Composure

by Varanus


Chapter 6 - Calamity

Composure

by Varanus

A MLP:FiM fanfiction.

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Chapter 6 – Calamity

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The noontime sun streamed through the stained-glass windows of the castle, bathing Celestia and Twilight in many-hued streams of light as they strolled back towards the royal chambers, taking the scenic route. The castle was theirs alone, with only a few stoic guards here and there seeming to be about to greet them.

As they stepped through an archway, they found themselves on the fateful bridge from earlier. The sun was streaming down at a steeper angle now, filling the narrow passage with light. Celestia stretched her wings, catching air between her now-pristine feathers. Her coat gleamed in the sunlight, brighter than usual, and she marvelled at how wonderful the sensation of merely being clean was.

She sneaked a peek at her protégé, who was looking similarly refreshed. Her coat was fetchingly glossy and her horn filed to a conservative point, though the fluting was etched a bit more daringly than usual…

Celestia tore her attention away and focused on the flagstones. ‘Are they keeping this well maintained? Yes. No, there’s a crack. Should that be replaced? No. Nothing needs to change…’ Her eyes flicked over from her own hooves to the lavender set trotting aside her. ‘You’re just being a bit silly.’

 ‘Still, being perfectly honest, I… think I may have enjoyed that more than I should have…’

She took another glance at Twilight – she was looking perfectly forward, neck tellingly rigid, as interested in the path ahead as Celestia was with the flagstones. Clearing her throat, Celestia broke the silence. “I… I’m loath to admit it, but that was a little awkward, wasn’t it?” She smiled apologetically at Twilight, but her spirits lifted to see her smile bashfully back at her.

“Yeah, a little,” she replied, rolling her shoulder. “But it was nice.”

Celestia smiled, pleased. “Wasn’t it, though?”

“Yes, it was,” Twilight affirmed, before glancing shyly downwards. “We’ll… we’ll have to do it again sometime.”

“I’d like that, yes…” Celestia cleared her throat again. “It’s a nice break when shared with a friend, isn’t it?”

Twilight nodded her head vigorously as she pounced on the safe topic. “Absolutely. The girls and I try and get together every few weeks for a spa day. I’ve got Zecora to thank for that, I really doubt Rainbow or Applejack would have ever gone for something like it before.”

“It’s fun to introduce friends to new things,” Celestia agreed. “I remember when I first revealed that spa to Luna. What you have to remember is, a thousand years ago there were no spas, but there were cleansing rituals from which spa treatments were developed...”

So they slipped into comfortable routine, Celestia threading history lesson with personal anecdote, with Twilight at her side paying rapt attention.

They arrived back at Celestia’s chambers before they knew it, pausing in their discussion only to smile at the guards. Her bedroom doors lit up with a rosy sparkle as Twilight stood aside with playful courtesy, letting Celestia enter first. Celestia gave her an amused look as she passed, heading for her bed.

“Going to rest up a bit more?”

“I think so.” Celestia slid under the sheets and, once she was comfortable, glanced back over to Twilight. She was pawing the ground idly, glancing out of the window. Celestia’s eyes flitted shut a moment, testing the sun’s arc, before turning back to the anxious unicorn. “Twilight, it’s nearing noon. Should you be off?”

Twilight nodded, a shade reluctantly. “Yes. I’ll be back soon,” she added, almost insisting that she’d return.

Celestia nodded. “I know. And you’ll have recovered much of the vital results from the experiment, I’m sure.”

“Right...” Twilight said with a restrained sigh, making her way back to the door. “Off I go then.”

“Twilight?” Celestia called after her. Concern carried clear through the air, and, when Twilight turned, she had adopted a familiar confidence that almost assuaged the princess’ worry.

“I’m just over-thinking things,” Twilight said, shrugging. “You know how it is. No need to worry about me.”

“Even so,” came Celestia’s reply as she put on her best comforting smile. Instead of perking up, however, Twilight only flashed a weak smile in return and disappeared out the doorway before another word could pass between them, leaving Celestia with a disquieting sense of unease.

She lay back in her bed, taking pains not to disturb the still snoozing Spike, and let the scene play out back before her mind’s eye, trying to pin the sensation down. As her feathers grazed over the still-sensitive burn on her side, she discovered the sensation was that same unwelcome sense of powerlessness that had vexed her not hours before. Unable to raise a pillow with her magic, let alone the sun, unable to preen properly to tidy herself, and now unable to reassure her little pony...

Celestia shifted to her side, letting her eyelids slide shut. There was little point in dwelling on such problems when no doubt a solution was waiting to reveal itself. Twilight’s hesitance, though masterfully cloaked, had been clear to Celestia, and the disquiet that lingered about her was the reminder of her impotence in this arena. Gone were the days when a kind word from the princess would banish her student’s woes. Celestia brushed her forehead, still so tender, and let herself smile ruefully. More and more, it seemed the mentor itself was the source of the poor protege's troubles.

‘It’s up to her, I suppose. I couldn’t possibly help with the salvage work in the lab in my condition... and even if I could, if everypony saw me like this, there’s no telling how they might react. The fallout from Chrysalis’ army was bad enough...’ She sighed, remembering the fearful and confused faces of her ponies staring down at her as she lay, struck down by the changeling Queen’s deceptively enhanced magic.

‘There's a thought...’ she pondered, the memory standing out to her. ‘Perhaps a festival of some sort will distract Canterlot from this incident?’ After all, the changeling army’s abrupt banishment not an hour after her defeat had offered Celestia the opportunity to minimize the fallout quite elegantly, simply by encouraging Shining and Cadance to be wed that very eve. Thanks again to Twilight and her organizational prowess, Celestia had found the breathing room to retreat to her chambers and be seen to by Ramheart and was back to preside over the ceremony as if nothing had happened.

‘Perhaps too much time has passed already...’ Celestia shrugged and made a mental note to ask Twilight’s opinion on the matter. Turning, she searched her bedside table for something to read –  and then the realisation hit her like a lead weight.

Without even thinking about it, she had resolved to consult Twilight about something as important and personal as her need to be seen as pristine. Not even Luna really knew the full extent of the sun princess’ self-admitted eccentricity, thinking it just an artifact from the old days much like the Royal Canterlot Voice.

Then again, my sister is probably the last pony I’d confess this to...’ Celestia sighed, a pang of guilt accompanying the thought. ‘There's no point in burdening Luna with my little neurosis...’

But apparently Twilight was fair game? No, this wasn’t her mind making rational judgements, it was a silly fluttering of her heart sneaking thoughts into the back of her head, just as it had done in the spa. Celestia let out her frustration in a small, helpless chuckle. ‘How maddening. No, I can’t burden Twilight with my woes. It would be beyond unfair. She’s strong, but this on top of everything else could break her...’

Though perhaps in time. Celestia smiled true, nodding to herself. Yes, in time, when things were settled, there would be ample opportunity to confide.

‘Is she still concerned?’ Celestia wondered. She shifted onto her back, considering the idea with a playful air. ‘Did she just not want to leave me unattended? Or did she just not want to leave me at all...?’ She smiled, chiding herself for a burst of excited hope that fluttered at the thought. ‘Careful. The spa was bad enough...’

Still, she chuckled at the idea before letting it slide away as she settled down into her pillow, deciding the best thing for it was a quick nap.

No sooner had she closed her eyes, a voice drifted into her ear. “Are you there?”

Celestia bolted up in a sudden fright and scanned the room for the intruding speaker. Finding herself alone save for young Spike curled up his cushion nearby, she allowed herself to relax once more, thankful that she hadn’t tried to use magic in that moment of shock. Resting back into bed, she suppressed the slight embarrassment of the moment and instead considered the voice. It had appeared right as she was ready to sleep... Perhaps Luna would know more about –

Ah. Of course.

Celestia allowed herself to relax, breathing deep. The voice wafted back, tentatively searching for a reply. “Sister?”

‘I’m here,’ she replied.

Mist rolled over the darkness behind her shut eyes, and from them images took shape, orphaned of context and meaning, as she felt herself being tugged almost physically into sleep. Celestia watched the shapes out of the corner of her eye, recognising them not by sight, but by the emotions they stirred up in her. Confidence and pride formed platforms of steel and copper. Fascination and disbelief hung over her head as gemstones every colour of the rainbow. Flowers stirred her heart, yet made her wary, hesitant.

She followed her sole beacon, that tug in her mind, surrendering her instinctive desire for certainty and drifting through the realm of subjectivity. Her body began to fade, returning to the mist as her mind grew comfortably dull and lethargic, but just as her consciousness was enveloped totally within the dream, she felt a presence make itself known.

Smoothly, she brought her form back into crystal clarity, and turned her head to greet her visitor. “Luna,” she said, smiling as her sister drifted through the mist. “I wasn’t expecting to see you until much later in the evening.”

“Likewise, Celestia.” The night princess smirked, her voice light and teasing. “I am glad you heard my call, but it does auger ill – so early in the morning and you are already dozing off. I hope this laziness does not become habit.”

“Not laziness, sister, recovery.” Celestia’s reply was mock–haughty and matter-of-fact, happily engaging in the little game Luna was offering. “I’m resting after a lovely spa treatment; I very much recommend availing of them while they’re in the castle.”

Luna bit her lip, eyes wandering upwards as she considered the offer. “Ooh... tempting. Perhaps, perhaps. It was enjoyable, you say?” Her eyes gleamed, bright and comforting starts in the swirling mist.

Celestia opened her mouth to reply, but to her surprise heat enveloped her. Seamlessly, she was back in the herbal bath, her body reflexively stretching out to relish the soak. Looking up, she saw Twilight linger hesitantly at the edge of the pool... then begin to lower her body into the water, sliding in beside her. Celestia tensed for a moment, but that strange anxiety faded when her unicorn’s eyes rolled back in a near caricature of bliss. “Oh Celestia, this is incredible...” she moaned.

Laughter rippled through the air, jarring Celestia, for it was more real than the steam and water around her. Startled, she stepped away, and reality faded. The warmth vanished, but no chill followed, and to her surprise she found herself standing before the very vision she had been lost in, for carved out in the mist was a hazy spa bath, complete with a smoky unicorn and princess. She stared at it, lost, as if it were a painting or play to appraise distantly. The laughter, however, continued, and, turning her head, she could see Luna seizing up in hysterics.

“Luna, what... what is that?” Celestia asked, her face flushed with no small confusion -  and more than a little embarrassment.

“Pardon, sister, I beg,” Luna said, managing to clamp down on her laughter. Her eyes flitted to the spa scene, and her grin grew mischievous. “This is your dream, your… aha, stream of consciousness. Of course memories will come quick and unbidden. Careful, lest you get swept away.” She began to chuckle. “Although perhaps that’s exactly what you desire, more sweet memories of your faithful…” She let the word linger in the air, dangerously ambiguous.

Luna’s words, though teasing in nature, nevertheless prodded at something young and vulnerable inside Celestia. “You’re reading too much into it,” she said, moving to shield her discomfort with an indignant huff.

Luna’s grin wavered, but then she stepped forward, calling Celestia’s bluff. “But am I, really?” she needled, cocking her head inquisitively.  “You say that, but… Oh, but look at you.” She trotted over to the mist-carved memory and brought her head down between the two mares in the bath. She smirked, catlike, as Celestia saw her memory’s expression – eyes happy and intently focused, joined by a grin that bordered on eager.

Celestia turned sharply away, her heart thudding with panic and her guilty voice whispering a reminder of her thoughts earlier: ‘I enjoyed it more than a friend should have. Seizing opportunities without the intent to follow through, at Twilight’s expense... leave. I need to think.’ She knew it was irrational to just ‘run’, but her legs obeyed her gut before her mind could object.

Luna’s voice carried after her, light and merry and a touch cruel to Celestia’s ear. “Poor little Twilight has no idea the dreams you have in store for her, does she?”

Dreams of basking below a crimson-leaved tree, sharing a fruit called life...

“That’s enough,” Celestia said firmly, taking several calming breaths. Around her, the formless void spilled out into infinity, colour blooming in greens and browns and reds of every hue. When the sun princess’ eyes opened once more, it had all consolidated into a rich green field, fruit trees dotting the landscape as they sprouted up here and there around her.

“How lovely,” Luna marvelled, clearly impressed.

Though normally Celestia would have relished this approval, here she made a point of ignoring her sister, plucking an orange from the branches dangling above her and settling down on the grass to peel it. Truth be told, she wasn’t even particularly fond of oranges, but the allure of being able to manipulate something with her magic, even in a dream, was stronger than the promise of imaginary strawberries.

She heard her sister make an approving noise, then a snap of a branch. With a glance out of the corner of her eye she saw Luna approach with her own prize floating before her, a fat, golden-green pear. “An ansault? How nostalgic. I missed these,” she murmured, before biting down and trotting over to Celestia.

Focusing on the orange, Celestia did her best to zone Luna out entirely, which proved difficult as the younger merely rested down across from her and tilted her head inquisitively, munching on the pear as they mutually engaged in the waiting game.

The orange, now peeled and split into segments, was laid out on the grass between them. Celestia fiddled with them in the silence, eating them one by one, all the while fixed by Luna’s inscrutable gaze. “Please don’t tease me about Twilight,” she finally said.

