//------------------------------//
// 4 - The Duty 
// Story: The Exile's Keeper 
// by QueenMoriarty 
//------------------------------//

The mists of early morning were crawling over Canterlot High like an octopus enveloping a new toy in its aquarium. Luna shivered despite her heavy jacket, and took a long drag of a cigarette. Not long now.

The statue shimmered and danced, its impassable stone shivering as though buffeted by gale force winds. Her hand tightened around the crowbar, and the tarpaulin under her feet crackled as the ethereal winds began to leak through. Her mind flickered back to the journal, the reams of magical calculations that had been run through to arrive at what time it would be on this side of the mirror when the target came through.

"Lamia." She flicked the crowbar back and forth in her hands, tracing old fencing forms for something to do. "Bottom half snake, top half pony, full human intelligence." Dodge. Parry. Turn. Thrust. "Diagnosis? Hands, legs, entire body shape will prove difficult. Ample opportunity to silence the foe."

The statue rippled like a pond with a stone thrown into it. Luna took a deep breath, and flicked her cigarette away. A part of her wondered about throwing it through the Mirror, but that was an entire level of multidimensional trigonometry above her pay grade right now. 

"One Mississippi. Two Mississippi."

A woman fell through the Mirror, screaming. Her head smacked off of the pavement with a darkly satisfying thunk, not yet possessing the instincts to shield her face with her arms. There was a bark of pain, swear-words that sounded alien to even the Equish tongue, but no instant lapse to unconsciousness. Regrettable.

It would have been prudent to strike now, while she was the most disoriented, the most overwhelmed. But Luna so rarely got to look anyone in the eye anymore, so she let the monster catch her breath.

The woman formerly known as Lamia opened her eyes, a blood-speckled yellow with slitted pupils that narrowed until they were practically invisible to Luna's eyes. Her hands scrabbled against the tarp, her mind undoubtedly flooded with the strange stimuli from alien limbs.

"Hello, Lamia."

The thing looked up at her, and Luna savored the dumbstruck awe. The full effect was let down a touch by the lack of dramatic wind to make her jacket and hair billow, but she still cut a terrifying and imposing figure.

"Who are you?" 

But of course, this was her favorite part.

"I am Luna dé Sol, Crown Princess of Equestria and Lord High Executioner of the Realm." She held up her empty hand to show off the signet ring, and while her target was distracted by the unfamiliar symbol, she struck.





"So... you beat war criminals to death with a crowbar."

Luna shrugged. "If it makes you feel any better, we experimented with shotguns. We'd either get spare pellets flying through the Mirror and turning into a barrage of fireballs or the police would start asking questions. Usually both."

Sunset Shimmer looked up at her new vice-principal with a very unimpressed look. "You know I don't know what a shotgun is, right?"

"I've been in prison for quite a while, Sunset. Of the many things my sister tried to tempt me with, I'm afraid she never tried to offer me up-to-date knowledge of technological innovations on the other side of the Mirror." 

Sunset smiled at that, and shut up for a few more steps. They had decided to walk to school instead of riding with Celestia, for reasons that Luna thought were obvious and that Sunset was probably just thankful she didn't have to think about. The fact that it was just chilly enough outside for both of them to justify their choices in jackets was a healthy bonus.

"So, why did they get disposed of on this side, anyway? What about Tartarus?"

Luna shivered despite her thick covering. "On the grand scale of history, Tartarus is a... recent development. There has generally been a shortage of threats that were both dangerous enough for the alicorns to notice and virtually indestructible, and an intermittently active magical portal seemed like a better solution than trying to negotiate with a three-headed hellhound that was known to take meteor showers as an invitation to fetch. Still, I will not say that I miss having to wait around at very inconvenient hours of the day to deal with... undesirables."

"You won't say it. Doesn't mean you don't think it."

Luna nodded. "You're good at this, kid." They rounded the final corner. "Be sure to call me when they upgrade you from kickball to acrobatics."

It had been many years since Luna had seen Canterlot High in all its glory, and even more years besides since she had seen it during the day. She watched the students bustling and talking and playing in the open yard, and was careful not to look too hard at the statue. There was no need to encourage any traumatic flashbacks on the second day of school.

Sunset Shimmer peeled off from her almost immediately, running full-tilt towards a bubbly group of girls that all looked overjoyed to see her. Luna felt an old pang of regret, that nobody here was reaching out for her in the same way that the rainbow-haired girl was, bowling Sunset over in a hug she didn't look at all prepared for.

No. Enough of that. The point of being here was that she wasn't alone anymore. Maybe nobody was here just for her, but they were looking at her, and smiling, and nobody was running away. One of the teachers smiled at her and actually walked closer.

"You're the new vice-principal, right?" He extended a hand with an utter lack of either fear or respect. "The name's Cranky Doodle, math teacher and retired ballistics specialist."

