Wind Shadows
Cold rain sluiced down from a black night sky as the last glimmers of the other reality vanished, instantly soaking them to the bone. Twilight squealed in surprise, but Luna was too exhausted to react. Fragments of images still whirled in her head, a jumbled chaos of memory that made it hard to think.
Some part of her was eased by that largesse, no matter how painful the acquisition might have been, as if a piece of her soul had been returned to her. But that was only one small candle against a far larger darkness. She had sworn never to lose control again, to never take up the mantle of Nightmare Moon again. But she had been frightened and angry and alone, and it hadn't taken all that much time for her to make that same choice again. That only confirmed what a narrow precipice she walked, and yet...
And yet. She was herself again, in one piece, the remnants of a goddess' power and knowledge fading but not this time ripped from her. An improvement, withal. Twilight was saying something to her, the words lost in the hiss of the rain and the muddle of her own thoughts, but the tone was not recriminating or frightened or angry. Heedless of the cold, Luna closed her eyes and savored that.
She was forcibly stirred from her reverie as a hoof poked her in the ribs and Twilight shouted in her ear. "We need to find shelter!" Lightning flared nearby, scattering bright splinters of light from the heavy rain and reflecting sullenly from the low clouds above. Thunder snarled close on its heels, rattling her teeth.
It was enough to jar her into motion. She followed after Twilight, her hooves squelching in mud, the only illumination the inconstant strobe of lightning and the glimmer of the unicorn's horn. But the darkness had never been an obstacle for Luna, and when she saw the straight-sided silhouette of a building she steered them that way.
It was merely a few rough slabs of stone, without windows or a proper door, the roof angled and ill-fitting. But it was safer than a tree and drier than an open field and, most importantly, empty. It wasn't until Twilight pulled out the blankets that Luna felt the cold, shivering as she huddled into the cloth and wishing for something heavier.
"Luna..." Twilight said eventually, in a thoughtful tone. "I thought you said you weren't a goddess anymore. I thought Nightmare Moon was gone."
She winced, feeling the sharp knives of anxiety. There was no way to avoid it. The alicorn looked down at her muddy hooves instead of at Twilight as she spoke. "Nightmare Moon will never be gone. She is me. She's me making bad decisions. She's me choosing to hurt and destroy. I'm damaged, Twilight. I put so much of myself into being that person that I've lost my way in my own mind."
She added into the silence, quietly, "I'm sorry. For what I said to you." She didn't say she didn't mean it, because it would have been treading too close to a lie. She didn't believe it now, but when she had accused Twilight of treachery she had meant every word.
"I..." Twilight trailed off and Luna risked a look over at the unicorn. The smaller pony was looking at her, and smiled a small smile when she caught Luna's eyes. "I understand, Luna," she said at last. "I could almost believe it myself. This is really my fault, so I -"
"Don't," Luna pleaded. "Don't say it." She felt bad enough about the confrontation between herself and Twilight without having to deal with an apology.
"Um. Okay," Twilight said uncertainly, and looked away. Thunder grumbled and rain hissed, and Luna huddled deeper into her blanket with an obscure sense of shame. "I still don't have any idea where we are."
"Oh." Luna's head jerked up with an aftershock of knowledge left over from her brief time as empowered goddess. "I think I do."
"What?" Exasperation leaked in to Twilight's voice. "Why didn't you say something before?"
"I didn't know before!" She couldn't completely suppress the hysterical edge to her words. "It's something I remember because of..." She shook her head helplessly, at a loss at how to recapitulate the time spent as Nightmare Moon.
"...oh," said Twilight in a very different tone. Water dripped from the crude roof. Rain fell, lightning flashed, thunder growled. "And?" she prompted when Luna didn't elaborate further.
Luna tapped her hooves against the ground, trying to think of how to push the concept out in words. "The world itself," she said at last. "Dreams. Remembers. Hopes. Fears. When a continent sinks beneath the waves, it is not truly lost. When a city is being built, the idea exists before the bricks are laid. If such a thing as the soul of a world exists, that is it."
"So this isn't real?" Twilight sounded skeptical, and Luna could hardly blame her. Ephemera didn't usually create a populated landscape with a sun and a moon and a sky.
"Oh, it's real. This is the... page upon which Equestria is printed. The primeval conception of the land itself. But it's not Equestria, and it's not a place for ponies."
"Yet here we are." Twilight looked upward, where the endless drumming of the rain sounded against the stone.
"Here we are," Luna agreed. "And I really don't know why."
"Well you know," Twilight replied, "I think I'm glad we are."
Luna blinked, astonished, and Twilight gave her a small, embarrassed smile. "I know it hasn't exactly been fun, but... we've accomplished things. Or you have, Luna. You freed Tozómuc and you got all that memory back. That wouldn't have happened if we hadn't come here."
