Swift Sweep
Even somepony with no knowledge of magic could tell that blue crystal was significant. It was practically drenched in magic, enough to make it prickle to the touch. The unicorns quickly carried it away to the deepest part of EBSS HQ: the magi-technological laboratory where they'd invented our equipment.
We saw Nie use this crystal to signal Nichts. If we were fast enough, we might track the magical beacon's destination – and with it, Nichts' location. I'd been told that magical energies fade quickly from spent gemstones, so every second counted. Doubly so with the Summer Sun Celebration approaching; we only had a few hours to find the lunatics.
Celestia refused to postpone the event. We told her it wasn't safe with those lunatics on the loose. Yet Celestia remained adamant. She would not rob her little ponies of a dawn in the darkest of times, she said. We all knew what she really meant, however: she was sticking her head in the sand.
La-la-la, I cannot hear you, do your job – Celestia had never been good at confrontation, always needing somepony else to do it for her. We'd done so countless times, and we would do it again like the obedient dogs we were.
The Royal Guard secured the city as much as they could. Guards stood on every corner and swarmed in the sky, stopping ponies at random and taking in any who looked remotely suspicious. Amidst the chaos, Celestia would raise the Sun to begin the longest day of another year in our beautiful Equestria.
After Nie infiltrated HQ so easily, the Princess called for all of the Royal Guards to be expelled from its premises, as well as all of the puppies. Nopony remained except us old dogs, as we all recognised each other by face and name.
She'd also put on hold all projects save for Heartbreak. While the puppies were out sniffing and patrolling the areas around Canterlot, we remained underground to come up with a plan.
For a long time, that 'plan' consisted of us sitting and twiddling our hooves while the unicorns tinkered with the gem downstairs. It was in the late hours of evening that they finally called for us; River, Lullaby, and I became the only ponies without horns to be allowed into the labs. That was the first time I'd been there in my twenty years of service, and I was certain it'd be the last.
It was far different from the rest of HQ: the walls had been painted a bluish colour as opposed to the sterile whites of the halls outside, and the uneven surfaces of the mountain's caverns replaced the artificial, straight lines that otherwise defined the structure. Gems and etched runes lined the ornate pillars that held the ceiling, glowing in myriad colours in accordance with the magic of the unicorns.
As we walked into the anteroom, a unicorn stepped before us, adjusting his oversized glasses. “Place is awful pretty, right? But it's all technical, it conducts magic just proper. You keep looking like that, your eyes'll pop.”
It took me a moment to recognise the stallion. He grinned.
Twilit Grotto took off his glasses, exposing his face – and the three long wounds that were raked across it. Fang marks, by the looks of it. “What?” he asked. “Never seen me in a lab coat?”
I chewed the inside of my cheek, biting on the rough scar tissue of my wound from twenty years earlier. “I see you've joined the club.”
Grotto stuck the tip of a hoof into one of his eyes without flinching or even blinking. As he poked it, the eye turned in its socket independently of the other. “Yeah, and this one's not even real. The White Wolf tried to chew my face off. A puppy had to die so I could get away.”
“You'll have to tell us the whole story one of these days.”
Lullaby chuckled, leaning closer to Grotto. She raised a hoof to cover her mouth as though she was whispering a secret and eyed his scars. “He's just jealous yours is bigger than his.”
River cleared his throat. That was always difficult to miss.
Grotto turned and beckoned with a hoof. “Right, work. I think we've actually got something. Follow me.”
He led us down a hall lined by twisting, metallic tubes that glowed with magic. Unicorns ran about from doorway to doorway with their eyes stuck to their clipboards, nearly tripping over one another. As we walked past room after room, I saw them stand in rune-circles flashing their horns, shooting forth beams of magic into different gemstones, and a dozen more unicorns documenting the process with their quills flying everywhere.
“We're just doing some final tests,” explained Grotto, swinging open one last set of doors. “We're seeing if we can recreate the signal crystal's effects. We've been syphoning its magic since the moment we got it.”
