- VII -
Celestia sat quietly on her chair in the throne room at Canterlot Castle, listening to a noble prattle on about some nonsense. Taxes, most likely. She kept her expression neutral and did her best not to roll her eyes or yawn. Her subjects found many things important, and unfortunately for her a lot of those things were on the drier side, conversationally speaking.
Celestia’s mind briefly wondered how she’d arrived at the throne room. Hadn’t she been... in bed? She blinked, glancing around herself, trying to take in her surroundings. She noticed that the guards she had at her side were both faceless, just vague shapes in the form of her stallion guardsponies. The lack of detail was slightly disturbing. She quickly began spotting other incongruities, noting that the hallway to the throne room appeared endless, as did the line of petitoners, and that the throne room’s ceiling was gone, simply a black space full of nothing.
A dream.
Celestia chuckled to herself, standing up. The noble pony speaking to her appeared outraged that she’d dare leave, but she no longer cared. This was her dream, after all. She trotted away, into the endless hallway of petitioning ponies, and made a sharp left turn. There normally was a door here, in the real palace hallway, which lead to... yes. The kitchen. There were chef ponies working away at random tasks, and Celestia stood before them. She resisted the urge to clap her hooves together in delight, her wings opening wide as she assumed her most regal and imperious stance. “Your princess requests cake. Chocolate, if you please, three layers, with raspberry preserves between each layer. Buttercream frosting, and make sure it’s thick on the frosting.”
No reason to not enjoy herself.
A few dream-moments later, she found herself seated in the royal dining hall, where she and her sister would often take meals in the relative solitude it provided. Servants aside, the royal dining hall was private, and only a few ponies were ever allowed entry. This dining hall was slightly askew, it’s proportions off and it’s corners indistinct. Celestia couldn’t recall if there were pillars along one wall or not, and so it remained empty. She didn’t mind, though, because there was a cake being set before her, and it looked exactly as delicious as she’d imagined. Exactly.
She cut herself a rather large and unladylike slice of the cake, and took a slow bite. Raspberry and chocolate mingled with sweet buttercream on her palette, and she sighed. She missed cake, and other food. She was happy for the moment, though, and took another bite of her slice of cake.
“Sister?”
Celestia glanced up from her imaginary meal. Princess Luna stood before her, looking startled. Celestia’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Luna?”
“Art thou really... thyself? It is hard to ascertain. I’ve been ingressing through the dreamscape for days, looking for thou,” Luna’s head tilted to one side as she examined her sister.
“... You aren’t part of my dream, are you?” stated Celestia with suspicion.
“Nay, sister. ‘Tis I!” Luna beamed at her sister.
“Luna!” Celestia stood up, the cake forgotten, and threw her hooves around her sister, hugging her dearly.
“It is good to find thee well, sister. We hath been worrying over thy disappearance.” Luna returned the hug, nuzzling her taller sister’s chest happily.
“I’m not certain what happened to me, to be honest.”
“Where art thou located? I shall send a team of guards at once to retrieve thee. We could tell that thou had been relocated by a powerful spell, but we were unable to ascertain your whereabouts. I’ve been watching the dream realm for many days, hoping you would choose to rest eventually.”
Celestia chuckled, blushing slightly. “I believe the guards would have difficulty retrieving me in my present location.”
Luna leaned back from Celestia, looking concerned. “Oh? Pray tell, why?”
“I’m on the moon,” replied Celestia.
Luna blinked, surprised. “The moon? What art thou doing on my moon, sister?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea. I can’t get off the moon, either. All my strongest teleportation spells fail, and I am unable to break whatever magic binds me here. Even my wings have been rendered useless, good for no more than gliding,” Celestia explained, trying to keep the concern out of her voice.
Luna frowned. “Where on the moon are thee? I shall attempt to scry thy location.”
Celestia chuckled wryly. “Something tells me that will be a difficult undertaking, sister. I’m in a city.”
Luna’s eyes widened. “A... city?”
Celestia nodded, her face growing grim. “It always seemed familiar to me, but speaking with you now, I believe that it might be the same city that haunted your dreams for months after your return.”
Luna sat down heavily, her wings shaking. “Tell me everything thou hast seen.”
And deeper down the rabbit hole we go.
I half expected it to be NMM who shot her to the moon.
But that isn't the case. So who could possibly do so?
(And suddenly, Twilight did it.)
~Skeeter The Lurker
2747801
Yay another chapter!
*yay*
2747801
2747860>>2747993
What? I'm allowed to speculate...
Even if it's batshit crazy.
~Skeeter The Lurker
2748083
Angel did it.Pinkie did it.2748151
Experimental Party Cannon?
Still, the question of how the hell she even GOT on the moon remains.
~Skeeter The Lurker
2748175
Bitch please, this is Pinkie. We don't need an explanation.
2748178
True enough.
~Skeeter The Lurker
So she DIDN'T plan to end up on the moon. Doesn't seem too bothered, though. #Coolcatcelestia
Cool that we get some foil action with Luna, too. The cast is lonely if you have like one character.
I dig that Celestia almost immediately becomes lucid when dreaming. I suppose, when you're immortal, it's hard to be surprised by your subconscious.
I'm a bit disappointed that you broke the solitary narrative of Celestia's journey with this--admittedly genius--use of exposition. There are so many dayum interesting ways to play off of Luna's ability to dreamwalk, and this is a really clever take on it. Still, I think the story would have been more intriguing if you allowed us to gleam everything important exclusively from what Celestia witnesses on the moon and from the shiet left behind. When you allow Celestia to make contact with Luna in her present-day mentality, it kind of sucks the tension out from the mystery, y'know? At least that's the way I perceive it.
Still, this is sexy landscaping (moonscaping?), and I appreciate that Celestia can take most of it in stride without getting unnecessarily anxious about it all. We could use less angsty protagonists in our poni poni poni stories, yes?
2749973
I've always assumed that our sweet Alicorn Princesses have had to kick some serious flank in the past in defense of the realm. Things may be peaceful now, but they obviously weren't for a while, what with Discord and Nightmare Moon and Sombra running around. And have you seen their silhouettes in their flashbacks when they fight bad guys? Freaking terrifying aspect to 'em, man. I'd think that Celestia had it a bit worse. After all, a thousand years being the sole protector of the realm...
2749981
Twist the knob counter-clockwise three times, then pull the lever up, then run across the map and poke the buttons in sequence, middle middle right left left, and then run all the way back and pull the lever down. Congratulations, you just acquired... a cup of water. WHAT? Oh, it's for the steam power machine in the next area... god, this game...
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I'd like to think that Celestia doesn't sleep often, but when she does she's enjoying her time in her sister's realm.
Yeah, I was considering keeping the narrative a pure Myst experience, but I've slowly begun realizing that with the length of each chapter, and my rough constraint of 30 days of time, I'll have to move things along a little faster than I'd like. I might end up stretching my 30-day goal out a little, already. Regardless, I'm glad you like the use of the dreamwalking stuff. It popped into my head a few days ago and I waffled over using it, but ultimately I went with it for the sake of this little moment.
It's always fun watching the past conversations that take place in a story. I also have a new goal: Get SS&E to comment on one of my stories like the sycophant I am.
...
Well, that's... a lot calmer than I expected...