//------------------------------// // Interlude: Ignorance // Story: Alpha Centauri // by StLeibowitz //------------------------------// The Royal Palace in Canterlot had been quiet of late. It felt like a dense fog had settled over the place, choking the life out of smiles and smothering happiness in the crib. Or maybe something less...poetic. The guards, the courtiers, even the tourists could sense that their Princess was very, very unhappy. Luna had noticed it too, of course – she'd have to be a monumentally terrible sister to not pick up on it. That, or be Tia of a thousand years prior. The Princess of the Night trotted pensively through the halls, having abandoned her throne and her court for a bit to get a bit of thinking in edgewise. More bickering, more whining, more pleading; she grimaced. Had she known having a genuine court would be like this, all those centuries ago, she might have reveled in her solitude instead of giving in to the Nightmare. She came to a stop in a vaulted atrium with tall windows arrayed in an arc along the curved wall to her left. Moonlight spilled over the polished marble floor. Stars, distant and fixed, glinted in the night sky. Luna allowed herself a small smile; this was why she enjoyed the night more than the day. Beauty and blissful silence. On really good nights, she could almost fool herself into believing she was the only mare in the world. Not so tonight. She snorted irritably as she heard hoofsteps approaching behind her. What now? she thought. More nattering about the funding for an observatory on some stars-forsaken hilltop in the North? Perhaps somepony is hoping for a grant to open a nighttime croissant-making business? She braced herself for some functionary's idiot droning...but it never came. She felt a wing brush against her side as the newcomer passed close by, and to her shock she realized that it was Celestia! “Sister?” Luna said, cocking her head puzzledly as Celestia continued trotting mindlessly forward. Was she...sleepwalking? “Art thou well?” Celestia came to a stop in front of one of the windows. She gave no sign of having heard. She gave no sign, really, that she was in fact something other than a reanimated corpse. The first analogy to spring to Luna's mind was that of a puppet with its strings cut. Quietly and fluidly, so as not to accidentally awaken her if she were sleepwalking, Luna stepped up alongside her sister. Once she did, she saw that Celestia's eyes were open – red and puffy, as well. She seemed to have been crying. Luna felt uncertain – she'd never been what one might call "incredible" at consolation, or even "halfway-decent". She still felt like she should say something, though. Perhaps it would be best to allow her to speak first, she decided. They stood together in silence for long minutes, Luna watching Celestia with concern, and Celestia simply staring off into the night sky. The way she'd been walking, mechanically and aimlessly, suggested to Luna that she'd been doing this for a while now – long enough for it to become routine, at least. Crickets chirped lazily somewhere outside the window, hidden in the low shrubberies that squatted under it. With a minor twinge of effort, Luna diverted a small bit of debris out in orbit and sent it streaking down through the atmosphere – a shooting star traced its way across the night sky. Celestia's lips twitched in the first stirrings of a smile. “Thank you, Luna,” she said quietly. “I fear it might not be enough this time, though.” Quiet. Then, slowly, from Luna: “It is thy student, is it not?” “Partially,” Celestia answered. She sighed regretfully and dropped her head. “I should have seen it coming.” Luna frowned. “How?” she asked. Was Twilight prone to disappearing? “Beta did not seem well when she was here,” elaborated Celestia. “She was on edge, desperate! I should never have let her go.” “That cannot be the only thing troubling thee, Tia.” Celestia nodded reluctantly. “Two days ago, I murdered a pony I knew intimately, one of my student's best friends – out of carelessness.” “Surely, thou canst not assume the blame for that,” said Luna gently. “She was insane, as well as in possession of unexpected ability and strength with magic. Too much was unknown. Thou canst not be held responsible.” “It was reflex, Luna,” Celestia whispered. “She was slipping out of my grasp, and I tightened it without thinking. There are ways to prevent a pony from escaping an interdict, safe ways – but I acted like a foal without a year's experience with magic, and I killed her.” “She was insane - “ “And I knew that!” Celestia snapped, rounding on Luna before bringing herself up short. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Luna forced herself to relax as well. The last time she'd seen Celestia lose her temper – forget herself long enough for her mask to slip and the burning face of the sun she was to show – wasn't even when she had fought Nightmare Moon. It had been several years before that – when Discord betrayed them all and tried to turn loose his full chaotic power on Equestria, and Celestia had simply gone berserk. The aftermath of that first clash was still around, if Luna recalled correctly – they called it the Glass Desert, and it was still unbearably hot in the modern age. Celestia regained control of herself enough to trust herself with speaking again. She turned away from Luna. “I knew she was mentally damaged. She had every hallmark of being the victim of a poorly-performed deep memory scan. The erratic behavior, the conversations with herself, the apparent personality shift...” “I noticed no such shift,” Luna said. “She attacked us, Luna. Don't you remember?” “I am certain