We entered what appeared to be a central chamber of the labs. It was a large, circular room with doors on all sides. At the centre stood a raised platform inscribed with arcane symbols, with a pedestal in the middle. From the ceiling directly above the pedestal hung a pointed metal beam that sparkled with arcs of magic and rumbled like a miniature thunderstorm.
Between the pedestal and the metal beam floated the tiny blue gem, aglow in a rainbow of different auras. Dozens of unicorns surrounded the arrangement, eyes glowing and horns connected to the crystal by streams of magic. Inky quills filled the scrolls floating beside them.
“So why did it take so long?” grumbled River. “Can't be that much magic in that tiny crystal.”
Grotto rolled his eyes. “You'd be surprised. But it's not the amount of magic, really, but how well it's been locked inside. Whoever made this was very good.” He puffed his chest, looking at the floating gem. “But I'm even better. Took a while, but we managed to unlock it.”
His horn glowed, and a parchment flew into his hoof. Now, let it be said that I had a hard time reading faster than a toddler on my best days, and I certainly wasn't going to read this; the entire paper was filled with runes and diagrams and technical talk that I couldn't begin to comprehend.
“There wasn't much juice left in it,” Grotto explained, “so we had to dig deep to syphon enough. Then we went and amplified it and locked it inside several other crystals until we found one that resonated the right way. Then—”
Lullaby snatched the paper out of his hoof and crumpled it before throwing it behind her back. “The point, TG, the point.”
Grotto pursed his lips. “Point is, we can never be a hundred percent certain, but so far everything points towards the same place.”
He turned and walked to a cluttered desk nearby. His magic moved a few inkwells and pushed a paper stack or two aside, revealing a map of Equestria. A circle of red ink surrounded an area up in the North-Western corner of the country: a tiny village tucked away in the mountains by the ocean shore.
“Horsmouth,” said Grotto. “That's where they've got to be.”
“That place?” asked River, leaning over the map. “Isn't that where our precious informant grew up?”
“It's completely out in nowhere,” Grotto replied. “They couldn't have removed themselves further from civilisation if they tried. The closest railway station is still days from there by hoof.”
“Sure that's where they are?” asked River.
“Like I told you, as sure as can be.”
River turned around and marched for the exit. “Then I'll tell Celestia to gather the Royal Guard. We'll bring the skies down on them.”
New Page
Nie threw me through the portal, and I fell awkwardly on arrival. He followed me within the moment, but could not resist turning back to gloat.
“Tell Celestia that her sister is coming back to her.”
The portal zipped shut, catching the spear in Nie's side and cutting off the handle. I did not hear it clatter on the ground.
Nichts ran past me as I clambered to my hooves. “Nie!” she squealed. “Are you alright?” The end of her horn still sizzled with the afterglow of heavy magic. As she turned to Nie, I noticed that in place of her missing hind leg now sprouted a crude wooden peg with a creaky wheel, bolted into her flesh and sealed with a rune dyed into her coat where the joint met her body.
I spun around, hoping to find my bearings. No windows anywhere, just faint magical lights, and walls made of stacked bookshelves. Behind me, by the wall, towered a gigantic hourglass, the glass of its upper part warped as though it had gone soft in extreme heat before being quickly frozen again. Wedged into the warped glass was a series of small gemstones, with one large ruby at the centre of the formation.
And down in the lower part where the portal had been, something red tinted the glass and seeped into the floor. The red stains painted a messy line of marks down a nearby hallway.
Nie bit on what remained of the spear in his side and pulled it out of his chest. “Good thing they didn't hit my heart.” He spat it to the floor. “That would've been trouble.”
Nichts massaged his quickly healing wound. When it sealed, she slapped him. “That was reckless!” She lunged to hug him, nearly tipping him over as she spread kisses all over his cheek. “I'm so glad you're okay.”
