//------------------------------// // Of Invasive Recollections // Story: Of Time Before The Stars // by JinxTJL //------------------------------// It was odd. Odd being in her sister's dream, of course. What else would it mean? Luna trot briskly through semi-familiar scenes of same-y greens and browns of trees on all sides stretching out to seeming infinity. An unworn and grown-over path under her hooves, and her wide eyes searching idly out for discrepancies and oddities in the bright, light-dappled woods. Nothing so far, but she'd keep looking. She'd never been in somepony else's dream, before. She'd experienced places like an opulent unicorn castle and the lofty sky-city of Cumulanum, and she'd seen through the eyes of Grand Imperator Hurricane, but she was finding it more and more relevant to start making distinctions. Those places she'd been in had been empty and dull, despite their relative scenic grandeur. All still images lacking moving parts: captured for her by the voice in her head. And, as like, experiencing Hurricane's view had been less of an experience and more of a memory shoved rudely into her brain. This was certainly different. And so far, she was still trying to figure out exactly how. In concept, certainly, but there remained the possibility of more beyond the novelty. She'd be a good Champion, and try to learn as much as she could while she was here. As far, there hadn't been any noticeable oddities, or anything so odd to make the entire situation feel odd, but there was some kind of strange feeling in her breast. Something in the air felt off. A kind of... anticipation, like the dream around her was almost... quivering? She was sure it was just nerves. It hadn't taken her much psyching to walk through the odd portal in the odd-marked door- this was why she'd come to dream here, after all. It was just a simple push on her own hinds, and then she was stumbling nervously through the waiting opening in door-space. It had been surprisingly smooth. There wasn't any jerk, or disconnect: she had just... stepped through, and then she was standing again in her home. Nothing noticeably different in the woods to speak of, despite, again, that off feeling. There was also the panic of turning around to find a stark lack of door behind her, but that was a problem for later. Luna slowed to a halt at an especially uninteresting tree, and took a moment to peer around it to see if she could recognize any of the surroundings. Green. Trees. Shrubbery. For having lived in the forest all her life, she had a surprising lack of grip when it came to finding her way anywhere... Other than the well-tread paths she usually walked to find her way to the few places she normally went, she knew shockingly little of the woods. If she'd not made it a natural habit to keep landmarks in mind or eye, she'd probably end up lost more often than not. It wasn't all that disconcerting. If there was any real danger to getting lost in the woods, then there was no way she ever would've survived adolescence. Wandering had apparently been her fillyhood passion, to the constant and extreme panic of her entire family. So she'd been told, at least. It was honestly really disappointing that she didn't remember causing so much distress, because it sounded so funny. Oh well. There were always future pranks. The tree and its absolutely similar surroundings continued to be entirely unfamiliar but for concept, so Luna shrugged, and turned directly away from the tree. Her back to a relative point: should she go left, right, or forward? Which way called to her? She put a hoof to her chin, and tapped it there a few times. Her eyes flicked from one direction to the next and then back and then forth; there had to be some tell as to where she needed to go... Uhm... Ah... Oh...? Screw it. Luna turned to the right on a whim, and began to trudge in what she hoped was the direction of an epiphany. Losing the door as a reference point had been... damaging, and then there was the painful fact that she... didn't really know where she was even going, added to the harmful circumstances of trying to find her way through a vast, mazelike forest: all culminating in the horrible realization that she... Was lost. Luna was completely lost, and she didn't know how to get found. So she'd just started walking. And... here she was. What was she looking for? She had arrived to what was assuredly was her sister's dream on the pot she'd crashed, but she hadn't really thought much farther ahead than that. She'd just... assumed whatever relevant happenings she was looking for would be closer. Maybe they had been. Maybe she'd just gone in the wrong direction, and whatever she was here to see had been somewhere behind her. Luna stopped, hoof on an overgrown root, as a full-body shiver ran up her spine. She shook it off with a chill as it settled on her withers, and looked forward again in determination. Just keep walking. Persevere. If she just believed