Once again I sat in the presence of Equestrian royalty in a state horribly unfitting of such an honor. I was drenched to the bone, my hooves were caked with mud, and my face still dripped blood from the gash down my jaw.
Princess Luna, on the other hoof, looked utterly untouched by the rain. Her mane and tail still flowed freely as if they were dry as ever, and the only thing marring her armor was a bit of the ashy residue from destroyed Taken.
“What are you doing here?” I stared wide-eyed at the armored alicorn. “How are you even out here without a flashlight?”
The Princess smiled and turned to point at one of the blue orbs embedded in her armor. It looked like some kind of gemstone; a sapphire perhaps. Apparently at her will the stone began to glow brightly. They must have been imbued with some kind of magic.
“Magical light does not affect the Taken.” She explained, quickly proving me wrong. “They say to fight fire with fire, but fighting magic with magic is not always the best recourse.”
From within the chest piece of her armor she extracted a smaller example of one of the stones. She offered it to me and I began to examine it. It was dull and lifeless in my hooves.
“Given your animal knowledge I believe you know of the term ‘bioluminescence’, do you not?”
I nodded. Some animals and plants could use a chemical reaction within their bodies to produce a natural light. It truly was a sight to behold.
“Beneath Canterlot there exists a series of catacombs. I’ll not get into their purpose, but they are home to a variety of bioluminescent lichen that feed on the magical energy from the city above. These crystals are hollow and filled with this lichen. A magic user can bleed off energy to feed the lichen, causing it to glow. It is much more reliable for me than technology.”
That explained why the stone did nothing for me, but this hardly seemed the place for a science lesson. I could see in her eyes that the Princess was proud of her innovation so I didn’t rush her.
I offered her the useless stone back, but she refused it. I tucked it into one of my vest pockets for safe keeping.
“I can see by your face that you must have discovered Golden Prose is not what she seems.”
“She bucking shot me!” I erupted, reflexively touching my face and recoiling from the sting. “She led me out here to kill me! I barely got away with my head intact. She was spouting wild theories and some other things she had no business knowing.”
The Princess looked saddened. Her concentration on whatever magic kept the rain from touching her seemed to falter and her mane began to weigh down.
“Walk with me, Mossy Hooves.”
The look on her face tempered my simmering anger and I gathered myself up to follow her. I didn’t have much choice, as she still held Vinyl Scratch’s lighter in her magical grasp. “We need to leave… there isn’t anything more to be done here…”
“That is where you are wrong, and I am to blame for it. I couldn’t stand to wake you; I knew you would need your strength in the day to come. Instead I did nothing more than willfully send you back out into this fight unprepared.”
It took me a moment to realize she was talking about the night in her encampment. I’d allowed myself to fall asleep even though I knew she had more to tell me. Then, intentionally or not, she’d left me there right where Bronze Valor could find me.
“Princess, who was Shining Dawn?” Golden Prose’s downward spiral seemed to have started when she first got her hooves on the books I had found by that author. Luna had been around long enough that if anyone knew of the writer, it would be her.
Princess Luna avoided my gaze as we walked. Her bold presence behind the armor seemed to shrink back, making her appear much smaller under it than before.
“You have to understand, I never thought it would come to this.” Her voice was hushed and the rain seemed to fully penetrate her magic, soaking her as effectively as it had me. “I never believed I would return from my banishment. I was certain my sister would never risk allowing anypony to use the Elements of Harmony. How was I to know that as Nightmare Moon, I would escape on my own and force her to do so?”
“No one believed that would happen. That’s why it caught everypony so off guard. But that’s not what I asked.” Instead of making me more sympathetic, her sudden meekness only frustrated me once again.
“It was foolish of me, I know –“
“Princess! I need you to get to the point now!” I stepped out in front of the alicorn, blocking her path.
“… it was me…”
“What did you say?”
“It was me!” The Princess cried out, turning away from me. “I was Shining Dawn; the stories you discovered were my final creations in my last days of freedom before my banishment.”
No, it wasn’t possible. There was no way Golden Prose had been right.
“You’re lying…” I growled.
