An Early Reunion

by RainbowDoubleDash

6. The Unicorn Challenge

Not since the now-legendary battle between Luna and Corona had the skies over Equestria been subject to such a show. The two alicorns twisted and dove around each other, hooves catching and shaping cloud into squalls and tempests which they would then shove each other’s way. Lightning arced across the heavens, illuminating the two in flashes of glory and peals of power, and thunder rolled ominously, the sound enough to rattle the earth that the two alicorns flew over.

In the backs of their minds, both alicorns regretted the havoc that they were playing with the weather patterns of Equestria, the additional work they were making for the weather ponies of the land. And, true, as this was a race, with a set destination, each alicorn could have better secured her victory by simply leaving the other behind and racing straight towards Tambelon.

But aside from a greater workload for the pegasi, the two alicorns were doing no true harm to the land they flew over, nor the ponies who occupied it – and besides, a straight race wouldn’t have been nearly as fun.

Celestia pushed herself in ways that she had never even attempted before. Of course, when she had first acquired her wings, she had flown almost non-stop, had made a bed of clouds and created weather, out of sheer joy that she could – but never on this scale, never at this speed, never had she truly pushed her wings and her hooves to their limits. Objectively, she had never doubted that she was an alicorn, but tonight, for the first time, she felt it. She whipped up tempests and created storms that would have taken an entire weather patrol of pegasi to duplicate. She flew higher and faster and for a longer time than she ever thought she would. Luna challenged her with gust and gale and Celestia responded in kind each time.

Yet despite this, there was an air of playfulness between the two – the thrill of danger, but no fear of harm. Luna played hard, and fast, and dirty, but she did not try to cause undue pain to Celestia. Her lightning stung but was far more damaging to Celestia’s pride than her body, and Celestia never once sought to try and remove Luna from the skies entirely – the thought never even crossed her mind.

Her chest heaved, her wings ached, her hooves were sore, and she felt alive. At least, until she and Luna arrived over the edges of a thick, overgrown forest. The two had been wrestling a cloud between them again, moving at near the speed of sound itself a scarce hundred feet off of the ground, when they passed over the tree line.

Almost instantly – each of their eyes widening in surprise – they each lost their grip on the cloud, falling into it and crashing into each other as the cloud itself dissipated into nothingness, consumed by its own speed. Luna and Celestia plummeted for a few moments as they sought to disentangle themselves from each other, coming apart just in time to save themselves from falling straight into the twisted boughs that they flew over.

Celestia settled atop the thick crown of one tree, steadying herself with her wings spread wide for balance. Looking to Luna, she saw that the Princess of the Night had done as she had, a few dozen feet away.

“What happened?” Celestia asked, extending and flexing the feathers on her wings. She could feel the ambient moisture in the air, but swirling and moving her wings was doing nothing to gather it, like she had been able to do so easily before.

Luna offered a grim smile. “I hadn’t noticed how far we’d flown…” she said softly. “We have passed over the boundaries of the Everfree Forest. Here, the land attends to itself – the plants grow, the animals live, the weather changes, all according to the chaotic whims of nature.” She extended a hoof over her head, swirling it around quickly. Had she done so just a few hundred feet away, she would have been well on her way towards creating a cloud – but here, all she managed to do, instead, was stir the air.

“We could still create weather here, thou and I,” Luna continued, lowering her hoof, “but only because we are alicorns, and only with tremendous effort.” She looked to Celestia, wings spread wide as she took to the air. “But, we can still fly. From here, to Tambelon, is just a race. Thy speed against mine own.”

Celestia took to the air as well, but was frowning. “I…know the name, the Everfree. This…” her eyes widened when the memory struck her, even as her voice dropped. “This is where…this is where it ended.” She looked to Luna. “This is where our battle ended.”

Luna grimaced. “It is where the contest between my sister and I reached its conclusion, yes,” she responded, turning a little and pointing. “There. That way. There is a palace, an old palace, built atop the ruins of an older one still, itself built upon an older one…back, and back through the ages. It was my home once, and…and my sister’s.”

“Mine,” Celestia said.