she'd get there, she would. Luna's hoof crept off the root, but then it shuddered to a stop mid-air. Her mouth, halfway to a sigh, stopped in a slight gape, and she could feel her ears perking to sudden attention. Exert her will... and her realm would bend. Luna's slight frown broke out into a curl of a smile, and she put her hoof down on the other side of the root. She had to believe she'd get there. What did she do when she wanted a tree? She imagined it. What did she do when she wanted a door? She imagined it. What did she do when she wanted to travel dreams? She imagined herself traveling them. She believed that she could. Everything was so great in dreams! Luna took a deep, confident breath through her easy smile, and closed her eyes. She put her second blind hoof on top of the root, and began to imagine her goal. Her goal. What was her goal? What was she looking for? Her sister? No... The rock. Yes, she was looking for the rock. She was looking for where she'd crashed. She needed to know what had happened there. Luna let a deep breath out, and brought her hoof to the other side of the root. Two over, and she moved forward as her first hindleg came to rest next. She had to imagine herself there. The rock. She was there. Snapped branches... Oppressive canopy... Another breath, another step, and her last hoof on the root. It wasn't enough; she wasn't feeling anything... There had to be something else... something more to remember... Something powerful to lock into her mind to draw her there. Falling so fast- but she'd seen the rock. So many branches on the way down, but she'd gotten her eyes open at the last drip. Had a solitary moment of still peace, and it had all burned like a brand into her mind. She'd been so focused on the rock, but there'd been something else. A creek. A stream running across an open clearing. Not just screaming wind in her ears, but faintly... behind it... Bubbling. Luna breathed out steadily from her mouth, and slowly, a comfortable warmth blossomed and spread through her chest. Her hoof wobbled on its perch, then fell forward in one quick motion that carried her into another soft step. Bubbling. She could hear it... Her skin prickled, the warmth fell away, and Luna... frowned. Her ear flicked to noise, and she raised her head: letting her mouth gape faintly to let a little air flow over her tongue and fill her mouth. Had it just become colder? Her eyes drifted open, yet it remained dark. Luna swiveled her head around; her expression morphing into confusion as she took a cautious step forward. She'd been in a brightly lit- albeit shadowed- leafy corridor a moment ago, and now she seemed to be in... Well, she could vaguely tell it was a clearing, and she could hear that soft babbling of a brook she'd been trying to imagine. She was assuming she was where she'd wanted to go, but... it had become dark for whatever reason. Between her travel from one place to another, the sun had seemingly given way to the moon, and the lackingly lurid light had instead fallen. It... was possible? But it didn't seem all that likely. Sure, the light could shift in the single span of a quiet moment, but for it to happen in the exact time that she'd had her eyes closed? And- and for her to not notice until exactly now, when she happened to open them? Luna took another step into the clearing, peering into the gloom as she angled herself toward the sound of the stream. Trotting into the dark sightlessly as she searched blindly for markings, while her mind jumped conclusions. She must've... It must've... The light might've... ... Nevermind. She didn't understand, and making guesses wasn't going to help anything. Best just to accept it until it became an interest. Something suddenly cold splashed at her hoof, and Luna looked down in surprise. She brought her hoof back up as she retreated a step, then bent down towards the stream she'd unknowingly reached. She'd misspoken earlier: it wasn't just dark, It was impenetrably dark. She honestly couldn't see more than a hoof in front of her, and if it wasn't for the large, leaf-ringed opening in the canopy above her, she wouldn't have even been able to tell she was in a clearing at all. For as much good it did her. The sky may have been brightly and beautifully shadowed in pastel inks, but the scant light that shone from above didn't seem to penetrate below. It was like a tangible darkness had just... settled there. If she thought much harder about it, she was sure she'd be able to swim in it. She felt her way half-blindly upstream; keeping one hoof skimming and dipping into the water to guide her. The surprisingly cold water helped to clear her cluttered mind, and the soft rapids were a decent enough focus. Something was wrong. The woods were never this dark, even in the darkest, most moonless dark. It was nearly as though the gloom was pressing itself like a veil over her eyes. It was insistent, no matter how much she tried to force herself to adjust