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// Nº 11: PHANTOM 
// Story: Life In Boxes 
// by CoffeeBean 
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Luna couldn’t help but yawn as she followed the paved walkway towards the doors of the institute. Above Canterlot there stretched a dark bank of storm clouds that gave the illusion that night was still abound when a fair thirty minutes had passed since the sun's rise. This late fall storm had been her biggest motivator for traveling to the Institute herself rather than enlisting her Night Guard and the chariot. Not only was it a ceremonial and traditional vessel, but it offered her a moment of tranquility; a time of meditation where not a soul in the world could come to her with inquiries or requests. While luxuries as such were quite appreciated, nothing could compare to the sensation of wind beneath her feathers.

More than that was the simple acknowledgment of flight itself. Knowing that every tiny movement of her wings controlled how and where she went in the sky was freeing; it was the one time she held true, boundless control. She did not need to worry about bearing, tradition, propriety, or politics. In the distant ether of dreams, she wielded less power than she did in the heights above Equestria. Despite an hour passing since she had departed the distant realm of dreams, it remained fresh in her mind. When she blinked, thinned, faded snapshots of the places she had visited over the long night appeared in the split second eigengrau of her eyelids.

By now, it had been a good 20 hours since she had slept. To the outside observer such a statement seemed quite untrue; she had spent many hours in the night leaned back in the cushions of her study's chair with the blue plumage of her wings wrapped around her figure like a feathery blanket, but despite the fact her eyes remained shut and her body remained still, her mind was still quite awake. Far more awake than any other time, in fact. A quick spell pulled open the institute's windowless, flat panel door to reveal the well lit security lock, and as she stepped inside, she met the gaze of the lapis-furred, white-maned pegasus in her dark gray security jacket behind the thick glass of the security lock's booth. The mare's eyes were wide with surprised embarrassment as she quickly set down the book she had been reading.

“Princess Luna…?”

“A good morning to you, Spearwind.”

“Morning, Princess!” Spearwind chimed back, doing her best to look awake and alert.

Luna blinked a few times as her eyes fully adjusted to the horribly bright little space, her pupils paper thin slits by now. “What novel entertains you on this storm cloud shrouded morn?”

She did a double take between the Princess and the closed book before her. “Oh, uh, it's just one of the books from the library upstairs.”

“Wards away boredom, does it?”

She relaxed a bit beneath those casual words. “Yes, it does, Your Highness.”

Luna offered a little smile. “Grant me entry, shall you?”

Spearwind nodded. “Of course, Your Highness!”

The red button upon the wall of her secure booth was pressed, and a buzzing tone played from a little loudspeaker somewhere as the door’s internal locks gave off their mechanical clunk. Luna swung the hefty thing to the side with a spell, gave Spearwind a smile, and stepped into the silent lobby.

The door sealed itself behind her, the clank of the latch echoing into the dark lobby; the only light to be lit was a lamp at the desk where the receptionist was normally found. She paid the place little heed and made her way towards the sealed double doors leading further into the institute; from now on, one singular room within the institute was of interest to her.






Luna shut the heavy door as gently as possible. Though closed, she left it unlocked as she turned to face the turquoise-furred pegasus cowering atop her quilt: Sky Stock. Her wings were wrapped around her sitting figure, her head was held low, and through her brow, she glared at Luna with eyes that seemed to ask ‘why would you return?’. Luna smiled gently as she entered the dim cell further; the thin window behind Sky's bed offered little light thanks to the clouds hiding the morning sun beyond. Stopping a few hoof lengths from the metal frame bed, Luna dropped to her haunches upon the concrete floor, her proximity causing Sky to scoot as far back on her bed as she could. Silence reigned supreme as the two simply stared at one another, nearly motionless.

“Have you slept well?” Luna finally inquired, ensuring to simply her speech. It was as if she hadn't spoken at all. She hadn't even blinked. “Did you sleep well?” She blinked, but Luna was quite sure the action had been involuntary. Luna held her tongue, studying Sky for a moment. “What do you feel, Sky?" Sky's brow furrowed a bit. “Do you feel angry with me?”

“Angry…”

Luna's ears perked as Sky turned away slightly. “Why do you feel angry?”

“You. The dreams are angry… because you…” she blinked hard, almost appearing to wince. She fell quiet.

