Moondust

by Parallel Black

2 - Victory

The mare awoke that day with the scent of apples filling her nostrils.

With Ponyville’s new library still under renovations, the owners of Sweet Apple Acres had kindly offered her and Spike a place to stay the night. She’d gotten up, had a delicious apple pie breakfast, and then promptly realised the motive behind Applejack’s hospitality when the mare’s little sister asked how much money she was planning on granting the farm for doing such a good job.

It seemed her status as a lesser noble was big news in a small town like Ponyville. To be viewed like that was useful when it came to organising the countryfolk, but it was tremendously tiresome trying to reassure them when they thought they’d set a hoof out of line. They seemed to view her as being one step away from the Princess herself, and while that may have been true in a sense, Twilight had only been there to oversee preparations, not direct them.

The first day had been stressful, but thankfully, the celebration came together in the second, and the frenetic panic in the air cooled to an anxious simmer. It was understandable; it was the first time the town had been chosen for the Summer Sun Celebration in decades, and the whole place had been decorated for the event. The smell of baked goods and candy filled every street, streamers and ribbons and all manner of baubles hung from every lamppost and rooftop, and the sound of birdsong could be heard from every tree, some arranged into little choirs courtesy of Fluttershy.

But for all the long lists and high spirits, for all the tasty treats and the satisfaction of a job well done, none of it was at the forefront of Twilight’s mind. Only she knew what was about to happen. Only she knew why the lights went out.

It took mere moments, perhaps no more than a minute, for their world to come crashing down. Without warning, the light of day winked out, leaving only the scattered stars and the big, round Moon visible high above them. Then, with a flicker and a flash, it began. A wave of energy travelled across the heavenly body’s surface, wiping away the iconic Mare in the Moon, bringing every loose pebble and mountain to one location. The landbridge appeared as a bump on the white silhouette, growing to a point and then piercing into the night sky like a giant, twisting stinger.

It was still tiny to the naked eye, but in a matter of seconds the landbridge had stretched far enough into the void that it was now longer than the Moon was wide, and with a turn, it made for Epona. The stinger became a crescent, for a moment looking as if it would land back on the lunar surface before another wave of unimaginable power brought more material to its base. The bridge wound its way further across the sky, a bright, blue dot adorning its tip, coming into view just before it pierced the atmosphere.

It landed with barely a sound, the entire structure creaking to a halt as the end planted itself amongst the trees of the Everfree. Slowly, the world faded back into view as the overwhelming darkness gave way to a moonlit night. Shock gave way to panic, and as a thousand pale shadows burst to life beneath their hooves, Twilight set out to do what she could.

-----

The stack of papers made a soft thud as Twilight placed them beside her scroll, her eyes darting between them to decide which she disliked more at this particular moment. With a wave of magic the scroll was rolled up and its end was tucked neatly into the vase, which was placed out of sight at the side of the room. She pulled a sticky note from the collection beside her bedroom door and stuck it to its rim, marking it as her project so that nopony else would touch it.

She gave a long breath and set her mind into work mode, Spike visible in the corner of her eye, looking ever more dismayed. First came a monthly income report from a furniture company by the simple name of “BBB”. Twilight recalled it was the largest seller of bedroom furniture and styles in Manehatten, but by the look of the numbers the Canterlot store hadn’t made many sales this month. Also in the stack were supporting documents to go with the report, to ensure that the numbers were correct. With a little spark she analysed the print of the signature and confirmed its legitimacy. Twilight quickly did the math, made a slight correction, and marked the report for review. Grabbing her quill she added her own signature complete with a tiny magical enchantment of her own, and placed the documents into a new “complete” pile.

A few similar reports followed, most showing a downturn in profits. Twilight frowned. The Splattershop was reporting an absurd amount of wasted products that could only be the result of theft. Either one of the staff members had taken it upon themselves to repaint their entire street, or the local Vigil station was now using one of its cells as storage for a wagons worth of windigo white and sunset scarlet.

Next came something of a scarier nature; a payout request on property insurance from one of the mansions on the High Brow. Twilight stopped for a moment, eyeing the name of the sender, but was relieved to see it wasn’t her home. Her mother had more than enough on her plate without anything getting stolen. Apparently the Mint Manor had been broken into by a random hooligan, and the mare of the house was requesting an exorbitant reparatory payment for the sake of a broken lock and a few missing dresses.

Her frown deepened. So the riots had spread past the Rabbles, after all.