with blinks. It was becoming an interest. Was it a quirk of experiencing somepony else's dream, or was it specific to her sister's? She'd never been in a dream like this, so perhaps... She had a few guesses. Just one sensible one, really. If... she were to assume and adhere to the principle that- as was proven by her standing there- memories and dreams were, in essence, at least linked- if not the same outright thing- then perhaps... It might've had something to do with perception? If this dream she stood in was really playing out as her sister's memory, then deduction dictated that any noticeable shifts in the environment were likely due to how they were remembered. Her sister must be remembering her relatively current moments as sightless and dark. Thus, the world was dark. It wasn't perfect, and Luna was even less sure of it as the theory had congealed, but there remained a certain consistency. But also some inconsistencies... If her sister were to blink, then would the world just blink out? Would sound wobble and distort every time she spoke to the deaf tune of her voice? It couldn't have all been based on what her sister remembered. And... maybe it was just her getting off track and thinking too much, but had she been walking for longer than she should've been able to? Her hoof scraped up against something hard jutting into the stream, and Luna stopped. She let her hoof run up the slanted, noticeably smooth surface until it was level with the rest of her, then she took another step forward. How convenient- though just as likely owed to her realizing that the stretching of the walk may have been her own doing. She enjoyed gnawing on mind teasers, though. She could hardly be faulted for- Her hoof bumped into something. Luna frowned, cocked her head in confusion, and leaned down to inspect whatever she'd run into. She'd only barely touched it, but it didn't feel like a rock... Felt kind of soft... She peered through the heady dark, and caught a glimpse of something... blue? That wasn't... Her time inspecting the strange, blue object was cut extremely short as first came the far-off sound of something trampling heavily through greenery, followed as it grew louder by the addition of a panting voice. Luna looked up in quick shock to the source of the noise as somepony suddenly burst into what sounded like the opposite side of the clearing. She nearly took a step back, maybe to run, but stopped in the infancy of tracks as the mystery pony stumbled forward into the stream; a loud splash followed instantly by a surprised gasp. She knew that voice, especially in that kind of shocked surprise. She'd teased enough of those gasps out in their long time together, though she'd hardly committed it to memory over the sound of her own laughter. Her sister was here. It was a bit of a war with herself whether she should try to feel her way over to her. It sounded like she was just standing there in the stream, panting and gasping for her apparent life: so nothing too important. She must've been running or something with how worn out she sounded: Celestia being the total critic of any physical activity she was. There was the off feeling in her breast again. Right near her heart: reaching up and niggling at the base of her ear. 'Don't move,' it said. So she didn't. Wasn't like her sister'd be able to see her anyway. She assumed. Surprisingly, she was almost immediately rewarded for her patience. In a slow motion: the brighter light ran across the clearing from its farthest end, revealing the obviously- yet undeniably strangely- ragged form of her sister staring down at her hooves in the middle of a charming little stream. Pink hair fallen in loose strands around the hidden mask of her face, and heaving coat browned and mussed. Luna blinked and seethed as the light fell across her face; leaning away with a grimace and trying to find the least lit location to angle her head in. Why did the light have to be so damned light? Her ear perked to a whisper, and she turned curious eyes back to the trodden form of her sister. Her sister, who was staring directly at her: the sheer despair on her face visible even from the distance. Mouth gaping and shuddering open; head shaking side to side almost too softly to notice. Something low tinged in her heart, and Luna blinked as she felt the organ leap into her throat. She hadn't counted on Celestia being able to see her, and really she'd completely assumed that she wouldn't. This was a dream Luna was having that was connected to the lingering dream of her sister's memory: why would she be able to see her? But... the way she was... Why... why was Celestia staring at her as though... as though...? "Luna!" It was so sudden. Her sister had barely screamed her name, and Luna had barely stepped back in shock, and Celestia had barely even begun a desperately clumsy run through the stream before- Before- she heard it. Squick. Luna had very little self-control. She had almost no