Alicornae: The Legend of Starlit Sky
Part III - Chapter 12: Sweet Dreams Are Made Of These
* * *
Starlit and her companions vanished in a flash of magic. Luna had teleported them somewhere in the now vacated city she had called home, somewhere safe and secure. She could hear the crowd of ponies roaring from the room she had called her prison for so long, but she had never felt lonelier.
Slowly she looked at the room, drinking it in with her eyes. Aside from the machines that Starlight Glimmer had put into it and the twitching automatons that Chirox had disabled, it was as she had remembered it from centuries before.
She illuminated her horn and cast its glow over one of the closer automatons, wondering if she could still do what needed to be done.
The automaton jerked and jittered under the effect of her magic, seizing as Luna called forth the light-gas from its body. As the pale blue mist leaked from its joints and vents the machine went still, and its blazing red eyes softened to teal before finally dimming to grey.
"Be still. Your time here is done," Luna said to it, her voice soft and tender.
The mist floated around Luna's head, encased in her magic. For something so small to have caused so much pain made her chest tight from guilt. She had spread this substance throughout the ground, it was her responsibility to get rid of it.
With another swish of her horn she pressed the gas together, condensing it until it formed a single blue shard of crystal. In this state it would be inert until acted upon by specific technology, as her people had discovered so long ago and she had exploited not so long ago.
Luna repeated this process for all of the automatons in the room, flexing her magical strength after so long confined and saying a short eulogy for the thestrals trapped in the machines. Their minds may have been long gone, but they had lived nonetheless. After everything she had done, it was the first step towards some sort of redemption.
The second would come with her address to her citizens.
Luna began the long march through her empty palace to the entrance hall. The banners had long since been removed and the ornamentation was nowhere to be seen, which gave the entire place the air of a mausoleum. Luna found it fitting.
Luna passed by Chirox's body as she left her chamber. The mare was still as stone, her eye a burnt-out hole of gore. Luna's stomach should've turned but it didn't, and she continued on her way.
It was a slow walk that Luna took, taking in the dim halls of her abode and thinking long and hard about all that had gone into making it. The years of labor, the magic poured into its masonry and structure, and how willing she'd been to throw it all away.
Although she didn't want to admit it, Starlit was right about her. The petulance and immaturity that had characterized her reign was endemic to herself, and it was time to rectify the situation.
The roaring grew louder as she stepped towards the massive iron doors of her grand foyer. A thick layer of dust lay across the floor, and when she pressed the doors open with her magic they groaned and creaked with their age. She was astonished that they had not collapsed out from under their own weight.
A pall fell over everything when the doors opened, and it maintained as Luna passed by the startled ponies on a makeshift stage that he'd been erected in front of her palace. A few of the automatons stationed there made threatening moves to her, and she drained their power with nary a care.
Luna recognized Starlight Glimmer as she bounded towards her, sweating with worry and stammering something or other. With a burst of magic Luna set a seal on her mouth, holding it closed.
"You have done quite enough, I would think," Luna admonished. "Perhaps some time to reflect in quiet would do you well. It has certainly helped me."
Starlight's eyes went wide with fear. Luna decided to indulge her pettiness one final time and let her quarry stew in her worry and terror as she took the stage.
Thousands of eyes were fixed upon Luna, and the nighttime silence was so profound that not even an errant cricket would dare disturb it.
Luna took a deep breath, centered herself, and began to speak to her ponies.
"Citizens of New Selene, thy Princess would speak to thee," Luna announced, using her magic to magnify her voice. "It hast been too long since I have had the opportunity to address thee, and I fear that that sorry state of affairs is our fault."
The crowd erupted into murmurs of confusion, a better reaction that Luna had expected. At least they weren't rioting.
"I have made many a grave error and terrible mistake in the course of my rule," Luna continued, "and for that I offer up my deepest apologies. This city, and the injustice that festers in it like feculent rot, was and is my fault."
"For you see, there is a rot that lives and breeds underneath this very city, and it was I who put it there. The very energy source that fuels New Selene is its downfall, and it was put there by me so that I may one day raze this city back to the earth from whence it came. I attempted this once, and the sad state of my palace and the lands surrounding it are a testament to its power."
The murmurs now grew more concerned, and an appreciable amount of the crowd were starting to vacate with haste. Whatever their other failings, Starlight and her gang of cronies masquerading as a governing body stood their ground.
"I wish we could tell you that this curse, this blight upon the land, was to stave off something far worse, but that would be yet another falsehood added to the mountain of them that I have hoarded. I wish that there was a reason for all of this suffering that I have caused, but there is no excuse good enough."
"The truth of the matter," Luna continued, her voice cracking as she spoke, "is that I grew tired of the likes of thee. I grew resentful of the freedom that everypony took for granted that had been callously denied to me, and I wished to make a world that I could control as I had been controlled."
