Sins of the Ancients

by Tundara


Chapter Seven: Beyond Dreams

Sins of the Ancients

Chapter Seven: Beyond Dreams

"The Moon shall travel beyond the pall of the World, to the place between places,
Where no God nor Mortal should ever dare tred, and find one thought lost."
-From the Prophecy of the Purple Wizard

“Cadence, you have to forgive her eventually.”

The named alicorn lifted her soft pink head, locks of purple, pink and white striped mane falling in front of her gentle eyes, eyes a shade lighter than her coat. On her flank, held in two pieces of gold filigree was a blue heart, showing her talent in finding love and beauty in all things. Cadence, the patron of music and art, a living goddess, could look at the most hideous things and bring out their inner magnificence. Except for one, there was one pony that Cadence could not see holding any beauty.

“Maybe you can forgive her so easily, Auntie, but I can’t,” Cadence said in a hoarse whisper. “My earliest memories are of nothing but pain, and darkness, and terror. All because she was so selfish and petulant that she could not appreciate the ponies who did love her night, instead focusing on those who hid or slept through it. So, no, I can’t forgive her. Not yet.”

Beside Cadence, Princess Celestia, the shining white goddess of the sun, looked down on her niece with a sigh.

“She’s your mother, Cadence.”

“No, she’s not. My mother was and is Nightmare Moon!” fury rippled along Cadence, her wings shooting up. “A mother who has a foal in an attempt to replace her sister with a perfect little minion. A mother who locked me in a tower for the first twenty years of my life. A mother who was nothing but anger, spite, bitterness, and evil. Evil, Auntie, she was nothing but evil.”

Celestia remained silent as the two alicorns walked unable to dispute Cadence.

“I can’t forgive her Auntie, I just can’t.”

A tear rolled its way from goddess of music’s eye, falling to the marble tile like an azure star. Soft tinkling music of chimes slid through the air as the crystal landed. Celestia stopped walking, looking down on the tiny crystal, sadness and pain tugging at her own heart. Picking the tear up with her magic, Celestia and Cadence continued down the hall, mournful delicate music trailing behind them.

“She is trying to make amends, Candy,”

Hiccupping a small sniffle-laugh, Cadence looked up at her aunt.

“No fair, using that name,” Cadence giggled, then her face turned serious and sorrowful again. “I don’t know if there is anything she can do to make amends to me. I have been bitter, angry, and hurt a long, long time.”

“And I am so sorry for that,” Celestia whispered hanging her head. “I am as responsible for Nightmare Moon’s birth as Luna. Perhaps if I had listened rather than argued. If I had not been so arrogant and full of myself. If I hadn’t neglected Luna. If I had treated her like a sister...”

Cadence remained silent.

“Then I wonder if I could have done things differently after the war of the Sun and Moon started. What if I had found proper element bearers rather than try to use them myself? Could she have been saved, and not locked inside the moon? Did you know she spent those thousand years trapped inside a perpetual nightmare reliving everything she did as Nightmare Moon?”

“No,” Cadence admitted looking down at her hooves.

Looking back up Cadence saw they had entered the garden. Before the two alicorns sat the statue of the Sun and Moon, Celestia and Luna side by side in marble, carved before Cadence’s birth and kept hidden in Canterlot’s vaults during Luna’s banishment. Celestia had it placed in the garden for Luna’s first birthday after the princess of the moon returned. Cadence had spent the week in Manehattan. The young alicorn couldn’t stand the pinch of bitterness filling her heart as she looked up at the marble smile delicately carved on Luna’s face.

She had never known her mother to be anything other than pettiness and spite. Since her return Luna had done little to alter the image. Not that Cadence had given Luna many opportunities. The few, the very, very few, had been squandered by the princess of the moon. Luna was distant with every pony except Celestia. A twisted mix of anger, resentment, jealousy, and sorrow worked its way through Cadence. She wasn’t certain how she would react if Luna tried to make amends, but Cadence hadn’t had the opportunity to find out.

