//------------------------------//
// XV - The Break of Dawn 
// Story: Into the Dark 
// by Corejo 
//------------------------------//

Luna bolted upright.
 
A cold sweat ran down her face, and her lungs could not breathe deep enough to ward off the suffocating heat of her bedsheets.
 
“Princess!”  Nighteye, one of her private Guards, stood beside her bed in full Night Guard regalia.  He placed a hoof on the sheets, concern and relief warring over the deep circles beneath his eyes.
 
“Nighteye, you’re awake!”  The bluntness of her outburst brought her ears flat to her head, and a silent thanks to the stars for a dark coat that could so easily hide a blush.
 
“Yes, your majesty,” he said.  “It’s been…  A long time since I’ve slept.”
 
He wavered on his hooves, struggling to stand at attention.  A relieved smile still held attention on his face, however.
 
“At ease,” she said, and he promptly collapsed to his haunches.  His coat, once sleek and shiny, lay nappy and dull.
 
She closed her eyes.  Behind her eyelids, no matter how hard she focused on the now, she could only think of her Champion in his final moments—the fire blazing out his eyes, the pure, unfettered power that tore him apart from the inside.
 
“How long were we gone?” she asked, before the tears could come.
 
“Yourself, about ten months, your Majesty.”  He looked askance in thought.  “Princess Celestia, about seven.  And Princess Twilight and Cadance around six.”
 
She eyed him curiously.  Part of her hesitated to voice the question on her lips.  “The Devourer captured anypony who fell asleep since I brought it to this world.  How have you stayed awake this whole time?”
 
“We, uh…  we haven’t.  Slept, that is.  Not really, anyway.”  He pushed himself back up from a slouch he seemed to have just noticed.  “Before going in after you, Princess Twilight organized Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns and other schools around Equestria.  Stasis spells, door to door every day.  Well, cycle, technically.”
 
She shot him a glance.  Hers must have been a wild look for the wide eyes he gave her.  
 
“Your Highness?” he said.
 
She pressed her hooves into her eyes and sighed.  “My apologies.  ’Tis nothing.”
 
Taurus stared up at her from the weave of her bedsheets.  Orion pointed his great club down the length of her bed, and her worn and ragged form stared back from the mirror across the room.  
 
A stasis spell, to give the mind rest without dreaming.  Little research had been conducted on its long-term effects—or its efficacy, if Nighteye was as tired as he looked—but there was no arguing its use.  ’Twas a silver lining if anything that Twilight had at least found a way to spare most of their subjects the horrors of her failure.
 
“Who has been in charge since Twilight’s slumber?”
 
“We cobbled together a semblance of government in your absence, us and the Day Guard.”  A glint of pride found its way to his eyes and the corners of his mouth, but that too passed to weariness.  “It’s been…  Rough.  But Equestria is still standing.”
 
There came a knock from the door.  “Enter,” Luna said.
 
The door opened on soundless hinges, and in poked the weary face of a greying, old maid.  Though she had the look of one ready to walk side by side with Death, her uniform remained as spotless as before this whole ordeal.
 
Was that what she was calling it now?  An ordeal?  Just this week’s trifle?  Oh, Aquila, spurn such arrogance!
 
“Your Highness?”  The old maid wore a tiny smile.  “Princess Celestia would like to speak with you when you can.  In her chambers.”
 
No doubt to discuss how this all came to be.  ’Twould be a fun conversation.  
 
“Thank you,” Luna said.  “I will be there shortly.”
 
The maid bowed and hobbled out, leaving her alone with Nighteye.  Alone with Nighteye?
 
Luna turned to him, studied the bags under his eyes.  She glanced about the room for her other personal guard, Leatherwing, nowhere to be found.  Fear worked a knot into the pit of her stomach.  The two were nigh inseparable, on or off shift.  
 
“Nighteye,” she said.  “Where is Leatherwing?”
 
There was a pregnant pause as he looked away.  “He was…  Sleeping.  Sleeping off a bet that first day of the Longest Night.  He’s in the barracks with the others.”
 