He pushed her off. “Now isn't the time to get sentimental.”
She wiped her eye. “Right.”
The hourglass stood right by the wall, but a long line of scrapes along the floor marked its way from the centre of the room. Every which way, hallways reached out with even more shelves; a massive gate with a magical seal blocked the way out.
This was the central hub of the Star Swirl the Bearded Wing, but moving the hourglass wasn't the only thing that had changed. A blue line encircled the room along the walls, and inside it a gigantic six-pointed star touched the circle with its tips.
More strange symbols and runes filled the spaces between the star's lines. From every tip of the star another line shot up the walls, meeting in one point on the ceiling: the same exact arrangement as I'd seen in Schweigen's mansion, though on a grander scale.
“Why bring me back here?” I asked. “Why come back here?”
Nie looked around. “Don't you think it's brilliant? This place is protected by innumerable magicks designed specifically to keep intruders out – and to keep the magic within. We needed a place that could cover the magical discharges we'll be working with, and Celestia provided.”
“I don't know what you want from me,” I said, “neither do I care. But are you really this dense? We've been in here. Do you really think they won't suspect it? That they won't find you?”
Nie turned his head, shouting down a hallway, “Hello!” He looked to another one. “Anypony here?” He cupped a hoof behind an ear; his voice echoed back, repeating his calls. He put his hoof down. “Now riddle me this, Page: what could Celestia do? Let her army march in here and wander around waiting for a possible break in?” He gave a sly grin. “Can you imagine how many things would, well, go missing if she opened the gates?”
“He's right,” said Nichts. The wheel in her peg leg squeaked awfully as she came closer. “I should think the Princess is focused on catching us right now. And well...” She rubbed her horn. “A little sleight of magic assures she won't be looking here. So this place is probably not high on her priority list, especially with the most valuable thing already gone.”
She lifted a hoof, showing a bright white amulet in her grasp, cut in the shape of a crescent Moon. A tiny point of light rushed back and forth on its surface like the pupil of a frightened eye.
“I mean, us bringing Luna's soul back is probably the last thing she'd ever guess.”
“That's it?” I asked. “We all nearly died because one amulet wasn't enough for you?”
“Now Page,” said Nie, “you know all good and well that's not the case.”
“I couldn't care less what 'the case' is.” I stomped up to Nichts – and a sharp pain whipped my leg. My wounded hoof – cracked in a vice by the EBSS – throbbed with pain. I sat down to cradle it through the bloody rag they'd wrapped around it.
Nichts' wheel creaked closer. “Page, I'm so sorry.”
“I bet you are.” I felt her touch me, but I shoved her off. “I've helped you more than enough. Have some decency and let me go.”
A red glow surrounded my bat wing and spread it for display. “This is amazing,” mumbled Nichts.
Hopping to my hooves, I skipped the other way to tear my wing from her aura. “I said let me go!”
“Tsk,” scoffed Nie. “This is how she repays us.”
“I owe you nothing,” I replied as I backed into the hourglass. “If anything, you owe me. I won't be saying this again: let me go.”
Nie threw his head up and groaned. “You know, this would be much easier for all of us if you cooperated.” He whipped his head towards me, eyes bared and pupils shrunken to pinpricks. “I'm done trying to be good to you.”
As his pupils slowly dilated, I realised I couldn't look away. “W-what are you going to do to me?”
“You're going to save the world, Page. You should be honoured.” He walked closer, his eyes looking into mine, never blinking or wavering. “I would have much preferred to do this back at Schweigen's. We had all the wards and shields set up already. Much more comfortable working from home, don't you think? Ah, but we will have to settle for this place. I was too lenient. My heart's just that soft.”
I shrunk away from him, craning my body left and right, desperate to turn away – but I couldn't do it. Nie's eyes consumed me. His gaze pinned me to the cold hourglass.
“I shouldn't have let you waltz out the door that night,” he said. “Look where it's brought us. Look where it's brought you.”
