Prologue - The Mare of the Stars
I quietly brood as I stalk through the crowd, trying to find the exit to this blasted convention. I’ve had enough of this stupid school trip. If you ask me it's just our teacher’s weak attempt to justify going to a con under work expenses, how he got away with it is beyond me.
It's not that I didn’t try to get into it. I’m even wearing a costume, admittedly a rather obscure one, Mare, from the visual Novel “Hoshizora no Memoria” (points if you didn’t have to look that up), and did it even get a single comment? No ‘That’s a nice costume, where’s it from?’ or ‘Oh you’re Mare, right, from Wish Upon A Shooting Star?’ or even perhaps a ‘Aren’t you a little young to be playing visual novels?’ might have been nice. But no, it was just being shepherded along with my classmates to whatever the teacher wanted to see, listening to their inane prattlings, and lackluster efforts of the teacher to keep us all in line. I slunk off the first moment I got.
I realise now that might have been a mistake. Looking around, I search in vain for an exit sign, but my short stature prevents me from seeing over the heads of all those around me. After stumbling around, I find myself in an area of the con I haven’t seen yet, where people had set up stores selling all kinds of overpriced junk, that for some reason people are buying. I’ll never understand adults.
Just as I walk past a stall run by a man in a unnecessarily creepy costume, a chance tilt of my head brings me to a halt. At my head height, propped up as if to catch my eye… is Mare’s scythe.
I walk up to the store in a trance, propping my head up on the table to get a better look. Its crescent blade glints alluringly as it catches the light of the showroom, It’s almost as if it is drawing me closer…
A clawed hand catches the hand I didn’t realise I had outstretched. “As much as your interest is welcome, I would appreciate if you didn’t handle the merchandise.”
I withdraw my hand, blushing with embarrassment, but I can’t take my eyes off the scythe.
“Let me guess, you want it, but your income is, shall we say... insufficient?” says the creepy storeholder.
I try not to meet his eyes, the truth is that scythe is probably worth more money then I have ever owned, I even made this costume with bits and pieces I found in the orphanage attic (and a pair of scissors.) My only other possession I have of worth is an old secondhand laptop given to me by one of the assistants when she got a new one, as I had always expressed interest in it.
“I thought as much,” says the storeholder, before raising his voice and addressing the room, “Is there anyone with enough generosity to help this young lady in her time of need, willing to sacrifice some of their hard earned cash to ensure this little girl leaves with happy memories?”
Some people look in our direction, but none come forward. The man gives me a pitying look through his creepy costume.
“Apologies, it looks like…” the storeholder begins to say, but someone cuts him off.
“I’ll buy it for her.” says a voice to my left. I manage to break my gaze away from the scythe and look at the one speaking, the man running the adjacent store. He is of a short stocky build, and dressed up like some sort of green alien lizard. He walks over and looks at price tag, before talking out some money from his wallet and handing it over to the storeholder.
“Such generosity! The young lady is a very lucky girl.” says the storeholder, in a way that sounds vaguely sinister to my ears.
The green man picks up the scythe, turning a critical eye over it, briefly checking the edge of the blade to confirm its bluntness, before kneeling to my height and handing it to me. “Here you go kid. Enjoy it, you hear me?”
I gingerly take the scythe from the man, and clutched it to my chest, it is a lot taller than me. I don’t know what to say to the man, so I give an awkward curtsy, before turning around and running away as politely as possible, nearly poking someone in the eye with the scythe.
But as the store goes out of sight, I suddenly feel strange, like I am getting lighter, but at the same time numb. I look down and to my confusion, I can see the floor through my dress. What’s more startling is when I lift my hand to my face I can still see the crowd through my palm, and it’s getting fainter by the second. I try to scream... but no sound comes out.
Without a sound, I simply fade away, without anyone even noticing I am gone.
Princess Celestia surveys the now empty castle, the last of the staff had left for Canterlot and construction of the new castle is well underway. They had taken everything that they had needed to bring, the only thing really left that isn’t immovable are the books in the library, and after much thought she had decided that that would be best left here. If she ever needs any she will know where to look, and there are some books there better left unread.
She walks through the main hall, where the damage from the battle with her sister is still visible. She picks her way around the debris scattered around the floor, and makes her way to one of the balconies. She peers out over the night sky, the moon silhouetting a tower. She sighs, staring at the face of her sister etched into the moon's surface, sent there through her own actions, and through the elements.
