Lunarium

by Tramper


Chapter 14 ~ Aren't You Scared Of Nightmares? Pt. 2

Raindrops took a deep breath in order to keep the nervousness away. She steadied herself, hoped that this would go well.

The light brown filly with the blonde mane called Doseydotes and her brother Goldengrape looked at her for a moment, then at their father, mister Grape, who seemed to scarcely believe what had just happened himself.

“This is all impossible,” he said from behind gritted teeth.

Raindrops didn't feel that inclined to agree. The quakes were real, the fissure was real and this right here, this was reality.

Under the smog of the city one could never see the stars, she had found. That's why she kept them close to her heart, that's why she always looked up at night. They were there, hidden behind the smoke and they were still real.

The filly also knew that arguing more would get him only angry again. She preferred to not be beaten by a stallion of his strength, not again. It wasn’t even something she really understood, why he had been angry, why he had told her to not question him.

Hugh would have never hit her like that. Plus she had just saved his life and the only thing he had done was yell at his children for not being stronger and at her for not being fast enough.

She hated stallions like him, he should've fallen down and broken all his bones. Now he was leading them, however, and he had led them right into this.

A cloud of darkest blue, glittering like the night itself, glaring at them with snake-like eyes. A shape that had no shape and a beast that had no name.

Why they had walked right into it, she could not fathom, but the stallion just kept on walking, as ignorant as ever. Nervously, Raindrops looked around, hoped that nothing would jump out of the smoke. Octavia had asked the right question before they had stormed off into this mess, she felt.

"Aren’t you scared of nightmares?“, she mumbled, trying to find an answer herself.

"What did you say?“ the stallion asked, getting angry again.

She didn't say anything, just looked to the ground.

"That's what I thought,“ he grumbled and turned away from her again. "Let's get going.“

She hated stallions like him the most, but still walked on. She wanted to be back with Twily and the others. Why hadn't they helped her, though?

No, Twilight had said that she could fix this entire situation, she would do it. Trixie trusted her and Lyra, too. Derpy had seemed to take liking to the filly who had slept in Raindrops' bed, the one where the stars were always close to her.

She thought of that now. The night sky always calmed her mind.

So they moved on, through the glittering fog while eyes she couldn’t see stared at them. But the fog vanished in the rain and then they could see them again, the ashes of Raindrops’ city.

The crack in the sky reigned over the chaos it had caused, but the screams of the ponies seemed far away now. They never stopped, or at least appeared to, yet Raindrops knew better. No pony wailed forever in agony, and at one point they’d all stop, but only so others could take up the cacophony.

Each step felt horrible. With the chaos all around her she just wanted to turn towards some direction and help whatever ponies she found there. Maybe that way she’d find Hugh and Madame. They’d probably praise her, too.

She was small, yes, but she still knew about the importance of life. Unlike that stallion, she didn't even care about his name or why he was so angry about anything.

He just moved on, like he was running away, thinking that he was some kind of brave hero saving his kids and some stranger's brat.

He didn't really care about them, though. He hoped for “thank you”s and mares fainting at his sight, because he’d braved the chaos of the city with three foals on his back.

Hugh wouldn’t have done anything like that.

Yet this stallion reminded her of someone a pony had once known, a pony that had not been this Raindrops but another. That one that pony had known smiled when everything was fine and had abandoned the other filly at the first sign of trouble.

Just thinking about it made her quiver, so she tried to think about something else. Anything would work, she knew.

Was Hugh alright? Or Madame Hooves?

She didn't know, but the uncertainty was eating at her. As they walked past broken buildings, through puddles of acid rain she only cared about that, that and the fate of her friends.

The water would not stop falling from the sky, but despite how pure it looked, what stone it touched cracked and twisted itself in vivid motions.

Raindrops didn’t understand it and that made her shiver even more.

Twilight had seemed so strong all of a sudden, though.

