Alicornae: The Legend of Starlit Sky

by PortalJumper

Part III - Chapter 5: Ever Onwards

Starlit's breath burned in her lungs as she ran. Her lantern bounced at her side and cast frantic shadows on the walls, and despite her age compared to Pinkie she was easily three lengths ahead of her.

A horrendous crashing sound had echoed down the tunnel just as Starlit had caught up with Pinkie Pie, and for a moment they both feared that the tunnel was about to collapse on their heads. When stone and earth didn't rain down on them Starlit's heart kicked into overdrive at the thought that it had come down behind them, a fear that Pinkie confirmed with her expert analysis.

And so they ran, hooves beating against dirt and stale air pumping through their lungs as the pair searched the tunnel for any sign of Sun or Rarity.

Starlit ran into a solid wall of rock at a slight bend in the tunnel, one that hadn't been there when they first came through and that she didn't see in her haste. She bounced off of it with a dull thwack, a rivulet of blood running down her forehead for her effort. Pinkie Pie just barely avoided tripping over Starlit, skidding to a stop mere inches from her prone form.

"Oh, this is bad, this is really bad," Pinkie moaned, a sentiment that Starlit was all too willing to share.

From floor to the ceiling seven feet above their heads a mound of stone, earth, and shattered gemstones stood, completely cutting off access to the rest of the tunnel. A few stones still slid down the pile, and Starlit nervously backed up until she ran into Pinkie's legs.

Where once her lungs burned there was now only dead air, and her heart all but stopped as she took in the scene before her. There was only one way she could fathom that the tunnel could've come down, and loathe though she was to admit it it was the only thing that made sense.

"Pinkie, was there gas in here when you came through?" Starlit demanded.

"Starlit, you know that there wasn—"

"Was there gas?!" Starlit reiterated. Her voice reverberated off of the walls and down the tunnel.

"There wasn't any, I swear!" Pinkie answered, contrition heavy in her words. "I would've told you if there was!"

"Then you better get digging," Starlit ordered. She didn't wait for a reply before she ran to the pile of rocks and started moving them.

"Starlit, wait! You can't do that," Pinkie pleaded.

"I can, and I will," Starlit retorted, lighting her horn to assist in moving the stones.

"No, you can't, you have to believe me!"

Starlit didn't reply. Sun and Rarity were either under or behind the wall of stone, and she was going to find out which it was even if she had to dig until her hooves bled.

A loud bang echoed from behind her, and reflexively she ducked down and covered her head with her forelegs. When a mound of earth again did not cascade from the ceiling she turned to see Pinkie Pie, a resolute expression on her face and a tattered piece of rubber in her hooves.

"What was that for!? You could've caused another cave-in!" Starlit demanded.

"Not with a balloon pop I couldn't have," Pinkie answered. "Starlit, you have to stop digging. This mound of dirt is all that supporting this section of the tunnel now, and if you disturb it too much then you could cause another cave-in."

Starlit looked back and forth from Pinkie to the mountain of stone in front of her, trying desperately to reconcile what she was being told with what she wanted to hear. The two ideas didn't get along well in her head.

"Starlit, I've been working in mines since I was six," Pinkie continued, her voice getting a little of its sweetness back. "I've seen enough cave-ins to know what to and not to do during them, and I've lost good co-workers and a few friends because they didn't listen. When I tell you that there's nothing to be done, there's nothing to be done."

A tight ache formed in Starlit's chest, like her muscles were trying to swallow her heart.

"Then what do we do?" Starlit pleaded. "How can we help? We have to be able to do something."

"We keep going, and hope that whatever caused this cave-in didn't hurt them," Pinkie answered.

Pinkie got up and turned to leave, taking up her lantern so she could see her way back down the tunnel. Starlit reluctantly followed her, praying desperately that Sun and Rarity were alright.

Rarity had long since lost track of time, not that it was easy to track in pitch darkness. For all she knew it had been ten minutes or two hours that she'd been wandering the halls of her mine, Sun's corpse dragging behind her on a makeshift stretcher that she'd cobbled together from his ruined cloak and a few stakes from his saddlebags.

Her horn ached from the stress of throwing up the shield that had protected her from the cave-in, and her legs ached from all the walking. Two years was a long while to not have much activity and it was showing.

