//------------------------------// // Interlude Three: In Defiance Of The Night // Story: What The Night Remembers // by TCSNxs //------------------------------// What The Night Remembers By: TCSNxs Interlude Three In Defiance Of The Night The next few hours passed with the usual banter the two exchanged. Luna pressed the farmer along her usual lines of semi-sexual innuendo while Applejack countered with feelings of flippant apathy. Luna's eyes sparkled with their usual mischievousness, but something about them clued Applejack into the fact that the Lunar Regent was hiding something. The farmer fished as best she could, but Luna wasn't biting. Gradually, Applejack felt the day catching up to her. Given the need to avoid any more "delays" with moving the moon and some stern accusations from the Celestia, the two agreed it would be wise to spend the night in Luna's abode. Applejack suggested that they could procure another bed. However, Luna cited some ancient protocol against moving beds from the guest rooms. Though the farmer caught on to a few of the Lunar Regent's disingenuous words, Applejack never called her on it. As such, the two eventually agreed to share the same bed. When they retired, Luna fell easily into her reverie with a smile creased on her face. Applejack, though, had a more difficult time. Her mind worked to lower the intrusions from the moon until it were little more then a whisper. The last discernible feeling the farmer received was something akin to a whimpering puppy. After she found a satisfactory aegis against the intrusions and a few deep exhales, the farmer eventually succumbed to her weariness. ~(o)~ Applejack felt herself floating once more. Quickly breaking her vision downward, she realized her body was still whole as she found her typical orange fur ending in a familiar hoof. A sense of relief washed over the farmer while she let out an audible sigh. "Am Ah dreamin'?" the farmer managed to vocalize. She was surprised she had heard herself. It occurred to the farmer that the swirling grey clouds were slowly lifting as if under an assault from the sun. Applejack felt her hooves connect with the ground as the cloudy masses continued their shift into translucence. It took a while before the shapes came into focus, but she understood the trees had a sense of familiarity, as if it were pulled from a memory. She put one hoof forward. After the farmer found some solidity in the connection, she took another step and another before finally breaking into a canter. As she paced along, the swirling mass of clouds abated into night time while a smell akin to a campfire filled her nostrils. The dense forest seemed scarred in a few spots, though those details mattered little to Applejack at the moment. The farmer continued along the cobblestone path laid out before her. After seemingly hours had passed, she heard the growl of thunder off in the distance. Applejack moved faster, looking to find some shelter from the coming storm while bursts of light randomly lit the sky. The farmer looked skyward, trying to measure the time before the cloudburst arrived. But instead of the usual white that was accustomed to, the flashes had varying shades of color. Even a few flashes of pure darkness obfuscated the moonlit sky. Applejack knew would need to find shelter soon lest she get caught in an storm out of Rainbow Dash's worst nightmares. Increasing her pace even more, she finally noted more than a few trees seemed to be smoldering. She paused and quickly looked around; she noted entire swaths of the forest lining the path seemed victims of a firestorm. A sense of dread grew in the pits of her stomach, but she felt herself being called forward. It wasn't a suggestion from the moon as she knew it, but something seemed to be beckoning her forth to show her something important. Though the flashes and rumblings became more sharp and against all better judgement, she pressed on. As she emerged from the charred forest, a massive stone structure filled her sight. It was like Canterlot Castle, only on a smaller scale. Two jutting towers rose from either side of the main body of the structure with great sweeping buttresses liberally strewn about the perimeter. Where a pony might have expected a grandiose and pristine structure, the walls of the main hall and the towers had more than a few holes with black smoke pouring through. Black scorch marks liberally dotted the walls and a couple of buttresses seemed on the verge of collapse. "The Castle of the Pony Sisters," Applejack muttered to herself. A flash of lightning stole the farmer away from her ruminations. Gazing upwards, she saw a lightning bolt blazing away past her line of sight. A flash of fire streaked back from the direction of the departed lightning. The fire-bolt crashed into the top of the tower a split second after a dark form took the air. A cream colored form, save for a few spots of darker coloring, took flight after the dark form. The two figures proceeded to chase each other about the nighttime sky. A few elemental blasts crashed into the white form's globe, but they were seemingly absorbed into the shimmering translucent sphere. The cream colored figure seemed more deliberate with its blasts, as