> Changeling
>  by Criticul
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Letter in the Darkness
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was, perhaps, the lightest of Canterlot’s nights—the sea of torches had long drowned the sky in smoke. And in the eyes of each shaken pony, there could be no radiance sufficient to silence the fears that clung heavily to their hearts.
 
The changelings had simply walked through them. Fires still coursed through the city streets; homes still fell as their foundations cracked and weathered. In what was seen as the fall of sanctity, evil had found its way into their cities and into their lives. No matter the greatness of victory, no matter their heroism and resilience, a scar had been left upon the face of ponykind—one that would not quickly heal.
 
Their leader’s glory, though once so unquestionable, was whisked away in that moment of ultimate defeat. The light in their eyes was snuffed with no greater care than a candle in the night, and were it not for the force of unchained love, darkness might have fallen once more upon Equestria.
 
But peace did return to them, and life was set to continue as usual. There was a wedding and the birth of a prince; there were parties and celebrations to be had in the battered streets of Canterlot. Their fears were repressed like a cancer—that is, until they resurfaced in the silence of the night. It was then that they abandoned their false paragons and joys to face the nature of their bloody predicament: that their lives were in the hooves of the watchpony.
 
And in some sense, they were under the perfect eye. Luna held in her the greatest possible desire—the greatest duty—to shelter her people from those that would harm them. But in that vein, she could not bear to stand silent.
 
A lowly guard managed his way up to the watcher’s post. Bearing food and drink, the colt was to leave the supplies and be on his way: promptness was his only standard. Stair after stair, the colt climbed—eyes down, head bowed.
 
When at last he reached the top of the tower and came to the end of his duty, the colt took a breath.
 
“Your supplies are here, your highness,” he called from outside the watchpony’s hatch. The guard did his best to drain the emotion from his face, but the excitement of the day had left him admiring his kingdom as though it were born again. Even the thought of royal presence was enough to tug at his spirit: they were all such giving souls.
 
The hatch remained quiet—unmoving and abandoned. Perhaps, he concluded, she did not hear him.
 
“Your supplies are here, your highness!” The soldier doubled his attempts at neutrality, but still, excitement tugged upon his face. Thoughts of patriotism soon returned to its place at the top of his mind.
 
The hatch remained shut for minutes, but the soldier remained motionless—locked in dreams of glory and valor under those that he admired so dearly.
 
“Princess Luna?” The colt rapped on the entrance slightly, only to find that the hinges had been left unbarred. Strange—the Princess was usually so calculating. To think that she would leave the door unlocked: something was wrong—terribly wrong.
 
“Princess Luna?” the colt called again, now peering through the open hatch. “Are you OK? I have...“
 
The watch was empty.
 
The telescope had been ripped from its place, and the platform was left near pitch darkness. There was, however, a single lit candle placed carefully above the oak reporting table. Seeing no other life, the guard shuffled his way to the desk.
 
The papers had been all but cleared, save for one open scroll that stood open, as though awaiting a reader. Ink blots still shimmered alongside the candle, signaling the document’s freshly written message.
 
It read, in fine cursive, the message of a troubled mare.
 
--~~--
        Please take this note to my sister: I do not have much longer here.
 
                When I heard the name Chrysalis and all of its meanings, there was a numbing in my heart. Not only did I carry the heaviest of regrets that I was not able to aid in the protection of my own people, but I learned that my sister, Celestia, was struck down by the anger of this most heartless creature. I did what any leader was to do: I apologized for my absence and did my best to assist my sister with her duties.
 
                But in that vein, I felt something inside me. It was, as I recall, only a shred of familiarity—a brief flicker of a memory that festered somewhere in my psyche. Deep inside, I felt a pull that I had thought to be long buried.
 
                But, as time went on, and my mind churned further, I felt that force grow more and more real. A memory was resurfacing, even when I had cast it away so long ago—when the mares from Ponyville had shown mercy and separated that idea from my being.
 
                It was a nightmare that I remembered: a story of my greed and my jealousy and my hate. I recalled that I had once been akin to this creature—Chrysalis—in that I shared her pride. As I have heard, this “changeling” was the perfect sociopath, with manipulative powers superior even to my own.
 
                I was as she is: a renegade narcissist with desires that no pony could have shaken from me—not even my own sister. The clamor for attention and power consumed me in full, and I began my desperate search for a status that I now recognize as minor. But it took years for that thought to finally seek in, and when it finally did, it came in my final defeat, or at least the defeat of my darker half.
 
                Defeat was, however, the only solution to my madness. Nothing short of the complete obliteration of my evil would suffice in extinguishing those thoughts. My banishment, which I see now as a reasonable punishment, utterly failed in shaking me from those murderous desires. Instead, it honed them—it allowed me to plan my revenge through the lessons I had learned from my first defeat. And as shameful as it is to admit, I was on the brink of total victory when my hubris fell out from under me: Twilight and her friends were stronger than I had foreseen.
 
                I fear that we have made a terrible mistake—a terrible, evil mistake.
 
                Chrysalis is still breathing hate on to this world, and I feel the insurmountable threat looming just beyond my sight. She will return, and she will be prepared against our most powerful elements of love and peace. When I was sent to my lunar prison, my only experience was in losing to my sister. When I returned, I toppled that which toppled me, but fell to elements even greater.
 
                This changeling queen—this wounded threat—has seen the full extent of our ability. She has seen our greatest weapons and our most unyielding defenses. For every second she breathes—thinks—death waits at our walls.
 
                And the memory comes full circle: she is as I was, and the ending is inevitable.
 
                I must go. Time is short here, and I place great faith in her wounds. We have a short window of time to deal with the threat before it is readied against us. Her armies are scattered, and her power is drained—I must take her now.
 
                Alone.
 
                Celestia, you must not follow me. You must not send the troops. We cannot bear to risk ourselves if she attacks again without my presence. If she is truly wounded, then I believe I have the strength to finish this. If she is not, I will return with my findings.
 
                Nothing, sister—nothing will stop me from leaving.
 
                It is my duty to end this: the memory has built a storm in me. Today, I learned that I have again failed to protect my people. I will not betray myself again. I will not let this darkness return. I will do what I have been cursed to do, and perchance I might find absolution.
 
                I love you, sister. I love your mercy and your virtue and your strength, but this is a mistake that I and I alone must correct. I hold in my hooves the power to fight that which I so critically regret about myself—it must be this way.
 
                Farewell and Goodnight,
 
                Luna.


> Purpose
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

 There was a deformity in the grassy fields beside the reaches of the Everfree—a gap in the far-reaching plains—where dew had gradually begun to pool. Months passed, and the hole grew larger: rain and hail had stripped the grass of its roots and let the disturbance spread. Winds cleared it of soil; heat dried the earth and left nothing but a patch of dust.
    But in the heart of the lifelessness, the cause still remained—the weight that first tugged at the grass. There was an iron chain in the warm dirt, exposed only by shimmering light. It was a relic in some sense: the lock was one of the few remnants of the grievous sin.
    Luna dropped her saddlebags beside the object before dropping to her knees; her eyes never left the metal glare. For but a moment, the Princess was entrapped in her own mind, lost to the memories biting at her skull. She remembered the chain—she remembered where it was from and what it was made for. She remembered pulling it from the gate of an abandoned Castle and tossing it into the darkness.
    It was a relic of sorts: a testament to the grievous sin.
    The Princess sighed as she shut her eyes. She was independent—a rogue—always and forever. The feeling of loneliness was as common to her as was love or joy, but it certainly was far more reliable. In fact, if there was anything that she could count on, it would be in the inevitability of loss: ten lifetimes of silence made that quite obvious.
    But that was why she was here, wasn’t it?
    Luna rifled through the smaller of the two saddlebags, laying out her supplies in careful order. Packing was mostly chaos: she couldn’t have spent more than an hour grabbing at whatever food or tools that she might need. When at last the knapsack was cleared, the Princess looked down blankly.
    She had with her a pair of compasses, a crude map, two canteens, and a thermos.
    Luna then repeated her search of the second, larger bag, which proved to be far more hopeful. There were two bags of plain rice, a few apples for pleasure, and a booklet that classified plants by edibility. The Princess shoved all the food back into the saddlebag and returned to the tools.
    On her own—again.
    As Luna threw the bags back over her head, a small book dropped from the side pocket. At first, she could not recognize the thing: its markless red-leather cover left the book without a name. Perhaps it was something she grabbed in the chaos of packing, or maybe it was something from her last trip—she did not know. But as the time-weathered pages slipped out from the tome, a small bit of memory came back to her.
    It was a journal: something she had found while looking into “Chrysalis” and her “changelings.” The thing had been lying abandoned in the older portions of the library, finding no place along the shelves, as it did not have a known author, but being placed beside the other bestiaries of Equestria. In her time of preparation, Luna scanned through the collection, yet each entry ended as vaguely as the last.
    The journal, which she had only barely bothered with, used the word twice on the few pages that she read; it was her only source.
    The Princess gathered the pages from the dirt and began shoving them back into the cover. Stupidity! Raw stupidity! She was in over her head: not a breath of air—not a flicker of light. What had she been thinking?
    Luna began grabbing at the pages viciously, trembling as she attempted to distract herself from her spiking emotions.
    Had she learned nothing? Had she learned nothing about mercy and love? The queen was gone—dead, perhaps! There was no revenge plot! There was no threat beyond the walls! Everything was perfect in Equestria, but her own damned pride had pulled her from it. Her mind had so greatly fetishized honor and glory—empty words left over from the darker days.
    And this thought—absolution—was something unreal.
    Luna was not a villain—she did not have any blood on her hooves, or at least not since she had been rid of the foreign nightmare. Truly, there was nothing on her part to be redeemed. There was not a drop of darkness to be found in her frail mind.
    As the heat of sadness bit at her eyes, the Princess snagged the final sheet. Dust had already fouled the paper, but even then, she could read its lines.
--~~--
   They told me the truth—the changelings, that is.
But somewhere deep down, I always knew it. It had only taken their hints to expose that little disease within me.
Now, I can hardly go a night without the dreams, the thoughts, or the little voice prying at the back of my skull.
“Love! Love! Love!” it calls to me, sunrise to sunset. I can hardly think clearly anymore; the voice keeps returning, even into my sleep. The doctors think I’m just coping with losses, but they don’t know—they don’t know what we saw.
These things—these changelings!  They’re here, and I know it!
I can’t prove it of course, but I know it.
…
The other day, I had a little bit of an epiphany. It was nothing at first—just a little memory that I tugged at while lying in bed.
Did your parents call you special? Did they say that you were going to be a star like mine did?
Of course they did.
For most of us, that sort of pampering is common. We slowly begin to believe that our mind or body or soul is somehow better than that of our neighbor’s. Everything we do has to be better, right? After all, they’re just piles of flesh and blood walking without thoughts—I’m the only one who can really think.
Then comes the constant rejection; somewhere along the line, we forget that failure can hit us too. Suddenly, our uniqueness is no more than a relic of childhood—a garment we outgrew. The illusions are cast away into the back of our mind, and we slowly lose sight of them.
That’s the end of it, right? We grow up and we realize that life isn’t what it was made out to be. It's a sad fact, but probably one of the most true.
Well, I think I’ve found something a bit more disturbing than that.
Those dreams we had—those little bits of hope and arrogance—are still completely intact. I believe that we’ve only become blind to them when they’re far too large to see completely. Defeat helped the sickness grow.
Now, this might seem like a bit of a jump, but you have to trust me. There’s something about us that keeps feeding this thing—this beast.
And I think it lies in what we’ve come to know as “love”.
Think really hard to yourself: why is love so important to us? Yeah, it keeps us from intentionally hurting one another, but it also angers us. Love can hurt us very much—I know. So why don’t we just try to live without love? We could still support each other, but it could be to satisfy laws.
The reason is simple.
Love tells us that we’re important.
Love places great value on somepony, while importance is the state of being highly valued. The two mesh together perfectly—a symbiotic relationship if there ever was one.
So, as we grow older, we repress the idea of uniqueness, not because it is unrealistic, but because our narcissism protects it. The system is perfect: we search for love, which satisfies the deeply rooted desire to justify our “special” nature. It is the same battle that we had as a child, just resting behind an intricate façade of moral commitments.
They’ve corrupted us! They’re already here!
…
Excuse my outburst—I’ve gotten so tired the last few days. I don’t know how much longer I can hold onto this nothingness—this empty life. My body is beaten each day along the fields, while my mind is chained to these horrible thoughts.
I do not think I’m insane, but everyone has become so distant? Am I really doing anything wrong here? Are my thoughts so backwards that no one can find truth in them?
No, they’ll see soon. They’ll see.
Creatures that feed on love—they’re already here. They’re watching us behind cold, dead eyes. Everypony is always watching.
Those things told me the truth—the changelings, we are.
--~~--
    Luna held the page in front of her for minutes on end, lost in the pains of the author. For just a moment, the princess felt a call—a new world—beyond that which she already knew. It was not so much a realization as it was a strange comfort; rather, it was as though a repressed thought had finally been put to rest.
    Luna picked herself up from the dirt—eyes still glued to the page floating before her. What sort of event could prompt a stallion, or mare for that matter, to speak so vividly about their pain? In all her years of suffering, she knew the parasitic desire was there, but she could never speak of it; it could never be put so blatantly.
    And she knew every word he meant. She knew the feeling of utter uselessness and the weight of her own failures. She knew the pain that came from accepting the inevitability of darkness and falling before it.
    And she knew what it was like to be forgotten.
    No matter how many times she read it, she could not shake the feeling that the author was speaking directly to her. It was as though each word had been tailored for her experiences: personally handled and brought to her in weary times.
    A book on changelings, was it?
    Luna was still hung upon the final words. A changeling, she was: born with a hunger for love that could not be satisfied.
    No. That was absurd.
    This was not about the love. This was not about fame or fortune. This was about herself and her duty she had to the Equestrians. She knew—by her own experience—that the darkness could not be left by its own accords. It had happened before, she knew.
    And it had happened with a prideful sister, too quickly abandoning love.
    Yes, that was surely it. There was not greed that brought her here, but denial. She would not let those things—those changelings—live in the shadows. Even if she was without love, she could not let those demons corrupt it.
    Luna stumbled away from the dust and the abandoned chain. Her mind, so fatally wrapped around its own war, was blind to all else. She returned to the grassy field, continuing on without care.
    The distractions had so viciously consumed her that she failed to notice the world as it changed and shifted around her. She missed the warm, dew-laden grasses as they wrapped around her tired hooves. She missed the gentle touch of spring winds passing over the fields like waves upon the seas. She missed the hum of cicadas as they searched the mud and heat for their own mates.
    And when she at last convinced herself that her duties were solid, all those things were gone—ghosts of the past too soon forgotten. And what remained of that experience was fouled by a constant mental battle over things she already knew.
    But in the end, none of those things mattered. She had a gut feeling, some faith, and one lasting duty. She had to end it before it began.
    For her people.
    For her country.
    For herself.            


> Façade
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

   Between the emotional swings and the raw, sticky heat of the midmorning sun, Luna had been left with little strength to continue marching through the woods. Fortunately, she had planned for it—as she always does.
        And if there was to be one thing for Luna to be proud of, it was her ability to plan for everything. Even in the earliest sparks of a desire, she could trace a path in herself that would lead her unto that last moment of joy before time revealed another trophy.
        Mark every point and consider every variable—it was all an intricate, never-ending game of calculations and blank faith. Today, it was about a sense of absolution—no different than if she was searching for something tangible like water or gold.  Her plans would still follow the same formula: barriers, timeframes, strategies, and variables sat like chess pieces waiting to be pushed. Each entity was constructed by numbers—statistics and probabilities—sending spikes through the mind of the strategist.
        Luna’s mind was, however, gummed up by the insufferable mugginess.
        But again, she had planned for this; there was a small gap in the forest—an empty circle of grassland carved out of the southwestern Everfree.  It had taken a while for her to orient herself with the breach, but after an hour’s hike, the tree-line gave in to seas of unending green.
        Hypnotized, the princess wandered through the fields until she came upon a rogue Oak tree, where she promptly dropped her gear and returned to the insanity of the crimson journal. Luna rested her head against the tree so that she could stare into the open plains, but rarely did she find the time to break away from the red book, and when she did, it was for little more than a bite of apple.
        It was the only variable she had not considered—the only entity that lay between the white and black pieces of the board, carrying in it no color but blank crimson. Who could have written such a blasphemous, glorious little story? What sort of creature would have found so much pain in a near-perfect country?
        Luna peered down at the book, which remained at rest upon her sternum. A flicker of anger crawled through her head, joined quickly by the sense of dread. But it was not the sort of dread that came from ghosts or noises in the night—she knew those all too well, and this was certainly not of the sort.
        There was something about the book that prompted her to hate its author, even though she had read more than two pages. It was not magic or enchantment, but a plain, straight response that emerged whenever the princess looked at the damned thing. Perhaps it was because she could not understand it, or perhaps it was the way that the author could find flaws in the world—flaws that she never saw before—that she had never truly considered.
        Luna pried the book open and held it above her, allowing the unbound pages spill across the grass. There! She had gutted the thing! All that it was or ever will be was strewn across the field as though it were nothing more than litter.
        But even when it was in pieces, the thing clung to her skull. The princess snagged the pages just as quickly as they fell, gathering them in one final, disheveled mass.
        Inside the binding, a few pages still hung in place. Surprisingly, the journals belonged to the earliest dates—the first rants of the insane—which was in itself an enigma, considering that the first pages are usually the most frequently tugged and pressed.
        The princess returned the book to its place upon her sternum but kept it open.
        Something was in here—something sickening. It had to be.
        --~~--
        Im I’m not sure how to start, so I’m just going to write, if that’s OK with you. Maybe I’ll come back later and fix this, but then again, I’ve nevr never been too good at making fixes. And judging from how long it already took me to write this much, I’d say that I’ll never have the kind of alone time to figure out a good way to do it.
        But those kind of things have always been my demons weaknesses, I guess. No ambition! There’s alwheys always a way around to lie. There’s always an excuse to hide the truth.
        Except with poetry—no, that’s something I’ve always loved about verse. No matter how I write the opening, if it represents my emotion, it’s a success. Never do I feel a constraint I lie about my beliefs, except when writing under the eyes of others.
        Oh! That reminds me! I was able to scratch this down this morning while Spring was out in the garden. Something about her just prompted a curiosity of mine—a passion, I guess you could say. Here it is…
I saw her in the garden
The goddess of Spring
Standing beside the wall of chains
She looked at me
Cold skin
Eyes riddled with sorrow
I did not ask her how
She was left here
But I still walked to her
And I asked her
Her name
If only to remember
She told me she had none
Because names made memories
Which she desired to be without
I told her mine
She laughed
Sow seeds, young Barlowe
And I never stopped working there
Because I still knew
A name that I still doubt
        I’m not sure if it came out well, but I’m sure proud of it. With any luck, I’ll get back to writing these little pieces with no trouble, but I couldn’t really count on it. There is quite a bit of work to do in the manor, and no matter how hard I work, there’ll always be another distraction to take care of.
        Anyhow, I seem to have completely missed the point of the journal. Damnable pride.
        My name is Barlowe, which, if you didn’t already realize, was in the poem. I live with my wife, Spring, who worked up the bits to buy a little home of our own. It’s a nice place, really—a small manor far away from the rabble of the city. Spring said that we would be better here with more time together or something like that.
        But what I didn’t know And we certainly have been together quite a bit. Neither of us have left the house since we moved in; Spring is “ordering” everything to be carried here by cart, which is surprising considering that we’re so far from anypony else. To be honest, I have no idea where she could have gotten the bits for it, but strangely, I don’t care. For once in my life, I feel at peace.
        No more expectations.
        No more worries about money.
        No more pain.
        It was a pain greater than death is nice here.
--~~--
        Luna stared emptily into the pages, mind churning over the messages. She saw the code from the beginning—the strange way that the words were highlighted or replaced. She did not take the author to be stupid enough to make such careless errors, nor did she believe that the highlighted words were of any real significance other than their relationship as a whole.
        What she received was a simple document riddled with lies and desperation—a stallion found a paradise that he began to doubt. She had heard something similar before: a false joy constructed to drag its victims into dull love. But it seemed that “Barlowe” knew about the creatures long before they’d ever shown their face in Equestria.
        And what of the poem? Luna flipped back to the short verse, scanning over each word in search of new messages. Could it be some sort of map? Could it be an allusion to an old folktale? No matter how she interpreted the author, she could not bear to take it as a love letter.
         There were too many open ends, each in an uncanny code. Why it was that this one—this sole journal—was subject to the author’s cipher? She had seen the other pages: none shared in the secrecy. Either some were missing or the author had experienced a sudden turn of events that brought him out of the shadows, both possibilities being equally probable.
        The princess sighed, gathering all the pages together before stuffing them back in the blood-colored journal. It was the sort of thing she would mull over in her free time, but nothing in it was critical just yet.
        Trapped in a snare of heat and confusion, Luna continued to rest against the tree, watching the wind as it rolled over the grass-coated hills. She had found a nice spot along the fields: a place where she could see for miles. Every so often, she might see a pegasus float through the clouds, each one scanning through the grasses for something—some creature—that had escaped them.
        Luna could only close her eyes with a smile. Were they looking for her? Had Celestia already begun the hunt?
        Or were they standing beside their missing princess, searching for the one thing that she needed.
        Given Celestia’s response to the Changelings, it would be safer to assume the former. Luna was safe under her Oak, but soon she would have to leave her home in the shadows—it was written in her plan. As soon as she finds what she is looking for, she’ll have to leave comfort and safety behind. From there, her hooves will be on thorns and needles, but she desired nothing less.
        So she waited there under the tree for hours, keeping her mind trained on the movement of the winds. Planning and waiting were two very special talents of hers to say the least: time passed and still her eyes remained locked on the ebb and flow of the grass. Hunger came and went, as did boredom and thirst. Each little pain was pushed aside by raw focus.
        But it did come in time.
        Luna saw it long before it had exposed itself: a distortion in the grass, where the field refused to bend with the wind. The thing crawled across the hills, keeping its low and steady pace: the princess looked at herself, then the path of the creature. Inside the grass, she would have no way of knowing if she was near or far from the thing.
        And if she were to get lost, there would be no flying out of it. So long as the pegasi were overhead, she could not risk revealing herself to the light. Her form was something of a contrast with the field—it would only take a moment for them to swoop down and distract her.
        For a moment, Luna imagined the horribly awkward moment that likely stood before her. She imagined the pegasi rolling down to meet her, attempting to catch her in conversation while one of them went out to fetch their first princess. She would dismiss them, but they would return with thoughtless responses.
        “Take a vacation. That’ll clear your mind.”
        “You don’t need to prove anything to us. Come back.”
        “Your sister misses you. Why would you want that?”
        “What do you want?”
        That had to be the worst one—that last one. What was it that she wanted? Here she had begun a journey of longing, and they could only ask what she wanted, despite already knowing. See, that was the problem. They knew what she wanted, but rather than asking why or how, they asked again about what she wanted.
        Absolution was something they just didn’t understand. Personal reasons just seemed illogical and, therefore, were not answers. That was the problem: none of them understood matters of virtue, except, perhaps, Celestia or the guards. Any other civilian would have been distracted with the concept of physicality.
        Set an objective.
Accomplish the objective or fail it.
Celebrate or recuperate.
That’s all they ever knew: just that. It bugged the princess—it crawled under her skin: the idea that somepony could be so hollow. Sometimes, when she could not sleep, Luna would crawl upon the issue, but to no avail.
Why continue? Why was it so important to keep on doing these little objectives when the rewards were almost as evanescent as the objectives themselves? She had never met a mare in the country who was completely content with what they have. There always has to be progression or change—previous objectives are too soon forgotten, and so are their rewards.
It was always about the here and now.
They never remember that they forget.
They never remember that all their life was just a progression—a wave—of highs and lows, joined together by “rewards” or “recollection.”
Luna bit her lip as she calculated the speed and direction of her target as it moved through the grass. Meanwhile, her mind clashed within philosophical bounds, predicting the outcomes of her failure and the humiliation along with it. The two reinforced themselves: the logic and the imagination. Emotions sharpened her logic with a serrated edge, and logic extrapolated upon her emotions, creating the reasons why she knew she had to succeed.
        The princess stuffed everything back in her saddlebag before gathering her thoughts. The philosophies—the numbers—both faded into nothing, as though they were never needed. All that remained was her honed instinct and a plan: a sprint through blind grass that would end with her at her objective.
        And if she was wrong, then it would be the end of her: the end of her self-respect. She would be forced to crawl back to Canterlot, where she would be watched day in and day out. Solitude would no longer be granted to her.
        The princess swallowed.
        Timing was key.
        Calculated motion: a ceaseless sprint to her objective, which crawled upon the hills less than a mile away—the earliest of struggles in this insanity she called “wish.”
        Luna took a breath and pounded into the soil, which crumbled under her adrenaline-fueled break.
        But for all her speed, she could not outrun the thoughts that rested at the back of her mind like a cancer.
        Failure. Humiliation.
        Weakness.
--~~--
         Another step—another bloody gasp for air—and the creature collapsed. Drifting between reality and its own subconscious, the changeling rolled itself over into the mud. Gore dripped from its severed wing: the light would soon come.
        The changeling waited in silence, breathing painfully as the grass whispered in its ear.
        “Not yet,” it whispered. “Not yet.”
        Or perhaps that was just a bit of its dying imagination. The creature rolled its head to the side; a pair of blue eyes looked down with disappointment. Though, it was hard to say—changelings were certainly not characters of emotion.
        And it took Luna quite some strength to keep her resolution; the creature would bleed dry in a matter of minutes—that is, if she were to respond properly.
        To respond with coldness—disinterest. Such was the burden of the changeling: one she readily accepted.
        The princess could only sigh and stare down at the confused, bloodied creature. Her skin tingled with energy; she did not have long to practice such magic, but it was her only hope.
        Luna knelt beside the creature; it had already succumbed to bloody torpor.
        From the blue, lifeless eyes of the changeling, Luna watched the creature drift out of consciousness.
        Her face was masked by the dark chitin—her wings stripped of bone. All that she was—all that anyone knew her by—was erased, at least until she could reclaim a name she truly deserved.
And in a foreign wind, she felt happiness.
She had a name worth doubting.
            