Luna looked to her, a flash of anger in her eyes – though only for a moment, as the anger swiftly melted away into sympathy. “Perhaps,” she said carefully, before flying closer to Celestia, looking down at the smaller alicorn. “Be it thy wish to go there?”

Celestia considered the question for several long minutes, staring in the direction that Luna had pointed. Miles away, visible only due to their height and her alicorn eyes, Celestia could see the tip of a tall, stone tower, poking out over the tops of the trees. For a moment, she could almost imagine a pull, a need to go there, to see the place where her hate and rage were trapped forever in the Sun, and where she was restored…

…but that was all it felt like: an imaginary feeling. She wanted to feel a pull, but she didn’t. And, perhaps, that was for the best. Slowly, she shook her head. “Perhaps later,” Celestia informed Luna, looking to her sister. “But not now.”

Luna, for her part, looked like she barely held back a sigh of relief, as she and Celestia rose above the tree line, facing west once more. “Our race resumes,” she said after a moment, her voice notably shaking. “No more weather-magic, no more contests of skill or guile. We shall fly straight and true to Tambelon.”

Celestia nodded, though she frowned again as she did so, thinking back to everything Luna had just said – and one thing in particular. “Thou acknowledged that I am an alicorn,” she noted.

Luna’s eyes widened a little. “I did not,” she objected.

“It is so, sister. Thou sayeth: we could still create weather here, thou and I, but only because we are alicorns. We. That is plural, yes? And there are no other ponies about claiming to be alicorns that I am aware of…”

“Thou art imagining things.”

“I…do not believe so.”

“No, thou art raving,” Luna said, though she grinned even as she did. “But enough! We fly to Tambelon.”

She shot off, but by now Celestia was beginning to understand Luna and her methods, and so was only a second behind the Princess of the Night, then in another moment ahead of her, as though Luna had not expected to Celestia to actually start at the same time as she did. “I said no more contests of guile!” Luna shouted against the force of their own speed.

“Beginning the race at thy command is guile?” Celestia asked in return, looking back over her shoulder at Luna. In response, Luna picked up her speed again, closing in on and then passing Celestia. Celestia’s eyes widened at that, and she found inner reserves of speed, herself, as she was able to come up upon Luna once more, forelegs extended so that she could have a lead – a lead of an inch, at most, but a lead nonetheless – on her sister, a lead she was determined to hold, all the way to the Island of Tambelon.

---

Celestia’s chest heaved. Her lunged burned. Her wings and legs quivered as adrenaline still coursed through her body, still tried to convince her to get up and run or fly even as her muscles begged her for mercy. She was drenched, positively soaking in sweat as the moon rose high in the sky, nearly at its zenith now.

Luna, she realized now, had been holding back their entire race up until they had reached the Everfree – perhaps not in terms of weather magic, but certainly in terms of outright speed. But once they had begun again, at the Everfree, she had stopped. Sound itself had shattered in their wake, though fortunately from the borders of the Everfree Forest to the haunted Island of Tambelon, there were no ponies, no settlements, nothing but miles and miles of treetops that eventually gave way to miles and miles of open water that the two flew low enough over to leave waves in their wake. Once over the water, Celestia knew she could have called upon her weather magic again to try and hamper Luna – but doing so would have taken time, time enough for Luna to pull far ahead of her. So she had instead thought only of the next beat of her wings, the next breath of air in her lungs – and, when she had seen it on the far horizon, the white sands of the beaches of Tambelon.

It was by less than a second, it was at speeds that made her trip over her own hooves and tumble she didn’t know how far up the beach, into the thick trees of the island, over an overgrown cobblestone road – hit a rock and be sent flying into the air – incapable of getting her wings under her in time, and so crashing down in the center of a stone plaza – nothing was broken, but everything was bruised, her entire body nothing but aches and pain…

But she had won.

“Cadance!” Luna cried out as she flew overhead, circling around Celestia’s fallen form before letting herself fall to the ground, landing evenly.

Even as she did, Celestia was picking herself up, still jittering, still in pain…but she smiled widely as she stood tall and looked Luna in the eye. “What…” she said, even as she gasped for breath, “what do…what dost…thou thinkest…of my wings?” she demanded.

