//------------------------------// // Skotadi // Story: Dis Immortalis // by Twilitbook //------------------------------// As stated earlier, I own nothing of the MLP franchise, nor do I pretend to do so. I am but a poor and pitiful writer rubbing two stones together hoping to spark his former talent. Huge thanks, once again, goes out to the geniuses John Perry and Halcyon who proof read and edited this train wreck. It was more work than you know... Dis Immortalis By: Dawn Scroll Chapter: Skotádi For the first time in over a hundred years, Princess Luna felt her skin grow clammy in fear as the jewels of the Elements of Harmony whirled furiously around her royal counterpart. “Her face struggled to veil the inner turmoil she was experiencing, in one moment allowing the sheer terror to slip through for a brief moment before it was locked back into a gaze of defiance. Her voice tremulous, Luna cried out “That old magic isn’t going to help you! This night is mine, you hear me? Mine!” Celestia closed her eyes, resigned to follow through with what she had already started. Luna could see the marks along the white alicorn’s tired frame. If she could just keep pushing her sister, Celestia would make a mistake and then- Celestia did something completely unexpected. “I’m sorry…” Luna had no idea that would be the last time she heard her sister’s voice. The first second was the worst. The light washed over Luna’s vision. It blinded her worse than if she had looked directly at Celestia’s sun. The Moon Princess tried to shrink away from it. Luna could feel the marble floor of the throne room suddenly fade beneath her hooves, leaving her floating on nothingness for a second, only to be replaced. *** The first minute was the worst. She found it difficult to focus as the multitude of swirling light joined as one and rapidly approached, enveloping her in a pale curtain. Luna’s head swam as she looked around her new surroundings. Adrenaline still coursed through her veins from confronting Celestia. She She instinctively began to inhale … but there was nothing to take in. It was from this futile attempt that she realized that the place was devoid of air, her godhood being the only thing to save her from suffocating in the sudden vacuum. Luna braced herself for Celestia’s next move. Her ethereal night mane whipped around in the absent wind as she peered into the distant hills. There was nothing but an endless wasteland of grey rocks and craters, encompassed only by a ceiling of stars. She would recognize this landscape anywhere. This was the surface of the moon. Her moon. For a few seconds Luna believed that Celestia had brought them here to continue their fight so that none of the city of Everfree would be harmed in the crossfire. But if that had been the case, then why hadn’t Celestia made her next move? Luna tentatively hooved at the ground. The silence was unsettling. “Celestia!” Luna called out into the alien plain. Her voice seemed to drift away into the nothingness around her. There was no response. “Celestia!” Luna called out again, stomping her hoof. A cloud of grey dust rose up from where she struck the ground. “Answer me! Show yourself, you coward!” She looked around anxiously, as though her sister might pop out of any crater. Every passing second was more excruciatingly suspenseful than the last, and the hairs on Luna’s skin rose in anticipation. Luna’s brain began to churn on overtime. At any given instant, she would have to brace herself for whatever was coming next. Celestia was going to jump out and attack her. She would use some sort of magic or maybe even fight head-on. Celestia might even- Not even the echo of her own voice made its way back to Luna.. The sound was merely absorbed by the void. The truth began to dawn on her. A horrible, horrible truth that she tried to ignore, but she couldn’t. For the second time that day, Luna felt truly scared. “Tia!” Luna called out again, this time far more hesitantly. “Please, Tia, answer me!” She was alone. *** The first hour had been the worst. Luna gave out a scream of frustration that was swallowed up by the distant horizon as she felt her magic fizzle away once again into nothingness. She angrily stomped a hoof into the grey rock beneath her, a tiny cloud of white dust rising up. "Why isn't this working!" she screamed out into the night. It was by no means an easy spell, but one fully within the range of power she had at her disposal. Luna’s breath came out in jagged gasps as she gritted her teeth. She blinked away the hot tears that threatened to roll down her face. She couldn’t afford to be weak. Not now. She had to try again. Luna tried to compose herself. It wasn’t working because her magic was slipping out of her grasp. She couldn’t get it under control because she was being emotional. That had always been something that her