"I... suppose," the larger pony admitted grudgingly. Twilight's point of view baffled Luna, for whom the most looming issue was her relapse. But that didn't seem to register at all in the unicorn's worldview. It was astoundingly optimistic and criminally naive. And it was glorious.
Twilight's unconcern seemed to make the problem diminish, somehow. Luna was distantly astounded; she didn't know that one's troubles could shrink like that. But it was only a transient phenomenon. Twilight's next words brought worry crashing down again.
"Still, we don't know how to get back. Unless you could...?"
Luna shivered. "No, Twilight. Don't ask. Just...don't. Please."
"Okay." The unicorn looked glum for a moment before brightening up again. "Well, we'll just have to find something else. Maybe something like what brought us here. Or maybe we can find a city being built." She giggled softly. "And just step out of the fireplace like in a foal's story."
Luna gave Twilight a small smile in return, but it faded quickly. She couldn't share Twilight's optimism, even if the unicorn's presence seemed to abrogate her despair. She had some intuition of the vast gulf separating them from everything they knew, but she didn't have the heart - or the words - to try and convince Twilight of it.
The storm blustered and blew for hours, wind flinging itself fruitlessly against the walls of their shelter, but finally light began to filter through the dense clouds. Shades of grey edged into existence inside the crude building, painting the two of them in a dark monotone. Then a break in the clouds let the sun shine through, directly through the open entrance and into their eyes.
"Ack!" Twilight laughed, holding her hoof up to shade her eyes. "That just seems to fit with the rest of this day, doesn't it?" She stood up, folding her blanket, her hair and mane alternately frizzed and flattened. Luna imagined she didn't look much better, but at least they were dry. "Let's see where we are." They stepped out together, and stared.
It was an exceedingly ugly place. Grey rocks jutted out of dark mud the color of dried blood, a bleak broken landscape that seemed drained of color. The remnants of the storm scudded away behind them, parting around an enormous spire of stone. It wasn't just an outcrop; sharp lines spiraled up from the base, giving it the appearance of a unicorn's horn embedded in the ground.
It took a blink for Luna to resolve it into walls, cut into the natural fortress and running up and up. And at the very top something moved, flickering and rippling, though what exactly it could be was impossible to say from this distance. There was something about it that made Luna uneasy, though it was an elusive feeling, hiding at the back of her mind.
"We must have gone a long way inside that... clock thing," Twilight commented, taking a few steps toward. "There's no forest anywhere." She glanced back at Luna with a smile. "But it looks like we're somewhere interesting. What is that?"
"I have no idea." Luna shook her head, kicking at a rain-damp rock. It squelched as it shifted in the mud. "It's as if it were carved like that though, and all this is what's left over."
"But who could have done that? You said this wasn't a place for ponies." Twilight was starting to pick her way toward the base of the spire, and Luna followed.
"There are many other things in the world besides ponies," the alicorn replied darkly. "We should be careful."
"I'm sure it's fine. And who knows, we might run into somepony who could help us." Twilight stopped to shake caked mud off one of her hooves. "Though I admit this isn't exactly the most welcoming place I've ever seen. Doesn't anything grow here?"
"It doesn't look like it." Luna was astounded that they hadn't injured themselves stumbling around in the dark and the storm. The ground underfoot was exactly the wrong mix of rocky and muddy, making it difficult and treacherous, and sharp stone edges scraped against her chausses more than once. After only a few seconds of the struggle she took to wing, still trying to make out what was atop the spire, and below her purple flared as Twilight teleported ahead.
Where wall met ground, there was an opening that was more ragged hole than proper arch, but the ramp inside was glass-smooth. Luna hopped down from the wall as Twilight stepped through onto the ramp. "It's a bit of a climb. I could fly up to see what it is," the alicorn offered.
"We should probably stay together." Twilight said. She was probably thinking of the last time they had gotten separated. "We're not in that much a hurry."
Luna nodded agreement and the two of them began the walk. The ramp walls defined a narrow slice of sky, and were themselves plain and unadorned. There was really nothing interesting about the path other than the fact it existed. The wind whistled mournfully through the narrow slot of stone, whipping at her mane and making her squint.
Her sense of unease grew, as if there were some half-remembered familiarity about the place. As they climbed, debris began to appear on the ramp, pieces of metal strewn haphazardly along the stone. Then chunks embedded in the walls, covered in verdigris and the faded remnants of some sort of symbol.
Then around the curve of the wall appeared a much larger slice of metal, leaning at a drunken angle between the two walls, leaving a small passage. Twilight bounded ahead, examining the strange detritus. "You can actually see the writing on this one!" She squinted at it. "I can't read it though. It's just the same set of symbols carved over and over."
