I felt sick.
“For his Majesty’s glory!” A stallion screamed.
Without thinking, I turned around, toward this more distinct noise. It was a mistake, as I would have rather not witness a pony being impaled viciously on a lance.
More red.
Gritting my teeth together, I forced myself to focus on Luna.
The dark blue alicorn seemed remarkably calm, her face betraying nothing of her emotion if not a small sentiment of severity. Her eyes, half-closed, flickered to the scene unfolding around us once, before truly falling on me.
“What is going on?” I asked, flinching at the sound of ponies falling to the ground. “Why are you saying this is a foal’s dream?”
“Have I not made that clear?” She gave a dismissive sneer. “This place is a foal’s dream as it unfolds.”
I tried to understand, to see more clearly what was going on, but my vision was clouded by this darkening atmosphere spreading around the battlefield. Wild bouts of nausea assaulted my senses for every twisted detail I did manage to make out. “D-does that child wish for war? Is this what you wanted to tell me?”
“Wish?” She repeated, a little incredulity piercing her otherwise stoic features. “No, it is not a wish, but this is a place he can be content. He doesn’t understand why, but he’s not unpleased with this turn of events.”
I opened my mouth, but no words came out. Now, I just plain don’t know.
“It is deeply disturbing, however, that a colt that had never heard of this before would have dreams of bloody conquest,” she said, walking past me. “Unfortunately, this phenomenon is starting to multiply amongst our subjects.”
With a single stomp of her hooves, the world changed, as a single ripple through the air washed away the battlefield and replaced it with something… otherworldly.
The sky was silver, but so was the ground. The line of the horizon had disappeared in a strange lack of contrast, even if it obviously existed far beyond my eyesight.
Princess Luna was, of course, unaffected. Why would she be? Thus, her legs carried her on even as I stared with unease at the plane of existence she had transported me to. Quickly enough, it became evident she would not wait for me should I stay immobile.
My instincts told me to fear this strange place and what might happen, should I be reckless, but I had little choice. Against my flanks, the force of my wings pressed strongly. For a second, the thought of flight was tempting, but, ultimately, was rejected. Slowly, I put a hoof to the inert reflective surface.
I felt a jolt of magic go up my leg where contact had been made. The ground itself rippled, as would a water surface that we’d walk over. Each wave painted the sky a different color.
Though fascinating, this couldn’t keep me distracted for too long. “How many ponies, Luna!?”
“Would you be happy hearing the numbers?” She paused, giving me a chance to catch up. I wished I hadn’t, as the look she gave me was icy cold. “Are there any you would consider ‘low enough’?”
I looked away, forcing my ears to droop. Maybe.
“Far too many, Ventus Vinco.” Her gaze turned to the horizon, but she did not look at it. Her mind was elsewhere. “I have witnessed too many of these dreams recently. Those I stop end up making the dreamer more agitated during the day. Some ponies reported to have assaulted others, I recognized with ease. Disturbing as it may be, these dreams seem to evacuate the worse of our subjects’ aggression.”
I felt something unlock in my chest, but, in my head, some ideas were still floating around. “They are… a defense mechanism?”
The look she gave me was heavy with meaning, as was the judgment I perceived. “Yes. Dreams are an expression of a pony’s daily experience. Sometimes.” Her lips curved into a small, fond, smile. “They are rather unpredictable.”
“And nonsensical,” I added, recalling a few experiences with balloon bowling and bike sellers in a spa.
“Yes,” she agreed, though the fondness melted away in seconds. “Our citizens are dreaming of violence and payback. Sometimes, for offenses so small I was baffled. Death because one had been annoying?!”
I felt the strong and completely absurd urge to whistle loudly while looking away. Such a desire was squashed mercilessly. If I ever act that dumb, I deserve a kick to the groin.
“This is indeed surreal.” I nodded, tone grave and suspicious. “What folly is responsible for this?”
Her tone grew colder still. “You.”
I took a step back, mouth suddenly drying in the face of a clearly angry alicorn a few hundred years my elder. Eyes wide open with apprehension and my whole body tensing, I stared and searched for signs of menace.
“I… do not understand…” And truly, to the extent of my knowledge and education, there was nothing on how my powers could cause such a thing. As for which force of Chaos could, I was not overly fond of the possibilities.
“Do you not?” She asked, and it sounded to me as if she was surprised. “Or do you refuse to think about it?” Or skeptical.
I looked down, not meeting her gaze and the silent challenge it issued.
“Your impromptu descent into our kingdom has triggered events nopony could contain, not even my sister and me. Once the balance has tilted, more players will come and try to push it in their favors.”
“Which ones?” was all I dared say.
Once more, Luna turned around, looking in the distance, more likely in her memories than in that reflective surface. Slowly, she started trotting away, and I followed her. “The winds of hatred have started blowing over Equestria. Ponies from certain settlements have started growing more unruly… Public order is harder to maintain as many petty conflicts arise every day.”