Luna gave her a sideways grin. “I will stop when you’ve answered directly,” she said, devoid of mercy. “Am I wrong? Sister, you coaxed her into a bath with you...”

“It was an herbal spa bath, the kind that we share and she shares often with her friends.” Celestia levitated the orange rind and began to carefully tear it in two. “It was innocent. And besides that, I arranged this spa treatment before I...”

“Before?” Luna’s grin returned triumphant, her chin dripping with the pear’s juices. “Before what?”

Celestia’s voice wavered as she realised she was caught. “Before... before you got these silly notions in your head about Twilight and I,” she said, firm in her weak retort.

Luna’s eyes narrowed, a low chuckle signalling that she saw right through Celestia. “Oh no you don’t. You deflected me about this morning, but…”

Luna’s words died as Celestia found herself on her bed again. She blinked, somewhat confused. ‘Have I woken already?’

A presence grazed against her side, and Celestia’s eyes slid over to see her faithful Twilight resting beside her. Her eyes fluttered slowly open, lavender butterfly-wings testing the morning breeze.

“Hello Celestia...” she murmured, smiling absently up to her.

“You seem to have slept well,” Celestia said, suppressing a light giggle. “Did you have sweet dreams?”

“Hmm, maybe...” Twilight replied drowsily. She closed her eyes and, with a contented sigh, snuggled closer to Celestia.

Luna’s laughter began anew, and Celestia snapped out of the daydream to see her sister rolling on her back in mirth.

Celestia felt her withers begin to tense anew, and she willed herself not to turn away this time. “You’re taking that out of context,” she said, before Luna could utter another jibe.

 Luna’s laughter continued, undeterred. “The context makes it worse!” she said, taking clear pleasure from Celestia’s discomfort. She waved a hoof over the scene, of the sleepy, beautiful unicorn curled into Celestia’s side. “Look! You slept the night in each other’s embrace! Are you sure you’re not telling me something, hmm?”

Celestia rose to her hooves, agitation getting the best of her. The absence, however imaginary, of Twilight’s warmth jarred her like an off-key note in a symphony, but she gathered the jarring sensation up around her, setting it along her shoulders and twitching wings as annoyance and frustration. “Don’t you even begin,” she said, her eyes stern as she shored up her composure with rising indignation. “How did you even call up that memory anyway? Are you trying to peer into my mind?”

Luna’s expression flashed from amusement to shock for a moment, sending a thorn of regret through Celestia. However, her sister recovered almost instantly and began to grin anew, her tone breezy. “Ah, nothing so invasive,” she assured Celestia. “I warned you before, did I not? This is your mind, sister. Perhaps it’s been growing wild recently, hmm...?”

Celestia’s gaze fell to the ground – but instead of grass, she found herself knee-deep in cool, flowing water.  Twilight stood before her, her face downcast and hidden, and suddenly Celestia’s heart was flooded with remorse, shame and worry. Drips of water fell from Twilight’s face, but from her vantage point the princess couldn’t tell whether or not they were tears.

“I’m sorry,” Celestia whispered.

Her unicorn’s reply came wavering yet stern. “You should be.” A further pang of shame through Celestia’s heart… and yet…

Celestia pulled away, stepping back onto the grass. She took a few paces away, her expression crumbling into a conflicted crown as she contemplated the vision. ‘It’s not the student’s place to chastise the teacher…’ And yet chastened Celestia assuredly was, now, so where did that place her? Where did that place Twilight?

Luna remained silent, sobered by the serious memory, glancing from it to Celestia with an inquisitive look. “This really is bothering you, isn’t it?” she asked after a long moment.

“I suppose it is…” Celestia sighed, letting the memory of the pool in the shade of the castle fade away. Twilight, however, remained, her expression turning to that same lost look of anxiety that had painted her face before they had parted.

“Off I go then…” the memory mumbled, turning and trotting into the mist.

Celestia could practically feel Luna’s gaze on her, seeking some sort of enlightenment to the matter. “She’s worried about the experiment, I think,” Celestia supplied, voice low and tinged with slight worry. “There’s nothing I can do, really, and that rather... chafes at me.”

“You tend to avoid intervening anyway,” Luna pointed out.

Celestia bobbed her head, conceding the point. “True. But this is different. This is about us.”

“I’ve no doubt.” Luna smiled again, but this time it wasn’t teasing. Celestia met her eye, returning the smile with an appreciative one of her own as the night princess rose to her hooves, adopting a thoughtful expression. “You said you dreamed of her last night?”

Celestia nodded. “That is important, I presume?”

“Very, if you’re quite worried for her,” Luna said. She looked across the landcape with a keen, appraising eye. “You said you two grew fruit? Where? There are already many orchards here, in this dream.”

“The tree isn’t here, among the others. It’s separate, at the edge of the garden... perhaps even a little beyond it.” Celestia mulled over her own words. “When I say it plainly like that, the significance is rather clear...”

Luna smiled. “I find it fitting. Twilight is a unique pony, to both of us.”

Celestia couldn’t suppress the slight smile that bloomed at this sentiment. “Agreed.” Twilight’s significance to her life was unparallelled by any other pony through the ages. Perhaps it was no surprise that she felt herself feeling... differently, recently. Whether or not those feelings were true, there was no denying her importance, something the dream had made so clear. “We ran together, through the gardens, and… found the tree. By chance.”

“Ah, so you two took a journey together?” Luna smiled, and the world shimmered around her. From the corner of her eye, off in the distance…

A lavender pony galloping, away from the horizon.

“Twilight…” Celestia sighed, her heart stirring as it recalled the exhilaration of racing her dream’s unicorn through the gardens, challenging each other for no reason other than because they were free, taking shortcuts and long routes alike, relishing their private search for a flower, together…

And then before Celestia, there was a chalkboard, dense with scrawled notes and equations. Feeling a surge of purpose, Celestia stepped forward, snatching up a stick of chalk and began to add to the formulas, linking together the equations in order to complete some ambiguous mathematical proof.

“Ah!” somepony exclaimed behind her. Celestia turned to see Twilight canter up, her eyes scanning the additions frantically. “I wasn’t quite… done…” Her protests trailed off as her expression turned thoughtful. “Huh.”

“No?” Celestia asked, picking up the eraser.

“Actually… yeah, this looks good… oh!” Twilight snatched up the eraser and swiped away a portion of the additions, before snatching up the chalk and making additions of her own. “Output from resonance seems to increase to the power of n, n being the number of nodes… otherwise, that looks good.” She gave Celestia a giddy smile. “I think we’ve cracked it!”

“There’s still a long way to go,” Celestia cautioned her, but smiled nonetheless.

So they turned back to their work. Together they scrawled symbols and numbers and diagrams on a chalkboard, their lines criss-crossing and spiralling together as one.

They worked in tandem, no words needed. It was perfect harmony.

Then the daydream faded, and Celestia was back in the garden.

“When was that?” Luna asked, curious.

“Oh, months ago…” Celestia said absently, now finally grasping the nature of the dreams’ intrusions. She was trying to remember the rest of her dream, the dream of running, running with her unicorn…

There, in the distance, Celestia was sure she could see a tree with swaying red leaves.

“You can tease me with memories all you like…” Celestia murmured. “But what if…” Her eyes closed, and she stepped forward.

Her hoof met not grassy loam, but hard stone. Familiar stone.

The clatter of many hooves on concrete resounded through the air, and Celestia opened her eyes to find herself in a large, high-roofed room filled with at least half a dozen ponies, all wearing white lab coats.

“I… I remember now!” Celestia exclaimed. The world wavered, becoming overlaid with the garden once more.

“Well aren’t you clever! Careful, though…” Luna stepped up beside her, and the laboratory suddenly grew much clearer and stronger. “I’ll do my best to keep your mind sensitive to this moment, but it’ll work better if…”

“If I don’t think about it, correct?” Celestia smiled, and nuzzled her sister appreciatively. “Don’t worry, I’ve yet to forget how to dream.”

And then she was there, in the lab once more, and she always had been. The only gardens that day were the ones she and Twilight had taken a little detour through for the sake of it, before teleporting directly here with ten minutes to spare. Celestia stepped forward, each sound of hooves on stone reaffirming her place that much more.

Casually, she observed the familiar laboratory. Very few windows punctured the smooth grey walls, save for a strip of them high up near the roof. However, the room was far from dim, as the whole ceiling was tiled with brightly glowing panels of glass. Celestia could feel the warmth of the sun through the light they emitted, and chuckled, as she always did when she saw the panels. ‘What will they do next?’

A more recent feature dominating the room was a ring of pillars which surrounded a strange contraption that for all the world resembled an ornate fountain. It hung over a deep, clear pool of water, reachable only by a number of walkways between it and the shore. It was the Resonance array, the instrument through which Twilight’s experiment could be carried out, a product of months of research and design on both Twilight and Celestia’s part. It was to be the proverbial tree that would bear the fruit of Twilight’s years of study, and Celestia was anxious to see it happen.

Standing nearby, in stark contrast to the array’s near-elegance, were chunky grey tabulation machines being fitted with reams of paper and tested for calibrations. Wires spanned the distance between the machines in a network of coloured lines so intricate it bordered on chaotic, as if some fat spider had spun a trap while drunk on rainbow juice, with half a dozen scientists in place of the arachnids, connecting and quintuple-checking their connections as they went.

She looked to her side to see Twilight fussing about with a set of complicated blueprints, half-arguing with several other ponies. ‘Well, I suppose time will tell,’ Celestia mused, and strolled over to them.  “Is there a problem?” she asked.

Twilight looked up at Celestia, her eyes bright. “No, we’re just going through some last-minute adjustments.”

“I still say that a triangle rune layout is going to introduce unnecessary noise into the readouts,” grumbled her aide.

“And as I keep telling you, Dusty,” Twilight insisted, turning back to face the beige unicorn, “The layout isn’t a triangle, it’s a pyramid – in three dimensions, it’s a closed environment, thus it’s actually more finely tuned. The so-called noise you’re talking about is actually a far more accurate recording of magical flux than attainable in a two-dimensional rune arrangement! Furthermore – ”

Spike turned away from the arguing ponies, a pained look on his face as he looked up at Celestia. A silent plea was etched into every inch of his being: ‘Save me...’

Celestia tried to suppress a smile at his expense and levitated him onto her back. As the somewhat surprised dragon whelp found his footing, Celestia looked between Twilight and her researchers. “It rather sounds as if there is a problem...” she said, allowing her voice to take a worried tone.

“There isn’t,” Twilight said firmly. Turning to Dusty Scroll, she smiled reassuringly. “Trust me, there really isn’t a problem here.”

“I suppose it’s a bit late to change everything now...” the stallion sighed in defeat, glancing over at the scaffolding. “Will I just give everything one last sweep?”

“Please do, thank you,” Twilight replied. As he left she snatched up a checklist and floated it before her, an excited smile on her face. “There’s only the lightning gem to take care of now!” Her smile became ecstatic as she looked up at the princess.

Celestia shared the smile, sympathising with the unicorn’s anticipation. “Shall we inspect it then?” she offered, to which Twilight frantically nodded.

Like a filly on Hearth’s Warming Eve, Twilight scampered some distance away from the pillars, towards a tall metal spire embedded in the ground. She came to a stop just outside a ring of yellow paint on the ground and peered intently at a glowing blue gem embedded loosely in the pole. “Not quite fully saturated...” she muttered to herself.

A crack of thunder boomed from above, and the spire lit up as a lightning bolt snaked down its length. It vanished the moment it ran through the gemstone, absorbed into the magical stone without ever reaching earth. Pleased, Twilight looked up to see two pegasi circling a small, dark cloud near the ceiling. “Cloudkicker and Thunderlane seem to be doing a good job up there,” she said, before raising her voice. “How’s it going, you two?”

“Almost fully charged, ma’am!” Cloudkicker saluted, before giving the roiling black cloud beside her a solid buck. A fork of lightning jolted from it, which immediately turned and travelled down the spire. This time, however, the lightning bolt skipped past the gem and plunged right into the earthing plate at the base of the pole.

“That’s enough!” Twilight called, before beginning to pace around the spire, giving the gem a critical eye.

The two pegasi descended to the ground, and after Celestia acknowledged their deferential bow, they clamoured up beside the unicorn, sharing excited looks. “Is it ready?” Cloudkicker asked.

“I think so – it looks like it’s fully saturated, don’t you think?” Twilight asked, glee in her voice as she inspected the glowing white crystal.

“Looks that way to me.” Celestia nodded in agreement.

Twilight gingerly levitated a set of insulated prongs and plucked the crystal from its rest. “Okay, next phase!” she said.

Celestia trailed behind her as she marched over to the pillars. The ponies around her parted respectfully, and Celestia could almost feel their excitement and anticipation in the air, needle-pricks of emotion dancing along her withers and shoulders. It set her heart similarly abuzz, and her steps were almost light as she took her place on the edge of the circle of pillars.

There, the array stood silent, an anticipation about it much like the anxiety a pegasus foal  feels before their first flight, wings untested and the vast imposing world far below. Celestia’s eyes slid to Twilight, running around and securing the large cables, radiating quiet pride… in no small way like the pride that nervous foal’s mother must feel as their child prepares for her first leap from the clouds.

