The Tower of Eternal Night
The Tower of Eternal Night
A Somepony who loves you Story
Canterlot was still burning.
To the untrained observer, this wouldn’t have made a great deal of sense. The city was made almost entirely of stone, glass, and precious metals, crafted from the innards of the mountain where it was situated. Unlike the thatched and mortared towns that surrounded it, there shouldn’t have been enough flammable material to sustain a blaze of this size for so long. But if there was one thing Canterlot had no shortage of, it was talented unicorns, and for them, in a sufficiently panicked state almost anything was combustible.
Acrid orange smoke drifted up the sides of the Lunar Tower. Some even made it to the very top, curling around the edges of the balcony where Princess Luna stood. The smell sickened her. It reminded her of the conflagration that had destroyed her old home, in what was now the Everfree Forest. The fires had begun to spread only seconds into her duel with Celestia, taking it out literally beneath her hooves. Her ‘beloved’ ponies had allowed it to happen, fleeing and spreading the flames rather than making any effort to save their capital. Now, a thousand years later, before she’d even had a chance to adjust to her new home, they were doing it again.
How like children they were.
Luna listened. Aside from the wind and the dark crackling from below, the city had fallen silent. In the beginning there had been screams, and barked orders from guards trying to organize themselves. That had been hours ago. Or maybe days, or just a few minutes. As long as it had taken for the deep red flames bathing the city to brighten to a brilliant orange. Now that the moon was once again frozen in the sky, she was completely lost. After many lifetimes of utter emptiness, Luna’s internal clock was still struggling to cope with periods of time shorter than a month, and barely two of those had gone by since her return. It was funny how many things simply... slipped away.
She was not wearing her armour. She had forged herself a new set almost as soon as she had returned to her full size, but it was now lying scattered and broken across the length of the city. It was mostly ornamental anyway. Her mane, too, lacked what little luster she’d managed to return to it, lying flat against her skull. Soon she would have to face just how tired she was, and how much the night’s battles had taken from her. But before then, there was one more thing that she had to do.
The smoke was starting to burn Luna’s throat. She backed away, keeping her eyes fixed on the city below. “Celestia,” she said, her voice echoing into the darkness behind her. “Do you know how long a thousand years is?”Behind her, the older princess said nothing. The room was so dark that she stood as though floating in a void, seemingly illuminated from within; no shadows fell across her. Her legs and neck were wrapped in inky chains that vanished inches away from her skin. Her coat itself was matted and torn, and deep red lines were scored across her sides, some still beading crimson drops. Despite this, Celestia’s face was calm. She stared towards the light, radiating patience and understanding even through her ragged breathing, and simply listened.
Luna waited several minutes for a response, although she didn’t realize it. “No,” she said at last. “You don’t.”
Blue candles flared up around the room as the lunar princess reentered her tower, though they didn’t illuminate anything besides the walls behind them. “I thought I knew,” Luna continued, drawing closer. “In the olden times, when we ruled side by side and measured our reign in centuries, I believed I understood the length of a millenium. But I did not. And that is how I know that you do not.” She began to circle her sister. Celestia watched her with her eyes, but did not otherwise move. “What you know are moments. Thousands upon thousands of moments, one after another, bound together in the chronicle of your life. You remember every step you have taken, but not the length of the path. Within the moon, there were no moments. I had no dividing lines to guide me. There was only myself, and my thoughts, and time.”
She paused. Celestia was still watching patiently, waiting for her to continue. “T’would be a lie were I to say my thoughts were only of you,” Luna admitted, looking down. “In lieu of new moments, I was made to revisit my own. I walked a great many paths that I had hoped to have forgotten. I remembered our harshest trials. I remembered our failures. Our children, Celestia, and what became of them. Do you ever think of them? I know that you see them in your dreams.” There was no response to this either, but Luna had not been expecting one. “Our stories, sister, yours and mine. In all my memories, we have been together.
“But those times are gone.” She finished her circle and stood directly in front of Celestia, staring her in the eyes. “At long last, I have something that you do not. I know the true length of a thousand years. A thousand years spent hating you.” She spat this last part, drawing close and narrowing her eyes, and there was another minutes-long pause before she finished her thought. “Is it wrong that my only wish since my return has been for you to know how that feels?”