The Longest Night, they called it.  She closed her eyes and breathed a deep sigh.  ’Twill be a long road ahead, this recovery.
 
“And what of your family?”
 
“Same, your Majesty.  Err, sleeping, that is.”  He spoke subdued.  Nighteye had never been one for words, ever the strong, silent type.  But even for a stallion such as him, some pains could never be masked.
 
She wore the very same face when she said, “Go to them.”
 
“My service to the crown is—”
 
“Is to do as I say.”  The sharpness of her voice wilted him, by the way he flicked an ear, but he otherwise stared back in trained soldier fashion.  She wilted in turn, looking back to her bedsheets.  “Please, look after your family.  There has been enough suffering on my account.”
 
Silence took hold for an uncomfortably long minute.  Before the feelings could return, she got out of bed and clasped her breastplate in place.  Tiara settled behind her horn and shoes on her hooves, she made for the door.
 
“Princess,” Nighteye said.  In his eyes drifted a compassion he rarely expressed.  Not one of sympathy, or even pity, but of concern.  “There’s no way you could have expected this.  Don’t blame yourself.”
 
She stopped at the door, looking down.  A reserved sigh was all she could give in reply before stepping out.
 
Once a quiet stroll at any given time of day, the path to Celestia’s chambers was a bustle of ponies awash with tears and jubilant hearts for the now-awake and weary alike.  Some met her gaze, and emotions abounded in their eyes—longing, fear, confusion.
 
Strangely enough, anger held no place among them.  Surely these ponies knew of her role in this nightmare, that it was she who unleashed the Devourer upon them.  And yet they sent only smiles and silent thank you’s her way.  Really, truly, only smiles.
 
Yes, the castle was alive with the sound of happy ponies.  ’Twas a splendid sight, if not for the churning in her heart—that it should have been this way uninterrupted for the last eight months.
 
She turned a corner, and there a feeling emerged, one of familiarity for the hallway’s emptiness, if only for a heartbeat.  These were the very halls he walked in their final hours, when he carried her and the others to face the Devourer.
 
Now she walked them alone, with her own four hooves and with her own feelings in her chest.  They barely felt like hers, like she drifted on a cloud, far above the world.
 
Celestia’s door appeared before her, and she stopped.  Some indistinct sensation drew her gaze over her shoulder at what was a mix of four lefts, three rights, and two staircases, and how suddenly they drifted by.
 
Celestia’s door glinted in the sunlight filtering through the stained glass at the end of the hall.  Its embossed sunrise stared back at her.  It, too, seemed to smile at the sight of a new day.  Or, evening, it seemed, given the sun’s place in the sky beyond the window.  Daylight, nonetheless.
 
Stone Wall, the door guard, placated two palace staff members seeking audience with Celestia.  He gave Luna a well-meaning smile before turning back to the others.
 
She raised a hoof to knock, but paused.  Instead, she gently pushed the door open and stepped in.
 
Philomena was the first to greet her, an excited purr rolling out from the large gold cage beside the leftmost bookshelf.
 
Celestia sat at her writing desk in the far center, twirling a crimson inked-tipped feather above a sheaf of paper.  She swiveled an eye toward her, and the faintest smile found the corners of her lips.  She gestured to the cushion across the desk from her, which Luna took.  
 
“It’s eight in the evening, Luna.  I’m surprised to see you awake.”  
 
Luna shifted on her hooves and cast her gaze to the hutch in the back corner.  After all these months, the ponies still kept the time.  They kept hope.  
 
“Please, Sister, I appreciate your attempts at lighthearted banter, but I cannot simply set aside what I have done.”
 
“We’ve all made our mistakes, Luna.  I can hardly fault you for trying to find peace.”  She set the quill in its well and bowed her head.  “But you are right that we cannot set it aside.  We rule together, Luna.  We make these sorts of decisions together.”
 
“You said I was being foolish.”
 
“I said you were being foolish for worrying over the whispers when we already had our hooves full with the Griffinstone Summit.  I said we should hold off discovering their origins until the ambassador went home.”
 
