The crystal maids had- -with some difficulty- -removed Penumbra’s new armor, bathed her, dried her, and combed her. It had occurred to her during the process that she knew none of their names.
Now she sat on the edge of her bed, dressed in a frilly night-dress while Crozea stood before her.
“The symptoms you describe suggest several hormonal imbalances,” she explained. “I have adjusted my formula to make allowances.” She gave Penumber her daily medicine.
“Thank you, Lady Crozea.” Penumbra swallowed the medication. It tasted different from tea. They were the only two flavors she knew. Immediately, she felt her emotions beginning to stabilize and flatten.
Crozea sighed, and looked away. “Where you a normal child, you’d be but a babe with barrettes in your hair. But because of my work, you now stand at the cusp of being a mare.”
“My growth needs to be accelerated. A child cannot serve king Sombra. You are doing the correct thing.”
“And yet, what I have done to you...it filled my heart with deepest rue.”
“Lady Crozea?”
Crozea looked at Penumbra, and then gently lifted away the mask she wore. The face underneath was far smaller and far kinder than Penumbra had expected. She was stripey, like in the images Emeth had showed her, and she wore golden rings around her neck. Her eyes were so very blue.
“The golem sees us as little more than sheep, but like always his words cut deep. How long you have been here, it has not even been a single year...and the most cherished years of your life I have taken. I cannot but help but wonder if I was mistaken...”
Penumbra did not know what to do, but something sparked within her. She reached out and hugged Crozea’s neck. Crozea nearly recoiled, but after a moment softly hugged back. Penumbra could feel her tears against her chest.
“And though I have taken everything that makes you a pony, you still can find it in your heart to embrace me?”
“I would not be here without you. What you did is not wrong, and not a mistake.”
“Oh child of horn and wing,” whispered Crozea, “if only I could believe such a thing...”
Crozea released her, and stood. Though she was still crying, she was also smiling. She replaced her mask. “Now, princess, it is time for you to rest, so you may wake and do your very best.”
“Yes, Lady Crozea.” Penumbra bowed, and tucked herself under her silken blankets.
Crozea nodded and left. Penumbra waited for the door to close before she got out of bed and jumped to the crystal floor below. She pawed at it for a moment, and then lay down on it, letting the cold of the crystal soak into her. She smiled, and was almost immediately asleep.
Stretching out in every direction was a vast field of flowers that all smelled like tea. Penumbra leaned back, putting her head against the strong, warm chest of Zither Heartstrings. He held her close, his strong, warm arms keeping her close and safe.
“Oh Zither,” she said, snuggling her head up against his chin. “But we can’t! You’re my father’s knight, if he knew- -”
“Would he not be pleased? Would he not condone our love?”
“But your position- -”
“Let it be gone, then, if it would keep us apart!” Zither looked to the sky, his long mane trailing in an unseen breeze. “The only position I desire is at your side, my beloved! Now, I shall comb your long, luscious, grape-scented wings!”
“That is not fair!” cried Twilight Luciferian, sitting up from the flowers. He was dressed in an immaculate suit, his long main tied back in a ponytail instead of braided. “I wish to brush the princess wings, and then to snuggle her as well!” He approached and wrapped his front legs gently around Penubra’s neck. “For she is the softest of all princesses! And I desire her so very strongly...” He looked into Penumbra’s eyes. “And I always get what I desire.”
“Oh my.”
“Neigh! The princess is mine to love and snuggle! She wishes a strong, handsome knight in armor, not a lean, devilishly charming academic! I will brush her wings, and then we will rub our horns together!”
Penumbra twitched. “Wait, wait! Why don’t you BOTH play with my wings?”
Zither and Twilight both looked at each other, and then smiled.
“But of course!”
“The princess is truly brilliant, a tribute to her father!”
“I call the left wing!”
“No fair! I wanted the left!”
Penumbra giggled. They were not the only ones present in the dream. A few meters away sat a small and extremely fuzzy mare, picking at the grass and humming to herself. She appeared in all of Penumbra’s dreams, and Penumbra was distantly aware that she was Eternity Gaze- -although she was also aware that the form that sat on the edge of her perception was most certainly NOT what Eternity Gaze actually looked like.