“Believe me, I wish I was.” Even with the rain streaming down her face I could see tears welling in the corners of the alicorn’s eyes. “You and the author were my contingency plan. I had no choice!”
I couldn’t process what was right in front of me. I’d been denying the possibility ever since Golden Prose had suggested it, but I couldn’t continue to lie to myself. My life, everything about me had been written into existence using the power of the Everfree. Every joy, every hardship just a piece of clever narration by the Princess’ troubled mind.
That meant…
“Hayseed Swamp. You did that to me…”
“Mossy, I had to… in a story it can never be certain that the hero will succeed, let alone survive. I needed you to be strong and yet still crave redemption… there was no other way…”
“You destroyed my bucking life!” In an instant I lost control and lashed out. I struck the Princess across the front of her armored helm. It couldn’t have hurt, but she seemed stunned none the less that I had dared to do so.
The moment I realized what I had done it was too late. Before the chill of fear even ran through me I was on my back with an armored hoof planted firmly on my throat. She didn’t press down hard; just enough to hold me down.
“I gave you your life.” She stated calmly yet firmly. “Nothing I can say will ever make up for what I had to put you through, but above all else you must remember that without me you would not exist.”
“What gives you that right…” I stared up from the ground at the alicorn princess with a look of pure bitterness. “What makes you think you can just take somepony’s life into your hooves like that?”
The Princess removed her hoof from my neck but still loomed over me.
“I suffered ten lifetimes of sorrowful isolation during my banishment, all because of the power of the Everfree. I know it may not seem fair, but I would do anything to stop the forest from causing anymore suffering… anything…”
My anger and confusion spiraled and threatened to tear me apart from the inside out. I didn’t know whether I wanted to get up and run or just lie there and weep.
“I just… I just don’t understand. It makes sense, but I still don’t know what any of it means. What do you even want from me?”
Rather than use her magic to lift me to my hooves, the alicorn tried to nudge me up, eventually resorting to scruffing me like a cat when I failed to comply. Now standing my legs shook violently and I felt as if I might wind up back on the ground at any second.
“I know there is no way you can possibly believe me.” Princess Luna removed her helm and leaned down to touch her forehead against mine. “I needed you to be exactly the stallion you are right now.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.”
I shied away from the Princess’ touch, moving as far away as I could without leaving the illumination she provided.
“I started off with good intentions, but as I learned more and more of the truth of what was going on around me all I could think about was how I could benefit. I’m no hero. The only reason I came this far was to undo those very things you did to me…”
Luna did not look surprised, and that only frustrated me more.
“But then you probably made me that way. I’ve never had a moment of free will in my life, have I?”
The Princess shook her head.
“I gave you and Golden Prose as much room as possible to become your own ponies.”
It was no consolation, but it did bring another question to mind.
“If you really did bring this all to pass, how does it end? What happens to me?”
“I wish I could tell you that.” She replied sadly, closing the distance between us once more. “But I do not remember. That knowledge was removed from me when the Elements of Harmony separated Nightmare Moon from my being.”
I frowned. “So only Golden Prose knows. She has the books and I know she’s read them.”
“I believe she is still just as bound by the story as you. The fact that she knows how this will end may, in fact, benefit us if she believes she can change the outcome.”
“And what if she isn’t? What if she has already rewritten everything and now nothing we do matters?”
Luna sighed heavily and gave me a knowing gaze. “Then we are on the precipice of an evil event on par with Nightmare Moon’s eternal darkness. With a creator in its clutches the Dark Presence can create whatever it wants. The risk of corruption is too great for anyone else to intervene directly.”
Seething, I pressed a hoof to the good side of my face. “Then why are you here? I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do, and apparently neither do you.”
“I came here for you, Mossy. You deserved to know the truth much sooner; I had to come make things right.”
“Great.” I thought to myself. “Another dose of the truth. Can’t wait to hear the next pony’s spin on it.”
I felt defeated. All I wanted to do was give up, and I couldn’t even do that. If I made it out of the forest alive I doubted the Princess could charge me with any crime, considering the liberties she had taken with me. It would only be a temporary reprieve though. The chaos the Dark Presence would unleash would be horrific, but the guilt of knowing I did nothing to stop it would be worse.
