Alicornae: The Legend of Starlit Sky

by PortalJumper

Part III - Chapter 11: Moonrise

Alicornae: The Legend of Starlit Sky

Part III - Chapter 11: Moonrise

* * *

Starlit held Sun tight as he cried, his sobs wracking her body as well as his. Chirox's freshly dead body lay a few feet from them, the smell of flesh and burnt fur lingering in the near silent hall. Her amulet still tugged at her neck like an overeager child, providing a hard reminder of their mission.

"Sun," Starlit said, using the voice she used to comfort White Eclipse, "we have to keep going. We have to finish what we came here to do."

Sun's sobbing turned to gasps and hiccups, but he had regained enough of his composure to stand back up, Starlit following along with.

"I-I did-dn't mean t-to," Sun muttered. "M-my horn, Silence did s-something and it-t just went off."

"I understand Sun, the first time is always the hardest for anything. I can help you, and I want to, but you need to help me now. We have to finish this. We have to make sure she didn't lay down her life for nothing."

Starlit led Sun towards the door, his head buried into her shoulder as the black door silently opened. The light in the chamber was intense, half deepest black and half piercing white, but the crystal stood stark against the monochrome.

Their hooves clinked and brushed against shards of the crystal as they walked, small at first and growing larger with each passing step. When the totality of the crystal was before Starlit she saw that a full quarter of it had shattered and fallen away, exposing Luna's sleeping head. Starlight Glimmer's brass machines stood out stark against the light they emitted, and a few disabled automatons lay scattered about, sparking and twitching.

The strap on Starlit's necklace snapped under the force of its own forward momentum, slapping against the remnants of the crystal with a sharp clack.

"Sun, it's time," Starlit said, holding his head in her hoof. "You can give back the magic, get Silence out of your mind."

Sun looked at Starlit, his eyes red and his cheeks stained with tears, before looking at the crystal and illuminating his horn. He looked placid as he did so, and relieved as the pure grey magic from his horn poured back into Starlit's amulet.

A deep, thundering pound blasted through the chamber as Sun stopped the flow, and the devices fell silent and the lights emanating from them faded away until the chamber was the same blue as the rest of the palace. The only point of light left was coming from the crystal tomb.

Starlit blinked, and when her eyes opened she was in a misty grey environment. She whipped around, looking in every direction for some point of reference, but there was none.

"Sun!?" Starlit called. "Where are you?!"

"He is safe," a voice stated. "He is unsound of spirit, but he is safe."

Starlit turned sharply to see Luna, all black fur and teal cat eyes, looming over her. She wasn't wearing her armor, but her stature and presence made her plenty enough menacing.

"What did you do?" Starlit asked sharply.

"An interesting question, given the events of the last five minutes; What did I do? I've done a great many things in my long life, not all of them worthy of a song or note of praise."

"Then let me be specific,"Starlit countered, in no mood for mind games. "Why am I here in this nowhere space talking to you."

"Because thou art in desperate need of clarification," Luna answered, "and I fear for the prying eyes and listening ears of ponies not so noble as thee."

"What do you mean? Sun is an upstanding stallion, and anything I need clarification on he would need as well."

"I refer not to Setting Sun, but to the she-beast he harbors. We had ponies affected by her influence in the times leading up to the war, and she can be an irksome pest to root out."

Starlit furrowed her brow, and Luna cocked her head playfully at Starlit's expression of anger.

"Thou honestly did not think that returning the magic to the amulet would free him of her presence?" Luna asked.

"Given my lack of information on the subject, why don't you tell me?" Starlit answered. She felt a few inches away from shouting down the Princess, but held her tongue.

"This parasite is inextricably tied to Sun's mind, and thus far the only power I've found for countering it is death, true death, not the farce that you and he have gone through."

"Farce? Farce?!" Starlit retorted. "I don't know if you're aware, but what you call a 'farce' is still very much a death, a mortal wounding that takes its toll on the both of us!"

"Perhaps thou hast had a foretaste of death," Luna countered, narrowing her pupils, "but thou hast yet to taste the full palate. Or, perhaps, Setting Sun has tasted true death in how he killed my loyal and traitorous servant."

"A servant that sealed you in here for crimes you committed against your own people," Starlit replied, barely holding her anger back.

"And thus we come full circle to the clarification. Please, sit, we have a long and wearisome story to discuss."

Starlit heard a small shifting of the mist on the floor and found herself seated in a plush black and blue armchair. Luna was seated in a similar chair, slightly taller to accommodate her height, and with a small table between them.