Her thoughts grow bitter. She wants to blame the elements for sending her sister away, that had not been Celestia’s intention. But, try as she might, she cannot fully deflect the blame away from herself, who watched her sister fall into darkness and was powerless to stop it.
She spots a shooting star, a rather slow one at that. It is said if you saw one, you could wish whatever your heart desires, and one way or another it will come true.
“I wish for my sister back.” says Celestia mournfully.
At that point Celestia realises two things about the shooting star: One, it is getting bigger, and two, it isn’t that it’s travelling slowly, it is travelling in her direction.
Before Celestia can react it plows through the tower in front of her, toppling it with a mighty crash, but the star does not stop there. It slams into the castle garden, bounces, then crashes down, digging a massive furrow in the ground and setting alight all the plants it does not simply obliterate. It eventually grinds to a stop, while Celestia watches, awestruck.
After the sound of crumbling masonry ceases, and the ringing in Celestia’s ears stops, she recovers her senses enough to investigate the crash. Slowly descending from the balcony, she lands next to the point of final impact. The heat distorts the air around her, making it difficult to see what is at the bottom, indeed if it were anyone else, they probably wouldn’t be able to get this close without protection. Casting a spell, she starts drawing the heat from the air into herself. As visibility begins to clear, she peers into the end of the furrow, only to find what appears to be… a rock? Indeed, it seems to be an irregular stone of some kind, still glowing red from the heat, although rapidly cooling in the night air.
Her caution assuaged, she approaches it boldly. Learning in to examine it closer, she blows a cold breath upon it, cooling it faster, causing it to regain its actual colour. Now she can see that it’s not a rock as she first thought, but rather unrefined metal, and while still irregular in shape, it seems the fire, speed, and its passage across the ground has left parts smooth and polished, and if she looks carefully, she swears she can see the reflected light of individual stars in the polished surface…
Then Celestia backs off as the light seems to lift off the surface of the object, floating into the air, before being met halfway by similar lights from above. They dance around like fireflies, being joined by more lights from both above and below. Celestia tries to see were the ones from above are coming from, but it is almost as if they are coming from the stars themselves.
The lights start to condense and expand, coming together to make an indistinct form. With a flash where there was an indistinct shape, there is now a small bipedal figure in a semi-fetal position, with a long mane of purest silver, tied with a long red ribbon. It wears a black and lilac dress comprised of several layers of fabric and tied at the top with a white ribbon, with a strange bat winged cross brooch. The dress has no shoulders, and the sleeves are tied to the upper arms, as opposed to being attached to the dress proper. It has a strange pair of boots that end just under the knees. The face has an air of youth about it, it could only be a child by Celestia's reckoning. Indeed, the whole picture would radiate childish innocence if it were not for the strange weapon that it has crossed upon its knees and clasped in its hands. It is a long pole, on one end terminating in a decorative cross wrapped in a padlock and chains, the other in a massive crescent shaped blade half as tall as the figure. The figure floats down and lands knees bent on the fallen star, sitting upright, head bowed.
Celestia approaches carefully. After all, malevolent spirits often take a guise of innocence in order to trap the unwary. She tenses as the figure stirs, lifting its head enough to make its face visible, and slowly its bright yellow eyes flutter open...
And then bulge. It shoots upright, clutching the weapon to its chest, its head darting around like a frightened rabbit. When it catches sight of Celestia it scrambles to its feet, staggering slightly in its haste and starts backing away, pointing the weapon in Celestia’s general direction as if trying to ward her off, but clearly demonstrating her lack of skill in its use. Its retreat is hampered by by the wall of cooled earth behind her. It looks like it's trying to escape.
Celestia attempts to loosen her stance. Whatever manner of creature it is, it is clearly a frightened child, however it is also currently wielding a very large weapon it doesn’t know how to use. Careless handling of this situation could lead to either of them being hurt, she must be delicate and appear as nonthreatening as possible. She put on a gentle smile and spoke in her reassuring tone, “Hello little one, our name is Princess Celestia.”
Its eyes widen, but it seemingly stops looking for an escape and gives its entire focus to Celestia. So far so good.
“We must say, thou gave us quite a shock appearing like that,” says Celestia, subtly prompting for the child to explain itself.
No such luck, the child just blinks and its stance remains defensive.
Celestia tries something more direct. “After all, it is not all days when a child appears from a fallen star.”