“And when you are done preening me...and stroking my long, incredibly hard horn...fetch me more stallions! Form a pile! I will lay on you ALL!”
“Yes princes!”
“I can begin fetching them now,” said Emeth, approaching across the field.
Penumbra stood up. “Wait a moment! What are you doing here? I don’t feel comfortable with you being here!”
“It is your dream, princess.”
“But am I really attracted to you?”
“More to the point,” said Luciferian, pulling his mouth off of Penumbra’s wing, “are you really attracted to us, or are you secretly attracted to your own father?”
“And why is Scarlet Mist not here?” asked Zither, his mouth full of feathers. “Do you not wish to brush her beautiful red mane, and perhaps have her slap you a few times in the process?
“Gah!” Penumbra covered her ears. “When did my dreams get so psychological?” She turned sharply to the fuzzy filly at the edge of the field. “Eternity! Come on! I just want to have stallion-snuggles! Stop making it weird!”
Eternity’s fuzzy avatar looked up and shrugged.
Penumbra sighed, but began to become aware that the sun was setting. This confused her greatly. She had never known the sun to set before; in reality, she was only distantly aware that there was even a difference between the sun and the moon.
The sky began to become dark, and was painted with strange and inexplicable points of light. They were in a way beautiful, but the darkness made Penumbra feel strange. For a pony who had spent her life in dim, empty corridors, that vast and endless black sky made her uneasy.
Eternity looked up at the sky, and then at Penumbra. She smiled devilishly, and then flickered and dissapeared.
“Lady Eternity?”
Penumbra stood, and realized that she was alone. So were the flowers. Instead, her hooves were sinking in snow- -but snow unlike any she had ever felt. It was warm.
She picked some up and rubbed it between her hooves. It collapsed into dust.
“Ash?”
Somewhere, a scream cut the night air. Penumbra turned sharply and saw a Pegasus filly in torn, dirty clothes running toward her.
“Stop!” cried Penumbra. “I can help you!”
The filly saw her and stopped, falling back into the ash. “No! NO! Don’t hurt me! Please don’t- -EEP!”
She was immediately surrounded in a cage of yellow light. Penumbra looked up to see where it had come from, and in the distance she saw a strange red glow.
Then it was all around her. A burning village. The houses and possessions of ponies alight, the sums of their work and the material products of their lives and the lives of their families burning to ash and smoke. The heat was intense, and Penumbra covered her eyes.
That was when she heard the sound of metal scraping across stone. She looked up to see a terrible sight. Approaching her was a beastly apparition, a creature clad in a hideous carapace of glinting metal. A phantom dragging a strange blade of red-mottled steel across the ground.
The image grew clearer, and Penumbra understood. The horror before her was none other than the Blue Knight. Behind him came is cavalcade of mutant griffons, swooping down and grabbing screaming ponies, stealing them away into the night’s sky. Their amber eyes were so very cold, but their toothless grins so very sincere.
“L- -Lord Heartstrings!” Penumbra tried to stand, but felt weak. She was afraid, and deeply so, even though just moments before this pony had been stroking her gently in his arms. “What- -where am I?”
Hideous laughter seapt from beneath his helmet. His blade was lifted slowly in his amber magic. “Let burn the homes of filthy heretics! I bring LIBERATION! HAIL THE WITCHKING!”
Then, cackling madly, he charged Penumbra, raising his sword high above his head.
Penumbra did not have time to summon a shield spell. Instead, she simply raised her hooves in futile defense.
And she fell. Her wings flapped uselessly as she did, but from her training she righted herself as she struck the hard stone below.
“You IDIOT!”
The air was filled with the sickening sound of a hoof against flesh, followed by a quiet squeal- -and then the his of white-hot magic, followed by screaming.
“Daddy, no! PLEASE! I was only trying to HELP!”
“As little magic as you have, your presence will contaminate the crystals! The slightest contact, even the proximity of your reaking failure could decrease the efficiency of the ingrainment process by as much as THREE HUNDRETHS OF A PERCENT!”