My wrapped hoof lifted itself, shaking and fidgeting. Dried blood cracked and fell as the bloodied rag around it loosened. The stained cloth came undone, falling to the floor to expose my splintered hoof.
“It's my fault,” said Nichts. I could hear her, but I could not see her – I could see nothing but Nie. “Nie wanted me to fetch you, but I pleaded not to. I thought it'd be better for you, to get a few days to wind down. Think a little, you know? I didn't want to rush you.” I felt a pair of hooves touch my splintered hoof and gently caress it. “It wasn't supposed to be like this. Please forgive me.”
“See?” asked Nie. His voice came from inside my own head. “She is still your friend, after all the trouble you've caused. Don't shut her out, Page. Don't shut us out. Open up. Trust us.” He chuckled. “As for me, I need to learn to say no to Nichts sometimes. And you, Page...”
A shiver ran through me. Nie wasn't shouting, but his voice became deafening.
“Now you be a good girl and listen.”
Swift Sweep
Within minutes of River's report to Princess Celestia, the city came alive with the joint forces of the Royal Guard and the EBSS. The ominous warning Nie had given us – that Nightmare Moon would return – set Celestia over the edge. In all my time serving under the princesses, I had never seen such fire in her eyes.
Twilit Grotto told us that every year during the Summer Sun Celebration, he'd feel the magical currents in the air shift. He speculated that at this time, when Celestia reached out to the Moon in the heavens to replace it with the Sun, the magic that bound Nightmare Moon was at its weakest. That was why, he guessed, our good Prophet Nie had been so desperate to get his hooves on Page.
Whatever they were planning, they needed her for it.
There was no time for a conventional force to rally at the border of Horsmouth: ponies that relied on their hooves to travel would have taken days to arrive. Celestia thus called for an army of pegasi to swarm the town.
Lullaby, of course, was right out: she could not fly with only one wing. The real kick in the groin came when Celestia pronounced me too incompetent to be part of the team. The only thing to dull the pain was the look in River Flow's eyes when Celestia told him to stay home as well.
The army set out into the night – the Mare in the Moon would light their path. In a matter of hours, they would be at Horsmouth to bring down the might and fury of Celestia. In the meantime, all we could do was sit in HQ and wait out the storm.
“Pawn takes Princess,” said River between coughs. He slammed his chess piece in the place of mine, flicking mine off the table.
I gritted my teeth and stared intently at the board, unwilling to give River the satisfaction of looking me in the eyes. I'd lost three times already.
“You seem tense,” River said.
I jumped from my seat and flipped the table, sending the board and pieces scattering across the room. “You think?”
“Temper, temper,” he whispered, leaning back in his seat. “It's your fault we're stuck here.” He eyed the arrangement on the floor for a while. “So, are you going to pick that up, or what?”
“Oh, you little—”
“Stars!” groaned Lullaby. As I turned, I saw her leaning against the doorway. “You boys are still going at it?”
Taking a deep breath, I turned my back to River. “We're just finishing up, actually.”
River sighed. “How long has it been?”
Lullaby shrugged. “Less than an hour? I feel like this is going to be a long night for you two.”
“Yeah,” grumbled River and crossed his hooves. “What I wouldn't give to crush Nie's skull myself. Then do it again when the monster heals.”
As Lullaby opened her mouth, her ear twitched, and she turned the other way. Soon I heard the rapid clopping of hooves in the hallway as well.
As Twilit Grotto skidded to a halt, he had to slam a hoof into the door frame to stop himself. He spent a moment catching his breath and adjusting his glasses. “Oh,” he huffed, “thank the heavens you're still here. Come on, now, right now.”
We all exchanged a look. Then we set out.
“It's the crystal,” he jabbered as we hurried down the halls towards the laboratories. “You know I said whoever made it, he was good? Well, he was. He really was. And I just... by all the stars and the Moon and Sun above, I just can't believe it.”
“What's going on?” asked Lullaby.
