The Collective History of Asgard as Salvaged from All-Father Erik the Mad’s Burning of Archives by Luna Odinmaden

by Phoenix Avalon

The magician longs to see, One chants out between two worlds

I call out to you from in the tide that washes in and out of the veils.

If you hear my voice answer me these:

All worlds have only two paths, one leads to the hill and one to the ashheap.

Two bloody altar sit at each crossroad, one for the fathers and one for the fools.

There are two pillars in every universe, one of gold and one of dross, and the little ones stand in between.

Choose which fire you take to breast, one with purify and one will purge.

If the victim becomes the inflictor, then where is the circle's end.

If you can answer me these things then I will teach you to be the moon of the mind, the designer and diviner of dreams, the seeing eye of the shadows and guard against the stalking night mare.

I call out to you darkling!

Answer and walk the dream with me.

***

“Luna wake up!”

Luna opened her eyes to complete darkness.

I suppose I’m still dreaming.

“Luna!”

Dreaming or not, Cadence sounds insistent.

Luna struggled to sit up, her body felt as if it were moving through water and her senses dulled like her mind was stuffed with mist. She suddenly realized she was tangled in something, soft but thick almost...fuzzy?

What is this--rope? But how is it everywhere over my head and in my face WHAT THE--!

She felt things suddenly falling in on her, small and squirming…!

Luna shrieked and with a mighty shove threw off whatever was covering her--

And saw her comforter fall over the edge of her mattress. Along with half of her dolls.

Oh Faust, how am I such an idiot.

“Are you awake now?” Cadence’s voice came from the other side of her bed. Luna turned and saw her sister sitting on the very edge of the mattress, her mane still mussed and her eyes still grainy from sleep.

“I think so,” Luna said but even as she said it she ran the events of the last three days in her head.

Mama announced Papa’s coming, I babysat Cadence, told her The Butterfly in the Tomb, Celestia was caught with that new page colt…

...Yeah, I’m definitely awake and what I was hearing was a dream.

She felt her shoulders loosen and now relaxed a yawn escaped her lips. The deep inhale and exhale actually made her lungs ache. Maybe the position she slept in or being under the covers was affecting her lungs.

“I’m still so exhausted…” she sighed.

“You can sleep in today,” Cadence said, dropping off the bed to the floor. “I asked Mama and she said Tia can watch me today.”

“She probably wants to keep her away from all the stallions--” Luna’s mouth snapped shut and she winced. “Don’t let either of them know I said that.”

Cadence gave Luna a knowing look. “It’s fine. Really.”

Luna rolled her eyes. “I didn’t even think of that sort of stuff when I was your age. Good Faust, if Tia could just have a dram of self-control--!” Luna shook her head. “Nevermind.”

Emotion had a strange way of dissipating any leftover sleepiness. Unpleasant emotions also seemed to provoke restlessness her very muscles. So she flopped on her stomach and reached to pick up her fallen dolls, fancying they all were very put out at having been mistaken for crawling creatures and tossed out of bed.

After she picked up these she turned her attention to those left in the bed, gathering them up and placing them on the shelf above her bed where they traditionally inhabited when she was not playing with them. After she lined them all side by side, Luna set to counting them

Luna’s dolls had been given to her by Grandmama for her fifth birthday. They were a set of ten little fillies of varying solid colors that came each with three outfit changes, a crown, and a little wand. Luna recalled that when she had unwrapped her present and was squealing her thanks, Papa had intoned from a seat on the other side of the room, “Mama, why did you give her such a thing, so is too young to value them. She’ll have broken half of them and lost the rest by the end of the week.”

Grandmama and Mama had both dismissed his words, but they impressed on Luna’s mind an incredible sensation of responsibility towards her dolls. Since then she had refused to allow her sisters to handle them and always counted them and their accessories after handling them herself.

“..Nine, ten,” Luna said to herself, though in reality she barely processed the words. After eleven years, the habit had become so ingrained she lost awareness of it.

"Are you excited?" Cadence said from her end of the room. She was sitting on her bed, brushing the fluff of her immense stuffed boar, Richard, as she insisted he was named. Richard had been her companion since early infancy, she loved and desired no other toy, and he still was carried everywhere that was not an official function.

It took Luna a moment to remember what she meant. "I'm glad he'll be staying longer than last time."

"This time I'll make him promise me to write every fortnight. His last letter came over a month ago."

"Don't worry Papa with that. He's so busy with stabilizing the kingdom."

"He won't mind. Mama even says he'll going to spend every evening with us like when we were little. No work allowed." For emphasis, Cadence tapped her brush smartly on her bedstead.

Luna tried to imagine Mama giving a that command and Papa obeying one. Even when Mama ordered the servants it was always worded in the gentlest, soft-spoken manner. And Papa hadn't bowed to even some of Grandpapa's orders. Of course, those orders were often mere madness.

"Mama also says Sunset won't be allowed to keep Papa to herself either since she's with him always now," Cadence continued. "Remember last time how she kept trying to get us to stop talking to him because they had matters of state to discuss?"

Luna rolled her eyes in response. Since she was the heir to the throne, Papa insisted Sunset spend as much time as possible in preparation for her future role. That meant sitting in on council meetings, being present at every official court function, and accompanying the All on any tours of the realm.

This all suited the princesses well; for Sunset it meant she was surrounded by servile deference and reminders of her future power, and for the rest it meant they were relieved of her presence in their daily lives.

Luna went to her vanity to brush her mane. There were cosmetics scattered by the mirror, Celestia had moved them here after the time Sunset had put ink in her kohl which stained the outer rims of her eyes for five days. Of course, it just make Celestia’s eyes look even more doey and limpid, or so all the stallions and colts had claimed.

Celestia could be struck by lightning and retain her attractiveness, Luna thought. She randomly picked up one of Celestia’s many rouge boxes, turned it over in her hoof and then set it down with a grimace.

How could she possibly have a use for all of this? There’s at least five tubs and casks containing slight hue variations of the exact same product.

She already is better looking than any mare in the palace and yet she still feels the need to smear this garish, sticky stuff on her face? And it takes her hours, you’d think she was performing some high magical work.

Speaking of magic…

“Cadence, if Mama comes asking for me I’m with Majere again,” Luna said, simultaneously yanking her braid loose and quickly dragging her brush through her hair before hurrying out of the door just as Cadence replied: “Sure.”

Just as she shut the door behind her Luna almost ran into a pale green mare rushing down the hallway.

With a bobbing curtsey and a quick "Pardon, Highness," the mare continued down the hall. Luna stared after her in confusion, trying to place the strange mare's face in her mind.

She must be one of the new maids Mama hired.

After his ascension to the throne, Papa had spent the first year going through the palace's books, which had been sorely neglected by Grandpapa. He found they were filled with incomplete and even doctored information, and upon personal inspection discovered most everything was overstaffed and overpaid or underpaid and understaffed. So he vetted the entire, firing over half of the staff, including some counselors, ambassadors and politicians.

When Papa then left to address the needs of the realm as a whole, which shared many of the same issues as the palace, Mama was in charge of filling the empty stations with trustworthy and competent replacements.