“Because of me?” Luna inquired. Sky's jaw quivered gently, and her lips parted as if words had gotten trapped behind her tongue. “Sky, does the voice tell you to be angry?”

“Voice?”

Luna tapped her own temple with a hoof. “A voice within?” Sky looked rather worried. She remained silent, her gaze wandering from Luna's as she stared off into the folds of her quilt. “Sky, I want to help you.”

Sky flinched, her wing twitching as she slowly peered down to Luna; the look on her face had gone from apprehension to terror. Luna's eyes narrowed a bit as she studied Sky. Such words wouldn't ordinarily gain such a reaction.

“Hurt?” Sky trembled in a tone just slightly higher than a whisper.

“Nay, Sky, help rid you of this ailment.”

Her expression worsened. Suddenly, it clicked. Luna quickly held her tongue. Her words were being altered, just as had happened with Cirrus. Sky's somewhat frantic breaths overcame the silence of the room as she pushed her back against the wall her bed was butted against. The lack of power she held in this moment began to dig at Luna. That beast had stripped away her ability to hear and see what things Sky's waking mind perceived. The first step was separation; show her that this thing clawing into her thoughts was not a part of her as it so claimed to be. This thing knew well how to stop such a thing from happening.

Though her eyes remained locked with Sky's, that was hardly where her focus lay. She mulled over options, pondering not what path to take, but what paths existed. None truly seemed to. She began doubting the usefulness of listening to the thoughts within Sky’s mind; if the words she offered in return were to be altered by this thing, then there was little point in speaking. Each passing second grew her doubts. The physical plane would do her little good, she could see that obviously.

Luna stood up, her movements causing Sky to flinch. Blue magic began shimmering around Luna's horn, the spell drawing Sky's attention for a moment until her eyelids began fluttering, and in a matter of seconds, she dropped sideways in bed, fast asleep. The spell ceased, leaving Luna in the deathly silence of the cell. She stood unmoving for some time, staring at Sky's sleeping figure as, even now, she contemplated options. Of all the things she thought, it always circled back to the simplest of them; seek the subconscious. There, in that deep sanctum of the mind, she knew she held more leverage than she could ever hope to wield here in the physical space.

Separation, she thought, was still the foothill that resigned at the base of the seemingly insurmountable peak that was this ailment. There within, she thought that even if for but a moment, Sky’s thoughts could be hidden away from the commanding voice of the thing clawing through her mind. In that moment of clarity, she would be able to see for herself, rather than simply being told so, that the words she believed to be her own inner voices were quite the opposite. She came forward, stopping at the edge of Sky’s bed and slipping her left hoof out from its blue steel hoofguard. That hoof rose, pausing for a moment as she stared down at the soundly sleeping Sky for but a moment before gently placing her hoof upon her side, feeling the rise and fall of her breathing.

She closed her eyes, focusing on the rhythm and matching her own breathing to the steady pace. The scent of ozone hit the air as the misty black aura of magic which would cut through the barriers separating the waking world from the dream realm surrounded her horn. Every sense began to fade as her mind slipped away from her body until there was pure nothingness and utter, thoughtless silence. It lasted for a mere second until she opened her eyes to see the familiar star-dotted purples and blues of the dream realm ether.

As she expected, there stood a single frame alone in the ether off in the distance before her. Within the confines of the frame was that familiar mixing and writhing black and red, and although faint, she could hear the screech it spat out to ward her away. It was routine by now; the dream was encompassed in magic, sealing it away and allowing her to draw near, and like the tip of a hoof pressing upon a sheet of wet parchment, that same spell pushed and broke through the barrier of stinging ink and blood which the beast thought to be adequate defense. Luna looked on intently as her spell widened the tear, the writhing field waning to show the dreamscape beyond.

Once the tear was wide enough, she stepped through the fringes of the frame and into this new world - one of many streets within a detail-less Equestrian city. She focused upon the tear behind her for a moment, ensuring her spells held strong before turning forward and beginning off down the building-lined path, noting the color palette and architectural designs of the structures; this place was meant to mimic Canterlot. If she were a mile in the sky, she thought things might look somewhat acceptable, but at street level, the structures were more akin to looking as if they were made from folded paper rather than brick, plaster, and wood.