That got a response, they almost drop the weapon in shock. Celestia might as well have told it pegasi fly with their ears.
“Does thou not know as to what we speak of?” Celestia says with worry in her voice.
The child slowly shakes their head.
Celestia gestures to the fallen star. “That stone fell from the sky not moments before, we had come to investigate. After we had cooled the stone, thou rose from it with a shower of lights. Do you not know how that came to be?”
Another slow shake.
“Very curious indeed, where dost thou hail from, young one? We do not think we have seen thy kin before this day.”
The child did not meet Celestia’s eye, but she can see that she is getting through, the child has started subconsciously lowering her weapon.
Celestia tries a bold move. “Young one, we understand, thou art frightened, thou art lost, but please, let us help you, if thou does, we will help thou find thy home.”
The child does not speak for the longest time, making Celestia doubt the haste of her actions, but then, finally…
“Promise?” A tiny voice, scared and alone, the voice of a little girl, if Celestia is any judge. A gender at last.
Celestia gives her best motherly smile. “I promise,” she says, dropping the royal ‘we’.
At last the child withdraws her weapon, pulling it diagonally to her chest like one would a treasured possession, Celestia considers asking her to disarm, but doubted their current relationship would survive, so she instead says, “Follow us please, let us get out of the chill air.”
The child takes a tentative step forward before walking over and wrapping her arm around Celestia’s front hoof.
Celestia smiles indulgently. While slightly difficult to walk like this, she manages, it made sense for the child to act like this, after all. After finding a shallow enough incline she leads the child out of the ditch and toward the castle, but halfway there she feels her internal clock inform her that it is time for sunrise.
She looks down to face her young charge. “Excuse me, we can proceed in but a moment, I must tend to raising the sun.”
The child tilts her head curiously, Celestia smiles reassuringly, before lifting her neck to face the horizon and lighting her horn. With some effort, she lowers the moon (she doesn’t think she can ever get used to moving her sister’s moon like this) before reaching out to the more familiar body of her sun.
Slowly the stars wink out one after another as their light is eclipsed by the bright sun, and there is a startled gasp from beneath her vision.
The last star goes out.
The pressure around her leg ceases.
Celestia looks down in shock, the sun stopping mid sunrise. The child is gone. Celestia looks around, but of her there is no sign.
“Little one? Child!” she calls out. No response.
She tried to think about it calmly. It is not as if the child had let go… more like her arm had ceased to be there.
Celestia calms down more, clearly something magical has happened. The sun came up and the child disappeared… no, that is not quite right either, there is something more. She tunes out her lesser senses, one by one… and yes! There it is, a barely perceivable presence, the child is still here, she is sure of it. And yet she could not see her, hear her, or feel her.
‘Then if the mundane senses fail, other senses will have to do,’ Celestia thinks, sitting on her haunches, closing her eyes, and turning off her sight.
Smell is the next to go, as its loss is the least distressing in such situations, so she deals with it first. The subtle scent of burned earth that she is barely aware of vanishes.
Next is hearing. The world becomes mute, the pure silence is unnerving, but not nearly as unnerving as what comes next.
Touch. It’s like her whole body went numb, no longer can she feel the dirt under her hooves, the breeze through her mane, the sunlight on her fur, or even her fur at all.
She opens her eyes.
She opens them again.
The world of forms greets her.
This is not a journey Celestia likes to embark upon often, for the visions that greeted her were eerie to say the least. It is like the walking world, only totally, totally wrong. There is no sound, no smell, no sensation, no colour, no shades, just blacks imposed upon whites in harsh contrasts, forming a barely recognisable facsimile of what is familiar to her. She detests this power, and loathed being taught it. But as Starswirl had always said, “It may be unpleasant, but in the world of forms, there is nothing that can escape your perception. No illusion, no deceit, no magic can hide from you. It is a world of truth, no matter how unpleasant that might be.” While she did not like it, it is an ability that has served her well over the years.
And it is serving her now, for right before her stands the child, rendered in the same blacks and whites as the world, and while she cannot not hear her, her words reached Celestia all the same, and while she cannot not see them, Celestia feels the girl’s tears.
“I can’t feel the world, Please, bring back the stars!”
