Luna began to slowly wake from her sleep and whine. She made soft whimpers that quickly grew into sputtered wails before becoming full-fledged crying. Almost immediately, her parents were yanked out of their sleep, still lying over the edge of their bed.
"I'll tend to her," Astraios mumbled as he dragged himself to his hooves. With his eyes squinting from exhaustion, Astraios walked over to Luna's bassinet, but the moment he set his eyes on Luna, his eyes widened like all drowsiness vanished. "Eos, look!"
Eos only mumbled, but dragged herself upright to stand next to her husband. When she saw what he wanted her to, she gasped and her eyes also went wide.
"Her... her horn. The tip is glowing!"
Astraios nodded. "But why?" he wondered as he picked Luna up. "Is she casting a spell?"
Luna's crying reduced to sputtered wails, but she squirmed and kicked her body all around, enough that Astraios was having some trouble holding her. The light at the tip of her horn began to blink.
"Something must be wrong!" Eos exclaimed. "Maybe she needs---"
The light from the tip of her horn shone upwards and flashed an image. It was fuzzy, but Eos and Astraios watched it as close as they could for the few moments it blinked before vanishing for good. The tip from Luna's horn still glowed and she still fussed, as if trying to fight her way out of her father's hooves.
"Do you think she's trying to communicate?" Eos asked Astraios. "Maybe she's trying to show what's wrong since she can't say it."
"But what is wrong?" Astraios wondered. "That image. It was fuzzy, but it look like... like a pony, I think. Like a white pony."
"A white pony..." Eos mumbled. "A white pony! Celestia!"
Astraios and Eos raced to their older daughter's room, only to discover she was gone. They searched everywhere. Under her bed, among her toys, but she was nowhere to be seen. However, Eos did notice their daughter wasn't all that was missing.
"Astraios, look! Her blanket is gone. The one she always keeps on her bed."
"Her favorite stuffed toy is gone too! But how?! When?! How could we have slept through our little filly being kidnapped?!"
"Astraios, I..." Eos became teary-eyed as she spoke. "I don't think she was taken."
"But... what are you... what other reason is there?!"
"Look behind the door!" Eos pointed out. "There's one more thing missing!"
Astraios did as Eos said and glanced behind the door, but there didn't seem to be anything wrong with it. Celestia's jacket was hanging from it, as usual, and he pulled it off. However, the moment he did that, he realized what Eos was trying to say. Celestia also kept her saddlebag hung from her bedroom's door. If her saddlebag was missing, that meant Celestia...
"She ran away!" Astraios finally concluded. "She ran away from us!"
Eos swallowed a knot in her in throat and nodded, her tears streaming down her view in plain sight. "Even if the bag was there... just... just look at her room. Does it really look like another pony was in here? She would've screamed. She would've ran. We would've known. Our... our baby is gone."
Astraios set Luna, who had stopped crying for now, on Celestia's bed and gave his wife comfort. For a while, they did nothing besides hold each other and cry, both over their missing daughter and the thought of every awful thing that could be happening to her. Every fear and blame consumed them for the moment, but they did not point a hoof of blame at each other. There was only comfort between them.
Eventually, those tears stopped and they pulled themselves together. There was no more time for grief. They needed to find Celestia now!
"Luna showed us that image of Celestia," Astraios said. "Maybe she knows where Celestia is."
"I don't think Luna showed us that image on purpose," Eos disagreed, taking Luna from the bed. "I think it's more of a sense. She knows her sister is in trouble, but we have to find her ourselves."
"We'll have to retrace her footprints. You wouldn't know a spell, would you?" Astraios asked.
"I know one that can reveal her hoof prints, but only within a certain time frame."
"That's better than nothing! Cast it."
Eos hoisted Luna onto her back and quietly flared her horn. Light mist spread all over the floor and poured out of the room. When it cleared, it revealed a path of small hoof prints, exactly Celestia's size. Eos took Luna into her hooves again, and the couple flew off, staying low to follow the trail clearly.