Father had warned her about. Yes, that had to be the reason. Luna bowed her head again, her brow furrowed as she closed her eyes and attempted to focus her magic. It started at her very core, and she let it build under the pressure. She could feel the inherent energy rise beneath her skin, drawn forth once again. Ethereal miasma seeped from her every pore as Luna continued to gather her strength, a well of magic that she gathered the formless raw power from. Her will was the sole tool she had to use to help shape and form the energy to her purpose. Luna could feel it slowly wash over her, a blanket of indigo light that tingled the surface of her skin and feathers. She used herself as the conductor, focusing the magic into her flesh and bones. The moon princess had held her breath for only a moment when she could feel her grasp on her magic slip ever so slightly once again. She thought what Cele-- NO! She couldn't focus on that! Not now! Her mind was straying from the task at hand. With a far more concentrated effort, Luna managed to realign the stray power to fall in place with the rest of it. She resumed breathing again, closing her eyes and attempted to focus solely on drawing forth all the energy she could muster. It had to work this time. There was no way it couldn't. Luna shook her head. Celestia would never do that to her, no matter how bad the two of them fought. Celestia wasn't like that. To do so would be just plain… cruel. But Celestia wasn't cruel. Sometimes when it came to the Court she could be a little bossy, and sometimes she was immature for all the pranking she did, but Celestia would never-- Luna's heart fluttered for a moment at the thought and her grip on her magic slipped. It was becoming difficult to manage. But that would be the case, of course. This spell would require much of her energy, especially given how tired she was. The effect was like trying to hold onto a sphere of oiled marble. These distractions weren’t helping her. Silently chastising herself, Luna mentally forced the magic back into place, keeping a close eye on the simmering pool of power she was accumulating. "Get a hold of yourself. You're rushing to conclusions." Luna thought to herself. Celestia was back at the castle right now waiting for her. She had probably just teleported her here to avoid any more damage to the castle and give her some time to cool off. Everything had been so in the heat of the moment. It all seemed perfectly reasonable, and Luna wanted to laugh at herself for her foalishness. But even still, Luna still had that seedling of doubt in the back of her mind. She remembered being so angry, goading and cursing at Celestia. Things had been said. Luna had lashed out at Celestia. She had hurt her sister. Luna felt the pool bubble outwards, and she ground her teeth as she tried to remain in control of her own emotions again. But no matter what she did, the memory of what had taken place in her final moments before arriving on the moon pushed to the front of her mind. A blast of Luna's magic had thrown Celestia back against one the stone columns. Luna watched with sick satisfaction as she heard the resounding crack of bone. Celestia tumbled to the marble floor in a flurry of white feathers, the lay at a heap at the bottom. The moon princess carefully made her way over to where Celestia struggled to get onto her hooves. All around them was evidence of their fight. Stone columns lay cracked and toppled, and here and there were black scorch marks from where their magic has missed their target and instead vaporized the marble flooring… or a guard. The white Alicorn had struggled to her hooves. One of the Princess's white wings was bent at an awkward angle that shouldn't have been possible. As she stood over her, Luna could see Celestia was in pain and she relished in it. Why, why did she love this feeling so much? Her sister prostrate and weakened on the floor, all because of Luna. To have this sort of control. This feeling was glorious. This feeling of power. Luna's breath hitched as the memory pushed through her concentration. For a moment she smelt the scent of ozone, but it was gone in an instant, whisked away like all other things into space. Luna was beginning to worry that she wasn’t going to be able to do this. These thoughts just kept bubbling under the surface, and she couldn’t keep them down. It wasn't even that long ago that it had happened. Luna drew forth the last bit of power she thought she would need and allow the current of energy within her to settle down into a shapeless mass. Right now, all she had was raw energy at her disposal, but that was it. The magic was there, but it had no purpose or meaning. After her fight with Celestia and the previous failures, Luna was thoroughly exhausted and couldn’t draw forth anymore of her power. This was it. Luna’s