That had been a process of two years and Luna still felt unsettled and off balance by the waves of unrecognizable faces.

Strangers are bad enough, but when they live in your home and there's no way to avoid them...

With that thought in mind Luna hurried down the hall in the opposite direction towards Majere's chambers. Her destination was on the other side of the palace, so she took the shortcut.

Throughout the palace were thin, almost imperceptible outline in the walls. If one push in the correct end, each opened up into a passage within the walls. Luna pressed her shoulder against one of these outlines and the door slid open, allowing her to slip into the darkened passage. As she shut the door behind her and the blackness wrapped around her, Luna felt a wave of serenity sweep through her body.

This is more like it.

Luna had grown fond of these passages of late. As Cadence grew older the bedroom felt more crowded and less private, and nearly every other room of the house was crawling with servants. She found herself retreating more often into these secret doors and simply wandering down them for hours until she circled back. Mostly she daydreamed, an old habit that as of late had become a full-blown hobby, occupying any moment of her mind that was not taken with lessons or familial interactions. She dreamt of the worlds and creatures and tales from her books; but sometimes she created stories of her own, though she wasn’t sure if it was the isolation or the darkness that caused nearly all these dreams to be submerged in melancholy and morbidity.

Maybe it was because of her nightmares.

Luna started down the passage at a leisurely place, stretching her wingtips out so they brushed against the walls, creating a soft whispering noise. The walls were enchanted to be soundproof to any outside them and there were notches peppered at advantageous angles to peer through and perfectly observe entire rooms, also magically enchanted to be invisible and funnel in even the quietest sounds from without.

These passages had been purposely designed by the All-Mother Sha’ula to allow the royal family privacy from all prying eyes while allowing them to keep a constant watch upon their servants and friends. It was a rather paranoid and deceptive route to take, and her reign had been marked by those two aspects.

Luna did feel a twinge of guilt now and then when she utilized these eyeholes, but she justified by telling herself she wasn’t spying on folk with the intent to punish or expose them. Her desire was mere amusement. She found observing others when they were unaware of you was absorbing and fascinating, they acted far more naturally and revealingly this way. As a princess, nopony ever behaved anything less than proper and polite in her presence, to see the same folk’s true manner was always informative.

She’d had many opportunities these past two years with all the new staff members and for the past three days there had been even more entertainment value than usual since the whole household was in a frenzy preparing for Papa’s return. Witnessing all the chaos of it made her even more grateful for her hiding place, she always felt like an obstacle whenever urgent business had to be enacted.

She didn’t understand that about herself, she wasn’t slothful or indifferent in most things, she felt the responsibility of her place as the daughter of the All-Father and her single aspiration was to be worthy to fulfill it. But she felt something like a solitary pillar directed to uphold a great ceiling, there was so much to support but so little she seemed capable of.

Sunset had the vehemence and resolution to conquer whatever object she set her sights on, Celestia was magnetic and persuasive enough to be given all she desired, and Cadence overwhelmed all with such affection and devotion there was no pony who would refuse her anything.

Luna perceived that compared to her sisters’ star-like warmth and luminance, she was their inverse, frigid and lightness. She could feel whenever she drew near to others--family, administration, servants--how they reacted like repelling magnetism and whenever she entered a place that was full of conversation and amusement it abruptly silenced as if smothered by an invisible hand.

Her sisters emanated, she only consumed.

Like a black hole.

The darkness of the passage now morphed from comforting to strangling and Luna quickly turned to look out the eyehole closest to her. She found she was looking into the Central Hall which lead to every major room in the palace (the throne room, the dining hall, the ballroom, the counseling chamber and royal family’s rooms) and thusly it was always choked with traffic. Luna had noted servants often used this as a meeting point to exchange gossip, she actually heard about most of Celestia’s mischief through this channel.

There was none of that today though, partly due to the haste in which every pony was in and also in part because Mama had positioned herself in the center of the hall so as to properly direct the flow of work.

Mama levitated a scroll before her eyes and conducted each pony that scurried by her with a gentle word or motion of her wing or hoof.

How can she manage to keep track of all of them and their each individual tasks? I can hardly tell them apart, much less recall their faces or station.

Mama was discussing something about the ballroom chandelier with a dark bay stallion when Cadence trotted up to her, dragging Richard behind her, and tugged on her mother’s tail.

Mama looked down and upon seeing Cadence, smiled tenderly and dismissed the servant.

“Good morning, precious. You’ve risen early,” Mama said, stroking Cadence’s mane.

“I couldn’t fall back asleep,” Cadence said, rubbing her right eye with her hoof. Luna only then noticed the shadows under her sister’s eyes. “Have you seen Tia, Mama? I want her to watch me today.”

“She isn’t in her room?”

“No. I don’t think she came to bed all night.”

Luna could perceive the sour look ghost across her mother’s face before she caught herself. “Why don’t you just ask Luna again, she doesn’t seem to mind.”

And she won’t drag you up and down the halls so she can flirt with all the new page colts.

Cadence must have made a strange face because Mama frowned and bent down to be on level with her. “What is it, precious?”

Cadence looked down at the floor and said in a small voice, “It’s...Luna scared me yesterday.”

“Scared you? How?” Mama said, voicing Luna’s exact thoughts.

“She told this story.” Cadence levitating Richard close to her face as if for reassurance. “I’m afraid to say it’s name but it was so terrible. I had nightmares all night and when I woke up I was scared to fall back asleep.”

"Why didn't you tell her she was scaring you?"

Cadence shrugged, squeezing Richard even closer to herself. "I don't know, I just couldn't say anything."

Mama gave her a compassionate look and embraced Cadence closely with her wings.

"It's alright precious,” she said softly. “I'll tell Luna no more scary stories from now. Now wait right here and let me find Celestia."

She kissed Cadence on the forehead before releasing her and starting down the hall in the direction of the ballroom. Luna knew there was an impending scene clash and so hastened to follow. Also, she now found she couldn’t continue watching Cadence, who did indeed look quite weary and seemed to be having trouble keeping her eyes open, leaning herself against the hallway wall and holding Richard under her chin like a pillow.

Even as Luna trotted through the passages that lead to the ballroom she couldn’t shake off the queasy sensation of guilt.

How did I not even notice how tired she looked this morning? And how did I not perceive how much my tale yesterday was effecting her?

Luna reached the ballroom before her mother did, since the passages where designed to be swifter than the regular route, and when Mama finally arrived she went straight to the door that lead to the kitchen. As Luna hurried down the parallel passage the delicious and intoxicating scent of warm food seeped in through the notches.

She usually avoided these particular passages because the smell of unattainable food was often too much to endure and since the inner walls were not created with proper ventilation the heat from the ovens and stoves made the narrow passages sweltering.

Already she felt perspiration developing on her forehead and by the time she reached the end that provided the best view her breath was becoming difficult to draw.

Oh Borr, it’s like a furnace in here! Are they cooking for Papa or an entire pantheon?

She couldn’t even put her eye directly against the eyehole because the walls were so hot, but she could still see and hear everything clearly. From this angle she could see from the two doorways--one from the dining hall and the other from the ballroom--into the kitchen, to the back door that lead into the courtyard that contained the kitchen garden and ashheap.