> Dreams
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

  It wasn’t long before the changeling faded into death. Staring down into the body, Luna couldn’t help but feel some sense of empathy for the creature. No one would ever find its body—there wouldn’t be a family to reclaim it or a friend to mourn. Even though the creature had forfeited itself in a mad scramble for food, it was still a living—thinking—being. Every moment of its life—every choice it had made and everything it had seen—faded to nothing in the mud of those grassy plains. It would be as though the beast had never lived in the first place.
        Luna rubbed the dirt and blood from the creature’s face, revealing two pain-laden eyes. Would he have been a hero amongst his kin? Would they have seen his wounds and showered him with pride and love? Was there any such thing inside the enemy? One had to imagine that this creature’s heart had only the sour fate of being inside the chitinous black sternum; it would have found so much if it had only been inside the body of the Equestrian.
        He gave everything, but received only a gaze into the end.
        Perhaps he was better for it.
        Luna stared down into the body. As wrong as it felt, she couldn’t let the changeling find its rest in the field. The princess bowed her head into the creature’s bloodied abdomen. She could not save the creature’s mind—that was already within its final resting place, unwilling to change. But bodies—pure flesh, blood, and instinct—would still bend to her.
        Luna let thoughts of mercy consume her.
        Tears rolled down her face.
        And then there was life—a heartbeat within the darkness—not strong, but sturdy.
        The body rose from the mud, eyes still glistened with death. It stared at her in silence—it looked straight into her chest and into her heart. Luna backed away from the creature, allowing herself to be hidden within the tall grass, but still the creature stared at her.
        Several minutes passed like this before the creature finally stumbled out of the mud and crawled back upon its path. She saw the pain still within its eyes—not physical, but spiritual. The spell—the last gift its body would ever receive—was one not meant for the likes of a soldier.
        The spell was meant for lost animals—the missing and abandoned. It was meant to allow the animal’s soul to travel home to its master before falling at its feet.
        The changeling and the animal—they stood one in the same to Luna, as much as she dismissed the idea. Or at least she dismissed that it was important; the changeling’s corpse shuffled out of the mud and twisted itself towards the southern hills—to whatever the thing might call home. The creature trudged forward, stumbling and collapsing at every step.
        The princess rushed to the creature’s aid but received only a cold stare.  The lifeless eyes, which were now resting behind a thing film of dust and gore, held a hate that she had seen for months. Luna backed away but still followed shortly behind the creature.
        As the pair disappeared into the grass, a painful silence fell upon the princess. She would like to believe that, between the changeling and herself, she was the moralist—that she was the one doing right to protect her people against a threat that she foresaw.
        But still she carried the chains and shackles.
--~~--
        It was hours later that the pair had passed back into the wooded realms of the Everfree. The changeling was a slow creature, which left Luna plenty of time to think of her actions. Admittedly, she hadn’t really planned for resuscitation. Rather, she had hoped for a spry changeling—one that would lead her to her objective whilst never even realizing that she was present.
        The princess watched the creature as it slumped over roots and foliage; the change from the field to the forest had proven to be shockingly abrupt. Grass gave way to monstrous trees that stood hundreds of feet above the pair. Down in the depth of the woods, light was something of a treasure—it was a damp, humid realm which left them only the weakest sunbeams to survive by.
        Strangely enough, the changeling seemed unfazed by the darkness. Whether the spell had amplified its vision or whether it was simply going by intuition was unknown—Luna could only watch as the dark, bloodied creature vaulted over roots and ferns without even the slightest distraction. It was something of an unnerving experience, being that each movement left a bit of blood or sweat for her to follow.
        The spell did, however, leave Luna at something of a disadvantage. The changeling, unbound by nature, was free to sprint and roll infinitely, while she was still constricted by the confines of her own ability and tire.
        Eventually, Luna’s joints were aching beyond her threshold; the princess slowed while the changeling hiked on. Luna struggled to keep up, but still the creature marched on.
        Afraid of losing her only link, she revoked some of her own spell; the bloodied creature slowed first, unfazed by the magic, but was, in due time, left only with the energy to crawl.
        Luna pressed her hoof against the creature’s back, letting it writhe under her as it slipped into paralysis. As she backed away from the creature, she looked down; its cold eyes still stared into her, moving as she did. And in this, she began to feel a need—an itch inside her.
        “I’m sorry—for all this.”
         
        The creature only continued to watch her. Perhaps it was the unending silence or the heat, but there was a desire in her—she wanted to speak to something. Since she’d left the confines of her home, not a soul had crossed her path, minus the one dying creature which may or may not speak her language even.
        Luna shoved the creature into the underbrush, hoping to cut off the sickly feeling that came from its stare.
        She had been told, by her sister even, that the creatures were able to mimic what they’d heard, but there had been no reports that they could speak upon their own accord. And in that vein, no pony could quite say whether they were even capable of thought.
        As much as Luna would like to believe that the taken creature’s mind was empty regardless, what the Equestrians knew about changelings was something of a blank slate.
        The invasion didn’t really compound much on what they already knew except that there was a definite threat within them.
        Luna backed away from undergrowth, hoping to dismiss the thoughts. Hopefully she’d learn a bit more about the changelings before toppling their hierarchies, but that was all contingent upon the intuitions of her enemy. If Chrysalis was to hide herself, as she should, then the path would take quite a sum longer, but if she were to leave herself open, as is prone to her arrogance, then this might only take a few days.
        The princess laughed as she backed into what she saw as a campsite. Chrysalis? Smart? It was almost too silly to think about; she’d done everything to defeat herself in the end, which was comical. She, carrying the power of armies, lost to just a handful of random bystanders. Surely the hubris was undeserved.
        The Luna stopped, realizing full well the irony of what she’d just said.
        A smile crept across the battered mare’s face.
        “So, then, we are even then?” Luna cackled as she rolled her things about the clearing. It wasn’t much—just a bit of nothingness covered over by the dead pine leaves. She hadn’t much for light, but then again, darkness was something of her forte. Off to her side, she could see the gleam of a sky-bound rockface, which seemed to stretch endlessly in any direction. Briars marked the side of the cliff randomly, grabbing and tugging at the rocks like iron-built vines; the struggle and chaos of nature seemed to be condensed in the side of that wall, and it caught the princess with a slight sensation of awe.
        Luna found a spot beside one of the nearby pines and lay up against it, keeping herself oriented with the underbrush but staring into the cliff.
        The princess called out into the plants: “I hope you are quite comfortable in your little grass bed. It seems that I’ll be sleeping in the mud tonight.” The changeling remained silent—motionless—as she intended. Its silence made talking and venting so much easier: knowing that the listener had not the mind to comprehend you only made it more daunting to burden it with your emotions.
        “I don’t sleep well, you know.”
        The brush stood still.
        “Do you ever have dreams? Do you ever have memories come back for you?”
        Once again, there was nothing.
        “Sometimes, I think that my problems are well within me—stuck away in some remnant of my past. I don’t even know if it’s the nightmare that brings all this pain on me. Sometimes I think it’s just who I am. Do you know what I mean?”
        Luna sighed.
        “Of course you don’t. No one would understand me if I said that I was in pain. They would all return with a horde of nurses and doctors, hoping to prove friendship or something childish; none would take the time to hear out what I mean by pain.”
        The darkness grew deeper—night was rising somewhere above them.
        “Do you ever feel like you’re the only one who really thinks? Does it ever occur to you that the things that build you—the experiences and thoughts you’ve made—are just so unheard of that you must be wrong for thinking them?”
        Luna closed her eyes, hoping to drift away into thoughtlessness.
        “Sometimes, I think I’ve been cursed with an unhealthy mind—one that does not function in line with the others. I wouldn’t say that I think myself diseased, but certainly that would explain it more easily.”
        A certain lightness took hold of the princess’ body; colors began to fill her mind as the sounds of the forest fell away.
        “No one ever says these things, but I wonder if they think it too.”
        
--~~--
A blur—the princess stared into the colorless, senseless dream. It was, as many of her experiences were, left to her imagination to decide how it would develop; she could just as easily turn it into a beach as she could her own home, silent and brooding. Such control was a small talent of hers—something she’d learned in her absence—but little more. Dreams were, after all, only dreams.
        Luna closed her eyes and recalled memories of a home—the aromas of supper held still in a frosted night wind. There were statues in the garden, bearing the Equestrian banner along with scented torches and garlands. The home would be warm—the fires would be set and the furnaces overflowing with coal; every chandelier and candle would be lit with golden flame. And then she imagined herself at rest in the library above the crystal foyer: never had there been so many books for her—wall after wall of scrolls and novels.
        The princess opened her eyes; the fire cast a glow upon her still-tired brow. She could only sigh and lean back against the dream-built cushions.
        The reading room was something she’d created on a whim—a random collection of images thrown together in a blend of peace and warmth. But that didn’t explain the discomfort resting within Luna’s skull: she had seen this place before—in an earlier dream perhaps. There was no telling where it was, but she knew that everything in the room was built exactly to match an old memory which she had long forgotten.
        And as the princess shifted within the cushions, she began to pick up on the subtleties of her world. The library was essentially a large box, bookshelves all built to surround the cushions, which, in turn, were placed around the large, rock-built fireplace. The walls were made of plain, unpainted wood, as were the floors, and the bookshelves themselves were made of the same stain. Everything in the room was plain—uninspired. Sure, they were comfortable—as all reading rooms should be—but they had certainly not been crafted by an artist.
        No, this was not her home, nor was it any home in Equestria.
        Luna sat up from the cushions, sweeping them into the corner of the room as she began pacing along the bookshelves. The books were perfectly spaced so that none of them leaned or stood askew; Luna also noticed that they were all of the same dimensions regardless of the book’s title. Cookbooks were the same size as younger novels—epics the same as short stories.
        The princess pulled a book entitled “The Onyx Statue” from the lot before scanning the remainder of the shelf. As the tome slipped from its place, the two neighboring books remained fixed in their place. Luna watched, expecting them to soon topple, but the pair remained locked in their position. An odd situation, no doubt, but those sorts of things could very well be common in dreams. The princess shrugged it off and shuffled back to her place among the cushions.
        She was, however, interrupted by a rogue thought: who was the author? Was it somepony that she had heard of once before? The princess flipped the book and scanned for the name, but was met by a blank face. She flipped it again; the back was just as featureless.
        It was then that she heard the noise.
        Luna dropped the book onto the pillows.
        “Hello?”
        The sound crept out from the neighboring room, growing louder as time crept on. Luna continued staring at the wall, waiting for the sounds to take form. At first, they had been shapeless noise—the thumps and cracking sounds that often accompanied an elder house, which, at first, deafened her to the faint ticking. But as she waited, the sounds became more and more distinct: the crackling sounds became heavy and metallic—there were voices—screams—behind the wall.
        “Hello?” The princess stepped carefully to the wall before pressing her ear against the surface. “Can you hear me?”
        There was no reply. The chains continued to rattle, and the pained howls still bled through the wall, but there was no mind behind them.
        “Speak!” she screamed, unaware of the sweat that pooled at her temples or the faint shaking in her hooves.
The sound cut out. The fireplace went cold, and darkness fell upon the once-cozy library, leaving Luna standing dumbstruck in the dark.
Then came the voice of a watcher.
“Blind…”
Luna spun back towards the bookshelves.
The door stood…
Open.
There was a pause. The princess stared at the door for some while—unsure of what to make of it. She had heard the voice clearly, but had no sense of direction. Somewhere in the home, another soul tread.
A nightmare.
Her spine turned to ice.
Luna grit her teeth and looked down at her hooves. She had felt something—something foreign.
Fear.
The soul of the night was afraid—she was afraid in a way that had not before stricken her; she could feel the pain in her heart and her heart as it pounded in her sternum. Where was it?
Luna looked around the room.
It was here—somewhere. Something was here.
The library was still. The house’s faint wrenches and whispers had all but faded into the darkness, leaving her only with the sound of her own breaths and the beating of her own heart.
But still, she sensed the voice moving—approaching.
There was, for but a moment, the standstill feeling. Luna stood in the center of the room—in a foreign home—alone. But, for all her hope, she knew that she was not truly alone. The voice was coming for her, but she did not carry the strength to resist.
Silent horror.
She could not scream.
She could not move.
She could not do anything—anything that told the presence where she was. Somewhere, deep inside her, instinct was lit aflame. Close the door, it screamed in her ear, but she could not bear to move.
She was paralyzed in fear.
Then came a shadow.
A flicker in the doorway.
Luna looked up to the door, but as her eyes came upon the bottom of the shadow, whispers crawled into her skull.
“I loved her.”
“Mercy to her.”
“Beg.”
The shadow crept into the room, forcing her to look back at her hooves.
The princess shut her eyes.
“Blind.”
“Blind.”
“Blind.”
The voices howled into her skull, but still she kept her eyes shut. Luna yanked her hooves left and right, hoping to free herself, but the dream had kept her paralyzed. But even in the numbness, she could feel herself writing in the waking world.
She was returning.
“Sleep.”
Luna shook her skull furiously as pressure built against her hooves. She could feel reality just out of reach now—just moments from returning. Adrenaline flooded through her veins, pushing her further and further, but still the sweet grace of freedom remained above her.
In one last moment of desperation, the princess opened her eyes, hoping the shock would set her free. The world fell to pitch black; the shadow was gone.
In the distance, her target lay wounded.
The queen of parasites.
Luna took a step forward—the paralysis had faded.
She turned back to the writhing queen. So easy, was it? Luna focused on the creature—drew what remaining sanity she had into the bowels of her hate and continued on.
Chrysalis saw her limping forward.
The queen shuffled backwards, screaming for help as the princess drew closer.
Luna pushed the pain and fear from her head, throwing herself into a sprint. Her bones rattled inside her, but as the bleeding creature lost pace, she felt stronger. She pushed through the darkness and the emptiness—she pushed through the screams and whispers that still ripped through her skull.
Luna came upon her enemy, staring down upon the bleeding wretch.  She slammed her hoof against the queen’s skull again and again; the screams turned to moans and then to silence. Rage took hold of her, bringing about a madness and heat that took hold of her senses. She lost track of her actions, but continued beating the body again and again, throwing all her energy into obliterating the body.
And when it was done…
Luna stared down at the remains, only to see that she had not killed the parasite…
But her own sister.
--~~--
The princess screamed as she tore herself from the dream. She buried her head in her shaking hooves, tears streaming down her cheeks.
Was this the end?
Was this what she was trying to do?
Luna remained there for as long as she could, but the thoughts of murder still ripped through her mind. Eventually, it was distant enough for her to stand, but still her hooves shook. There was something unholy about this whole thing—this whole adventure. It wasn’t just a path of vengeance—there was something worse about it that she didn’t know.
She was walking into something that was bigger than her—darker than her.
Luna rubbed the sweat from her face and picked up her things. The leaves she’d been laying on had all grabbed onto the saddlebags and refused to let go; the princess shrugged and left them in their place.
It was then that Luna realized that something was missing—something important.
The changeling.
The princess scanned the undergrowth for the sub-dead creature, but found only the sparkling remnants of gore and sweat. A heat built in Luna’s skull—the meaning had finally hit her.
So too did she notice the slight motion resting in the corner of her eye. Luna turned to the cliff-face which shifted with light and darkness. Something was swinging above her.
A bit of blood dropped down from the top of the outcrop; Luna looked up.
Hung by the briars, the changeling swung back and forth, brushing against the rocks.
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
Again.
        And again.
        And again.
             


> Chrysalis 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Luna stared at the body for minutes, watching each time as the changeling’s bones rattled against the stone outcrop. This was the end—here—standing beside her only light, which wept streams of teary blood. Heartbroken, the princess fell to her knees; her eyes remained transfixed on the body, unbelieving towards the power of the creature’s death.
        The body rests, but can be returned.
        She could revive it, no? She could bring it back again—just as she had before. Luna wrapped her mind around the desire, but could not bear to move from her place. From the nightmare to this point, the whole adventure seemed to be an ethical dilemma. It was going to be about her and her mind—about how she overcomes the poison that flows through her spine every time she tries to sleep.
        Never had she seen the true struggle—the battle of life and death. She had walked into a war without training—without the will of a soldier or the means to survive as one. And this, the death, was her first sign of carnage: was she really this pathetic? Here she stood, torn up over the death of one faceless creature and the nightmares before it; even if she could continue, what strength did she have to fight off the creatures? Celestia herself was under them—the entirety of Equestria’s strength was under them, at least until they were saved by the Queen’s hubris.
        But she wouldn’t make that mistake again, now would she?
        Luna bowed her head; at least there was one sensible thing before her. The princess allowed her wings to carry her from the ground, floating up to the bloodied martyr. The body dropped from its noose, breaking against the rocks before finally slamming into the ground with a sickening thud. Luna watched the body plummet before turning her attention back to the noose: never had she seen briars grow from plain rock, nor had she even seen any strong enough to carry a body. Perhaps she should take them—a memory for the first to fall. Luna placed her hoof within the bloodied thorns and tore them from the rock, wincing as the blades sunk into her skin.
        It was nothing to her, really, whether her blood was spent here or later. Life was such an evasive little thing: everyone was always evading something, even when it was deemed inevitable. What was death to fear any more than the setting of the sun? Both were set to come. Both were impossible to avoid, and yet everypony was always worried about death.
        The nightmare, the final death of the changeling—they were all just reminders of some repressed fact she refused to accept.
        Or perhaps she was just caught off guard. A calculative mind such as hers was not one that dealt well with variables; the changeling’s sudden, violent end was certainly a break from her illusion of control, as were the shadows that’d taken hold of her dreams.
        Luna let the briars float before her eyes; the remnants of the changeling’s throat still glistened along the thorns, creating a splash of shining violet on the otherwise colorless vine. And for all her horror, she could not help but feel a slight bit of joy—she was at peace. It was then that another strange desire took form in her mind; she knew not why, but the mare tied the ends of the cord together, coiled the remains, and slid the vine around her neck.
        The necklace floated over her skin, as though they were refusing to let her bleed. Still, the princess smiled. The sense of inevitability—that she would find peace—came upon her and held her above the reeking earth.
        Luna took hold of the changeling’s body and returned it to its place in the underbrush. Someday, she might return for it—give it a burial it didn’t deserve. It did, after all, lead her far, even if it was without its own mind.
        Perhaps, even, its death was a sign for her.
        Luna turned to the cliff, finding herself shrunk to the majesty of nature’s wall. The rocks, which had slept in their place for thousands of years, glimmered under the light of dawn. Innocent, they remained bright, despite the painted blood of the hanged. Looking up, Luna was blind to the peak, having so long remained in the dark of the forest floor. But still, she felt the heat reflecting off the surface—a call that could only remind her of her sister and of her home.
        The princess pushed off the ground and allowed herself to float along the rock. As she lifted through the trees, she caught sight of the body, reflecting what little sun could find it. Through all the pain, the creature’s stare had ended. No longer did its eyes seek her, but instead, they kept close to the sky, watching aimlessly as the winds shook the canopy.
        Perhaps it never knew peace until now—until the end.
        As Luna passed through the uppermost reaches of the forest and into the day, she turned herself away from the memories. Still, there remained the issues of where she was going, what she would do, and when would she do it. She knew nothing of changelings: not how they lived, not how they slept or survived. Her only resource was with the book, and that seemed to be mainly filled with evasive rants and code.
        Still, it was something.
        The princess twisted back towards the cliff, which had cut off just below her. Indeed, the wall was just as tremendous from above as it wall below; the cliff stretched on out of view, creating a near constant line between the forest below and the tawny grasslands that continued on for miles.  For all her time spent locked within royal walls, Luna was caught aghast by the beauty that still remained in the unfound world.
        Perhaps she might explore some when the time comes, but her mind still toiled with thoughts of duty. Luna dropped down to the Cliffside, finding a place within the savannah to drop her things. In her current dilemma, moving would be doing more harm than good; the princess resolved to camp again and search for something in the book. At worst, she would have to wait until another changeling passes, which wouldn’t be long given the visibility in the grasslands.
        It would also give her the perfect chance to find food—something she hadn’t seen for nearly a day. With hunger gnawing at her stomach, Luna flipped the saddlebag open and yanked the hiker’s booklet out from the decaying apples. To her surprise, the bags of rice had remained intact throughout the endless walking, which was much more than could be said about the fruit. Luna scraped the apples from their place at the side of her bag before tossing them over the ledge.
        As Luna looked back down at the remaining food, dismay took hold. Rice was, in desperation, a food that would keep her alive, but it certainly wasn’t going to keep her full. No, she would need something bigger—a solid, like a wild potato or a root—at least while she’s in a place that food is common.
        Luna flipped through the booklet, hoping to find anything on the open grasslands. There were, as she expected, several wild plants that offered roots, but they wouldn’t be easy to find in the height of the grass, nor were they particularly common. Expecting to find nothing, Luna left her stuff where it was and shuffled into the fields.
        Luna hiked for minutes on end, scanning the golden earth for anything that might resemble the coarse sketch floating in front of her face. Admittedly, she spent the majority of her time thinking over the earlier events—the sudden death of the changeling and the nightmare that had just taken her—but her eyes never left the ground.
        Still though, she couldn’t help but feel overtaken by the strangeness. It was a dream—no, a nightmare, for “dream” implies hope—that brought her to a state she’d long forgotten.
Desperation.
Loneliness.
Paralysis.
Such were objects of the mortal plane or at least that of a weak spirit—illnesses cured by time and resolve. They were things that she’d left in childhood, cast away by her strength of will and her own wit. What, then, could have let these things return to her so suddenly?
Luna thought again and again, but continually returned to the same conclusion.
She wasn’t afraid of Chrysalis, was she? No, that would be silly. The queen was a bug—almost literally. Her arrogance sentenced her to failure, and in the end, something more permanent. Luna almost laughed at the thought: she was far more a nuisance than a “threat”.
 Sure, she could do some damage with her army, but alone, she was nothing but a parasite—an ant against an army.
 Sure, she now knew her enemy well enough to not make the same mistakes, but she would always invent new ones—it was the nature of her character.
She would always lose in the end, right?
Luna left her thoughts there. Her mind was stopped by a sound—a familiar rhythm—that she’d not heard for some time. Luna dropped the booklet in the grass and was greeted by fresh water, laying not fifty steps in front of her.
A stream with wide, sandy banks ran peacefully through the field.
The princess bolted for the creek, leaving her thoughts in the field. Water—never had it seemed so beautiful—so precious. Luna’s heart trilled with excitement as she slid into the muck and grime of the stream.
She took a drink.
Never had it been so…
Pure.
--~~--
As the water ran across the mare’s face, the pains in her head lessened. She could again hear the shifting of the grasses—the winds are they rolled over the hills and into her ears. So too did her sight clear, returning the world to its former beauty. For a moment, Luna relaxed. She slinked into the sand beside the creek and let herself be consumed by nature.
        She smelled the dew and wildflowers growing somewhere underneath.
        She felt the embrace of her sister lying within the midmorning sun and the mud, which sank under the weight of her hooves.
        She could at last hear the birds dancing among the clouds and sunbeams, crying out to the heavens in constant melody. For once, she could forget about everything else. There was nothing else—just this. Luna laid back further into the dirt and stared into the sky, counting the clouds as they were swept across into the horizon.
        The peace remained for minutes—hours even. Hunger left her, as did the pain and soreness. There was only light and peace: the ebbing and flowing of winds as they passed her by. Still, she remained in her place amongst the mud, enjoying every moment of her fleeting sanctity.
        “Enjoying yourself?”
        Luna twisted her head back to the speaker, caught in half joy. The peace had left her without worry—without caution.
        Chrysalis stared down into her. A wry smile stretched across the sociopath’s face.
        Luna spun in the mud but slipped, slamming her jaw into the shore.  The queen remained in silence, left only to watch as her hunter scrambled upward.
        “Come now. You don’t honestly think I’m going to try to kill you, do you? I would have—and could have—already cut you off when you were sitting here in your little euphoria. I could have done it when you were sleeping. I could have done it when you first came upon my path.” The queen leaned her head askew. “If you would like to bleed me here, I give you the opportunity. But somehow, I think you’ll resist.”
        Luna pounded her hoof into the mud, lifting the mare up to eye level with the parasite. Adrenaline pumped through her skull, sending her senses into a spiral. Chrysalis spoke slowly and precisely—stabbing into Luna’s consciousness with each poison-laced word.
        All the queen could do was smile—either unaware or uncaring towards Luna’s threat.
        Just as quickly as it came, the adrenaline left Luna. Standing beside her only duty, and yet all she felt was ambivalence. Whether it was Chrysalis unspoken confidence or Luna’s own peace, the hate she had was turned to bile.
        Luna stepped out of the mud and onto the shore, pacing around the motionless queen. “What if you’re lying? What’s to stop me from painting the ground with you? Go ahead. Humor me.”
        “Well, that would be for you to find out, now wouldn’t it?” Chrysalis licked her lips. “Now, I’d rather you not do that, but, rest assured, I’ve planned for it. See, we’re both like that—both of us think with numbers. Though, I’d be pressed to say that I’ve taken it a bit further than you have.”
        “Are you trying to impress me?”
        The queen laughed. “Well, I wasn’t trying to, but are you impressed?”
        Luna remained silent, but continued to circle the parasite. She was alone here—without weapons or numbers. Still, her swagger was a deterrent on its own merit; a coward like Chrysalis wouldn’t have walked into a losing situation with such heavy reliance on chance.
        “Oh, you’ll be an interesting toy—I just know it. Tell me, princess, where were you when I was playing with your sister and all her little friends?” the queen gawked.
        “I was—“
         “You were nowhere, my disillusioned friend—or at least nowhere that you could see me. But here I am, and here you are. Together at last, hm?” The queen leaned into her opponents face, maintaining her caustic grin.
        Luna backed away from the creature. “You’re not right. You—“
        “If I may interrupt again, princess,” Chrysalis chimed, “your assumptions about me are made entirely by your experience with those ponies. When was the last time anyone spoke down to you like this, hm? When was the last time anyone looked you in the eye and told you that you were losing?” The queen stepped forward, sending a spike of fear up Luna’s spine. “Believe me when I say that my personality is just as fickle as I am. It will change to be whatever it needs to be; I just follow it along.”
        The princess refused to back away; rather, she pushed into the parasites face, forcing it back into the creek. “No, you don’t. You’re just as blatant and arrogant as any other wretch—constantly trying to justify your power with self-told lies of uniqueness. I’ve seen it before—I’ve felt it long before you first breathed.” Sensing weakness, Luna pushed forward again, but Chrysalis regained control of herself. Once again, a wry grin stretched upon her face.
        “Again with the assumptions—you really must leave them in your own country, Luna. How old do you think I am, hm?” The queen held a hoof under her eye, tugging at the skin. “Certainly I look much better than my age would tell, I’ll grant you that, but there is so much more to me than you would bother with. No, all you want to do is flay me and cook me in a stew, isn’t that right?” Chrysalis laughed, taken by her own joke. “I see why you love to be ignorant—it’s so much simpler!”
        Luna grumbled. It was becoming ever clearer to her that Chrysalis was just buying time—playing her merciful side for whatever benefits lay behind it. Still, she was in no losing position; it would only take a flicker—a brief thought—to send the parasite’s bits all over the field.
        “Oh, come now, Luna. We’ve only just met, and you’re bored with me already? Don’t you even care that I’m giving you what you wanted?” she cackled whilst sinking deeper into the bottom of the creek. “Don’t you just want to find a mind that just once challenges you? My-oh-my, to think I’d thought of you so highly!”
        “I dread to know you think of me at all. Your sickened—polluted—mind could not possibly entertain my desire. What you—“
        “What I have is a pony princess lying to herself in the face of lies incarnate. Come now—do you really think I’m to fall for your little game of virtue? You’re bored—that’s why you’re here. You want something interesting to do—some journey to battle your wits against—so you’ve come out here to gut me. Kill me if I’m wrong.”
        Luna opened her mouth but once more shrunk away from the queen’s interjections.
        “You and I—we’re sociopaths, the both of us. I’ve seen you before, you know, but back then you were so much more interesting. Everything you did was filled with rage and hate and emotion—things ponies don’t really care for, hm?” Chrysalis stepped free from the water. The smile disappeared from her face, as did the intensity of her stride; she began to walk alongside the creek—along the flow of water—paying little mind to her opponent, who cautiously followed. “This water here is clean. Take note of it, Luna. Neither of us will see one like it for quite some time.”
        Luna stopped. “What are you doing here, Chrysalis? Do you value yourself so little that you’d be willing to throw yourself into the flame?”
        “What’s that supposed to mean?” the queen cackled. “Why don’t you loosen up, hm? There’s no reason to be so dramatic, you know. You keep tossing this high-brow rhetoric at me—too much for my weak, polluted brain! At the end of this, there might only be one of us to recount it, and we’ll recount it however we so desire. No one will challenge you if you just give me a little more of yourself to work with.”
        Once again, Luna slipped into silence, merely following behind her target. With every step, she struggled to amass the hate in her heart—the drive—to strike Chrysalis down. For all her words, she was just another parasite. There may be no second chance with her.
        The queen took the silence and let it sit, keeping her attention on the stream. She knew Luna was planning to kill her—betrayal was, after all, something she knew rather well. But in the end, she opted not to move. Rather, she stood still and waited.
        