horn shone brightly in the darkness of her moon, the blue light casting an otherworldly hue to the already foreign terrain. The magic in her concentrated, and became sharp and fine as she put it to its purpose. It reacted like putty under her touch, molding itself within her body to fit her desire. It only took an instant for the goddess to know it was ready. The blue Alicorn's wings flared open, her eyes glowing as the magic enveloped her. Teleportation wasn't too hard of a spell to learn, though only a few Unicorns ever mastered it. But where Luna wanted, no, needed to go, was something only she and her sister could pull off. After all, the estimated distance from the lunar surface to earth was 238,857 miles, give or take a few hundred. Not an easy distance travel, even with the powers of a Goddess. The aura of her magic enveloped her whole body, the light of her own magic obscuring her vision. For a single heartbeat, she could feel her hooves begin to leave the rocky lunar surface. Her magic was casting her through. This was going to work. She was going to apologize to Celestia for everything. For the words she said, for the fight for- Luna flinched briefly- the broken wing. In but a moment she’d be going ho— Luna gave out a gasp of from the pain that shot through her like an arc of lightning, flaring her bones into glass and her veins into hot metal. The resulting impact jarred her entire being as she felt something lock in place around her. An invisible force, almost like a wall, pressed down on her will with mind-numbing strength and forced her intangible form back into corporal existence. Only when she was solid, only when she felt the grey, gritty surface of her moon did it finally abate, vanishing as though it never existed in the first place. As soon as it did, she collapsed into a heap. Luna went through the motions of panting for breath, despite the lack of air around. Her mind, and body for that matter, was still recovering from the shock that she just went through. She hurt so badly. But it wasn’t just her body that hurt. Hot pools of salt water formed at her eyes. Luna let them freely fall down her face this time, soaking the already dark skin. “It’s come to this then…” Luna said pitifully. Her voice barely reached her own ears. Was she in… shock? She could feel the dull ache and throbbing still move through her body from her failed attempt at magic. But nothing hurt worse right now than the realization of what had happened. Somewhere in the distant grey hills, below the horizon, a light began to form. Nothing more than white and blinding, no oxygen in the vacuum to give it the myriad of colors it normally had, the sun rose a ribbon at a time. Slowly but surely, searing light covered everything as the sun brought a different sort of dawn onto the Moon. But even with the bright light, the pocket marked soil still remained the dull grey it had before. There only color in the monotonous landscape was a tiny speck of dark blue that was an alicorn filly silently crying, alone in her musings.”. As the sun began to rise over her, Luna was forced to squeeze her eyes shut in a feeble attempt to spare them the sun’s glare. But even with them shut, the light still reached her from beyond her eyelids. It was an angry, almost hateful glare. The light seemed to mock her. “…I hate you.” Luna whispered to herself. Her cheeks were wet, the rivers of salt still dripping from them. She slowly got to her hooves on shaky limbs and turned to face the sun. The pain in her heart was shifting into another emotion. “I hate you,” Luna said, more loudly this time. “I hate you. I hate you. I Hate You. I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU!” Luna screamed out into the night. She stared at the rising sun, her eyes red from her tears as she seethed in anger. She refused to even squint out of defiance for her sister’s heavenly body. “DAMN YOU! DAMN YOU CELESTIA! IS THIS WHAT YOU WANTED? IS IT!” Luna shrieked to the starry heavens. “THIS ISN’T FAIR! We were supposed to rule together! Were you afraid that our subjects would love me more if they had the chance to appreciate my night? Were you afraid of being ignored like I was, Celestia!?” Luna asked herself verbally, never daring to avert her gaze from the sun. Her dark chest heaved in and out, liquid fury boiling inside of it. “I was wrong about you! They were all wrong about you! You were never kind or benevolent or just! You hogged their attention and their adoration! You don’t love your subjects. You didn’t love me! You don’t love anyone but YOURSELF,” Luna accused, a fresh batch of tears springing forth again. She tossed her head back and screamed: “I WOULD NEVER HAVE IMPRISONED YOU ON THE SUN!” It was the truth. One that Luna had refused to admit to herself before, but now had no choice too. Luna had thought… Luna