Cyclosa

by NorrisThePony

The Damask Rose

i

Slowly, my consciousness returned and my senses crept their way from beyond the darkness as I lay on the surface of some hard, uncomfortable floor. I smelt diesel and rotting wood, and besides the steady drone of airship engines I could also hear a repeated slam of something soft against what sounded like a wooden wall.

My eyes fluttered open, but there wasn’t a lot of light to greet them as I groggily rose to my feet. As I did I heard a sudden surprised gasp, and before my vision fully returned I was tackled off my feet as panic swiftly replaced my confusion, if not for a brief moment, before a familiar voice rung out.

“Tia! You’re awake!” Luna cried, hugging me again tightly.

I hugged her back and once again rose to my feet, taking in my surroundings and being far from pleased by what I saw. It was a tiny room built from flimsy looking wood, with piping and cables snaking every which way across the floor, ceiling, and walls. Every once in awhile, they’d spit out quick gusts of steam, and I could see that Luna was already covered in several burn marks from accidentally touching the maze of machinery we were caged within. Suddenly I realized, this was the lower deck of the Damask Rose.

“Are you alright, Luna?” I said, putting my hooves on her shoulders and staring straight into her eyes.

“Yeah. I...I think we’re flying. I tried to find a way out, but…”

I nodded as she trailed off. I could feel the distinct difference in air pressure, one which clearly told me that we were indeed soaring far above the earth.

“What happened to us?”

“They tricked us. The soup, it must have been drugged.”

“What are they going to do with us?” Luna asked, terror in her voice.

“Sell us, I imagine. To slavery if we're lucky, to Discord if we aren't." I still had my heavy jacket on, it was entirely possible they did not even know how valuable we truly were. "There’s a high price on the heads of alicorns, especially the last two left.”

“We’ve gotta escape!” Luna cried, stomping a hoof against the wooden floor.

“I know.”

Wasting no time, I started searching every corner of the room, looking for loose boards, bendable pipes, or anything that could help us out of the flying prison slowly but surely approaching Central Erisia. From the outside, the airship had looked pathetic and unfit for flight, but now it was quickly becoming clear to me that she was a sturdier ship than I’d given her credit for.

Seeing me thoroughly examining every nook and cranny of the tiny room in the belly of the ship, Luna instantly mimicked my actions.

“Here!” she said excitedly, and I heard the sound of bending wood. Ecstatically I leaped over the wires and pipes on the floor until I was next to her and helping her rip a small board of around three inches in width from the wall.

It bent inwards, cracked near the bottom, and I proceeded to push it straight out. It tumbled down and down, me and Luna both watching with our faces pressed against the small gap we had just made as it dropped beneath the clouds and out of sight.

Occasionally I saw a patch of desert poke from beyond the cover of clouds, at least 5,000 feet below. My heart sank as new-found panic fluttered down my spine. I might be able to glide the necessary height to safety, but Luna...

Sooner or later, one of the earth ponies would come back to check on us, and if they found out we were trying to escape then they would surely kill us. I might have currently been conscious, but the poisoned soup they’d given us still made me feel only a little stronger than a filly.

Luna was still clawing hopelessly at the other, sturdier boards directly beside where the other one had been, trying and failing to find another weak one right beside it. We could’ve shrunk by at least half of our current size and still been too small to fit through the tiny gap we’d just made, but nevertheless it was certainly large enough to show that we’d been trying to find some way out.

“Why are they doing this to us?” Luna said softly, sounding more sad than scared as she gave up and slunk to the floor with her back against the wall. “What did we ever do to them?”

“Nothing, Luna. To them, we’re wealth. The reward they can receive for turning us in is enough to take this piece of junk and fly clear out of Erisia entirely. We’re nothing but currency.”

“But we’ll be killed! Don’t...don’t they know that?!”

“Yeah, they do. And they don’t care. Ponies are trash, Luna, and they’ll leave us to the wolves at any opportunity they get, so long as it helps their worthless hides.”

The sound of hooves beating against the outside metal gangway of the airship grasped my attention, and gingerly I leaped to my feet and followed the sound until I was facing the sturdy locked metal door.