Another snap of magic, and more screaming. Penumbra began to see, and he saw Twilight Luciferian, his face contorted with rage, as he repeatedly struck the cowering, wimpering body of a unicorn not much older than the age that Penumbra herself appeared- -a unicorn missing a leg, and with a patch over one eye. A unicorn who looked so very much like Luciferian himself, but whose coat was not perfect, pure white.
“Daddy,” she sobbed. “Please, I love you!”
“And I HATE you! Just looking at you makes me SICK! If only I could beat that out of you!” He began to cackle madly. “Oh, why not? I might as well TRY!”
Penumbra was forced to look away, but before she did, she became aware that the pair of them were not alone. There was another pony, a tall and thin earth-mare with flaming red hair. She watched, laughing- -but not at the girl being whipped. She was laughing in Luciferian’s face, and he did not even know it.
Then she stopped. Her smile grew wide, revealing black, pointed teeth- -and she turned to Penumbra.
“Don’t worry, little pure-one,” she said. “Nothing she can show you is more horrible than the reality you inhabit.”
The air suddenly became unbearably thick with the scent of carnations and of the most profound and putrid rot imaginable. For the briefest of moments, Penumbra thought she could almost see the yellow pony for what she was- -and fell to her knees and screamed in abject horror until the whole of the world went dark.
When she stopped, and could no longer remember why she was so afraid, she realized that she was outside.
As she stood, her eyes adjusted to the light of the moonless and sunless sky. The light was strange, though, because it did not come from above. Instead, it came from all around, but not from fires. Instead, it was the glow of engines: of blast-furnaces and fuel pits, of strange and ponderous engines. Beside it came the unnatural crisp illumination of spark-gas and crystals arranged into unspeakable devices that pushed the very limits of reality in their function.
Above the roar of endless machines was the sound of screams and weeping. All around, Penumbra saw ponies of every race chained in endless lines, whipped by overseers from every side. None were free, and none knew a life except for fear and sadness.
High above, highest among the endless towers, was a Black Citadel, at its top the most horrible of all engines, a circling gyroscope of white, burning metal surrounding a blood-red crystal heart.
Two fires ignited on the highest balcony, and a pony stepped out. A black stallion, so beautiful and terrible that the the ponies below screamed in fear at his mere presence. He laughed at them, and the whipping resumed.
Penumbra stared in horror at the sight of her own father, now a thing barely recognizable- -and as her eyes focused, she saw beside him a figure in a dark cloak with a long, black-red horn. And as she watched, she screamed, because she saw that figure spread her vast black-tipped wings.
Something white streaked through the night’s sky. For a moment, it seemed a shooting star, until all the world Penumbra saw was consumed in fire. She screamed and covered her face, blinded by the plume of dust and glass and the unfathomable light of ten thousand suns. As it cleared, she was able to look about, and saw endless columns of fire, spreading upward like great mushrooms, vast enough to incinterate entire kingdoms. Even in the distance, more things fell from the sky and more deadly mushrooms bloomed. It had already started to rain, and the rain was hot and black.
Behind her, she heard the sound of hooves. She did not want to look- -but felt compelled to.
Approaching through the fire and ash of the last civilization approached and endless horde, pouring across every hill and from every direction like endless ants. They seemed like ponies, but Penumbra knew in her heart that they were not. They never had been.
The golems approached her, and she saw their leader, the one standing in the front of their formation. He was recognizable only because of the plate on his forehead that bore his name, for his skin was no longer that of a machine. It was the skin of a pony.
Then the world fell silent- -save for a distant, quiet beating. Penumbra likened it to the sound of a heart, but a heart to a thing she could not recognize.
She stood in a circular room bathed in strange green light. This was different than before. It was calm, and still, and at the same time so very familiar. As if the shadows of that green light had crossed the recesses of Penumbra’s mind many times before.
She gazed at the center of the room, though her mind could scarcely comprehend what it was. There was a small, thin table. Atop it sat a jar, fed by hundreds of metallic tubes and wires descending from above. Fluid rushed through them, its sound not at all pulsating to the beat of the heart. Because there was no heartbeat. Not from the machines. It was Penumbra’s. And it was growing more rapid every second.
