“This is an outrage!” The powerful voice shook the halls of the court. The ponies surrounding the voice cowered in fear. It was an emotion they found alien in the presence of their ruler. So too was the sight of her features twisted in rage, eyes narrowed in anger.
“Why can you not find them!?” The subject she addressed was the only pony in the crowd that displayed little fear in the face of his ruler’s outburst. His features were passive, empty, like a forgotten boulder in the forest’s depths.
“My team has searched the Everfree Forest for days and nights without end, your majesty.” His words were kind and loyal. His voice was dead and barren. “Nothing has been found as of yet regarding the missing ponies or dragon.”
The alabaster alicorn, standing on her four hooves with murder in her eyes, glared at the Captain of her Guard. Her breath was near visible with steam, mane billowing against a wind that showed the strength of a storm. Her eyes darted away.
“Leave.” She commanded. “All of you. Go.” The ponies looked to one another with skepticism, but slowly shuffled out of the packed hall. She watched them with eyes that hid none of her anger, concealed none of her fury. The many ponies left the hall, leaving behind only angered Celestia, silent Armor… and a tearful Luna. The Princess of the Day stared down at the captain of her guard. The anger was clear in her eyes, but beneath it, her sister could see the brewing of hate and disdain.
“Do you not care for your sister, Shining Armor?” The stallion looked to his ruler with a look that nearly sent the princess on the defensive. “How have you not found anything of her? No note, no message, not even a clue as to her disappearance?”
The blue stallion bit his lip, holding back a comment he knew he would regret. His eyes screwed themselves shut as his head lowered to the floor. Celestia watched with a gaze that grew cold, the fires in her eyes turning to ice, scowl turning into a line of contempt. Even that slowly receded when Shining Armor looked back to her.
His face had turned the very image of torture.
Tears flowed from his eyes in a way she knew only fillies capable of doing, his teeth gripped together hard enough to crack every tooth in his mouth. She could hear his breath increase with ever second that passed.
“Nothing.” He spoke it through his teeth. The words only met the alicorns’ ears with the silence of the hall that surrounded them. “Nothing. There was n-nothing.” His jaw slowly relaxed as little control returned to his anguished body.
“Not of Twily, not of Spike, not of Rainbow Dash, not of-of anypony at all.” The tears flowing from his eyes did not extinguish the flames growing in his gaze. “Twily’s library was burned, Dash’s home smashed to pieces, Pip’s home gone, mother catatonic, Scootaloo gone as well. Th-There is nothing. Nothing!”
He shouted into the face of his princess.
She didn’t object in the slightest. Her gaze was harder than the stone surrounding Discord, stronger than the sides of the mountain Canterlot hung from. If she had any emotion aside from her anger, she showed not a trace of it to the Captain of her guard.
“Leave.” Her tone was colder than ice. “Go to Cadance. Comfort one another, now.” Shining stood for only a moment before turning from his ruler, foregoing the salute of farewell. Both Guardians of Night and Day watched him go.
“Sister,” Luna began once Shining was out of sight. “Can-”
“Stop.” The dark alicorn froze at Celestia’s command. “Not now Luna, please not now.” Her tone had changed once more.
From fire to ice, and now mournful tears.
“Have pity on an old mare, Luna. Let me mourn for my student. Let me be alone.” Without another word, the mighty Princess Celestia, ruler of Equstria, walked from her throne.
Luna watched her sister trot away, limping with a broken soul, leaving the Princess of the Night alone in the hall. The passing of the sun welcomed the coming of the moon, the entrance for shadows. Her cerulean eyes turned themselves to a far corner of the room, darkened by blinds pulled aside for the tall glass windows. It was of the purest black, darker than even the coat of a nightmare.
But she could see it.
It was clear to her the slender form hiding in the blanketing abyss. It’s tendrils near prying at the passing light, pushing away the warmth of the day. She watched it stare forwards without a gaze, looking towards the retreating form of her sister. She felt through the paths of her mind, the colors of its ideas.
A dark blackness that stretched over a void, white paths holding strong and tall above the encasing darkness, but swirls of red reaching up and capturing the pure alabaster paths. The spirals grew until the roads of white ran red.
Tears spilled from Luna’s lonely eyes.
The creature’s gazeless face looked upon her.
She whispered a mantra into her spectral mane.
“At any cost.”