conscience to speak of as long as nopony knew that a literal conscience spoke in her mind. When Luna felt a desire to do something, as long as she hadn't previously sworn not to, there was a fair chance she would do it with little thought. So upon hearing the very odd squish under her hoof, she followed her first instinct, and looked down. She was met with the sight of her own body. She was met with blood. Every single nerve in her body seemed to fire all at once, as she first screamed in the highest pitch she'd ever hit, before almost immediately biting down hard on her lip. Her hooves began a frenzied dance to get her far from the dispiriting, disheartening, terrifying sight of her own body lying disgustingly prone at her hooves, but her wings also took initiative and snapped open at nearly the same time. She curled up into the air in a high moment of sheer panic, and once her hooves stopped pawing at the open air, they naturally found a place clutched over her mouth. Because stopping herself from screaming again seemed the most immediate goal as she could definitely feel something rising in her throat. May have been vomit- but who cared?! Her sister was getting closer. Splashing and gasping and beginning to cry as her hooves barely crested the water's surface, but Luna could barely even bring herself to stop... staring, even for a drip. She'd been standing... all that time... No- stop..! She shut her eyes. Closed her ears. Tried, prayed, failed to stop herself from remembering that first, awful moment of realization. Her hooves had been so close to... herself. Just on each side of her... her head- Luna's next increasingly labored breath came out as a whimper, and she bit her lip harder; putting as much force to keeping her eyes closed as she could. She'd not made a habit out of staring at herself- she'd never been so vain- but there were obvious times that she'd caught glimpses. She knew what she looked like. Had pictures of herself in mind at odd times. Her own figure was, more than it wasn't, familiar. And now she'd never stop seeing it. Caught in her reflection. Burned into the backs of her eyes. The blue... Her mane... So much red. So much red. The screaming. The piles and arranged lines of bodies. The mud run slick in the absence of rain. Metal brandished and brought to weeping song over and over. A proud leader bound and beaten until white was black underneath and each and every feather was fletched from tip to end in blood. It was nearly funny, in a way that made her want to curl up and cry and never see the world again, that something so innocuous in conception could bring her right back around to the trauma again. Would she ever stop seeing it? Luna's eyes slowly drifted open, and she could surely feel something wet on her cheeks as her sister finally came up to the rock. The large near-circle of a rock that she both hovered just outside of, and also laid... on. Her hooves found the ground as her wings folded, and she sniffed shudderingly as her sister, panic-stricken and crying more than her greyed cheeks could handle, stared down in absolute horror at the- the pool of blood on the... rock. The pool of her own blood that they'd both stepped in, now. She was the lucky one. She could touch it- feel it all she liked, but at least it wouldn't stain. Luna eyed the slowly expanding line of red that so obviously spouted from her own still head laying on the flat of the rock, and she could just... feel the wear. An awful sick feeling crawling on the lining of her throat, and her jaw curling in response. It was a dream. She was sure that was the only thing that kept her standing, as she stood stoically next to her own cooling, bleeding body. Her own hooves that she could see in duplicate at the corner of her vision: splayed out and folded under her... scratched and reddish coat. Her wing that itched and ached the more she stared: bent the wrong way and trailing to the ground. Her fur that felt hot where she couldn't touch: run across with myriad shallow and deep cuts wherever she looked. Both gifts of the many branches she'd hit on the way down- and she could remember that pain in her wing... It was like looking at her reflection, but all so horribly wrong. A bent, twisted image shorn out of reality by one, awful ripple. This was what had happened: what they hadn't wanted to tell her. Not they in her head, nor Celestia to her side: who she was increasingly sure couldn't see her as she was standing stuck in a teary stare in the stream just hoof-lengths away. She'd crashed. She'd fallen. She'd bled. And yet, she still stood. She'd recovered. The blood... was growing. Running and dribbling across the rock; some of it already leaking into the stream the rock dipped into, but most of it just slowly staining her fur. Blue turning purple from red. Luna's stare was broken as the world stopped waiting, and she was forced to stumble aside as her sister unknowingly shouldered past her. A phantom