Chapter 17
The second Luna and Applejack left the room, Twilight let out a breath she didn't realize she had been holding. She had done her best to hide Celestia's gift from Luna when the night princess touched her mind to cast her spell, and it seemed to have worked; Luna had apparently not sensed what Twilight held hidden within herself. Twilight carefully unwrapped the foreign presence in her mind. The mote of magic was searing bright, almost uncomfortably hot inside her.
In the past weeks, she had been forced to re-learn much of what she thought she knew of magic. How Celestia had imparted some of her essence to Twilight, she had no idea, just like she had no clue what this sun-touched presence truly was.
It mattered little. How this impossible thing had come into being wasn't near as important as one singular fact: Celestia knew what Twilight was doing, and she was trying to help.
While she seemed to all outward appearances asleep just like the ponies around her, Twilight was as alert as ever. Her mind was racing and her heart hammered almost painfully as she sought a plan. She had to assume Luna would know when the spell broke. Failing that, she would probably know when and if she managed to slip into the dream. The princess would be well prepared, even if she didn't expect this. Being thousands of years old did not mesh well with being sloppy.
Finally ready, Twilight tested the limits of her magic's prison. As always, a small surge of panic had to be quenched when she realized how trapped she was. She envisioned herself alone in a small cell with cold iron walls. Strong walls she'd thrown herself against before until she was broken and could do no more. Luna's presence was everywhere, but knowing her jailer so well only made it feel worse, now.
Twilight's magic availed her nothing, as she had expected. She strained against Luna's spell, and found no purchase, her essence scattering against the boundaries set by Luna. It was like trying to tickle her way through a stone floor with a feather, except there wasn't even any dust to stir. Trying to call upon the moon with her limited understanding of how it worked yielded no results either. She simply could not reach out.
Tentatively, Twilight embraced the sun mote. Lost inside herself, the unicorn prodded the essence separated from its creator. Slowly, the bright little ephemeral non-object unravelled before her and suffused her with its warmth. It was pleasant at first, but soon it was all Twilight could do not to scream as every piece of her being felt as if though it were on fire. She forced herself to steady her breathing, a suddenly very real and physical pain threatening to break her concentration.
On impulse, as if guided by a hoof not her own, Twilight once more reached out and met the spell woven around her with her own mind and magic both. For the briefest of moments, Twilight Sparkle dared imagine that Celestia herself watched her, that the princess wanted for her to succeed. Whether it was due to this wraith of Celestia that urged her faithful student on, or if it was the spark itself, Twilight could not tell, but Luna's magic suddenly seemed a lot simpler.
Twilight realized now how Luna's spell worked. Why wouldn't she? It was just a construct made of moon-stuff and magic. It melted before her as she touched it, and the fire that burned within her cooled as it did, its purpose fulfilled.
Thus freed, Twilight did not so much as pause to open her eyes or look around. A rush of magic flooded to her horn, and she instantly put it all to use. She dimly heard the thrum of a magic buildup in the air as she threw every ounce of her power into supercharging a simple spell she knew well. A magical lullaby, a slumber spell of immense power. Without hesitation, even as she heard rapid hoofsteps approach, she directed the spell straight at herself, shocking herself to sleep. She prayed she would dream, for the first time embracing the vision that she had spent so many nights trying to stave off and avoid. That little detail made all the difference.
Far above, the starry sky. Twilight lay on the ground and looked up between the clouds to gaze upon a myriad of constellations, all of which she recognized. She could pick out Orion and Ursa Major, The Four Hooves and The Progenitor all. High in the sky the moon hung proud and large, larger than she had ever seen it before. It seemed an endless expanse of pale white and grey, and Twilight instinctively tried to pull back further, to put it into proper perspective, but the earth beneath her was unyielding. It was no trick of the mind. The moon was monstrously large.
The clouds, she realized next, were not merely random. Hanging in the sky was a massive cloud city easily half again the size of Cloudsdale. Curved arches and the tops of tall buildings were all she could see from down here, being almost directly below the centre of the flying city. There were no rainbows flowing down from on high, no waterfalls. No noise, and no pegasi. The city above seemed dead and deserted.