Sitting upon the table was a simple glass jar, filled with green fluid. Bubbles slowly rose through it, driven by some unseen machine. The jar’s inhabitant turned one immense, blind eye toward Penumbra. It was all she could move. The rest was held tight by the machines linked to her neck, suspending her inverted from above.
“E...Eternity?”
A response came, but not from the jar. What sat within it could never speak again. The voice instead came from a great distance.
“You need to wake up,” it whispered. “There isn’t much time- -WAKE UP.”
Then the voice was gone, and the room with it. Penumbra instead found herself standing knee-deep in dark water. It reflected the light of the stars above, and a moon that dominated most of the sky.
“Hello, Princess.”
Penumbra turned sharply, sloshing through the thick water. She found herself facing a pony she had never met: a tall, thin filly with a short-cut blue mane standing atop the water. Her body was the purest blue, and her cutie mark a simple white moon. Most terrifyingly, though, was that she, like Penumbra, was an alicorn.
“Who are you?” demanded Penumbra, taking a defensive stance and summoning a magic shield and blade. “In the name of the Witchking, identify yourself!”
“Our name is Luna. We have come such a long way to meet you.” She smiled, but Penumbra stepped back.
“No. No, that’s not your name! And that’s not what you look like!”
The alicorn’s eyes narrowed. “How perceptive for one so young. No. We chose this form because we felt you would better accept it.”
“Deceiver! Show your true form!”
“So be it.”
The filly’s eyes suddenly widened, and for a breif moment she looked so terribly forlorn- -and so very terrified.
“Please, no,” she whispered, reaching out for Penumbra- -as the shadows that linked to her hooves pulled her screaming backward into the darkened void behind her.
Then the void stepped forward. It took shape and form, and the water parted from its presence. A pony of pure shadow, a black mare with a swirling starry mane and luminescent turquoise eyes.
“I am what Luna became,” she said. “I am the eldest of the Sisters. I am Nightmare Moon, Goddess of Night.”
She gently waved her hoof, and Penumbra’s spells collapsed. Penumbra squeaked and tried to summon them again, but her magic had failed her.
“My magic!”
“Do not be alarmed. You are surely aware that you are sleeping, and dreaming. Your magic has no power here. Only mine holds sway.”
“I do not need magic to punch you in the SNOOT!”
Penumbra lunged forward and tried to grab for Nightmare Moon’s neck. She passed through as if the mare were made of nothing more than mist, and she landed hard against a thick, soft carpet.
“Likewise,” continued Nightmare Moon, “as a dream, no physical harm can befall you here.”
“But harm beyond the physical?”
“If you mean psychological trauma?” Nightmare Moon turned slowly, looking over her shoulder. “I wish desperately to avoid having to do that to you.”
Penumbra stood. She was in a building, although she did not recognize it. The halls were high and filled with stained-glass windows depicting things she did not understand.
Except she was not. She was on her floor, sleeping. She could still feel the cold of the crystal- -and something tightening hard around her neck.
“If you have come to challenge me, I shall defeat you in Sombra’s name.”
“You could not. And I have not.” Nightmare moon rotated fully. Her body was still naked, a form she would have shown precious few of her subjects, but she was terrifying and regal amongst the quiet backdrop of stained glass and torrents of lavender blossoms. “I have only come to speak with you.”
“We have nothing to say. Your existence is heretical. You are a mortal enemy of the king. All alicorns are.”
“Even yourself?”
Penumbra faltered, but only for a moment. “I am an instrument to serve the king’s will.”
“That is where you are incorrect.” Nightmare Moon walked forward, her hooves clicking against the cold stone. “You are like us. One of us.”
“I am nothing like you.”
“Yet the evidence is empirical. You have both wings and a horn. What else can you be but an alicorn?”
Penumbra suddenly understood. This was what her father had meant. This was her purpose. She was meant to oppose this mare, to equal her in the name of the kingdom. And yet she knew that she had no hope of doing so. She was far too weak.
“Indeed, you do not. But you are not as weak as you think.”
