The Exile's Keeper

by QueenMoriarty

1 - The Monster in the Basement

The cell was empty, and Luna was there too.

Her cheek still hurt, but probably not as much as that idiot's fist. Ice had been refused, medication was out of the question, and the guards were too scared to blame her for what had happened. So instead, pain relief was being supplied by Alexandre Dumas, specifically in the form of The Count of Monte Cristo.

"Hope you aren't getting any ideas from old Edmond."

Luna flatly refused to recognize the voice. "I'm past that chapter. He's on the island now."

"Which time?" There was the click of heels growing closer, though not by more than a step.

"The first time. The treasure is still a few pages away." Luna turned a page, refusing the temptation to rustle it as she did it. Dumas deserved better than that.

"I never liked how he strung that out for so long." The crackle of the Countess Coloratura poster as her guest leaned against the wall. That was new. "I mean, everyone knows he's going to get the treasure, why waste all that time trying to convince us that Faria was crazy?"

Oh, that tore it. "The point isn't to trick the reader, Tia. It's to show Edmond's anguish, how everything that was driving him forward feels so distant so that the catharsis of his revenge is even greater--" Too late, she caught herself. "This doesn't mean anything." All the same, she closed the book and set it down on her nightstand.

Celestia was grinning, her arms crossed like some rebellious teenager. Her garish attire contrasted horribly with the grim surroundings, cheery yellow and purple leading a vicious assault against dark blues and greys.

"It means plenty, Lulu." She held up her hand as if to catch something. "King's to me."

Luna sighed, but threw the imaginary chess piece all the same. The fact that Celestia's mimed catch was perfectly timed did not help her to fight down the warm feelings. "You know I hate that movie."

Celestia laughed, tucking the fiction into her pocket for later. "At least it tells the story in only a few hours."

"It tells the wrong story." Luna sat up and glowered, doing her best to lose herself in the old argument. "They kept one plot point for every five they cut out, and nearly every point they kept looks like it got tossed back and forth through the Mirror a hundred times!"

And then Celestia's smile was gone, her well-rehearsed retorts dying on her lips. "Yes, I suppose it does at that."

Luna stood from her bed and crossed her arms. "Why are you here, Tia? I'm getting tired of this same song and dance every year. I'm serving my sentence and that's the end of it."

For a moment, she thought that really would be it. She thought that Celestia would turn around and walk out of the cell, and wouldn't come back this time. But then, those five words that finally broke the rhythm.

"We have a Code Horse."

For a minute, there was no sound in the world except Luna's heartbeat. Her thoughts rang with the bells of war, and her hands ached as though the Mirror was already hardening them into hooves.

"How bad are we talking? I'd think you're capable of dealing with most things that could come through there."

"Not a thing this time. A person." Celestia's hands were at her sides now, clenching and unclenching. "She didn't know what was going to happen."

"None of them ever do. That was the point of our arrangement." All the details were racing back against her wishes. The careful coordination between dimensions, the misty mornings before the rest of her world had woken up, and that familiar weight in her hand...

"Not talking about the exile. I'm talking about... the opposite number." Was that a tear in her sister's eye? "It was just dumb bad luck that the poor girl ran where she did."

"What are you talking about?" Too much too quickly, and they couldn't even speak clearly because of the guards just outside the door.

"It will be easier to show you." Celestia reached into her pocket, and when she drew it out, she was wearing the signet ring. "You know what I have to say."

Luna took a deep breath. It wasn't too late to sit back down. It wasn't too late to pick the book back up, to try and start the loop again.

But there was something new this time. So she did none of those things.

"I know."

Celestia smiled, and this one was somehow more real than every smile she had put on for the past five years. She made the gesture, and said the words.

"I pardon you."

---

Pants, shirt, the longcoat, and the signet ring. A lapis lazuli shot through with rays of pyrite, to capture the entirety of her name. It was not a princess's signet ring.

"Have a good life, Madame dé Sol." The guard on the other side of the glass smiled, and Luna tried not to shudder at how unfamiliar her own name sounded on someone else's lips.

"I shall have to do my best," she smiled through the platitude. Why did they have to waste time with all this talk? There was a Code Horse out there, and she wasn't getting any straight answers until she got out of here, so why did this jerk have to throw this obligation around her neck?

"You know you don't have to answer people," Celestia whispered as the doors drew closer.

Luna gasped in shock even as she slipped on her coat and ring. "But sister dear, that would be rude."

Smiles again. Surely there was limit on how much of one woman's life could be spent smiling. "It's good to have you back, Luna."

"Nobody said anything about me being back." The door opened, and the light nearly blew out her eyes. "Now spill. What's so different about this Code Horse?"

"See for yourself." Celestia pointed down into the parking lot. There was her car, and leaning on the hood was some teenager with deeply ostentatious hair. She was waving at them.

"This explains literally nothing." They kept walking for about a second. "No, actually, this raises more questions."

"Her name is Sunset Shimmer." Celestia was confident in this space, beaming under the sun with an energy that was very easy to feel bad about. "She came through the portal by accident, and it closed up right behind her. She's going to be stuck here for a while."

"And this warranted pardoning me because?" They had gotten close enough for Sunset to see them clearly. The kid looked confused about Luna.

Celestia gave a heavy sigh. "Because she was my opposite number's apprentice, and there is too much baggage there for me to be her only shoulder to cry on for the next few months. I need somebody there for her who doesn't remind her about what's happened just by smiling." There were tears in her eyes as she turned to Luna and offered a hand. "I need you to be here for her when she doesn't want to see me."

Luna almost took the hand. She almost stepped forward. But there was one last question to ask.

"Why would I not be a trigger?"

Comments

[Raistlin]

Did this Luna try a coup d'etat, or was merely a cat fight over the school?

[Shimmeringsun]

I love the principal’s project! Look forward to reading Luna and sunset scenes :)

[FanOfMostEverything]

The cell was empty, and Luna was there too.

Hell of a first line.

I need somebody there for her who doesn't remind her about what's happened just by smiling.

"Have you considered smiling less?"
"But Lulu, that would be rude."

Eagerly looking forward to more. This is one heck of a new development to thrust on this Luna.

[PhycoKrusk]

Happy to see a return to this universe.

[Scholarly-Cimmerian]

Ooh, so nice to see a sequel to The Principal's Project! I'm quite interested to see what happens with Luna and Sunset, and what the story between Luna and Celestia is in this universe. ^_^

[RolkFlameraven]

So Luna doesn't know about her counterparts sojourn to the moon? The Luna's not talk, or have their imprisonments lasted roughly the same, subjective, length?

[Rune Soldier Dan]

Ooh, I liked that story, and am happy to see it continue~!

[PresentPerfect]

God, that first line, though. Still.

[Ice Star]

When I read the short summary, I was a little worried that the prison in question would be an actual one which horrified me because of the idea of a convicted criminal getting a job at a school is terrible!

It's been a while since I've read the first story, but I'm glad to be able to pick up this one.