Luna was breathing heavily as well, but not nearly as much as Celestia. She had galloped up to Celestia, panic evident in her face, though it was panic that subsided as she saw that Celestia was basically unhurt, or at least not in a permanent way. The Princess of the Night considered Celestia’s question for a few moments. “Thou canst most certainly fly,” she said at length.

“Molto bene…mi scusi…” Celestia said, nodding a few times before falling to her side once more. Luna was beside her in a moment, getting down onto her stomach, horn glowing deep blue as she examined Celestia.

“Thou art…” Luna said, voice trailing off as she searched for the correct wording while Celestia's lungs heaved, “thou art…undamaged. Thou hast suffered no permanent harm…not for thy lack of trying.” She was frowning deeply. “I have never seen a worse landing. Every bone in thy body would be dust if thou were merely a pegasus!”

“Vinto…”

Luna paused at that. “Only because I let thee,” she insisted.

“Bugiarda…”

“Didst thou just call me a liar? Thou art growing quite bold.”

Celestia opened her mouth to try and apologize, but there was a hoof over it before she could. Luna’s horn glowed a little brighter as the Princess of the Night closed her eyes, and a midnight-hued aura traced its way around Celestia’s prone form. It was like cold water and a cool balm for her aching muscles all in one, exactly what Celestia needed right now. She closed her own eyes, letting Luna’s magic work its way through her body. Slowly, her quivering wings stilled, her shaking legs found a semblance of peace, and her breath slowed to more normal levels in her chest. When Luna’s magic finally withdrew from her, she almost – almost – let out a cry of consternation. But, that would have been unseemly, and un-princesslike. So, instead, she picked herself up off of her side, settling into a proper lying position, hooves tucked underneath her barrel and wings folded on her side.

She also, for the first time, gave serious consideration to their surroundings. She found herself in the center of a small, overgrown and obviously abandoned town – or perhaps hamlet would have been more correct, though even that seemed generous. The cobblestone street beneath her was fighting a losing battle against grasses and weeds, while the scarce hoof-full of one-story stone buildings were in a similar state of decay and disrepair, their roofs, likely once wood or thatch, had decayed long ago. One building had collapsed entirely on itself but for a single wall. The small plaza that she was in was dominated in its center by a fountain. The fountain had once had a statue of some kind of pony adorning it, but wind and rain had eroded it so badly that Celestia couldn’t even begin to guess what tribe the pony had belonged to, let alone who it was supposed to represent. The fountain water in the fountain was thick and clearly polluted, even in the moonlight.

“This is Tambelon?” Celestia asked after several moments of looking around. “I had imagined the Dark City to be more…” she searched her Equestrian vocabulary for some moments before shaking her head. “More,” she said simply.

Luna offered a grim smile as she stood, Celestia doing likewise. “Nay, this is not the city. No city can exist purely on its own.” She waved a hoof around. “Tambelon relied upon farming and seaweed-harvesting villages such as this one to keep it fed, just as Canterlot is surrounded by thorps and hamlets of its own. After my sister and I banished Grogar and the city of Tambelon into Shadow, however, we had this island evacuated. Let the forest here reclaim what it will.”

Luna beat her wings a few times, taking once more to the air, Celestia following. The two flew at a measured, gentle pace across the island, towards its center, leaving the ruined thorp behind – and arriving at Tambelon itself.

Or what was left of it.

One thousand years ago, give or take a few decades, a being – some called him a ram, some a demon, none knew for sure – had come from nowhere, dark power emanating from his curved horns and dark intentions in his black heart. At the time, Tambelon had been a verdant, sovereign trading city – a stopping-off point for ships traveling from Paardveld in the north to Caballeria in the south; from Equestria in the east to the desert tribes of bison and camels in the west.

Grogar had seized Tambelon using dark magic, but he had not been after the riches of the city – he had been after the ponies that had called it home. He enslaved them, and worse, for Grogar had been a necromancer – a speaker to the dead. Stories of his exact intentions from there varied from telling to telling – that he wanted to free Discord from his stone prison; that he wished to create an undead empire spanning the continent; that he had no goal but death and destruction.

But then the alicorns had heard of his deeds. Luna and Celestia had both journeyed to Tambelon. They had witnessed the dark actions that Grogar had undertaken there – and they had responded with flame and wind, with surf and stone. Grogar had fought them, and it was a testament to his power that, according to legend, he had managed to hold the two alicorns off for a full day and night – but that was all he managed.

