Luna took a breath.
There was a point in time that stood only as the brink: that moment when night and day are in primordial mixture, fighting between one another for the place above the dirt and muck and flame of their subjects. The heat of the sun still remained, but the shadows did crawl upon those last remnants of light with constant, inevitable domination.
Tonight was as any other.
The princess looked up into the skyward plane—she looked up into the greyness of the clouds. There was war just beyond it—she knew—but it did not show itself to her. She could not see the blood-painted daylight or the darkness that would consume it. She could not see the line between gold and black, where all faded together in one perfect entanglement.
All she carried the knowledge that, in the end, night would have to fall—not why nor how nor when, but it would.
So here she stood. The world fell silent: Ponyville had sunk into itself, leaving her to walk through the dusted paths and nameless alleys. There were only two players left: the princess and the parasite. They both knew one another’s character and pride and strategy. They both marched upon the same objective—the great climax. Here, the fate of their worlds would be written in blood—upon parchment of death and, in its ever-present light, sacrifice.
When would the night fall?
Luna pushed further in silence. She could feel eyes all around her, watching—yearning. They knew it too—they could see the burning inside her.
“When would the night fall?” they wondered.
The endgame sat restless upon the horizon: the pumping facilities ran silent. Luna traced the wide silhouettes through her mind. There, in the heart of the station, stood two massive silos. From a distance, she could not tell whether or not the facility was running or emptied: there were no moving shadows or muffled voices.
But even in the darkness, she could still see one oddity—one thing that punctured her as a spike. Outside the gates of the station, there stood a shadow that was all too familiar to her: Celestia’s chariot rested in abandon.
So, it had already begun, had it? The princess looked down at herself, then at the road that stood before her. There were not buildings beside her, nor trees to line the way—there was simply a path of dusk and emptiness that stretched forward unto the end. Here stood the second brink: the brink between civilization and the plain. Years of blood and sweat and toil had built to this very point where the world of ponies came to the border of untamed nature. Then there was the road—the long stretch of diluted Equestrian presence until that last entity of their creation.
So, this was the end, was it? She’d never imagined it to come so quietly—the end of the world. Here she’d lived with the imaginings of glory and battle, and yet none of it held under true.
The princess took a breath.
She began with one hoof forward then another—repeated again and again at the same beat. The dust crumpled under her hooves, and the wind rolled by. Nature gave her its final blessing: the sweet sounds of life as she walked unto the shadow. It offered her the peace to gather herself, but the sounds to comfort her.
And even in silence, she knew that there were others. There were others chanting their vows and dreams and hopes to the sky so that she might answer—they were begging for light in the brink of night and day.
The world stood at her back.
The princess’s mind cleared itself of fear and inhibitions.
And she continued on into the shadow.
--~~--
Blood and purity.
The mare stumbled through golden arches and upon the crystal floors, staggered by blood and sweat and fear. She was alone—defeated—limping and biding through the hallways of her own home. Her heartbeat sank into the depths of her senses, standing beside her pained breaths in the near perfect silence of Canterlot Palace.
She knew not why or how or when the end would come upon her, but here she stood upon the brink of light and darkness, dying inside familiar walls.
The silence descended upon her, and for a moment, there was an absolute peace. There was a moment where the worries of the world faded into nothingness, and she might nearly have forgotten the nature of her demise.
Betrayal.
--~~--
The facility was empty, at least from the outside. From the moment Luna passed through the broken gates of the pumping station, she was taken by silence—not a soul writhed upon the open dirt fields or upon the catwalks. The engineers had departed in abruptness—tools and cases lay open in the twilight air.
“Hello?” she called into the darkened windows, hoping that, in some manner of fortune, a guard would come out and greet her as she once was. Silly, perhaps, but there was nothing she wanted more than to see another of her kind.
“Sister? Are you there?” she called again, hoping that there might be one fragment of a response from the shadow. No, she was alone—that much she knew.
But what did this mean about her sister? Not a guard stood by the door, and there were none by her chariot. It was as though she’d come alone.