Again, she found herself curious at this lack of detail, and as she looked back on previous times of entrance into this dreamscape, she only had more questions than before. At the very core, she was still unsure if this place was created by Sky's mind, or the thing within. The slumbering mind did poorly with details, but it was quite keen on remembering that buildings should have doors. The closest parallel she could find was to a painting; colors were flat and textureless, making it seem as if there was no difference between the walls of nearby structures and the roads which they followed. There was also an unnatural coldness to the air, too. With the sun so high and bright, one would certainly expect warmth when walking these streets. It was a biting cold, one that almost made her teeth clatter, but one that cut deeper than the natural winds of winter would. It brought back memories from her last millennium.

Two eventualities were possible, and which was the lesser of two evils was something that escaped her. She failed to fathom what state of shattered disarray a mind must be in to produce such unhinged realities. If it were the case that this place was a projection from the beast and not her mind's work, then this thing held greater leverage than she had ever witnessed. The nightmares which plagued the slumber of those afflicted by these things were drawn from memory, and while true that the beasts brought terror upon the pony they latched onto, they did not create the dream or the things within it.

The disconnect from the mind was what pushed her towards the latter theory. There was no sense or feeling in this place, nor had there been in the misshapen forest or nonsensical white plane that she had visited in times past. The dreamer was absent in both spirit and presence. Only once had she met Sky within her own mind, and what she had met was but a shell of a pony. Even when she had called for help in her emotionless, monotone voice, Luna hadn’t felt the slightest tinge of emotion within the dream. She was quite sure those few words had truly come from Sky, and not the beast within. Such would explain why the ink and crimson field broke through and began encroaching shortly after.

She paused at an intersection and glanced either direction to find the adjacent streets were no different than the one she walked. Looking back, she could see her distant breach still holding strong. Silent and still, she stared into the rift and the ether beyond, wondering if the screeching blood and ink would attempt to seep its way in as it had when Sky had spoken her few words. That, too, swayed her towards believing this dream to be wholly crafted by the inner beast; it had only intervened when Sky spoke. Initially, she had believed the seizure which had torn her from the forest of pillars nights ago was the work of the beast, but it seemed more likely it had simply been chance; according to the file, such seizures were becoming increasingly frequent.

Her brow furrowed as she continued to glare into her breach. These ‘dreams’ were distractions and chaff meant to occupy her time and bar her from the thing she sought. Magic began shimmering around her horn, and the edges of her distant breach began to seal. Like two curtains being drawn the edges met with one another, leaving no trace they had ever existed. Return was still very possible without the breach; a painless return was not. To pull herself from a dream with force was to throw herself and the mind she occupied from a cliff. Waking was abrupt and unpleasant, but to go as deep as she needed to go, no gentle return was possible.

She turned, approaching one of the nearby buildings and stopping just before its smooth wall, studying it for the shortest of moments before drawing magic to her horn and dipping her head, aiming and casting forth the outline of a white rectangle upon it with magical light. She sent a pulse of energy into her horn, and a crack broke the air as the light outline became, for but a moment, hotter than a bolt of lightning.

Once a white outline, now a charred, smoldering rectangular cut into the very fabric of the dream. She raised a hoof and tapped at the center of the charred rectangle, that nudge being enough for it to fall inwards. Her heart skipped as she stared into a twilight park lit by the sad, orange glow of a dying, weeping sun, rather than the dreamless void she expected. Only her eyes moved as she studied the weepy oak trees, well-kept grass, the vibrant sunset-lit sky, and a bench off in the distance with two ponies sitting together upon it. She could see, quite plainly, that the pony seated on the left was Sky Stock.

She regained her composure a bit and unfroze her body, her wings ruffling a bit as she looked around at the surrounding falsehood to see that, surprisingly, nothing had changed. She drew in a breath and put her hoof through the hole she had cut, and the moment the slightly humid evening air of this new dream hit her hoof, a gripping, clawing sense of loss, anger, and utter heartbreak enveloped her body. It froze her again, making her shiver, yet a wide smile pursed her lips as she let out a huff of relief. Such an unwelcoming and deep-cutting pain had never been so wondrous to feel. This was no falsehood.

Her legs felt weaker as she fully stepped into the dream, the sounds of the park filling her ears; birds singing and chirping, leaves rustling in the breeze, and the faint murmur of two voices – one male and the other female - exchanging pained, tear-riddled words with one another. Her ears perked and aimed forward as she slowly made her way across the grass towards the bench, her eyes locked not with Sky, but the honey-yellow unicorn stallion who sat beside her. Still, their words were unintelligible, but what failed to escape was how their tears and shuddering breaths weakened and broke their voices.

