5. Over our Heads
Placing a hoof onto the shining chrome ground at the end of the stairway, her eyes darting to every corner of the vast cavern that yawned open before her, barely noticing Starlight’s shoulders unconsciously loosen and relax, Twilight stepped into the Heart of the Nocturnian Citadel.
Thousands of diamonds glimmered on the ceiling, a beautiful portrait of the clear night sky set afire with light. Glowing spires of translucent crystal towered above the Heart and pierced the cool air, shimmering with warm colors. Each pillar held afloat the curtain of sweet serenity that rested over the Heart after the day had fallen and its inhabitants had given in to sleep’s warm embrace. Along both sides of the road a line of stone buildings stood half asleep, letting trails of glowing moss climb up their walls in carefully-arranged artistic patterns. A deep-indigo curtain hung over every window in the sea of silent buildings, murmuring in the soft breeze that swept through from sources unknown. Twin paths of shining silver guided Twilight’s eyes to the spire at the end of the road, which pulsed with celestial light in the soothing rhythm of a heartbeat.
Tearing her attention away from the shimmering waves of rainbow light, Twilight craned her neck back to look at Starlight…and a grin crossed her face.
The ashen-gray mare’s grimace had shattered into a thousand pieces, revealing a smile that glowed bright as pure moonlight. All of her focus zeroed in on the sky above, its speckled starlight reflected in her wide golden eyes. Her jaw hung open in a huge open smile, breathing the pure cool air which flowed through the Heart of the Citadel.
Through the calm silence a melody reached Twilight’s ears, flowing and soft. From an instrument unlike any she had heard before, its sound that of a thousand tiny bells woven together into the ringing of the stars, the melody poured out into the streets and washed the city in honey-sweet music. A voice soon joined it.
Tell me as you watch the stars…
Starlight trotted forward in a daze, following the irresistible melody. With the serene cityscape before her, Twilight gladly followed.
Why would you stray from your heart?
Hoofsteps echoed softly against the silver lines as Twilight and Starlight rounded the street corner.
Sweetness fills the air tonight…
The shining silver gave way to a plaza of pure-white marble up ahead of them. A pleasant tingling feeling swelled within Twilight, and she closed her eyes for a fleeting second to take in the sweet air.
As our world is filled with light!
Two hooves stepped onto the pure-white ground, softly, carefully, not daring to break the spell of the music. In the center of the plaza, beneath a pure-golden statue of Princess Luna, sat the strangest assortment of bells and tubes that Twilight had ever seen, all spiraling around a central wheeled body that condensed into a set of washed-white keys.
A bushy emerald mane flowed down the neck of the stallion sitting beneath the center of this instrument, hanging loosely over his pale-golden fur. A pair of thick hooves danced on the stage of the keys as his voice crescendoed into the chorus of the song.
Come now my dear friend, and I will show you how they glimmer.
Stick by my side, as Time passes this pure night by.
All eyes come and see, and I will show you how they glimmer.
Join our family as we soar out into the night sky.
Drowning in the beauty of the sweet song of the stars, Twilight could not help but ignore the sound of hooves clapping against marble closer and closer behind her.
“Wow! Check out how huge this cave is!” shouted Spike, his voice infected with glee as he waltzed further and further into the darkness.
“Hey, wait up!” laughed Apple Bloom as she scrambled over the rocks behind him, nearly tripping over a boulder hiding in the corner. Suddenly she stopped and trotted back, her brows furrowing as she squinted into the darkness. “Spike, get over here! I think I found something!”
“What?” he asked, turning around, oblivious to the yawning blackness in front of his feet.
“I found a hole in the wall, and I can hear a river runnin’ on the other side! And…” her voice faltered as she bent down to pick up a notebook lying on the cold stone beneath her hooves. “I think Twilight and Applejack went this way!”
Spike sprinted towards her and snatched the notebook from the ground, then groaned. “Of course…”
“What?” Apple Bloom asked.
“Twilight came here to study the cave in the middle of the night with Applejack…but then why would she not come back?” he murmured, unconsciously glancing through the hole towards the river. “I think they went this way-” Without hesitating, Apple Bloom leapt through the hole and Spike heard a scream and a loud SPLASH!
Spike raced to the hole, biting his lips as his widening eyes darted around looking through the darkness. “Where are you?!”