Twilight slowly stood up. She was in a small garden, a treeless park in the middle of a square. It was overgrown and unkempt as if nopony had tended to it for months. Ahead of her, the city of Crepuscin stretched out in every direction as far as her eyes could see. Rows upon rows of beautiful houses and gardens interspersed with larger buildings here and there. It was all in stone, and every single structure seemed to have been created with loving attention to detail, with exaggerated care. The unnaturally bright moonlight played across rooftops and hedges, unlit streetlamps and trees all, creating sharp shadows. Still, no sight of anypony.
In the distance, at the end of a long and straight road that went all the way from the park, one building stood apart from the rest. It was a silhouette that Twilight had seen many times before. Tall spires dominated the skyline, each of a different height and shape. The many towers of the royal palace of Crepuscin loomed over the rest of the city, stark and imposing in the night, and Twilight felt a pull. Without knowing why or how, the purple unicorn got up and started walking down the quiet street.
"Welcome to my lullaby," a voice said. A shadow coalesced into Luna's form at her side in the blink of an eye, the voice unbroken. "Welcome to my memory, my dream, my burden and my secret. Welcome to what I eat and breathe, you idiotic, lovable, misguided fool."
"Hello, Luna," Twilight said as she kept walking, forcing herself to stay calm. The princess grudgingly fell in step with her to keep up. "I'm sorry, but since you haven't already, I assume you don't have the power to stop me, and I really have to do this."
"Not here, but I expect you will be out of my mane within seconds", Luna said with a shrug. "I am sorry too that you felt you had to try to do this, but there will have to be consequences."
"I am not a schoolfilly," Twilight said, feeling a flush creep up on her face. "This isn't you catching me red-hoofed with my snout in the cookie jar. I'm not doing this because of some misguided sense of curiosity. I'm doing this for you."
Luna crinkled her snout in distaste. "It matters none. You will be gone soon enough."
Twilight's heart beat a little faster, but she kept moving. The palace wasn't too far off, but she'd begun to notice that all around her, bits of the city were missing. A tree in a garden might have the middle of a branch missing. A house might lack a wall. It wasn't the result of damage or wear and tear. Rather, some pieces of the city were simply not there, trailing off into shadow and nothingness.
"You sound very sure of yourself, but I feel just fine," Twilight commented. "If you're the real Luna, and you can't oust me from here, what am I missing?"
"It is a me, not the me," Luna said, sighing. "I guess there is little harm in telling you this at least, but I am surprised you have not figured it out yourself. I cannot spend every waking hour watching this memory. It would distract me."
"So you only spend the nights here? Aren't you awake now?" Twilight asked, curious despite the gravity of the situation.
"I send part of myself into the dream. I watch it, and then I return. This is every bit as much me as the me on the outside," Luna said, smiling almost companionably. "Until this memory finishes, the outside me is not even aware of what is going on in here."
"Ah," Twilight said, swallowing and upping her pace a little. It was hard not to feel nervous when she knew she was on a timer. "So you're probably trying to wake me up right now."
"That is my first impulse, so I suspect I am. I would ask you to simply stop and wake up, surrender, if you will, but I suspect you will not listen," Luna said, adding a little chuckle at the end. The princess peered skywards. "In fact, I wonder what is taking me so long."
"I'm trying to help," Twilight said. "Why can't you see that?"
"I do not want your help," Luna said, her voice suddenly cold. "Why can you not realize that? Besides, you do not even know what you are doing, what you think you will find. How can you say you are trying to help? How can you pretend this is not just curiosity and your thirst for knowledge coming to the fore?"
"I don't know what I'll find, but I know that I hope to find something that will help me convince you that this is wrong," Twilight implored, looking up at the alicorn. "I have hope. Of course I want to understand, but only because I want to help."
"So you are chasing a vague notion based on nothing. And here I thought I was the goddess of prophecies," Luna said, rolling her eyes.
"Here's my prophecy for you," Twilight huffed. "You are going to keep being unreasonable, I am going to be snarky, this is all going to be unpleasant, and I am still going to get up to the top of that tower."
The princess sighed again. There was a short silence as more houses passed by. Rows upon rows of individualized, beautiful houses with lovely gardens and decorations in odd styles Twilight had never seen before all passed by.
"You are right," Luna finally said. "No sense in making this unpleasant. You will be gone soon enough, and I would hate to bring only vitriol back to my body. I can answer some simple questions if you have them."
Twilight dared smile at the princess now, and nodded. "Why are parts missing?"
