XVII. Monheim
TWILIGHT
Twilight woke from troubled sleep and found that the world had not changed.
It had in some ways, of course. The morning light that streamed through the ragged cloth over the porthole was sharp like a knife. They were farther from home. Yet things had mostly stayed the same. The bed was still surprisingly comfortable, her door was still closed, and she was still in her cabin removed from everypony on the ship. As she had been for a week.
Twilight yawned and stared up at the rusty bolts on the ceiling.
The good ship Alicorn, as they’d decided rather enthusiastically to call it, was better than expected. It helped that, shortly after pulling out of the port, Applejack and Tradewinds had found a wide-eyed work crew onboard. Unarmed, frightened, and with few choices, they’d been willing to work with the Canterlot interlopers. Twilight had forgotten their names. She just didn’t have the energy to care.
Sighing, she turned on her side, away from the cabin door. Tradewinds had come once. Applejack had come four times and had been frustrated the last time. Pinkie came by…
She blinked. Keeping track of how often Pinkie visited was impossible at best. Pinkie would just simply be there and then off somewhere else just as quickly as she had arrived. The ship and its melancholic air had not slowed her down as much as Twilight would expect. Nor had the bullet wound, apparently.
She’d asked Applejack about Pinkie’s leg the last time she had visited. Pinkie’s recovery is the only good news on this stupid ship, Twilight thought. She’d feared infection, but Pinkie was already sprinting up and down the halls. She’d found food supplies in the mess; Applejack claimed she’d been baking a cake for the bemused but nevertheless appreciative Vanhoover sailors.
The crew they’d picked up was doing well also—if with a bit of distrust for their new shipmates. Specifically, the Blues. Twilight couldn’t really blame them; though, it would have frustrated her had she the energy or the care.
For a moment, Twilight considered simply drifting off to sleep again. It wasn’t as if she would do anything if she rose. If she went outside, her path would simply bring her back to her cabin again.
She rose, grumbling, and fluffed the pillow. If only nopony would bother her ever again. She could just stop doing everything. Forever.
Content, Twilight lay her head down and closed her eyes.
Only to see an explosive shell tear Axiom into tiny, gorey scraps.
She shivered and jerked, eyes going wide. It was only a vision, a brief reminder, and it faded, but still her heart pounded in her throat and her heart ached and would not let go. It was an impossible nightmare. One moment, he was there—breathing, alive, staring right at her—and the next he was not. Twilight had seen ponies die before. Not often, of course, but she had seen it. They gasped and groaned and fell and bled. These things were horrible, but at least afterwards, when the smoke was clear, their bodies could be recovered. There was a bit of dignity in the proper care of a lifeless shell.
Axiom had simply stopped being. Reduced to strips of flesh and shrapnel bone and viscera. Not simply dead but gone. Erased. Burned away.
There was, of course, nowhere to run from the sight of him ceasing to be. When she shut her eyes or covered her head with the thin, useless pillow, he was there—dissolving. When she slept, he stared at her.
Growling, Twilight turned to face the door.
It was at this moment that somepony knocked, and for once, Twilight was grateful for the interruption.
“Um… Twilight? Awake?”
She recognized the thick northern accent immediately and sighed.
“Yes, Tradewinds, I’m awake.”
There was a silence that Twilight felt was probably more awkward on the other side of the door, and then their castaway began again. “Can come in, da?”
Twilight looked around, weighing the possibilities, and then chided herself. What, am I afraid it’s too messy in here?
“Yes, come in,” Twilight answered. The door creaked as it opened, and in the opening stood the light blue pegasus, with her ridiculous half-shaved mane and enough piercings to make a grown stallion faint. If it were any other pony on the singing earth, Twilight would have thought they were simply trying too hard. But this one? Twilight wondered if she were even truly aware of how she looked. Tradewinds’ name may have suggested cunning and an ear to the ground for profit or chance, but the reality was a mare with a broken wing and a smile Twilight called vacuous when she was in a sour mood. On better days, she was reminded of somepony else, though she could never place exactly whom.
“Um, privet, Sparkle. Uh, Twilight. How are you?”
“Fine,” Twilight said, a bit more brusquely than she had intended. The pegasus did not flinch, however, and Twilight couldn’t help but give her credit. “Kind of just woke up from a nap.”
“Oh, well, am very sorry. But wished to ask question.”
“Shoot.”
“When will you be coming out?” Tradewinds asked, straightening herself.
Twilight arched a single eyebrow. “No ‘will you’, just a ‘when?’”
“We all have to come out some time, Twilight.”
Twilight blinked. “Maybe.”
“We are coming to islands and thought perhaps you might want to see, da?” Tradewinds smiled a smile to challenge some of Pinkie’s best, and Twilight couldn’t help but mirror it.
“Islands, you say?” she repeated, yawning. “What sort? I confess I’m shaky on geography.”
Ordinarily, she’d have simply told Tradewinds to leave, but… why not? It was better than having nightmares. Or doing nothing. Marginally better, perhaps, Twilight thought and gave Tradewinds a long look.
The pegasus carried on, oblivious. “Yes, is Island Thera, very pretty from afar. Crew is talking about landing to forage or trade with locals.”
“And you’re sure there will be locals to trade with?”
“Eh.” Tradewinds shrugged. “Captain says yes. I do not know, Twilight Sparkle.”