had hoped she was wrong. That Celestia would never do something so cruel as to seal her away. Sometimes even a Goddess could be wrong. “S-So now you get what you wanted. The t-throne… E-Equestria… and m-me out of the way. A-a-all the love of your little subjects. “ Luna managed to choke out to herself, before lowering her face from the sun’s gaze. Strands of her silken blue mane covered her tear-streaked face, obscuring it from the celestial body. The Lunar Princess stood there on her lonely moon, the bright spots of light still dancing in her vision her vision even after she closed her eyes. Her next words held all the hate, scorn, and betrayal she could care to sum up right now. “…I hope you’re happy.” *** The first day had been the worst. As Celestia’s sun set in the distance, its last dying rays skimmed the skin of a goddess for a few brief moments before extinguishing completely. Had anypony been there to see it, they would have seen an alicorn filly curled up on her side. Had anypony been there to see it, they would have seen her green eyes red and puffy from a thousand tears. But there was nopony. Luna didn’t even watch as the sun dipped below the horizon of her moon. What was the point? There was no atmosphere to create the beautiful myriad of colors that her sister with which her sister was fond of painting the sky at each day’s end. There was no beauty in the setting of the sun because it wasn’t a sunset. Just another infernal light going out. Luna gave a weak sigh and gently scraped the ground below her with her hoof. Only a few minutes ago, she had tried to raise the moon out of pure habit, expecting to see it appear in the night sky somewhere. It took her a moment to remember she wouldn’t be seeing it anywhere in the night sky. Her moon was all around her. The knife was only driven in deeper when she found that it wouldn’t even respond to her. Her moon, her beautiful creation, remained silent to her will and power. She could feel another’s will tainting it, forcing it into submission and tearing it away from Luna’s grasp. She would have wept at the prospect, her, Mistress of the Night, Queen of the Milky Way, and Princess of the Moon, stripped of the very thing that gave her purpose. Luna would have wept at the thought of it. But she didn’t have any more tears to give. She had given up trying to break the seal that she had been bound to. She had tried working her way around it, trying to find some loophole in the spell. Celestia had left none for her. After screaming and raging at the empty air around her for hours, Luna had tried harder to free herself. She had tried to teleport again, only to be blocked at every attempt. She had attempted to undo and unravel the spell that was wound about her, only to find it as tight as chains. Luna had then tried breaking it with assault after assault of her power only for the wall to withstand every blow. Luna had even tried to fly off the surface of her moon. She would have gladly have flown the distance of the black emptiness before her if it meant she could go home. But though the seal did allow her to fly, she couldn’t reach a height of more than a few thousand feet before she encountered the Wall again. That experience hadn’t been pleasant. Luna had floated above the grey landscape on her indigo wings, each flap taking her further and further away. Further away from her anger and tears. For a few minutes, she had grown hopeful. Perhaps Celestia had missed such an opportunity and- -Luna had screamed as the Wall pressed down on her again, the pain wracking through her body like fire. She had tried to push past it, throwing every iota of her god-like strength against it, but it withheld her assault. Luna couldn’t withstand the Wall’s punishment. Her muscles strained and screamed in agony as she attempted to flap her wings further, but it felt as though each feather had been transformed into lead. Then suddenly her body gave out. Like a blue-feathered angel, Luna had fallen from the heavens. The pain was replaced by darkness as the ground rushed up to meet her. The next thing Luna could acknowledge was the white glare from her sister’s sun as it set on the grey landscape. Luna groaned and placed her forehooves firms on the grey soil in front of her and tried to stand. They next thing she felt was pain. It wasn’t the Wall again, and for a moment, Luna was grateful that it wasn’t. Instead it had been a splintery pain that streaked through the bones of her left wing when she tried to shift her weight. She gave a shriek at the unexpected sensation, and it was only then did Luna realize how hoarse her voice had become from all of the screaming… and yelling… and crying… A few drops escaped her eyes as the pain slowly ebbed away. Luna was no stranger to pain. The Dragon Wars were witness to that simple fact, but that didn’t