She rubbed her brow and carried on. There was no point in thinking about the surrounding factors. All she needed to do was add and subtract, analyse and compare. It was a simple job, but an important one, and one her mother had entrusted to her at the exclusion of her other apprentices. So what if every single page showed signs of the chaos in the city? They needed to be done regardless of how she felt.

Twilight felt a dim heat between her shoulder blades, as if the Moon was aiming a beam of light directly upon her. She tensed up and risked looking back at it.

At times like these, when one-thousand years of peace and stability looked like they were about to come apart at the seams, bureaucracy was far more important than most liked to think. Records needed to be kept up to date rain or shine, otherwise the relevant companies and clients would face the repercussions of late tax reports and unsent messages, worsening the economic chaos in the city and leaving the victims of the violence waiting longer for justice.

But as the pile of completed forms grew, Twilight began to slow. Times like these were when her mother needed her most—that much was clear from how large the package was—but she could only frown at the papers as if they had wronged her in some way.

So it seemed even more inexcusable, then, when Twilight piled it all back together and carefully placed the stack in one of the bookshelves. With a flash the stack was disguised as the next four books along. Twilight left the dormitory in silence, Spike following close behind with a worried look on his face.

---

The sky was open to the heavens today. The Sun bore down upon the land, bathing Equestria in an ever so slight golden glow, just visible at the edges of the horizon. The rest should have been a beautiful, bright blue, but ever since the celebration an odd paleness had been inflicted upon this year’s summer, made from the combination of sunlight and moonlight. A dull blue, as one might describe it. With the surface of the Moon now completely smooth—save for the pillar-like remains of the landbridge’s base—it acted as a mirror during the day, taking in the light and redirecting it upon the world, adding its own strange element in the process.

Despite the wintry sky, the heat betrayed the time of year. With the extra source of light, Equestria was bathed in an uncomfortable amount of warmth on clear days like this, thinning the snowy peaks and causing the grass to curl like hairs too close to a flame.

Thankfully, the Moon was just the Moon; nopony would cook under its glare. The misshapen object had preferred a much more direct method of attack.

Twilight leaned against the golden railings, her forehooves dangling over the edge of the city. The fresh air smelled strange after spending so long indoors. It might have been a mixture of the grass and flowers of the mountain trails and the remnants of smoke, but it was still a good kind of strange that revitalised her lungs. Her limbs felt stiff and her meal was struggling to settle, her body once again punishing her for being so dedicated to her studies.

It was worth it. She was used to this. Spike wasn’t.

The little dragon sat beside her with his little hands against the faint magical barrier between the railings and the road, preventing wayward foals from flinging themselves overboard. They were only a block and a half away from the school but he already looked tired. For all her worries about his diet, it seemed she couldn’t keep him cooped up any longer. He deserved better than this, but what choice did she have?

“I hope they’re doing ok,” he said.

“Who?”

He gave her an odd look, as if it should have been obvious. “Y’know, those mares from Ponyville?”

“O-oh, of course. Yeah, I hope so too,” Twilight replied.

Ponyville was a tiny speck in the panorama; nothing more than a collection of yellow and orange dots beside the blue patch that was Saddle Lake. Just beyond it, the vast, dark green of the Everfree Forest flooded the canvas to the east and south, and within that were the sights that made her heart skip.

From the steep, red cliffs of the Macintosh Hills all the way to the endless white foothills of the Dragonbacks, were chunks. Cubic mountains in their own right, arranged in a vague, twisting line travelling center to south and back up north across the map of the country, rising taller than most of Manehatten’s skyscrapers and measuring the breadth of entire villages and more. They were moon dust and pieces of mountain, crushed together by some otherworldly force to create the landbridge Nightmare Moon had used to escape her imprisonment.

As the dark queen’s chosen stepping-off point, the Everfree had taken the brunt of the rain. The southern slopes of Mt. Brackenhoof lay beneath the largest one, along with countless unlucky creatures. Its new peak was unnaturally squarish across the top and down the three sides that hadn’t cracked apart on impact, rising high above the trees. A little further south was a smaller chunk, resting atop the old castle, decimating an irreplaceable archeological site along with anyone who had still been in there at the time…

Her gaze drifted back to Ponyville. The town had been spared the destruction by a dozen miles or more, but it had been far, far too close for comfort. As the rainbow coloured lights of the Elements of Harmony died back down, the old castle had filled with an almighty crash, like the sound of a mountain splitting apart. They barely escaped from the ruins before the revived Sun was blotted out once more as massive lumps of stone filled the sky. Of the race back to Ponyville Twilight didn’t remember much, aside from the scared expressions of her new friends and the wild howls of the forest creatures escaping right beside their little vulnerable group.