Luna swallowed hard.
She would never be that stupid, would she? No—it’s illogical. Celestia carried too much experience to even think of something so silly.
No, something was wrong—something was definitely wrong.
A chill crept into the back of Luna’s skull: there had to be something to help her—an unlocked door or an open window. There had to be something she could follow, right?
The princess looked into the courtyard once more. There were three buildings, all surrounding the massive silos in the center. Surely there’d be something in one of them.
What had once been walking became sprinting.
And as the doors remained locked, sprinting became soaring.
Luna circled every door—every window—until she at last came to a line of darkness that she’d first ignored. It was, at first, unsuspicious—nothing more than a mark on the warehouse’s aging walls.
There stood the divide.
There stood a hole, carved in the side of the central building—cut from heat and magic.
She’d seen something like it before.
She’d seen it in Canterlot, one month before.
--~~--
Hours passed, and the body remained still.
There were no guards to find her—no servants or keepers.
There she remained in the darkness of her home, bleeding and seething and crying—allowing her hopes to die within the shadow. She called too; she called out into the hallway, screaming for help and mercy, but returning with nothing.
Except once.
There was one moment, in the pitch of her misery, that she thought she heard something—the sound of hooves tapping against the tiles. It was dull at first—something she could have mistaken for the pounding of her heart of the chattering of her teeth that had come with her hemorrhaging. But it grew louder—closer—warmer.
A face emerged from the shadows.
“Help… me….”
The chef dropped her cauldron onto the tile, but did not move; she was paralyzed: caught by the darkest moment in her life.
“Y-You’re…” she stammered, gazing upon her princess’ wounds. There was a pause between the two—a moment where their eyes met and desperation leapt between the two. “I’ll… I’ll….”
“Help…,” The princess repeated, planting her hooves against the tiles. She pushed, but, for all her strength, her body remained stuck upon the ground. Still, she struggled to push herself inches forward.
The mare was still frozen.
A slight crackling noise echoed through the hall—the princess crumpled back into the floor. The bone had already broken, but she had resisted for so long—she had allowed it to build behind her, ignoring it until the very end.
And then the pain took her.
And color drained from her eyes; the world fell into darkness, and that she came upon the end.
It was then that the mare broke free—that she made the choice to overcome her shock and reach out to the one that needed her.
“Don’t do this!” She screamed, holding the body within her hooves. “Don’t… Don’t…!”
Heat drained from the princess’ body. The pounding within her chest began to give into the silence, allowing itself to become one with the nothingness.
“Don’t do this… please….” The mare sobbed, looking up and down the hallway, but bearing not the strength to leave the body. “They’ll… They’ll come for you… They’ll come….”
The mare looked into the shadows.
Silence and darkness surrounded them—they were alone.
The mare screamed out.
There was nothing.
The mare screamed again.
And again.
And again.
--~~--
Luna blinked. “Sister?”
Celestia turned, eyes wide.
“Sister, why’ve you come here?”
Celestia did not respond—she did not even open her mouth. For several moments, she simply stared into her sister’s tired, broken eyes. Even in the darkness, she knew her sister’s face—even through the pain that scarred it. “Luna….”
“Why are you here?” the princess demanded.
Celestia looked around herself. She looked upon the countless pumps and pipes and machines that rattled around her and into the red lights that cast their glare over the deepest levels of the pumping station. “Sister, you’re....”
Luna looked down from above, watching from behind a railing. Her breaths were shallow—struggled from sprinting down stair after stair. She’d descended for what felt like minutes on end, sinking deeper and deeper into an inescapable position underneath hundreds of feet of concrete and metal.
“We need to leave. Where are your guards?” Luna stared down into her sister’s eyes without mercy.
Celestia bounded from the pit of machinery, landing just beside her sister. Again, there was a pause—the two stared into one another’s eyes, gazing into the suffering that lay behind them.
“You’re tired, Luna.” Celestia smiled. Her eyes glistened with tears, and uneasiness took her voice. The princess leaned forward and embraced her sister tightly. “Welcome home.”
