//------------------------------// // Denial // Story: Bound by Moonlight // by Indulgence //------------------------------// Steps, only steps, sounding in what would otherwise be silence, made therefore to seem all the louder against this absence. Likewise each rhythmic hoof-fall shattered with motion what should have been still, nothing else stirring to join them. They never faltered from their regular tempo, clicking sharply as gilded metal striking against polished marble, echoing great distances in all directions. Princess Celestia’s movements were slow, sensing no need to be rushed, but at the same time they lacked all leisure. This was nothing new; after all there are few moments when any sovereign is granted the liberty to drift without focus. As such the royal image remained as a timeless and infinitely resistant pure white wall, entirely blemishless: a stoic’s visage. Yet beyond this exterior the picture was quite different, just visible beneath the immediate surface. She moved with an air of consideration simply because she was caught in considering, her strides not wanting of direction but somehow lacking, like her body and mind were well out of sync. The princess’ world was one of scale and grandeur, easily vast enough to look brutalist in its aspect, yet everywhere covered with a thick veneer of regal complexity. Great domes and vaulted ceilings floated high above supported beneath by the regimented ranks of classically styled pillars, all channelling an ancient permanence. Light poured in on all sides through tall unmasked windows, alighting on flowing pennants hung in amongst the hall’s eves, gleaming in imperial crimson and royal purple. Like all others within the palace walls the room was bright, airy and open, too open. Ultimately it felt empty, its spaciousness more a void than a decadence, crushingly present like the pull of a vacuum. What furniture there was, although plush beyond measure, did little to alleviate this. In every space it was scant, dwarfed by its surroundings, but that in of itself was not the issue. No amount of chairs, rugs or scatter cushions (no matter how liberally applied) could fill in the gaps, and in any case she had no need of more. Those that there already were seemed like they had been there forever (mostly because they had) and that was the problem: nothing felt truly hers. Few places differed from this trend, her own consciously little room being one in this bare minority. Celestia’s ears flicked and twitched, almost startled by every harsh impact her gilded shoes made against the ground, whilst simultaneously sifting the underlying quiet for something more. Although she was by no means on her own she still found nothing, her own breathing maybe, but nothing more. The fact that there was as always a considerable number of the Solar Guard in attendance gave this lack a loaded quality. It was as if everything stopped at her approach, even breath cut short and held, demanding her command even when she had none to give. They cared for her and she loved them in return, along with all besides, but still she hated the pressure which came from doing this with a crown. It was an ever-present barrier, it was a lonely circlet. The princess left one hallway and entered another, equally aglow with her charge’s light, receiving a salute from the new room’s sentries with a nod. She made her features into a warm smile, reminding herself that it was unfair to falsely blame them for anything, they being innocent of anything that beset her. They were however in equal measure no cure either. Though it was true that they tended to her safety and more than that, this could not be easily separated from the fact that they were oath bound to do so. Like the great many others which inhabited the palace therefore, or those who flocked there as a hoard each day with petitions (to command or be commanded), it was difficult to trust the intentions behind each pleasant face. These thoughts were unpleasant; making her guilty in tacitly thinking the worst of every one of her subjects, but then again it would always be the sovereign’s place to defensively doubt. For the most well-known mare on Equis, who was regularly visited by swarms of those she served, it made for an isolated existence. Celestia succeeded in stifling a sigh, being well versed at concealing herself after an age of practice. ‘Force-feeding yourself a potent mix of soul searching and self-reproach is hardly likely to improve your mood’ she concluded wordlessly to herself. ‘It’s just been a long week, so get back to the task at hoof and stop being so doom and gloom.’ It had been a long week, or rather it had seemed like one, lacking in any time to escape from the repetitive rigmarole of court life. In fact in this it was just another “long” week in a long series, making up a “long” couple of months. Now it was finally over, at least for a little while, and as her more than sensible mind suggested the potential distraction of her present focus was exactly what she needed. There was at least one who the princess could confide in, who she could trust without question and who would always be there. Luna was to Celestia akin to a solid rock or foundation, somepony she loved as family but who equally bore the weight of a crown like her, allowing some otherwise impossible understanding. The older alicorn’s reliance in this regard was however a guilty one, her dependence on her younger sibling for so much seeming simply wrong, taken without permission or right and asking so much. Still at that moment she could not deny that she needed the balm of her sister’s company, to be freed to chat and laugh and smile without the need of a mask. This need was magnified as the two had not seen much of each other for some time, with the business of court keeping Celestia far too occupied and then leaving her entirely drained by the end of her day. At the best of times it often felt like the two of them inhabited very different worlds by the necessity of their duties, but of late it felt like she had been ignoring the largely nocturnal alicorn; yet another thing for her to feel guilty for. Celestia was coming to the end of the last entry hall; approaching a final ornate double doorway which led into the throne room, and she hoped the end of her search. Her day had felt “long” but now it was actually stretching beyond its regular limits, it being well past the time that the moon should have taken the stage in the sky. Luna however had not materialised, not being in her room (another tiny bastion in the enormity of palace’s confines), leading the Sun on an intrigued and as yet unsuccessful quest to find her. As the Princess of the Sun reached the throne room’s door she sensed an aura of magic on its other side, perhaps a little more prominent than usual but still recognisable, bringing with it an overstated sense of relief. Celestia’s mind switched track to considering all that she had to say, foremost of which were a fair few apologies, beginning happily as she opened the portal: ‘Hey Lulu!’ Nopony returned the greeting and in fact nopony appeared at all, leaving the alabaster alicorn confused as she strode further in. Still the aura persisted though from somewhere deeper within the chamber, somewhere unseen at its shadowy back. ‘Lulu?’ --- The air seemed dirty, thick with chalk dust along with the dual scents of old tomes and fresh ink, this fustiness giving the room an age even beyond its more than considerable real one. This was largely unsurprising bearing in mind the place was a library, a tall circle of blackboards having been floated to its centre, dominating the reading space at its nexus. Within these dusty palisades was set a single round table, itself covered in an avalanche of paper, parchment and books, at which sat the building’s latest resident. Twilight Sparkle was seated in a high-backed chair, in a violet corona of her own magic, her face buried in the latest in a long series of dense tomes. All at the same time she telekinetically flicked through the pages in front of her, whilst simultaneously elsewhere a pen and several sticks of chalk worked in tandem to rationalise her thoughts. Together these created a haze of dancing lights all around, like a swarm of purple fireflies, giving her setting a serene air despite the evident chaos of her study. This was broken in an instant as she finally closed her present book, unintentionally slamming its covers shut with more force than she intended, sending a sharp *crack!* about the room. The sudden noise succeeded in fracturing her focus, drawing her back into the world of the living where she just about managed not to drop everything in her telekinetic grip. Returned to reality Twilight found herself crushed beneath the weight of timeless hours, a wide yawn consuming her face. She was forced to stretch; her form working out kinks she had not realised had formed throughout her being, slumping back down deeper in her seat immediately after. A second broad yawn forced itself across her features as her gaze wandered wearily between the shelves, eventually reaching a distant window and the fresh surprise of a darkened night sky beyond. The light of her magic was in fact she realised the only illumination in evidence, clouds veiling the outside ether, darkness within having pounced unnoticed all around. This was however by a long way not the first time that her inquisitiveness had gotten the better of her timekeeping, and she moved quickly to spark up the room’s candles, swiftly spreading a cosy orange glow. With a degree of effort the lavender unicorn rose to her hooves, indulging in a further elongated stretch as she did so. In spite of her various aches however, actual tiredness was not her companion, nor had it been for the last week or so in fact, none of which was exactly fair. On her arrival in Ponyville (not that long ago) she had been able to diagnose this restlessness as symptomatic of her abrupt change in scene: new home, new acquaintances, new daily routine, etcetera. But this initial unsureness had swiftly vanished. In truth she probably preferred Golden Oak far better than her abode back in Canterlot, if for nothing else than for the greater age of much of the library’s collections. At the same time although her studies in friendship were still young, she had grown quickly close to the five case studies found by fate on arrival. In the light of this obvious evidence therefore she had sensibly scrapped her first hypothesis and instead determined that something else was (for want of a better term) “bugging her”. A good deal of mind sifting and a fair few ventures into self-psychoanalysis later and she had reached a fresh if unclear new conclusion: she seemed to have Princess Luna on her mind. Twilight turned about, moving to interrogate the first of the blackboards, whilst levitating the largest stack of her notes to her side. Annoyingly, although she had seemingly struck upon the cause of her “off-ness”, she was still none the wiser as to exactly why. She was therefore left with only the one present course of action: to research everything that she could dig up on the Princess of the Night, both an easy and not so easy feat in a repository of Golden Oak’s scale. This explained her body’s weariness, the anarchy of her working surroundings and the loss of the day outside. She had gleaned all she could from the stacks, considering history, mythology and a myriad of other topics of vague relevance to the dark alicorn, searching for her every mention, although in truth they were few. Logically her answer had to be somewhere in amongst all this work, she just had to find it. So, let’s take stock of what you’ve actually got. ‘Okay’ she nodded definitively, on her mind’s command approaching the first of the backboards with an air of mission. ‘Princess Luna: younger sister to Princess Celestia, obviously’ she began, taking in the sea of white scibbles. ‘Her official title is Princess of the Night, responsible for, again obviously, running Equestria during the night-time and dreams. Erm… she’s an alicorn’ the lavender unicorn attempted, without any real confidence in the observation. We’re preferably looking for something you didn’t already know, or isn’t glaringly obvious! ‘Erm…’ Twilight paused, skimming through the rest of the board’s contents, finding only further empty details about the other mare. These went so far as to make approximations at height, which even she could accept was a tad on the creepily obsessive side. Still the point of alicornhood had struck some chord within her. Like Celestia