Luna stepped up next to her, the vague uncertainty crystallizing into real fear. "I can," she said, her voice flat and drained of emotion.
"Well?"
The alicorn closed her eyes and whispered. "The wind is hungry."
"What does that mean?" The smaller pony frowned at the metal, tracing the writing with a hoof. "Some kind of riddle?"
"It means we have to get out of here. Right now." Luna stepped back, looking around wildly. She didn't see what she was afraid of, but that was no comfort. It was only a matter of time.
"What? Why?" Twilight cocked her head questioningly at the alicorn, but obediently began trotting after her back down the ramp. "Do you know what that means?"
"Celestia isn't the only one who dealt with monsters," Luna told her, shards of memory coming together, building the story for her even as she told it for Twilight. "And not all things can be killed. But I thought they were gone forever."
"Thought what were gone forever?" The unicorn had a justifiably impatient edge to her question. Luna opened her mouth to answer, and then skidded to a halt. Twilight nearly ran into her as she followed the larger pony's example.
"That." Luna pointed a hoof at a sunlit patch of wall, where a diamond-shaped shadow danced and twisted, even though there was nothing to cast it. She lowered her voice. "Twilight, can you teleport us away from here? Back to that rock hut, maybe?"
"I'm not sure, it gets a bit iffy if I can't see it," Twilight said dubiously. "But I can try. And then you can tell me why you're afraid of a little shadow."
"I'll tell you what I can remember," Luna promised. "Just go!"
The unicorn watched as Twilight closed her eyes, and a brief glimmer surrounded them... and a gust of wind tore the burgeoning magic to shreds. The unicorn squeaked and stared around. "What was that?"
"Wind shadows," Luna growled. "Come on."
"I still don't know what you mean!" Twilight complained, cantering along behind. She might have been confused, but she was hardly protesting their goal.
"Even after Discord, the world was full of harmful and destructive things. Some of them 'Tia dealt with... some of them I did. This was something I sealed away long ago... there's nothing living around here because they ate it all."
"But what are they?" Twilight sounded nervous, as well she should be. Luna stopped again. The sun was shining full on the ground now, and a half-dozen sourceless geometric shadows drifted lazily across the stone.
"Brothers of the biting wind and the scouring wind. They are the hungry wind, and they would consume everything if they could. The shadows are the only way you can see them, cast by whatever twisted them at the beginning of time." Luna's voice was low and harsh, and she stared at the harmless-looking but extraordinarily dangerous line of moving shapes on the ground.
Twilight stepped up next to her, speaking quietly. "Then... how do we avoid them? Or fight them?"
Luna shook her head. She had a fragile chain of memory, but the entirety of her knowledge was buried deep in the inaccessible part of her psyche. None of what she knew was good. "They are the wind," she said at last. "You can probably counter them with stillness, but not forever."
Twilight nodded and frowned, pacing a short line behind Luna as she thought. "Oh, I wish I had my books," she complained aloud. "All right, let's try this." The unicorn's horn flared, a sphere spreading outward from the tip, a slow wavefront that left behind a faint purple haze. As it passed Luna, sound faded and muted, the light dimming and turning red. From inside, she couldn't see how far the spell extended, but it was only a second or two later that Twilight's mouth moved.
"Okay, let's go." The unicorn's words arrived a heartbeat later, distant and faded. The two ponies began walking forward again, though it was more like trying to move through water than through air. There was no sound of hoofsteps at all, and they walked in an unnatural silence.
It wasn't enough. Luna saw something flash through the air between them, carving a tunnel through the spell. Then another, and another, and the spell collapsed, the tattered fragments of magic snapped up by swirls of malevolent air, shadows swirling wildly on the rock around them. Then one of those shadows flitted over Twilight's back, and the unicorn screamed as a bloody track appeared across the path it had taken, a strip of flesh neatly excised with a gust of wind.
"Stop!" Luna shouted, hard and commanding enough to surprise even her as she stepped in front of the wounded unicorn, even though that was no real protection against what they faced. "You know who I am," she told the empty air. "What are you doing?"
The air replied.
The
world's trembles the
heart under of incarnated
the weight goddess.
The voice was thin, wavery, and toneless, sinister from its very lack of emotion, the source constantly moving as it spoke.
All feed
things her and shall
are to on we
drawn them
Luna's eyes narrowed. Though it was true that she could no longer wield that power, it still existed in some way. The idea that unconstrained, uncontrolled divinity was warping this place seemed altogether too probable. And it was, again, entirely her fault. The alicorn pushed the jumbled welter of thoughts and emotions aside as best she could, focusing on what she could possibly do in the here and now. "I won't let you do that," she said flatly, though she had no idea how she could stop them. She couldn't simply summon up Nightmare Moon, not in the frame of mind she was in, and that would only start an uncontrollable avalanche that could not end well.