"Wouldst thou care for a beverage?" Luna offered, materializing a tea set between them. "I so rarely entertain guests, you see, and I have a delectable blend that thou simply must partake of."

"I'll pass, thank you," Starlit curtly replied, making her contempt for the situation subtly apparent.

"Suit yourself, although thou art certainly missing out," Luna answered as she lured herself a cup. She drank a slow sip from it followed by a satisfied sigh.

"What Chirox told you was…colorfully embellished," Luna said. "She certainly wasn't wrong, but the situation was a tad more nuanced than a strictly good versus evil battle royale."

"I've already heard this story twice over, so what's one more telling from the mare who orchestrated it?" Starlit replied, settling into her chair.

"There, that's the spirit!" Luna's smile was punctuated by her fanged teeth, making the effect eerie rather than disarming. She took another long drink from her cup, draining it and setting it on the tray between them.

"When Chirox said I was 'warped' by the war and my experiences in it, she was only half-correct," Luna continued. "While it is true that I had been more sheltered than the other Princesses before our time as co-regents of this land, I was well aware of warfare and the intricacies thereof. My people had a long history of conflict with those they deemed 'lesser', and we attempted to impose our will wherever we may. That was why my wretched sister, the traitor Twilight, and myself were sent to this land in the first place."

"That's not how Celestia told it," Starlit interjected. "To hear her say it, she was sent here to bring order to the land and rule it justly. She even told me that she didn't know why the others of you had been sent."

"Ah, well, my dear sister certainly had her delusions, didn't she?" Luna countered. "She was a very romantic pony, one obsessed with ideals of justice and divine right and all that tosh. Formality and honor were her bread and butter, and look at how far that got her."

"I'd say a sight further than it's gotten you. She's already returned to Canterlot, dedicated to becoming a fair ruler again. What of you? Have you thought my mission over any since yesterday?"

Luna stayed silent for a moment, contemplating Starlit with a keen eye. Her hoof tapped lightly against the arm of her chair as she sat.

"It isn't like I want to be here," Starlit continued, seizing the opportunity. "Were it my decision, I would be at home with my husband and daughter, living the life of a simple farmer. I accepted Twilight's offer because I was shown the alternative, which is death for everypony in this land."

"And pray tell, why dost thou care so much for everypony else?"

The question caught Starlit off guard, and she found herself at a loss for words for a time.

"When I went to war," Luna continued, seizing back the opportunity, "It was with the knowledge of what it entails. No sugarcoating, no delusions of honor. I simply marched my armies to Canterlot and steeled myself to do what had to be done."

"When I arrived the city was already being besieged by Chrysalis and Twilight, with Celestia holed up in our palace. Cadence's troops were not so far behind me, and my first skirmishes with her crystal knights were what I expected; long lines of combat, much screaming and gnashing of teeth, and the stench of blood. And then so much more happened."

Luna's gaze flitted to the side, and she stared away into the middle distance as she continued speaking.

"The things I saw my armies do to others, the things I did, they were what I was unprepared for. The types of things war strategists and retired generals don't tell you about. About how ponies shit themselves when they die, about how the best laid attack is one the enemy never sees coming and strikes like an arrow in the night, about the skullduggery and deceit and the horror on a stallion's face when he knows his last is upon him and he turns feral in his attempt to forestall the inevitable."

"Then perhaps you weren't as prepared for the rigors of war as you thought you would be," Starlit said.

"As I said, it wasn't the warfare that changed me, it was witnessing the wanton cruelty of ponies to their fellow ponies. I saw my citizens at their worst, and I resolved to never look back at what I'd done."

Starlit eyed over the Princess, trying to see if there was any trace of regret in her heart. If there was, she had grown quite practiced at hiding it.

"Princess, I can't say that I've ever been in war," Starlit said. "My husband guards our home and small settlement, but that is the extent of my martial knowledge. Everything I have done thus far has been predominantly through empathy and speaking to others."

"And how well has that worked?" Luna retorted. "Empathy and kindness? At the end of the day, what do you have to show?"

"It's how I convinced Celestia to go home to Canterlot. She tried to attack me, even killed me once, but at the end we spoke, just as you and I are now. Your sister was blinded by her own failings, and I have a sneaking suspicion that you are as well."

Luna's eyes lit up as Starlit spoke, intrigued with the mention of her sister despite her readily apparent animosity towards her.

"Then tell me, what state did you find Celestia in? Was she some madmare in her attic, groaning and bemoaning her fate?"

"Far from it," Starlit answered. "She was regal and serene when first we spoke, and her city was gleaming and resplendent."

