//------------------------------//
// The Settlement - Chapter 2 
// Story: Nova Republica Lunae 
// by Whiskey Tango Foxtrot 
//------------------------------//

For the second time that day, Luna gasped and began to hyperventilate as she snapped back to the present. She whipped her gaze around the room, seeing its current, abandoned state in between flashes of visions of her memories. The visions offered a terrible clarity that had escaped her at the time. She saw the beautiful stained-glass windows shattering, each shard distinct. She saw the titanic beams of magic crash into each other, oceans of impossible magnitude trying to overwhelm each other. She saw Celestia's broken form struggling to pull up every last drop of magic she had within her, then reaching deeper to pull up something more, something that couldn't be replenished, just to hold back the Nightmare for even a moment longer. 

The sense of disconnect, of lost time, and of the crimes she had committed threatened to drive Luna mad. However, a princess, a goddess in her own right, is not so easily lost to her own mind, even as weak as she was. With a metaphorical heave of effort, she stabilized her mind, and the flow of memories and visions ceased. Despite this, a very faint feeling of instability remained within her, a permanent mark of her anguish. 

Her faculties returned to her, Luna rose onto her hooves, having unknowingly fallen to the ground at some point during her flashbacks. Though feelings of loss, panic, and guilt remained within her, Luna's mind had sharpened, pushing her to consider her next course of action. 

"The castle town... Surely there is somepony who can tell me what became of my sister."

Looking around the ancient, dilapidated castle, she winced as a block of stone crashed to the ground in an adjacent room.

"Then again, perhaps not."

Resolving to try anyway, she spread her wings, no less majestic from their time in banishment, and took off, aiming for a suitably large hole in the ceiling... only to drop back to the ground a second later. Luna frowned, looking back and giving her wings a few experimental flaps. They were undamaged, and her feathers were aligned, but both her magical and physical strength were still greatly diminished. With an annoyed snort, Luna turned and began her trek out of the castle on hoof. 

Along her journey, a hallway leading off to the side caught her eye - a very, very familiar hallway indeed. This particular route led to what was once her personal tower and her quarters. A glimmer of happier memories sparked to life inside of her. Her personal observatory, her pride and joy, for she had designed and built it with her own hooves. Her extensive stamp collection, a rather hidden hobby of hers. And, perhaps her favorite item, an exceedingly beautiful painting of the cosmos by an artist who had been forgotten to time, long, long ago. Luna had thought that painting was the only piece of art that appropriately captured the beauty of the stars. 

A small grin gracing her muzzle for the first time in more than a millennia, she entered the hallway and began to climb the stairs beyond. The grin transformed into a confused frown as she began to feel a distinct breeze, and then into a disappointed grimace as she reached the top of the staircase.

"Oh..." With a sigh, Luna beheld what remained of her tower.

It was as if a giant had slapped away the upper half of the structure, leaving only an abruptly ending staircase. Clearly, the building had not survived the trials of time... but the damage looked unnatural. As if it hadn't collapsed over time but actually had in fact been pushed over by some enormous force. 

Looking down, Luna could see a line of crushed stone leading away from the tower, but every other recognizable feature had been lost to time. Overwhelmingly disappointed and filled with the sharp sadness that comes with losing something important to you, Luna turned and began to trot down the stairs. Halfway down, a detail that had been shoved to the back of her mind finally clicked into place at the front of her attention. Scrambling back up to the open end of the tower, Luna gazed around in wonder. The sparse woods around the castle that she was familiar with had become a thick, lush forest. It stretched off as far as she could see, an impenetrable canopy of leaves obscuring anything on the ground. Listening carefully, she could hear the distant sounds that any sufficiently sized forest makes: bird calls, tree frogs, and the occasional roar or howl as the larger predators of the forest made themselves known. 

Focusing even more, she started as a familiar feeling made itself known to her magical senses: This forest had a very strong magical ambiance, and more startling was that this was her magic! It was very, very old and felt wrong, like it had gone bad over time, but it was hers nonetheless. Amazed, but unsure what to make of the phenomenon, Luna used her vantage point to survey the area around her. 

The sun was almost directly overhead, and Luna guessed that it was just after noon. The leafy expanse consumed most of the area around the castle, including where the castle town would be, obscuring it from vision. Despite the abundance of greenery, the area inside the walls was largely clear of vegetation. The castle itself was in a state of complete disrepair. Had the architects still been alive, they might have taken great pride in the fact that it still stood after so much time and damage.   Luna winced as she distinctly recognized much of the damage to the castle; she was the cause of it. Scowling, Luna shook off the wave of self-loathing before it overwhelmed her again and turned to the bottom of the tower.

The rest of her exodus from the castle was uneventful, and before long, Luna was at the old drawbridge that served as the main entrance and exit to the castle keep. The large chains that held up the portcullis had broken or rusted away, and the huge metal grate was blocking the archway. Almost instinctively, Luna tried to teleport to the other side of the gate, but such a complex spell remained beyond her, and her only reward for her efforts were a few sparks falling from her horn. 

Luna went slightly cross-eyed as she attempted to give her horn the same annoyed glance she had given her wings. "Feh. Something simpler, then."

Several minutes later, a Luna-sized section of the portcullis crashed to the ground, its edges still red-hot from the pencil-thin beam of magic she had used to cut through the bars. Incredibly inefficient, and near-barbaric compared to what she was normally capable of, but Luna was having a decidedly not-normal day. In fact, she wasn't sure what counted as a normal day anymore. Pointedly ignoring this train of thought, Luna carefully slipped through the hole she had made, making sure to avoid the still-hot edges of the grate. 