“Are you two alicorns alright in there?” The almost sympathetic sounding voice of the mare rung out. A latch on the metal door opened and I met her sad eyes with a bloodshot stare. “I...I brought some food…”

“Yeah, more poison to keep us quiet for the rest of the ride into Erisia, no doubt,” I snapped accusingly, wrapping Luna with my wing and snarling at her, “I hope this bucket of nails you call an airship crashes and burns.”

“We’re both very sorry,” she offered, and I believed her. “Ponies need to do what must be done to survive.”

“Yes,” I hissed, casting a weary glance back at the hole me and Luna had made and praying she didn’t see from the small window she was peering through. “No arguments from me on that.”

"You're worth a great amount, Celestia," I grimaced at the use of my name. I didn't like the sound of it escaping the lips of a mare I hated so dearly. She did not say it with malicious intent, but it struck me as a ferocious insult all the same. The way she was speaking to me as if I were a...product, instead of a pony, made me sick, even if I had grown used to it over the course of my whole life.

"What about my sister, huh? Is she worth anything to you?" I asked acidly. "Cause she's worth a whole lot to me..."

I muttered the words through the small opening in the metal door only at a little more than a whisper, but still with enough power to cause her to back off a little in response. It would have been easier if the Rose couple had been emotionless monsters. Truly they were still the latter, but I knew she felt sorrow and guilt towards her actions, and as such it made it harder to hate them completely.

“Please eat something," she said, choosing not to answer my question, not that she could have anyways. "I promise you it isn’t poisoned…”

“I don’t care,” I said, and spat at her through the window, causing her eyes to grow wide with surprise and her lip to quiver as if she were about to cry. She wiped her face clean with a hoof without saying a word. I imagine her sorrow was not because of me, but rather because of Luna, whose wide, desperate eyes were pure and innocent.

“Go to hell, both of you,” I sneered, turning away.

No longer sad and now probably as frustrated as I was, she huffed and slammed the window shut. I heard her hoofsteps echo across the airship gangplank and the distant slam of a hatch which probably lead to the airship’s bridge.

“Celestia...I am hungry…”

“I am too, Luna.”

“She said it wasn’t poisoned…”

“Luna, stop being a fool! Do you seriously think she would tell us the truth?”

Like with the mare, Luna’s lip started to quiver and her eyes water. But, unlike the mare, I actually cared about whether or not my sister was insulted and I laid a hoof on her shoulder. She pushed it off and looked away, purposefully dodging my eyes.

“You don’t trust anyone, Celestia,” she sniffled. “Y’know, not every pony is evil.”

“What indication could you possibly have to think that?” I said gently, once again trying and failing to meet her gaze. “The world is a sick, cruel place, and we're the only ponies who truly care about each other. Look where we are, Luna. What good have you seen since we left Cyclosa?”

“They’re scared!” she protested. I thought of our parents, of their fear, and how sending me away was supposed to help Luna but ultimately would have gotten her killed.

“I don’t care if they’re scared, Luna! If we stop to care about every pony who treats us like dirt then we won’t last a day!” I signaled wildly around at the prison of cables taking us to our deaths. “Case and point!”

Luna looked like she was about to protest again but before she could, she collapsed to the ground, cradling her forehead with a hoof. Her breathing increased in intensity, its sudden rapid tempo one of terror and pain. I was beside her in a moment, but she pushed me aside and continued panting and gripping her stubby horn pulsating with faint light.

“I don’t want to be an alicorn,” she murmured through quick gasps of air. “I wanna go home.”

“Me too,” I said.

ii

Slowly the sun slunk out of sight beyond the thin layer of clouds peeking through the crack in the wall. We flew on through the crepuscular desert sky, the insistent wailing of the ship’s engines never ceasing even for a moment. Once more the mare came, this time with the stallion. They'd simply wanted to talk in an attempt to ease our terrified thoughts, or perhaps salvage any sense of morality that they themselves knew they no longer had. As before, I cursed and insulted both of them until they once again left me and Luna to our own tense silence.

I wanted to have something to say to Luna, some sort of words of apology or assurance, but I couldn’t seem to find lies rich enough to fool even a young filly’s disheartened mind.