"She was quite showy, whatever her other failings," Luna replied, her brow furrowing.

"She was also singularly dedicated to the idea of order in all things, even to her detriment and that of her citizens. The sun seared her lands to cast a massive illusion of Sunspire, and the ponies who weren't trapped under her hoof or generated by the illusion reviled her like no other."

"Thou speaks of this in the past tense," Luna commented. "No doubt you pierced the veil of her illusion."

"I did, and when I did I saw your sister for the mare she truly is," Starlit replied. "She was sad, scared, and desperately trying to cling to the familiar. She couldn't accept change even when it was thrust into her face, but that is where you two are different."

"Do tell," Luna said, leaning her chin lazily against a hoof. "Why don't you try to psychoanalyze a mare who could kill you with a thought if she so wished."

Starlit felt the fur on her neck stand in fear, and she swallowed a little harder than was strictly necessary.

"If you insist," Starlit replied. "I believe that you discarded the past too swiftly. You took one look at the harsh realities of war and decided to charge ahead into anger and wrath. Where others would look at a slippery slope with trepidation, you decided to grab up a sled and go down it."

"Astute observation, but flawed," Luna assessed.

"I'm not finished," Starlit added. "You discarded the past swiftly, becoming the mare who would decimate her own populace just to experience the rush of war again, but it was born of the same place as Celestia's desperate need for familiarity and order; you saw the monster you had become, and couldn't cope in a healthy way."

Luna's eyes narrowed, and she rose to her full height, dissipating her chair as well as the table and tea set. Starlit jumped up before her own chair faded away, leaving the pair standing in a misty void and Starlit desperately worried that Luna was going to kill her.

"Follow me," Luna ordered, turning on her heel and walking off into the mist. Starlit had to trot to keep up with her, but after a few yards she simply disappeared into the mist. Starlit was blinded for a while, looking desperately for any sign of Luna in the featureless grey, until she was met with a standing doorframe. The door was midnight blue and had an image of a crescent moon on it, not unlike Luna's cutie mark.

The door swung open slowly and without sound, scattering some of the mist and leading into a cozy looking bedroom. Hazarding a step, Starlit entered, and the door shut behind her.

In the center of the room a filly stood, no older than maybe four or five, while on another side Luna stood, looking down at the filly and paying no heed to Starlit. The filly was a dusty blue, much like her room, and her eyes were a wonderful teal color not unlike Luna's.

"But why does Celie get to go and not me!?" the filly protested to an older unicorn. His coat was grey and he was wearing a ridiculously over-designed cloak and pointed hat covered in bells. His most striking feature was the massive grey beard that hung nearly down to his hooves.

"Because you're not old enough, My Lady," the unicorn answered. "Celestia needs to be taught of diplomacy and leadership if she is to rule in Equestria. Your time will come, but it just can't come now."

The filly, who Starlit could surmise was a young Luna, plopped down onto the floor with impotent rage. Tears slid down her cheeks as she stared at the floor, and Starlit could feel her heart break for her.

"It's not fair!" Luna whined. "She gets to do everything because she's older!"

"Lulu, life isn't fair," the unicorn replied, sitting down on the floor in front of Luna. "But just because it isn't doesn't mean that we can sit and pout about it. You will be deemed worthy of rule one day as well, and when that day comes what kind of Princess do you want to be? The type who moans and complains whenever things don't go her way, or the type who learns to accept what she cannot change and takes control of that which she can?"

Young Luna sat and pouted a little more, before looking up at the unicorn and lighting her horn. A small spark of magic spelled out the number two.

"Good, that means you're already on your way to learning how to rule and rule well! Now come along, we don't want to be late for your lessons. We're doing transmutations today," the unicorn added with a wink.

Young Luna's eyes lit up at the unicorn's offer, and she quickly bounded off after him, a smile across her face. When the pair of them left the room they simply vanished, leaving the real Luna and Starlit alone.

"Starswirl was a good pony, and a good teacher," Luna commented. "I sobbed for days when he finally passed away, but his lessons never left me. Especially the transmutations."

Luna followed after her younger self and Starswirl, and Starlit followed suit. When she crossed the threshold of the door she found herself in a room completely incongruous with the one she'd just left, in no small part because of the fact she was outside.

All around her massive buildings of crystal rose into the air, seemingly hewn from gems and hollowed out. The ground she stood on shined like glass and reflected like a mirror, and every step she took clinked like a chime.

Luna stood off some ways, next to a floating piece of crystal that rested underneath a massive spire. Starlit followed her to it, and was met with yet another Luna. This mare's coat was a darker blue, and her mane too shimmered and floated in a manner reminiscent of the night sky. Her tiara, collar, and horseshoes were blackened, and her face was set in an expression of deepest worry.

