On the way, the group stumbled upon a town that, much like the one that came before, was devoid of its inhabitants. But unlike in Flatstone, where the ponies had fled of their own accord, here, it was discovered by the sisters that they had been slain - cut down in the name of hatred and greed. And, confronted by one of those responsible, and driven to protect what she held dear, the elder sister committed an act she would never be able to take back…
Celestia hadn’t even realized she had started moving. In the blink of an eye, she darted from her place in the middle of the room and burst out into the rampaging cold. The howling wind slashed at her face, sending her mane and tail billowing behind her like flags of war. Gritting her teeth, she turned her eyes heavensward, searching for the monsters that yet again came to take away her sister.
They were there, in the sky. She could see them, Silhouettes of frost and malice, dancing their silent dance in the fog and snow. For a moment, Celestia figured that this would be no different than last time, and went to pour magic into her horn, ready to unleash her flames and end the threat. Such notions withered and died almost as soon as they had formed, however.
There were so many of them. It was like a swarm of hornets, furious, frenzied, and beyond counting. Her ears drooped, and she realized with a surge of fear that there was no way she could hope to fight against such odds and live to tell the tale.
Behind her, she heard the others emerging from the home. She felt a hoof on her back and looked up to see Starshine’s intent, frantic eyes boring into her own. “The wagon,” she commanded, jerking her head for the barn. “Now! Move!”
Celestia shakily nodded before casting her eyes about for Luna. She saw the foal on Starshine’s back, curled up tight, her eyes staring into the heavens, wide with terror. Celestia lit her horn, reaching for the smaller foal with her magic, but a firm shake from Starshine’s hoof snapped her attention away from it.
“I said move!” Starshine barked, shoving Celestia into motion.
Celestia bristled. She wanted to argue, to demand that Shine give her back her sister, but the tingling on her hoof and the red trickle coming out of Luna’s nose silenced the words before they could even form. With a frustrated growl, Celestia did as she was told and made a mad dash for the barn. She could hear the spirits in the air, howling louder and nearer than before. The wind surged again so hard that Celestia almost lost her balance.
Starglow had run ahead of them, not needing to be told twice, and was already scrambling up into the back of the wagon when the remaining three arrived. Celestia jumped up after him with a quick flap of her wings. At the front, Starshine quickly got herself hooked up to the harness and floated Luna into the back with her magic. Celestia reached for her but again was denied as Starglow caught her instead.
“Hang on back there!” Starshine shouted to be heard over the roaring wind. “This is going to get rough!”
The ghosts roared hungrily, the weight of their bloodlust sending the panels of the barn rattling. Starglow shuddered in place, but the low whimper let out by Luna drew his attention. He held her close, and Celestia felt herself heating up with an emotion she couldn’t quite place. She opened her mouth to say something, but before she had the chance, the wagon lurched into motion. The sudden jolt of momentum was a new feeling to Celestia, and a sudden burst of nausea ravaged her already scrambling senses, distracting her from the chaos outside, if only for a moment.
“W-what do we do?” Starglow asked as the wagon thundered down the path, his ears perking up. “Y-you’ve fought these things before, right? W-what do we do against them?”
Celestia frowned, moving to look out the back of the wagon. As she turned her eyes upward, she saw more and more ghosts gathering together. They weren’t attacking yet, and she couldn’t help but wonder if they were afraid of her after last time. Either that, or they were sizing her up, waiting to see what she would do, waiting for a weakness to exploit. Or, perhaps most frustratingly, they were toying with them. Letting their prey think they had a chance to escape before plunging in for the inevitable, unavoidable kill.
She bared her teeth at them, then turned back to Glow. “Fire scares them off,” she said plainly. “But it doesn’t kill them. They just slink off and reform somewhere else.”
Starglow blinked, then looked around. He offered up a helpless shrug. “Not a lot of fire around here…”
Celestia frowned, then turned back to glare into the sky. Her horn lit up. “Just leave that part to me,” she growled. “You keep Luna safe.”
“I was already doing that.”
Celestia bit her lip to silence her biting reply.
The wagon took a sharp turn once it came to the end of the trail. They were back in the heart of the settlement now, and Celestia’s eyes traced over the abandoned homes one last time. “No, not abandoned,” she corrected herself. “Emptied.”
