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// Interlude 3: The Heart of Darkness 
// Story: Escape from Castle Midnight 
// by Gojira007 
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Escape from Castle Midnight



Interlude Three: The Heart of Darkness


         With a start, Luna blinked the last traces of magical light out of her eyes.  “Ponyfeathers…” she muttered under her breath, “I do always forget how much of a shock it is to consume Eternia’s Elixir.  To say nothing of its vile flavor….”
        As her environment better came into focus, however, the Moon Princess realized…  “I am still at our old castle…?”
        She scuffed the ground with her hoof.  “Zecora, Pip, we fear the Elixir did not wo-“
        Even as she spoke, however, the Moon Princess soon realized neither of her companions were anywhere to be seen.  Looking out over the vast hall before her, in fact, Luna could see pristine banners where once there had only been tattered rags, polished chandeliers which should have been rusted, and walls of pure, strong stone that showed no signs of cracks or overgrowth.  “So, these are visions of the past,” Luna whispered, taking a tentative step forward.  “But then, when in the past am I?”
        On careful hooves, she ventured into the dark halls.  As she climbed up the stairs, heading back toward the chamber she had been in when she drank the elixir, she began to hear a faint sound.  It was hard to quite make out at first, but the closer she got to the room, the clearer it became.  It sounded like…somepony crying…?  Luna felt her pace quicken almost on instinct.  Within moments, she had reached the source.  The young alicorn felt her heart catch in her throat.
        There, laid low amidst the silent stone spheres that had once been the Elements of Harmony, was Celestia.  Her crown and harness were strewn across the room.  Rubble and burn marks lined the chamber.  “My fault…” the Sun Princess sobbed, her face racked with tears.  “It’s all my fault!”
        “Sister…!” Luna’s trot became a gallop as she rushed to Celestia’s side.  “WHO HATH HARMED THEE?  WE SHALL…!”
        Yet even as she roared the words, Luna caught sight of the deep red gash that rested on her sister’s chest.  Her Royal Canterlot Voice immediately fell silent, head catching up with heart.  “That…that wound….” she whispered.  
        She backed away a step, shaking her head slowly.  “I remember now…I gave you that wound, on the night…”
        Whirling around, Luna fixed her gaze on a broken window nearby, its shattered panes giving a clear view of the night sky.  There, resting among the stars, was the moon…and on its pale surface, the Mare in the Moon.  “The night you banished me.”
        “I’m sorry.”
        Immediately Luna turned back, her eyes meeting Celestia’s.  The Sun Princess was looking straight through her, every inch of her trembling.  “I’m so sorry…” she sobbed.
        “Sister…’Tia…I….”
        Yet before the younger alicorn could finish, the world around her became consumed in white light…

        …and when it cleared, she was standing on a sea of clouds, high above the rest of the world.  Realizing her wings were spread open, her entire body tensed, she took a moment to catch her breath, shaking her head with a short whinny.  “Get a hold of yourself,” she said.  “These are only memories…echoes.  Nothing more.”
        She closed her eyes.  She let herself breathe, in and out.  Then, eyes open, she again searched her surroundings.  It was sunset now, the skies a brilliant deep orange, and the clouds she rested upon, each a distinct shape and size, seemed to drift and curve, almost like the broken pieces of a puzzle orbiting around each other.  “First the castle, now here?” she muttered, ears flattening against her head.  “I wish I understood…what is the elixir trying to show me with all this?” 
That was when an all-too-familiar voice caught her ear.  "It smells horrid, Mother!" it whined, "And it looks even worse!"
Luna turned around, seeing three distant shapes on a nearby cloud adjacent to hers.  With a gentle leap, she glided over to it, and landed in front of a scene she knew well.  Two fillies, one mother, all gathered closely together, and the Moon Princess could not help but smile at the sight.  On one side was a young Celestia, that signature impish smile on her face.  On the other side was Luna herself, only as a child.  “I had forgotten how petulant I was back then….” the adult Luna muttered.  
And between them was…
“Mother.”
Queen Eternia.  She was every inch the figure the Moon Princess remembered.  Her mane and tail seemed to hold the entirety of the cosmos in their glowing strands, and the light of the sun and the moon both shimmered along her coat.  Her eyes were like rainbows, set beneath the majestic crystalline crown that rested proudly upon her brow.  Yet even so…even as she dwarfed both her children with her sheer size…there was a gentle air around her, in that warm smile and that loving gaze.
“Do I have t’drink it?” the younger Luna’s continued whining brought her modern self out of her reverie.             
