//------------------------------//
// 321 - Shadowed Hearts 
// Story: Lateral Movement 
// by Alzrius 
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With a sigh, Luna snatched the papers away from her sister, her cobalt blue aura wrapping around the pages, replacing the light golden glow of Celestia’s telekinesis as she drew them to herself. “Enough, Sister. You need to rest.”

But Celestia shook her head, blinking blearily. “No. We don’t have much time before our meeting with Lex, and-”

“Precisely,” interrupted Luna. “Which is why you need to sleep now. It’s already been hours since you lowered the sun, and it won’t be long before you need to raise it again. If you don’t rest now, I’m afraid that you’ll be too tired to achieve the breakthrough you’re looking for when we speak with Lex later.” A look at the conflicted expression on Celestia’s face made it clear that she hadn’t completely convinced her, so Luna kept going. “There’s still a few more hours of nighttime left. Let me review these, and I’ll-” 

She ceased speaking as a flurry of sparkles suddenly flew into the room, entering through the window she’d opened earlier to get a look at the moon. Luna had just enough time to realize what she was seeing when the glittering motes of light gathered in front of Celestia and merged, transforming into a rolled piece of paper. Reflexively, the elder alicorn caught the missive and unrolled it. “It’s a letter,” she exclaimed, though Luna had already guessed that much, recognizing Spike’s signature method of sending messages.

But that he was sending one now, in the middle of the night, was a cause for concern. “From Twilight?”

Celestia shook her head, not looking up from the page. “No. Twilight didn’t take him with her when she went back to Everglow.”

Luna’s brow furrowed, not having known that. “Then that letter…?”

“Is from Cadance.” Celestia’s answer came in the form of a sigh, a troubled look on her face as she passed the letter to Luna. “The crystal ponies that she sent here to spread word of Lashtada’s religion just arrived in Canterlot.”

Luna’s frown deepened at that, looking the hastily-written message over. When she was finished, she looked up at Celestia. “This is a bad sign, Sister.”

“We knew that a lot of ponies died here.” But Celestia’s protest was weak, though Luna wasn’t sure if it was because she was tired or because she knew it was flimsy.

“Yes,” admitted Luna. “But we thought that was from the disaster, or from the monsters that followed it, not because they were murdered by other ponies!” Realizing that she’d inadvertently raised her voice for the last few words, Luna took a moment to calm herself before continuing. “Neither Sonata nor Nosey told us anything about the ponies here killing each other. They barely even mentioned that they’d sent sick ponies to Canterlot and Tall Tale for treatment.” She paused for a moment to let that sink in. “You said that you thought that they weren’t being completely honest with us before. Now we know for sure. And if they were holding back important information, it’s because Lex told them to.”

Celestia was silent for a long moment. “We’ll ask him about this when we speak to him later,” she said at last.

“We should do more than ask, Sister,” pressed Luna. “Even if Lex does have the welfare of everypony in mind, he’s been nothing but hostile toward us. I don’t think it would be out of line if we required him to turn over that evil artifact of his, or perhaps give up King Sombra’s horn, as a gesture of good faith on his part.” 

She almost added a third suggestion: that he renounce that “Night Mare” goddess of his, but thought better of it at the last moment. Her time with Silhouette and her other worshipers made it clear that anyone who’d go so far as to injure themselves for the sake of their religion – as Lex had with that horrible-looking barbed wire wrapped around his hoof – would only be antagonized by such a demand. Worse, even suggesting such a thing would send the wrong message to her sister, making her think that Luna was motivated by some sort of personal jealousy rather than honest concern. Far better to suggest that he give up something like his horn. She and Celestia had asked Lex for that particular concession a few weeks previous, when they had originally agreed to allow him to administrate Vanhoover’s recovery. He had balked at the prospect then, but Luna thought it was worth reiterating now, since Lex was apparently gathering so much dark power around himself.

But her sister apparently disagreed. “While displaying no such faith ourselves?” Celestia’s tone made it clear her question was rhetorical, even if she hadn’t been shaking her head. “We don’t have the full story about what happened here, and Cadance’s letter says much the same thing about what’s happening in Canterlot. Rushing to judgment won’t help anypony.” She nodded toward the other papers that were still held aloft in Luna’s aura. “Just now, you were saying that I should sleep and that you would review those records of Lex’s time at my school while I did. I think that’s a good idea.” She walked toward the large bed in the corner of the room as she spoke, telekinetically drawing back the covers. “Once it’s time for me to raise the sun, you’ll be able to get a few hours’ rest yourself. That way we’ll both more composed when we meet with Lex later.”

Luna huffed, but recognized that the conversation had reached its end. There was just one other point to settle. “You don’t think we should write back to Cadance in the meantime?”

“Not until we know more,” answered Celestia as she laid down. “She has enough to deal with right now, and worrying her with half-informed reports about what’s happening here will only distract her.”

“Very well. Goodnight, Sister.”

“Goodnight, Luna.”

After Celestia doused the light by the bed, Luna returned to her position beside the window, the moon’s soft light and the glowing aura of her telekinesis illuminating Lex’s old school records. But she didn’t begin reading them immediately, instead turning the events of the last few hours over in her mind. While she knew her sister wasn’t wrong about them having incomplete information, Luna felt certain that whatever new revelations they uncovered wouldn’t allay her fears about the dour unicorn. 