Celestia looked to her balcony’s sheer curtains in a way that would have implied annoyance had she not flattened back her ears.  Of course.  Not even she was angry.
 
“I know you didn’t care for the ambassador and his… grievances,” Celestia continued.  “But that was no reason to belittle him.”
 
Luna scowled at the stack of papers on Celestia’s desk.  “’Twas he who first belittled my thoughts on the whispers.  ’Twas only fair I belittled his on that farce of a trade proposal.”
 
Celestia stared at her.  Even after growing up together over thousands of years, this particular face—the tiniest of smiles and peering eyes—was an enigma not even she could crack.  Celestia’s mind sought its way through a maze of conversation, and until she made her move that was all anypony could hope to glean.
 
“They got by well enough,” she said.
 
Luna flitted her wings before meeting her gaze.  This was the part where she was supposed to question the oblique change in subject.  A revelation of some sort, or at least a placation, was soon to follow.  With no other principle to go by, she fell in line.  
 
“What do you mean?” Luna said.
 
“Equestria, our little ponies.  Stone Wall filled me in when I woke up.  Twilight couldn’t lower the moon or raise the sun without our powers, but she was able to organize the placement of magelights to keep nature healthy and the cities and towns safe.  The Guard maintained a sense of government and were quick to mandate stasis centers in every town and village so nopony else would fall asleep and enter the nightmare.”
 
Luna looked away.  Whatever comfort Celestia sought to impart with her words, it came up far short of any such feeling.
 
“Though the ponies still awake might have seen the moon as a sign of who caused this—” she pushed aside the ink well and sheaf of paper to pull another sheet from a stack, well-worn and crossed with lines and dots “—You aren’t without your sympathizers.  Or those who now have a greater appreciation for the night.”
 
She floated the paper to Luna, who took it in her aura, but almost dropped it at the sight.  “Canis Major?  The Little Dipper?  Even Sagittarius and Pisces…”
 
Below the crayon constellations was a stick figure of herself lying on a bed, and beneath that, a note:
 
“You are sleeping because the nightmare caught you,” she read slowly over a child’s misspellings.  “I hope you are okay and… we all love you?”  She stared at Celestia, lips parted and brows peaked.
 
“There’s more of them like that.”  Celestia lifted a stack of paper from her desk.  It was a mixture of loose-leaf paper, cardstock, and envelopes, all addressed to her.
 
Luna tucked her ears back, taking the stack hesitantly in her magic.  Every piece was of the night sky, with impressively accurate constellations that would have made a versed astronomer blush, each as happy and hopeful as the last.  Some had notes scribbled in crayon and marker like the first, and the tears threatened before she leafed through half of them.  She set the stack aside, looking away.
 
By all rights, they should hate her.  They should be pounding at the gates, demanding recompense for her actions.  That every pony between hers and Celestia’s chambers and the many more abroad gave only smiles and well-wishing brought her head low and her shoulders lower.
 
“Why?”  Luna said.
 
“Why?”  Celestia raised an eyebrow.  “Because those that stayed awake know the real you.  You aren’t Nightmare Moon and you never will be again.  They know this.  And I as ruler of Equestria had to give a statement on why the moon was late to set and ponies weren’t waking up when this all began.”
 
Luna stared at a Newton’s cradle on Celestia’s desk.  Its polished weights shone like miniature suns in the evening light.  
 
“What did you tell them?” Luna asked.
 
“The truth.  You were lost, you were taken by some magic or creature we didn’t understand yet.”  Celestia regarded the cradle with a gentle smile.  She lifted the right ball and let go.  Its gentle click-clack-click filled the silence.
 
“So they knew I had doomed their slumbering loved ones to a fate worse than death, and themselves to one of uncertainty.”
 
“That’s not what I said.”
 
Luna didn’t meet Celestia’s gaze, but she knew the look on her face—one of admonishment but unsurpassed empathy.  “Tell that to those who were asleep.”
 