Luna was basically ancient and equally likewise hardly betrayed it in her form. There was something different about the two of them however. Whereas the older sister bore with her a timelessness, very much the permanent mother figure both to her kingdom and her faithful student, the younger’s age and experience seemed to loom larger in her comparatively youthful form. It was like Twilight was for some reason comparing the navy alicorn’s years to her own and in them finding a more than sizeable difference, like a separating void. Perhaps making a note of your responses to these stimuli would be helpful? The unicorn added the thought to a list of secondary avenues for investigation she had pre-emptively begun, moving on to the next in the line of boards. This one’s focus was on the topic most prominent in all she had read: the princess’ long banishment. Although this was well discussed however, there was a striking lack of consensus on the subject, for the most part being purely theoretical conjecture based in the considerable mythology built up around the event. For example: nopony could agree on what exactly had happened to the Lunar Princess, debates ranging from the physical manifestation of jealousy to possession by some unknown monster in explaining her nightmare form. Their one uniting feature though was an accusatory tone, blaming Luna by various degrees for whatever had happened, an image hard to square with that of the recently returned alicorn fallen at her sister’s hooves. Maybe that’s it: you feel responsible because you had a hoof in bringing her back; you want to help her. ‘Maybe.’ True the scene of Luna collapsed and tearful (forced on repeat in her mind’s eye) was unpleasant, catching sorely against an emotional nerve, but at the same time its associated thoughts were surreal. Despite knowing that she was far beyond anypony’s gaze, Twilight still found herself reprimanding her own grandiose illusions: that the Princess of the Night was in any need of help from a mere student. A sense of inadequacy rose up from nowhere within her, accompanied by the return of the gulf there seemed to be between them. Attempting evasion and to keep her focus the lavender unicorn moved on, but immediately faltered to a confused halt. Initially her chalky writing followed dutifully in the wake of the preceding boards, getting a third of a way down in neat columns before the author’s concentration obviously shifted elsewhere and turned to sketching. Twilight was no artist but her magic, evidently working from her subconscious, had filled in any gaps in her aptitude, depicting clearly what had been on constant replay in her head. The tall slender form of Princess Luna stood in an exploding corona of energy, set in a confident upright pose a second before it had vanished into soft regretful tears. Even in facsimile the alicorn’s gaze, in the star-studded frame of its owner’s ethereal mane, absorbed its viewer. In the depths of Luna’s irises everything stopped, forced to an unsure pause with baited breath, as time stilled at the edge of some unseen chasm. --- A sharp gasp split the settled silence, followed immediately after by a quick series of short laboured inhales. Their owner had sat straight up on reflex, further hunching over into a defensive ball, her wings unfurled and curled up about her like a cocoon. She held herself tight, her crossed forehooves clutched to her sides, gradually willing her breathing back under control. Darkness pervaded within and without, her vision like her being forced suddenly and violently awake before receding back into the shadows. Beyond the embrace of the quilt the cold air pinched at her, the discarded sheets losing their residual warmth as she remained in stillness. For some time she lingered as this statue, channelling an absence which unfortunately had not preceded her. Eventually however, once sure that nopony beyond her had stirred, she let her eyelids slowly open. The world was dark, its forms veiled and fluid, consisting more of what she remembered was present than what she could actually see. Against this her horn quietly ignited, enwrapping the curtains she knew covered the room’s one window in a silvery aura, teasing a crack in them open. Light did not pour in, rather it trickled, the midnight sky of the world outside masked by clouds. This was a small mercy; in that moment her being preferred the gentle shade to the bludgeon of any revealing brightness. You can’t hide from me. Almost timidly she swung her hind legs from the bed, unsteadily finding her hoofing in a moonlit puddle. She rose and then moved in tiny increments, feeling like a trespasser, seeking to disturb nothing in the settled realm of the room. In this way she crossed a few barely visible steps, the chill of the night air biting through her fur alongside the icy grip of something more. In every movement she felt scrutinised, closely pursued, something stalking her just at the edges of her sight as her muted hoof-falls stopped before a wall length mirror. I’ll always find you, no matter how far you run. The being which met her in the looking glass was a tired one, drained and without lustre. A darkened face stared back out at her, deep furrows knotted in her frowning brows, silently judging her mirrored image. The ethereal fields of her mane were likewise lacking, caught in alien lifelessness and devoid of her stars. Without them she looked ashen, navy form faded to black. ‘No, I’m better now, all that there was, is behind me.’ Behind you maybe, but still here. Although she wished it otherwise the shadow of a visage in the polished surface was a familiar one, loaded down with a weight of guilty memories. ‘No! That’s not me anymore; you’re not me anymore!’ In defiance to her whispered hissing however, a set of fangs grinned out from the pooling blackness above her twin’s shoulder, glowing at the back of the mirror. ‘I don’t need you and I will not be your puppet! Begone!’ You’re not fooling anypony you know: neither yourself or your sister, and most definitely not her. You’re damaged, broken, and I fill in the gaps; I make you whole. Your edges are still fractured though and all they can do is wound. How long until you inevitably hurt her, if of course you haven’t done so already? ‘No! Please… please just begone…’