- XI -
Celestia rounded a corner, the twisted urban landscape looming over her. The buildings had become almost organic in nature, looking less built and more grown. The landscape was nightmarish, all semblance of order gone now, replaced with roads that led to nowhere, pits that suddenly dropped into the ground, and an overhead canopy of bizarre construction that blotted out the stars overhead.
Celestia felt tired, both physically and emotionally. The trek to the center of the crater had been harrowing. In places, as the buildings had activated due to her proximity, they’d begun to fall apart. Unknown hundreds of years of disuse had taken their toll, and even the reduced gravity of the lunar surface could no longer compensate for the city’s non-euclidean and nonsensical growth.
Celestia crouched low, ducking her head beneath a walkway just a few feet above ground level that twisted in a corkscrew. She looked farther ahead, down the path, and stopped in her tracks.
The buildings simply ended.
Celestia slowly approached the edge of the city. Finally, she stood beyond the last insane construct, and looked out on a massive, flat, circular plane. The city stood like a coral reef around this barren spot, protecting it from view, hiding the very center of the crater. Celestia took a few steps out into the empty and perfectly flat area, examining it carefully.
Why had the construction ended so abruptly? What was here?
Celestia began walking around the edge of the circular area, and noted a line drawn along the flat lunar rock, carved deep. Celestia’s gaze followed the line, noting its subtle curve, and did a few quick calculations.
“A perfect circle.”
She stepped over the edge of the massive circle, and began walking inward, towards the very center. As she walked, dozens of glowing black runes began to manifest themselves in the rock around her hoofsteps, and Celestia paused, examining them carefully. They were the pieces of some colossal spell, a massive arcane endeavor. Each rune was suffused with power, even after all this time. Celestia gave up attempting to interpret the spell’s use, realizing that with the sheer size of the circle and the amount of runes present in just this small area she could see, it would take her months of work to read the full spell. Besides, something had caught her eye.
There was a small raised platform in the center of the circle.
Celestia approached the platform, her steps slowing as the runes of the inscribed spell grew in power and size. Her final step took her to the very edge of the platform, and revealed a massive glowing circle filled with arcane runes for focusing, centered on the platform.
Whatever spell this was was one of incredible power and potency. The focusing runes and the amount of energy within them was enough to nearly quadruple the input strength of the arcane spell surrounding the platform, building and binding all that potential arcane energy that filled the mile-wide circle of runes into a spot barely large enough for Celestia to lay down on.
On top of this platform, the very central focus of the great spell, was a mirror.
Celestia hesitated. Whatever spell this had been, it was strong enough to still be potent after what was no doubt hundreds of years. The mirror may have been the focal point. She wasn’t certain, and being unsure meant that she couldn’t take chances. What if she activated the spell again? She had no idea what it would do. It could fail, or it could be devestating.
Her only consoling factor was that whatever it was that Nightmare had attempted here had failed.
It had to have failed. Nightmare Moon had never returned until the end of her thousand-year exile. This whole spell, whatever it was, had never worked.
With that thought in mind, Celestia used her telekinesis to grasp the mirror and activate it’s magic. She tensed as she did, ready for any sort of reaction from the ancient spell, but nothing happened. She exhaled slowly, relief flooding her features.
The soft, frightened voice that floated from the mirror, however, changed all that.
“...Hello?”
Celestia froze in place.
No.
It wasn’t possible.
“We hope this works... our name is Princess Luna of Equestria. We have found ourselves... displaced from our homeland, and somehow placed upon the surface of the moon. How we hath found ourselves in such a position, we do not know. We hath found ourselves in the center of a great, arcane spell, the likes of which we hath never before seen. The work is intricate and of intense power, and we assume it hath something to do with our current predicament.”
Celestia slowly lifted her gaze to look into the mirror.
“We appear to be unable to translocate or teleport ourselves from our current location. Perhaps the spell is preventing us from doing so. Thus, we shall endeavor to explore yon city, and hopefully find the makers of such... odd constructs.”
Celestia stared at the face of her dearest, beloved sister, Princess Luna. Gone was the taint of Nightmare Moon, the draconian eyes and shadowed etheral mane. Luna looked concerned, but not overly so. Celestia sat down heavily, lifting a hoof to her chest as she listened to her sister’s recording.
“If it be any of mine loyal subjects that discover this message, know that we are safe. If it be mine sister that doth listen to this, then... know I am safe. Look for me in the city. I will await thine rescue eagerly.”
Celestia had been wrong. She shivered, tears rising to her eyes unbidden. Nightmare Moon had escaped her prison. The spell had done its job, and the Nightmare's imprisonment had ended...as Luna took her place.
Celestia tilted her head back, letting out a helpless scream, tears streaming down her face. She barely heard the end of the ancient message
“Sister, you may find me by mine arcane mark, which I shalt leave at regular intervals along mine path through yon city.”
Luna sounded so strong. How was she to know that her own, beloved sister’s folly had been what had placed her in this situation? How was she to know that she would be trapped for over seven-hundred years on the moon, alone? To lose her mind?
Celestia lay down upon the platform as the message faded away, and wept.