Images flash before my eyes in an almost familiar manner, when one takes into account the reality warping that had plagued my first few days here. However, this time, it wasn’t so much remembering as being shown. And the scenes definitely left an impression.
A landscape of snow and ice, buried by an unending blizzard, where naught but a few imprints in the ground remained and even those would soon disappear. Hoofprints that led to a cave, blocked by a wall of ice. Amazingly, bickering could be heard through the air. It… was about a rock.
Somepony’s got an insane sense of priority.
Luna was by my side, her mane’s starry end almost brushing against my fur. These abrupt transition having started to get common, I managed to keep a straight face, even as she looked down on me.
“You know the answer, Ventus Vinco.” A dangerous light flashed in her eyes. “You, of all ponies, cannot possibly ignore the answer to this puzzle.”
And truly, I did know. Sam knew. At least.
“The windigoes…” I muttered, a familiar ethereal neigh echoing in my mind.
“They are coming back.” The line of her jaw seemed to have straightened and hardened. “Of all the forces you could have summoned, it had to be them.”
Ghost-like, pony-shaped abominations, that feed off hatred and spread cold, until the world was but a frozen wasteland and a cemetery for all races. The chaos that I had called forth.
Yeah, I’m pretty much a walking disaster. No freaking doubt about this. Still…
“But the windigoes were banished before, were they not?” I said, observing her expression for noticeable tics. “And the bearers of the Elements of Harmony are alive and well. Could they not be used to put a stop to this madness?”
“No.” She shook her head, closing her eyes. “The windigoes are a spreading plague. They multiply through the misery and the cold they create. Eliminating them is not so easy a process that you can simply aim a weapon at them and hope for the best. While anypony might have the power to banish them, the simple fact remains that the windigoes’ powers themselves will make it a miracle, should it happen.”
W-why? I thought, properly horrified at the sudden burst of emotion in my chest. Why did that thought just make me happy?!
A twitch on my tail remained the only external sign I gave of this struggle. Princess Luna’s presence alone was suffocating, too big to be shouldered on by a single pony, in a way so drastically dissimilar to Princess Celestia. The white alicorn was like a stern mother, whom you failed and suffered shame at disappointing her. Rarely should a pony truly fear for their life in Celestia’s presence.
But with Luna… I could see the impulse dance under her skin, a twitch of muscles that ran over the muscles of her neck and her shoulders and a clench in her jaw, both signs that faded out quickly, even if they left me with the lingering impression that she had stopped herself from spinning around and staring me down.
And those were only the physical changes. My horn was tickling and heating with the changes in the ambient flow of magic around us.
Mastering the shaking in my hooves, I tried to swallow the fear of being alone with Luna, even as it seemed she fought herself not to kill me on the spot. Without knowing my true impressions so far. Her getting access to my thoughts and feelings would have left me a smoking corpse.
“…Your sister knows of this, doesn’t she?” I spoke, though my voice broke mid-sentence.
“Of course.” Luna straightened. “I informed her of our predicament as soon as I detected its effects on our citizens.”
“I… I heard nothing of it.” It left me with a strangely hollow feeling in my chest, somehow. It hurt… why?
“My sister was always a very impressive chess player. And I heard she has taken up card games as a hobby too. One game in particular…” She bit her lips in irritation. “Ah, the name escapes me.”
“Poker?” I guessed, grimacing.
“Yes, that sounds fitting. Poker…” She let the word roll off her tongue. “But this is irrelevant. Our sister was discreet and sent a few more soldiers to investigate those occurrences when I reported them. So far, no real fight has broken out, but we refuse to consider ourselves so lucky that it will continue so without our intervention.”
Another question came to me, though I couldn’t quite tell what its origin was. “And the citizens? Do they know?”
Somehow, I believed it only right that they be informed of the danger they were in. Again, I did not know why.
Luna seemed downcast as the words soaked in.
“No, they do not. Not yet, at least.”
“B-but…”
“It must be nice…” She cut me off. “For one’s worry consisting of tabloids’ opinion of them.”
This one… felt like a jab at me, but there was also… there was something else there, in the tone of her voice and the wishful gaze she casted on the silver sky.
It didn’t work though, because in the end, I couldn’t care less about those, but heck… she didn’t need to know that. So I affected an ashamed, humble voice and lowered my head.
“You’re trying to make me feel small, aren’t you?”
“No. I am trying to make you realize you should be bigger than you are now.” S-something about her voice… she looked almost surprised. “You’ve talked about doing your best to atone for that mistake, but I have yet to witness you trying.”
I shifted on my hooves, tail twitching nervously and wings fluttering. “T-that’s…”
“But this is also an exaggeration, Ventus Vinco. My words were but an observation, one that could make you reflect on your statement. This purpose obviously failed, my attitude toward you being faulty and not very suitable for a mentor’s relationship.”