Leads to the ashheap...

Luna felt her eyes suddenly start to cloud and her head felt murky, like she had inhaled a thick fog, and it was only her mother’s sudden entrance through the kitchen doorway that seemed to wrench her back into clarity. All the servants froze in the middle of their tasks, silence abruptly reigning where noise usually lorded, and Mama’s voice echoed through the kitchen with uncharacteristic sharpness:

“Where is Princess Celestia?”

Every single servant’s hoof shot towards the back door and Mama marched over with an expression of growing intolerance. Luna nearly tripped rushing to the passage’s dead end, the eyeholes which directly overlooked the kitchen garden.

Here the smell was also pleasant, herbs and fruits and vegetables mixed with fresh air though there was always a bit of stench from the ashheap laced through it. It was also much cooler and so this time Luna was able to press her head against the wall to peer out the eyehole.

The first sight that greeted her was Celestia, ironically looking like she had been struck by lightning. Her hair was frazzled, her eyes were bloodshot and had black shadows beneath them, and she stumbled about as if her center of gravity were shifting. She was gathering some herbs with her magic in the corner of the garden; Luna couldn’t see what kind they were but she assumed they were the ones she often observed her boiling in water to help with the aftereffects of drunkenness.

Mama entered the courtyard and strode up to Celestia, the latter of whom flinched every time the former’s hooves struck the cobblestone ground.

“Where were you last night?” Mama demanded. Even Luna was struck by own harsh her tone was, she had seen Celestia and Mama argue before but rarely did the confrontations begin this aggressively.

Celestia made a pained face and touched her forehead as if to steady it. “I suppose in my bed isn’t a viable excuse today?” she rasped, even her voice sounded as if it hurt.

With her hoof Mama knocked the herbs out of Celestia’s magical hold, causing them to lazily drift to the ground. “If Cadence hadn’t told me were you truly going to stand there and lie to my face?”

“I wouldn’t need to lie so much if you didn’t take everything so hysterically all the time!” Celestia exclaimed, her anger seeming to override any pain she was in.

“Oh pardon me, Lady and Mistress, how is a mother supposed to react to hearing her daughter spent the night unsupervised and unguarded?”

“It’s not serious Mama, it’s not like I ever left the palace!”

“This time. And if you didn’t leave, that means you let that creature you’ve been hustling with in.”

Celestia's whole face became aflame with fury and she thrust her face right into their mother's. “Don’t talk about him like that, just because he isn’t a pony doesn’t make him a lower lifeform!”

“No, it’s his actions that prove that!" Mama snapped back, her voice was so uncharacteristically harsh Luna almost winced to hear it. "His whole manner is maligning, grotesque and depraved, and he has been nothing but a seditious and corrupting influence on you since the day you met!”

“He never corrupted me, this is how I've always been and you have never wanted to admit it! He enjoys me for who I am, while you spend all your time trying to twist me into what you think I should be!”

“No you are not this, so shallow and vulgar and spiteful. You are brilliant and clever and kind, and you are in a place in the world where you have the luxury of time and impunity to improve those virtues and weed out your vices, and eventually share your warm heart to the whole realm.”

“Can’t I do that without being dull and dour? If you want a daughter in the vein you already have Luna!”

Mama's whole countenance darkened like a thunderstorm and her tone dropped to what could almost be called a growl. “Watch your tongue, Celestia or I will see that you lose use of it for a few days. You will not use your sister as a distraction from your own faults."

"What, is she void of them?" Celestia demanded, her voice taking on a maliciously mocking lilt. "You never harass her as you do me but she has faults enough for you to quarrel with! Ask her how many guests and servants she has given sour impressions by her sullenness and shunning of all polite and expected attention. Ask our tutors how many times she sees fit to usurp their place to correct me or my sisters when we are mistaken in class. "

Mama opened her mouth to interrupt her but Celestia only lifted her voice to a uproarious shout:

"See watch how she lords her intellect and knowledge over all, thinking those give her the place to judge everything, family, servants and strangers alike in their manners and actions! She treats the whole world as an enemy to hide from, yet censures all and partakes in none! Is that what you want me to be: a morosely sanctimonious, diffident and joyless doll?"

The slap Mama delivered across Celestia's face was so sudden and so violent that hidden behind the wall Luna herself jumped back in shock.

When Celestia had recovered her balance she gaped at Mama with an expression of such astonishment that in any other situation would have been hilarious, but only served to make the scene more leaden.

Mama leaned into Celestia's face, her own burning with the most chilling visage of coiled wrath Luna had ever beheld.

"I told you Celestia Faustia Odinmaden Borrson, I won't hear you exploit your family's weakness as a shield to yours. When you stand before judgment, no being will accept the sins of others as justification for your wicked deeds. Unless you intend to live the life of an anathema to your father's house, you must develop some concept of self-control and responsibility or so help me I will see that it is impose upon you in the most effective and pitiless fashion. Now I want to you go find your little sister in the Central Hall and take her out to the garden so as to be away from the house's bustle. Is that understood?"

"Yes."

"Yes, what?"

"Yes Mama."

Mama straightened and said with a voice like flint: "Humiliation does not become you. See that you find something more flattering to wear by your father's arrival."

With that Mama walked away, her hoofsteps sounding like the strike of a judge’s gavel. Celestia stood motionless, her chest heaving and tears clearly standing out in her eyes. Then she gave each eye a rough rub with the back of her hoof and marched across the courtyard and through the back door, her face seething with fierce anger.

Luna briefly considered following her to make sure she didn't act out in front of Cadence, but decided against it. Celestia would put on her grinning mask by the time she reached her sister, as she did during any unpleasant circumstances, and would only laugh the louder all day. She used humor and happiness like some used swords and spells, to rend and pierce through her enemies, boredom and unhappiness.

See how well that's served her, Luna thought bitterly, then mentally added, Serves her well enough, by my eye.

Luna felt her previous guilt over terrifying Cadence fade, after all nothing she did truly could compare to Celestia's exhibitions. She backed down the passage until she was able to turn around (the ones by the kitchen were so narrow there was no way to do this) and finally began the twisting path towards her original destination.

***

Majere's chambers were nested in one of the many spires that spiraled from the main body of the palace. There were no hidden passages into these, the regular stairs that lead to the chambers were already so cramped Luna could not spread her wings in them, consequently there wasn't enough room within the walls for an added path.

When Luna was small these stairs had been a momentous labor, she used to have to sit down and catch her breath constantly. Sunset used to throw fits and scream at her when she did, Luna never understood why the lunatic couldn't just keep going if it provoked her so much. Celestia certainly did, she would continue climbing, simply calling back that she would see them both at the top. Then usually Sunset would run after her, the drive to surpass Celestia overriding her despising of Luna.

As she grew, the stairs themselves ceased to be an issue but Luna still hung back and allowed the others to rush ahead, it allowed her a few precious moments to quiet her mind before entering their master's chambers.

Certainly there would be no quietness in Majere's presence. And ironically, Luna wasn't troubled by that fact.

