The flight to Ponyville could have been described by any onlooker as uneventful. The night princess's mind solely locked on the task of finding and protecting the Elements of Harmony and their bearers. The stallion she bore on her back was content to look about and gaze in wonder at the surroundings, for he, by virtue of being a unicorn, had never seen the Saddle Lowlands from above, much less during a sunset.
Luna gazed ahead, comforted by the mere fact that she was still able to influence her heavens to move, forcing the sun to go down, though it resisted her.
The plains below him stretched out to the horizon in front, and to the mountain behind, greens and soft yellows mixing to form all the hues between. Freckled around were ponds, adding rich blues to the landscape. Albeit dark, the sun not yet fully up, the view before him was beautiful. The one river that flowed from Canterlot, the clean blue waterfall behind them a stark contrast to the smoke of the city. Canterlot burned, and at the heart, a creature who had stolen Luna's sister from her. A creature that Luna vowed to herself would not best her again.
Luna, as focused as she could be at times, could not concentrate on what she wished to task herself. She was attempting to form a strategy to protect the Elements, but her mind continually replayed the events of her fight with her sister, how she had lost, as if her mind was mocking her failure. She fought a near perfect game, and under any normal circumstances she would have felled her sister in a single blow.
Earth pony battles consist of testing the other's strength, pushing oneself, and the enemy, to the limit while doing so. Whereas Pegasi fights consist of complex areal maneuvers, the two combatants flying in ever shrinking circles around each other until one is able to score a blow. Fights between Unicorns involved feats of ever complicated magic, until one is either unwilling, unable or too exhausted to continue. Alicorn confrontations were as much spectacles as the Alicorns who fought in them. The battles usually ended quickly with one of the two combatants either dead, dying, or heavily wounded. Most of the time a battle was mental, the two parties facing off, examining each other for weakness, finding the best point to strike, and channeling their Katra, their life energy, through their horns.
Even more often, literal mental battles occurred, the two parties attempting to convince the other they were the superior. Sometimes even going so far as to use some form of psycho-magical influence on the other. Luna herself was infamous for using a simple spell she had formulated herself, a blast of lunar magic propelled outward from her location, putting most anypony caught in the blast into a deep sleep, often inducing a coma from which the ponies affected quite usually never recovered. Likewise, Celestia, during the first and second battles for Old Canterlot, had developed and used a rather gruesome spell that cooked the opposing party from the inside out. Both sisters agreed shortly after Luna's return that these spells would never be used again. All record of those spells had since been wiped from recorded spell books, and mention of the spells by name had been reduced to mere footnotes in even the most detailed historical books.
“Your Majesty?” the sudden voice startled the lunar princess from her deep thoughts, causing a slight buffeting of her flight path. The stallion clinging to her back tightened his grip ever so slightly in response. Looking back to the stallion on her back, she raised her left eyebrow to him. “I -uh- sorry, I just was wondering...where are we going?”
“Master Silent Shadow, we are currently en route to the town of Ponyville, wherein should all goes according to plan, we will find six ponies who we will then escort out of the country through the port at Manehattan.” Luna's voice carried all the authority, and serenity that one would expect from a princess, but there was a slight trembling, one only the most discerning of ears might pick up.
He stared at her eyes, no, not her eyes, past her eyes, into her soul. “Princess, I have my name for a reason, when I was a foal, I never spoke, but I would listen and watch. It is amazing what you see when you never speak. The mute, the blind, and the deaf, they all see the changes in the world, the subtleties that everypony else miss, but can never tell another pony. I can see in your eyes, something troubles you, more than just your sister. There is a sadness, deep inside you, fears, terrors, regrets, Nightmares even, all surrounded by a burning blackness of fury and rage, lust and dark desires.”
“H-how can you know, nopony should know that.” the trembling in Luna's voice was most certainly noticeable now. His knowledge was impossible, not even her own sister could read her in such a way.
“You see my eyes, these are old eyes.” smiling softly, he looked into her eyes, a comforting gaze of his own returned to her own still confused stare. “You will understand when you are older little Luna.”
The nickname of her past shook her from the trace he had seemingly put on her, she shook her head quickly clearing it. She blink-blinked at his still smiling countenance, before giving him a quick glance and turning her head back to the flight ahead, her face now masked with a determined expression, an “I will not be moved” mentality she adopted whenever the situation demanded absolute stubbornness.
“Oh -um- about what you did back there, i-in my store,” he began, subconsciously laying his head down on her back, “I just wanna say, thanks.”
The expression Luna carried softened, she sighed softly to herself, turning back to face the task ahead. The stallion on her back content to sit and rest.
Several minutes of silence passed as Silent Shadow's breathing became slow and steady, drawing the attention of the princess. Turning her head, she gazed down upon his sleeping form, smiling softly as a mother would to a foal. A small glow of magic lit up her horn, a light blue orb jumping off the tip to fly towards, and be absorbed by the sleeping pony. The light blue glow surrounded him for a moment, before fading into his resting form. A promise of pleasant dreams and her protection, even through the darkest veil. No darkness would haunt him tonight, nor pony threaten.
----
It had been several hours, even at Luna's flight speed, Ponyville was still quite a distance. Luna had decided long before not to land in Ponyville proper, but instead bypass the sleepy-eyed town, and go directly to the Everfree forest, and the statue which now should hide the Elements of Harmony and the six ponies responsible for them.
Ponyville had not changed since the last time Luna had visited. The town hall still stood boldly, proudly in the centre of the town, with the famous Carousel Boutique nearby. The town library, the Golden Oaks, had since grown quite a bit, it was much fuller, and taller. Both were dark on the inside, assuring luna her guards had done their jobs properly. A single pony stood, or rather jumped, near the centre of the town, outside the town hall.
