“Little imp.”
“Little whisper.”
“Little nuisance.”
“Come out and play,” Selene finished in a voice heavy with promise. She looked at the flower sisters as they walked. In the gloom of the Horsetooth caverns, her low-light vision made their coats appear to fluoresce in the darkness. She could only imagine what she looked like to them while under the effects of her darkvision spell.
One week after their eventful meeting with Celestia and Sand, Selene and her companions had come to an agreement. A whisper of the evil unleashed by Brilliant Sky’s haphazard combination of zebra alchemy and unicorn magic still lurked within the Horsetooth mines. Although its antics had at first been merely mischievous, it had quickly become the subject of ghost stories told by mothers to disobedient foals: don’t be out later than dark or the shadows will gobble you up! Tales made all the more sinister because they had proven true more than a dozen times over.
The bones of foals look so alike when they’re stripped of all their meat.
In an effort to find her own place in the world, Selene had resolved to deal with this threat. A first step, but an important one.
That had been over a month ago, however. The whisper haunted the mines even as they hunted it, speaking from the darkness just enough to mock, but never enough to be found.
That would end today.
“We know your secret, little one,” Selene said. “We know your weakness.”
A hundred mage-lights flared into being across their section of the mine, illuminating every passageway, every nook and cranny, every possible entrance, every possible escape. All except the one space before them.
“You...” the voice whispered from the shadows. “You have no power over me.”
“No?” Selene asked. She favored the faceless voice with a smile. “What if I were to just, say...” Her horn flared, driving back the small pool of darkness. A shriek sounded in response, high and ragged and filled with pain.
“Enough! Enough!” it cried.
“Could it ever be enough?” Chicory asked.
“It will, it will!” the voice said as Selene’s building light continued to eat away at its diminishing sanctuary. “There are secrets only I know, secrets I can share with you!”
“We trust our own shadows with the weight of our sorrows,” Indigo offered in agreement.
“Power!” the voice hissed. “Knowledge and power, the likes of which you’ve only tasted. A way to build a tunnel, a bridge, a connection. To tap into a wisdom beyond the ages, to draw upon one whose time should have come but for the foolishness of those without the strength to contain His majesty.”
“An offer of power?” Violet asked. “A devil’s bargain, to be sure, but such an intriguing one, this.”
Selene turned to her companions, meeting each of their gazes in turn. One by one, they nodded. She turned back to the shadow.
Her horn flashed, and the last of the darkness vanished.
***
[Countless thanks to my friends and reviewers, Heather, Cold in Gardez, Chris, and Mysecsha. Without their wit and wisdom, Lacuna would have been abandoned at best and nonexistent at worst. They have my undying gratitude for keeping me going through this.]