You have abandoned
cannot you your
stop us power.
all to do
we have is
wait.
"Isn't there anything we can do?" Twilight whispered from behind her, and Luna glanced back at her.
"We can leave." Luna didn't know how much bluff that was. She had bested the hungry wind before, and so far they hadn't attacked her. But they also didn't seem afraid of her. She took a step and that thready, emotionless voice spoke again.
If consume slowly.
you will the unicorn
leave we so
you can
hear
the screams.
Twilight whimpered, and Luna was intensely aware of the coppery smell of blood carried on the air. As a princess, she knew she should resist any sort of pressure, any sort of coercion. As Luna, she couldn't even begin to think of allowing Twilight to be hurt. And she was far more Luna than she was a princess. "Leave her alone," she whispered. "Let her go."
"Luna," Twilight's voice came from behind her. "You can't."
She turned to face the unicorn, tears standing in her eyes. "I can't stand to see you hurt." Her voice shook as she voiced thoughts she hadn't allowed herself to consider. "Not you, Twilight. Not -" She shook her head. "Run away. Far from here. You're smart, Twilight, you can find your way home without me."
"But - "
"Please. Go." She stared into Twilight's wide purple eyes until the unicorn finally nodded softly. Luna watched as the other pony took a few steps down the ramp, then turned and spread her wings. She flew upward, toward the peak of the spire, unable to watch Twilight Sparkle leave, geometric shadows fluttering around her.
•••
Twilight stopped when she could see no more shadows and the wind was still. The unicorn knew she couldn't leave Luna behind. She didn't even want to leave Luna alone with the hungry wind, a stinging and bleeding back an insistent reminder of what they were and what they could do. She winced and cast a small spell to curb the bleeding and ease the pain - she wasn't practiced enough with more thorough healing spells to have faith in their efficacy.
"Think, Twilight," she muttered. "You can figure out some way to fix this. Checklist, what do we know?" She didn't have the physical version, and in that moment she missed Spike terribly. Hopefully he was enjoying himself with his parents, and that he wasn't too worried about her.
That wasn't helping. "Checklist checklist checklist," she repeated. What did she know? One: That it was made of wind. Two: That it cast a shadow. Three: That Luna somehow trapped it a very long time ago. Four: That it ate everything, even magic, and left only rock and mud. Five: That the only assets she had were two blankets, some food and water, two scarfs, her mind and her magic.
She stamped her hoof in frustration, the sound ringing off the stone surrounding her. There had to be some way, some thing that could fight them. She glared around at nothing in particular, seeing only more stone. Rock. Her eyes widened.
"You have got to be completely insane, Twilight Sparkle." It was an utterly untenable idea. She didn't have any of the spells she needed; she'd have to invent them from scratch. And yet she had to try. She didn't know what to make of Luna's parting words - not yet - but for herself, she knew she couldn't obey those instructions. She was going after Luna.
But she was going to do it right. She couldn't be absolutely certain she was actually alone, though she suspected that if she weren't, there'd be more than one strip of hide missing. She took a breath, and this time the glimmer along her horn was faint, spreading out to wrap around her body in tight interweaving strips. Her vision blurred and turned monochrome, wavering as if it were seen through muddled water.
If it were working, from the outside she would be nearly invisible, inaudible, a phantom very much like the things she was hunting. It seemed particularly apropos, and from the manuals of war that she had read, a sound strategy. She began to canter back up the ramp, making no noise and casting no shadow.
The spire was barely short of a mountain. She passed more metal debris as she ascended, the remnants of some construct from Luna's first imprisonment of the terrible things. Now that she knew what to look for, every piece of degraded metal had the phrase punched into its surface, over and over again. The wind is hungry.
She shook her head, pushing that to the back of her mind as she focused on the magic she would need. Her hooves carried her through the simple curve of the spiral ramp while she bent her intellect on the task of inventing spells without the aid of quill or paper. The monochrome world slipped by as she ghosted upward.
The sun rose higher in the sky, shadows shifting, the lines cast by the sharp walls shrinking as it neared midday. She was panting as she neared the top of the spire; even though she was used to walking it had been a long uphill climb, and at speed. What had been blurred motion from the ground was visible now: the remains of a metal tower, twisted and bent where it had burst from the inside, loose pieces swirling constantly in a powerful eldritch wind. A hungry wind.
She hardly dared to breathe as she crept closer. The bright light of the sun illuminated only a single figure, but many shadows. Luna rested at the base of the tower, her head bowed in utter despondency, her mane fluttering in fitful bursts. She seemed whole, but the shadow she cast was surrounded by a flickering swarm. Feeding.
