A Rather Large Adventure

by BradyBunch

Chapter Sixty: Betrayal Through Blood

Smoke was still billowing from the upper room of the castle. Firefighters had managed to keep the fire from spreading, but the guest room was still in cinders and ashes.

The day before, an explosion had rocked the city of Canterlot, causing its citizens to look up in terror and flee. If Princess Celestia had not been taking the ambassadors out for a private outing and had been interrupted just before the attack to receive the news from the one surviving guard sent to Maretania, she or the ambassadors would very likely have perished.

The news from Maretania had been dire. The lone survivor had been in a state of absolute shock, with his coat singed and his eyes wild and mad. His partner had been killed, so he discarded his chariot and flew the three hundred miles back alone. He had been relating the news to Celestia that Shining Armor was missing in action when the explosion happened, high in the castle rooms. He had fallen to his knees and cried aloud that the world was going to pieces.

Princesses Celestia, Luna, and Cadence managed to get the different nation's ambassadors to safety in the chaos of the aftermath. Unsure of another attack, Luna warned against sending rescue ponies into the castle. Celestia had halfheartedly agreed.

However, no further attacks came.

Less than three hours after the initial explosion, Prince Blueblood had come forth to Celestia with a lock of tufty brown fur. Stating that he recognized it on the ground near the ambassador's chambers, he identified it as the same color and texture as Scorpan's and demanded that he be brought in for questioning.

At first, the princesses had not believed him. But after they held up the lock of hair to the shaggy Scorpan's back, they found that it matched. There was only one logical way of thinking to go from there.

Through the course of it all, Princess Celestia, and to a lesser extent, Luna, was grieving. In the space of so few hours, despair had come to them. Resolutely going forth, however, they had gone forth and placed Scorpan in the dungeons for the night. Scorpan had made no resistance.

---

The following day, at 10:00 in the morning, Scorpan shuffled into the throne room with an escort of Royal Guards at his back. The three princesses, plus Thorax, Rutherford, Blackbeak, and Ember, watched him sternly as he strode meekly into their presence. Strangely, Prince Blueblood was absent.

"At ease," Luna commanded the guards at his back. Stepping back a few feet, the guards went into parade rest.

Scorpan just looked up at Celestia with his brown, soft eyes, almost like an innocent calf. His fingers were spread out with no intention of curling, but they were chained behind his back with a metal bar under his shoulders.

"Scorpan, brother of Lord Tirek," Princess Celestia started in a remorseful tone. "You are to be questioned about the terrorist attack yesterday morning. This is not a traditional jury yet because the sentencing is still iffy, but according to what you tell us today, we will pass judgment. We hereby charge you with the crime of sedition against Equestria and its allies. What can you say in your defense?"

"Ask me whatever you will."

Rutherford snorted. Celestia pretended not to notice.

"Did you work alone, or with an accomplice?" Blackbeak asked all of a sudden as if he was interrogating him.

"I have wandered the earth alone for many years," Scorpan said. "I have been alone for my entire life."

"Your fur was found outside the ambassador's chambers," Cadence said, lifting the incriminating bag with the lock of hair inside. "What do you say to this evidence?"

"I have not stepped near the ambassador's chambers since they arrived, Jewel of Heaven."

Cadence looked a little taken aback at the reveal of her eternal name.

"Hear me out, Celestia," Blackbeak spoke up. "If he had an accomplice, he would have set things up so only Scorpan would be convicted, leaving the other one free to plan a future attack. Even if he was telling the truth, someone could have planted the hair in such an obvious spot to allow you to be convicted."

"You say I am confederate with another," Scorpan said. "Why would you convict me instead of him if that's the case?"

"Because you're the most unbalanced and dangerous magical creature here in Canterlot," Thorax said. "I think you're innocent, but, well, who else could manage to gain access to the guest rooms without knowing? A being as powerful as you could easily do it."

"What canst thou provide us with?" Luna asked of the prisoner.

Scorpan shuffled his feet on the reflective marble floor. "Who gave you the sample of my hair?"

"Prince Blueblood," Celestia said.

"And do you think this is a coincidence?"

Rutherford was the first to speak up with a thoughtful tone. "Yak not think so."

"I agree," Ember added. "In that big meeting we held a few days ago, Bluey seemed kind of apprehensive towards him."

