Cereal awoke to warmth; a comfortable, enveloping complacency that melted all of his cares away. He felt like he was lying on a cloud, or something at least as soft. He very nearly let himself go right back to sleep. A soft voice singing a sweet melody pulled him from his lethargy and entreated he open his eyes. A dark room, trimmed in silver and navy velvet, greeted him. Moonlight flooded the large window framed by heavy, black curtains and decorated with stylized silver wings at the apex of its gothic arch. The melody, sung with what Cereal would imagine an angel’s voice, made the colors in the room swell with vibrancy as it rose and fell. Tiny pinpricks of light, like little stars, seemed to dance in the moonlight.
Fighting his way free of the enchanting comfort of the bed, Cereal sat up. Princess Luna sat before a vanity of polished ebony. It was carved--were they birds, in flight?--on every surface. A soft summer breeze brought with it the crisp smell of mountain air, lightly tossing his mane and shifting the gossamer lace that hung from the canopied bed. The Princess sat with her back to him, brushing her coat with a soft comb held in azure magic and humming to herself. Everything felt... unreal. There was no way he could feel this rested after sleeping for half a day. Come to think of it, he didn’t remember falling asleep. Wait. His surroundings seemed to pop out at him, shouting at the irregularity of him waking up in what was apparently Luna’s private rooms.
His mind froze.
How was he in Luna’s rooms? When did he fall asleep? Why was he in Luna’s bed? Calm down, Cereal, he told himself. Think. He hadn’t been sleeping well lately, so of course he was tired. Maybe, on the way to Canterlot, he dozed off. Then why didn’t they put him in his guest room again? As far as he could surmise, just his being in Luna’s rooms was a terrible breach in protocol and propriety... unless... she brought him here herself. A strange feeling wormed its way up his spine to strike his already frozen mind hard enough to make it shatter. Did they...? Did he... and Luna...?
“Good evening, Cereal. I trust you slept well?” Luna’s soft voice stopped his heart as his mind still slogged under something it couldn’t grasp or even begin to imagine. He jumped at the simple question, turning instinctually to her, speechless. She looked back at him. Did she look at him differently? He thought back on when he had talked with her before, trying to see if anything had happened between then and now. Her gaze was different than when she had first looked at him, that much was certain. He remembered the chariot ride over. She had him sit very close to her... he remembered feeling drowsy... and then her wing, coming around him, holding him close...
“What ever is the matter, Cereal? You look as if the Windigos have frozen you solid.” He jumped again when she spoke. Luna leaned towards him, studying his face. He sat as still as he possibly could. No, there was no way. He would have remembered... something like that. There was a perfectly good reason for him to be here, he just had a hard time thinking of it.
She turned from him and rounded the end of the bed, keeping an eye on him as she did so. Cereal thought he could feel sweat oozing down his back as she got on the bed and then laid beside him, tucking her fore hooves under her. She took her wing and gently nudged him forward so that he laid next to her as she did, facing the wall with its vanity. He couldn’t make a sound. He could barely move a muscle. He wasn’t sure if he was even breathing. Her midnight blue wing rested on his shoulder, she pulled him closer with it.
“Cereal,” she began in a gentle tone. “I must be honest with you.”
He wondered, somewhere in his befuddled brain, if she could hear the ringing in his ears.
“I have taken advantage of you... and I apologize.”
Taken advantage? Sweet mother of...
“If I had the chance to do it again, I would not hesitate, for I feel it was necessary,” she continued, oblivious to his thoughts.
He could not believe what he was hearing. How could this have happened?
“Unfortunately, I cannot rescind my action. What has been done, is done. We must let the consequences follow their course.”
Cereal thought himself a pretty savvy guy. It wasn’t like he hadn’t ever had a relationship before; he should have recognized the signs. She had been really touchy-feely with him lately, wanted to sit close to him when they had their meetings, put her wing around him often when giving him instruction. He just never suspected it could escalate so quickly, nor did he believe this was even a possibility.
“You have, no doubt, noticed the changes,” Luna said in a factual tone, completely unemotional.
He glanced at her uneasily.
“You will eventually be unable to stay alert and active during the day. Your body will require the light of the moon to regenerate and you will have to avoid prolonged exposure to the sun.”