        “End it then. I’ve given you every reason not to kill me—I’ve been personal and genuine. I will not offer you any more reasons. You’ll be killing a creature that you dared not know.”
        Luna dug her hooves into the sand as she took aim. “I will be quick, know that much.”
        “Oh, I’m sure you will. I’m sure you will.” Chrysalis turned to face her killer and closed her eyes. “Do not disappoint.”
        It was within a fraction of a moment in time that the end came. Confusion and hatred—Luna needed only to harness that which the queen had already given her. Luna bowed her head as the pressure built within her skull. There was a spike of pain—unbridled agony as the reaches of her hate came free—then there was release.
        No more lies.
        No more dreams.
        The shockwave crashed upon her. Rock and sand blasted against her legs, tearing through the flesh as they continued on. For one moment, she could hear the scream.
        Then silence.
        The debris was still falling when Luna opened her eyes. The banks of the stream had been broken by the impact; she could hear a faint trickling noise as the water fell into the scar she had left. For all its words and thoughts, Chrysalis had been left only as a crater resting in the middle of uncharted worlds, bearing no more significance or presence.
        Was this it then?
        Was this her big act of absolution? Did the slaughter of one broken spirit allow another to rise back into its place?
Luna felt a sickness in her that she had not felt since the days of her fall. Every word Chrysalis had left—it was all planned for this moment—so that she could not feel the warmth of success or any matter of transcendence.
Chrysalis’ last gift to her: emptiness. The parasite opted for death only so that it might corrupt her.
And it succeeded.
Luna shuffled through muck and sand, pushing aside the pain from her bloodied skin. She looked down into the crater, and watched as the water came upon the remains.
She had done it.
She had ended the threat—she’d allowed herself the courage and found its end in regicide.
All that remained was a hole in the ground, which lay in silence. Soon, water would fill the hole, and so too would the sands fall into their place. In a year, there would be nothing of it—the red-spattered walls already ran clean.
Luna twitched. The thought had come upon her.
Red-spattered walls.
Something was wrong—very wrong. She knew not what, but the sense came upon her as a storm—she was missing something.
Red-spattered walls.
Luna looked down at her neck and the choker around it. The violet stains of the changeling blood still stood.
Violet.
Luna twisted her head only in time to feel the force crashing against her temple. Her sight flickered bright as the sand under her hooves collapsed; the mare fell backwards into the crater, slamming headfirst into the crimson pool.
Chrysalis looked down from above.
A twisted, caustic smile stretched across her face.
The world went dark.
“An interesting toy, indeed.”
             


> Awakening
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Luna went without dreams.
        She could still sense the world moving—churning—around her, but still she lay in a realm between unconsciousness and lucidity; all blurred together in a meld of sensations that she could not separate.
        She could think too—she could think all sorts of thoughts: is this the end of it all? Could this be death? It certainly did not feel as though she was alive; never could she express both feeling and numbness without binding them as separate: awake and asleep—living and dead. And there was pain too, along with sickness and regret and fear.
        Oh, yes, there was fear. Even in her state of ambiguity, Luna felt fear; it crawled upon her like spiders, prickling at every bit of skin she had, crawling up and down her spine in evanescence. Torture, silence, corruption—all skittered through her head. Thousands upon thousands of years remained endured—all for this, so that she might fall to a lone parasite. Had she never carried the lust for virtue, she might still be resting at home with those she loved: her sister, her subjects, and all the comforts that surrounded her. There, she was offered everything, but she’d traded it all for this—these shallow, dying breaths.
        Hours passed, though she couldn’t be sure it wasn’t days or months. There was no sense of time within her, as light and dark remained inseparable within her mind. Without a consciousness, she knew not sleep, and without sleep, she knew not whether time was firm or drifting. Were her senses active, or were they memories? Again and again, the princess cycled through dull contemplation, seeking answers in a world reliant on madness alone.
        That is until she heard the voice.
        It came echoing back into her mind—something she had heard just before falling under.
        “An interesting toy.”
        Luna struggled for control, but found only the dreamy numbness.
        “An interesting toy.” 
        Again and again, the call rang through her head. Having no physical self, Luna could not sense a source, but merely knew its presence. The voice brought with it a new sense—a desire that festered in the princess’ lonesome heart.
        Reality called for her.
        “Wake up, Luna. The night is dying, and the day marches on.” 
        She could hear the taunts brought in from nothingness. Not dead—not yet. Her body was far gone, but not abandoned. Control still rested within her.
        “I see light in your eye. Sister, I’ve come to take you home.”
        Luna’s eyes snapped open.
        Air filled her lungs with one desperate gasp.
        Pain rocked through her skull, but there was feeling again! Such beautiful pain!
        She could see—she could see in the darkness. She could see walls like onyx and floors of fine grass, growing without warmth or sun. She could see the shadow which sat on the grass beside her bed.
        She saw herself in the darkness, or something she once called herself.
        “You… you aren’t…”
        The nightmare lifted its head, but dared not open its eyes. Still, it faced her with such intensity that she could feel its stare pulling her closer—closer into bloodied memories.
        The shadow opened its mouth.
        “The choice never leaves, Luna. Light. Dark. What do they truly matter? I offer you a chance to prove yourself to me. Maybe you live to the end of it, hm?” As the creature opened its eyes, the illusion faded to dust. The flesh decayed, and the skull twisted and morphed. When it was over, there only remain two envious eyes, bowed in solemnity. “Though, I can’t promise that you’ll want to. I already know how this ends.”
         Luna shuffled in her bed, struggling for better grasp of her muscles. The panic that had long poisoned her mind was fading, but it was quickly replaced with dread. Looking over to her caretaker, she saw a familiar red book resting beside her.
        “I found this sitting with the rest of your stuff. How much have you taken from it?” Chrysalis held the book before her, taking care to not allow the pages to fall. The cover, when shrouded behind the queen’s green essence, turned black. “I read this once, you know. In fact, I carried it for quite some time before making one little mistake. Needless to say, I thank you for returning it to me.”
        “But it’s—“ Luna stuttered in her sub-paralysis. As each limb returned to her—as each joint snapped back under her—a heat grew in her gut. The dread still built.
        “But it’s not mine?” Chrysalis stared at the book for some time before continuing. “No, you’re right: it’s yours now. There’s nothing too important in there anyway—just an old client who ranted about far more than he knew.”
        It was then that a wayward thought rolled into Luna’s head and out through her mouth. “So you knew Barlowe?”
        “Oh, I knew him well!” the queen smirked. “He was interesting. Of course, he was nothing to you or me, but I’d say that he was something like your sister: filled with spirit and high-talk, but none of the strength behind it. But then again, I’m sure you’ve already been told about how Celestia took a bit of a spill, hm?”
        Luna coughed, “He was a client? I don’t—“
        Chrysalis smiled in her opponent’s moment of discovery. “He was a client in the sense that we traded services, of course. Though, I can’t say he was particularly happy with what I had to offer—he was a rather paranoid creature to start with. Barlowe had a tough shell around him.”
        “He beat you, didn’t he? He knew the entire time.”
        The queen opened her mouth, but stopped short. Her eyes lit up, and Luna could see the sparks of thought and calculation residing behind the emerald cloak. She was defeated—Luna knew that much. Only Chrysalis’ arrogance could have unhinged her thoughts; she needed time to think of a perfect response—one that had her winning the entire time.
        Just as the smile fell off the parasite’s face, Luna grinned.
        Her thoughts were reaffirmed.
        “Yes, he won in the end.” Chrysalis chirped.
        Luna winced.
        Chrysalis nodded, continuing, “He got exactly what he wanted. I’ll never see him again, nor do I particularly care to. Understand that when I left him, he was torn up—almost to a sickening amount, really.”
        “But you let him go?” Luna questioned.
        “He sort of left by his own accord, if you understand what I mean. Luna, there are certain things I can’t really control. For instance, when you pulled one of my own from death and treated him as a tool before finally hanging him up by his neck.”
        Luna looked down at her choker; the violet blood still painted the thorns.
        “Of course, I did that last part, but that was more of an act of mercy.” The queen’s eyes flickered cold; rage rested somewhere behind her swagger, and Luna could sense it. “There are two things in this world I know, princess. There are two things I really—really—know. I know there is life, and I know there is death. I don’t like it when the two are combined, understand?”
        The mare remained silent, still lying helpless amongst the bed sheets. At least she knew that Chrysalis didn’t want her dead—at least not yet. No, she’d put Luna up in the most peaceful prison cell that she could muster; the bedding was undoubtedly stolen from royalty, as were the rest of the furnishings. Everything was exquisite—truly—though abstract. It was not simply because the flooring was, in essence, a well-trimmed lawn, but it was in the way that all her things were aligned with the wall. Nothing—not one piece of furniture touched the wall. Every bit of it, from the chairs to the armoires, was aligned so that it would be standing just in front of the chitinous black that surrounded them.
        Chrysalis saw her victim’s eyes panning, but opted not to speak. Instead, she stood up and leaned over the bed, placing her hoof just beside Luna’s neck. “This is my bed, I hope you know.”
        “Then why did you give it to me?”
        “See, remember when I said that I wanted you to prove something to me? Well, this is me proving something to you: I don’t live off suffering. I told you, just a bit before you tried to obliterate me, that we were both sociopaths. This word doesn’t mean good or bad—it’s a statement about what we value.”
        Chrysalis licked her lips before continuing, “It says that we don’t think in good or bad. We don’t really even have a conscience—we just exist to fill desires. Lies, manipulation, torture—they’re all part of our little search for what we want, but so too is happiness, mercy, and freedom.”
        Luna coughed again, this time spitting up a bit of blood that had been resting at the back of her throat.
        “No doubt you’re thinking something innocent: ‘Oh, but queenie, I don’t do those bad things.’ Well, that still doesn’t change the fact that you’re a manipulator—an emotional calculator—just like me. All it means is that you get what you want easier by being a good pony.”
        “And what makes you think I’m going to think that?” the mare mumbled, mostly distracted by the presence of feeling in her legs.
        Chrysalis responded with a smirk. “I didn’t, but telling you that was enough to get your attention on the challenge rather than the accusation. You know who else would respond like that?” Chrysalis tapped her sternum. “I would. And you know what else? If I was you, I would be fighting for enough control to bleed my opponent dry.”
        Luna stopped fidgeting for a moment and twisted herself towards the parasite. “Oh, really? I thought you would be taking notes,” she played, hoping to keep her prey from slinking away.
        “Luna, I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. But if you want to take notes, now would be the time: I’m going to give you a little hint, since I find you so interesting.”
        “And what’s that?”
        “No matter what you do—no matter how many ponies you save—you, me, and all the other killers will end up in the same place. All of us—every last being in this hideous, twisted world—will end up together in the end, and regardless of how moral our actions are, we will all be given the same reprieve.”
        Chrysalis backed out of the room, still grinning as she was when the pair first met. As the parasite faded from her hearing, Luna could hear one last whisper.
        “Kill me, Luna. Come kill me. Be the one to match me, hm?”
        Then came the silence.
        Luna remained in the bed for minutes, lying flat on her back, staring into the darkness of the ceiling. Her eyes were unmoving. Her breath was left to shallow pattern.
        All she did was think—think again and again over everything the parasite had left her with. Chrysalis was an insane creature, but that was by no means a surprise. It was in her stability—her rationality and perception—that Luna could not understand the creature. It was not simple chaos, as with Discord, but of a madness so convoluted that not even she could break through the barrier.
        What did Chrysalis actually want?
        If knowing a mare’s desires told the world of them, then Chrysalis was but a ghost in the world. Power was simply not enough for the parasite: she taunted death openly, but not in the sense that she dominated it. No, she was within death—her mind was twisted around the idea.
        But where did that leave her?
        Luna slipped out from under the covers.
        She gathered the journal…
        …and she returned to her place…
        …reading by the light of magic...
...looking for some light to guide her.
--~~--
        What I learned today was not so much an observation about myself, but of the nature of sensation. Of all our capacities, there is only one that we truly trust: sight—the rest are prone to our imagination.
        And indeed, when I say that we surround ourselves with imaginary things, I do mean it quite severely. Our egos are so massive that often we forget that lies even exist around us: we treat mistakes as truths, but do nothing about them. This idea—this sickening thought of my own self-destruction—has not stopped plaguing me since I moved in.
        Take for example this thought.
        I saw royalty today.
        That’s right! Celestia herself had come to speak to my family. I cannot say why, but the mare had suddenly thought it a good idea to visit the outer reaches of her country. It was awfully strange, I’ll grant you that, but it was not truly unlike the princess. She is well known for her bottomless adoration and her beneficence—and this certainly took the best of both.
        Yea, I could see it in her eyes—the love that fueled her. It was almost too beautiful—something I dared not compare to my own Spring, if only to keep myself a devoted husband.  But even with my disdain, I could not resist the idea of temptation. I played with my mind, you see. I played a game of trade and gamble.
        How much would I trade my wife for?
        The thought brought horror to me, but during the entire meeting with the princess, I was rendered a fool to the dreams. On one end, my Spring stood faithful, and on the other, I placed various amounts of beauty and wealth. Green eyes, I saw. A defined family and wealth and intelligence—they were all great treasures. In my mind, I created the definition of beauty.
        Then Celestia asked me a question.
        Of course, I couldn’t hear her in my reflection, but then she repeated.
        “Do you love your wife, Barlowe?”
        Spring had left the room, off in search of tea.
        “Well, yes,” I responded. “I love her more than life itself.”
        “Do you really, though?” Celestia continued.
        And I responded, again, “Yes, I really do.”
        Well, Celestia just sat there for a moment, caught in a moment of absolute contentment. She was proud of me, I know. It was there in her heart and in her voice that she loved me as one might love a brother or a sister that they respected over all else.
        But in my mind, I saw different things. I saw myself ripping through flesh and blood and terror.
        I saw myself slaughtering all my love: Celestia, Spring—all of them. I knew not why, but the thought had run through my head in only an instant. Something provoked me—something dark. There’s something dreadfully wrong with this house, and I know it.
        What I saw was so different from what I wanted or heard or smelled or felt. And I wonder if it was really true—if the rage in my heart is truly there. I’ve been pent up for so long, I don’t even know if I speak the language of the people any more. It’s all a haze, really. Everything I see—it’s always the same, day after day, but none of it is right. I need to be free. I need to go on a vacation.
        And more importantly, I need to get back into my poetry.
        I am without words recently, but I was able to put together one short piece. Hopefully I can come back and edit it later.
Stranded amongst the living and dead
Unsure of my fate
Dancing between the light and dark
Still they call “Beauty”
“You forget”
“What you should be”
And I look to both sides
I think to myself
And I believe I find beauty
But it’s in both
Not one
Not Life or Death
The ballad of our constant pain
They are all stories
For us to enjoy while living
But soon we’ll stop
We’ll see
An evening of death
Where we cannot tell those stories
Where they ran dry
But we will still walk on
Undistracted by the fate
The death
We have so desired
        It’s not much, mind you, but I tried my best.
        And I’m almost ashamed to admit it, but this poem means so much to me—death means so much to me. There are so many questions I have about it—so many little insights that I dream to share.
        But in the end, I know that they’ll never fall upon Equestrian ears. It is simply not proper to speak of, nor do any other ponies care to share my interest.
        No, if the conversation was about fuzzy hats, I’m sure they would have countless maxims for me to take note of, but when it comes to something unknown—something important—I’ve been dealt the hand of absolute silence.
        We’re all afraid of something, which I see now. We all create lies around us to keep ourselves safe from the truth lying just outside the walls. Even when our minds accept the truth, we will push out the meaning. Even when our minds accept the meaning, we deny the truth.
        It’s an endless cycle.
        
        She does not carry.
        She does not carry.


> Truth of the Watcher
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Luna heard the bloodied gasps from quite a while away but could not give the voice an owner. That is, until she recalled a very similar memory—one left from the fragments of a dream. Somewhere between the scales of sanity and suffering, she’d lost track of her own horrors; everything had become a battle of ideas, rather than a battle of identity and experience. Concepts and worldviews stunk like corpses along a fresh tide, and in some sense, they stood very much alike: both casualties of splintered intentions. Of course, she had to be suspicious. Knowing what she’d come from had all built her to this moment—the moment of Chrysalis’ game.
        She recalled how she’d made it here from the void—how the path had pulled her here into the open.
        When the numbness had left her, Luna scrambled about in Chrysalis’ room for a bit. Tearing through the furniture proved to be a somewhat useless feat, though she couldn’t quite accept the nothingness. Chrysalis was the sort of creature to leave behind clues, right? Misdirection and crookedness were something of a trade for her—it would only make sense that she’d leave a bit of herself in the challenge.
        But with all the room turned upside down, Luna could only sit back on the bed and sigh. There was nothing for her here: no warning—no hidden paths. She was left with only one option, and that was to follow Chrysalis straight out the cut in the wall’s fabric. Honestly, there could be no more nerve-wracking situation: following a psychopath into the light—light she heralded alongside death. No, it certainly was not an ideal situation, but Luna could only grit her teeth and hope for the best.
        