Gingerly she sat herself down against one of the innumerable tunnel walls that she had help dig, taking care to avoid her bruises and cuts. While Sun had taken the brunt of the blast she wasn't without her injuries. It's just that while his were predominantly bodily, hers ran deeper and cut all the worse.

Rarity had had a lot of time to think since the cave-in, and even more time to regret. Regret not telling Starlit about her real magical ability, regret not accepting Sun's apology, and regret lying to both of them about why the mine had actually shut down. So many mistakes weighed on her soul, and soon enough the tears again started to fall.

"Stupid, stupid Rarity," she muttered to herself. "You try to keep a low profile and it just gets ponies hurt. You try to do the right thing and it just gets ponies hurt."

Soon enough the tears and the ache and the weariness grew too much for her, and she slumped forward in the type of sleep that only comes from complete exhaustion. She couldn't move for the life of her, and in that she and Sun weren't terribly different.

Endless tunnel after endless tunnel, and Starlit was seemingly no closer to her goal. Pinkie had tried to occupy some of the time with idle talk, but all of it died in the air.

Starlit knew what it was like to lose a loved one. She could conceptualize the process, she knew how to grieve. Even still, this sensation was different. She didn't feel sad, not even particularly weepy, she just felt hollow and impotent. When her grandmother had died she had closure, but she may never get that here.

Starlit gave her communication rod an idle shake as she had been doing for the last hour or so. It gave her something actionable to do, something to take the weight of loss off of her mind for even a moment. Her hoof had brushed her amulet a few times, its cold and silent surface indifferent to the world.

"Starlit? Starlit, you there?" Pinkie asked, drawing Starlit back to the world.

"What is it?" Starlit asked, her voice dull.

"We're where we need to be," Pinkie replied. She gently put a hoof under Starlit's chin and drew her focus upward.

The flickering light of her lantern made it difficult to make out, but the walls of the tunnel looked different. The rough hewn rock had given way to a smooth, midnight blue material that looked like neither stone nor metal, and a few yards away a shaft of light pierced down from the cavern ceiling.

"This is the palace?" Starlit asked.

"Probably one of the sub-basements if I had to guess," Pinkie replied. "Most of the area around the castle is deserted, so occasionally you'll get a little closer than you bargained for during tunneling. Whatever the place is made out of does a doozy on the drill bits so we don't get much farther in than this if we do hit it."

"And the light?" Starlit continued, a little vigor back in her voice.

"I'd say it was where the drill stopped and knocked a piece of the roof out, but with our luck it could be a sewer drainpipe that got poked into and never fixed."

"Does the Council not take care of this place? That seems like it'd be on their priorities list given how massive it is."

"Nopony comes in here ever since the Sundering, or so they say," Pinkie replied, expecting that to answer her question. Starlit gave her a confused expression.

"Right, out-of-towner, sorry," Pinkie finished.

"I say we should settle down for now," Starlit said. "We've been walking for hours, and it'll give you the time to explain what we could expect in there and what the 'Sundering' was."

"You'd better buckle in then, 'cause it's a long story and I don't know all the details!" Pinkie said with her typical cheer. Quickly she pulled a small phial of liquid out of her travel sack and set it down, prompting Starlit to join her.

Sitting down set every joint in her legs cracking, but the opportunity to relax her aching muscles was too good to pass up. She pulled her bedroll off of her saddlebags and laid it out alongside a few branches and twigs she'd saved from Twilight's forest. It wouldn't make for the best fire, but it was better than nothing.

"Please, allow me," Pinkie said with a mock bow. Carefully she lifted the phial and drew out the stopper. She let a single drop fall precipitously from the lip of the bottle, which hit the branches and twigs and set them alight with blue flame.

"Are you sure that it's safe to use light-gas here?" Starlit asked nervously. "What if a patch of it blows through while we're here?"

"That's the neat thing about refined, liquid light-gas; it doesn't interact with the aerosol or natural stuff, and neither do the flames it makes. It's a pain in the flank to refine, but once you've got it done then it's one of the safest fuel sources you could ask for."

Starlit found her eyes drawn to the deep blue flames, flickering and dancing away. The effect was hypnotic, and she found that her troubles were starting to melt away as she gazed into its depths.