Their frantic flight carried them swiftly through the streets, the buildings and mounds turning to mere blurs of darkened shapes against the pristine white backdrop before being lost in the rapidly worsening blizzard. Celestia had to squint to see through the maelstrom, and realized with a lump forming in her throat that the fog was getting thicker. They were running blind, and somehow she doubted the ghosts would at all be hindered by the lack of visibility.
Before long, they were outside of the village, the last of the buildings swallowed behind them in merciless white. It was only then that, up above, Celestia heard the tell-tale howl of one of the ghosts. She lifted her head to see a pack of them descending from the heavens, the air shimmering with frost and ice in their wake. Starshine was doing an admirable job pulling the wagon along, but the ghosts were faster, and now they were in the open.
She flared her wings, bracing to accept the challenge. “Come on, then!” she shouted at them, her horn flaring ever brighter as flames began to gather on the tip. “You want some more? Huh?! THEN COME GET ME!”
The ghost at the head of the pack glared at her, its eyes flaring blue. It charged, pulling ahead of its friends and rapidly closing the distance. Celestia built energy on her horn, waiting until she could see herself reflected clearly in the beast’s eyes. Then, with a shout, she unleashed the flames in a wide, blazing cone.
The ghost, however, was ready. The moment Celestia fired off the spell, it rose high into the air, dodging the rush of the blaze. Celestia dropped the spell a moment later and looked up, gasping in alarm. She tried to brace for impact, but she was too slow. The ghost snapped down at her like a coiled spring, slamming into her and forcing her into the floor of the wagon. The air was driven from her lungs, and she was sure she could feel the wood cracking beneath her.
By her side, she heard Starglow and Luna screaming.
The ghost reared up and off of her, its eyes blazing with predatory hunger, and a pale glow building up in its breast. Celestia wasn’t sure what it was doing, and she didn’t care to find out. With a shout, she planted all four hooves on its chest and pushed. Her hooves flared with frozen agony, and then immediately went numb, but she forced herself to ignore it. If anything, the numbness worked in her favor. She could push harder. Its eyes widened as she managed to shove it up and off of her, more magic gathering on her horn. Instinct took over, and with a guttural scream, Celestia unleashed a burst of raw concussive force, untrained, unfocused, but no less devastating for it.
The ghost was blasted back and out of the wagon with a howl of pain, but recovered quickly, darting back up into the air and out of range of her magic.
Celestia forced herself back to her feet, gasping for air and seething with burning rage. “I told you,” she shouted at the ghosts over the wind. “To leave us alone! I told you I’d kill you all!”
As if galvanized by her warning, the remaining two ghosts resumed their charge, closing the distance with ease. Celestia growled, bracing herself to fight them off as she had the last one. To her surprise, however, they did not fly for her. Instead, they swooped low and to the sides, alongside the wagon and out of view.
Celestia blinked. “What are they-?”
The wagon suddenly lurched to a stop, accompanied by the violent scraping of wood and ice. The sudden shift in momentum sent the foals toppling to the floor of the wagon with cries of pain and shock. Celestia scrambled to rise, adrenaline flooding her veins. A moment later, she heard screaming.
It was Luna.
She turned to her sister. Luna was on the ground, a hoof on her injured side, and her face contorted in agony. She must have fallen on her injury. Starglow picked himself up beside her, his eyes rolling around in his head. He looked down at Luna, helpless. “Luna?! Ah, crud, uhm! W-what do I do?! How do I help!?”
“It hurts,” Luna cried, unable to answer his question. Tears were rolling down her cheeks. “It hurts, it hurts, it hurts! M-make it stop! P-please, make it stop!”
“Kids?!” Starshine’s voice screamed from the front of the wagon, high and breaking with panic.
Celestia ignored her, focusing on trying to find a way to ease Luna’s pain. But there was nothing. All she could do was keep those monsters from hurting her anymore.
Sadly, even that objective ended in failure before she could even get started. The covering on the wagon behind Luna and Starglow suddenly ripped open, a blast of snow and shards of ice flooding through like a storm of daggers. Starglow screamed, throwing himself back and covering his head with his hooves as a ghost pushed through the rip, its eyes locked onto Luna.
Celestia took a step, lighting her horn to stop it, but she didn’t get the chance. The wall behind her tore open in that instant, and another ghost came for her. Its teeth clamped down on the back of her neck like a vice, instantly numbing the broken flesh. Her stomach lurched, and before she knew it, she had been hauled out of the wagon and thrown into the snow. More numbness crept along her legs and up her exposed barrel.
