If you’re wondering where I got the story concept from, I watched the show’s new intro. The one with trains and Big Macintosh in it. Then I played some Paper Mario. And that’s why two of the heroes are Big Macintosh and a train-driving pony. As for Flash Fire, I made him up on the spot to be the conductor.
Chapter 3: An Unfree Goddess
Canterlot was once a beautiful city, the jewel on the crown of Equestria. But now, it had been transformed into fuel for a massive fire. The first thing our mother had done as queen was to fly out and destroy all the dissidents, which was practically everypony. Then, she had dealt with us.
Luxa locked us in the tower that our student Twilight Sparkle had once stayed in. To make sure we would not escape, she forced us into the highest floor of the tower and removed all the windows and doors save one small window in our room. This, she had explained, was so that we could do our duty of raising the sun and moon. However, she had placed some sort of bracer on our horn that cancelled our magical abilities. So whenever the sun or moon was to be raised, Luxa would have to fly up to our window and unlock the bracer.
On the first night of our imprisonment, we had thought that we had a chance to escape by using the stars to write “HELP ME” in the sky. But Luxa had caught on to us.
“Don’t do anything but what you’re supposed to do, because if you try anything, I’ll just have to saw your horn off and control the sun and moon myself,” she warned. “Oh, wouldn’t that be lovely? If I was the supreme goddess of everything . . . ah, but as a mother, I care about you.” She smiled evilly at us. “And to show that I do, I’ll bring up all your meals, and I won’t take your duty away from you! Aren’t you grateful?”
“Yes,” we replied flatly. “We are ever so glad that you haven’t torn that one bit of freedom away from us.”
At that, her mood had instantly changed. “You little ingrate,” she snarled. “Keep taking it for granted, and I will take control of the sun and moon and leave you here to rot. Understand? Oh, and stop talking in that ridiculous royal we. You’re not royal anymore. You’re not even an alicorn!”
“Because you took away our wings,” we reminded her. “And we talk in the royal we to remind ourselves that we are two mares forced into one body.”
Luxa scowled. “I was going to sneak you a treat for dinner, but you’ve been misbehaving tonight. All you’re getting is some grass and a cup of water from . . . I don’t know what that water’s been used for. Goodbye, Selena.” She turned and flew back to her castle.
Once we were sure she was out of earshot, we let out a relieved sigh. How dare she pretend to love us after she had already tried to kill us? And now that she was gone, we had time to ruminate over our means of escaping. Manipulating the skies wouldn’t work. But then what would we do? Jump out the window and die? Luxa had thoughtfully dug a trench around our tower and placed impossibly sharp crystal spikes in it.
Maybe when Luxa flew up to do something, we could stab her, in the wing preferably. Then, she would fall into the spikes and die. Since almost everypony disliked her, we were sure to be freed soon after. But as for our wings . . . we hadn’t the slightest idea. We’d just have to live without them. Being wingless and free was far better than being an imprisoned alicorn.
But we had the worst feeling that even if Luxa was impaled by spikes, she would keep coming after us. And then there was her magic to contend with . . . How were we supposed to fight back against her?
Defeated, we headed to the small pallet we had been provided with and collapsed onto it, straw spilling out of the ragged hole in the mattress’ side. We were so tired and worn out . . . We felt like lying on that mattress for the rest of our lives. Day, night, neither . . . none of it mattered anymore.
It didn’t take long before a tray with a lump of dry, almost-dead grass and a small cup of murky water landed next to our mattress. “Eat,” Luxa said, looking at us sternly through the window. “I know it isn’t much, but this is the standard fare for prisoners. Don’t get me wrong, I tried to convince the cooks to give you more, but they wouldn’t listen.” She snorted. “Imagine that! They wouldn’t listen to me, their queen. I’ll have them executed for that!”
We knew she was a liar. She had previously hinted that she was the one that prepared our meals. This was further reinforced when Luxa placed her hooves on the windowsill. Her crystal shoes were smeared with grass and dirt. Luxa had just been fabricating the story so we wouldn’t see her as evil.
“But,” Luxa continued, “if you’re a good filly for the rest of the night, I’ll bring you treats for breakfast tomorrow.”
We smiled sweetly. “What about the cooks? Won’t they not allow you to bring us treats?”
“W-well . . .” the alicorn stuttered nervously, “I’ll eat the grass myself and give you some things from my breakfast.”
“Ah . . . you do that,” we said, swallowing some of the grass. “Now, we think you should get back to the castle. As queen, you shouldn’t spend your time talking to your prisoners.”