“Ah! Cold, cold, cold!” came the reply, and Spike let out a sigh of relief as he climbed after her, traipsing across the stone towards his friend as they journeyed deeper and deeper towards the heart of the earth and the soul of the dream.
“Hi! I’ve never seen you ponies before. What are you doing up in the middle of the day?”
Starlight and Twilight whirled around at the same time, their relaxed faces injected with sudden fear. “W-Who are you? What are you doing here?”
The colt shrugged his shoulders as he trotted over and sat down next to them. “Dunno. I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d take a walk out here and listen to the music.” He gave the two mares a smile, which they returned warily.
“Do you live here?” asked Twilight after a few moments of awkward silence.
“Eeyup! I’ve been livin’ the life here in the Heart ever since I was a little-bitty foal. Do you not live here?”
“…no.” they answered simultaneously.
He frowned for the first time. “Why?”
Starlight poked the ground with her hoof. “I work in the Guard for the Council of the Nocturna Lorem, protecting the Citadel, so I’m not allowed to enter the Heart.”
“The who what?” he asked, his head cocked to the side.
Starlight took a deep breath. “The Nocturna Lorem is the council in charge of the guardsponies like me who protect the Citadel from monsters and whatever other dangers are hiding in the darkness of the caves. My job means that I must live in the outer layer of the Citadel, so I will be close by if danger arises.”
“Oh, that’s silly. I think everypony should be able to live in the Heart, don’t you?”
“I guess,” she responded, still unsure.
“And howabout you?” he said, turning to Twilight and grinning again.
“Um…” her eyes darted around, and the colt’s smile wavered for a moment as he tried to figure out what the deal was with these two mares. “Well, I’m from…somewhere else,” she finished lamely.
He gave a huge gasp and his eyes widened in shock. “Whaaaaaaat? I don’t know anypony who lives anywhere else. Where do you live? What’s it like there? Do you live in a different mountain? How close is your home to the Citadel? Are you moving in here? If you’re moving in here, can we be friends?” his face beamed as he launched out a nonstop stream of questions.
“Wow, slow down! First of all, I’m not moving in here, I think,” Twilight responded, choosing her words carefully.
“Aw…” he said with a pouting expression. “Can we be friends anyway?” he asked, his huge grin immediately returning. Starlight grinned and tried not to laugh at the conversation.
“Uh…sure. What’s-”
“Awesome!” he said. “I haven’t many anypony new in a really really really long time. Wait, where are you from again?”
A long moment passed in silence, but the colt did not seem to mind.
“Well…” Twilight began, “I’m from somewhere above the ground.”
The colt’s jaw practically hit the floor. “Oh my gosh, that is so cool! How do you survive out there with all the monsters?”
“What?!” Twilight exclaimed. Starlight shifted uncomfortably on the marble, her eyes glancing back and forth between Twilight and the enthusiastic colt.
“Y’know, the scary monsters! I heard there are a bunch of scary monsters above the ground, and that’s why we all have to live down here. I certainly don’t mind it, though. The Heart is my favoritest place ever.”
“There aren’t really any monsters out there—well, not anymore. There were monsters across the land several centuries ago, but that was before…” Twilight’s voice faltered as she saw Starlight shaking her head frantically back and forth. “Um, well, all the monsters live in one forest now, and we know that it’s unsafe, but they leave us alone.”
“Cool! I wonder why all of us are still living in the Heart, then?” He lifted a hoof to his chin and frowned in mock contemplation, then shrugged and the grin returned. “Ah well. I wouldn’t want to leave the Heart even if I could. This is the bestest place ever!”
Starlight yawned, stretching her hooves and wings. “Hey, kid, do you have a place we could sleep? We have been up all night running all around the Citadel…”
“Wait, where all have you been? I’ve never been outside the Heart before and I really have no clue what else there is to see in the Citadel. Could you guys show me-” He suddenly noticed that they were still watching him impatiently. “Oh, yeah, sorry. I live just a couple blocks down that way,” he said, jabbing his hoof down the street.
The two mares started to trot down the street he indicated, looking back with surprise as he did not follow.
“Um…do you mind if I stay here and listen to the music? Don’t tell my parents, but I kinda want to stay up just a little bit later…my bedtime was a while ago,” he said, looking down at his hooves and blushing with embarrassment.