"And the day he first came to Canterlot at the Gala, Bluebood was the first to try and charge at him," Luna remembered, putting a berry blue hoof to her chin.

"That still doesn't explain how your hair got where it was," Cadence pointed out. Using her magic, she held up the lock of shaggy hair again.

"The prince probably snipped it off me in my sleep," Scorpan dismissed. "The problem is, if it's coming from the accuser with no other witnesses, he could have simply told you he found it outside the guest rooms, when he was instead holding onto it for the right opportunity. He couldn't have even stepped near the guest rooms at all."

"Where is he, anyway?" Blackbeak wondered, looking around. "He said he was planning on meeting me sometime soon."

"Yak think pony prince not like idea of war," Rutherford spoke up. "Pony prince might persuade Blackbeak to stay out."

"And that is where he's wrong," Blackbeak growled, his interested demeanor flying to a betrayed and angry one. "I'm one of the last of an endangered species now. I'm not going to stand back and fade into the darkness! The war is on!"

While the talking was going on, Scorpan looked almost remorseful as his gaze lingered on the cracks in the pristine stone floor. "Oh, Prince of Stars," he murmured, not paying attention. "Why must you continue to fight against the one true Goddess? Were the demonstrations of power not enough for you? But now you are fallen, and I could not have done more to show the truth."

His murmurs did not go unheard. Celestia was listening intently. He was her nephew, after all.

"Listen and heed my words," Scorpan intoned, gathering the delegate's attention. The air around him became thin and harder to breathe. His eyes seemed to gleam. "In fifteen minutes, you will find Prince Blueblood in his room, packing for a journey. As you walk in, he will be putting a folded suit into his case. He will be startled to see you. Ask him about the attack yesterday."

"Write that down, write that down," Cadence instructed a Royal Guard at her side. He drew out a roll of paper and a quill and began to scribble down Scorpan's prophecy. After Scorpan waited patiently for him to catch up, he opened his mouth again.

"He will respond with feigned despair. Ask him, 'Have you worked with Scorpan the prophet in the attack yesterday? You two seem linked somehow.' He will deny it, of course. Ask him, 'Do you know anything about the attack at all? You knew about the hair outside the chambers; what more can you tell us?' He will look nervous, and won't know what to say at first.

"He will eventually say that the only way into the guest rooms was with a key the janitor Double Duty had. However, Double Duty is dead. His body will be discovered by a team of guards on the lawn in several minutes. You will ask him, 'Have you seen him?' and he will say he hasn't, but if you look on the edge of his collar, you will see old splotches of dark brown blood.

"If you ask him whose blood it is on his collar, he will lock up in place. 'Is this Double Duty's blood?' you will ask, and he will tremble and look pale as if the ghost of death has stolen upon him." Scorpan took his hands from behind his back as if there were no handcuffs holding them, and they went chattering and clattering to the ground. The dozen guards in the room pointed their weapons right at him, but he did nothing with his hands other than making a holy symbol. "And then shall you know that Prince Blueblood has murdered Double Duty and obtained his keys, allowing another perpetrator into the chambers to plant a bomb there. And then you shall know that I am innocent of any crime, and this shall be given to you as a sign of the power of the Goddess."

There was a moment of poignant silence amongst them all, save for the furious scribbling of the guard writing it all down. The tip of the quill was smoking by the time it was taken off the notepad.

"I believe him," Ember said, tapping the dragon scepter against the polished tile. "He predicted the swerving of Blacky's position on the war. He can do it again here."

Blackbeak himself looked pained in the face, but he eventually gave a simple nod at the Prophet.

"I... can barely take it in," Celestia breathed. Her serene neutral expression before had turned to one of shock, and as Scorpan had been talking it tumbled down in a state of worse and worse unbelief until her mouth had been hanging agape. Shaking the look from her face, she gazed almost pleadingly at Scorpan. "My nephew... would never..."

"The Prince of Stars is not who he once was," the Prophet simply said. "He has been twisted by the adversary into a servant of darkness."

"Blueblood," Celestia gasped, falling back in her seat. "Why?... This is not..."