"Because all we see here is what my memory contains, and despite having visited this place continually ever since, I cannot learn something new from a memory," Luna said, glancing over at a corner section of a fence.
"Continually," Twilight repeated. She was almost afraid to ask. "You've re-lived this memory how many times? Do you even know?"
"No," Luna admitted, reciting the truth with as much emotion as one may read a tax report. "I stopped counting at around fifteen million, but I could do the math if you gave me a moment."
Twilight shivered and swallowed. Despite Luna's invitation to ask questions, regardless of Twilight's desire to try to be non-confrontational, she couldn't fathom how the princess could be so clinical and obviously self-contradictory.
"You just said yourself that you can't learn anything from a memory," Twilight muttered. "Why do you do this?"
Luna pursed her lips and thought for a second before she spoke. "It is inaccurate to say you cannot learn from a memory. You learn from reflection. I hope you will wake soon, but I will say this – some things are bigger, Twilight. Bigger than me and you."
The princess paused. She looked straight ahead as she spoke up again, adding "Not that there is much of a me and you, now, when you betray my trust like this."
Twilight felt as if though she had been stabbed through the heart with those last words, but she forced herself to keep moving still. The implications threatened to burst the delicate bubble that Twilight had created to contain her feelings ever since Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash had opened her to the possibility, the idea that there might be something more between Twilight and Luna. She had deliberately never asked herself what Luna might possibly think on the subject.
Twilight desperately wanted to just hide these thoughts away until this grim business was all done with, and now, it seemed that it might not even matter. Twilight was seized by an urge to just lie down and give up on everything, robbed of meaning, but she refused to stop. She was doing this for Luna, she had said. If she meant it, then she would keep to her task. And so she did.
They approached the courtyard mere minutes later, a large plaza with colorful mosaic tiles depicting scenes that must have been ancient even then, impossibly old and utterly unknown to Twilight. The intricate tilework seemed at odds with the simple stonework of the surrounding towers and the main palace building ahead. In front of the palace, the plaza was occupied by a crowd of ponies, the first signs of life Twilight had seen since she entered the memory. Hundreds of grim-faced ponies stood in a loose approximation of a military formation, all looking straight up towards the top of the tallest tower of the palace, expectant. Nopony said a word, and the gates to the palace were closed.
"And these are the ancestors of the ponies in Grey Hollows?" Twilight asked, surveying the assembled ponies.
Luna nodded. "Those few who survived. The rest are about the city somewhere, I imagine."
Twilight ascended the stairs to the palace proper, halting before the huge wooden doors. They were carved with the likeness of Celestia on one door, Luna on the other, painted and kept in perfect repair. She experimentally pushed against the door with a hoof, and went right through it, almost falling over. Apparently, memories weren't terribly solid construction materials.
"Twilight Sparkle, can I persuade you to stop this madness?" Luna asked quietly as she followed Twilight. The unicorn pony was picking her way through the ancient and deserted castle, rapidly ascending every staircase she could find. Her world became a blur of tapestries, windows and beautiful statuettes.
"I don't think so," Twilight said, scanning the area and locating a small spiral staircase at the end of a carpeted hallway. She knew she had to get to the top of the tower, pulled by an invisible string. "I mean, I guess the Luna on the outside is having some trouble, and you can't do anything, can you? I'm sorry. You can always try threatening me."
Luna did not appear to find this even a little amusing. "Twilight, you do not understand what you are doing. Trust me on this."
"I can't trust you when I don't understand you, and I can't understand when you don't explain," Twilight said, the sentiment by now so worn she couldn't even bother finding new words for it. She was galloping up the narrow spiraling stairs as fast as she could. The stairs felt positively endless, and her muscles ached. "But I already told you, this isn't for me, it's for you."
"You are misguided-" Luna began as she followed on Twilight's heels. Her voice was a growl, but Twilight cut her off.
"And you can't accept that you have the capacity to be wrong!" Twilight snapped. "You are so busy doing what's best for everypony, and perhaps you usually do know what's best for others, but something that has you torturing yourself like this clearly says you don't have a clue what's best for you!"