She halted as this blue-gray coated stallion got to his hooves, his shortly cut silver mane hiding his eyes from her as he took several somber steps forward and, without another word or glance from either of the two, disappeared into nothing. Sky remained unmoving aside from how her cries shook her body. She hadn’t ever looked back when that stallion had departed, and in an instant, Luna understood why; be it here within the dream, or in the past, Sky had never looked back. Luna drew in a shaky breath, doing her best to keep her composure despite the foreign feelings that coursed through the entirety of her mind and soul. Long, had it been, since she had set hoof within a realm that writhed with such great pain.

Her ear flicked as a distant noise hit her senses. It was the screeching of the field. She spun around, gazing into the spinning and churning black and red that encroached upon her cut. She felt a tinge of terror; instantly, she knew it to not be her own. She turned back to meet Sky's gaze; she had bolted upright from the bench with her turquoise wings spread wide in preparation to flee. Several long seconds ticked by before Luna looked back into the encroaching ink and blood, her horn lighting as she quickly sealed her cut with a spell. The screeching ceased, and the rustle of leaves and chirping of birds resumed.

Her breath was still held in anticipation, waiting for the beast to begin cutting into the dream in an attempt to remove her. Regardless, she turned back to Sky, finding her terrified expression to be unchanging. A long moment of silence passed between the two as they glared at one another. Luna's chest tightened as she parted her lips in preparation to speak, fearing the reply.

“Sky Stock… does speech fail you?”

Her chest shuttered as fresh tears welled in her eyes, though her expression remained unchanging. “N-No…”

A wave of relief hit Luna, her posture softening as she huffed out a sigh. “You are here, then? In your entirety?”

“No… no-no-no, no Dream Princess, y-you make the dreams hurt!”

“Sky…”

The ground at her hooves rumbled as the sky began to bleed. The trees wilted and the grass browned as if under a flame as the black and red removed the sky. Birds sang no more as the temperature plummeted and the ear-shattering screeching roared into the realm. Luna winced, frantically looking in every direction as the once tranquil dream crumbled into chaos. Tears and cuts had begun opening within the trunks of trees and the meadow around her, revealing more and more of the bloody ink. The pattern, no matter near nor far, appeared the same in size and movement; it concealed its distance. She snapped her eyes up to the sky, now seeing that, despite looking just as it had moments ago, it had begun encompassing the remains of the tree canopies.

Without more hesitation, Luna ran for Sky, who still totally ignored the goings on around her and continued to glare at Luna. She came close to her side, pulled her close with a wing, and gave life to an azure bubble of shimmering magic that encompassed them both. Inside the bubble was a space of total peace and silence, while all around, the very fabric of the world beyond was slashed away by the black, blood-soaked claws of the beast. Mere seconds passed before the entirety of the spell-cast chamber the two resigned within was enveloped by the field, and Luna could now feel it tearing at her magic, putting all it’s might into piercing a hole through the barrier.

Her spell held well, giving her a moment to gain her bearings and look at this thing so vehemently trying to rid of her. A morbid curiosity took hold as she pondered what might happen should this thing grab hold of her. In the past, she had fought one such beast – albeit one of far lesser strength – hoof to hoof, and knew well they could do harm. True physical damage? Quite impossible. Damage to the mind which left phantom pain in her limbs and chest? Quite so. What damage, then, could this thing to? Dig in and implant itself within her mind? Tear away her limbs to leave her crippled in the lower plane of reality? Was this thing so grand in stature that it could kill her outright? She was in no hurry to find out.

She let out a breath, studying the surrounding terror for a moment more before looking to Sky Stock to find the blood-soaked ink staring back through her eyes. Her heart skipped a beat and she scrambled backwards, her rear quickly hitting the wall of her spell-cast chamber. In a flash, a spike of that red and black terror leapt from what had been Sky's eyes and pierced through the meat where her front right leg met her body. She screamed, casting a wall between them that acted as a shield and sword, sequestering her away from the possessed husk she thought had been Sky and cutting cleanly through the spike still impaled within her joint.

She yanked the dead thing out of her flesh with a spell, her leg nearly giving out as she dropped the sharp chunk to the floor of the chamber. All the red had seeped from the thing, leaving it looking like a charred piece of wood. She fell to her haunches, tears blurring her vision as she began to feel the warm wetness of blood run down her leg. She frantically looked into the surrounding field as she struggled to think past the burning of the deep wound and find a way forward. Somewhere beyond, Sky’s mind existed, but how far beyond was totally unknown.