"Lightbringer, the truth is a blinding ray of sun," Scorpan said. "It hurts when you first see it, but it chases away the darkness and exposes true nature. It is... hard... when a family member commits heartbreaking acts." Scorpan held a faraway look in his eyes. "Tirek's turn to the darker side broke my will to believe in goodness. When those you love become corrupted, what can you be sure of anymore? But still, I pressed on. Hope always lies around the corner."

Celestia took a sideways glance at Luna, who was thinking the exact same thing. Nightmare Moon had only been reformed seven years ago, after all.

"But what you've said will happen... it hasn't happened yet," Blackbeak said to the beast. "What if this is all an orchestrated act?"

"Yes," Scorpan said, and there was sarcasm in the Prophet's tone. "The one creature that has been nothing but honest the entire time orchestrated an elaborate plan to ingeniously convict both himself and his supposed accomplice, who happens to be his enemy. Tell me, Shaft of Ebony, do you really believe your accusation?"

Blackbeak was silent.

Ember sniggered. "Shaft of Ebony. Ha!"

Blackbeak flushed a sudden scarlet. "Hey, stop laughing!"

"Is it my fault you sound like that?" Ember asked, before laughing again.

Scorpan held up a finger. "Enough."

Ember stopped immediately, unsure of what he would do.

Scorpan's ears perked up. A scream had sounded outside the stained-glass windows in the throne room. He sighed and shook his head. "Double Duty's body has been found. If you want to expose the prince for his crimes, now is the time to do it."

"And if you're wrong?" Celestia asked, an almost hopeful lump in her throat.

Scorpan only blinked. "Then I am a false prophet."

Luna tapped her hoof against the elaborate stone, and the guards at her side snapped to attention.

"Go to the prince's chambers," she commanded. "Find out if Blueblood has done this great evil. And if he has, subdue him and bring him to us."

There was a menacing jab in the last word that made the guards stiffen in place. With a touch of fear for what would happen, they responded with a "Ma'am!" in unison and galloped off to the prince's chambers. The one who had written down the prophecy was the first of the five to run.

As they disappeared from the throne room, Celestia rose from her seat and went to Scorpan's side. Looking up a few inches, she asked humbly, "What will happen to him?"

"Just as he tore a lock of hair from me to expose me," Scorpan murmured, "so will his inheritance be torn from him." His soft eyes glittered then. "And will be given to another who is more worthy."

---

It was almost too easy. The idiot prince had followed his instructions to the letter. K'ra was almost overjoyed as he watched the prince from under his bed, packing a bag to leave the city in his gold-plated bedroom. With only the assumption that he could convict the Prophet into committing a terrorist attack, Blueblood had readily agreed to carry out K'ra's plans.

It was easy to convince someone to commit murder. Everyone held hate in their hearts. All he needed to do was draw it out to the surface. And Blueblood's boisterous anger was so easy to wield like a weapon in his claws. So he gave simple instructions, like to a child, and Blueblood was eager to obey. After all, if it meant convicting the Prophet for a heinous crime, swerving the minds of the ambassadors to his side, and gaining international allegiances, Blueblood was all for the idea of murdering a simple janitor.

After Blueblood had slit his throat in a closet and disposed of the body (K'ra would have preferred not just dumping him out the window, but what was done was done already) the prince had provided the key into the guest chambers. The ceiling couldn't provide a way into that room without prying up solid stone blocks, so K'ra had to have a key into the room. From there, all he had to do was steal down to the arms room in the basement of the castle, grab some naphtha and powder, force it into a makeshift bomb with some rags and pitch, tie an alarm clock into it somehow, and sneak it into the guest rooms to explode on a timer the next morning.

Unfortunately, Celestia had taken out the ambassadors on a tour of the city, foiling his ultimate plan. K'ra would have preferred to have the bomb kill the ambassadors, but even though it hadn't, it was a win anyway; the mood in the capital city was still fearful, and the war had hit them closer to home than they had expected. Though they were alive, it was almost better than if they had died; the ambassadors would be suspicious of the princess's promises of protection, prolonging their responses to war.

K'ra was feeling satisfied with himself. Ah, the pride of being in a position of power! When Malice saw his actions here, how he would be rewarded!

The door abruptly opened up, revealing five Royal Guards with stern expressions. K'ra's heart lept in his chest and he scooched backward under the bed with six scuttling legs. He hoped the scuffle wasn't heard.