she was being goaded.” Luna thought back to the brief period when she'd had Rainbow Dash in captivity – the chirurgeon (Doctor, she reminded herself, they call themselves doctors now.) and the aura analysis he'd given the pegasus, as well as her own field examination. The swirls of silver and the odd feeling of familiarity. “I do not believe her state was the result of a deep memory scan. Not wholly.” “What do you think caused it then, Luna?” “Her aura was marbled silver,” she explained. Celestia's eyes widened slightly, though she didn't look back at Luna. “Perhaps it was even mainly silver.” “And what,” said Celestia, “does her possession of lunar magic have to do with her insanity?” “Form follows function, sister – surely, you recall that rule of auras?” Celestia nodded. “The function of lunar magic, first and foremost, is the manipulation and empowerment of dreams. It gives shape to emotion and permanence to thought beyond that which a normal mind can. A pony whose magic is mainly lunar in origin then takes on some aspects of myself - such as the ability to give reality to a dream.” “And?” “I have...experienced the effect I think she suffered from before,” Luna continued. “A thousand years ago. Surely, thou canst remember how I acted in the days and months immediately prior to my fall?” Celestia shifted uncomfortably; caught between staring out the window at the moon – Luna – and at Luna herself, she chose instead to avert her gaze off towards the decorative molding around the base of the walls, somewhere off to their right. “Luna, you know I was horrifically neglectful of you then. I can't remember that. In all likelihood I never noticed it.” Luna inclined her head, accepting what she understood as an implicit apology. After a pause to collect her thoughts, she said, “To my few courtiers, I was understood to be...erratic. In their eyes, I spoke to shadows and would often whisper to myself unintelligibly. I was...confronted on the issue more than once.” Painful memories welled up; she grimaced. That had not been a happy time. She continued, nevertheless. “In one incident, I was goaded into lashing out at one of my guards.” “I recall that, vaguely,” Celestia murmured. “I believe that was the first I knew of your grievances, actually.” After a beat of silence, Celestia asked: “What do you mean, 'in their eyes'?” “In mine, I spoke not to myself, but to the Nightmare.” Some slight stirring in the air caused a cooler pocket to wash over Luna's back; she could hear a door slam somewhere in the depths of the palace. If she had been more superstitious, maybe, she would have thought it an effect of mentioning the Nightmare – her Nightmare – by name, but that was ridiculous. That figment had been shredded and obliterated utterly by the Elements of Harmony. “It had begun in my dreams, yet for some reason unknown to me it persisted,” she went on, more quietly – evidently, other ponies were still awake this late, and she was still more than a little uncomfortable discussing the matter of her corruption with ponies other than Celestia. “Eventually, it grew strong enough to appear to me during my waking hours, and only progressed from there. It took months, but in the end it grew strong enough, and real enough, to overpower me in a moment of weakness.” “And you think this somehow was happening to Rainbow Dash?” “I know not how her aura became so tainted, but in light of that I believe Rainbow Dash was victimized by some combination of memory and magic. I have not encountered something identical before, but relived memories are different from dreams only superficially. Perhaps some fragmented memory left behind used that magic to strengthen itself and torment her.” “Knowing that doesn't excuse the fact that I killed her.” “Not knowing all the variables is in all likelihood why she died. Thou couldst not accurately predict her escape efforts because thou wert ignorant of her affliction!” Luna winced at how harsh that sounded. “We both were, sister. Now that we are aware of a possible cause, we may be able to handle events such as this better in the future - but in that situation, her death was unavoidable.” “I put her in that situation, Luna.” “In ignorance!” Celestia sighed and turned away fully, and began heading for one of the archways out of the atrium – there were two of them, one into the hallway they'd both come from and one opening into a darker chamber, perhaps a disused banquet hall. “Ignorance does not excuse the crime anymore, Luna. That was done away with centuries ago. All too often, it was the fault of the criminal for remaining ignorant and acting anyways.” She left. Luna could hear her hooves clopping against the marble floors as she walked deeper into the maze of corridors and halls that filled the palace, until the sound of a door closing cut them off. Luna returned her attention to the night sky she'd been admiring before. Celestia had always been stubborn, but perhaps she had a point – perhaps they shouldn't have acted so rashly to detain Rainbow Dash. She sighed – in the heat of the moment, the best courses of action were rarely as easy to see as they were after the fact. Had they stalled, she would have escaped to meddle in interstellar affairs some more; they hadn't stalled, and now she was dead. There had to have been a middle path that would have left the pegasus contained yet alive. She just couldn't think of it yet. Stars glittered overhead. The moon traced its nightly course. The dawn came eventually, grey and sad. Through it all, Luna stood observing it as a silent sentinel. ----- Four light-years away, alive and intact (for a certain definition of either), Rainbow Dash dreamed.