More than a few of the gathered ponies looked upon her with confusion, and more still with anger. Their demeanor was understandable, but Luna found that it stung all the same.
"Nothing I can do now will ever be able to make up for the mistakes of the past, but at the very least I can offer you a measure of comfort and peace of mind. Consider this a final gift from the mare who wronged this city so long ago."
Luna's horn lit a fierce blue, brighter and more intense as she pulled more of her strength into the spell. The earth began to rumble, pulsing with energy and spilling teal light from every errant crack in the ground. The crowd that had already been on edge started to panic, a panic only exacerbated when the automatons spread throughout the crowd started to seize and fall over in spasms.
Luna watched with pride as the night sky started to grow bright with the glow of light-gas, swirling and amassing overhead from the veins she had funneled into the earth. The ponies of the city made haste to escape, save for a few who thought their time was nigh and stared up at the growing cloud above their heads with fear.
As the last of the gas drained from the earth and the automatons, the lights from the city flickered off, leaving the teal glow of the billowing cloud of light-gas as the only illumination.
With a series of complex gestures from both her horn and her body she began the laborious process of condensing the light-gas back into its original crystalline form. The soft plink of tiny crystals falling to the ground warmed Luna's ears like soft rain, and the sound soon grew loud enough that the ponies that had fled were stopped by its wonderful cacophony.
The ponies of the Council and the ponies in the crowd stared up in wonder as more and more of the gas turned into smooth crystal, doing their best to dodge around the falling gems. As the last few fell the ponies started to sift through them, holding them up with quizzical looks.
"This is what thy 'light-gas' initially was," Luna said, projecting her voice further to reach the ponies who had not yet returned. "A power source unlike any the world has seen before or since, and one that I misappropriated to destroy. It was never intended for the function I perverted it towards, and now I would see it return to its original purpose."
With a tired wave of her horn the gemstones all vanished away from the open field with a flash of blue light, leaving the crowd perplexed and more than a bit nervous.
"Everypony in this city has been provided with a small share of these gems of power. The technology that thou hast created to condense and utilize light-gas will work for these gems with only minor adjustments that I will provide schematics for. All that I ask is that thou wouldst treat these stones not as commodities but as equalizers."
Luna gave a pointed glare to the ponies of the Council, each of them bowing under her furrowed brow and stern frown. She quickly dragged Starlight Glimmer forward, undoing the seal over her mouth as she floated the terrified unicorn before the assembled ponies.
"I would ask not that thou commit violence towards the ponies that have wronged thee and kept thee under their iron hooves," Luna continued, "but I command that you never let such a corrupt and self-serving governance arise again. Everypony shall serve the common good of all, and all shall prosper for it."
With a final flick of her horn Luna threw Starlight off of the stage, as well as the rest of the Council ponies. She didn't stay long enough to see what became of them; she was tired and she needed to speak with Starlit Sky one final time before the mare that had freed her left the city.
* * *
The nighttime breeze cooled Starlit's fur as she wandered the empty streets of New Selene. She had just started getting used to the constant hustle and bustle of the city, but welcomed the silence all the same. After the last two days she had had she needed some time to think.
Luna's spell had left Sun, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, and herself back in Redheart's humble hovel. She had joined the rest of the city for the Council's rally, so she was certainly going to be in for a nasty shock when she found her home once again filled with ponies in desperate need of rest.
Starlit was walking down the main thoroughfare for one of the innumerable merchant's districts when a small clink drew her attention to the cobblestones in front of her.
"What fresh hell is this?" Starlit groused as she picked the small crystal up in her magic, turning it around to look at each of its facets.
"A hell I made, and one I'm hoping to turn into a heaven," a familiar voice answered from above. Starlit looked up to see Luna hovering above her, resting on a small storm cloud.
"I take it your address went well?" Starlit asked. "Considering that I didn't hear any explosions or cries of distress and all that."
"Better than I anticipated, given what I told everypony. Of course, you already know the depths of my transgressions, and even still there are some that I have yet to speak of."
Luna alighted onto the ground, her pale blue horseshoes clinking with the same resonance as the crystal had. Even in such humble circumstances she was a picture of regality on par with her sister who had actually put an effort into her appearance.
"So, is this the part where we have a tearful goodbye, with mutual thanks for helping each other?" Starlit asked, coy but kind all the same.
"I think we've exchanged enough tearful words, if I'm to be completely honest," Luna answered with a chuckle, "but I did want to thank you for helping me back to the light. Jealousy and anger are fickle things, capable of dominating even the strongest of wills."
Luna flicked her horn and pulled the crystal she had dropped into her magic, idly flipping and twirling it through the nighttime air.