As Celestia and Luna circled over the center of the island, Celestia saw that the walls of Tambelon remained – and nothing else. The entire city had been scoured from the face of the earth – buildings, parks, streets, even the sewers and catacombs. More than scoured, in fact, for while all over the island there were signs of ruined thorps and hamlets overgrown with weeds and vines, within the walls of Tambelon, nothing new had grown. It was as though the forest had taken a look at the site where the two alicorns had brought their full wrath down onto the earth, seen that they had left the wall intact, and understood the message that Luna and Celestia had delivered.

It was with a significant amount of trepidation that Celestia followed Luna down to the ground, the center of Tambelon. As Luna touched down, the earth beneath her rippled, traveling outwards from her and to the walls of Tambelon. As the rippled past, the ground shifted and settled, smoothing out to become a solid, mile-wide field of packed dirt. Once Celestia touched down, Luna regarded her with one arched eyebrow, and a wide circle, perhaps eight or nine feet in diameter, was etched into the dirt beneath Celestia’s hooves, surrounding her. After a moment, a glowing, barely visible field of white energy rose from the circle’s edge and created a dome over Celestia’s head, its top about twice Celestia’s height off of the ground.

Lastly, Luna’s horn flashed once, and a long, thin strip of deep blue ribbon appeared. Celestia watched, forcing herself not to react, as the ribbon slipped under her barrel, then looped around and over her back, the two ends of the ribbon meeting on her side and melding together, pinning her wings to her back, not particularly tightly, but securely enough that she could not spread her wings.

“If thou wished,” Luna asked, “dost thou thinkest thou couldst break that ribbon?”

Celestia considered, flexing her wings. The ribbon was strong, and would not break easily from a mere twitch of her wings or startled attempt to spread them – but if she tried, she was certain she could easily snap the strip in twain. She nodded.

Luna did as well. “If thou does so, thou forfeit thy claim to be my sister. Put thy hoof beyond the dome’s edge.”

Celestia did as instructed. The white, barely visible field offered no impediment to her leg – it was a trick of the light, nothing more. Luna nodded once again. “If any part of thy body leaves the dome again, for any reason, thou likewise forfeit thy claim. Understand?”

Celestia once again nodded as she withdrew her hoof. She’d heard of tests and trials like this – ponies who were believed to have a special talent in magic would often find themselves subject to such tests, and in fact Celestia had faced a few of her own back in Cavallia, although the Exarch had been far more concerned with trying to train her to act as, he felt, a princess should – however Celestia, after having spent the past several hours with Luna, was beginning to suspect that his viewpoint was woefully limited.

In any event, Celestia understood the point of the test: at any point, she could leave the dome of her own free will, but doing so was an admission of failure and inadequacy. In its own way, it was a sturdier boundary than any constructed of steel or stone. She regarded Princess Luna. “What are thy conditions for my success?” she asked.

Luna had begun to pace around the circle. “When I am satisfied,” she answered simply as her horn glowed midnight blue. As she walked, the air she left in her wake would mist and swirl, solidifying into small balls of ice that followed in her wake, hovering off of the ground.

Celestia grimaced, her own horn glowing, as she suddenly found herself very grateful for the healing magic that Luna had used on her earlier. She rifled through all the spells she knew. Fortunately, though that number was small, most of the magic she did know was defensive in nature, as the Exarch and her teachers had felt it a good idea that she know how to protect herself from harm – she would be well-suited to stopping small balls of ice.

Luna began tossing them, one by one. These, Celestia didn’t even waste true spellcasting on – she caught them with telekinesis, crushed them, and let them fall to the ground beneath her, or would telekinetically shove them from the ice circle before they could reach her. Luna kept creating more ice balls, while still moving, but Celestia kept catching them each time. It was pathetically easy – which meant that Celestia stayed on her hoof-tips. Even when Luna began to create larger balls of ice and throw them at faster speeds, which Celestia still had no trouble catching or deflecting, she kept her guard up.