It was July now, and no matter how hard she tried she still couldn’t get those images out of her head. Of Rainbow Dash covered in bleeding cuts, of those strange monsters Nightmare Moon brought with her, and of the mare herself, her eyes growing thin and terrified as the Elements of Harmony tore her body asunder. It had been a full four weeks since the Unscheduled Night, and she still found herself waking up to look out of her window at the doomsday staring back.

She was just being dramatic, of course. The world hadn’t ended. Nightmare Moon was gone, and from what she had heard, nopony had fallen victim to the chunks of lunar material raining upon Equestria. It was a miracle from start to finish, and Twilight had no idea how to come to terms with it.

“I’m sure they’re doing just fine,” Twilight added. “Applejack’s probably working hard, and Pinkie’s probably throwing a party as we speak.”

Spike smiled. “And Fluttershy’ll be… singing to the birds and stuff? I’m not actually sure what she does for a living.”

“Hm. Maybe she’s a general caretaker for the forest? I never really thought to ask.”

“Well either way it’s gonna take a lot of caretaking to fix that mess,” Spike commented, pointing at the Everfree.

“That’s for sure.” At least it was just the Everfree, she thought. I don’t know what I would’ve done if Ponyville had been destroyed…

Those five mares arranged themselves in her mind, all smiling at her as Pinkie Pie excitedly explained her plans for a Welcome-to-Ponyville party. Twilight frowned. Only Pinkie and Applejack had faces, and of Rainbow Dash she recalled the injuries more than the details. With everything that had been happening in Canterlot, the rest had been jettisoned from her mind. There was only so much room in her work-focused head, and the appearances of random ponies from a market town in the sticks apparently weren’t worth making space for. Nevermind the fact that she had saved the world with them. She was already feeling guilty for leaving her mother’s documents behind, and now she felt another tendril of need threatening to drag her off the edge and back down to Ponyville, if only for a simple “hello”.

After thanking Applejack for her hospitality, and after making sure Rainbow Dash’s wounds were seen to, she had left all too quickly in the wake of the adventure. She had barely even written to them afterwards. She’d sent an obligatory letter to the mayor to apologise for the Summer Sun Celebration having to be cancelled—something Spike had called her nuts for—followed by a general letter to the five mares asking how things were going. She hadn’t heard back, so she had chosen to assume the best, and that was around the time the madness set in at home.

Spike was giving her another look; the same begging expression from earlier. “We’ll go back and visit some day,” she replied to his silent plea. “We’ll see how they’re all doing and try out all those treats and things we didn’t get to last time.”

Spike broke into a grin. “And I’ll get to tell Fluttershy more about my comic books and stuff! And I’ll get to spend more time with Rarity!”

Rarity’s flowing, purple lengths of mane obscured the details of her face, before the colour was traded for moonlit gold to bring Rainbow Dash to the ground. Twilight pushed the corrupted memory aside and forced a smirk. “You and that crush aren’t going anywhere, kiddo.”

Spike quickly hushed her. “That’s what you think, but she has gems for a cutie mark, and I love gems!”

“But do you love fashion?”

Spike’s brow tweaked. “W-well… I could?”

That was adorable. At the very least she could provide an opportunity for them to talk to one another. “I don’t know if she makes anything other than dresses, but I could have her make you a Power Ponies costume if you-”

“Really?!” Spike exclaimed with glee, leaping to his feet.

“Of course! In fact, I’ll send her a letter today… and… I guess we’ll see…” Twilight could feel herself tapering off, her tongue slowing to a stop before she wanted it to. Spike wanted and needed more than that, yet all she could offer him was the half-measure of long-distance contact. The idea of physically leaving Canterlot at this stage was ludicrous. There was far, far too much to do.

Spike seemed to have caught on. The spring was gone from his step and it showed on his face. “Can’t we just… y’know… ask her in person...?”