Twilight sighed. “Well. What time is it? I guess I could… like…”
“Come updeck, yes?” Tradewinds asked.
Twilight shrugged.
“Oh, good!” She beamed, wings flaring slightly before folding back tightly against her body. The injured one moved slower, and the look of pain on Tradewinds’ face moved something in Twilight. She approached and inspected the wing.
“You took the bandage off.”
“Was bothering me,” Tradewinds grumbled.
Twilight sighed. “You need to keep the wing still. Come on, I’ll take you to the infirmary and wrap it.”
Twilight gently placed a hoof on Tradewinds’ chest, and the pegasus moved reluctantly. Again and again, Twilight was surprised by the muscle definition she found there, the resistance the mare’s strong body gave to her hoof’s touch. With her strange manner, it was easy sometimes to forget she was a warrior.
Twilight led them deeper into the ship. Its iron halls creaked slightly at their passing, though not in a way that worried Twilight. At this point, the ship coming apart underneath them would just be the sign she needed to convince herself that Celestia just wasn’t there. It wasn’t like the Alicorn making it to the West was going to help much anyhow.
The insides of the ship were confusing to her. Had she been up and about, Twilight supposed that learning the layout would have been rather easy, but her bed was safe and meant a lack of interaction with her fellow ponies—a thing she was beginning to wish for more and more.
To her surprise as she turned the corner, Twilight found a pony lying in one of the two infirmary cots. She frowned, trying to remember to what crew he’d belonged before all of this mess. Had he been one of the Blues or one of the Captain’s ponies? She supposed that it didn’t matter, really, as they were supposed to all be the same crew now.
Ignoring their guest, Twilight examined the infirmary itself. It was unfortunately rather bare, with most of its medical goods carted off to benefit the Blues in their fortress. She supposed what was left of it had, well, burned.
“Let me see if I can’t find some bandages,” she murmured, opening the cabinet doors with her magic and peering in at the dusty shelves. Nothing. More doors, more shelves, no bandages. Pushed back into a corner, she found a small box, which she grabbed and levitated out into the light. She could hear Tradewinds doing… something behind her. She supposed it couldn’t hurt if they both looked, as long as that wing stayed secure a few more minutes.
“What is that?” Tradewinds asked. Twilight glanced over to see she’d already sat on a steel table in the center of the infirmary.
“Looks like pain meds. How’re you feeling?” Twilight asked as she turned the box over, reading the warnings.
“Am… not so bad,” Tradewinds said.
“The truth if you don’t mind.”
“Wing hurts.” She was quick to wave her hooves in front of her face as if dispelling any attention. “No longer feel queasy!” she said quickly. “Boat is wonderful place.”
“The boat is terrible,” Twilight said.
“‘S not terrible,” grumbled the injured pony in the corner. Or sick pony, perhaps. Twilight wasn’t really sure why he was lying on the cot. He looked alright.
“Whatever,” Twilight groused. She looked away from the stranger in the corner and back to Tradewinds. Words formed like clouds in her mind, but a wind blew them away. Something held her back. She turned and looked for bandages.
There were some, at least. She opened a container laid somewhat carelessly in front of the closet door and found a roll lying inside. Beside them was a bottle of Wild Pegasus clearly labeled “For Medical Purposes Only” and two shot glasses. Twilight rolled her eyes.
She turned around, holding the roll in her magic. The strange stallion on the cot had turned to look at them silently, and Tradewinds sat awkwardly on the table, frowning. She looked down at the floor, away from Twilight.
Twilight sighed. “May I ask you a question?” she said. Tradewinds looked up at her, and Twilight cleared her throat. The stallion also watched, but she tried to ignore him. It just made things more awkward.
“Always, da,” Tradewinds said quickly.
“Why did you take them off? And where are your old ones?”
“Except that one,” the pegasus said softly, not really replying. She bit her lip and looked away. “They are in ocean.”
“Why?” Twilight grit her teeth. No, she would not be irritated. She would find out. But the irritation was there. She wanted to be annoyed. She wanted to write Tradewinds off as an idiot and go back to her bed and her room. It wasn’t her fault. Nothing was her fault.
“I…” Tradewinds looked at her, really looked at her, for a moment. Twilight felt exposed as if somepony had shaved off her coat completely. “You would not understand, I am thinking,” she finished. When she frowned this time, it was different. The first frown, Twilight thought, had been more of a thing of shame over being caught. The second frown was a gesture of distance.
Twilight opened her mouth. Her lips smacked, and she was far too aware of it. She licked her lips, a nervous habit, another thing she was far too aware of, and which added to the atmosphere that pressed on her.
All at once, as if standing before a mirror, Twilight thought she caught a glimpse of herself.
“Twilight?” Tradewinds cut through her reverie—or tried.
“Could you try?”
“Am sorry. What do you mean?”
“Could you try?” Twilight repeated. “To explain, I mean. Could you try?”
“I suppose…” Tradewinds replied. “Well… it was not free.”
Twilight blinked.
“My wing. It was not free. Could not move it,” she repeated, gesturing awkwardly as if trying to show Twilight something that could not be shown.
“Well, of course,” Twilight replied, slowly. “Because it’s still not really up to moving much, yet. You can’t move it.”
“But it cannot move.”
