//------------------------------// // Chapter 8 // Story: Moonlit Stranding // by DarthBall //------------------------------// I felt Luna’s gaze pierce through her sister and into me. The football field’s distance between us and the harsh blades of moonlight blinding us didn’t matter—I could still see her turquoise eyes boring into me like a disapproving mother. Beads of sweat crawled down my eyebrows, and I resisted the urge to wilt into the crest behind Celestia’s neck for shelter. It felt like an eternity, but Luna’s eyes finally trailed downward toward the roiling clouds beneath us. Her eyes glittered dangerously as a harsh growl escaped her lips. “This…” Luna’s voice trailed off, lost for words at what she was seeing. Luna’s horn glowed. Celestia fired, and I flinched from the sudden spellcraft as the bolt of energy raced toward Luna. To Celestia’s disappointment and my despondence, the spell was swatted away like an annoying gnat as Luna rolled her eyes. There was no counterattack, with Luna seemingly content to continue channeling mana into whatever spell she was casting. The bright indigo glow of her horn intensified, and wisps of magic began to travel downwards like slithering snakes toward the clouds below. A few agonizing seconds passed. My jaw hung open in shock. One spell. One spell was all it took to squish down the plain of endless glass into a ball the size of my fist. The culmination of anger and torment from dozens of people was reduced to a foggy snow globe. Her gaze hardened even further at the sight of her new paperweight, twisting it around in her magic like a cat swatting at a ball of yarn before turning back to us. “What mockery is this, Sister? Art thou so craven that thou would defile the tapestry of our glorious night with this devilry?” Within the blink of an eye, she became close. Uncomfortably so—crossing half a football field just to berate and gaslight us. Smoldering heat emanated from Celestia’s glowing horn as she tensed at the sudden movement, causing beads of sweat to drip off my brows. “How can you be so blind, Luna?” Celestia shook her head in defiance, wings fanning out in an aggressive posture like a strutting peacock. “Do you not see all of this as a consequence of your actions? Or are you so delusional that you must project all of your failings onto me?” “Lies! Thy hatred of us hath poisoned thy mind, sister!” Luna’s booming voice cut her off. She waved one of her forehooves before thrusting it in my direction like a dagger. “And thou corrupted our child with thy folly!” “You’re not fooling me with the act, princess!” I retorted, poking my head around Celestia’s neck to glare at the moon. “We all know what you did to me—what you plan to do! And we’re not going to stand aside and let you get away with it either!” “What lies hath the craven wench told thee, child?” Like flicking a light switch, Luna’s voice changed from the harsh tones of a cold authoritarian despot to the soothing tones of a kindergartner teacher. Seeing my cold gaze leveled at her, she doubled down upon her act. “Canst thou not comprehend the severity of thy situation? We only want what is best for thee!” I bit down on my tongue. Stinging pain and the taste of copper filled my mouth in that brief moment of cowardice—a sudden, unwanted reflex. Witnessing her in person was terrifying in its own right, but nothing made my skin crawl and my heart stop faster than Luna’s sudden mood swings. Serene one moment, wrathful the next. It was something that caused every fiber of my being to scream at me in unison—something born from an experience I couldn’t remember but predated almost all of my other fears, bar none. I closed my eyes in abject shame, waiting to feel the coldness of the frigid open air of the throne room against my skin…but nothing changed. I was still trapped in this nightmare. “Child?” Luna said anxiously. “Please, be not afraid.” I did not look at her. I couldn’t, even if I wanted to. My anxiety had a vice-like grip on my chest, squeezing all of the air in my lungs. My breathing was staggered, and each breath was a pained wheeze that scraped the insides of my throat and lungs. Spite and anger had been my primary fuel source, the counterbalance to the constant pangs of fear that haunted me. Without it, all of my doubts bubbled up to the surface, forcing me into a downward spiral of depression and nihilism. With each strained cough, I felt my resistance waver ever so slightly. “Enough, sister!” Princess Celestia yelled back. “You have caused Daniel enough grief!” “We tire of thy prattle! His panic is of thy doing, so cease, we say! Surrender forthwith, and we may forgive thy transgressions!” I could scarcely think enough to be coherent as I opened my eyes. Luna’s presence loomed over us like a shadow, eclipsing the rays of harsh moonlight as her wings fanned out. She was a bird of prey, waiting to swoop down and dig its cruel talons into the flesh of its victim. Proud. Without remorse. But beyond the imposing dream avatar of the princess, past the pattern of stars that flowed through her mane, I caught sight of the fogged snow globe floating beside her. The storm swirled, fighting with all its might against its bonds. It pushed and shoved against the glass, but some unseen force halted its forward momentum, corralling and fencing it into the center. Desperation lent itself to sudden inspiration, and a brief moment of clarity washed over me as I leaned forward. “Keep her talking. Buy me some time,” I whispered, the coppery taste of blood still in my mouth. I didn’t wait for a response. Instead, I focused inward, my mind’s eye committing every single aspect of the invisible burden on my chest to memory. It was an uphill battle, and I knew I would not be able to tune out the heated quarreling between the sisters, but my fear of falling into Luna’s loving embrace a second time spurred me onward. As soon as I latched onto the vice-like grip which constricted my lungs, I immediately began channeling that exact sensation onto the glass orb in Luna’s grip. “Crush. Crush. Crush,” I began to whisper. “It won’t be any different. They will shun you and your eternal night just as our subjects did before,” Celestia said, garnering the brunt of Luna’s ire. “Silence!” Luna’s voice boomed. “Hath thou no shame? Or hath thou truly forgotten thy sinful act? ’Tis thou who stole the sun from our subjects and defiled our home! Not us!” “I remember a very different chain of events, sister,” Celestia responded venomously. “Choosing to ignore and forget your crimes does not absolve you of them!” “We care not for thy petty lies nor lust for power. Nay, this crown is little more than a burden, one that we shall gladly cast aside for the sake of our child, but thou wouldn’t understand. Thou hath never tended to the needs of a child, nursed them back to health, and cared for them with genuine love and affection. “Thou only cared for appeasing thy vanity, strutting for the fleeting affection of starved peasants and upstart nobles!” I could feel the anger radiating off of Celestia as she bristled, almost breaking my concentration entirely. Her nostrils flared before continuing to speak, “Daniel can’t replace him, Luna! He-” “He is no replacement! Our