"Go on," another alicorn that Starlit didn't recognize said, "it won't take long."

"But where is it going to send me?" the younger Luna asked. "What if I get sent to the desert like Celestia?"

"It will be fine, Luna," the alicorn replied, resting a hoof on Luna's shoulder. "Wherever the Crystal Heart sends thee, it will be where thou art needed. Celestia is already turning her lands into a fertile paradise, I'm sure thou wilt do the same."

The younger Luna looked from her companion to the floating hunk of crystal, which Starlit could now see was carved into the shape of a heart. Luna took a deep breath in and illuminated her horn. It shone a glimmering blue, reflecting off of the crystal and the ground with a brilliant iridescence.

The Crystal Heart illuminated, its light white and soft and intermingling with the reflected glow of Luna's magic in a psychedelic dance. A thin beam of the Heart's magic connected to Luna's horn, and her eyes went white with power. Her mane shook and whipped as if caught in a strong wind, and she rose into the air as the Heart did its work.

After a time, Luna descended and the magic of the Heart receded. Luna looked shaken, in the way that one might be shaken before doing something dangerous or stupid.

"What didst the Crystal Heart show thee?" the alicorn asked. She spoke softly, but her voice carried a weight of authority disproportionate to her delivery.

"I saw a mountain," Luna answered as she caught her breath. "A mountain surrounded by forests, and on the mountain there was a palace, grand and opulent."

"Odd," the alicorn replied. "There are no palaces in Equestria, much less ones built onto mountains. Only we have the capability to work such feats of architecture."

"That wasn't all," Luna continued. "I saw another mountain, but this one was surrounded by empty grasslands. I felt the presence of precious minerals and gems in the mountain and earth beneath."

"Then that is where thou shalt go. The Heart hast spoken, and we are bade to heed its missive." The alicorn walked off as Luna worked up a reply.

"Mother, wait!" Luna called out. The other alicorn stopped dead in her tracks, and made an agonizingly slow turn back to Luna.

"Dost thou question the will of our Crystal Heart?" she asked. "Art thou dissatisfied with its selection?"

"It isn't… it isn't that necessarily, it's just that… how am I to know how to rule there? Where am I to begin?"

"You are to be sent with a veritable army of advisors, engineers, and soldiers, as well as the power the Heart will lend you. What more couldst thou possibly require?"

Luna shuffled her hooves, looking like she wanted to say something but thought it would be impolite to say.

"Perhaps the Heart has more to say to me, maybe a second option?" Luna answered. "A place with more lumber to work with, perhaps."

Luna's mother narrowed her eyes in the type of expression that Starlit knew all too well, as she had used it. It was a look of disappointment so specific that only a child can really comprehend it if it comes from one of their parents.

"Then thou does question the judgement of the Heart," she replied. "I will hear no more of this, and thou shalt be sent off in a fortnight. I had planned for a ceremony, but I fear that whatever I had planned wouldn't match up to your exacting tastes. Let this teach you some humility."

The mare stalked off as Luna stood by the Heart, fuming with anger and shame before the pair of them dissipated into mist.

"I didst not know it at the time, but that palace was to be Canterlot, built into the side of Mount Equus," Present Luna said. "To say I was displeased with my chosen realm of Equestria would be a gross understatement, but I grew to love my slice of the country. The metals, minerals, and gems of the mountain brought much prosperity to New Selene, and for a time we were all happy."

Luna walked past one of the pillars that supported the Crystal Heart, vanishing before she came out on the other side and the entire world shifted. Starlit was now in a grand hallway, decorated with rich purple curtains and rugs and supported by marble columns and walls. A tinkling sound of glass drew her eye, and she saw Celestia and the same Luna she had just seen standing before a bank of windows made with colored glass.

Three of the figures in the set of five windows Starlit recognized as Celestia, Luna, and Twilight, with the fourth being a mystery and the fifth still under construction. A unicorn levitated pieces of green and black glass into the iron fixings as Celestia and Luna watched on.

"I still don't think she deserves a window," Luna groused. "She's only been here for a year."

"Sister, Chrysalis is just as much a Princess of Equestria as we are," Celestia answered, her voice far more casual than when Starlit had heard her speak in Sunspire.

"But of what? What is she a Princess of? Her swamp and her Changelings, her power over the very fabric of life? She doesn't fit in with us."

"The Changelings have proven resourceful and helpful, and her power is as necessary as our rule over the moon and sun, or Twilight's power over magic and Cadence's over love and the heart."