“We were looking for the magic inside the signal gem, right?” Grotto flipped around, kicking the doors of the labs open with his hind hooves, then moving backwards as he talked. “It was incredibly well hidden. We had to jump through all these hoops to get to it, technical stuff, you wouldn't understand, not interesting. Point is...”
He kicked in another set of doors, taking us to the hub with the magical syphoning machinery – except this time it wasn't the blue crystal on the pedestal, but something else I didn't recognise. A small piece of wood, by the look of it.
“Look, TG,” I said. “Deep breaths. What do you want to say?”
“I'm saying it was like a puzzle. And I didn't notice it earlier because I was so caught up in solving it.” He ran up to a desk, picking up a small glass tube with the blue crystal suspended magically inside. “This? This is a distraction. No, you guys don't get it.” He brushed his mane out of his eyes nervously and adjusted his glasses again. “It's a puzzle, a puzzle! It was meant to be solved!”
He beckoned, rushing around the magical contraption in the centre of the room and dodging the dozen unicorns working their spells on it. The room flashed with outbursts of auras of all colours. Arcs of magic flowed like lightning to and from the wooden object floating above the pedestal.
“It was just a hunch, I mean,” he prattled on. “Didn't think much of it, but I had to check it out. That thing.” He pointed a hoof at the piece of wood. “You know when Nie came for New Page, a guard speared him? The shaft got caught in the portal as it closed. You told me yourself, the end of it got sliced clean off. That's it there.”
“Get to the point,” said River.
“The point is that we've been running tests. Now, in the report I've been given I recall reading that supposedly the lunatics made these magical portals using an amulet made from Nightmare Moon's hair. This thing? We did our best to track the magic's source, and you know where it's pointing?” He lifted the tip of a hoof up. “To the Moon.”
River groaned. “Are you suggesting they took the girl to the Moon?”
“Now there's a field trip...” mumbled Lullaby.
“No, no.” He flailed his hooves apologetically. “I'm saying that piece of wood is drenched in Nightmare Moon's magic. Of course that's where it's leading us. But then I think, hey, surely not all of the magic came from the amulet. Nichts had to manipulate it, hers must be in there somewhere. And that's what we've managed to extract. There's this tiny, infinitesimal trace that doesn't belong to Nightmare Moon. It has to be Nichts.”
“So?” I asked. “Where?”
“That's just it.” He looked us over. “Here. Nichts is in Canterlot. We can't get the signal to be any more definite, but... well, it could just be because the portal was opened on this end. But it could also be that it was opened from Canterlot. Nichts is here, I'm telling you. She's got to be.”
“Insanity!” snapped River. “Why in Equestria would she stay here when she could've gone literally anywhere?”
“I hate to side with River,” I cut in, “but this really doesn't make sense. If we believe Nie, they're trying to summon Nightmare Moon or something. You could feel that magic from miles away, couldn't you? Heck, some earth filly in Horsmouth could sense it.”
“Unless they shield it,” mumbled Lullaby. All eyes were on her. “TG, didn't you tell us about the Star Swirl Wing of the Archives? It's got all these magical defences. Not just to keep ponies out, but to keep its secrets hidden.”
Grotto rubbed his chin. “Yes, and that could be why we can't get a proper reading.” He looked at us with pleading eyes. “You've got to get in there. I mean, yes, it's just a hunch and it's crazy, but what if we're right?”
“And Celestia?” I asked. “Why would she leave the place unguarded, especially right after a break in?”
River scoffed. “Because she's terrified of what ponies will find in there. She said she'd take care of it personally, but she hasn't touched it yet. Just declared it off limits. Even more off limits than before, that is.”
“Then Celestia is a fool,” I said.
“She is,” replied River. “Which one of us is going to tell her that? Excuse me, Princess. I know we just sent the army across the country, but I think we may have got it wrong. Could you let me into the Star Swirl Wing so I can sniff around?”
