The Wardens of Order

by ScottTrek

Falling Stars

Author's Note:

At long last i finally got another chapter out.
Updates will be sporadic until exam season is over

sorry

also for people think im unnecessarily bashing Celestia I'm not, Umbra has his reasons

The three star spirits carefully wended their way through the inky blackness. In Umbra's domain even their cosmic light had been reduced drastically, leaving them little more than will-o-wisps drifting through a stronger darkness.

A ripple of power passed through the air. The barriers holding them back from the Princesses had fallen. With renewed vigour they dove back into the dimension that served as Umbra's courtroom.

Reaching out their senses they felt the four Heleneic signatures. Which to go to first though? Each felt distress in their own way, though they they had all already decided exactly who it was that was their unspoken priority in all of this.

After a few long moments Sirius lifted her head and floating off to the right. Without a word the other two followed.

As they walked trying to navigate the obfuscating shadows a grunt split the air. Polaris stopped suddenly clutching her side.

Unable to stop in time Vega slammed into the back of her sending the both of them tumbling through the air. Thankfully before either could sail too far off into the seemingly endless void a crackle of blue energy returned them safely, if a little roughly, into Sirius's strong forelegs.

"Could you stop playing around?" Sirius grumbled angrily. "We don't have time for you two drifting back into nebula!"

Vega grumbled and blushed, a burst of heat emanating from his equine form. Polaris rubbed her side as her eyes came back into focus.

"My apologies. There was a coronal mass ejection I had to take care of back home."

“You supressed it?”

“Deflected it away from one of my planets.”

Sirius frowned. “Since when did you care about baking some rocks?”

Polaris hesitated. “I… a few decades ago I thought I saw something. One of my planets was giving off some funny emissions from the surface. I’ve been meaning to take a closer look but, well, time does get away.”

“Life?” Vega asked tilting his head.

Polaris stood and straightened herself up. “It’s certainly a possibility. I simply thought that given, well, where we are…it would be respectful to err on the side of caution. My apologies Vega.”

As the red giant nodded in acceptance Sirius looked up and pointed a beam of light into a particularly stodgy patch of darkness.

"We're here."

---

Luna lay splayed out on her back staring at the spectral screen still replaying the interrogations of her fellow alicorns. As Twilight received a particularly cutting remark she winced.

For a moment she glanced at the barrier keeping her inside. The thought passed through her mind that she could try and break it. With a sigh of resignation the tension fell away from her muscles, replaced by boneless apathy.

She barely noticed when the three stars entered. When they finally caught her eye all she bothered to give was a flippant half-hearted wave of recognition. It was so out of character all three stopped dead, glancing at each other, unsure what to do.

In the end Sirius broke the silence. “You doing okay down there Lulu?” she asked, skirting closer.

“By what metric are we defining ‘okay’?” Luna said from the floor, voice a dull monotone.

“Well…it sounded like it could have gone a lot worse….”

Luna let out a barking laugh. “Sirius, art thou serious?”

Vega leaned over to whisper to Polaris eyes wide. “Puns. It’s worse than I feared. She hasn't used those since Discord.”

The alicorn continued, frustrated agitation forcing life back into her listless form as she gestured wildly, still lying on the floor. "It went terribly! I lost control of my emotions, blew up at the authority currently controlling the fate of our entire solar system, embarrassed myself quite spectacularly, and worst of all somehow managed to blame all of it on Celestia." Luna smiled wryly. "So, to answer your question Sirius, I suppose things went exactly as they always do."

Sirius reached out a tendril of magic, helping Luna back onto her hooves. "Perhaps, still at least it is off your chest now?"

Luna quietly grumbled in reluctant agreement as she finished standing. Behind her Vega and Polaris whispered quietly as Sirius tried in vain to get their friend to crack a smile.

"Vega, I don't want to alarm you," Polaris said carefully. "But Luna's really reminding me of Wolf right now…right after he entered his Asymtopic Giant Branch Phase.”

"But that's not how she works…right?"

“If any of these ponies worked that way, it would be her. But no, I doubt she's going to explode in a particularly neurotic supernova any time soon." Polaris chuckled. "Anyway she's not even two thousand yet! That's way too young by any standard."

Vega frowned. "We will all die one day. And stars do not always die old." She looked away, suddenly uncomfortable.

Polaris grimaced. "I am sorry Vega. I did not mean to be insensitive."

The Red Giant smiled sadly. "It is not the time but the quality that matters, Polaris. If these alicorns have taught us anything it is that."

