After hours of flight, Luna was rapidly approaching her destination. It had been a very long time since she had flown this far, and this fast. Usually if she needed to travel, it would be by a sky chariot pulled by her Night Guards. Even during the few times that she had flown under her own power, it was always with a task force of guards surrounding her. Nothing less than the utmost security and comfort would do for a Princess.
Luna knew perfectly well why such measures were necessary, but a part of her always yearned for that spontaneous, carefree adventure that she had enjoyed in her youth. A part of her had never grown up from that young mare. She had suppressed it during her reign out of necessity, but that restlessness to go out and take action had not truly died. It was one of the reasons why court politics frustrated her so much.
She had that freedom back now and as exhilarating as it was to fly without limits, it also felt hollow in a way.
She had liberated herself, but now what? What did that freedom mean? Without her crown, throne or night what was her purpose?
Her mind felt like it was in turmoil. Everything she thought that she knew was upended in the span of a single night. For so long the dedication to her night and her ponies had consumed her every waking moment. Dedication, responsibility and duty was her life for decades. It was how she defined her very identity. Without it, who was she?
Luna didn't know, but perhaps her past held the answers to her future.
An immense stone tower became visible in the distance, overlooking the hillside. It was a place that Luna never thought she would see again. Not since Starswirl’s death.
The ancient spire and it's surrounding complex, which was first built by the College of Sorcery of Old Equestria, was likely one of the oldest surviving structures left in the country.
Only a Grand Master of the College had been allowed to occupy it, to carry out their studies and train their protégés. That honour had once fallen to Starswirl, and after he had taken Luna and Celestia as his students, it had become their home too.
As she flew closer, more details of her former home became discernible through the light morning mist that blanketed the valley. The tower that pierced the mist did not stand freely, but instead stood at the centre of a fortified citadel.
Formidable flanking towers and connecting curtain walls ringed the central tower and inner bailey, creating a castle-like fortress. Each flanking tower was tall in their own right, but nothing challenged the great spire that loomed over the valley.
Slick black rock, which had been worn smooth over millennia, made up the structure and gave it a slightly intimidating appearance. The sheer size of the tower and its citadel only added to its menace. While not as massive in volume as the Everfree castle, the unassailable height of the structure meant that it had a tendency to loom over everything around it. A tendency that traditionally proportioned castles lacked.
Had Luna not been intimately familiar with the tower after having spent many years within its walls, she might have felt apprehensive as she descended toward the spire.
Not improving the tower's gloomy aesthetic, was its general state of decay. The tower had been abandoned for nearly a century and it certainly looked like it. That it was still standing at all given it's ancient age was a miracle in of itself.
By all logic the structure should have collapsed long ago without any occupants or maintenance. All that kept it standing was the powerful protective magics that completely saturated the structure. Spells that had been layered over millennia of extremely powerful unicorns etching adding their own unique spells and wards. They had seeped into the very foundations of the building.
As Luna approached close to the tower, she could feel the sheer density of the magics of the tower even as far away as she still was. Hundreds of spell matrices from hundreds of casters layered upon each other over thousands of years. They formed the foundation of a protective ward system the likes of which the world had never seen before or since.
As the Lunar Alicorn crossed the boundary of the tower's wards; she suddenly felt the density of the ancient ward system descend upon her with the weight of an avalanche. Its magnitude nearly knocked her out of the sky. She had to stop her flight and maintain a hover in order to regain her balance and bearing. The defences of the tower coiled and tensed like a snake ready to strike.
Luna was not prepared for the level of utter hostility that the wards greeted her with. They had never reacted so forcefully to her before. She continued hovered in place for a few moments, dumbfounded as to how to proceed.
'Did the magics not recognize her?'
Starswirl had keyed both Luna and Celestia’s magical auras into the ward system years ago. She had never before had a problem with the tower not recognizing her as authorised for entry.
'Has somepony reconfigured the wards since she left?'
It seemed impossible, but it had been many, many years since she last visited. Perhaps somepony has removed her status as an authorised individual. It seemed mystifying how that could be possible, as Celestia and herself had been the last ponies alive with access to the tower after it had been abandoned.
The wards coiled tighter and Luna realised with horror that they were preparing to strike her. She had seen the tower's defences in action before against Discord's forces, and she most definitely did not want to be on the receiving end of them. As powerful as Luna was as an alicorn, these wards were designed to defend against entire invading armies.
It was a battle that the former Princess wasn't completely sure she could win. Nor was she entirely confident that she could flee before they struck.
With time short, escape or victory uncertain and the source of the tower's hostility not known. Luna took a massive risk that may very well cost her life.
Luna dropped her defences and lit her horn. Before the tower had a chance to react, she flared her aura. Massively expanding its power, brightness and visibility.
The magics of the tower faultered slightly, as if in unexpected confusion. Its inaction only lasted for a fraction of a second however as it suddenly surged forward, all at once at her.