Luna blinked. "What was that last one?"

Cranky smiled the sort of trickster smile that Luna did not usually see on mortals. "Retired ballistics specialist. It's always nice to see someone else benefiting from the program."

"Which program?"

He kept smiling, as though it were just how his face was built. "Our principal's always done her best to provide a place here for those who can't put down roots anyplace else. Most of the time, that just means giving certain teachers a chance when circumstances made them look worse than they are. But in the case of you and me..." he shrugged, "we've got accounts to settle."

Luna nodded. "We certainly do. Perhaps sometime I'll ask you about yours."

This time, his smile was a touch less real. "Well, the teachers' lounge is certainly open to principals, vice or otherwise. In the meantime, perhaps you'd permit me to walk you to your office?" He offered a hand.

She extended the hand with the signet ring. "I'd be delighted."





It was a good office. Even with the lights off and the blinds drawn, there was plenty of light for Luna to see by. She had shed her coat, preferring her simple purple top for any extended period indoors. 

The desk was sparse, and if Luna had any idea what her duties were in this job she might have considered herself under-equipped. For the moment, though, she was content to smile down at her old copy of The Count of Monte Cristo and crack it open to where she had left off. 

And then there was a knock on her door.

"Enter," she decreed, and the door swung open to a very unpleasant sight.

There was a cowgirl, or some modern teenage equivalent thereof. She was supporting the weight of Sunset Shimmer, who was weeping and shaking and looked like she had two minutes at best before she collapsed.

"I don't know what's wrong." Her voice sounded like she absolutely wanted to be shouting these words, but she clearly understood something about the situation. "Our class was singing the national anthem, and she just started bawling halfway through."

Luna did not realize that she had flipped over the desk until she was resting a comforting hand on Sunset's shoulder. "Do you need to talk?" she whispered, and when she received a hesitant nod she offered only a nod in return. She turned to the cowgirl, who almost took a step back upon meeting her eyes. "How did you know to come here?"

"She asked me to." The girl was looking down at her knees, and her hands didn't seem sure if they wanted to keep holding on to Sunset. "I asked if there was any way I could help, and she just gasped out 'vice-principal'. I reckon that's you."

Luna nodded, and shifted Sunset's weight firmly to herself. "You've done the right thing, student. Please, go back to class. I'll send a note with Sunset when she's ready to come out."

The girl stepped away for a moment, but then looked up. She had the most parental look of concern that Luna had ever seen on such a young face. "Is she going to be okay?"

Luna tried to ignore the sniffling and low whining. "If I had to guess, I'd say it's a panic attack. She's... still getting used to her surroundings."

That seemed to satisfy the cowgirl, so she went off down the hall. Luna sighed and closed the door, helping Sunset walk to the chair.

The chairs. There were two chairs on this side of the desk, one bigger than the other. Celestia really did plan ahead. "Just sit down here, Sunset, and tell me what's wrong."

"The anthem..." Her hands were shaking, and every bone in her body seemed overjoyed to have something to collapse onto. "The national anthem is the same as on the other side. I just... I wasn't ready for it. I'm sorry, princess."

Luna sighed, and extended a hand. "You have nothing to be sorry for."

Sunset was still crying, and she tried and failed to wipe the tears from her eyes. "But... it's such a dumb thing. It's just a song, and everything else here is the same, and I shouldn't be crying over something like this."

"But you are, and that's okay." Luna scooted her chair a little closer to Sunset. "There's a lot of things that make me cry that you wouldn't think would have that effect."

"Like what?"

"Early morning mist always reminds me of the job I used to do. The texture of rubber makes me remember the steering wheel under my hands. For my first few years in prison, sitting down too fast gave me the same problem."

Sunset laughed, and Luna joined in before the poor kid could think to feel bad about it.

"Ridiculous, isn't it?" She let the laughter die down, and then took a deep breath to steady herself for the next part. "But that's trauma, Sunset. It's a hundred thousand little things that have their own way of reminding us that something went wrong. Some days it will be a song, some days it will be a picture, and some days it will just be a smell."

"Smell?"

Luna nodded. "I don't fight cartoon supervillains, Sunset. I fight awful people who do awful things to everyone they can find. Sometimes, I got there in time to save them. Sometimes, I didn't. And every time, the smell is the first thing that stands out."

Sunset grimaced. "Does it smell like a battlefield?"

"Worse. Since we don't have any magic to clean up our messes in this world, we've had to use chemical solutions to such problems. And the sort of people who evaded me long enough to get what they wanted tended to be meticulous enough to leave their lairs spotless. The strongest cleaning chemicals stink to high heaven, so thick that it even gets through the mask. I had to ask my sister to switch to all-natural products with fake flower scents just so that I wouldn't retch every time I came home."