And for a moment, the worry melted—Luna forgot their place—her duty—and she took hold of her sister. There was nothing for her to say—nothing she wanted to say, rather, to spoil the moment of absolute joy. Never again—never again would she repeat herself.
And with that, she felt hope—she felt a chance that she might succeed—with her sister. As Luna struggled to break from the embrace, she realized that she too had begun to cry, and that her eyes burned with tears of joy.
And Celestia spoke to her in a whisper: “What’s wrong, Luna?”
“We’ve made a mistake—a terrible mistake,” she sobbed. “I don’t know if we can fix it—I don’t even know if we’ll make it out of this darkness—but, please, believe me.”
Celestia’s smile faded slightly, but her eyes still glowed with love. “I do, Luna—I always do. Just tell me what we’re up against. We’ll pull through—we always do.”
“Chrysalis knew you were coming… she knew all along…,” the younger trembled. “We’ve misjudged her, sister. She’s not like the others.”
Celestia turned to the stairwell. “Then we should leave. Did the lieutenant let you in on his own, or was it—“
Celestia stopped as Luna’s eyes had snapped wide.
“You brought guards?”
“Well, yes, of course. I wouldn’t have come alone, would I?” Celestia chuckled.
Luna stared at her, jaw dropped. For a while, Celestia just stared at her sister in confusion.
Then she understood.
“We need to leave.” Celestia marched to the stairwell and looked up. “Do you think we can fly up?”
Luna shrugged.
The elder continued staring into the blackness of the stairwell. “I don’t think I see anything—we might just be able to climb out of this.” The mare looked to her sister with a smile. “We’ll be—“
Luna saw the lights a moment before they hit.
The first struck into the concrete of the stairwell, sending rock and dust into Celestia’s chest. The princess looked down in confusion.
The second collided with the mare’s spine.
She winced but showed no pain other than shock. Celestia, in the last moment, looked up into the stairwell.
The third hit perfectly.
Celestia went down without resistance—no movement or staggering or howl.
She simply collapsed onto the concrete.
And Luna had only time to scream.
--~~--
“We need to get her back—help me carry her.”
“No, she’s hurt! Go get help and bring it to her!”
The voices screamed at each other the darkness. Help had come, but it was sparing—a lone servant had been wandering the halls in search of work when he’d come upon the princess and her protector.
“We don’t have time for that… and if we don’t do anything, she’s going to bleed out,” the boy shouted.
“If you break her neck, the cuts won’t matter… Go! Run!”
The stallion remained fixed in place. “I’m not leaving without her on my back. If we leave her here, we know what’s going to happen. We have to do something, OK?”
“…Fine. Just be careful—please….”
“Are you kidding? You take the back; I’ll support her neck.” The stallion dipped under the body, pressing the Alicorn’s weight upon his shoulders. “Can you get her?”
The mare struggled to life the lower half of the princess upon her back, but once adjusted, the body remained in place. “Hurry, you idiot! Come on!”
The servant nodded and began marching down the hallway, taking special care of the princess’ weakened neck. The pair walked minute after minute, crawling through the darkness. They passed through hallways after hallway, leaving a trail of blood as they carried the alicorn over the crystal floors.
And when they at last crossed into the center of the hall, where guards had all stood at post, they were met with silence. Dozens of eyes watched down as the lowly two servants carried the body of their hero upon their backs—as they led blood stain their skin and crawl down upon their faces. They watched as the two stumbled, but did nothing to help, as fear had chained them to merely observe as the darkness washed upon the land.
“What happened?” one asked in the silence.
The servant looked up—he looked up from behind his gore-coated face—and came upon silence. He simply had nothing to say. He himself knew nothing of what happened. He had not heard the rumors of Ponyville’s water toxins or how Luna had been staying in an inn. Here, the servant merely knew what had been told to him, and what he had cared to hear.
Here, he had known nothing of what happened.
But he knew what it had cost.
