Of Time Before The Stars

by JinxTJL

Of A World Shattered

It should've felt far more momentous.

When she'd always imagined finally leaving- usually in a flurry of emotion and drama that starkly lacked from the moment- it had been the grandest thing. A trumpeting call to action and adventure as she soared out on majestic wings of glory and grandeur. Leaving her forsaken and forgotten parents behind, and maybe deigning to drag her sister behind her.

But here they were, standing plainly around in the shaded light of the never-ending sun, about to go look for those forsaken forbearers. And there she was: standing at the head of their cart and inspecting the simple wooden yoke one of them would have to constantly pull by their waist.

...Celestia would be pulling the cart first, wouldn't she?

Luna's expression turned leery, as she sucked thoughtfully on her cheek. Thoughts of heavy burden drew her itching hooves to walk her around to the back of the cart, where she was hoping to look busy.

If she pretended to count up their inventory for a while, maybe her sister would helpfully decide to go ahead and do her a kindness.

Luna shuffled up the little lowered ramp that was the back of the cart- except, she stumbled.

Her hoof only barely caught her as she nearly took a faceplant into their baskets of food, and she groaned in frustration as she looked back at what had tripped her.

A long, taut stretch of grey cloth: caught on the corner of the lowered ramp.

Wearing a cloak was something to get used to, she supposed.

She gave a small humph as she flipped the edge of her caught cloak up, and as it fluttered, she had a great view to the tightly wound belt of woven cloth that laid just around the lowest part of her barrel. And, more importantly, to the gleaming chunks of silver held fast by the attached loops on its respective sides.

Her new fashion choice settled over her back, and she let her hoof rest over where one of her weapons sat at her hip. It was a nice feeling to have them so close- it made her feel dangerous- though there was a slight problem. The constantly cold feeling of the metal bouncing along her leg was far scarier than in her dreams, and it made it sort of hard to concentrate.

The very low fear from the barest scrape of cold metal may just make her hesitate, and that was unacceptable.

But, then again, she had dreamed of it, and so she wasn't expecting it to be all that hard to get used to. It was something that she was glad she had the chance to get used to: enabled solely by the treasures she'd unearthed from her parents' room.

As she'd searched in every nook and cranny that she'd been too polite to poke about in anytime before, first had she found the hooded, grey cloak buried in a sort of closet-like cubby. It was obvious on inspection that it belonged to her father, and, at first, it had been much too big for her.

It had required some adjustment. The bottom had needed a dire shortening, and it was held around her neck by awfully stitched-together ends tied for good measure by several lengths of twine, but it fit. Didn't look good- she wasn't the best at sewing- but it fit.

Luna pulled gently at the junction she'd forcibly created around her neck for the fourth time since she'd put it on, and gagged slightly.

It was a bit tight.

But aside the clothing: she'd not even be wearing it if not for the other thing she'd found in there. She thought cloaks were cool and all, and her mysterious savior straight from her wildest dreams had worn one, but she mainly needed it to cover the fact that she'd be wearing her weapons as well.

She didn't know why her father had a belt that was clearly made to hold blades. Exactly two, at that, and in such a well-kept strap of woven fabric. The nicest belt she'd ever seen, it was, and comfortable to boot. Didn't chafe at all, unlike her own work.

He'd told her that he'd never held the ones passed down from her grandmare, and she'd never seen him with any other blades, so its existence really just brought many, many questions forward. He knew weapons, sure, but had he really owned some in the past? Nevermind that- he'd owned them and then lost them?

The plain, empty scabbards as well. Two medium-length hollows of unadorned black metal that tapered to a point, and shone dully in the light. They weren't perfectly fit to her weapons, but as she was lacking them, they covered a sore need. A little loose-fitting as well, but they were obviously made for the general shape of her weapons. Another oddity to add to the pile.

She'd found the cloak amidst other bits of clothing that her parents hadn't worn as long as she'd been alive, but the belt and the scabbards were oddly under their bed. Wrapped in silken black fabric much the same as had been alongside her weapons in the box. A somewhat shameful concept, but for such wonderful things?

Nothing made sense, and Luna was literally garbed in mystery.

Even through the intense intrigue, she appreciated the vested meaning in her random find. It wasn't like it at all- but it was almost sort of like they were was yet more gifts from her father. Even now, in his absence, he was still helping her.

...Ick. That sounded like something Celestia would say.