Majere was the official court mage and had been so since Grandpapa had been a young stallion. He had taught Papa in the magical arts and Mama and her siblings as well. He had exemplary qualifications, he came from a long, unbroken line of high mages, seven generations on his father's side and five on his mother's, and one of his forebears was taught by Ambrosius himself.

Grandpapa, whose nature ensured he held faith in few things, had trusted in Majere's magical knowledge and prowess implicitly. Papa, whose own nature held few things in esteem, had the uttermost deference for Majere's character and insight.

As far as Luna personally knew from tales both historical and fictional, great mages came in two flavors: sinisterly ambitious or benevolently eccentric. Majere settled very firmly into the latter.

Mama had once commented to Papa in Luna's hearing that she had worried when they sent her to be tutored by him that it would be disastrous and how astonished was at how magnificently they got along.

It made all the sense in the world to Luna; the moment she had first stepped into the chamber as a filly, shrinking between Sunset and Celestia, and set eyes on her master every sense of anxiety and trepidation that had been building with every step up the stairs had extinguished.

If his stained and patched, bizarrely multi-colored robes didn't dismantle any sense of formability, his dulled and drooping wizard's hat whose pinnacle was always falling between his eyes like a jester's cap only gave a dose of absurdity to his already ridiculous appearance. Add to that his mane, thinned and bleached by age, was held back by dozens of haphazardly placed pins and clips and his piebald coat whose natural markings could often not be distinguished from the blemishes and marks left by backfiring brews and spells.

Altogether, it made for an image that no creature could take seriously or threateningly, even Luna.

When Majere had first looked up from his apocalyptically shambolic desk, an immense magnifying lens strapped against his left eyeball, Luna remembered it as the first time she initiated a conversation to a stranger of her own volition.

"Why do you have hourglasses in your eyes?" she had said. Without the lens it was usually unnoticeable at first that Majere's irises were hourglass shaped. It had reminded her of the constellations burning into her eyes.

Majere had taken one very slow, dramatic blink and then answered her in a reedy, earnest voice: "To impress sharp-eyes ladies such as yourself."

"You were not cursed?" Luna recalled saying. Celestia had given Luna a little kick and Sunset snapped at her, "No, simpleton, he--"

But Majere had then bounded around his table and across the room like a spring fawn, striking a dainty pose before the sisters before declaring: "The only curse I've ever borne is that of my devastating good-looks and biting wit."

To this day Luna wasn't sure if the next incident was intentional or not, either possibility was in character for him. The moment he finished his speech the strap that held the lens to Majere's forehead snapped, the lens slipping off his face and shattering on the floor.

The timing and the situation was just too perfect, Luna had burst into peals of laughter. Both Celestia and Sunset gaped at her in matching expressions of mortification, which had only made Luna laugh harder. She only stopped when she heard Majere's laughter, surprisingly deep in comparison to his voice, joining hers.

He had laughed so heartily he wept and when he finally recovered after much gasping for air, he had put his hoof on Luna's head and said, his voice still quaking from laughter: "You'll be a delightful companion, I can see."

That was the first time and only time any pony had told Luna she was good company. Their relationship had remained unchanged for ten years, their lessons always accompanied with laughter.

Though all of the princesses were accomplished in magic Luna knew she was Majere's favored student, given that his lighthearted attitude did not compliment Sunset's own mean-spirited one, and Celestia's disregarding manner didn't sit well when his teaching status. Cadence had only started lessons two years ago, so though Majere adored her as every creature who ever came in contact with her sweet spirit did, it did not usurp Luna's place given the vast differences in their age and maturity.

Majere still conversed with Luna the most, both during lessons and after them, on matters both magical, historical and fantastical. Well-taught mages were always educated in history, literature and the arts, since these were considered to cultivate wisdom and imagination in the mind.

"Those are the two greatest requirements for a mage," he told her. "One to make his magic safe, the other to make it great."

Luna came upon the final step and knocked on the chamber door. It wasn't for the sake of formality, it was simply to warn Majere to shut down any experiment or spell he was attempting that might tend towards explosion. She had learned that lesson the hard way.

The heavy wooden door swung open magically and Majere’s voice called out, “It’s safe!”

Luna stepped inside the mage’s chambers. It was a circular stone room with a vaulted ceiling and eight tall narrow windows, four for each point of the compass and four for the spaces between, allowing in as much light as possible. There was another door directly across the first which lead out to a metallic stairway that curled around the outside of the chamber like a vine to its pinnacle, it was utilized for astronomical and meteorological purposes.

The half of the chamber walls were lined with shelves packed with volumes of magical theories and spells, jars and bottles of ingredients, powerful relics and wards, and various other magical necessities. On the other side was Majere’s immense desk, scattered and overflowing with scrawled papers, tubes leading into bubbling pots and curious artifacts.

Here Majere was bent over an open book, one hoof keeping his place and the other pinning the end of his hat back.

"You're here remarkably early. I thought you would be watching Cadence again," he said without looking up from his book.

"She asked for Celestia to watch her." Luna walked over to the desk and leaned over to see what Majere was reading. It was difficult to perceive upside down but it seemed to be a recipe for soup.

"Why?" Majere asked.

Luna's hesitation must have been long because Majere actually looked up from his book, promoting her to finally confess, "She said I scared her yesterday."

Majere raised a thin eyebrow. "Scared her? How?"

"I told her The Butterfly in the Tomb."

"I suppose that is a tad intense for a filly. But why don't you go with them anyways. I'm sure Celestia will find activity enough to occupy your time."

The memory of Celestia's words came back to Luna like a sour taste in her mouth. "I don't want to be with Celestia."

"What did she do this time?" Majere said wearily.

"Nothing to me." Technically true, but if felt enough like a lie that Luna had to hurriedly change the focus of the conversation: "Though she brought that new friend of hers into the house."

"The new one? With all the--" He made a motion with his hoofs, like he was attempting to mishmash uncomplimentary puzzle pieces.

Luna nodded. "That very one."

"Oh Faust. Your mother--"

"Knows."

"Ahh well." Majere shook his head as if trying to rid it of a terrifying image. "That should be settled soon."

"She was so mad she slapped her." Luna felt a twinge of regret saying that, it was a private matter after all. But then she remembered all the kitchen servants had to have heard it all, including Celestia's words about her, and the regret immediately melted away. It's not like Celestia ever attempted to keep other things private.

Luna realized Majere was stared at her intently. "Your mother struck your sister?" he said, his voice low with disbelief.

"Right across the face." Luna knew her voice sounded too satisfied to be appropriate, so she pushed herself off the desk and made her way towards the bookshelf holding the magical tomes. "So what will we be looking at today?"

Thankfully, Majere went along with the conversational shift. "I was thinking on exploring some force field enhancements. Extremely useful if you ever are in need of defense."

"Celestia is already onto learning to channel the sun rays through her body so she lights on fire without being burnt."

"Celestia is learning quite a few things in many varied subject, some I imagine you wouldn't be up to," Majere said with no small amount of suggestiveness.

Usually Luna would have laughed at that, but today this particular circumstance was grating her. "I only meant that magically. She's barely an entire year older but she's already at least seven years ahead of me!"