There was a rumbling from below. Luna clicked her tongue, flexing her legs against the floorboards. She had spent long enough in this room to be able to tell when somepony was moving around on the floors below. Judging by the vibrations, there were now a lot of ponies rushing about at the tower’s base, clambering over one another as they surged up the stairs. It was nothing short of a monumental act of charity that she refrained from calling them a horde. “They have broken in,” she intoned, leaning towards Celestia for emphasis. “They know that you are here, sister. Soon, they will be upon us both. What will you say to them?”
She held her position for emphasis, this time intending a long pause but instead producing a short one, lasting only short seconds before speaking in a softer tone. “Will you say anything at all?”
This finally produced a reaction. One corner of Celestia’s mouth curled up, baring yellowed teeth, before resettling into her mask of benign radiance. Luna pounced on this. “I know that you can hear me,” she said. “I know that you have not given up. And I will not allow you to slip away from me without a fight.”
Then she spoke in a voice much younger than her uncountable years would suggest. “Celestia, you have to raise the sun.”
Below, another door of the tower crashed open. Luna winced. Six floors to go. How many doors had she remembered to lock between herself and them? One? Some? All? It scarcely mattered; the inner doors were old and weak, and would not stand long against the pounding of their hooves. “We do not have much time,” she stated. “Only you can stop this from happening. You must raise the sun.”
This earned another flicker of teeth, but nothing more.
“Sister, please,” Luna begged, her composure now well and truly beginning to crumble. “I cannot do this on my own. You have always been the stronger of us. I have barely been able to raise the moon these past weeks; I cannot move both sun and moon as you once did. Equestria needs you, and I know that there is strength in you still. I have sensed that you could break these chains if you wished. If not for me, raise your sun for everypony else.”
Celestia moved again. Her eyes still shone with kindness, but her lips jerkily peeled back, as though they were fighting against an invisible mask. Her jaw creaked fractionally open, and through her uneven breathing could be heard a faint, almost whispered, “Weh.”
Luna failed to hide a gasp. “Sister?”
“Hway,” Celestia tried again. She gulped hard, only the clenching of the muscles around her jaw showing her struggle to produce a hard consonant. She struggled to take a few deeper breaths and then wheezed out a third attempt. “Go away.”
Luna took half a step back, but moved no further. Her gaze hardened. Celestia only smiled, wearing a look of serene grace entirely incongruent with the sickliness of her words. “I will not leave my sister,” Luna said harshly. “Not until her sun has returned to its rightful place in the sky.”
Crash, crash, crash; the rumbling from those below had grown so loud that she could no longer tell which door they were throwing themselves against. The closest she could guess was that they were around halfway. A glimmer of panic lurked in the back of her mind, but Luna effortlessly squashed it. Fear was a luxury that a Princess was simply not allowed to have. “Celestia, I know that you were not yourself when you attacked me,” she said, slipping around to the larger pony’s side. “And I know that whatever evil has possessed you, you are fighting it. Whatever it takes, I will aid you.”
The cuts on Celestia’s sides were dripping again. There seemed to be no pattern to them; most were simply horizontal, but some slashed downwards, and others formed semi-circles across her barrel. A few, the small ones clustered around her shoulders and forelegs, resembled bite marks. Luna reached down to a bucket that was invisible within the blackness and retrieved the washcloth within its waters, which had long since grown cold. She ran this repeatedly along Celestia’s side, doing her best to wash away the beading drops without reopening any wounds. At least the bleeding seemed to be slowing.
“For how long have you hidden these wounds?” she asked again, marginally more hopeful of an answer now. “None of these are fresh. Have they appeared since my return? Did something befall you during my absence? Or were you hiding this pain from me even while we ruled together?” She paused long enough for another door to crash open downstairs, which snapped her back to the present as well as rattled her calmness. “Answer me!” she snapped, coming within a hair of punching Celestia’s side.
The solar princess had only turned her head enough to follow Luna with her eyes. Now she turned a little bit more. “Ate,” she croaked out.
“Eight?” Luna dropped her cloth and hurried back to Celestia’s front. “Eight what?”
“Huh... hate,” Celestia repeated. “Hate you.”
If this was meant to wound, it was only partly effective. The words provoked a grimace as they bounced against Luna’s inner fears, but they found no place to rest within them. “That is something that I know Celestia would never say,” she said. “And if frightening me is all that you hope to achieve, it means that you are growing desperate.”
She hoped that was what this meant. The sound of rushing hoofsteps was now clearly audible, echoing around the dome-shaped room. She still could hear no voices; perhaps they did not need them, not when they ran with such single-mindedness. It was likely that they had no more than a minute left, however long that was. “Fight this,” Luna begged, reaching out to stroke her sister’s ethereal mane. “You are not a beast, Celestia. You can defeat it. Come back to me.”
