Regression

by chief maximus

Principem Lunae

Argos followed the ponies down a dimly lit hallway after gathering his belongings from the cart. Briefly, his mind wandered to his son, and where he and those three fillies had rushed off to. The thought was fleeting, however, as the guardsponies stopped at one of the many identical doors and turned to him. They were the older pony and the near-colt he'd seen outside the gate of the keep.

"Your room, sir," the older stallion said, giving the door a push as the latch released from the doorframe. The old hinges creaked in protest, evoking the memory of the abandoned hotel he and his son had found shelter in two nights before.

"Thank you," he replied, stepping into the room and setting down his bags in front of the doorway. For a moment, it was all he could do to simply marvel at the grandeur before him. It seemed as though this room hadn't been used in quite some time, yet it was just as ornate as anything he'd expect to find in the seat of one of the richest nations on the planet. Gold plating, marble, antique and exotic furniture, and priceless works of art, all coated in a fine layer of dust.

Snapping himself from his thoughts, he turned to thank the guards once more and offer them a tip, before realizing they had gone. He huffed to no one, realizing how silly it would have made him look to offer the guardsponies a tip, as though they were butlers, or more so, what they would have done with any currency of his if they were trapped behind the thick, graying walls of a castle all day.

With a steady talon, he closed the door behind him. Sunlight shone through a narrow gap in the midnight blue curtains. The room itself was massive. High, vaulted ceilings gave way to a large bed raised on a platform. On the bedspread were a crescent moon and a smattering of stars. Argos had seen them before, but he couldn't recall where. A desk sat stately in the corner, next to a brittle-looking feather sitting in an ink jar that had long since dried up. Argos strode to the first of three massive floor-to-ceiling windows and tore back the curtains. Sunlight poured in, illuminating the floating dust in the room as it danced on the currents. For a moment, Argos shielded his eyes. He had climbed three flights of stairs to get there, which gave him a commanding view of the city and the hamlets surrounding it.

Only months earlier, this view would have been splendid. In a way, it still was. The trees, river lands and forests had not been touched by the scourge, and the landscape remained as idyllic as ever. But the cityscape was another story entirely. The tattered roofs and collapsed buildings reached crookedly towards the skies like tombstones in a graveyard forgotten by its caretakers. He figured it had been a graveyard for some ponies. Ponies who hadn't the will or the nerve to let the grass take them. Ponies like those two at the checkpoint.

Argos shuddered, stepping away from the window and noticing the desk again. It was certainly fit for royalty. Carved inscriptions ran the length of its frame, while crescent moons decorated its corners. Out of curiosity, he opened the top drawer. A cloud of dust rose from the movement as Argos fanned it away with a wing. Once the dust had cleared, a small, dark blue book stared back at him. On the cover was the same pattern from the bedspread.

He reached in the drawer slowly, as though his touching of the book would cause the drawer to slam shut at any moment. Picking it up, he blew the rest of the dust from the cover, revealing an inscription.

Principem Lunae?

He pulled the seat out from the desk and sat down, the wood squeaking as he set his weight upon it. He opened the cover to the first page and gasped.

Eros sat quietly in the oddly pulsating light of the firefly lantern in the center of the room. Apple Bloom had taken to answering her friends' flurry of questions about the outside world. He was content to listen. After all, he had spent but a few days living among the ruins, while Apple Bloom had spent weeks.

"Ah think the worst part about it is the quiet." She spoke softly, as though she could succumb to the grass simply by speaking too loudly about what it had done. "Sure, there were birds and critters still makin' noise, but... it ain't right." Apple Bloom chewed her lip, struggling to find the right words. "I walked to Ponyville square once ta look for food. There shoulda been ponies carryin' on and buyin' stuff, but there wasn't. I could hear papers rustle in the breeze two streets over. It just... wasn't right."

Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle looked away uncomfortably. Compared to the life their fellow crusader had been living, they may as well have been on vacation.

Eros sensed the awkwardness. "But it was also in Ponyville square that we ran into each other."

Apple Bloom's expression brightened. "Yeah, it was!" she exclaimed, as though she had nearly forgotten. "I was out lookin' for somethin' ta eat when I found him. He must'a thought I was a timberwolf or somethin', 'cause he was pointin' his sword at me and was nervous as all get out!" Apple Bloom laughed.

Eros blushed and mumbled something about not being nervous, but merely surprised.

"Don't feel bad, Eros. Apple Bloom probably hadn't had a bath in weeks! I bet she was plenty scary," Sweetie Belle said. Eros cracked a smile as the conversation died down once again.