What was she talking about?
“I do not think you will progress to becoming a Niyegun, but I will have to keep you close from now on, at least until the adjustments run their course.”
His brain slowly chugged back up to speed. “Princess,” he said in a voice that sounded hollow to his ears, “I don’t understand.”
She sighed. “I...” she cleared her throat, “I duplicated your bond to Equestria and directed it at myself. What I have done... it was selfish, and I am sorry. What this means for you is that my influence takes precedence over that of Equestria. Theoretically, I can command you to do anything, so long as it does not violate our laws, and you would have no choice but to comply. You have felt this already.”
“The itch,” he mumbled. He didn’t know what to think of this. On the one hoof, he was glad that he hadn’t done anything... improper, but on the other, he wasn’t happy about essentially being a puppet. Luna’s wing pressed him against her side.
“I-I just needed somepony I could trust, Cereal. You were in the perfect position to be that somepony. I am not sure if I can trust my sister....” This admission made him blink.
He couldn’t help but ask. “Why?”
The Princess gazed out of the window at the star strewn sky. “She has been very distant. I know that much happened during my exile and I cannot expect that everything will magically go back to the way it was, no matter how hard I wish.” She looked back to him, her face was clouded with concern and regret. “I have only just begun to repay my debt to Harmony. Every day, I feel more and more that the bronies are the answer, that I must help you to save myself.”
“But,” Cereal rubbed one leg with a hoof, “I thought Celestia said you had already done that when you were exiled.”
Luna shook her head. “I was imprisoned. I could do nothing to remedy what I did. I could only contend with the Nightmare. Celestia foresaw that, as Nightmare Moon, she could not stop me short of banishment to Asteria. I know she loves me, that she did what she had to in order to save me from what I had let myself become.” She stared at the rug woven with intricate spirals of blue. “She is afraid,” the dark princess whispered. “Afraid of me. She does not trust me. She trusts few, if any, ponies.” She bowed her head and took a deep shuddering breath. “I did this to her. It is my fault. I may have paid the law with my exile, but I need to find some way to restore Celestia, to heal the hurt I caused.”
He had misread the signs, she wasn’t falling in love with him as he had feared. She was lonely, about as lonely as you could get. He tried, and failed, to imagine himself in her place. What would it be like, to leave a home behind in ashes? How would it feel to return, a thousand years later, to your family gone and your own sibling unable to trust you? What was it like to be forgotten?
“And now, I have violated your trust,” she stated forlornly. “I would understand if you hated me for what I have done. You have a right to be angry.”
Cereal licked his lips and took a deep breath. “Princess, I don’t hate you. I don’t think I ever could. Okay... I’m a little, uh, upset about the compulsion thing but I... I trust you.” He felt her chest heave, as if she were sobbing silently. He looked away. He didn’t want to see her cry.
“It warms my heart to hear that, Cereal,” she said, lightly touching his cheek with her nose. “Something is terribly wrong. Laichonious, the scholar, is missing, and so is my sister. My guards are searching the castle. Celestia is hiding something and I want to get to the bottom of it. I ask, for I know I should not command; will you help me?”
He looked back to her, and without hesitation said, “I will.”
Luna stood and left the bed, cantering to the grand door to her room. “Then we haven’t a moment to lose!”
“Wait,” Cereal said, jumping to his hooves. Luna stopped in the doorway and looked back at him. “I just have one question. Why me?”
She smiled. “You remind me of a few of my sons.”
Laichonious awoke to pain, a throbbing ache from head to hoof. He felt like he had been tossed down a mountain and hit every single pebble, stone, rock, boulder and tree on the way. With a groan he opened his eyes to a dark, dusty room. Moonlight slanted down into the room from small windows set high above the floor. The walls of the room were undressed gray stone, the air dry and stale. Little breaths of a fresh breeze stroked his coat now and then, swirling the motes of dust in the shafts of moonlight.