feeling as their fur met that immediately lacked depth, and it was clear to her that, in spirit, she was alone. Luna stood on three unsteady hooves for a moment, before she unblinkingly skittered off to stand away from her own head: turning and focusing her wavering attention on Celestia as she took her own teary turn to stare down at the broken blue wing. Red, messy hoofprints left carelessly on the rock, and her sister's white coat stained with dots and splashes of uncomfortably sharp crimson. Blue... Purple... Red... White... Luna turned away as Celestia walked towards her again, because she could barely stand to look at what she'd wrought. What she'd seen. Twinkling blue. Royal purple. Runny, messy red. No longer did it lack the white. "I get it," she whispered to herself, as the noise of her sister choking back wet sobs filled the quiet clearing. Haltingly: she turned again, and found Celestia laid by her knees to the ground. Hooves shaking and twitching oddly towards... past Luna, as though she couldn't bring herself to even touch. What else to do but watch? It was the duty of the Oracle to witness. Luna took a soft step forwards, and knelt in much the same way her sister was. It took effort- real, forced effort to let herself down into that cold pool of deep crimson, but there she knelt all the same. Her eye, uncooperative and too curious for its own good, flicked to her body before she could stop herself, and she winced. A shiver, even stronger than the ever-present, leapt in a pitter along her spine. What pony could sit so calmly, when they lay in bloodied, broken double at their very side? A stronger pony than her. "Luna?" Her own name, but not for her. Celestia was shaking her downed shoulder, calling her name and leaning in close as though she were simply sleeping. As though the blood were but a convincing prop, and Luna some vain actor. It was the wear, she decided, that weakened her enough to allow the quiet sob. It was her sister sobbing alongside her that turned one into two. Her next breath was sharp, and then she was reaching a hoof out to her poor sister's shoulder. The touch was meaningless- Celestia was a dream and Luna could only fool herself into feeling fur- but it brought slight comfort regardless. To her, and maybe somehow to her sister. Even as Celestia shuffled off through a deepening pool of blood, Luna followed. It was fine for her, since her knees wouldn't take the dye as her sister's were, though the flopping feeling in her stomach still intensified at the oddly distant, cold sensation. She kept her hoof rubbing small circles in her sister's fur, as she watched with growing, painful impassion. Every moment she spent there, the more it all reminded her of things she'd tried to forget. The more it seemed so much less dire, for what little she could compare. And the less it hurt, the colder it made her feel. Yet, for as tired and numb as Luna was becoming, Celestia only became more and more frantic. Reaching out in barely controlled motion to touch... not her forehead, and stroking up along an ear as she whimpered keenly. A long, red mark painted in an uneven line. Luna only felt colder and ever colder. Celestia moved, then, as she finished a long, painful bout of shivering and weeping that Luna could only lean in and whisper soft, deaf condolences for; placing her nearly entirely red hoof on a downed blue shoulder, and pulling her onto her front. Scarlet red left in a hoofmark on blue fur. Something snapped in the motion, and Luna looked away. She had to. Shut her eyes, and listened softly to the sound of her sister's broken voice rising into a pitched whine. One of the joints on her back pinched, and she knew why. The dulled feeling of opening her eyes to the side yielded interesting sight. The woods around them had oddly blurred, and were strangely unfocused to her eyes, even as she tried to squint. Greens rubbed together like dry smears, and the trees seemed to almost expand out in odd puffs of reaching, false color. And it only grew worse in each moment. Celestia was becoming blind to the world in her growing panic. Luna's indifferent inspection of the dream around her was left hanging as her hoof was left oddly hanging, for her sister suddenly leant down. Her eye followed as her hoof returned to false fur, and both found Celestia hunched over her other body. Ear pressed intently to where it seemed her mouth would be, and Luna could see, with her head cocked to the side, as her pupils shrank and shrank in every slow moment. The cold was breaking. Celestia was leaning back out on uneven hooves, and coughing so hard in ragged breaths that she was nearly doubling over. Luna's hoof hovered away, and it began to shake without a support. Something was falling; her stomach twisting in and in on itself as Celestia began to openly sob with renewed intensity and jerkily convulse. Fresh waves of tears falling and dripping onto blue fur as she just... sat. Sat, with such