"And yet, something born of anger can, with time, be used to heal the very thing that made it," Luna continued. "But it doesn't erase the sins of the past."
"Nothing really can, but like I told Celestia, all that matters is doing what you can in the present to make the world better."
Luna bristled ever so slightly at the mention of her sister, turning her gaze to focus on a part of the pavement.
"Luna, I can't presume to know what it was that drove you all apart," Starlit continued, "but if you're really going to make amends for what happened back then then you need to make amends with Celestia. When last I saw she had already returned to Canterlot. She's waiting for you there."
Luna breathed a few shaky breaths, closing her eyes and focusing herself before she turned back to Starlit.
"You've already done so much for me," Luna said, "it almost feels like an overreach to ask for one more thing."
"If it helps you, then ask away. It's why I came here, after all."
"When you see Twilight again, as I'm sure you will," Luna continued, "tell her that I'm sorry for not heeding her warnings about Chrysalis. I'm afraid it's too little too late for proper amends, but I always regretted not listening to her about that matter."
"I'm sure she'll appreciate the sentiment regardless," Starlit answered. "So, what are you going to do now?"
"Firstly I need to stabilize my city," Luna answered, her expression turning serious. "I just overthrew a centuries old government in a single night, and that sort of reformation can lead to chaos if not handled with a deft hoof."
"Then it would seem you have your work cut out for you, and I'm keeping you from it. I'll only be staying in the city for one more night before moving on, so until we meet again—"
Starlit was cut off by a swift and tight embrace from the Princess, one that nearly pulled her off of her hooves.
"You're a good mare, and I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors," Luna said, her voice sweet and cool as the night air.
Before Starlit could reply Luna took to the sky, gliding on the cool night breeze as easily as a sparrow. Compared to the black coated mare she had seen before, Starlit saw that Luna was beautiful and awe-inspiring in all the right ways.
* * *
"So are you sure that this is going to work?" Sun asked, the early morning light making him wince as it got in his eyes.
"If what Twilight has taught me about how magic works is accurate, then it should," Starlit answered, focusing on the crudely drawn teleportation circle on the ground. She had drawn the sigils as best as she could remember them, and added in a ring of warding glyphs just in case anything went wrong and caused what Twilight had called a 'magical feedback'.
Starlit and Sun had stayed at Redheart's home for one more night before saying their farewells to everypony. Rarity and Pinkie both had been sad at a level disproportionate to how long they had known them, but given the events of the last forty-eight hours or so it wasn't completely unjustified. Sun and Rarity had spoken for a long while as Starlit packed their things up, and Pinkie Pie sent them off with a small sack of homemade cookies she'd seemingly materialized from thin air.
The question of how they were going to get back to Twilight was a different issue all together, and one that Starlit had secretly been dreading ever since Luna had flown off the previous night. It wasn't like they could walk all the way back there, and creating an ad hoc teleportation pad was not the first choice she had thought up.
"And you're sure that the two of us combined will have enough power to get us back?" Sun asked, the same refrain he'd been spouting off every few minutes since Starlit had started drawing the circle.
"Sun, you can either ask questions or you can help; if you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem," Starlit retorted as she put the finishing touches in her warding glyphs.
"Right, sorry, it's just that this is some really complex magic that I'm pretty sure you're guessing on half of."
"You're the one who studied all that magic when you were living in Appleoosa, you tell me if I'm doing this correctly," Starlit replied.
With a focused stare Sun looked over the sigils, lines, and glyphs that Starlit had dug into the loose dirt of the road leading out from New Selene. It was several agonizing minutes of him looking, making various curious noises, and occasionally adding a line or two to a sigil or erasing a glyph and laying down a new one in its place.
"It's not perfect, but it should focus the magic enough for a one way trip," Sun finally said. "If we had some copper to conduct it further that'd be ideal, but we need to work with what we have."
"If this does work then we could just ask Twilight for some when we get back," Starlit replied.
They both stood outside the rings and lines, looking upon their handiwork with equal measures of pride and trepidation. A bird chirped in the distance as a vole scurried past in the grass on the side of the road.
"So, you're getting in it first, right?" Sun asked nervously.
"I thought you were going to," Starlit answered.
"Me? Goodness no, the one who drew it should get the first honor."
"That sounds an awful lot like quitter talk, Sun."
"No, it sounds like a gentlepony who's trying to be polite. You know, ladies first and all that," Sun added with a slight bow.
"If I'm a lady then you're the long lost Princess of Friendship," Starlit retorted. "You go first."
"How about we both go together?" Sun offered. "So that way if it goes bad we both get flayed alive and reduced to piles of bloody ribbons."
A moment of silence was quickly followed by peals of laughter. Starlit knew that contrarianism wasn't going to get them anywhere, but it was funny nonetheless to engage in some childlike bickering.