After all, Luna had firsthoof experience with this sort of thing.

He really is just like the old me, Luna decided as she reviewed what she knew of Lex. The thought was tinged with regret, remembering how she’d felt in the years leading up to her transformation into Nightmare Moon. The jealousy, the frustration, the bitterness...Lex Legis had all the same qualities about him now that she’d had back then, and Luna felt sure that it was leading him down the same dark road. The only difference was that Lex was poised to become a worse monster than she ever had.

Of course, Luna had suspected that for a little while now. But she hadn’t shared it with Celestia, knowing what her sister would say. She’d tell me that I should reach out to him, sharing what I’ve learned from making the mistakes that he’s making now. Just the thought made Luna sigh, knowing that Celestia would never understand why that wouldn’t work. 

Her sister, who had always lived in the light, had no conception of how insidious that kind of negativity was. She couldn’t comprehend how, when you felt unappreciated for a long enough time, you started to think that perhaps it was because you deserved it. Once that happened, it was only a matter of time before self-hatred set in…and at some point after that you eventually became so filled with hate that you couldn’t contain it anymore, unleashing it upon the world. There were no words, no friendship lesson or catchy song, which could break through that mindset.

Changing somepony’s heart, Luna knew, wasn’t that easy.

She herself had been fortunate. Not only had her sister never given up on her, but she’d arranged for Twilight Sparkle and her friends to discover the Elements of Harmony. Composed of the most selfless and caring of emotions, the Elements had uplifted her spirit, letting her see through the veils of anguish and self-deception that she’d surrounded herself with to realize the truth: that she was the cause of her own misery, and that in succumbing to it she had only made it worse for herself. That realization had allowed her to change back into Luna, and fortunately for her Celestia had been there to forgive her, a memory that still brought tears of thankfulness to her eyes even now.

It was that thankfulness that had led Luna to create the Tantabus, her psychic contruct that haunted her dreams with the horrible memories of her time as Nightmare Moon. The nightmares not only served to punish her in a way that Celestia never would, but also doubled as a reminder of what it felt like to go down the path of corruption, keeping her vigilant against it ever happening again. But although he had a Tantabus of his own, Lex Legis didn’t seem to be wary of the mistakes he was making. If anything, he seemed to have been making them for a long time, according to his old school records.

Shuffling the papers, Luna looked them over again. That records from over a thousand years ago were still in such good shape wasn’t surprising. Minor preservation magic was a staple among unicorns with cutie marks in archiving, record-keeping, librarianship, and similar fields. What was more impressive was that her sister had managed to find them after all this time.

Somehow, after their disastrous first meeting – the one where Lex had originally declared himself in rebellion against them – Celestia had recalled an old student from her school that matched Lex’s name and disposition. Luckily, she’d never been able to bring herself to throw away her student files, and she’d dispatched her steward to search through the archives. Of course, Luna knew full well that “the archives” was a mountain of unorganized boxes shoved into the abandoned mines beneath Canterlot, and so it was no surprise that the poor stallion had needed weeks to find the right one. 

The records themselves painted a grim picture of the unicorn in question, at least to Luna’s mind. To say that Lex Legis had been a brilliant student was a severe understatement; he had achieved perfect scores on literally every single assignment, project, or exam that he’d been given, a feat that only Twilight Sparkle had replicated. But his teachers’ remarks lacked the praise that such accomplishments should have brought. “Difficult” was a word frequently used to describe him. “Rude,” “disrespectful,” and “argumentative” also made frequent appearances.

The most expressive notes came from View Point, a teacher of magical ethics who’d possessed a penchant for treating her records almost like a personal diary. “Lex Legis disrupted class again today,” read one entry. “While I wasn’t surprised that he already knew ‘The Tale of Sparkler’ – the story of a unicorn filly named Sparkler who conjures a light while walking through the woods alone one evening, only to be chased by monsters – I still can’t believe that he objected so strongly to it! While the other foals were captivated by how Sparkler was finally cornered by the monsters, only to realize that they just wanted her to put her light out so that they could go back to sleep, Lex was scowling angrily. At the end of the story, where the now-friendly monsters escorted Sparkler home through the dark after she doused her light, I started to explain the tale’s moral about considering how our magic might affect other people, but Lex became incensed and kept interrupting. He called the story ‘a paean of consequentialist gibberish’ that ‘purported that moral agency was a stochastic process utterly lacking in normative ethics.’ It was the strangest thing I’ve ever heard a five year-old say! I’m still not sure exactly what he meant, but I told him that if he keeps causing a commotion he’ll have to be punished.”

That was one of the last records; according to the remaining paperwork, Lex had withdrawn from Celestia’s school shortly thereafter. Frowning, Luna shuffled through the pages again, but after a few minutes found herself coming back to that one. It was, she realized, Lex in a nutshell: brilliant but bitter, already having a mindset that not only isolated him from others, but drove him to lash out when he disagreed with them. Even as a child he’d been pulling away from others while simultaneously trying to assert himself over them, and he was still doing it now.

In which case, Luna realized, View Point had been more correct than she’d realized at the time.

If Lex kept causing a commotion, he’d have to be punished.