Living with that on my conscience too would be just as much of a death sentence as trying to fight.
“You know, Princess, you sure didn’t create me to be very prepared for this.” I muttered.
A small smile crept onto the alicorn’s face and she nudged my chin up with a hoof encouragingly.
“I couldn’t use the Everfree to give you power to accomplish your goals. The risk of your purpose being discovered or distorted was too great. I made you face those trials, but you handled them all with your own strength. Just because they were all destined to happen does not diminish the fact that you came through them without losing yourself.”
Lightning crackled nearby as if to remind us that the storm was far from over. Neither of us recoiled from the flash as we stood in silence. What the Princess had said had been a big spoonful to swallow and now it was my turn to fight back a welling of tears in my eyes. I wasn’t one to seek out encouragement from others, but it had been a long time since anyone had spoken to me in such a way. Not since Atten Burro had passed away.
“Thank you.” I finally said quietly, feeling calmer than I had for the first time all night.
Luna only nodded and smiled once more before placing her helm back atop her head.
“Walk with me again. Now that I have aired my ‘dirty laundry’, as it were, I have information of a more tactical nature to pass on to you.”
The pain in my chin had subsided enough that I could scrunch up my face without causing myself more discomfort than it was worth to reflect my lack of eagerness. Not quite reluctantly I fell into step beside her once again, hoping that what she had to say would be indeed useful.
“In the heart of the forest you will find a castle.” The Princess spoke very matter-of-factly as if she were only telling me how to find a restroom in the royal castle. “Do not worry about how to get there; you are so intertwined in Golden Prose’s machinations that you will undoubtedly be drawn there if you allow yourself to be.”
“Step one: wander aimlessly until I magically find a castle. Great. Not quite the helpful info I was hoping for.”
Oblivious to my internal dialogue, the alicorn continued on.
“The castle served as my home during my time as Nightmare Moon prior to my banishment, though the ruins upon which it was built are much older than that. I suspect they may be tied with the origin of the forest’s power, but that kind of speculation is best left for another day.”
“And you’re sure that’s where Golden Prose is?” I blew drops of rain from my lips as I spoke. “It just seems kind of an obvious hiding place for a force that has survived on subtlety.”
Princess Luna’s attention to her magic seemed to be restored, preventing the rain from touching her any further.
“I am certain. The Dark Presence is a creature of habit. It will return to a place where it is comfortable to manipulate the author. She will be there, where it can exercise its full power on her will.”
I couldn’t help but scoff. “I guess after you drop a tornado in the center of town you don’t have to worry much about being inconspicuous.”
Not sharing in my amusement the alicorn only tilted her head and furrowed her brow.
“Never mind. I just have one question though.”
“Ask away, Mossy Hooves. You may not be in a position to do so again.”
“Yeah, you’ve said that before…” After daring to lay a hoof on the Princess in anger, my self-preservation instinct was clearly too broken to prevent me from being a smart-ass. “But provided I do find the castle and they are there… how am I supposed to fight against the Dark Presence in its own lair? I barely fought the Taken in town when I had a small arsenal of supplies at my disposal.”
I tapped a hoof against the saddlebag where the Molotov now rested.
“Now all I have is this, and you saw how well that worked against any kind of magic.”
I could tell the alicorn was trying to look thoughtful as we walked. The way she craned her head as if in thought seemed disingenuous. I knew she must have had some kind of rehearsed answer for that just that question.
“Remember what I said before about your strengths, Mossy.” She said at last. “You are too hung up on the tools you can hold in your hooves. Focus on the tools you have here.” She tapped a hoof to her head.
“And here.” She tapped a hoof to her heart.
I gave an exaggerated sigh. “I’m emotionally drained, Princess. Just say what you mean and tell me to improvise. I can’t handle anymore sentimentality right now.”
Narrowing her eyes the princess turned to look at me as we walked.
“Do not attempt to turn off your emotions for the fight ahead. Without your heart to guide you you will be taken in by the Dark Presence.” Her gaze softened. “I believe in you, my little stallion. I know you will make the right decisions when the time comes.”
I frowned. “I just wish I was so certain.”