Through our crack in the wall I watched the distant desert slowly turn to grass while the sky first exploded in red, before fading to black. I listened to Luna’s snoring and the whistling of the air, the drone of the engines and the growl of our stomachs begging for the food I had refused to accept.

The little sliver of moonlight that was allowed to enter the room through the crack was not nearly enough to keep the room illuminated, so I flooded the room in light magic of my own. Over the hours I'd had nothing to do but perfect it, and in it's steady yellow glow I could see Luna’s wide eyes, watching me intently and with hopeful curiosity, wondering what plan I was silently birthing in the static darkness.

I took a deep breath, and without saying a word rested my head on the cold floor. I didn't feel like sleeping, but certainly I didn't feel like looking at the featureless blackness, either.

“Tia?” my sister’s nervous voice inquired. “Are you alright?”

I didn't answer her. She sighed and I heard the sound of her hooves as she walked over to the hole we'd made and looked outside.

When Mrs. Rose finally returned, hours later, I didn't immediately push her away. Instead, I decided for Luna's sake I would get some answers.

"Where are you taking us?" I asked her calmly. It took the best of my ability to keep the anger I felt buried below the surface, but for the purpose of productivity I managed to do so. "Stormsborough?"

"We're stopping at a little trading cluster to refuel first, but...yes. I'm very s—"

"I know," I interrupted. I looked behind me at Luna, she was still looking outside, but I could tell she was listening to our conversation. While my pride was nearly enough to make me refuse to do so, I decided there was still one thing I had not tried and I'd be a fool to not at least give it a shot.

"Please don't do this," I whispered. "Whatever you've been told about alicorns...Luna and I aren't like them. We don't want to hurt anypony, we just want to leave Erisia where we won't be killed just for what we are. Please..."

"I'm sor—"

"If your response is sorry, I don't want to hear it at all." I snapped, my calm disposition gone in a moment, "I'll just go and tell my little sister that we're both going to be executed in a few hours, but oh, it's alright, because you two are sorry! You're worse than Discord or the guards, because you know that what you're doing is murder and you're still doing it!"

"Is your sister an alicorn too?" she questioned. I folded an ear and perked up a little, first in confusion, and then in hopeful optimism. They didn't know about Luna's horn...how could they? It hadn't grown in nearly enough to be noticeable. Perhaps there still was a glimmer of hope after all.

"No, she isn't," I lied. "Take off her hood and look for yourself. I told her not to, but she ran away with me."

In my peripheral I could see that Luna was now looking at us both completely. I doubt she did not know what I was planning, and the horror it entailed was creeping into the recesses of her mind already.

"I'm one story," I said. "There's a bounty on me, so...fine. I understand, even if I don't agree. But please, don't let Luna die because I'm a terrible sister."

"No!" Luna screamed, running up to me. "Celly, what are you doing?"

"Trust me, sis. This is better."

"No! I don't want to leave you! You'll die!"

"But you won't," I nuzzled her. "There's no reason we both have to."

"I...I'll let you out, Luna dear," Mrs. Rose said, sounding quite unsure with her own actions. "Your sister is right. Nopony gains anything if you have to die, too. We're landing at a trading cluster in a few hours. I can let you off there."

"I'm not leaving Celestia," Luna shook her head, backing as far from the door as she could while still remaining under my outstretched wing. She was pulling on my feathers while doing so, and while it hurt I stood resolute all the same. "You can't make me!"

"No," I shook me head slowly, lifting my wing just a bit to expose the hiding filly beneath. "I can't. It's entirely your choice, but I promised I would keep you safe. Please let me keep that promise..."

I turned my attention to the mare on the other side of the door.

"And if you lay a hoof on my sister..." I threatened, although even I knew it was an empty threat I could never carry out.

"I promise we won't." she said, and once again I believed her. "Sweetie, are you coming?"

"Luna, everything's going to be okay," I lifted my wing off her back and used it to give her a gentle push. "Go ahead."

"No.” she said firmly, her eyes starting to water. “I'm not.”

I nodded slowly, shooting a quick glance at the mare on the other side of the door that wordlessly told her all she needed to know. Luna had started sobbing, so I returned my wing atop her back and sat down with her on the hard metal floor. She was shivering a little as she cried even despite the maddening heat of the steam spitting out around us, but she seemed to relax a little in my embrace.