They glanced back at the still morose Luna.

"But if that isn't it, what is?"

"I don't know Polaris."

"She has to be suffering from something. A hydrogen imbalance or gravitational influence…or…huhhh.." she trailed off. "Vega, have we ever understood her…understood any of them?"

“No, we never did. But perhaps that was the point of...”

A shrill wail cut through the quiet. In an instant the two rushed over the assist their friend at Luna's side.

The alicorn's detached composure had broken, leaving her a sobbing mess. Confliction warred over Sirius's features. As painful as it was this was a good thing. A thousand years ago she hadn't been able to cry.

Her friend threw herself around her neck, wings and forelegs tangling in the astral dust trailing from the stars her equine form. "Oh Siri… I think she made the wrong decision all those years ago…"

"Oh Lulu, no. Celestia didn't…"

“I did not mean mine sister.”

The light that filled the room vanished, the stars fading to almost nothing in horror. Sirius's form dropped out from beneath Luna, nearly causing her to fall in a heap. Luna stress frizzed mane briefly slapping into her face, obscuring the sounds of a small scuffle.

She could hear Sirius quietly whispering. "She doesn't mean it. She can't mean it." as Vega held her close, part in shock, part in comfort… and maybe partly in restraint.

Suddenly alert, Luna cut through her own helplessness like cold steel.

Pulling them close, her heartbeat slowed as she felt them slowly reignite in her hooves.

An unnaturally calm presence touched her shoulder. Luna turned her head Polaris stood there, her eyes old and tired.

"I…I.."

Her presence wrapped around them all, quietly soothing away the old wounds so recently torn open.

Gently he stroked the exhausted alicorn's mane. "Darling, please don't."

---

Celestia had watched her family’s ordeal play out in almost unflinching silence. The part of her seething in outrage had been brutally supressed with long practiced stoicism. Now however, the fire so central to her nature had begun to smoulder.

Clouds of shadow coalesced as Umbra loomed out of the darkness before her, looking down on her with a strange flicker of something in his eyes.

“So, Celestial Grace…what do you think of my work so far?"

A sharp intake of breath came from the alicorn, before a carefully measured response came several seconds later. “Well, having seen your work, I am afraid I must agree with my companions.”

Umbra quirked an eyebrow.

“You really do hate me, don’t you?”

The drakon burst into raucous laughter. “You really think I would hate YOU! Oh that's precious!" He frowned, "and more than a little self-centred." He shook his head. "I’ve hated monstrosities the likes of which you couldn’t imagine, reality benders who tore their world apart with their own avarice, abominations who kill and bring back their victims over and over, the very demons who nearly devoured your world whole… but you? No, I don’t hate you… I don’t like you very much… but I don’t hate you.”

Celestia narrowed her eyes as she continued to stare Umbra down. “Perhaps so. But you certainly gave that impression to the others.”

“I needed to see their reactions.”

"That seems unnecessarily manipulative.”

“So says Equus' great chess-master.”

“Are we going argue in circles for the rest of eternity, or are you actually going to get on with whatever it is you really came here to do?"

Umbra shrugged. “Just trying to lighten the mood. But if you're so desperate to hear the truth…”

For a long moment neither said anything. Then, with an exhausted sigh Umbra let his claws fall to his sides.

"I've cut off the others' view for a moment," he paused. "It's hard to be a God, isn't it?"

Celestia blinked, suddenly thrown by the drakon's sudden shift in tone. "Yes…I suppose it is."

“Almost unlimited cosmic and the knowledge and will to use it, and the ants we could so easily crush accidentally beneath our feet."

"Yet the end of the day it is we who go to sleep worrying that a single minor decision we made will inadvertently ruin all their lives 50 years in the future.” She paused. "You've seen Equestria… Do you mind if I ask what you world is like?"

“Its name is Talos. Its a little sun blasted pile of sand out in the middle of nowhere tucked away in a quite dimension many universes. In truth I don’t visit them as much as I should, I mean the natives… my people don’t often need my direct intervention, mostly it’s just inspecting subterranean fungus crops and manually adjusting the water table… Still, when you look at the big picture, it’s important to remember where one comes from, right Celestial Grace?”

Celestia ignored the pointed remark. “Well, if we don’t worry about the bigger picture,” she replied “Who will?”

“Yes… but a big picture is only made of many smaller ones.” Umbra said with deceptive calm. A wave of his claws and Twilight, Luna, and Cadance appeared through the clouds. "Now we've established that I think it's time to paint that portrait, don't you?"