if wanting to keep the dark form corralled to the area. Applejack watched in awe as the two forms continued to dance and loose all sorts of destructive energy about the sky. The cream colored form swooped down in an arc as the dark entity loosed a green shot of energy. The cream colored figure banked hard upwards, avoiding the shot. It occurred to the farmer at that moment that the green bolt was streaking towards her! Applejack's muscles instinctively grew taut as she readied to dodge. Before the farmer could meet the business end of the green streaking bolt, a silver glow clouded her vision and she felt herself quickly yanked away. A split second later, the green energy bolt thundered into the ground where the farmer had been, blasting parts of it upward and smoldering a surprisingly large area. It took a moment for Applejack's vision to correct itself after the glow vanished. She realized that she was in a small stone structure. It was perhaps a guardhouse, but such details were unimportant as the brutal, beautiful battle raged overhead. "It's possible for ponies to die in their dreams," spoke a form from the shadows off to her side. Cyan orbs possessed an innocent sparkle to them as they stared out from the darkness. A dark blue hoof strode forward from the darkness. Gradually, Luna continued as she emerged from the shadows in a corner, "It would be a pity if such were to happen to you." Applejack noticed the alicorn seemed a head or two shorter than usual. Or was she taller? The farmer tried to process everything, but the vagaries of the entire scene left her dumbfounded. "Please, Luna! Listen to me," cried out a voice above the two. Applejack recognized it as Celestia's, though she'd never heard it in so much distress. She continued to plead with the dark form as some golden trinkets and a crown glistened in the smoke-tinted starlight, “You can’t do this. Your privations will kill us all unless you lower the moon!” "What's...," Applejack spoke, but a dark sapphire hoof intercepted any further words from her mouth. “You’re joking, right?” the darker form shot back, “And have ‘our little ponies’ miss the night? You never got it, Tia." There was then an audible sound that the farmer, intimately familiar with physical vulgarities, recognized was a blob of saliva leaving a mouth. The dark form finished, "And I don’t think you ever will.” Applejack stepped back from the hoof stopping up her mouth. Though she wasn't sure of all the variables involved, the farmer pieced together enough of the equation. She wasn't entirely sure, but she knew she were sharing a memory of the Lunar Regent. Luna didn't speak; she kept looking up to the unfolding scene. It was a scene she relived countless times, but never for an audience. "Ah don't suppose ya have an answer," Applejack asked, though she didn't wish to press the matter. She figured there was some subtle reason she was witnessing Luna's reminiscence, but there would be time to find the answers. She hoped there would be anyway. "Perhaps I have one," Luna remarked after a space, "Though I think you should close your eyes first." "Why?" "You are a wielder of an Element of Harmony, fair Applejack," Luna deadpanned, "You should know what happens next." "Oh." The Lunar Regent and farmer both snapped their eyes shut a split second before blinding flash erupted in the sky overhead. Even through her closed eyes, the brightness tinted Applejack's vision as she heard the sound of a familiar eruption. The Elements of Harmony sparked to life, wrapping the dark figure in its prismatic embrace. Applejack saw her eyelid-blocked vision grow brighter still as the sounds eventually dulled into a deafening silence. After a moment, the brightness died away to nothing, save for a few tracers. The sensations about Applejack's body became familiar as a warm, moist air filled the void about her. Against her better judgement, the farmer opened an eye and found darkness dominated her vision. Before she could even find words to call out to Luna, her mind was nearly broken by a sudden deluge of intrusions. Feelings of overwhelming sadness, anger and confusion clouded any hopes of logical thought. Images of an inky black equine form with slit irises bashing itself repeatedly against a wall of pure golden energy clouded her mind's eye. Physical sensations of burns and pain wracked her body with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. She wanted to cry out, but found no faculty to facilitate it. In truth, she wasn't entirely sure she was herself at that moment. The assault seemingly lasted for hours, though only a few minutes had passed. Any defense she initially put up was crushed against the weight of the onslaught. As powerful as Discord had been and as ominous as Sombre was, this was something altogether different. She felt her spirit and her will bending not from a magical spell, but from the sheer weight of hopelessness. A dark alto laughter cackling in her skull that multiplied as the minutes passed. Indeed, her will was bending, but not breaking. Eventually, the farmer's will began to reassert control. Those parts of her that overcame so much in so short of a life through sheer determination rallied. The defiant wielder of