“Yes… yes, that’s what I just said.”
“No, no,” Tradewinds shook her head. “You will not understand.”
Twilight did not feel irritated this time. She did not feel frustration. Mostly, she felt like she was talking to somepony on another ship, across a long, foggy bay of dark water.
“You need to move it.”
“It… if I crack your horn, would you do?”
Twilight took a moment to parse this and then answered. “If… if my horn cracked, a lot would be going on, but I think I see what you’re trying to say. It’s a part of you.”
“Is more than wing,” Tradewinds said. “It is life. It is the thing that makes Tradewinds Tradewinds, and not…” She blinked. “Do not know a good earth pony name for Tradewinds.”
The stallion on the cot chortled.
Twilight looked at the bandage and then approached Tradewinds. She inspected the wing in question and was not surprised to find that there was still obvious signs of physical distress. The fur right above where her wing began was cut haphazardly, whether the result of fire or wound Twilight did not know. The feathers were in complete disarray, but only on the injured wing.
“Does it hurt to preen? Or is that something you can’t do?”
“It hurts,” Tradewinds said, almost whined. “But I could if I wanted to… perhaps…”
“No, I figured it would. Reaching underneath for the uropygial glands would be painful…” Twilight mused and then sighed.
“I know. It is looking embarrassing,” Tradewinds murmured.
Twilight shook her head. “No, no I didn’t mean it like that. I was just asking. No, put your wing down. Don’t try to do it, alright?” She sighed. “Does it embarrass you that much?”
Tradewinds nodded. “My mother, she taught me to be presentable, da? Also, to avoid things with sharp teeth.”
And, at last, Twilight chuckled. The effect on her companion was instant. The pegasus’ ears perked up, and she smiled. No, she almost seemed to glow. Twilight found it curious and filed the reaction away. Filing, filing. She was always taking notes. Never did stop being a student, she thought.
“How’s your neck, by the way?” Twilight asked, thinking.
“Is still sore.”
“I could preen your wing, I think. I can be careful enough to make it presentable. Would that make wearing the binding a little more bearable? I remember that Rainbow wasn’t really big on being flightless.”
She looked away from the injured wing and shoulder and found Tradewinds looking at her curiously. “You know how?”
Twilight nodded after brief hesitation. “Yes. I mean, I’ve…” She stopped and then laughed, genuinely and without reserve. “I’ve read lots of books on the subject,” she finished. “I’m sorry, it’s just… I haven’t said that in a long time. But yes, I know how.”
Twilight set the bandage aside, and Tradewinds hopped down from the table. “So… where shall I be, da?”
Twilight gestured vaguely over towards the cots. “We’ll get out of the center of the room.”
As they shuffled over, Twilight brushed the table and was shocked. It was cold. She expected as much from a metallic operating table, yes, but it was easy to forget just how immune pegasi were too cold. It was so strange, she thought, not stopping to think more on it.
Tradewinds sat near the wall, pushing the cot to the side to make room. Twilight sat beside her and pursed her lips. Now to remember exactly how this preening thing worked.
She remembered the glands under the wing for waterproofing, and as she inspected the injured wing once more, it began to come back. Her mind was always keeping notes, after all. Very little was lost for good. Even her magic had come back. In its own way, of course. When it decided it could blow up as much as it wanted.
“Is everything alright?” Tradewinds asked.
“Hm? Oh, yeah,” Twilight muttered. She had been frowning of course, screwing her face up in frustration. Because she was bad at emotions. Remember that.
Twilight went to work. To be fair, she did have some experience; it was simply not the most encouraging experience, and Fluttershy had been far too gracious about the whole thing. But she found that there was less pressure sitting in the infirmary, under the sickly washed-out ship lights, her companion’s back almost against the walls with their chipped-off paint and their age. It felt easier to see the pattern of how the wing should be, of how the feather should align to work together. Wings were systems, puzzles. They were organic machines built for the purpose of flight, and she had always found them to be particularly beautiful.
Thankfully, Twilight had plenty of restraint, and decided that it was perhaps not the best comment to make.
Tradewinds hummed as she worked, and the mild tension in her shoulders melted away like ice thrown into a fire.
Twilight did not speak but found she didn’t have to. The silence wasn’t awkward at all. If anything, it was full, saturated with peace. Peace… The word drifted in her mind like a castaway on a calm sea, which she supposed was apt even if it was cliché. She knew that, and yet nothing in her said that it mattered.
Tradewinds would speak, and Twilight listened as she straightened the scattered feathers, bringing them to order with little tugs. They had no real taste but softness, but they tickled her nose a bit.
“I am reminded of my mother,” the pegasus began, her voice thick not with accent but with something warmer and happier. Twilight stole a look, curious, and found that her eyes were closed.
“Oh?” Twilight prompted.
“Yes, back in Petrahoof,” she murmured, like a curious song. “Am thinking of a day in winter, when I was very small, and my cutie mark, she was new, da? I was very excited. I said that now this meant I would be able to be flying everywhere. I would be like bird! I was silly foal.”
Twilight nuzzled under Tradewinds’ wing, feeling awkward, but not enough to stop. It helped that the pegasus seemed to hardly notice. She had read, of course, that they did not view touch the same way a unicorn did. Preening was just something one did with friends and family as much as one would a lover or a trusted pony or even a wingpony. Fluttershy had not exactly been a good case study, for such things, nervous as she had been.