        She passed through the veil, satchel strapped around her neck along with the bloodied choker. The light beyond took her sight and consumed her.
        Cold air brushed across her face, filling her with a strange feeling of weightlessness: it was as though she’d left her physical form behind and stood as a spirit in the unknown. What she saw was heavily constricted by Chrysalis’ own design; whatever chamber she’d walked into was filled with a heavy mist. There was a constant barrier around her of roughly ten paces, but beyond that, her sight could only pick up the sounds and shaking of the earth around her.
        Of course, sight did not seem to be too much an issue. Coming straight from the tent, Luna was surrounded by great stone walls. The light came from somewhere above, almost resembling something like sunlight, but the sky carried only frost. No warmth found its way through the cover of the fog, which left the light in a realm of uncertainty.
Having only two directions, forward and back, Luna decided to shuffle forward, keeping her attention set on the ground in front of her. She knew not whether these “tests” would be physical, mental, or within some twist of Chrysalis’ own insanity.
Luna’s hooves glided silently through the grass; she kept her eyes forward—never shifting.
It was not so much fear that took her but unknowing. There were clashing images of the parasite: the failure of Canterlot against the psychopath that crawled out in the night, infesting the minds and memories of those around her. What was worse is that the latter had no obvious desires—she wandered between chaos and complete order, taking life without sense, but giving all of herself to her demented view of reality.
Of all the equestrian philosophies, there was none that came so close to death as Chrysalis’. What she stood for was simply untouchable—a sadistic existence combined with the nihilistic poison. But it was not bound by bloodlust or stupidity: she’d thought of every position—she was not an animal taken by hunger, but a careful, calculated architect, sculpting away at whatever took her focus.
It just so happened that her current focus lie somewhere within the princess’ heart. What that specifically was remained a mystery, but Luna knew that it would not be reached without the complete domination and collapse of her mind. Chrysalis wanted something just like anypony else: what that thing was could still be held away from her.
Luna’s thoughts were broken as a frigid wind ripped through the chasm. Whatever she was walking to, it was nearby. She could sense it in the air: a certain presence. There was another here—the faint tingling of magic and willpower had wrapped itself in the mist.
Not dark, but desperate.
        Luna began to jog, then run, then sprint. Adrenaline trickled into her veins; there were few creatures that carried such willpower—such energy. Worse even, the traces of the sensation were all too familiar.
        Luna heard the bloodied gasps from quite a while away but could not give the voice an owner. That is, until she recalled a very similar memory—one left from the fragments of a dream. Somewhere between the scales of sanity and suffering, she’d forgotten the warmth of her own family—the love carried by her sister.
        “Celestia?” Luna screamed, tears pooling at the edges of her eyes. For all her intensity, the mare could not bear to fly: the thought was pushed out of her head. No, only desperation remained—only a feeling of indescribable dread that had finally exposed itself as a sore.
        The voice was silent.
        “I can hear you! I can—“
        The walls broke off to the sides, bringing Luna to the mouth of a great ring. The princess stopped; the fog faded from sight.
        Celestia breathed heavily.
        Blood ran down the side of her face, collecting in the dirt.
        “Luna…”
        The princess shuffled to the center of the circle, just beside the gore-soaked ditch. Life had abandoned the chasm: grass turned to mud, and the frost spread further. Luna could see her breath as she kneeled over her dying sister.
        Celestia coughed a bit of blood onto the younger mare’s face before struggling to find words.
        “Luna… Luna… It was always… going to happen….”
        “No, it didn’t—I mean—it still doesn’t.  Did you follow her? How did—“ Luna stared into her sister’s empty eyes. Broken blood vessels had left her eyes a crimson hue. Still, Luna held onto the hope behind them—she held onto her memories.
        “Luna… one of us… would always have to….” Celestia looked down at her wounds. “I… mourn for you… Luna….”
        The mare shook terribly. “What? I don’t… I don’t understand.”
        “Luna… our blood… must be spilled… in the end….”
        Luna shook her head wildly, sending tears across her Celestia’s battered body.
        “Listen… Listen to me, Luna….” The princess struggled. “We… are not blessed… We are not… blessed….”
        Fear flooded Luna’s mind. She saw the sign of death residing behind Celestia’s bloodied eyes. The end was near.
        “Luna… watch over them… Please…. Do better than me… Luna….”
        The light faded from Celestia in those final moments. Luna struggled to pull her sister from the blood and mess, but could not bear the strength in the back of her mind. Tears and screams held the younger sister close, pouring out through the pain of her cries. She threw her anger into the skies, and with it went her hope and joy.
        The light beside her was gone…
        …and she knew not why or how or when.
        Something had taken it from her—something safely beyond her sight and knowledge.
        Luna sat over the body for as long as her heart would let her, clinging to the hope that her tears or pains could bring her back, but knowing full well that the end had come.
--~~--
        The eyes.
        The eyes were there—she saw them, if only for a moment, shining in the dark.
        Luna stood from the body, hooves still shaking wildly. “Come out.”
        There was only silence.
        “COME OUT.” 
        The queen stepped out from the darkness. There was no smile within her. There was no sense of joy or control.
        The queen’s face was painted with blackened tears.
        Luna limped towards her, eyes burning. “What… What did you…?”
        Chrysalis shook her head. “Luna, I don’t have control of everything. I didn’t want this—I promise you.”
        “I’LL KILL YOU, CHRYSALIS. I. WILL. KILL. YOU.” The darkness in her heart—the emotions she’d repressed—everything poured through the princess’ words. It was not hatred. It was not anger or jealousy or pride. No word could pain the color of death inside her mind—no nightmare could have brought it in her.
        For a moment, Chrysalis had no response but fear. Luna walked towards her with endless hate burning through her eyes. There was no control; pressure pooled in the broken mare’s skull, screaming for her to release everything. There could be no force—no act of violence—to satisfy her anger. Chrysalis’ carried not the strength to even capture a flicker of her energy.
        She saw the end coming, and began retreating into the shadows. “Now stop, Luna. I didn’t do anything! Now, if you—“
        Luna screamed without sense; all direction had left her.
        Chrysalis looked off to her side; her green eyes flickered black with fear. She turned to Luna, screaming wildly, but falling upon deaf ears. Rage had built its own barrier to her senses—there was only a constant, droning howl within her skull. It itched at it—it called to her. Release, it screamed. Release.
        Chrysalis turned again, forced into backpedaling.
        But it was not away from the princess.
        Luna looked off to her side.
        Stone eyes stared back.
        There stood the unliving creature—the watcher. It appeared to her in the form of a bipedal statue, bearing a scythe and a birdcage. Its face was unlike any creature that she had seen: its features were alike hers, but curiously morphed. Its stone body was clad in armor and wounds; it was an elder soldier dressed for war.
        At first, the thing only stared at her. It had not hooves but fleshy digits, much alike that of a dragon or a bird. It had not a mane but hair upon its skull, which rested unkempt under the soldier’s helmet.
        It had not a soul, but a constant, beating presence beside her. It was a face she felt that she knew, but none that she had ever seen before.
        The creature stared at the two creatures, unmoving.
        
        Even in her rage, Luna could not look away from the creature. Something about it had her locked in an unbreakable tether.
        Out from the corner of her eye, she could see the queen shuffling towards the creature, eyes locked.
        “Chrysalis, stop.”
        The queen continued towards the statue, lost in her own mind.
        “Stop it! Stop!” the princess shouted.
        Chrysalis was now at the knees of the statue, staring up into its frozen eyes. The allure of the watcher was unbreakable—it was something they had been bound to from the very beginning—something greater than friends or family.
        “STOP.” 
        Luna blinked—a flicker in time.
        She couldn’t even hear the scream.
        Chrysalis’ blood was spattered across the watcher’s blade and upon its knees; two bodies swung lifelessly within the cage: one of a pure white and the other black.
        Luna backed away from the statue.
        Breath left her.
        Rage left her.
        Then came fear.
        The earth moved under the princess’ feet; she could feel the watcher approaching, but it did not move. Luna’s mind blanked; her eyes remained upon the statue’s gaze.
        Closer she came.
        Control was left to memories. She could feel herself being dragged towards the creature, but she was not walking; it was as though the earth itself moved under her, shifting her closer to the end. No matter what movement she could make—no matter what thought entered her mind—still she floated onward.
        Closer she came.
        Her head rose as her eyes met that of the watcher’s. It stared down with a certain ambivalence—a carnivorous, hopeless gaze. There was nothing in its heart. There was no intention behind it or magic in its heart. There were no charms guiding its movements; it had existed so long as life had skittered in the darkness.
        They’d built monuments in its name—they’d worshipped it down to its final points: the creature of the watcher. Everything they knew was from it—there was nothing outside of its realm or its knowing. All sense was borne from it; all blood flowed for it.
        Luna closed her eyes.
        It had finally come to her; what it all meant.
        And just as a hint of recognition came to her, the watcher took its toll.
        All went white.


> Truth of the Recorder
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

   It was not the end.
        No, the light still shifted in her eyes; she had not been given the good grace of silence—not yet, at least. And in some sense, that was a bit of a disappointment: it had all come so quickly—painless, really. Perhaps then things would at least make a bit of sense. The constant transmutations between life and death were becoming so common that the princess was beginning to blur the two.
        And there was peace drifting among the warmth and radiant nothingness—lasting peace. It was a place where her mind was too scattered to pick up on worry or fear or anger: there was only rest and the plainest of sensations. There were no dishonesties in the nothingness, just as there were no volitions. There was simply “being”, and that was enough in its own merit.
        Luna left herself to the light and noise: the gentle vibration of space as she moved through the shapeless void. Unlike her previous experience, this realm rested in a realm beyond the fabric of her “mission.” She knew, deep down, that she was not dead; she knew that the watcher and all Chrysalis’ game pieces would be cutting at her mind. The parasite was something of a guide into the darkest of Luna’s experiences and horrors. While the queen lacked true, raw strength, her entire life was centric on the manipulation and breaking of minds around her.
        Whereas the soldier would claim his spear as a defense, Chrysalis would claim the soldier itself. A mind was, after all, a far more malleable weapon than a blade: so long as the scent of hope remained, a soul could crawl through flame and shrapnel.  
        And the Nightmare would do so much more.
        No, Luna knew exactly the Queen’s aims: expose the Nightmare and turn it against its own people. She wasn’t an idiot—Chrysalis was breaking her down for a very specific reason, and there was only one part of the princess that stood as “of interest.” If there were any other reasons then Chrysalis would have picked Celestia or somepony of weak resolve.
        At the trail of her thoughts, Luna picked up on a small noise: a ticking. She’d heard it somewhere, but it was the sort of thing that was so common that she’d lost track of its face. A ticking—an endless ticking—droned on through the ether, bringing sensation into her fleshless form.
        As time built, there came a feeling into her: a need to blink. She was without eyes, but still carried the faults of an observer—how quaint. Luna let the need consume her.
        She blinked.
        “Welcome back, Luna.” Chrysalis smiled from across a glass table. “How was the transition?”
        The queen’s words were lost to Luna; she spared no mind to the parasite—the world around her had robbed her of focus. A sickness grew in the mare’s stomach as memories broke through the lining of her control. Images of the past singed the corner of her emotional being, but still she held firm.
        The pair sat across from one another in the warmth of a covered patio, safe from the storms that painted the sunset in an unsettling golden shine. From the crackling of the floorboards to the clatter of plates, the experience was recalled perfectly from her own memories. Even the flooded streets, which bisected the quiet coffeehouse, flowed and dragged along the very angles than they had in the millennia before.
        “Like it? I pieced this little shop together while you were fighting for your life.” Chrysalis kicked her back-hooves onto the table as she took a sip of tea. “Did you die? I did. There really is no way to evade it, but that’s a nonissue at this point. Now it’s just you, me, and the recorder.”
        “Recorder?” the princess mumbled, still tracing over each shadow and flickering candle. She remembered this place—something from before the corruption. This café—she came here with her sister every weekend, mostly as an excuse to see the outer reaches of Canterlot.
This was the last time that the two walked together through the city—the last shred of unison they carried.
        And Chrysalis sat in her sister’s seat, basking in the misery.
        Her voice trembled with boredom—almost as though she’d seen it all before. “Take your time. For every second you spend gawking at my creations, I spend two probing the void that sits inside your skull. Try to overcome the recorder. Try to beat my little game, hm?”
        “Is that it? Find it, then?” Luna prodded. Of course, the answer was obvious, but she at least had to be sure.
        Chrysalis shook her head. “No, I’m not playing a game of hide and seek with you, princess. It’s about rising above the flame, not just noticing that it’s there. Finding it shouldn’t be a problem—almost everyone finds it.”
        “But no one wins?”
        “No, but that has never stopped you from acting, has it?” Chrysalis held one of her hooves above the table before lowering her eyes. A green spark shot through the rim of her gaze; upon the table, a device materialized from the sand and dust and light. Pieces became parts, and parts slid together into the body of the recorder.
        When it was over, a simple clock stood between the two. The hands spun wildly in their machine, fluctuating between fast and slow—minutes and days.
        “I’ll even give it to you, if you want. It won’t change a thing, though.” The queen returned her hooves to her side before taking a sip of coffee. “Black, hm? Oh, you’re quite the forward type, aren’t you, Luna? Keeping it simple and rational—I like that.”
        The princess ignored the comment, seizing the clock before her. She could see all the parts still inside, twisting and turning and clicking on, but they did not share the chaotic properties that drove the face in constant change. No, what made the recorder was in perfect order, and only the observed end—the hands—danced in absolute madness.
        There were no screws or breaks: the clock was fastened shut and resisted the outside world.
        Chrysalis watched as the princess fumbled with the machine; the smile never left her. “Would you like me to give you another hint?”
        Luna responded with a glare.
        “Alright, alright. This one is a bit random, you see? The clock does something. I don’t know when it’ll happen, but be sure that you’re done here when it hits.” Chrysalis took another sip of coffee before continuing. “Also, you asked me to give you something.”
        “What?”
        Chrysalis snagged the journal from behind her chair and tossed it to the princess. “There’s a note on page forty: something about my ‘nefarious’ plans or something.”
        Luna looked towards the queen with quiet hatred. Nothing quite seemed to phase the parasite: it was as though she was without a sense of desperation. Control had left her a bitter, anonymous mind behind the face of a demon.
        Then there was the smile—that constant cancer that would not leave her face. Even in speaking, the unending contentment rattled through her words. “Come now, Luna. A ‘nefarious’ plan? Really? What am I to you: some sort of folkish villain?”
        The comment sent a spike through Luna’s skull. “Well—“
        “Shut up. You have no idea what you’re dealing with, princess. Do you really think that I spend all my being into that thing you call evil?”
        The smile faded.
 Luna backed into her chair.
        “Think for one damn second. If I wanted to just be evil, I would walk into your little country and slaughter random ponies just for the hell of it. If I wanted evil, I would burn everything down, shifting between faces and minds—forever hidden to your blind, dying eyes.”
        “Und—“
        “Understand something, Luna. You are stronger than me—far better in almost everything you can do. I can’t move the sun, nor can I cause nearly the destruction that rests within you. No, I have only one talent, but you can be damn sure that I’m going to use it perfectly.” Chrysalis’ eyes sparked again, calling the shadows towards her. “Do you want to know what’s evil? Evil is me slitting your throat right now, taking your form, then walking into Canterlot and murdering everyone you know with subtle, personal hatred. Evil is me finding Celestia and showing her your head so that a violent, spattering death is the last thing to crawl through her broken, wasted mind.”
        Luna fell silent.
        The shadows departed from Chrysalis, and her eyes faded back into ambivalence.
        “Luna, I don’t want plain evil—plain evil is boring and pointless. I already told you that if I wanted you dead then you would already be gone: if I wanted Canterlot to burn, it would already be left in ash.”
        “What do you want, then? What do you want?” Luna dropped the recorder on the floor, keeping nothing but the journal. “Everypony wants something, and I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what.”
        Chrysalis shrugged. “From you, I want a realization. I want you to know why I function, just to see if you can understand it.”
        “And from Canterlot as a whole, what do they have for you?” Luna pleaded.
        “Immortality, Luna. Immortality.”
        Luna sat in awe. For once, she felt as though Chrysalis was being honest—affected by her words—as though some manner of fear rested behind her. Something was deeply wrong with the queen, no doubt, but at least she recognized a problem. Since the beginning of their relationship, she had hidden behind laughter and mockery, making it as though it were all a game to her. But now Luna saw the real face—the desire and the hunger of a parasite.
        But why immortality?
        Why that specific phrase? It was not strength or power or control, but “immortality”. Luna slumped back into her chair and mulled it over. Chrysalis, who promptly returned to her illusion of control, sipped nervously on her coffee.
        There the two remained, watching with dread as the recorder spun wildly.
        Eventually, Luna remembered the journal. The red leather thumped as Luna dropped it on the table. Before continuing, Luna caught the queen in a stare. The two watched each other for some time, simply staring into one another’s weaknesses, calculating each movement they’d take in defense.
        “Chrysalis.”
        “Hm?”
        “I don’t want to kill you if I don’t have to, but I will. There is always backing out, you know. I can help you in Canterlot. We don’t have to let anyone get in the way—just you and me.”
        Chrysalis laughed. “You have no idea what you’re dealing with, princess.”
--~~--
        Luna – She’s not going to let you walk away until she’s done. The recorder’s idea is hers—she is NOT affected. Do NOT let her lie. She knows.
        --
        The story is simple, really. The rows were lined up in perfect order, constructed with very precise dimensions so that we could succeed. Spring brought in some gardening supplies to get us started, but it still took all her careful explanation before I had any idea what I was doing. No matter what I did, it was going nowhere. The plants always ended up falling flat or simply dying within seconds. I have no idea what sort of flowers Spring was trying to get me to plant, but they were fickle. Beauty aside, the pain of failure and constant doubts left me somewhat pessimistic. I had to give up; Spring finished without me.
        Eventually, I began to feel so sickened by it all that I ducked out of the house and tried redeeming myself. The Royal Petunias, or the Royals for short, would only grow if given tender care and absolute attention. Perhaps it was because I lacked initiative that the problems arose in the first place, but I would not allow them to happen again. I took my shovel up in the middle of the night and drew up a whole new garden in the free space we had. Time and time again, the royal would ignore my demands and continue on its merry way, but I persisted. I dug a new hole and planted new plants, even when night had long consumed our garden—even in blindness. I could only pick myself up and try again—try breaking the shell of the royal so that it might grace me with something worth Spring's praise. Of course, plants and nature don’t particularly care about the issues of mere mortals, and I was of no exception. My cries and sweat went unheard, and the joys continued to die endlessly. By the time morning came, our yard was almost completely shredded by my broken gardens.
        It was, as many things were, futile in all regards. I was going against a force that I had no experience with, which put me at a keen disadvantage. Though my wife is wonderful at gardening, I have no talent whatsoever. Attempting to combat the royal was like fighting a ghost; there was no way to fully grasp it unless it granted you its fortune. The plants were not so nice to me, nor were they particularly of any help when Spring walked outside that day. My determination did nothing to impress her: it was more of the fact that I was damaging her beloved property. Spring shuffled back in tears.
        That day, I came face to face with my own demons. There was always a problem with me: I always prodded, never quitting until I upset someone. Spring wouldn’t let me back inside for hours, and there I sat in the gardens, talking to myself. I mumbled on to the royal about how I’ve come to doubt our marriage, and how I wanted to go back to the city where I belong. Broken, I imagined up Spring when she was years younger. I asked her if we would be together forever, and she responded with a joyful “yes”. The image smiled. Music filled my mind as did fragments of relief; I went to the living petunias and took in their many scents. Deep inside, I felt dread. I knew that she would stop at nothing to keep me with her, but I couldn’t bear to live like this. There weren’t enough people here for me to talk to, and I needed more voices in my life, otherwise I’d go absolutely mad. I ignored the reply. I ignored the hopelessness and went straight for her: control had left me. Spring was in our room, looking at old pictures from when we were both in school. I told her what she meant to me and that I wanted to learn so I wouldn’t make the same mistake. She swatted me aside like a fly, crushing my emotions and dreams with games of ambivalence. Still, I pleaded for her to show me her trade so that I could understand her more: if only for respect. The response broke me: I had parted from her long ago—the distance spread for miles on end. Spring had just as many repressed emotions as I did.
        The royal had effectively undermined my existence: it’d sabotaged my joys and turned me into a monster of my own despair. Such petty things: flowers. For all my work, they were just a few stupid plants in our yard. Beauty and ignorance had left me to abandon everything that I knew—traded out for something much worse. I stumbled out of the house, distraught. I uprooted all of my dead flowers and did my best to fill in their lines. But no matter how I tried to cover it up, the decision stuck; Spring was cast away from me, leaving me only with the sour taste of memory. When all was said and done, I decided to make a last chance. I wrote her a poem, hoping that it might soothe her anger and return me.
Broken by my own foul nature
I scream for redemption
Here I fall under your eyes
Your eyes betray me
Too beautiful
For the honest man
Here I lost the final game
I lost my mind
Knowing that you gave me more
The blood still boils
My Spring
I’ll fail you again
Could you ever forgive my weakness
Could you accept failure
I pray for a second chance
My final, weakened gambit
Hold me
Just give me light.
When I was done with the poem, I looked out in the garden. I saw row after row, the first belonging to Spring, and the second belonging to my own hands—a constant pattern between us. What lay within her rows flourished, while mine had shrunk to the sun. It was the end of our garden.
--~~--
        Luna looked across the table.
        Chrysalis was still staring at her, uprooting her weaknesses. “Yes?”
        “What does the recorder do, exactly? Shouldn’t it be activated soon?” Luna looked over to the clock, which still remained on the floor. “For some reason, I have a feeling like you’re not telling me everything.”
        “Well I’m not. Telling you everything would be somewhat pointless, all things considered.”  Chrysalis looked down at her hind legs; she’d left them crossed on the table for the entirety of their meeting, even in her rage. “The recorder is a little thing I thought up as a way to experiment with my clients.”
        Luna raised her eyebrow.
        “Well, perhaps that was a poor choice of words. I mean that I used the recorder as a way to better understand how they respond to different stimuli.”  Chrysalis stopped again.  “The clock isn’t really a clock, you see. It’s more like a timer—at timer hooked up to your brain.”
        The princess grunted. “And what does it count down to?”
        “When time runs out, the machine will light your psyche ablaze. You’ll be erased, along with any memory of this event.”  Chrysalis rubbed her cheek, as though she had a toothache. “Are you sure this is black coffee? I feel like you’ve got sugar or something in there.”
        Luna stared at the queen.
        “What?” she asked in confusion.
        “Erased?”
        “Oh, yes, this event—this whole scene—is one that you’ve actually been through several hundred times now. The last time you went through this, you went immediately for the journal, but sometimes you just kind of sit there. Sometimes you and I do nothing—just drinking coffee for fifteen minutes before you’re obliterated.” Chrysalis spun the drink around in her mug before looking back to the frozen princess. “You see, the advantage of being in your psyche is that I can see how you respond to anything I say. I can bring out any situation or setting or form just to see how you react. Every so often, you’ll try to light me ablaze or hang me up by the ceiling; I just reform when the recorder trickles out of time.”
        Luna looked down at herself. “How many times have you done this?”
        “I lost count!” the queen squealed. “All I can say is that this is most definitely the worst cup of coffee served to any of my clients, and I really expected the most from you.”
        “You… You’ve seen…”
        Chrysalis clicked her teeth together in boredom. “I’ve seen just about everything, yes. And to be honest, I’m impressed. You’ve got quite a few interesting memories in there—much more so than Barlowe or that Shining Armor character.”
        “The Nightmare…”
        “The ‘Nightmare’ was probably my favorite. To be honest, I’ve brought that in on several occasions, allowing it to float around us while you squirmed in your chair. Did you know that you have a habit of getting quiet when you’re afraid? See, most people scream or something, but you just get really quiet.” The queen stared Luna in the eyes. “Are you afraid right now?”
        Luna shook her head, but kept her eyes on the clock. The ticking inside had grown significantly faster than it had been when she first witnessed its creation.
        Chrysalis noticed the sound as well. The queen’s muscles relaxed just as her eyes returned to their disinterest. “Well, your time is almost up here. I think we’ll redo this a few times just to be sure I get enough information. After that, we’ll try the last of my games, hm?”
        A bead of sweat rolled down the mare’s temple. “Can I write something in the journal?”
        Chrysalis shrugged. “Sure, why not?”
        Luna opened the book back to the fortieth page before searching wildly for a pen. Seeing none, she turned to the queen in desperation. Chrysalis looked at the table and allowed a quill and inkwell to form, just as the recorder had before it.
        
        Luna snagged the quill and scribbled into her book.
        Immortality. She wants immortality.
        Just as the quill ran dry, the recorder clicked. Chrysalis leaned back into her chair as the princess flickered into nothingness.
        There she remained, thinking over everything that was said, watching as her creations fell back to dust and scattered by her breath.
        There she sat until a great light returned before her.
        Chrysalis smiled.
        “Welcome back, Luna. How was the transition?”
            