Twilight felt sick. It was all she could do to keep from rushing over to the forlorn pony, instead proceeding step by slow step, spell at the ready. She felt incredibly conspicuous, creeping across the open space, near to bursting with unreleased magic. Sweat beaded on her brow as she expected a dive by some drifting wraith.
But she made it to within a few feet of Luna unaccosted. She couldn't get nearer without stepping into the invisible maelstrom whirling about the alicorn, joined, by evidence of the shadows, to the frenzied whirl above. She couldn't possibly warn the pony what was about to happen. Twilight inhaled, slowly, deeply, and then released the spell.
Her disguise blasted apart as hurricane winds exploded outward from her, cracking the stone under her hooves and seizing building-sized chunks of metal in its grasp. The only thing spared was Luna, who was abruptly stripped of shadows as the wind was forced to bend however temporarily to a greater gale. The alicorn's head jerked up, staring at Twilight, an expression of bottomless surprise and hope flashing across her muzzle. "Luna!" the unicorn called to her.
Luna bounded forward, joining Twilight in the still heart of the magic storm as it went out and out, shrieking against the stone spire. "What are you doing!?" Luna hissed incredulously, looking out at the debris hurtling through the air. Twilight couldn't reply, gritting her teeth as she poured more and more power into the spell, drawing on the well of energy deep within her. The vortex extended down the sides of the mountain, hissing and growling, a cacophony that became flat and emotionless words.
We
will you we
consume will eat
your
bones.
She couldn't reply to that either. All her focus was reserved for the magic she was handling, spinning out of her core and away to power the wind. Below her, the rock began to shift, great jagged cracks running down the sides of the spire. The immense tornado tightened around the rock face, faster and faster.
But she could feel the strands of power that drove the wind being severed, eaten by the creatures she was trying to constrain. She poured more and more of herself into the spell, but things began to fray. The rock shifted under the two ponies, and another magical thread snapped, sending a stray puff of wind across Luna's shoulders. The alicorn cried out as a bloody track appeared across her coat, a piece of mane cut out with surgical precision.
With that cry, something within Twilight Sparkle shifted subtly. Her mind seemed to expand, and her eyes blazed white as everything became so very simple, simple. Her original plan of simply trapping the wind inside the mountain would not work; it would still retain the strength to break out. But stone was still a worthy answer to the problem.
She looked out, past the roiling blaze of the goddess beside her, a dark illumination like fire seen through water, to the ugly, swarming shapes of the hungry wind. She gathered them in, gathered them in, the sound of wind reaching a hellish pitch as it was crushed against the rock. But that noise was nothing compared to the sound of tortured rock as she stomped her hoof, and the mountain burst asunder.
"Twilight..." Luna breathed, eyes wide and frightened. "Not again." But the words were distant, distant, and energy crackled around them as Twilight's attention flew further outward. They stood, suspended on nothing, pieces of mountain larger than houses whirling by. Far below an enormous pit yawned where the roots of the mountain had been torn from the earth.
Then the tempo changed, and the unicorn's muzzle curled upward in a fey smile as a red glow suffused the unnatural storm. It cast a shifting light over the ponies, fighting with the white blaze of power at the tip of Twilight's horn. The first breath of heat stole into their safe, still space, and flames burst into brief life here and there amid the chaos as the sharp edges of shattered stone softened, softened.
Droplets of molten rock whipped around the vortex, shimmering orange-red as Twilight forced more and more heat into the chaotic debris. Lightning flared far below them, coruscating uncontrollably, the accompanying thunder lost in the bedlam. And Twilight smiled, smiled as she struck out at the remaining dregs of the spire, balancing the two of them atop a wind-churned pillar of magma.
Twilight's hooves waved like a conductor's as she forced the dark essence of the hungry wind to mix with the molten rock, pulling the vortex in tighter, tighter. The heat rippling the air blurred the view from their magic-laced bubble, but Twilight saw everything, everything.
You
cannot this.
do
The unicorn's smile widened to show teeth. The wind was now the motion of stone rather than the motion of air, a naked volcano rising from the landscape with blinding white magic erupting from the top. "I can," she whispered, she whispered, and brought her head down sharply.
Magic crackled and hissed as the lava was chilled instantly to black obsidian, a wave running down the pillar as whirls and vortices were stilled permanently and the wind was silenced. Volcanic glass crackled and popped as it was forced into being, the heat being pushed down further and further. As the tower joined the ground, the heat was cast out, cast out, into the field of mud beyond.
It exploded. The roar was indescribable, even through the protective bubble of Twilight's magic, and nothing large enough to be considered debris remained as steam and dust billowed into the air, blocking the sun, blocking the sun. Darkness fell, and the only illumination was the crackling flare of Twilight's magic.