Twilight felt a lump forming in her throat. “We… shouldn’t. I want to, really, but I need to figure out that casting method so that Celestia knows I’m ok. And I need to help mom with all of her work. I can’t just leave her to it.” Twilight thought back to the first and only time her mother found out her documents had been left unattended and felt a shudder travel through her body. “Speaking of which, I should really see to those papers…”

She trotted up the road, leaving Equestria’s sorry state behind as she aimed for Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns… only to find a baby dragon stuck to one of her legs. “H-hey, come on!” Spike cried, claws digging into her ankle. “We’ve barely been out fifteen minutes!”

Twilight gave the leg a gentle shake. “Spike, w-we’ll go a little ways up the lap before we head back, but I really can’t leave that stuff alone for too long. I can’t leave mom with all the work.”

The grip only tightened. “No, you promised we’d go for a walk! An actual walk! Can’t we at least go to the lake or something?”

Twilight’s face paled. “Wh-what? Of course not! That’s at the other side of the city!”

“So? I wanna walk! I can’t take being inside anymore! You’ve been helping and studying all month, so why can’t we just have one little walk? A-and if Canterlot’s so bad, then why can’t we go to Ponyville?”

“Because of that!” she raised her voice in response, pointing a hoof at the sky. Spike let go and Twilight realised she’d gone too far. “I’m sorry,” she said, gruffly, and not quite quickly enough. This wasn’t his fault; he didn’t deserve this. It was everything else that needed shouting at. She had to stay here to help her mother, and to help her mentor feel better, to reassure them that it was ok to not worry about her for a while. Celestia needed that time to herself after what had happened to her sister.

There was so much to do. Everything was wrong and Nightmare Moon had only been the start of it. Twilight turned away from the cause to look upon the effect. She could hear the wind whistling between the spires and rooftops, holding in all the fear and frustration that had been pouring out of the city ever since the Unscheduled Night. Faint wisps of smoke could still be seen curling round the side of the mountain from one of the big bonfires in the Rabbles, and even here on the outskirts of the Market District, one could see pieces of litter lining the edges of the streets.

There would be far greater signs of chaos closer to the population centers. They were safe, here on the lap. Twilight searched Spike’s expression for some sign of giving in, but his hard stare only gave way to frustration. She couldn’t risk any harm coming to him, even if he couldn’t understand. “Listen, Spike, it’s dangerous just to be on the lap, let alone going all the way through Canterlot,” she stated, more calmly this time. “The lake’s probably full of trash and Celestia-knows-what, anyway…”

Spike let go. “You don’t know that,” he grumbled, turning away from her. “All I want is to have a nice day out while it’s still summer. I don’t care if there’s stuff everywhere.”

“But-”

He looked back at her. “You aren’t the only one who’s been thinking about stuff. I’ve read my entire collection—twice—and I’m still thinking about what would’ve happened if you hadn’t beaten Nightmare Moon!”

“It’s bad enough what happened when I did! The rioting kept me up every night…”

Spike looked around, and held his little arms out. “So?” he asked simply. “I don’t see anything happening now.”

Almost hesitantly, Twilight looked down the road, then up it. This was one of the more popular tourist spots in the city, yet there were only a sparing few groups in sight. Her gaze lingered on the tall, colourful structures of the school. She didn’t know how things were going in other places, but she knew Canterlot’s streets were still dangerous. The noise had died down, but that wouldn’t be the end of it. The terror of the world nearly ending was overwhelming, and many would still be feeling that fear. Some ponies were crazy enough to light fires and destroy things, but most were merely foolish, panicking, thinking the threat was still present.

Once more she felt the light of that unheavenly object upon her back, and with a shuddering breath, Twilight trotted into the empty streets. Spike followed close behind, a little sprint entering his gait before he hopped onto her back. In the end he was right; there was no point in wasting such a nice day indoors. Maybe one canter through the market wouldn’t be too much of a risk. Twilight only hoped they would get more chances like this before Canterlot collapsed around them.

Comments

[Comickook]

Whoa mama. Again, the exchange, characterizations and future chapter set-up are quite well done. Yeah, I can understand why Twi could be reflecting so hard on the battle with Nightmare Moon (including thinking how bad it COULD have been). And, it makes sense that this was a bit rougher than in canon if Nightmare Moon actually had minions (though it sounds like Rainbow took the worst of it physically other than Nightmare Moon herself). And, yeah, I can also understand the reflection on what little Twilight knows about her new friends thus far (though that will be changing relatively soon). And I can even understand Twilight playing "overprotective big sister" if there has been relatively recent rioting.

All in all, definitely looking forward to more of this.