Blueblood dropped the suit he was about to pack into his case. "Pardon me?" the prince mildly asked.

Strangely enough, the guards began to whisper with excited tones at Blueblood dropping the suit, pointing at a notepad one of them held.

"Where are you going?" asked one, almost curiously.

"Um…" Blueblood glanced at the elaborate suitcase and stuffed one of his identical suits inside and closed the latches. "I'm just...trying to make myself ready to evacuate if the time demands. A terrorist attack happened yesterday, remember?"

One of them spoke up above the others. "My prince, do you feel in danger?"

"Well... yes..." the prince commented. "The danger isn't past until the perpetrator has been caught, isn't it? The one who dared to disrupt harmony in Equestria's capital must be caught for all our sakes!"

"You mean Scorpan?" came another guard.

Blueblood nodded almost emphatically.

"The one who planted the bomb is still in the castle," came another guard. "Scorpan had an accomplice. We're trying to find out who it is. And right now, you and the Prophet seem linked."

"And... you think I was his accomplice?" Blueblood indignantly asked. "Why would I work with him? I hate that so-called Prophet."

K'ra ground his teeth together and made waving motions with his front legs to get him to stop. Blueblood couldn't see him, however, from the angle he was at.

"You knew about the hair outside the guest chambers. What else do you know?"

Blueblood's mouth hung open. K'ra, under the bed five feet away, was trembling with barely-contained fury. By the Goddess, if Blueblood messed this up-!

The idiot prince finally closed his mouth (K'ra was surprised a fly hadn't landed on his tongue. Goddess, he looked so stupid!) and mumbled a reply. "Well, I…"

The guards were unimpressed. K'ra wanted to scream or cringe.

"...The door could only be opened by a key to the chambers," Blueblood eventually said. "After all, there are magical locks, and the room is completely sealed from every direction to protect the guests, so if not a key, then something with extremely powerful and inexplicable magical powers."

The guards were looking at the notepad again. K'ra was surprised that they weren't writing anything down. Were their questions predetermined? The flow was too smooth, uninterrupted. He suspected foul play was at hand.

"Who had the keys to the chambers?" asked another guard.

"Apart from the princesses?" Blueblood asked. "The janitors, I'd guess."

K'ra's six eyes widened. He was drifting too close to the mark!

"Have you seen the head janitor after the attack?" asked the fifth and final guard.

"What, are you suggesting the janitor was a secret assassin?" Blueblood scoffed. "Get real."

"Oh, we know he wasn't," said another guard, sitting casually on Blueblood's bed. The mattress creaked down, pressing on K'ra's head and making his lumpy heart beat twice as fast. "He's dead."

"We found his body on the lawn five minutes ago," revealed another guard, stepping past Blueblood further into the room. The rest of the guards were spreading out so the prince was surrounded by armored soldiers. K'ra noticed their hooves moving around and began to panic. "And his keys were missing from his uniform. And he never takes them off."

"Did you see what happened to him?" asked the first guard, stepping so close to the prince their front hooves almost touched.

"What? I-no! Who do you think I am, guard? The type to consort with simple ponies like washermen and cooks? I do not associate with them. They stay out of my way, and I stay out of theirs. It is simply How Society Ought To Be."

The guard leaned his head forward. K'ra could assume he was squinting. The black devil-bug tried to move from the weight pressing over him, but he could not wiggle his way out without jiggling the bed. He was about to be foiled!

"What's that on your collar?" asked the guard.

"What?" the prince breathed, feeling the hard scabby spot on his clothes when he rubbed the back of his neck. "Ooohhh…Ha ha ha! That's blood. I had a bloody nose yesterday evening."

"It's on the back of your shirt."

"Oh? Confound it. I was planning to have this washed, but I was simply... preoccupied."

"With what?"

"...Packing?"

At first, the guard was silent. Then he said, "Is that not Double Duty's blood?"

Blueblood's hooves, pearly already, turned even more pale. He was trembling in place, and a drop of sweat plopped on the smooth stone floor. K'ra was getting desperate.

"The snotty prince I know would wash his clothes after getting a speck of food on it," offered another guard across the room. "He must not have known he was getting blood on it, which never happens with a bloody nose."