        "Oh but it's my own special mixture, my little moonbeam," Eternia said with a laugh, her voice perfectly melodious.  "Eternia's Elixir, I call it.  Don't you want to try it?"
        Floating in front of her, held in the prismatic glow of the queen’s magic, was a bubble filled with a familiar white liquid.  The young Luna looked at it, then to her mother, nose scrunched tight against her face as she puffed her cheeks up.  
        "No I don't!" Luna mumbled out from between her tightly clenched teeth, causing the grown Moon Princess to shake her head.  “Was I really that bad…?”  
        "I drank all of my share just fine," Celestia piped up, leaning over and sticking her tongue out at her little sister.
        Eternia brushed her aside gently with a sweep of her wing.  "Now now, sunspot, don't tease her," she cooed, "It's scary to try new things."
        She looked back to the little blue pony lying next to her, with that smile both Lunas so loved.  That special Mother Smile that glowed like the stars that hung in her hair.  "But you do have to drink, my darling.  Just a little."
        "...but why...?" the young Luna whimpered.
        Eternia swept her hoof across the cloud in front of her; it was a slow, creaking motion, and even as the queen tried to keep it under her breath, there was no mistaking her pained little groan.  The cloud broke apart along her hoof's path, and in that gap the three alicorns could see all the way down, down, down to the lands below.  Cautiously, the grown Luna looked down herself.  There they were: the hills and fields, covered in the bright orange light of the nearly-finished day.  The sparkling lakes and rising mountains, serving to border each area.  Most of all, there were Ponies.  Earth Ponies, tilling their fields in one spot...then, far away, unicorns, trotting to and fro from their ornate houses...and every so often, some Pegasi would fly by between those lands below and the clouds above.  "That is why," Eternia said.  "Because one day, you will need to venture into those lands below, and when you do...I want you to be able to know everything you can about those Ponies.  One day...you're going to help them do wonderful, amazing things."
        "Becaaaaause...?" Celestia asked loudly.
        "Because you are wonderful, amazing Ponies yourselves," Eternia laughed.
        Despite herself, the modern Luna laughed right along with her.  “It had been so long…” she whispered, looking at her mother with increasingly-misty eyes.  “So long since I could really hear you again….”
        It only lasted a moment before Eternia had to bite her own voice down with a hiss.  Both Lunas frowned, and their eyes reluctantly turned to the place their mother always did her best to cover up.  Her chest, almost right in the middle.  There lay that deep, black scar, just peeking out from where Eternia tried to cover it in the cloud.  The scar was throbbing, ever so slightly.  “It…it looks just like Celestia’s….” the adult Luna realized.  
She stepped back from the other three alicorns as Eternia waved a gentle hoof at her fillies, both leaning over in concern.  "I'm fine, I'm fine, I promise," she said.  "Just...sore.  You know how it is."
        “Yes…” the modern Luna whispered.  “Yes I do.”
She had only ever had the vaguest sense of where the scar had come from, Mother had always avoided talking about it too much…but now, seeing it so soon after the scar she had given Celestia?  Now, it finally made sense.  Silence fell over the cloud then, but after a few more moments, in which time Eternia's smile did not waver, laughter returned.  "So," their mother said as her laugh became a giggle, giving the young Luna a light nudge, "are you going to taste my elixir now?"
        Young Luna fidgeted a bit, swishing her lip back and forth.  Ultimately, though, she nodded.  Eternia nodded back at her, horn glowing softly as she let the bubble gently find its way toward her younger daughter.  "But only a little," the young Luna piped up just as it reached her snout.
        Watching it all, the grown Luna began to tremble.  She had so many questions…so many feelings…but just as she saw her younger self’s eyes light up as the effects of the elixir kick in, so too did that same light began to tear through the memory around her.  “Wait…” she said, whipping her head around.  “Please…don’t take me away yet…!”
        The light did not listen…

        …and when it receded, Luna again found herself in a new location.  This one, however, she did not recognize.  Still shaking slightly, blinking tears from her eyes, the Moon Princess did her best to look around.  She seemed to be in some kind of forest, but one with trees larger and more colorful than any the alicorn had ever seen before.  Leaves of red and green, gold and orange, even blue and purple hung in the sky, itself an awe-inspiring spread of purest crimson.  At last feeling herself begin to steady, Luna took a gentle breath in, then out.  Then, straightening her shoulders and swishing her tail, she whispered “Very well then.  Show me.”
