• Published 19th Nov 2015
  • 321 Views, 10 Comments

Alicorn falls - Savanah



Celestia is dead, eternal winter ravages the land, but ponykind will endure.

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The moon will guide and blood will run

Luna slowly walked down the stairs wrapped in almost complete darkness. A single oil lamp showed her the path in front of her, there once had been enchanted gems along the walls, but their magic had faded long ago. Luna knew that if she let anypony know about this place they would insist to install some advanced electrical lighting system or even to produce more enchanted gems, but then this would be another place to mourn the fallen princess and not her sister.

In the end of the stairs there was a giant room, projected by Twilight Sparkle to accommodate dozens of ponies at once, but only three ponies had ever entered this room. The walls were decorated with stained glass, salvaged from the old castle, and in the center of the room there was Celestia.

Entombed in a coffin of diamond, the sun goddess seemed peaceful and serene. Luna sat in front of her, the first tears coming to her eyes. She touched the coffin, its entire surface was meticulously decorated with the story of the Equestrian Empire, all of Celestia’s victories and glories were marked deeply on the diamond.

She silently put down a small candle in front of the coffin, gently lighting it up with the flame from her lantern. The floor was covered with the melted remaining of thousands of candles.

Still in silence she approached the immaculate coffin and touched it over Celestia’s face, wishing she could touch her sister one last time. There for a split second her mind always hoped that the stone would be warm, that Celestia would rise again from it like she had done once so many millennia ago from the ice.
She shut her eyes tight, fighting against the tears.

“I miss you, sister,” Luna spoke breaking the silence in the chamber. She always felt lost for words after that, there was so much she wanted to say and still she simply couldn’t find the correct words for it. She tried many clumsy begins of a conversation without knowing how to continue, Celestia had been always the one to know the right words.

“I broke your ponies, sister,” She finally settled on those words, thinking that those were the correct one. “I made them into warriors and conquerors because we needed to survive and now I’m afraid they will never go back... Just yesterday I had to lower the draft age again… I… I don’t know what to do, sister!”

She felt lost, Celestia always made it seem so easy. She had governed for thousands of years, and guided ponykind through what would appear to be an unending golden age. Now she was gone and there was only darkness.

“They want to annex the zebra empire now,” Luna continued. “I already told them no, but the truth is that our own resources are sparse…”

Luna got up and put a hoof over the intricate detailing on the coffin, ponies had lost so much. These days there were so few artists, probably no one that could create something like the intricate sun carved on the diamond. She remembers one day, generations ago, talking with a doctor, he tried to explain the situation with a combination of the traumatic shock of the loss and some kind of syndrome caused by the underground life that was sapping the will of ponies. Ponies simply weren’t built for life underground.
At first the rickets had been bad enough, the deformity faced by some of the child of the first survivors made them believe that they had been cursed. Many families committed suicide because of it. Even after the cause of the disease had been discovered, the process to manufacture and distribute the vitamins needed to avoid it became a huge challenge and hadn’t been by Applejack and Zecora they wouldn’t have survived.

Applejack unfortunately died just a few months later, she never got to saw her farms saving the life of so many fillies. A dreadful industrial accident burnt her extensively, she still survived for a few days, but the fading magic couldn’t save her, and in the end Apple Bloom decided to simply turn off the machines that were keeping her sister alive.

“Mah sister wouldn’t like y’all spending so much to keep her dead body working!” The young mare had said so many years ago.

Thinking of Apple Bloom always made Luna sad, but also a bit envious. The young filly had gone through so much in her short life, but at least for a few years she had something that Luna hadn’t experienced truly in millennia: a sister. She had loved Celestia of course and knew that Celestia also loved her back, but being alicorns came with all kinds of responsibilities and becoming the rulers of an empire just pilled even more responsibilities over their heads.

She sighed deeply, more tears were coming to her eyes a she remembered the few moments she could steal to be with her sister: the rushed breakfasts, the tired late night snacks, the delightful dreams they would sometimes share, the short rest back to back after extenuating combat. Fleeting moments in their hectic lives.

“There was another attempt on my life a few days ago…” She fixated her eyes on the flame of the candle, time was passing fast and soon she would need to return to her duty. “You don’t need to worry tough, it was only an improvised nail bomb so I didn’t get hurt. They still haven’t discovered how that dog did it.”