Speaking of her sister, she was peering up over the side of the cart at her, and Luna was intensely grateful that she'd not lifted the side of her cloak to stare brazenly at her sword as she'd been distracted. She'd thought abut it; she did really like looking at them, still.

She... just didn't want to tell Celestia about that part of herself, yet. Maybe in a blaze of danger would that discovery lie, when it would be easiest to swallow. Easiest to believe, as Luna twirled about some unforeseen enemy.

That's when it would be coolest, at least.

...That wasn't the only reason she'd not told her.

Her sister's bright, magenta eyes peered up at her curiously, and her pink mane framed her face as a perfect question mark. "Is everything okay? You've been staring at the carrots for a while."

Luna blinked, and maybe she blushed a little as she turned and hid her face behind a hoof. "I'm- We're just fine, sister, yes. We were simply..." She coughed, and swept the hoof in front of her face across the view of the baskets. "...checking for ourselves that our supplies be adequate!"

She sniffed, and wore an imperious mask as she turned to tower over her sister- while making sure in every motion not to let her cloak ride up. "Thy efforts are as noticed as they are cute, but we shall be the final call upon our leave."

She raised her hoof- but not too high. "Our eye for detail surpasses any other!" she announced grandly, keeping her eyes to the bright heavens above for the lasting echo of her declaration.

And it echoed, for a moment, before she sighed deeply. Her head fell and hung, chafing her neck against the constraining line of her cloak's tie, as she blinked sourly down at the baskets she'd barely looked at. "...Or not," she groaned.

She turned to her sister, and she was smiling good-naturedly up at her; a sort of knowing plain in her eyes. Luna couldn't help but smile back, even as she shook her head and sighed again. "I just got distracted. Sorry, sister."

Luna turned and hopped out of the cart. Stepped around, and came to slouch in front of her sister, who'd turned to face her as she approached. "I guess... I'm just feeling the moment," she murmured lowly, but she tried to stand to face her sister anyway.

She tilted her head, and Celestia tilted hers right along. "It's... pretty big, isn't it?" Luna tried not to let the frayed edge of her nerve sound through her voice as she gave a lopsided little smile. She cast her eye up, to the overbearing canopy above. "That we're finally leaving... after... all our lives. Finally escaping these woods..."

The dapple of the leaves, swaying in the breeze... She'd gone above- seen above them, but Celestia hadn't.

What might she have been feeling, wearing that smile on her face?

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It was less frightening than she'd expected.

Her sister had been all bashful smiles as they'd waved goodbye to the only home they'd ever known, and as cute as she looked prancing about in that obviously-too-big-for-her cloak, Celestia couldn't shake a sense of melancholy deep in her chest.

But that was all. Just a sort of sad acceptance in turning from that familiar front door, to face the world beyond.

What had happened to the constant, niggling sense of panic clogging up her throat every time she so much as thought of leaving? The existential dread at the thought of change? Why was it so easy to walk ahead, without looking back?

Perhaps the labor was helping to keep her mind off it.

The path leading in circuitous bends and turns around odd trees and deep trenches of overgrown fiber was surprisingly smooth- thankfully, as she had a very heavy weight dragging her back half. The yoke around her waist chafed... less than she'd thought it would, and it was altogether much easier than expected to pull the weight of all their cargo with every step.

But it was still a burden. Her legs were tired.

As they passed yet another patch of bramble that the decently marked path lead just around, she glanced to the side, to her sister trotting alongside her. She cut an interesting figure in that too-baggy-for-her cloak, and her brushed-for-once mane bounced with some kind of excitement with every step, but the look on her face was...

She looked kind of jittery.

Celestia felt the nerves as well, but she at least had something to take her mind off it. The endless creaking of old wooden wheels turning and mulching through dirt filled the air- but then did Celestia hum loudly, drawing her sister's eye in an attentive turn.

Celestia smiled, though kept her eyes on the path. "So..." she drawled out, flicking her eyes to her sister for just a moment. "-Luna, when would you like your turn?"

The urge to laugh and give herself away was almost overpowering for a moment as the blue of her sister's face turned just a bit whitish, and her mouth gaped in a stutter of syllables. Celestia just kept walking, as Luna nearly tripped over her hooves and words, though eventually she found her tongue.

