//------------------------------// // Luna // Story: Heavenly Sphere // by Seer //------------------------------// “Are you sure that’s all of them, Twilight?”  “Yes! I can’t see anymore!”  “And does that mean there’s no more to be seen?”  And the filly found she didn’t have an answer.  "And how long, exactly, is ‘all day’?" Asked Twilight, and the guard gave her a quizzical look. "My lady?" "Well, and I hate to be a bother, but do you mean all of the working day, and that she'll be available later on? Or truly all day? It's just that it's quite important that I see her as soon as possible." "Apologies Miss Sparkle," she replied, "The princess instructed that she be undisturbed for the whole duration of the meeting. Between you, me and the furniture, the last time this happened she was indisposed until past midnight." Twilight slumped. It was just her luck. She'd come across a genuine mystery that she needed to discuss with the princess and the nobles chose that day to demand more tax relief. It was a little after three now, and as much as she could wile away hours in the royal library she didn't really fancy waiting around until past midnight. There was no point going back to the telescope at this time of day, and no one had come to Canterlot with her.  This left precious few options, save for heading back to Ponyville only to make the trip to Canterlot again tomorrow. "Twilight Sparkle?" came a slightly surprised voice from down the hall. Twilight cocked her head to find Princess Luna staring at her. "Oh, Princess Luna!" Twilight exclaimed awkwardly, "It's great to see you again!" While Twilight was certainly not unhappy to see the princess, she had not had much contact with her since they freed her from the Nightmare. She was a very austere sort of mare.  No matter how cliched a description it was, Twilight thought their relative heavenly bodies were a very appropriate way of considering the differences between the royal sisters. Celestia was warm and bright, she made you feel safe.  But Luna was more distant, more elusive. "We see you are waiting for our sister?" she pointed out. Neither expression nor voice gave any hints as to how Luna felt about that fact. "Yes, no such luck though!" Twilight laughed, though it was somewhat put on, "I see you managed to escape this meeting!" "Yes. The nobles do not tend to petition us with any of their concerns, and defer immediately to our sister. At a certain point one must just accept one's own limited use it would seem." Twilight cringed, only considering her faux pas long after it could be taken back, "Not that we mind too much being spared their interminable whinging. What were you planning to discuss with our sister, if you don't mind our asking?" "Oh!" Twilight chirped, grateful to move on with the conversation, "Well it's something I discovered with a new spell I've been working on." "The spell you presented at the University yesterday, I presume? 'Twas a truly fascinating enchantment, we felt fortunate indeed to see your demonstration." "You were in the audience?" "Indeed. Duty forces my sister and We to act the statesmares and keep Equestria running. Our sister took to it as a swan to water, but we always felt more at home pondering the higher mysteries of our world. We don't get much time for such things, but always endeavour to keep ourselves up to date with the more exciting developments in academia." Twilight stared, mouth agape, at Luna, who returned the look with her unbroken stoicism. Twilight had no idea Luna shared her interests so much. Then again, she'd never really checked. She knew so little about the lunar princess, and felt no small measure of guilt about it. "Well, we shall take no more of thy time Twilight Sparkle, we hope our sister is able to aid you further in your studies," she gave Twilight a small, polite nod before starting down the hallway. "Princess Luna!" Twilight called out after a moment's hesitation, "Would you like to take a look at the spell yourself? I mean if you don't mind?" And, for the first time since her first day back in Ponyville, Twilight saw Luna smile. The moon princess' chambers were surprising in how similar they were to Celestia's. Twilight felt somewhat silly, but she couldn't help expecting something much more 'nocturnal'. There were differences, of course. The colour scheme was a little darker and Luna was clearly a much bigger fan of incense than her sister, given how misty the room was.  