Her power surged in exultation, her mind expanding outward, expanding outward. Luna's divine night seemed to stay with her, always present no matter how far she went, visible from deep within the earth and high up in the air. The magic that held them both suspended crackled and spat, the sphere expanding as the glow from Twilight's eyes grew brighter.
A whisper came from somewhere far away, far away. Twilight paid no attention, straining further and further outward, the power within her burning so bright, so bright. And then there was a soft touch on her muzzle, and from her eyes of flesh and blood the unicorn saw a terrified, worried face. "Twilight," it said. "Stop." The unicorn stared at that face, knowing it was familiar, knowing it was important. And then she remembered. "Please," Luna said, and Twilight let the bright spark go.
She fell down and down, through all the layers of perception, slamming back into her own skin at the moment the spell that kept them aloft vanished. The two ponies dropped several feet to the newly-made obsidian peak, and Twilight slumped to the ground, unutterably weary. Luna crouched down next to her. "Twilight? Are you...?"
"S'me," the unicorn slurred with a tiny smile. "Thanks."
"Thanks?" Luna laughed with a manic hysteria, then coughed on the dry, hot air whipping up from the devastated landscape below. "I have to thank you. You came back for me. You didn't leave me."
"'Course not," Twilight mumbled, squinting at Luna through the spots dancing in front of her eyes. "I'll never leave you."
She didn't understand why the alicorn suddenly burst into tears, smiling and bending down to nuzzle her. "Oh, Twilight." She shook her head, and the unicorn blinked up at her muzzily.
"What'd I say?"
The larger pony looked suddenly shy. "I... I'll tell you later." Luna stood up again, looking at the ominously dark cloud looming above them. "We need to leave before that all comes back down. There isn't any shelter around here anymore."
"Why not?" Twilight asked it automatically, then the memories caught up with her. "...oh. Right." She wobbled to her hooves, taking one unsteady step before Luna moved to support her.
"There isn't a way down," Luna said quietly as they peered over the edge. It was a long, steep cliff of pure obsidian, reaching down into an enormous crater that surrounded the newly-made pillar. The alicorn gave Twilight a sideways smile. "I'll have to carry you, but it's been a very long time since I tried that."
"I'm sure it'll be fine." Twilight felt blurred and unfocused, as if she couldn't quite wake up.
Luna bent and hoisted the unicorn over her shoulders, and Twilight held on tight as they left the ground. The larger pony stretched her wings, soaring high on the thermals rising from the crater below. Twilight stared down at the blasted, dessicated landscape, and felt half-guilty, half-proud that she had managed to do that.
The edge of the cloud's shadow cut a distinct line across the bleak mud plain some distance beyond the crater's rim. Luna's wings worked as she made for that goal, and above them the pyrocumulus growled ominously. They emerged back out into the sun, and a flash of green on the horizon signaled the end of the blood-colored desolation.
But Luna was already dropping altitude, out of practice in bearing more than her own weight, and she landed some distance from the beginning of a more lush plain than the one they were leaving. Twilight looked back, and shivered at the ominous black obelisk that stood shadowed under an unnatural cloud. "It looks evil," she said at last.
Luna shared it her look. "It may be," she said softly. "But it's not your evil. You've wrought a better prison for them than I had ever thought of."
Twilight ducked her head in embarrassment. "It just came to mind after I saw they'd left all the stone. Though...the melting thing didn't occur to me until after -" She stopped and waved a hoof vaguely. "Well, it seemed the right thing to do. Now, it kind of frightens me."
"Fully half the things you do terrify me, Twilight." Luna gave her a wry smile. "But the other half of the time you make me into a better pony than I could pretend to dream."
The unicorn flushed, not certain how to respond to that flattery, and Luna added something more in a thoughtful tone. "In that, you make a better goddess than I do."
"But...I'm not - I could never be a goddess!" The very idea felt absurd to her. There was only Celestia and Luna, and any concept of replacing them with a mere mortal made no sense at all. "Besides, you're just...out of practice, is all."
Luna giggled. "That's the most understated truth I've ever heard."
Twilight grinned back. For the moments that she could pull Luna out of her depression, and when she wasn't being Nightmare Moon, the alicorn shone quite brightly. She hoped she would see more of that, and less of the suffering that seemed to plague Luna. "Maybe you need to study? I could help you. I'm good with that." It was a weak joke, but a joke nonetheless.
"It's an idea, at that," Luna smiled. "Lesson one: how to wear a tiara properly."
They slogged the rest of their way to the beginning of the grass, and Twilight heaved a sigh of relief as they finally reached a surface that was kinder to her hooves and legs than stone or mud. They were both filthy from the knees down, but Twilight felt recovered enough to cast a basic cleaning spell. It didn't feel nearly as cleansing as a proper bath, but it at least kept their coats unmatted and Luna's chausses shining.