maternal love for him is genuine, and we will not allow thee to take him from us!” “He is not your property!” Celestia declared. “And no amount of self-delusion will change that!” “And what would thou have us do? Turn him loose to the snow? Or send him back alone to a world that has forgotten him? His family is naught but dust, taken by the ravages of time. There is no future for him there, and he would be slain within a fortnight—if not by his hand, then that of his kind’s indifference.” I stopped. The storm thrashed inside its shrinking cage. Despite its slow compression, it was getting stronger, even warping the bubble as it grew tighter. Looking up, I stared directly into Luna’s turquoise eyes and felt nothing. I wanted to feel something—anything other than fear or self-loathing. But she had stolen another piece of my soul from me. Perhaps she did this on purpose, pushing all of my buttons in a way that would throw me off balance. Or perhaps this was the honest truth. I looked on despondently between Luna and the glass orb, numb to everything except the pain in my chest as I slowly starved myself of oxygen. “That was never your call to make!” Celestia growled. “But his choice never mattered to you! We both know you could have saved him from all of this heartache and reunited him with his family from the start! But no! I was forced to watch powerlessly as you continued this abhorrent farce!” “Thou knoweth not what thou speak of!” Luna hissed, waving one of her forehooves in a grand gesture. “He was delirious and upon the brink of death when we found him! No mortal medicine would have kept him alive from such grievous injuries and illness!” “And after that? When you decided to enslave him as your personal plaything?” Celestia’s barbed words cut deeper into Luna’s thin skin, and the moon goddess's eyes narrowed. “Did you have his best interests in mind then?” The sensation of invisible needles immediately assaulted every pore of my skin. Beneath me, I could feel as that same sensation coursed through Celestia’s skin as she shuddered and clenched her teeth. A massive build-up of ethereal indigo energy formed before Luna in an instant, on a scale far grander than I had ever witnessed. Clouds of dark blue magic coalesced into a singular point like a tornado—one grand enough to make Mother Nature weep with envy and make my storm look like a pitiful late afternoon drizzle by comparison. Celestia lowered her horn, the air hissing as sparks of golden sorcery were willed into existence. Apprehension fluttered away in my stomach—a part of me was screaming at me about Luna and how she was toying with us. My hunch was correct, as Celestia’s spellfire instantly bridged the fifty yards toward the moon tyrant. There was no doubt in my mind that she could have dodged the spell with ease but instead allowed it to connect to hammer home the same point again. A microsecond passed. The spell splashed harmlessly off Luna’s fur. Celestia fired again. Once. Twice. Luna ignored Celestia completely as she continued to channel into the dark blue cloud of magic above her head, building it higher and higher. “Crush! Crush!” I shouted, reaching out with my hand and clenching my fist. Celestia screamed in rage, pouring everything she had into her spells as she continued to fire with reckless abandon. Luna flicked her horn. It was too fast for me to see what had happened. One moment, I was clinging onto Celestia for dear life. The next, blue threads of magic tugged at my arms and legs, suspending me into the air. “Celestia!” I screamed. I could only watch powerlessly as an expanding afterimage of blue sparks crashed into Celestia, causing her to plummet into the starry ocean below. Her screams were cut short by the punctuated sound of splashing water. “There. My unruly sister has been seen to. And now…” The world around me shifted, and I instantly felt the icy chill of Luna’s breath on my face. I began to tug at my bonds in a blind panic. Beyond her expression of utmost fear and desperation, I caught sight of that same hunger in her eyes as in that accursed photo. Just as quickly as it came, Luna blinked it away—a vain attempt to hide behind a mask of empathy. “Now, we must repair the hurt my sister hath caused thee,” Luna said in a depressed tone. She gently touched my shoulder with a wing, gazing at me with a hurtful and concerned expression. “Lest we allow the rot inside thee to fester.” “Stay away from me!” I shouted, shrugging off her wing as I thrashed about wildly. Luna shook her head and made to embrace me with her wings as I tried to lean away. “I said stay back!” “We mean thee no harm, child.” More indigo magic spiraled up onto her horn as she nuzzled her face into the back of my neck. “But thou art unwell, in body and soul, and we must mend thee.” “The only person who’s sick is you!” I cried out. I could scarcely think a coherent thought as I looked upwards, eyes darting around the moonlit sky. “Everything wrong with this fucked up world is your fault, yet you still can’t get it through your thick skull!” “We will do whatever is necessary to protect thee, even from yourself,” Luna whispered hauntingly. “We do not fault thee for being disillusioned by our sister, but we cannot allow you to persist in this folly for a moment more.” The pins and needles in my skin drilled into my muscles as Luna lowered her horn toward my head. I clenched my teeth, and my muscles stretched like putty as I tried to pry my limbs free. My lungs were on fire as if I was drowning underneath the waves below, and the anxiety clamping down on my chest made breathing impossible. I felt like I was going to burst like a zit. “It is time to rest, little one.” The sound of glass shattering reached my ears. A flash of white seared itself into my eyes. BOOM Noise. All-encompassing noise shattered my eardrums, and I almost couldn’t even hear the thoughts inside my head. But even without my sense of hearing, I could still feel. I could feel the sudden increase in blood flow to my extremities, my elevated pulse, and the edgy, twitchy feeling that coincided with an adrenaline rush. “Nay! We will not fail thee! Not again!” Luna bellowed. Her horn was already glowing, ready to cast the same spell she had previously used to contain the storm. One second. Two. Five. The sky exploded. Luna’s grip slackened in an instant. Another flash lightened the already bright sky like a flashbang. BOOM Luna’s horn had acted as an impromptu lightning rod, taking the full force of the impact. The smell of burnt flesh forced its way into my nose, causing me to gag as I slumped forward against my restraints. Not a moment later, charred feathers scattered about into the winds, and my eyes darted around the stormy sky. Dark blue and gray clouds clashed for dominance directly above, blotting out the looming presence of the moon and encasing me in darkness once more. It was impossible to concentrate, not just due to the howling winds and inclement weather but also due to my compromised mental state. Switching from crippling anxiety and fear to ulcer-inducing rage within an instant was taking a toll on me, and I didn’t know how I was still able to think in coherent sentences. But in between the freezing rain pelting