But, by and large, it was the same in many more ways than it was distinct. The princess had ushered Twilight to a couple of cushions and was preparing the two of them some tea. Twilight wondered for a second, watching Luna mirror the way her sister brewed it, just how significant the sharing of tea had been a thousand years ago. She guessed quite a lot more than it was now. "So, you say you have discovered something with your new spell?" Luna prompted, not looking up from the tea preparation. "Oh! Yes, well I-" "Allow us to guess," the princess interjected, "The first thing you did was take your spell and use cast it upon something no one else could analyse?" Twilight burned red. Though she knew there was no need to feel embarrassed, her lack of familiarity with Luna made this seem much more like an exam to pass than a discussion. However, when Luna looked up Twilight was surprised to see a decidedly teasing smirk on her face. "You are much like ourself, Twilight Sparkle. We were also never one for treading the road more travelled," she laughed, pouring Twilight a cup of tea, "Though if you have indeed discovered something totally new, we fail to see how We or our sister could be of much help." "To be honest, I was more interested in getting the princess' opinion on how I've adapted it." "Hmm, 'tis bold to begin changing your spell before you have even published your initial research Twilight Sparkle. Save yourself something for the follow up paper at least." "Oh there'll be time for all that," Twilight replied with a wave of her hoof. She turned on her cushion and fetched a scroll from her saddlebags, "Until this happened, I hadn't realised one glaring flaw in my work." She spread the parchment out on the table, and both mares levitated their cups out of the way absentmindedly. Luna peered at Twilight's calculations. She had a rather austere look. Though Twilight expected she was appraising the work no less critically than Celestia would, she hadn't mastered the art of hiding it as well as her sister.  The sun princess would be critiquing you as she disarmed you with naught more than a smile. Luna, on the other hand, was much more blunt. It was quite refreshing, in a sense. This way, Twilight knew unequivocally where she stood. "Astral projection?" Luna asked, her voice betraying nothing of what she thought of this. "Of a sort, yes," Twilight began, "My spell can make conclusions from existing literature, very effectively. But it can only do a one-to-one comparison. Though its pool of knowledge is considerable, greater than any living scholar, it cannot intuit. And if it lacks the words to say what it has found, then we're stuck." "Go on," Luna prompted after a curt sip of her tea. Her manner was not unkind, and not simpering with praise. As with her gaze before, it was simply honest. "So, when the spell starts to exhaust its capability but you still are unable to reliably analyse a material, what to do?" Twilight posited, then pointed to the crucial part of her work, "You put yourself there. Instead of magically analysing the picture in your eye, you put yourself in that picture and allow yourself to examine your subject. To intuit as the spell cannot." "No you don't." Luna said simply, bringing Twilight's pitch to an abrupt close. That was decidedly different to Celestia.  "...I'm sorry princess I don't think I understand," "Twilight, what is it you found with your spell that prompted you to formulate this?" the princess asked patiently. "Well... is that relevant?" Twilight asked, and Luna’s manner seemed to soften ever so slightly. "In your lecture, you brought up the idea of analysing geological phenomena, but we can see mountains and plateaus already. You mentioned bacteria, but these can be seen with the microscopes developed in Our absence. Projecting yourself closer is hardly going to help here, is it?" "Well, I think that-" "The burden is on you to convince Us that your spell is worthwhile. The way We see it, you have found something that the spell can pick up, but you cannot see. It superseded your ability to pick out information in your vision, are We correct?" "Yes," Twilight breathed, dumbstruck. "So, We ask you again. What were you looking at that prompted you to develop this further?" "I..." she hesitated, feeling as if she were admitting something terrible.  She recalled conversations with Celestia as a foal. Cheeks puffed, face red, furious with herself for not knowing the right answer. She recalled the princess’s praise, ever so measured, always tempting her to find more.  She remembered a night under the night sky, fumbling over a starmap, struggling for a reply.  But when Twilight looked at Luna, she saw nothing mixed in with that calm, collected defence. The baiting of breath after a stunning intellectual lunge in their incorporeal fencing match. Twilight. steeled herself.  This was a conversation between scholars. Nothing more.  "I was looking at the heavens, princess." "...That’s what I feared." Luna muttered, and the room felt like it had dropped several degrees. Luna’s expression had been abandoned in favour of one so utterly, incomprehensibly tired, that Twilight suddenly became acutely, intimately aware of how old the being sat across from her was. It made her deeply uncomfortable.  