A rolling, rippling savanna stretched out ahead of them, dotted here and there in the distance with oddly flat-topped trees. It seemed deserted of even the smallest fauna, but after the spectacle that she'd put on, Twilight wasn't surprised. In fact, despite the boundless perception she'd had, she hadn't even thought to look. It gave her a flash of insight into how difficult Luna's and Celestia's duties had to be, if their godhead was anything like what she'd experienced.
"Do you think what the winds said is true?" she asked after a time. "That you're changing this place just by being here?"
"It may be." Luna looked up at the clear blue sky. "Though I expect you've changed the place more than me..." She gave Twilight a brief smile. "It's possible. I really can't tell."
"I saw it," Twilight confessed. "Before. I could see your goddess...ness."
"Really?" Luna stopped short and gave her a startled look. "So it's actually still there."
"Oh, yes." Twilight nodded. "And it's... beautiful, actually." She opened her muzzle to say something more, then shut it tightly as her ears caught up with her mouth.
"Is it now?" The alicorn smiled shyly at Twilight. "What does it look like? There aren't any mirrors that reflect godstuff."
"It's... all darkness and light mixed together, constantly moving." Twilight strained to remember that otherworldly perception, which didn't quite fit into a merely mortal mind. "Like... a nebula, if you could see one up close." She would have offered to use the memory spell again, but she could barely hold on to the images; even now, she could remember the impressions more than the event.
"That... does seem appropriate." Luna nodded and glanced skyward for a moment. "'Tia is all shining light, it hurts to look at her sometimes. And you..." The larger pony glanced sideways at Twilight. "I've seen you channeling the Elements of Harmony, but with what you can do without it, I wonder how much of it was the Elements, and how much was you."
"The Elements didn't feel like that, though," Twilight protested. "It was focused. It wasn't just me, either, it was all my friends."
"Somehow I keep forgetting that. I can remember how they all look, but..." She shook her head. "I'm just not in the habit of thinking of friends."
"Well you should start!" Twilight half-scolded her. "I know all my friends would love to spend time with you when we get back." She paused at that for a moment, remembering when Celestia had sent her to Ponyville with the express purpose of making friends. Now she was trying to do the same to somepony else.
"I'm... willing to try." Luna sounded hesitant, and Twilight felt slightly guilty. She didn't want to force Luna into a pretense of cheerfulness, especially since Luna was starting to discover the genuine article.
"In your own time," the unicorn temporized. "I'm sure we'll be buried in work when we get back."
The plain remained deserted as the afternoon rolled on toward evening, and Twilight stopped at an acacia-ringed pool of water. The obsidian spire was still visible in the distance, surrounded now by a dark and angry haze. The unicorn would have preferred to be out of sight of that monument before stopping, but she was exhausted. "I need to rest," she told her companion. "It's been a long day."
"Of course." Luna halted and looked back at the black obelisk as well. "It has been pretty eventful for you. I think I'll stay up a little bit though. I want to see the moon."
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Go magically epic Twilight!
I can't wait to see if in this story and the actual show if Twi' turns out to be a goddess. That would be amazing and make sense.
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Well, 'apotheosis' is the process of raising an individual into godhood...
Holy shit.
Do NOT. Mess. With. Twilight.
The idea is that they're remaking Luna's godhood. Thus Apotheosis.
Anyway... -pulls out sonic screwdriver- IT'S THE VASHTA NERADA! ALLONS-Y!
epic
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Here, here, here; Tozomuc's chapter is the deepest and hits the hardest, but this chapter, I think, will always be my favorite.
For one thing it is the most, pardon the terminology, abstractly literal; all of the other threats are things that can be seen, watched, followed, felt as something more than a passing, razor-sharp touch; but here, the threats in Luna's mind, the barriers between her and her deity, are shown to be what they are: shapeless, formless, meaningless things--things that cannot be perceived except by the actions they take. You cannot see the wind; cannot watch it. But you can see what it does; you can feel it as it whips the sand into your eyes and blows you off your feet and the cold cuts deeper than any knife. You cannot see depression, or fear, or anger, or isolation. But you can see what it does.
The way the words line up here is different than it was on the original Google Docs page; that may be a fault of formatting, or it may be intentional; but as far as the old format goes, I found it intriguing--the way the words branched off, two sentences, three, yet always only one. We will consume the unicorn; slowly; so you can hear the screams.
I am reminded, rather paradoxically, of Uhl Belk in The Druid of Shannara--a thing of stone that speaks only by force of will and magic, whose voice lacks any and all emotion and because of that it contains more malice and hatred and disdain than any inflected voice ever could.