--~~--
There comes a point when emotions exceed the capacity for the body—where expression ceases to do justice for the sheer brutal nature of a mind. Therein lays a world of fury beyond what can be possibly felt by a mortal soul: the fall of an eternal partner brought on by the lowest of parasites. Emotion came in the largest flame.
The power of her emotion was so catastrophic, it appeared to be silent: for if you could see it within her eyes, you would have already been consumed.
…
Luna carried her sister upon her back.
Her eyes were no longer stained by tears.
Her face was not torn of fear nor depression—her steps were solid and unyielding, progressing up the stairwell at the same, constant pace.
The changelings came. They stood in front of her—three ants come face to face with a god.
And she looked upon them, and she saw the un-nature in their eyes. She saw through the flesh and their bone into the very heart that pounded underneath the chitin.
She saw their hearts beating faster and faster while they returned with strikes of magic and flame that whisked off her skin.
The hearts beat faster and faster—stronger and stronger, as though coming to one final climax.
And then they stopped.
The changelings twitched and collapsed, all falling by the same form: the one they’d brought upon her sister.
Luna continued up the stairs, walking over the bodies, which melted into the concrete. Stair after stair, the same thing: the changelings continued to swarm her, falling just as soon as they came within range. There was a zone around the princess—one forged of absolute hatred—that stood impenetrable by those that had bled upon her.
They’d been shaping her for weeks—they’d been pushing and pulling on her hopes, breaking down everything that she’d stood upon. And through that suffering, she held onto fragments of herself—the few things she knew that she could never betray.
Her sister was one of them.
And they had come for her.
Luna climbed the final stair, coming to the center of the warehouse. Changelings lined the walls and floors. Their eyes watched without soul—staring down upon the sisters as though they were spoils.
Luna looked into the crowd just in time to see the oncoming flames.
They consumed her in flame—they cast all their power into her destruction.
And when it cleared, Luna stood there, watching—smiling.
“I see the fear.”
Within those creatures, she saw their lives ticking away. She saw the bones and muscle and blood that drove them like animals to slaughter defenseless prey. She saw the veins and the nerves and the spine—she saw the brain within the creatures’ skulls. A pity—such marvelous potential consumed by nothingness and instinct.
Luna looked into the crowds, and they fell before her. Within their skulls, aneurysms grew from nothing—an immediate, spiking end to the world.
Bodies rained down from the sky.
The princess simply stepped over them, smiling as violet blood trickled down upon her face. She continued to the end of the room and stepped back through the burnt hole in the wall.
She could hear them chattering from the rooftops but kept her eyes locked on the ground. The mare walked into the center of the facility and came to a stop beside the silos.
“Luna! Over here!”
Luna twisted her head to the gate.
Barlowe stood in awe, a cart harnessed to his back. His eyes were trained upon the downed princess floating just above Luna’s side.
“Luna!”
The princess looked down at her hooves. The shadows around her began shifting—swirling underhoof. Luna twisted her head up to the sky: a cloud break cast the world in the day’s final golden color.
The changelings soared above her.
Hundreds.
Thousands.
The invasion Chrysalis had talked about—it had already begun.
Luna turned to Barlowe, who was now sprinting towards her.
“Luna, you need to give her to me. I’ll take her somewhere safe—I promise,” the stallion pleaded.
Luna still stared into the skies. Darkness had all but blotted out the remnants sun.
“They’ll come for you, Luna—I know they will. You have to give her to me, or they’re going to take you both out at once.”
The princess glared at the stallion then back at the silhouettes crossing through the sky.
“Just… trust me, alright?”
Chattering droned into Luna’s ears. The mare looked down to her partner and nodded, placing Celestia upon the cart before turning back to the skies.
“I’m going to Canterlot to see what I can to help. Promise me that you’ll come, alright?”
Luna snapped from shock and looked into her friend’s eyes. “Don’t wait for me.”
Barlowe laid a blanket over the body before stumbling back through the gates. With one last wave goodbye, the stallion pounded back upon the dirt road, sprinting back into the realm of civilization.