On the second last evening before the thousandth year…
Celestia steps through the dilapidated corridors of her ancient home, as the time for dusk rapidly approaches. She finds what she is looking for, a well hidden flight of spiral stairs. Ascending quickly she finds herself in a well lit tower room. It is the tallest remaining tower in the castle, with many large windows giving a good all around view of the surrounding sky, as it should, for this was Luna’s ancient study. But that is all background, for what stands in the middle of the room now is a large space rock, having long since been lifted from the courtyard and into this lofty tower by herself many centuries ago. Sitting on it, transparent nearly to the point of invisibility, is the girl. She has not noticed Celestia enter, as she’s facing the other way, watching the setting sun, and without the light of the stars, even with her fallen star anchoring her, she still cannot feel or hear.
Feeling that it is time, and not wishing to delay this meeting, she begins setting the sun. As the orange glow of dusk fades, and the first stars peek through the window, the girl suddenly becomes more substantial, revealing her more clearly, she has not changed in the slightest since that day long ago. She does not move, she simply watches the stars appear through the window, rocking her feet back and forth idly.
Celestia clears her throat, in order to make her presence known. “Hello Mare.”
The young girl lazily leans backwards until she’s effectively laying down, her upside down head and golden eyes regard Celestia indifferently. “Oh, Hey Celestia, not often I see you out here, what's the occasion?”
Celestia sighs. “Has it really been that long?”
Mare seems to think for a while, placing her hands behind her head. She shrugs. “Don’t know, you tell me.”
Celestia thought. She doesn’t come out here as much as she should, that's for sure… her duties keep her so busy…
Celestia shakes her head. “I don’t think it really matters, do you?”
Mare shrugs again. “Well you're here now, I guess not.” The girl straightens up before pivoting to face Celestia. “So what can I do for you? As much as I appreciate some company every now and then, you rarely call in for pleasure.”
Celestia wonders where she learned to talk like that, Celestia has never been that brisk with her, had she? Celestia shook her head, no Mare has always been like this, even after all these years, she has never managed to get her to open up.
Nevertheless, she wouldn’t be doing herself or Mare any favours by pretending otherwise, so she decides to get to the point. “The day my sister is prophesied to return, it is the night after this one, just before the day will break, you said you wished to know.”
Mare seems to consider this, leaning back on her hands and examining the ceiling. “So, this is it then?”
“I’m sorry?” says Celestia.
“The end of my promise is coming to a close,” Mare says indifferently, “After this, we have no reason to further associate.”
Celestia shifted uncomfortably, she never knew quite what Mare meant when she said promise, but by this point she knew that asking is pointless, she always got the same answers, so instead she says, “I can still always visit.”
“Do what you want,” says Mare, although there’s no bite to her words. She lays down again, picking up her feet so they are above her. It’s one of her more child-like attributes, she doesn’t like sitting still. “I’ve got a feeling your time will be taken up by your sister, assuming things go well.”
Celestia doesn’t like to admit it, but that would probably be true. But once more, back to the matter at hand. “I assume you intend to take part in tomorrow's events?”
Mare straightens up, and her scythe comes into focus. It’s not like it is ever not there, it simply isn’t important enough to notice until Mare brings attention to it. She runs a finger along the blade. “Of course, it's what I do, isn’t it? Reap Nightmares.”
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I actually really like this. It follows the familiar and often detested formula of the standard Displaced genre, but it's written well enough that I find myself enjoying it. I may not be familiar with the character she is Displaced as, but it doesn't get in the way of my enjoyment. Well done, I'm looking forward to more.
... So you show her landing, and then suddenly it's one thousand years later? I'm already finding it hard to believe that she's still alive/sane. Even if she didn't age physically, she'd still age mentally, and lasting 1k years mostly alone, it seems? I expect for some things to get explained quickly, or else I won't be able to suspend my belief at all.
8122427
I think you greatly underestimate the human mind. We wouldn't just shatter because we existed for a thousand years like we had some sort of mental due date. We experience life as it is and enjoy our time with our friends, just as Mare enjoyed her time with Celestia.
Though, I would be worried about Mare getting lonely with her attitude. If I were Celestia, I'd keep her rock thing near a relatively populated area.
8123752 Makes sense. I know we aren't supposed to live forever and whatever but even if we did I'd figure we'd just forget some things, or we'd just lose detail. Maybe we'd even go insane, then get bored of being insane and become sane again!
Never heard about this but now I'm interested. Guess I'll go check it out
Hey look, a well written Displaced story! Dont see many of those nowadays. Good work!
Graciously accepted. ;]
Especially those with H. ;-]