//------------------------------// // Chapter 3: Attuning With Luna // Story: Royal Business // by Jordan179 //------------------------------// They repaired to a ritual room. Spike was quite familiar with Celestia's main chamber of thaumaturgy. It was at the top of one of the Palace's southern towers, so positioned that from it one could see the Sun in its whole course any day of the year. The room was flagged in white marble and the circle inscribed in gold, and around it were planted all manner of greenery, so that it was like a small meadow at a great altitude, refreshed by the mountain breezes and scented with the flowers that sprang all about. On the great central stone was set the device of a golden-rayed Sun, Celestia's own, same as the Mark she bore on her body. That was not the ritual room to which they went. This room was high in a northern tower, and it was flagged in black and gray marble from the mountains of Gorgia in southeastern Equestria, set with clear rock crystal quartz, of a variety which Spike recognized as coming from the vanished North-Realm, hard to come by for the last millennium. The circle was inscribed in silver, the vegetation hardy Northern evergreens, and the blooms of the flowers tight-closed in the rays of the lowering Sun. On the great central stone was set the device of a silver crescent Moon. Spike needed merely to look at the hip of the smaller of the Two Sisters to know whose Mark that was -- not that he had ever had any doubt about its owner. Celestia answered his unspoken question. "It is my Sister to whom you must attune," she said, looking at the low-hanging Sun. "This is best done in her place of Power, and during her Time." Celestia's horn glowed, a complex golden radiance fading out to a light blue the edges, like sunlight through sky. The Sun dipped toward the horizon. As always, her action seemed smooth and effortless, the more awesome because of the ease with which she executed magic far beyond the might of any Unicorn. Standing this close to her, Spike could feel the paramagnetism, resonating with his spikes and as a disturbance in his pyrogastrum. He noticed a brief irregularity in the Sun's motion, and Celestia's own brief increase in output to overcome the hitch, followed by an immediate reduction as she succeeded. It was very subtle; no one save an astronomer, or a being with an inherent mage sense standing right next to her at the time would have noticed, but it was apparent to Spike. It was almost as if some vast, far-off machinery had jammed, requiring a firm shove to get it moving once more. The Sun set. Darkness fell. The aura faded around Celestia's horn. She glanced briefly at her sister. The Moon Princess nodded, and her own horn flouresced. Her aura was a dark blue, like that of the evening sky, and Spike could sense her paramagnetism as he had that of her big sister. Luna felt different: higher-frequency, more intense, less stable and yet less energetic. There were really no words in normal Equestrian to describe what Spike really felt through his spikes; he borrowed terms from thaumology to arrive at a rough approximation, but in truth these terms were inadequate. He knew that what he was feeling was an intensification of what he had felt earlier from her in Celestia's sitting room, and that it was an emanation of the smaller Alicorn's soul. Celestia smiled at Spike, but her eyes were grave. "Please stand in the center of the circle, within the inner wards," said the Sun Princess. Spike looked down, and gulped -- but did as he had been told. His trepidation was due to his quick analysis of the protective circle inscribed in copper, silver, gold and moonsilver all around him. The circle was elaborate, sophisticated and thick -- it looked able to handle some mighty-hairy thaumic loads. Something serious was about to be unleashed, something which Spike strongly suspected that, going wrong, could easily hurt even himself, Dragon though he was. Not that Spike really believed that kindly Princess Celestia, who had helped care for him after his hatching, who was the trusted teacher of his foster sister Twilight Sparkle, had invited him to Canterlot with the intent of annihilating him. Nor that she was about to do anything to him which would seriously risk his life. Princess Celestia wasn't callous like that. But it did remind Spike, very personally, of just how powerful was Princess Celestia, and by extension her strange sister Luna, whom Twilight Sparkle had liberated from madness. The Luna who Spike was meeting today didn't seem to be at all cruel, just nervous and a bit shy, which seemed odd in a beautiful, immortal and incredibly-powerful Alicorn, and she'd warmed considerably to him during that epic tea party. By the end, she'd been positively cheerful. Maybe she was still recovering from her long Lunar exile? Celestia took her place at the circumference of the complex pattern, at the end of a gold ray inscribed onto the floor. Luna took her own position at the end of a silver one. Spike noticed that Luna's ray led southeast -- the direction from which the Moon should rise. Luna gathered herself, and her horn flared slightly. The Moon rose behind her, pale and silvery-white, huge and awesome, until from Spike's perspective it seemed almost to be impaled upon the tip of Luna's long lovely horn. "Spike," said Luna. Her voice was cool, but not unfriendly. "Relax, look into mine eyes, and open thine own self to me. Be not afraid -- I shall not harm thee." Spike looked into Luna's eyes. They were big and blue, and even deeper than he remembered from before the tea party. Eyes rich with all the experience of many centuries of life on Earth; guileless with the innocence of a very direct nature, welcoming as a cool summer night, dangerous as a midnight winter storm. She was fascinating, both because he had never been able to simply feel a soul like this before in his