make anything she had gone through any less painful. After what seemed like an almost inconceivable amount of time, when the pain has finally dimmed to tolerable levels, Luna had curled up on herself, trying her hardest not to move her wing even the slightest. It wasn’t exactly the most comfortable of positions, especially with the rocky ground beneath her. But that hardly mattered now. Luna watched the light dim away in the distance, and her night… Celestia’s night wrapped around her finally. Luna’s divinity and power would heal her wing without any problem soon enough. For the moment, she just had to keep calm and relax. It would take time for her to heal. Luna gave another shudder, her eyes blinking away the tears before they came. She had all the time in the world now. *** The first week had been the worst. Luna lay atop one of the cliffs that dotted the lunar surface and gazed upon the land, her legs folded beneath her. There was something beautiful about this land. Her land. A land that stretched as far as her eyes could see, its white terrain marred only by the countless craters that the cosmos had formed over the eons that she had been alive. Not a single blade of grass poked from the soil, and no wind moaned across the empty land. It was as though everything around her was frozen in time, a portrait that withstood that march of years with little change to which only the stars bore witness too. Those same stars which stood framed in a blanket of inky darkness, tiny pinpricks of light that glowed and sparkle. The night sky could be seen everywhere around her, even when the sun came out. There was no atmosphere to block the stars. Her stars. It was all so beautiful. A portrait of a lifeless world. Luna hated it. It was so foreign yet familiar to her. She had created it after all. Luna lowered her head and gazed into the grey dust beneath her. She was beginning to wish she had created more. There was nothing but grey all around her. Wherever Luna looked, all she could see was the color grey. Grey rocks, grey soil, grey mountains, grey craters. Luna was beginning to hunger for something other than the grey, and felt that her imprisonment was beginning to affect her even this early. Luna was beginning to fear that she was slowly going colorblind. One morning she had awoken to find her indigo fur less vivid than she remembered it. She had started with a sudden jolt as her brain processed this, her green eyes widening suddenly as she rubbed the skin above her forhooves. A few panicked heartbeats later she had examined her hooves to find the culprit. Moondust. Her fur wasn't actually grey. It was just moondust. Sometime in the night she must have rolled over in her sleep, and the soil had clung to every strand of hair as she did. Luna had taken well over an hour to brush the dust off of herself, if only to see her natural color again. It wasn't much in this world, but it was at least something… something other than grey. Luna knew she had other alternatives. She had even once made the mistake of taking it. For a brief few moments, she had looked up, and her view was filled with color. Hanging as if suspended by some invisible thread sat another orb of immense beauty. Green grass and forests with brown deserts and mountains. Great swaths of blue seas stretched between continents, and swirls of white clouds obscured homes, villages, cities and countries. It was her world. Her home. The sole vestiges of color that she had here left to gaze on. But each time Luna gazed at it, she had been filled with longing and sorrow. Her heart had broken again by merely looking upon her home. She could see familiar mountains, even from this distance. Luna could just make out Equestria, with its lush forests and green plains. Luna thought she could even just make out Everfree and- She had tried to go home again. Luna had spent another full day trying to get back to a place she had only gazed upon for a few split moments. And she had been stopped at each time by Celestia's spell. It hurt to be reminded that she couldn't go back home. It hurt worse than the Wall. Thus she lay with her back to the planet, and instead looked over the grey soil of the lifeless world before her. Luna looked down at the clean patch of lunar soil before her. With almost an idle though, she repeated the same motions she had done perhaps a hundred times that day. She scratched two vertical lines parallel to each other in the dirt, to be marked over with two more horizontal lines. A few more scratches, some circles and crisscrosses, a straight line and O had won yet another game of Tic-Tac-Tail. Luna turned her head to look at the ground behind her. What could possibly be hundreds of such improb games lay scratched into the ground. Luna sighed gently to herself and rubbed out the marking only to repeat the game again. She