“H-hate you!” Celestia snapped, biting at Luna's hoof. While all the rest of her shone a quiet apology, her lips curled back into an animalistic snarl. “Hate you. Go away. Hate you. Kuh-kill you.”
The princess began to hiss between words, snapping and biting at the air in front of Luna’s face. Without meaning to, Luna found herself backing away. Her lower lip trembled; she bit it until it was still. “You do not mean that,” she mumbled.
“Kill you. Hate you.” Celestia snapped twice more, then took a deep breath. “Should have killed you when I had the chance, jealous little Nightmare M-”
A powerful slap knocked Celestia’s head to the side. She hung that way, mouth hanging open, as Luna lowered herself back to the ground. She was panting heavily; even this small action had sapped what remained of her strength. “You never gave up on me,” she said forcefully. “While others saw me as a monster, you spent a thousand years fighting for my return, and I know how long that is. It would be traitorous as a Princess and as a sister if I were to turn my back on you after merely one day.” She was only half-certain of the last part, but now was not the time for minutia.
With no time to spare, she reached forward and pulled Celestia’s head towards her until she was fully facing her again. This time, her teeth did not snap out at her reaching hoof. “I love you,” Luna said, “and I will not let you believe that I am your enemy, as I once believed you were mine. No matter how far you fall, I will not banish you from my side. You thought that I was jealous? All that I have ever wanted is to be where you are.”
On the far side of the room, a powerful body slammed against the hidden door. It was immediately followed by two others, and then an entire tide behind them, all hammering in unison. Although this final portal was barred and magically sealed, cracks of light began to spill into the room. Luna forced herself to keep her eyes focused on her sister’s. “But that does not matter,” she said. “Because it will never come to that. Because we are going to fix this, right now. You are strong, stronger than I ever could be, and you are going to fight off the evil within you. And then you and I are going to raise the sun and put the world back to the way it should be...” She pressed the tip of her horn against Celestia’s, then emphasized the final word. “Together.”
A short paused passed that, for once, felt to Luna exactly as long as it actually was. Then Celestia shifted. Her eyes had been shining and encouraging from the beginning, but her mouth was slower to join them. In quick twitches, the snarl faded, and was replaced by something warmer. Luna smiled, and her sister smiled to match her. A golden glow started to flow from her horn, and Luna joined her, sparking a blinding whiteness at their touching tips. “Celestia?” Luna asked as she felt magic start to return to her.
Celestia released a deep breath. “Luna,” she answered, finally sounding like herself again.
Then her magic stopped, her eyes closed, and she fell.
Before Luna could even react to this, a final heave knocked the far doors off of their hinges, sending them crashing to the floor in an explosion of dust. Ponies of all shapes and sizes swarmed into the room, slowing to a halt as they saw who lay within it. At their front was the captain of the Royal Guard, Shining Sparkle or some such name, who slid to a stop and observed the scene ahead with narrowed eyes: Princess Celestia lying slumped in blackened chains, with the Princess of the Night standing over her, her horn aglow. “There she is!” he roared, raising a hoof towards her for no clear reason. “Seize her!”
A slew of guards leaped forth all at once, with some civilians among them. The fastest one struck Luna in the chest and effortlessly tackled her to the ground. He froze up, seeming shocked at having actually managed to reach her, but was immediately buried by a pile of ponies who joined him, knocking the wind out of Luna before a shouted “Wait!” could pass her lips.
The captain hurried over to Celestia’s side, drawing in breath as he scanned her injuries. “Call the medics to the front!” he shouted. “And as for you, Nightmare Moon...”
Luna felt magic surround her. The pile of guards was lifted as a bubble of pink light encased her completely, floating her into the air. “You are under arrest for high treason,” the guard continued, rage gripping his words. “You are hereby stripped of your rank and title-”
“Wait,” Luna gasped weakly, to no effect.
“-and will be banished to the furthest reaches of Equestria for the rest of your immortal life!” He motioned to some ponies behind him. “Prepare the net!”
“No,” Luna said, a little louder. “Wait, you don’t underst-aauuugh!” She screeched as a bolt of light pierced her, leeching the last of her magic from her body. It hurt more than it should have; she had next to nothing left.
By this point, a pair of doctors had reached Celestia’s side. Luna’s maddened eyes followed them, watching as they searched her sister for signs of life. The smaller of the pair reached out towards her, adjusted her glasses to make sure she was seeing correctly, and then looked towards Shining. “Captain?” she said.