obvious forced care to every jittering, yet delicate motion: stroking red across Luna's dull mane, and nothing else. "What-" She choked back a heavy swallow as her voice, cracked and worn, came out too weak for words. "What are you doing?" She leaned in on Celestia's side to peer closer at her face, and there was nothing in those closed eyes and tight lines but regret and remorse. Nothing to each bare motion but intense refuse and a growing sense of pre-emptive remembrance. Her head was shaking- but she couldn't stop it. Her mouth was gaping, but she couldn't speak. "Luna... oh Luna..." Celestia wasn't doing anything but whispering her name, but that wasn't right. She shouldn't have been just sitting. She shouldn't be crying, and mourning. She was supposed to be running to get help. "Help me..." she whispered, and the choked words were a surprise to her own lips. Something was wrong. Luna felt sick. She looked down in slow trepidation at her downed form laying spread on the rock, and she could see in clear view how pale her own face was staring back at her. How still she was. She looked at her sister- faster- but then she looked at herself again. Tried in vain to control her breathing, but it was speeding rapidly and her heart was pounding and she couldn't stop herself from imagining it crashing to a sudden halt. What was happening? Why wasn't Celestia doing anything?! She should- She should have been saving her! Helping her! She should have- could have been jumping up- bandaging- healing- saving- She blinked, and by chance she was looking at her sister again. She latched onto the chance: greedily clasping her hooves to greyed, immobile cheeks and tilting her head and twisting her body until she was staring, with white, toneless noise in her ears, directly into those closed, leaking lines. "How did you save me?" Her voice was ragged and haggard and it was all she could do to stop each word from splintering into broken whimpers. Her hooves, too tired and too cold from too long spent watching: shook and swayed and just barely kept even on her sister's face, and the tenuous grip might've only owed because she could impact her dream sister as much as she could a boulder. There was no response. Celestia did not move from her suffering vigil, and the longer she looked, the more she saw of her sister's face that spoke finality. No burgeoning ideas. No last-ditch hopes kept to breast. No plan, in absolute defiance of what every sign shown should have spoken, to get up and act. Luna was dying. Celestia was letting her die. Because she didn't know what to do. Unsteadily, Luna leaned away on shaking hooves, and all she could do then was stare. Breathe, and stare. At her sister, clutching a- her limp blue hoof to her chest, who was as lost as she'd been in the forest. The forest that was dribbling down around them. Like paints run to water: leaking together and mixing into indistinguishable slurries of unrecognizable madness. Sense and cognizance were draining from the world around them, and there was no way to tell which of them it was coming from. Celestia didn't- hadn't saved her. When she'd come here, and seen her body, and seen Celestia, there had only been one very obvious conclusion. She'd woken up at her sister's side, her parents didn't seem to know what happened, so the only outcome was that her sister must have saved her. But she didn't. Her sister had found her, seen her, and finally, after so much soft struggle, resolved to resign. To forestall what was coldly, with every inch of blood that spilled, becoming obviously foolish attempts at rescue: to instead spend these last few moments... In peace. Sitting in love and in labor, with her sister, as she died. And suddenly Luna understood. Then, a crack rang out, and the world snapped to focus. Two sets of eyes- one magenta: wide with tears, and one cyan: dimmed of color- swept in synchronous motion to the source. One pony, devastated and diminished through trial, gasped in shock; while the other, left nearly insensate from sights never meant to be seen, merely set her jaw, and swallowed heavily. A pony stood, garbed in cloak, at the far end of the clearing. They were an immediately mysterious sort, and not just for their attire. The cloak they wore was entirely and dully black, loose, and seemed intently designed to hide every inch of their appearance; not that she cared. No, for the intents, the fact that Luna couldn't see beyond the black rim of shadow to their face didn't matter at all. Because it was obvious who they were. They were the one who'd saved her. Yet, it was odd. She could hear, and feel, the way her sister stiffened and began to fear. The unsteady rise of her breathing, and the tiniest little sounds of uncertain shuffling on wet stone. Her sister was afraid. But she had to act. All in a moment: Luna turned, and threw her hooves around the still body of her staring sister. Two circled around her sides, and her head resting on her