This was Luna, after all. Through some ancient tradition, magic was closely associated with the the moon and the stars and the Night – with her. She was a being of immeasurable age. Even if she hadn’t been an alicorn with a near-limitless pool of magic to draw from, she would still would have had millennia of experience to draw upon – the remains, or lack thereof, of Tambelon were proof of that.

Luna began creating and throwing ice balls two and three at a time – then four, then five. Celestia reacted as quickly as she could each time, at last resorting to true spellcasting to create a shimmering, bright blue shield of energy in front of her. In response, Luna’s balls of ice started to arc around the shield – so Celestia conjured a second, then a third, then a fourth. Luna’s pace quickened as well, until she was galloping in circles around the dome, Celestia forced to split her time between keeping an eye on Luna, in case she tried something new, and stopping the balls of ice from striking her, as at the speeds they were being thrown, they could hurt her, and pain would only be distracting.

With her attention so focused, it was only by pure luck that she happened to glance down, and see it – the edge of the circle and the dome being surrounded by a midnight-blue aura, slowly, cautiously – until Luna realized that Celestia saw it, and grinned wickedly. Her horn flared brightly, and the circle and dome were lifted off the ground, but not Celestia.

“Oh, cazzo,” the smaller alicorn cursed, as the circle began to move.

Comments

[RainbowDoubleDash]

Luna! Stop playing dirty.

This part originally had a bit with Luna, while healing Cadence, singing a very, very old song, specifically, an ancient Sumarian one "Lullaby for a Son of Shulgi:"

Usa šanu usa šanu
usa šanu ki dumušaŋe
usa kulu ki dumušaŋe
igi badbadani u kunib
igi gunani ŋuzu šarbi
u eme za malilikani
za mallilil u nagule.

(it's a real song, too)

As much as I really liked the scene in my head, though, I cut it for a few reasons: first, I have no idea what the beat for the song is supposed to be, so all it really ends up being is gibberish that uses ŋ too much. I don't even know how to pronounce that. Second, while I had it in my head as something she used to sing to help foals sleep at night, back when she and her sister had first discovered ponies and would often move amongst them in disguise or invisible, I couldn't write it out in a way that wouldn't make Luna seem, to us, to be creepy, even though in my head it's more of a sand man/tooth fairy kind of breaking and entering rather than a creepy "I'm going to stand over your children's cribs and sing at them after breaking into your home" kind of thing.

Still, in my head-canon the scene happened.

Also, a little bit of teasing the Lunaverse's S1E20 "The Return of Tambelon" here. Yay!

[Blackbelt]

Sheesh. Is it just me, or does Luna not know how to play nice?

[nemryn]

1068566
Well, yeah. Being the Good Cop was Celestia's job, after all.

[RainbowDoubleDash]

1068752
Also, she was the younger sibling. In my experience, at least, they tend to cheat more.

[HopeFox]

Wow, Cadence can really fly! Alicorns are pretty serious business, indeed. So they broke the sound barrier? Impressive.

The magical test is shaping up to be pretty impressive, too. I like the way we get to see Cadence's thought processes when she's casting her spells, since all we see on the show is a bunch of glowing auras.

[vazak]

Excellent chapter I'm glad Cadence managed to win even if Luna wasn't at her max.

Interesting building for Tambelon.

Luna has a rather round about way of bonding with her kid.

[Hilltopper]

"ŋ" is usually transliterated in English as the "ng" at the end of "Sing" or at the start of names like "Nguyen."

[ColdGoldLazarus]

1068407 Nah, she's not one to cramp her own style.

[nitewing]

1068757
so very very true.
hmm so how do you test earth pony?

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

Okay... not cool, Luna. Not cool. Ice-cold, lady.

[Trinary]

I don't know how this story slipped off my radar!! I love it. Poor Cadance...she tries so hard. I just want to give her a hug. Also? She's a complete romantic SAP! It's adorable. Love this story, can't wait to see where it goes.

[Always Breakfast]

Okay, so Luna's testing her with Boundary of Ponies and Youkai.

[vazak]

After re reading this it occurs to me Grogar is much older than I thought wow never picked up on the age before.

[Piox]

“Bugiardo…”

"Bugiarda..." is correct, because Luna is female.

In the part were they talk about the castle of the two sisters, you can really feel Luna sadness.