That had not been the result Twilight had been hoping for. "The heavens. There is a new observatory in the University," she pressed on, forcing herself to sound normal in the hope the conversation could return to it’s comparatively simple, if intellectually slightly perilous, previous tone, "The study of your heavens is fledgling at best, princess, I thought that this may provide some much needed illumination." "They are not my heavens, Twilight," Luna said with a despondent shake of her head. Twilight couldn't help but notice the sudden dropping of her royal 'we', "Your spell works on sight, yes? So what were you looking at? Specifically." "I don't know princess. You were right, the spell saw something I couldn't. I just saw a normal part of the void." "Hmm," Luna replied, relaxing very slightly at this news. She took a long sip of her tea, eyes off to the side in thought. After a few seconds one ear flicked, as something demonstrably occurred to her. "Your spell, it produced words about your findings, doesn't it?" "Yes," Twilight admitted, feeling her stomach start to turn. "So what did it say about this 'normal part of the void'." "Nothing... at first." Twilight replied, cringing. "At first?" Luna asked, eyes narrowed. Twilight relented with a sigh, feeling like her research was about to reach a swift, unjust conclusion. Her horn lit up, and she pulled out the parchment from the night in the observatory and passed it to Luna. The princess stared at it, not visibly reacting for quite a while. "Twilight, I must ask you not to pursue this," Luna finally announced, and though Twilight had been expecting it, her shoulders still slumped. "Why?" she asked, and cursed her voice for coming out more as a whine. A childish, petulant, spoiled sound, reminiscent of nights in the fields outside Canterlot, with a child-sized telescope, of frustration at a sun princess’s endless, interminable stoicism. It was unbecoming of a scholar of her stature and she hated how naturally it came to her.  "I believe you may be about to put yourself in harm's way,” Luna explained.  "I have already looked at this... whatever it is, Princess. It clearly cannot hurt me by looking at it again." "I am not talking about staring into space and casting your spells Twilight. I am talking about this!" Luna retorted, gesturing to the formulation of Twilight's new spell. The one that could allow her to see whatever this mystery was. The one that could allow her to see what was hiding between spaces. She couldn't let it go. "I would simulate myself within an image in my mind! That can hardly be dangerous" she exclaimed. "Do you think me a fool Twilight Sparkle?" Luna suddenly snapped, and Twilight immediately bit her tongue, "You think I cannot see this obvious teleportation equation here? You think I cannot see the mind-dissociation spells at play? I told you before, this is astral projection, not simulation!" "Of a sort, yes," Twilight insisted, but she knew she’d been found out, and was unsurprised to find herself provoking Luna's ire once again. "No, not ‘of a sort’. You can try to dance around the issue as much as you want. You aren't simulating anything. You are directly transporting your consciousness to whatever this object is! That is astral projection, plain and simple. I will admit it's genius, to meld teleportation with the art of leaving one's body. The mass reduction alone-”  “Precisely!” Twilight interjected, “I reduce the mass of the teleportation payload by a factor of trillions, instead of transporting my body, I transport my mind. I could reach what I’ve found with-”  “I will admit it’s genius,” Luna repeated, cutting Twilight off, “But, to throw your mind out...there? What happens when you're up there? What if you find something you didn't expect?" "It’s harmless!" Twilight bit back. It was so unlike her to get like this, with a princess no less. But she had to make Luna understand, she had to see what she’d found.  "If I find something I somehow cannot deal with, then I end the spell and return to my body instantly! Your aetherial essence can’t be hurt, can it?” she continued, “It’s made of the same stuff as light, for goodness sake. What could hurt light? They're your heavens, I would have thought you would have wanted to know more about them!" "THEY ARE NOT MY HEAVENS!" Luna shouted harshly, and Twilight fell back in shock. However, when the princess opened the eyes she'd scrunched up in rage, and saw Twilight cowering in shock, she immediately softened. "Twilight Sparkle... I apologise, I shouldn't get angry. Least of all at you." She reached a hoof out, which Twilight grabbed and pulled herself back onto her cushion. "Princess Luna, what do you mean they aren't your heavens?" she asked, eager to steer the conversation back to more academic, less impassioned waters. "What is my domain, Twilight? What am I the princess of" Luna asked, weariness evident in her voice, as if the term itself was bitter.  "You are the princess of the night?" Twilight offered. "Not technically. I don't correct ponies when they call me the Night Princess, since it's not especially incorrect, but it's an overextension," she explained, and Twilight could tell it was a speech she was tired of giving, " I am the princess of the moon, Twilight, the night is just part and parcel of that." "But..." Twilight began, and realised with horror that she had no idea how to broach the topic she aimed to bring up. "Yes, the nightmare would talk about her beautiful night,” Luna replied, making Twilight realise she couldn’t have been the first to offer that rebuttal, “And she did have a small point. I do control how the night sky looks. But it’s all about painting with magic. I can control how many stars one can see when you look up, but that doesn’t change whether the stars are there or not. The stars themselves are way out of my control, Twilight." Luna explained, and it suddenly made a lot more sense. "But then, why wouldn't you want to know more about what's out there? If the stars are something you can’t control, don’t you want to find out more about them?" Twilight asked feebly, genuinely not being able to understand someone so evidently intelligent not wanting to pursue new knowledge as far as she could. "Remember with whom you speak," she replied with a bitter chuckle, "There is not one pony living or dead who has ever been closer to the heavens than I, and the time I spent there spanned generations. I know well enough." "Are you saying you might know what I found?" Twilight asked, unable to fight back the spark of excitement that blossomed in spite of the morose subject matter. "Twilight Sparkle, if you believe nothing else I tell you then believe this. I have absolutely no idea what you found out in the void, but I would wager it is utterly beyond the limits of our imagination... or our nightmares. When I was up on the moon, Twilight, I at first wanted to busy myself with stargazing. I used to love doing it when I was on Equestria, and now I was closer than ever! It was the single, sole silver lining I could see in my exile." "What was it like?" Twilight breathed. She had always loved stargazing herself. "Unimaginable," Luna replied, awe persistent beneath the bitterness and unease, "Up there, where there are no lights from the city, no atmosphere to distort the images, you see it all as it was meant to be seen. The whole of the heavens, the greatest masterwork of creation spread out before me. I am not ashamed to say I wept." "So..." Twilight began, nervous at the prospect of vocalising her thoughts, "Don't you want to know more about it all? This could help?" "I busied myself with stargazing for years, Twilight" Luna carried on, unburdened by Twilight's question, "And can you guess what happened?" "No." "Nothing. I would sit on the moon and gaze at the sun, at Equus itself. Even a being like myself was stunned by their sheer size and power. I calculated the speed once that I was moving at. To think, my subtle magics down on Equus could throw around a sphere like this at speeds such as that. It made me feel more like a god than I ever had before. And you know, Twilight, the funny thing is… I don't feel at all like a god anymore." "Oh princess Luna-" "I need no consolation Twilight Sparkle, though your intention is appreciated," Luna immediately cut Twilight off, and the unicorn saw it was true. This was not the tone of a mare deep in defeatist insecurity. She was making mere statements of cold fact. "I looked up at those heavens for a thousand years, Twilight, and not one thing about them changed. Points of light didn't move once. In a millennia. The life-forces of millions of good-hearted ponies were created and extinguished and heavens didn't even blink once.  “Celestia and I have existed for countless ages and we will exist for countless more. And when the time finally comes for us to return to the firmament, as it surely will, then I might see those heavens have moved as much as the breadth of an eyelash, if I am lucky. Ponies look to myself and my sister as paragons of constancy, and 'tis a poor joke. Celestia and I are nothing, and nothings that haven't had the decency to admit we are nothing." "But... if you are... and we..." Twilight stuttered. If the ageless, immortal princesses were so easily dismissed as nothing at all, the thought couldn’t be escaped…  What did that make Twilight? "I know the feelings you are having, Twilight." Luna said, "But please don’t think on it. ‘Tis all you who are vibrant, full of life, burning with urgency and importance. Celestia and I are the exact same as you all, only we arrogantly distance ourselves with our feeble, borrowed eternity, made of naught but paper and twine. We are all fleeting, it’s only our subjects who have had the decency to admit it.”  “I… but… I just… I don’t understand,” Twilight said, cursing the whine that had come back into her voice, “Doesn’t all that just make you want to study it more?”  “When I was up on the moon, staring out for years, I started to have nightmares,” Luna replied, “I am the undisputed master of the dream realm, Twilight Sparkle. I do not have nightmares very often. I fell into sullen hatred, betrayed the one I love more than anything. I lived the torture of seeing through the nightmare's eyes as it laid waste to all I love and hold dear, and yet the dream realm didn't turn against me once. But up there… I dreamt of things that terrified me." "What did you dream of?" Asked Twilight, her voice barely above a whisper. "It's like before, Twilight. I dreamt of nothing. Countless millions of miles of nothing. I dreamt of every life on Equus below, our little planet and sun and moon merely a speck, caught in the lazy beams of light from suns that dwarf that of my sister. Something up there made me scared to go to sleep, Twilight." "You think... there's something out there?" "Hahaha!" Luna startled Twilight with her sudden peals of laughter, "Gods no. I would have slept happily if I'd known there was something tangible in that void, Twilight. The thought there was a mind to be met, a challenge to be faced, no matter how horrifying, could have only been a comfort. When I say 'something up there' Twilight, I don't refer to one thing, I more refer to a concept. The whole symphony of it, not one instrument.  “What gave me nightmares was my own realisation that everything out there is, and will always be, utterly beyond the realms of our understanding and comprehension. It was the specific knowledge that I wouldn't be able to overcome anything out there, because to it I was nothing more than an amoeba in the face of god. A real god.  "But, eventually, I realised something, and I stopped having nightmares soon after. The heavens are a cold, uncaring place, Twilight. But Equus isn't. All of us, from myself to a mayfly, are all nothing in the face of the eternal void. We die and nothing save for the others specks on our speck will notice. And in no time at all, barely even a millionth of one single blink for the void, our speck will die outright.  “Down here, though, we are important to one another, and that is the most beautiful thing there is. To live and love and have one another in this incomprehensibly massive oblivion is real magic. I have to ask, Twilight…is that not good enough for you?" "Luna," Twilight began, and jumped a little when she realised she'd dropped the title. She'd never even done that with Celestia. The princess didn't mind however, and gestured for her to continue, "I’m sorry… I just… I don't agree with you." It might have been the first time in her whole life, she’d ever been able to tell an alicorn that she thought they were wrong.  "I know you don't Twilight," Luna said with a gentle smile, "I wouldn't expect your resolve to be shaken by one single conversation. To think otherwise would be no less than a slight against you." "The void is massive, this we know. But we don't know what's out there and we never will unless we try,” Twilight said, because she really, truly believed it.  "And I'm sure you and your peers will, Twilight. I am certain that you will uncover things in creation more astounding than a frightened old mare like me could ever dream of. Your mind is strong, but it is young. This is a good thing, you burn with the kind of passion and ambition that drags our species forward. But I have lived thousands of your lifespan. To be up there nearly broke my mind in two. Throwing your mind into that void, after this discovery that can only be described by terms like 'corpse' and 'no escape' is folly. I implore you not to do it, Twilight. Not as a sovereign, but as your friend. I fear what you might find. I fear how many pieces you may come back in... I fear you may not come back at all." "But if no one tries, we'll never know. It's just astral projection, it's harmless" Twilight urged frustratedly. She just had to make Luna understand.  "It is harmless here, but up there? You're not copying your mind, you are throwing it out there into the void. I remain resolute that there is nothing out there of malice Twilight. But there's nothing out there of good, either. Such untapped, hellish majesty as I fear is in the void, it would kill you for no reason at all, with no thought or choice because it's not life. Such primaeval constructs that would send us insane the second we laid eyes on them for their utter contravention of all we know. Do not pretend you think you would be safe simply because it's not your physical form out there Twilight Sparkle. I know you are more intelligent than that." "What if what I find revolutionises our world? What if it can help everyone?" Twilight pleaded.  What if I never know what it is? How am I supposed to just live with that? I have to know, she didn’t say.  "I would be relieved to find this was the case, Twilight. More likely though, I worry what you would find would reveal to you all the secrets you seek. And if that happened, then I pray for your own sake that whatever you found killed you." The train chugged along, its rhythms threatening to lull Twilight into a slumber. She peered out of the window, trying to see into the gloom to make out the passing fields and forests and hamlets. But with the light on in the carriage, aside from the bright, full moon, all she could see was her own reflection, staring pensively back at her.  She had gotten the last train home, in the end. That time that she originally didn’t want to spend in the library became some very necessary decompression, and by the time she was done there was only one train left headed to Ponyville. She could see from the moon that it was way past midnight now.  Maybe Celestia was out of that meeting by now.  Luna had offered Twilight more tea, and she had accepted, but the tone had taken a dramatic downturn after that. It’s difficult to have someone tell you that they think your death could be a favourable outcome to any situation and not have it sully the mood at least somewhat.  