neck- yet it felt cold. Her sister was not there, and Luna was not hugging her. But she could imagine the feel. She'd held and been held so often; the soft down of fur pressing back was... nearly there. She could fill in the gaps, and believe anyway that... she was warm. As she tightened her grip around midriff, and gasped small breaths into an ear that could not hear her, all she could focus on was the way the body pressed against hers shook. "I don't blame you," she whispered, and the sound of her own cracking voice was a sore reminder of how long they'd both been there. As much as it really did hurt, Luna knew just as well that whatever pain she was feeling was lucky to be even half of her sister's. She'd come in living: knowing that she'd stand up again at the end of it all. Celestia hadn't. She shook her head against the hard surface that she wished so desperately to be soft, and tried not to let the noise of her sister's panting, shuddering breaths deter her. "I know it wasn't your fault- none of it was... And I know that- that you would have done anything to save me." She closed her eyes, and her next breath came out as a choked gasp as the weight of what she was saying began to hit her. Burying her face into cold fur: It was all she could do to keep herself from tilting out of apathy and into desperation. She bit her lip until it burned, and forced herself to continue through the sting. "I know that... you would do anything to save me... and... I understand how you've been acting now..." The closeness. The compliments. The consideration, and the care. The love. "I love you too, sister... And... I'm sorry I haven't been showing it." Her voice cracked. It was all so pointless; it wasn't her sister. The things she was saying may as well have just been for herself. Whimpering uselessly into the uncaring void. But maybe it was. Maybe... this embarrassing little confession coming closer and closer to bordering on teary... really was just for herself. Maybe she'd never have the strength to tell her sister any of this- and how could she ever begin to explain it- but here, and now? With the perfect simile of her sister created by her very own mind? A stand-in as close to the real thing as she could ever possibly get? She was okay pouring her heart out. Tears fell yet again down her cheeks, but still she raised her head to look her sister in the eyes. "Save me," she whispered, and it was all she could trust herself to say without completely falling apart. There was so much hopelessness in those eyes so wide. So sharply rimmed with the intense, warring desire to run. It was all over her face, and Luna was sure: Celestia had never been so terrified in her life. Such a sleepy life they lived. But it was there, too. "Help..." It was nearly a squeak, and certainly less of a word than a raw expression of voiced emotion. The pain. The fear. The despair. But there it was. Again: Luna threw her hooves around her shaking sister, but even there she could feel it. Even to imagine that racing heart, and those unceasing tremors that came in horrible lilting waves of receding trembles; she could barely believe it was all just in her head, anymore. Because with every bracing clench she took against every awful, full-body shiver, her sister's body grew warmer and warmer. The shakes did not abate, and her sister's mewls only grew deeper, but even still... She was being so brave. "Help! Please! You- you have to help us!" Her sister's scream was louder in her ears than anything she'd ever thought possible, and there had never been anything so raw in its desperation. Her voice as it rose tore and warbled, but even still, it came out all the same. So brave. "It's my little sister, she's hurt! Please, you have to do something!" Every plea was rising higher than the last. Fevered pitch of discordant emotion, drawn and played straight into the strongest voice she was sure Celestia could handle. It tore at Luna, that all she could do was hug her fake sister tight as she screamed herself hoarse for her safety. Beseeching dire aid from the first stranger either of them had met in their entire lives, when she could still feel the tight, tense cords of her sister's every terrified twitch. Please- Please! Help her! I don't care what you do to me, just..." Celestia was breaking down, and Luna wasn't sure if she'd ever stopped crying in the first place. It was certain that, even if it wouldn't stain, her sister's shoulder was becoming damp. She nearly whispered unheard apologies for it. "She needs to be okay... She just has to be... She can't... She can't..." She could barely even stand to be here, anymore. She- she wanted to go see her sister. Her real sister. She wanted a hug. She wanted a long walk in the woods. She wanted to discuss tired literature. She wanted to cuddle. She wanted to be held, and feel real fur, and be assured that everything was going to be okay. For no longer did she wish to witness. Luna missed Celestia.