Chapter 1
The Crystal Empire, despite its immense and glorious capital city, was barely worth the name in Luna’s opinion.
She’d packed away a few texts on the place for her journey. The journey by train took three days, and she’d made certain to have plenty of reading material, and of the dozen tomes and treatises Luna had stowed regarding the Empire, she had already burned seven of them.
All of them were inaccurate to such a degree as to be considered a raw impossibility. How Celestia had allowed them to be published Luna couldn’t fathom. Even the five which had survived her scrutiny were barely passable, containing dozens of minor falsehoods but which seemed, at least to Luna’s eye, to have been published with as earnest and genuine an attempt at research as could be expected.
Admittedly, even the crystal ponies of the Empire didn’t remember much of their own history. Tens of thousands of tomes lay untouched in the vast libraries of the Imperial University, but no one could seem to parse out the organizational system that was used.
At least the tyrant Sombra hadn’t stooped as low as book burning, Luna mused as she paged through the fourth set of essays regarding the Second Shadow War.
The problem was that the period of time known as the Age of Shadows had lasted roughly two centuries. That meant that, by the time anyone got back into the libraries, the methods, secrets, and most importantly the keys to the warding spells, were lost with the near-extinction of the line of Cadenza.
One of the things Luna hoped to be able to do during her sabbatical, and one of the reasons she had selected the Crystal Empire as her first major stop, was to see if there was any knowledge she might be able to lend to the recovery of the Empire’s cultural history.
It would be nice for once, Luna thought grumpily as she shoved the book away. To not be regarded as a fuddy-duddy because of my archaic knowledge.
“Final stop! The Crystal Empire!”
The call echoed through the cabin, and Luna stood, stretched, and yawned mightily before shaking the pins and needles from her legs.
The halls of the royal cabins were larger than most, but they were still necessarily confining with respect to the size of the train itself, so rather than cram her royal bulk into said halls, Luna opted to eyeball the window, take an educated guess, and teleport herself onto the platform.
Air displaced with a dull snap, as she appeared well ahead of both her luggage and her two thestral bodyguards, Gloam and Heartfelt, who were an allowance for her sister’s peace of mind and nothing more.
They were pleasant enough, Luna supposed. Gloam was curt and professional and did his duty as a guard. Heartfelt, on the other hoof, was irrepressibly and surprisingly cheerful for someone in the Night Guard, but she’d also scored top marks in both stealth and aerial combat, just like Gloam.
“Your Highness!”
Luna scowled as Heartfelt hustled out of the train car with a grumpy Gloam on her fetlocks.
“Please! Your Highness, we’re never supposed to be more than ten paces from you!”
“Then I advise th— you grow a horn and learn to teleport,” Luna said as she picked up her pace.
The idea that she even needed guards was laughable. Perhaps Celestia had not fought a proper war in over four centuries but Luna still remembered the pitched, trench battles of the Second Shadow War and the grim, bloody, urban combat of the Nightmare Rebellions all too well.
Her arms and armor, relics of power whose art of manufacture has since been lost or forgotten, were stowed in a pocket dimension to be called in an instant to her side.
On the off-chance a foe did arise which Luna needed aid to defeat, these thestrals were going to be a burden more than a boon. She would need her sister’s aid, not the barely-enchanted blades of a pair of mortals, no matter how skilled they might be.
Gloam made a few curt orders to the surrounding porters, briefly flashing the royal coat of arms as proof of their authority, before spreading his dark, leathery wings and flapping to catch up with his companion and his liege.
Luna ignored the proffered transports that rested at the edges of the shimmering road which ran alongside the train station. Instead, she spread her wings, flapped, and carried herself over the light traffic in a hopping bound that should have seemed awkward, but carried with it the grace of a prancing doe.
Gloam and Heartfelt shared weary looks as their Princess once again cleared out of their sight. They had worked together long enough that they shared a silent rapport, and the wordless conversation they were now having was one of mild regret at having volunteered for this particular posting.
Leaving her guards behind, Luna strode into the great, gleaming city.
Nowadays everypony in Equestria called it ‘The Crystal Empire’, but that was a cold, empty name that once belonged to a vast swathe of northern reach encompassing a half dozen cities and hundreds of villages, all depressingly reduced to this.
A single city.
Empire indeed.
To Luna, this city was and would always be the Crown City of Crysopolis.
Rather than cause a fuss by waltzing into the city itself with pomp and grandeur as a Princess of Equestria, Luna discorporated, melted away, and found a comfortably dark alley to reform in.
The mare that stepped out of the alley and into the streets was one that would not warrant a second glance. Her mane was a suitably drab shade of blue somewhere between pastel and chemical runoff, a coat that was the dull, flat, color of unpolished grey quartz, and she bore a cutie mark depicting a simple silver ring topped with an amethyst.
With her horn invisible and her magical aura shrouded, Luna mixed into the populace down a broad thoroughfare that carved through the heart of the city towards the towering Imperial Palace.
A cold sliver passed through Luna for a brief moment as she looked up at it.