Luna attempted to get to her hooves, but the moment significant pressure was placed on her leg, it gave out. She stumbled forward, catching herself with her good hoof and dropping back onto her haunches, and her right leg, blood now having ran far enough to drip from her hoof and onto the chamber floor, was cocked up and held against her chest. Panic gripped her thoughts as her mind ran rampant wondering what this would mean when she did finally tear herself from this place and return to reality. She craned her head down, staring into the gaping, blood-soaked hole left by the spike for but a moment before she let out a loud whimper and turned her gaze elsewhere.

She clenched her teeth, doing her best to hold back tears of agony as reality sunk in. This beast had won. Won the battle, but not the war. As much as she wanted to throw beams of searing magic in every direction to cut through and kill off the wretched blood and ink, she knew no good would come from it. She knew, within her little chamber of magic, she was almost entirely trapped. Every fiber of her being wanted to press onward as a show of defiance against this thing, to give it no leeway or rest in the fight, but as with all things, rationale overruled her brash and vengeful wishes.

She shut her eyes, let out a shaky, pained breath, and began working the spells which would rip her from this realm and drop her back into reality. Her surroundings abruptly disappeared, her guts feeling as if they were at the back of her throat as she fell through the surface she had been sitting upon into a world of rushing black and gray blurs. The pain felt in her wound was now felt all throughout every inch of her body as she fell. Her only wish, for that short moment, was to scream out in pain, but this limbo had taken that from her.

Her mind crashed back into her body, her legs nearly giving out as she stumbled backwards, eyes darting about frantically as her senses all returning within an instant. As if happening for the first time, the searing pain of her wound shot into the forefront of her thoughts, dropping her to her haunches just as it had before. She was paralyzed, only her eyes able to move with any sort of coordination as her mind still reeled from the drop. The thump of her heart pulsed in her ears, echoing as if at the far end of a tunnel. Control finally began returning, her head able to turn and wings able to flutter in a stifled manner. She rolled her head to the left, mouth slightly agape as she focused in on Sky, who was still sprawled out fast asleep atop her covers. Luna blinked rapidly, her hind legs shivering as she attempted to stand; something wasn't right.

There had been occasions in the past where such a swift exodus was in order, and on every occasion, once her mind had fully reached her body, she found herself faced with an utterly distraught pony. She was finally able to get her legs to respond, and just as it had been within the dream, her front leg nearly collapsed from the near unbearable bolt of pain that shot through her nerves the moment any pressure was placed upon her hoof. Still lacking coordination, she managed to half-stumble her way to Sky's bedside, her eyes frantically studying her face to see she looked rather peaceful.

“Sky?!” blurted Luna as she rocked her side to side with a spell, jostling the sleeping mare out of her induced slumber.

Her legs kicked about, sounds meant to be words coming out as nothing more than frightened babbles, and after a second, her once tiredly and frantically searching eyes met the worried, fearful gaze plastered across Luna’s face. They stared at one another for a long moment, Luna’s expression beginning to shift into one of misunderstanding as she looked at the now mostly undistraught pony before her.

“Sky…?” Luna swayed a bit, her pained limb causing her to wince as she used it to keep from falling, “What did you see?”

As per usual, silence was her reply. Slowly, Sky’s fright melted away under the flames of anger, and her usual scowl returned.

“G-Go away…”

Seeing her unharmed would, ordinarily, bring relief to her, but quite the opposite was true, for in this moment, she was supposed to be harmed. She should be in tears, clasping her temples between her hooves and reeling from the events that had transpired… but she wasn't. Luna silently glared at her in a mix of fear and confusion. She only had theories to cling to, nothing concrete or rigid. Was the beast so far ingrained in her mind that it could cast projections of her? The pony standing beside her in the bubble; had that been Sky or a projection? If it had been Sky, how ingrained was this thing that it could use her to simply slip past magic and attack her?