"Um- Sister- I don't-" She coughed, and Celestia could hear the flush through her voice as it wavered. "Sister, we... wouldn't want to... that is, to say... it wouldn't be right to deprive thee of the... the vital exercise!"

She seemed excited at that, to have finally found a reason to say 'no'. "Yes, it is absolutely imperative that thou be the one to draw the cart for now." Celestia turned her eye from the road as it evened out for a moment, to see Luna nodding to herself confidently. "The road ahead will be rife with the wear of activity, thus the chance for thy physicals to increase is a treasure all its own."

Celestia couldn't help the giggle that bubbled from her chest, though Luna turned to look at her oddly. "Is that right? My generous little sister doing me a favor?" she ventured, as her smile grew a bit more daring.

Luna grimaced, and turned her head up to the sky. The urge to tell her not to walk like that flashed over her for a moment, but anything she might've had to say was preempted by an immediate comeuppance.

Celestia hadn't seen the small hole, and Luna obviously hadn't either as her hoof landed in it, followed by the rest of her face smashing into the ground. She and the cart rolled to a stop as they both took in a crumpled, cloaked Luna groaning in pain on the forest floor. She wasn't sure whether to murmur in concern or laugh in mockery.

She loved her sister, though, and so for the moment she lit her horn, and blindly undid the latch that bound her to the cart. The lack of weight was freeing in a way she hadn't realized had been stifling, but her attention was on walking around to her sister's front, and offering her a hoof.

Luna's crossed blue eyes centered on her in a weary blink, and with another groan, the hoof that hadn't fallen into a karmic pit rose up to grasp at the proffered help. "Thanks," she grumbled, as she found her bearings and turned to dust off her cloak.

Celestia smiled good-naturedly at her frowning face, and decided that she loved her sister enough to do both. "Oh, it's the least I could do after you let me pull the cart."

Luna's head whipped around to face her in an affronted gape, and Celestia continued to smile as she sputtered for an angry response. She'd seemingly nearly had one prepared, too, before she deflated entirely; shoulders sagging as she sighed tiredly.

She looked up at her through her slightly ruffled mane. "Would you like us to take a turn?" she muttered woodenly, clearly unenthused at her own offer.

But it was sweet of her to offer.

Celestia stepped forward, and Luna's head rose just as she planted her muzzle into the mop of blue. She hummed tunelessly for a moment as she curled a hoof around her neck, and leaned away to stare directly into her sister's slightly confused eyes.

"I was just teasing, Lulu," she murmured, before leaning in to kiss into her mane. She let her sister go, then, and there was an embarrassed smile on her face as Celestia turned to go latch herself back in again.

She didn't mind pulling the cart, really, and Luna had a certain kind of point through her blustering. It was good for Celestia to get this exercise, and truthfully, she was already feeling kind of exhausted. Whether either of them liked it or not, Luna would have to pull the cart sometime soon.

But for now, the yoke was around her waist again, and she was turning to face her flushing, smiling sister. "Come on, let's keep going. I think we're almost out of the woods," she said, and Luna perked to nervous attention before she gave a distracted cough.

"Yes, I- Um, yes, let's," her sister stammered out, and Celestia laughed at her. Luna liked to talk big and act big and try to be big, but she was surprisingly easy to fluster. A little kiss or some mushy love and she would just fall to pieces.

Celestia turned, and heaved a grunt as the soon-to-be-familiar feeling of pulling weighed on her again. The forest stretched forward to seeming infinity, yet she heard Luna trot quickly up to her side anyway.

They were farther than they'd ever been before, now.

How long would it take until they were out?

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Luna was the first to see it.

The treeline was an even shade of greenish brown, but just slightly- a flash of light.

"Sister, I think we're almost there!" she cried suddenly, breaking the slightly stifling peace that had built up for however long they'd been walking. Not to say that she didn't enjoy the time walking with her sister, but leaving wasn't quite as easy as she'd imagined it.

As she jumped to sleepy attention with her excited yell, her sister looked up from her panting stare at the ground. She'd been growing more and more obviously tired for a while now, and as Luna turned to beam at her, her eyes were a shiny sort of glassy.

It was good for more than one reason that they were almost out of the woods- and closer to a much-needed break.

Yet, even as her sister's tongue lolled from her mouth in exhaustion, she still managed to raise her head and smile tiredly back as they rolled to a halt. "Yay..." she breathed, and Luna clasped a hoof to her withers.