down upon me and the uncontrollable body tremors running havoc across my adrenaline-drugged body, I had an epiphany. Why fight against the current? Why not just flow with it instead? Beyond all the self-loathing, I wanted to survive. I wanted to put this all behind me and live a life worth living to spite Luna. I wanted to prove her wrong, that I could be something without her protection. And unlike in the waking world, I had a chance now to make things stick. I had the power to change things for the better. I looked up to the roiling overcast above. My clothes turned sodden from the continuous downpour, sticking to my skin as the feeling of pins and needles slowly began to return in earnest. Luna was undoubtedly going to try to diffuse the situation, and I was vulnerable each second she remained unchecked. “Release me!” I shouted with all of my might into the vast blackness. My voice was instantly lost in the howling wind. The storm clouds drifted overhead, uncaring of my plight. Precious seconds passed. Pins and needles in my skin pricked at me, digging into the tender muscle underneath. My hands clenched and unclenched, and I could feel globs of spittle building in the corners of my mouth. My anger swelled up inside me before I let out a guttural roar, “Release Me!” … Static filled the air. White lightning flashed across the sky- BOOM A thunderclap. I didn’t notice I was in free fall until I blinked the bright spots out of my eyes. I saw the waves below churning like the acid in the pit of my stomach. My life flashed before my eyes as the seas beckoned. “Flight! Fly! Soar! Please!” I cried out in equal parts fear and rageful desperation. Out of the corner of my eye, a bright spot blurred and weaved through the storm. It dived, outrunning the streaks of lightning that danced about underneath the clouds as it raced toward me. A pillar of water shot out from the blackened waves, reaching out. The blur reached me first. I felt a tug toward it from the soppy fabric of my shirt peeling off on my skin. It snatched me from my demise. Air suddenly filled my lungs as flesh and tendons shifted, allowing the wings to stitch themselves to the upper spine. I unfurled my plume of golden wings, feeling an alien sensation of strain upon the aerodynamic taper of my new limbs. A yellow glow shimmered around me, vaporizing the endless torrents of rain on contact as I swooped upward, gaining acceleration. Up and up. I kept my eyes peeled, looking to catch sight of any shapes in the distance. Within the unfurling chaos and intermittent flashes of white, I spotted Luna only a few dozen yards away as I struggled against a sudden violent updraft. She snapped in my direction, eyes wide. Blue sparks fizzled into existence from her horn as she started to cast a spell, and I felt the last shred of my composure shatter like glass. There was no time to contemplate a plan or try to distract her. Following my gut instinct, I lifted my left hand into the sky and brought it down. Provoked, the roiling thunderclouds above answered my call. Screaming, howling winds strong enough to lift houses from their foundations billowed and crashed into Luna, but she stubbornly held firm. Her horn glimmered in ethereal magic, cascading into a font of blinding indigo. A hail of thunderbolts rained down upon her. “Daniel!” Luna’s voice superseded the roar of the storm. Not a single bolt of lightning found its mark—she deftly dodged each strike with the grace of a dove and the speed of a falcon as the booming of thunder drowned out everything else. With wings outstretched, she coasted through the gale-force winds without any hindrance as she barreled toward me. “Cease thy foolishness at once!” I silently retorted with another barrage of lightning. By pure luck, a lance of indigo magic Luna retaliated with grazed past my left ear and shot off into the distance. With a heavy downstroke, followed by a successive bout of powerful wing strokes, I was able to bank right and maintain altitude as three more beams shot wide. The feathers on my golden wings quivered. “We beseech thee! Thou knoweth not of the evil-” The four sharp, golden pinions that launched themselves from my wings were missiles, rocketing toward the alicorn and predicting her flight paths as they closed the gap. All four had found their mark less than a second later, piercing deeply into her haunches and flank, drawing blood. A pained gasp escaped her lips, and a ghost of a smile formed upon mine. My brief moment of satisfaction morphed into a grimace as I watched the razor-like feathers get unceremoniously ejected from her already-closing wounds. Within the blink of an eye, the flesh had knotted itself back together. Within two more, there was no indication that I had landed a single hit; her midnight blue fur looked just as impeccable as it always had. “Does thou see the futility of thine actions now? Or will we need to discipline thee, ungrateful whelp?” A blue shimmer encompassed her form as she spoke. I raced forward in silent fury. Luna let out a cry of rage. I dove upward through a patchwork of clouds, the constant barrage of lightning covering my retreat from Luna’s relentless attacks before retaliating with another fan of razor-sharp feathers. Like before, they tracked her every movement as the makeshift heatseekers homed in until Luna disappeared in a flash of blue- -and reappeared within spitting distance from me. I didn’t even have a moment to respond as a layer of ice caked itself onto my skin—right beneath both my layers of clothes and my personal energy shield. Luna was immediately upon me, wrapping two powerful forelegs and both her wings around my body. My bones began to creak from the pressure, but she held firm, staring at me with a disapproving gaze. One extra ounce of force would shatter me in half like a twig, and both of us knew it. “Our patience grows thin!” Luna chastised, her horn glowing. “Submit!” Frostbite began to crawl up my extremities, and I lost all feeling from my wings, toes, and fingers as the sensation crept up toward my torso. Fatigue began to set in, and my eyes fluttered as everything below my neckline chilled. I lunged my head forward and landed a solid headbutt on her muzzle. “Insolent child!” She barely flinched at my act of defiance. Given my disorientation, it took me a moment to comprehend what she was saying. But by that point, it was already too late. She squeezed tighter, and whatever spell she had cast upon me hastened—my entire body began to numb from the cold. But I wasn’t ready to throw in the towel. A flash of white. A burst of thunder. A shimmering hue of dark blue. Luna’s shields completely nullified the effects of my attack, and each subsequent lightning strike did little to deter her as she continued to freeze me solid. I was out of options and out of time, My eyes grew heavy, and Luna began to whisper sweet nothings into my ears as my vision blurred. It was only when my sight was shrouded in darkness that I remembered it—a spark. Something that I kept forgetting I had, but relying upon to chase away the dark. “Burn.” Frost-bitten skin became flushed with sweat, and numbness was replaced by searing pain as I became a human matchstick. I couldn’t smother the scream