She drew in a breath, doing her best to calm her nerves as she backed away from Sky's bed, the burning in her leg having subsided enough for her to limp on it without sharp pains nearly collapsing her. She made her way to the door, stopping at the metal slab and looking at Sky for a moment longer, her gaze holding a weight of regret. She felt like a coward. A pit had opened in her stomach, and a voice nagged in the back of her head that she was weak for fleeing, but she knew better than to give credence to voices like it. She huffed out a breath and turned for the door, a spell undoing its latch with a mechanical clunk as it swung open to let her hobble into the hall, her few steps winding her a lot more than they should have. She leaned herself against the opposite wall, holding her pained leg up as she relit her horn, shutting and this time locking the door to the Sky's cell, that mechanical sound to her being the sound of a fate sealing.

“Princess Luna?”

She flinched, spinning around to find the familiar face of Nurse Hearthwarmth glaring at her with a concerned look. He stepped back, startled by her reaction to his words.

“Are you okay, Princess?”

Deathly silence gripped the hall as the two stared at one another, Luna’s expression quickly shifting from worry and pain to a somewhat neutral scowl as she regained her composure. “Nurse Hearthwarmth,” she took herself off the wall, doing her best to hide the pain caused by standing upright on her leg, “what have you seen here?”

He blinked a few times. “I’m sorry, Princess?”

“What have you seen here?” she inquired, stepping closer to him.

“I-I… I mean, nothing really, just you leaving…” He looks over to the door. “Leaving room 22.”

She craned her head down a bit to be eye level with him. “Precisely. Nothing.”

Before he could stammer out a reply, she marched past him, the clopping of her hooves echoing through the quiet hall as she made a turn down the hall to the institute's main stairwell. Her hoof falls grow distant, and the distinct sounds of the security door for the stairs opening and closing were the last sounds from her he heard.







The clop of her hooves against the polished marble was uneven. She had done a fair enough job hiding it from Nurse Hearthwarmth as well as the few other nurses she had passed on her way out, but a combination of the pain getting worse rather than fading and being far too tired to it energy towards covering up the limp meant even an untrained ear could tell quite plainly that her canter had a break in it. She took a moment to bring her gaze up from the passing patterns of the floor to see that the door of her personal quarters was finally nearing, and she breathed a sigh of relief at the thought of collapsing into her bed and fading into slumber.

By now, she had been awake for nearly a full 24 hours. Her many visits to the dreams of the institute’s inhabitants had all blurred into one, and at times she found herself questioning if certain things had happened in reality or beyond. Those 24 hours felt like 48, and in all actuality, they had been. Time slowed to a crawl when she stepped hoof into the dream realm, and despite never moving an inch, her body would still tire from the actions her mind experienced. It was a phenomenon she still found quite strange; a state of existence that is neither sleep nor awake with the negatives of both.

“Good morning, sister!”

She froze, her eyes again coming up from the floor and meeting with the face of her sister, who had just rounded the corner up ahead. Despite the cloud cover shrouding the mid-morning sun from shining brightly into the halls, her figure didn’t seem to lose radiance.

“Aye, morning to you, sister,” she mumbled groggily and continued limping her way towards the door of her chambers.

“Uhm,” Celestia’s smile faded quickly as she too resumed her advance, “are you alright, sister?”

“Aye.”

Celestia holds her tongue a moment, watching Luna’s approach. “Is your leg okay?”

Again, Luna halts, wobbling a bit from her total lack of energy and the annoying ache in her leg. “’Tis but a phantom pain. Holds no levity.”

Celestia blinks. “Phantom pain?”

“Caused by the happenings within a dream. Nothing you should take concern with.”

“Your dream, or the dream of somepony else?”

“Somepony else.”

The concern in her expression grew. “Did they… attack you?”

“Nothing you should take concern with, sister.”

Her tone was hollow. A long pause struck Celestia as she stared back at Luna, trying her best to peer through that blank face and catch a glimpse of what she knew existed behind it, but not a single speck was let out. She huffs a breath through her nostrils, “I… assume you’re off to bed?” Luna gave a little nod. “I won’t hold you up any longer, then.” Celestia stepped forward, nuzzling her muzzle into the crook of Luna’s neck, “Have a good night… or, morning, rather!” she chuckled, stepping back and giving a little smile.

There was a moment of silence from Luna, her eyes still locked with Celestia’s before she finally blinked a few times and nodded once more. “I shall, thank you, sister.” She nuzzled the other alicorn briefly.

With that, she continued past Celestia towards her chamber door. Staying in place, Celestia watched in silence as her sister limped her way down the hall, eventually making it to her door and entering without another word or a peek back.