“I – I just can’t forgive her. She’s not even tried to make amends with me.”

“Give her time, Candy. You don’t know the true Luna, not like I do. She doesn’t avoid you because she doesn’t want to mend things between you, but because she feels too ashamed of herself. It is why she spends so much time hiding in her chambers. You need to be willing to meet her half way.”

Cadence turned away from the statue.

“I – I, no, I can’t. Not yet. Perhaps not ever.”

As the two immortals stood in the midnight garden the clouds parted revealing the full moon high above the statue. Turning to look at the silvery disk Cadence snorted in annoyance. Cadence wondered if her aunt had parted the clouds trying to make some poetic scene that would melt her heart and have her running to her mother’s chambers for a teary embrace where the mares would beg each other’s forgiveness. It wouldn’t work. There was nothing Cadence had done that Luna needed to forgive, but decades of imprisonment and emotional abuse that Cadence had suffered at her mother’s hooves.

Every thing Cadence had done to help end the war had been the right thing to do. Siding with her aunt, helping smuggle Celestia into Luna’s castle, tricking and delaying Nightmare Moon’s soldiers while the sisters confronted each other, it had all been the right thing to do. Eternal night would have meant the eventual death of every pony. That any pony had supported and worshipped Nightmare Moon still surprised Cadence.

The great irony was, in spite of all the anger and hurt Cadence had for her mother, she had turned her mother’s nights into everything her mother had desired, especially in Manehattan, the city that never sleeps. Music, laughter, love, passion; Cadence had filled something once feared with these things. It had taken centuries of work, but now there were music clubs that played the night away, closing only as Celestia’s sun peaked over the horizon. The day wasn’t the only time ponies played and frolicked, or even worked, and it was because of Cadence. It wasn’t because some mean, wicked, jealous, spiteful, nasty mare had tried to bring about eternal night. As if forcing ponies to live in a world without daylight would have made them love the night. Such foolishness.

“There is... Auntie, what is it?” Cadence faltered seeing a look of distant fear in her Aunt’s eyes.

Something was wrong. Celestia could feel it in every fiber of her ancient body like the discordant note of an instrument out of tune. The feeling shivered up her hooves and into her normally flowing rainbow hued mane making it hang limp over Celestia’s face. She hadn’t felt such a terrible sense of foreboding in millennia, not even when Discord had broken free of his prison. The last time Celestia had felt such foreboding had been the night of Luna’s descent into the madness of Nightmare Moon.

Lifting her head to the sky, Celestia gazed out on the moon hanging like a silver disk in the sky. The stars around it flickered for a moment, and then the moon darkened like an artist had splashed it with red paint. Celestia’s mouth fell open as Cadence turned from her aunt’s now terrified face, to the blood moon, and back to Celestia. Ice ran in her own blood. Never had Cadence seen a real blood moon, not even during the war of the Sun and Moon. Something terrible was a hoof.

As if to confirm her fears a long wretched wail pierced the night. In it was centuries of fear and torment, pain and despair like Cadence had never heard before.

“Luna?” Celestia cried, shooting into the air like a rainbow comet. With hurried flaps of her wings the princess of the sun headed straight for the tower housing Luna’s chambers.

Cadence hesitated a moment before taking off after her aunt.

Landing on Luna’s balcony, Celestia called her sisters name as she parted the curtains. Following closely behind, Cadence walked into her aunt, not noticing Celestia stopping just inside the curtains. Holding back a sharp comment, Cadence walked around her aunt, stopping cold at the sight that greeted her.

Luna had fallen off her bed, her left wing twisting at an unnatural angle. Blood, red and thick, had been splashed across the midnight blue curtains and walls in a sticky line. More blood ran from beneath the princess. Fluttering her eyes open, Luna managed to turn her head towards her sister and daughter. Cadence felt her stomach flop at the sight of a long gash running down her mother’s face, through a bloody eye. The ordinary teal iris had already fallen into a milky haze.