But as Twilight had stood to leave, once the veneer of personable, academic chat had run its course, Luna had pulled Twilight back, just for a second.  “I know that you still intend to go through with this Twilight. As I said, I wouldn’t expect a single conversation to sway you. But please, at least wait until both myself and my sister can talk to you. Grant an old mare that much.”  Twilight had smiled, and nodded, and of course agreed to Luna’s request. That was just what she did, wasn’t it? The right thing.  The one night recently she’d done the wrong thing, when she was in the observatory with Rarity, when she kept her spell going, no matter how much it was terrifying her friend… that could have ended up being the seed of the greatest discovery of her life.  Something truly new up there.  How often did one come across something like that?  The shrill whistle of the train’s brakes began to ring out, and Twilight could feel them slowing down.  “We just need to come to a stop to let a passing train through. Please everyone sit back and relax, we should be up and running again in a few minutes,” called out the conductor’s voice over the tannoy system.  Twilight sighed. It was already late, after all. Any additional time to her journey was far from welcome.  She hadn’t said the right things… that had been the issue.  When arguing one’s point, especially in an academic setting, one shouldn’t back down in the face of a more exuberant opponent. And that is precisely what Twilight had done. Because she understood Luna’s trepidation, she couldn’t imagine what one thousand years on the moon would do to someone.  And yet…  It wasn’t so easy for Twilight to roll over and accept the cosmos as something to fear. She had to know… she’d always have to know. It was in her blood, a part of her as much as her horn was. She thought back to the other time she hadn’t done the right thing. To a night in a field, so long ago, finally snapping, finally demanding answers instead of allowing herself to be gently led and guided to them.  It had taught her one of her most valuable lessons.  Every time she listened to herself, and pushed for knowledge, she found something remarkable.  And Luna wanted her to give that up.  She looked at the parchment from her and Rarity’s night in the observatory once again, and picked out the different words.  ‘Corpse’, ‘Cadaver’, ‘Remains’, ‘Eternity’, ‘No escape’, ‘Impossible’, ‘Death’.  She knew how it sounded. God knows she did, but…  She had promised Luna that she’d wait. Not even that she wouldn’t do it, just that she’d wait until the two sisters had a chance to speak to her at the same time.  And yet…  She looked out of the window, still being unable to see anything in the unbroken blackness, save for her own reflection staring back at her.  But that was the thing, she was looking at so many things right now. Twilight cast her spell, and linked it to the condensation on the windows. At once, words like ‘Trees’, ‘Hamlet’, ‘Grass’, ‘Pastures’ began to be written on the window. All the things she was looking at, without really seeing.  Without allowing herself the time to think, Twilight cast the new part of her spell.  In an instant, she was somewhere else.  She could still feel the fabric of the train seat on her body, still feel herself breathing. But she wasn’t in her body, all the same. Twilight’s incorporeal form was out in the wilderness, unaffected by the rain that blew in strong winds all around her. Because of course she wasn’t affected, how could she be? Her body was safe in the train, but her mind?  She had been thrown into the middle of the hamlet. A turn revealed the train was miles away, across a flat expanse of fields. In an instant, she could see everything that the black mirror of her window had obscured from her. The houses were right in front of her face, she could look down and count the individual blades of grass in the nearby fields, every single leaf on the nearby trees.  With a thought, she broke the spell and allowed herself to return to the carriage. She came to, awaking in her physical body like the breaking of a trance. Back in the bright lights and sheltered cover of the train carriage. Far from the hamlet, miles away.  Twilight chewed her lip nervously, looking back to the parchment again. She’d made a promise to Luna…  She looked down the carriage, confirming that there was no one else in there but her. And then she leapt up onto the seat and huddled near the window, covering her muzzle with her forehooves in an attempt to reduce the glare and see what was out there.  It worked well enough, and Twilight was able to see the night sky. And like she so often did, Twilight found herself looking into the spaces between stars.  “Okay everyone, the train has passed and we’re about to start moving again.”  The train juddered into life and Twilight found her standing position had become too precarious. So she sat back down in her seat, and continued to stare at the window the rest of the ride home.