Through considerable effort, he pushed himself to his hooves. Moving didn’t provoke more pain, as he would have expected. Instead, as soon as he gained his hoofing, the pain all but disappeared. It was immediately replaced by an overwhelming wave of nausea. The smooth stone floor seemed to lurch beneath him as he stumbled to the side. A wall stopped him in his listing. It was a strangely warm barrier against his shoulder. The abrupt movement made his head disagree even more with his stomach, so much so that his stomach decided to throw everything out in a fit of rage.
The red unicorn coughed, wiping his mouth with a foreleg as he backed away from the wall. After a few steps, he collided with something soft. He turned his head and blinked at it slowly, trying to make out what the soft thing was in the thin, pale light. Square, or rectangular it was. It could even have been oval, but then again, it was soft. He brought a hoof up to his head. Why was it so hard to think? The thing was soft, rectangular, or oval, it had something on it, something flexible. A sheet, that’s what those were called. He blinked at the thing again, perhaps looking at it in short spurts would spark his memory. “That’s a bed,” he mumbled at the soft rectangle. The red unicorn rolled his head on a neck that suddenly became a lopsided gimbal. “This looks like a cell, a... dungeon? What am I doing in a dungeon?” His voice struggled to reverberate through the dust.
“You are here because this is where you are sleeping, I’m sure.” A resonant male voice answered him from the swirling dust. Laichonious’ head swiveled to the side, seeking the source of the strange voice. Standing in a beam of moonlight was a teal unicorn stallion. His mane and tail shimmered sterling silver in the dim room. His eyes looked clouded, like an old man suffering from cataracts. Eyes that had seen more than a tongue could ever tell.
Twitching shivers scuttled across the brony’s back as he gazed upon the strange apparition. The other unicorn was too tall to be a normal pony, perhaps as tall as Luna. “Are you... an... alicorn?” Laichonious found his words in the pauses, shuffling through his thoughts like a frantic accountant on the fourteenth of April.
The teal unicorn shook his head slowly. “I am not. Perhaps in another life, but that is not here and now, nor shall it ever be again.” He stepped towards the red unicorn, his clouded eyes fixed eerily straight ahead. “And you, Laichonious, what were you in another life?”
Unbidden thoughts raced through his head; images, sounds, smells... Earth. Busy city streets, quiet suburbs, imposing government monoliths, grand causeways, cars, planes, technology, weapons, pain, explosions, shouting people, crying children, song, sunny parks and green trees, the summer breeze, woodsmoke and a starry sky, white snow and bitter cold, spring rain, soot, sulfur, ash, laughter, lights and candles on a green field, applause, speeches, pride, hope, dreams, nightmares. On the ground, shaking in the warm night air, the red unicorn gasped for breath.
“Much has changed, yet has stayed the same. I see now why she fears.” The tall unicorn helped Laichonious to his hooves once again. “You didn’t need to give me everything all at once, my young friend.” His voice changed, no longer was it sonorous and far away, but close and friendly.
“Wha--?” Laichonious tried to ask.
The teal unicorn gestured with his hoof at the bed. Laichonious followed the movement, a jolt snapping him to full alertness as he recognized what lay there. Under the rumpled sheet, a red unicorn slept. The other him seemed to sleep soundly, his chest rising and falling in the steady rhythm of deep slumber. Laichonious reached out with an unsteady hoof. A teal hoof stopped him.
Laichonious looked up at the strange unicorn, with his unfocused and clouded eyes. “Not yet, but soon enough. I won’t take much of your time at all. Observe.” He nodded to the far wall beyond the bed.
It was another wall of nondescript, undressed stone, only it was interrupted by a heavy wooden door. It looked to have been polished at one time, long in the past. Now its color was dull and dry, the surface seemed to be made up of a collection of splinters rather than solid planks of wood. Sitting and dozing next to the old door was a familiar white alicorn. Celestia’s head drooped, dipping up and down as she dozed off and then awoke, only to snooze once again.
“She has been watching over you for nearly an hour now. Luna has the Nocturne Guard searching high and low. Short of ransacking the Castle, they may never find you here.” The teal unicorn’s voice was again far away. It seemed to Laichonious that the unicorn was talking to him from the mouth of a well, himself at the bottom of it. Laichonious studied the tired Princess as she watched over his sleeping self. The teal unicorn walked on silent hooves over to the alabaster alicorn.