Her sister may have come close to falling over as Luna leaned into her, but they were both smiling as she pressed their cheeks together. "Breathe it in, sister mine: this is a grand moment," she announced, holding her sweaty sister close with one hoof.

She gestured out with the other, to the faint yet literal light at the end of the tunnel. "All of our lives have we lived in these suffocating quarters. Never given quarter for our woes, endless they were. Yet now! Now we may breathe fresh air! Untainted by hollow languor, and full of life!"

She glanced down to her sister's hanging head, and the shaky smile she wore. "Fear thy burden lessen, sister! Soon shall we take our first rest under the open skies!"

"Woohoo..." came the unsteady call from her sister, though it was less of a call and more of a breathy whisper. Still, Luna took it to heart, and called out in excitement for the both of them. A hearty cry of joy to the empty air, as she used her sister as leverage to stand fully up.

But only for a moment, as the first thing that Luna realized was that she'd accidently flashed her weapons to her sister. She dropped down as her face heated, and though she quickly checked her sister's face for shock, it seemed Celestia was too tired to see much of anything.

Just kind of standing there, staring blankly forward with lidded eyes and an empty smile on her face.

She'd not lied: this was a good chance for her sister to exercise. Unlike herself, with all her weapons training: Celestia'd spent most of her life sitting around engaging in... minutia. Giving as much thought to her physical condition as Luna had to cooking or knitting.

This was great for her. Even if Luna had taken the weight of their cart to bear, Celestia would've gotten just as tired sometime later, probably in a more dangerous place.

This was the time, and she was proud of her for sticking it out.

With her hooves on the ground and her sister trying not to pass out, Luna dashed forward; her cloak thankfully not fluttering about behind her. She leaped right over an overgrown root askew from a precariously leaning tree that her sister would have to go around, and turned back to grin brightly as her hooves hit the ground.

Her sister had begun to move the moment she had, but her progress wasn't quite as immediate. Luna was forced to wait; tapping her hoof impatiently and glancing between their goal and she who had long since lost a sense of urgency. The maddening sound of swaying wheels and struts filling the air, as Luna took the extremely extended moment to tilt her head skyward and groan.

She could just run ahead and take a peek, but it meant something for them to see it together! The sentiment was... enormous!

Eventually, her sister did make her way over, panting and wheezing, but they had a ways to go yet. Luna simply suffered through the short ride as she'd been forced to for a while; trotting gloomily alongside the shaking form of her sister as she strained herself to keep walking.

"Dost thee wish us to just... take it, for even the moment?" Luna had stopped to ask at some point when the light ahead had first begun to thin, but her sister just shook her head. Didn't say anything else beyond a wheeze, but her choice was clear, as much as it made Luna want to fall over.

The anticipation was killing her! They could already just see the faintest edges of things on the horizon beyond a frame of trees, but they were going so slow. How far had they even traveled if this was how fast they were going? Could she turn around and run to the house and back before Celestia made it there? She was thinking she could!

Gah! This was maddening!

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It was there... on the horizon...

Or maybe she was just seeing light.

Everything in Celestia's body hurt, and her tongue had long since gone numb as had her face. Her hooves shook with every step, her chest ached from how much she was forcing herself to keep breathing somewhat evenly, and she was entirely surprised her back half hadn't just fallen off already.

She wasn't sure if she'd be able to keep going if it weren't for Luna at her side. Hopping about with so much energy, and cheering her on with rye and temper in her voice. How she might wish for some of that enthusiasm.

But she was excited, and that's why she still smiled.

Forward, ever forward, as the light grew thinner.

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It was getting closer. She could nearly taste it.

Freedom, growing clearer.

The trees ended just hoofsteps beyond, and there was a worn, wooden sign by the side of a patchy dirt road leading into infinity. Backwards, or just blank, but new. Exciting.

A bit odd how the trees just... cut off in a line, though. It reminded her a little of how she'd once stepped out of her sister's dream. An unnatural break of nature's path, into something unfitting.

And... the horizon as beyond was familiar; much the same as it had seemed from her unfortunate trips gone flying. Kind of flat. Sort of bland.

A little lifeless.

Something seemed... off.

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Her sister had slowed to a canter beside her, but Celestia looked forward all the same.

The open world beyond. Lush plains on rolling hills covering vast expanses like she'd only seen in pictures. Dotted with colorful flowers below incredible shadows of mountains too-far-to-see. The blue sky above dotted with whimsical mounds of white. Clouds. She'd never seen so many before.