Luna watched until the cart was only but a speck in the distance.
So this was the end, hm?
The princess looked up into the rooftops. Every changeling placed its gaze upon her final stand—completely blind to the escaping cart. Perhaps it was by their own stupidity or Chrysalis’ desire to finalize her victory—it didn’t really matter.
All that mattered is that she would go spilling blood for the safety of her people. That’s all it was ever about right? From the very beginning to the very end—it was always about making one more kill before her dying breath.
She was without the emotional strength that brought her out from the darkness, but, then again, she didn’t need it. She wasn’t fighting in the darkness here—she was fighting in the brink: that last moment between light and dark, where day struggles for those last few moments of breath before sinking back into the shadow of night.
Here she stood upon the brink of civilization and nature—upon the dusty road between her country and the end of days.
Luna looked up into the swarm—into the surge—and felt the flicker of a memory return to her—the last of her voice.
“I will be quick; know that much.”
The mare pressed her hooves into the dirt, felt the hate surge from the depths of her heart, and pounded from the ground.
And in those last moments, she felt the warmth of the sun cast through the darkness and the invasion—she felt the final breaths of daytime before sinking into the shadow, and it pushed a certain strength into her heart.
In the precious last seconds of daylight, they would know what they’d been building—they would see the construct of their sins turn against them. They would know that one last truth before sinking back into the grave, where their parasitic blood could paint the earth in a glorious violet glow.
They would know one thing:
Luna, the night incarnate, was upon them.
--~~--
“Celestia? Are you OK?”
The alicorn opened her eyes.
“Oh, thank you—thank you!” The servant beamed, grabbed the nearby mare in his hooves. “We did it—we did it!”
The mare smiled, caught in awe by her princess’ presence.
Celestia shook her head before sitting up in the cot. She had awoken in an infirmary, her body bandaged and treated. She turned to the two servants—the stallion and the chef—and smiled. “You two saved me? How?”
“We carried you here ourselves, your highness,” the Stallion cheered. “We found you in a hallway, bleeding in the dark, so we brought you here!”
Celestia looked at the mare. “Is this true?”
“Mhm! We’d do anything for you, princess!” The mare smiled before returning to her silence.
Beside the two, a royal guard stood in silence, awaiting a peace to speak with her.
“Can you two wait outside for a moment?” Celestia asked. “I’d like to speak with my friend here in private, please.”
The two servants nodded before careening out the door, still overtaken by their success. Once safely out the door, the guard slammed it shut and turned to his commander.
The guard stared at her, “What are you orders?”
“Find Luna, lieutenant.”
The guard raised his eyebrow. “Is there any reason in particular?”
“Yes, lieutenant, I’d say there very well is.”
Celestia paused before turning her head to the window.
…
“She betrayed me.”
The guard stood at full attention. “Your highness?”
Celestia twisted towards the stallion. “You heard me clearly, soldier. She is the reason why I was overtaken in Ponyville. She lured me into the pumping facility so that she could cut me down—I believe Chrysalis has turned her against us once more.”
The guard stammered for a moment before collecting himself. “Are you sure, your highness?”
“Absolutely. I saw her shoot me—I saw her speaking to that parasite. We must throw everything we can against her before she returns to the Nightmare.” Celestia rolled over in the bed, facing herself completely toward the opposite wall. “Send everything we have to the lands west of Ponyville. This is now or never, soldier. We cannot bear to fail.”
The soldier was paralyzed in shock. “Everything, your highness?”
“Everything! Now begone! I need to rest, Lieutenant.”
“Yes, your highness. We will gather everything we have and move to the lands west of Ponyville, just as you command.” The soldier bowed his head and found his way out the door.
Through the window, Celestia watched the lieutenant pace in confusion for a moment before finally deciding where to go. It’s of no surprise that he’d be so reserved in making the command—it was an entirely stupid one at that.
But then again, stupid was all dependent on how you classify the benefits.
Celestia smiled cryptically before sinking back into her bed.
“Such interesting little toys.”