was pretty sure she was playing it wrong. After all, there had to be somepony playing the Xs. However, considering there was little else to do to pass the time, she completed another game. With another swipe of a hoof, it too was gone. As Luna continued her vigil out into the world of canyons, mountains, and craters around her, she forced herself to drink it all in. Her hom… the blue-green world behind her was gone forever. The silence rung in Luna's ears as she tried to accept this simple truth. X had won the game this time. Evidence of its victory was quickly erased. This was her home now. She would take this lifeless, colorless world and love it. She would take the color grey over all others. She would take feeling dead inside over the pain color caused her. *** The first month had been the worst. Luna gritted her teeth as she felt her hooves slip back several feet as the rocks gave way beneath her. She watched with scant trepidation as the moon rocks bounced their way down the slope to the canyon beneath her. Only a stone that was jutting out of the incline saved her from tumbling all the way down to the bottom. Luna grasped it with both hooves and caught herself, her lower hooves scrambling to find some sort of place holder. She finally settled on a ridge just below her and gave an angry glare at the ledge far above her head. It had been so close! Luna peered around the surface of the rock face, looking for any way back up. She gave a wry smile to herself as she analyzed a possible way up. If she could just make it- Luna stretched out a hoof, the muscles in her shoulder straining to bridge the distance. -there! She managed to firmly put her hoof down onto an outcrop to advance another step up. Slowly but surely, Luna continued to climb, foot by foot, up the face of the grey mountain before her. Each grasp of the stone spilt moon dust into her eyes and snout, but she shook it away and progressed, her body strained with determination. Her haunches burned with fire as she heaved herself up another few feet and firmly planted herself onto the ledge she had struggled to reach so hard for. Here Luna was able to stand on all four of her hooves and catch her breath, rolling the muscles in her shoulders to shake the exhaustion out of them. The peak was only another fifty feet or so. She could make it. The longer she waited, the harder it would be for her to keep going. With a final moment to bask in the delay, the moon goddess reared up onto her hind legs and planted her forehooves onto the surface of the rock. When her hoof made contact with a stone she felt would hold her weight, Luna gave a grunt of exertion and once more began her climb. Her eyes squinted to avoid the sun’s glare, and she cursed her sister for throwing this obstacle in her path. But she would prevail. Her wings remained firmly closed against her back, her hide and feathers slick with sweat. The dust clung to them like glue, once again dulling Luna’s normally vibrant dark coat. But Luna didn’t care. The dust, her achy muscles and the irritating glare all came second to the deed before her. All that mattered now was her, and the final few dozen feet of rock height between her between her and the peak. Thirty feet. Twenty. Ten. Luna’s hooves took hold of the final outcropping, and using up the last bit of strength of her legs and haunches, she pulled herself over to ungracefully collapse in a heap on the uneven surface of the mountain’s peak, only a scarce few inches from a stone’s fall to the ground below. Luna had done it. She lay utterly exhausted on the stone, panting the non-existent air as her entire body greedily devoured the sensation of relaxing. Luna didn’t even think she could muster enough energy for what was to come next. But there was something just so gratifying about the whole sensation. Luna smiled to herself, giggling into the grey dust. She had done it. She had done this. Her body was sore and she was covered with numerous bumps and scratches from when she had misjudged her climb, but it was worth it. With a soft moan Luna rolled onto her back, and extended her wings. She couldn’t fit on the entire peak, and one of her hooves dangled off the ledge. Luna stared up at the night sky, still attempting to steady her breath. Her wide green eyes took in every star and constellation, a feeling of pride welling into her chest. The warm, joyous feeling left her continuing to giggle as it spread throughout her extremities. They winked down at her, sparkling like thousands of diamonds. She had made those too. She, wittle waby Woona, had made them. “I HAVE CONQUERED THEE, MOUNTAIN!” Luna called into the night. Her voice shattered the once pristine silence that had been upheld nearly without fail beforehand. “THOU HAST CHALLENGED ME TO CLIMB THEE AND I HAVE EMERGED VICTORIOUS! ” It had been insane