"He was preoccupied," said yet a third, putting another hoof on his upright spear. "With murder."

"Prince Blueblood, you're coming with us."

"Hey! Hey! Get your hooves off me! I am Celestia's nephew! How dare you!"

"You should know better than to betray Equestria," said the deep voice of a particularly menacing guard. "How dare you, nephew of Celestia."

K'ra knew he had to act. So act he did.

Twisting so he was lying on his back, he shot his long, spindly claw through the underside of the bed, and it went through stuffing until he felt the sharp tip of his claw penetrate deep into a guard's flank and into his chest. Wiggling his claw around in there, he could feel the jiggly pieces of internal organs move around, and the guard was really screaming and moaning in agony from his barbs. K'ra ripped it back out, tearing through flesh, and blood as thin and wet as sweet wine soaked the mattress above as the body fell like a statue.

K'ra scrambled out from the bed, his mind on fire, his front leg discolored with fresh, wet scarlet. Looking up, and seeing the four guards escorting Blueblood gape at the monster under the bed in horror, he bared his needle fangs and leaped at the nearest one like a jumping spider.

His slashing claw was aimed right at one of the guard's jugular veins. With Lifewater pouring down his front like a waterfall, he teetered and fell, quickly expiring.

The largest of the three surviving ponies grabbed the leaping black bug with a hoof to his throat and slammed him against a wall, cracking the drywall. The other two guards went to check on their fallen compatriots.

K'ra saw Blueblood made a drastic move.

Though he knew nothing about unarmed combat, the prince knew enough about the legs of an opponent to know their weak points were there. Striking the large guard in the back of the knees with his forelegs, he went down, and the grip on the bug released, dropping him to the ground.

K'ra shot the prince a strange look. Blueblood nodded in return. Not knowing what it meant at first, K'ra assumed it was just, "Kill these fools."

So he took the opportunity.

Evading the spear thrusts from the large pony on his knees, K'ra scrabbled at a drawer, yanked it out, throwing its elaborate contents on the already-blood-slick floor, and bashed the guard over the head with it. The drawer exploded into splinters. The guard, with glazed eyes, toppled over.

"Stand down, traitor!" screamed a thin grey mare, galloping away from her dead soldier on the bed right at the prince. With a slash of her spear, it opened a long gash through his suit coat and through the skin beneath. Red blossomed on the pristine white coat like swirling paint on a canvas.

Blueblood enveloped her in his golden aura of magic and tossed his head. She hurled against his opposite wall, bounced off, and sank to the floor in a crumpled heap.

While K'ra was engaging the final guard, Blueblood, desperate and in pain, chose to abandon his final tie to loyalty. He levitated a solid gold chalice off his bedside table and hurled it right at the female soldier's face. It smashed her right between the eyes, under her helmet. She lay stunned for a moment. Then she slumped to the side and did not move.

K'ra was peeling off the last struggling guard's armor, despite the spear jab in the stomach he had gotten that was trickling sand down his body. He was scratching the guard's skin as he yanked the breastplate out and tossed it aside, and when he saw exposed flesh, he opened his jaws to their limit and sunk the long fangs into his chest.

The brown stallion gurgled as he screamed. K'ra wiggled his latch around, and his screams grew. Then he took his fangs out of his flesh and took another bite, gnawing like a dog on an old bone. Gasping from his punctured lungs, the final stallion quickly stopped moving. A little later, his chest rose no more.

K'ra took his fangs out of the fresh body and licked his chops with his hideous black tongue. After that, he lapped up the growing puddle of blood in the wounds on the stallion's chest. The blood was so warm, so calming. Especially when it hit the back of the throat. K'ra always loved pony blood more than any other kind of animal. Maybe the reason was that he was taking the essence of a sentient, intelligent creature. It was the way to show his superiority over those evil creatures Faust had created. The only question he had about the affair was why would Faust make these filthy creatures taste so good?

"Are, uh, are you good?"

K'ra paused and looked up, a trickle of the warm liquid running down his chin. The devil could see Blueblood petrified by the sight of him painted red on his claws and face.

"Oh. This, um, is a side effect of my transformation into this... monster," the Nox managed to expertly lie, putting on a genuinely remorseful face. "It was another part of the curse that Prophet put on me. I don't like it, but I sometimes... just get so hungry…"

"No, no, no, it's fine," Blueblood said with a touch of fear in his voice. "Just... could you restrain yourself?"