Penumbra stepped back. “Get out of my mind!”
“No. Not that there is much to fine.” Nightmare Moon’s expression grew serious. “Your situation is unfortunate. To the extent that I am able, I lament what has become of you. What we failed to stop.”
“There is nothing wrong with me!”
“Only that you have been robbed of the childhood that you were meant to have. As were Luna and my sister, though in a different sense. To this, I must give you my deepest apology.”
Nightmare Moon bowed. Penumbra shivered, and could not help herself. She bowed in return.
When she stood, she found herself standing in a garden. Moonflowers were blooming everywhere, while the morning-glories and daylilies had all closed and begun to wither.
“We had intended to take you away from the Crystal Empire,” explained Nightmare Moon, who was staring up at the night’s sky above. Not enjoying it, but inspecting it for flaws. “No doubt that sounds abhorrent to you at this point, but as a foal you would not have cared. Though had it not been for accursed magic, you would still be a foal.”
“I had to be improved. To fight YOU.”
Nightmare Moon turned her enormous eyes to Penumbra. “And if I had trained you to fight at my side, with my knights instead of your father’s Dark Thirteen? If my sister’s spells had aged you, and mine had given you a mind, would you face your own father at my orders?”
“No.”
“If you believe that, you are a fool.”
The scenery changed again. Now they were walking down a hall.
“One of the three Elements that I wield is that of Honesty,” said Nightmare Moon, leading Penumbra down the darkened hallway. “So know that I speak the truth when I say I was ambivalent to accepting you.”
“Because I am the daughter of your enemy.”
“No. Simply because I have other matters to attend to.” She paused, standing just fore an open door. Light was shining through it. “But my sister was overjoyed.” She gestured into the room. Penumbra peeked through the opening. Inside, she saw a vast library. Sitting at the table amongst a pile of books was a figure in white robes. She was as tall as Nightmare Moon, but pure white instead of black. Her hood was almost pulled up, but it did not obscure her flowing, pastel mane. It was tied back with golden thread as she poured through her books, jotting down notes. She looked so very sad.
“Our condition is unique,” said Nightmare Moon, staring at the image of her sister. “As a mortal cannot give birth to an immortal without paying a terrible price, we are unable to give birth at all. As alicorns, we are sterile.”
“Sterile?” Penumba did not know why that made her hurt inside, if only distantly. It was a feature of herself she would rather not have known.
“This affected my younger sister greatly.”
“And not you?”
Nightmare Moon turned away from her sister, and suddenly stood on a ledge. Out before her, endless legions of bat-winged ponies had assembled at the command of knights in brilliant white armor. They raised their heads to Nightmare Moon and saluted.
“HAIL!” they cried in unison. “Hail the One True Goddess!”
“I have dedicated my life to my children of the night,” said Nightmare Moon, smiling. “Those who witness my night, and behold its beauty. My goal is simply to create a world where they are free of persecution and can live as normal, happy ponies.”
“You only bring conquest and servitude. My father brings true liberation.”
“Freedom by slavery? Does your incomplete mind even comprehend the paradox?”
“There is no paradox,” liked Penumbra. Nightmare Moon only smiled, because she could see through the false bravado. Slowly, she turned back to the image of her sister.
“She is not like me,” she continued. “So different in so many ways. She had no intent on building an army, or a grand scheme for our society.” She looked down at Penumbra. “But she wanted you. You would have been the daughter she could never produce. She had decorated a nursery for you. She was going to raise you to be a kind, caring and gentle pony.”
“And what does a living weapon require those attributes for?”
“I ask myself the same questions. My sister, in her heart, knows the answer. But look now.” She pointed. “She has buried herself in the library, into her work. Learning new spells, or just reading over those left by our mentor. From better times.” She sighed. “Did you know that she had even chosen a name for you?”
“I am Penumbra Heartbreak. I need no other name.”
“You were to be called Princess Mi’Amore Cadenza.”
“That is a stupid name.”
“Says the filly entitled ‘Penumbra Heartbreak’. It sounds like the name of an edgy teenager.”
“Fine advice from ‘Nightmare Moon’.”