that escaped my chapped lips, and neither could Luna as she recoiled away. The surprised expression morphed into shock, and the panicked fluttering of Luna’s wings intensified as a sulfurous odor reached my nostrils. Sparks of flame danced underneath the shield, lapping at the fur on her chest. Luna shrieked. I held my hands to my ears, fighting against the concussive spike of force from her pained scream as it bludgeoned into me like a cannonball. Thankfully, what would have been a lethal blow against a frail, defenseless human registered as little more than a sucker punch to the gut. Painful, but the adrenaline coursing through every vein in my body numbed it enough for me to concentrate. I smiled through the pain. The protective enchantment of this shield spell was worth a princess’s ransom, and I was ready and willing to abuse it to its full potential. Calling forth the storm, I mentally prepared myself as the clouds above rumbled once again. My heart pounded with excitement and fear as a gust of city-rending winds slammed against my back, forcing the air out of my lungs as I shot forward. There were no wild currents for my wings to tame, no need to push against gravity. My wings expanded from my sides as I glided toward the rapidly retreating flicker of light in the distance. The world around me became a blur of unrecognizable shapes and colors as pressure built up in my ears and my chest tightened, but I kept focusing on the retreating figure of the lunar princess in front of me. The fire had already been extinguished, and the crisp flesh was already sloughing off and being replaced by strands knitting together. A moment later, I broke the sound barrier. I greedily drank up the rush of adrenaline and exhilaration flowing through me like a man dying of thirst. In the few memories I could salvage, I had never felt this free or alive. The winds shook and buffeted as I flew, the pressure and heat building around me as the air turned into burning plasma. Luna didn’t have time to react. My punch crunched against the glass-like shimmer of her shield, just a hairbreadth away from her face. There was a split second of confusion on her muzzle before her eyes widened at the sudden gout of flame and the gust of galeforce wind that blasted forth from my closed fist. To my dismay, the flames scattered around her. Her magic defenses were too robust, and that wasn’t even counting for her innate durability. There was no weapon I could conceive that was sharp enough to cut into her hide, let alone drain her shields. “Empower,” I said with conviction, holding out my right hand in front of me. But I didn’t need a weapon to kill her. And Luna soon realized this, too, as she began to silently gasp for air. Her horn flared indigo as she tried to use her expansive repertoire of spells and hexes to counter mine. Despite her best efforts, she couldn’t cast a single one—the sparks clung uselessly to her horn as if a film of invisible saran wrap was coiled around it. Not even sound could pierce the film barrier, which made Luna’s frantic struggle all the more eerie. It had been a split-second decision—her shields had proven to be effective to nearly everything else I threw at her, and she could heal from anything that wasn’t a lethal blow. For this reason, I threw caution to the wind. For this reason, I used her own defenses against her. It was such a simple idea. Luna’s shields were already nigh invulnerable, but there was a threshold, and after everything, she was still a creature of flesh and blood. She still needed to breathe. It was as simple as flicking a switch: one moment, air was allowed to pass through her shield. The next, it wasn’t. Her widened turquoise eyes hyper-focused on me, her face contorted into that of pure, animalistic terror as she continued to hack and wheeze. Luna started hyperventilating uselessly, and a tiny ember of empathy flared up inside me. … I immediately smothered it in its crib before clenching my fist. Running out of oxygen, feeling the air escape my burning lungs while struggling to fill them again—it was all old hat to me. How often did I struggle to breathe after being relentlessly chased or hacking out my lungs after she tried to drown me? How many times did I wonder if each breath would be my last? … Luna blinked, her horn growing brighter with each futile gasp for air. Had she been in her right mind, I have no doubt she would have been able to dispel her shield effortlessly or teleport away. But she wasn’t, and that was all that mattered. Panting and wheezing. Luna’s legs uselessly kicked and dangled beneath her, and her gasps of air became erratic. Slowed. The strain was proving to be too much, even for her. One second. Four. Luna thrashed about wildly, like a hummingbird set ablaze. Someone who had their wits about them would know to try and stop gasping and breathe slowly. But in the heat of the moment, who followed that advice? Pain was pain, and making it stop always came before all else. Luna blinked, struggling to keep her eyes open and afraid to close them. Once. Twice. Three times. My fist remained clenched. Four. Five. Six. The sixth time was different, and so were the seventh and eighth. With each blink, it was as if the sclera of her eyes were becoming… infected by the turquoise of her irises. Nine. Luna’s eyes remained closed. A pregnant silence filled the air. The veins in my hands and arm bulged as I kept my fist clenched shut. Taking a deep breath, I flicked my wrist. Luna’s limbs swayed like wind chimes in a hurricane, her head flopping. More seconds passed, and I felt my heart race with each passing moment. The storm ceased its incessant rumbling. My chest tightened at the slightest twitch. It was impossible to tell if they were the death spasms from muscles rubbery from the lack of oxygen or if she was still alive, despite all odds. There was no clear way to tell—there was too much adrenaline pumping through my veins for me to unclench my fist even if I wanted to. Another twitch. Another mirage. Another after-effect of a gruesome death. A quivering ear. A swaying leg. A twitching wing. My right arm trembled. An eyelid twitched. My wings flapped erratically at my sides. I could only stare in terror when a pair of draconic eyes stared back—vertical black slits in a sea of turquoise bored a hole directly into my soul. No sound accompanied the guttural scream that escaped her gaping maw, which was now filled with rows of razor-sharp, bleached white teeth. Tendrils of shadow oozed from the corners of her eyes, seeping in through the skin-tight cracks in her makeshift prison before engrossing her form completely. “Empower!” I shouted again. All of my chips went into this one bet as I poured every ounce of strength I had into crushing Luna like a soda can. But no matter how much I squeezed, the hideous mass of dark tendrils pushed back threefold. It was like holding back a river with a frail, worn-down dam. My body began to convulse as I struggled with all of my might to keep my fist closed. I could hear my blood rushing in my ears as my back muscles spasmed and twitched, and a dull pressure pressed against the left side of my chest, right above my heart. Before I could begin to truly process any of