Lullaby raised her hoof. “I'll go. Sorry, boys, but between somepony she'd sent off to die – sorry, TG – and you two tuckfards, I think I have the best chance of getting through to her.”
“Then it's settled,” said Grotto, turning towards the syphon. “We'll continue working on this here, but you'd better hurry.”
New Page
I did not think, merely acted. My mind ran empty, my thoughts dispersed; my legs started moving and I could not have resisted, had I tried. On a subconscious level, I was aware of the situation, but a desire to flee could not coalesce. As though I was stuck in a perpetual state between a dream and wakefulness, I sleepwalked through every order Nie and Nichts gave me. The staring eyes of the prophet burned in my mind.
Nie told me to follow Nichts out of the main room and down a hallway. I remember following the red trail from the hourglass that seeped into the floor, and there was an awful smell and the sound of flies buzzing. We passed by a smaller room where the red streak ended, and I thought I saw the torn, upper half of a stallion stuffed under a desk before Nichts slammed the door shut. She urged me to keep moving.
She nuzzled my cheek. “I'm sorry,” she whispered. “If only you'd have been a little more receptive.” The wheel in place of her back leg scraped and creaked awfully against the old floorboards.
She nudged me through a door to the right and locked it behind us.
Though the room wasn't wide to begin with, the table taking up the centre made it look even smaller. Many shelves lined the walls. By the marks left in the dust, it appeared that only recently the shelves used to be filled with books; now there were instruments of glass and metal, both magical and plain. Clamps, nails, screws, strange devices that glowed softly with magical lights – I couldn't begin to guess as to the purpose of these things.
“Alright, let there be light.” Nichts clapped her hooves, and a burst of light with no discernible source flooded the room. It hurt my eyes, but I found myself unable to close them save for a few sluggish blinks.
She blew dust off the table and clapped a hoof on it. “Get up, lie on your back.”
I did so. Now in Nie's absence, however, I found my cognisance gradually returning. I had questions. I wanted answers. I only had to figure out how to ask them...
Nichts took a bunch of ropes from a shelf – cuts from the same length, I assumed by the frayed edges – and tied them around my hooves, knotting the ends to the legs of the table. As the ropes tightened on my fetlocks, the realisation of what was going on slowly crept into my numbed mind.
“Wait,” I mumbled. “What are you doing?”
“You know,” she said, checking the knots, “it really would've helped to do this at Schweigen's place. But nooo, you couldn't have that. It's a good thing we could save the Portal Ruby, at least. Everything could've been lost.” She knocked a hoof on her head. “My fault. It's like Nie says... sometimes, you gotta hurt the things you love.”
Trying to move, I found my legs tightly tied. I fidgeted against the ropes but lacked the strength to free myself – and the more I moved, the more my splintered hoof hurt.
I felt groggy, drunk, and a little like a child listening to the argument of her parents. I was conscious – I saw and heard everything – but true understanding eluded me. “Are you going to punish me?”
“By the Moon, no!” Nichts' eyes widened and jaw dropped in abashment. “No, Page. I understand, I really do. The ropes are merely a precaution.” She turned to take a phial from a shelf. “We were busy with the summoning circle all day, so I had to make this in a hurry.”
She put the phial beside my head. Inside sloshed a dark, mesmerising substance: inky black but with tiny dots of bluish light dancing around within, like a cascade of stars in the clear night sky.
Nichts popped off the cork, her horn lighting up. Red magic surrounded the phial and lifted it over my head, its mouth slightly tipped. “Drink it,” she said. “It'll do you good, trust me.”
My mouth opened before she even finished speaking. The phial tipped over and the liquid inside began flowing into my mouth. As soon as the first drops touched my lips, panic overcame me. My jaws locked in place; I couldn't close my mouth, and I couldn't stop the liquid pouring down my throat. I pulled on the bindings that held me, and I tried to scream, but I only managed to gurgle the liquid and splatter it.