> Truth of the Parasite
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Had she not the aegis of her resolve, the end would have long come. Chrysalis would have broken her down—allowed the desolation of her mind to leave it free for taking. Of course, Luna never really knew how relentless the attacks were, being that the queen had left something of a numbing agent within her mind: the constant eroding and reconstruction of memory.
But that was it.
Chrysalis’ abilities were not that of a god’s, nor were they capable of simply undoing the primordial duties carried within the reaches of Luna’s conscience. The queen’s manipulation was constricted to the most recent of memories: the illusions and the polluted ideas that struggled to prod the princess’ worldview. True, she could observe the ancient’s reactions, but she could not actually interfere with them; her games were, at best, experiments in personality.
And that was all she ever really needed.
--~~--
“This is not good—not good, not good….”
There was that noise, buzzing in her ear. It kept speaking, but never did it have anything interesting to say.
“Wake up, OK? Wake up….”
Always the same—always, the noise yanked her back from the warmth, if only for a moment.
“Shhh… Shhh… I can hear you breathe. You can hear me. You can hear….”
Luna struggled to push the voice to the back of her mind as she floated through the void between worlds. Here she’d stayed for days, bouncing between sensation and nothingness, left only to her dreamy thoughts. Every so often, she might feel the cold of a stone against her face or the faint shuffling as a hoof struggled to shake her, but those events were fleeting—a flicker of reality that could not reach the princess’ consciousness, which drifted far from its home.
But this one time, the noise didn’t leave. Rather, it continued buzzing in her ear, echoing over and over until the droning boiled in her skull. The voice became crisp—physical—beyond anything else she’d felt in the void.
There was a slight rocking in her sternum; she could feel a pair of hooves pushing against her numbed ribs, shaking violently as they pressed harder and harder into her skin. “You and I… We can stop her….”
As the voice trailed out, a thought came upon Luna’s floating mind—one she had not experienced until that very moment when her senses twisted between being and illusion. Could it be real? The princess was silent; she let her mind fall away so that the sensations might take its place. The further she pushed herself away, the better. The lust for truth had already taken hold of her or at least the thought that it might be within reach for once.
Sense returned, slowly but certainly.
First came feeling: the cold of moist stonework against the whole left of her body. There was, for a moment, a breeze. The air was warm, humid—far too humid for the outside world. No, they were underground or somewhere sealed so that nothing might escape, not even water.
Then came the noises: she heard the voice whimpering—crying—in the darkness, caught in whispered fears. There were chains too, moving along with the tortured soul, but they carried no weight in them. The speaker moved freely among the chamber, leaving them to rattle against the floor as he paced back and forth around her. The clatter wrung its way into her head, synching with the voice in the constant droning howl.
Death—then came the scent of death: of rotting flesh buried in shallow graves amongst the stonework. Fear and moisture and sweat all came upon her in a shameless toxin that sunk a deep sickness in her stomach.
Scent became taste, and the sickness writhed within her gut. No such food—no such grace or perfume—could possibly break her of that putrid sensation: it was the bread of war beside the wine of stolen bloods, nameless but taken in whole, thrown together in one universal body that could only be described as suffering.
Then light.
Then came the glorious light, bringing Luna from the static and grey haze into warmth and color. But color could not simply describe it: it was a specific range of lights. Through her own blurred eyes, Luna could make out the copper and orange of torchlight, but there was little else. Red and orange and black—never had there been a world isolated to the realms of such hate.
Luna looked down at herself, seeing only blackness against the stone. It was uncanny: the last time she’d seen herself painted by darkness, she’d fallen into it. And for a moment, she laughed; here she was in the belly of whatever dungeon Chrysalis’ had placed her in, and yet, her thoughts revolved around how her hair looked in the lighting. Perhaps she was more Equestrian than she had thought herself to be.
The princess rubbed the fog from her eyes before pulling herself from the floor. Strangely enough, her bones were just as spry as they’d been when she had gone under, whenever that was. No, it was not her muscles that brought her down, but the intense, spiking sickness burning that burnt inside her gut. Luna stumbled for a moment before collapsing with a pained gasp.
She dug her hooves into the rock, and pushed.
Pain ripped through her back, biting into her skull. Static and screams poured into her ears, yet she still pushed harder.
Her muscles failed.
The mare slammed her jaw against the floor.
But she pushed again.
Luna shuffled towards the light, eyes glazed with emptiness. The sickness crept up through her, yanking her back, but still she limped onward.
When she reached the light, the mare fell once more to the stones. Pain had reached its highest point within her; light and sound twisted around her, but she only smiled. Somewhere within the suffering and the unrelenting chaos, euphoria had taken hold of her—a moment of joy, which numbed her to the wracking within her.
She’d been taken by simplicity. All the pain of illusion and lies and doubt had been taken from her, and trust returned to her senses. For a moment, Luna questioned her own memories: had the queen been killed? And just as the faint hope passed over her, the pain ceased.
She coughed, and blood spattered across the floor.
Luna slumped, losing hold of all the senses she’d fought so viciously for.
But there was peace.
The world returned to its haziness, yet the princess’ sense of certainty remained with her. She was alive and very much awake—she could see movement beyond the blur, and she could feel the embrace of gentle hooves as they dragged her from the shadows.
She could hear the voice again, trembling beside her, sputtering on about mercy—safety—for the foreigner. She never heard the response, but something inside her held the belief that his wishes had been granted.
Time passed, and the stones under her grew warmer—softer, too. Rock became dirt, and dirt became soil. What had once been a world of shadows quickly turned to sky-lit plains. What had been silent muttering had become the clashes of metal and toil and productivity; she heard chattering and noises beyond what she’d ever experienced, but still they seemed so close—as though home was just beyond the next root or pebble.
The princess struggled to look back at her caretakers. The world was still in blur, but she could just barely make out two of her kind struggling to pull her through. One, a tawny stallion, would frequently stop to ask the other in senselessness. The other, who carried much a darker color—black even—just nodded or shrugged as she dragged Luna by the grip of her jaw.
For a moment, there was color in its face—glimmering like jewels or stars suspended in the midnight sky.
The color of emeralds.
Luna bowed her head, and remained in peace until the final tug came through—until the stallion rolled her over to face the clear blue skies. He smiled and said something, but noise had cut him out—a ringing. The shadow appeared beside its partner, and the two smiled.
The ringing grew louder and louder, building within her. The world grew clearer, and the sound more distinct. Faces appeared in the blurred color, and clouds separated from the blue. A cold breeze rolled over her, and all went to silence.
Luna stared into Chrysalis’ eyes, which trembled with weariness. Bandages and open wounds painted her skin; there was a genuine suffering within her caustic smile.
It was her.
No illusions.
It was simply her.
“Why?” Luna asked, counting her blood-marks and bruises.
There was a long pause before the queen replied. “I thought it time to be honest with you, and I had a hope that you might let me speak.”
Luna planted her hooves in the grass and pushed herself up. The three stood in the center of an empty field—the same field she’d stood in when the queen had first taken her under. The golden earth held her with warmth and endearing grace, as though begging her to remain.  There was no pain when she stood—there was only the faint embrace of the southerly winds and the heat of the sun.
Luna looked at the queen, mustering as much sympathy as she could in trade for the honesty. Somehow, the desire to kill had been put out; perhaps it was the strangeness of the situation or the hours of mental burning, but something told her that the slaughter could wait—if only for a moment.
“You’re risking everything for simple words, Chrysalis. Do you think them to be worth it?” Luna lifted her chin. “I will grant you a few minutes, but do not take me to be in the generous mood, understand?”
Chrysalis shrugged. “Well, I’d match your cordial voice, princess, but you don’t consider me to be a ruler, do you?”
“You’re a parasite to me, and little more. Speak as you wish.” Strength built in Luna’s heart. For once, she felt in control of the situation. For once, she felt herself in control of the changeling, even if it was under suspicious pretenses. “Well, what say you?”
“Luna, do you know how long you’ve been here? Do you know how long I’ve kept you from your people?” Chrysalis chuckled, but receded quickly. “Your sister is making assumptions.”
“Well, I do not blame her. I’ve spent far too long with your kind—I’ve played for far too long.” Luna smirked. “What has it been? A week?”
Chrysalis shook her head. “Closer to a month, your highness.”
Luna blinked.
“Celestia is launching an attack on me. Did you know that?” The queen looked up at the sky. “She’s gathered her guards from all over—yours too—and is sending for my weary head.”
The princess completed her thought. “So you’re looking for mercy, then, are you? I don’t know if I—“
Chrysalis smiled. “They’re walking into an ambush, Luna.”
The princess went silent.
“You’ve created the greatest war of virtue that Equestria has ever faced, Luna. Celestia is sending almost all of your soldiers into a trap, and you are at the heart of it.”
Hate took hold. The images of Chrysalis’ death wrapped around her conscience, but still she remained frozen.
“You see, you might not consider me much of a ruler, but you’ve never really seen my domain, have you? You’ve seen only what I’ve showed you, and every choice I’ve made has been to get you right here—right now.” Chrysalis rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “The threat made against Canterlot, the attack—come on, Luna, think about it.  How would I benefit in any way from stealing your throne? Fear isn’t what sustains me, princess.”
Luna staggered backwards.
“I knew that you were a great asset to your country—that they loved you so much that they’d throw everything into your safety. Then, I found out what you wanted—I found out about the ghosts in your closet, and what it would take to bring you from shelter. I found out that you wanted redemption, so I made the perfect opportunity. I attacked your country, I was defeated, and I was let off without so much as a few bruises. Remind you of something?”
The attack was far more than personal. Luna thought back—she thought back to the first mistake Chrysalis had made in Canterlot, and how she’d nearly perfectly set herself up for escapable failure. “You didn’t—“
“No, I didn’t attempt an attack on Canterlot through the most unconventional means, actively damaging my own standing by allowing for the most obvious, simple methods of retaliation. No, I didn’t make my position in Canterlot jeopardized by warning the royal guard. No, I didn’t cast my only two threats—that Cadance and the element of harmony—into a pit that they could simply step out of.”
Luna managed only to stare at the psychopath. There were no thought—no words—that could take her.
“Did you really believe that a queen, who lives solely by the powers of manipulation and strategy, would do something that ridiculously pointless? Did you really believe that I would make every attempt to topple my own scheme in attempt for a treasure that would be absolutely useless to me? You Equestrians really are as stupid as you look.”
“But you were—“
Chrysalis cut in once more. “But I was dramatically villainous and appeared to be ‘foiled once more’? Luna, my only talent is domination and control. Would your greatest artists spend years of practice to draw a house with crayon? Would your finest classical singer spend all their resources in making the perfect song about oral hygiene?”
There was silence.
Chrysalis laughed. “I also find it comical that you believe that the only followers I have are the ones I used to attack Canterlot. Since when did any good strategy involve throwing all of your subjects against a well-entrenched foe? Luna, I’m a ‘queen’, and I think we’d both agree that such a title does not fit a leader of hundreds. Thousands, perhaps, but hundreds are closer to something of a tribe.”
Once again, silence.
“Princess, I’m a ruler just as you are. I’m not looking for blanket chaos like Discord, and I’m certainly not polluted by the Equestrian mercy like your pathetic little nightmare. I am willing to kill, burn, and shift my way through fire and blood for the glory of my subjects; I would never make such a mockery of my own existence as that Canterlot fiasco.”
Luna could not bear to see that face any more. She dropped her head, barely holding back the tears.
She’d destroyed her own country through egoism and accident.
She’d been drawn out like a fool and beaten savagely into the ground.
The end was upon her, and Chrysalis could see it in her desperate, shaking body.
A tawny hoof came over her neck. “Luna, don’t do this to yourself. It isn’t your fault. Nopony blames you.” The stallion was empathetic, but spoke without name. Luna looked up into his eyes, which too had been torn with deceit and pain. He smiled. “And if I’m not mistaken, the queen has something yet to offer you.”
Chrysalis looked over at the pair with ambivalence. “Why don’t you tell her? I believe I’ve said quite enough, hm?”
The stallion stared at the parasite with hate, which, oddly enough, pushed the queen back to staring into the sky. “Your majesty, the queen is offering you a chance to save your people. You can’t do anything about the soldiers—it’s too late for them—but you can still protect them from the things that come afterward, if, that is, you’re willing to make a sacrifice.”
Luna nodded, too choked to speak.
“Help her take control without bloodshed. Help her get what she wants, and so long as you help her, they will remain unharmed—physically, that is.” The stallion waved for the queen to come closer, but she simply ignored him. “Do you think you could do it? Could you make the right choice even though no one else will recognize you for it? Can you make the right choice, even though your loved ones abandon you for it?”
Luna coughed, “…what if I say no?”
The pony just stared at her and frowned. “Without your words, the Equestrians will be more likely to resist. The Elements of Harmony and those two Canterlot lovers—they’ll have to be handled with more… certainty—your sister too. Basically, you’re our key to effective crowd control.”
“So you’re with her, then? You—an Equestrian—gave in? Why?”
The pony sighed, “It’s more complicated than that. I don’t wish to be here, if that’s what you want to know.”
“Oh, no, he’s just as much as convenience to me as you are, princess!” Chrysalis noted, turning from the sky. “Luna, your people will be kept in line—whether by my methods or by yours. I’d still prefer it be the latter.”
“So, how does this make it any different than your first attempt?” The princess barked. “It’s subordination all the same!”
Chrysalis shook her head, “No, no, again you’ve jumped over logic and prefer to paint me a standard villain. Don’t you think I know that plain warfare will grant me no reward? Yes, we’ll be taking Canterlot, but not before a far more complicated sort of invasion, you see. Have faith in my strategies, hm? They’ve all gone so perfectly thus far.”
A desire returned to the princess—a desire for blood. Luna could feel the hatred charging through her spine and into her skull; it would be all too easy.
Chrysalis could see the anger growing by the slight movements of her face. “Ah, but before you do that, Luna, I think you should know the consequences. Changelings aren’t particularly smart creatures, you see—they have minds, but they need me to do most of their work for them. That being said, I choose very specific things to tell them.”
Luna furrowed her brow.
“For example, my subjects, at this current moment, have two directives. First, they’re going to deal with the invaders who are so foolishly going to try ‘chasing us’ into a cave system. Then, they’re going to circle back to Equestria. Now, what they do when they arrive is up to me, but if I am silent, they’ll just kind of follow whatever whim carries them, and let me tell you now, after having just slaughtered your armies, they’ll be a bit riled up. Do you understand?”
Luna’s hate melted. She dropped her head again.
“Good girl. Now, we’ve got things to do in Equestria before they arrive, so can I count on you to play nicely?”
A tear dropped from Luna’s face into the golden earth. Between the fear and shock, she had barely the strength to find breath. “Do I have much an option?”
“That depends. How many do you want to die?”
Luna never responded. She had only the energy to sit and watch emptily as the queen watched the skies. Her partner, the unicorn, looked as though he wished to sit beside his princess, but he lacked the courage.  
Had she not the aegis of her resolve, she would have never left Canterlot. She would have never felt the duty, and she would have stayed in the shadows of her own safety.
But things were not so merciful towards the wayward princess…
…nor had they ever been.


> Migration
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Luna kept huddled in the corner of the cabin; shadows and silence—they stood honest when all else failed her. They were her only true allies in the world of light and illusion—noise and chaos. She’d left herself vulnerable—she’d allowed unjust virtue take hold of her, and for it, Equestria would pay in blood.
Forced into the brink and given the choice between two greater evils—the chains of desperation already tugged at Luna’s throat. To give into the queen was to let her people be left in lies and sociopathy, but to resist meant risking the greatest possible devastations. Her country, her sister—all would be left to an unchecked flame; there would be no dawn—no light at the end of the tunnel for her or her country.
But was it really any better than what they’d be given in mercy? That was contingent upon the truth from a perfect liar—hardly anything to place the fate of lives upon. What hope had remained in her was swept into the reaches of her parasite’s grip.
The end was coming, and all she had to hold her was the knowledge that it was all her own.
Luna curled tighter into the corner, ignoring the stares of the tawny stallion. She let her thoughts think only of the shallowest of feelings: the faint rocking of the carriage as it rolled over dirt and stone or the feeling of splintered wood against her face. It was all so plain—so empty. Not even the sun had the strength to break her bond—so warm her frigid skin.
The stallion watched her suffering, silent. Neither Equestrian had spoken for hours; no words could bridge the gap between the two wayward souls. One, the subjected, had already given his being to the parasites influence, while the sufferer still let her wounds bleed out—blind, enraged, and lost in the depths of her own desperation.
But he knew that they were closer. He knew that they both wanted the same thing to happen.
“She’s going to lose. I know she is.” The stallion edged slightly closer to the princess, but kept his eyes locked in front of him. “I’ve seen her at her best, and believe me, she’s biting off too much.”
Luna remained locked in her reclusion.
“You know, a short while ago, I never even knew you existed. Sure, I knew about your sister and the Nightmare, but never had I even once imagined that you’d returned.” The Stallion tapped his hooves quietly against the frame of the carriage’s cabin. “But once Chrysalis told me about you, I instantly felt a connection to you.”
Luna shuddered slightly at his words, but still offered him nothing.
The stallion frowned. “No, no, I don’t mean it like romance or anything. I just—well—think that we could learn a lot from each other, or at least I could learn something from you. That’s all.”
The words fell again on deaf ears. The princess did not whimper or cry or mourn. She was simple silent—nothing more or less.
“My entire life, I’ve been trying to find out what’s wrong with me,” the pony sighed, “I don’t know if it was the way I was raised or if it was the books I read, but I feel like I’ve spent my entire life pounding a puzzle piece into the wrong place. I’ve always carried these—well—interests, so to speak, that no one else seems to share.”
The princess twitched. Her ear lifted, if only for a moment.
“From the beginning, I’ve always had a sort of dream—for heroes and villains and for raw, brutal emotion. All those normal fantasies—the money and the sex and the fame—have all evaded me. Back when I was still a student, all the colts would be talking about their talents and their jobs, I stood back and watched.”
“Well,” the princess muttered, under her breath, “why do you think I can help you?”
The stallion paused, as if to reorganize his thoughts. Then, with a slightest hint of desperation, he whispered, “You’ve lived too long to care about the physical stuff, haven’t you?”
Luna grunted.
“Well, how do you deal with it?”
The mare turned around, eyes bloodshot and aggravated, and pushed herself up onto the chair across from her companion. For a moment, she was silent; the two just watched each other, looking straight into one another’s battered features and dying emotions.
“Well?” The stallion prodded.
“Well what? What do you mean by ‘how do I deal with it’?”
The unicorn shrugged, still expecting an answer.
Luna responded with a curt sight. “If you must know, I don’t deal with it. I let it get in the way, and I let it pollute everything about me. But then again, you already know that, don’t you? That’s how we got here, isn’t it? It’s just—”
“Stop.” The stallion shook his head. “Luna, the only thing you’ve done is act by compassion. The queen... well… she’s a narcissist and merciless and there was nothing you could have done to avoid her. I’m sure she had a thousand other plans that have brought me to this same place. She would never have left her lynchpin to something so specific—so incalculable.”
The cabin rattled as the wheels rolled onto a fresh dirt path. Wherever they were headed, they were getting close; the sounds of civilization just barely bled through the wooden frame. And all too quickly, the thoughts of depression rolled through her head; Luna bowed once more, only barely holding back the tears.
“Luna, look at me,” her companion demanded. “Look at me!”
The princess shot the boy a glare before sinking back into shadow.
“Luna, we’re going to get out of this, alright? We both want the same thing here. If we didn’t, we sure as hay wouldn’t be talking to one another right now. We can still fix things—just you and me.” The stallion placed his hoof on Luna’s shoulder; she could feel his joints tremble with excitement. The princess could see a spark in his eyes—a desire that had been cast away by years of silence and deceit. “Can I trust you to help me? I can’t do this alone—I just can’t—so can you promise me that you’ll finish it, even if I can’t?”
Luna cleared the weariness from her eyes.
She looked down at the briar necklace and the changeling blood that still stained its surface in an soft violet.
And she opened her mouth.
“I promise.”
The stallion’s eyes lit up. “Are you sure? You know she’ll—“
“I’m sure.”
And then Luna smiled.
And she felt the warmth of the sun again as it crept through the woodwork.  
Perhaps she might even have said that there was hope again.
--~~--
It was nearly midnight before their carriage finally came to a stop. Chrysalis, who had spent the day under the façade of a royal lieutenant, hopped from her position at the head of the vehicle and dismissed her changeling crew.
Luna could only barely hear her shouting through the woodwork, but from what she could tell, one of the wheels had shattered in their final moments of travel, which would leave the carriage in unusable condition.
Of course, she paid very little mind to the queen’s ramblings: the companion was a master of stories—a true poet. In the darkness of their enclosed cabin, the two shared their memories and their sufferings, hoping to reflect upon each other and to find comfort in mutual understanding.
She learned that the stallion had existed as a sort of training dummy for the parasite, helping her hone her craft in the realm of manipulation and, more specifically, toxicology. Chrysalis was an artist as any other and needed constant feedback to be sure that her craft was well-managed and truly ingenious, which, in an odd sense, left Luna with a feeling of relief. It didn’t particularly change her situation, per say, but it did tell her one thing: Chrysalis was not unreachable—she had her weaknesses hidden back somewhere in her twisted skull, but they still lie dormant.
She also learned that the stallion had spent a significant amount of time in one of her feeding chambers, which, as he described, meant that he was isolated with an image of his lover. When Luna asked about her, the unicorn changed the focus to her own past, so she told him about the nightmare. She told him about how she’d lost herself to the corruption in ways that still rested at the back of her conscience, and she talked about the millennia of silence she’d endured.
When the wheels of the carriage finally came to a sudden, jolting halt, the two felt strangely at ease. For their entire lives, they’d held thoughts and ideas back—repressed them for fear of judgment and castigation—but here they’d finally let go of those blood-kept secrets. They spoke openly of their characteristic weaknesses, and of how they had always searched their entire lives for something only describable by the term ‘greater’.
And even with thousands of years difference between the two, there remained plenty of common ground for them to grow upon—to think upon, and to reflect upon.  Whether philosophical, emotional, or simply factual, the pair shared any detail about themselves that could prove—nobly and truly—that they carried the same intentions.
“So, what’s it like, then?” he asked.
“What’s ‘what’ like?” she returned.
“Immortality, Luna—never having to worry about sickness or time or any of that. What’s it like?”
Luna thought to herself, struggling to piece together the perfect way to describe it. “It favors the individual.”
The stallion tilted his head slightly askew, batting his eyes in confusion. “Care to elaborate?”
“I mean it’s a very fickle thing. It’s funny: I’ve had plenty of time to think of a way to paint it, but I can think of no other way. Endlessness in a world of ends is a very singular sort of thing.” Luna paused. “I’ve lived my entire life around my subjects, from their moment of birth to their final hours and those bloodied, tired breaths. I often find myself in the situation that I know far more about somepony else’s heritage than they do. I’ve known our ancestors, and I’ve known the ancestors of those ancestors. Still I remain.”
“Interesting,” the unicorn replied, staring in awe as the mare’s eyes lit in a torrent of both suffering and joy. “Do you ever wish that you could be normal—like me?”
Luna grit her teeth for a moment before responding. “Sometimes, when I come upon the realization that I too must end, I wish that I could have the pains of nature. Every day, I live knowing that my only possible end comes by the hand of murder: in agony, absent mercy.”
“Hm. So, how far would you go to avoid death?” The stallion stopped, as to listen to the voices outside the carriage. Chrysalis had evidently given up on the wheel and would be cracking the cabin open any minute. The unicorn dropped his voice to a low whisper. “Is there anything in this world that could convince you to give it all—the final sacrifice?”
Luna opened her mouth, as if to say something, but was caught off guard. The mare retreated into silence, thinking again and again of that intrepid phrase: the ‘final’ sacrifice. Something about it was sticking to the sides of her mind—the ‘final’ sacrifice.
There was a scratching at the back of the carriage.
The stallion looked to her with nervous eyes. “We’ll talk more tomorrow, OK?”
“Of course. We need to—“
Luna stopped.
Something was grumbling just beyond the wall—metal twisted in place.
The back of the carriage flung from its hinges, rocketing off into the road. As the dust cleared, a familiar lieutenant poked its head into the cabin.
The parasite scanned the room with a smile. “Enjoy the trip, princess? I hope you’ve had time to gather yourself.”
Luna glared at the false lieutenant before shrugging in ambivalence.
For once, Chrysalis actually looked surprised. For a moment, she was without words. “Good! Good, good! You’re uncaring—I like that.”
“Just do whatever you need to do, and I’ll try to reciprocate, your majesty.” Luna pushed through the gaping emptiness that had once been a wall. The mare dropped into the dirt before looking up into the familiar windows.
“Ponyville? Why are you—“
The parasite slipped her hoof over her mouth. “Silence, please. We don’t need anyone seeing you, hm?”
Luna shot the queen a second glare but fell mute. She was far too distracted by the town, anyway. For some reason, Chrysalis’ plans began here—of all places! Luna looked up into the night sky; her sister had dressed the stars tonight, which, as characteristic of Celestia, left hundreds of stars suspended in the sky. Indeed, the arrangement had left the streets painted in starlight.
“Here! There is something called ‘tact’, princess.” Chrysalis stood at the door of the nearest building, which, of no surprise, was an inn. The stallion made paces between the door and the carriage, snagging their cases from the top of the cabin and hurrying them inside. “Well? Are you just going to stand there? I have your key.”
Luna remained in the center of the road for a few more seconds, struggling to piece together the queen’s intentions. Surely it had something to do with the elements, but beyond that, what was there? The princess eventually shuffled out of the road and into the inn’s porch, but still there remained a worry—a worry of unknowing.
Chrysalis simply stood there, tapping her hooves against the steps. “Any minute now, princess. That is, if you’re not having second thoughts.” The parasite wiggled the key in the mare’s face.
Luna, who lacked the energy to toy with the queen’s sarcasm, opted to help the Stallion carry the bags.
“So you’re going to be the help too, huh, princess? Well, I’ll leave your key here, then. You’ve got room twenty-one.” Chrysalis began backing through the doorway, but stopped suddenly. “Oh, and the innkeeper is already asleep, so do your best to keep quiet, hm?”
Luna gawked. “So you think we can simply break in?”
“Oh, of course not, Luna. That would be absolutely immoral, right?” The queen cocked her head. “Don’t worry yourself about it, hm? Have faith in my ability for once.”
Luna made sure the queen was well out of range before releasing her breath.
The stallion stopped beside her, suspending the last of their luggage above his head. “I want her dead. I don’t care how—I just want to be there.”
“Wait, friend. We’ll—“
The stallion smirked. “You don’t know my name, do you?”
Luna froze.
He only laughed.
 “Barlowe. My name’s Barlowe.”
 