At his approach, her head snapped up. “Animio?” she hissed, eyes darting around the room faster than dragonflies over a pond. “Are you there?” She stood, sweeping her head from side to side. “Will you not speak to me?” This was not the confident, powerful ruler of the sun that he had grown used to seeing. Before him was a mare, frightened and vulnerable.
“Can she see us?” Laichonious whispered.
The tall unicorn regarded the princess. “No, she cannot. I have barred her from my realm, a sort of penance for being so brash.” He passed the floundering monarch by silently, standing beside the red unicorn. “Come, we shall speak someplace more private.”
The dreary room with its dust and beleaguered princess dissolved into a scene far more appealing. Suddenly, they stood in the middle of Laichonous’ tent at the brony encampment. Everything was there, just as he remembered it. The books stacked on the cart he hauled from Earth, the crude bookshelves, the unfinished staffs and rune boards, even his casting staves lay scattered on the circle board. “How’d you do that?” he asked, trotting over to the bookshelf laden with hard-bound volumes.
“You dream, Laichonious. Such things are possible,” he said in his faraway voice. He didn’t look around at the tent, he didn’t even move his eyes. He behaved as if blind, not even acknowledging the tent’s existence.
Laichonious paused in selecting a book. “Does that mean none of this is real?” He pulled the book off of the shelf, in the logic-defying way that ponies could grip things with their hooves. The book fell open to a random page as he held it, empty. He closed it and looked at the cover. Stamped on the soft blue cloth were the silver words Transitive Texts of the Celts and Britons: A guide to the transition from the Elder Futhark to the Younger in the British Isles. He opened the book again and flipped through the pages. He didn’t know how he could do this, but he didn’t question what worked. Every page was blank.
“All of your books will be like that here,” the teal unicorn said. “You haven’t memorized them.”
Laichonious put the book back in its place on the shelf. “Why’d you bring me here then? If these are all empty, there’s no point. Is all of this just in my head?” He turned back to the strange unicorn standing at the center of the tent like a statue.
A little smile curled at the unicorn’s mouth, but did not touch his milky eyes. “Yes and no. Your dreams are as real as you make them, as real as you want them. I did not bring you here to philosophise, as enjoyable as that would be. Please, sit and we shall get down to business. If you are to have any hope of averting disaster, you will need to pay close attention.”
The red unicorn cocked his head to the side as he trotted back to the stranger and sat in front of him.
“First, you may ask me any questions that you have. If I am allowed to answer them, I shall. I can’t have you distracted by doubts.”
“Who are you?” Laichonious found himself asking, without really thinking about it.
“Hm, that, I’m afraid, is complicated, and I cannot answer you in full.” The teal unicorn paused as if waiting for another question.
“Alright,” Laichonious said, rubbing his chin with a hoof. “What’s your name? Or can you not tell me that either?”
“I have many names, most would mean nothing to you. If I were to tell you the names I have worn, it would take a lifetime. But... for now, I suppose you can call me the Evermind.”
“The... Evermind... what does that mean?”
“I remember all things. I am the Keeper of Wisdom. I am shepherd of souls and revealer of truth.”
Laichonious shivered. “What is Celestia afraid of?”
“You.”
The red unicorn blinked. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Not just you, but all of the humans. Her fear pushes her to paths she would rather not follow, but she does so for she believes that it is the right thing to do. I cannot tell you everything, both time and oaths stop me.” For the first time, the teal unicorn’s eyes moved. They flitted from one side to the other, then focused on the human turned pony. “When you awake, Celestia will question you. Answer her questions. She will not be satisfied.” From his peripheral vision, Laichonious could see the walls of his tent begin to fade but he couldn’t look away from the clouded eyes. “Ask her why the Spectra turns from you.” Strain tightened the unicorn’s face. “She will not answer.” The Evermind breathed heavily. The stone room with its dust and old door shuddered with the sudden cold. “Tell her that there is more than black and white.”
The teal unicorn raised a hoof. Laichonious watched as it came nearer, slowly, like time had coalesced and became viscous. With the force of a butterfly’s breath and the strength of a mountain’s shrug, the hoof pushed him backwards. Laichonious fell. And fell. And kept falling.