"Together," she managed through her sobs. Perhaps it had been part of a sentence, but the rest of it was unintelligible.

Rose was looking at us sorrowfully from the entrance, but at that one hopelessly spoken word she must have decided she could not bear witness to the crimes she had committed any longer. I listened to her hooves beat against the metal gangplank, the hatch door open and slam, and then silence save for Luna's continued sobbing.

“It's gonna be okay, Luna,” I whispered. “I'm proud of you.”

“Proud?” she asked. The question came out as a croak, distorted by her tears still flowing freely.

“Yeah. Proud. You're a brave filly,” I told her.

"I'm crying!" she protested, and coupled it with an uneasy laugh that somehow managed to lessen the intensity of her sobs. "That's not brave!"

"You're twelve, Luna," I smiled at her, and the sight seemed to lay waste to the residual remains of her sorrow. "Give yourself a bit of leeway. I'm...sorry I put you in that position. I'm proud of the choice you made."

"I'm scared, though. I don't wanna go to Stormsborough!"

"Me neither. That's why when we land at the trading cluster, we're going to make a run for it."

"...A run for it?" she was bewildered, her gaze eventually shifting to the hole in the wall that we had made. "But how? We're still stuck in here!"

"I'll think of something," I rose and folded my wings again. It occurred to me that I perhaps could have exploited Mrs. Roses' offer to let Luna go free, and have her double back and unlock the metal door when we had landed. It was a plan I had foolishly overlooked, instead believing that forcing our way out through brute strength, perhaps using a blunt object to pry loose the boards.

With that opportunity gone, I decided the latter was still a viable solution. We were surrounded by heavy piping I could use to this effect, and all that remained was to wait for an chance to do so without attracting attention.

I reached into the pockets of my heavy jacket to draw out the tattered parchment of our map, and quickly found that my pockets had been emptied. "Damn it. They took our map and our bits. Honestly, they're taking our lives, they need to take our possessions, too?"

Luna was silent. I remembered her happy smile when we had first entered the airship, back when we had assumed the water and soup that was being offered to us was a show of kindness, and not something quite the opposite. She didn't seem to regret her optimistic view, but she seemed greatly disappointed it had proven to be wrong. I decided that the further I insulted the Roses, the more distressed she would feel in turn, and so I said nothing further.

I wandered back to the hole. We seemed to be descending, which meant we would soon be arriving at the trading cluster. I could not remember if it had been on the map or not, but regardless I had no idea what to expect of it when we arrived. I did, however, carry with me a greater sense of suspicion and a determination not to repeat the mistake of trust. By time we landed, I imagined the tale of Celestia the Alicorn would be common knowledge across most of Erisia, especially after we had been spotted a second time in Pillory. It was mirthlessly humorous how infamous I had become relative to how little I had actually done. In the eyes of the powers that were, Luna and I were the two most fearsome things alive.

And yet one of us was presently wiping her running nose with a hoof while the other was looking sadly at the dancing clouds through a hole in an airship's wooden wall. It was amazing what the collective hivemind of paranoia had twisted Erisia into.

A faint rustling signaled Luna's presence beside me. She was trying her best to look optimistic, and it was enough to make me smile, too.

"It's...kinda pretty," Luna said, unprompted. "The night, I mean. From this high up. You can actually see the moon and stars at the same time."

"It is pretty," I agreed, for the first time noticing their presence in the dark above.

"Celestia...do you ever feel like—" she suddenly trailed off, blushing in embarrassment. "Ah, nevermind. It's stupid."

"I doubt it. Go ahead. Tell me."

"Do you ever feel like the sun and moon are...connected to you? In a way?"

"Well, I doubt being named Luna would harm that thought," I began, turning my gaze to the silver sphere in question, hovering motionless just in view through the small opening. "But, no, honestly I never thought of it."

And truthfully, I hadn't. As I said before, I'd seen my life working in the scrapyards as relatively complete. My own name, as prophetic as Luna's, mattered as little to me as the present state of Cyclosa or the fates of the Roses after we escaped. Erisia had twisted me into being overtly apathetic about practically everything, and my identity was no exception.

"Yeah...sorry, I was just...I dunno, the dream we both had in Pillory kinda made me feel that way."