Twilight finally reached the top of the stairs, alighting upon the top of the tower. The flat area was almost as large as the ground floor of the library, but it felt pathetically small this high up in the air. It was hard not to think back to Luna's words on the topic of the ancient city of Crepuscin. Her description given in the Hollows was very fitting. The city truly did seem to stretch on forever around them, and the cloud city above was almost close enough to touch. She could hear the wind, but she did not feel it, a rather creepy side effect of being in a memory, Twilight supposed.
At the other side of the roof, opposite the staircase, stood Nightmare Moon. It was impossible to think of the black mare as anything but. The silver-armored alicorn was only vaguely reminiscent of Luna herself, and when she had the two of them so close to each other, it was impossible to see how they could be the same pony. Nightmare Moon stood still at the edge of the tower, her ethereal mane and tail trailing the stuff of shadows on the ghostly wind of the memory.
"And you say that was you?" Twilight asked, shaking her head.
"Is me," Luna corrected, a pained look crossing her face. It spoke volumes of her feelings on the matter if it hurt her after having seen it so many times. Constantly for over a thousand years, no less.
"What is she doing?" Twilight asked, walking a little closer to Nightmare. When the princess made no reply, Twilight sighed. "What is the point of trying to hide it now? I'm going to watch this anyway."
"What I am doing," Luna said, forcing the words out, "is waiting for my sister to show up. I have interrupted the order, brought night over day, finally. At this point, I am so far gone that my sister can no longer hold back. She has to perform her duty."
"Duty?" Twilight echoed, turning around.
The night goddess had sat down on her haunches and tears rimmed her eyes. Her voice was hard even as she wiped her face with a wing, trying to compose herself. "I am not afraid of what you may think of me, Twilight. This is not a secret I keep for myself," she looked up towards the darkened sky. "Think me as vile as you will and must, but wake up. Please, wake up, Twilight Sparkle. I beg you. If you have any love for me, you will wake up!"
Twilight gaped. For a second, she almost did try to wake herself up. The raw emotion displayed by the princess wrenched her heart, tore at her. There was no darkly magical command nor a royal decree behind her words - only a simple plea. I would have been too easy to relent.
"I'm sorry," she heard herself say, sitting down and following Luna's eyes. Nightmare Moon mimicked their actions as if she could see them, three sets of eyes turned skywards.
There was a brief flash. A glimmer of light pierced the veil of the night, a radiant shaft of bright sunlight that near blinded Twilight. From the horizon a ball of light approached, trailed by a myriad of pastel hues, blues, greens and pink among them. The memory of Nightmare Moon turned on the spot, and no sooner had she faced the center of the tower's floor than the luminescent orb crashed to the ground in the exact spot she was looking at. The tower shook ominously.
"Luna!" Celestia said, her voice booming, and Twilight froze. There was precious little of the Celestia that Twilight knew in the painfully radiant sun goddess stood before her. Golden armor covered her head, wings and hooves, and her eyes were a pure molten gold radiating menace that was made twice as sharp because she would never have expected this from her beloved mentor.
Over Celestia's head, caught in her psychic grip, a golden spear hovered. Its shape and form was almost shockingly mundane if not for the bright gleam, but if there was anger in Celestia's eyes, the spear screamed with killing intent, a constant soundless wail that prophesied her doom. Her mind tried telling her that the very idea that an object could have a will was absurd, but Twilight's breath left her as her eyes met the tip of the spear. She was suddenly certain beyond the shadow of a doubt that she would die.
Only when she felt Luna's presence next to her did her lungs remember their function. The ghostly princess could not touch her, but seeing something familiar in the corner of her eye helped.
"My dear sister," Nightmare Moon sneered. "How nice of you to come visit."
"Stop this madness at once," Celestia commanded. She spread her wings and tilted them upwards, forming around herself a beautiful feathered halo as she slowly approached her sister.
Nightmare Moon, for Twilight still could not think of it as Luna, held her ground. With a dark flash of umbral magic, the dark princess summoned forth an orb of darkness at her side. As Twilight watched, what began as a point of darkness sucked in all light around it and became an absurd un-light, casting Nightmare Moon's face not into shadow, but into an utter, impossible blackness that pained Twilight’s eyes.
"That would be the Star Hammer," Luna commented, looking away. Her voice was thin, pleading. "Please, Twilight, wake up. You do not want to see this."
Twilight barely even heard her, her attention torn between the powers at play.