Raindrops looked to her hooves. She was just a little filly in the hooves of another mad adult, but Twilight had decided she would change her fate. Why not she?

She looked over to Goldengrape as they moved through an alley and closed in on him. "Is he all you got for family?”, she asked.

The colt’s eyes went over to her and back to the stallion. Raindrops figured that Goldengrape was as nervous about angering him as she was.

"He's not our family ... Not really, but he took care of us and all he expects in return is that we do his chores at home and get some money for him.“

"So he gives you a bed to sleep in? That's it?“ Raindrops asked.

Goldengrape didn't answer, he only looked at Doseydotes, hoping that she could answer that question, but the filly only looked away. That told Raindrops everything she needed to know.

Goldengrape was older than she was, lucky enough, so maybe he could help.

"I live with a good pony, you don't have to work for him or his sister. They'll take you as their kids and raise you good.”

Hugh would understand, both he and Madame, they’d take two more in and treat them kindly. The griffon girl had once told her that she was safe with them and she’d been right.

Goldengrape thought on those words, his look shifting between the ground and the cursing stallion.

The cloud was around them and in the distance there was a noise, a small, almost unnoticeable noise.

A cacophony amidst the greater chaos was what it was, but it was the only sound approaching.

Maybe that influenced Goldengrape’s decision as he nodded in her direction, his eyes a sign of the fire that had lit up within him. Raindrops smiled.

It was a madness that overtook them, wasn’t it? Both him and her. She wanted to do something for herself, find Hugh Jelly and Madame Hooves. They could go back then and everything would turn out okay. She wouldn’t end up like the other filly.

Goldengrape moved towards his sister, whispered something into her ear. The stallion didn't notice.

They walked out of the alleyway and onto another street. She could see how it led down the mountain, somehow she didn’t want to go into that direction. The fissure was to their side and looking at it filled Raindrops with an unnatural dread.

They passed a few ponies, but, under his glorious leadership, they ignored any screams for help and just walked past any other pony. Whenever somepony would ask the stallion for help he said that he had to get the children out and that there was no time.

Thus they trotted along the road, the four of them, away from the castle and away from the fissure.

It was much darker already and the sun would soon vanish beyond the horizon. The greatest light came from the crack in the sky now. It wasn’t comforting to look at, though.

The four moved on, ignoring whatever obstacle they faced, until the quiet overtook them and the stallion visibly relaxed. Raindrops spotted another dark alley opening up to their side.

It was then that Goldengrape screamed; "Now!

Seconds later Raindrops was hooting and laughing as they raced through the maze, believing that the stallion didn't even have a chance to turn his head before they had vanished from his sight.

They turned from that alley into another and this time they would get to do the right thing. They'd help the ponies, they'd search for Hugh, they'd find Twilight and help her. They would save Canterlot.

Raindrops looked at the sky and noticed it had changed its color completely, but this new color wasn't to her liking. Waves of purple, green and gold washed across it and in between, it was like the sky was being ripped apart. Her eyes were fixated on the tears that opened up and the longer she looked, the more she thought to notice something in them.

She couldn’t turn away, squinted her eyes and wondered what she was seeing. Something was moving within the fissures and it did so with motions the filly did not comprehend.

They were heading towards the main road again, the one that led directly to the fissure and even the castle. As they stepped onto it, Goldengrape suddenly stopped and Raindrops ran right into him. He stumbled forward, she fell. Doseydotes herself halted too, her eyes fixated on the other end of the road.

The snipping noise echoed across the street followed by the screeching and crying, and the things moved towards them on broken limbs, their claws ready to be sunk into the flesh.

Raindrops looked to her left, where the street went down the slope, where everypony was running to. Hugh and Madame would also go into that direction after they’d searched their home.

Then she turned right, towards the castle so far in the distance. She was but a small filly, who couldn’t do anything, but her friends were all in that direction. The foal made her choice.

Then ...