All the while, the tip of Luna's horn continued to glow.
The trail of hoof prints the mist revealed ended in the grove of trees, right at the tree with the hollow trunk where Celestia had laid down the sleep. But they didn't see her anywhere.
"If the hoof prints end here, where is she?" Astraios asked Eos. "She couldn't have just disappeared."
"She can teleport," Eos reminded him. "Maybe something scared her and she teleported away."
"I'm not sure about that," Astraios replied, a sudden shakiness in his voice. "I found something."
Eos joined him at the tree and watched as he pulled out what was unmistakably Celestia's saddlebag. It was empty.
"She had to be here," Astraios decided, "but where are her blanket and stuffed toy? Maybe you're right about something scaring her."
"But she leaves her saddlebag behind?" Eos questioned. "Maybe I'm looking at this with too much reason for a foal, but why would she take her blanket and toy without her bag? If she was scared out of her sleep, wouldn't she teleport just herself away?"
While they pondered over the possibilities and searched the grove for more signs, Luna began to fuss again. Desperately hoping for any sign of Celestia, neither of her parents noticed at first. But the light on her horn's tip began to blink again and Luna began to struggle to get out of her mother's hooves. Eos held her back, but Luna wouldn't calm down.
"Eos, stop! Don't restrain her!"
"Astraios, we don't need two missing foals!"
Astraios patted his wife's back for a moment. "No, look at her horn. The tip is blinking again. She could be trying to tell us something. You said it's a sense, didn't you?"
"I think it is."
"Turn around for a moment." Eos did so, and Luna continued to struggle, reaching toward what was now behind Eos. "I know what it is!"
Eos turned around again. "What? What does she want?"
"Us to follow her. See? She keeps reaching ahead. Luna wants us to go that way."
"We can't," Eos pointed out. "The space between the trees is too tight. Celestia couldn't have walked through there." Eos then looked up. "But she could've flown over!"
They didn't waste another minute. Astraios carried Celestia's bag on his back and the couple hurriedly flew upwards, hovering above the trees. They didn't spot anything unusual from their overhead view. They flew forward at a regular pace for Eos to keep an eye on Luna while Astraios watched the ground. Nothing seemed unusual until Luna began to reach downwards. The couple flew downward, but didn't set themselves on the ground, and that was when they both spotted something up ahead.
"Is that a house?" Eos asked in a whisper.
"I'm not sure, but look at what Luna's doing."
Luna's horn was flashing the same image it showed them earlier, and this time, it was clearer. It was undoubtedly Celestia. The light stopped blinking, but did not fade out.
"If you're right about Luna sensing Celestia, she might be in there!" Astraios exclaimed. "Do you want to wait to find out?"
"Not a chance!"
The couple hurried in the direction of the house, flying as fast as they could while Eos held Luna tightly. The house was small and just from the outside, it was obvious it'd been deteriorating over some years. Mud surrounded it and the exterior was covered in rust, dirt, and claw marks. There were no windows. Only a single door that led inside. As much as they wanted to break in, they knew Celestia's safety was more important than getting their hooves on whoever took her. They set themselves on their hooves and folded their wings. Astraios stepped ahead, slowly pushing in the door and peering in. When the room seemed empty, he stepped in, quickly and quietly followed by Eos. Luna was, thankfully, silent. The light on the tip of her horn faded, though she was still awake.
The room sent shivers down their spines. They had never seen such a place. Instinctively, Astraios pulled Eos close to him as she felt herself getting sick to her stomach. He spotted another room and they softly trotted over to the wall, getting as close to it as they could without touching it. Astraios peeked into the other room. He had to cover his mouth to avoid letting out a sound before he turned back to Eos.
"Is she there?" Eos whispered.
"Yes. I think she's okay," he replied with the same low tone. "She's been eating."
"Eating?" Eos questioned.
"Remember when she got a bellyache because she snuck a big basket of sweets from a festival we took her to?"