I didn't answer her. I never did like the idea of destiny, and I felt perfectly content thinking that our fates lay at some point much further than the borders of Erisia, and certainly not within it. This was a time long before anypony bore cutiemarks, because without a purpose or talent the very notion of a mark expressing such seemed absurd. It happened in some of Luna's fairytales, but it was hardly the only strange thing that those books had contained.

From one of the pipes burst a sudden hissing sound louder than any of the others. I craned my neck in an attempt to see upwards through the hole we had made, and from the curved fabric envelope I could see what looked like white smoke venting into the cool night air. It took me several moments to realize what I was seeing, but the approaching ground beneath us confirmed my belief as correct. The ship was venting gas, which meant it was descending. Behind us I could see that tail-fins of the airship—oddly small proportional to the boxy nature of the ship—with their elevators angled as far up as they could have allowed.

"Whatcha' looking at, Celly?" Luna asked, following my attentive gaze and quick movements.

"We're loosing altitude. We're almost at the trading cluster."

"Wasn't that part of your plan?"

"It...was." I confirmed with a nod, but internally I was already beginning to have my doubts. They were stopping to refuel, but if there were any guards in the trading cluster, and if they had any sense whatsoever, then they would ask to inspect the Damask Rose. And it wasn't as though the Roses would refuse, it would simply mean they would be receiving a little less bounty payment from Discord and would be saved the flight to Stormsborough. I suspected the bounty on us—alive and healthy, and with our wings and horns intact—would be substantial enough that any significant degradation of it would still be a massive amount of bits. Which meant that if the trading cluster were indeed populated by guards, then it would most likely be our final stop. I was quite certain that there would be no flimsy wooden walls in the Erisian Scoutships for us to exploit in order to escape.

"We need to escape now." I said simply, turning from the wall and taking a deep breath. Luna's face spoke unexpressed questions, which went unanswered as I pointed my glowing horn straight down until it was rubbing against the hot surface of a sturdy looking pipe snaking across the ground. Immediately I felt it start biting in pain, but instead of drawing it away from the heat I fed magic into the horn with one and only one goal in mind. The magic culminated into a quick, silent burst, and directly after I fell to the ground. My horn sputtered a little and died, as the room once again entered into darkness.

Groggily I stumbled back to my feet and groped around in the dark, finally once again finding the piping I had just finished assaulting with magic. Now, there was a deep gap in the pipe and it was gushing out steam rapidly, but regardless of the boiling heat I reached a hoof into the midst of it, grasped the pipe firmly, and started forcing it upwards. Groaning with intense concentration, I forced it higher and higher until it was almost facing the ceiling, and let go. By then my horn had regained enough magic for the previous quick laser spell to be repeated, so I pointed my horn at the bottom and recast it. This time, it wasn't a magic surge that led to my ability. I believe it was simply a matter of determination and pent up ability I'd always possessed but had never had the use of.

A dull clanging sound, followed by Luna’s cry of surprise, were instantly drowned out by the sudden hissing of gas now escaping an enormous hole in the conduit. Luna let out another cry of pain as she was burned by the venting vapour, so I wrapped her in my wing as best as I could and stumbled my way to the sliver of light on the wall, the outside world that I was so close to flying out into.

I jammed the long portion of piping through the gap and started prying with as much force as possible, and before long more and more wood broke free. Occasionally, I removed it from its prying position and instead smashed it like a spear into the flimsy wood, causing the whole ship to shake and the couple who had imprisoned us to undoubtedly realize that something was amiss.

Luna heard their urgent hoofbeats on the gangplank before I did, and tugged on my feathers to get my attention.

“They’re coming, Tia! Hurry!”

I could hear the jingling of keys and their galloping hoofbeats, and within seconds they were at the door. The keys entered the lock, and I once more slammed the metal bar into the now sizable hole I had made.

It was small enough for Luna to fit through.

Regardless of how much bigger I made it, I had at least managed to save my sister. I had won.

“Luna!” I removed my wing and pointed through the hole. “Glide!”

“I...I can’t, Tia! I don’t know how to use my wings!”

“Luna, it’s fine!" I said, despite having no idea what I was talking about any more than Luna did. "Trust me! It’s as easy as walking!”

