It’d been a busy hectic day by the time Celestia managed to get back to her bed in the attic. She’d gone down into the main building when she heard the door close. She had met up with the mare of the house fast enough and was informed that it had been James who had left just then. Holding back a sigh of relief she offered a smile to the mare who gave one of her own, tainted by worry though it was. She was quick to tell Celestia that James would be mad when he found out she’d left her bed, but while she had been fast to tell this information she hadn’t been particularly stern about it and Celestia had managed to reconcile the mare’s fears and be let into the rest of the house proper.
It wasn’t long before the mare’s words proved true and on James’ return he gave Celestia a very disapproving look, but he’d kept silent and gone to check on Daring Do by himself. Celestia had spent the better part of the day learning what she could about where they were. The town name, Clydesburg, struck a chord in her memory, but she couldn’t recall anything about the surrounding area, only where they were in relation to Canterlot.
At one point, Celestia had been told, the area had been a thick forest of solid oak trees that stood impossibly close to each other. And, to some extent, it still was. When the ponies had settled into their small town they had cleared as few trees as they could. It had been considered, briefly, to make the trees hollow, but had been decided against due to impracticality and inconvenience. So they had normal basic houses, with large trees surrounding most of the buildings on all sides.
Other than that fact though, this town was much like any other, produce farms where they could manage, milk, eggs, the basics of a self sustaining town not much else to it. Occasionally something big would happen to stir up the rumor mill, but nothing was even on the same scale as having Celestia come to visit unexpectedly.
From there it had devolved into a conversation mostly situated around the solar princess, and when the husband came back from his job he had joined in on it. Both of them jumping from question to unrelated question about what Canterlot was like, about why Celestia had been out cold when she had been carried to town, about how things were in the rest of Equestria. Until, at last the sun was low enough in the sky, thanks to Luna’s careful vigilance, that she could cut the conversation short with a smile and a ‘thank you’.
She rose from the chair that she had been in all afternoon and had made her way back to the ladder to the attic, reassuring the couple that she could manage it on her own. When she was out of sight of them however, she found she couldn’t. Her legs began to burn horribly and she stumbled, her entire royal demeanor dying in a flash. Agony attacked her and she managed to keep it at bay, fighting back the urge to sneer and exclaim.
The clang of the door to the attic reverberated and Celestia raised a pained glance towards it. Watching James as he looked at her emptily. He looked her over but didn’t say anything, even though Celestia knew very well this was because she had left her bed when she wasn’t fully healed. He held the trap door for a moment, then attached the string to a hook on the wall, locking it in place.
He walked past Celestia, not sparing her another glance, and spoke idly as he passed. “Good night, Celestia.” She didn’t turn to see where he went. She forced her burning muscles up the trapdoor and to her bed, where she collapsed in exasperation. As the burning slowly died away she looked to Daring Do, who’s long bandage had been replaced with merely a band-aid. She was happy that she was getting better, but couldn’t quite process anything else as the darkness encroached on her.
The last thing she heard was the trapdoor clicking into place, someone having unhooked it from the wall.
Her dreams were locked in ice, but these were subconscious thoughts, and as much as she would have loved to blame it on James she knew it hadn’t been him or his influence that put them there. If it had been then it would mark the first time that Celestia’s dreams actually meant something, and that had always been Luna’s domain.
Luna was the better half of the two of them. She knew tools and tricks that could help them out in even the worst circumstance. Celestia was the one who dealt with other ponies, an area of life that Luna avoided at all costs. That was what made the sisters so feared. It wasn’t the immortality, or the magic they held, it was that when they both stood against something, that something would stop.
Celestia only had a moment to think about this when she felt a ripple of magic pierce her mind. Something she had been waiting for ever since she had reached this limbo in between waking and sleep. This was the realm of dreams, specifically the part of the realm that Celestia held in her mind, something that was not unique in the slightest. Every pony held a piece of this realm, a piece unique to them, like a great garden that spanned from mind to mind. One pony might take care of the tulips and another of the roses and another and another for infinity.
And Celestia was about to meet the landlord.
The darkness in the air seemed to go taut, spinning in on itself like a roiling ball of destruction, but then it split and a black mare descended from it, her mane and tail flowing like great strips of starlight, both reflecting the night sky in perfect detail. She landed softly on the ice below her, causing it to crack. When her full weight was released onto it the ice shattered completely and the ground fell away, replacing the scene with specks of white.
Admist them all Celestia could see her, the Lady in her kingdom. And she was crying.
“Celestia!” Luna cried, closing the distance easily and wrapping her in dark blue wings of sisterly love. Celestia returned the gesture, a happy, gentle smile on her face.
“Luna. I’ve missed you so.” Celestia said, letting all her fake nobility melt away into pure care. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to get in contact with you sooner. Things came up.”
“Did that creature betray you?” Luna’s eyes lit up with fire. “I swear I will hunt him down-”
“No, Luna, it wasn’t him. Not entirely.” The fire died slowly and Celestia knew she was waiting for an answer. “Ahuizotl ambushed me. He planned to use me in some ritual to bring about a searing heat wave.”
“But Miss Daring saved you, correct sister?”
“No Luna, he had captured her as well. No, James saved me.”
“James?”
“That’s the name of the strange creature Luna, I just found it out recently myself.” Celestia was omitting several things on purpose as she brought this up, some due to shame, some to protect Luna, some to protect James. The last thing Equestria needed was Luna flying halfway across the continent to fight a powerful mage who hadn’t openly attacked them nor appeared to have any intent to.
“Unfortunately, he was late in doing so, and Sol was stripped from me,” Celestia continued. They had long ago nicknamed their inherent spiritual magic, so as to easily describe what to other ponies would be nigh indescribable. “I am in Clydesburg at the moment, recovering, and I hope to have it back by the end of the month. But Luna, I need to ask you a large favor.” She looked to her sister, who merely nodded in response. “I need you to watch over Equestria in my absence, can you do that for me?”
“Of course sister, I look forward to your speedy return.” Luna said with a smile.
“Thank you Luna.”
“I should leave so you can go into a true sleep, you’ll need as much energy as you can get in the coming days it seems. If you need to contact me, just call out to me in your dreams, I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Of course Luna, thank you again, I can’t ever repay you for this.”
“Silly Celly, you don’t repay a sister.” Luna blew a raspberry then and Celestia broke into a laugh moments before she fell into a normal sleep pattern.
Outside of Celestia’s mind, a dark purple cloud floated nearby and a strange otherworldly laugh filled the air. “Master Sombra will want to hear about this.” It said to itself before making it’s way to a nearby window. Just before it passed the threshold a burst of icy air shot forth from the shadows, encapsulating the strange thing in water crystals.
It fell to the ground, now more solid then gas, and began to shout and yell, all of which was muffled by it’s new cold shell. A face leaned into the moonlight from the darkness and picked up the orb. “You… look interesting.” It said idly, tapping the glass and listening to the echo. “Very… interesting.”