So it came, as ever, the writhing maw of oblivion, the wrought and reviled gates of my mind lay open and bare to all who wish to join me. A dark perspective I feared many might surmise, but wasn't that the point? In the dark is where I slumber. I have since my arrival, and I bare no illusion it will change any time soon. That could all be laid aside for the time being. I had a goal, an invitation to one who might ironically bring the forever stalled dawn.
I am still determining how long I waited. I had no means to measure such things. When something did change, I was left shaking in place. From the dark, a form took shape. She bled through the veil of my mind like a ghost. Princess Luna had arrived. To say I was relieved would be an understatement. I could hardly sit still. This could very well be the feather that tipped the scale in our favor.
"Good night, Stargazer."
Luna stood, eyes landing anywhere but on myself. She sounded a lot less anxious than she looked. The bags under her eyes were odd, considering where we were. Though, my lack of understanding of magic in general, or the greater depths it held, left me silent. I offered a smile and a wave. It seemed this time. Luna was more substantial, more solid.
"Your Majesty. You have no idea how happy I am to see you."
Luna all but jumped out of her skin. She had to withhold something, I had no idea what words danced across her tongue, but it was clearly something for her thoughts alone. "Nay, young thestral. I am not worth such sentiment."
My lips, or the ethereal thought that claimed to be my lips, puckered as I flinched at her reaction. I could only imagine just how rare such thoughts were. A passenger in her own body, run by a man mare in a quest for a world that only ushered in a slow death for all.
"My words stand, Princess. No matter what has come or may still, you have given your subjects, not those of Nightmare. Your subjects, something that we have so desperately sought."
I pointed at Luna, who recoiled in surprise. She looked me in the eye for the first time since her arrival. She looked at me through unshed tears. I did not buckle. I could not afford to.
"And what praytell is that?" Luna asked.
"Hope. A chance to fix everything. I didn't know what it would entail or if we would succeed, but you hold the key to your cage, Princess. We seek the Elements of Harmony, but we need to find out where Nightmare has hidden them. We hoped you might have a clue or even a simple guess to their whereabouts."
"The Elements!" Luna shrunk away.
This time, I did, in fact, know why. The elements were what had locked her away so long ago. One piece of history Nightmare left untouched. She wanted the world to know what her sister did and what it cost her upon the Nightmare's return.
"Sombra thinks they may be the only way to end this night and return the sun."
I had no interest in playing games. Sombra, Sabre, even Blueblood. They would play this far too close to the chest. They would hide bits and pretend things were less or more than they were. I couldn't do that. There were countless different ways this dream could end. For instance, there was the chance this Luna was just a ploy. Maybe Luna refuses to help, perhaps she doesn't know anything of use, or maybe she does. Treating Luna as the enemy, though, could only worsen the odds. She, the real Luna, had suffered enough, whether this was her or not, more so than all but perhaps Celestia herself. She deserved to be treated the way Thorax would, with compassion. Or, maybe, as earnestly and free as Bright. I'm sure they'd both have plenty to say.
They were not here, however, so all I could do was try. "I think he's right. I also think it might be the only way to save you."
Luna looked taken aback. Her frown had deepened. "You would trust such a shade? You would trust he who plunged so many into his own twisted darkness?"
It was Luna's turn to point at me. I did not flinch away. Since we'd met, Sombra had given bits and pieces of his past and his banishment. It was clear he was not a pillar of unsodden virtue. However, he was also self-aware enough to know where he went wrong. It was clear that things had changed both in his and the Empire's banishment. Sombra was prickly, short-tempered, and arrogant. There are things no one would or could deny, not even Sombra himself. He was also a beacon that his subjects flocked to. A leader and a mage capable of facing down nearly any foe. I'm sure there were realities where Sombra bested Nightmare in a battle to the death. I was also sure there was plenty of the reverse. This, however, was not one of them, not if I could help it.
"As you have led your life, he led his own. He, much like myself, was plagued with visions in his sleep. He, even now, travels with my friends and me. He is risking the Empire he has protected from Nightmare Moon to give us a fighting chance. Perhaps in the past, he was exactly as you say. Tonight, however, he is not."
"You are so certain?"
Luna's sails faltered, and her glare tapered away to anxiety once more.
"I am."
Luna took a deep breath and slumped. "Very well."
"So, you will help us?" I asked.
Luna nodded. "Tis the only way of that, Sombra and I agree. The fact is, Nightmare has never once hidden the Elements. She has never needed to."
I blinked, head-tiled ears splayed. "Huh?"
"For without the worthy heirs to such powers, the elements are naught but a fairytale, rocks of which are no more magical than any other. They reside in the Everfree, as they have since my sister placed them there long ago."