The hornless unicorn yelled out in pain as the pair of black scissors darted past her. She looked down to find it had scratched her right leg. Not deep, but it hurt nevertheless.

Lyra’s eyes went up again and she stared at the candy cloud who retracted the Scissors as fast as it had hurled them in her direction.

They had changed since their last meeting, Lyra noticed much to her own disgust. Pink was still their main color, but beneath the moustache was now a mouth with sharp teeth lined up vertically, and between the hat and the moustache was a giant eyeball staring at them, red veins pulsing within. She couldn’t see it blink even once. Its extremities were twisted and every time the thing took a step it made the sound of bones breaking and the legs looked like they were breaking down under its own weight.

As they opened their mouths they screeched and wailed in unimaginable agony. Every step for them must have been hell on earth, every waking second a torment.

For Lyra, she felt how her tail whipped about, how sweat ran down her forehead and how her heart beat frantically.

Needless to say, even Lyra, who could laugh at any danger was afraid of them. She could only force herself to smile at it and she did, no matter how much it hurt.

Derpy was backing away, too. She was always so stubborn, but right now the only reason she didn't run away crying was because Lyra wasn't. Maybe that alone was a true sign of madness.

Everypony else had been quick to take their hooves into their other hooves, why not she? Twilight was still running towards the fissure, she knew and time was running out.

That Wise Goat had been right, hadn’t he? These things weren’t from this world, but another. They didn’t belong here. Something needed to be done about them.

Twilight would try whatever she could, so what should she, Lyra, do? She steadied herself and for once in her life she cursed the absence of a horn. For once in her life she wasn't proud to have lost the one thing that made her a unicorn.

She noticed that, too, and wondered how she could curse the absence of something useless anyhow.

The thing approached them now, its broken march easily likened to stop motion, with every other movement amiss. Scissors were snipping while the beast wailed and howled.

Lyra found tears swelling up in her eyes.

She had always believed that her parents had the right of it, that unicorns were filth from an era long gone. Magic was a dream that probably never existed and if it ever did, it was a good thing that it was gone now.

The princesses were all dead and soon enough even the memory of them would have faded away.

Magic was long gone and Lyra had not once dreamt of it. Not once. Because she had always known the truth, even if all the other foals didn’t.

Yet, she was fully aware that this was different. As she heard the bones crack and the screams of pain she understood perfectly that these creatures were not of this world.

A part of her still didn’t want to believe it, much like she hadn’t really believed in Twilight’s ghost talk or the world with the rainbow grass. She had just humored a fantasy, right? She had at no point, seriously believed that magic existed, right?


Because it hadn’t.

The screams reflected her own and as the monstrosity almost collapsed in on itself, she thought of her own collapsed dreams.

When she had met Trixie for the first time the little filly had put up the most pathetic of magic shows and Lyra had told her so. Trixie, of course, had never forgiven her, no matter how much she tried to fix it. To that filly, magic was everything.

What was it to Lyra, though?

Crack Crack crack.

Twilight had stood there, staring at the broken city and declared that she would save it. It wasn’t a joke, for she had taken the dive into this madness without hesitation. That filly believed in something Lyra had never believed in.

Never.

She remembered her uncle, how he wept. She remembered the smell of burnt flesh, and she remembered herself long before that, glad that he had taken her in despite her being what she was.

Crack Crack Crack!

Worthlessness, powerlessness, strengthless. That’s what a unicorn had to offer, that was all the could ever hope to be. That’s why they should just vanish from this world. They were a dying species that slowed the rest of the nation down, because magic did not exist.

And the beast was still approaching, one step at a time, lifting its scissorhands to strike again. And Lyra looked at it. She heard how the bones cracked and scissors snipped. It was real, all of this was real. These things, they were magic, weren’t they?

She eyed at the beast and the noise of the cracking bones changed into the plucking of a harp.