Every other time she had come to visit Cadance and her family, it had been in the carriage of an aerial chariot. The last time she had looked up at it from this vantage, she’d done so at the head of an army with her sister by her side and the Shadowguard of King Sombra arrayed before them. A two-thousand-strong combat force of the fiercest and most disciplined warriors and warmagi that the Shadow-Era Crystal Empire could produce.
The battle had been a bloody one.
Briefly, Luna let her mind wander to darker memories as she stepped out of the crowd and into the main plaza where the worst of the fighting had taken place.
Crystal does not heal quite like stone. Marble slabs can be replaced and concrete torn up and reset, but crystal?
No, crystal is sturdier by far but by that same token, the scars tend to last a bit longer than that.
Luna paused at a bench that was set around the edge of the plaza. The corner was shorn off. The shattered corner had been ragged when the juggernaut she’d been fighting had pitched her against it. She’d struck it hard and rebounded off the corner with a brutal snap that left a jagged break, but either time or a careful crystal artisan had smoothed it over.
Following her memories of the battle, Luna walked over to the wall of a bistro where a mural had been painted. The crystal ponies were such clever people. They’d created a special pigment that bonded with crystal surfaces and altered the reflection of light that reflected, creating vibrant colors seen nowhere else in Equestria.
The paint job wasn’t quite enough to mask the crack if one knew what one was looking for, however.
Luna had broken the juggernauts back against the wall, and she recalled how disgusted she’d been to see the pitiful, mind-broken creature still trying to kill her even after the mortal blow.
She’d put it out of its misery then right where she was standing now.
“Move, vagrant!”
Luna turned at the sharp tone to see a pair of Imperial Guards jostling a lumpen figure in a ragged cloak. She narrowed her eyes as she started towards them. The guards were knocking the butts of their spears into the poor stallion’s side, who was stumbling away with an obvious limp towards the gate quarter.
“Excuse me!” Luna snapped. “What’s going on? Has this stallion committed some crime?”
The Guards turned from their work to glare through the narrow slits of their helms at Luna’s disguised form.
“None of your business, ma’am,” the Guard said politely. “We’re simply clearing undesirables from the—”
“Undesirables?!” Luna snarled, stepping between the guards and the stallion and knocking one of their spears away. “This is a living being! Not an ‘undesirable’! If you want him gone then feed him! Clothe him! Give him a warm bed and meaningful labor!”
“Ugh, another activist,” the left guard grumbled, “look, lady—”
“ACTIVIST?!” Luna snarled, her temper roaring to the fore. “I am no activist!”
There is no power quite like the unveiled magical might of a fully mature alicorn, especially not one bonded to a planetary satellite. Luna’s disguise didn’t so much vanish as it did explode off of her with a noise like splintering glass. Crystal ponies in the plaza screamed and cried out as they ducked for cover.
In a lonely quarter of her mind, Luna actually admired the guards for their gumption. They didn’t run, they thrust their spears forward in reflexive, disciplined, killing strikes that must have been the result of intense and rigorous training.
A flare of magic turned the speartips to brittle glass and the hafts to ash as Luna towered over her would-be assailants.
Both guards stared up at her, then hit the ground prostrate. They didn’t beg or babble, they simply bowed.
“We are no activist,” Luna repeated in a grim tone like a blade slipping from an oiled sheathe. “We art a Princess and were this kingdom mine the brace of thou wouldst be stripped of rank, flogged in this very square, and then cast out in sackcloth to endure this ‘vagrancy’ thou dost deride.”
It took Luna a moment to realise that the plaza had gone utterly silent, and she let out a slow, irritated breath as she looked up to regard the doubtless terrified ponies of the Empire.
To her surprise, there was no terror in them. Not amongst the populace anyway, although she felt the fear radiating up at her from the two guards she was in the middle of admonishing. The rest of the populace had dropped everything to kneel.
Not grovel.
Not cower.
Kneel.
It was a gratifyingly refreshing change of pace.
“Aunt Luna!”
From high above, the graceful figure of Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, Cadance to her friends and family, and Empress de Cadenza to the ponies of the Empire, descended on crystal wings into the midst of the plaza.
At no point did a single pony raise their heads.
“Cadance,” Luna said tersely. “Thy explanation for the actions of thy guards ought best be on par with the Neighttysburg Address, or we will be having far harsher words in private.”
“What do you mean?” Cadence asked, her eyes flicking between Luna and her prostrate guards. “What were they doing?!”
“They were—” Luna began, turn to the cloaked stallion behind her, only to find the figure had taken the opportunity to flee at some point. “—oh… well, we can’t say we art surprised,” Luna grumbled before turning back to the guards and continuing. “They were harassing a poor, vagrant stallion with a limp, and We must say, Cadence, if thy definition of keeping order in thy city involves browbeating and ousting the poor rather than helping them then We must wonder if mayhaps We wasted our time o’erthrowing the Tyrant King Sombra.”
With each word, Cadence grew paler, and by the end, her head was lowered and her ears sagging.
The expression lasted only a moment before her eyes blazed and she fixed her furious gaze on the two guards. Although their heads were still pressed to the ground, they both shivered. They could feel the anger directed at them. The rage of an alicorn, even a fledgling one like Cadence, is no small thing.