Luna hated those terrorists with all her heart, she had already faced against all kinds of abomination that this dying world could throw at her without hesitation, from deformed dragons to the strange technological abominations of the zebras, but the only thing that could give her fear were these small groups of fanatical ponies that blamed her for the eternal night. How could she blame then after trying to bring this very same curse upon all of the land not only once, but twice?

She hated how they recruited amongst the young and meek with their ardent discourses and promise of a better next-life in some imaginary plane of existence at Celestia’s side.

She hated them from sending assassin after assassin after her to try their best, she knew they would fail and that was not what worried her, but how many innocents would be killed by their blind crusade.

And especially she hated how they dared to accuse her of having killed her own sister!

She took a long breath and looked up to the many vitrals that depicted their many successes of the past, trying to get some comfort on it.

So many times they had succeeded against terrible forces with their magic and friendship, but now it all seemed like so distant and impossible. She knew more than any other living pony, for a long time in the past things hadn’t been so pleasant, that this was not the first time that ponies created firearms and fought in wars. She had seem armadas of sky-ships burning over crystal fortresses, necromantic magic glittering over the skies of Unicorn cities, fleets of steam-powered dreadnoughts being sunken by tornadoes and so many others atrocities.
But they had changed it! Things weren’t supposed to be like that anymore! The two of them had changed things for better and created a better world, except for a small, almost minuscule part.

She walked besides the tomb, in the corner, also entombed in diamond, were the bullets. She leered over the small pieces of dark metal that glistened with rainbow patterns. The gun had been just some common piece of wood and metal and so Luna had burned it without a second thought, but the bullets were the real mystery… No, mystery was the wrong word, they were impossible! They shouldn’t exist anymore, she was sure of it and yet they were there, almost as if to taunt her.

The prince of the five mountains was probably the only one that could answer to the riddle of their existence, but, alas, he was dead. The guards had managed to put him in chains, but it was all for nothing, knowing what would happen he had taken a slow acting poison before his attempt and died even as Luna tried to discover where he had acquired the bullets. He died laughing, knowing that for the rest of her days Luna would never be able to discover why and how exactly her sister had died.

The candle’s flame slowly died out. Luna sighed once more; it was time to go back.

“I’ll win.” She promised to two small pieces of metal encased in diamond. “We did it once and I will do it once more.”

“Hope to see you soon, sister.” Luna smiled to the sarcophagus. “Maybe next time I’ll have better news!”

She took her lantern back and begun the long walk back trough the stairs, making a mental note that next time she should smuggle a few supplies and clean the place a bit.

She walked up through the long stairs that had been excavated during the first days with the help of magic. She slyly walked out of the secret door that and closed it behind her and walked into a small corridor that took her to what once was supposed to be the new royal castle. It had been built in a time where there was still some hope, when magic still heated the cities and illuminated the streets. These days the castle was mostly used as storage, their rooms were all too big and built in a time where heating wasn’t such a big problem.
She stashes the lantern amidst the big boxes and walks back into New Canterlot’s central spire. The big column of steel and stone was the main administrative and military center of the city, with twenty five floors dedicated to maintaining the biggest amongst the ponies’ city the place could be a labyrinth both physical and bureaucratic, but Luna had grow quite fond of its walls stained by the sweat of so many generations, the lighting system that was constantly failing, and the faulty water system that dripped everywhere. She had seen it grow from a small village hastily excavated by the first refugees to a blossoming arcane capital and then to an industrial and arcane complex like she hadn’t see even in the days of the past.

Now the place was changing once more, soldiers were hurrying around and even the civilians were carrying guns. Their industrial power was now focused on the production of weapons of war; the Horde had been amassing for new attack for the last few months. Luna walked through the halls trying her best not to disrupt the busy ponies and walked back into her room. There had been several attempts to give her a proper royal room, but she had refused intently, there was no need for such frivolous spending, besides she barely slept these days, every time she tried to close her eyes she would see her sister dying as she desperately tried to remove the bullet, sometimes the image of her sister would blur with those of so many other ponies she had seen die.
She quickly brushed her mane and just as she finished brushing her teeth there was a knock.
She opened the door, and punctual as always, there was Numeric Variable, a brown earth pony with heavy glasses, and stuffed saddle bags.

“Good morning, princess.” Numeric Variable spoke; the deep bags under her eyes spoke of another short night. “I have the reports from the attack on New Ponyville.”

