- XI -
Celestia rounded a corner, the twisted urban landscape looming over her. The buildings had become almost organic in nature, looking less built and more grown. The landscape was nightmarish, all semblance of order gone now, replaced with roads that led to nowhere, pits that suddenly dropped into the ground, and an overhead canopy of bizarre construction that blotted out the stars overhead.
Celestia felt tired, both physically and emotionally. The trek to the center of the crater had been harrowing. In places, as the buildings had activated due to her proximity, they’d begun to fall apart. Unknown hundreds of years of disuse had taken their toll, and even the reduced gravity of the lunar surface could no longer compensate for the city’s non-euclidean and nonsensical growth.
Celestia crouched low, ducking her head beneath a walkway just a few feet above ground level that twisted in a corkscrew. She looked farther ahead, down the path, and stopped in her tracks.
The buildings simply ended.
Celestia slowly approached the edge of the city. Finally, she stood beyond the last insane construct, and looked out on a massive, flat, circular plane. The city stood like a coral reef around this barren spot, protecting it from view, hiding the very center of the crater. Celestia took a few steps out into the empty and perfectly flat area, examining it carefully.
Why had the construction ended so abruptly? What was here?
Celestia began walking around the edge of the circular area, and noted a line drawn along the flat lunar rock, carved deep. Celestia’s gaze followed the line, noting its subtle curve, and did a few quick calculations.
“A perfect circle.”
She stepped over the edge of the massive circle, and began walking inward, towards the very center. As she walked, dozens of glowing black runes began to manifest themselves in the rock around her hoofsteps, and Celestia paused, examining them carefully. They were the pieces of some colossal spell, a massive arcane endeavor. Each rune was suffused with power, even after all this time. Celestia gave up attempting to interpret the spell’s use, realizing that with the sheer size of the circle and the amount of runes present in just this small area she could see, it would take her months of work to read the full spell. Besides, something had caught her eye.
There was a small raised platform in the center of the circle.
Celestia approached the platform, her steps slowing as the runes of the inscribed spell grew in power and size. Her final step took her to the very edge of the platform, and revealed a massive glowing circle filled with arcane runes for focusing, centered on the platform.
Whatever spell this was was one of incredible power and potency. The focusing runes and the amount of energy within them was enough to nearly quadruple the input strength of the arcane spell surrounding the platform, building and binding all that potential arcane energy that filled the mile-wide circle of runes into a spot barely large enough for Celestia to lay down on.
On top of this platform, the very central focus of the great spell, was a mirror.
Celestia hesitated. Whatever spell this had been, it was strong enough to still be potent after what was no doubt hundreds of years. The mirror may have been the focal point. She wasn’t certain, and being unsure meant that she couldn’t take chances. What if she activated the spell again? She had no idea what it would do. It could fail, or it could be devestating.
Her only consoling factor was that whatever it was that Nightmare had attempted here had failed.
It had to have failed. Nightmare Moon had never returned until the end of her thousand-year exile. This whole spell, whatever it was, had never worked.
With that thought in mind, Celestia used her telekinesis to grasp the mirror and activate it’s magic. She tensed as she did, ready for any sort of reaction from the ancient spell, but nothing happened. She exhaled slowly, relief flooding her features.
The soft, frightened voice that floated from the mirror, however, changed all that.
“...Hello?”
Celestia froze in place.
No.
It wasn’t possible.
“We hope this works... our name is Princess Luna of Equestria. We have found ourselves... displaced from our homeland, and somehow placed upon the surface of the moon. How we hath found ourselves in such a position, we do not know. We hath found ourselves in the center of a great, arcane spell, the likes of which we hath never before seen. The work is intricate and of intense power, and we assume it hath something to do with our current predicament.”
Celestia slowly lifted her gaze to look into the mirror.
“We appear to be unable to translocate or teleport ourselves from our current location. Perhaps the spell is preventing us from doing so. Thus, we shall endeavor to explore yon city, and hopefully find the makers of such... odd constructs.”
Celestia stared at the face of her dearest, beloved sister, Princess Luna. Gone was the taint of Nightmare Moon, the draconian eyes and shadowed etheral mane. Luna looked concerned, but not overly so. Celestia sat down heavily, lifting a hoof to her chest as she listened to her sister’s recording.
“If it be any of mine loyal subjects that discover this message, know that we are safe. If it be mine sister that doth listen to this, then... know I am safe. Look for me in the city. I will await thine rescue eagerly.”
Celestia had been wrong. She shivered, tears rising to her eyes unbidden. Nightmare Moon had escaped her prison. The spell had done its job, and the Nightmare's imprisonment had ended...as Luna took her place.
Celestia tilted her head back, letting out a helpless scream, tears streaming down her face. She barely heard the end of the ancient message
“Sister, you may find me by mine arcane mark, which I shalt leave at regular intervals along mine path through yon city.”
Luna sounded so strong. How was she to know that her own, beloved sister’s folly had been what had placed her in this situation? How was she to know that she would be trapped for over seven-hundred years on the moon, alone? To lose her mind?