"Hey guys, you wanna go explore the castle?" Scootaloo asked hopefully. Like her idol, sitting around was not her thing, unless it involved napping.

"Yeah, that sounds like fun!" Apple Bloom agreed. Eros nodded as the group looked at their last holdout.

"I don't like the castle... it's too spooky," Sweetie Belle said mildly.

"C'mon Sweetie Belle, we'll be with you the whole time," said Scootaloo.

"And Eros has a sword!" Apple Bloom pointed out. "If we run into any trouble, he'll take care of it for us!"

Sweetie Belle cast an anxious glance at the blade bathed in the green glow of the fireflies. It certainly looked sharp enough...

"Have you ever used it?" she asked innocently.

"Well..." Eros began. In truth, the only combat experience he had was in the schoolyard and during his swordship classes at school. "Not exactly, but I've been trained to use it since I was nine!" He twirled it expertly in his talons, though he was sure not to admit that he only knew a few novice tricks.

Sweetie Belle rose to her hooves. "Okay, I'll go."

"That's the spirit, Sweetie Belle!" Scootaloo cheered. "Alright, let's go!"

They filed into the tunnel that had brought them to the crystalline room, the lantern in the lead filly's mouth.

Eros could see why Sweetie Belle would be hesitant to explore this place. He was sure it had been a lovely palace once upon a time, but now, it seemed it was merely a hollow shell of its former glory. They arrived in the same dark hallway that had lead them there. Somehow it didn't seem as foreboding to him as it had before. Perhaps it was his new friends that made the creeping darkness reaching in from every corridor a bit less frightening.

They walked down the hallway further into the bowels of the castle.

"So, how big is this place?" Eros asked.

"Huge," Scootaloo replied. "We've been wandering around here for weeks, and still haven't been everywhere." She stopped, and turned to her group. Sweetie Belle was still not as enthusiastic as the rest of her party. "Why don't I take you guys on a 'highlight reel' of all the cool places we've found before we start exploring?" Scootaloo noticed her friend's expression brighten.

"Sounds like fun!" Apple Bloom said happily. Eros liked her new attitude. It suited her much more than the scared filly he'd met in the ruins of Ponyville. "Where to first?"

"How about the throne room?" Sweetie Belle suggested.

"Throne room it is!" replied Scootaloo. Swiftly, they ran down the hallway and soon came upon a set of ornately carved wooden doors that stretched as high as the vaulted ceilings above them. It was as though giants once walked through these halls.

The doors themselves depicted the moon on one side, and the sun on the other, with an alicorn beneath each celestial body, its wings spread wide as the ponies on the earth and in the sky below them praised and exalted them. Eros had never seen such fervent praise for one's leaders. In the Iron Mountains, the emperor was revered, and never criticized, but he certainly wasn't worshipped. Scootaloo put her hooves against the door and pushed with her hind legs, though the massive oak monoliths refused to budge.

Taking the hint, Eros, Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom helped her push. Slowly, the heavy doors inched inward. As they moved, the stale air from inside the abandoned room wafted over the four of them. Eros grabbed a torch from the hallway and carried it inside. The small light revealed even more unlit torches lining the columns supporting the massive room. This was easily the biggest room Eros had ever seen in all his life. In fact, he couldn't even see clearly to the other side! He walked slowly over to an unlit torch and shared his flame with it. One by one, he lit the torches along the columns until the room revealed itself. Two thrones sat at the end of the room, with a banner behind each one.

A fine layer of dust rose with every footstep Eros took. His torchlight reflected off of mighty stained glass windows that lined the walls. Each one depicted a significant event from pony history, though he could only identify a few. He recognized the banishment of Discord, the punishment of Nightmare Moon, the war between the races, in which the griffons and ponies fought for one hundred years before the Old Griffonian empire was broken apart by the victorious ponies. In his history lessons, he'd learned that the ponies were cruel warmongers that had attacked his people without provocation. Many of his kind treated the ponies living in his country with suspicion and some even outright prejudice. Those people were few and far between. The war had taken place over a millennia ago, with the damage and hostilities long since buried with the bones of the pony and griffon soldiers.

Eros looked toward the thrones. The girls had already taken to playing princess as though they had never been separated. He walked toward the thrones, the fillies sitting upon them issuing commands to ghostly servants in their best royal voices. Eros couldn't help but smile. He and his friends certainly never played 'princess', but they occasionally would play 'imperial guard' with a willing female classmate as the empress.