Sunset raised an eyebrow. "Why do you keep calling her sister?"

"Because I don't want to hurt you." Luna tried to keep her voice neutral, calming, painless. "Because her name is the same as your teacher. Because I don't know what happened, and I don't want you to tell me before you're ready."

Sunset looked at her like she was crazy. "But... you could just ask me."

"But would you tell me?"

For a moment, Sunset looked like she might. She looked like the memories were replaying in her mind, her lips were tracing the shape of words she had said that day, and her hands were moving as though tracing movements that she now lacked the muscles to properly repeat.

Luna wasn't stupid. Sunset Shimmer was a former student of Celestia-2. She was fairly confident of Celestia's immortality, but showed no indication of combat training and had spent an hour theorizing about the possible combat applications of magic with not an ounce of background knowledge about what a battle with magic would actually look like. She was here, and the horse was willing to take her back when the portal opened, and she had made that crack about immortality in an attempt to make Luna feel better after learning about her own failed attempt to commit regicide.

But none of that mattered. What mattered was that Sunset had to trust her. Luna had never been in this position before, but she had known children. She had had to establish trust with children, very quietly and very quickly, on several occasions. In her experience, the best way to earn their trust was neither to ask questions or to not ask them, but to make it very clear that she didn't need to know. That any information they gave her about the case, they were giving her of their own free will.

It didn't always get her answers, but it always got her trust.

"I... don't think I want to tell you. Not yet." She sounded guilty for saying it, but Luna just smiled and put a hand on her shoulder.

"And you don't have to. You'll tell me when you're ready."

"But what if I'm never ready?"

"Then I'll never know. But no matter what you say, you will still be welcome here."

"But why?" Sunset was biting her lip, and even though her tears had stopped, her eyelids were still fluttering. "You've got so many more important things to do than waste time on me."

"Sunset Shimmer." She spoke the name in Equish, half to make sure that there was no chance of misunderstanding and half for emphasis. "The reason I am free today is because of you. I woke up on a couch and ate bacon and eggs today because of you. I got to walk down streets I've only ever jumped over today, because. Of. You."

Sunset had fallen silent. Luna took a moment and adjusted her signet ring.

"I am your keeper, Sunset Shimmer. Your every nightmare, waking or sleeping, is my sworn nemesis. If you need me, if you think I can help, if you just need someone to talk to who knows that you're secretly a horse, I am here, any hour that you need."

"Thank you." Sunset surged out of her seat and hugged herself close to Luna for a few moments, her heat almost overwhelming after all those cold years alone. "That helped a lot."

"Good. Good. I'm, I'm glad." Luna swallowed around nothing, and rolled her shoulders inside the hug. "Now, if you're feeling up to it, you should probably get back to class. They've definitely finished the national anthem by now, and you've almost certainly missed the lesson plan entirely."

Sunset blushed, and bounced up to her feet. "Yeah. I... I think I can handle it."

"Remember, if you can't, you come right back." Luna stood and held the door open for her ward, watching with an unexpectedly warm fondness as she sprinted down the hallway. Then she heard the click of heels advancing towards her office, and a very different kind of smile took shape.

"So, how did it go?" Celestia had this annoying habit of being absolutely insufferable when she was right.

"Better than I expected," Luna admitted. "She's a good kid. A few more days like this, and we could make some real progress."

"Great to hear." Celestia looked down at her fist, clenched around something that Luna couldn't see. "Also, I finally managed to calm Sol Major down and convince her that we aren't going to cause a temporal paradox by letting you out of jail a few years earlier than Noctis Major."

"Honestly, if the Mirror actually worked like that, none of your student body would exist right now." Oh, now there was a thought. "Have you ever tried using intel on your students and teachers to give Sol Major a leg up on threats coming up in the next few generations?"

Celestia actually threw her head back and laughed. "Lulu, we have a hard enough time just working out the logistics to meet for tea without her accidentally disappearing for an entire century, do you really think we can Minority Report the next two centuries of history?"

"Not with that attitude."

It was a cheap shot, but it still made Celestia laugh even harder. "Sweet Tartarus, it really has been too long."

Luna smiled, and leaned against the doorframe. "So, anything else to say for yourself? I've got a long day of lonely brooding ahead of me."

"Just one thing." Celestia tossed the thing she had been holding to Luna, and she caught it while barely thinking.

It was a chess piece. Specifically, a black king. The king of the moment, one of a dozen plot lines invented wholesale for one of the worst adaptations Luna had ever seen of a beloved work of classical literature. Still, nostalgia was nostalgia, especially in Celestia's case.

"King's to you, sister."

It was strange, having the weight of it in her hand again. It was one of a hundred little things that she had never thought she would hold again after going to prison, and now here it was. Everything was the way it was, but at the same time everything was different. 

Luna smiled. She was beginning to feel like she could get used to how things were around here.