this, the dam broke. I couldn’t recover fast enough. A lance of indigo light slammed into my shielded chest like a freight train, and everything became a blur—the golden hues of my personal shield mixed with the gray overcast of the sky and the dark black shade of the ocean waves below. Up was down, and down was up. Thunder was ringing in my head. The storm above cried out in abhorrent rage. “Thou art outmatched!” The wind’s howls carried Luna’s voice to my ears. “And we have only begun to tap into our strength!” Immediately, the volume of spellfire increased. I tried to respond in kind, directing the storm to cover my retreat as I tried to maintain distance, but Luna was always two steps ahead. There was no cover, no place to hide from Luna’s attacks as her movements became erratic and impossible to predict. Indigo light illuminated the overcast skies as beams of light speared through the cloud cover. I quickly fortified my location with meter-thick blocks of bedrock, titanium, and anything solid and durable I could conjure up. It soon became a fortress, one that could weather both the storm and Luna’s aggression as long as I maintained my defenses. I then tried to protect myself by increasing the storm’s severity, but she was completely unphased by its all-consuming, thundering blackness. She flew faster than the wind with unparalleled grace and weaved through the endless torrent of lightning and rain in a display that would reduce even the harshest of critics to tears. It was just another mind game—another wrench in the gears to throw me off balance. The simple fact that I could barely track her movements was proof that she was toying with me, and Luna knew she could utterly annihilate me without any effort if she really wanted to. “Our love for thee is unmatched by all, but be not mistaken, child! We will not spare thee the rod! Not when thou hath spurned our kindness for our sister’s treachery!” Luna loudly proclaimed, breaking my concentration. This sudden bout of indecision caused me to freeze up, and the situation soon dissolved into a game of cat and mouse. Between Luna’s spells and my lightning, we kept each other at a distance, probing the defenses of the other while unwilling to commit to a close-range brawl. It was a war of attrition, one that I was bound to lose by default unless I rethought my strategy. By a stroke of pure luck, a single lightning bolt connected. The flash of white crashed into the side of the dark blur in the night, drawing a pained grunt from the alicorn that the storm's winds carried to my ears. Rather than feel excitement, however, I felt another rush of anxiety press down onto my chest and churn my stomach. Did she purposely forgo her shields so I couldn’t pull the same trick twice? …It’s not like she needs it. She can heal faster than I can tag her. How the hell am I supposed to put her down? “A lucky hit, child,” Luna’s voice boomed. “But thou will not land another.” Another spell. Another multi-meter wall of titanium reduced to metal splinters. Another boom of thunder. This repeated for agonizing minutes, with me having to deal with the tedium of micromanaging my fortress's defenses while also living in fear of what Luna was planning next. That fear soon became realized as another wall crumbled. In haste, I conjured another titanium slab in its spot. But it was too late. There was no time to react, breathe, or even blink. The human eye was not designed to catch sight of something that fast, and I could only perceive the spell that had already made its way through my defenses as a blur. It passed through the golden sheen surrounding my body, disappearing as fast as it had come as it splashed against the elbow of my left arm, eating through the black fabric of my hoodie. A moment of silence followed, where everything seemed to stop all at once. The affected flesh soon became red with irritation, making the inside of my mouth dry and sticky just from seeing it. And then the skin began to chafe and flake. The sunburn spread both ways, speeding towards my hand and up my shoulder like cancer and inflaming it with excruciating, scalding heat. I began to scream as the smell of my burning flesh filtered into my sinuses. “We take no pleasure in this, but we must make thou see the consequences of thine actions! Those who live by the sword art slain by it, and we will not have thee follow in our sister’s sinful hoofsteps!” Without my intervention, Luna was able to begin dismantling my stronghold piecemeal. Either out of sheer sadism or as a twisted form of love, she did so as slowly as possible, forcing me to writhe in agony while waiting for her tender loving care. I fumbled mentally, trying to fight through the pain. Another layer of titanium was dragged away, and another pained scream choked down my throat as the burn continued to spread uncontested, traveling up my shoulder and spreading toward my chest and neck. “We impart this lesson upon thee out of love. We do not hold thee in contempt. Nay, we withheld no truth when we vowed to thee before. Of how we would trade our moon and stars to be by thy side forevermore.” An unbidden ghost of a memory came to the forefront of my mind. Smells, tastes, and sounds I couldn’t place. But I could remember the emotional turmoil, and I cross-referenced them with another, more recent memory. In both, I felt like I was a child. In both, I was hiding under a bed. A yell from someone just outside of view. The struggle to keep silent as I held my breath. The desire to turn invisible and numb myself from the fear I felt. I latched onto that desire, squeezing my watery eyes shut and attempting to block out all outside stimuli as I held my breath. With my skin and the muscles beneath it set ablaze, ignoring the pain was impossible, even as I pleaded to my newfound power for alms. Even so, I pressed on, willing for my desire to be made manifest. “This has not changed. After we cleanse the taint from thee, all will be well, and thy happiness will be everlasting. This, we swear!” The last walls of my inner sanctum began to crumble, and moonlight spilled down through the ever-widening cracks onto me. Instinct took hold, and I curled up, my wings acting as a blanket covering my body and shielding my eyes from the light. Panic surmounted anger, and my childlike fear took hold. Silence regened. … “’Tis no time for games, child. We are in a foul mood.” I refused to open my eyes. Doubt lingered on in the form of a heavy quiver in my stomach as I lay completely still, hoping beyond hope that this half-assed idea would work. That I was invisible to her all-seeing eyes. “Art thou not listening? Heed our warning at once!” I fought tooth and nail against the compulsion to flee, which grew stronger with each passing moment. Regardless, I was fucked either way if my plan crumbled; I had placed all of my chips into this bet. “DANIEL! We will not ask again!” Luna thundered. My heart traitorously beat louder as if it was calling out to Luna in surrender. I ignored it. I swallowed the breath I was holding into my stomach and kept my stinging eyes shut. The pain was becoming too unbearable to ignore. Clink-Clop The sound of ironshod hooves on stone echoed through the ruins. She can’t see me. She