The pony in question, who was now frantically waving her hooves to signal the princess, appeared to be the mayor. The grey-maned mare jumped around, rather comically, reminding Luna of the young mare bound to the element of laughter.
Touching down softly as not to disturb the “sleeping foal,” Luna walked over quickly and quietly to the mayor. Her mane was disheveled, and the bags under her eyes told luna of many sleepless nights. The mayor, still dressed in her customary ruffle-tie, and suit, straightened her glasses as the Princess walked over.
“Princess Luna, I apologize for the lack of pomp and circumstance to signal your arrival, you came unexpectedly, though I may add, not unwelcome. I saw you flying from Canterlot, are you alright? I can see the smoke from the mountain even from here.” The mayor bowed quickly to the princess, straightening her white lace ruffles after she stood erect again.
“Nay, madam,” Luna waved her hoof dismissively,” I assure you, I do wish it could be under better circumstances, I can assume from your still wakened state that you were waiting on somepony?”
“Not precisely, I have just received via dragon-mail, that Canterlot has changed government, we are no longer a matriarchy I assume?” the mayor's face was one of concern, not for herself but more-so for her constituents. She had been seated at her desk, nearly an hour ago, filing some last minute paperwork before retiring for the night. The message came in a blast of heat and fire, and rested softly on her desk. She had opened it quickly, assuming something important if either of the princesses had wished to contact her so late at night.
“Not so long as I have anything to speak of it. Princess Celestia has fallen...ill, she is delusional. You are to disregard any orders she gives to you, unless they bear my signature and seal.” Luna's voice commanded authority, giving no margin for discussion.
“Yes, majesty. Several of your guards have told the town to leave Ponyville and head for the mountains northward, I, and a few select others remain, most of the town has heeded their call.”
“Well done, it is wise to get far from Canterlot. Who, pray tell, has remained?” more so from Luna's own curiosity was the question asked.
“Myself, Cheerilee, Scootaloo, Granny Smith and her grandson, Doctor Turner and his wife, we are the only ones who remain.”
Nodding curtly, Luna looked around, taking in the sight as much as she could, “Mayor Mare, I leave you in charge of their safety, you are to make certain no harm befalls to any of them. I must go into the Everfree, I trust you have the situation covered here.”
After a short farewell and a good luck from the mayor, Luna turned towards the dark forest that housed the statue, and the Elements. Walking forward, she steeled herself, wondering what would greet her in the forest ahead.
The Everfree forest was not always the unruly place it is today. Once the entire forest was a thriving agrarian town, aptly named Everfree. The town was the old capital of Equestria, before Luna's fall and eventual banishment. The old castle stood, in ruins, near the center of the forest. The forest surrounding it, and the inability for most magics to work properly inside the forest, was due to the final two battles of Luna's rebellion. The insane magical turmoil caused by the constant fight ruined the harmonic fabric in the region.
At the heart, in the center of the castle, when Celestia forced the Elements of Harmony to seal Luna in the moon, Celestia tore the fabric, and to this day, the wound has never healed. If one knows where to look, and can get past the ancient seals Celestia placed on and inside the room, somepony can find the room where it occurred. Inside the tear is visible, a bright white scar in the skin of the world. And inside of this tear, one can see eternity, everything that has happened, is happening, or will happen. To do so would kill any living thing in a matter of seconds.
Of course, Luna was not planning on going near the castle today, her destination was a small clearing inside the first kilometer of the forest. Inside of the clearing, a statue of Nightmare Moon, of Luna herself, stands menacingly. At this moment, two guards stood on either side of the statue, keeping watch for anypony foalish, or crazy enough to wander into the Everfree Forest at night, also creatures, they were watching out for those as well.
Luna's brisk walk to the edge of the forest took near five minutes. The Everfree forest had a single simple path leading to the castle, non-paved and partially grown-over. Luna's path however, led her only a few hundred meters into the forest, from which she left the path, heading towards the small clearing.
Vines and loose branches hung around loosely as she magically pushed through the overgrowth, the effect of the Everfree causing her to expend more effort than normal. She made sure to avoid causing any harm to the slumbering stallion perched upon her back. Luna's eyes caught sight of the slightly less dark area of the clearing.
Walking boldly into the clearing she spotted the three things she had hoped to be present. Most notably the statue of her darker half, and the two Lunar guards posted on either side. Their gold, reptilian eyes focused on her immediately, and the spears they carried lowered in her direction.
“Filia sum Atlas,” she announced to them, “I am your princess.”
The spears bolted upright as the guards assumed a salute, standing stock-still as she walked up to them. Looking around carefully for any signs of life other than the guards and herself, she touched her horn to the base of he statue, forcing it to react to her lunar magics. A light glow formed around the base, spreading outward to the hooves, then up to the stone horn. A low clunk echoed for several seconds before silence overtook the forest once again.
The guards moved aside as the base of the statue moved rather silently, and anticlimactically, backwards, revealing an opening into the ground below. An unlit linear stone staircase continued onward into the blackness below. For any normal pony it would be impossible to see how far down the staircase went, or even if it ever ended. Luna however knew the staircase itself wend down only a few feet, before the passageway to the bunker would take over. The subtle glow from the safe house would be the only light her eyes required, and the only light her eyes would receive. Luna nodded to the guards, and walked into the darkness, walking several feet before the base above her began to move forward to cover the opening. Slowly but surly the staircase, the princess, and her companion were plunged into the utter darkness of the tunnel.