Well, I had no idea how to respond to that.
“It appears my sister’s experience still trumps my inspiration. Practice make perfect, they say. I shall practice more then.”
I blinked. “You are interested in taking an apprentice?”
“Yes, but that will be subject for another discussion. We are not done yet, Ventus. What I hoped to communicate to you was that our citizens remain so far blissfully ignorant of the danger over their head. Their hearts are light without the fear of windigoes hovering so close to their heads.”
“The danger is still there, isn’t it?” I frowned. Why was this bothering me so much?
“If possible, my sister and I would rather allow our little ponies to remain as innocent as they can be. Their purity does make them happier beings.” She shot me an inquisitive look, equally curious as it seemed cautious. “Do you not shield your brother so?”
My jaw clenched, to the point of hurting.
“I see…” The Princess of the Night muttered, before deciding this had gone on long enough.
Her horn lit up with its blue glow, causing ripples upon ripples through the air and the ground. I awaited, readying my body for the smallest sign of a threat.
Abruptly, everything stopped.
No sound, no movement, no magic… The world had become still beyond my own sense of self. My breathing seemed to be impossibly loud in this silence. It racked on my nerves and boomed in my ears, and there was nothing else. Nothing. Luna’s form still existed, but it seemed to me that she might as well be an image, least of all a living being.
It made an invisible pressure fall on me, as my eyes scanned the silent world for the sign of something… anything at all!
My heart nearly exploded in my chest when I did find one. There was a figure in the distance; a stallion, I could tell, but something about him…
I was dumbstruck when it blinked into existence, a few hooves away from us. Its appearance was…
H-he seemed to be… me. The difference between us were in the details, in the most insignificant manner. His general appearance was so reminiscent of mine it couldn’t be a coincidence. If somepony put Magnus and him next to me, they would undoubtedly assume this stallion was my father instead. His coat was as golden as mine, his mane was as pale as mine… h-hi-his… eyes…
To properly describe how disturbing it was, I had to… to express… The way that stallion carried himself, the way he held himself, the way he smiled, I was naturally inclined to believe and trust this guy. My first impulse, seeing him, had been to go and greet him.
Then, I had the chance to see his eyes.
They were mine, at my darkest. And I understood. I understood who that was, what he was.
The air became colder, losing its own welcoming quality. I was not in control. The clarity of this dreamlike land started to lessen, turning into a dark void. And still, he appeared to be just a pleasant fellow, if… i-if not for the…
Psychopaths usually have superficial charms, don’t they?
…Eh, I would know that, right?
Luna’s voice made me jump out of my skin. “This is Caelum Ourobos, First of the Fallen, as I recall him to be.”
“As you…” I felt my head become lighter. “You knew him? A-as in…?”
Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap! Please tell me she doesn’t know Caelum to have been a complete psycho as well!
“Intimately.” BUCK! Also, what?! “As you may know, he was the first alicorn to be tasked in coming to Equestria, before it was even known by that name, to tamper the war brewing between the three tribes. The task proving too difficult for him alone, he requested assistance, which was the moment my sister and I were deemed fit to leave the Astral Planes.”
Slowly, I nodded, trying to fit this new information with what I had been taught.
“We failed.” Her lips trembled, out of fear and regrets. “And the worst happened.”
It wasn’t bitterness. It was anger.
I dared not ask toward whom she directed it.
“He did something terrible. My sister and I were the first to be neutralized. He did not want the interference.” The anger faded away, her traits relaxing, but not enough. She seemed haunted by her past. “He went after my sister first… she had seen through his façade… I… I didn’t… I only intervened far too late.”
Luna then closed her eyes, controlling her breathing. Her pain was so obvious that I couldn’t simply ignore it.
I would have rested a hoof on her shoulder, had I not caught sight of Caelum, tilting his head slightly at Luna, amused. His expression was pleasant, as always, but storms brewed behind those soulless eyes. It made my blood curdle.
Slowly, Luna seemed to recover, a hint of steel flashing through her tone when her gaze met Caelum’s. “Amongst his titles, there is one he is least well-known for in these days and age: Lord of the Windigoes.”
I froze.
“Shocking as it may seem to you, it is only logical. He is their creator, after all.”
I could not articulate my thoughts anymore. “He… what? H-how?”
“Caelum did not plan for it to happen… or at least… I still hold to the hope that he hadn’t, not at first.”
No sound would escape my mouth, not for a lack of trying.
“During his first few years of negotiation with each tribe’s leaders, he grew frustrated with their stubbornness and their refusal to cooperate. No amount of his pleading would suffice and nothing short of military might would make them fold, which was precisely the solution to crept over the horizon. With time, he grew to hate them and their hard heads.”