The two of them walked down as Numeric recited the losses of the attack. Most notable was the damage caused to one of the factory farms that were beyond repair. Fortunately the loss of life was low for an attack of such magnitude, but Luna knew that many more ponies still would die due to the damage caused to the infrastructure.

Luna took a few ration bars and a cup of tea as they passed by the kitchen. Being an alicorn she didn’t really needed to eat, but she also knew that Numeric probably hadn’t eaten anything and so she took a small bite of each bar before offering it to the earth pony that would wolf it down without even noticing.

By the time they arrived at the command center, Numeric had eaten three bars almost entirely and Luna was lost in thoughts, trying to figure out how to deal with this new incursion of the dragons. All their Intel said that the dragons had long ago begun to dig towards the center of planet, hoping to find heat and magic amidst the oceans of lava that existed there.

Command Center was a small and cramped room, filled with ponies working quietly on their telegraph machines, keeping the four generals constantly updated not only with the movements of the Horde, but also the status of the other cities.

“Princess,” Silver Bullet, grey earth pony, greeted. She was the oldest amongst the generals and had the scars, from war and disease, to prove it. “My scouts have some disturbing reports; it seems that the horde is digging new tunnels in preparation for the attack.”

“My engineering battalions still haven’t received the fuel they need, without the drills we will be practically immobilized.” Influx, a purple unicorn, always made Luna think about the deceased princess of friendship, at least in appearance. Her personality was much more aggressive and amongst the generals she was the most adept to offensive tactics, never happy to simply sit tight and defend.

“The supplies must arrive by nightfall.” Danger Zone, a red pegasus with extensive scars and a long family line of general and war heroes. “However, if we could use some of those zebra’s eldritch bombs we could…”

“No,” Ailen interrupted her briskly. “We can’t use them for that.” Ailen, a gryphon with stunted wings, he would never be able to fly, but he is a gryphon of ambition and determination. Without the abilities that would make him a good soldier for the ponies, he learned to command and specially how to apply modern technology to the battlefield.

“Look, I don’t want to offend, but without another one of your anomalies, this entire project is just some fancy fantasy that keeps hogging our resources.” Danger Zone replied angrily, she was tired of seeing Luna spend so many resources into the gryphon’s flights of fantasy while they were trying to defend the cities.

“We must manage to defend our city without the zebra’s weapons.” Luna declared. “We will resort to them only in last stance, especially because we don’t have any pony that knows how these weapons really work and not even how to produce more of them.”

“We could have both of those,” Influx suggested. “If we annex the zebra’s empire.”

“No,” Luna spoke vigorously. “They will defend their homeland with every last filly!”

“So did the Dogs,” Silver Bullet offered. “And that didn’t stop my grandmother.”

Luna riled her teeth, the diamond dogs had been the first victims of the ponies. She still could remember their screams as the ponies had conquered their five mountains one by one with their recently forged muskets and bombs. The last mountain had been the most hardly defended, each of dog’s pups was armed with their crude fire weapons and ready to die to defend what was left of their homeland, then there was the very last sonic rainboom. Rainbow Dash in a mad charge trough the freezing surface used her signature move to crack the mountain open and expose it to the deathly cold. Luna had promised to herself that would never allow the ponies to go so far again.

“We must focus on the defense of Canterlot now,” Luna proclaimed with all her authority. “Later we will discuss the situation of our resources.”

The generals agreed and the rest of the meeting proceeded in calm as they discussed troop and resources distribution along the lines. Luna as always would stay back and keep the line, there was no point in risking herself against the Horde, even though they were sure the Horde had no weapon capable of hurting the Princess of the night, nopony wanted to think what could happen if the princess spent too much time amongst those monsters.

After the meeting she walked back to the cafeteria in dire need of another cup of tea, Numeric at her side as always.

“You need to find another anomaly.” Luna said as she took another swig of her tea.

“Princess?” Numeric asked in surprise. “I have been checking all the registered cutie marks for the past eight years and nothing has appeared.”

“Do your magic,” Luna ordered. “Find me a new anomaly.” Or ponykind will be lost, she thought.

“Yes, my princess!” Numeric Variable said, she didn’t know how she would do it, but she would never be able to say no to the princess. She still had nightmares about the night Luna had saved her.