"Before Luna was born! I remember." Eos chuckled a small bit at the memory, recalling it fondly.
"She's on top of a table," Astraios explained. "Sleeping on her back and holding her belly. There's a bunch of food around her."
"Is she the only pony there?" Eos asked.
Astraios peeked in again. This time, he saw the unicorn walk in from a doorway on the side of the room. He threw his hoof to his mouth again to keep himself quiet as he watched in fearful curiosity as the unicorn approach Celestia. The unicorn fastened Celestia to the table with wooden straps and a shot of magic. She then took what seemed to be stones and used one to drag it across Celestia's body as if making an invisible line. "Horrified" was not a word strong enough to describe the feeling Astraios felt creeping up on him.
"Astraios, what's happening?" Eos whispered.
He didn't answer her question with words, but the next thing Eos heard was a scream and a crash as her husband rushed into the room. She hurried after him, but paused in her tracks at what she saw.
"Astraios, what---!"
"Mama! Papa!" Celestia cried, scared out of her sleep.
"Eos, that unicorn was going to eat her!" Astraios yelled. With his magic, he yanked Celestia out of the straps and right into his hooves! She clung to her parents tightly, crying hard.
"It's okay, it's okay," Eos soothed her. "We're here now. You'll be okay."
The unicorn began to struggle to her hooves. The second they heard her move, Eos and Astraios began to advance toward her, eyes glowing white, horns glowing red, and wings fully stretched out. Eos quickly placed Luna in Celestia's hooves, and Celestia stayed back. Not once had she seen her parents in this state, not even when they were furious with her. They blasted the table to smithereens and finally stood face-to-face with the unicorn.
"WHY DOTH THOU KIDNAP OUR CHILD?!?!"
The unicorn fled, but she didn't get far before the couple snatched her right back and hoisted her in mid-air. Despite they were protecting her, Celestia felt fear stronger than she'd felt at any time before this. She ran out, back into the first room, and curled up with Luna, holding her sister close as violent sounds erupted from where she was previously being held hostage. She didn't dare look until the sounds of thrashing and powerful blasts ceased.
After many seconds that felt like an eternity, Celestia's parents came rushing out of the room. They wasted no time, grabbing their daughters in their magic's grasps and racing out of the small house as their surroundings caught fire. They raced into the sky, only stopping to fire one last flare together at the house, exploding it, but almost instantly extinguishing the flames to avoid setting fire to the greenery. Then, they flew off, neither them nor Celestia looking back.
They settled down in the grove for rest. Luna had fallen soundly asleep like nothing happened. For a moment, the rest of the family envied that. Miraculously, Celestia still had her blanket and stuffed toy. Astraios had grabbed them before they fled and stuffed them into Celestia's saddlebag. He gently placed the bag on her back, but she let it fall off and stared at the ground. The adrenaline that wore off was replaced by tension. Eos held her head up and the moment she did, Celestia cried again, quietly, but without control. Her parents hugged her again.
"Shhhh. Shhhh," Eos whispered. "You're okay now."
"We'll talk about it later," Astraios told her softly. "We'll talk all of this out. Let's go home."
Eos rocked her and started singing in her ear.
Sleep, my little foal
Feel peace throughout the night
I'll be by your side
No need for worry or fright
Celestia held Eos more tightly, but began to calm down at the sound of the familiar lullaby.
Over you, the drowsiness creeps
Let it carry you to sleep
A watch over you, I'll keep
All through the night
Celestia didn't fall asleep, but she did fully quiet down and wipe her tears away.
"Celestia, your father and I love you," Eos whispered. "We were so worried about you tonight."
Celestia only gave a small hiccup in response. Astraios patted her back while Eos still held her. "We thought we lost you," he told her gently. "We were scared. We can't replace you. Even if we could, we don't want to."
Astraios placed her saddlebag on his back once more. The couple took flight again, each of them holding one of their daughters, and headed for home.