Lyra blinked, remembering an old mare with pink coat and hair of gold and purple, plucking the strings of the golden instrument. A beautiful picture it was, still fresh in her mind, like the day she had first seen it. The princess of love had looked different from any other pony, so very colorful and said to be full of smiles for all the ponies around her, bringing joy to all them and all who shared her company.

Everypony agreed that she’d been a wonderful pony, if not the most wonderful of all.

They said that she used to play her golden harp beneath a tree with bright red apples, her eyes fixated on the castle gate, as if she was waiting for somepony. On the only photograph of hers to be taken, that was what she did.

She had been dying back then, but Cadance had never cared. All she had ever known was the duty she had enjoyed so much, spreading love without searching it for her own.

In the end, she found a golden harp in an old pawn shop and played it only once, while waiting for her knight in shining armor.

He had never come and no matter how much you waited, all dreams were a fantasy.

Magic was a fantasy.

Except not anymore.

Magic was real, wasn’t it?

With the fissure in the sky and nameless abominations all around her, that was the one reality of it all, wasn’t it? She had stood in that other world too, she had fought against them, she had been brave.

It had been a dream back then, but reality seemed to become the very same thing. Strange, but if these creatures were magic, all they seemed to spread was misery.

"There is magic in music,“ Octavia had told her once and Lyra had laughed at her.

It had been a bad joke back then. Yet, right now, as the words came to her, she remembered the one time her uncle had taken her to the Celestial Hall and she remembered the soloist with his cello. She remembered the princess who had given her life for Equestria and fallen asleep to the plucking of strings.

If magic existed, then it could bring happiness, couldn’t it? It could change the world, couldn’t it? If so, then why not grab the chance?

Lyra opened her eyes as if she’d woken from a millennia long slumber. She opened her eyes and was met with the erratic stare of the cotton cloud's eye. The snipping noise remained in the background just as much as the screams from the ponies who met the scissors and the teeth.

Still, Lyra decided to face the fear head on. There was only one belief left to her. The aquamarine unicorn smiled.

There was still magic in this world and as a unicorn, there was magic in her. The stump of a horn on her head started glowing.

The scissors were closing in, but before they could slice the light erupted from the forehead of the filly and engulfed the square they stood on. For a moment, only the sound of screams remained and then the screams changed to a happy, sobbing laughter as the cloud dissipated.

Then, Lyra and Derpy stood both there, with the rain falling heavy on their shoulders.

"L-Lyra?“ Derpy suddenly asked.

"Yeah,“ she answered.

"What ... What did you do?“

Lyra turned around and smiled. It wasn’t the smile that hurt, though, they lying one of a pony that had stopped believing in magic and herself.

She knew this was not the face of the pony whose horn they had sawn of and whom they had told that she was the lowest dirt. This was her face, Lyra Heartstring’s face and smile.

"I don't know,“ she said, looking at her hooves, green hooves that seemed to belong to a stranger, "I don't know, but I guess it was something impossible. Heh, I kinda feel ... Good? Yeah, good. A bit strange, but. ...“

"You've got a horn.“

Lyra giggled.

"Yeah, I'm a wizard, too, now.“

This would do. She could do it now, she could help, she could be a unicorn, she could be proud of herself and nopony needed to be ashamed of her anymore. Lyra decided to help save this city now, because the adults had lied to her. Magic was real, after all.

"We need to go, Derpy. Twilight's waiting.“

And ...

The crack was not a crack. It tore right through reality itself and any sane pony would've stayed as far away from it as possible. They weren't sane, Trixie found. Everypony around her was a raving lunatic.

At first she had thought Lyra was the worst but now she wasn't so sure anymore. Twilight came pretty close.

She hadn't reacted to them losing Derpy and Lyra, she had only hurried onwards. Then, after a few minutes, suddenly her color had started to change.

Trixie had never seen a lavender unicorn before, especially not with a dark blue mane mixed with purple streaks. Quite frankly, she’d never thought to gaze at something like that.