the Element of Honesty found a measure of defense against the mental maelstrom. Zoning out the pain, Applejack began pinpointing her thoughts against the emotional barrage. One by one, the feelings fell away. If they didn't fall, they were brutally shoved aside. The images were dealt with in the same fashion, some shattering like neatly broken glass. Eventually, Applejack's true self began to gain an upper hoof against it all. If nothing else, the farmer never did one thing: surrender. The laughter that was mocking her finally fell still. In it's steed as a soft titter that she'd grown familiar with If given a choice between the Nightmare and the moon, Applejack would choose the lunar body. It took a few minutes before Applejack pierced all of the crippling sensations, but she managed to reassert her self-control and re-establish her mental blocks. The farmer took some time to make sure they'd hold before trying to make sense of the darkness. After a moment or two, a spark of silver lit before holding a glow and bathing the area in it's pale light. The glow moved towards her. Applejack quickly checked herself while the glow was growing brighter. She found no burns or even a scratch. The farmer shook her head at the insanity of it all. At least she were whole again. "It took years before I could do that," Luna seemingly smirked as her horn glowed, "Though I had all the time a pony could want for practice and the sensations were all the more real than memory." "Sugarcube," Applejack began. She paused for a moment to find the words she was looking for. "Let me save you some trouble, fair Applejack," Luna interrupted the farmer's train of thought, "Yes, you are in my head. No, I don't really know how you got here. Yes, those were my memories and are my dreams. And no, I am not in control of any of this. No more then any pony controls their slumbering thoughts in any case." The Lunar Regent finished with a shrug. Applejack pondered for a moment. Perhaps it was the connection to the moon? Maybe it was the fact they had "merged their harmonics" as Luna put it earlier? Regardless, it probably didn't matter in the end. "Am Ah goin' to be stuck here?" Applejack asked. "I could think of worse fates," Luna replied with a grin, "Not many," Applejack mumbled. "Doubtful," Luna answered both statements as once, "This is a dream, after all. And all dreams end." Applejack felt a slight sadness at that statement, but she wasn't sure it was her own. Luna continued on, "I've no more control to keep you here than you, yourself, possess. In any case, I suspect these are your thoughts now as much as mine." "Beg pardon?" "Think about it, my friend," Luna moved closer to the farmer, tapping her on the shoulder with a hoof, "For all intents, you were part of the moon itself, which is as much a part of me as my wings or horn. Don't you believe it's possible for you to relive those memories given that connection we now share?" "Ah ain't seen that rabbit in your head yet," Applejack quipped. "Some things are ever a private domain," Luna replied without missing a beat, "Regardless, the circumstances are what they are." "If that's the case, why in the name of Apple Fritters are we in the moon?" "I spent a thousand years here, my friend. Don't you think it would be a rather important time in my life?" "Point taken," Applejack conceded. "As I said, I don't outright control where my mind leads while I slumber. Were that the case, I would picture you in a bubbly hot tub waiting to offer me a glass of wine and a hoof rub," Luna finished. "Let me guess. In a Prench Maid outfit?" "My dreams, fair Applejack," Luna flashed a devastating grin as she finished, letting Applejack draw the appropriate conclusions. "For all the good that does us. Do ya always dream about being banished?" Where the farmer expected a verbal riposte, Luna instead was silent for once as she looked down. The farmer didn't need any intrusions to know she unintentionally hit a chink in the Lunar Regent's emotional armor. The farmer would normally pause to let any of her friend's have the space they needed. Such was the value of patience. Applejack decided to let the mental barriers drop a bit. Adjusting it ever so slowly, she allowed just enough of the chaotic energies and images through to gain a bit of perspective. Or tried to. As she attempted to sort through the chaos, she only came to understand one thing through those emotions and images: fear. It wasn't bred from losing control or the natural precursor to rage. But that bred of loss and the resultant vulnerability. It was like losing a loved one and the uncertainties resulting from how to go on. She knew that well. But there was more as well. Where there was the natural result of a shattering loss, there was something else there she couldn't place. Though there was sadness, there was also a warmth in her chest. Applejack raised her blocks again to look for the Lunar Regent to apologize. Applejack looked to where Luna was, but she was gone. Gradually, the darkness shifted away, blowing away as memories always do on moonlit winds. The visions gradually grew black. The farmer silently committed as much as she could for her waking memory before the dream simply faded away.