"Only five, really."

"When Papa comes tonight he will be looking over our scholastic marks and if he sees how far back I am in comparison--"

"I will tell your father that all students are different and set their own pace."

"--He'll be angry with me. He was already nearly graduating at my age!"

"Your father spent much of his youth rushing into adulthood to be a support for his father. You thankfully have no need of such haste and should be grateful for the luxury of time for father's stability has provided you."

"He'll think I'm ungrateful if it seems I'm wasting it!" Luna exclaimed, turning to face Majere in exasperation. "I've spent these past four years reading over the same basic material, force fields, levitation, pyrokinesis--all tricks any common unicorn could accomplish!"

"You are far more powerful than nearly any unicorn."

"But as an Alicorn, that is to be expected. As an Alicorn I am woefully below average. Sunset can already cause herself to fly without wings using her power. The last letter Papa sent us said that she raised some tailor pony's shop off the ground and held it so new supports could be added."

"If only he sent us word that she could hold her temper, that would be real news."

"Are you listening to me, Master?" Luna cried. Why did he seem to keep dancing around the subject? Majere did like to speak in riddles and nonsense at times, but those were usually employed to soften his abrupt and candid manner, not wheedle out of a confrontation.

"I've heard every word and I knew all before you spoke it," Majere tolerantly. He came out from behind his desk and approached her, looking suddenly very serious. "I am the magic professor I know my students abilities. I also know the extent of their other abilities and in most other studies you are excelling past both your elder sisters."

"In book-learning only," Luna interjected but Majere pointedly continued: "--History, science, the arts."

"Papa won't care about any of those if it seems I'm magically stunted."

"Oh please don't be so dramatic." Majere rolled his eyes dismissively. "Your magic isn't stunted, the potentials all there."

"If it's all there then why don't you advance me so I can start implementing it?"

"Because I can't perceive it yet."

"You just said it was there!" Luna practically shouted but Majere held up a hoof to silence her.

"I can sense that it's there," he said, his demeanor once again veering into atypical solemnity. "But I cannot tell it's nature or it's form."

Luna's expression must have clearly spoken her bafflement because Majere went on, seeming to be simultaneously searching for more clarity in his words:

"Your sisters their magic manifested clearly--Sunset's gravitational and Celestia's solar. But yours..." His front hooves, which had be moving in a circular manner as if to help propel his speech, now were dropped in defeat and he said simply, "I can't see it at all. The only reason I know it's there is because when I look at you there's something like a void, as if every magical sound or energy is abruptly silenced about you.

"It's most obvious when you're around Celestia. Her magical aura makes all this racket, it shines and crackles. But set besides you, it dims. So, by it's distinct absence I know it's exists, like calculating the space and depth of a well by the echo of a stone thrown into it. But like the echo it's guesswork."

His words, though spoken without a trace of ominousness, produced a sense of foreboding in Luna. "So it's like a blackhole?" she said slowly.

"Perhaps, something like that," Majere said, not seeming to catch the apprehension in her voice.

"By the absence of Celestia's light, you perceive my darkness."

This time Majere noticed and frowned. "That sounds like you're referring to another matter."

"So I cannot advance," Luna said frankly.

"You can," Majere insisted. "It's just as of now I do not believe you should. Until I can tell more or less the nature of your ability I cannot safely introduce you to any higher or more potent magic. It might provoke your ability too sudden and too powerfully, and without understanding of it I don't know how well you could control it and if I can contain it without causing more harm."

"So what do I do?"

"I was thinking on going over some exercises to see if we can shine a light on your power or at least call it out. Unless you don't want to."

Luna gave him an incredulous look. "Of course I want to! What makes you think I wouldn't?"

Majere shrugged. "Well, it seems to me after some time of observing and considering the matter, that the problem might be an inward one."

"You think I'm purposefully suppressing my magic? But that's impossible I spend all my time with you trying to expand it--"

Majere shook his head, cutting her words off. "Trying to overcome your sisters. Luna, you are a soul given to silence and concealment and magical process is rooted in the soul. Your power will not respond to the same incentive as your sisters. The more you attempt to drag it out and expose it, the more your nature will repulse it and retreat only farther. Your magic requires a gentle, almost secret hoof to guide it."

“So we have to take my magic by surprise?” Luna said skeptically.

“No, just slowly and patiently.”

The foreboding sensation was still floating in her mind but Luna pushed it back, saying determinedly, “We had better get started then.”

“I still am gathering the best exercises to work with you," Majere said. He turned and went back to his desk, motioning for her to follow. Once there he levitated a pile of papers and set them in front of her, each listing various spells and spell-books in Majere's thin, precise writing. "That should take another week or so. We can start then.”

Luna recognized most of them as magical puzzles meant to engage the subject's magic with concentration and eventually through this draw out hidden abilities. “Don’t you even have a couple we can start on?”

“How did I say we should approach this?”

Luna sighed. “Slowly and patiently.”

“Exactly." Majere walked around to his side of the desk. "So go spend some time with your sisters and I’ll return to my work.”

Luna knew anymore insistence would seem immature and insolent. Trying to distract from a startlingly potent feeling of defeat, she asked Majere: "Who is that soup for?”

He smiled. "My wife. She’s been having some trouble sleeping.”

Again, foreboding sprung into Luna's mind. “Bad dreams?”

“No just restlessness. Why do you ask?”

“No reason," she lied. "I’ll speak with you later.”

Majere nodded. “Very well.”

Luna quickly went out the door and shut it behind her without another word. Majere had usually been a relief to speak to compared to others but now she felt the same exhaustion she experienced when she was forced to converse with guests at parties.

Which I’ll be expected to do tonight...

She began feel the pangs of a headache beginning in her head.

As she descended the stairway, the darkness that had been so soothing before now felt creeping and swallowing. She lit her horn and a soft gleam was cast ahead of her, but in response to the light the darkness grew only more pronounced.

But set besides you, it dims.

So keep them closed, darkling.

I call out to you darkling!

“I don’t want to be a darkling,” she whispered. Her voice was so soft even the narrow stairway couldn’t catch them to echo. “I want to be like…”

Celestia’s face materialized in her mind, her inextinguishable beauty and joy that cultivated it further in everything she handled. Cadence wanted to spend her days with her, colts and stallions wanted to be besides her, Mama even when chastising her praised her brilliance and cleverness and kindness.

Mama had offered no defense of Luna’s own virtues when Celestia had called her self-righteous, cowardly, morose and joyless. Mama had only rebuked her for exploiting the family’s weakness.

Even when speaking of her power, Majere said he only knew of it in comparing it to Celestia’s.

“I want to be like Celestia.”

The shadows made no answer but loomed before her like an open tomb. It was going to be a long way down.

***

The Butterfly in the Tomb

I awoke to blackness and bones.

I lay on my side, motionless. Like a foal trying to ignore the shapeless monsters in the shadows of its bedroom, I felt too terrified to move. Instead, my eyes darted to every nook and cranny of the dank chamber, analyzing my surroundings.

