Canine Complications

Civility

A wave of magic swept Twilight aside and a much more threatening blast was fired at Bark Back. Before Twilight's trajectory carried her into the wall and the blast had time to reach its target, though, a dark blue aura caught her and shielded Bark Back.

Celestia's formerly narrowed eyes shot open as she looked to her sister, "What is this?" she nearly shouted, eyes returning to their previous, unquestioningly threatening slits.

"I am defending my citizens, what else would be expected of me?" Luna responded firmly, rising from the throne, eying her sister critically.

"Your- ...citizens?" Celestia's firm and intimidating facade melted and was replaced with one of confusion, then fear, and then finally a teetering edge between anger and sadness. "Sister... Are you saying you are behind this?"

"If you mean to ask if I have defended rightful citizens of Equestria from your misguided attempts at the same, then yes, I am wholly responsible. Beyond that, I am conspicuously unaware of to what you could be referring, a matter I must express a measure of discontent with. Tell me sister, whatever has driven you to the point that you would attack your own student on sight?"

Celestia looked taken aback, glancing between the Luna, who wore a hurt frown and the wolf, who sat with a similar look of worrisome confusion in its eyes.

"I'm sorry sister..." Celestia said quietly. The words brought a smile to Luna's face. "I'm sorry you got involved at all." before Luna could question, a bright flash filled the room to reveal the lunar princess unconscious. The lunar guards may have reacted to the affront, had they not shared a similar fate.

As the dark alicorn fell, Twilight and Bark back were once again suspended by a golden aura. Celestia's sad eyes turned hard as she turned from her fallen sister to the wolves suspended in her grasp.

"So this was your intention? You knew my sister would not fall to your temptations directly, so you possessed my student and used her to drive my sister to re-establish the Night Empire? You may have gotten Twilight, but I will not lose my sister as well!" she shouted furiously, her mane's normally soft breeze quaking and snapping like a pennant in a gale. "I shall never lose my sister again, I swear it!" she screamed as the wooden wolf in her grasp was engulfed in solar flames. The other suspended wolf looked on in horror.

She turned to the remaining wolf, speaking with a much quieter, but all the more frightful for it, tone, "You will release your hold on my student, or I will make you suffer until you do!"

The wolf looked her gaze, Celestia's purple eyes meeting the wolf's blue. ...blue? Celestia's horn brightened, but the magic fizzled out as so too did the magic holding her up.

"I am stunned by your cruelty. The sister I know and love would never act this way, but then again, you must be in a poor state of mind if you thought a sleep spell would work on me sister." the wolf said calmly, in a familiar voice. The figure began morphing into a the same form that lay limp across the room as that and all the other present bodies dissolved into smoke, the very room quivering and reshaping into a familiar starry void of Luna's realm. "Now, what is this about the Night Empire? Surely you do not think I have fallen prey to the Nightmare once again?"

Celestia's anger was clear to Luna, though she could not tell if it was at her, at herself for falling into her trap, or for another reason. Regardless, her anger carried through her grimace and into her words, "You stand before me defending the Nightmare's monsters and claim to not be influenced? The farce has ended, it is all too clear what has happened here."

Celestia's scowl faltered as if surprised though, when, rather than taking action, Luna merely continued to talk, "Well then sister, please enlighten me; What is it that has clearly happened here?" The action, or the conspicuous lack thereof, caught Celestia unguarded.