Celestia looked over the edge of the walkway to the resonance array, the contraption that resembled a water fountain of gleaming metal. It hung over a deep pool of water, reachable only by one of the few narrow gantries Twilight was currently traversing, sparking gem in her grip.

There, immediately below the podium, was a second platform housing another gem, this one an emerald pulsing with light. Its housing podium was upside-down compared to the one above the surface, such that it seemed at first to be merely the reflection in the water.

With a soft clink of stone on metal, Twilight fixed the lightning gem in place atop its podium. She retreated with careful haste, signalling to the scientists on standby to retract the gantries.

Twilight returned to Celestia’s side and turned back to survey her work. “It’s ready~!” she whispered.

“So what are you waiting for?” Celestia teased in an equally hushed tone, her protégé’s excitement evidently highly contagious.

Twilight, however, seemed glued to the ground, a smile frozen on her face.

Celestia felt a scaly weight shift on her back. “Uh, Twilight?” Spike asked, voice tentative. “I think you’re up.”

Snapping out of the trance, Twilight nodded and scampered to the gathered team.

“Fillies and gentlecolts, thank you for being here today. We’re ready to begin the experiment,” she announced, her voice steady and outwardly confident. However... her smile was frozen and her ears were flat on her head.

“She’s nervous...” Celestia murmured, torn between sympathy and amused exasperation.

Spike shrugged at the edge of her vision. “I don’t get it – she does public speaking all the time.”

“Nothing so personal,” Celestia reminded him.

Above them, Twilight’s speech continued in clipped tones. “The aims of the test are to explore the feasibility of Resonance between energy sources as a means of medium and large-scale energy generation.”

She cleared her throat and beckoned to the array behind her. Her horn lit, and a ball of light flared into light above her head.

“The gemstones are in place, and both podiums are inscribed with the fruit of our research. When the experiment begins, the insulation will be removed and magical energy will exchange between alpha and beta gem. If our inscriptions are right –”

Twilight paused, and blanched. “And they are right, I promise!” she said quickly. Lip caught between two anxiously grinding teeth, she looked over at Celestia –

And then sighed, and laughed. “Heh, sorry. For a second there it felt like I was back in school giving a first presentation. Pretty nerve wracking.”

One of the interns, Peppermint, shuddered. “Jeez, don't remind me.” A few older ponies chuckled sympathetically, a few glancing back at Celestia with a wince, clearly realising who Twilight once may have had to deliver such reports.

Twilight also glanced back and met her mentor’s eyes, bearing a nervous smile.

Celestia tilted her head, just a slight, near-imperceptible nod...

And her unicorn lit up, standing straight and clearing her throat.

“So... yes,” she continued, her little ball of light darting around the array swift and direct. “The two gems will become two ‘Sympathetic’ nodes of magic and Resonate, transferring energy back and forth until it starts generating magical energy through Synergy.”

Celestia beamed, relief and pride coursing through her as she saw Twilight visibly build in confidence before her eyes. There was the mare she recognised, trotting around the arcane equipment with such natural grace, rattling off explanations and hopes for each piece with easy confidence.

“The alpha gem will express this generated energy as electricity, which will run through these cables and feed into the tabulators, giving us all sorts of data.” As she spoke, the ball of light indicated the cables and zoomed over to the clunky machines that stood a safe distance from the array. Celestia did not turn to follow it like the rest of the team, devoting her attention instead to the unicorn on stage who had found her hooves and was beginning to run.

Twilight continued to speak, but the speech was familiar to Celestia – they had crafted it together, after all. Instead, Celestia found herself listening to the words her unicorn spoke with a proud jutting of her chin in the air, volumes of discourse in the surety of her tone.

Twilight stepped to the side to allow the team to view the pool behind her. “Now, there won’t be two lightning gems. The beta gem’s magical energies will instead be expressed through heat, which is why we’ve got this big pool of water.” There as a murmur of worry, as Celestia knew there would be – rarely was using water as a coolant seen as an intelligent move. Of course, both she and Twilight had spent some time developing a workaround, which her unicorn quickly moved to explain.

“It’s the only coolant that won’t interfere with the types of magical energies at play,” Twilight insisted, giving her team a reassuring grin. “But don’t worry about the lab becoming a sauna. It’s ice cold, pure filtered spring water and we’ve got lots of it – it’ll be quickly cycled out through vents, and the pipes feeding the supply are enchanted to raise the water’s heat capacity by several orders of magnitude, so there’s no risk that we’ll all be scalded by superheated, borderline-plasma steam.”

Her eyes glanced upwards as she mentally crunched the numbers for the nth time. “Well, probably.”

The team of researchers blanched, and Dusty Scroll shot her an aghast look.

Undaunted, Twilight carried on. “Now, this set-up has been tested rigorously on a much smaller scale, to great success. Today, however, is the day we test it at large scale. I’ve double and triple checked my numbers, and I’m confident today will be a success.

“If there are no questions...?” Twilight let the sentence hang in the air, searching her team for last-second reservations or doubt. Finding none, she grinned. Then... let’s begin.” Twilight turned to face the array, her horn glowing as she flipped switches and levers all around.

The first sparks began to crackle across the gemstone and a steady thum began to echo in the hall. Twilight began to give instructions to various ponies, directing them to and fro with a sure expression and hoof, unknowingly captivating the princess.

She was galloping now, Celestia knew, swifter than the wind and just as unstoppable. If she were an athlete, like her friends Dash and Applejack, there would be a great deal of obvious change. But for warriors of the mind, it was subtle, always subtle. Her mind was as sharp as a blade, and her beauty was in the play of light off its edge.

In this moment, she shone.

The sound around her washed into the background. Below the water, the heat gem flared white-hot, filling the whole pool with light, and Celestia could tell by the steady vibrations that the underground pumps were working hard to keep up with the gem’s amazing output. Above, on the podium, the alpha gem raged arcs and flashes of blinding lightning, a storm to split the sky distilled into a single hoof-full of precious stone. Sturdy metal rods held it firm, coaxing its fury into the fat cables that led directly to the tabulators.

“Hypnotic, isn’t it?” Twilight said, voice hushed.

Celestia nodded, pulling away from the transfixing light. Turning her attention back at the room, she noticed the appearances of the scientists had changed – their manes slightly messier, their gait slower, signs here and there of weariness from a day of hard work. Twilight herself had a saddlebag filled with notes unfamiliar to Celestia.

Confused, Celestia consulted the sun. The light radiating from the solar panels was dim and orange, and with a start Celestia realised much time had slipped away from her. ‘Have I been staring at the light for that long?’

“Fascinating...” one of the unicorn technicians monitoring the glow said under his breath, catching her attention.

“What is it?” Celestia asked, peering closer to the swirling vortex of light. Twilight followed, squinting at the source, her sense for scientific significance keen as ever.

He gestured with a hoof towards the pool. “The light's been dimming, and at first I thought my eyes were tricking me, but…” Celestia turned her gaze right into the centre of the vortex, her strong eyes quickly spotting what the scientist was referring to.

Fixed to the beta gem was a small, jagged, blood-red gemstone.

“Where did that come from?” Celestia murmured, intrigued yet wary. “Could the water have left some sort of mineral deposit, or pollution?”

“I don’t think so, it’s been growing too fast…” the scientist replied.

Twilight pounded a hoof to the ground as she came to a realisation. “It’s not a pollution, but it is waste. It must be the excess magical energy - some of it is being crystallised. I can only imagine the properties gems grown in this fashion might possess...” She peered closer, adjusting the dials on a protective set of goggles. “Princess, would you say that they’re glowing alongside the beta gem? I can’t quite tell...”

“I believe they are,” Celestia nodded. “That could indicate magical conductivity as good as the alpha and beta gems themselves.”

Twilight squealed, clapping her hooves excitedly. “And those gems were the purest available! And it’s just a by-product! If we can figure out the principles behind this matter generation… Princess, it’s a power source that creates its own fuel!” She magically snatched a clipboard from her saddlebag and began scribbling furiously. “The big question is how much energy this is bleeding… now to calculate the ratios, I’ll…”

Twilight trailed off into mumbling just as Celestia trailed off in her mind, eyes bright as she regarded the experiment. Her mind spun with the implications, the opportunities, suddenly seeming so endless. ‘Artificial gemstones, possessing of just as much utility as the finest gemstones? A cheap, renewable source of components for arcane sciences... magical devices using the gems as clean power sources... it could replace coal! Concerns of air pollution in Equestria could be answered before they became an issue!’

On her back, a scaly weight shifted. “Fake gems, huh? I wonder if they taste any good...” Spike muttered to himself, an idle thought floating into Celestia’s ear.

Celestia almost laughed, before freezing as another rush of inspiration hit her. ‘Could they taste good? The buffalo tribes were content to share their land in return for apples... could the same be said for dragons? We could create new and exotic flavours, exporting them to strengthen economic and diplomatic ties!’

“Interesting side effect,” was all Celestia said, reigning her imagination in.

Beside her, Twilight merely frowned. “Yes, but… I’ve overlooked something. This never happened during the small-scale tests.”

“Maybe it did, and the shards were microscopic?” Celestia offered. “Was the water ever salty afterwards?”

Twilight tapped her chin with the pen. “Well, Rainbow did try to drink some once. She said it tasted awful, but I assumed it was because of all the magic and electrodes in the tank at the time.”

“I thought it was actually kinda nice,” Spike chimed in. With the young dragon’s word of approval, Celestia made a mental note to look into contacting some of the more receptive dragons close to the realm.

The watched the array softly pulse for long minutes in silence, letting the rest of the team move around them making adjustments here and there. Celestia’s eyes slid down to the green crystal below the clear water. Straining her eyes, she could almost see a sliver of a red ridge begin to develop from the otherwise perfectly smooth emerald.

“I’m going to check the read-outs...” Twilight muttered. Celestia nodded, her attention devoted to the light-filled tank.

Another shard of red crystal broke from the growing mass, quietly floating to the bottom of the tank.

The clicking of the tabulators sped up, just a fraction.

Celestia’s ear flicked as she picked up the sound of hoofsteps on grassy loam rather than stone. Her eyes glanced to the side to see the dark form of her sister, a void in the light bathing everything else in the laboratory. “Ominous…” Luna murmured.

“Only because we know the outcome,” Celestia replied, though she didn’t deny the surge of unease she had felt when the machine’s clacking had increased.

Luna shrugged. “True. Forgive me for interrupting, I wanted a better view of all of this. So this was the great chase your dream described?”

“One would presume so… though we’re nearing the end. I remember…” Celesta looked back at the memory of the experiment, at Twilight pouring over the tabulators. At the same time, she could see the dream, her unicorn worriedly tending over the spindly sapling springing from the earth, its red leaves poking out, reaching for the sky.

Celestia stepped towards Twilight, and the world snapped into sharp focus.

“Something wrong, Twilight?” she asked, the clever unicorn’s clear anxiety quickly proving to be contagious.

Twilight pouted, as she did when something stumped her. “Yes, it’s strange... mass is being spontaneously formed from the experiment... we didn’t expect that, and it might account for some of this energy reading, but it’s still orders of magnitude lower than I predicted.”

Celestia’s eyebrows raised, the only betrayal of the surprise running through her. “It’s generating less than the predicted energy?” Between the light radiating from the array and the high hum of the water pumps, Celestia had expected energy to spare.

Twilight’s nod, however, argued that that was not the case. “The computer doesn’t lie. I’m beginning to think this project isn’t viable for large scale operation...”

Celestia looked over her student’s shoulders at the ream of paper spilling from the machine. She tried to make sense of the diagrams, but without being able to examine it more closely it was all just squiggly lines to her untrained eye. “Perhaps it’s a mechanical fault?” she offered.

Twilight’s eyes lit up. “Hey, that could be it. Excuse me, everypony, did someone adjust the jewelometer?”

“Oh, that was me!” Peppermint said eagerly. “The readout was getting a bit high so I adjusted the sensitivity.”

“Inform me beforehand if you need to make those changes please,” Twilight said evenly. The intern nodded in apology, unnoticed by Twilight who was already looking back at the data. “Alright, that makes sense. Hmm, this is promising...” she was muttering under her breath. “Instead of kilojewels it’s letting out gigajewels of energy... and lots of them...” Twilight grinned. “Okay, I can safely say this experiment has gone beyond my previous expectations. We’re on to something here everypony!”

The assembled scientific team cheered, except for the intern. “Uh...”

“Something wrong?” Celestia asked, noticing the green unicorn’s hesitance.

His eyes darted between the computing machine, the princess, and Twilight, who was growing increasingly worried at the intern’s expression. “I actually...” began the younger unicorn, before clearing his throat nervously. “I moved the dial... to, uh, Terajewels?”

Only Celestia’s sudden stillness betrayed her shock. Her protoge, however, was far more overt. “Y-you mean... this spell is generating nearly a thousand times the projected magical energy?!”

Peppermint’s grin grew panicked. “Y-yes? I suppose?”

Twilight fell back on her haunches, flummoxed. “How is that possible?” she demanded. “We can’t nearly be putting in so much energy into the crystal in the first place! Where is the excess coming from!?”