And it is here, here, for the first time, that Twilight is treated--to me--as a character and not an extension of Luna, as her own being and not an obstacle for Luna to overcome. Here she stops being the uncomprehending child: here she stands up on her own four legs and takes the situation into her own hooves--and saves Luna, cutting through those intangible, unobservable threats, searing the wind and the shadows and obscuring them a more natural darkness. It is here, finally, that the seed planted last chapter begins to sprout, and grows through the rest of the story--no longer is it simply Luna versus the world, it is Luna and another, Luna and the friend she has wanted for a thousand years but never been able to find, because her own hungry winds--that driving bitterness, that resilient hatred, that desire for dominance--have been trapped and bested and blotted out. Perhaps there will be life in the hollow again someday.
This is me while reading this fanfic:
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But seriously, this is awesome. You are gonna inspire me to do great things, Daetrin.
o.o;
twilight's a bit scary no? :D
Repeat, repeat.
I'm defiantly going to have to read this twice. I feel like I am missing many tiny details, but this only adds to the story.
I might as well be blind now. There is no way I'll ever read anything that good again.
This chapter perfectly exemplifies why the "Twilight becomes an alicorn" trope is so compelling; she's practically there already, just the slightest boost would push her over the edge into apotheosis (ahem).
And yeah, you really don't want to piss her off.
ahh i missed the mess with twilight and you'll be imprisoned in a tower of obsidian story's mmm good memory's
Behold, the pillar of Null, prison of the hungry winds wrought by the fury and strength of the embodiment of magic herself.
And you say Twilight isn't an alicorn? Pfftt... she already is one. Immortality? Technically nothing is immutable, but as long as magic exists twilight will in one form or another.
Physical wings? screw that those things are awkward and eat calories like a policeman eats donuts! You want wings? spit on physics and make wings of Aether.
I don't know why, but I almost cried manly tears when Nightmare Moon returned. I just can't seem to figure out why. It is really odd. I also Had a hard time trying to picture some of the events that transpired during Twilight's magic conjuring scene. I am not sure how to describe it, but you kind of went over board with imagery. It was like a jumbled up mess of light and action. The lava scene was the worse. It played hell with my inner visualizing skills. But, all around, it was by far one of the most entertaining chapters I have read. Keep up the good work.
Sounds like Twilight just forged something that looks like Mordor.
This is a slight nitpick but I found the vasda narda's speech impossible to understand
. great story other wise 
Oh my god. That was one of the most epic things that I have read in this fandom, and I have read a lot of pony stories.
This is why Twilight is best pony.
I think this Image is very much fitting!
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'What does Nightmare Moon have nightmares about? ME!' Who needs Time Turner to scare monsters?
Epic Twiligh is Epic. Imma loving this story... Can't wait to see how it all ends.
Here, have some moustaches
and an upvote!
1369745 I have no idea how bronies manage to make ponies into terrifyingly badass super powerful uber beings, but I like it!
Winds that cast shadows and devour everything. My first thought was Doctor Who, the Vashta Narada, cue fan-attack.
As I read through it, the end result is what caught me. An obsidian spire that contains the winds that eat all living flesh. Very lovecraftian, indeed...
Showcasing Twilight's true potential was an added detail for me. I mean, we all saw what was capable from the cutie mark story episode, so incredible omniscient power would be the next step.
Nice.
Can we get 100% sure translations of the wind shadows' speech? I think I understand, but I'd like to know the definitive version.
"But...I'm not - I could never be a goddess!"
Oh, really?
Wow, my mind has been blown away.
3 things:
1. Remember when I said that the basilisk was creepy? I take that back, the pyrocumulus is way creepier.
2. I'm officially shipping TwiLuna along with Twinkie Pie
3. This is turning into an epic!!!!! So awesome!
hungry wind remind me of the vastanerada scary as hell
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3994736 Machin Shin..... Vashta Nerada...... Hungry Wind.......
The 'fight' here was awe-some.
The Living Wind....oh the Memories of that little trap still bring merit to my soul....it had so many applications especially in war...after all how are you supposed to fight an enemy you cant see
3994736
loved that episode
I've had a tough time visually understanding what's going on these last couple chapters. I preferred Off the Edge of the Map, which had an elegant simplicity. I like the character stuff here mostly, but the fantasy stuff hasn't grabbed me outside of the basilisk.
Ah, the many creatures removed from the world to make it better fit the ponies.
Well, that was awesome. Luna seems more in charge now that she's got her divinity back.
The comments made things clearer than the chapter itself (no offense to the author).
10032540
That doesn't make sense. All information in the comments is parroted from the chapter. If the author didn't make something clear, then it could not have possibly been re-written in a comment here.