"I still find this all terribly coincidental," Luna retorted. "Twilight has just perfected her deathless knights and suddenly Chrysalis shows up claiming to rule over the very fabric of life and death and she doesn't have a problem with Twilight's scheme? It doesn't sit right with me."

"Even still, gossip is unbecoming of a Princess," Celestia chided. "You either bring these grievances up with Chrysalis herself or you keep them to yourself."

A door opened at the far end of the hall, and Starlit, Celestia, and Luna all turned in time to see one of the other Princesses come through. Her coat was pitch black and shone like an insect's hide, and her wings were see-through and diaphanous. Her eyes were a wicked green and, similarly to Present Luna's, slitted like a cat's while her mane was pulled back from her head and tied into an impressive series of braids that didn't fit her face at all. Before the memory could continue the world dissolved into mist, leaving Starlit and Luna alone again.

"That was Chrysalis, wasn't it?" Starlit asked. "I thought her name was more metaphorical than that."

"Chrysalis did receive some odd stares at court when we presented her to the nobility, I will say that much," Luna replied. The room twisted and shifted again, and the mist resolved into yet another scene.

Starlit was now in a dimly lit room, presumably a bunker or cellar of some sort. Luna was surrounded by a cadre of advisors and military officials, as well as a few bat-ponies, and she stood as tall as her sister above them. They all looked over a map of some description, but the labels were all written in a language Starlit couldn't read.

"Your Highness, Twilight is mobilizing her forces even as we speak!" one of the military ponies said through a bushy mustache. "If we don't get the automatons on the front lines now we're going to fighting a war on two fronts between her at our back and Chrysalis from the front."

"I understand the stakes, Morning Guard," Luna replied, her tone frantic and overwhelmed, "but the automatons are still being constructed! I should never have decommissioned my first force of them during the Unification."

"We are losing more and more ponies by the day, and that number is only going to grow if we can't field our best troops," Morning Guard said. "If you would allow the bat-ponies to leave the castle and aid us in the fight we might be able to hold Chrysalis off long enough to get the automatons rolled out."

"Absolutely not! They stay in the palace, as the last bastion to my throne and the power that building contains!"

Before Morning Guard could retort the door to the room crashed open, followed by a haggard looking soldier in dented and blood-spattered mail.

"She's here, My Lady!" he announced before flopping to the floor from exhaustion.

The bunker exploded into a flurry of activity before the world dissolved into mist and resolved into a scene of absolute terror. Starlit recognized that she was in New Selene, the city now being besieged. From one side thousands of insectoid ponies buzzed through the air while from the other blobs of arcane power flew through the sky, crashing into buildings and sending soldiers and civilians alike scrambling.

Starlit reflexively dodged out of the way as a group of soldiers ran past her, followed up closely by Luna. Her eyes were wide and darting every which way, drinking in as much of the horror as they could.

"Your Majesty, we need reinforcements!" a soldier yelled over the din. "We're being slaughtered out h—"

The soldier was cut off by a bolt of magic burning through his heart, and he fell to the ground like a sack of meat. Luna stepped back, shock and disgust in every action she took, and she took off towards her palace, fading into the distance as the world faded around Starlit, leaving her and Luna in the blank space and staring each other down.

"Why are you showing me these?" Starlit asked. "If it's to help garner sympathy for what you did, then you're barking up the wrong tree."

Luna laughed, a deep, throaty chuckle that betrayed the complete lack of caring she held for Starlit's assertion.

"I need no sympathy from thee," Luna answered. "I show you this to try and illustrate the type of mare that I was before all of this. So tell me, what dost thou make of my character?"

Starlit looked up at Luna, locking eyes with the mare who wore a amused smirk. She thought she had Starlit backed into a corner, but Starlit wasn't so easily bested.

"I see a whiny, petulant, fearful, and altogether self-centered pony," Starlit calmly explained. "I see a mare who had worlds given to her on a silver tray, and she still greedily asked for more and more without giving any consideration to the cost of her avarice."

"To be fair, I was but a child in that first memory," Luna replied, her smirk growing less smug and more awkward.

"I'm aware, and the child in that memory didn't grow up. She was coddled, protected, and sheltered from the realities of life so that when she was given rule of her own she couldn't deal with it like an adult. I see a mare who thought she owned the world, and when the time came to prove it she broke under the weight of her own ineptitude."

Luna's smile faded completely, and for the first time since they'd met she looked somewhat shocked. She looked indignant and mortified at Starlit's assertion.

