Prologue - The Land of Twilight
She groaned, the sunlight falling over her eyes. Murmuring a curse, she moved her left foreleg, trying to block the Sun from bothering her in her sleep. Of course, it was of no use, as the chains shared between her forelegs remembered her.
Sighing in disappointment, she moved the foreleg to its original place and, in another attempt to sleep again, tried to protect her eyes with her black wing.
Her attempt was met with failure again as the shackles in the bases of her wings blocked the movement.
She sighed, 'Maybe I can...'
The golden -ring, for the ignorant observer- magic inhibitor around her horn shone purple for a second, its light subsiding once the spell she was about to cast died even before being launched.
She frowned, her body tensed up as rage tried to boil within her. To consume, perverse and destroy her from her insides.
'Again.'
She had let herself fall. Not one, but countless times during her stay.
There were times where she preferred to be insane; just to taste the delightful experience of not feeling time's wrath. Though it got boring after a few years -or decades, maybe centuries, she didn't know-, and thus she allowed herself to be sane again, if only to properly count all the shining stars in the Moon's side.
She was close; section A in the left side had an approximate account of two hundred eighty seven thousand nine hundred sixty four stars. With three or twenty more depending on how much light the Sun gave. Section B in the left side h-
'This is ridiculous, and you know it.'
Using her small reserves of energy, she got up; the right side of her body numb for all the hours spent lying on it. She stretched as best as she could and resumed a sitting position, with her ethereal mane -a mess of dark blue, purple and pink waves that looked more like gas- moving in the air with the help of an invisible breeze.
She was facing the Moon's side, letting the Sun warm up her back. It was strange how the two celestial bodies hadn't brought an environmental disaster with their never-changing positions. Maybe it was the clouds. The fluffly white -pink, or purple, depending on 'Yes, yes, the side!'- clouds.
Yes, definitely the clouds.
The alicorn closed her eyes, lowering her head to nobody in particular. She liked it when the tip of her horn touched the 'floor'. Of course, like the rest of the place where she was, the floor wasn't normal.
It was... water, or at least something similar to it. It reflected both skies; the Sun's side, with tones of red, orange and yellow, and the Moon's side, with tones of purple, blue, dark blue and black. Even pink was present sometimes. Though, to be water, it never let her drown. Instead, it looked like there was something solid under it -glass? transparent ground?- that kept her from falling into the water. She sometimes moved her hoof through the water, hoping to catch a glimpse of whatever that was under it.
After a few minutes, the alicorn moved her shoulders and exhaled, preparing herself for a walk.
It was rather pointless, as there was nowhere to go, nowhere important to go. There was this place of floating chunks of earth with weird trees in the Sun's side and a lagoon with a waterfall that fell from a floating island in the Moon's side, but aside from that, all was the same.
So she walked in the line where both skies connected. Where it wasn't warm or cold. Where the celestial bodies' watchful gaze wasn't as prominent like in their respective sides. Where she was sure they were not watching.
After all, they were their celestial bodies.
And they did not like her.
They never had.
"Your Majesty," said the guard, "we're almost done with the preparations for the Solar Eclipse Celebration. Your presence will be need soon."
"Hmm," replied Luna, carefully sipping tea from her mug. It didn't really matter; it never did, in fact. "I will be there in a moment." With a quick gesture of her hoof, she dismissed the guard, who simply nodded and left the place. They had grown accustomed to her attitude; enough to know that she would be in her chambers, looking through her window with a thousand-yard stare, when she should be outside, discussing the plans with... what was his name again?
The tea tasted sweet. Too sweet. She licked her lips in the stony silence that had fallen in her room. Something was... off. She couldn't quite place it. There was something missing, and her mind couldn't quite grasp it. A sensation of impending doom weighed her shoulders down, but she didn't know why.
Her mind used to be so sharp...
She drew a long breath and put the mug on the table. Getting up, she walked towards the fireplace, looking into its flames like if they were holding a secret.