And now that they had reached their goal, Twilight wasn’t even the strangest thing anymore.

They stood on the edge of what had once been the main plaza and around here, nothing but the foundations of the buildings and a few bodies remained. Trixie didn't even want to know why none of them weren't moving.

The buildings around the crack twisted themselves upwards, mixed with dirt and roots. The asphalt and the stone, they were pulsating with life that shouldn’t have been there and something within them seemed to move, to claw at the walls that held it within.

And then there was the fissure itself, if it could even be described as that. From this distance it looked like a tree and like a crack in a window, like hundreds of maws sewn together, biting at the sky with jagged teeth, both rotten and sharp. It moved, Trixie saw, and that was the worst thing.

The fissure grew and moved and every time it did, a bolt of lightning would form another arm and the thunder was enough to make her cower and pray to the princesses of old that she might lose her hearing. She didn’t want to hear this.

And yet, with all this horror, this “magic” happening around her, she still had the same ugly coat, both brown and white. The only thing that looked remotely magical about her was the hat and cape.

Twilight looked like a unicorn magician right out of the era of discord, while she was stuck being some kind of earth pony with horn in a nice wardrobe.

She hated that.

Still, Trixie tried to focus. She could resent Twilight later, right now, only the fissure before them mattered.

She saw Twilight take a deep breath.

"This is it,“ Twilight said, trying to sound tough.

Her voice betrayed her, cracking under the pressure.

Trixie wanted to tell her that she wasn't as good as she thought herself to be, that she would fail, and yet she didn’t want to tell her that.

She had seen Twilight back in the hospital, a little thing that stared out of the window with little to no hope of ever finding a better life.

Truthfully, she had a weakness for ponies like that, ponies that were like Trixie herself. She had wanted to show Twilight something nice, give her some hope, something to hold on to.

The unicorn had found it, hadn’t she? Trixie looked at her from behind a stone, cowering in fear of the fissure. She felt her stomach twist and her muscles tense.

I should be happy for her, so why do I only feel this angry at her?

Twilight wasn’t stupid, she wasn’t Lyra. Trixie could be her friend, could respect her. Her heart was divided, because she’d made a promise and she needed to keep it.

Finally, she said, "You can do it, Twilight.“

The unicorn twitched and turned around, her lavender coat covered in mud and dust, her blue mane unwashed for days. She gave an awkward smile.

"Let's take the dive,“ she said and moved forwards. "Although I don't know what to do now.“

Twilight took a step back again and her tail whipped from one direction to the other. It seemed amazing to Trixie how quickly she lost her confidence, but then again, she herself only barely managed to take a peek from beyond her cover.

Whatever hammered against the fissure from the other side, it seemed to grow even more restless and Trixie found that she would've rather run then walk up to it. Her eyes shifted to Twilight, who had turned towards her, fear mixing with expectation.

"I-“ she suddenly heard her friend say, "Oh Celestia, what-, how? What should I do?“

She had no plan, in the end. This filly had hoped everything would work out on a whim, Trixie realized. She had to smile at the irony of that, because it was so clear to her what needed to be done.

"Concentrate, like you did back then. Just do what you did in that thing’s own world. You're special, right? You did something that couldn't be done. You are a magician, Twilight!“

Those words hurt more than anything else, because she remembered the tower and she remembered her mother’s face. Trixie had made a promise.

The unicorn looked at her and then started to smile again. "You’re right. Thanks,“ she said, "Trixie.“

Trixie smiled back, even though she didn’t feel like smiling. It was all she could do right now.

She blinked.

And the earthquake tore through the earth, tearing down what walls still stood and as the thunder roared up again, Trixie could barely hold herself up. She saw Twilight trip and the blanket fell off her, but she tried to get up, tried to do something.

Anything would do, Trixie thought, but then the earth stopped shaking and for a blissful moment, nothing happened.