The simple stone structure had no windows, and the only visible entrance was guarded by a massive stone. There were no torches, nor spots for torches to be mounted. Every corner was taken up by grime and spiders’ snares. And each wall was filled with holes. The holes held only bodies, smelling of rot and trapped in decaying yellowed plaster, the only source of color in the lightless box.

With icy certainty the realization struck me: I was in my family tomb. The shadowy mounds about me where the bodies of my ancestors.

I lay rooted to the spot, too overcome by this revelation to respond in any manner beyond staring at my surroundings. Then slowly like the dripping of water hysteria began to spread through my being, turning my limbs into liquid and my chest into a vice and my head into a hive of hornets.

I couldn't see, I couldn't hear, I couldn't breathe--all air seemed to have transformed into plumes of fire that seared my lungs and the walls rushed towards me like they meant to crush me between them. I wanted to cry out but could not find my voice, I want to run but there was no feeling in my legs.

The tension built within my frame. My frenzied mind raced through every possible option, too frozen in dread to actually enact any of them. Finally, as I lay there anticipating my death through drawn out starvation, all my tension and panic shot out in a piercing screech. I leapt off my aberrant bunk in a desperate plea for action and galloped over to the door staying me from freedom.

I stamped my hoof against the stone, the sound ringing piercingly in the tomb so that I thought it would be enough to awaken my ancestors from their slumber.

When the noise died down I pressed my ear to the stone and listened for any responding noise, a voice, tapping, anything, but none came. I drew back and struck the stone again and again listened, but still I was answered by silence.

Now I was aware of my breath coming in fast, quick gasps that scrapped at my throat like thorns. The stone was indeed thick yes, but not so that my striking it could not be heard nor my screams completely silenced.

What was this horror that was befalling me, was I in a dream? When would I wake from this dread and find myself once again in the comfort of my bed besides my wife? Every aspect of the circumstances was so acute and vivid unlike any dream I had ever experienced before.

I attempted to reach back into the recess of my mind, to summon up any memory that could explain this to me. My last recollections were indeed feeling poorly coming in from overseeing in the field, but a mere weariness that I knew would dissipate with rest so I had lain myself down in my bed.

Was it possible that my family could mistake me for dead for so long as to complete the funeral rites and inter me within? I could not have been lain within for more than a day since I still lived.

This meant some pony must be coming back to the tomb to compete the mourning process. Some pony must hear me and send to rescue me.

So I continued to slam against the stone again and cried out with a loud voice so that the tomb was full of my echos, bouncing back into my ears as if mocking by desperation. When once again I stopped to listen there was only stillness, no voice called out to me and the stone remained firmly in place.

I lay my forehead against the stone in despair and though my body ached to weep no tears came to my eyes, as if the lack of air had dried up every drop of moisture. I remained in this position for some time, miserably resigned to my fate, until I began to feel a growing sense of being watching.

At first my sorrow prevented me from taking notice but slowly the thought that I was being closely observed overwhelmed even my wretched state. It was not the feel of some pony finally heeding my cries and come to deliver me, rather it was the chilling, sinister feel of a predatory creature taking in the sight of its prey.

I looked to my left and right, but saw nothing that seemed to possess the source of my unsettling. Then I turned to look behind me for the first time since I awoke and was greeted by the sight of a huge, gaping mouth of a tunnel carved into the back wall of the tomb.

I was astonished and confused by this, as this cave had been the burial place for my family for many generations and there had never been any tunnel, certainly not one of this size and depth. As I gazed at the mouth of the tunnel, it seemed to me to be of a different kind of darkness than that around me; the shadows in the tomb were palpable shades, they filled the corners like smoke, but the blackness from the tunnel was a void, it didn't fill the tunnel rather it was like a hole cut into the page of reality, utter nothingness. The longer I stared, the hollower my body grew as if my spirit was being sucked within, yet I could not tear my eyes away.

I know not how long I gazed into that abyss, but abruptly my eyes were drawn to the rim of the tunnel's entrance where I beheld a perched butterfly, glimmering like a star against the yawning darkness. My heart at once leapt within my breast for I realized if such a creature whose kind was given to open air had managed to find it's way into the catacomb there must be an available entrance.

As I approached the butterfly it remained utterly still despite how my hoofsteps sounded like thunder in the confined space, so that for a brief panicked instant I thought it was merely an adornment set into the wall of the tomb. But when I had drawn near enough that I could have reached out and laid a hoof upon it, it spread its wings and flew directly into the throat of the tunnel.

I dove into the darkness after it, any fear of what lay beyond demolished in the wake of the mere thought of salvation. As I ran, I fancied I could catch the faintest whisper of the butterfly's wings always as if it were only inches ahead of my face and at times I swear I felt the breeze created by their movement, but no matter how intensely I searched into the blackness I could not perceive its shape.

I ran for what seemed to last for hours, yet I never grew more weary or even out of breath despite my previous fear of suffocation. The very moment the first sense of fading hope began to arise in my mind, a muted light materialized some way before me. A broken cry of relief burst from my lips and I surged ahead, now assured of my deliverance and already imagining the immeasurable joy of reuniting with my family. I could perfectly see the face of my beloved wife as I would run into her arms and embrace her and I swore I could even feel her warmth of her cheek against mine, when the tunnel abruptly opened and rose around me.

I halted in astonishment as I found myself standing in the entrance of an immense cavern whose ceiling rose so lofty and whose walls were so widely spaced that I could barely perceive them in the dim light. My eyes sought out the source of the illumination and alighted on the only object in the entire cavern, a throne which seemed to have been formed by a pair of stalactites and stalagmites having clashed and fused together in their opposing paths. The throne glistened like precious stones that caught and refracted the vague light so it produced a luminescence that radiated the entire cavern.

Seated upon the throne was an extraordinarily towering figure of a stallion. His visage was all at once resplendent and perspicacious, dreadful and beauteous almost beyond description and nearly too overwhelming to look upon. His coat had the appearance of refined silver with a mane and tail the color of onyx, and his features were sharply etched as if carved from flint. The exception were his eyes, beaming from beneath the shade of his jutting brows. One was completely white as if occluded and with an almost infinitesimal black pupil, the other utterly black like a glass with a minuscule white pupil.

I stood suddenly paralyzed by an inexplicable fear as I perceived he was staring at me with those unnatural eyes. I was seized with the sensation like a knife were being taken to my whole being, severing my skin from my bones, my blood from my spirit, and setting them all apart like a butcher measuring the value of each part individually.

When I thought I might shrivel up under the scrutiny the stallion spoke in a voice that resounded and rumbled like two plates of the earth clashing:

"You are most welcomed, wandering one. I am the master of this place and your new lord."

I suddenly found found my ability to speak returning and I said fearfully, "I thank you, my lord."

"Do you remember how you arrived here?"

“I followed a butterfly thinking it would guide me to the surface.”

“Where do you think you are in?”

“In the tombs of my ancestors. My family mistook me for dead and laid me within.”

The stallion rose from his throne and strode across the room to stand before me, his massive head soaring above mine and his mane was so long it brushed the floor, making a soft hiss whenever he took a step.