Twilight tried not to doze at her desk. Sheets of paper, covered in neat lines of flowing text, were arranged in order of importance, from most to least, right to left. A red notebook, a little worn at the edges, broke the order of the desk as it lay to one side of the neat row of papers, turned ever so slightly to have one of its corners pointing at the sleepy unicorn. She should have been asleep some time ago, but she couldn’t sleep with something so extraordinary on her desk, even if the subject of her wonder was sleeping.
A miniature emerald mare, with butterfly-like wings that looked exactly like a malachite geode, slept with her head resting on the shoulder of another miniature pony. The little stallion was a rich, charcoal grey, with wings of pearlescent onyx patterned after a nocturnal moth. He slept soundly, though he looked ill. His mane of silvery, powder-blue hair was thin and his coat was patchy. As extraordinary as they were, being so small, they intrigued her for they had no cutie marks, yet they were ponies. The two resided in a corner of Twilight’s little desk, the only area not laden with some implement of recordkeeping, on a bed of layered scarves.
Butterponies, Pinkie had called them. They would answer to no other name and seemed quite attached to her pink friend. Several hundred of them occupied three tents that had been pitched behind Twilight’s. Syglia, the mare, and Koli, the stallion, opted to stay near “The Great Pinkie” who happened to be snoring softly on a cot to Twilight’s left. The soft breathing of other slumbering ponies filled the quiet night as Fluttershy, Applejack, and Rainbow Dash slept on their cots, having donated their tents to house the butterponies. Only Rarity was missing. She had returned to Ponyville before sunset, mumbling about expecting company.
Twilight should really be asleep; she had two classes--full of eager novice unicorns--early in the morning. But her brain just wouldn’t let her. It raced down several tracks at once, pondering out all the possible ways things could go in light of recent events. She could hypothesise about Princess Luna’s behavior all night, but what really drew her attention was the charcoal grey miniature pony sleeping on her desk. Pinkie brought him to her a few hours ago, his wings in a thick glass jar. She had never reattached anything to anypony before. Well, nothing as important as a limb anyway. Just when she was beginning to think she had seen and done everything there was to do with magic, whole worlds open up to her. Written spells, spoken spells, and now butterponies. How much did she not know?
The butterponies had a strange sixth sense, they could somehow feel or spy out the leylines in other creatures. A concept that had only been mused about by deep thinkers in the past. The only true academic to have published any substantial study in the field of corporeal leylines was Starswirl, and even he wrote about it in a very metaphorical way. Syglia was instrumental in restoring Koli’s wings. Twilight doubted she would have been able to help without the emerald pony’s guidance. She was fairly certain that the butterpony could not see how Twilight arranged her leylines, but Syglia seemed to know exactly where they were -- and where they needed to go. Every once-in-awhile, Twilight would lay out the pattern Syglia had shown her and stare at it for several minutes. The glowing lines, visible to her alone, were so immensely complex she had a hard time discerning what each line did.
A sniffle and a squeak broke her concentration and the glowing lines of the spell dissipated into the soft glow of her starlight lamp. Twilight blinked. Another sniffle stuttered from the collection of cots to her left. She got up and slowly made her way over to her sleeping friends. Not all of whom were sleeping soundly. Fluttershy’s shoulders shook at random intervals, another sniffle escaping quietly.
“Fluttershy, is everything alright?” Twilight whispered, sitting next to the cot.
The yellow pegasus lay on her side, her delicate pink mane covering half of her face. She stared at the wall of the tent, little trickles of moisture trailing down her cheeks and nose and glistening in the faint glow of the starlight. She sniffed again and wiped at her face. “Sorry, Twilight. Did I wake you?”
Twilight smiled at her friend and put a foreleg around her shoulders. “No. I was still up. What’s the matter?”
Fluttershy relaxed a little but continued to frown at the tent wall. “I just can’t do it, Twilight,” she whispered.
“Can’t do what?”
“I can’t lie to them anymore. I can’t be brave for them. They just keep getting sick, more every day, and I... I can’t help them,” she whispered. The words escaped her lips on breaths wrung dry.