> Past, Present, and Future
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Amongst his things, his memories, and his lies, Barlowe stared out from his second-floor window.
He saw children running in the street, playing with each other and laughing as though they’d never known the fate lying beyond those distant mountains. He saw their parents, who watched over them with a certain gentle touch, carrying on with the same joy as their kin.
Was it so easy to forget?
Was it so easy to ignore how quickly everything might turn against you?
Barlowe turned to the nightstand beside his bed.
There, laying in peaceful silence, a picture remained.
He had remembered the day they took it: Spring had brought him out to the meadows below the golden hills. They had brought a camera with them, but in his own joy, he’d forgotten the extra film.
They had one picture between them, so they’d spent the entire days scouring the meadows for the perfect shot, even into the early hours of the evening. Their clothes were stained green, and their faces were burnt with the heat of the sun, but in those last few hours, they found their place.
There was a river crossing through the meadow—one that ran perfectly clear, unaffected by the distractions around it. The pair climbed into the muck, smiling and laughing with one another, even with those last final moments before the shot.
It was the one shot that he believed captured the true beauty of Spring: it was not her hair or her eyes or any of that, but in the way that she would always stand beside him, even in the misery of the summer sun.
They never argued—the two of them. If it could come between them, they cast it aside as unimportant, even if it meant betraying their own passions.
That was when he knew that she was made for him—that such a thing as love was far too personal to take lightly—that, in the end, it didn’t really matter to him if whether or not he was rich, but that he felt fulfilled and loved and important.
Spring had given him the world, and he’d thrown it all away.
Barlowe twisted the blinds and looked further down the dirt road. Down on the corner of the street, an ice cream parlor was serving to a young couple, presumably just out of school.
He could see their happiness—their contentment—and in it, he could see her again—Spring, standing alongside him.
Anger rushed into his heart; the stallion slammed the blinds shut and returned to his place at the desk beside the bed.
Images of paradise flooded his skull as he attempted to push the inevitability from his head. He imagined Chrysalis walking through the doorframe, smiling as always, but this time, in genuine compassion. He imagined looking straight into her eyes and seeing, for once, a glimmer of hope for him and his “twisted” view of love.  
Then she might grant him merciful payment, and he could retire again into joy with the only pony he truly loved.
All would be calm. They would be able to return to their peace and forget about everything else. The changelings would leave them alone, and everything would be as it should. Everything would be as it should have been.
Barlowe pushed his head against the desk.
“How it should be.”
--~~--
When Luna opened her eyes, it came without morning.
That’s not to say that the sun wasn’t rising. She had, in fact, awoken at the apex of “morning”: that moment when the sunrise just barely creeps through the shutters, casting a wayward beam upon her face—bringing her out of the shadows of unconsciousness back into the world of color and warmth and fraternity.
But that didn’t happen.
Rather, she was left empty. Luna opened her eyes without any sort of rested yawn or comfort—without goals or thoughts of what she would do.
She simply stared up at the ceiling and waited, thinking about the end of the world—expressionless.
Each minute crawled by, coming into hours and then into days, but she did nothing.
The parasite brought food, but she did not eat.
The parasite brought water, but she did not drink.
For each time that those jade eyes met her own, she felt a sharp sickness within her. It did not bring pain or weariness, as other sicknesses, but it instead festered into the very core of her being. Her emotions ran dull—dried out by over-use and mismanagement. Her senses spoiled under the heat of her own anger, which, in its final desperate pleas, clinged to the image of her final dreams.
There, in the center of Canterlot, the parasite hung by the very chains she had cast upon Equestria. All would be silent as Luna would look up into the rafters—as those envied eyes slipped into the dark. And she could feel the slight trembling within her bones—the graceful horror—as the last remnants of the corruption burned into nothing. There, the body would remain as her testament to Equestria: that the night is not a monster, but of true, everlasting beauty—that the night could show them the worlds that live beyond them, and how they can find comfort, even under the immense bleakness above them.  
That was her dream.
And no realm of sleep could bring her such a beautiful fallacy.
When Luna opened her eyes, it came without morning. No, the sun still set upon Equestria, ticking slowly down until at those final moments in which the flames would rise and the warmth would die.
Chrysalis was the night, and the morning after was uncertain.
Luna looked up into the plain, dry ceiling of her room, counting all the gashes in its pale cover.
The night was coming, slowly and naturally. The fires surrounding her would soon rise from nothing, igniting her in a golden blaze so that she might end as gloriously as she had lived. Chrysalis was simply playing her time, waiting until those final moments when Luna would give everything to her at will, if only to beg for the mercy of death.
And it was then that Luna realized something.
She was without desires.
For a moment, she let the thought drift through her mind. She thought back to what Chrysalis had said and back to the reasons of her failure. She thought back to the insanity that composed the sociopath and what it was inside her incalculability that let the queen drift between shadows.
Luna looked down at herself and the covers. She saw a weak body, fighting against thirst and starvation, unwilling to fight on. She saw her skin shivering under the cold of her own ignorance. She saw a bloodied, briar tie around her neck that remained spattered in the blood of the changeling.
She saw a mare broken of convictions and limits, placed within a system of absolute chaos but given the strength to thrive.
She saw a sociopath waiting in the darkness, prepared to unleash itself against the enemy in a game of willpower and death.
There was no Equestria anymore—that name belonged to an idea that had run its course in time.
No, there were only two things.
There was the parasite…
…and then there was her.
Everything she’d lived for—from the earliest of her childhood to this very moment of desperation—had been put up for this one match.
It was her and the other.
She was beaten, but she’d recovered from worse.
And here she lay, recounting her thoughts and her strategies and her experience so that the next battle would not be its last.
Two souls stood opposite each other.
Every thought, every experience, and every emotion—they had all built up to this one point: the moment when one continues and the other is brought to nothing.
She’d been preparing for this as long as she’d lived.
Two souls stood opposite each other with the desire to prolong themselves in a tournament that neither could truly win. They both knew that, in the end, one would sink into the dreaded nothing: the ultimate end of existence and thought. What they were would be destroyed—their memories and preparations left to nothing.
It was the gamble that everypony has been putting up stake for: the one true game that made life.
Live.
Or die.
She would have to be fast—certain and decisive.
She would have to know her enemy more personally then she knew herself. She would need to know where to counter fire with water, and where to allow her strengths to push, just as where to defend herself.
The game wasn’t a true gamble: each experience stood as a playing piece, and each thought, a play.
She would have to adapt—to change herself from the mare that the enemy knew into a very different sort of creature.  She would have to go out of the bounds of her character, cutting apart her love and hope and rationality. She would have to destroy the image of Luna—thoroughly and completely—so that none might ever follow its tracks or know its place in the world.
Here, in this final bed, the final remnant of Luna would be cast away, into the bowels of her memories, perhaps never again to see the light of dawn.
And with one hoof on the blood of the choker, Luna pushed herself from the covers.
She allowed herself to eat and drink and to take of the generosities that the other had prepared for her in this deathly battle neither player desired to participate in.
She allowed herself to look in the mirror and into the battered face of the mare she used to know, so that she might look upon her new self and mouth that last, foul word before coming at odds again with her opponent.
She spoke of a word that both knew personally—a word that signified the nature of their very place in this world.
“Changeling.”
--~~--
Chrysalis had heard the whispers around town, but was somewhat skeptical of their weight.
Of course, she did have something to worry about then, didn’t she? Someone had seen Luna getting out of the carriage, but from the sound of the town’s banter, no one particularly believed them. Sure, some ponies were lurking about the inn, hoping to catch a glimpse, but none lasted more than thirty-or-so minutes before disappearing back into the noise of the crowds.
No, it was nothing to worry about. Perhaps she could pursue the rumors to their source some time, but it wasn’t really necessary, nor did she desire the added work. The Equestrians were, after all, remarkably dull creatures with attention spans lasting no more than that of any other animal.
Either way, they were going to have plenty more to talk about in due time.
Chrysalis tossed her bag under a park bench before dropping down right above it. The bench was something of a treat for her; every morning, she would come down from the inn to watch the ponies struggle with their trivialities.
“Oh, my hair has gone flat.”
“I had to skip breakfast to catch the train!”
“Do you think she’s talking bad about us behind our backs?”
All their social poisons had rendered them blind to the actual nature of their suffering—the actual reason why they bothered to form a civilization in the first place. Their ignorance was almost sickening—it was the true face of stupidity.
But still she felt a bit of curiosity. What might it be like to exist with a mind uncaring of the future? Her particular skillset was built to preserve such ignorance, but every so often, she would let the thoughts boil in the juices of her contemplation. From an outward perspective, the ponies were somewhat bred for their captivity, but what would she see in herself if the same curse bit into her?
The thought was poison; Chrysalis pushed it away for some other time—perhaps one that wasn’t built for her relaxation.
The queen pulled her bag back onto her lap before tearing at the paper. Underneath, a slight glow revealed itself in the darkness.
“Oh hello, you! Are you ready for your big day?” the queen cooed.  “Let’s make this a good one, hm?”
Though the bag did not respond, many of the bystanders were caught off guard by the lieutenant’s babbling.
Chrysalis looked up from her treasure to catch the watchers with a grin.
“Has anyone told you that the end of the world is coming?” she laughed. “The changelings have already begun to poison our food!”
A murmur rose from the dozen or so wide-eyed simpletons that had hoarded to her like rats upon cheese. One surly colt pushed his way through the crowd to speak directly: “Can we help you home, sir? You seem—“
“Distant? Oh yes, quite! It’s the poison, you see!” Chrysalis swung from joy to despair as the last word chittered from her mouth. She stuttered each line—rasping and coughing and cackling with insanity. “It’s undetectable—it’s like nothing we’ve ever seen before. The doc says I need the water, but, between you and me, I think that guy’s an… an...”
The crowd backed away as more bystanders surrounded the disoriented guard.
Chrysalis caught herself in a stare with one mare. “Do I… Do I have a fever? I feel hot. I feel sunburnt—hot, hot. Take my temperature, please, I’m sick.”
The mare pushed back into the crowd and disappeared.
“Look into my eyes, ponies. I am the end—the end, the end, the end of things!” The parasite’s eyes flickered between red and gold and blue and silver, shifting as wildly as her thoughts would allow. The crowd’s murmurs had morphed into cries and fear and senselessness. “This is the end of it all!”
The crowd burst into chaos at the final word, dashing about in patterns only logical in fear. Of course, the queen was too busy enjoying herself to notice their screams; it had all been so easy. Something had told her that these particular ponies were a nervous bunch. No doubt they’d be regurgitating her performance all over the town, hopefully picking up on the right points. Hopefully, the apocalypse would have settled upon the town by midnight.
Of course, she wouldn’t be able to enjoy her place at the bench anymore, but those times were done. The machine was already in motion, and she couldn’t possibly stop it.
Chrysalis looked up into the rooftops and smiled.
What’d she know about plumbing and water treatment?
Well, it couldn’t be too complicated, could it? At worst, she’d find some dimwitted engineer to handle her toxin. Perhaps she could run it off as a cure to this terrible disease? Yes, that’d surely work.
Just as silently as she’d come, the queen walked out of the park, chanting and screaming those last bitter words.
“I am the end! I am the end!”


> Break
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Darkness loomed.
The sun had just begun to dip into the horizon, but the chaos of Ponyville had yet to lose its momentum. Chrysalis had done it—she’d lit the spark that burned upon the trail of doubt and fear that had been crawling forward day after day. They knew it was coming: from the first whispers of Luna’s departure, dread had sown its seeds within their hearts. Weeks passed; her trail slipped away into the wind. Days grew colder, and the nights longer.
Denial and repression came upon the Equestrian people, sweeping from mind to mind, offering smiles and warmth at the cost of truth. Walls and locks were built to protect them from the reality shifting and swirling around them—that the immortal, the spirit that watched over them in the darkness, had fallen from its pedestal.
Luna glanced through her window.
So, this was the end, was it?
The streets sat empty; the clouds had all but drowned the color from the sky.  No doubt, the ponies were hiding within their home, clamoring to whatever manner of sanity they had left. What had it taken to topple the things she’d spent a life constructing? Revelation? Slaughter?
Soreness grew along the Princess’ temples.
Here she was blundering on about history while carelessly ignoring its purpose. No, the parasite had to want something for all this work, right? She had to be working towards some goal—something significant and truly world breaking. The silent terror drifting through Ponyville was, at worst, a dilemma to the town, but the Queen would have never spent so much time bothering with something so minor. It had to be greater: Chrysalis had to be targeting something—something particular.
The Elements?
The lovers?
No, those were all branches that she could pluck upon a whim—this had to be something powerful—not a weapon, but a wielder of weapons.
Something immortal.
Luna shut the blinds and sunk back into the darkness, weaving into the empty space between the desk and her bed. The mare ducked her head beside the counter, allowing the briar necklace to slip from her throat and roll onto the withering surface. For a while, she could only stare at the thing: even through the weeks, it still carried the same strength as it had when she first tore it from the changeling’s wounds—it still carried that glimmering stain.
Then she heard the noise. It was as she expected: the floors creaked every night at just the same time. A shiver graced her skin for but a mere moment before settling back into the recesses of her psyche: the time had come.
Luna spun around and dropped onto the cot. A burning sensation flared within the flesh just below her eyes; the princess dug herself into her covers as she screamed wildly into her pillow. She screamed again and again—until the burning spread from her tear-spattered face unto the very depths of her lungs. All the misery, from the loneliness to her failure, bled through into one rattling howl.
The rattling in the floorboards crept up through the bed’s legs and into her bones. Windows trembled in their frames; the door shook upon its hinges, blending with the scream and the cacophony to make one final symphony of absolute desperation.
Of course, Luna heard none of it; emotion had seized her, breaking her of any thought other than those of her past. She pooled her failure, her hatred, and her violence into one bloodied torrent. Repressed images blast from their shackles at the back of her psyche, punching holes in her own miserable excuses. She could feel the surging inside her—the brokenness of her thoughts and the final, bitter end to her being.
And just as that last bit of herself began to slip into the shadow, she grabbed hold of it.
The princess stopped, and silence returned to the cozy inn.
“Mmm…I knew you were on the brink, but I hadn’t expected you to go so early,” the voice crowed. Luna could feel the gaze on the nape of her neck—a constant heat. The room was, for a moment, taken by the sound of movement—the sound of hooves tapping along the wooden floor, as though circling prey. “I feel somewhat turned off by not having seen it firsthand, but I suppose I deserve that, all things considered.”
Luna twisted her head from the pillow. Tears rolled down her face, barely cooling the heat that had grown behind the princess’ cheeks. Breath had left her; the mare could only stare as her parasite lay a covered plate on the foot of the bed.
“There, there, princess. You tried—I know you did.” Chrysalis smile dampened into a look of genuine sympathy. The queen sat beside the food as if to comfort her prisoner; her iris grew larger, more inviting, and the marks upon her skin began to fade. “If it means anything, you’ve been a capable opponent.”
Luna grimaced before digging her face back into the covers.
“Now, listen. As much as I loathe you, I want to spend some personal time with you—just this once, alright?” From beyond the blankets, Luna could only barely hear the sound of wine as it trickled from the bottle. She heard the sound of metal banging against metal—silverware against plates—and the crackle of broken bread.
She heard a slight humming—a faint tune from her childhood.  
Luna looked up once more to see the spread—there was more food than she ever could have thought to come from that one plate. There were succulent jams beside muffins and biscuits and other treasures. There were pitchers of wine, both white and red, resting upon the shoddy, sullen desk. There was even a single lit candle—breaking free from the darkness of the princess’ isolation—hovering beside the bed.
Chrysalis waited from across the bed, watching with great blue eyes.
The queen cocked her head. “Does it help you forget? If not, I can always—“
“No, it’s fine. It’s just strange,” Luna replied, her voice still rocking with uncertainty. “So, you’ve come to kill me, then?”
Chrysalis shook her head, “No, I’m afraid you’re too important to kill. The whole ‘raising the sun and moon’ thing would be a problem for me, at least until I’ve properly set up. You understand, don’t you?”
The two fell silent, merely gazing into each other’s eyes. For a moment, there was peace between them—no hate or mockery or plots—only mutual respect.
In the end, Luna looked down and opened her mouth. She took a breath, and returned her gaze.
“Yes, I think I understand… I think I do.”
“Good. I’m glad you do.”
Both dropped their stares, and, as if on cue, began to pick away at the spread of food that the queen had brought to them. Luna looked for some time amongst the various pastries and fruits before at last scooping out a variety of melon and a pair of warm blueberry Danishes; looking across the table, she saw that Chrysalis had gathered a mixture of berries and a peach, accompanied only by two slices of buttered multigrain bread.
To the princess, who had been without such luxuries for little more than a month, the offer was more than generous—it was an act of kinship. Those eyes—those gleaming blue eyes—stood as a shadow of the creature behind them.
It was then that she recalled a face.
“Barlowe—what’s become of him?” Luna asked in muffled curiosity.
Chrysalis turned from her food mid-bite. The slice of bread fell flat upon her chin, painting the parasite’s face in butter.
It was then that, in the strangeness of the situation, an unfamiliar feeling took hold of Luna’s heart. She remembered it once—a fickle thing, rarely stepping from the shadows to grant her its presence.
Humor.
The mare sputtered, dropping her fork back onto the plate. “And thus is why I regret to call you a ‘queen’.”
“Yes, well, I’m not exactly adapted to your sort of table manners.” Chrysalis wiped the grease from her face before eyeing the selection of wine. “I’ve been told these are fitting for royalty. Now, whether that’s true or—“
“The Syrah—pour me a glass, hm?”
The queen looked at the pitchers, dumbstruck.
“It was dark red with the picture of grapes, your majesty. The bottle is still sitting on my desk.” Luna shook her head with a faint smile. “Where’s Barlowe? I’ve played your little game of lock-up long enough that I deserve some answers, hm?”
“We’ll just say that he’s away—doing an errand, perhaps. I’m sure we’ll see him again in a few days—maybe after the fun starts.” The queen stopped for a moment, as though to calculate her next thought. After a moment of nothingness, the parasite shut her mouth and returned to deciphering the order of her wines.
Luna sank back into her bed, putting away the last of her pastries. “He’s an odd one—not particularly talented, at least as far as writing goes. Why do you drag him along? Certainly you’re more mobile alone.”
“He’s more of a resource than a partner, if you can understand that. I suppose you can think of him as… asset protection,” the queen mumbled, still enthralled by the several pitchers of indistinguishable wines. “Perhaps I might reappoint him to you—if you play your role, that is.”
Luna smirked. “Wonderful—just wonderful. Now I’ll have all the ill-conceived poetry in the world at my disposal, hm? You make for such a gracious partner, Chrysalis.”
The parasite’s ears perked up. For a moment, she said nothing—merely shifting her jaw in confusion.
“Partner, hm?”
Luna nodded. “Why, yes. Unless there’s something you’re hiding from me, I’d say that I’m in a rather demanding position, no? You’ve left very few options for me—I can respect that.”
“Well, haven’t you taken a turn? Just this morning, you wouldn’t say a word to anyone—let alone me. I’m actually quite flattered,” Chrysalis replied. Her voice was warm—warm unlike anything the princess had been exposed to before—inviting, even. “You know, for all the trouble you’ve caused me, I’m beginning to believe that bringing you along was the right choice.”
 “So I was replaceable all along? Enlighten me.” Luna scanned Chrysalis over once more, analyzing every fidget and twitch the queen would make.
“Well, I plan mostly as I go, see? The longer a plan becomes, the less mobility its maker carries; mobility is the one true key,” the parasite stressed.  “My plans—the ones I have now—were all contingent upon whether or not you played along with me.”
“And I did,” the princess added.
“Yes, well, you were somewhat of a grey-value, you see. As it turns out, some pony saw you entering the inn. I’m not sure who it was, but they don’t appear to be particularly trusted seeing as how very few actually bothered to stick around.” Chrysalis stopped for a moment to smell one of the wines before continuing. “Of course, most of the rumors have died out with the… well… recent events.”
Luna blinked.
“You see, something happened in the park this morning—something that got all the ponies talking about—looking for—a certain type of infiltrators.” The queen stopped, gradually turning her disinterest into her more common, cryptic smile. “Of course, that curiosity helped them off the emotional deep end. They quickly learned that there’d been a brawl at the pumping facilities—something about an unidentified agent being unloaded into the plumbing.”
“So, you’re poisoning them? Clever, but not particularly impressive. What else have you planned?” The mare pressed.
 “Well, as I’ve heard, the news only recently hit Canterlot, and, as always, the messengers’ fear has allowed it to be blown out of proportions. I wonder what Celestia will do when she hears about changelings overtaking the public utility’s defenses. It’ll be quite the show, though I doubt you’ll want to see it, hm?”
“Oh, what makes you so certain?” Luna cooed.
Chrysalis turned from the pitchers of wine. For a moment, she could think of no response—she hardly had time to even grasp the words.
Luna’s smile faded, as did her illusion of joy.
A light grew at the center of her skull.
Chrysalis twisted around, looking at the object of her magic, but was cut short by a gnashing at her throat. The briar necklace, which had lay dormant amongst the wine, dug into her neck before yanking her to the floor.
Chrysalis swung wildly, knocking the plates from the bedspread before slamming her head into the mahogany armoire; a sickening pop echoed through the room as the parasites jaw shifted out of place.
For a moment, she thought to scream—the parasite openned her mouth, but was caught by Luna’s stare. The attacker was now standing—walking across the broken glass and metal. Her eyes were unmoving—endlessly watching into the parasite chest.
A pitcher fell from the desk for a moment before crashing into the parasite’s muzzle, forcing it shut.
Luna still stared into her foe’s eyes—still coldly watching as blood flowed from around the pitcher’s rim—still watching as wine splashed from the screaming creature’s last choking breaths.
There were two knives floating beside her—the very two she’d lain out for their dinner.  
Thump.
The first wedged itself into her gut, sending her skull back into the wardrobe as she lurched in shock. There was a brief snapping noise, then silence. Chrysalis slumped forward…
…and collapsed amongst the mess of wine and food and torn metal.
Then silence.
Luna took a breath, closed her eyes, and let the second blade fall to the floor.
The necklace freed itself from the mess and found its way around the princess’ neck. Fresh stains of violet coated the thorns’ edges.
There she stood, watching the body for several minutes—unmoving, indecisive.
Never had there been a more silent death.
There were no screams.
There was no crying.
There was Luna and the product of her manipulations.
And she sat there breathing and watching and waiting.
And then she left.
The mare ducked out through the door, her face lasting without emotion. She walked in the silence of the inn, down the stairs, and out the door.
She knew where she was going, and who she would see.
And even though she had left the body on its own, she knew just was going to come of it. She knew her enemy well enough to say that the parasite was a creature bent of safety and self-preservation.
But understanding changed nothing. If she’d told the truth: if Celestia was going to the plumbing station, then there was only one option—she had to protect her sister, no matter the cost.
…
Back in the room, the body shifted.
The skin melted away, and the features became dull.
The queen’s irises faded to nothingness, and the flesh shrank and fell away.
When the metamorphosis had finished, there remained only the corpse of a changeling.
It was the first casualty of many.