Though she was a unicorn, Twilight found herself thinking less about what she was doing and more feeling her way through the process. It was both alien and natural, different from running a brush through a friend’s mane only by the mechanics of the act itself.
And Twilight listened as she waterproofed the wing, making sure to be gentle, preferring to do a poor job over causing any discomfort. For the most part, she found that there was no trouble. Tradewinds and her wing were just fine. Twilight nuzzled under it, and then the oil there was applied to the wing. It was a simple process—a repetitive, relaxing one.
“My mother, she told me of course that I was not quite ready to be soaring, but I could fly, you understand? Just not very well! So I am telling her all of the things I will be doing, and it was snowing, and the fire was so warm, Twilight Sparkle. It seemed as if it was always snowing and the fire was always warm, forever, when I was a filly in Petrahoof. And my mother, she knows my magic is still growing, da? Was less coldproof—is that the word?—back then, and so she tells me, ‘sit little one.’ And I sit. And she tells me very seriously that I cannot be going out like this! For you see, my wings, they were not in their proper flying order.”
Twilight made a small “ahh” noise, not bothering to comment. It was more of a recollection than a story, she thought. Maybe more for her than for me. It’s a long way from Petrahoof. Twilight sighed. It’s a long way from Ponyville, too.
Tradewinds continued on. “So, with having told this, she sat me down, and she began to work, as mothers do, da? And we were near the fire, and I was still young, and next thing I knew, I was waking up on little couch,” she said, chuckling lazily, almost dreamily. “My mother was not a pegasus, Twilight Sparkle. She did not understand, but she tries hard, you know. You have mother too, of course.”
Twilight grimaced without meaning to, glad that her friend’s eyes were closed. “Yeah, I do.”
“Well, you know of mothers.”
“Yeah, I do.”
She was sure it did not take long, but still, for Twilight, it seemed to drag on forever. Not in a bad way, necessarily. The moment simply seemed to linger. Idly, her face full of feathers, Twilight couldn’t help but think that the princesses did this. She wondered if they ever had anyone help them. Why hadn’t she ever helped Celestia do this? Or Luna, perhaps. It seemed so wonderful… Tea with her teacher had been the highlights of her younger days, after all. Relaxing, soothing calms in stormy years of study.
But soon she was done, and Tradewinds hummed and thanked her. Twilight smiled, without reservation, and thought perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad to go up to the deck.
LUNA
Luna Songborne, Regent of the Night, Hammer of the Stars, Forger of the Diarch’s Crowns, was in bed past lunchtime.
To be fair, these were not normal times, nor was she in bed out of laziness. She had risen to aid the sun in rising. It was harder and harder these days. The shining light of her sister’s charge graced the land unevenly, haphazardly, and Luna knew that the strangeness in its touch was not all because of her own lack of affinity. It had always seemed strange to her, so unlike her own moon’s aura, but the soul of that great fire, Sol, had never been distraught at her touch.
Luna sighed but rose.
She wondered, as she often did when she was alone, about Twilight and her friends. Weeks had brought only sporadic news. A few reports from Twilight, one or two from Rarity. They always seemed tired and sore, with little to say but bad news.
But it was time to rise. She had stayed abed long enough.
The room was empty, as it had been for a very, very long time. Her chambers had not always been empty. There had been servants in brighter days. A gaggle of chatty, giggly mares to dust and gossip. A memory rose up from the deep waters of the past—an image of two earth pony mares carrying fresh linens into the room when she’d been reading in her study. She had peeked out and watched them, millennia ago, as they’d discussed some guard or other. The names and words had faded from her mind entirely. The music of their laughter had not.
Luna left the safety of her canopied bed and went out to the balcony to look over the city. Below her, the old city, bathed in light that was too early in waning, sat like a surly old stallion in the corner of a tavern. The one who always had some glum proclamation or prediction, no matter the weather. She supposed it was more her imagination than the city itself, though the mood had indeed taken a turn quickly in the past week.
A sudden breeze pushed at her. It seemed gentle, but Luna could not enjoy it. The cold weighed on her. Most things did, these days.
Spike had been on the verge of panic when she had opened her eyes at last, the night she had gone deep into the Aether to see the source of the darkness. Her whole body had been burning. When she had reached up to bid him be still, she had seen her own leg and known what troubled him. Like ivy, a thaumaturgic fire burned on her skin, ignoring the coat for the vital life within.
It has been a long time since I have seen true blood magic, Luna thought, and rested her head on the railing.
She missed her sister. She missed Twilight. She missed many, many things. They would know how to handle such esoteric arts. The last time Luna had seen a true bloodmage, the castle in the Everfree had been beautiful and rather new. His head had also ended up as a bloody pulp. She clearly remembered that part.
It had been Celestia who had whiled away at the magical arts. Not to say she knew nothing of them. Luna’s magical knowledge was vast. She’d forgotten more than most of the unicorns that had ever been born had or ever would learn. But Luna had always been more practical in her arcane studies. She wished to know how to build and rend, to grow and wither. Celestia had gone after lore and fundamentals, the secrets behind the laws that governed the life force of the universe. Celestia had not been unlike Twilight Sparkle in her younger days.