Luna hadn't noticed, but she'd started to cry. The shadows had also begun to wane. Time was up; If it was Luna's doing or my own, I had no idea. The shadows danced; with them, Luna and I were cast into solitude. My eyes snapped open. I bolted upright, and my head met something hard and unyielding.
"For the love of." I jolted back, hoof covering my throbbing forehead.
"Star!"
"Y-yes, Sabre? I asked through a hiss. My hoof tenderly messaged my forehead.
"That hurt."
Sabre was rubbing his own head, though, without all the whining.
"Sorry."
There was a brief silence, with me still tenderly rubbing my head. I was always told that the one who headbutts takes less damage than the one headbutted. If that were true, Sabre hides it far better than I could imagine.
"Star."
I sighed and sat back upright. "Ye ?"
"Did you dream?"
I nodded. "Yep."
"And?"
"I'd rather gather the others first. No sense in telling the story six separate times, right?" I asked with a wistful chuckle.
Sabre shrugged and left the tent. It then occurred to me. I must have been flailing like mad if Sabre needed to enter the tent. Even if true, it didn't really matter. There was plenty to do and a whole lot of walking to be done.
Sabre stood staring into the fire. Spade was poking said fire with a stick, and Thorax was in a daze. I guessed he was talking to the Hive. He tended to do that privately, but since he let us browse the deeper confines of biological telepathy, he seemed less wary about doing it in public. So, with a throbbing head and wistful sigh, I departed the nice warm tent and returned to the outcropping we'd set up for the night.
Blue and Sombra were missing; judging by the candlelight in Bright's tent, he was most likely writing or drawing something. It was a fire hazard, but he insisted. The air was cold but not sharply so. I took a deep lungful of the chilly breeze and let the night sky dance across the horizon. It was soothing. It made me forget the cold and the encroaching battle for the fate of Equestria. For just a few seconds, there was not but the lights that dazzled and delighted above. For just a moment, there was serenity.
"You're up."
I was pulled from my revelry by the arrival of our oh-so-chipper King. Oh yes, the scowl on his face was almost flat, a good moon indeed for his Majesty. I offered a shrug.
"It seems so, though where for art our cartographer? I bare news from the Princess of The Stars. We make haste for the dreary depths of The Everfree."
"What are you doing?" Spade asked. The camp, for the most part, was giving me odd looks. A bunch of party poopers, the lot of them.
"Being dramatic, it would seem."
"And as if brought upon the winter winds, lo and behold the Noble of the Atlas, of the mighty maps he doth weave was found."
I said with a dramatic wave and a broad toothy grin. It seemed Blue had decided to join us after all. Just in time too. I needed a "morning" pick-me-up after that nasty bump on my head. Blue snorted and took a spot by the fire. Sombra's scowl had returned in full. That was good. I feared for his health.
"Did you dream?" Sombra asked.
"I did, and we have some good news and some mind-numbing news. So, which do you want first?" I asked.
"Oh, the good news, if you don't mind. My Queen would appreciate a bit of fortune. The is in Canterlot are not good, not good at all."
"Well then, that's not foreboding or anything. So, how many stones are you gonna need to order? I have a really generous sale in bulk."
Thorax grumbled and halfheartedly pushed Spade, who hadn't even looked up from the fire. Sabre offered Spade a curt nod. To which Spade smirked.
"You guys are awful," Thorax said.
"At being awful, yes, I would agree," Spade countered.
It was then that Sombra cleared his throat and returned everyone's attention to the bigger picture. That and Sombra's spook them a bit. I know he disturbs me.
"Star."
Sombra waved in my direction. I nodded and cleared my throat.
"First things first. I can confirm the location of the elements, sort of."
Sort of?" Blue asked.
"They are, in fact, in The Everfree. In fact, they aren't hidden at all, apparently. So, that makes things a little easier, right?"
"That fully depends on what else you were told," Sabre said.
"Well, they're apparently petrified or something and only power up when the worthy users are present or something. It makes about as much sense as anything lately has. Though, right?"
I offered a nudge to Sombra, who swatted my leg away. The King looks lost in thought. It seemed something I said struck a chord of some kind.
"Well then, what's left is retrieving these stones and delivering them to the necessary users. Simple enough, right?" Bright, who'd been listening from his tent, said. He seemed excessively giddy as he jotted down everything we'd told until now.
"Would it not be prudent to know who possesses whatever criteria the Elements require first? If we go in blind, we could lose our chance completely."
Blue had a point. The broader question was to who do we seek and what decides who those rightful users are. At some point, those were Celestia and Luna. Those two weren't up for the job, so we would need more details to condense our search.
"That will not be necessary."
Sombra had rejoined us in the land of the living. His words were final. He demanded no quarter and gave none. The words left me edging away from the King.
