Chapter sixteen: Dreams and Memories
The first rays of sunshine to fall onto my face for the day were greeted with squinted eyes and a barely repressed groan of disapproval. It had never really occurred to me just how dark it was in the crystal castle, at least compared to the outside world. Probably explained why Twilight didn’t go out very much.
That’s not even to mention why I’d dislike the sun with my past.
After taking a moment to get my bearings, I made my way down the steps and turned to look at Twilight as she closed the doors behind her. She joined me soon after and gave me a little smile, “Do you want to fly, or walk?” she asked, gesturing with her head in the direction of the Everfree.
“Sometimes I forget that you can fly,” I admitted with a little laugh, shaking my head. Giving my wings a test stretch, I smiled, “How about we fly? I’ve gotta get used to flying in armor, and the best way to do that is to just go for it,” I said, eager to get on the road. It was also a pretty hot day, so flying would make sure I didn’t cook to death in my armor.
“Sometimes I forget that myself,” Twilight said with a sheepish grin before spreading her wings and taking off into the sky with unpracticed beats. It wasn’t graceful or impressive, and she looked like she was mentally going through all the movements she needed to do to fly, but at least she was able to get off the ground.
Smirking a little to myself, I hopped up and spread my wings, quickly beating them to take off and catch up with Twilight. It wasn’t that hard to catch up to her, considering how slow she was going, but I fell in line next to her at the pace she set. I didn’t want to strain her by making her fly faster than she was comfortable with, and we weren’t in any rush.
Even with the armor on, I barely felt anything pulling me back to the ground. The weight of the armor was almost not noticeable, and the plates of the wingblades didn’t get in my way at all. In general, my flying skills weren’t impacted in the slightest by wearing the armor, and that brought a wide grin to my muzzle.
“What’s so funny?” she asked me from the side, gently nudging me while in flight.
The pure action itself brought her out of balance and she drifted away before she could get ahold of herself again. Smiling sheepishly, she drifted casually to my side again.
“Just surprised that I can fly that easily with all this armor. And you should save nudging me for the ground, I don’t want to dig you out of a hole,” I chuckled slightly while she blushed.
Twilight waved me off with a hoof, “Alright, you’ve got a point,” she agreed, the wave sending her slightly off balance again. I couldn’t help but chuckle at her as she righted herself again, the look of irritated concentration painted across her face.
Suddenly, I felt a slight wave of warmth and I got an image in my mind. I saw myself as a filly at the side of a large, blue pegasus, flying wingtip on wingtip and I smiled. Maybe it was worth a try.
“Twilight, let’s try something. I want you to stay steady at my side, at the same speed and height.”
She looked irritated for a second, but quickly did as I asked. As soon as she was in position, I hovered slightly over, approaching her until our wingtips slowly touched. Her flight stabilized and I sped up for a bit, happy that she followed me without any problems.
“Wow, how did you know that this would work?” Twilight asked me.
“Just something else from my past,” I smiled.
Twilight gave me a look, something that I couldn’t exactly determine the nature of. It looked like a smile, or maybe a grimace, but she didn’t shy away. She seemed determined to stay there next to me, the tip of her wing under mine as we flied along, sharing the drag between us.
“I’m glad we’re doing this,” she spoke after a few moments, looking over at me with what I could certainly tell was an approving smile. I didn’t need words to acknowledge it, I only had to turn my head and give her a soft smile. Gliding along under the bottoms of the clouds, four wings beating in harmony, two hearts beating as one, it was almost poetic.
The Everfree was approaching quickly from the distance, a looming black mass of trees and living things that were determined to beat back the control that ponies had on nature. Try as I might, I couldn’t remember the forest ever being that creepy while I was living in the castle, so I assumed that it had happened after I was banished. It was actually fairly peaceful while I was living there.
Soon we reached it and flew over the edge. The atmosphere seemingly changed, a cold wind ruffled our feathers and the sky seemed to darken. Under us was an ocean of dead or just dark trees. I couldn’t help but feel my muscles tighten up slightly in response to the change of the air pressure and the feeling of cold that swept over me, but I stayed in formation with Twilight.
I looked to my side and had to smile, the cold immediately replaced by the warmth of having Twilight at my side. My smile held for a while, but it left my muzzle once the castle came in sight.