"You think I will follow Orion? You think to send me to the grave?" Nightmare Moon crooned, grinning madly. "The world does not need or want the moon, sister. I have nothing to lose, but you have everything."
Celestia stopped her advance and shook her head. The sun princess' every move was mechanical and uncompromising. "If you look beyond your own snout, you will see hundreds of ponies who are ready to die to prove you wrong tonight. You simply refuse to see them. Your eyes are sightless, blind!" Her voice rolled across the roof of the tower like thunder.
Nightmare Moon laughed hysterically, shaking her head with exaggerated movement as if she was trying to tear herself apart. "Blind? Blind?! I see more clearly than I ever have before! I see that you are just waiting for an excuse to drive the Sun Spear through my heart because you want everything to yourself! No need to have to cater to little sister and her annoying whims!"
"Do not hate me," Celestia said. Twilight thought she appeared saddened by her sister's words, but it was hard to read her expression with her eyes being solid orbs.
"Too late for that," Nightmare spat, baring her teeth. "Now kill me if you think you can, if you dare. It will give you so much pleasure to complete the set, I should think. Strike me down and become the perfect tyrant you have always wished to be."
"Forgive me, I am weak," Celestia muttered. From her eyes, golden tears dripped, sizzling against the stone when it impacted. With a soft glimmer of magic, Celestia jammed her spear into the ground, where it stuck, its bloodlust denied.
"What are you doing?" Nightmare Moon asked, raising the orb over her head. All that could be seen of her face was her cat-like irises. The rest was cast into the unnatural shadow that ate all light. "Surrendering? Ha! Do not think I am going to-"
Celestia's horn flared brightly. With a pop of displaced air, a stone sphere with a crudely chiseled triangle appeared in the air above her. Twilight instantly recognized it as one of the globes that they had thought were the real elements of harmony when they fought Nightmare Moon a year ago, except the triangle here had color. The simple geometrical figure glowed a soft yellow.
"What-" Nightmare Moon said in utter disbelief. "No. No!"
Another pop. A sphere adorned with a brightly glowing orange rhombus appeared next to the triangle-bearing sphere. Nightmare Moon instantly launched the Star Hammer towards Celestia, the orb trailing darkness as it sped up, only to impact with a crash against a bright yellow shield Celestia erected last minute with a pulse from her horn.
"No! No! Don't you dare! No!" Nightmare Moon screamed as she battered the orb against the shield to no effect. With every strike, the tower shook.
Pop. A red diamond sphere joined them
"Not them! Anything but them! How dare you?! Is nothing sacred to you? I will kill you! I will kill you, sister!" Nightmare roared, retracting the useless orb. The dark mare breathed heavily, sounding lost and confused, suddenly. "Why? Why would you do that?"
"So there is still some love left in your heart," Celestia said, angling her head towards the ground as she continued working her spell. "That makes this much harder for me to do. I will save you, sister. Please, have faith," she said, her voice wavering. "Believe in me."
Pop. Green octagon sphere.
"I will not let you!" Nightmare snarled, raising the orb. "I will destroy this world before I let you do this. You betrayed them! Give them back!"
"Do what you must," Celestia said, her voice serene yet infinitely sad. "They gave them freely because they love you, Luna."
Nightmare Moon screamed, a loud, primal and wordless noise that came from the bottom of her very being. Her eyes were wild as the corrupt and maddened mare reared up on her hindlegs, her forehooves sheathed in umbral magic. A second later, she brought them crashing down again with cataclysmic force.
Twilight's ears were ringing painfully, and she couldn't see. Her head was throbbing, and all was grey. Eventually, the unicorn realized what she saw was smoke, or rather, that pulverized stone was obscuring her vision. As her hearing slowly returned, she could hear an ominous and distant rumble that went on without end. It sounded like a dozen earthquakes, avalanches and landslides all at once. Slowly getting her bearings, Twilight looked down and saw that she was hovering mid air. Rather, she was standing on nothing at all.
Nearby, unmoved and unfazed, Celestia calmly flapped her wings and hovered inside her protective shell. A fifth orb had joined the other four, a blue rectangle adorning its face. Nightmare Moon hovered close by, too, the Star Hammer swirling about her.
Below them, the city of Crepuscin lay in ruins. Almost every single building was reduced to rubble, and as Twilight watched, huge chunks of the city came loose, split apart at the seams, to grind against each other, covering the entire scene in a layer of dust like a thick fog. The clouds above had dispersed, every single brick and stone tumbling to the ground. The cloud city had simply ceased to exist.