Inside, she heard Luna’s screams shifting from pain to fear. She tried to stand, but something slammed into the back of her head, forcing her face into the snow and pinning her there. She cried out, squirming as hard as she could, but the beast’s grip on her held firm. She heard it let out a bellowing howl of victory, and in that moment, she thought she was going to die.
There was a rush of light, and the ghost howled in pain. The pressure was released, and Celestia shot to her hooves in a heartbeat. She spun on her attacker, flames gathering on her horn, and she let them fly in a practical storm. The ghost barely had time to bark out a dog-like yip before her spell splattered it as water against the rising snow.
“Celestia! Are you alright?!” Starshine asked, rushing up to her side from the front of the wagon. Her horn was alight with magic, and Celestia realized that she had the mare to thank for saving her life.
Gratitude could come later, though. Celestia shook her head. “Forget about me!” she snapped, turning to jump back into the wagon. She had to get to Luna! She had to keep her safe!
Starglow was huddled on the floor, curled into a quivering ball. His eyes flicked up to her as she emerged, but he said nothing. There was no sign of Luna in the wagon - just the hole in the covering the ghost had made. Somewhere on the other side of it, through the howl of the wind and the monsters, Celestia could hear Luna screaming.
“Celestia, wait-” Starshine was shouting, but Celestia didn’t listen. All of her conscious thoughts were gone. All that was left was Luna. Protect Luna. Kill whatever threatened her.
Celestia blasted through the side of the wagon, chasing after the screams. More of the ghosts were descending now, their eyes alight with hunger, their lips peeled into taunting, hungry grins. They were of little consequence to Celestia’s eyes, however, when compared to the silhouette of her sister being dragged, kicking and flailing, through the snow up ahead. One of the ghosts had its teeth dug into the collar of her coat, pulling her through the snow on her back.
“Let her go!” Celestia shouted, flapping her wings to cover the remaining distance as quickly as she could.
The ghost looked up at her, eyes narrowed with delight. She realized only a moment too late that she had fallen into a trap.
The ghost she had missed earlier slammed into her from above, pinning her to the snow again. She struggled against it, screaming and thrashing like a trapped animal, but it was no good. She felt its breath on her back, and a horrific crackling sound filled her ears, like the ice breaking on the surface of the river.
And then she couldn’t move. She inhaled involuntarily as a cold unlike any she had felt before pierced through every layer she had to invade her very core. Her body shivered and trembled in a desperate bid to generate some heat - or it would have, were she not encased from hoof to chin in thick, unnatural ice. The ghost released its hold on her head and drifted in front of her, and she could have sworn she saw it smirking at her.
“Let me go!” she screamed, trying to break free. The ice was too strong, and if anything only got thicker around her in response to her cries. “I said let me go! You monster! You freak! I’ll kill you, do you hear me?! I’LL KILL YOU!”
The ghost, if anything, looked pleased by her tirade, then turned its back on her. Looking past it, she could see Luna being lifted off the ground by the ghost that had abducted her, its eyes aglow with infernal magic. Luna squirmed, held by the throat as it lifted her into the air, her eyes wide and her hooves clawing at the magic strangling her.
“Stop it!” Celestia screamed, tears building in her eyes as it dawned on her how truly helpless she was this time. “Please! You’re killing her! Don’t do it, don’t do it! Don’t take her! She’s all I have left! PLEASE!”
The ghost that had imprisoned her paused. It slowly turned to look back at her as her begging continued, devolving into wordless wails and cries. It just stared at her for a moment, the glow in its eyes shifting ever so subtly.
A moment passed. And then the ghost nodded its head upwards.
Celestia blinked. “W-what?” she croaked, confused.
The ghost nodded up again, harder this time. It was strange. She felt compelled to look where it was looking. And so she did, following the path of its eyes with her own. Her eyes soon settled on the sky overhead, grey, dead, dumping snow and ice onto the world. But it was bright enough for her to know that the sun was up. It was there, somewhere, hidden beyond that suffocating veil.
Somewhere behind her, she could hear Starshine and Starglow screaming. She couldn’t see them, but she could only imagine what the ghosts were doing to them. They had come to rescue her, but merely by being with her, they were going to die, just like her parents had. The ghosts were after her and her sister. And she had selfishly allowed these ponies to get caught in the hunt because she was too scared to take care of Luna on her own.