Or what was left of it.
We flew down, slowly, and I frowned. Most of the castle was destroyed, or simply broken down by the years, nothing but a memory left of how beautiful it had been. My whole body shivered at the sight. In my time, there had been two gorgeous statues at the entrance; now nothing was left of them except the sockets.
Something soft touched me, I could feel it over the armor and I looked to my side to see Twilight draping a wing over me. Sighing, I leaned into the touch. The armor on me was probably uncomfortable for her, but she said nothing.
“It seems like it was just yesterday the last time I was here. I see it so clearly in my mind,” I said before walking to the stairs and pointing to each side, “Here were the Celestial and Lunar statues. You can still see the sockets, but the rest is gone. They were simply beautiful, and I loved the Lunar one the most.”
It was needless to say that it hurt, and I think Twilight felt it, because in the next moment I found myself in her embrace. It comforted me, calmed me, promised me to always be there for me. I simply loved her touch, even if I could barely feel it because of the armor.
“Thanks,” I mumbled into her neck.
As we broke the embrace, she had a wide smile on her muzzle and gave me a quick peck onto the lips, “I can understand that this is hard for you. If you’d rather we wait, we can come back any other time.”
“Nah, I’m fine. Let’s do this,” I gave her a reassuring smile, “And hey, maybe I can even show you a few things you haven’t seen yet!” I added with a smirk.
“Do you know where their private chambers were? Maybe you can even show me where you lived!” she exclaimed happily.
I took a look at the castle before smiling sadly, “I can show you Celestia’s chambers. It seems like the tower where they were is pretty much intact. For Luna’s and mine… see the right wing of the large part there? It looks pretty much destroyed, but of course we can try it.”
I had no idea why it came up so easily, but I knew everything about the castle, and I planned to make Twilight’s stay with me as pleasant as possible. And I knew the right place to start with.
“Would you like to see Luna’s library of dreams?” I asked Twilight, who suddenly got wide, excited eyes.
“Yes!” she said excitedly and followed me, nearly bouncing as I walked up to the entrance.
I knew exactly where I was heading, the hallway clear and fresh like a thousand years ago. I followed the main hall from the entrance and turned right, moving through a small passway until we stopped in the hall of hooves.
“I’ve been here before with my friends,” Twilight exclaimed suddenly as she was thinking.
I smiled, “I bet you never found this.”
With that, I pulled on the third hoof from the right row. The hoof followed my movement and with a loud, shrieking sound, a door in the wall opened. The opening revealed a long, dark way.
“Follow me, this is Luna’s secret passage. It leads to her wing, but also to her library. I think that part is mostly intact.”
She followed me, still overjoyed. The way was dark and long, and there was no light source left. With a flicker, a light appeared behind me and I turned, seeing Twilight’s horn glow for a moment before a ball of light moved past me and began lighting the way before us.
“Good idea,” I said with a smile, and she brightened even more.
The way soon turned down, heading deeper under the ground, and the temperature dropped a few degrees. I could hear Twilight’s wing ruffle before she spoke, “It’s under the ground? It makes sense that it could still be intact, then.”
“Most of the Lunar Guard’s buildings were located under the ground, especially after the actions against Celestia and the Solars began,” I replied, trying to concentrate on the way.
Indeed, only a few hooves away it was. The blue door to Luna’s special library, covered with beautiful sapphires. I walked towards it and smiled as the door glowed.
Even after a thousand years, the spells are still working.
“The stars and moon light our way, through the darkest of nights and the brightest of days.”
“What was that?” Twilight asked, but went silent as I touched the door with my wings and it began to glow brighter, before disappearing, allowing us to step through it.
“Some protection spells Luna had cast are still working, even after a thousand years,” I replied with a smile.
“How can you remember the words to open it?”
“My memories, Twilight. In here, they are stronger than ever before.”
She smiled at me as we stepped through the door, entering the dark, expansive library of dreams. It was exactly how I remembered it, being protected under the ground saved it from most of the damage.
“Welcome to the library of dreams,” I said to Twilight, who looked in awe, “If you want to see better, you should make some more light. See those blue crystals in the wall? I remember Luna somehow activating them with a spell and they started to glow. Maybe it’s still working.”