K'ra stared at the fresh body. It looked so good-! So tender and soft, with a lot of good muscle on him. But to placate his prey, he inhaled with restraint, flooding his nostrils with the delicious scent of blood, and exhaled. "Fine." He examined the prince. "How badly are you hurt?"

"Just a scratch. The spear didn't go deep."

"Good." K'ra took a look around Blueblood's room. His golden-gilded furniture was speckled with drops of red like a ruby in a crown. The puddle of blood on his floor was expanding slowly to lap at the bedposts and surround them in rings. "This is rather conspicuous, wouldn't you say?"

Blueblood nodded in stupefaction, stepping off the floor onto his mattress. K'ra could see his face drain of all color when he saw his mattress soaked with deep scarlet from the inert body on his bed.

"We can't stay here in Canterlot," K'ra ordered, looking around his room once more to indicate the five bodies. "Not after this, anyway. Get your things and come with me."

"How will we escape?"

"Just on a train. Nothing to it. After all, the only people who knew about your guilt are in the castle. As long as you get out of the castle itself, no one will stop you on the way out of Canterlot."

Blueblood took his suitcase in a golden aura and began to take out all of his drawers, throwing them on the ground in desperation, looking for anything he missed.

The fifth drawer he opened, he paused all of a sudden, staring into the depths of the drawer.

"What?" K'ra hissed.

Blueblood slowly took a silver necklace with an uncut blue jewel the size of his hoof out of the drawer.

"What's that to you?" K'ra asked, noting how less opulent and special it looked when surrounded by a bright gold room.

"This was a gift from auntie for my eighteenth birthday," Blueblood murmured, turning the necklace so it caught the light in his room. "It was a way to help me remember my honor." He looked at it for a while longer before putting it on. "Not that I have to be reminded of it now, of course, but still... it's the most beautiful thing…"

"Why is it? You have plenty of other gold and jewels, don't you?"

Blueblood ran a hoof over it gently. "Because it came from her." He almost smiled. "Auntie Celestia never gives special things to me, so when I got this from her, it was suddenly precious."

"How precious must it be since you had it sitting away in a drawer for years and years?" K'ra asked with sarcasm dripping from his lips.

"Well, it was to help me remember honor," Blueblood defended, slipping it around his neck. The silver necklace settled with considerate weight on his chest. "And it worked. I'm the most honorable pony in Canterlot. So I put it away when I assembled everything I really needed."

This stupid, foolish boy!

"Well, if you really think you don't want it, just leave it behind," K'ra said, trying to keep his voice even.

Blueblood hummed. "No. I think... it looks good on me."

K'ra gestured his head at the door leading out. "Then let's go."

"Where are we going?"

"The rest of my... villagers... set up a temporary refugee settlement several miles north of Appaloosa. We can go and figure out what to do there."

"Sounds as good as any other place," Blueblood agreed, sniveling up his nose. "Even though I'd have to be in a dirty campsite for who knows how long. Ugh! It is not how royalty should be treated."

K'ra resisted the urge to wring his neck. "We'll treat you with all the respect you deserve."

"Hm. A minor mercy. I'm appreciative. Still-"

"Would you just come along and let me worry about the arrangements?!"

"All right! All right!" Blueblood gingerly stepped over the growing puddle of scarlet liquid in his room, carrying his suitcase behind him. As K'ra opened the door and stealthily crept out, he saw Blueblood take one last look behind him at the room he had been raised in. His face was regretful and nostalgic. His mouth was stiff, and a muscle pulsed in his cheek.

"Are you coming?" K'ra asked.

Blueblood nodded after a pregnant pause. Gently shutting the door and ending the golden glow coming from the bloodstained room, he and the devil sped off.

---

Luna opened the door to Celestia's chambers. "Sister! The news is direr than we could have imagined!"

Luna galloped in. Her elder sister's room was empty save for a bed with a mound of wrinkled sheets in the center. The bed was illuminated by the lucid orange of the retreating sun low in the sky.