The phial tipped upwards, stopping the flow. “Trust me,” said Nichts, grabbing my head to hold me in place. “It'll do you good. Calm down. Drink it, please.”
She let go of my head. Nichts' words wormed themselves into my brain, compelling me to remain calm and still. The phial tipped over again, and this time I lay frozen, mouth open. It tasted bitter and cold, pricking my tongue and stinging my throat. My chest convulsed as I drank and my stomach churned. The liquid snaked down into my belly, leaving behind a trail of coldness.
With the very last drop rolling down my throat, I gasped for air and sputtered.
A shudder ran down my spine. My hairs stood on end across my entire body.
“What...” I began, but speech became more and more difficult by the second. My tongue flipped about slackly. “Wha' was...”
My entire body felt like lead, like I'd just sunk to the bottom of a lake. I heard myself breathe, but I did not feel it in my lungs. Looking at Nichts, I hoped my eyes would ask my questions for me.
Nichts had her back to me. She stood over a sizeable basin, rinsing something in the frothy water inside. She ran her hoof across the object in her hooves, staring at it longingly for a while. She turned around to place a hoof on my chest. Slowly, she dragged her hoof downwards and circled the tip around near my groin. I felt nothing.
She pinched my skin. “Feel anything?”
I tried to shake my head. When my body didn't respond, I just stared.
Again her horn came alive. A single hair on my chest was enveloped in a red aura. Nichts blinked, to which the hair parted itself from my skin and floated away. She gave it one look, then turned back to me with a raised brow. I did not feel it at all.
Nichts smiled, but her ears drooped.
“I love you, Page,” she said. “I hope you know that. I'd never want any harm to come to you. And I wish...” She paused and gulped. “By Luna, do I wish I could go in your place. But I can't. Nopony can.” She rubbed a hoof on her amulet, eyes turning to the ceiling. “How does it feel to be one with the Mother? Do you notice it at all?”
I forced my tongue and cords to move. “Wha' are y...”
She placed a hoof on my mouth. “Don't try to speak. Just remain calm and breathe deeply. Good. You're doing great.” She smiled. “Hasn't Nie told you? You hold a piece of Princess Luna's soul inside of your own. You are connected to her even now, from so far away. Your soul is a gateway between Equestria and the Moon up above.”
Her smile grew wider, spreading into a toothy grin. She skipped around the table and put her front hooves on each side of my head, then she leaned over me, close enough for my mane to brush her chest.
“Don't you understand? You hold the last magical thread that binds Nightmare Moon to this world, the only one Celestia or fate has not yet severed.”
A powerful red glow consumed her horn, the light rising like dancing flames across its surface. On the other side of the room, a drawer opened and a glass jar floated out, about the size of my head and filled with some greenish substance. The jar placed itself on a shelf.
My heart gave one great beat, kicking at my ribs from the inside and knocking the air from me. Light enveloped my chest, and a pulsating red glow appeared where my heart was, throbbing faster by the second.
“What...” I mumbled.
Nichts pressed her hoof against my mouth. “Hush now! I've been practising this, but you don't want me to mess up, do you?”
From the frothy basin emerged a saw. A red aura shook it in the air, wiping it clean of soapy water before bringing it over my chest. The tips of its teeth parted my fur and rested on my skin.
“I'm so jealous of you, Page,” she said and brushed my cheek. “Your body will become the womb of this world's resurrection.”
The saw raked itself across my skin, ripping hair and tearing flesh; a red glow blanketed the cut, keeping the blood at bay. I screamed, not out of pain but sheer terror, for I could not feel a thing. I wanted to move, but my body lay slack like a rag doll. Another tuft of magic wrapped itself around my muzzle, pinning my mouth shut and suppressing my screams.
Nichts fixed her eyes on my chest, working the saw, pulling and pushing, cutting and rending, deeper and deeper. She licked her lips and placed a hoof on mine.