There was a flash of blue, followed by pervasive darkness and the world around Starlit thumping away.

* * *

When Starlit awoke from death she was still in the misty void, and had a splitting headache to show for her arrogance. She looked around and saw Luna, sitting some distance away with her back to Starlit, except not as she was. Her coat was the same dusty blue as she had had as a child, and for all intents and purposes she looked like her age had regressed.

Carefully Starlit stood up and walked over to Luna, only to be halted by a field of pale blue magic.

"Go away!" Luna demanded, her voice whiny and shrill.

"Luna, you can't keep me out, and you can't just kill me," Starlit replied. "Equestria needs you, and you can't run away from this."

"Why not?" Luna asked.

"Because a lot of ponies will get hurt and die."

"So? Who cares about them, they were mean to me first!"

Starlit sat on the other side of the force field, contemplating her options. Luna hadn't just regressed physically, she had regressed emotionally as well, and Starlit thanked her lucky stars that she had substantial parenting experience.

"Well, why were they mean?" Starlit asked, putting on her most motherly voice. "Did you do something to them first?"

"No! They just hate me!" Luna shot back.

"Nopony just hates another pony without there being a reason," Starlit continued. "There must be a reason why they don't like you."

Luna shuffled nervously on her tiny haunches, the same sort of wiggle that White Eclipse would get whenever she had been caught up in a lie.

"They wanted my toys, and I said no," Luna admitted. There was a small flash of light and one of her automatons appeared in between them. This one looked different from the others; Its joints were more solidly mechanical, and there were less apparent wires. Most of all, its armor was a sleek midnight blue and far less ornamented than the brass ones, and it stood only at the height of a child.

"Well, why didn't you want to share?" Starlit asked. "Sharing is a good thing to do, you know."

"Because they're mine!" Luna whined. "They're my friends, and they keep me safe when the guards and Starswirl aren't there. I wouldn't share them, and then they said I couldn't have them any more and made me get rid of them."

Starlit started to connect two and two together, and she suddenly felt her heart break for Luna, both the child and the tyrant.

"You're lonely, aren't you?" Starlit asked. "Nopony else wants to play with you and share their things, so you made your own friends that wouldn't ever leave you."

Luna turned her head, letting Starlit get a good look at her eyes, wet and near the point of spilling over with tears.

"I don't know," Luna said. She sounded tiny and broken, like a bird without a song.

"Why don't you know if you're lonely?"

"Because I see ponies every day, but they don't talk to me like they do to each other. They call me Princess, bow to me, and don't say hello when I say hello to them."

"Luna, just because you're different than them doesn't mean that other ponies don't love you or want to be your friend," Starlit replied. "You just have a lot of responsibility to live up to, and other ponies see that and think they have to treat you differently."

As she listened, Luna's body shifted, growing in size and darkening in color until she was the mare that Starlit had seen in the middle two memories. She stood tall, facing Starlit and a withering stare etched on her face.

"They wanted to love me, you say?" Luna retorted. "Then why did they send me away? Why was I forced to leave the only home I had ever known to go rule in some foreign land?"

Starlit stood up, glad to actually be on eye level with Luna. It made her seem more approachable, more relatable and easier to understand.

"I don't know," Starlit answered. "That story has been lost to history, but I can at least hazard a guess."

"Then hazard away," Luna said, a weary sigh in her voice.

"I think they wanted you to find meaning in your life. They saw you cooped up and languishing in your homeland and wanted you to go out and see the world. You had already been chosen to rule in Equestria, so it gave them the perfect opportunity to facilitate your growth."

"You should know by now that my people were hardly that altruistic," Luna replied. "They sent me off because they needed a convenient pawn in the grand game of conquest they were playing."

"Perhaps you should give your people more credit," Starlit said. "There is no such thing as an absolute, and I'm certain the alicorns were no exception to this rule."

"Whatever lingering goodwill I held for my people dried up when I went off to war. Cadence had sent a token army and only participated in one battle before holing away in the Crystal Empire, and the alicorns harbored her happily despite her crimes against the land she was supposed to watch over. They loved their Empress of the Heart more as a war criminal than they ever loved me as a child or a Princess."

Luna's body shifted once again, growing to again be as tall as her sister and her armor manifesting onto her body. Her eyes weren't slitted, but they bore the weight of the mare whose eyes were all the same.

"I fought and bled for my vision of the future, for a land free from Chrysalis's poisonous influence, from Twilight and Cadence's scheming, and from my sister's naïveté. Sheltered though I may have been, I learned the hard truth of the world far sooner than they did; reliance on others is folly. The only thing you can truly trust is whatever you make for yourself."