“What?” he barked back.
“Her injuries... they’ve healed.”
The guard looked back. For just a second, the magic coursing through Luna lessened. This was all the pause she needed. All at once, she thrashed her wings, kicked her legs, and threw herself forwards. Her lengthy horn pierced the edge of his levitation spell, and the bubble popped. In the split second that it took for him to look back towards her, panic rising in his eyes, she flapped once more and then dropped headfirst towards him, piercing his armour and spearing him through the chest.
Shining did most of the work of separating them as he lunged backwards, making gurgling noises as he fell. Luna spun away from him, charging towards her sister. The other guards leaped, but in their haste most rushed to their captain’s aid instead of tackling her again, so she was able to easily brush past any who dared to stand in her way. “Celestia!” she screamed, all traces of the plan forgotten. She raised her wings and the doctors scattered, giving her free reign to finally dissolve the chains around the older princess and catch her just before she hit the ground. “I just want to be where you are,” she sobbed, holding onto her tightly. “I just want to be where you are.”
Celestia’s eyes opened.
Some would describe what happened next as horrific. Some would go a step further and call it barbaric. A few, even in the very moment, believed it to be unimaginable. Luna felt none of this. It wasn’t a bite that tore her throat open, but a kiss, sweet as nectar and tender as a butterfly’s embrace. A flood of red lasted only a moment, just long enough to sear itself into a watcher’s mind, and then vanished. For a moment Luna simply stood, her mouth open in bliss and her sister’s teeth inside her, and for a few sweet seconds the tower was filled with silence.
Then the two princesses turned away and fell upon their subjects.
Stats
Page generated in 0.082 seconds
Total duration
1,019 users online
1,858,452 hits today, 2,054,621 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Damn dude.
What just happened....
So...Celestia was the first?
...I know that Tragedy tag kinda implies it...
But this version of Equestria is simply f
cked bloody sideways, ain't it? And with a rusty spoon that is itself sideways, at that.
Any plans on doing Discord, given the implied time-frame? It just seems as all that chaos would be a perfect little alarm-clock for him...
YES!!! IT HAS UPDATED!
*tackles the fic, hugging it to his chest*
So goood....
3726916
I can't say it any better myself.. I have no other words..
You've got a like, fave and follow from me. I'll definitely be looking for more of this in the future!
~~Sparky
*Alondro hmms.... then he raises his right index finger to the sky* Irredeemable world. Destroy. *a titanic Genkidama springs from the tip of his finger, a screaming sphere of blue-white energy twisting the space around itself as its incalculable energies remained constrained by the immeasurable power of the will of Lord Alondro, the Deus Ex Insert. Flicking his finger, Alondro sent the apocalyptic orb of destruction slamming into the hopelessly corrupted Equestria. In a flash as bright as a hypernova seen from approximately 100 AUs distant from the soon-to-be-exploding Eta Carinae hypergiant pair, the diseased Equestria was vaporized into a smear of quark-gluon plasma, its tainted matter and magic cleansed by Alondro's holy flame.*
That's how I stop zombie apocalypses! It's super-effective!
When I saw this had been updated, I pounced on it. Then I realized how paltry my hunger was, when compared to that of one of the characters in this story. Holy shit man, there's no end to the madness, is there? This is dark as all hell.
3726916 Zombies as chaos? Hardy. After all, what is a zombie?
A predictable pile of hunger.
Ponies are far more chaotic than zombies, and they were insufficient to free him for 1000 years.
3825562
...True.
That could however be it's own chapter still if you think about it.
Somebody of Discord's power-level, being only able to watch as the world and his hope of freeing himself slowly dies? And that isn't even going into how it's been more then hinted in the show that he does care about others, just in a more then a bit twisted way.
Would be tricky to write with such a fixed perspective though.
I wanted to convey how incredibly affected I was by this fic. It's a brilliant mix of a very dark subject with the lighter MLP universe. I've seen other fics that have had mixed success with this endeavor (actually-- as an example, Death Note Equestria doesn't quite work as well for me, at least in season one), but the trauma here is mixed with characters which feel true to their depictions in the show. I was horrified and disgusted and I am hoping for more, without a year-long hiatus if the fates are good!
That was a punch in the gut. Poor Luna.
Seconding the requests for a Discord chapter, BTW.
NOT LUNA!!!
Why did Celestia's wounds heal?
Wow. That was powerful. I do feel some small amount of pity for Luna, but she really was far too trusting for her own good.