“You based your conversion enchantments off your findings from the Elements of Harmony,” Celestia reminded her student. “Perhaps there is more at work than we yet understand?”

“Maybe, but... I...” Twilight stopped her protests, stood still a moment and took a deep breath. “’Just because I don’t understand it doesn’t make it any less true’,” she muttered under her breath, calming down. Narrowing her eyes, however, she looked back up at the glowing crystal with a determined expression. “That doesn’t mean I’m not going to figure it out though. Everypony!”

The team looked to Twilight as she stepped up to the fore. “As you no doubt overheard, we’ve hit a snag – there’s too much energy we can’t account for. This is... well...” She trailed off, letting the frantic scrawling of the analytical machine speak for itself. She brought her hoof to her chin, her expression serious. “Keep monitoring the readouts, please,” she instructed. “And keep everything steady. I need a moment to think.”

As her protégé paced away, Celestia noticed a few of the scientists turning their faces to her – for guidance, she knew. Celestia smiled wide and reassuringly. “Exciting, isn’t it? Don’t let fear dissuade you, this experiment is in capable hooves.”

A few smiled in thanks, some even bowing their heads slightly, before they all resumed their places. Celestia lingered among them a while longer, for their sake, before turning and making her way to the capable hooves in question, which were currently pacing between tabulator readouts.

“Synergy doesn’t explain this,” Celestia heard Twilight mutter under her breath, glancing between the readouts and the tank. “It’s too much energy for two nodes to create. Three nodes, I could understand, with this resonance array three nodes could actually get out of hand, but...” Her eyes widened as a terrible realisation struck.

Under the water of the array, another chunk of newly formed crystal split and fell to the base of the tank.

“The... new crystals...” Twilight said slowly, with mounting dread. “… are a third node.”

A larger chunk pulled itself away, revealing the unchanged green gem beneath.

“And it’s growing bigger.”

The clicking of the machines sped further.

Twilight’s eyes went wide as her mind revealed the truth. “It’s going to cascade. Princess!”

Celestia closed her eyes a moment, calming the shot of alarm the news sent through her. She levitated Spike off her back and nodded in acknowledgment, donning the composure gleaned from centuries of crisis. “I see. First, remain calm.”

Twilight took several gulps of air. “Right. Calm.”

“Should we maybe… you know… evacuate?” Spike asked, twiddling his claws nervously.

“Possibly,” Celestia replied. A few scenarios played out in her head, but she set them aside temporarily. No sense in acting before she had all the information. “So, Twilight. What are our options?”

“I… well…” Twilight tapped her hooves nervously, eyes glancing upwards as she considered it. “The crystals being formed are acting as another node, and it’s resonating with the alpha and beta gems to produce far more energy than anticipated.” She bit her lip. “This is... this is really uncharted territory here, and I kind of want to see where it leads. The data being produced could hold so many secrets...  but if I keep the experiment running, we’ll risk a cascade, and that’s assuming we can even keep venting the heat from that tank... but if I stop now, I’ll still have the mystery of how those gems are being formed hanging above my head...”

Twilight’s eyes sought out Celestia’s. “What do you think?”

Celestia paused a long moment. She looked over at the glowing array, its light harsher now than a moment before. So many opportunities sprung to her mind, so many applications and ways to advance the lives of her ponies… and the world even beyond that…

But it wasn’t her decision. “It’s your call, Twilight.” It had to be. Celestia knew it couldn’t be any other way, so she stepped back and gave Twilight some room to think.

Twilight’s mind near-visibly raced through the options. “We… we keep the experiment running...” she said to herself, voice desperate. “Maybe deactivate some of the amplifiers? Agh, but that would add too many variables to the data... but there’s already unknown factors, it’s spontaneously spouting gemstones for pete’s sake... and the risks…”

She swallowed. “Shut it down now to avoid a potential accident and spend months – maybe years! – recalculating and rebuilding to accommodate for an unknown factor... or keep it running despite the risks and reap groundbreaking data that could halve the time it’ll take for the next round of testing... what should I do?”

Celestia wasn’t fooled by the words. Twilight’s tone made it clear the decision she had made. Her clever unicorn’s legs trembled, and she stomped one weakly in protest to fortune’s decision. Her face twisted between confused, to desperate, to frustrated and angry, before finally settling on a heartbreaking mask of anguish… and acceptance. It was this heartbroken creature that looked up into Celestia’s eyes.

“We… we can try again, can’t we?” she asked, her plea small and helpless.

“Of course we can, Twilight.” Celestia said as reassuringly possible, forcing her not to embrace the mare. “I want to see this bear fruit just as much as you do.”

Twilight held her gaze for several moments longer, then swallowed the lump in her throat and nodded. Turning, she trotted towards the scientists, clearing her throat to catch their attention. “Okay, I want everypony to remain calm and work quickly. I’ve just realised that the crystal being formed isn’t a normal gem, it’s actually acting as a node – that’s why the experiment is putting out energy orders of magnitude above our predictions. I don’t know why another node has spontaneously formed, but for all we know it’s going to sprout another fourth node and cascade on us. We need to shut the experiment down before that happens, and gather as much data about it as we do. Everybody clear?”

The team responded in the affirmative, nervous mumbling all around. To this, Twilight puffed out her chest, donning all the confidence and authority she had gleaned from her adventures in with her friends. “Come on, everypony! We’re going to figure this out!” Murmurs of agreement followed, and they set to work.

Trusting Twilight to the rest, Celestia turned her attention to the array and stared into the spiralling energy before her. Faintly, she overheard her student discuss procedure, but it was the experiment that had her full focus. As the ponies scrambled about disengaging the machines, she admired the pulsating magic with a thoughtful air, her mind dancing with the possibilities.

‘Almost certainly, this can be a power source… like bottled lightning, but safer, perhaps? So long as this cascade is controlled… but then, the Elements of Harmony can be controlled, can they not? It will be difficult but it’s still possible…’ A realisation rose in her mind in time with the pulse of magic. ‘Then… all that matters is the nodes they are connected to. And those could be anything. Laughter could power a lamp. Kindness could fortify spells of healing and potions...’

The applications were endless. It was like... the sun, nourishing all.

Celestia’s thoughts themselves began to cascade. The sun. The sun that was so intrinsically tied to her life, that rejuvenated the world with its rays as it rejuvenated Celestia’s lifeforce with its presence.

Her longevity could well be explained through her protégé’s theories. And if they could be understood by a mare as fiercely intelligent as Twilight, could they, perhaps, not be also... replicated?

Many had tried, in the past, tying their lives to gems and artifacts both blessed and vile in an attempt to snub the reaper the copper bit he was due. But no matter how intricate and beautiful a spider spins their silk, it can never be more than a cobweb to be broken and brushed aside by the wolf and the raven.

The structure was there, but not the strength.

But if the structure could be sustained by a source of magic generation comparable to the sun itself...

The light of the experiment washed over the princess, and the laboratory was gone.

Celestia turned sharply, and there she was – in the field of dreams, beneath the fruit tree where…

Where the dream of her unicorn rested beside her, framed by the crimson setting sun. Floating before her was the succulent red fruit, dripping juice from where Celestia had savoured a bite the night previous. The unicorn brought it to her lips, just as the weary sun slipped below the distant horizon… and took a bite, teeth sinking into her discovery.

She chewed, slowly, and swallowed, licking her lips as she murmured in approval. “Tastes of…”

“Ambrosia,” Celestia breathed out, her throat parched. The sky grew light, and the sun rose, bright and joyous behind the unicorn, the sky painted with the colours of twilight at dawn.

Celestia understood, once more, fully. “You would confine yourself to the garden?” she asked, her heart aching.

The unicorn rested her head against Celestia’s neck, sighing contentedly. “How is this confinement?”

The sun rose, and the day grew long. The red leaves rustled softly in the gentle breeze. The air was cool and fresh.

All of this went unnoticed by the alicorn, who was warmed by the intoxicating touch of the lavender unicorn pressed into her side. Their hooves were intertwined, hopelessly tangled, and the mare’s sweet face was so, so close, nuzzling her neck, whispering kisses against her jaw. The alicorn lowered her head, pressing her nose against the unicorn’s, and there they remained, perfectly still, neither daring to move. Pull away, a heart would break. Press forward, a heart might shatter.

The vital moment was robbed by approaching hoof-falls. The alicorn looked up to see her dark reflection, a midnight-blue mare with a mane dashed with stardust. Surprise was written clear across her face, and that was jarring enough to, finally, draw Celestia back into herself.

“I -!” Celestia’s voice seized up. Guilt and shame chased away her contentment, the reality of how wrong her dream was brought into sharp focus now that another bore witness to it, now that she could no longer hide from it. “I didn’t... I didn’t mean for this to happen...”

~{C}~

The door to Celestia’s chambers came to a close with a soft click. Twilight spared one last glance, feeling a longing to return, but instead tore herself away and hurried down the hallway. She had a job to do.

Her mind turned to the task at hand, mentally putting together her to-do list. Her horn lit as she walked down the winding stairs of Celestia’s tower, and she disappeared with a flash of rose magic, impatient to get the job done. When the light faded from her eyes a moment later, she was in her own chambers. Her bed was made, indicating the servants had done their rounds, but a glance at her generous desk standing below the north window assured her none had tampered with her things – it was as meticulously disorganised as she had left it.

She shrugged her shoulders, working out a kink in her neck, and approached the worktop, snatching up a quill, ink, and a leaf of parchment as she did. Her checklist from earlier in the morning rested nearby, Spike’s neat quillmanship spelling out in black and white her task.

Item one: Take care of Celestia ***SUPER IMPORTANT***

Twilight sighed. ‘But I sure got out of there quick, didn’t I? Because…’

Item Two: Speak with fellow researchers.

Her gut twisted into a knot of dread. What was that going to be like? Showing up in front of everyone. “Hey guys!” Twilight said aloud, picturing her team’s scowling and upset faces. “So, I know everyone’s a little tense today, but it could have been worse! I mean, so we blew up the princess. Big deal! She’s cool with it! The point is… is…”

Her fake grin faded, her face twisting into a frustrated scowl. “… is that I don’t know what went wrong!” she exclaimed, pounding a hoof on the table.

It was impossible. It made no sense.

“I don’t understand… I just…”

“I don’t understand…” Twilight breathed, staring in disbelief at the array. It pulsed with light – weaker, now, but growing steadily brighter. “Are you sure you’ve-?”

“Yes, I’m sure! We’ve insulated the connections, we’ve disengaged the amplifiers, we’ve broken the rune layout. The array is off.” Scroll bit the inside of his cheek.

“I think the array would disagree,” Twilight said, narrowing her eyes as her experiment impossibly continued to generate energy. “What’s the output?”

“Average, but rising steady!” Peppermint called. The intern tapped a nervous green hoof against the machine, vainly hoping it was faulty. “What do we do?”

“Remove the lightning gem, duh,” Thunderlane piped in.

“That thing is actively conducting electricity,” Dusty Scroll responded, stern. “If you want to, be my guest, but don’t look at me when you get a thunderbolt through your skull for your trouble.”

Twilight rolled her eyes and turned to the team, a disapproving look on her face. “That’s enough, guys. Now is not the time to fight. There’s a simple solution for this.”

Twilight turned to look at Celestia, who was staring deep into the light of the array. Her eyes reflected the light and literally shined, but there was something deeper, some nuance that gave Twilight the impression that the princess saw something in the situation that Twilight didn’t… or couldn’t. As childish as it was, Twilight felt reassured thanks to her princess’ wisdom, even in the face of this problem. “Princess?”

Celestia blinked and looked over at Twilight, moving slowly as if dazed. “Hmm? Yes, Twilight?”

“Princess, the…” Twilight paused. Celestia’s expression had barely changed, her eyes still lit with the signs of silent discovery and recognition of something beyond her. Twilight had seen her eyes filled with something similar, such as pride at her progress with her studies when she was a student, but this… this was deeper…

Expectation? Hope? Twilight nearly cringed.  Whatever it was Celestia was looking for, Twilight couldn’t bring it to her, not today.

“Princess, the experiment… it’s not shutting down. We’ve done everything, and all we did was slow it for a little while.”

“Fascinating…” Celestia breathed out, sounding impressed.

“Yes,” Twilight agreed.  “But it’s going to cascade if we don’t do something quick.”

Celestia nodded in understanding. “I am suddenly reminded of our meeting, when you were a filly. You had lost control of your magic and it began to cascade inside and around you….” The far-away look vanished, replaced with calm authority. “This strikes me as similar. The magic needs to be bled off, grounded.”

“How?” Twilight asked, though she was beginning to picture it herself. “Ground the lightning gem and flash-freeze the heat gem, cutting out the means the magic is Resonating by?”

“That would help,” Celestia said. “But there’s a quicker solution, the exact same I did for you. A technique to re-establish magical harmony, no matter how haywire.”

Twilight could have smacked herself, it was so simple. “Oh, of course! The failsafe spell!”

“Alright everypony, stand back!” she ordered. The team retreated, perhaps a bit further than was warranted, sliding nervously until they had put the princess and her between them and the array. Twilight rolled her eyes. ‘So much for solidarity,’ she sighed mentally. “Right.”