Blood began to pour from numerous cuts and wounds that manifested on Luna's body, and a legion of her brass machines rose out of the mist behind her. Her coat blackened and her eyes went slitted while her teeth sharpened into fangs, returning Luna to the form Starlit knew best. The grim tableau was terrifying and awe-inspiring, the very vision of war's personification.

"So tell me, Starlit Sky, why should you release me from this prison? What could you possibly stand to gain from releasing a mare that would butcher her own citizens and not think twice about it? From a mare who would send her soldiers to die in a war she wanted no part of?"

Starlit stared at Luna, trying to find words that wouldn't sound trite or hackneyed. The machines stood at locked attention behind Luna, a thousand-thousand tin soldiers without an ounce of emotion amongst the lot of them.

"Because you are lonely, Luna," Starlit answered. "You try to deny it, try to push everypony away, but you crave affection, crave love. You have no faith in anypony but yourself because you were never allowed the chance to have it proven to you."

Calmly, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, Starlit stepped forward. The barrier that had been erected between the two of them dissolved as Starlit touched it with her horn, and Starlit beckoned Luna to sit down with her. Reluctantly, the Princess listened.

Starlit threw her forelegs around Luna, pulling her close into a warm embrace. Blood from Luna's manifested wounds dripped onto her head and smeared her coat, but she didn't mind.

"I love you, Luna. Not just because you're a Princess, and not because somepony told me I had to. I see so much potential in you, and I want you to be able to see that potential too. You can be so much greater than what you've been, you just needed somepony else to help you realize it."

Starlit felt Luna's form shift once more, growing smaller and smaller until she was but a child again. Her forelegs were wrapped tight against Starlit's neck, and the filly cried softly into Starlit's shoulder. Despite her efforts, Starlit wept too.

* * *

Sun sat against the wall of the chamber, mind wracked with guilt and loneliness and fear. He fought the urge to be sick every time he thought about Chirox, laying dead not fifty feet away, and he waited for Starlight Glimmer and her machines to march into the chamber and kill him. At this point, he wouldn't have resisted.

Silence, appropriately and thankfully enough, had been silent as Sun fought with his turmoil, and Starlit vanishing had very nearly broken him. He tried to open the hatches to the machines that imprisoned Rarity and Pinkie Pie, But they were sealed and locked in a way he couldn't physically best. He considered using magic to try and open them, but feared a bad reaction to the magic in the devices.

And so he sat, staring at the wall and waiting for something to happen. Even when he had been a child he had never felt so impotent, so powerless.

The flash of light from Luna's crystalline prison startled Sun out of his repose, and he backed away as the light grew brighter and brighter, shining with grey light that grew so bright it may as well have been white before shattering. The pieces hung in the air as a pair of figures stepped out of the light, walking on a floor of mist shoulder to shoulder.

The shards fell with a sound like glass rain when Starlit and, presumably, Luna walked out of the light and onto the floor, and the light retracted into a pinpoint until it faded away completely.

"Sun," Starlit said as she approached, "I would like you to meet Princess Luna."

"Sun's eyes flicked back and forth between the pair of them. Both Starlit and Luna wore smiles, the former's of reassurance and the latter's of uncertainty. Gingerly Sun approached Luna, and she made no move to indicate that she was a threat.

"Your Majesty," Sun addressed.

"Given my reputation, I don't think that formalities are necessary, but I accept them nonetheless," Luna replied, bowing her head slightly. "Now, what do we do about this?"

Luna turned and gestured to the machines and devices scattered about the room. The automatons were still twitching in the floor, but some of the light had come back into their eyes and they moved with a little more purpose.

"We need to get Rarity and Pinkie Pie to safety," Sun said. "I don't suppose you have a solution for that?"

"As the mare who perfected the art of putting magic into technology, I think I could take a shot at it," Luna answered. Her horn illuminated a bright blue, and the pair of pods flew open with a hiss of steam and a wisp of magic.

Sun ran over to the left-side pod, finding Pinkie Pie inside. She looked far more sickly than when they'd last spoken, and her normally bouncy and curly hair lay in a flat sheet against her face. Starlit helped Rarity out of her pod, and Sun was relieved to see that she was at least conscious.

"Starlit, Pinkie's out cold and she looks bad," Sun said, drawing Luna's attention. She went over to examine Pinkie Pie herself, her eyes narrowed in thought.

"I remember feeling this one's presence in my prison when that interloper activated the machines," Luna said. "There is a presence afflicting her mind, not unlike the one that afflicts you."