memory -- he had been far too young to remember anything from when Celestia had attuned with him as a hatchling, and that process had been much slower and subtler. He could feel Luna's soul now, and he supposed she could feel his. He hoped she liked it -- he thought he was a pretty nice Dragon, though he had few standards of comparison. Moonlight flowed past Luna, drenched her, struck strange shimmers in her starry mane. His mind went deeper into Luna's own. Random flashes of memory flickered before him ... ... dusty gray plains and rolling hills under an ebon star-filled sky, night-dark even as sunlight bathed the land, a great blue moon riding high above, terrible rage and hate and pain ... ... stormy seas under a cloudy gray sky, cold winds whipping through the sails of the longship as her brave crew took up bows and spears and blades, ready to descend on the unsuspecting Chaos Reavers. "Monasdrommir!" the crew all shouted, and the battle was on ... ... a shining crystal city, like nothing Spike had ever seen, converging on the single great shining spire of the Palace; nearby was the greatest Library in all the world; young filly Luna gaped at it in awe, her best friend at her side, he shapeless under an all-concealing cloak ... ... the City and Library again, Luna now a mare full-grown, eagerly climbing the steps of the Library, her love awaiting her within .. ... Flying above a castle, overlooking a walled city surrounded by thick woods; hurling bolts of energy at the white Alicorn who infuriatingly weaves and dodges out of the way. These bolts bend the very light around them to become lines of darkness; they shear through thick stone fortress and wooden walls of town houses alike as if they are but papier-mâché; what they do to Pony flesh and bone is horrible. Her Sister screaming at her to stop; cries of pain and terror sounding from below, columns of smoke rising from the rubble of the stricken city, but Luna does not listen, there is nothing but hatred in her heart ... ... Mother smiling down at her, a beautiful Unicorn with dark green eyes shining in her light green face, long mane streaming in green and red and purple, less like a Pony than some great exotic bird. Those eyes were full of love, and she raised a hoof to gently stroke her younger foal, the light glinting off her golden horseshoes which hummed with subtle energies. "Lulu," she says warmly. Sister squirms and cuddles into her, and around a corner peeps the head of a little colt, one who looks like some strange amalgam of Pony and Dragon and other things, grinning at her. He looks fun. Lulu is happy and full of milk and surrounded by love, and she falls asleep, for she is as yet only a baby Alicorn. ... Twilight Sparkle, meeting her gaze with defiance, and suddenly Luna knows just who she is, her heart leaping with happiness and long-forgotten joy as her soul cries "DUSK!!!" and Love erupts from within, melting her mind-bonds like frost in sunfire ... Suddenly the image shook and focus shifted. Confused, Spike started to break out of the meld. As he did, he slipped even deeper, and saw, in a flicker of images too vast and strange to comprehend... ... Everything is just beginning ... ... She isn't born yet but she tugs and tugs on everything, but everything flies apart despite all she can do ... ... Things happen everywhere to everything and they are so far apart that parts would be both yes and no and that can't be so the Universe makes sure that it isn't with a web of tunnels telling one part about the others very fast, and the web forms nodes, one node struggles with another and then an alliance of nodes wins and she is born, but one thought in her nascent mind: "GRAVITY." And her Sister wakes too, and says "FUSION." And they Love ... ... She draws everything together, her Sister changes everything and blows it all apart, in what is not battle but dance. The stars shine, glorious across the Universe ... Spike staggered, and the meld broke for real. The earlier memories had been strange -- full of Ponies and places he'd never seen, save for Celestia and that last oddly-intense image of Twilight Sparkle -- but the last memory had been almost incomprehensible. In some ways it had been incredibly complex, in others very simple, and it all seemed gigantic, as if Spike had been but a microbe spying on the doings of giants. He wasn't even sure that Luna and Celestia had been Ponies in that one, and terms like "tugging" and "changing" and "blowing apart" were the only way he could describe processes that corresponded to nothing any Pony, or any Dragon, had ever done to his knowledge. Returning to mundane reality, Spike blinked and rubbed his scaly scalp. His head didn't actually hurt -- it was more as if his mind hurt. He looked up to see that Luna was gazing with him with an expression of some concern, her wings flared in emotional agitation. "I beg thy pardon, Master Spike," Luna said. "I fear I didst draw thee too deep into my mind, deeper than I did intend. Art thou well and whole?" "Huh?" asked Spike. "Oh, no. I'm okay, Princess. Just a little surprised. I mean -- whoa, you've got some strange stuff in there. Um, no offense meant. Your Highness." Luna laughed -- a merry tinkle, that sounded lovely in her clear voice -- and smiled at Spike. "No offense taken, dear Dragon. I am but pleased to find thee unharm-ed." She emphasized the last syllable of that word in a way to which Spike was becoming accustomed. "Me too!" blurted Spike, and Luna laughed again. "Let us perform some simple tests to see if the attuning was successful," said Celestia. "And then you, dear Sister, should entertain young Spike to make up for giving him such a turn." She smiled at both of them, but especially Luna. "Of course," said Luna quickly. "'Tis the least I would do to be a good host." Spike shrugged and nodded. "Sure!" he said, grinning at Luna. "I'd be honored, Your Highness."