedules and paperwork and other ephemeralities. For their sake, she had ripped her soul in half and banished one side from the world. And they had probably rejoiced when they heard the news.

Ah, now [i]that [/i]was a fruitful conduit; along with her anger grew the spark of connection. She could envision the golden glow at the horizon, their silly cheers and their revolting celebration at the resumption of natural order, then their stunned incomprehension and growing horror as the fiery sphere descended upon them, as the flames wiped them and their troubles away forever, and cleansed the ground, and relieved her pain. [i]Is this how it felt for you, my beloved sister? Is this what gave you such power that it ruined me to resist you?[/i]

As she thought, the great sphere responded to her ire, and in a glorious red rush, it ascended almost eagerly to inflame the sky. The fools below started to dance and shout. Wearing a glassy smile, she held the Sun there, hanging over their heads, perfectly within her command, as their stupid happy faces wept and beamed up at her from below. If they didn’t stop cheering soon, that might decide it.

And a small cool part of her took comfort and courage. 

For it was still a choice.