And then, there came the sound of glass shattering and the cracks around the fissure grew and grew within split seconds. Trixie looked at it, wondering what was going on, but then the fissure itself grew, it opened itself up to let whatever resided on the other end through.

Clouds of cottoncandy, rainbow grass and air the smelled tasted like lemons, that was what was on the other side. A picture of a paradise, nothing to be afraid of. Still, she shook. Still, she sweated.

Twilight stood a few meters before her, mouth agape and not knowing what to expect.

From the other side, a huge brown leg stepped out, high as the highest towers of Canterlot, and then another appeared. Trixie blinked as she tried to grasp the shape that started to blot out the sun.

A giant pony made out of chocolate stepped out of the window and whomever remained in this city, Trixie was sure their eyes would be fixed on this, this thing.

The screeching from the clouds afar stopped as the pony appeared, and they were replaced with bright, childish laughter as cottoncandy-clouds with moustaches and tophats rained down on the equestrian ground. Gliding down, using their umbrellas as parachutes they seemed to laugh at the silliness of it all.

All the while the chocolate pony took one step, then another, slowly emerging more and more from the portal that had brought it from its rainbow colored world.

The sky was now dyed in a fine, bright red, but Trixie didn't care, her eyes were fixated on the giant pony and that strutted past the two, a feeling of joy riling up inside her. It looked like something straight out of a dream, a wonderful dream that would make her forget all the pain and destruction surrounding her.

Yes, that giant thing looked like a promise that it would become better, that the entire downfall of Canterlot had been nothing more than a misunderstanding.

She stared at it, as it moved slowly onwards and then the tip of its tail reached this side, too, and suddenly it stopped. The clouds were still raining and laughing, like out of a children’s fairytale, all while the chocolate pony stood still. A big grin was forming on its face, so warm and welcoming.

It was now that Trixie noticed that it had both wings and a horn; it was a chocolate alicorn wearing a warm smile. That's what she had always hoped a princess would be like: Sweet with a warm smile.

Had they misjudged? The clouds were falling but there was not the sound of scissors, they were moving but there was not the sound of breaking bones and the screams of agony.

The Wise Goat might've been wrong, maybe-

Suddenly the chocolate pony turned its head, twisting it far beyond what its neck should have been able to support, just to stare at Twilight Sparkle. There was the laughter of children in the background and Trixie remembered a tower by the cliffs in which used to play.

That memory came all of a sudden and with it came the realization that she was still shaking, that she knew that something was wrong.

She looked up again and the huge, bulging eyes of the chocolate pony took nearly all hope from her. They contained a red swirling madness and the promise of violence. Trixie, in this moment, wanted nothing more but to run away, to Hugh, to Madame, or the foster family she’d so gladly left behind.

No, she made a promise. She could still do something.

With an angry shout she jumped forward, towards Twilight. Her haunches lifted her into the air and she felt the breeze lifting her cape up while her hat nearly flew off her head. Her forehooves touched the ground and her eyes were set on her friend.

It didn't even take a second.

The chocolate pony dispersed and a whirl of black and brown and white and red surrounded Twilight, forming something new.

It had the white skull of an equine and a body of bones and whirling shadows. Where its eyes should’ve been there were two the two red orbs, like two whirlpools of blood and madness.

It stared at Twilight for a moment, before its cackling became a cacophony in Trixie’s ears. It was the sound of dying ponies, the sawing of two rusted chainsaws against each other and it was the cracking of stone.

The whirlwind of shades closed in on Twilight, claws forming.

Trixie saw, how Twilight stood there, paralyzed with fear, and then she saw her turn angry, confident. She knows what to do, Trixie thought and almost felt herself smiling.

A bolt of light pierced through the shadows as Twilight focused her magic. This was it, the beast had underestimated her.

Go, Twilight!” Trixie heard herself yell.


And then ...
















































Twilight Sparkle felt nothing.

Twilight Sparkle saw nothing.

Twilight Sparkle tasted her own blood.