“Sister, Little Moonsong, we think we made an error,” Luna said with a mirthless hoarse laugh.

Across the room the doors leading into the rest of the palace were flung open, a pair of unicorn guards bursting into the room. Catching sight of all three princesses their jaws fell open. Luna’s voice seemed to snap Celestia out of her daze. Rushing across the room she knelt down, gently nuzzling her sister. The guard’s looked to each other, then back to the three princess.

“Princess,” one hesitantly began to speak.

Not lifting her head from her sister Celestia said, “You can return to your posts. I will handle this.”

The guards looked like they wanted to protest, but they bowed, closing the doors behind them as they left.

“Lulu, what happened? Who did this to you?”

“Calls itself the Fifth. Sister, Equestria is in great danger, and we...” Luna stopped speaking wincing in pain.

“Shush, Lulu, just rest,” Celestia said in her most soothing voice, a voice honed by millennia of rule.

Golden light flowed from Celestia’s horn, flowing down to mix with the dark midnight blue of Luna’s coat. Colour returned to Luna’s eye, the gash knitting itself together leaving not even the hint of a scar. Cadence winced as a loud pop and cry burst from Luna as her wing was relocated.

Silently Cadence moved along the wall and sat down to listen. A part, a very small part, wanted to join Celestia beside Luna. She had felt something seeing Luna wounded for a moment, something other than centuries of bitter anger. The feelings had already been subsumed by the more familiar emotions. Cadence would not go and comfort her mother.

Testing her wing Luna gave Celestia a little smile.

“It is a spirit, a very angry and powerful one. None of our magic worked against it Tia, and it did something to Lady Rarity, the Element of Generosity.”

“A spirit, like Discord?” Celestia asked, concern making her voice hard edged.

Cadence had been away negotiating a new trade agreement with the small hippogryph nation tucked in a corner between the gryphon eyries and equestria during the Discord Crisis. She had heard all the tales of the carnage and insanity the spirit of chaos had caused in the few days he had been free. Another entity that powerful being loose sent a chill up Cadence’s back to the tip of her wings. A breath of relief came a moment later as Luna continued.

“No, not like Discord. More like... a ghost or echo. We could feel that it was angry, and jealous. But that isn’t what worries us sister.” Luna bit her lower lip, rising slowly on shaky legs. “It was what we saw it doing to Lady Rarity when we interrupted it. The spirit was using Lady Rarity’s life force to peer across the veil of time.”

Celestia was quiet for a few moment lost in deep thoughts. “You’re certain Lulu?”

Hesitating, Luna nodded.

“Is Rarity alright?”

Luna bit her lip again looking away from her sister saying, “We are not certain, but we believe so. Twilight Sparkle interrupted the spirit when... when we were wounded. She used a magic we did not recognise to drive the spirit from Lady Rarity’s dream.”

A hint of a smile crossed Celestia’s face before disappearing back into her stern royal facade, the facade of a princess and ruler.

“What did you see, Lulu?”

“Fire, Tia, Equestria was burning and our people were lying dead in the mud. Forest, towns, fields, even the sky was burning.”

Celestia nodded slowly, digesting her sister’s information. Cadence looked from one alicorn to the other. She wasn’t sure what to think. On one hoof Luna seemed so certain, and her wounds had been real. But all Cadence could see looking at Luna was Nightmare Moon. All she heard when Luna talked was Nightmare Moons cruel mocking voice and laughter. A voice that had spoken nothing but lies and deceit. Squeezing her eyes shut Cadence looked away and started to trot towards the window. She couldn’t stay any longer in the same room as the princess as the moon. She had to get away and clear her head.