Luna brought her magic to heel with a thought, sending it to search her chamber for the scrying stone. She found it, oddly, underneath her bed, and levitated it out to the balcony to look at its strange, flat surface. Her reflection was faint against the roiling mist inside.
“Active, then,” she said, though no one was present. It was good to hear a voice even if it were her own.
Why had she called the artifact out to her? It was a mystery. She’d simply wanted the thing all of a sudden. Thinking of Twilight and my sister, she thought, smiling at the globe.
Would Twilight answer a call? It wouldn’t hurt to try. It had been some time since Twilight had reported back, and the last conversation they’d had… There had been hints of something in the future. Luna recalled being troubled by her descriptions of Tall Tale and that city beyond it… Vanhoover? A new city, one raised long after her departure in exile.
She activated the scrying globe and waited. Twilight would probably not answer immediately, and it gave her time to collect her thoughts.
Rarity’s last report had been a day out from Imperial Center. It had been a curt narrative of an attack by strange creatures of a type that Luna recognized. The Mitou were as old as she. Well, no. Not as old as she was, exactly, but close enough to count by pony standards.
Back when we were adventurers. When the world was young, she mused. Luna the Hammer and Celestia the Mage. They had beaten and burned every monster and villain from the Empire down to the Great Sands and beyond, to the jungle highlands where the zebras prayed to strange beings and spoke the name of Gan. Or they had, in the old twilight days.
Perhaps she would tell Twilight about those days. The idea brought a smile to her lips. Yes, she would. Twilight would listen intently, always happy to hear a story of the princesses. Or, at least, of Celestia. But she wouldn’t mind if it were about Luna as well, she reasoned. Of course not. Twilight was always eager to learn and listen. She could tell Twilight all about the old Gods of the Mountain and their rule of terror. Two alicorns leading a party of hardy adventurers had done much to curb that scourge.
It had always been that way. Two sisters, come Tartarus or high water. Or rain. Lots of rain. Endless rain. She could almost hear the rain on one particular day, as another memory rose to the surface—
“Celestia? We’re lost.”
—Luna took a sharp breath and stared straight ahead, her eyes boring into the plain. It had always been this way as well, that to be an Alicorn meant to remember. Yes, over the many long years she had forgotten things, but not many. She remembered much more.
She might have gone on staring into the distance had the scrying globe not thrummed and glowed bright gold. Luna blinked at it and waited as the luminance faded and was replaced by Twilight Sparkle’s smiling face. Smiling: that was a good sign, Luna thought. Smiling meant alive, for one thing. It tended to carry with it a suggestion of victory, at least in context. She did not seem jubilant, but Luna supposed that adventuring was tiring. She would know. In any case, she smiled back.
“Twilight! We—ahem.” She cleared her throat and stood a bit straighter, tried to seem a bit more composed and a bit less like someone recovering from magical burns. To that effect, she shook her head, and her mane fell over the right side of her face, blocking a view of her body, Luna hoped.
“Still trying to code switch?” Twilight asked.
Luna chuckled. Twilight Sparkle had a way of pulling a pony up by the bridle. “Yes, it can be difficult at times,” she said, “but I do make the effort. I believe it’s worth it to speak as myself with friends, with no intervening barriers of State and pomp.”
“Keeps you sane,” Twilight replied, and Luna nodded.
“But enough of my linguistic feats,” Luna pushed, leaning in slightly. “The last time we spoke, you were in the process of securing transportation. It seems you are alive, and as you do not seem overly… morose. I trust that you and your companions were successful.” She tilted her head, awaiting a response.
Twilight blinked. No, it was perhaps more accurate to say that she stared. All at once, Luna felt as if the ground beneath her hooves had shifted and turned to mud. Mud not unlike the mud that she had sloshed in a long, long time ago.
“Celestia? We’re lost.”
It was a day she was trying not to think about with Twilight heading West. In that direction.
“Twilight? Can you hear me?” Luna asked, furrowing her brow. Scrying globes rarely encountered difficulty, but it was not unheard of, and these particular artifacts were rather old.
“Yeah… yeah, sorry. Spaced out,” Twilight stammered, and looked away. “Yeah. Ship… uh.” She looked at something behind the globe and then levitated it, swinging the artifact about so Luna could get a view of the deck.
It seemed a rather large vessel, though Luna supposed it was needed for the long journey. Ponies walked the deck here and there, disappearing behind shipping crates almost as soon as they appeared.
“It seems you were quite successful indeed!” Luna said.
Twilight took a deep breath. “Yeah. Yeah, I was… but that’s that. You may be interested more in what I’ve been doing, but I am dying for news of home. Is Spike there? How is he? How are you? The city...”
Twilight was rambling, words upon words in a flood. Luna usually enjoyed when she became excitable like this. Enthusiasm had always impressed Luna. She had valued it in her champions and companions over the years. In Twilight, she found that it could be a fire to power any machine of thought or invention if one would but blow a bit on the embers.
“The city still stands,” Luna said. “Miraculously.”
Twilight blinked then grinned. “Good. Sorry. What’s the news?”
“Well, the houses are, of course, plotting,” Luna began. “Nothing has changed in that regard. The scope of the plot has metamorphosized, however.”
“When I left, House Blood was trying to woo the Rowan-Oaks into a real, firm alliance instead of simply occasionally being on the same side relative to you.”