“When your family laid you in, would they not have left an offering for your passage over Styx?”

“Of course.”

“Then produce it.”

I hesitated, aware that there had been no such offering on my body when I had awoken though if set in the proper place I should not have been capable of missing it. I considered the possibility that in their grief of my sudden apparent passing they had forgotten it, but instantly knew that to be impossible since they were conscious that souls without offering would be forced to wander the banks of Styx for one hundred years before being permitting to cross.

“There was no offering,” the stallion said.

“No,” I had to confess.

“Tell me, wandering one, what do you see?” Hereupon he raised one of his hooves and directed it to one of the walls. I now saw the outline of a colossal stone doorway with a name engraved over it in a language I could not comprehend. None of this had I seen before though I had observed my surroundings.

“A door,” I answered.”

“What is the name over the door?”

“I cannot tell.”

The stallion lowered his hoof. “What is your first recollection upon waking in my kingdom?”

“Only that I was in darkness and under the earth surrounded by the bones of my ancestors.”

The stallion’s brows lowered and I felt his eyes raking me again. Abruptly, he stamped his hoof upon the ground, blue and white sparks spitting out from beneath and the sound echoed like the clang of a bell. Upon the fourth stamp a stallion of pitch black stallion wrapped in matching wings corporealized at his right side and bowed before him.

“Fearful Cousin, did you not gather this one at his time?” the grey one asked the other.

“Indeed I did, Dread Cousin,” the black stallion replied and his voice was soft and hollow like a deep well. “I put my chain around his neck and lead him to the shore as I have done since the creation of the dying ones.”

The grey stallion nodded and with another bow the black stallion vanished in a rupture of black feathers. Then the grey stallion held out his hoof and two coins lay in it though there had been none before and he had not made any motion to reach for them in a hidden place. He tilted his hoof and allowed them to drop to the ground where they clinked so sharply it was like knives to my ears. Upon the sound another stallion appeared on the right side of the grey one, this one reddish-brown with keen, bluish-grey eyes that flashing like lightning.

“Waitful Cousin, did you not guide this one when he appeared to you?” the grey one inquired.

“Most certainly, Generous Cousin,” the reddish-brown one answered in a voice lilting and wandering like a gently flowing river. “I took the offering from him and brought him across. When I had sat him on the other side I gave him the other half of the offering to give unto you.”

The grey stallion once again nodded and the other faded away in a cloud of soft mist. The grey stallion then pursed his lips and gave a long, low whistle that sounded like the noises that come up from the depths of caves and bottomless fissures in the earth. When the sound had ended, an immense beast stood at his right side.

From its feet to its body it had the standard appearance of a dog but from its neck it sprout three separate heads, each in possession of a pair of fiery red eyes that leaked smoke like burning coals and panting maws lined with mountainous fangs. Its whole form was ladened with thick heaps of fur which was dappled in endless shades of black, white and grey.

The grey stallion reached out and laid his hoof upon the beast’s neck, where the three heads intersected. The beast’s tail thrashed violently, kicking up gusts of wind that howled with the force of ten thousand hounds.

“My Friend, did you know let this one pass by you into my gates?” the grey one spoke.

The beast immediately turned to me and extended all three heads towards my body, each inhaling with his nostrils, producing a pull so strong I almost fell on my knees, and their mouths exhaling a heat like that of a furnace. Seemingly satisfied the beast turned back to the grey one and each jaw made a guttural sound, whereupon the grey one stroked each tenderly and nodded his dismissal. The beast winked out of sight like a shooting star.

The grey one faced me once again and asked, “Did you remember any of those who just appeared before you?”

“No,” I whispered, my voice smothered with horror at the sights I had seen.

The grey one seemed unsurprised by my answer. He lifted his hoof again and made strange movements with it in the air. A goblet appeared in it, filled to the brim with what looked to my eyes like wine. He held it out to me and commanded in a voice like iron: “Drink.”

I obeyed instantly, taking the goblet in my hooves and bringing it to my lips. I took but a small, single sip yet the wine flooded my whole mouth like an ocean and forced down my throat though I did not swallow. It tasted mixed, as if many different sorts and flavors had been stirred within, but all were harsh and bitter, like pained forgetfulness and wailing fire.

Suddenly, my vision began to cloud and swim, shapes and shadows churned and blended before me and I had the sensation of being lifted, sinking and whirling. My body seemed to dissipate like chaff and my spirit now unchained floated like a butterfly.

...The butterfly…

At the formation of the thought images began to congeal and scenes passed before me in dreamy tides. I saw myself lying on my bed, my eyes shut by a coin laid on each, surrounded on all sides by my family, all bowed over me and wailing.

I saw the black winged stallion appear at the end of my bed, unseen by all, and fling a looped chain around my neck. But the chain fell through my flesh like air and instead fastened around my spirit, which he carefully pulled out of my body and nothing of my body came with me except the two coins.

Then he lead out of my room into a plain of much fog and shadows, where we walked until we reached the edge of a vast river. There was a dock and a boat tied to it with the reddish-brown stallion standing within and leaning on a pole that was standing in the water. The black winged one lifted the chain from over my neck and pointed me to approached the boat, which I obediently did.

The boat pony held out his hoof and I gave him the coins that had come with me. He then had me step into the boat, which did not rock or sway, and began to take us across the river with his pole. We arrived on the other side quickly despite how wide the river had seemed and he returned to me one coin before ushering me onto the bank.

There I walked until I reached an open gateway, where the beast lay with each each stretched out on the ground. He rose as I approached and sniffed me intently, then lay back down and allowed me to enter.

I found myself in a tunnel with a light glowing far off in the distance and I went towards it until I found myself in the cavern, standing before the grey stallion on his throne.

“Welcome, servant, to my kingdom and your new residence,” he said. He held his hoof out and I placed my coin within it.

“Follow me,” he said and brought me to the same door that before I could not read the name. But now, I saw the letters and understood them.

And the word afflicted my spirit with a horror that strangled and staggered, and I fled down the tunnel once again and was lost in the blackness.

The feel of the goblet’s weight falling from my grasp and the crash sound of it striking the ground dragging my spirit back and wiped the images out of my eyes, and I found myself once again standing in my place before the grey one.

“Do you now remember your circumstance?” he asked me and I nodded. “And are you ready to accept them?”

He swept his hoof again towards the door and the words, which now stood out before me in perfect clarity: Fields of Asphodel.

I stared at the words, mouthing them with my lips and tongue, but could not move towards them. The grey one perceived my hesitance and went to the door, pushing it open with his hoof.

“What do you see, servant?”

“A black tunnel.”

The grey once heaved a sigh that sounded like a whisper of the wind through the canyons. “Step within, servant. Your time has passed and your rest awaits.”

“Have I done ill?”

“No.”

“Then why do you put me into darkness?”

“There is no darkness, servant. Your soul still clings to the living world and has thusly deceived you of the state of my house. Once you enter there will be quietness and stillness where you will wait until those who loved you come to keep you company.”