A few steps, now.

She could feel the breeze...

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Luna felt sick. Something was wrong.

The first step outside should have been more. It should have been a freeing rush of adrenaline as they literally walked from their prison, and symbolically stepped towards the future.

But something pressed down on her as she and her sister took their first step outside. Something pulled at her back, and her stomach flipped like she was being turned upside down. Her wings itched and burned at the joint, and it was only her sister at her side that stopped her from taking off.

Then they were outside, and Luna blinked.

And everything changed.

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This was wrong. This was... some kind of joke. She was asleep. Having a nightmare.

Her mouth had long gaped open by itself, and she couldn't force herself to shut her eyes. Couldn't stand to look away, or to breathe.

How she wanted to. How she wanted to forget and wish she'd seen something different. To go back just a few seconds, and pretend like the first moments of the life she'd imagined were still pure.

The world was wrong.

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If her sister hadn't been latched into a cart keeping her legs firm, she was sure she would've fallen to her knees. That was what Luna felt from hearing the way her sister choked. The tense sound of wood shivering. Or maybe she was projecting.

It was between a blink and the next, and the world shifted colors. The scenery painted onto the walls of reality bled away, and a gaping wound was left exposed. Like a veil sundered. Like a curtain lifted for a magician's cruel trick.

It was familiar. It was sick.

This wasn't what she'd dreamed. She didn't want this. She wanted to go home.

Her legs turned on pure instinct to flee, but then she stopped, and screamed.

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When Luna screamed, Celestia still wasn't sure if she was even awake. It was only a dull sense of caring that turned her head, as everything else had overloaded and deadened.

Everything felt slow as she turned to look at her sister, and everything looked greyed as she saw her sitting, propped up by her hooves. Staring back at where they'd came with an open mouth too frozen to close. Her face a rictus painting of dark lines that read fear.

Barely moving. Eyes still. Like she'd just shut down.

And when Celestia turned and saw, as Luna had, she screamed too.

How could she not?

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A fantasy would have seen them walk into the wonderful world beyond, and it would have been a paradise. To see them marvel at their new lives free from what they'd seen as a prison, as they explored a life they'd never known. They would travel, they would find wonder, and they would think back on the days left behind as days wasted.

It would have been a wonderfully naïve thing.

But the possibility of a fantasy in their world had long since been shattered. A stillborn ideal. For as they looked back on the days behind them, to the path they'd traveled with so little understanding of what lay ahead, they found nothing.

It was a fantasy they had walked from; it was a fantasy from which they escaped.

For behind them laid a worn dirt path that abruptly stopped in a blurred rub of a line, laid parallel to a wooden stake in the blue grass. Upon which stake was affixed, by way of a single loose, rusted nail: a tattered wooden board cut on both sides by jagged, uneven blows; its stained surface scrawled over in messy red lettering that had run before it had dried.

The sign read 'dead end.'

The forest was gone. There was nothing behind them, and the path ended.

The sky was green.

Author's Note:

A mountain silhouetted above the sky. A desert where once was cloudy sea. A village hidden from harm in the dark.

A hero who fought to right the wrongs of her people: bound to the shackles of war.

A princess too vain to concede her rule: granted her greatest wish.

A leader made mad by the innocence of life: forced to forever bring thought animate.

A ruined hall of combat. A vast scape of glass. An ephemeral plain of chaos.

Legends of time past. Ruins long forgotten. Shrewd pockets of life, barely scraping by.

The mage who ran. The smith laid broken. The reviled healer.

Two sisters, on a quest to find their parents. To find answers, and to save the world.

The anathema of order: given form. The wrong answer to reality. He who laughed.

How long has it been?

Comments

[Mr Swanky Hat]

Well... I think that explains a few things

[JinxTJL]

11343957
I imagine there must have been many questions leading up to this. My intent with the final few scenes was, in essence, to take all of those questions, throw them right in the garbage, and replace them with entirely new questions to dither upon while the story's on hiatus!

Maybe not directly into the garbage; I think some questions will deserve a good ol' revisiting one day, but that day's not soon!

Thanks for commenting; you were pretty much the only person who left more than one in this extended prologue to the larger story I'll one day be writing. If it weren't for the exact thought that at least someone was reading this schlock, I probably would've put far less effort into it all.

See you on the flipside!