Luna watched her daughter leave and fly towards her own chambers, the deepest melancholy fading the luster of Luna’s teal eyes. Fluttering her wings Luna looked down at the sticky blood beneath her hooves. She would have to clean the blood up carefully. There were many who would fight over a single drop of alicorn blood to use as reagents to work magic or distill potions. She paused, scoffing a hoof against the elaborately inlaid tiles. It wasn’t the most appropriate time, but a question demanded to be aired, one that sent Luna’s belly into a tight knot of anxiety.

“Sister, does she... ask about me?”

Nuzzling her sister, Celestia said, “She is hurt, Lulu. Cadence has carried pain and bitterness for a thousand years. It will take some time, but if you put in the effort, she’ll forgive you. She has one of the most tender souls I’ve ever seen. You’re return just re-opened old wounds.”

The anxiety in Luna unknotted a little bit at her sister’s comforting words. She gave a gentle sigh returning the nuzzle.

“Now, Lulu, what do we do about this ‘Fifth’?”

“We don’t know, Tia. We don’t know anything about it other than Twilight managed to scare it away while we were unable to harm the spirit. We fear that if we confronted it directly again we would fair even worse.”

Rolling her eyes Celestia sat down. “Lulu, you don’t have to use the royal ‘we’ while it’s just the two of us, or ever for that matter. It’s archaic and hasn’t been used in centuries.”

“We, I know, sister. It’s a hard habit to break. At least I stopped using the Royal Canterlot Voice. I never properly thanked you for not telling me that it had been discontinued when I went to the Nightmare Night festival in Ponyville by the way.” Luna gave her sister a sarcastic look.

Flicking her ears back Celestia winced in remembered shame. She remembered forgetting to talk to her sister about the changes in public speaking until Luna was already at Ponyville. By then it was too late. Besides, with Twilight’s help, Luna had learned a valuable few lessons that night.

“But, what I plan to do is see if I can back-track where this spirit came from,” Luna continued returning to the more important subject. “Perhaps if we find where it comes from we’ll find a way to send it back. In the mean time, perhaps you should ask Twilight to come to Canterlot and question her on how she managed to drive the spirit off.”

Thinking the plan over Celestia nodded slowly.

“So long as you are careful, Lulu, we don’t have any idea if there will be more of these spirits or not.”

A mischievous smirk played at Luna’s lips. “We, I mean, I’ll be careful, Tia, you have my word.”

There was fear and concern behind Celestia’s old eyes, Luna could see both emotions clearly. Celestia stepped away from her sister, heading towards the balcony. Stopping just before the curtains leading out to the crisp summer night, Celestia pulled something out of her regalia with her magic. Luna watched curiously as Celestia floated a tiny crystal across the room.

“Tia, is that what I think it is?” Luna asked, taking the crystal in her own magic, the soft tinkle of bells and chimes singing sweetly.

Returning Luna’s smirk with a smile of her own Celestia said, “Yes, and don’t worry about this mess, Feather Duster and the cleaning crew have seen worse.” Celestia indicated with a hoof the red stains before turning and flying away.

Luna watched her sister fly away until the white alicorn landed on her own balcony and entered her chambers. A few minutes later a puff of green flashed, followed by candles being extinguished. Sighing Luna turned and stared at the crystal, still giving of its distinctive music. Placing the crystalline tear into a jewellery box, the music ended with the box snapping shut. There would be time to examine and think about the tear later.

For the moment Luna had a task to accomplish. Wounded pride demanded she find an answer to this spirit calling itself the ‘Fifth’. Nothing had ever been able to harm her in the land of dreams before. She had to find out where this ‘Fifth’ came from. Hopefully answers awaited her wherever this spirit originated from.

Ignoring the mess of tangled sheets, Luna jumped up onto her bed, and regretted it at once as she landed in splotches of her still sticky blood. Nostrils flaring Luna looked at the evidence of her weakness. There were only a few small places on the sheets and bed, unlike the long line splattered across the tile floor and wall, each barely the size of Luna’s hooves. Hating that she had been so careless and overconfident Luna jumped off her bed heading instead to her long opulent couch. Resting on the dark fabric, head on a satin pillow, Luna reminded herself that she had more pressing concerns to occupy herself. There would be time for self recrimination later.