> The Brink of Day and Night
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Luna took a breath.
There was a point in time that stood only as the brink: that moment when night and day are in primordial mixture, fighting between one another for the place above the dirt and muck and flame of their subjects. The heat of the sun still remained, but the shadows did crawl upon those last remnants of light with constant, inevitable domination.
Tonight was as any other.
The princess looked up into the skyward plane—she looked up into the greyness of the clouds. There was war just beyond it—she knew—but it did not show itself to her. She could not see the blood-painted daylight or the darkness that would consume it. She could not see the line between gold and black, where all faded together in one perfect entanglement.
All she carried the knowledge that, in the end, night would have to fall—not why nor how nor when, but it would.
So here she stood. The world fell silent: Ponyville had sunk into itself, leaving her to walk through the dusted paths and nameless alleys. There were only two players left: the princess and the parasite. They both knew one another’s character and pride and strategy. They both marched upon the same objective—the great climax. Here, the fate of their worlds would be written in blood—upon parchment of death and, in its ever-present light, sacrifice.
When would the night fall?
Luna pushed further in silence. She could feel eyes all around her, watching—yearning. They knew it too—they could see the burning inside her.
“When would the night fall?” they wondered.
The endgame sat restless upon the horizon: the pumping facilities ran silent. Luna traced the wide silhouettes through her mind. There, in the heart of the station, stood two massive silos. From a distance, she could not tell whether or not the facility was running or emptied: there were no moving shadows or muffled voices.
But even in the darkness, she could still see one oddity—one thing that punctured her as a spike. Outside the gates of the station, there stood a shadow that was all too familiar to her: Celestia’s chariot rested in abandon.
So, it had already begun, had it? The princess looked down at herself, then at the road that stood before her. There were not buildings beside her, nor trees to line the way—there was simply a path of dusk and emptiness that stretched forward unto the end. Here stood the second brink: the brink between civilization and the plain. Years of blood and sweat and toil had built to this very point where the world of ponies came to the border of untamed nature. Then there was the road—the long stretch of diluted Equestrian presence until that last entity of their creation.
So, this was the end, was it? She’d never imagined it to come so quietly—the end of the world. Here she’d lived with the imaginings of glory and battle, and yet none of it held under true.
The princess took a breath.
She began with one hoof forward then another—repeated again and again at the same beat. The dust crumpled under her hooves, and the wind rolled by. Nature gave her its final blessing: the sweet sounds of life as she walked unto the shadow. It offered her the peace to gather herself, but the sounds to comfort her.
And even in silence, she knew that there were others. There were others chanting their vows and dreams and hopes to the sky so that she might answer—they were begging for light in the brink of night and day.
The world stood at her back.
The princess’s mind cleared itself of fear and inhibitions.
And she continued on into the shadow.
--~~--
Blood and purity.
The mare stumbled through golden arches and upon the crystal floors, staggered by blood and sweat and fear. She was alone—defeated—limping and biding through the hallways of her own home. Her heartbeat sank into the depths of her senses, standing beside her pained breaths in the near perfect silence of Canterlot Palace.
She knew not why or how or when the end would come upon her, but here she stood upon the brink of light and darkness, dying inside familiar walls.
The silence descended upon her, and for a moment, there was an absolute peace. There was a moment where the worries of the world faded into nothingness, and she might nearly have forgotten the nature of her demise.
Betrayal.
--~~--
The facility was empty, at least from the outside. From the moment Luna passed through the broken gates of the pumping station, she was taken by silence—not a soul writhed upon the open dirt fields or upon the catwalks. The engineers had departed in abruptness—tools and cases lay open in the twilight air.
“Hello?” she called into the darkened windows, hoping that, in some manner of fortune, a guard would come out and greet her as she once was. Silly, perhaps, but there was nothing she wanted more than to see another of her kind.
“Sister? Are you there?” she called again, hoping that there might be one fragment of a response from the shadow. No, she was alone—that much she knew.
But what did this mean about her sister? Not a guard stood by the door, and there were none by her chariot. It was as though she’d come alone.
Luna swallowed hard.
She would never be that stupid, would she? No—it’s illogical. Celestia carried too much experience to even think of something so silly.
No, something was wrong—something was definitely wrong.
A chill crept into the back of Luna’s skull: there had to be something to help her—an unlocked door or an open window. There had to be something she could follow, right?
The princess looked into the courtyard once more. There were three buildings, all surrounding the massive silos in the center. Surely there’d be something in one of them.
What had once been walking became sprinting.
And as the doors remained locked, sprinting became soaring.
Luna circled every door—every window—until she at last came to a line of darkness that she’d first ignored. It was, at first, unsuspicious—nothing more than a mark on the warehouse’s aging walls.
There stood the divide.
There stood a hole, carved in the side of the central building—cut from heat and magic.
She’d seen something like it before.
She’d seen it in Canterlot, one month before.
--~~--
Hours passed, and the body remained still.
There were no guards to find her—no servants or keepers.
There she remained in the darkness of her home, bleeding and seething and crying—allowing her hopes to die within the shadow. She called too; she called out into the hallway, screaming for help and mercy, but returning with nothing.
Except once.
There was one moment, in the pitch of her misery, that she thought she heard something—the sound of hooves tapping against the tiles. It was dull at first—something she could have mistaken for the pounding of her heart of the chattering of her teeth that had come with her hemorrhaging. But it grew louder—closer—warmer.
A face emerged from the shadows.
“Help… me….”
The chef dropped her cauldron onto the tile, but did not move; she was paralyzed: caught by the darkest moment in her life.
“Y-You’re…” she stammered, gazing upon her princess’ wounds. There was a pause between the two—a moment where their eyes met and desperation leapt between the two. “I’ll… I’ll….”
“Help…,” The princess repeated, planting her hooves against the tiles. She pushed, but, for all her strength, her body remained stuck upon the ground. Still, she struggled to push herself inches forward.
The mare was still frozen.
A slight crackling noise echoed through the hall—the princess crumpled back into the floor. The bone had already broken, but she had resisted for so long—she had allowed it to build behind her, ignoring it until the very end.
And then the pain took her.
And color drained from her eyes; the world fell into darkness, and that she came upon the end.
It was then that the mare broke free—that she made the choice to overcome her shock and reach out to the one that needed her.
“Don’t do this!” She screamed, holding the body within her hooves. “Don’t… Don’t…!”
Heat drained from the princess’ body. The pounding within her chest began to give into the silence, allowing itself to become one with the nothingness.
“Don’t do this… please….” The mare sobbed, looking up and down the hallway, but bearing not the strength to leave the body. “They’ll… They’ll come for you… They’ll come….”
The mare looked into the shadows.
Silence and darkness surrounded them—they were alone.
The mare screamed out.
There was nothing.
The mare screamed again.
And again.
And again.
--~~--
Luna blinked. “Sister?”
Celestia turned, eyes wide.
“Sister, why’ve you come here?”
Celestia did not respond—she did not even open her mouth. For several moments, she simply stared into her sister’s tired, broken eyes. Even in the darkness, she knew her sister’s face—even through the pain that scarred it. “Luna….”
“Why are you here?” the princess demanded.
Celestia looked around herself. She looked upon the countless pumps and pipes and machines that rattled around her and into the red lights that cast their glare over the deepest levels of the pumping station. “Sister, you’re....”
Luna looked down from above, watching from behind a railing. Her breaths were shallow—struggled from sprinting down stair after stair. She’d descended for what felt like minutes on end, sinking deeper and deeper into an inescapable position underneath hundreds of feet of concrete and metal.
“We need to leave. Where are your guards?” Luna stared down into her sister’s eyes without mercy.
Celestia bounded from the pit of machinery, landing just beside her sister. Again, there was a pause—the two stared into one another’s eyes, gazing into the suffering that lay behind them.
“You’re tired, Luna.” Celestia smiled. Her eyes glistened with tears, and uneasiness took her voice. The princess leaned forward and embraced her sister tightly. “Welcome home.”
And for a moment, the worry melted—Luna forgot their place—her duty—and she took hold of her sister. There was nothing for her to say—nothing she wanted to say, rather, to spoil the moment of absolute joy. Never again—never again would she repeat herself.
And with that, she felt hope—she felt a chance that she might succeed—with her sister. As Luna struggled to break from the embrace, she realized that she too had begun to cry, and that her eyes burned with tears of joy.
And Celestia spoke to her in a whisper: “What’s wrong, Luna?”
“We’ve made a mistake—a terrible mistake,” she sobbed. “I don’t know if we can fix it—I don’t even know if we’ll make it out of this darkness—but, please, believe me.”
Celestia’s smile faded slightly, but her eyes still glowed with love. “I do, Luna—I always do. Just tell me what we’re up against. We’ll pull through—we always do.”
“Chrysalis knew you were coming… she knew all along…,” the younger trembled. “We’ve misjudged her, sister. She’s not like the others.”
Celestia turned to the stairwell. “Then we should leave. Did the lieutenant let you in on his own, or was it—“
Celestia stopped as Luna’s eyes had snapped wide.
“You brought guards?”
“Well, yes, of course. I wouldn’t have come alone, would I?” Celestia chuckled.
Luna stared at her, jaw dropped. For a while, Celestia just stared at her sister in confusion.
Then she understood.
“We need to leave.” Celestia marched to the stairwell and looked up. “Do you think we can fly up?”
Luna shrugged.
The elder continued staring into the blackness of the stairwell. “I don’t think I see anything—we might just be able to climb out of this.” The mare looked to her sister with a smile. “We’ll be—“
Luna saw the lights a moment before they hit.
The first struck into the concrete of the stairwell, sending rock and dust into Celestia’s chest. The princess looked down in confusion.
The second collided with the mare’s spine.
She winced but showed no pain other than shock. Celestia, in the last moment, looked up into the stairwell.
The third hit perfectly.
Celestia went down without resistance—no movement or staggering or howl.
She simply collapsed onto the concrete.
And Luna had only time to scream.
--~~--
“We need to get her back—help me carry her.”
“No, she’s hurt! Go get help and bring it to her!”
The voices screamed at each other the darkness. Help had come, but it was sparing—a lone servant had been wandering the halls in search of work when he’d come upon the princess and her protector.
“We don’t have time for that… and if we don’t do anything, she’s going to bleed out,” the boy shouted.
“If you break her neck, the cuts won’t matter… Go! Run!”
The stallion remained fixed in place. “I’m not leaving without her on my back. If we leave her here, we know what’s going to happen. We have to do something, OK?”
“…Fine. Just be careful—please….”
“Are you kidding? You take the back; I’ll support her neck.”  The stallion dipped under the body, pressing the Alicorn’s weight upon his shoulders. “Can you get her?”
The mare struggled to life the lower half of the princess upon her back, but once adjusted, the body remained in place. “Hurry, you idiot! Come on!”
The servant nodded and began marching down the hallway, taking special care of the princess’ weakened neck. The pair walked minute after minute, crawling through the darkness. They passed through hallways after hallway, leaving a trail of blood as they carried the alicorn over the crystal floors.
And when they at last crossed into the center of the hall, where guards had all stood at post, they were met with silence. Dozens of eyes watched down as the lowly two servants carried the body of their hero upon their backs—as they led blood stain their skin and crawl down upon their faces. They watched as the two stumbled, but did nothing to help, as fear had chained them to merely observe as the darkness washed upon the land.
“What happened?” one asked in the silence.
The servant looked up—he looked up from behind his gore-coated face—and came upon silence. He simply had nothing to say. He himself knew nothing of what happened. He had not heard the rumors of Ponyville’s water toxins or how Luna had been staying in an inn. Here, the servant merely knew what had been told to him, and what he had cared to hear.
Here, he had known nothing of what happened.
But he knew what it had cost.
--~~--
There comes a point when emotions exceed the capacity for the body—where expression ceases to do justice for the sheer brutal nature of a mind. Therein lays a world of fury beyond what can be possibly felt by a mortal soul: the fall of an eternal partner brought on by the lowest of parasites. Emotion came in the largest flame.
The power of her emotion was so catastrophic, it appeared to be silent: for if you could see it within her eyes, you would have already been consumed.
…
Luna carried her sister upon her back.
Her eyes were no longer stained by tears.
Her face was not torn of fear nor depression—her steps were solid and unyielding, progressing up the stairwell at the same, constant pace.
The changelings came. They stood in front of her—three ants come face to face with a god.
And she looked upon them, and she saw the un-nature in their eyes. She saw through the flesh and their bone into the very heart that pounded underneath the chitin.
She saw their hearts beating faster and faster while they returned with strikes of magic and flame that whisked off her skin.
The hearts beat faster and faster—stronger and stronger, as though coming to one final climax.
And then they stopped.
The changelings twitched and collapsed, all falling by the same form: the one they’d brought upon her sister.
Luna continued up the stairs, walking over the bodies, which melted into the concrete. Stair after stair, the same thing: the changelings continued to swarm her, falling just as soon as they came within range. There was a zone around the princess—one forged of absolute hatred—that stood impenetrable by those that had bled upon her.
They’d been shaping her for weeks—they’d been pushing and pulling on her hopes, breaking down everything that she’d stood upon. And through that suffering, she held onto fragments of herself—the few things she knew that she could never betray.
Her sister was one of them.
And they had come for her.
Luna climbed the final stair, coming to the center of the warehouse. Changelings lined the walls and floors. Their eyes watched without soul—staring down upon the sisters as though they were spoils.
Luna looked into the crowd just in time to see the oncoming flames.
They consumed her in flame—they cast all their power into her destruction.
And when it cleared, Luna stood there, watching—smiling.
“I see the fear.”
Within those creatures, she saw their lives ticking away. She saw the bones and muscle and blood that drove them like animals to slaughter defenseless prey. She saw the veins and the nerves and the spine—she saw the brain within the creatures’ skulls.  A pity—such marvelous potential consumed by nothingness and instinct.
Luna looked into the crowds, and they fell before her. Within their skulls, aneurysms grew from nothing—an immediate, spiking end to the world.
Bodies rained down from the sky.
The princess simply stepped over them, smiling as violet blood trickled down upon her face. She continued to the end of the room and stepped back through the burnt hole in the wall.
She could hear them chattering from the rooftops but kept her eyes locked on the ground. The mare walked into the center of the facility and came to a stop beside the silos.
“Luna! Over here!”
Luna twisted her head to the gate.
Barlowe stood in awe, a cart harnessed to his back. His eyes were trained upon the downed princess floating just above Luna’s side.
“Luna!”
The princess looked down at her hooves. The shadows around her began shifting—swirling underhoof. Luna twisted her head up to the sky: a cloud break cast the world in the day’s final golden color.
The changelings soared above her.
Hundreds.
Thousands.
The invasion Chrysalis had talked about—it had already begun.
Luna turned to Barlowe, who was now sprinting towards her.
“Luna, you need to give her to me. I’ll take her somewhere safe—I promise,” the stallion pleaded.
Luna still stared into the skies. Darkness had all but blotted out the remnants sun.
“They’ll come for you, Luna—I know they will. You have to give her to me, or they’re going to take you both out at once.”
The princess glared at the stallion then back at the silhouettes crossing through the sky.
“Just… trust me, alright?”
Chattering droned into Luna’s ears. The mare looked down to her partner and nodded, placing Celestia upon the cart before turning back to the skies.
“I’m going to Canterlot to see what I can to help. Promise me that you’ll come, alright?”
Luna snapped from shock and looked into her friend’s eyes. “Don’t wait for me.”
Barlowe laid a blanket over the body before stumbling back through the gates. With one last wave goodbye, the stallion pounded back upon the dirt road, sprinting back into the realm of civilization.
Luna watched until the cart was only but a speck in the distance.
So this was the end, hm?
The princess looked up into the rooftops. Every changeling placed its gaze upon her final stand—completely blind to the escaping cart. Perhaps it was by their own stupidity or Chrysalis’ desire to finalize her victory—it didn’t really matter.
All that mattered is that she would go spilling blood for the safety of her people. That’s all it was ever about right? From the very beginning to the very end—it was always about making one more kill before her dying breath.
She was without the emotional strength that brought her out from the darkness, but, then again, she didn’t need it. She wasn’t fighting in the darkness here—she was fighting in the brink: that last moment between light and dark, where day struggles for those last few moments of breath before sinking back into the shadow of night.
Here she stood upon the brink of civilization and nature—upon the dusty road between her country and the end of days.
Luna looked up into the swarm—into the surge—and felt the flicker of a memory return to her—the last of her voice.
“I will be quick; know that much.”
The mare pressed her hooves into the dirt, felt the hate surge from the depths of her heart, and pounded from the ground.
And in those last moments, she felt the warmth of the sun cast through the darkness and the invasion—she felt the final breaths of daytime before sinking into the shadow, and it pushed a certain strength into her heart.
In the precious last seconds of daylight, they would know what they’d been building—they would see the construct of their sins turn against them. They would know that one last truth before sinking back into the grave, where their parasitic blood could paint the earth in a glorious violet glow.
They would know one thing:
Luna, the night incarnate, was upon them.
--~~--
“Celestia? Are you OK?”
The alicorn opened her eyes.
“Oh, thank you—thank you!” The servant beamed, grabbed the nearby mare in his hooves. “We did it—we did it!”
The mare smiled, caught in awe by her princess’ presence.
Celestia shook her head before sitting up in the cot. She had awoken in an infirmary, her body bandaged and treated. She turned to the two servants—the stallion and the chef—and smiled. “You two saved me? How?”
“We carried you here ourselves, your highness,” the Stallion cheered. “We found you in a hallway, bleeding in the dark, so we brought you here!”
Celestia looked at the mare. “Is this true?”
“Mhm! We’d do anything for you, princess!” The mare smiled before returning to her silence.
Beside the two, a royal guard stood in silence, awaiting a peace to speak with her.
“Can you two wait outside for a moment?” Celestia asked. “I’d like to speak with my friend here in private, please.”
The two servants nodded before careening out the door, still overtaken by their success. Once safely out the door, the guard slammed it shut and turned to his commander.
The guard stared at her, “What are you orders?”
“Find Luna, lieutenant.”
The guard raised his eyebrow. “Is there any reason in particular?”
“Yes, lieutenant, I’d say there very well is.”
Celestia paused before turning her head to the window.
…
“She betrayed me.”
The guard stood at full attention. “Your highness?”
Celestia twisted towards the stallion. “You heard me clearly, soldier. She is the reason why I was overtaken in Ponyville. She lured me into the pumping facility so that she could cut me down—I believe Chrysalis has turned her against us once more.”
The guard stammered for a moment before collecting himself. “Are you sure, your highness?”
“Absolutely. I saw her shoot me—I saw her speaking to that parasite. We must throw everything we can against her before she returns to the Nightmare.” Celestia rolled over in the bed, facing herself completely toward the opposite wall. “Send everything we have to the lands west of Ponyville. This is now or never, soldier. We cannot bear to fail.”
The soldier was paralyzed in shock. “Everything, your highness?”
“Everything!  Now begone! I need to rest, Lieutenant.”
“Yes, your highness. We will gather everything we have and move to the lands west of Ponyville, just as you command.” The soldier bowed his head and found his way out the door.
Through the window, Celestia watched the lieutenant pace in confusion for a moment before finally deciding where to go. It’s of no surprise that he’d be so reserved in making the command—it was an entirely stupid one at that.
But then again, stupid was all dependent on how you classify the benefits.
Celestia smiled cryptically before sinking back into her bed.
“Such interesting little toys.”