Wild magic spat forth from the cracks, some places erupting as gouts of flame while other areas were getting covered in rampant plant growth, huge vines snaking across the city. All the while, everything was slowly sinking into the ground. Not a single pony could be seen below. The only buildings that still stood were the towers of the palace, though the courtyard underneath them was obscured.
"I carry the deaths caused by your madness with me, they are my failing!" Celestia yelled, her voice cutting through the cacophony like a blade. "They are the wage of my failure to kill you, they are my burden!"
Nightmare Moon gave no indication she had heard. The mare was looking down at the city below, her horn utter-dark as she wrought destruction upon Crepuscin. An entire section of the city disintegrated in a particularly vicious burst of magic.
Pop. A purple star sphere appeared, the sixth and final element.
"I will not let them remember you like this. Believe in me," Celestia implored, her horn flaring up with the full radiance of the sun. When she called upon her magic now, each of the orbs brightened as well, and color streamed forth from each of the spheres.
Everything froze. The destruction of Crepuscin halted, buildings obscenely posed mid-collapse. Celestia was unmoving, her face frozen in a rictus of sadness and pain. Nightmare Moon had turned her head, eyes wide with fear as she looked at the sun princess. Nothing moved, and there was not a single sound. The memory had played itself out yet again.
"In a few minutes, the memory will begin anew, and I will go back, taking with me all we have seen and done here, as I do every time it restarts," Luna said. She was looking at Twilight and shaking her head slowly, her eyes red. "You have ruined everything. I was trying to protect my sister," the princess said, sighing deeply.
"You arrogantly think to come in here and 'fix' something," Luna spat, her anger growing. "If I let myself forget, I run the risk of this happening anew. I run the risk of forcing Celly to do this again. It nearly killed her to banish me, and I will not see her suffer like this once more. I will perform the duty she could not, before I let this happen again. But it will not happen again, because I am going to learn from the past."
Luna's voice grew louder and louder as she rounded on Twilight. "Who do you think you are, Twilight Sparkle? Who are you to come here and offer forgiveness? How arrogant are you to think a foal like you could understand? I do not know how you managed to slip in here, but I have half a mind to burn every last scrap of magic out of you when you wake!" the princess hissed.
"Celestia," Twilight said, simply. She shrank back from Luna's angry barrage, hurt, and it was all she could think to say.
"My sister is half the reason I am doing this in the first place!" Luna yelled. "But since you like your secrets so much, let me give them all to you while we are so well underway."
"My sister's duty? Do you remember when I talked to you so long ago about the burden that comes with eternal life? What do you think happens when an eternal goes mad and does not end itself?" Luna narrowed her eyes and thrust her snout at Twilight. "To whom do you think the burden of ending them falls? Who do you think carries the weight of being the executioner? How many eternal lives do you think the Sun Spear has ended?"
Twilight closed her eyes and shook.
"The Elements? Why did I weep for them? The Elements grant you long life. Eternal life, in fact, if you so desire and if you learn how to control them. Did you think you were the first bearers? No. There were those before you, and they were beloved of my sister and I," Luna said, blinking back tears. "We loved them, both of us, we loved each and every one of them. To stop me, they gave up their Elements and granted their power to Celestia! They turned mortal again, for me!"
"And before you ask, sure, why the moon not, let us talk about Orion, too." Luna shook. "He was the paragon saint of the griffins. What you saw? The mountain range and the pyre at Orion's breath? That is his grave after Celestia did what she must. The constellation of Orion is my homage to him, as are many of constellations in the night sky."
"Any other questions, Twilight?" Luna snarled, looking like she would up and hit Twilight on the snout. “Since we are having such a nice chat?”
Twilight's gut clenched, and she could not hold back the tears any more. She wept, head hanging low as tears fell freely down to lose themselves in the time-lost madness of the city below. She did not weep for lost innocence. Knowing these things made her stronger. She did not weep for the dead, for they could not be helped. She did not weep for the nature of the elements of harmony, nor for the fate of the eternals.
Twilight wept for the hardships Celestia and Luna had to endure and suffer. Without thinking, she reached out to try to embrace the ghostly Luna, falling flat against the invisible, non-existent floor they stood on. Luna looked down at her with a sneer of distaste, and Twilight did not even bother getting back up again.