Twilight stayed like that for several seconds before snapping back to reality and smiling sheepishly, “I can try it.”
I could see her concentrate, her horn pointing at one of the crystals. For some time, nothing happened. After a few moments, a slow beam of energy left her horn and hit the crystal, which pulsated with her magic. The pulse spread through all crystals and in seconds they all started to glow.
I gave her an approving smile and she returned the smile to me before looking around. With the lights, it was clear how big the library was. Maybe not as big as the royal library Celestia owned, but still impressive.
“What are those books about?” Twilight asked as she looked at a few shelves.
“Well, I don’t know all of them. Some are explaining Lunar histories, some are written by Luna herself. A few of them even describe the Lunar Guard.”
“Won’t Luna get mad that we invaded her library?” Twilight asked me with a worried expression.
“I don’t think so. After all, I’m still the same as I was before her transformation, and this is a ruin. I think I have every right to be here, and you as Princess, especially,” I replied with a chuckle.
She looked at me for some more moments before smiling and turning back to the shelves. For a few minutes, there wasn’t anything to hear but her walking around and mumbling if she found an interesting title. After a while, she seemed to have found something interesting.
“Oh my,” she gasped, causing me to turn from the old guard books I had been looking at to look over in her direction.
“Did you find something?”
“I… I think I found a book from you,” she quietly replied.
“From me?”
I couldn’t think of a book that I wrote, but I approached her to look at the title.
We are Her Stars.
“Interesting title. What’s inside?” I asked.
“Pictures.”
With that, she opened the book, revealing pages and pages filled with small photos. They were all black and white with a magical glimmer around them, indicating that they were magically created. The first picture clenched my heart. It showed Luna and me on top of the castle’s stairs, and in front of our hooves were all the Lunar Guards from that time.
Images flooded my mind and I saw myself on those stairs, right at Luna’s side. Celestia had made those photos, and after it was done, I saw myself in Luna’s embrace with some important words.
Never leave me.
I blinked as the first tear fell from my muzzle. Some of them were still alive, but what about the others? I lost my family, lost most of my friends and everything I was back then. As soon as I felt the wing on my muzzle, I looked up and smiled, looking directly into Twilight’s beautiful eyes.
I’m glad that I found you.
She slowly wiped my tears away before leaning in and kissing me, her soft lips firmly pressed on mine. The kiss dried every tear and doubt in my mind. She was my family and my future. Sure, the past was a part of me, but I couldn’t clench and cry over it.
As she broke away, she smiled at me, “Don’t cry over the past. You can’t change your past, but you can still change the future, and I hope that we can turn it into a great one together,” she said softly, nuzzling against me for a moment before she pulled away to look back at the book before us.
We spent some time flipping through the pages of the ancient tome, looking at the pictures that represented my collected memories under Luna’s service. There were pictures that made me laugh, some that made me cry, but the whole time Twilight was there to share in my memories. Most of them were just singular moments in time that we thought would be good to capture, usually meaningless beyond the memory of that moment.
A few pictures of foals training to be in the Lunar Guard had Twilight trying as hard as she could not to fall onto the ground in laughter. Foals no bigger than a pumpkin trying to hold swords that were almost three times as big as them, or foals trying to wrestle their full grown instructors. I had to agree with Twilight’s laughter, it was pretty funny to think about in hindsight.
My hoof froze when we reached a page with a picture of me and a bat pony playing chess. In the picture, I had a look of utmost concentration and frustration, while the other mare seemed to be relaxed and perfectly happy with her position on the board. Though the black and white didn’t do well to capture it, I remembered the midnight blue pelt and fiery red mane better than any colored picture could have captured it.
Twilight seemed to sense my hesitation, and gently put her wing around my barrel, “Are you okay?” she asked, leaning in to nuzzle my ear in a loving and supportive fashion.
Pointing at the mare I was playing against, I spoke softly, “That’s Fire Breeze,” I said, trailing off after a moment, “The first lover I ever had,” I admitted quietly, turning my gaze over to Twilight with a sad little smile.
Looking down at the picture for a few moments, Twilight responded with a little smile of her own, “She’s pretty,” she said, then looked up to meet my gaze, “Tell me about her,” she said, no twinge of hesitation or uncertainty.