"It has been so long, sister."
Sometimes she would ask herself how long it had been. The years had gone fast; time flying while she tried to catch up with every change. She had grown taller, stronger, just like her beloved sister. But her memory didn't have the capacity to hold everything; good friends became blurry silhouettes without faces, lovers became whispers in the heavy-scented dark nights, cities became fragments of different places smashed together. And society marched on.
Though she still remembered her, she had promised to her sister, to Celestia, that she would. That she would bring her safe and sound.
But every day that passed, every year that went by, the mental image of her, and of her own promise, became blurrier and more difficult to remember than yesterday.
She had doubted even the memory of the day she promised to Celestia to bring her- her what, exactly? Who was that important pony? Luna knew it wasn't a myth, because her mind wouldn't make up false memories of- of who?
"What is your name, my little pony?" Luna quietly whispered, as if the fire was going to say it to her.
She stood completely still, waiting for an answer that would not come.
"Queen," Luna turned her head to the guard standing in her doorstep. Recomposing himself, the stallion spoke "Your presence is required."
Luna, wordlessly, got up and walked towards the guard. Her face perfectly neutral. Under her gaze, the guard gulped, hoping that said action went unnoticed by his Queen, and scorted her.
She didn't remember. Not because she wanted to forget forgot bad things forgive princess yourself-
Things as vital as names slipped from her mind like a soap from wet hands. She tried, everyday -as far as 'everyday' could mean in a place where there were no movements from either celestial body-, to remember at least something. A name, a place, a pony, a frie-
She didn't know why, but a nagging sensation in the back of her mind told her, in a cruel and mocking voice, that she had no friends. Because she didn't deserve them.
As far as she knew, she was a prisoner of some sorts, something she could tell by the shackles restricting her movements. But she wanted something more concrete, not just... characteristics, not something obvious, like the color of her coat.
She groaned. Bits and pieces of a life long lost sometimes sprung up in her mind.
She remembered, from long ago, a story about a prisoner. But that particular prisoner was set free, so why was she still here? Had they forgotten about her, letting her rot without company as a part of her punishment? What had she done, anyways?
She had tried to pick up clues as a way to find the answers to all her questions, but it was like picking up small shards of a broken window and hoping, against all odds, that the result would be the correct one, that the fragmented window would satisfy her like a normal one would.
She knew she had done something bad terrible horrible the worst mistake wicked unforgivable- and yet she had forgotten, hadn't she? Even her own name escaped her grasp. But when she gazed at the sky, and at the Sun and the Moon, she felt that it was, somehow, related to them.
So, she hid, staying as far as she could from both of them. Because she was scared.
They controlled the Sun and the Moon and the sky and the stars.
And they did not like her.
Sometimes, bouts of irrational -no, uncontrollable- rage wracked her body at the thought of who controlled them. As everything regarding her memory and her past, the beings behind her prisonment did not have a face, not even a defined body shape. Maybe they were like her, maybe they were one-eyed spruce octopi inside metal casings. Maybe she was just an experiment, a lab rat whose behaviour was being carefully studied and written down in typewriter-like handwriting. Maybe she had imprisoned herself trying to protect others.
Maybe-
creak
Her head snapped up to the sky. Pupils shrinking to the size of beans at the sudden sound.
In all her stay, nothing, besides her and the strange places in the Sun and Moon's sides, had made a sound. She stared for a long moment, expecting the sound to... sound again. But what if she had hallucinated it? Was she falling in her rage again?
She went through her mental list, checking if she had been showing any symptoms of madness.
creak
Her head snapped up again -in what moment had she lowered it?-, and this time, she noticed a little star moving across the sky. But that was ridiculous, because stars didn't make sounds, and certainly not the ones of the gears of a clock. The sky and its components weren't a mechanism, at least not a literal one.
creak
'Wait.'
Her body did a little jump as the realization of what just happened sat comfortably in her head. The stars were moving!