I almost screamed in fear as the door burst open and the two ponies stormed into the room, flooding the darkness with torchlight.

“I’m sorry about this,” I said quickly, before pushing Luna behind me, through the hole and into the night.

I slammed the wall once with the piping, heard a bit more wood crack, but before I could hit it again the stallion had lunged forwards. I swung the bar at him instead, missing his skull but striking his side and sending him flying with enough force to hit the wall on the other side. His mate shirked back in fright as I threateningly brandished the heavy length of piping. The stallion didn’t seem to be getting up anytime soon, so I instead struck the wall one last time and heard the wood scream and shatter, as well as a more intense increase in hissing steam and other vapour as more piping came loose at its loss.

Without looking I whipped around and dove through the hole, unfurling my wings and soaring into the night with a shout of victory and glee. For the first time in my life, I was gliding, and it was every bit as easy as the birds had made it look.

My joy, however, was quite short-lived, for the moment my watering eyes adapted to the rushing of air as I glided, I caught a glimpse of a dark mass of blue fur in free-fall several hundred feet below me, her wings hopelessly pressed to her sides.

“Luna!” I screamed, but the words were lost to the wind. I pitched into a dive and flapped to gain speed in order to catch up with her. I don't know if the wild movements of my wings did much more than make me look like a fool, but after a few seconds I was looking upwards into her wide and terrified eyes.

“Open your wings, Luna!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. Over her shoulder I could see the airship starting to make a gradual spin, as its controls were left unattended to. Without attention it would come crashing down towards the earth, but I didn’t really care if it did and the ponies inside went down with it.

“Luna! Please!” I repeated. “I know you can do it!”

“I’m not strong enough, Tia! I tried! I’m too weak!”

“You’re not too weak! You need to do this! Please, for me, try again!”

The ground was quickly catching up to us. If we didn’t resume some sort of glide then it would be too late. We’d since passed the thin layer of clouds, so that only the grassy fields and occasional sand dunes lay a thousand feet below.

With evident effort, Luna opened her wings against the insistent beating of the wind, whilst simultaneously angling her nose towards the ground at the perfect degree by which she could glide safely. I opened my wings in synchronization with her, mouthing words of encouragement that only I would know I had spoken. The frequency of the wind changed, its intensity dimmed, until I could hear Luna’s frantic breathing and the airship engines above. From the pitch of them, it sounded as though the ship was banking and slowing.

Neither me nor Luna landed onto the dusty desert ground with any measure of grace. If our panicked gliding could be called sloppy, then our crash landing was something else entirely. For several seconds we both lay dazed in the dirt, coughing and panting and doing our best to recover our wits enough to stand again.

“That was...awesome!” Luna’s smile shocked me perhaps more than the impact of our landing had.

“You were awesome,” I said. “Certainly one quick way of learning to fly, isn’t it?”

“I think we both have to work on our landings though,” she said sheepishly. I followed her gaze in the direction of the two long trails in the dirt where we had both came to our sliding stops, and then upwards into the sky where we had come from.

I could still see the airship hanging far above us, the balloon and the shoddy two deck basket both swinging precariously as it rapidly changed direction and altitude. It had already passed the thin and wispy layer of clouds, and I could see the traces of venting hydrogen gas ascending into the still dark morning air.

It was growing in size, unmistakably descending in pursuit of its precious alicorn passengers.

“Tia…” Luna’s voice was a shaky whisper.

“I see them,” I replied. I hadn’t seen any gun mounts or rocket batteries, nor had I any reason to suspect that such a ship built from scrap would have any, but these two earth ponies had proven to be full of surprises and I wasn’t going to be caught off guard again.

Looking around frantically, I felt my heart plummet into my chest with panic as my surroundings sunk in. In every direction stretched sand or grass, nary a tree in sight for miles no matter which way we ran.

"What do we do?" I said out loud. Luna had no response, but her presence beside me was comforting nonetheless. Before us the airship continued descending, but I slowly realized I had given too much credit towards the controlled nature of it's decreasing altitude. It was not being guided down normally, it looked more like it was desperately trying to come to a controlled descent but failing miserably.