As the princess of the moon and night, Luna had always found it easy to enter and manipulate the dreams of others. Closing her eyes she felt her weary body grow lighter, then vanish entirely. Around her were thousands upon thousands of little bubbles, each shining with an inner light. Gold, green, yellow, silver, black, white, every colour imaginable, and some beyond imagination, flickered from the endless sea of bubbles. Each, Luna knew, was a private little dream, the bubble’s colour a reflection of the emotions of the dreamers. A few bubbles, a very few, touched and merged with each other. These were the dreams of soul-mates, two ponies whose souls so perfectly fit together that they even shared their dreams. From Luna’s position outside the dreams she could see three such shared dreams among the thousands of ponies that dreamt alone.

Luna could have spent days just watching the dreams, perhaps peaking into a dream here or there to frolic and play with the dreamer. She had once loved to join foals as they dreamed. Foals tended to have the most pure innocent and fun dreams. But she had a task to accomplish. There would be time for playing later.

Concentrating Luna flew through the sea of bubbles, effortlessly skimming and manoeuvring her way deeper. She already knew what she was looking for. It was what had drawn her to Rarity’s dream earlier that night. Looking around it took Luna a moment to spot what she had seen earlier again.

There, hovering above a bubble of murky oily greys and black was a little red strand of astral thread. Pursing her lips Luna gazed into the bubble, concerned for the dreams occupant. Inside the dream she saw a white unicorn filly with a curly mane of soft pink and lilac huddling beneath a table in a ship lost in a storm tossed sea. The Fifth was beside the filly, whispering into the filly’s ear as the storm grew worse. It took all of Luna’s self control not to enter the dream and confront the Fifth again. The results would be the same as in Rarity’s dream, and this time there would be no Twilight to intervene.

Perhaps she should have visited the unicorn first and asked her about the spell she had used to drive the Fifth away. Luna had never seen a spell like it before. Twilight’s voice had been amplified inside Rarity’s dream, but had otherwise been just plain spoken words. There had been no magic or power Luna could detect on the words. Yet their effect had been immediate and unmistakable. Sighing Luna looked away from the scared filly. There was nothing she could do for the filly except hope that the Fifth would grow bored and move to another dream. Luna had to find a permanent solution before more of her subjects were tormented.

Channeling a simple divination spell into her horn Luna turned her attention back to the little red strand hovering over the nightmare bubble. For a few moments nothing happened as Luna altered the strength and frequency of the spell looking for a reaction. It took several attempts, but eventually the strand turned a dark purple and a thin wispy trail began to grow from the strand. With a shock Luna saw the trail bounce from bubble to bubble. The Fifth had been busy Luna realised further confirming her suspicion that trying the help the filly would be futile.

Looking around at all the dreamers touched by the Fifth, Luna lightly clicked her tongue against the top of her mouth. She still couldn’t see what she needed. While seeing where Fifth had been since their first encounter was informative, Luna needed to know where Fifth had been before, and she was certain it wasn’t in the dream land of ponies. Concentrating again Luna again started to alter her spell, the little strand twitching a few times before turning a golden orange colour.

Luna’s eyes grew wide at what she saw. As she had suspected, the Fifth wasn’t native to the dreams of ponies. The strand seemed to be tunneling through ether, going deeper and away from the waking world. Luna had never tried to go beyond the dreams of her ponies before, she wasn’t even sure if it was possible. If she tried to follow the tunnel there was no way to know if she’d be able to follow it back. It was possible she’d become loss in the twisting spaces between whatever was out there. Luna had no idea where the tunnel led.