Luna was being escorted by her guards, ignoring the ponies that got close enough to give her a wave before being pushed aside. She still smiled for them, tough. Her little ponies, enjoying their lifes, going on with their bussiness, being so normal while she was trying to remember a promise made centuries ago.
"A-ha! But this is a great day, Roseluck! Spring ends, summer comes, the suns shines brightly in the sky. But that is not all, because you ponies never make it that easy, no." Luna briefly wondered who was the pony speaking and, moving her head in a discreet maner, she discovered a pony the color of peanut with a spiky brown mane talking to a beige mare with a mane of different shades of pink. 'Odd' she thought, hasn't she seen this pair before?
"This is the one thousandth celebration of the Solar Eclipse festivity! The sun rises, the moon lowers and in their trayectory, the latter eclipses the first!" the stallion continued, the cheery tone never leaving his voice. "They say that a magenta-colored aura of light in the shape of a star appears around both celestial bodies when they do so. But it is just a myth, it has only happened two times, and that was a long ago."
"Do you think we will see it?"
"Absolute-positively! The millenial celebration of a festivity always brings surprises." The stallion pointed at something with his head and exclaimed, "Hey! That is the Queen! Say hello, Rose!" Both ponies waved at her, and she watched as they turned around and left, chatting of history and the celebrations to come all the way.
Luna sighed, somewhere in the back of her mind, she recognized them. She couldn't exactly put a name to the brown pony, and she didn't remember 'Roseluck' correctly, but her mind assured her that she knew them, or at least that she had seen them before.
Staring blankly at the platform that was coming to view, she wondered if she was going crazy.
But that was impossible! The stars didn't move! They hadn't in years! They just couldn't... move and get away with it!
She stared at the sky, completely, utterly stunned. Her mouth was open, and she couldn't find strenght enough to close it. She tried to analyze the situation, but felt her brain coming up short in explanations.
'What is happening?!' she screamed in her mind.
The sound of water falling made her paralyzed body move around, only to froze again at the sight of the waterfall- no, the whole lagoon, floating island included- moving behind her. But that was impossible, bodies of water didn't move on their own, and she surely hadn't moved from her spot on the ground.
Her head whipped around, catching the sight of the weird trees on their little chunks of earth organizing themselves in some sort of pattern around her and the lagoon.
She looked at the sky, as if expecting an answer to fall from it, and moved her head in silent awe when she noticed that the Moon, in all the madness going around her, had decided to do exercise today, moving slowly from its spot, along with some of the stars, towards the Sun in a vertical line.
Luna stood tall in the center of platform, wings gently tucked to her sides, waiting for the guard that stood in front of her to finish his speech. As he did so and gave her space, she took a few steps forwards and, giving a brief look to the enormous crowd of ponies in front of her, genuinely smiled for the first time in the day.
They respected and adored her, and that was enough to warm her heart and calm her stressed brain. As long as she had her ponies, she would have somebody to protect and live for.
Lifting herself off the platform with her powerful black wings -she remembered, once, that a little colt who wanted to be an artist told her that she was the color of onyx 'Like blue, but purpler and way way way dark! Is purpler a word?' and not black- she reached for her magical reserves tied to her talent and drew energy from them.
It was just a small ounce of her raw power, but it would be enough to lift the Sun and lower the Moon. What she needed more than anything was dexterity, to be able to control and tame the power, forcing it to go in complicated patterns across the sky.
Luna sighed, feeling the warmth of the Sun in her back. The Solar Eclipse celebration was, in the words of any magic-talented pony, an act just so beautiful, complicated and impossible that Luna had wanted, more than once, to see it by herself.
She stared, and stared, and stared. Because everything going on in front of her was impossible. Because it was impossible for the stars to make constellations in the ever-lit sky surrounding the Sun and still shone as brightly as they were doing.
Constellations, lines, forms, 'forms! They're doing a star!'