Before Sun could ask how she knew about Silence, Luna illuminated her horn again, letting its magic wash over Pinkie Pie. Some of the color started to come back in her coat as Luna worked her spell, and a little bit of grey magic started to drain out of her mouth.

"How did she get that? That's the type of magic in Starlit's amulet," Sun said.

"I fear that I am not the pony to talk to about this," Luna answered, still working her magic. "It is something that you would need to find Cadence for, although you would be hard pressed to get to the Crystal Empire."

"Could you take a guess?" Sun asked, more of a plea than a question.

"I could, but not here, not now," Luna answered as the last of the magic filtered out of Pinkie Pie's mouth. "Now, I must address my public. If there is one thing Starlight Glimmer is good for, it's whipping a crowd into a frenzy; I could hear their cheering from inside my prison."

Pinkie Pie's eyes fluttered open, and slowly she turned around in her pod to face Sun and Luna. Her eyes were tired and her smile was weak, but she still had the spark of cheer in her heart.

"Hey Sun," Pinkie said. "Good to see you're not dead."

"I swear I need to greet you when I'm not under imminent threat of death," Sun replied, a weary laugh leaving his lips. His heart still ached and his head was still filled with visions of what he'd done, but Pinkie's nonchalance helped more than she would ever know.

"Miss Pie," Luna said, "the four of you need to leave this place. It is about to become the epicenter for something massive, and you will all need to be far away from it. Can you walk?"

"Probably not," Pinkie answered, futilely trying to raise herself up out of the pod. "I call Starlit's back, her fur's soft."

Luna wrapped Pinkie up in a veil of blue magic and slowly lifted her out, setting her down on one of the cleaner spots on the floor. Starlit and Rarity both came over and sat by her, with Rarity throwing a hug around her old friend that Pinkie eagerly reciprocated.

"Sun, if you would," Luna said, gesturing to his friends. He nodded and joined them, happy that they could all make it out.

Another wave of sadness washed over him when he remembered that they didn't all make it out, followed by a wave of blue magic spiriting him and his friends away.

* * *

Comments

[JMP]

"Perhaps thou hast had a foretaste of death," Luna countered, narrowing her pupils, "but thou hast yet to taste the full palate. Or, perhaps, Setting Sun has tasted true death in how he killed my loyal and traitorous servant."

I'm...not sure you really explained this oxymoron here. The present Luna doesn't mention the bat ponies at all after this point, and they're only mentioned a couple times in her memories.

[PortalJumper]

8585613
I'd say that it's less she failed to mention them as that they're not worth mentioning anymore after what they did to her, especially since the last of them just got iced not ten minutes ago. Also, I'm not sure you're using the term "oxymoron" correctly; according to Luna, Starlit and Sun haven't really died yet, but Su at least would know what it looks like due to having killed Chirox on accident.

[JMP]

8586030
I meant the "loyal and traitorous" part.

[PortalJumper]

8586031
Right, I meant that as she was traitorous in sealing Luna away with the rest of her people, and loyal in that she stayed behind to guard the palace for centuries after the fact.

[Silentblade005]

"Princess of Equestria Returned"

Well well well. Seems there was no combat with Luna, only a battle of wills, wits, and learning from the past. Pleasantly surprised with this series of events and can't wait to see what happens with Starlight Glimmer :D

also the header of my comment was a play on "Lord of Cinder Fallen"

[PortalJumper]

8586802
I get that reference!

On the whole, I didn't think having another big fight would suit the way I wanted Luna's character to go. Celestia was defensive about her city and her order, and she would be more willing to fight to defend it. Luna, on the other hand, had basically lost all her faith in everything, which is why she started turning thestrals into her machines to begin with despite not needing to; she grew disillusioned with the idea of choice since it had been so long denied to her, and grew fearful of ponies choosing not to love her, so she took the "choose" part out of the equation, and the bat-ponies sealed her up for it. This will be explored more in the next chapter, but I wanted that bit of her character to really be apparent (I'll probably clarify that a bit in the post-NaNo edits).

[Matthewl419]

Wonderful chapter, such a shame it had to wait so long for me to read it. I really look forward to more!

[PortalJumper]

8590867
Thanks, and don't worry about reading it as it comes out. Do whatever works for you, it just warms my heart knowing that people look forward to reading my stuff!

[Black Hoof]

8590867
Sorry, wrong fanfic... Ignore what I posted.

[Titan Commander Sebaste]

Damn... Poor Luna....

[ekp96pke]

This was beautiful! Favourite chapter so far.

[PortalJumper]

9981354
Thanks!