A sense of foreboding visited me, heavier than before, and like that, I knew that Caelum’s gaze had fallen on me.
“He could not bear it, to try to save those he hated.” For once, Luna’s expression softened. She pitied him. “Duty, orders, those are things inscribed in an alicorn’s very mind. For the sake of his mission, he did something unthinkable.”
Carried by a strange instinct, I turned my head, glancing toward the living memory.
He was smiling at me, fondly, a father observing his child taking his first steps.
I fought back the desire to scream.
“He tore apart his soul.”
My front leg gave out under me. I-I hadn’t been able to stomach this one and I stumbled, breathing more strongly as dread started to crawl under my skin.
“H-he did what?!”
“Every time he felt the hatred become too strong, he tore away the fragment that held his hatred and casted it away from his soul. Alicorns are strange beings, less similar to ponies than they would like to believe. Caelum obviously believed his own nature would allow him to continue such reckless practice. And, for a while, it did work. His behavior became… less emotional, more paused and patient. Things… things didn’t affect him as strongly as before.”
It’s coming. I know the bad part is coming!
“It was not to last. It took more time, but his hatred returned as the conflict escalated. Caelum continued to mutilate his own soul in an attempt to maintain a semblance of order. Our support proved too small in the face of failure. With each fragment he threw away however, the less restraint he seemed to retain. Heated words were met head on with viciousness and physical assaults ended in tragedies.”
Ponies choking on the ground… writhing on the ground in agony… a stoic stallion watching…
“Celestia tried to stop him. It was too late. He had already gained unexpected allies that proved too dangerous of a trump card for her to best.”
Allies? I thought, puzzled. Didn’t he antagonize a lot of ponies by that point?
“The fragments he had thrown away had taken on a life of their own. Knowing only hatred, they sought to acquire more of it, as if it had been their most important duty, as if they wanted to maintain a form of order.”
Eternal night, anypony?
“And their hearts grew colder still, until their freezing aura spread to the land and its dwellers. Their unending blizzards nearly destroyed Equestria, while Caelum stood on the sidelines and watched. It is a miracle Life as a whole didn’t end during that period of time. The Fire of Friendship was channeled through some of the surviving ponies and it banished some windigoes away.”
I clenched my teeth together.
“It wasn’t enough. My sister and I were freed. We lead a crusade to banish them all.”
Harder.
“Caelum disappeared. With so many fragments of himself destroyed or sealed away, he could not sustain his mortal form any longer. He simply… vanished.”
I forced myself to stare at the Caelum standing so close to us. This image was remarkably lively. It wasn’t a mere painting; it held its own presence. That was the problem though. This reflection seemed… hollow. Had I tried touching him, which I wouldn’t, my hoof would have gone through him. Slowly, I inched closer to the alicorn’s image.
Luna followed my movement with her eyes, but instead turned her back to me.
“All alicorns have the potential to become a twisted image of their former selves.” Caelum blinked out of existence. “Every single one of them.”
The ghost of a mare as black as the darkest night lingered over Luna’s form, but it faded before I could confirm its identity.
With a strangely rustic noise, the world started to change, shifting from one form to another. The uniformity that had plagued this realm shattered, reorganizing itself as the vast greatness of the cosmos.
We stood, on nothingness, between a starry field and a towering moon. Here, in this place, Luna seemed to be more than a pony, of so much more.
“Do you understand why I showed you this?” She asked, the full strength of her authority fully apparent.
“I believe I do… but before that… tell me… t-the truth…” How I longed not to be right. “Why were we so… similar?”
“Do you not know already?” She raised a delicate eyebrow. “The Alicorn of the Sky, a mane of silver and a coat of gold, piercing turquoise eyes and a mask so convincing no living pony could see the monster behind. Do those traits not feel familiar to you, Alicorn of the Wind?”
“Not… all of them, Princess,” I said, after a short pause.
Air, Wind, Sky… what is the difference? One’s existence depends on the others, but enables them also. Easily, one can see the differences blur until they can no longer detect them. They’re all the same.
“In all likeliness, Ventus, you are his reincarnation. You are the alicorn born to replace Caelum.”
“And you want to make sure I will not turn out as bad as him, that I will devote myself to the ponies rather than become a harbinger of their demise. I-is that it?”
The thought made my heart beat more strongly in my chest. It grew heated, spreading it to the rest of my being. Affecting a cool and relaxed mask became harder. This will be hard to do when I already know I’m a sick pony. And they both knew, right away.
“My sister made you a prince.” As if that wasn’t a veiled attempt at keeping me close to her, where she could react quickly to any ‘misconduct’. “Act like it.”
This one, more than the rest, more than any other remark, left a bitter taste in my mouth. From me, for the crime of being born and reborn into this body, they expected duty bound and honor? From the one they made a prince against his will, from the one they bound to their castle and their realm, they expected obedience and self-sacrifice?
…Right.