can’t see me. She can’t see me. I repeated this mantra in my head like a broken record. Again and again. It wasn’t enough to ignore the pain or Luna’s close proximity, but it kept my sanity in check. I felt her gaze sweep over me, but I kept my eyes squeezed shut. She hasn’t seen me. She hasn’t seen me. My stomach heaved. I felt nauseous. Clink-Clop Clink-Clop Clink-Clop Clink-Clop I flinched, feeling the sound waves and vibrations from each hoofstep. Clink-Clop Clink-Clop “Our sister’s devilry cannot hide thee from our sight forever, child. Thou will be found.” Her words hung in the air, punctuated by her metal shoes clicking against the floor as she slowly approached. It was impossible for her superior senses to not pick up the scent of my burnt flesh, and I could almost hear the gears in her head turn as she sniffed the air. Buy time. I needed to buy a few more seconds, always a few more. I was knee-deep in debt that I would never be able to pay off—buying seconds so I could use them to buy a few more. The sound of grinding, squeaking gears filled my headspace as I tried to think of another way out of this mess. But I couldn’t. The cancerous heat spread to my chest, and my heart was on fire. I bit down on my tongue a second time that night, smothering down a scream as the pain flared up. Debilitating pressure forced a scratchy rattle out of my lungs, cleaving through the silence. The air sizzled. Through the haze of pain and terror, I felt something splashing against me but failing to bypass the shield. The scant milliseconds of confusion bled away into fear as an unseen force hoisted me up to my knees before pushing me onto the floor. My vision was clouded by blue spots—spots I couldn’t rub out of my sight as my limbs refused to obey my commands. It wasn’t until I felt Luna’s magic permeate the air again that the strange, viscous substance was brushed away from my eyes. I blinked, unwanted light filtering into my stinging eyes as my doubled vision corrected itself, and the terrifying presence of the lunar alicorn came into view. Luna had changed. That was the first unfiltered thought that sped through my addled mind beyond all else. Luna’s carefully crafted mask of civility had completely crumbled in all aspects, and it showed with her midnight-black fur accentuating her draconic eyes and devilish teeth. She was something straight out of a grim fairy tale, one that crept into children’s bedrooms in the dark of night to steal them away. “Stay away!” I commanded. Silence. The storm was unnervingly quiet and did not rise to the occasion once more to smite the princess. Luna’s horn glowed, and the pressure on my body multiplied, forcing the air out of my lungs in a pained, elongated scream. I had no room to move my straining limbs, and I could feel the bones in my wings creak with each ounce of added pressure. But Luna was heedless to my screaming and sobbing as she slowly approached, her ironshod hooves kicking up globs of blue paint around her all the while. As soon as our eyes met, I felt myself slipping away. “Doth thou understand now? Thine agony is paltry compared to the suffering of those she had so callously abandoned in their time of need. We will never allow thee to follow in her hoofsteps, lest thee become cold-hearted and depraved like she was.” I screamed, my burns aggravated from the cool touch of magic threads as they coiled around me, and I was forced off the paint-stained floor and into a kneeling position in front of Luna. A look of grim dissatisfaction was plastered upon her muzzle once more as she stared, eyeing me with a look a mother would give a petulant child. The dissonance was undeniable now, and I could not reconcile the face of this monster compared to the character that Luna had painstakingly crafted to fool me. I broke eye contact, my head forcibly bowed from the buckling pressure. “We have been haunted by our sister’s machinations for long enough. That we showed her any leniency despite her atrocities was a mistake.” “S- sp-” I groaned out, hardly able to form a syllable, let alone a coherent sentence. The pressure immediately alleviated just enough to suck a desperate mouthful of air back into my lungs. But I couldn’t let sleeping dogs lie, and I couldn’t waste a single pained breath without antagonizing Luna. “Spare me the sanctimonious bullshit, princess, and take a look in a goddamn mirror before calling anyone else a monster.” Luna scowled, her eyes trailing up and down my broken form before they softened. “Thine efforts are wasted upon her. She does not deserve thy Loyalty.” There was power behind that word, power that I couldn’t possibly comprehend, even if I was suddenly cured of all my ailments. A power that only made the pain already wreaking havoc upon my body even worse. Regardless, I was utterly spent, and being held captive with my own shields and Luna’s magic was the only thing preventing me from face-planting onto the paint-stained floor. As I struggled to catch my breath, I noticed that Luna's breathing had become labored. I returned my tired gaze and discovered crocodile tears streaming down her face. “We-” Luna let out a sob “-only wanted to nurture thee. To care for thee and love thee in a world untouched by hatred and where pain is just a horrible memory. But our sister will never allow us to live such an existence. Not when she is still blinded by her anger.” “Y- you-” I wheezed through gritted teeth. “Y- You’re projecting.” Luna shook her head before scraping one of her forehooves onto the floor. “We will not entertain her lies anymore. Like dying embers in a hearth, the evil within thy heart hath already begun to abate, and we will soon have thee back forevermore.” “I-” I noisily breathed. There was a sharp and sour tang on my tastebuds, and I could feel bile rising to the back of my throat. I closed my eyes and breathed in and out until my congestion was manageable before speaking again. “Will never stop hating y- you, princess. I am not under some spell or being coerced-” “Doth thou truly believe that? Canst thou say thy hatred is thine alone?” Luna paced around, circling me like a shark. “Or was there more to the storm, mayhaps?” “I don’t- ” “All of this blind anger, fevered on by innumerable sins. Thou felt it, didn’t thee? The shouts of rage in the dark? The innumerable voices crying out over the same injustice?” Luna interrupted, her nostrils flaring. She paused, turning away from me and staring upward. “She murdered them, child. Abandoned them in their time of need. And she dares to use them as weapons against us? To taint our child’s soul?” Luna stomped her forehoof, causing the floor to spiderweb with cracks from the force of the impact as her emotions threatened to boil over. Instead of unleashing her anger upon me or having another temper tantrum, she remained still, with only the sound of her labored breathing breaking the tense silence. I followed her unyielding gaze to the grey overcast above, which had gone completely silent. “We never allowed ourselves to fall victim to our nature like our sister did. All of our subjects were precious to us, and we allowed ourselves to partake in the vices of mortal kind. We allowed ourselves to laugh, to cry, to…” Luna’s ears folded