A glance at the filly, trapped beside the Fifth, made up Luna’s mind for her. Grabbing the strand in her fetlock Luna forced her magic into the tunnel willing it to open wider. The tunnel seemed almost eager, stretching like an elastic sheet, and then snapping shut behind her. Wind that was not wind rushed past Luna’s ears in a howling rush. Squinting Luna could see a rapidly approaching light. Flaring her wings Luna tried to slow her descent, but to no effect. The tunnel seemed to speed faster and faster, the light growing from a pin-prick to the size of a star, and then to a full bodied sun, in a matter of moments. Throwing her hooves up over her face Luna braced herself for the inevitable impact.

Nothing happened, followed by several more seconds of nothing, convincing Luna it was safe to open her eyes. Rotating slowly in front of Luna was a massive orb of swirling silver and gold light. It was as if she had been flung to just above her sister’s sun. Craning her neck Luna could see other orbs of varying sizes, some smaller, many larger than the one the tunnel had brought her before. There were too many to count, even with her immortal lifespan Luna never would have been able to count all of the orbs. Around the orbs and filling the space between them was a cloud of thin light dancing like the Aurora Borealis. It seemed to connect the orbs to each other, and as Luna looked down at her hooves, she saw the cloud swirling and cloying to her fur.

Luna had no idea where she was, but she knew she wasn’t yet at the end of her journey. Concentrating on the thread still held in her fetlock she saw her suspicion confirmed. With her magic she again started following the thread to its origin. Once more she was falling towards the silver-gold sun. This time Luna didn’t try to slow her fall. The surface of the orb was like fire and ice, winter and summer, love and loss, all wrapped in cotton candy. Panic gripped Luna as she realised that she couldn’t feel the thread any longer.

Winds screamed from all directions suddenly buffeting Luna, tossing her as easily as a leaf in a tornado. Unable to control her descent and with her tether lost Luna curled into a ball and hoped that the assault would end as fast as it began. Luna felt more than heard something snap inside her head, like a bone she was unaware of had been sundered. Crying out in pain and fear Luna shot her wings open hoping she could perhaps fight her way back out of the sun.

It proved a futile gesture.

As suddenly as the winds had arrived the vanished. Luna opened her eyes to find herself on an endless grey plain. She looked left and right, below her and at the ‘sky’, seeing only grey walls of cloud and mist that blurred together into an infinite sheet. Taking a tentative step Luna felt resistance under her hooves like she was standing on wood or packed earth, but couldn’t see anything, just a long vast nothingness until the clouds.

“Where am I?” Luna asked aloud.

“Oh good, you were here on time.”

Luna leapt into the air at the voice, turning on the spot as she lowered her horn into a battle-stance. Her stance didn’t relax as she studied the voice’s speaker, a tall bi-pedal creature wearing red and gold cloths, mousey brown mane, and laughing blue eyes.

“Well as on time as one can be when there is no time, I supposed,” the creature said, giving Luna a little bow, arms sweeping outward like they were wings on a bird about to take flight.

“Who, or what, are you, if we may enquire?” Luna asked falling back into her traditional way of speaking. She could feel this creature had a great deal of magic, but it was a magic Luna hadn’t seen before. It was like her magic was an apple, and this creature’s was an orange. Similar, familiar, but different, yet related.

The creature didn’t respond, instead waving a hand for Luna to follow it, and then setting off into the endless grey mists. Luna hesitated for a moment. She had no idea just what the creature was, or what it wanted, but it seemed to have been expecting her. It hadn’t attacked Luna, yet, and if it was anything like Fifth, it probably would have been able to win with ease, especially in the creature’s own world where Luna was completely lost. Not fully trusting the creature, but hoping maybe this was the clue or help she needed, Luna followed a few paces behind.

As they walked the creature began to hum to itself, and then sing. Luna wasn’t paying much attention to the tune at first, instead focusing her thoughts on her trip and contemplating just where she had brought herself. It was a shock that she found herself starting to hum and sing along recognising the song. It was an old tune from the war of the Sun and Moon. Luna perked her ears forward as the creature, obviously female by her strong soprano voice, launched fully into the song.