And then the entire forest shook.  It shook again a moment later, even stronger.  Stumbling only a moment, Luna’s eyes narrowed, ears lowering and wings spreading.  With a leap, she went to the air.  
That was where she saw it: a towering shadow slowly rising up from behind the horizon.  For a moment, Luna thought it was a giant riding atop a gargantuan pony…but no…the closer it drew, the clearer it became.  The horned head and four hooved legs belonged to the same figure.  Once that realization settled in, Luna’s entire body felt cold.  Her magic began to spark almost on instinct.  It was him.  She knew it.  Even having never seen him before…she knew.  “Tirek…” she hissed.  
He was not alone.  More and more shapes began to appear around him.  It was an army.  His army.  Dragons, timberwolves, tatzlwyrms, stratadons…every breed of monster Luna knew of and several more she did not…all moved as one around the massive centaur at their lead.  “DO YOU SEE?” Tirek bellowed, raising his arms to the sky.  “DO YOU SEE NOW THE PURITY OF OUR BATTLE?  THE RIGHTNESS?”
“All I see is a selfish fool who chose to throw everything away for the promise of something that was never his to take.”
Luna nearly dipped out of the sky with surprise as she heard that voice echo from behind.  It was stronger than she had ever hear it before, but she knew it immediately.  Sure enough, when the Moon Princess turned around, there, hovering only a few feet away from her, was Queen Eternia, more vibrant than ever her daughter had seen before.  She too had an army; pegasi covered the skies behind her, unicorns and Earth Ponies stood their ground on the grassy fields below.  All of them, even Eternia, wore the marks of many battles.  Tirek’s laughter echoed out across the distance.  “YOU CAN DEFY ME, AS YOU MUST,” he shouted, “IN THE NAME OF THOSE PATHETIC PONIES YOU PROTECT.  BUT WE ARE THE BEASTS OF THIS WORLD.  IT IS OUR NATURE TO DESTROY…TO CONQUER.  IT IS OUR DESTINY!”
        “’Destiny’.  An empty word for an empty soul,” Eternia whispered, lowering her head and closing her eyes.
        Luna glided to her side immediately.  “Mother...?”
        Yet no sooner did she approach than Eternia’s eyes opened again, her head raising back up.  Her horn glowed with a soft, swirling light, and Luna’s eyes widened at the sight of it.  “Is that…?” she gasped.
        “Remember what you must do,” she spoke, and every last pony gathered around her, including Luna, stood at full attention.  “No matter what happens, our enemy must not pass through this forest.  Hold them for as long as you can, until I give the signal.”
        Every last soldier nodded.  Each gave a salute.  Eternia, horn still glowing, smiled back at them.  “Thank you,” she said.  “Thank you all, my brave ones.”
        Luna could not help but smile herself.  “Just as I remember,” she laughed lightly.  “Even back then.”
        The entire forest began to shake.  Luna again turned around and saw Tirek, arms raised to the sky as arcs of black energy arced from his fingertips.  “YES!” he cackled.  “STAND YOUR GROUND, ETERNIA!  LET THIS BE OUR FINAL BATTLE!”
        The blackness swirled around, growing larger and thicker.  Taking shape.  Many shapes.  New monsters, some with wings, others with horns, still others with neither, but all of them stood on four legs, with razor tusks and burning eyes and branded scars on their flanks.  Again Luna felt a chill pierce her heart.  “Those…those are ponies…!” she said.
        Flames wrapped around the cursed ponies’ necks, spinning out into many lashes that laced themselves into Tirek’s waiting hands.  Yet still the black energy continued its transformation, forging one final form at the centaur’s hooves.  At first, Luna thought it was yet another creature for Tirek’s army; it had a beastly face with many fangs, and large, outreaching claws.  But as its full form became clearer, she realized its body was one of cold-blue steel, tapering off into a platform on which Tirek now stood.  On either side were gigantic wheels lined with spikes, held by glimmering gold spokes that hooked like blades.  “BEHOLD!” its master said.  “THE SHADOWS BEND TO MY WILL!  THE DARKNESS FOLLOWS MY COMMAND!  EVEN YOUR BELOVED PONIES ARE TWISTED BY MY POWER!”
        Grief flashed plain as day in Eternia’s eyes, and the rage it sparked in Luna’s heart could not be ignored.  Yet even as her ears lowered, and the glow all around her dimmed for just a moment, Eternia rose up.  Standing in the sky on hind legs, wings spreading out in full, she called out, “Then I swear to you now: your power shall be undone!”