to the sides of her head as her voice trailed off. “Was it fear, sister? Were you so afraid to say goodbye?” … Luna’s magic flared once again as she cast another spell, causing a spire of cosmic energy to reach out toward the sky. Suddenly, the clouds shifted, and a light rain shower descended upon us. She basked in it, allowing the rain to frazzle her mane and mat her fur wet as she tilted her head back and closed her eyes. I was denied its gentle and calm touch as the droplets sizzled and burnt up against my shield's golden and blue hue. No, it was just another sick form of punishment by the princess—not only was she depriving me of my only proper defense against her, but I also was not allowed to alleviate the burns on my charred skin. My wings grew restless as they tried to spread and flex against my prison, but I had no room. I couldn’t even bend my arms closer to my chest, let alone move them, and I was quickly running out of time to act. I swallowed the clumping saliva building up in my throat as I prepared to call for the storm’s wrath once more. “Smite-” “Tis’ far too late for that, child,” Luna somberly responded. “Their hatred for us and our failure is not unwarranted, but that anger is finite. No matter how much our sister wished, she could not use them to keep us trapped within the dream realm forever. Not when we saw through her ploy.” “But she kept thee in the dark, didn’t she? Thou were nothing more than a pawn to be used and discarded,” Luna turned, her draconic eyes washing over me as she frowned. “A reckless last-ditch effort to eke out a pyrrhic victory, but she has overplayed her hoof.” “Fuck you,” I replied. “Petulant foal,” Luna chided, reverting to her stern, disappointed motherly voice. “We hold no ill will towards thee for falling prey to her machinations, but thou must learn from the error of thy ways, lest thee be doomed to repeat them.” It didn’t take a genius to translate the word salad from Luna’s lexicon into proper English, and I knew exactly what she truly meant to say: I’m going to gaslight and torture you into compliance. Please do not resist. “Does this mean you’re going to set me on fire again? I am a slow learner, after all.” Luna flinched as if she was struck across the face. There was a split second where I could see her expression sour as if she was chewing on a lemon before it shifted into restrained contempt. She closed the distance between us and loomed over me but remained a few inches out of reach. “Doth thou truly believe we enjoy seeing thee in pain? In making our flesh and blood suffer?” Luna’s voice boomed, all trace of her previous gentleness gone. A rumble sounded off in the distance. “You’re fucking delusional,” I continued with a scowl. Despite everything, my anger and contempt were enough to take my mind off the pain, if only briefly. “If you still think that kidnapping and brainwashing me somehow qualifies you to become my mother.” “We hath done no such thing!” Luna seethed. “Thou art-” “And yet you still have the audacity to lie to my fucking face!” I cut her off from her verbal diarrhea, with both anger and acid reflux burning at my insides. “First, it was the ‘teleportation spell,’ and now you found me delirious in the woods, freezing to death? Which was it, Luna? Because after all this time and all these mind games, you never once bothered to tell me the truth!” “BE SILENT-” “Shut up!” I screamed. “You scrambled my brain like a fucking egg, and for what? So we could live your perfect little lie? News flash, Princess, but no matter how many memories you scoop out of my brain, I will never be your son. And as long as I still draw breath, I will never stop hating you, not after everything you’ve done to me.” “WE SHALL TOLERATE NO FURTHER INSOLENCE FROM THEE!” Luna shrieked furiously, with small, wispy plumes of white smoke escaping her nostrils as she hyperventilated. The volume was loud enough to topple the already precarious hanging supports and loose chunks of rock on the outskirts of the platform into the seas below. Above, the clouds began to weep, turning the gentle rainfall into a torrential downpour. I opened my mouth to speak but instantly felt nauseous as I was hoisted up into the air. Slowly, I was forcibly dragged toward the irate alicorn, my ears ringing like church bells all the while. “Again and again, we hath watched thee suffer unjustly—burdened by the knowledge of thy misfortune. We have nurtured thee, mended thy body, and cleansed thy spirit of this malaise again and again, only for thou to cast thy life aside in grief!” Luna’s gaze narrowed, the black slits of her eyes tracking my every movement as she brought her muzzle inches away from my face. “Nay, we could never tell thee the truth. History hath proven that thou are unfit to handle such burdens and that thou require our guidance, lest we are forced to bury yet another child.” “That isn’t your choice to make! It never was!” I cried out. It was nearly impossible to hear my own voice from the noise—both from Luna’s screaming and the constant deluge of raindrops pelting every surface. Luna’s expression curdled like milk from my response. “Because thou made the wrong choice every time, without fail. We-” “But it was my choice,” I retorted. “Not Celestia’s. And up until now? You seemed adamant about casting the blame on her at every opportunity.” “Because she led thee astray-” “Did she? Was she the one that locked me up? Or violated my mind and tortured me?” “She-” “Protected me. From you,” I sneered. “She’s helped me more times in one night than you have in your entire life, and there are no terms and conditions behind her actions. She had no reason to save me beyond believing it was the right thing to do. Can you say the same?” Luna growled, but I pressed on. “Of course you can’t. It’s impossible for you to love anything you can’t coerce or force into submission. And even if I can hardly remember a goddamn thing that’s happened before this nightmare… I remember how you made me feel. Your love was degrading, devaluing, and drove me away to the brink of utter insanity. “Your love was selfish.” Anger. Desperation. Hunger. I saw all of these emotions flash within Luna’s eyes as she appraised me like a hunk of flesh at a butcher shop. Her shift in demeanor sent shivers down my spine, but it also brought a sense of relief in a twisted way. It was harder to hate a monster when it acted like a person and wore a fake persona of kindness and understanding. Something rumbled within Luna’s throat as she opened her mouth, and animalistic fear washed over me as I received a front-row seat to her dangerously sharp set of pearly whites. “Everything we have done was for thine own good,” Luna hissed. “We made thee happy. We gave thee the tender love and care thou deserved, and we were a better parent to thee than thy whorish mother or bastard father ever was!” “You bitch!” I could feel my muscles and veins straining against my skin, even in my burned chest and shoulder. “You have no fucking right-” “Do we not? It is a miracle that they did not corrupt the good within thee due to their shameful acts and cowardice.” A powerful gust of wind swept across the platform, swiping at Luna’s starry and billowing mane like a cat with