Aiming her horn at the array, she shut her eyes and recalled the spell she had learned all those years ago, in an attempt to straighten out the magical havoc that later transpired to be Discord’s doing. Had pure chaos not been the perpetrator, the spell would have worked wonderfully, being designed to untangle haywire spells and reverse magic, as if it had never been cast in the first place.

Violet soared from her horn, soaring over the array and soaking into it as a soothing balm. For a moment, her magic mingling with the array, she could feel it – something like music, with a tempo in time with her heartbeats and a tune she knew was familiar. It didn’t feel like a haywire spell, it felt beautiful, silky and intricate and… and for now, Twilight reminded herself, for now it needed to be muted.

She pushed her failsafe spell into the melody, intertwining them, then let go. A flash of light announced its completion, and Twilight opened her eyes once more to see the array grow dark.

All was calm, with only the soft hum of the water pumps remaining in the air. Twilight let out a sigh of relief and turned back to grin at her fellow researchers –

Then the tabulators clattered a cacophony of clicking calculations, spewing reams of punchpaper and oscillating graphs as a terrifying screech called out behind her.

“No, that’s impossible!” Twilight whipped her head around to confirm her fears – the array was a blaze of light once more, heavy chords of lightning lancing from the podium, scraping the walls and pillars around.

On reflex, Twilight’s eyes darted to the princess, but Celestia’s expression showed equal shock and confusion.

The princess couldn’t fix this one.

But then, she shouldn’t. This was Twilight’s responsibility.

Her horn flared bright – if she could knock the lightning gem out of place, then maybe –

With a determined scowl, she fired a bolt of rose magic from her horn on a collision course with the gem.

A flash of light blinded her, then...

Chaos.

Screaming.

A gasp of pain and the smell of burning…

Twilight was on the ground, panting heavily, her heart seized with terror. A white flurry of feathers filled her vision. Immobilised by fear and shock, it was several eternal moments before Twilight’s mind pieced together what had happened.

The tendrils of lightning, they had… coalesced, snapped together into one thick branch in reaction to that arrow of magic. It had arched forward, snatching it from the air, consuming it – then had lashed forward for its source. Twilight had seen it, a flash of death heading towards her –

And Celestia had stepped in its way.

 ‘Careless, careless, careless…’ Twilight scolded herself, shoving notes and quills from her desk into a saddlebag.

‘Careless about what?’ something in her asked.

"Everything!" she all but shouted. Now was no time for her mind to question her! It was obvious! She should have done more extensive checks, she should have known it wasn’t ready for large-scale production, she should have had better safeguards, she, she, she...

She should just admit what was really bothering her.

“Celestia’s too smart... she’ll figure it out...” Twilight paced the room, her mind throwing up ideas. “She’ll know what really happened, she’ll find out eventually, before I can explain it properly, and...” She closed her eyes, letting out a shuddering sigh. “I was careless.”

The nagging voice fell silent.

Twilight opened her eyes again and set her jaw. Nothing for it now but to dig in and find out just how deep the hole she'd dug herself was going to be...

Her horn lit, and she pictured sturdy stone walls, echoing hallways whispering the promise of knowledge. Light surged around her, a whip-crack snapped in the air as she turned…

And then she was there, flooded by nostalgia as she stood before the gates of her old school – Princess Celestia’s Academy for Gifted Unicorns. Merely being here, in this place where she had devoted all her early years… it reassured her. 

Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns was more than just a school for young unicorns learning magic. It was Celestia’s jewel, a place of enlightenment and learning. As such, it was divided into two facilities – the Academy, for young unicorns of all social statuses to train for the betterment of all Equestria, and the University, home to college students and researchers alike.

Further, the school extended beyond just one single building. Rather, it was divided into two vast wings that connected by way of the Barracks Square, the eldest building where administration resided, which looked out onto a grassy quad which students superstitiously avoided treading on. The younger students occupied the west wing and the classrooms beyond, looking out onto Canterlot as they learned not just of magic, but history and culture, science and ethics. The east wing, looking out onto the wider plains of Equestria, served as the crown of the college campus, its simple and unpretentious limestone and mortar watching over the newer buildings that cropped up as the grounds continually extended. Once, Twilight had associated it with Celestia, proud, eternal and nurturing. Now, she wasn’t so sure.

Save for Celestia’s Tower in the castle, Barrack’s Square was the oldest structure in Canterlot – perhaps even Equestria. However, one wouldn’t know that to look at it. It had begun life as a fort and barracks built to reinforce the castle defences, and in a round-about way acted as the foothold from which the city of Canterlot sprung.

Twilight had, now and again, heard jokes or paranoid whispers about how a building formerly created for soldiers was now being used to educate foals. The irony – or perhaps simply dissonance – was not lost on Twilight, but she actually found it appropriate. In more vulnerable times, there was a need for defence. Now, there was a need for education, for research and for advancement. So, just as Canterlot Keep had grown from Celestia’s Tower as new halls, vaults, wings and gardens were added over the centuries, so too did the academy grow out of the old and abandoned fortress, becoming a symbol of Equestria’s aspirations.

The world turned to face the new day, as it always did. The fort had lost its old meaning for existence, but it hadn’t been left behind. Perhaps that was why Twilight now felt a strange kinship with it.

Standing there, in the green just outside of the shadow cast by the ancient building, Twilight felt her breath hitch and her ribs grow tight as she was overcome by a rush of... not nostalgia, but something close. She studied the facade of the old barracks. Well maintained, old classical style, but certainly no masterpiece. It had never presumed to be. So why did she care?

Because she was buying time. Twilight closed her eyes, and saw the fire.

Fire. One of the machines had caught fire, adding another terrible dimension to the disaster. A warm, still weight pressed against her as her terrified mind finally put the pieces together.

Celestia had taken the blow for her.

“Princess Celestia!” she screamed in alarm, pushing herself to her hooves and out from beneath Celestia’s protective wing. She heard the clatter of hooves behind her, her team rushing to help, the breathless sound of magic being prepared.

Celestia’s head snapped up suddenly. “Nopony use magic!” she barked, her voice carrying the weight of the Royal Canterlot Voice. Everypony froze, staring wide eyed at the princess, whose body was tense and whose eyes were locked on the array. “Nopony let even a single spark from your horns. The lightning is seeking it out.”

Twilight turned to look at them. “Everypony, we’re evacuating. Grab whatever you can and vacate the lab immediately.”

“But we-!” Dusty Scroll began to protest, but Twilight shook her head firmly, cradling Celestia’s head in her forelegs. He bit his lip, torn with indecision, but in the end followed orders and began snatching up readouts and research along with everypony else.

Twilight’s attention lingered on the scientist a moment longer, before returning to Celestia. The princess’ face was curled up in pain, but it was less that of agony, and more of a wince. Cracking open an eye, she pulled herself up from her crouch with Twilight’s help and gingerly twitched her wing. “Ah, that rather smarts…” she said, almost cheerful. The smell of burnt hair wafted into Twilight’s nose, causing her stomach to turn.

“Y-you’re hurt…”

“I’m fine. It was a glancing blow, and will heal quickly.” She looked back over at the traitorous array snarled menacingly, but seemed too lazy for a second strike. “We’ve got a bigger problem.”

“It’s cascading,” Twilight said, her breath quickening.

Celestia nodded slowly. “How can it be stopped?”

“Um.” Twilight hesitated, jittery from fear on the princess’ behalf. “Bleed off the excess power. Ground the lightning, chill the heat gem. It can’t resonate if there’s nothing to resonate with.”

“Understood,” Celestia nodded, her eyes scanning for a means to achieve this.

“I’ll…” Twilight began… but stopped. She couldn’t use magic. She’d just be in the way here. The only thing she could do was… “I’ll make sure everyone gets out safe.”

Celestia smiled despite everything. “I’m counting on you, Twilight.”

Twilight fought back a sob, and nodded. She turned and galloped towards the exit, scooping Spike up on her back along the way and kicking the doors open for her team. There she lingered, counting them off, making sure every last one was safe – and staring at her princess, who was pacing towards the array, purpose in her gait.

‘It’s going to be okay,’ Twilight knew. Celestia would solve it. They would figure it out. It was all going to be okay.

Naive. Naive, naive.

Naive to believe the princess was invincible, that she could solve everything.

Hadn’t she heard the fear in her voice as she spoke of Discord?

Hadn’t she seen her fall before Chrysalis, overestimating her own strength?

Hadn’t she spent enough time in her company, seeing secret cues and sharing secret moments that revealed that Celestia was a mare capable of doubt and error?

‘But it wasn’t her error. It was mine. My experiment, my responsibility.’ Her research, her life’s work to this point... had failed, and both the laboratory and the princess lay as shattered, burnt testaments to the scope of her failure.

She didn’t want to see it, didn’t want to consider it. The thought of having to start again, from scratch, made her knees grow weak and her heart clench and knot. Of course, that was the worst case scenario – logically, something would be salvageable. Something had to be salvageable.

Maybe this was just a day for re-evaluation. Of... many things. As places went, the Academy was an excellent place for that sort of self-reflection.

She had changed. When she was a filly, Twilight would look across the green, watching as the big ponies would go to and fro the college campus, wondering what amazing discoveries they were making. Occasionally one of them would wave to her, and she’d quickly look at the ground or at a book she was reading, too self-conscious to return the greeting.

A pony could spend their whole life here – residing in the dormitory, taking part of the junior and senior classes, then graduating, moving on to the college campus, studying and eventually producing a thesis, then working on research in the laboratories. A neat, efficient life. If she had never moved to Ponyville, would she have been the same?

‘No,’ Twilight halted those thoughts. ‘Celestia would never have allowed that to happen.’

For a moment, Twilight felt like a filly again, awkward and clumsy, praying the princess wouldn’t notice her fumble with her quill and books. It took all that she had to shake the memories of those tiny embarrassments off.

Instead, she continued on her way, weaving through the faculty buildings and cutting through a few shortcuts out of habit until she finally arrived at the magical science facility. Her stomach trembled, full of imaginary butterflies, as she trotted around the corner of the facility, heading directly to...

There they were. The four laboratory buildings. Three stood proud, their smooth, dark concrete facades inviting the observer to wonder what new innovation was hiding inside. The fourth...

Twilight tilted her head, examining it from a distance. It looked broken and tired. Segregated from the rest of the buildings by a perimeter of yellow ‘Caution!’ rope, it almost seemed to have been put on show – perhaps one titled ‘The Unicorn’s Folly’. Cracks ran along the facade as the walls seemed to threaten to be split in two. What few windows remained were cracked and stained black. Half the roof was gone, just blown completely off, with lonely rafters jutting from the soot-stained walls. A shattered, burnt ribcage.

And yet, the laboratory stood. Twilight resolved to treat that as a good omen.

She resumed her trot, pulling her identification out of her saddlebag and looping the string around her neck, making sure the attached card was facing the right way. Ducking under the yellow rope, she walked towards the laboratory. A security guard nodded to her, recognising her face. “You’re here early, Miss Sparkle.”

Twilight laughed self-consciously. “Well, you know. Returning to the scene of the crime and all. I thought I’d get it out of the way.”

The guard barked out a laugh. “If only actual criminals were as considerate as you.” He paused, and his face grew solemn. “If I may ask, how is the princess doing?”

Twilight had expected this, but hadn’t counted on the rush of emotion she felt, the mere mention of Celestia drawing her back into memories of yesterday’s rollercoaster events. “She’s well,” she managed to say. The guard looked less than reassured, so Twilight reigned in her expression. “Really, she’s well. She’s resting today, but she’s still been up and about, as usual. She says the headache is the worst part of it.”

The guard let out a small sigh of relief – and, Twilight realised, amazement. He had probably been guarding the burnt out building all night, growing increasingly worried as his mind translated the damage the building had suffered to what must have happened to the princess.

“Tell me, is anypony else around?” she asked, changing the subject.

“Not yet,” the guard replied with a shake of his head.

“That’s strange.” Twilight frowned. She turned her head and spotted a clock face on one of the old buildings. ‘Eleven-forty? But the princess is never wrong about the time… then again, head trauma, ugh…’ “That’s fine,” she decided with a shrug. “When the team arrives, send them in, please?”

The guard nodded. “Of course, you can just head right in. Here, make sure to wear this.” He bent over and picked up a yellow safety helmet, which she put on without argument and tried not to imagine how ridiculous it looked.

Twilight thanked him and trotted forward towards the doors. One of them was hanging nearly off its hinges, torn by some great force.

Not from the explosion, Twilight knew. From her.

They ran, galloping as fast as their hooves could carry them. Fearful tears clouded her vision, so it was the feeling of fresh air chilling her sweat-dampened coat that alerted her to the fact that they had left the building. Still, she galloped on, putting distance between herself and the laboratory.

The ground ceased shaking and Twilight, stupidly, slowed down, glancing over her shoulder. For a moment, everything was silent, almost anti-climactic.

“I-is it over?” Scroll asked, before breaking into a cough.

“What do we do?”