“And that is all that they were doing until you left. As I feared—in fact, you’ll remember that I told you this would happen—the departure of you and your friends changed things.” She sighed. “The lines are being drawn, the real lines, the ones between rebel and loyalist. It is becoming less and less about policy and more and more about sovereignty.”
Twilight let out a frustrated growl. “Figures.”
“Yes. ‘Figures’ is right. But you’ll notice I’m not hopeless quite yet,” Luna said with a smirk. “Spike has been such a help. Your idea was wonderful, and I thank you for it.”
Twilight smiled, looking away for a moment. “I figured it’d be perfect, you know? I’m leaving both of you behind with… well, kind of just nopony. You don’t have your sister, and he doesn’t have me around… I mean, I’m sorry, I guess that’s a little presumptuous, Your Majesty.”
“Not at all. It was wise. I confess I miss my sister terribly. Your company as well—though we both knew that you needed to leave. Well...” She paused. “No, you knew. I was too foolish to notice, and you had to show me.” She cleared her throat, racking her brain. Was she forgetting something important before she tried to pin Twilight down with something less world-shattering?
Twilight sighed. Again. “I miss her too.”
And just like that, Luna felt heavier. Her face wilted into a frown; her attention dragged. For a moment, she wished for something mad: that Twilight would simply turn around and come home. Celestia had had so many students, so many companions. Luna had only Twilight Sparkle, the only one who would stargaze with her, and she was headed West, where Luna would never go again except in chains. The West, where the world petered out, narrowing and narrowing to a fine point where the ground gave way to mud and water and strange. tall grass and endless rain.
Luna took a deep breath. “It’s worth it, Twilight. Pardon. I mean that it is worth it, going West. She’s out there still. I know she is.”
“Would you know if she died?”
Luna shook her head. “Not in the way you mean.”
“I’ve just… I’m just not sure,” Twilight said, lowering her voice. She positioned herself and the globe so that they were in the corner of the little cabin now. Luna could see a door behind Twilight’s back before she pulled something in front of it and plunged herself into darkness. “The blankets should muffle me a bit,” she explained tonelessly. Now, in the light of the globe, she looked too pale, too thin. Luna could see now a place on her cheek where some of her coat had been singed off.
“You’re not sure that Celestia lives? Or do you doubt the worth of searching?”
“I don’t even know. For once in my life, my problem has nothing to do with logic or thought. Getting this boat was hard, Luna. We had a friend, a pony we picked up in the city who was helping us…” She shivered. Luna lost her face in shadows for a moment.
Luna stared, mouth half open and mind still.
“It was so bad… Luna, so many ponies are dead in that city. They’ve been killing each other, and we were stealing the boat and there were cannons, and I couldn’t just not shoot back… Oh, stars… Luna it was terrible.”
“I… I did not know.”
“Now you do. I’m just… I’m fragile right now,” Twilight admitted. “I keep wondering if it’ll be me next or Applejack or Pinkie… or you or Spike. Rarity. Dash. Fluttershy. Anypony. Is it worth us dying like that, just to find Celestia?”
Luna bit her lip.
It was a cruel and enduring irony that in all of her long years, Luna had not actually succeeded in understanding the ways of the hearts of ponies. Their natures she thought she knew, but Celestia was the princess who could soothe their waking spirits. It was Luna who stared, the one who was easy, the one who clung to the mask like a lifeboat, because when she took it off she had nothing.
“My sister…” She faltered. What would she say? That Celestia would make things right? Maybe. But not immediately. Not for a long time. Bringing Celestia back would not heal all the wounds. The darkness in the Aether was still there, and still… It occurred to Luna, suddenly, that Twilight Sparkle had not yet been told of her discovery, and she solemnly decided that the unicorn would not know until it was necessary. If her faith wavered at this, it would not survive the revelations Luna had paid for with her pain and sanity.
And she could not in good conscience lie, either. Lying by omission she could think at until it seemed acceptable, but she would not say there was hope when there might not be any.
Except, she wondered if that was the whole point of the thing. Hope. Like candles.
“My sister would do the same for you, Twilight Sparkle,” she said at last, and Twilight’s eyes met hers miles and miles away. “She would do the same for you in a heartbeat. I would as well. It’s not just… It’s not just about what she can do and what she can fix,” Luna said, pressing on before she broke down and let her secrets loose. Twilight deserved to know. She couldn’t know. She wouldn’t understand. It would take too long to explain. But she had wanted to tell her the night before her questing had begun, when her fears were just fears and not theories that were solidifying. “It’s not just because she’s a princess, Twilight. It’s because we love you. You are our dearest friend and student and companion,” she said quickly. “If you aren’t sure about doing it for Equestria, do it for yourself.”
Twilight looked down.
“You know,” she said quietly. “I always felt guilty when I was a filly.”
“Why?” Luna asked, caught off-guard.
“She was like a second mother. I love my mother, and I would never have them trade places. But as I grew up, I thought that I was being too… presumptuous. When I went to Ponyville, Celestia was trying to shake me out of my coldness. It wasn’t that I was cruel or unkind, Luna. I was simply closed off, unwilling to risk. Like I am now, I guess. I risked a lot in that city,” she spat and then shivered. “And I lost my bets. My friend died.”
“And you regret risking.”
“I don’t know,” Twilight said.