Twilight pulled Fluttershy into a hug, stroking the other mare’s back and whispering quietly to her, “Everything will be alright, Fluttershy. We’ll find some way to help them. The Princess is already working on a solution, we just have to do the best we can until we find an answer.”
Fluttershy wrapped her arms around her and squeezed. “That’s what I say to them,” she whispered into Twilight’s shoulder. “But I don’t know if it’s true.”
Movement at the tent entrance caught Twilight’s eye. Over Fluttershy’s shoulder and through the open flap of her tent, she saw a teal unicorn, standing in a pool of moonlight just outside. He looked at her with clouded eyes. She blinked and he was gone, where he stood only light and trampled grass remained.
She let Fluttershy back down on her cot, smiling at her again and brushing away a few stray strands of hair. “We don’t have to know, we just have to believe and work hard. Everything will be alright,” Twilight whispered.
Her friend’s eyes drooped, but she nodded slowly, snuggling into her pillow and dropping quickly off to sleep. Twilight pulled the blanket up around the pegasus and tucked her in. She trotted as softly as she could across the tent to the door. Stepping out into the moonlight, she glanced around for the tall unicorn stallion. “Evermind?” she whispered to the night. The soft wind shuffling through the trees was the lone reply.
Laichonious awoke to pain, a throbbing ache from head to hoof. He felt like he had been tossed down a mountain and hit every single pebble, stone, rock, boulder and tree on the way. With a groan he opened his eyes to a dark, dusty room. Moonlight slanted down into the room from small windows set high above the floor. The walls of the room were undressed gray stone, the air dry and stale. Little breaths of a fresh breeze stroked his coat now and then, swirling the motes of dust in the shafts of moonlight.
No. Something was not right.
Through considerable effort, he pushed himself to his hooves. Moving didn’t provoke more pain, as he would have expected. Instead, as soon as he gained his hoofing, the pain all but disappeared. It was immediately replaced by an overwhelming wave of nausea. The smooth stone floor seemed to lurch beneath him as he stumbled to the side. A wall stopped him in his listing. It was a strangely warm barrier against his shoulder. The abrupt movement made his head disagree even more with his stomach, so much so that his stomach decided to throw everything out in a fit of rage.
The red unicorn coughed, backing away from the wall and wiping his mouth with a foreleg. He stopped. This already happened... didn’t it? Convulsions rampaged through his body, making it very hard to stand. His vision swam like he looked through rain splattered glass. It was so cold, so very cold. It was a wonder he didn’t see his own breath. He stood, shivering and blinking in the dark, trying to make sense of it all.
“The Aether is not easy on the inexperienced. A fact I overlooked.” Celestia’s soft words caressed his ears in melodious tones. “I suppose that is why the Evermind has barred me from it.” Hoofsteps echoed in the dark chamber behind him. An alabaster wing, trailing a faint halo in the moonlight, swathed him in white feathers softer than velvet. “Are you alright, little one?”
He most certainly was not. His breath only came with effort and he felt a bone chilling cold. The red unicorn sat on the warm stone floor, trembling under Celestia’s wing. He would say so, but his jaw was clamped shut against the convulsions running through his body.
The Princess bent down to look him in the eye. “Are you cold?” He nodded, it was about all he could do. “Well... We’ll fix that then.” She picked him up in a cloud of golden magic and carried him over to the bed. She settled herself on it then tucked him under her wing, holding him against her side. The shivers abated. Though he still trembled, he could now unclench his jaw and his teeth didn’t rattle. She felt impossibly warm to him, almost enough to make him pull away as one would from a fire. But he was so cold, he leaned against her, trying to soak up the warmth. The Princess was silent for a few moments.
“Was it hard for you to leave your world?” she asked softly.
“Yes,” Laichonious answered. “But I was ready to leave... we all were.”
“You should have stayed,” Celestia said flatly. “This is not your world.”
The red unicorn shivered and frowned. “The Vault says otherwise,” he mumbled.
She shifted next to him. “What does it say then?” she whispered, he could feel her tensing.
“The carvings tell how the humans of Draumr Dalr were children of the moon and family of the sun.” He closed his eyes, trying to visualize the confusing carvings. “Most of it was hard to understand, it was carved quickly, almost deliriously. There were prayers... pleadings... laments.”