“Okay...” Twilight muttered, her mind racing. “Okay.” She looked up at the pegasi members of the team who were hovering above her nervously. “You all go alert security to the situation. Get them to form a perimeter.” They nodded quickly and flew off in a blur of colour towards the quad. “Peppermint, get admin to warn students of what happened, and to avoid the area.” The intern saluted awkwardly and fled towards the Barracks, and Twilight turned to the rest of the team.”Everypony else, we —”

Without warning, sound, force and heat hit Twilight all at once, picking her up and casting her aside. Somehow, she managed to hit the ground rolling, and reflexively cast a shield. Adrenaline and instinct overrode her years of restraint, and the resulting rose-tinted dome bloomed out well wide enough to shelter the entire group of scattered, stunned ponies.

It was a good thing, too – in short order debris began to rain from the sky, roof tiles and chunks of stone peppering the magical barrier over their heads. Though sprawled out with her eyes tightly shut, Twilight could nevertheless feel the impacts of the detritus as they tried to push past the influence of her magic. They petered out quickly, and after another minute of concentration, Twilight decided it was safe, dropping the spell.

‘Piano was worse,’ was all her addled mind could muster as she struggled to her hooves. Squinting, she searched for Spike and saw him rising to his feet, looking dazed but otherwise unhurt. Dragons were tough, even as children.

She saw his mouth moving, but heard nothing but a piercing whine layered over the dull roar of the ocean. Slowly, the ringing in her ears subsided, and the roar shifted from the ocean... into fire.

The laboratory was up in flames. Smoke was billowing up from the building, a steadily growing column of ash climbing into the sky.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Twilight galloped towards it. “Princess!”

Something tugged her off the ground, and she found herself wrapped in a magical aura. She heard somepony shout something, begging her to stop, but she ignored it. Her horn glowed, and she vanished, reappearing right in front of the shattered lab’s doors. With no time to lose, she ripped the door out of the way with a forceful wrench of magic and dived into the smoke.

Twilight walked into the laboratory, parallel with her memories. She saw herself rush into the smoke and flames with only a thin barrier of magic for a cloak and her familiarity with the lab for a map. She followed the panicked mare through the building, trotting the short distance to the hall which had housed her ill-fated experiment.

Stepping through the broken door, she found herself in a vision of broken hope – her laboratory, a shattered ruin of what had stood the day before. She let her eyes wander the room, shocked at the extent of the damage – the walls were cracked from the impact of flying pieces of equipment and blackened by soot. Sunlight streamed from a gaping hole in the roof, the only real source of light the hall had, seeing as most of the magic daylight panels overhead were cracked and broken. Twilight tip-hooved carefully through the glass on the ground, her heart wrenching in sorrow as she looked upon the devastation.

She trotted past the ruined tabulators, letting out a disappointed hiss through her clenched teeth at the sight of the burnt equipment and the ash that no doubt once held valuable data. Setting the matter aside, she navigated the rubble until she stood before the twisted metal remains of her array, bent beyond any repair.

The circle of pillars around it had been totally demolished, remaining only as stone chunks littering the hall. She gingerly stepped over a more or less intact pillar as she made her way through the room, eyeing it as her mind made some idle calculations. It had to weigh almost a tonne, if not more… and it had been blown halfway through the room.

‘And Celestia was in the middle of it all…’ She marvelled at her mentor’s resilience despite herself, eyes studying the grey concrete of the broken column. On one end, there was an odd brown stain, confusing her slightly. ‘Rust? On stone?’

She froze, her body coming to a halt, fearful of going any further. But she couldn’t stop herself from looking up, searching for another brown stain that she knew couldn’t be far away –

There, on the ground close by, another dull rusty splatter. Though filled with dread, Twilight pressed forward, her hooves guided with a terrible sense of inevitability. After all, she had traced this path before, just the day before.

She stepped over another chunk of detritus, and took stock of the dreadful sight before her.

A dark, flaky rusted stain covered the ground before her. Twilight’s head spun just to look at it, to know what it meant. This had been where…

“Princess!”

Her force field was poor protection in the blaze, but Twilight barely noticed. Heat was weighing down on her coat, smoke was curling around her barrier, but still she screamed, praying for a response. “Princess Celestia!”

Nothing but the roar of flames answered her, her ambitions burning around her. She pressed on, cantering forward through a relatively safe path through a row of tabulators. She shrieked, terrified, as even her very equipment betrayed her – the tabulators exploded around her, pelting her barrier with shards of glass and chunks of their clunky casing. She skidded to a halt and crouched low, taking in quick and shallow breaths near the floor where the air was still fresh and shoring up her force field, just as her brother had taught her long ago.

“This is a deathtrap…” she moaned, involuntarily shivering. The world was bright and red and angry, taunting her. She could barely move, her limbs begging her to turn around and flee, or to cover her eyes and cry, her rationality evaporating fast as an ice cube in the face of the inferno. Her breath quickened, her mind overcome by insidious, primal fear, and…

And Celestia was waiting for her.

Gritting her teeth, blinking tears from her eyes that quickly vanished into the heat, Twilight rose, her determined face lit by the glowing of her horn. A spell came to mind, a wind spell…

The fires raged before her, fear drawn from that primal part of her.

Celestia hovered in her mind’s eye, fear drawn from something so much more fundamental.

She weaved that fear into the spell, two songs of terror beating in sympathy with one another, Resonating with one another –

Her horn surged with light and the smoke and flames were driven back by a cold and bitter wind spiralling out from her barrier. In an instant most of the fires were quenched and not soon after that the smoke began to clear, the enchanted winds funnelling the thick black clouds out through the gaping hole in the roof.

Her vision now clear, Twilight peered desperately around the room, searching for her mentor, hoping against all hope that Celestia would just appear, brushing dust from her hair and wearing that smile that promised all was well with the world.

A crooked white wing sticking out from the rubble across the room silenced those naive hopes. “Princess Celestia!” she screamed, the blunt knife called horror carving her heart from her body. She galloped full kilter towards the crumpled white mass, her magic tossing detritus out of her path and away from the princess’ form.

Celestia was a vision beyond Twilight’s comprehension. Not proud, instead a broken omen of a world ushered in by Twilight’s own hoof. The burn from the lightning bolt sat angrily on her side, vicious and red and weeping. Her wings stuck at odd angles, which Twilight’s terror-stricken mind interpreted as ‘shall never fly again’, and even her mane lay in tangles over her, robbed of its ephemeral billowing.

And her face… Twilight couldn’t bear to look away. Celestia’s face was drenched in blood from a wide gash across her forehead. It pooled where her head slumped on the concrete, slowly spreading out and even staining her lifeless mane a shocking crimson.

And her eyes… half-open and staring at nothing.

“This is wrong…” Twilight shuddered, shaking her head in denial. “This can’t… Celestia!”

Rushing into the crimson pool, she registered with faint awareness that her hooves become stained by the blood of her immortal mentor. She dropped to the ground and scooped Celestia’s head up, cradling it gently between her forelegs as her eyes scanned her body for signs of life. She buried her head into her fallen princess’ neck, pressing her ear hard against her in search for a pulse, ignoring the horrible slickness of the blood staining her face as she did so.

There was nothing there; nothing her panic-riddled mind could sense as a pulse over the roar of adrenaline in her own veins, nothing her untrained eyes could decipher as a blessing. Half a dozen books on first-aid swam before her mind’s eye, hazy and indistinct, eluding comprehension as she continued to stare at Celestia’s vacant eyes. Dull, still, glass imitations of the vibrant and quick pools of wisdom she knew so well.

This couldn’t be possible, Twilight knew. This couldn’t be happening. In just a second, Celestia would blink, get up, and smile at her, she would. She was there to smile after Discord twisted all she held dear, they had danced together in her brother’s wedding reception on the eve of the victory over the changeling queen… how could this be different?

She didn’t know… She didn’t know what to do!

“P-Princess…!” she croaked out, her mouth opening and closing in a fruitless attempt to grasp this. “I-I need to…”

Purpose ignited her, and the first-aid books in her memories rose open at her disposal. Still cradling Celestia’s head, Twilight shifted her crumpled body onto her back with a push of telekinesis, painfully reminded of how her princess was easily twice her own bulk. Twilight paused, scanning her memories, and caught a few breaths, trying to hear the roar of her own heartbeat over her terror. Thinking, or imagining, she could feel the pulses, she pressed a knot of magical force to Celestia’s chest and began to push in time, a desperate attempt at resuscitation.

Twilight pressed her muzzle against Celestia’s, covering her lips with hers, and breathed, pouring herself into her mentor, that perhaps her soul could reignite her goddess’ life.

“Get up,” Twilight begged between breaths, her wretched whine echoing through the hall. “Please, princess… get up.” The world wouldn’t make sense until she did, it couldn’t make sense until she did, it –

“I can’t… you can’t be… I can’t lose you, please…” Her head jerked forward, her muzzle meeting her princess’ for another desperate breath, her eyes desperately searching those dead glass pools for a spark. “Please, I need…”

She nuzzled her snout against her mentor’s, tears blurring her vision…

She was gone. There was nothing. Twilight was alone, more alone than she ever could have comprehended. Her determined fire spluttered out, extinguished by the terrible tide of reality, leaving her clutching her goddess in the cold, ruined chamber of her folly, her hopes and her heart torn from her life and tossed into the empty pits of Celestia’s glassy, dead eyes.

Her muzzle was still pressed against her mentor’s, even as tears took pity and mercifully obscured the vision before her.

A sickly twist in the ragged hole of her soul whispered in Twiight’s ear, reminding her of things long thought forgotten, long thought resolved.

The dam broke. Devoid of forethought or reason, she pressed her lips to Celestia’s once more, this time, as a kiss.

There was no passion, no declaration, no quintessential understanding crystallized in that moment. There was only need, a sudden surging need she poured into her Celestia as one kiss became a dozen, prayers and bargains and pleas whispered between hollow kisses and wretched sobs in a hopeless bid to breathe life back into a broken idol.

“Don’t go, don’t go. Don’t leave me, please!” she mewled, weak and pathetic to her own ears. “Please, there’s still so much to, to say. I...!”

Her muzzle moved into Celestia again, and this time there was passion, a flare of honest and desperate emotion as everything Twilight had left unsaid, everything she had let go so many years ago rushed to be realised, a last frantic scramble as hope slipped from her hooves and threatened to plummet into reality’s cruel ravine.

She ignored the fact that Celestia did not, could not, respond. She set aside the truth that mashing of lips was a parody of all her shameful fantasies. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered in that moment. Only Twilight’s needy kisses held a semblance of meaning, her sobs becoming silent as she held her broken mentor’s lips in her own, still and insistent.

Blood soaked her coat and its scent cloyed around her, and now they were joined by the stomach-turning taste of it in Twilight’s mouth. She drank it in, her mind frantic for some affirmation of Celestia, some proof of existence, something to wipe away the guilt and horror of what she had done.

Still she found nothing.

The kiss, if it could even be called that, broke, and Twilight pulled Celestia into the crook of her neck, cradling her as her tears fell on her bloody white coat, a futile attempt to wash it all away.

A small part of her, struck by the enormity of what she had just done, told her to pull back, to distance herself from it. She had lived this long in denial – how could she bear to live if her affections did not match the princess’? But that mindset… it was meaningless now, in a world with no Celestia at all. “I never told you…” she sobbed, her face a mess of tears and bloodstains. Inevitable as the sunset, Twilight pressed her lips again to Celestia’s, begging now for forgiveness.

“I kept it from you.” Twilight wept into Celestia’s mane, breaking down completely. “I was going to keep it as long as I lived, but… oh Celestia. Please wake up. Please be alive, I’ll… no more secrets, I promise. I’ll tell you everything, just please don’t leave me!”

Lost, her hooves ran through the limp strands of her beloved mentor’s mane, her eyes once more drawn to her sightless gaze.

Twilight gasped, her heart stopping. Celestia’s eyes… had shut. She dared not to breathe, fearful she would break what was surely a spell or illusion… but after a long, tense moment, she saw her mentor’s eyelid twitch. “C-Celestia?”

Sounding more beautiful than a choir of angels, Celestia breathed out a pained groan. “Twilight…?”

“Yes! I’m here!” Twilight exclaimed, relief and joy shooting through her body. “I’m –!” She laughed, near hysterical, and brought her into a tight hug, her tears continuing to fall in the face of the miracle. “Oh thank goodness. Oh Celestia, I t-thought...!”

In her embrace, Celestia began to weakly pull away. “’lements…” she groaned.

Twilight pulled back, letting her see her mentor. “What? What do you need, Princess?”

Celestia’s eyes opened, though they did not meet Twilight’s. Instead they wandered the room, unfocused, one pupil lazily growing larger than the other. “We, you… can’t let them… the Elements, only…” Her voice was weak and slurred, struggling over the words.

“The Elements of Harmony?” Twilight frowned, the wave of relief fading in the face of her princess’ needs. “You want me to get the Elements of Harmony?”

Hearing the question, Celestia’s eyes wandered back to her. “Twilight…?”

“I-I’m here,” Twilight affirmed. Her mind began to respond to Celestia’s need, and the once hazy textbooks in her mind became focused with crystal clarity, and they all told her one thing – despite the fact that the worst had been avoided, Celestia was still seriously hurt, and needed immediate medical attention.

“Hang on, princess.” Her horn glowed, and a blanket of rose magic swept over Celestia’s body, plucking her from the pool of blood and lifting her firmly in the air.