“Oh, no!” Luxa said. “I’ll stay here as long as I want because nothing’s more important than my daughter!” If that was really true, she wouldn’t have imprisoned us. She wouldn’t have tried to kill us, either. “I love you more than anything, you know.” And with that, she flew back to her castle.
We finished the grass and even tried some of the water. It was a little muddy, but water was water, and it didn’t seem like it had anything in it that would make us sick. Finishing off the water, we dragged ourselves back to the mattress.
As we drifted off, we began to think of happier times in the past, times when Luxa meant it when she said “I love you two more than anything.” Now, all she loved was power. We thought of the times when our family was all together, before jealousy and the desire for eternal power drove us apart.
Tears dripped from our eyes onto the dusty pallet, making miniature rivulets of mud. Our coat must have been stained with dirt, but we didn’t care about such trivial things. All that existed for us was captivity.
We curled up on the mattress, shielding our eyes from the meager moonlight that shown through the window. What was the point in living? Better off to die than to live in captivity and humiliation. Besides, we didn’t want to spend another second with the twisted shadow of our mother.
We are going to leave this place one way or another, we pledged. Then, we drifted off to sleep.
“Wake up,” our mother’s voice said.
For an instant, we forgot all about how she had gone crazy and answered “Mother?” Then we opened our eyes and saw the evil mare hovering just outside the window.
“Yes, dear,” Luxa said, her voice dripping with false sweetness. “Like I promised, I brought you something good for breakfast!” A metal platter with a large domed cover was levitated towards us. “Enjoy!” She smiled, showing her unnaturally sharp teeth.
The meal did not interest us in the slightest, and we rolled over on the pallet, facing away from the platter. We had promised to leave the tower, and if the only way was starving to death, starving it was.
“What’s wrong? Don’t you want breakfast?” Luxa asked. I snorted. How dare she act like she cared? “Are you upset with me? Look what I brought! Your favorites!” The domed cover on the platter glowed white and disappeared. She had brought us several pomegranates, a glass, and a bottle of red wine. We loved pomegranates and red wine . . . how were we going to resist trying to eat them?
“I remembered that both Luna and Celestia loved pomegranates and red wine, so Selena would surely love it if I brought some to her!” Her smile turned cruel. “You’ll eat if I have to force-feed it to you. I won’t have you dying on me now.”
“How?” we asked. It was no use pretending that we were clueless. “How do you know what we’re about to do?”
“Mother’s intuition,” she replied. “Of course not!” Luxa added, cackling. “I can read minds.”
We gasped. So that meant the only way we could escape was if we didn’t think of it or waited until Luxa was gone.
Sighing, we got up and walked to the platter. “Fine, we shall eat.” Forcing a smile on our face, we looked up at Luxa. “Thank you.”
“You’re very welcome,” she replied curtly. “But first, raise the sun. You don’t want everypony getting mad at your mother because of what you’ve done, do you?” We looked at her in shock. Why did we have to have such a pretentious mare for a mother? But she hadn’t always been that way . . . All we wanted was for her to go back to normal. “What’s wrong with you?” she shouted, seeing us just standing there. “Hurry up and raise the sun already, you disgrace of a daughter!”
Our nostrils flared at the insult. Really, the disgraceful one was her. But we complied, stepping over the platter to reach the window. Luxa unlocked our bracer and levitated it nearby so she could clamp it on our horn the second we were finished. Shutting our eyes, we began to focus our magic towards the moon, guiding it towards the horizon. The task was difficult; we usually did it outside in the open, as opposed to a stuffy room. We leaned our head out the window as we moved the stars aside. Then came the hard part: raising the sun from under the horizon.
Oh, how we needed to get out in the open . . . The fresh air and early morning breeze beckoned to us, and we placed our front hooves on the windowsill. We reached out to the sun, but it barely moved. All we had to do was get it out above the horizon, and it would do the rest itself. But we needed to get closer.
It was risky, even lethal, but we hung our hooves over the sill so that half of our body was out of the tower. What Luxa was thinking, we didn’t know. And frankly, we couldn’t care less what she thought. We reached out to the sun again, and this time, it moved. Suddenly, our body started slipping. Opening our eyes, we found the crystal spikes rushing up to meet us, and then we would have escaped, never to be locked in the tower again —
Abruptly, our fall broke. It wasn’t by physical means; when we opened our eyes, we saw that the spikes were inches away. We were wrapped in a pure white magical aura, and Luxa flew around us, her bat wings swishing noisily as she circled the moat.