"Eros, changelings in the throne room!" 'Princess' Apple Bloom shouted, pointing a hoof towards the shadows dancing in the torchlight.

He smiled and drew Titan from its scabbard. Every time he drew his blade, he couldn't help but smile. He looked toward the shadows and stepped forward. "Fear not, princesses, your imperial guard will protect you!" he replied, swinging his sword. He thrusted, parried, and blocked with all his might.

"Lookout! It's Queen Chrysalis!" Scootaloo screamed.

Eros had learned of the changelings in biology. They were dangerous creatures that numbered in the millions, and assimilated any creatures in the way of their expanding territory. He had also learned that the most dangerous changeling of them all was their queen.

"Stop right there, changeling scum!" Eros leapt forward, his wings flared and chopped downward, his sword nearly striking the marble floor. He stabbed into the air, held his blade for a moment, and then withdrew it. "The evil one has been defeated!"

"Hooray!" Sweetie Belle cheered. "The kingdom is saved! Come and receive your reward!"

Eros stepped forward, taking a knee before the throne. Sweetie Belle grasped his sword in her magic and levitated it in front of her. She touched the flat of the blade on one of his shoulders, then the other.

"Arise, Sir Eros, of the Iron Mountains," Sweetie Belle said softly. She returned his sword to him and he placed it in his scabbard.

The hall fell silent.

"Now where?" Eros asked.

Scootaloo put a hoof to her chin. "Uhm... how about the east wing? I haven't explored very far down that way!"

Apple Bloom nodded, and Eros agreed as the group looked to Sweetie Belle.

She pawed the ground, and glanced up at her friends. Eros smiled at her and pulled his sword from its sheath a few inches.

Sweetie Belle smiled back. "Let's go!"

There were still casks of wine in the cellar of the castle.

Rainbow will be happy she thought, the dim smile from before still playing on her face.

She climbed the rickety steps leading to the ground floor. They creaked under her hooves as she walked, the dusty air threatening to draw a sneeze. Twilight left the casks and headed back to her chambers. Truth be told, she was beginning to detest her chambers. Spike was right, she spent far too much time locked up there. One thing Spike couldn't understand was the pressure she was under. She had to keep the remaining ponies safe and sentient. On top of that, she was trying desperately to find a way to reverse the regression eating away at her kind.

Twilight stopped in the hallway outside her chambers and pounded her hoof against the wall. It was all so frustrating. She recalled the day she received her crown and wings. She had restored her friend's rightful cutie marks and stood before Celestia, ready to receive what her mentor had planned for her long ago. For a fleeting moment, before Celestia cast her spell, she'd had an unsettling thought. What if she wasn't ready for this responsibility? She loved what she had! She loved the library, she loved her friends! She loved her life as it was! Was this all about to change?

If she had known it would have lead to this, she would have refused them. She wasn't a leader. She wasn't Celestia, nor Luna, nor Cadence. Half of her friends were gone, and she woke up every day wondering if that day would be the day she'd learn that Rainbow Dash or Fluttershy had gone beyond the wall. She dreaded it every day. Every moment she was without a cure or reversal spell, she knew she was one day closer to losing another pony she loved.

She felt tears roll down her cheeks. They had a way of sneaking up on her lately. This whole scenario was so unfair. Celestia never had to deal with anything like this. She knew, she had studied Celestia's reign nearly her entire life. Even more unfair, was her mentors departure from her life. Twilight had never seen or heard of Princess Celestia giving up or admitting defeat for any reason, and when the first reports of the grazing came about, she simply rolled over.

It wasn't like her.

Twilight had been tested by her mentor many times before, sometimes without even telling her. She figured this was simply another test. A test that would cost her kind everything that made them what they were, should she fail. There was only an hour before dinner, and she couldn't present herself like this. She wiped the tears from her eyes and thought of Apple Bloom. She had managed to survive for weeks beyond the wall, with the blades all around her. If she could just figure out what made her so resistant to the grazing, she could engineer a way to keep her remaining subjects safe from sentience loss until she could figure out a cure.

Twilight donned her formal regalia and glanced at a picture she kept on her desk of herself and the royal family at a picnic before the advent of the scourge of the blades. She wouldn't fail them. She still had Celestia and Luna in their stables. Their horns and wings had shrunk, but they were still there. They would be the first ones she reversed. Twilight strode towards the door and stopped short, closing her eyes and concentrating on her mentor's voice. It was one of her fastest fading memories. She concentrated on the sweet sound that seemed to float on the summers breeze.

