The LUNA Project

by The Equestrian Gentlecolt

Chapter 8 - Intervention

Among the ruins of a small science lab, next to a medical table that had at some point been converted into a makeshift cage, a small blue alicorn sat on her haunches in front of a dusty and decrepit computer terminal, and she read. She read out of curiosity, she read to feed her never-ending hunger for knowledge, and she read for entertainment, but most of all, she read to erase the memories of what she had seen. The terrible burning orb in the sky still hovered in the back of her mind. It was waiting up there, she knew it was, and she wanted nothing more than to forget that she had ever seen it.

Sometimes, as she read, she laughed. At times it was a light giggle, tinkling through the darkness like glass chimes. Other times, she would let out a sudden snort or a soft chuckle as something on the screen surprised and amused her. Occasionally, pealing waves of laughter rang through the surrounding corridors as the little pony rolled on the ground, holding a hoof to her chest and gasping for air.

Sometimes, as she read, she cried. A lone tear or two would trickle from her eyes at times, when a particular passage touched her heart. Just as frequently, though, the tears would flow more freely, even accompanied by sniffling sobs. At certain places the sensitive filly would have to stop entirely to regain her composure.

More often than anything, though, she just read. She sat perfectly still, gazed intently at the screen, and read. She read about the struggles of mankind, from the grand labors of history to the day-to-day difficulties faced by individuals both real and fictional. She read about love and war, about great leaders and great failures, about the best and the worst sorts of people that the human race had to offer.

She read brilliant screenplays, epic adventures, and dull retellings. She read of history, philosophy, and science. She read Homer and Aesop. She read Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton. She read Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates. She read Nietzsche, Marx, and Freud. She read Tolkien, Vonnegut, and Asimov. She read Gaiman, Pratchett, and Goodkind.

She paid no attention to the passage of time, as was her way, and the way of a world where there was no day or night. She simply read, and when she finished, her world seemed very small indeed.

---

As one alicorn learned, the other searched. As the Queen-Goddess's attention strayed further toward other worlds, her own suffered. Crops were ravaged by an expanding animal population and out-of-control weather patterns. The moon strayed further and further from its tenuous orbit, drowning lowlands in unnaturally high tides. Tornadoes threatened the populated areas, and the ground shivered with occasional earthquakes as her carefully but imperfectly balanced creation began to pull apart at its seams. All the while, Celestia sat in her throne room and searched for the sister she had never had a chance to know.

She had become used to the daily flow of petitioners. Each request was the same now, relief from one or another misfortune or disaster. She never turned them away, of course. Every supplicant would leave with reparations duly made, and Celestia would take a moment to patch whatever new seam had come undone. She never turned them away, but their numbers seemed to grow with each new day.

Today, though, was different. There were no petitioners, no supplicants with their tales of loss. The doors to the throne room had been left locked, the crowd outside told that they would need to wait until the next day to see their Queen. Early morning sunlight streamed through the windows, but the alicorn paid it no heed, She sat, still as a statue, her matted and tangled mane fallen immobile over her shoulders. Her coat had begun to dull, as if even her own body suffered her inattention.

Arrayed before her were the people who were, in every sense of the word but the biological, her family. Scientists and engineers of the LUNA Project, now playing different roles, but no less the great men and women they had been. Doctors Harris, Montgomery, Morrison, and Rogers were there, and the founder Mr. Williams stood beside a young David Lee. Around them were many other faces which Celestia would have recognized, had her eyes been focusing on anything but the great elsewhere she spent so much of her recent time time staring into. At the front of the half-circle of humans around the throne were Michael and Megan, wearing expressions of mixed sadness and determination.

"Celestia." Michael spoke first. His Queen's name broke the silence of the throne room, a single word in a voice that spoke of a deep love and caring, but also a resolute firmness. The alicorn, however, did not respond.

"Celestia," Megan tried. Her voice cracked slightly with emotion, but she regained control of it quickly and continued. "We need to talk to you. All of us. The world can't go on like this." Celestia remained as she was, still and silent.

"Your Majesty," Doctor Montgomery stepped forward. "Dear, gentle Celestia. I'm so sorry that you have to go through this. I know what it feels like to lose someone dear to you, believe me, but you and I both know that there is simply no way to go back. Even if we found the way among the infinite paths between here and there, this world would be destroyed without your guidance. Even now..."

"Even now, the world is tearing itself apart," Doctor Morrison finished for him. "This is crazy, Celestia, you can't just abandon your duties now. This is bigger than you or us, you hold the lives of hundreds of sentient creatures in your hands... hooves... are you just going to throw them away in a search for one person?"

Still, the alicorn offered no response. Doctor Rogers stepped forward with an unhappy sigh, reaching out to place a hand on the side of Celestia's cheek. He opened his mouth to speak, but whatever he intended to say, he never got the chance.

A sudden blast of force sent Doctor Rogers stumbling back into the group, and a thunderclap cracked through the throne room. The sunlight coming in through the windows seemed to those present to dim, but in truth, it was only in contrast to the blazing star which was spreading its fiery wings and standing, gazing down on them from its throne.

"Do not touch me, mortal!"

None present had ever seen an angry goddess before, but they recognized one when they saw it. Celestia had thrown tantrums in her younger years, certainly, but she had shown barely a hint of ire after she had come here and come into her full power. That was, she hadn't until now. Her coat had lost its dullness and blazed with an inner light that was itself painful to the eyes, but it was a candle's flame to the bonfire of her mane, tail and wings. Their shapes were indistinct, their original forms replaced by incandescent flames that writhed and licked at the air with a life of their own. As the humans stepped back and shielded their eyes, she launched into her tirade, every word echoing off the walls of the throne room.

"How dare you presume to lay a hand on me? How dare you presume to lecture me on my responsibility when it was your kind who made the creation of this world necessary in the first place? You humans, who would dare to pretend at godhood, who would play at creating life just to further your own ends. You who would reach beyond your limits to toy with arcane forces which you were never meant to access. You who created me, not out of love, but as a tool upon which you could place the burdens of your own failures, to carry the burden which was too great for any of you, to be the guardian of a world created for your own benefit. No! You have no right! I am my own creature, I am not your tool! I will make my own decisions, I will do what I want! And I want... I want..."

As quickly as the flames of Celestia's fury had sprung up, they died down. She collapsed to the floor, her coat and mane dull and listless, her face and muzzle buried within her forelegs as her body started to shake. "I just want to know if she's alive..."

Queen Celestia, Creator-Goddess of the Second System and Divine Guardian of All Life, began to sob.

Comments

[FireHawk]

Another exelent addition! I await your next chapter good sir!

[burnt-feathers]

O.O

*sniff*

[Alalic]

Whoa.

[Celestias Paladin]

Wow... as the Moon in the anchor of the day and the seasons, so Luna is the anchor for Celestia. No other way to describe their relationship.

[Cloud]

DO NOT INCITE THE SOLAR WRATH OF YOUR GODDESS

...poor Celly...

[treos]

you know, the tool parts aside, celestia's outburst at the end would serve as a pretty good description of my own opinion of the human race as a whole (wouldn't really bother me none if our species just up and vanished one day honestly). that pretty much sums up various reasons i dislike humans... partly unrelated but for a while now all i've really thought our future to be is self-destruction and the more bad news/events that come up the more likely that seems