“Oh my!” she said. “If I hadn’t saved you, it wouldn’t have been a pretty sight . . . You’re so clumsy. Do I have to shrink the window so only your horn can fit through? She levitated the bracer onto our horn and locked it. Then, we were taken back to our prison. On the way there, Luxa whispered, “Stop messing around. The only thing allowed to take your life is me. Understand?”
“We understand,” we said, too frightened and shocked to say anything else. So the only way we would ever escape was through Luxa. Somehow, we would find a way to escape, but first, we wanted to eat our breakfast. “M-mother?” we asked meekly. “Would you please cut open these pomegranates for us?”
“Why of course!” She formed a blade of glowing white magic and sliced the three fruits in half. “And remember, I can easily do the same to your head,” the alicorn mare added darkly. And on that grim note, she departed.
We let forth a shudder that we had been repressing. Luxa . . . she was truly insane. Who else could go from (pretending to be) kind and caring to menacing and threatening? We were sure she could say she loved us and sound like she meant it while torturing us in the most brutal way possible.
“Thinking about it won’t help matters, we should eat now,” we said out loud. And so we stretched out on the grimy wood floor and began to eat the seeds in the fruit. Luxa had selected the sweetest fruits for us, but that gave us no comfort. She was just trying to keep us from seeing her as the antagonist. There was nothing else to it. But the caring pretense . . . well, to be honest, we rather quite liked it. When we had banished her, we longed for a mother figure, and now we had one, even if she was only pretending. It was depressing. Depressing and pathetic. But what else were we supposed to do in such bleak situations? A little ray of happiness was better than nothing at all.
We swallowed the last mouthful of pomegranate seeds and turned to the bottle of wine. How were we supposed to open it? Before, we used our magic to remove the cork. But we couldn’t use magic, so there was no way that would work. Magic had been an integral part of our lives. Not being able to use it was almost incapacitating. But there had to be a way to open the bottle without magic. There had to.
In the end, we found that clamping the bottle between our forelegs and pulling the cork out with our teeth was the best way to open a bottle of wine. The fumes coming from the bottle smelled inviting, and it took all of our willpower not to drain the bottle then and there. Luxa would be sure to punish us if she found us drunk. Instead, we picked the bottle up and poured some of the red wine into the glass.
For a while, we just sat on our pallet and stared out the window, taking small sips of wine and refilling the glass when needed. That was the most relaxed we had been since our merge and capture, and if there was any time to think of an escape plan, it was that time. If we weren’t so drunk, that was. As we brainstormed, each idea gradually became more and more convoluted and ridiculous. How were we ever going to make an effective escape plan? When we poured the wine again, only a few drops came out. Reaching for the glass, we found that we couldn’t hold our hooves steady and almost dropped it a few times. That was all the wine we had. Now, we had to escape. We looked at the window. Luxa wasn’t around. We could —
No, we thought firmly, curling up on the mattress and closing our eyes. If we could sleep . . . We would wake up with an awful hangover, but with increased mental clarity. How were we supposed to defeat the Mare of Light? Something tugged at the back of our mind, like we had heard a solution but couldn’t remember it. We had lived for hundreds of thousands of years, and it would be impossible to remember every detail. The alcohol wasn’t helping, either.
And since there was no point staying up, we drifted off to sleep.
“So, Premonition? Do you see anything?”
With a gasp, we realized we were in the royal library. Standing in front of us was a moss green unicorn and . . . us, from before we were merged. It seemed like it had happened long ago, as Celestia’s mane and tail were pink and Luna was small and light-colored, the size of a filly.
“So?” Celestia repeated.
“This is important! Mother . . . you said she’s going to return and somepony will defeat her, right?” Luna seemed hysterical, but it seemed just of her. It must have been right after we had banished Luxa to the white hole.
“Oh!” we exclaimed. We recognized what had happened. “There was a prophecy about Luxa’s defeat, and it was . . . honestly, we don’t remember!” But nopony looked at us. It was like we weren’t even in the room! To test it, we carefully tapped the table in front of us — or attempted to, at least. Our hoof passed through the wood like it was an illusion. So in our dream, it seemed like we would have to observe.
The unicorn turned back to the table, where a crystal ball was sitting. “No, I can’t say I do.” He squinted, looking at it from a number of angles. “There’s nothing. I don’t think this is the right time —”
Luna placed her hooves on the table. “Crystal Premonition, please! You need to come up with something, or we’re — Equestria is doomed!”
“I know, Your Highness,” Premonition said patiently, “but if the crystal ball refuses to show us anything, then you simply must return at another time.”
“No!” Luna shrieked, her blue eyes flashing. “You have to see something now, you miserable old fortune teller!”
