//------------------------------// // Chapter 33. Stars // Story: Learning to see Luna, the story of Vivid Colour. // by Hope //------------------------------// Black Ink sat in front of the ruling council of Equestria, trying not to panic. “So we don’t know where she went, what she intends, or when she will return,” one of the councilmembers asked, hoping Ink would say no, that they had misunderstood. “Correct," Ink nodded, laying out the paperwork she'd quickly gathered in front of her. "In absentia, the Castilian is in charge of keeping everything running on a neutral ground, making minimal decisions until the princess returns, with input from the ruling council of course." "But the Castilian is missing, presumed dead," somepony pointed out. "I was appointed the post this last moonset, a--" "But we're you officially sworn in?" A golden unicorn mare asked sternly, her plentiful jewelry reflecting her orange magic to make her almost glow. "I… no, but the law clearly states that the authority of appointment from the crown is verbal firstly, and legally binding." "If she actually did assign you that position. We have no way of verifying it at the moment besides your own words," the mare insisted. Ink narrowed her eyes and stood a little taller. "Princess Sunlight Sol Howl, have I given you or any other pony on the council the impression that I am the sort of pony to seek power above my station?" “This is not an impugnment of your character, Lady Ink,” Howl began, before Ink rapped her hoof on the table. “Incorrect. This is, at it’s core, an accusation of treason. To falsify a royal decree is treason, so my character is quite appropriately in the moonlight here, so again I ask yourself, your highness, and the council as a whole, have I ever given cause to expect such behavior?” There was an uncomfortable silence, as the ponies in the room looked between themselves, until finally another pony raised a hoof. “I, Swift Wind, motion to accept the statement as given.” “Second,” another pony said, raising a hoof. “All in favor?” A majority of the council agreed, and Ink could relax a little, sitting back down. “So, that puts you in charge,” Princess Howl said bitterly. “What will you do?” “Nothing,” Ink sighed. “I believe that Princess Luna will return in short order, all responsibilities of the Crown shall be delayed for one week in a period of mourning, and we will revisit all of this then if Princess Luna has not returned. For now, you are all dismissed, and I relinquish any in-progress changes to prevent any changes from being put into place without the appearance of authority.” Black Ink stacked her papers and turned to leave. “That’s it? The power of Equestria at your hooves, and you do nothing but wait?” Howl asked. Ink paused, and looked back over her shoulders. “That’s it. That’s my duty.” Luna sat in the courtyard of Everfree castle, moon overhead, staring at the dark overgrown halls before her. Was this some desperate grasp at closure? Was there some hope for something more? Was there anything waiting for her in the catacombs below besides more pain? She stood, and walked into the hall. By the construction, some ponies may assume it had once been a great tall passageway, but there was a missing floorway, that had previously been the second floor. Luna was standing in an ordinary hallway. Small, claustrophobic, lacking all of it’s decorations and it’s ceiling. She pressed onwards, into the great hall, where she paused. Her throne still stood, the solar throne still next to it, as she felt it should be. It was a shame, now, to have a single throne. A single princess and a ruling council, when the sun was supposed to be just as important as the moon. She sighed, turning away from the tattered tapestries and crumbling glass windows, to the continuation of the old hallway, which she took to a spiral staircase leading down. The last intact staircase in the castle that went below the surface of the dirt. She stopped at the top, and sighed. It was just about herself, wasn’t it? Not Vivid, who she’d loved so dearly, and lost too young, not about her garden back in Bitain, it was about Luna, and what Luna wanted. But that had to be enough, for now. She stepped down, into the darkness, and cast the spell to light the gemstones mounted in sconces along the walls. The soft blue light helped her step carefully, rounding the bend and then through the old vault door, into the hallway, she’d carved herself and then finally to the octagonal chamber. The red illusion of Vivid was standing there, but not facing Luna. She was tending to a new sarcophagus, one with a resting depiction of herself laid upon the top, sleeping, joining the first of Luna’s great loves in eternal rest. It was eerie, the ghost in red still there, still mourning with her, and yet it was right in it’s own way. It was Vivid’s magic bidding her farewell from her short and painful life. It was being there even in death to lean on Luna’s side as her princess sobbed over the carved marble. It was a promise fulfilled, despite the world demanding it be broken. Sometimes, there was nothing left to be done, to make the world right, and sometimes you could not sit with the memory of your lost loved one for very long, as painful as every moment was, and yet she understood. Yet she wished the Princess of the Night peaceful rest, as she left that buried chamber with it’s sole occupant, to live quietly on into the eternal future alone. Vivid Colour, or what was left of her, paced in the dark. Her own body shedding red light, and her artificial mind distinctly uncomfortable with the silence, until she came to a conclusion, looking between the sarcophagi. “Well… I have not much else to do,” Vivid whispered as she began crafting spell circles. “Let us see if there is a way for us to meet, dear Prim Rose.”