The ancient magic grabbed and wrapped her in a telekinetic near death-grip. It felt like a python had coiled itself around her. She could barely breathe with the amount of force that pressed against her from every direction. She had stopped flapping her wings as the physical force of the magic gripping Luna in place was enough to keep her airborne.
She felt the wards probe her and her aura. She could feel them dissect, analyse and scrutinise every aspect of her being. It was searching for something, but she didn't know what.
From her body, to her magic, to her mind. No part of her was left unexamined. Even her life-force was intensely analysed. She did her best to hold still under the near crushing grip of the ancient magics.
Since the wards had not yet truly harmed her, she could only hope that her gamble in submissive compliance would pay off.
Just as quickly as the search had begun, it suddenly ceased. The wards, seemingly satisfied with whatever it had found in her, withdrew and released her from its ironclad grip.
Not prepared for the sudden fall, Luna scrambled to reorient herself midair, unfurl her wings and stabilise her descent as she hurtled to the ground.
She had only barely managed to regain some control over her flight when she reached the ground and impacted it at high speed.
It wasn't close to the hardest crash landing she had ever endured, but even though her Alicorn physiology allowed her to absorb most of the impact. The force of her landing still unbalanced her enough that she stumbled and collapsed on the uneven ground of the tower courtyard.
As Luna laid on her side, thankfully very much alive and mostly uninjured, she tried to calm her erratic breathing.
Her exhaustingly long flight, combined with the suffocating grip of the wards, her frantic attempts to control her flight and an extreme adrenaline rush from the unexpected life-or-death scenario had Luna approaching hyperventilation.
This was the closest that she had been to death in a very long time. Even though the wards had returned to their dormant state, it did little to calm her.
Recognising the onset of a panic attack, Luna forced herself to take slow, steady, deep breaths to try to control her breathing and calm herself.
Once she felt in control of herself once more, Luna tried to process all that had happened in the last few minutes.
Her journey of self-discovery had barely started and it had almost reached its conclusion in less than a day. She was so focused on reaching an emotional safeplace that she had never even occurred to the former Princess that she might unwittingly place her life in danger.
Had she become too complacent with her near invincible status as an Alicorn?
If she was to brave the dangers of the world once again, then she can never allow herself to be taken so badly off-guard again.
As she rose shakily to her hooves, Luna tried to rationalise and understand in her mind why the wards had reacted so violently to her.
She was obviously still keyed into the wards or they wouldn't have allowed her into the courtyard of the tower if she wasn’t authorised.
Luna had gambled that the wards had simply not recognized her at first. That was why she had flared the visibility and intensity of her aura, so that the ancient magics could better tell that it was her and that she was to be allowed entry.
The gamble appeared to pay off as it had eventually released her, but that still didn't explain why it had scrutinised her so intensely. It should have recognised her aura at a glance, especially as she had flared it to be more visible to the wards.
The nature of its examination made no sense either. If it wanted to determine if Luna was keyed into it, it only needed to examine her magical aura and compare it to its list of approved individuals. It didn't need to analyse her body or mind or life-force.
The examination of her life-force was particularly bizarre. Even with her vast knowledge of magic, Luna couldn't think of a single possible reason why the status of her life-force was important to the wards. Very, very few types of magic or spells affected or manipulated life-force in any capacity.
In fact, the only type of magic that Luna knew of that involved life-force was necroman-
…
…
…oh…
Luna’s mind froze on that last word. Understanding slowly dawned on her as she began to put the pieces together in her head as to what had happened.
Even though wards can vary greatly in complexity, they all functioned in mostly the same way. They were a lock that needed a key. So long as you had that key, you could unlock the ward, no matter what.
The wards on the tower, however, were more complicated than that. The layers, upon layers, upon layers of complexity that had been added over millennia had evolved into something very different than any other ward system that existed. Not quite sentient, but close. Something that could analyse, learn and employ deductive reasoning.
It was very easy to underestimate just how complex and intelligent the tower's magic could be at times.
Knowing all of that, it was not difficult for Luna to paint a picture in her mind of exactly what had happened.
The tower didn't recognise Luna’s status as an immortal. The alicorn sisters had only discovered their own ageless nature years after they had left the tower. According to its own logic, Luna should be dead. It had been almost a century since she had last visited the tower and its wards had probably thought her as long deceased by now.
The hostility and examination of her life-force were, in all likelihood, a defensive measure against enemies of the College simply reanimating and enthralling the corpse of a former authorised resident of the tower and using it as a means of bypassing its magical protections.
Relieved at knowing exactly what had happened, yet annoyed beyond measure that she had almost lost her life, because of a technicality in the programming of the wards. Luna resolved to recalibrate the wards to recognise her and her sister’s immortality.
As Luna looked to the partially collapsed entrance to the great spire, she felt her apprehensiveness return.
She had latched on to the idea her old home as a source of stability and direction.
What was she expecting to find here?
Would she find anything at all?
And if she didn't, what would she do then?
Where would she go if both her new home and her old home held nothing for her?