"Yeah, it is really pretty to look at," Pinkie said with a mellow tone. "Once when I was little I just looked at the stuff all day. Hurt my eyes after a while, but it wasn't bad."

"You said you needed to tell me some things? About the Sundering?"

"Oh right, that," Pinkie replied. She settled in comfortably next to the fire, setting her travel sack aside as she did. "Now, like I said, this story is kind of spotty since a lot of what happened is lost to history, but the Sundering was a big enough thing that most ponies know bits and pieces of the story."

"And how many pieces do you have?" Starlit asked, trying not to sound desperate.

"More than most," Pinkie replied, equally vague. "The Sundering was supposedly caused after a big war in a far off kingdom."

"That sounds familiar," Starlit thought ruefully. "I'll have to ask Twilight about that later."

"When Princess Luna came back from the war, she was hailed as a hero by the ponies in her kingdom," Pinkie continued. "There were parades and festivals and the like, but Luna was always unhappy and nopony knew why."

"So, first a big fancy duke came to her in her castle, with all the nobles he could muster and all the finest gifts to give her as thanks for saving them. When asked if this pleased her, Luna said nothing and only accepted gifts of technology and machinery, leaving the finery and gold for them."

"Second, a troupe of musicians and actors came to her, and performed music and put on plays all to give her the glory and fame she so richly deserved. They too asked if this made her happy, and again Luna said nothing, but asked that the scripts for one of their plays be left behind."

"Lastly, a collective of artisans and craftsponies from across the city came to her, and offered her up their finest creations as a testament to the peace she had won them that let them build and craft and live. They asked one final time if this made her happy, and this time she spoke."

"She said to them 'Go, and tell others what I tell you now; your peace was hard-won, and many died to make it so. The actions I have undertaken in service to your peace were terrible and wicked, and I am not deserving of the love you give me. You do not need a Princess to rule you any longer, for the wise and caring ponies of this city and my kingdom have proven capable of ruling themselves. The only gift I ask for is the gift of seclusion, and contemplation on what I've done for you.'"

"She abdicated?" Starlit interjected, genuinely confused. "That's impossible!"

"Wait, it gets even better," Pinkie replied with barely contained enthusiasm. "So, as you can imagine, the ponies had a tough time deciding who was going to rule them. The nobility thought that they should since they had the money to back up their claim, the artists and musicians thought they should because of the joy they bring to everyone's lives, and the craftsponies thought they should because they make everything that the city stands on."

"The arguments got more and more heated and as the tempers flared the city started descending into anarchy. Then, on the brink of full-scale war in the city, Luna came back. It was a year and a day since she'd asked for her peace, and when she came out of the palace everything changed. That when the first robots were released into the city, the ones she had made out of the technology the nobles had given her, and they brought her justice down on the foolish ponies that tried to twist her words and actions."

"Of course, these ponies weren't going down without a fight, and they managed to put aside their differences to mount an attack on the palace itself. It was Luna on one side, the citizens of New Selene on the other, ready to duke it out for the fate of their city!"

"And? What happened next?" Starlit asked. Despite herself she was on pins and needles waiting for the end.

"There was a huge battle, and Luna did some crazy magic stuff that annihilated the opposing army, as well as most of the land surrounding the palace. Only her robots were left at the end of it all, and nopony knew what happened to Luna afterward. Then the remaining ponies, realizing the error of their ways, formed the Council and set to work fixing everything. The robots helped out, and after a while the Council was able to figure out how to make more of them so they could police the city better."

Starlit couldn't help but feel a little let down. The story had been exhilarating in a sort of storybook way, and while she was certain that parts had been embellished or misremembered over the ages it gave her some valuable insight into Luna's character. She just wished that there was a more definitive conclusion to it all.

"And that's all you know?" Starlit asked.

"For the most part, yeah," Pinkie answered. "There's some other bits about the Council and how it works, but I'm pretty sure that that's all propaganda."

"It's more than I knew before, and that's what matters. I'm going to try and sleep, unless you wanted to."

"Nah, I'll be fine," Pinkie replied with a dismissive wave. "Besides, you're old, you need it more than me."