I blinked a few times in surprise, sure that she would have been upset or saddened to see one of my past lovers. But she didn’t seem to have any malice or ill-will about it, so with a little sigh, I nodded. Turning back to the page, I spoke, “She was smart. Or, well… I guess clever is a better way of putting it. She wasn’t book smart, but she knew how to twist situations in just the right way so that she came out on top. I could never beat her in games like chess and battlefield simulations,” I said, a nostalgic chuckle gripping me.
“She was a firedancer for the Lunar Guard. Unicorns from the Solar Guard would create these magical balls of fire, then the firedancers would fly over enemy lines and drop them like bombs,” I explained, looking over at Twilight, “And she was damn good at it, too. Made it look like an art that I’d never understand,” I said, biting my lip after a moment to stop from rambling too much.
“We were together for a long time, but she was never uplifted. Luna said that we didn’t have room in the Dynasty for her. So, eventually, I outlived her. One day, she just disappeared. I asked Luna about it once, and she said that her time had come. I think that was her nice way of saying that she died,” I said, a small sniffle escaping me as I turned my attention back to the page.
Twilight gave me a small squeeze with her wing, pulling me close as a few tears trailed down my muzzle and fell to the floor. She kissed me on the side of the head before whispering, “She sounds like a lovely mare. I’m sorry, Night Glider,” she said, pressing her forehead against me for a few moments in blissful silence. I took a few moments of silence before I felt the wave of sorrow pass.
I nodded after a few moments to show that I was alright, then reached towards the book to flip towards the last few pages. Glancing ahead, I noted that there were no pictures after the rebellion started, so there would be nothing else that might make Twilight or myself uneasy. I felt comfortable enough showing the rest of the pictures, since there’d be nothing about the rebellion in my book.
One of the last pictures in the book brought me a mix between a scoff and a sniffle. It was a picture of a unicorn mare wrestling me, holding me in a headlock and biting down on one of my ears while a collection of Solar and Lunar Guards in the background watched and laughed at my misfortune. If it weren’t black and white, the picture wouldn’t have been able to properly do the white unicorn’s golden yellow hair any justice.
Setting my hoof on the picture, I gave a little sigh, “And this was Golden Glory, the lover I had right before the...rebellion,” I explained, hesitating to call it what it was. Twilight didn’t respond, so I figured it would be alright to continue, “I first met her when she was a foal. I taught her from foalhood right up until she graduated as a proper Solar Guard. One of the best fighters I had ever met. Stronger than most earth ponies, and more ferocious than a manticore,” I said, leaning my head sideways until it rested against Twilight’s.
I stayed in silence for a few moments and moved to flip the page, but was halted by Twilight’s hoof on top of mine, “What happened to her?” she asked, preventing me from moving on to avoid talking about my past. I sighed softly, only mildly annoyed by her persistence.
“The rebellion happened,” I replied, blinking away a few tears, “I was Lunar, she was Solar,” I elaborated, hoping that it was enough for Twilight to understand.
“Is there a chance that she might have survived the rebellion?” she asked, a curious and hopeful tone to her voice. It was almost enough to make me break down again.
Giving a halfhearted chuckle, I shook my head against hers, “No… No, there’s no chance of that,” I said, my voice trailing off into a shaky sniffle. Twilight seemed to understand after that, giving a little ‘oh’ of understanding before her wing tightened around me again.
“It’s not your fault, Night Glider,” she assured me, whispering in a soothing tone as she pulled me tightly against her side.
“It isn’t? It was my blade in her body, and her blood on my hooves. It was more than just my fault,” I sobbed lightly, burying my face into her mane as the tears fell freely.
“You were different back then, you were fooled by Nightmare Moon. I know you’re a good pony, that’s not who you are,” she reassured me, holding me tightly as I cried into her mane. We were both silent for a few moments as Twilight closed the book and set it aside. When I felt the last of my tears dry up and my last sob exit my body, I sighed and leaned up properly, tired and worn out.
“Let’s take a break and explore somewhere else,” Twilight suggested with a little smile, lifting my chin with her wing.
I looked at her and chuckled softly, wiping the last few tears from my muzzle, “I think I know a place that you would really love to visit.”