Being called a fortune teller seemed to infuriate Premonition, as he stiffened when the words left Luna’s mouth. “With all due respect,” he said in a voice that strained to stay even, “I am a seer, not a fortune teller.”
“Please forgive her,” Celestia quickly said. “My sister is rather traumatized from our mother’s attack on us.” Hanging her head, she murmured, “To be honest, I’m horrified too, but as the eldest, I have to be strong. For both of us.”
Now that he knew the reason for Luna’s outbursts, the green unicorn began to seem more sympathetic. “Oh, I see. My deepest apologies, then. There is no way to be sure the ball will display anything related to Luxa’s defeat now. I might have to sit here for the rest of the day. Perhaps I will need to sit here for days. If so, would you tell some servants I would like my dinner brought here? I do not think it is prudent to leave the crystal ball unattended.”
Speaking of crystal balls, the sphere on the desk began to fill up with white fog. “Oh! The crystal ball’s doing something!” Luna exclaimed, making Crystal Premonition look to it.
“Oh, yes!” he said, focusing on the fog. The second he looked into the ball, the unicorn seemed to go into some type of trance. His amber eyes glazed over as he stared into the haze. We were curious as to what he saw in the crystal ball, and seeing as we were unseen, we walked over to the table and took a seat next to him. The mist swirled around, but we couldn’t make out anything in it.
Premonition must have, as his horn began to glow and a quill pen in front of us began to write on parchment. The paper had already been decorated with two images of our parents, and it was near a stack of other papers that had already been written on. We looked down at what he had written. It was a short six lines, but in the ancient runes. To be honest, we had forgotten how to read and write with the runes, so we had no definite idea as to what it said.
As soon as he had finished writing the last verse, Premonition snapped out of his trance. “Ah . . . you two are in luck! I foresaw the defeat of Luxa. It takes place hundreds of thousands of years in the future, but at least it happens, doesn’t it? And to make sure this happens, I have written a prophecy about her defeat based on what I’ve seen.”
“Excellent!” Celestia looked at the paper. “Is this it? She began to read,
“The Mare of Light will be defeated by three
Pegasus, unicorn, and earth pony
To another land they must quest
With the items of power they will be blessed
And only then will they be able to fight
And defeat the Mare of Light.”
“Yes,” Premonition said.
“Does it have to rhyme like that?” Luna asked.
“No, it doesn’t,” the unicorn replied. “I just wrote it as a rhyme so ponies will be able to remember it with greater ease. And now, I should enchant the parchment.” He recited a spell about the paper flying onto the faces of the heroes. When Premonition’s incantation was finished, the black lines on the parchment began to glow white. A second later, the glow died down.
“What did that do?” Celestia inquired, presumably curious about the nature of the spell. “I know the spell will make the paper fly in the heroes’ faces, but how will that help?”
“Ah, but it’s more complex than you think!” Crystal Premonition said. “I have enchanted the parchment so that when the time comes and Luxa is released,” — everypony shuddered — “the parchment will reveal the identities of the heroes by flying onto their faces. However, that must be activated by somepony reading the prophecy out loud.”
“I see,” Celestia said. “What are you going to do with the paper? It can’t be preserved for all those years unless you magically seal it.”
“Which is why I’ll do just that!” Premonition exclaimed. He levitated the prophecy onto the stack of papers. “I’ve written a history of your family, and the prophecy shall be the last page, disguised as a regular illustration.”
Luna leafed through the pages. “Why are you writing it like you’re far in the future?”
“I saw it,” Premonition said. “You see, in addition to seeing the future, I can use my magic to travel through time!”
“Why didn’t you just do that to defeat Luxa yourself?” Celestia asked. “Or travelled back and somehow stopped her from going mad?”
“Alas, when I time travel, I can only observe, not act.” That was very similar to how we were! Had we somehow managed to use time travelling magic in our sleep? “And it happens spontaneously. Sometimes I can do it, sometimes I can’t. But please don’t worry, Your Highnesses. Rest assured, Luxa will be defeated.”
That was right. There was a prophecy that Luxa would be defeated soon after her return. We had nothing to worry about. That dream gave us more hope than any perfect escape plan could have . . .
But what would happen if the memory was distorted by the influence of alcohol? Or worse, an illusion created by Luxa? We knew well how she could dangle hope in one’s face . . .
And how quickly she could take it away.
You can see a difference between Selena’s and Sparky’s narration, right? (besides the more formal language and royal we)
Yes, this chapter is short. Those Peach intermissions in Paper Mario weren’t too long, either.
Join us next time for Chapter (part in this fic) 1: Major Trouble in Everfree Forest!