Twilight took a breath, but Starlight cut in, “Sure thing. However, we do not know which house is yours, and…will your parents be alright with us staying at your house?”
The colt shrugged. “I dunno. Probably. My house is at 77 Shine Road. See ya ‘round!” he cried, waving his hoof frantically through the air and grinning like a maniac.
Starlight grinned in spite of herself. “See you around.”
Two star-speckled hooves emerged from a tiny hole in the face of the mountain, reaching out from the thick blackness that clung to his coat as he stepped out from the darkness into the dying rays of the sun. He lifted a hoof to cover his face as he pulled the rest of his body out from the stone-frozen world far beneath him, wincing in the brilliant crimson fire that flooded the sky and washed over his black silhouette. He squinted into the sunlight, watching tiny wisps of cloud float across the painted sky.
Silent Voice smiled, and then closed his eyes to check on his dream one more time before continuing. The first Sunlover rested alone in the Garden, her eyes misted over and her whole body completely still as she gazed down at the shadows that danced beneath her. The second Sunlover trotted down a street inside the Heart of the Citadel with the rebel, a wide smile across her face, enjoying the peace that flowed from the shining crystals of the night around her. Both of them now know what eternal peace feels like. I hope they enjoy it…
He climbed up over the freezing rocks, struggling a little over the looming boulders piled haphazardly on top of one another. The stallion nearly slipped on a patch of glimmering snow, one of the many that lay like a pure-white blanket over the slumbering mountain. Time flowed by under his sore hooves as he climbed onwards and upwards over a weary path, making his way to the peak of the mountain.
Finally collapsing against a smooth rock, he took a moment to rest. Several minutes passed as he took a few deep breaths, allowing the fresh air to calm his nerves as it flowed past his nostrils. The Nocturne craned his head to stare into the dying sun, squinting in its blinding glory and frowning, trying as always to understand it.
But why must you light the earth ablaze and bring its mysteries to light? he asked, speaking aloud for the first time in three weeks…though he had lost the ability to discern if his words were said or thought. Why do you force them to fight for their existence if you do not give them a dream to fight for?
The sun did not answer. She never did…but her sister was there to offer a response: “Perhaps there is a dream, a dream that my little ponies hold too close to their hearts to show and do not force into the limelight.”
Silent whirled around and his eyes sprung open in shock to look upon the Princess of the Night in all her glory, standing right behind him, her ethereal mane flowing softly in a nonexistent breeze; her beautiful face stared at him without smiling.
Are you a projection of my imagination? he asked, captivated by wonder.
“No. I returned from the Moon two months ago.”
I apologize, but this feels so…surreal.
“Are you surprised? I thought you knew, since you have been hiding from me even since I returned,” she said, a thread of anger woven into her voice.
I heard…but I thought you were simply another figment of my imagination, like all of the other ideas I birthed down there. I happily believed in you as another lie.
Anger morphed to confusion. “Down where?”
The stallion gestured numbly to the cave he had exited several minutes ago, and Luna’s eyes widened in sudden realization. “That colony is still there? My Children of the Night still live? I thought after one thousand years-”
Do not worry, Princess…I have taken good care of your dream. He smiled at her fondly.
“I do not doubt it. But have you learned from my mistakes, the same way I did?”
Your what?
“My mistakes. Have you learned from them?”
I…have not, because you have never made any. Your dream is fully realized, Luna, and if you come with me you can live forever as Queen of the kingdom you always wanted. Will you forsake that now?
The Princess hesitated, shifting her weight uncomfortably on the ashen-stone. She glanced to the setting sun, watching as it fell to make way for the night, and glanced to the first stars as they peeked through the blackening curtain. A cold breeze whistled past the dream and the dreamer as each waited for the other to speak.
Princess. I can show you our home. I can give you everything you wanted. He reached out a hoof to her, an offering of peaceful regression.
“I…cannot.”
Silent blinked once, slowly, and looked away. You have betrayed everything you once fought for, so-called Princess of the Night.
“Why was I fighting?”
The voice was silent, for it had no answer.
“Go back to your dream, Silent Voice, and bother me no longer. I will awaken the ponies you have subjected to my dead anger very soon.”
You will regret this, Princess, the stallion muttered as he trotted away from her and back to the darkness of the caves.
“I already have,” she whispered.
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Luna: WE SHALL FREE OUR SUBJECTS