"No," Twilight managed between racking sobs. "You don't get it at all. Celestia sent me."
Luna stared, her mouth open in a wordless question.
"You wondered how I managed to get in?" Twilight sniffled. "Celestia helped! Celestia helped. If it is like you say," she shook her head and wiped her tears. "If- if there is something to me, if there is a purpose to my name, why can't it be this? Why can't you let me help you? You say Celestia has forgiven you, and that you have forgiven her, but you refuse to forgive yourself because you're afraid?
"You're so afraid of becoming Nightmare Moon again, you fear the same will happen again? You're right, it won't if you keep this up. You're never going to become her again because you're still broken! Celestia clearly believes in you, I believe in you, but you don't give yourself a chance!" Twilight cried. "You're not a timed bomb! You even said it yourself, the key is to dare to live if you don't want to go mad. This isn't living!"
For once, Luna had no scathing reply. The princess looked surprised at first, then lost, looking down at Twilight. When finally she found words to utter, she looked frightened, and her voice was a hoarse whisper. "I think I may have forgotten how to live, Twilight," she said. "And I do not know if I can forget this even if I tried."
"Try", Twilight begged. "Try. Because I can't stand to see you like this. Please. Let me help. Let everypony help. You don't even have to ask, just let us in."
Luna averted her eyes from Twilight's gaze, sounding pained. "Why do you do this, Twilight? Why do you persist? Any sane pony would leave me well enough alone, but you persist. You just dive in deeper and deeper," she said. "All of you, but you most of all. I do not deserve this."
"Somepony suggested that it might be love," Twilight gave a helpless shrug and a nervous little burst of laughter. She didn't even know what she was saying anymore. "I don't know. I just want to help. I've been trying to tell you."
Luna rubbed her forehead with a hoof and sighed before nodding briskly. "Say I believe you. Say I trust you and agree with you and Celly for a second. What do I do? What do we do?"
Being asked for advice by a goddess in such a frank manner was more than a little intimidating. Twilight paused to think, but she was interrupted by Luna before she could reply.
"Actually, the memory is beginning anew. I will be gone soon. I will wake you," Luna said hurriedly.
"Oh, I put myself to sleep with a spell," Twilight said, smiling. "I can just cancel it, I think. I haven't really tried. Hang on-" the unicorn muttered, searching for that intangible thread of magic that she'd tied to herself and severing it.
Twilight awoke instantly. She still felt tired, and her eyes were crusty, but she was awake, staring up at what appeared to be Applejack's belly. The apple farmer stood across Twilight's supine body in a broad stance. Twilight suddenly realized that she felt very cold. The room was freezing.
As she struggled to scramble out from under Applejack, trying to stand, she found she was trapped in a veritable jungle of hooves and legs. Rarity, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie all stood over and around her, every one of them facing the door, and the few faces she could see were grimly determined.
By the door stood Luna herself. The moon princess' wings were spread, impossibly large, curving along the walls and roof in a threatening display. Her horn glowed, bathing the room in unnatural light, and frost-smoke emanated from her body. It reminded Twilight all too much of a certain outburst back in the town of Grey Hollows, except this time, nopony looked frightened in the least. The princess held no power over them.
"I will not say this again. You will step aside this very moment, or I will not be held accountable for what I do," Luna said in a low voice.
"You ain't touchin' her," Applejack snapped.
"Take back black snooty and give us Lunie!" Pinkie Pie yelled. "Meanie-pants!"
"We're not scared," Rainbow Dash snorted.
"You do not-" Luna began, but she suddenly paused. Twilight watched as the princess' pupils shrank to pinpricks, her mind no doubt catching up to everything that had gone on inside the memory.
The princess sat down on the ground with exaggerated care and slowness. Step by step, she folded her wings and looked down at the ground, shamefaced. "I was wrong," she breathed. "All this time."
Luna sought Twilight's eyes, and found them as the bookish unicorn got up on her hooves. All her friends turned to her with a word or a noise each, happy to see her awake again, but clearly confused.
"Twilight, I can end the memory, but how can I forget?" Luna asked.
Twilight smiled as confidently as she could. "You don't. You get closure. We go into the Everfree Forest."