“To whom did they pray?” the princess asked as if she knew the answer already.
Laichonious opened his eyes and tried to look at her face. He had to squint, she burned to his sight, almost like the sun itself. “They called out to Luna. Naming her Svasmodir, or beloved mother. Why?”
Celestia’s face could have been carved from stone itself. “Because she was the one who took them in, long ago. As she has done now with you. She is fond of you all. She feels that she needs protect you. This doesn’t change the fact that none of you belong here.”
Laichonious looked away, the room seemed even more lifeless, drained of what little color it had to begin with. “Why can’t we belong here? We could learn to be a part of Harmony, we’ve already had to work together to--”
“Being a part of Harmony is more than just collaboration,” she interrupted in a cold voice. “I have seen your world. I know what it is. I know what you humans harbor in your hearts and it is not Harmony.”
“But if you would just give us a chance--”
“What is it you think I am doing? I have been working tirelessly to find a way to do just that... but I can find no solution. What else do the carvings say? Do they speak at all of memory or how the Vaults were made?”
Laichonious ground his teeth. “No. It continued to speak of laments and woes, and of the Nightmare. They prayed that Luna would save them from her and from the plague they called ‘abandonment’.”
“Then I have no choice,” she muttered.
“Princess--”
“No. This is the way it has to be. I thought I had closed the ways into Equestria. Now I only regret I did not sever the gate when I had the chance.”
Laichonious looked upon her in disbelief. “What?” he breathed.
She looked down on him. In her eyes, he could see sadness but they were hard with resolve. “The great trees, Yeodoor and Yggdrasil, were once the pathways between our worlds. Before the coming of Discord, we passed through them with ease and frequently visited your world. We taught your people magic; they taught us how to dream. All of this changed when Discord rose to power. Both of our worlds were thrown into chaos. He broke the land. He tried to destroy us, all for his amusement. After Luna and I defeated him, this land could barely support a tree. We decided to take direct control, we governed all, the sky, the earth, the water and the wind. We carried this world on our shoulders.”
Laichonious trembled more with every word she spoke.
“We tried to find the gateways, to see if our friends, the humans, were spared Discord’s corruption. We found a world torn by war and bathed in blood. Any who ventured there were hunted, for sport. They did not remember us. We did not want to close the ways, we believed still that there may be good enough left in your world to save it. Shortly thereafter, the first humans started coming, humans who remembered magic and who still could dream.” She shook her head. “It was folly. I was blinded by my hope, I did not see what was coming.” Her voice hardened again. “That discordant spirit followed them. Their greed, their fear, their jealousy... it infected my sister, through the bond she made with them.” She spat the words, anger creeping into her voice and making the red unicorn wince at every syllable.
“War came in the wings of Nightmare Moon. She broke her bonds with them... she let them die.” She looked at him again. He shied from her. “Only after she was banished, did I learn of what became of the humans. I vowed that never again would this be allowed to transpire. Alone, I buried them. I poisoned the great trees. I closed the gates. Alone, I rebuilt this world. Alone, I healed my children and sheltered my sister’s children. Alone, I ruled... alone, I suffered.” Her wing pinned him to the bed. “Luna must never know. It would break her. I will do what I must to protect my sister and my subjects,” she growled. She stood abruptly and walked to the door.
“Wait! Princess!” Laichonious called through the convulsions. He tried to stand, only to fall weak and out of breath. “Princess! Why does the Spectra turn from us? Why can’t we learn to be one of you?” She ignored his pleas, opening the dry old door with magic. “Celestia! It doesn’t have to be this way! There is more than just black and white!” His voice echoed in the dusty chamber.
She paused before entering the dark hall beyond the door. “I am sorry,” she whispered. The door shut behind her with a ponderous thud. Sharp clicks from locks falling into place pierced his heart with dread. “Celestia?” Hoofsteps fading behind the door answered him. “Celestia!” She heeded him like unto the stone. He struggled through the cold across the room, collapsing against the door. He beat upon it with his hooves, it didn’t budge. He called Celestia’s name over and over again. His shouts grew hoarse as darkness consumed him.