For a moment, time seemed to slow. She felt it again, that sensation of something reaching out to her. In her mind’s eye, she saw the fire she had made in Flatstone that had brought Starshine and Starglow to her. She suddenly recalled how the fire had swallowed her senses, expanding into something greater. Grander. There was something there, on the other end of that veil of grey death.
And then there was something else. In her head. It wasn’t a voice, not exactly. It was more like Celestia’s own inner monologue was being invaded. The voiceless voice of her conscious thoughts was joined by another that was not her own. And accompanying it, a compulsion. An irresistible urge to reach out. She did not understand, but she saw no other choice. Groaning in pain, she forced her head to rise higher, lighting her horn. She tried to reach out to whatever it was that demanded her attention, whatever force had whispered to her from afar for so long. It was faint, impossibly distant and muffled, but she could hear it. It was there.
“Help me!” Luna wheezed, her voice barely audible over the chaos. More and more ghosts were gathering around her, their eyes glowing with hunger and satisfaction that they had completed their hunt, at long last.
Celestia groaned, and that groan steadily rose into a full-throated scream as flames began to gather on her horn, swirling out of thin air and down the spiraling grooves of her horn, as if pulled from the sky itself. She felt a surge of strength in her numb body, and with a grunt, jolted against the ice. It cracked against her hide.
The ghost looked on in approval.
Another jolt, another crack. Celestia took a deep breath, her eyes locking onto Luna. She drew on the flame as much as she could. However faint it was, however distant and weak, it still answered. She jolted again, straining with all her might, and the ice began to give.
With the sound of shattering glass, Celestia broke free of the ice that imprisoned her. Its shards went flying all around her, evaporating into mist and steam. The air shimmered and rippled around her as waves of scorching heat rolled off of her body. She did not understand what was happening, or why, and she didn’t care. She could protect Luna, now.
She leveled her eyes on the ghosts, who turned back to her in surprise. She saw a flicker of fear in their eyes. The one that had stared back at her blinked, and as if released from a trance, it backed away from her, its eyes returning to their previous hostile hue. Celestia took that as a good sign and took a step forward, the snow boiling away beneath her hoof. With every step she took, she spoke. “Leave. My. Sister. ALONE!”
The ghost holding Luna dropped her to the ground and retreated, eyes wide. The others backed away as well, roaring in pain from the heat. Celestia could feel the flames in her chest, in her wings, and she was certain she could feel it tingling along her scalp and her back.
For one ephemeral moment, there was clarity. Celestia’s eyes flew wide, and the flames that blasted from her horn were beyond description. They spread out, a typhoon, a hurricane of raging fire. In the blink of an eye, the ghosts around Luna vanished and splattered into the winds, melting in an instant. The snow cratered beneath her, bathing her in a rising wall of steam.
Celestia lifted her eyes. She grinned, reveling in the feeling of power over these monsters she now possessed. There were still many ghosts in the air above her, backing away in fear. She felt a rush of vindication. They were right to fear her. They were right to cower and flee. And it was only right that she make them suffer after all they had done.
More flames on her horn, more power, and more rage. Celestia leveled her horn at the sky and unleashed a single sphere of flame. It surged up, spluttering and spitting before it winked out in the heart of the swarm. Then, an instant later, it erupted like a supernova, bathing the world below in swirls of raging red, yellow, and orange. She heard the ghosts screaming above her, and she could feel their melted remains falling against her face as a warm summer’s rain. She closed her eyes, bathing in the feeling.
She heard Starshine’s voice calling out to her from behind, distant and muted. She didn’t care enough to listen. She called on the link to that distant power, calling on it to spread more warmth, more heat, more fire. But nothing came. The link pulled against her, and she thought she felt an emotion creeping into her mind that did not belong to her. It felt like… Disappointment.
All at once, the link was severed, and Celestia was overwhelmed by a rush of exhaustion. Her eyes flew wide for an instant as she became keenly aware of the scorching heat and the exertion in her body. A skull-splitting headache pushed through her mind. She let out a withering exhale, the world blurring around her. The last thing she saw was Luna’s eyes widening, her hoof reaching out.
Then Celestia toppled onto the glassed earth, and the world went dark.