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This story is awesome, I can't wait for the rest!
Now that we have caught up, its time for the good stuff :D
so wait... what happened to Trixie/Phoenix!? I know she got respawned... or rezzed, but did she just leave or has she been watching this whole thing or what?!
The moonbridge was a nice touch BTW... so now Gilda and Trixie have been at least partially closed... and Twilight's living up to her truly prophetic name... the bridge between light and dark, between day and night. The mediator... the time of reflection... the time when light and shadows meet.
Eat your heart out Zant. This is twilight... not a time of day to be feared.
472532 Ah, I guess I omitted commenting on her at the end of ch17 because she's not in focus atm, but if it felt confusing, I'm sorry - she's not forgotten, don't you worry! Just an unfortunate side effect of me splitting the chapters differently this time around. Originally I meant to do 4 chapters/week (as I did on EqD originally), but I did 5 this week. Having ch17 as the last of a batch may not be a good idea.
argh damn you with your amazing story and epic cliffies!
As I finish this chapter, I am sad.
Because now I'm caught up with it and the next chapter isn't up yet. D:
This is quality stuff here!
blargargwarg!! i was hoping there would be more after i started catching up..oh well i am loving this fic soooo much
473584 Well, I could lie and say I'm "sorry", but I did tag the story as romance, hah. Still, there's a bit of excitement to come yet - I guess it's up to you whether or not you want to stick around!
473951 It's coming along faster than I thought when I said it's coming along faster than I thought; I may finish tomorrow or the day after, but next weekend is the absolute last deadline!
474656 474717 475431 Aw sorry, I actually try very hard to avoid frustrating cliffhangers, I swear! One of my goals with the original publishing sets was to never ever frustrate, so I'm sorry if I failed at that here. If nothing else, you won't have to wait long. Thank you for sticking with the story so far! I hope the conclusion won't disappoint.
473584 because this is a romance fic. if it's got the romance tag, most likely romance is going to be a big part of it
481791 rhetorical question
481775
Don't think it an offense! I'm just really excited about the story, and I get really antsy when something I'm into gets interrupted. Like a kid who has a present in front of him and he can't unwrap it yet!
And I don't get that into many stories like that!
481796 rhetorical questions need not an answer, it seemed this one required one
482858 it was a statement in question form and after this im just dropping it (not the story of course)
483455 i knows I'm just trolling
481775 what Shift said
Amazing, simply amazing.
All of this is amazing, but I'd like to focus on the big Fluttershy/Dash/Pinkie scene this time 'round. Because I loved it so, so hard. I felt in my chest how gut-wrenching that must have been for Fluttershy to confess. I felt how conflicted Dash was (because she's JUST promised to be there for 'Shy and also recently apologized to Pinkie for hiding their love) due to her loyalities suddenly being split in the most terrible of ways. And then Pinkie Pie was utterly amazing, and I loved her even more than I already did--and Pinkie Pie is very, very loveable in this story.
No jealousy, no hesitation, no doubt from our little pink mare. Just a calm "What's the problem here?" And while it's not a characterization that everyone will like, I know, it's one I really do. It seems fitting to me. Pinkie loves everyone, and by and large, she doesn't seem to begrudge those she loves in turn loving others. Also, I could see her not considering romantic love as this big, separate thing from other kinds of love, which all together leads to ... 'Shy loves Dash, Dash loves 'Shy, Pinkie loves them both, so what's the problem?
And you know, it's NOT that simple, for the most part--but darned if Pinkie Pie can't MAKE it be that simple through simple force of will and optimism, at least this once. She really is something else.
I also really liked when Twilight woke up from Luna's memory to find herself buried underneath the legs of all of her friends. That was lovely and beautiful--also, reminiscient of the scene where they all circle 'round Dash to protect her from the griffons. The love all six of them display for one another, over and over again, is definitely one of the highlights of this story for me.
481775 What you need to know is that even though cliffhangers are painfull as hell we need them. Their what drives us to madness over when the next release is gonna be out, and if we're that eager it means we love the story right? Even though i hate huge cliffhangers i know that i need them :)
I have no idea if that was understandable but what i mean is CLIFFHANGERS ARE AWESOME in their own way :D
Now THAT is how you break the shell of an immortal goddess.
3am and still reading. And I thought I will have proper sleep tonite. Curse you! :D