It was to this unshapely mass that Luna addressed herself. "Prince Blueblood is missing! And his room hath the bodies of five guards in it! We're trying to send out search parties, but…"

Luna stopped her spiel as she saw what was in the bed. Princess Celestia was sunk in there like she had a broken back, clutching the wrinkled sheets to her chest, and she was sobbing like a broken-hearted child into her bed linen.

Luna felt her chest compress, felt her throat tighten like a noose was around it. Her sister was not just crying. She was almost wailing into her bed, taking ragged inhales before spitting them out in bursts of sobs, pressing her mouth into the mattress to muffle the heartbreaking sound. Her bed was soaked with tears. Her shoulders rose with each breath.

Princess Celestia was in a living nightmare.

Luna gingerly stepped closer to her and pressed on her back.

"Go away!" Celestia screeched into her bed at the top of her straining lungs, and pounded the sheets uselessly with a naked hoof. Her jewelry had been removed.

She was a little mare just now. Not a princess, and not a loving mother.

Luna did not obey her sister's request. Instead, she eased her up off the damp sheets by pulling Celestia from her armpits. Taking a closer look at Celestia's face, she felt empathy well up inside her. That face of despair and hopelessness was that one only she could relate to.

"Talk," Luna commanded.

"You... know... why I'm like this," Celestia said, straining to speak legibly through her closed throat.

The Elements of Harmony. The growing war on the horizon. Twilight. Shining Armor. The terrorist attack in her own city. The conviction of Scorpan, and the guilt of her own nephew, and how he had fled, rather than face her again. Luna did know exactly why she was like this. But that wasn't the point.

"Not everyone is gone," Luna whispered. She nuzzled the side of her sister's cheek. "Like you proved to me seven years ago."

"You think I... didn't know that?" Celestia sobbed. Streams of fresh tears cascaded down preexisting marks on her wrinkled face. "I know that you aren't gone-"

"Thy friends do indeed still stand by thee, sister, but remember that friends are given as a divine gift by Mother to ease our mortal journey. What would Scorpan say?"

"Why does it matter?"

"Because the Prophet's voice and the voice of our mother are the same."

Celestia heaved and wheezed as she tried to work her brain. Luna knew it would hurt her. She could almost imagine the throbbing headache her sister was having.

She finally responded with, "Mother...would say...to look forward."

"What dost thou see in the future?" Luna asked, shaking her shoulder firmly.

"Nothing!" Celestia all but shouted. "The future is dark! Who can foresee the future but Faust herself? And what will she do for us?" Celestia's tears spilled over once more, and she began to wheeze again.

"Thou art right." Luna gathered herself onto her sister's bed. "Faust alone can tell the future. Which means if you really trust her…"

"...I do trust her," Celestia admitted. There was a pause in her words. "...But even I don't know what her will is!"

"You don't always need that," Luna whispered. "All that anyone can do is just hope for a better tomorrow, and then...work to make it so."

"What if that future doesn't come?"

"It will."

"How do you know that?"

Luna's eyes glittered. "I don't."

"But you hope anyway."

"Despair is the perfect time to hope, Celestia."

The two sisters said nothing more. What more should be said? Luna did not know. All they did was bask in each other's company. Luna's presence somehow made Celestia ease up on her weeping. Every time the princess of the sun saw her sister's piercing blue eyes, she quickly put her head down. Was it shame? Was it an attempt to hide?

The rays of the sun stopped moving. It was time.

"Tia." Luna jerked her head at the balcony. "The sun."

Celestia stumbled out of her bed and walked uneasily to the doors of her balcony. Pushing them open, Celestia walked slowly to the edge before slumping on the rail.

Luna followed, awaiting her sister to do her job.

"I can't," she whispered.

"You must."

"But...what's the point...of raising a sun over a land...without Twilight?"

Luna was about to point out the unintentional pun she had made. She kept it to herself, however.

"Luna. Luna, I loved her! As much as a teacher could love her student, I loved her!" She took a few more gasps while leaning on the rail. Her body was trembling.

"Do you love your country?" Luna followed up with. "Then lower the sun."

Celestia sniffled. "I do, but...You have to understand!"

"No, sister. I don't. The closest I got as a protegee was with the Guardians of the Sun."

"And they're dead now," Celestia choked out. More tears dripped from her eyes.

"We think they're dead. But maybe tomorrow will bring about different news."