Celestia’s eyes went wide, filled with panic, and she began to struggle against the grip of Twilight’s magic. “N-no!”

“Princess! Princess, calm down!” Twilight begged, struggling to hold her mentor in place as her struggles became more frantic. “You’re going to be okay! Everything is…”

Celestia’s lip curled into a growl as her wings suddenly snapped forward. “Get off me!”

Twilight ducked reflexively, but was still bowled over as the tips of her wings pushed her aside. Recovering from her tumble, Twilight stayed close to the ground and tried to wriggle away. Panic tightened her throat more effectively than a noose – pegasi were descended from warriors. Their wings had enough power to break even an earth pony’s legs and send gryphons falling crippled out of the sky. Twilight held absolutely no illusions of what would have happened if Celestia’s wing made full contact with her body. A twig in autumn, snapped underhoof.

“You did this...” the princess groaned, her horn whipping around for a target. “I... I have to...the Elements, they... you can’t...”

“I-I’m sorry!” Twilight cried, backing away. “Celestia, I’m sorry, please! I never meant for this! I never meant to –!”

Hurt you? Kiss you?

Whatever her reply, it was silenced as Celestia took a pained step forward and found her legs crumple beneath her. She let out a cry of strangled shock, but instinctively curled and caught herself in a crouch that struck Twilight as terrifyingly familiar. Horn down, hind legs firm on the ground, a stance that Shining Armour had often shown off to Twilight during his days as a guard trainee. ‘The Bayonet,’ he had called it.

It suddenly occurred to Twilight how many ancient wars Celestia had personally battled in. And now, she was wounded and disorientated, surrounded by rubble and flames, and was too confused to recognise Twilight.

“Princess, please…” Twilight whispered, her voice hoarse. She shrank down, making herself as small as possible, ready to teleport at a moment’s notice but nevertheless begging Celestia for some kind of recognition.

Something in Celestia’s eyes changed…

A dark haze fell from the sky, salvation. Princess Luna appeared, a phantom in the flickering light of the flames as she drifted beside her sister. Shock clear on her face, Celestia reacted a second later, turning to face her but instead bringing herself right into Luna’s embrace. The dark mare whispered something into her sister’s ear, and then caught her as she slumped down, unconscious. Luna’s eyes wandered along Celestia’s wounds, before regarding Twilight with confusion and worry.

“Twilight Sparkle… what has happened here?”

Twilight shook her head in a futile attempt to banish the memory. She gasped, dragging air through her suddenly swollen throat and scrubbed her face with her hoof, soaking it with tears. “What are you crying about? You shouldn’t be crying…” Twilight half-snarled at herself. Yet Luna’s question rung still in her ears.

What happened?

She had been careless, that’s what, and her true self had finally been exposed.

It was her idol’s greatest hour of need, and Twilight hadn’t hesitated to take advantage of it. Celestia had been more vulnerable than ever before and instead of helping her, Twilight had forced herself onto her, acting out a fantasy and violating everything dear they shared, forsaking every privilege Celestia had ever offered her.

“I let this go…” Twilight said in weak protest. The blood before her refused to let her excuses carry.

“I let it go…” she whispered. That’s what she told her friends when the truth finally spilled out alongside fat, grieving tears all those years ago. That’s what she told herself, when she was finally able to write ‘Dear Princess Celestia’ without a pang of melancholy. That’s what she told herself, to shore up the foundations of her life, a life that had only really begun that first Summer Sun Celebration when Twilight witnessed a goddess soar, and realised ‘this is what love is.’

Heartbreak had nearly broken her very soul, but her friends, they showed her a new way. She was stronger, and she told herself she was over it. She told herself for years that the phase had passed and that every moment she spent with Celestia was honest, not some façade to worm her way into her mentor’s heart.

Now, she couldn’t deny it. Not here, in the wake of her selfishness, in the ruins of her folly. She still loved Celestia, and it was worse than ever. Her mind reeled as she thought of everything that had occurred –

Clinging to Celestia in the hospital, desperate for forgiveness without the courage to confess her crimes…

Crawling into bed beside her and pretending it was for Celestia’s sake…

Rolling around in her bed, so sickeningly happy that she could smell her on her coat, as if that meant anything, taking joy in Celestia’s weakness…

Bathing with her, that very morning! The very thought now made Twilight’s skin crawl as the scene played out before her, and she saw herself, in her mind’s eye… drifting off, staring longingly at Celestia, wishing it was her divine hooves on her back rather than the masseuse. Any chance, any chance she could find, Twilight would take it…

“That’s not what a friend is…” Twilight mumbled, the excuses and lies she had whispered to ease her conscience since the accident withering and dying in the face of reality. A friend of Celestia’s? How arrogant, how treacherous could she get? Nothing she had ever done was for her beloved mentor’s sake. It was all to pull the wool over her eyes, to sell her a glass diamond, to convince her of worth where there was none and fool her, somehow, into devoting herself to a selfish worm of a unicorn.

And the worst part of it all… Celestia had fallen for it! That unfaithful, pathetic excuse of a pony, the sneaky and selfish excuse for a student, she had won! Celestia called for her, shared intimate moments, pampered her with gifts and affection… The deception was complete, and Twilight… she had loved every moment of it!

Nausea gripped Twilight’s belly, and she couldn’t stop shuddering in revulsion. She needed a shower or, better yet, a cave far away where she could wallow until she was pure again. It was gone, that comfortable world where she told herself she had decided to let it go – naivety dressed up as maturity. She couldn’t indulge in Celestia’s ignorance any longer. She couldn’t… she couldn’t continue this betrayal.

She loved her. She was in love with Celestia, utterly and hopelessly so… but look at what love was twisting her into! It wasn’t love, it couldn’t be love, it was selfish and painful beyond imagination. If she ever wanted to be able to stand beside her without shrivelling up in shame or look into her beautiful, caring eyes again with a semblance of honesty, it had to end.

Lost in her spiralling thoughts, a voice made her jump in shock. “Miss Sparkle?”

She wiped her eyes with her hoof one final time and hoped her eyes weren’t too puffy or red as she turned. “Dusty. Hi. How are you?” she asked as politely as she could.

Dusty hesitated, somewhat unsure. “I’m fine, as is the rest of the team. They’ll be in shortly, I simply… ah…” He froze, his eyes fixed on the brown stain at Twilight’s feet. Visibly paling, Twilight could see by his increasingly distressed expression that he had realised what it was. “Is that where…?”

“Yes,” Twilight replied, forcing her voice out. What must it be like for a normal pony to realise Celestia could bleed? She swallowed hard, and scanned the room. “Is there a tarp somewhere? There’s no need to distress everyone with this, it’ll be a distraction.”

“Right, yes, of course.” He half-turned, eager to comply. Snatching one of the tarps at the edge of the room, he pulled it over the rusty stain and weighted it down with some rubble for safety’s sake. “Okay, that’s...” He mumbled, processing what he had just hidden. “That’s done. Is... is the princess...?”

“She’s okay,” Twilight supplied.

Dusty sagged with no small relief. “Oh thank heavens. Okay," He paused. "But, um, are… are you okay? You seemed, um, pretty upset yesterday.”

Twilight paused. “I… no,” she decided, settling on honesty. “I think I ruined everything yesterday. Even if we manage to pick up the pieces here... I was careless. Too careless. We can't carry on like before.”

“O-oh. Um…” Dusty Scroll bit his lip, at a loss for how to respond.

“Don’t worry about it.” Twilight cut off his condolences before they could be voiced. “All we can do now is see what can be salvaged. Come on… we’ve got work to do.”

~{C}~

In Luna’s experience, dreams revealed things not only fundamentally important, but also startlingly unexpected. Despite her teasing now and then on the nature of her sister’s relationship with Twilight Sparkle, Luna had never actually considered it the most likely possibility. But right before her eyes, she could see it – two mares, hooves entwined under the swaying red foliage of their fruit tree, their locked gaze smouldering.

The surprise she felt was two-fold, for not only was this outside of her expectations, she realised that a snare around her heart was uncoiling itself at the sight of them together.

Relief.  Drinking in the quiet scene before her, Luna felt relief. Springing up in her mind’s eye was the memory of the night before. She had looked back at Twilight, her first true friend, the first in this new Equestria to accept her, and pleaded – nay, ordered, of all things, her to let go of Celestia…

Because things had never been the same after she woke from the Nightmare, neither to her subjects, nor between her and Celestia.

Because a charming and intelligent pony now stood in the centre of Celestia’s attentions, where a millennium ago there was nopony but Luna.

Because, when the nights were lonely, when she knew she could find her sister in her room reading reports and letters from one author in particular. When caught in the grip of melancholy, Luna had sometimes wondered what Celestia would have done had that unicorn not saved her. Would she instead have been her replacement?

The light of the morn brought shame to those fears, especially once she had befriended Twilight and found her bright and joyful, deserving of her sister’s attentions. So Luna lashed that shame and those regrets into a snare, holding back her rising jealousy and her fears that Celestia no longer needed her…

And now, there was no need for it, because Celestia had spoken true. Her love for her wayward sister had never wavered, and now Luna felt foolish for even thinking that the story of Twilight Sparkle and Celestia was anything more than a simple love story.

Her sister was so lost in the dream before her that she only noticed Luna’s approach when she was a mere stride away. Shock painted her expression at Luna’s intrusion, and the princess of dreams suddenly regretted intruding on the scene as her sister shied away, averting her gaze to poorly shield shame.

“I didn’t...” Celestia murmured softly, turning her face away. “I didn’t mean for this to happen...”

“You didn’t mean… what, exactly?” Luna asked, her light feeling slowly ebbing away at her sister’s uncharacteristic hesitance. “You didn’t mean to dream of her? You didn’t mean for your heart to desire somepony?”

Her sister looked up, magenta eyes filling with alarm. “No, this is… this is just a dream, sister,” Celestia said, catching herself, her gaze sliding back to the grass. “You gave me this dream.”

Luna slowly shook her head, denying escape. “I said it before, this is your dream. It is not my heart conjuring her.”

Celestia looked up at Luna once more, unsure… and the dream of a unicorn rested her head against her white wing, letting out a sleepy sigh.

Luna sighed. “Sister, stop this. I’ve seen it, you can’t really deny that­…”

“It isn’t as it seems!” Celestia near-blurted out. “Luna, I’m simply… I admit my thoughts are occupied with her, but it’s just… in these circumstances, is that not normal? I’m simply worried –”

“You lay here, with her, looking at her with those eyes, and claim it is worry?” asked Luna, incredulous. “You would speak to I, the very princess of dreams and nightmares both, and claim contrary to what my very eyes observe? You would lie there with Twilight, in the midst of your heart’s honest dream, beneath swaying leaves of cultivated hope, and say to me it is not love?”

“Exaggeration, sister, that is what this is!” Celestia insisted, though Luna noticed her pull closer to the sleeping Twilight, as if to draw strength from her. “She worked so hard, for months, and her efforts have turned to ash! All I want is to be here for her, but the very sight of me is a reminder of the disaster. I must heal and rest, that is what this dream tells me. I want to comfort her, that is all!”

Luna hesitated – Celestia’s words held some truth, she could tell. Could she be mistaken? The doubt was set aside as she felt a familiar sensation – the dream was shifting. Luna took one step forward, and the world of the garden slid away to reveal Celestia’s bedroom, dimly lit by the waning moon.

And there, curled up in the bed, was her sister and Twilight Sparkle. The unicorn slumbered on, but Celestia was awake, still as can be with an unreadable expression across her face. Luna lingered close, invisible as she scrutinised her sister’s eyes with the same intensity Celestia focused on the sleeping mare in her embrace.

They shut, and her sister let out a deep sigh, her grip tightening around Twilight. “This is not so terrible…” Celestia whispered, so low it could well have been but a thought.

“No, it isn’t,” Luna said. Celestia jumped, startled, and the scene faded back to the garden, Twilight still curled in her tight embrace. Luna tilted her head and regarded her sister sadly. “So why deny it so vehemently?”

“I...!” Celestia’s eyes went wide, and for a second Luna thought she had been cornered. Instead of a confession, however, simply closed her eyes and shook her head in denial. “No, Luna, do not use that against me,” she said, her voice soft and a touch weary. “I woke up beside her, confused as to how we arrived in that position, and I was afraid that… that something had happened. Something I might have regretted.”

“But it wasn’t so terrible, now was it?” pressed Luna.

“No, it was not,” Celestia conceded. “My fears were… unfair.” She looked down at the dream of Twilight, nestling into her. “She is clever, and kind, and beautiful. She is worthy of anyone’s affections, but… on reflex I treated her as if it were otherwise, as if being with her was some terrible thing.”

Luna grinned wide. “So, you admit she’s worthy of your affection, hmm?”

Celestia’s eyes flashed with irritation. “Recognising it doesn’t mean anything.”

“Your eyes tell a different tale, sister,” Luna said, her convictions firm. “I’ve no doubt you do want to comfort her, but that’s not where it ends, nor is it where this dream came from. I saw how you looked at her only moments ago. I saw how you looked at her as she awoke in your bed. You cannot deny there is an attraction – I daresay she reciprocates it, even!”