"I can't be more than ten years your senior," Starlit retorted.

"And that means you're older than me. Ergo, you're old!"

"…I can't fault that logic," Starlit relented, turning over onto her bedroll with the fire at her back. Sleep didn't come easily, and she knew that it wouldn't, but Pinkie's positivity was a nice balm for her wounded soul.

Rarity awoke with a start, like getting yanked out of a bad dream. Her neck was sore from being bent for hours and her hindquarters doubly so from the tunnel floor, but bad rest was better than none.

The numerous cuts and abrasions she'd incurred in the blast had had time to scab over, and moving around only served to open a few of them back up. The blood on the side of her face had long since dried, and she spent a few fitful minutes scraping all of it off.

Sun still lay on the stretcher, still as a stone and growing ever colder. Rarity couldn't stand to look at him even though her eyes kept drifting back to his corpse. Thankfully the dark obscured most of his injuries, not that the sight of them hadn't been indelibly burned into her memory.

Smoothly Rarity flicked her horn to levitate Sun's bags back to her haunches, tying the stretcher to the straps as she did. The ache in her horn had subsided, but she still took care to not overextend her ability.

"Just a few more miles and then I'll be out of here," Rarity murmured to herself as she began her trudge anew.

She had barely gotten more than a few feet before being stopped dead by the sound of a cough. It hadn't come from her, and it certainly couldn't have come from Sun.

With the sort of slowness that only pure fear can instill Rarity turned her head to look back at Sun, igniting her small lantern as she did. It would hurt to see, but she needed to know.

Sun lay in his cloak, bloodied and burned and still as a stone. The blood matting his fur had dried, leaving patches of it stuck up in places, while half of his mane was slicked to his skull from the blow he had received when he hit the tunnel wall. Rarity could've sworn he had a large chip taken out of one of his hooves as well, but in the panic of the moment she could've imagined it.

Setting her lantern forward Rarity resumed her walking. No amount of wishful thinking could bring Sun back, as much as she wished it would.

Starlit's few hours of sleep were fraught with images and sounds that her mind had dredged up; the thestral from Sunspire, sharing her story with Sun after her first death, and the booming echo of the cave-in. None of them made for restful sleep, and she woke up feeling groggy and uneasy.

"How you feeling?" Pinkie asked as she idly chewed on a carrot.

"Like my head was just trampled," Starlit said.

"Here, take one of these," Pinkie said as she pulled a small yellow lozenge out of her travel sack and passed it to Starlit. "It'll help take the edge off."

"What is it? Medicine?"

"A little of that, but mostly it's just something sweet to suck on. It helps workers down here deal with the claustrophobia and stress from working in near total darkness."

Starlit hesitantly put the lozenge in her mouth, letting it roll around the inside. She would've preferred some actual medicine, but as far as stopgaps go it was a rather pleasant one. It tasted quite a bit like sugar with a twist of lemon and ginger, and Starlit's mood improved slightly just from having it.

"Where did you get this?" Starlit asked. "I didn't think you'd have access to sugar and fruit in a city like this."

"Oh, we don't," Pinkie replied, "I got these off of a traveling merchant a few years back. He'd been coming through the city from one of the outer villages and had a bunch of bags of these things for sale. I had just gotten my pay for the week and bought up his whole stock, every last one! Maud was so mad at me for wasting my money like that!"

Starlit fought to suppress the surprisingly funny mental image of Pinkie's stone-faced sister being upset at something.

"And you've just hung onto them ever since?" Starlit asked.

"Yep! I only have one whenever I'm feeling down, and I mostly save them for other ponies who look like they could use a pick-me-up."

"That's putting my situation charitably, I'll tell you what," Starlit replied snidely.

The pair sat in silence for a bit as Starlit chewed the candy. Pinkie busied herself with one of her balloons, worrying over its elasticity and pliability like a carver with a chair.

"Pinkie, how do you do it?" Starlit asked, her voice thicker than she thought it would be.

"Do what?" Pinkie replied. Her question was genuine, a trait Starlit found rare and beautiful.

"Do this," Starlit answered, gesturing to Pinkie in her entirety. "How do you stay so positive and upbeat? How do you know exactly what to say and how to say it to make somepony feel better? How can you find the silver lining in everything, no matter how black the sky may be?"