a ball of twine. “And yet, despite them being delighted with thy suffering and leeching off the fruits of thy labor, thou wish to return to them? To enable their hedonistic pleasures at the expense of thy well-being? Nay.” Luna jabbed a forehoof into my chest. I couldn’t feel it, both due to the spell and the pain I was still suffering, but her touch disgusted me all the same. She disgusted me. Hate. Hate. Hate her. I hate her so much. “It is thou who is ignorant of true, unconditional love.” I was already balling the spit in my mouth before cursing the very existence of my prison. My grip on consciousness was fluctuating, with the flare-ups of pain preventing me from drifting off into blissful unawareness, but even that soon wasn’t enough. Noticing my moment of weakness, Luna began to smile triumphantly. She bent her knees and lay out in front of me, and I felt her hot breath brush against my neck as she began to hum quietly. Soothing. The sound rumbling from Luna’s throat was gentle, a balm against all of my afflictions, and I could feel the pain recede in short order as she continued her alien yet hauntingly familiar tune. Not a moment later, there was a tingling sensation on my scalp, as if someone was rubbing their fingers slowly through my hair. A few hums later, she began her cradlesong. “As the night falls and shadows creep And the moon begins to rise, I'll sing a song just for thee To close thy weary eyes. The stars twinkle in the sky As the night breeze gently sighs. All is well, my little one, So let thy dreams take flight. Lay thy head down on thy pillow As the night watches over thee. Know thou are loved and protected In this peaceful, dreamy hue. So sleep tight, my darling, As the night wraps thee in its arms And wake to a new day tomorrow, Fresh and bright and full of charms.” … “Pleasant dreams, child.” My eyes closed as I coughed. … Silence reigned. … A sudden, faint buzzing against my leg jolted me awake. “What?” Luna replied confusedly, eyeing me with a furrowed brow. “What trickery is this?” I ignored her, staring up at the star-speckled night sky in vain as it poked through the various holes within the cloud cover as if it was swiss cheese. It took me far too long to realize that it had stopped raining, and I began to panic at that thought. “Child?” Luna’s face was uncomfortably close again as she stared at me, her facial expression tense. It was a far more grim expression, but the number of times I saw this familiar side of Luna before was unfathomable—it was the same disapproving, motherly gaze. The same one that Luna always used whenever she felt the need to discipline or correct me in some way. The phone continued to ring incessantly as Luna’s unanswered demand loitered. “Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare look at me like that!” The tightness in my chest was already being replaced by a sudden edgy, twitchy feeling as I flew off the handle. “You have no right to treat me like this or act like everything is okay! Not after everything you’ve done!” “Child-” “You have no right to judge me!” I screamed, with globs of spittle splashing against the film-like shield layered around my face like tin foil. “You have no right to judge anyone! You’re immortal! You have no idea what it’s like to be a lesser being, to not be all-powerful! You’ve had centuries, millennia to learn and grow, yet you presume to hold my family in contempt for not living up to your impossible standards?” I hissed, refusing to blink as I stared into the slits of Luna’s eyes. “You can’t even live up to them yourself, you hypocritical bitch.” “They-” “Never brought a kingdom to its knees and murdered all of its subjects,” I replied with ire. “For all their supposed sins you were referring to, they seem like utter saints compared to you.” “WE WILL NOT BE BLAMED FOR OUR SISTER'S ACTIONS. IT WAS HER SINS, AND HER’S ALONE, THAT BROUGHT UTTER DAMNATION TO OUR PEOPLE.” Luna violently dragged me from the floor, bringing me up to her chest as she glared at me with unhinged malice. “And there you go again, blaming others for your shortcomings and fuckups. Can’t deal with the guilt, Princess?” I pressed, continuing to prod the evil goddess with a metaphorical stick. There was a sudden look of revulsion in her eyes. “Or is it something else? Jealousy of your sister, perhaps? No matter what, we always somehow loop back around to her, after all.” A flash in the corner of my eye, up in the cloud cover. The smell of fresh, clean earth in my nostrils as everything became humid. The ceaseless faint buzzing against my thigh. This all happened in chorus as the next round of raindrops began to fall. And for the briefest moment, I saw it—a resigned sort of disappointed sorrow on Luna’s face. It was gone as fast as it came, but knowing it was there… “It hurts, doesn’t it? Living under your sister’s shadow, I mean.” I was scraping the bottom of the barrel for any ammunition to use against her, but she didn’t need to know that. She didn’t need to know how much I actually knew, which was fuck all. “No matter what you accomplished or achieved, you were always seen as second-rate.” “Do thou think it wise to test our patience, child?” “Are you saying that I’m wrong?” I pressed on. “She grew drunk on your subject's praises while you starved for any attention at all, and you hate her for that. You hate her because your subjects could see none of her flaws while all your efforts were scrutinized. That’s why you killed her, isn't it?” “DECEIVER!” The shield began to shrink. Panic began to squeeze at my chest, but I could do nothing. I was completely immobilized, couldn’t breathe, and could feel my bones creaking from the sudden pressure. Looking at Luna in horror, I could see that her dilated eyes were completely glossed over. She took a few ragged, irregular breaths as she hunched over, sobbing bitterly. Then all hell broke loose. With the sound of a hurricane, Luna unleashed a terrible wail of anguish, her horn bursting wildly with indigo magic as the deadly waves of energy were sent in all directions. Her tears mixed with the downpour of rain as she slammed a forehoof into the ground, and the stone platform trembled from Luna’s despair. Looking up, I could see that the cloud cover had once more shrouded the starry night sky and its matron satellite as it began to rain death upon us. The lightning was almost constant, flashing across the sky in bright, jagged streaks. Each time it struck, the air was filled with a loud, ear-splitting crack, followed by a deep, rumbling thunder that shook the stone platform like an abusive mother to her newborn child. It was at that point, when the last exhale of precious oxygen left my lungs, that a flash of searing white crashed into the thin gap between us. Sudden, primal relief washed over me as the claustrophobic squeeze of Luna’s magic halted, but it was too little too late—I was trading one method of execution for another. A silent scream escaped my lips, followed by a desperate gasp for fresh air as I plummeted inside my magic coffin and into the depths below. Luna’s screaming was still ringing in my ears all the while, her voice everywhere and nowhere at the same time. I slammed face-first into the inky black waves.