“I don’t need to.”  Celestia’s was a smile that could have soothed a raging manticore.  She leaned forward in her seat, and there was no doubting that the sun shone imperceptibly brighter when she spoke.  “They saw us, Luna.  They saw you, through the Devourer’s eyes.”
 
She came around the desk, a wing outstretched to bring her into a hug.  The warmth of her body staved off a sudden wave of shivers.  
 
“They saw what you went through to save them,” Celestia said, “what you were willing to risk to set things right.”
 
Luna looked away.  The only thing she risked was—
 
“Ponies make mistakes,” Celestia said.  “Even us.  More so us.”
 
Philomena cooed from her cage, and both turned to her.  Celestia was quick to shift her smile back to Luna.
 
“You might hate what you’ve done, but they don’t.  There will be fallout from this, but that’s the least of our worries for now.”
 
Celestia gave her a squeeze, then turned for Philomena’s cage.
 
The absence of Celestia’s warmth close by left a shiver to run through her.  In some fraction of her words, Celestia was right.  Yet for all her instincts as a princess, Luna couldn’t find the strength to rise from her seat.
 
Celestia unlatched the gate of Philomena’s cage, and the phoenix leapt out to circle Luna.
 
Luna looked up at Philomena, and after a pause crooked a halfhearted smile and raised a hoof.  Philomena perched, and the warmth radiating from her nuzzle and gentle coo were yet more reminders that yes she was awake.
 
“Luna,” Celestia said.  She wore her concerned expression, the one she always wore whenever she caught Luna ruminating.  There was no point hiding it.  
 
Luna let Philomena take flight, then set her hoof down, looking for anything to distract her from the now.  Celestia’s silver tea set on the center table was as beautiful as ever.  The maids must have tended to everything par the course.  Luna drew in a long breath, longer than she should have needed.
 
“I know he meant a lot to you,” Celestia said.
 
“Sister,” Luna said, reserved.  “At the very least, save me your pity.”
 
That earned a small sigh.  Only Celestia’s mane was visible in the corner of sight, but the look she wore would be unmistakable—that little pout she never quite grew out of from their younger days, the one she only felt comfortable using in her presence and hers alone.
 
“He hasn’t left you, Luna.”  Celestia stepped before her again.  Hers was a calm voice, and she placed a gentle hoof on Luna’s chest.  “He’s right here.”
 
Luna’s eyes fluttered shut, and she sucked in a little breath through her teeth.  Her heart beat faster—at the thought of him in the cathedral far below, beside her in the meadow beneath the wash of the sunset, in the dark by the lake of fire after their triumph with his hooves wrapped about her.  I’ve got you.
 
Yes, he was right there.  And yet he was not.
 
She was alone, adrift.  She was home, and yet wasn’t.  Only in the cycles of her nightmare, when she languished in the ever aching severance of her soul, a fragment of herself made whole inside her Champion, had a sense of home truly existed.
 
Yes, he was right there.  And she let him go.  As the edges of her dream frayed around them, she did nothing more than stare.
 
The ponies should not be happy.  They should not have smiles upon their faces and forgiveness in their hearts.  She wanted—needed—that catharsis, some modicum of external rage to burn away the feelings in her heart.
 
But as it was, the ponies forgave and forgot, left only her to hate her transgressions.  This loathing was a burden too great for one pony, but it needed bearing.
 
Self forgiveness was a lesson she learned from the Tantabus, but all wounds deserved their share of salt before closing, lest their lessons go unheeded.  Some more than others.
 
Celestia said something about the throne room, and the words “Take all the time you need” filtered through the cotton in her ears.
 
Quickly enough, she was alone.  The room lay quiet, save the distant chirping of birds in the gardens below and the summer breeze fluttering the curtains.
 
Luna sat in Celestia’s room, and that was all she could do.  She hadn’t even the comfort of her own bed chambers, where she could scream her frustration to the heavens, lash out at the trinkets and worthless sentimentalities before collapsing in a pile of tear-stained fur and feathers, nothing but the empty shell of a pony that couldn’t save the one who gave her everything.
 
So she sat, trembling, staring at the sun’s sparkle off the tea set, until the tremors became too much, and she collapsed.
 