I looked to the grey one and then again at the tunnel. Before my sight it seemed to widen and spread like the mouth of a great serpent. I took a step back and the grey one saw and spoke firmly:

“If you do not enter your soul will return you to the place where you woke, frightened and alone, until you once again find your way back to my throne to be reminded of your state once again. But it can happen only so many times, soon your soul will fuse to that place and you will only sit in the tomb, wailing for your kin in fear forever unless some good soul comes to loose you. Do not be afraid, servant, enter and know peace.”

But though his voice was compelling almost beyond endurance, the darkness within the door reached out at me like a slithering tongue intending to draw me in and I felt its numbing, fastening grip wrap itself around my legs. The affliction struck me again and all my awareness was consumed and scattered like ash and I turned and fled back to the tunnel, back toward the tomb where my ancestors bones laid.

As I ran, I stumbled and fell upon my face, where the darkness seized me and shut up my eyes like one asleep.

And I awoke to blackness and bones.

Author's Note:

So yay for time-skip!

It's roughly three years after the last chapter and thought I keep the ages purposefully vague, Luna is now in her mid-teens.

This chapter went through quite a few re-imaginings but once that was settled on it was fairly easy to write, the whole took me probably three or four days. The one place where I hit a wall was the intro of "The Butterfly in the Tomb", consequently I have everlasting gratitude towards my good and gracious friend

nightcrawlerfan.

He wrote two paragraphs that provided the much-needed transition of the character first waking up and panicking in the tomb and they are completely untouched because his words were more perfect than I could hope.

Okay, there are quite a few not-so subtle references and allusions in this chapter so let's get started:

The title and Luna's opening dream are shamelessly titled and inspired (respectively) by a speech from David Lynch's cult classic Twin Peaks:

Through the darkness of future past

The magician longs to see

One chants out between two worlds

Fire walk with me

(Btw, Twin Peaks is an incredible show that I highly recommend though only to the older and more steeled audience since as a crime/horror show the subjects and circumstances addressed can be intense for a younger or more sensitive audience. Yeah, Fluttershy couldn't watch.)

Cadence's stuffed toy is a reference to Richard III of England, whose coat of arms was a boar. With Cadence he'll get some much needed love that historical inaccuracy has deprived him of.

All-Mother Sha'ula (the one who designed the secret chambers) is named for the Biblical King Saul, first king of Israel who after falling out of favor with God due to his disobedience, spiraled into an abyss of paranoia and mental illness until he ultimately killed himself after a devastating defeat in battle that claimed the lives of 3 of his 4 sons. He was succeed by the famous King David who, despite his own major issues, ruled with far greater effectiveness and overall sucess.

The secret passages themselves were inspired from a book I read when I was around 13 which mentioned there being secret apartments in the Versailles for the royals to enjoy some actual privacy (since their nearly every move from waking, dressing, and even eating was observed by the populace).
I looked online for evidence of these apartments but after a quick Google search I can't tell if the tour sites are speaking of actual secret apartments or just rooms that their guides offer to show you that usually are closed off to most tourists.

The "creature" Frigga spoke of is yes indeed Discord, who will play a small but prominent role in future chapters because he's just a blast to write. And yes, he and Celestia are currently in-universe an item.

Majere's name is taken from the character Raistlin Majere, a wizard in the Dragonlance book series. I haven't read them myself but my friend theseventhdoctor has mentioned them to me and when I was searching for a magical sounding name for my mage Majere struck me the most. From what I understand, the character from Dragonlance and my character are vastly different in personality though.

"The Butterfly in the Tomb" is basically a whole story referencing Greek Mythology.

To those unfamiliar with it, the titular butterfly was a symbol of the god of death, Thanatos, who himself appears in the story as the black stallion with wings (Thanatos himself was often depicted as human but with large wings). His summons being four stamps is a reference to the old nursey rhyme "One for Sorrow":

One for sorrow,
Two for mirth,
Three for a wedding,
And four for death.

The poem is connected to magpipes, who were seen as ill omens in certain European countries. These birds are related to ravens and crows, who also are often associated with death.
In fact, the original title of the story was meant to be "The Raven in the Catacomb", referring to Edger Allen Poe's works "The Raven" (about a man being visited by the titular bird who, though only speaking the word "Nevermore", tells the man that his dead lover has no peace in the afterlife) and "The Cask of Amontillado" (about a man luring his enemy into a catacomb and then burying him alive).

The reddish-brown stallion is Charon, the ferryman who took the dead across the river Styx so they could enter the Underworld. His summons being coins is because family's would put a coin on or in the mouth of the dead in the belief their loved ones needed to pay for the passage to the Underworld.
The color of his coat is based off ancient Greek depictions of him, where he was shown as a seaman dressed in reddish-brown.
His eye color and their description of flashing is also based on the possible entomologist of his name "of keen gaze", which could either be in reference to bluish-grey eyes or to eyes that were merely fierce and flashing (I don't know how you end up with a word that alludes to both those very unrelated concepts but there it is).

The grey stallion on the throne is Hades, god of the dead (not death itself, that's the aforementioned Thanatos) and the Underworld.
His color scheme (grey coat with a black mane) is not inspired by myth but because when I visualized it the contrast of a fair coat with a dark mane felt striking. His eyes, one black and one white, also were based on just how impressive they seemed in my mind's eye, though I will perhaps figure out some symbolism for them in later chapters.
His throne also wasn't from myth, it just thought the idea of one made of stalagmite and stalactite was just awesome.

The description of the "wine" that triggers the character's memories tasting like "pained forget fullness and wailing fire", is referring to the four rivers in the Underworld (other than Styx) Acheron the river of pain, Lethe the river of forgetfulness, Phlegethon the river of fire, and Cocytus the river of wailing. Intense enough for you???

The Fields of Asphodel was the place in the Underworld where those souls who had lead ordinary lives dwelt.

Well, that's it for the references. Hopefully this chapter lived up to expectations and the next will also hopefully be up in the next two months as well.

Thank you all for reading!

Comments

[Crack-Fic Casey]

-She probably wants to keep her away from all the stallions--”
-Luna couldn’t see what kind they were but she assumed they were the ones she often observed her boiling in water to help with the aftereffects of drunkenness.
-Celestia would put on her grinning mask...
-She's barely an entire year older but she's already at least seven years ahead of me!"

I just realized that Celestia would be a very fun Tony Stark.

[Phoenix Avalon]

6022295 I'm surprised more people haven't thought of that actually!

[nightcrawlerfan]

Dag nabbit, Luna, you learned the complete wrong message!
Anyway, it's intriguing that Luna would tell Cadence a story about a mythology that they know to be real. That's also an interesting interpretation of how ghosts exist.
Finally, thanks for the shout-out! I think those two paragraphs or so are the first bit of writing that I have on this site. Besides my reviews.
Also, I've probably made Fluttershy watch a few things she shouldn't.
But, hey, at least I kept her out of the room for most of Assault on Arkham!
And I definitely like the Saul reference.

[Phoenix Avalon]

6099600 Yeah, most of the problems that arise in the story is everyone's habit of being unable to see outside of themselves or let go of their fixation with someone else, which is why most lessons go over their head.

[nightcrawlerfan]

6122374 Too bad Drax isn't here. He'd fix everything!