For a moment Starlit thought she had insulted Pinkie, as she had stopped toying with her balloon and placed it back in her bag. It was only when Starlit saw the caring smile that she let her silent breath out.

"You know, I get asked that a lot, and I've never been able to give a good answer," Pinkie admitted. "Sometimes I tell them that it's just my personality, other times that I'm always thinking of a good joke. But after today, and everything that's happened, I think I might have a good answer."

Even as Pinkie's smile stayed, Starlit got a good look at her eyes, and saw just how tired they looked. Her eyes were baby blue but held the experience of a much older pony; they were weary and beaten down, and the smile shone all the brighter for their darkness.

"I think I stay so positive because of all the negative that I see every day," Pinkie continued. "I see more crimes walking home from work than most see in their entire lives. I've seen good friends die because of a freak accident that nopony saw coming, and I've seen neighbors vanish in the night with no explanation."

"So you spread cheer to fight back the bleakness that everypony else lives in," Starlit said. "It's admirable, if a little foolish."

"Is it foolish, though?" Pinkie asked. "If I can make somepony's day just a little bit better by making them a balloon or helping them carry their things, then maybe they can take some of that kindness and spread it around themselves. If enough ponies spread the kindness that I give out, then maybe one day I won't have to pretend that things are alright because they will be alright."

Starlit opened her mouth to retort but found that nothing would come out. It's not that she couldn't think of a counter-argument, it's that she didn't want to voice it in the face of such optimism. Who would she be if she tried to stomp out this one flickering light of happiness in a world gone grey and cold?

"Well, if it works then it works," Starlit replied, swallowing the candy.

"It has so far," Pinkie said, "and I won't stop trying until it stops working. Now, what say we get off our flanks and climb up into an old sewer?"

"If it matters at all to you, I'd like to sleep some more," Starlit answered. "After all, I am old and need all the rest I can get."

Pinkie let out a snort of laughter, and Starlit could feel her spirits rise along with it. After the day she had had she could use all the spirit lifting she could get as well.

The pale light of day shone at the end of the tunnel, and Rarity silently thanked whatever gods may be for safe passage out. Her hooves ached and the weight of Sun behind her had made the trip slow going, but she had made it.

Even with safety and success so close at hoof, Rarity still felt uneasy; twice more had she distinctly heard a cough or other type of bodily sound, and at this point it was too much to try and convince herself that she was hearing things.

The light hurt her eyes as she stepped out into the open air, and the air was quite musty compared to the dry staleness of the tunnels. Gratefully she unhooked Sun and pulled off his saddlebags, ready for a much deserved rest.

"h…help… light… hurts…" an all too familiar voice croaked. A shiver ran down Rarity's spine and she quickly turned to look at her charge.

Sun lay on the ground, but where once he had been still he now weakly pawed at the edge of his cloak. It looked like he was trying to pull it over his face to hide them from the light of the sun.

"Sun?" Rarity asked softly, trying not to disturb him.

"need… dark," Sun said before his hoof fell limp. Rarity felt her heart drop like a stone.

With more deft magic work Rarity reattached his saddlebags and Sun himself and took off at a gallop out of the mine. She had to maintain a spell to keep Sun from sliding off the makeshift stretcher, but at this point she didn't care about her magic limit.

"Hang on Sun, I know where you can get help!" Rarity called back to him. He didn't reply, only making a strangled gurgling sound as they got to the top of the hill. In the daylight she could plainly see where they had made camp the previous night, as well as a small wagon that they'd missed that would work splendidly for her needs.

With as delicate of a touch as she could manage Starlit lifted Sun in his cloak with her magic and laid him down in the wagon. She could feel her control very nearly falter from his weight, but it held just long enough to safely deposit him. Rarity would have to drive the wagon manually back into the city.

"rar…ity… i'm… sorry…" Sun choked, coughing up more blood as he spoke.

"Don't speak, darling, you need your strength," Rarity admonished. "I'm going to get you someplace where they'll fix you right up, and you'll be right as rain in no time."

With a huff of exertion Rarity lifted up the wagon and hitched herself to it. The ride back would be long, but panic and a time limit had a wonderful way of motivating a pony.