        Luna could not resist matching her mother’s pose.  “I am with you,” she whispered.  
        Then the elder alicorn took off like a bolt straight toward Tirek.  Luna followed, the army of ponies close behind.  Ahead, Tirek, still laughing away, whipped the reins of fire wrapped around his cursed steeds, and they swiftly pulled his chariot forward.  His army too began their charge.  The distance between the two great forces was closing quickly, but Luna kept her eyes squarely focused on Tirek.  “At long last,” she thought, “I know the face of the one who tore my family apart….”
        She could see Eternia too was locked on the centaur, her pace increasingly difficult to match.  “But there is something else about this battle that matters, isn’t there, mother?” the younger alicorn thought.  “Something else that led your elixir to bring me here….”
        And then, at last, the two armies collided.  Pegasi flew around bursts of dragon fire.  Hyrdra teeth narrowly missed clenching around charging Earth Ponies.  Unicorn spells bombarded encroaching timberwolves.  Trees were knocked over and splintered into a thousand pieces, whole swaths of land were torn away and crumbled apart, even the sky itself was cut through with bolts of energy and streams of smoke.  
At the center of it all, Eternia and Tirek clashed. 
Luna stayed at her mother’s side, even as the cursed ponies pulling the chariot began to claw and bite at the queen.  She retaliated, boxing at one and kicking at another, wings beating out gales of powerful wind at all of them.  Yet even with those beasts at bay, Tirek struck from a distance, launching more bolts of dark energy from his fingertips.  Eternia dodged a few, but, with the cursed ponies impeding her movement, several others were able to hit their mark.  As her mother hissed in pain, Luna’s horn lit up on instinct.  The older alicorn, however, took each blow in stride, continuing to try and wrest her way toward her true enemy.  “But wait…”  Luna pondered aloud.  “Why does she not strike back?  Why is she not using her magic?”
Following after Eternia as she tried to fly over the monstrous steeds, Luna realized that soft light around her mother’s horn from before was still there, but brighter…larger.  “So…that is your plan….” the Moon Princess said.
Suddenly, a burst of flame rose up between Luna and Eternia, another of Tirek’s energy blasts coiled around it.  To her shock, Luna could feel the sheer, overpowering heat of the attack, intense enough to force her away.  “AH…!” she cried out, falling through the air.  “Foalish!” she grunted as she tried to recover.  “The flames themselves may not harm me, but I can still feel the sensations they create…I should have been more careful…!”
Her descent led her past a squadron of pegasi trying to evade a pursuing trio of Stratadons.  Even as the Moon Princess managed to right herself at last, it was only just in time to avoid crashing into the ground, where an angry dragon was furiously trying to crush several Earth Ponies beneath its feet as they were beginning to lasso its neck.  Pulling back up, Luna began to turn back to where she had fallen from.  Just as she began to turn, however, the deep red sky became filled with a brilliant white light.  Shielding her eyes, Luna could only just make out a voice over the roar of battle.  “IT IS THE QUEEN’S SIGNAL!” the voice shouted.  “FALL BACK!  EVERYPONY, FALL BACK NOW!!!”
The light began to dim.  All the ponies were either running away, or else working to cover their retreat.  There, higher in the sky than before, Tirek and Eternia continued their battle.  His chariot bore down on her relentlessly, and the alicorn queen’s movements were growing slower…weaker.  Luna, however, could see the glow around her horn.  A rainbow, pure and powerful.  And then, the ground below began to tremble.  Cracks began to line the ground, separating the retreating ponies from Tirek’s army.  With a flash of light and a roar loud enough to shake the trees, towering pillars of energy erupted from below the earth.  Red, blue, yellow, pink, green, purple…one by one they appeared, a circle around Tirek, Eternia, and the army of monsters below them.  Luna’s wings beat furiously as she raced back to the heart of the battle, but she could already hear her mother’s voice…could make out her form above, still clashing with her enemy.  “You are not the destiny of this world, Tirek!” the queen shouted.  “It is from within that world I now draw this power!”
“The Elements of Harmony,” Luna whispered, watching the magical pillars begin to bend, like a cage forming over the whole area.  “Is this how they were born?”
Even as the magical lights bore down on him, however, Tirek’s attack continued.  The darkness poured out of him in thick, stabbing waves.  “YOU WILL NOT DESTROY ME!” he shouted.  “YOU CANNOT!”