“Ssh,” she whispered. “It's alright. You'll be safe. If I could give my body to Princess Luna, I would do so in a heartbeat. Alas, only you can. But don't worry. Once the princesses reunite, it'll all be worth it. We just have to bring Princess Luna back.” She ran a hoof across her amulet. “Nie believes we can create a harmonising wave powerful enough to mend her damaged soul. We'll heal her spectral scars.”
I heard a crunch. Nichts' horn glowed brighter, and her amulet with it. My ribs parted, bending, cracking, splintering: my chest opened before my eyes. My pinned muzzle resounded with a suppressed scream.
All I could do was watch as magic pinched the veins and arteries of my heart, tearing them one by one. Metal clamps floated into my split chest, clasping the ripped veins and arteries and separating muscle and tissue from bone.
The cold rush of realisation washed over me: the realisation that I was going to die. Though I felt no physical pain, the fear and loss ate away at me. You really start to think when you see the end approach.
Had I wasted my life chasing dreams and nightmares?
What would I miss? What could I have been? I wanted to be a historian, an astronomer, a professor. Or maybe I'd have started a family. Nice husband. A beautiful baby.
And Mama... oh, what would she do without me?
My vision grew blurry from tears, but I could not feel them roll down my face. I could not feel the clamps inside my body, I could not feel the magic that carved out my insides. I could not feel anything, only that calm certainty that it was all over.
I'm so sorry, Mama.
There came a wet spurt from my chest. I blinked the tears away and beheld as my heart rose from my chest in a red glow, beating as fast as ever, leaking blood and pus. A swirl of magic wiped it clean, elevating it high while Nichts looked on in wonder.
“Look at it, how it still beats,” she said. “Didn't I tell you that you would be fine?” She ran a hoof through my mane. “We'll put it back, just as soon as we know it's safe. Nie says the Elements of Harmony are far too powerful, so we cannot break the magic that binds Princess Luna into the Moon. But you, Page... in a way, you already have. You are a conduit: a tiny crack in her soul's cell. Her body may rot in the Moon for eternity, but her spirit shall return.”
Her red aura eased my ribs back into place, snapping them in position and sizzlingly welding them together again. My heart floated into the jar Nichts had prepared and plopped into the green liquid. A lid flew over the jar and sealed it quickly. As her magic put the jar down, my heart still glowed inside, beating quickly to the rhythm of my own terror.
Flesh and skin fused together on my chest. The only sign the operation left behind was a burn-like wound. Am I... how am I not dead? I could barely breathe. Even in my delirium I knew I shouldn't have been alive. Did I see that? Did that really happen?
“Once her soul takes your body,” Nichts continued, “we've prepared a place for yours.”
From a high shelf, a clear crystal sphere floated above my head. I recognised it: it was the Soul Gem in which a lonely fragment of Luna's spirit had been imprisoned. But now there was no light inside; the gem shone dully in the ambient light.
“Remember the crescent Moon amulet?” asked Nichts. “We've managed to extract the soul fragment from the Soul Gem. It's inside that amulet now.” She smiled, gently touching the floating gem with the tip of a hoof. “Which means we now have a safe haven for your soul. It'll have to leave your body to make space for Luna, after all.”
So this was the fate my friend prepared for me: not death, but to be an accessory, a toy, a testament to her insanity. As she leaned closer, I felt her red amulet touch me. I realised, then, that this was merely a taste of things to come. My soul would be locked inside an unmoving, helpless mockery of a body that was a subject to this deranged child's whimsy.
I'd seen how she treated her dolls: how she'd play with them and oh, she'd hug them while she slept. Little did she care for losing the odd leg or chewing off the eyes here or there. I began to think that dying on that table would've been a mercy.
She bent and kissed my forehead. The warmth of her lips was lost to the cold that permeated my body. The vacant Soul Gem spun gently above me, the room's lights reflecting and casting shadows over the minute imperfections of its surface.
“You'll be safe in there, Page,” she whispered. “I'll take good care of you.”