I don't truly know what was happening within the Damask Rose as it fell down and down, it's collision course with the ground clear and unavoidable. I suppose Mr. Rose was the only one who actually had the knowledge necessary to fly it, and with him unconscious there was little his wife could do. Then again, I had my doubts she had traveled with him for such a large portion of her life and not gained any bit of knowledge in the field.

It was also possible that the piping I had broken in order to escape was not by any means worthless. Indeed, it seemed as though I had caused more damage to the ship then I'd intended, damage made worse as I repeatedly smashed the side of the ship and nearly shook the flimsily screws clear out of the rotten wood.

Regardless of the reason, and even at the visible effort her pilots were making to prevent it, the ship struck the earth with no measure of grace. The propellers ground into the earth and struck stray bits of metal, sending sparks which eventually set fire to the gas within. In the blink of an eye, the gondola and balloon were lost to the ensuing inferno.

It had fallen about fifty feet before us. Far enough that we were safe from the flames, but still close enough that we could feel their heat upon us.

Luna's eyes were wide with horror the like I'd never seen from her before.

"Celestia, we've gotta do something!"

"Do something?" I snarled. "This is what they deserve. Come on, let's go."

"Deserve?" Luna exclaimed. "They're dead, Celestia! How can you say that they deserved to die?!"

I stopped in my tracks. I...hadn't meant it like that...had I?

"There's nothing we can do," I said instead. "We need to keep moving."

Luna did not speak further as she begrudgingly walked next to me, dragging her hooves. I could tell from her grimace and her silence that I had greatly shaken her perception of me with the words I'd spoken. For a long time her image of me had been that of a saint. Now, in this moment, she was sickened by the mare I actually was, and there wasn't a damn thing I could do to make her see otherwise.

Some thought or realization struck her, and she abruptly halted her walk, and instead sat down on the cold earth, looking away from me and instead at the burning wreck of the Damask Rose. I had no motivation to walk on either.

We sat with our backs to each other, not speaking. I slept, awoke, and Luna was still staring at the flames that had begun to die down.

"You okay?" I asked, still not looking at her, instead looking at the empty grasslands before us. Luna did not answer me.

"Look, I'm sorry, Luna."

"Sorry? To who?"

"To you. I haven't been a good sister lately."

"No. You haven't been a good pony lately."

"Well, what's a good pony?" I questioned.

"I dunno." I didn't see her shrug, but I heard the fabric of her cloak shift as she did. "A pony who cares about others. A pony who forgives. A pony whose nice and kind and loyal and honest and—"

"How many of those ponies have you seen, Luna?"

Silence.

"They exist, Celestia."

"No they don't. When you're as old as me, you'll know that."

"You're wrong."

Luna's denial came without evidence or confirmation, but it was firm enough to drive me into bitter silence as I once more rose to my hooves and led the way towards the trading cluster.

Author's Note:

Fan-art, courtesy of 96paperkuts

Comments

[Charedfirescale]

You know, this is a rather in-depth look into how things could have been. Although the whole spontaneous alicorn transformation that started this journey complexes me.

[NorrisThePony]

6539601 Well, I'm glad you like my interpretation!

I have no intention of leaving the specifics of their ascension completely ambiguous, but keep in mind Celestia at this point in the narrative has no intention of seeking answers. And until she starts caring about anypony other than Luna then that will remain unchanged.

[Satakieli]

Celestia seems so bitter... kind of makes me feel sorry for her. I'm really interested in seeing how you will develop the transition to the noble character of today. (I suppose she will take some valuable lessons from her own pain...) And of course, considering Luna's (still) relative innocence, her own inevitable cynism catalyst later on becomes all the more tragic.

Other than that, I love the world you've built. I think "steampunk" really is a fitting term - but it is subdued just enough that the Equestria I recognize is still there, yet with a slightly different feel. Very nice!

[Backlash91]

So...I feel kinda bad, cause while just randomly checking up on this story, I noticed it had a new chapter.

I was totally unaware that there was a new update!

The new chapter was really cool, gave a negative backdrop to celestia and luna's relationship, and also showed that not all ponies could be bad, if fear didn't control their hearts.

REALLY SAD TO SEE THIS ON HIATUS, AND I WANT MORE.