Each wave crashed into Eternia, barely held off by the light flaring around her.  They cut into her body and seared her hide.  Luna watched, eyes wide, as a vicious bolt of shadow struck the queen right in the chest.  Eternia cried out, a roar that was as defiant as it was pained.  And the light did not flicker.  The magic slowly closing in all around them did not waver.  “No I cannot…” Eternia managed to bite out the words, “but that is not what this magic is for.”
The pillars began to expand, merging together.  A dome of colors, swirling around faster and faster, covering the entire battlefield.  “I am banishing you, Tirek,” Eternia said, “you and all those who have joined you, to the Midnight Realm.”
The centaur’s shadows began to retract as Eternia’s light grew.  The flames holding his steeds to the chariot started to thin.  All around, the swirling colors began to blur together, creating a pure white.  “YOU THINK TO IMPRISON ME IN A WORLD OF DARKNESS?” Tirek laughed, even as his hands trembled.    
From within the white, a blackness began to form.  At first, it almost appeared to be smoke, but as it grew and expanded, swirling out to cover the entire field in its shade, Luna realized exactly what it was.  “The Black Clouds,” she said.
  Eternia, meanwhile, answered Tirek’s challenge with steel in her voice.  “There is no better prison,” she said.  “It is a world without light, without time, without change.  It is your reflection, Tirek, and until the end of all time, you will have no choice but to stare into it.”
Luna looked down below as she heard hundreds of roars and howls.  Tirek’s army, stumbling and panicked, was clustering together as the dome of clouds drew closer.  The centaur, however, could only laugh even harder.  “EMPTY WORDS, ETERNIA,” he said.  “NO PRISON CAN HOLD ME, LEAST OF ALL ONE I AM SO SUITED FOR.”
“This one can,” Eternia answered, her light beginning to dance around her.  “The wall between this world and the Midnight Realm shall remain unbreakable, as long as the Sun and Moon are in balance.”
Tirek bore his fangs at the queen in a vicious smile.  “AND HOW LONG WILL THAT BALANCE LAST, I WONDER?” he said.
With a crackling hiss, the last of the flames holding the cursed ponies to Tirek’s chariot vanished.  “Long enough….” Eternia whispered, her flight finally faltering as the clouds began to close together.  
Her light wrapped around the ponies as they fell from the chariot.  Without them to hold it in the sky, the chariot quickly plunged into the waiting maw of the closing barrier.  Yet all the way down, Tirek laughed.  “YOU HAVE WON NOTHING, ETERNIA!” he cackled.  “I AM THE ALL-SHADOW!  MY POWER CAN REACH PAST THE BONDS OF ANY PRISON!”
Luna watched him fall.  She watched as her mother and the cursed ponies vanished in one final burst of light.  And as the darkness wrapped around everything, she heard Tirek cry out, “YOU SHALL SEE!  ALL HEARTS CAST A SHADOW, AND IT IS IN THAT SHADOW I WILL LURK!  NO SOUL SHALL BE SAFE!”
And then everything vanished…

…leaving Luna, gasping out as she stumbled forward, back in the time-worn chamber of her old castle.  For a moment, she thought she would fall, but she soon found herself held up on either side.  “Princess, are you okay?” Pip, standing on the tips of his hooves to help Luna’s balance, asked.
Still beginning to catch her breath, Luna looked at the foal.  She anchored herself to his wide, warm eyes.  Folding her wide-open wings back to her side, the Moon Princess nodded.  
“If indeed you feel safe now that your mind has returned, then tell us, your majesty, what have you learned?”
Luna turned her gaze to Zecora, standing on her other side with a comforting hoof on her back.  At first, she thought “I am not sure…” as her answer, but just as she opened her mouth to say so, her mind raced back through everything it had just experienced.
“NO SOUL SHALL BE SAFE!”
“You are wonderful, amazing Ponies….”
“My fault…it’s all my fault!”
Luna’s ears sank.  “No…” she whispered, “oh no…!”.  
“Princess…?” Pip asked, even as the alicorn stepped away from him and Zecora.
Breath quickening, she turned to the doorway out of the chamber.  “Your majesty, please, let us both know,” Zecora said, stepping after her.  “What is it you saw that troubles you so?”
Shaking her head, Luna’s hooves began to tap nervously against the floor.  “We promise to explain on the way, but for now, we must make haste,” she said, eyes flickering between the doorway and her companions.
Clanking his pots-and-pans armor as he trotted in place, Pip simply answered, “Where to?”
        “To Ponyville,” Luna answered, “immediately.”
        And as the three raced out of the chamber, she added to herself, “To save my sister!”




To Be Continued….