to think of doing. Celestia would have called it insane. Her parents would have called it insane. Even Luna had thought it was insane. Luna knew it had been insane to even conceive the attempt, but she had done it all the same. Why? Because it was there. It had stood imposing against the darkness, erect like a giant. A monolith of grey stone that towered above all of its other siblings. It was such a curious thing, and its mere presence reminded her of just how old she actually was. She remembered when she had first formed the Moon in the heavens. It had been flawlessly smooth then, a shining disk in the empty heavens. An orb of white marble, polished to shining perfection to synchronize with her sister’s sun. Strange then how millennia of debris and meteorites could slowly grind and misshape her once perfect sphere. How Time, ever cantering onwards, could push once smooth stone up into jagged peaks or press outwards into ditches and valleys of dust. It called to her, and Luna had answered the call. She had never rock-climbed before, nor would she truly accomplish anything to if she had actually achieved the summit. There was nopony around to witness it or praise her for it. If anything, Luna just wanted to do it to prove to herself that she could do it. The mountain had risen up impossibly tall before her, and Luna had stared it down. What had she to be afraid of? She was the Goddess of the Night. It was a mountain. Her mountain. Maybe she was going insane. In the present, the indigo filly giggled and tapped the grey peak beneath her with a hoof almost tenderly, as though it was her own foal. The deed had been done. “FROM HENCEFORTH, THY NAME SHALT BE MONS RANGEKER! WITH THEE AND THY SIBLINGS DEFEATED, I HAVE SUMMITED EVERY MOUNTAIN IN MY DOMAIN!” Her smile only grew wider with each word. This was the last one. She had done it. Luna listened to her voice slowly fade away into the distance, the noise lost among the white hills and craters. The filly stared up at her night sky, quietly smiling to herself. She had done that too. Luna indulged in her newfound feeling euphoria, this feeling of power that coursed through her tired and dusty body. She did this. It had been such a silly idea, but it was better than nothing. After all, what else was there to do? Nothing. There had been nothing else that she could think of. Tic-Tac-Tail got boring after the first day. Sleeping helped past the time, but she couldn’t force herself to sleep. It had been out of sheer, silent boredom that she had tried her hoof at this. She had been so bored. There was nothing here. Only the challenge she had set for herself. Now even that was gone. Nothing left. Nothing. No matter how hard she tried, Luna couldn’t force the corners of her mouth to stay upwards anymore, and the smile she once had began to slowly slip off of her face. The sweet, numbing sensation of pride and adrenaline she had felt before gave way to the sting of the dozens of cuts and scrapes she had afflicted upon herself with coming up here. It was a bitter sting that reverbrated all across her body, and the filly squeezed her green eyes shut as it washed over her. There was nothing here. Nothing to see, or do, or experience but pain, it seemed. Luna didn’t have her moon anymore. Was that all she was now? Princess of moon dust, pain, and nothingness? She indifferently acknowledged as Celestia’s cold light washed over her. Luna turned away, instead choosing to face the dust. Her nostrils flared at the gritty scent. The hours ticked by slowly as the night sky’s true sole gem spun on its axis, and the sun dipped into the horizon once more, thus ending yet another day of Luna’s imprisonment. Once she felt the last dim rays leave her face, the motionless pinnacle of the mountain blearily opened her eyes. Sleep had failed to come for her yet again. Luna turned her head up towards the cosmos and stared up at her stars. It was a beautiful night. What day was it even? The princess turned the numbers back through her head, silently counting and marking back the days from the… incident. There had been twenty-eight sunrises and twenty-nine sunsets since she had been sent here. So about a month she reasoned. She didn’t dare to let herself truly feel any of the relief she wanted to express. It was okay that she couldn’t think of anything else to do. It wasn’t going to matter that there was nothing here. A month was about it. A month was more than enough time. Celestia wouldn’t keep her here forever. Tomorrow, Luna promised herself. Tomorrow Celestia was going to come back. Tomorrow Celestia would let her free. Tomorrow she could apologize. Tomorrow she could be a princess again. Luna pulled her limbs closer to herself and curled up, trying to warm herself as the moon’s nightly chill began to seep into her tired bones. Tomorrow she could go home.