> End.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

This was expected.
A cart rolled late through the cleared city streets. A young stallion, pale and staggered, tugged the line through a pothole before returning his gaze back to the ground. The boy’s face was scarred, burning red between fear and the bitter embarrassment seeping into the reaches of his mind. His steps were slow, calculated hobbles, though she could see that he was still had the strength to hold back a scream.
The watcher kept her eyes upon the stallion as he disappeared underhoof. She could hear the doors swing open followed soon by a shudder. There was the clatter of hooves and chitin—the slight grunt as a boy was pushed along—and then there was silence.
Chrysalis looked down at herself then back across the horizon. It was beautiful, really—the darkness in the sky. It was as though a great burden had been taken from her shoulders, leaving her here to float amongst the greyness and wonder: what was it? What was it that she had been running from all this time? There was nothing here—nothing she could see, at least—beyond those ebony clouds.
This was expected.
A sickening twist rolled through her chest before ousting itself in a sigh: emptiness. The parasite took one step closer to the edge of her perch. She could sense something here—something from the memories of that one mare. This was where it began wasn’t it? This was where the hero looked down at her hooves and felt something deep inside her to push her off the edge—to lunge out into that great darkness, the blindness—the unknowing.
The door behind her opened. Barlowe peeked in for a moment before slinking in through the doorway; his wounds were obvious and deep, but mere scratches to the gash within his heart—she knew him well. The stallion shuffled forward, turning back to the door as a pair of shadows dragged in an immortal.
Celestia remained motionless.
The changelings scuttled back through the doorway and shut it as they went, leaving only Barlowe and the parasite in the darkness. She said not a word. The stallion shook slightly, his eyes locked on hers, and hers to the city below.
Then she spoke.
“Barlowe. Why did you bring her here?” The parasite looked up—a gaze of deadened emeralds.
The coward struggled not to look into her, but whispered still, “Didn’t you—“
“No.”
The parasite turned back to the horizon, staring into the clouds. She could see the fires in the valley—the barricades and shimmering of crowds.  Could it have been that one of them woke up this morning knowing—knowing what was about to happen? Could it have been that one escaped, now staring back up at her from some tree line, now coming upon the realization that it was all so futile?
Another pause, then watching.
“And Luna….” She spoke slowly to him: she spoke in a voice he had not recognized amongst her many. It was genuine.
Barlowe shook his head. “She’s gone.”
“No….”
Chrysalis looked past the traitor into the body.
“Luna, you’ve come so far. Why give up now?”
Barlowe’s eyes darted nervously between the two powers. His voice trilled nervously, “Queen, that’s—“
“I know who it is. I knew from the moment you found her.” Chrysalis cut. “It didn’t work.” The two stared at each other until there was a brief sound: a shudder. The fallen god twisted slightly; its eyes flickered open, catching the parasite in the center of its gaze. Hate built within its heart as a heat rolled over the panels. The illusion began to fade, and the pearl coat turned to shadows; the eyes flickered between colors, and a rope of briars hung around its neck as a noose.
Chrysalis could not muster a smile. She merely turned back to the horizon before closing her eyes. “You should have traded places. Your friend is better at playing weak.”
“But you are the best, I hear,” Luna replied. The wounds vanished from her skin, leaving only those night-bound colors. “Now, will you keep running from us, or—“
The parasite shook her head. “I’ve stopped running, Luna.” She turned her head again; the fires below cast a faint glimmer upon that darkened face. “Do you think someone can live without fear?”
The princess cocked her head. “What?”
“Do you think that it is possible to live without fear—to not care about what happens?” Below them, a scream howled out—a running through the street and a return to hiding. Chrysalis watched an Equestrian slam their door. She listened for them crying inside. They would pray that she had not seen them. They would pray that the monsters would not come.
She could only turn away. “Well?”
Luna was now on her feet, whispering to her companion. Barlowe nodded for a moment then made a run for the door. The parasite did nothing to stop him; he shot through the door, jamming it shut before sliding the lock back into place.
Luna just kept smiling. “Are we afraid of you, you mean?”
“No. I mean to ask you if you are afraid of anything. ”
The princess sighed. “I’m afraid of a lot of things, but not you—you’re nothing but a thorn in my side.”
“I understand… I’ve been far too lenient with you. I’ve kept you sheltered—numb, even. You know that if I wanted you in pain that you would be in pain. You know that if you were to jump at me now, I would probably leave you alive, if only to use someone to keep the sun from killing us all.” Chrysalis kept her voice low, as though to tell Luna a secret. Her face was still when she spoke—her stare unyielding. “I know you’re not afraid of me, but why are you afraid of anything?”
There was a pause. The princess looked down, silent. She hadn’t thought of it before: fear has always just been an entity—a status. There was no question as to why she might be afraid of something, except for perhaps the obvious answer…
“Pain, correct?” The Queen eyed her hoof. A scratch, bleeding slowly—violet stained. “What else? Can you name another reason?”
Luna had thought of another: “Loneliness.”
“Loneliness? You mean, the feeling of dread the ponies get when they do not have someone to look over them? You mean, the fear of risking it alone when you know it’s much easier to do in groups?” Chrysalis rolled her eyes, as though the argument meant nothing. “Or do you mean that we can’t distract ourselves with groups of voices—things that keep us comfort and help us to forget the great darkness?”
“There’s more—“
The parasite stomped, lifting her head above the mare. “There’s nothing more until you can make an argument that there is. There is no argument you can make that I cannot dissolve—I have thought of them all.”
The rage faded, and Chrysalis receded back into herself once more, turning to the shadows along the horizon. “There’s nothing….”
For once, the parasite looked tired—truly tired, now. The spark that had once sat behind those eyes had died out; her skin was cold, stained with sweat and emotion. It was as though her body was killing itself, draining itself of energy until she would eventually be left to ash.
But the princess could not give mercy. She’d come too far. She’d seen too much misery to feel for the creature. And yet, she could not bear to take this opportunity—this one chance to silence a ghost. She would wait—she would wait and see, and perhaps still play along. Luna shrugged, “So, what does this have to do with me?”
“I know you. I know you are afraid of things—things like the end.” The parasite closed its eyes. “Even an immortal can fear the end.”
“You can’t just ignore everything, you know.”
Chrysalis bowed her head. “Of course I know. That’s the problem—that’s the big answer that has been staring me in the face this entire time: it’s impossible to avoid.”
Then the mare understood.
“Luna, what can satisfy this unquenchable thirst? What can feed my bottomless stomach? I’ve broken you and your sister—I’ve broken the demigods—and still I sit here waiting, undistracted and waiting for that greatest darkness. Nothing changed.”
Chrysalis opened her eyes; the colors faded.
“My life, and everyone else’s, has been lived for one purpose: to convince themselves that they aren’t waiting, or at least to distract them while they are. All the good things—friendship, wealth, popularity, heroism—they’re all just constructions that we love because they keep us from the pain. They keep us from the pain and the realization that nothing we do here—no matter how great or powerful or significant—can keep us from reaching that one day where we sink into the ground and become nothing.”
Luna stood frozen. Her eyes met the Queen's, and at last the two had an understanding: there were no enemies here—only two bits of dust floating about space.
Chrysalis shook her head slowly. “Listen to me, Luna. I am tired. The darkness within my mind is manifesting itself in a slow, bitter suicide. I want you to understand that I do not hate you, and I never have hated you: you were just a thing that I found hope in overcoming. Luna, there is no overcoming. There is no life strong enough to last forever. Eventually, neither of us will be remembered, and everything we will have done will be forgotten.”
The princess stepped before the parasite. She kneeled down, looking into the creature’s dying eyes, and she asked her the question: “what would you like me to do?”
The parasite looked up. “I want you to leave me alone…. I want you to go downstairs, and I want you to knock on every door, and I want you to tell them that it’ll be OK. It’s too late for me—there is no gain in continuing. But them, Luna… they have not yet realized these things. They will keep living, and they will feel happy. They can ignore the end that will no doubt come so that their little bit of life in this vast emptiness can be but a spark in the darkness.”
Luna was silent. She offered neither comfort nor hate—mercy nor vengeance. There was only their stare: a watch between two souls realizing that, no matter who could continue, neither would feel the sun again.
Minutes passed.
The two continued staring, until that parasite opened its mouth once more.
“Luna… please.”
“Yes?”
“Don’t let them hate me, Luna… a memory is all I have.”
But the princess said nothing. She could not possibly hold up such a promise—she knew the people would scream and cry against the monsters. There was no stopping it. Yet, she knew that it was irrelevant: it was for the comfort of the promise.
“I promise.”
Chrysalis smiled—not in pride, but comfort.
“Luna, can I ask you for one more thing?”
“Yes?”
“That necklace—can I have it?”
Luna looked down; the thorn choker still hung from her neck, stained violet by the blood of the changeling. “Why…?”
“Please….” The Queen’s eyes were glazed with death. Luna could not bother asking any further; the chain of thorns slipped away from Luna’s skull and found its place beside the parasite. The two again were left to stare until the Queen turned herself back to the horizon and shadows, ignoring the survivor.
The princess pushed herself up and backed out the hatch. She ignored the desk where she had left her letter, and she ignored the sounds of scuffling and motion behind her. She continued down the stairwell, down deeper into the darkness, and out through the gates below.
“Well?” Barlowe was sitting just outside, face wrenched with sleeplessness and misery.
Luna did not respond; her eyes were locked on the sky.
“What’re you….” Barlowe looked up into the observation post where Chrysalis had made her home. A silhouette now swung from the rafters; a chain of thorns connected to a long, tired body. Barlowe nodded. “Did you do that?”
The princess shook her head. “No… She did it herself.”
“Hm… I never would have guessed….”
Luna furrowed her brow. “No one could have. She was a deranged psychopath, and her world was far darker than even mine was. This was inevitable, whether or not I caused it.”
Barlowe nodded again, as though hypnotized by the swinging body. “Right…. Well, good riddance, I suppose.”
The two watched the body swinging for minutes on end before Luna spoke.
“Why did you do this, Barlowe? Why help me? Why stop her?” Luna looked at the stallion curiously. “She wouldn’t have hurt you, would she?”
Barlowe frowned. “She had to be stopped. I knew she had to—“
“But what difference has it made? Equestria is burning, and we don’t know how many are dead. You say that you found some ponies to take care of my sister, but what if they’re dead, hm?”
Barlowe’s face contorted in confusion. “Luna, are you OK?”
The princess didn’t answer. Her eyes were locked on the body swinging back and forth; a bit of light still trickled from the skies, casting a golden aura along the body. Here was the end she had been evading, but the parasite had jumped openly into it. No, she was no longer a parasite—she was a god. She had control of life and death, and only fell by her own choice of death.
And it was beautiful—truly beautiful.
It was beautiful in the way that her gaze aimed out into the blackened skies, but her eyes, now shut, blinded her to them. It was beautiful how the light bent around the body, showing its silhouette amongst a golden sky. It was even beautiful in the droplets of violet blood that rained down from above, trickling upon the battered city’s streets, leaving a deep stain upon the earth.
No, she would not be forgotten, nor had she deserved to be. In the end, she was smarter—she was wiser—than everyone, and this wisdom led her to the only known conclusion: to end the lies and distractions and to jump into fear.
She was the hero.
She overcame the fear.
And even though her heart was blackened, what had it mattered? Good, evil—what difference had they really made?
No, this was beauty—this was bravery and repentance for a life of constant deceit. This was a life built entirely for this moment: for the moment when it would end. There was no story more true, no struggle more dreadful: Chrysalis had been the life of the story. She was the Changeling that lived through the murder attempts while she came to realize the truth about her life: that it would always end. She had no immortality or wealth, but she used her mind and the tools at her disposal.
She overcame two ambivalent leaders who did not seek the truth as she did, and, in the end, she defeated them. She deserved to take her spot on the throne. She deserved to—
“Luna.”
She turned from her thoughts. “Yes?”
“We should go.”
“Yes, we should. Take me to Celestia.”
The two shuffled back into the streets, speechless. Every few moments, they would turn back to look at the body as it swung amongst the golden sunlight.
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
Again.
And again.
And again.


> Epilogue
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The two sat across from one another in silence.
A spread of grains and fruit lay between them, resting untouched; both stared at one another, knowing that they could not possibly avoid it: they had to talk about it now before the truths began mixing and flowing amongst fallacy and mere perception. Some parts of the story were still untold—still fragmented and separated. There were parts that Luna never wanted to remember. There were parts that she wished she could remember but forgot all the same. The whole thing felt like a dream now—felt like  a long, twisted sleep, which had never really ended.
Still though, Celestia needed to know.
“Sister?”
The white mare blinked.
“Can we talk—in private, I mean?”
The sister nodded, and the guards pushed out of the room. Silence encroached again; both organized their thoughts carefully, unsure of how to begin. The weight was atrocious: the younger held a burden that could not simply be let go. No, there was a darkness within her—Celestia saw it festering behind those tired eyes. Ambivalence.
The elder pushed her plate forward. “Are you OK? You haven’t been speaking much lately. Is there something you want to tell me?”
Luna remained motionless. “Do you know what happened?”
The sister shook her head. “I know a little. I was hoping you would tell me.”
“What would you say if I told you that I was sick—that I wasn’t going to be here much longer?”
Celestia eyed her sister nervously. Her mouth cringed slightly, as if it was trying to lock away the response. “Well, I would—.”
“No. I want to know what you would think. Actions can harbor false intentions.” Luna cocked her head slightly. “What would you think, sister?”
Celestia nodded in understanding before continuing. “I cannot imagine the depression, sister. You know that I love you more than anything; stop talking like that.”
“But, I can’t! Do you think it’s just something I can turn off?” Luna pushed away from the table, hanging away for a moment before slamming forward once more. “Do you even know why she came? Do you even know who she was? Do you?”
“Luna, she was a parasite. She wanted power. She wanted—“
“You don’t know a damn thing about what she wanted! You are all so ignorant! You all are obsessed with villains and heroes and all those lies, but never have you even once considered that you could be the brutal one. It’s sickening!” The princess closed her eyes before burying her face in her hooves. “I want to tell you what happened. I want to tell you what she said, but I know you won’t understand. You just can’t.”
Celestia bowed her head. She wanted to breathe, but her lungs stopped working; her lips quivered, and her eyes were caught upon the reflection of the sun in a glass of orange juice.
“Luna?”
“What?”
“Tell me what happened.” Celestia’s face glowed slightly; it was not a smile, but a look of comfort. There was interest in those eyes—not like a ruler or a puritan, but as a sister and a friend. “Start at the beginning… tell me what it is that hurts you, so that I can hurt beside you.”
It was then that Luna began to feel a deep sense of regret. She revealed her face, half in tears, and smiled: “Will you listen to me?”
Celestia nodded.
The younger looked down at herself, thinking where to begin. “I think it starts with a thought.”
“A thought?”
“Yes. It was just a thought. A wonder as to why we do all these things—about why we keep going on or why we look up into the stars and think of why we’re so alone. It starts with a Changeling that was given every tool to break us, but wanted none of that.” Luna looked up. “She knew it wasn’t about power. Power was a means to an end, the end being a question, and the question being about the end. If there had been any other way for her to find an answer, she might have gone for it, but this was the one thing that kept her going—it was the one thing that gave value to her pains.”
Celestia had crept around the table to sit beside her sister; she laid one hoof upon the younger’s. “So Chrysalis wanted an answer. But what was the question?”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Celestia. The question was ‘why’. It wasn’t ‘what can I destroy’, but ‘why would I want to destroy it’? Do you understand?”
Celestia nodded slightly, unsure but still following.
“We never question why we do things. We always have just led—as was our birthright—but she did. Chrysalis did not break us because she wanted to. She did it because she had to know whether doing it would tell her why she did it. I’ll tell you something she told me once, in a dream: she told me that the only thing she wanted was the gift of immortality.”
“And she didn’t find it?”
“No, she very well could have. She could have enslaved us, breaking into our minds and robbing us of our strength. The invasion gave her that potential: just a single thought and it would have been given to her. I think, though, that she realized that it wasn’t going to make her happy. She saw that we were both as temporary as she was, except that we are given just a fraction more time.”
Celestia continued watching her, nodding.
“It started when I left—when I left my home only to be hunted by my prey. She took my in and toyed with my mind. She explored every one of my responses, but it was pure ignorance kept her from realizing that I was weak. It could have ended there, but she ignored my experience. She thought that she could find more than I could, and so she took me and another back to our home to reap the reward.”
For a moment, silence stood. Luna took a sip of water, revealing that her hooves were shaking wildly; Celestia lowered her voice. “There was another?”
Luna put the cup down before pulling a small, red book out from under the table. “He saved you, you know. He was the one that took you away from the facility when you had fainted—I was too blinded by my anger. I don’t know exactly why he was with her, though—he was quiet about that stuff—but that didn’t matter much. Barlowe was a friend of mine. I can only hope that he found what he was looking for.”
Celestia’s eyes shifted in confusion.
Luna looked up from the book. “Oh, I’m sorry. You never got to meet him; he had left the moment you began waking up.”
“And he was the one that found a place for me?”
“Yes, he had carried you home even though a war. He always did have quite the appreciation for you, though. He would have loved to speak with you about poetry.” Luna placed the book on the table for her to skim through before continuing. “I think, though, that I’m glad he wasn’t there in the end. When I met him in Canterlot, he was tired—too tired to handle any more.”
“But he helped you find her?”
“He had come up with a small plan in hoping to trick the Queen. He put me on his wagon while I took your appearances—he would turn me in, and I would end it when her back was turned.”
“And this didn’t work.”
Luna sighed. “No, she saw through it… she saw through it.”
“And this is where it ended?” Celestia asked once more, flipping through the journal’s inkblot stains.
“No… it never ends, Celestia.” Luna looked down at herself. Her face was stretched again with the misery of loneliness. “Don’t you see? This is when she had her answer. All the manipulation, the domination—it had done nothing for her. The invasions had us pinned, but emptiness still consumed her. It was like a cut that could not be sewn—it just bled and bled until finally she simply ran out of life. Do you get that, sister? She just ran out of life.”
The two were quiet. Celestia’s eyes again were locked on the reflection of sunlight shining out from the glassware. Her eyes were red—slightly tearing. Still, she hardly breathed.
“Do you understand now, Celestia? She wasn’t evil, sister. She wasn’t a villain. Every moment of her life had determined what she would do—every experience and thought and flicker of existence. In her mind, she was just finding purpose in the hand given to her. Good? Bad? What were they worth? All such personal creations….”
“And you feel responsible?”
“And now I wonder why… I wonder why it happened—why that final realization led her to end her own life. I wonder why I keep worrying about making up for my past when I know that it isn’t my fault—that sometimes, people see good while others see evil. I wonder why I have these expectations about survival and love and comfort when I know that they’re all just distractions. And worst of them all: when I look up in the night’s sky and see all the foreign worlds floating out in space billions of miles away, I wonder why it’s all so small.”
Luna stopped. Tears glistened in the corners of her eyes, darkened by the blue underneath. For once, she did not care about her nightmare. She did not care about the safety of the public or the values of justice and ethics and duty; the only things that reached her were the comfort of admittance and the slight reflection of the sun as it bent through a glass of orange juice.
For minutes on end, the two just stared into the light. They made no sounds; they hardly breathed. It was as though they were frozen in time, caught there to endlessly stare into the light for the remainder of their lives, until Luna once turned away.
And she smiled.


> Truth of the Changeling
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Weeks before, eyes moved in flame—burning.
“Shhh… no, no. Don’t—!”
A stallion pulled the child’s face into his skin to keep her warm. Behind them crept darkness—a veil of smoke to cloud them from the ruins. Even so, the heat tingled at the corners of his eyes. He shut them for a moment, pulling the girl closer while trying to drag her back from the flame. She cried. She screamed and gasped for air. There was none.
Again, the bystander tried reaching her: “You can’t… Let me—!” He stopped—cinder burned a hole in the back of his throat, bringing the air to warm iron—bringing the air to blood. A tingling grew within his lung. “Please… Please….”
The filly pushed against him. Her knees were locked against the dirt.
“I can… I’ll go.”
Her ear twitched: she heard him.
“Just stop….”  
The girl looked up, tears rolling from her cheeks. He could hardly see her face through the burns—somehow she could still cry. Her flesh was pink with fear—or maybe it was just the burns. He couldn’t tell.
The stallion pushed her into the dirt before pressing his hoof into her side. She squealed.
“I’m going back, alright? Stay—.”
“No, wait!”
He didn’t think she could speak. The bystander cocked his head. “Hm?”
“Don’t… go.” The filly’s eyes tracked something behind him. He turned; his friends ran into the smoke. They would find whatever was left in there no doubt—he would only be stealing their air. The stallion stopped.
He dropped down beside the girl. Her eyes were still all puffy.
“Are you OK?” he asked.
The girl nodded.
“Did you live here?” The stallion looked up into the smoke. He could barely make out the traces of the barn’s frame, and the silo had all but caved in. Had he come sooner, it might not have been so desperate.
The girl shook her head, frowning.
He furrowed his brow. “No? So where are you from then?”
“Canterlot,” she replied shamelessly. It was clear that she hadn’t had the faintest idea of what had happened to the city—or for Equestria as a whole, for that matter. The stallion could only turn back to the fire and sigh.
He could hear voices in the flame—quiet ones. They whispered to him. They told him about the history. They told him about the ponies that had lived here: where they had gone. He could see smoke like shrouds upon their backs, flipping and twisting and dancing before sinking back into nothingness.
He saw a family too—and other children.
“Why did you come here? We’re pretty far from Canterlot, you know.” The stallion looked back to the filly. She was still staring at him.
“I ‘unno.” She shrugged.
“Well, can you tell me where your parents are?”
The girl squirmed slightly then looked back into the fire—not in fear, but of wanting. There was no answer. She must have lost track of them. Silent, the bystander pulled the girl closer into him. He could feel her breathe—slowly, slowly. A heartbeat echoed against heartbeat. Warmth.
Her voice trembled. “They’re going to be OK, right? I mean, no one is going to….” She bit her lip.
“I don’t think those things want us dead. As for your parents, they are probably out looking for you too.”
“What are the things?”
The bystander’s eyes caught hers. “The Changelings?”
She nodded.
“They’re creatures, as any others. They are born and then they die. What happens in the middle is up to them.” The stallion pushed himself forward to sit in front of the girl, then put his hooves over hers. “What more do you need to know about them?”
“Everything,” she replied, innocent.
Something about it made the stallion smile—a chance to tell his story. “Well, they are like us, sort of. They all have a leader, and they all want to do their best to make her proud. There’s not much else to it other than survival, of course.”
The girl was quiet again—too afraid to ask.
“But you want to know why they’re here, right?”
A nod.
“Well, that’s a bit more complicated. You see, Changelings can’t live like we do. They can’t just eat apples. They need a special sort of food—one they can only get from us.”
“They eat ponies?” The girl’s pulse jumped.
He paused for her then returned. “No—love. They need love. It’s something they can’t make themselves and need to take from us. That’s just how they live.”
“They can’t love?”
“No. They’re animals to us—they do not have the sort of thought capable of love, or at least not the drones. Decisions in the hive are made by the leader and the leader alone, for she is the only one to carry our free will.” The bystander tapped his hoof against his temple. “But that doesn’t mean she can love. Parts of her head—they’re missing. She can’t love. She can’t feel pity. She can’t even feel what it is to have a friend. She can only pretend, and in that regard, there is no one better.”
The filly looked up, expecting more. He took a breath, then thought of where next to begin.
“Chrysalis—that’s her name. Or at least that’s what we call her, since she has no need for names in her world. In her world, she is just everything. There are hundreds upon thousands of changelings, but they are all her. There are just as many ponies, too, but they are nothing.” He wet his burns above his lip. “I once used to follow her, you know. It wasn’t by choice, of course, but that doesn’t really matter now, hm?”
Now the girl was in awe. Questions boiled underneath her skin—he could sense it. Her first came quickly: “What was she like?”
“She was what we ponies might refer to a sociopath. She didn’t do things for good or bad—she didn’t think about how her choices might hurt those around her, but that was simply because she didn’t care about those around her. Everything was a calculation, too. She had a sort of sense for what others would do long before they could even imagine it.” He stopped again, thinking of whether or not he’d actually answered the question, then continued. “I suppose, on a personal level, she was OK. She was the sort that was living in her own little world, if you know what I mean. I guess she smiled a lot too.”
“Do you know where she is—like right now? Is she here?” Her eyes locked upon his, as if demanding his mercy. Still, her face was blank with naivety.
He struggled not to laugh. “No, she’s gone. Princess Luna killed her—violently, too. Something she’d said left the parasite to hang herself on a rope of thorns. A few days later, they cut her down and threw her on a fire. Whatever’s left of her is going with the winds.”
“Oh?” The girl sighed. Thus popped the bubble of interest.
“But…,” he toyed.
She perked up.
“But if you ask me, it’s suspicious at best. I was there when the Princess did it, or at least I was there just after. Something had happened up there—something I don’t know we’ll ever understand—but whatever it was, it’s gotten to Luna. Her sister isn’t in too good a shape either.” The bystander almost laughed.
“Celestia is hurt?”
The bystander nodded. “Celestia is nearly bedridden, and her sister is in an existential depression. Equestria is practically in a free for all right now, and they’re too distracted by their love to even think about rebuilding. Why do you think I’m here? It doesn’t take a tiara to do good, you know.”
The filly edged closer to him, pushing her head back into his chest. “How many of you are there?”
“Plenty.” He looked into the fire, expecting to see the outline of the two ponies that had run in earlier. Shadows still shifted amongst the blaze. “There are plenty of missing people too, but we’re doing our best to fill out all the gaps.”
He smiled, and so did she.
“This is something you’ll learn later in life: there is nothing more polarizing than a disaster. If you survive, you will never be closer to those around you. But if you don’t, well… I suppose that one explains itself. Just remember that when we find your parents, alright?”
“Mhm,” she nodded, now satisfied. “But can I ask one more thing?”
“Yes?”
“When will it end?”
He looked carefully at the rims of her eyes—he could only barely make out the glint of tears in the light of the fire. “It ends when you say it does.”
“Huh?”
The bystander shook his head. “For every story, there is more. Nothing ever really ends, you see? And for good reason—we never want endings anyway. We can be so sure of what happened—we can even pick a specific spot and say ‘this is where it ended’, but that’s not true because you’ll always wonder about what happened afterwards. And there always is something that happens afterwards, or at least we’d like to imagine that there is. Even Chrysalis knows that.”
“But will the Changelings stop killing us?” The girl was nearly sobbing.
He’d hardly noticed.
“Sure. They’ll leave us alone in a few weeks, and we’ll never have to worry about them again. They can only go so far without a leader, I think.”
That was when she realized.
“But you said she controlled them—and she’s dead! How can they do anything? How are you so sure?”
A frost rolled up the stallion’s spine. He became rigid—cold. The smile faded, and he edged away. It took a moment for him to think a response, but even when he’d come up with one, he could not speak over the girl’s screams.
“It’s her! It’s her!” She screamed into the fire. No one came for her.
“Shhh… I’m not—!” His voice was overwhelmed. She had volume over him—and fear too.
Barlowe backed away from the girl, stepping back towards the fire.
She followed him, crying madly. Someone would hear her—someone would come, no doubt. He had to leave. He had to leave her behind.
No time.
Two ponies came sprinting out of the blaze. Barlowe had only a moment to twist his head before they came slamming into his side. From the weight, it must have been the father to land the first blow—right on the side of his skull. Barlowe dropped like a sandbag.
Then came noise: some worry about the girl, and she kept screaming about some parasite. The parents said, “Of course, dear,” and went running off into the woods with her between their jaws.
Barlowe sat up. There was a tingling in his side. He tried yanking on his saddlebag, but it was stuck into his skin.
The briars stuck awkwardly along the flesh. His eyes flickered green. Focus failed him. He looked out into the woods—the family had run out of sight.
So be it.
Chrysalis picked herself up before biting at the cord. A bit of blood leaked from the wound before the thorns gave way. There was hardly anything after that.
Such is the nature of stories—there are any number of ends to pick from, but one must always ask, “What next?”
For the girl inside the fire, there is nothing else. She was just another casualty in the game of life and death. The parents found their girl, and the girl found her parents. The two families never met again. She placed her hopes in family, but what had it done for her? The end is always the same.
For Celestia, there is nothing else. She was wounded, and soon she’ll get better. All will return to normal for her, and it will be as though nothing ever happened. She placed her hopes in honor and courage, but what had it done for her? The end is always the same.
For Luna, there is nothing else. Her sentiments of death infested until at last she expected it to be the end of her suffering—the end of the parasite and all the badness she saw in herself—but death did not redeem her. Death was just another lie fed to her by the parasite—just another way to make her feel as though she had no control between them—and it brought her to the ground. She placed her hopes in redemption and hope itself, but what had it done for her? The end is always the same.
And for Chrysalis, there is nothing else. Her plan succeeded: the attack created sufficient chaos for her Changelings to merge with the disconnected population. Luna’s assumptions about death allowed the Queen to effectively wipe Equestrian worry from existence and secured her place in their society without question. The court, too weak to maintain order, was unable to save their population from the parasite. Her population and theirs both flourished with the regrowth, and those left living were happy—and that’s all that really matters, in the end. She placed her hopes in the strength of her own mind and the value of survival, but what had it done for her? The end is always the same.
But what wasn’t obvious was that the whole story was told before Luna had even met Chrysalis. In fact, I might say that the story was never about Luna—it was never about Barlowe or the poetry or the invasion. The story was told when the Changeling, taken by death, rose again for one purpose, but died upon the thorn. The end was always the same.
Now what are they? They are memories—just inexistent memories—floating aimlessly in the grey of a fading consciousness.
Pick an ending point. You can pick the epilogue, because that’s where it might be most comfortable to end it, but it won’t really matter. You will always ask what comes next.
And you know it’s always the same.
Ask the girl in the fire. Ask Celestia. Ask Luna. Ask Chrysalis.
But first, ask the Changeling.
It told the story.