"Beg pardon?" Blue met Sombra's cool gaze with a glare to freeze the snow. We had the makings of a war of attrition on the horizon. A battle to watch at a very safe distance. "Who praytell is that?"
"I believe the chosen have already been selected. Would this daft crusade of ours not have been started if whomever other than Luna had been staging such an affair from the beginning?"
"That's the point, is it not? We don't know who has set this path before us. We can only say that among those that have been giving dream vision, you and Luna are not the architect of this mission of ours."
"Was there not a third, if memory recalls? I have been told of three voices, not just the two. The third must then, by default, be the beginning of this story. Or, perhaps even above theirs is another to whom we owe this endeavors creation."
Sombra and blue were nearly muzzle to muzzle as they leered at one another. The rest of our fellowship had gathered next to Bright's tent and were happy to let them sort this nonsense themselves. We'll need an outlet for the undo, likely balding stress levels placed upon us.
"So, by all means, name this third if you are certain of their intentions."
"To whom walks unseen beside Stargazer is less important than the clear path they have guided us to. A path and order my dreams have helped shape. Whi e I do not converse with the fallen Princess, I see other things, pieces to a puzzle left unfinished."
"Wait, you've had another vision?" I said. I had leaned so far forward I'd nearly fallen on my face. Finally, something new.
"I don't recall saying I'd ever stopped. Mine are simply less theatric when compared to your own," Sombra confirmed.
"Oh gosh, why didn't you say so," I said. I blew the somber King a raspberry, to which he scoffed. He did that a lot, actually. If I had to guess, he used it to dissuade himself from having fun. Now that I think about it, Blue did that much, as did Sabre.
"So then, Sombra, what did your dreams foretell?" Sabre asked.
Sabre's forehooves ground into the snow-covered dirt. If Sombra saw or cared, he didn't let it show. The rest of us, however, was all too happy to give Sombra the limelight. I c certainly could go five minutes without someone asking me to think about the existential dread that is my reality.
"Even before you arrived at my gates. I had shared several visions with Star, as you know. Those, however, were few. My greater insight was into six lights that burned away the dark. They shed light where none was found. Six lights I'd seen before. The Elements, as you've no doubt assumed. At first, I thought these visions were nightmares of my past. I did not connect them to the other visions at all, not until you six came traipsing into my throne room. Five of you, as loathsome as I am to admit it, seemed drenched in the same light as in my dreams. You became a reminder of what my Empire lost."
"Huh, actually, now that you say that—"
"Five? You claimed six lights, but only five are present among us? If we are to believe what you are claiming at all."
I smacked my lips. Sabre had rudely interrupted me, but that aside, he got to my point far quicker. Even if it did cost him his manners. Sombra looked away from the group. His jaw clenched as he deliberated his response. The ground beneath Sabre had been indented at least a full inch past the snow. The whole sum of the camp seemed drought with an eerie chill, one not brought with the wind or frost.
"Only five," Sombra said.
The pressure only grew as the fire crackled, and everyone looked between one another in an unsure delineation. If Sombra was being honest, which at this point seemed likely. Then he implied that five of the ponies among us were viable candidates for the Elements of Harmony. A set of artifacts the Princesses used long ago. It was quite a bold claim that was both heartening and breathtaking. It was a bit disconcerting, at the very least.
"Which ones? And out of us, who is what?" Spade asked.
The gravedigger was used to the awkward and tense atmosphere, unlike most. He watched families come to terms with reality and their own grief. He saw many at their lowest. Sombra and Sabre may have seen violence and even death, but was that the same? Did it hold the same weight?
"Is it not obvious?" Sombra whispered. The King seemed perplexed by the response, the looks on everyone's faces, the uncertainty of everything. I chanced a glance around the campfire. Sombra said the five were bathed in light.
Then I started to laugh. I l laughed so hard I had to catch myself from falling on my back. The others looked at me like I'd lost my mind. To be fair, maybe I had, but I laughed all the harder for it.
It may have been my imagination, but for a split second, I thought I saw the slightest smirk on Sombra's lips as everyone watched me. When I managed a second glance, the smile was gone, if it had ever been there.
"Star, uh, you okay?" Bright asked.
I waved a hoof weakly in his direction as I tried to calm my laughing fit.
"Has the stress finally shattered the poor stallion's wavering sanity?" Blue asked.
"No."
Thorax turned to Sombra, head cocked. "How can you be sure?"
"Because he's seen it."
Thorax redoubled his confusion. "Seen what?"
"Th-the, light. The lights, Sombra said, he saw lights."
I wheezed as my laughter subsided.
"You have?" Sabre asked.
"He has."
Sabre gave Sombra a healthy dose of side-eye.
I nodded all the same. "I have."