She lay there, head hung to the polished floor, tears rolling hot and wet down her muzzle, body shaking from the sobs.  She hid her face behind her hooves, pressed them into her eyes until they blotched, gritted her teeth until they hurt.
 
He was not a piece of her mind lost to the nothingness of dreamspace.  He was a pony unstuck from the mortal world.  A figment of her imagination, true or not, he was a pony all the same.  One that lived, breathed, hated, loved.  Dreamed.
 
Since when did a dream dream?  Not in all her immortal life had a dream taken on its own sentience, coalesced within its imagined mind the ability to itself imagine, think.  Be.  
 
At first, he was merely an anomaly, a byproduct of the Devourer and the nature of her nightmare.  But as the cycles continued and he broke free of its grasp, it became clear that what he saw behind closed eyelids could not be anything but the will of independent thought.  
 
Whatever the circumstance, whatever power her shattered mind skimmed from the surface of her magics and instilled in him, he was real.  He deserved every bit the freedom he sacrificed everything to realize, and she needed him close, now more than ever.
 
But she was no fool.  Places she could recreate on a whim, in her dreams.  They were things and nothing more.  A pony, too, could be created, but not a true pony.  In a dream, a created pony was little more than a memory.  It lacked the pony’s essence, their soul.  No, a true pony could not be created.  They must be found.
 
Somewhere, within the deepest recesses of the dreamscape, at the spindling edges of her mind, he drifted.  Perhaps only a whisper on an invisible wind, another thread waiting to be pulled free from the dark infinity beyond.  But he was a pony, and it remained her duty to see him home.
 
But as much as that fire burned in her heart, there remained the matter of the real world.  ’Twould be a long road to come, setting right the wrongs of her mistakes, and no room could be spared for her own desires, not until all was right.
 
Give of her wants so that others could receive of their needs.  Hold it in.  Be strong.  She had a country to save.  He gave her that.
 
He gave her this world around her, this air she breathed, the sounds of summer outside, the very ability to sit and ache for what should have been.  More than anything, he wanted to return to her what she lost.  And no matter how bitter the dregs of her heart tasted, to do any less than fulfill his wishes would be to spit on his grave.
 
No, not grave.  He was out there, waiting for her.
 
Out the balcony doors, the sun neared the horizon, and the pinks and golds of evening’s close lay themselves bare to the world.  She made for the balcony with delicate hoofsteps, to better see the sunset in all its splendor.  For all the turmoil in her heart, the sight still brought her solace.
 
Beautiful.
 
The word twisted her heart into a knot as grand as the skyskape shrouding the world in growing shadows.  There truly never existed a more beautiful time of day.
 
He thought so, too—he, a stallion who had never seen the sun until her dream.  With unfiltered sight he saw the beauty of its colors filling the sky, of silence’s slow creep into the world and the dim twinkle of stars not yet brave enough to dip their toes into that ocean.  How he looked at her throughout that hallowed twilight, how he…  How he looked at her.
 
She cracked a smile, and a chuckle followed.  A tear rolled down her cheek while she raised a hoof to hold in a little bout of laughter.
 
“Oh, Champion…” she whispered.  “You never meant the sunset, did you?”  Tears flowing soft and free, she stared long into the sunset as its oranges and pinks drained from the sky.
 
The stars peeked out from their hiding places far above, little foalish eyes gazing at her to ask if it was safe to come out and play.  Eyes closed, she dipped her head in approval, and with a gentle smile lit her horn to raise the moon.  With the moon in its rightful place, she let it slip from her grasp and reclined her head to better hear the glorious silence ushered in by the night.
 
Beautiful.
 
This, here, he gave her—this wondrous moment of solitary solidarity his gift.  Not the sunset or the stars in the sky, but the feeling in her heart, the soft pitter patter for another pony only she could feel.
 
He was far away, yet the yearning that dawned anew with the setting sun brought him close; and surrounded by the sweet silence of the night, as she breathed in and let go the moonlit chill, she could almost feel his warmth resting against her side.