Celestia glanced away, her chest rising and falling as her breath quickened. “She is attractive,” she said, soft yet irritated. “There, are you satisfied? Idle thoughts, Luna, nothing more. I can recognise beauty when I see it.”

“That’s not the same as attraction, Celestia!” Luna beckoned with her hoof towards Celestia, and the mare she was denying, still tangled in her forelegs. “Do you really think you can hide this from me, here of all places? Here, in the midst of your dream, resting under this tree, holding her as a lover?”

Celestia let out a short laugh, bordering on harsh. “Exactly, Luna. A dream! A passing fancy! Do not speak to me as if you’ve never experienced a dream warping the truth!”

Luna bristled. “Warp!? How dare you!” she snapped, no longer willing to play host to her sister’s dodges. Celestia recoiled in shock at the outburst. “I gave you this dream! I know where this garden was created! It was conjured by your heart, not an addled mind trying to make sense of things!”

“I want to comfort her,” Celestia said, her voice a whisper almost too low for Luna to catch. The sun princess curled around the dream of Twilight, whose head moved upwards in her sleep to nuzzle Celestia’s chin. “She is my dear friend, she is beautiful, she gives so much and feels such needless guilt. Why wouldn’t I dream of comforting her?  Just because the dream took an unexpected turn –“

“Do not speak to me of dreams!” Luna interrupted, stomping a hoof in an almost petulant bid to be heard. “Look at this tree, sister! Just look!” She circled the tree, taking in the slender but strong trunk, the branches reaching out in all direction, the vibrant red leaves, and the full, ripe fruit hanging just beyond reach… but not beyond Celestia, she knew. “This is cultivated. This did not spring up overnight. This is no ‘passing fancy’.”

“This – this tree is Twilight’s project,” Celestia said, though she seemed unsure, refusing to look at Luna. Instead, she looked back at the dream of Twilight resting against her. “The tree is our journey.”

“No, this tree is the destination,” Luna said, completing her round of the tree. “Your merry chase is over, now confess where you find yourself!”

“She is my student!” Celestia stood suddenly, startling the dream of Twilight. The dream of the unicorn looked, confused, between Luna and her beloved alicorn now leaving her behind. Realising what was happening, she dropped her head in sadness. Luna felt a pang of guilt at the sight, before her vision was filled with a stern-faced Celestia. “She needs me as her guide, not some half-smitten dolt stealing glances from across the room! I’ve watched over her for so long – these feelings are an insult to her, to us!”

‘These feelings,’ Luna noted, biting her lip slightly as she spotted the sliver of a confession. “Twilight is your student no longer,” she reminded Celestia. “I recall you refer to her now as your protégé in scholarly pursuits.”

Celestia rolled her eyes, irritation barely held back. “Semantics!”

“Semantics you insisted upon!” Luna reminded her, firm. “Words have power, even over us, sister, power both subtle and pervasive. Some level of you wanted to divorce yourself from the thought of Twilight as a student, as reliant on you. You made that distinction for yourself, long ago, be it out of respect, or acknowledgment, or attraction –” Here, her sister actually scoffed, pacing further from the tree, and from the dream.

“Yes, attraction, sister!” Luna called after her, pursuing her, demanding to be heard, refusing to let the matter drop. “Is it really so impossible? She has conquered powers you could not control, she has pierced deceptions you could not perceive, she brought us back together after a millennium of separation – and she adores you, sister, she utterly adores you! That’s enough to change anyone’s impressions of a pony! Why won’t you at least give your heart a chance, Celestia?”

“I am the princess of Equestria,” Celestia said, her words dull and sounding to Luna’s ears like a mantra. “I have… I have ruled for a thousand years and… and I cannot…”

Luna rounded on Celestia, appearing before her in a burst of dark aura and stars, leaving ripples in the dreamscape around her. “You cannot what, Celestia?” she demanded, even as Celestia shied away. “You cannot allow your heart to beat? You cannot act on just one private desire? What harm is there?”

Celestia turned, finally, to face Luna… and the younger sister gasped in shock at what she saw.

In Luna’s experience, dreams revealed things both important and unexpected, and though she prided herself as the mistress of dreams, even she was caught quite often by surprise. Dreams were kaleidoscopes of emotions, and the slightest twitch could change how everything stood.

But even with that knowledge, she reeled at the sight of her sister. How had she not seen it before? That mask, like a dish of pure porcelain laid across her features, perfectly conforming to her face.

But now it was plain as day, shielding her from the world, was a mask of her own face, Celestia’s own visage in a state of pure composure.

Her eyelids slid open, just as a doll’s might, but behind them was no glass gaze – Celestia’s own eyes, red and weary, stared back at Luna, holding a faint accusation.

“You truly have no idea…” Celestia whispered. “Do you?”

In the sudden silence, the sound of the crack was thunderous as an ugly, jagged wound ran down her porcelain features from the left eye of the mask, like a tear.

“Sister, what…?” Luna began, but the terrible sight before her paled as she caught sight of what now loomed behind Celestia. “Sister!”

Her warning came too late. Bone-white vines as thick as her foreleg sprung up, looping around her sister, their dagger-like thorns drawing out a terrible scream from the masked alicorn as they cut into her skin.

Luna rushed forward to save her, but stumbled as the ground shook, and suddenly the garden’s rich foliage withered around her, turning to dust before her eyes in mere seconds. Great chunks of the land gave way, sinking into the earth and reducing the world to a barren desert, as far as the eye could see. Even the red-leafed tree was gone, along with the Twilight Celestia had dreamed.

Celestia let out another pained cry, and Luna rushed to her side. “Sister! Stay calm! This isn’t real!” she said, trying to reassure her.

The thorns tightened as Luna approached, and Celestia’s mask continued to crack, the sound of breaking porcelain cutting through all other sound and thought in the dream. “Luna,” she said softly, her voice impossibly calm. “Luna, are you trying to save me?”

 “Of course I am!” was Luna’s incredulous reply. Her horn shone, and she tried to impose her will on the dream, but the briars resisted her, their thorns shredding her magic before it could find purchase there.

“Magic won’t work,” Celestia said, hushed, after a moment. “Horns are for sweeping them away. Hooves crush them.”

Luna nodded, desperate to try anything. Picking out where one of the binding vines reached the ground, she reared up and brought her forehooves down on it with all of her strength. The vine crumpled as if it were charcoal and, emboldened, Luna quickly repeated the process, crushing and scattering the briars as quickly as she could manage. “What does this mean, Celestia?” she asked as she worked, slowly easing a vicious thorn out of her sister’s flesh, before grinding it to powder under a merciless hoof. Through it all, Celestia remained silent, without even a gasp of pain escaping her. “Sister, please…” Pausing in her work, she turned to look at her sister, her eyes roaming her crumbling porcelain face.

“I…” Celestia began, her voice flat.

The dirt beneath them became hard, cold slabs of limestone. Walls rose out of the ground and broken glass fell down around them, and Luna turned to see the world far below her. They were on the balcony leading to a vast hall, one she recognised well as her once home, the old Castle of the Royal Sisters.

The curiosity and faint nostalgia of finding herself there faded as she turned to look into the hall.  White briars filled the ancient audience chamber, thick and dense where the thrones should have stood. There, in the centre of it all was a vision of horror.

The creature had a coat as white as bones left to bleach under the unforgiving desert sun. Her mane trailed like fire around her, an incandescent blue tangled in the thorns, seeming to set them ablaze. Its face was the worst of it, because it was perfect, a perfect mask identical to Celestia’s save for the eyes, which were sunken and etched with deep and weary fury.

Silence, those eyes screamed. Silence.

“N-no…” Luna shook her head in disbelief. This was a nightmare, not a memory. It couldn’t be a memory, Celestia wasn’t her! Celestia could never…! “Sister, what… what is this?”

“I…” Celestia’s words were robbed from her throat as the briars shot forward. The nightmare’s eyes screamed for silence, and it was in utter silence that Luna watched, horrified, as the claw sunk deep into her sister’s chest. Celestia stumbled backwards, her mask finally shattering and falling to pieces on the ground, revealing her face twisted in the agony of a torn heart. The briar broke apart, but the thorn remained, a dagger in her heart.

Celestia collapsed, staring absently at the dagger buried in her heart as Luna rushed to her side. “Sister, listen to me, this is just a nightmare!”

“A nightmare…” Celestia mumbled. “I… see.”

A great tremor shook the room, causing both sisters to lose their balance as the castle itself began to collapse. Luna was quick to recover, her horn ablaze and deflecting chunks of stone falling around them as she pushed her fallen sister out onto the balcony once more, out of danger. In the corner of her vision, Luna saw a flash of white and whirled around to face it, standing protectively before her sister. To her confusion, however, she saw the briars begin to turn on the nightmare itself as the ancient stone toppled around it.

Luna caught the creature’s gaze one final time, revealing a glare both weary and mournful before it was hidden as the nightmare closed its eyes, resigned. The fractured walls around it finally fully gave way, and the vaulted ceiling came tumbling down, entombing Celestia’s nightmare in the ruins of the past.

Shaken, Luna had no time to recover before she heard another distant roar. Across the destroyed hall, water was beginning to seep through the cracks in the ancient stone. The merciless dream refused to spare her even a moment to gasp before a torrential flood burst through the wall and crashed into the wrecked hall. Luna was struck by a wave of frigid water, and what remained of the castle ruins was swept away in the deluge. A cold spray of water drenched the two princesses as even the ground collapsed around them, leaving them stranded on the balcony, a single tiny outcrop of stone over a vast waterfall.

“Everything’s unravelling…” Luna stomped her hoof and spread her wings, anchoring herself to that point in the dream. “Celestia, what is this about?” She crouched down, bringing her head down to Celestia’s level.

Celestia gave no reply, refusing still to meet Luna’s gaze as she nursed the wound over her heart. “Sister, please…” Luna said, stung by her sister’s silence. “You can’t keep hiding this, I–”

A terrible crack interrupted her. The ground beneath them shifted, and suddenly Celestia was slipping away from her, the balcony falling away over the edge of the waterfall. “Celestia!” Luna cried, lunging forward. A hoof flailed out to catch her sister’s…

She missed by a hair’s breadth.

Before her eyes, Celestia plummeted into the raging waterfall. Luna’s wings spread, prepared to dive from her crumbling perch, but a mighty gust of wind caught her and blew her upwards, away from the falling form of Celestia, holding her back.

“No. No nightmare may refuse me.” Luna lashed out, ripping through the very fabric of the dream. The castle, the waterfall, all of it dissolved into formless mist to be cast aside by her horn and her wings.

But still did Celestia plummet, falling further and further beyond Luna’s reach.

So Luna dove.

The mist was icy shards cutting into her coat, anger and fear and shame bundled into fragments of glass growing denser and denser even as Celestia grew further and further from her. The threshold was before her, Luna knew, so thick as to be a wall of trauma. She would break through regardless, she would cast all this needless pain aside and show Celestia she could bear whatever pain was being kept from her.

Glinting glass memories flashed by, giving Luna a glimpse of

The pitch black mare of the night smiles darkly as her starry mane wraps over a coat of alabaster. “This night shall last forever,” she whispers.

Luna gasped, sheer panic flooding her. The shard snagged her, cutting into her wing, and her dive was broken. She tumbled and crashed into the rest, pain and shock and frustration and fear and shame and a thousand others riddle her body.

A herd of ponies, their bellies empty and their bodies thin. One looks back at the ancient castle, and scowls.

Under a moon branded with the icon of a sinner, unnaturally red and low in the sky, Celestia weeps.

A solid wave of water rises high above the land as it bore down on the world.

A green earth pony lies in a pool of blood, and Celestia turns to face the moon, eyes wide with horror.

Breaking from the flood of images, Luna’s eyes found Celestia’s, confused and fearful. ‘What does this mean?’ her eyes asked.

Celestia smiled, somewhat sad… then she closed her eyes with the same resignation of the nightmare before her, and disappeared into the mist.

Luna cried out and tried to dive, but the glittering memories caught her. They wrapped around her wings, dragging her down, and she tumbled and fell into a curtain of silver light.

It didn’t make sense. Nothing made sense! Luna, of all ponies, knew dreams. She knew how to swim in them and twist in them. But her sister’s storm of emotions... she hadn’t known, couldn’t have expected what might be released, and now, she...

Panic gripped her as she fell, head over hooves, through the light, but she pushed the fear back. Shutting her eyes, she took three deep breaths, commanding herself to be calm.

‘I am the princess of the moon.’   Her decent slowed, and the memories cradled her.

‘I am walker of dreams.’ Their touch became like feathers, like cool scraps of paper against her coat.

‘I am beloved here, and safe.’ She felt herself land, light on her hooves, on soft loam, the memories setting her down gently.

She opened her eyes, and found herself sitting under the swaying, silver-leaved curtain of a huge willow tree. The moon sat quietly on the horizon, and all the world slumbered. She was back in Celestia’s dream, of that there was no doubt.

However, there wasn’t a trace of Celestia anywhere. Luna allowed her presence to ripple through the dream, scouring the world for its creator, but impossibly, she found nothing.

Her sister was gone. Lost, inside her own nightmare.

~{C}~

Composure, Chapter 6, end

~{C}~