Excerpts from the Luna War

by Sapare

Sacrifice

Luna cast a glance over her exausted and bloodied subjects, the few of the ponies close to her who had surrived this ambush only to find themself looked into a tomb for the living. Deep inside the castle of the Gryphon King, deep within the gryphon kingdom. She could most likely escape, force her way through the hoard assambled outside and flee toward her home, but non of us would be able to keep up with her, and she could not protect us from the hail of bolts, knifes and claws that would assult us.

I wondered if we had made things worse with our valiant struggle, we had warned Luna but also given her a weakness. If we had all parished she might... no, they would have found a way.

My depressed and defeated thoughts were silenced when suddenly a cold shiver ran down my spine, my whole body inventorly shaking as my eyes tried to find the source of the unearthly coldness. Instead they found only a purple myst that crawled through the cracks of the door and creeped across the floor.

I was not the only being in the room to take notice, the other ponies quickly found their eyes drawn toward the strange smoke, and then a completetly terrfyed screetch from one of the Gryphons in the room caused me to flinch. I could not make out what he said as he was speaking his native tounge but the horror in his voice did not need translation, this myst was not a good sign.

Even Luna seemed to have been affected by this strange presence, she said nothing as we all followed its movements, it slowly creeping toward one of my comrades.

And then it touched him, first it engulved one of his hoofs, then it seemed to sink into it, dissapearing within his skin. He looked up at us in confusion and visiable terror in his eyes, as if asking us what had just happened, and then he screamed in agony. He threw himself on the floor, rolling back and forth and stricking at anything he could reach with his hoofs.

We tried to rush toward him, find some way of helping, but Luna suddenly overtook us and unfolded her wings, shielding us from the view and stoping us from coming any closer. When she spoke her voice was calming and yet somehow I could her the worry she was feeling.

"This is not your charge, this is a power beyond normal ponies, I will stop its spread."

Luna moved closer to the unlucky pony, placing a hoof to its forhead and wispered something too quiet for any of us to hear, but just as suddenly as the loud screams had started did they stop.

The moon princess bowed her head to the affected pony and spoke, words that made no sense and yet seemed to hold weight I could not fathom.

"I will help you, and you will help me. Bring us home, help me save my subjects, and I give you a host worthy of your power. One that can contain you."

After she spoke there was a strange eery silence and then a flash of cold it drew the breath from me, for a moment I thought I would have the very life drawn from me, but instead the warms slowly returned.

Luna folded in her wings and raised her head, stepping back from the pony who had been affected by the myst, his eyes closed and his expression peaceful, he was dead.

She turned toward us, her expression now so very calm and confident that it gave strengh to me that I did not know I had. Her expression became stern as she looked at the Gryphon ambessadors within the room and spoke.

"Tell your precious emporer that his plan has failed, I have not only surrived and endured, but I know now what he has planned, and have the power to stop it."

With a smirk the moon princess turned toward the door and in a flash it exploded outward, shards of wood spraying forth into the hallway and drawing surprised and pained screetches from the Gryphons beyond. A wave of crossbow bolts were shot into our room but they all struck an invisble barrier and crumbled against it.

Luna stepped out into the hallway, the smoke and dust from the burst door covering her but completely and even as I tried to rush up beside her I could heare her yell with such vicous anger that it paralized me.

"You treacherous beasts have suceeded in but one thing, you have brought your very own nightmare to life! This war will not end till every Gryphon has paid his due for the crimes commited here today!"

Loud angry screetches werer the reply given to our queen's words, but then a magical wave threw me to the floor and the screetches fell silent, a bright light flashed before my eyes and the whole world seemed to shift, a loud cracking sound coming from below, and then things became quiet.

Much quieter then they would have any right to be, instead of sounds of battle there simply were soft sounds of... forest. The rustling of leaves penetrating the otherwise eerie silence.

I picked myself up from the stone floor and, my limbs acheing with exaustion and injuries, and looked around the room. It was still the same stone room, but somehow ever so slightly different. The floor was slightly slanted, as if build uneevenly, it had not been before. The almost perfect silence was interupted by the sound of something falling to the floor, but not stone, grass, leaves being crushed and twigs pushed aside.

The sound had come from behind and I turned around to investigate this curiousity. Before me was Luna, laying just outside the room, where she had been mere moments ago, and yet not. Instead of a stone hallway filled with Gryphons and wood splinters there was a lush forest. The green and browns of the plants and trees being in stark contrast to the grey stone structures I had seen the last couple days.

We were very clearly no longer in the castle of the Gryphon Emporer. Luna must have telported us, somewhere, us and the whole room. I had never heard of a unicorn with such power, teleportation was considered experimental magic at best, suicide at worst, but maybe alicorns knew things they never told us.

I trotted over to my exausted looking ruler and bowed to her, pressing my muzzle into the dirt before her and spoke in a quiet but determined voice.

"Thankyou for saving us my queen, you have my loyalty and love. I will serve you into death."

Luna's eyes shot wide open and stare right into mine, startling me and causing me to stumble backwards, both from emberrasment and becuase her eyes looked so not like hers. But then she smiled and after I recovered myself her eyes looked normal once more.

"Thankyou, Captain Nightlight" As she spoke she rose from the grass, seemingly having overcome whatever exaustion had drained her only moments ago. "You have proven passion and strengh, and with so many of our most loyal subjects killed I will need to call onto new ponies to replace them. You will be the first commander of my royal guard, the night guard."

Author's Note:

For the Zero people that read this, we are almost at the end, the pieces are falling in place... and this project ended up being much more then I had first set out to do.