Celestia lay down upon the platform as the message faded away, and wept.
HOLY SHIT BALLS.
In hindsight, I should have seen that coming!
Now this raises a curious question... Who's the Luna on Equestria then?
~Skeeter The Lurker
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These messages are old. There's still a lot of mystery left to uncover. Has Nightmare Moon truly escaped? After all, Nightmare Moon IS Luna.
There's much more story to come. Stay tuned, true believers, and welcome to the end of the first arc of the story.
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You, sir, are excellent at this stuff.
I'm gonna guess... Three arcs? Ten chapters each? The final being her getting home (I hope) or something of the sort.
~Skeeter The Lurker
Oooh, that's cool. Luna did escape at the Summer Sun Festival, so we can assume that the real Luna is back on Equis, but what happened to Nightmare Moon? The original nightmare? What's more, Celestia's situation - flight restriction, teleportation restriction - mirrors the bindings placed on Luna when she was banished, so who the heck banished Celestia? Did she banish herself?
Argh! Questions!
You'd better get moving onto Act II, Props, or else
Interesting.
Although I feel that Luna on the moon would have tried to contact Celestia through her dreams like she did a couple of chapters ago.
Also assuming NMM caused Luna to be in whatever state she is in the mirror one would have to assume that she became aware of her predicament since NMM left mirrors around the place.
This doesn't really add up. So you got some splaining to do!
Also wtf is up with all the mirrors? Did NMM get banished with the castles shipment of mirrors?
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*gasp*
Oh shit. Well, those are dark implications.
This song popped into my head when Celestia found the runic circle:
Anyone who's ever played Doom may have an idea why.
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Celestia doesn't have to sleep, and hadn't tried to sleep since arriving on the moon.
Also, mirrors are just glass with a reflective coat on one side, and glass is very easy to make when you have magic powers and LOTS of silicate dust around.
Alrighty, just sat down and read through this, and I'm pretty blown away by what you're doing with it, Props. I've always been amazed when people can successfully tell a story without dialogue, because i have such trouble with it, and with this you've absolutely nailed it. The way you start In Medias Res was definitely the right choice here, as starting from the beginning and just seeing it play out wouldn't have been as effective.
The amount of description you've put into the setting, and more importantly Celestia's exploration of the setting, makes it work. It reminds me a lot of Wall-E, letting the physical aspect handle the storytelling itself, while the dialogue remains in the form of recordings from the past. And on that note, I absolutely love the backstory you have given here. The description of what NMM did on the moon, why Celestia has royal guards, things like that accomplish history-building that I honestly don't see enough of in fics.
As far as criticism goes, one issue is that there is a slight tendency towards repetition. Take this line:
>What had been experimental architecture had turned strange. The buildings had begun to not make sense.
It doesn't happen often, but when it does, it sorta stands out. With a story like this, less is always more, so when you're describing things, make sure you don't say the same thing twice.
Also this isn't a criticism per se, but—and I realize this is a weird thing to pick up on—is it just me, or are there a lot of references to Celestia's butt/love of cake? I mean, it doesn't do anything negative to the story, it's just something I noticed. I doubt it's going to become a plot point (tee hee) but I just noticed it. With the overall dark-ish tone the fic has, they seem a touch out of place.
My big issue, though, is that when we have two exposition chapters with Celestia/Luna and Celestia in the Crystal Empire, it's almost disappointing. Not that they're written poorly—in fact, they're written fantastically—but I had been digging the no-dialogue approach you had set up, so suddenly going to dialogue like that had me quickly yearning for more of the non-dialogue sections. Granted, they were necessary to further the story, and they aren't a problem with the story so much as they are my own personal preference, but I'm hoping that they remain in the minority.
But overall, I'm REALLY loving this, Props. Awesome, awesome work with non-verbal storytelling, mystery, and of course excellent swerves to set up the cliffhanger. Great work!
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Thanks Brian! Yeah, there are some references to Celestia's butt and love of cake. I was mainly trying to keep some levity to the earlier parts of the story. Don't worry though, that's going to be a far less common occurrence. And yes, I'm not a fan of the flashback/dialogue stuff either, but they ARE necessary, and I'm doing my best to stay away from them as much as possible.
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Oh, also, on the point of the repetition: yeah, I'm aware, and catching it later, but I'm trying to stay true to the nature of the story. It's something that I write once a day and I try to go back and edit as little as possible. Once a chapter drops, I don't mess with it at all, even when I spot stupid mistakes. You're basically getting a glimpse of my unfiltered writing.
Gotta love selective amnesia that pulls at the heartstrings.
What if the same thing happened to Celestia O__O Hold me somepony I'm scared.
Maybe, Nightmare Moon was already on the moon and the way she escaped was by bringing Luna to the moon... And I think you can figure out the rest by yourself.
I know, I'm kinda late to the whole "comment on the story" party but it's just so good!!
Wait...
Did the Nightmare escape, leave Luna to go insane, brainwash Luna into thinking she was Nightmare after Luna's mind broke down, and now haunts the dreamscape while the Elements suppressed Luna's memories?
Nahhhhhhhhh.