Luna stopped absolutely flabbergasted by what she heard. From the creature, in strong and sinuous tones, full of loss and longing, came a song Luna herself wrote just before her final irreversible descent into the madness of Nightmare Moon. Unbidden and unwanted memories of that fateful night screamed back. To Luna’s eyes the endless grey plain was replaced by the gardens of the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters being caressed in gentle moonlight. Without realising it, Luna joined the creature adding her controlled confident contralto, sweeping low around the high notes supplied by the soprano.

Memories long buried raised themselves, the garden transforming into rolling fields that would, in a thousand years, become the home of Ponyville. The song grew dark, Luna’s voice filling with despair and bitterness beneath the jeweled canopy of the night. Yet there was a pleading hope to the lyrics, that with just the right push all the ponies would come to love the night as much as Luna.

The final triumphant movement began, Luna taking full control of the song, the creature’s voice drifting away into the midnight sky. Flaring her wings Luna finished the song, proclaiming to all the final setting of the sun, thus starting the war of the Sun and Moon.

But the memories didn’t end with the song. Luna fell to the ‘ground’ shuddering as she recalled the confrontation with Celestia. The angry words both spat at each other. The accusations, false, real, and imagined cutting the air like arrows. Words turned to spells, the two sisters battering each other with blasts of telekinetic force, fire, and lightening. The memories ending with Celestia fleeing to rally the ponies loyal to her.

The creature stopped her singing, turning to regard Luna over her shoulder.

“Come, come, you shouldn’t have stopped, we were almost there.”

“Where did you learn that song?” Luna gasped rising back to her hooves.

Not answering the creature again waved for Luna to follow and started walking into the clouds that had returned with the memory’s end. Luna was grateful for the small mercy of not having to relive what came after that first fight. Her essence burned with shame over what she had nearly done to all of Equestria. Another thousand years would not be enough to wipe away the regret. Luna picked up her pace thankful for the silence.

How long the two walked Luna could not say. She was too lost in bitter memories to notice the addition of other voices in the clouds. It wasn’t until her guide slowed that Luna snapped her attention back to the world around her.

“No, no, hold your hands up like THIS. You have to flow and bend like water if you want to connect to it.”

“Like this?” asked a second eager voice.

“Better, but your wrist is still too rigid, as is your mind.”

Luna’s ears perked towards the talking. She could tell that the voices were close. Through the clouds she saw two more of the tall creatures begin to form, and then solidify. Tall and draped in blue cloth the first voice was watching the second with a critical eye. Wearing lavender, and much shorter than the other two creatures, the second stood in an odd stance, one leg in front of the other, an arm raised above its head, the other curved low.

The creature leading Luna smiled and waved to the two new creatures. Noticing the new addition the other creatures looked over, the purple clothed one smiling and waving in return, the other standing still and impassive like a marble statue. Luna kept herself mostly hidden behind the creature she had first encountered. If the creatures proved to be hostile she could use the first as a mini-barricade while she ran so the others wouldn’t have a clear line of sight.

“I brought a friend you remembered with me,” the first creature said stepping aside ruining Luna’s plan.

The creature in lavender stopped in its tracks, its face turning from shock to a look of pure joy in the blink of Luna’s eye.

“Princess Luna!” the creature exclaimed rushing forward. Luna tensed readying herself to fight. Instead the creature wrapped its limbs around Luna’s neck and began to laugh and cry into her coat like a foal lost in the woods that had just been found by its mother. “I had started to wonder if I’d ever see any pony from Equestria again.”

Luna looked from the first creature to the one that stood watching the reaction of the one wrapped around Luna’s neck. Both remaining creatures shared a bemused look. Lifting up a hoof Luna gently pushed the second creature away. A little confused and hurt the creature stepped back.

“You don’t recognise me, of course, how stupid of me,” the creature said, more to itself than Luna, wiping a tear away that had crept into the corner of an eye.

“It’s me, Twilight Sparkle.”

Luna blinked twice, her mouth falling open.