“I am so sorry, Aunt Luna,” Cadence said quietly as she turned her gaze back to the Princess of the Moon. “This wasn’t how I wanted your arrival to go, and believe me I will be looking into our guards'… indiscretions… thoroughly.”
“Thou owe’st us no apology, Cadence,” Luna said stonily. “Thou art a Princess, and thy mistakes are inflicted upon thy people, not thy peers. Remember that.”
Luna stepped past Cadence as she spoke, but paused as she finished, then sighed and layered a wing over Cadence’s back.
“Thou art young,” Luna said quietly. “Thy greatest mistakes are nothing to the mistakes of Our— of my sister and I… we will speak of this later, and as for the guards? I will leave them to you. They are your people, not mine.”
Cadence nodded, and Luna could feel the misery in her, but to the young alicorn’s credit, it didn’t show on her face. There was just hard and imperious authority there as she moved out from under Luna’s wing to face down the two guards.
Spreading her wings, Luna rose from the plaza and angled herself towards the Crystal Palace. As she did she scanned the plaza one last time, looking over the ponies and over Cadence as she spoke sternly to her guards.
At that same moment, she saw something else: a figure wearing a dirty, ragged brown robe in one of the alleys that lead into the plaza, and who was not looking at Cadence, and nor was he kneeling.
The vagrant was looking directly up at Luna, and she got only a brief glimpse of eyes like dark rubies set into a shadowed face before he vanished into the alley.
“Curious,” Luna mumbled.
Curious, but meaningless. If he wanted help he’d had only to ask, but he fled instead. Perhaps the poor stallion would find more generous souls elsewhere, and she at least hoped he found a warm place to sleep for the night.
Spreading her wings, Luna caught a thermal and turned, soaring towards the Imperial Palace. She would begin her work tomorrow and perhaps offer a few remedial lessons on rulership to Cadence in the meantime.
Celestia had clearly neglected something.
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Now, this is spectacularly poggers. The plot promises epic, mythic Luna. Your dialogue is incredibly witty and delightful. There's a host of fun background characters here, and cute Cady and Luna interactions to boot. Your prologue alone was enough to hook me and the promise of happy goth horses doing the kiss is even more fantastic.
All in all, a very pro-gamer move. I eagerly await more.
Eagerly.
Is it just me, or does Duskmaker sound like the name of a villain?
I can hear the squeals of Ice Star from across the continent.
10482449
Figured I'd find you here.
10482529
WHY WOULDN'T I BE HERE?
big think
Hyper Lumbra fan summoned me here. No regrets.
Very nice
Well, I'm definitely hooked now. Not the biggest Lumbra shipper, but I'll definitely be following this one to see where it goes.
Also, Luna sticking up for that guy. You go, girl. :)
I'd thought of doing a story similar to this one myself, so I'm curious to see where you go with it!
Yay . I am tracc
Prologue:
"Luna replied terse, earning"
"Luna replied tersely, earning"?
"was a wan, shadow of her"
"was a wan shadow of her"?
"Aurora deia Nova Celestia"
"Aurora dea Nova Celestia"?
(Though I'm not sure about that one.)
"They took broke fast"
"They broke fast"?
Chapter 1:
"At least the tyrant Sombra hadn’t stooped as low as book burning"
[glances up]
"of the dozen tomes and treatises Luna had stowed regarding the Empire, she had already burned seven of them"
...Uhhh...
(Not an error spot, just a remark. At least, I assume that was deliberate. :D)
"advise th— you grow horns and"
It sounds like she's talking to both of them, so wouldn't it be "you" anyway? Or is that not the case in her particular dialect?
"Perhaps Celestia has not fought a proper"
"Perhaps Celestia had not fought a proper"?
"What’s going? Has this"
"What’s going on? Has this"?
"in the plaza screams and cried out"
"in the plaza screamed and cried out"?
"as Luna towered her would-be"
"as Luna towered over her would-be"?
"looking into our guards… indiscretions"
"looking into our guards'… indiscretions"?
Well, this seems an interesting start. :)
...Not sure if I'll do this much error-spotting the whole way through. I was actually trying to hold back, as I'm pretty low on time at the moment, but, well, I kept noticing things...
Anyway, I'm interested to see where and how this goes; thank you for writing. :)
So far, this is not what I expected, but in a good way.
10483498
That genuinely leads me to wonder what you expected.
10482467
...yeah, it kinda does, now that I think about it.
Sounds a bit similar to Daybreaker.
10483396
Regarding Deia vs. Dea is the difference between the female vs the male form, although I'll be the first to point out that neither is used properly if I'm actually using latin as the language (which I'm not, I'm just a dramatic bitch). Regarding the book burning, yeah, that was on purpose. Luna casually destroyed the books because she knew they were inaccurate, and in almost the same breath condemned the idea of book burning because to her it's different. Just a small hypocrisy.
Regard the Thou v. You, you're right, You is plural in the formal old tongue. I was originally writing her speaking just to Heartfelt, and there was kind of a splicing in the verbiage there. I adjusted it slightly to be more accurate.
As always, thanks for the efforts!