“Risk is perhaps not the thing you should be fearing, Twilight,” Luna said, pressing. “Mayhaps you should fear the absence of risk. When a thing stops risking, it has begun to die, I think. To dare is to lose one's hoofing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself.”
“That’s a tall order,” Twilight said, a little sullenly. But she did not disagree, Luna noted.
“Yes, it is. Life is rather difficult. I would know. I have been walking the earth, to and fro, for quite a long time, Twilight. In fact,” she continued, glad she had just been thinking about such things. “I told you a little of my time in the West, but you know little of the rest of our life.”
“Nopony knows most of it.”
“That is because much of the interest lies in the chaos and immediacy. Life is lived forward but understood backwards. Once viewed from a distance, much of it is not as worth the recounting as one would believe. Even our days as adventurers would be little more than entertaining stories.”
Twilight sighed.
“I refused risk when it came for me,” Luna said. To say that she said this quietly and that it seemed far too loud would be understatement. She knew that it was simply her mind, but it felt as if those words were hammers on her ears or cannonfire over the Gorge like in the old days before the Fall. “In the West, when my sister and I went in search of something very important.”
“Where were you going?”
“The place that I think… I think Celestia has gone back to, Twilight. The Well… The Well of the Firmament. There are two Wells of the Song, Twilight, but we went to the farthest reaches, and what we saw and did there I was sworn never to speak of, but there was a day when I could not touch the moon nor plead with the sun. I was an alicorn, gifted in magic and strength, capable of great things, but I was no more magical than I was in the moment that I was born out of the Song,” she said, cringing at the word. Song. Song, song, song. “She kept telling me it was a prophecy, Twilight, that there was a prophetic reason for us to go and do what we did. We had a grand destiny!” She groaned. “But I, too, was worn down by time, Twilight.”
“I… Where? What happened?”
“Jannah. Jannah happened. We were betrayed, but that was just painful. Jannah is… I do not want you to go,” she said shortly. “You have to. It is necessary for you to go to that place, but I do not want you to. I do not want anypony who has ever been born to have to climb the great white walls.”
“But what’s… what’s wrong with it?” Twilight asked, eyes wide.
Luna shivered. “Everything. The city lives—if you can call such things as are there living. It crawls with that which should not be; it is plagued by the siren song of the damned and the forgotten. Millions snuffed out in a night, Twilight Sparkle, led to their deaths happily, singing softly in the streets as their bones were crushed and their skin was split and their wills digested. Monsters, my dear, dear friend.” Luna cut herself off, softening her voice. “My dearest friend, you will know when you are there, and when you come to the city I will be prepared to speak of it in more sober tones. But after we left that place, we went West. We went West for a long, long time. And it was there that I first lost myself.”
CELESTIA
The appointed hour had come and it had come too soon, far too soon. Celestia could feel it, despite her sodden coat and wings, despite her bone-weary state. It was like a knife between her ribs, burrowing into its warm new home.
She had felt it all along, of course. Building. She felt it—though at the time it was smaller and nameless—when the rain started. But the days of rain had been too much. It was as if the journey had been merely stacking stones on Luna’s back until this last moment when a careless mistake sent them all crashing down. The last straw.
And when she couldn’t hear the miserable splashing of Luna’s hooves in the damp, chest-high grass, this all occurred to her in a second. She closed her eyes and sighed.
“We’re lost.”
Luna’s voice was like ice. No, it was more like cold iron. Like Antenna’s serrated dagger, in Jannah. How many months it had been since then, almost a lifetime ago?
“Celestia? We’re lost.”
It was odd to hear her whole name spoken aloud. Luna always called her “Tia.” Sometimes she might say “Celly” if she was being facetious, yes, but rarely did they use her full name.
“You never call me that, Lulu,” she said.
“Well. We’re lost.”
“Not really.”
There was silence between them for a time. Celestia stared ahead, out over the dark reeds at the world’s bitter and watery end. She had no idea how close or far the mountains were, that lay in the distance. She only knew that they were ahead of her and that she had to get there. It was important.
Why am I not turning around? Why won’t I address her properly? It didn’t make sense. She should have felt alarmed. She should have responded to Luna’s challenge, Luna’s plea for some certainty, in kind. Celestia the Comforter. Celestia the Explainer of Things.
Instead, she let the gentle, persistent rain wash down her face and her cheeks. It collected below her, soaking her hooves. She found herself numbly glad for her hoofbindings.
“Celestia, answer me with something other than stupidity. You aren’t a fool. How far is it?”
“I don’t know.”
Luna was gritting her teeth, Celestia knew this. She could see it clearly in her mind’s eye. At last, she turned to face her accuser.
The rain had forced upon Luna the visage of the damned. She suffered. Her mane was plastered to her face as if she had simply stopped caring enough to peel it off. Her eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep—there was nowhere to sleep that was not cold and wet. Even the makeshift campsites they made and protected with their combined magic eventually succumbed. She was thin, so thin. Her ribs would begin showing soon, Celestia guessed. It was only a matter of time. Already she looked hungry, less herself. She was a shadow, a hollow impression of what had been. And might yet be.
Perhaps.
“Well? Speak!” Luna demanded. She was in something that looked almost like a fighting stance, but it was far too pathetic. Celestia could not feel anything. Perhaps it was because it had been so long in coming. It had been a year in the making, at least. Maybe more. Maybe it stretched back to the moment Luna had emerged, sobbing into the Song.