Nightmare Moon smiled at Penumbra. “Perhaps you would have made a good daughter. Although there is still a chance.”
“I am a good daughter,” liked Penumbra. “To Sombra, the Witchking.”
“You do not need to be. I have already shown you. Those you serve have evil motives. And you will be made evil as well, and consumed by it.”
“You have shown me illusions. Dreams.” Penumbra puffed herself up defiantly and met Nightmare Moon’s eyes. “YOU are the evil one, and your filthy sist- -”
The world erupted in screams and black fire, and Penumbra found herself thrown to a dank floor. A tall throne loomed over her, covered in sharp-fanged bat-ponies. At the top stood Nightmare Moon, now enormous and terrifying, clad in silver armor.
“You will NOT speak ill of my beloved sister! My sister who has devoted her love to a child she has never even met, and may never even SEE! How thoughts of you and the evils you have suffered torment her dreams, if you only KNEW!”
“I am GLAD!” screamed Penumbra. “Let her be tormented! She deserves it for defying the KING!”
Nightmare Moon was suddenly a hair’s width from Penumbra’s face. “I could rend your mind in an instant, child. Know this, and know it well.”
“You reek of moon-cheese and overcompensation for a short horn.”
Nightmare Moon glared at Penumbra further, and a wide smile crossed her face. Where there had once been pony-teeth, there were now only long, gleaming fangs.
“Such fire! You truly are his daughter! Oh, the riches and treasure I would give to have a mare like the one you shall yet be at my side. To balance the scales of power between Night and Day.” She stepped slowly away from Penumbra. “Alas, you do not understand the nature of good or evil. Your mind has been built to be incapable of knowing.” She looked over her shoulder. “But your heart is still that of a pony. I wonder...if I were to pour the nightmares of the entire Crystal Empire into your mind, would you believe me then? Or would you be driven insane?”
“I would withstand it. And my mind would not change! If you wish to challenge me, you moon-rumped harlot, then cease talking and DO SO!”
Nightmare Moon laughed, and her horn began to glow with silver light. A strand of light dripped from it- -and then another- -and ten more- -and then hundreds, or thousands.
“If you wish to know the pain I bear? So be it!”
The strings shot out toward Penumbra’s heart, and she held firm, sure she would win this battle and make her father proud.
Except she never had the chance. A shield formed around her, a bubble of pure hideous light.
Nightmare Moon screamed and was driven back as the light tore apart her illusion. It was not the glow of day, her supposed opposite, but of something far brighter and far more empty. While the sun brought warmth and life, this light would never warm.
Penumbra saw it, but was not blinded by the glow. She looked up beside her and saw a creature standing beside her, one she recognized but did not know from where. It was a thing that stood like a pony, clad in pure white.
“NO!” screamed Nightmare Moon, forcing herself against the oncoming surge of magic. “You will NOT defeat me! Not here! MY POWER IS ENDLESS!”
She pushed her own magic against the white shield, but the shield did not even flex. The Nameless One raised a cloth-draped hoof, and tens of thousands of doors appeared behind Nightmare Moon. With a flick, Nightmare Moon was cast through the nearest of them. Then it closed, and the doors were sealed and gone.
Nightmare Moon landed hard and bounced. The impact was painful, but not severely injurious. She was, after all, in a dream, even if it was not hers. Still, the light- -whatever it had been- -had taken a toll on her. Nothing she had felt before had been able to do that to her.
She stood, assembling her silver garb around her. Looking around, she found herself in a seemingly endless field of thin violet irises beneath a dimming twilight sky. One pony lay beside her, beneath a tree and reading a book. The pony looked up curiously at Nightmare Moon. She was a tall, thin, pure-white unicorn with a long, silken mane. One of her eyes was deepest violet, but the other was pale blue.
“Lady Moon,” she said, softly. “I was not expecting you for another hour at least.”
Nightmare Moon brushed herself off. “My eleven o’clock canceled early. Are you free to move up your schedule?”
The mare smiled and stood, doing so with extreme grace despite missing one of her front legs. “Of course, my Princess. I would be made glad by it.”