It looked familiar, if only she could place it... She remembered, oh, she remembered!, meeting with someone; someone who liked to observe; to list an object's characteristics and then deduce what it was. Someone with brown hair. Someone who was friendly. Maybe this someone used to be her- 'No, focus!'
Six lines, three on the top, three on the bottom, all pointing to different directions. A faint magenta hue was present in all the points of the stars, concentrating in the Sun -which was yet to be overlapped by the moving Moon.
Six-pointed.
Magenta.
A six-pointed, magenta-colored star.
'They're doing my cutie mark!'
Luna opened her eyes, still in mid-air. The sight of the amazed ponies never stopped touching her heart. To see her subjects' face in such a pure state of awe made it all worth it.
Out of the corner of her eyes, she noticed how some of her guards moved their bodies without getting out of their spot, as if they were waiting for something. It was subtle, but her scrutinizings eyes took in every action; the nervous glare of a guard, the shared glances to each other, the sudden look of conflicting emotions quickly throw behind a mask.
It was not the whole guard, per se, but a small group, maximun six. Seven, even.
She wondered why such actions made her stomach sunk.
Everything was making the form of her cutie mark.
Everything.
The lagoon, with the floating island and its waterfall over its center, was the center of another imitation of her cutie mark, with the trees in their chunks of earth -had she ever counted them?- as the six points.
The Sun, with the smaller stars acting as the six points, and the Moon that was so close to overlap the Sun.
And as the Moon covered the Sun, she noticed a faint magenta outline around the eclipse, highlighted by the blackness that followed it. The magenta outline soon disappeared; to be replaced by a rainbow ray that struck the lagoon, illuminating the place with all the colors of the spectrum.
She was just underneath the ray, watching in awe, as her handcuffs and chains shone for an instant and then disintegrated. In her mind, she giggled, and was prepared to open and relax her wings when she felt the distinct feeling of being teleported.
She glanced around, and saw that she was now in the floating island, which was-
'Descending, it is trying to drow me!'
However, as she saw that the rainbow-colored ray was still shining in full intensity just beneath her, her thoughts took a turn to the most drastic conclusion.
'It is going to fry me!'
But the chains weren't there anymore, so, opening her wings, she-
clank!
-felt the distinct sensation of a heavy metal collar whose chain was connected to the ground, of all places, bringing her head down and sealing her fate; to be fried by a rainbow of doom.
How anticlimatic.
And as she tried to get away from what she was sure was her death sentence, she thought was she thought were her last thoughts.
'This is not how physics work!'
Luna had seen many things in her long life.
She had stood as a watcher -or a figther- in relevant events like the construction of the Castle of the Two Sisters, the Fall of the Flutterponies, the Fall of the Crystal Empire, the Reign of Discord, the construction of the first donut shop -oh, that had been a night!-, but now, right now, what she wanted more than anything was to see what was, exactly, producing the faint magenta hue that illuminated her subjects' faces.
Because, in more than one thou- 998 ye-
It was quick, yet her mind was quickly enough to process it.
This had happened before.
It had been relevant.
Why didn't she remember it?
The question flashed in her mind at the same time a loud, cracking BOOM! resonated in the distance, accompained by a shining magenta-colored light in the form of a star.
And just like that, she was falling.
Stats
Page generated in 0.017 seconds
Total duration
1,025 users online
1,886,102 hits today, 2,782,760 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
One thing to point out: "Her Majesty," should be "Your Majesty" because the guard is directly addressing Luna. Same deal with "Her presence is required."
Looooooved this chapter, I cant wait to see how the rest of this storie will go/progress.
5438914 Oh
Fixing it now 
a brown earth pony stallion with a companion named rose, who Luna vaguely remembers and who is also talking about history. Totally Doctor Hooves!
I've seen a bunch of fics about Twilight going crazy and doing horrible things, but I've never seen one about the nightmare moon style aftermath. This should be pretty interesting. Judging by the fact that Celestia doesn't seem to be around, I think that Twilight killed her.
Doctor Who Dalek reference?