Emotion would not come, but Celestia’s mind still raced. “Lulu—”
“Call me by my name. The one I gave myself. If it pleases you.”
“It does,” Celestia said, very softly. “It does very much so, sister mine. Luna, we are not lost. I cannot point to where we are going on a map. I cannot mark the exact spot. But I know where we must go and from where we have come. I know that we are on a line between the two, following the path. Is that not enough?”
“Is it?” Luna asked.
“I would think so. Do you trust me not?” Celestia asked, and she was tired. The road was long. Her hooves ached. She found herself wondering when they would begin to rot in the water.
“I don’t know. I am unsure, to be honest. If it is, then I’ll keep going. But why should we go at all? What is there to find? It’s just a myth, Celestia.”
“Your grand proof of this, sister?”
Luna huffed. The rain continued as it had since the dawn of time, here at the frayed edges of the map. A drop hit Luna in the eye, and she blinked it away with a little growl. “The burden of proof is on you, my elder. We both know that your claims and your search are foolhardy.”
Celestia sighed. “I don’t know this at all. Luna, we’ll never get anywhere sitting.”
“We’re standing.”
Celestia wanted to feel something. She wanted to be angry. She wanted to curse, or stomp her hoof and send up a pillar of water. She wanted to berate her sister. But there was simply no fire in her. There was only aching and steel.
“I concede that. Yes, we’re standing. But we could be moving out of the rain.”
Luna exploded. One moment she was tensing with annoyance and frustration, and the next, she was screaming. Her eyes glowed with an unholy blue light which Celestia recognized well. At last, she felt something. Fear.
“THERE IS NO LEAVING THE RAIN. IT GOES ON FOREVER, UNTO ETERNITY.”
“Sister!” Celestia backed up, hooves kicking up water behind her. She prayed that they would not be caught in the reeds. “Sister, you told me this would end. You need to calm down!”
“THERE IS ONLY THE RAIN, AND WE WILL NEVER LEAVE. IT IS ALL YOUR FAULT. THERE IS NO END.”
Luna was hovering now, her wings defying the rain. Magic held her up—Celestia knew this—but as her sister’s wide wings spread and cast a shadow over her, she was reminded which of them had always been the better flier.
“Luna, s-stop this right now. You told me you wouldn’t! You promised!”
“WE WERE PROMISED THAT THE RAIN WOULD END. WE WERE PROMISED MANY THINGS.”
And then the talking was over. Luna lashed out with a lance of arcane lightning that caught Celestia on the face. The world was white light and searing pain, and she screamed. Sight was gone. She thought she was bleeding, but she had no time to check. Celestia hit the water. Her magic rose to the dance, and though she could not see, Celestia could still fight. Her sister burned like a torch in the dark, a magical beacon for everything that slept at world’s end to see and come for ravenously, and Celestia would take advantage.
She swung, and Luna howled, her voice tripling, stretching, deepening in a way that Celestia had not been able to explain when this had happened before.
“Luna! Come back to your senses at once!”
“WE ARE SANE AT LAST.”
Celestia called the water around her up, and in her mind’s eye, free from the blinding pain of trying to see, she felt the outline of the roiling, stagnant liquid’s every drop. She knew every particle of it, and it was a part of her for a split second before the deluge was heaped on her sister’s head.
And then Celestia ran.
She could win. It was more than possible. Luna was stronger, yes, and faster. She was the better fighter in many respects. But she was not a creative duelist. Brute force went far, but Celestia had rarely been defeated when they sparred on the Rock of Jannah as youngsters. There was no doubt in her mind.
But she was so very tired of hurting ponies.
The water protested beneath her. It resisted her momentum. The rain beat against her face and invaded her eyes and mouth. Breathing was hard, and she was gasping into the humid air. She cursed the time that moved strangely here at the place where the maps ended. It could have been seconds. It could have been years.
She heard something roaring beside her, and she knew Luna was trying to kill her this time. A thousand duels, a thousand thousand weeks and days and works, and here at last Luna was going to kill her before it was finished.
And finally Celestia was furious. As her sight began to come back to her and the ghostly outline of the mountains danced before her infirm vision, she cursed the Well at Jannah and her sister and all the ponies along the way she had loved and hated and lost and all the days since the Song ended and the circle had been broken. She hated all of it. She hated every single thing in the entire world.
Her hatred was cut short by Luna’s arcane assaults, which shook the ground beneath her. She tripped.
Landing in a heap, Celestia knew it was over. She tried to rise, but her right hind leg cramped, and she groaned. It was pathetic. She was going to die because her sister was mad and had always been mad, with no sun in sight to offer her warmth or succor. It was unfair.
Most of all, she thought she might hate Luna. Perhaps. In this moment, at least.
She turned her head, and Luna—no, it was not Luna, and she refused to call it Luna—stood over her.
“You should have let me die in the streets, Sister. When I held you up,” Celestia spat, and realized she was crying. “You should have let me fall.”
And Luna stared.
And sank.
And wept.
And Celestia held her, because it was who she was. She had little choice. Luna needed her.
“Tia?” She managed. “Tia, I’m sorry. I was angry, and the rain…”
Celestia said nothing.