Luna immediately gave up any hopes of finding somepony in the castle town to talk to. Time had whittled the buildings away, and the forest covered most everything that was left. The only indication that there any ever been any kind of structure was a single corner of a foundation and a couple loose, rotten bricks. The forest itself blocked out the majority of the sunlight, casting everything in a dark, slightly green shadow. The sounds of the forest were much more prominent down here, filling the air with an ambient hum that Luna found rather peaceful. 

Luna's sense of direction had been completely shattered by how unfamiliar the environment was to her, so she devised a plan that would hopefully let her find somepony who could tell her what she had missed and, more importantly, what became of her sister. The plan consisted of picking a direction and walking in it. 

Fortunately, it worked rather well. Some difficulty was had, with much of the forest floor being covered in thorn bushes, knotted roots, and other things that made walking difficult, but Luna was lucky enough to find a game trail shortly after she began her journey. The occasional sounds of the larger members of the forest made her pause, but they sounded distant, and Luna was left alone. 

Several hours of largely uneventful hiking later, the undergrowth began to noticeably thin, and the trees grew further and further apart. Within a few minutes, the deep, thick forest had, almost abruptly, given way to open plains, with rolling sets of hills and only the occasional tree. Able to see the sky for the first time in quite a while, Luna noted that it was perhaps early afternoon, and resumed her journey. 

The realization caught up to her a moment later, as she whipped her head back up to the sky. "...What?"

She had been in the forest long enough that it should have been evening! The sun should be setting in no more than an hour, not hanging in the middle of the sky, having barely moved from where it was when she was in the tower! Despite the many, many things this could mean, there was no way for Luna to know what it did mean, and it only made her more desperate to find out what had happened to her sister. 

Luna could feel her strength being restored to her with time, and with a renewed sense of urgency, she spread her wings once more. With several mighty flaps, she rose several meters into the air, but it took all of her focus to not fall back to the ground. She clenched her jaw as she struggled against her weakened state and how heavy she felt compared to on the Moon. With a titanic heave of effort, she began to fly forward, slowly at first, then faster and faster until she was flying quicker than anypony could ever gallop. Despite the extreme strain, Luna felt a smile spread across her muzzle. Flying had always been her favorite method of travel. Teleporting was so droll, and galloping was never fast enough. She let out a laugh as she sped across the plains. Despite the uncertainty of the world around her, and her worry about her sister, for the first time that day, Luna felt well and truly free.





Luna was traveling several times faster than she had been through the forest, and before long, a dark shape came into view on the horizon. Within a minute, the shape had resolved itself into a collection of buildings that seemed to be a sort of small town. The center of the town was dominated by a tall, stone tower that flew a  flag that Luna didn't recognize. 

She felt jolt a of panic upon seeing it. "Has Equestria been invaded?"

Within moments of that thought crossing her mind, a deep, loud horn sounded, the sound rolling across the flat landscape. Very faintly, Luna could see a flurry of movement atop the tower, and a second later, she began to hear a faint whistling noise. The noise brought forth some not-quite tangible memories as she tried to place where she had heard it before. Somewhere, deep within her mind, it clicked, and an instant later, time seemed to slow.

Millennia-old combat instincts, honed by years and years of battle, kicked in and screamed at her to move. Nothing could possibly ever be more important than moving just a meter to the left right now. And move Luna did. Shifting her wings and throwing her body weight as hard as she could to the side, she executed a lightning-fast barrel roll - a single instant before the enormous ballista bolt zipped by her, missing her right wing by mere centimeters. 

The bolt had only been in Luna's vision for a quarter of a second, but it was enough. The shaft of the bolt was as thick as her leg and half again as long as she was. The head was capped with steel, but without an edge. At that speed, it didn't matter. At that speed, goddess or not, getting hit with that in her state would kill her twice over.

Adrenaline flooded Luna as she took in the threat. Drawing on her extensive combat knowledge, she knew that a ballista with that size and range would take perhaps fifteen seconds to reload and fire again. 

Fourteen.

Thirteen.

Twelve.

Luna strained to go faster, faster, faster. She couldn't land at this speed, and even if she could, she would be an easy target for the tower. Beads of sweat collected on her forehead, dripping down her face, threatening to get in her eyes. 

Eleven.

Ten.

Nine.

Turning around wasn't an option either. That would require slowing down, and another bolt would crush her before she could get up to speed. Besides, Luna was never one to turn her back on an enemy. Her teeth were clenched so hard that she might've feared they would break, if not for the deadly threat looming down on her.

Eight.

Seven.

Six.

Luna had nearly reached the border of the town. Just a few more seconds, and she would be past the minimum range of the weapon.  She was close enough to make out the shape of the massive crossbow, and could count the ponies operating it. Somewhere inside of her, the old fire of battle sparked to life once more. 

Five.

Fou-

As close as she was, the twang of the ballista's bowstring was audible. Luna had underestimated the speed of the enemy. Her eyes shrank to pinpricks, following the bolt that was bearing down on her.

Her perception sped up a thousandfold as she watched the projectile speed towards her. "Can't dodge, too close... can't block, too heavy... can only..."

Her horn ignited, and she lashed out with a telekinetic blast at herself. The force of the attack tossed her to the side like a leaf in a storm, out of the way of the bolt. 

Almost. The heavy projectile crashed through her right wing, pulverizing it. The thin bones were crushed instantly, her delicate feathers were shredded, and only by some miracle was the entire wing not shorn off. Luna could only gasp as the red-hot hand of pain clutched her wing, piercing it with dozens of tiny knives. The pain worked its way up and down her spine, lighting up every nerve in her body. 

The dual impacts - her attempt to dodge, and her subsequent failure - drove her into an incontrollable spiral. Concepts like up and down, left and right, lost their meaning as she careened downward. The only thing she could make sense of was the gray stone wall that got closer and closer until, with a mighty thump, she crashed into it, and knew no more.