"How do you kno-" Celestia stopped herself. She had learned her lesson once before. Luna could see the spark of understanding in her violet eyes.

"Past the present moment is a long night, sister. But you know what comes after every night."

"But what if the light at the end of the tunnel isn't the sun?" Celestia whispered. "If it's just feeble torches in a cold, endless night, then what?"

"You won't know that until you get there yourself, sister. The only way to know for certain...is to keep moving forward."

Celestia gazed on Luna. She was dimly aware that the golden sun was shining on her dark blue face, lighting up her mane and reflecting the whites of her eyes.

"And there's no way to turn back now."

Celestia blinked. Then she turned her attention to the sun, hanging there in the sky, just above the mountains.

Celestia ignited her horn in a lance of bright yellow, and with tremendous strain, bowed her head. The sun began to sink beneath the horizon, and darkness began to spread across the weary earth.

Throughout the whole trial, Celestia was weeping freely, gritting her teeth, squeezing her eyes shut, as divine magic poured out of her horn. Luna was marveling at her will to press on, but also at the strain it took for her.

In all of Luna's years, she had never seen her act so frail and unbalanced. It made her heart ache for her safety. She found a cruel reversal of roles in the sister dynamic when she looked upon her weeping sister. Celestia had been the one to console her when she returned from the moon. And now it was her turn to console the older, stronger sister, when her world had been ripped apart in the space of a few days.

Luna wished it could not have been Celestia she needed to comfort. Anyone else she would have agreed to, but...not her own family! Not the strongest pony in Equestria! She could not...she could...

Could she?

Maybe. It depended on how she thought, didn't it?

When the sun had disappeared over the horizon and night was over all the land, Luna's horn ignited and she lifted her head up. The silvery-white moon was raised into the sky. It looked like a sliver of the divine, slashed across the dark palette of eternity. All across the skies, stars speckled like a glittery dress on the body of a goddess, so many and so close together that it made even Luna, its guardian, lock up in wonder.

Even in the dark night, light could be found.

Luna led her sister back inside and pulled Celestia into the covers. Her blankets were pressing Celestia's arms at her sides. And the sun princess was wearing a tired expression as her sister did the work.

"Sleep, Lightbringer," Luna hushed, and caressed her cheek. "At the end of every night comes the sunrise. As the night passes, sleep through its darkness. I will be thy protector against the evils of the night."

Celestia finally smiled and closed her bloodshot eyes.

Luna stayed by her side all through the night. She quickly grew tired, and her flank grew sore from sitting in the same spot for hours on end.

Luna did not mind one bit.

Nothing came to her in either dream or in real life.

Hours passed. They felt like minutes. Luna's responsibilities didn't require her to physically move, which made her promise easy to fulfill. She visited fillies in their sleep and soothed their fears...while wishing that her own fears could be quenched by someone else.

When the time came to lower the moon and raise the sun, Luna awoke her and tenderly guided her to the edge of the balcony.

And when the time came, the sun was raised once more. With it came light and hope, driving out evil and replacing despair with faith.

Author's Note:

The Book of Helaman was a source I consulted for details when writing this. It talked about a prophet unfairly convicted of murdering the chief judge, and gave a prediction similar to the one given in this chapter.

Also, this story has now reached 400k words. I feel old and tired.

Next chapter: focuses on Freedom Fighter. Happy moments will come around.

Comments

[P6rT]

I wonder if we'll meet King Solaris in person soon. I hope he's a really good villain. Like, Thanos-like villain. Even though eliminating half of all life isn't his goal, he could find and believe in a reason for his doing.

Anyways, can't wait for more!

[A Man Undercover]

Having finally come back to reading this story by starting with this chapter, I really must say that this was enjoyable. I’d also like to add that, to me, Ember had all of the best moments.

The only recommendation I’d like to give is this:

When the sun had disappeared over the horizon and night was over all the land, Luna's horn ignited and she lifted her head up. The silvery-white moon was raised into the sky. It looked like a sliver of the divine, slashed across the dark palette of eternity. All across the skies, stars speckled like a glittery dress on the body of a goddess, so many and so close together that it made even Luna, its guardian, lock up in wonder.

If my hunch is correct, the right term would be ‘look up in wonder’. Not ‘lock up in wonder’.