Extending her hoof, Starlit and Sun came together in the center of their circle, horns illuminating bright blue and green. Sun was mostly going to act as an extra source of magic for the spell while Starlit pictured their destination.
Starlit closed her eyes, letting familiar sights and sounds flood her mind. The creak of the wood slats that made the front porch, the scent of fresh dirt being tilled, and the sight of her old warding lines. It was as crystal clear in her mind as if she was standing right in front of it.
A single tear fell from her eye as Starlit thought of home, and the pair vanished in a flash of blue light.
* * *
When Sun awoke his head felt as if it was an inch away from splitting in two, and the sun shining on his face wasn't helping matters one bit. He wearily flopped on the hard grass and dirt, trying to find purchase with which he could right himself up. The back of his head throbbed with a dull ache.
The whole world was tilted at an angle as he sat upright, but he was able at least to see what was in front of him as his vision focused. He was staring at an opaque wall of fog, a stark monument against the pastoral landscape that surrounded it, and Starlit holding a hoof against it.
"Did it work, or are we dead?" Sun slurred out.
"It worked," Starlit answered, "but I didn't really know what I expected to see."
Sun saw Starlit press harder against the wall of fog, like she was trying to pierce through the veil that had led to the Golden Oak's clearing.
"Where are we? This doesn't look like Twilight's tree."
"It isn't," Starlit answered ruefully. "This is my home, or it should be at least. Twilight said she was going to halt time around the house so that my husband and daughter would never know I was gone, but…"
"You at least wanted to see them," Sun finished.
"Right," Starlit answered, resting her forehead on the fog wall.
Shakily Sun got to his hooves, losing his balance twice before finally getting his footing.
"It was the only place I could think of to trace the teleportation spell to," Starlit continued. "Twilight's tree is off in the woods, probably five miles or so away. If you want to take a head start then feel free to, I'll catch up."
"Starlit," Sun started before deciding better. He had known her long enough to tell that she needed a moment.
Sun ambled his way towards the tree line that he could see in the distance, nearly tripping a few times. The strain of the spell was slowing his body down considerably, and the pressure at the back of his head when Silence started talking didn't help matters.
"You lived. Commendable, and quite unexpected if I'm being honest with you."
"Now is really not the time for your passive-aggressive banter, Silence," Sun sniped back. "I have a lot that I'm mulling over and my whole body feels like sludge. Get to the point or get lost."
"Very well, if you insist," Silence replied. "Starlit has something in her saddlebags, something that Luna gave her, that could help your waning magic. I'd suggest you speak with her about it."
Sun stopped just as he got the edge of the forest, and not only because he had no idea which way to go to get to the Golden Oak.
"What do you mean?" Sun asked, his curiosity piqued.
"It's a piece of crystal from the far north that Luna had stolen to make into a weapon. You already had a run-in with it when you were blown up in the mines."
Sun felt a phantom pain shoot through his left eye, sending a worried shudder down his spine.
"When last I checked, it was light-gas that caused that explosion, not a chunk of crystal," Sun replied.
"And where do you think that light-gas came from?" Silence asked. "Luna took these crystals and transmuted them into gas before spreading them into the ground below her city centuries ago. Her plan was to use them to blow New Selene sky high, but she was imprisoned before she could. You're very lucky that that pocket didn't set an entire vein of it off."
"Be that as it may, how will it help with my magic?" Sun asked, bile rising in his stomach at the thought that he'd been standing atop a city rigged to blow for over two days.
"You're smart, I'm certain you could figure this one out," Silence smugly answered.
"What part of 'now is not the time for your passive-aggressive banter' did you not understand?!" Sun snapped back. Explain, now!"
"Those crystals are from the Crystal Empire," Silence hastily replied, "and that whole area is a wellspring of magical energy. It's the homeland of the alicorns, and you've seen how much innate magic they have. You can draw energy from that crystal to replenish your own."
Sun breathed steadily, slowing his heartbeat down as he did. Whoever said that threats didn't get results had obviously not been making the right threats.
"There, now was that so hard?" Sun asked.
"Just think of that information as a reward for showing some backbone. Starlit's gonna be here soon, so be sure to talk to her about it."
The pressure in Sun's mind faded, allowing him the clarity of thought to notice the sound of dry grass crunching underhoof from the distance. As he turned to see Starlit approach he really took in the area that she lived in; it was wretched, but it had a certain dismal majesty to it all the same.
"Thanks for waiting," Starlit said.
"I had to, you're the only one that knows the way," Sun answered, holding a hoof out towards the forest.
Starlit let a small chuckle escape her throat as they both entered the woods, but Sun was far too preoccupied with everything that had happened to share in the weary mirth. He felt like he could sleep for a week, and it had only been a bit over two days since they'd set off.
* * *