Twilight, there is nothing you cannot do. Your powers are limitless, but even the most powerful among us must realize their place.

"Needlessly cryptic," she mumbled to herself. A knock at her door startled her as Spike's nose poked through the space between the doorframe.

"Dinner's ready, Twilight."

"Spike... can you come here for a second?" She said weakly.

He pushed through the door and shut it behind him. He stood nearly six inches taller than her now, and was seldom seen without his brown cloak. That wasn't her usual tone. "Is something wrong, Twilight?"

She stepped towards him and threw her forelegs around his shoulders and began to cry once more. She loved Spike, more than anyone left in her desolate world. He was the one she didn't have to worry about protecting. The grass wouldn't affect him. He was her one constant throughout all of this. Her advisor, confidant, and steadfast friend.

"Twilight... please don't cry," he whispered.

"I'm supposed to know, Spike..." she sobbed. "I'm supposed to know how to solve this, but I just can't figure it out!"

Spike stroked her back, hugging her tightly with the other arm. "You'll figure it out, Twilight. I know you will," he replied softly. He pulled back from her hug to look her in her reddened lavender eyes. "If you can't do it, then it can't be done."

Twilight sniffed up her tears. "That's just it, Spike..."

The intrepid group filed down a darkened hallway while Eros lit the way. They came to a set of spiraled stairs and stopped. Torches along the stairwell had been lit!

"Have you guys been here before?" Eros asked.

"No..." Scootaloo replied, stepping towards the stone steps.

"What do ya think is up there?" Apple Bloom asked.

"I dunno, but I wanna find out!" Scootaloo shot back confidently. "Who's with me?"

They all nodded and followed her up the stone steps. As they climbed, they seemed to go on and on forever. Finally, they reached the top landing. More torches lined the hallway as they gasped for air. They slowly followed Scootaloo down the hallway until they came to a door. It was nondescript, not like the door to the throne room they'd entered earlier. Luckily for them, this door didn't take all four of them to open. Scootaloo pushed on the door, but found it locked.

"I guess this is as far as we go," Scootaloo sighed.

"Not so fast," Eros said, brandishing a sharp talon. He knelt in front of the keyhole and inserted a talon expertly into the lock. With a few twists and a very satisfying click, the door creaked open.

"Where'd you learn to do that?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"Dad keeps candy locked in his traveling trunk!" he replied proudly.

The four of them stepped into the room. It smelled like hay, and the air seemed heavier here than in the rest of the castle. No torches lit this room, save for the one in Eros' talon.

"What do you think this room is—" Sweetie Belle ended with a shriek as a rustling from the far end of the room startled the group. Eros lit a larger extinguished torch on the wall. The far walls were divided into stables, their gates blocking a view of the occupants, each numbered one through seven. The light drew more rustling from the stalls. All took a step back towards the wall, frozen in place.

"Wh-what do you think's in there?" Sweetie Belle asked, backing into Eros as Titan hissed from its sheath. He stepped forward, slowly approaching the first stall. A whinny echoed from the stables, followed by an indignant snort.

Are there... ponies in these stalls? Eros thought. The stalls were looking more like prison cells with every passing second. Before long, he was ready to peer into the waiting darkness of the stables. He stared into the abyss, and the abyss stared back at him. In an instant, a blur flew from out the darkness and was upon him. Eros fumbled with Titan and it clanged to the floor. He was more than ready to grab his sword and make a run for the door, when he realized the creature upon him was a pony. He breathed a sigh of relief and the pony stuck her head over the gate. She was white, with a moderately sized horn and a set of wings that seemed to be losing feathers. Her mane was a mix of green, blue and pink, with streaks of white coming through. He extended a talon and gently patted her.

His group followed behind him and gasped.

"I-is...is that Princess Celestia?" Apple Bloom asked weakly.

"It is..." Scootaloo whispered as Eros withdrew his talon.

"Oh Syrell, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to pet a princess!"

Scootaloo raised herself up to the princess's level and nuzzled her. "I don't think she minds."

A sharp gasp drew the group's attention to the end of the room.

Sweetie Belle was seated in front of a stall with a large number five painted on the door. Leaning over the gate was a white horse with a faded purple mane sniffing at the crying filly.

Apple Bloom and Scootaloo padded over and drew their friend into a hug. Eros joined them, holding the torchlight to the stall, he read the name stenciled on the gate.

"Rarity."