The Trinity of Moons: Mending Shards

by Cloud Ring

Interlude 5: Resurrection

⫴⫴⫴

Panting, Black Stripe dropped her bags at the front porch of an old brick building. She had no strength left to climb the porch despite Black Moon approaching Her zenith. And Stripe had to be at home in time, before true zenith. At any cost.

Half a round back, she would have jumped onto the porch without stopping, kicked open the door, and hugged Dusty Book in that beat, with bags still on her back, listening to Dusty’s grumbling about inappropriate behavior in the library. Not a serious nagging — Stripe was not one of those ponies to be angry at for long.

Half a round back it was a nice cycle. Even nicer than usual. She decided to skip her work and relax a little then, and brightened up the time with sensory modifiers and flirting. It was then that her life broke suddenly and forever. Returning home with the prey — a handsome colt, spotted long ago and now processed and prepared for use — she skipped a warning. Since that time, warnings were made a bit more intrusive, but then she felt only a strange deafness, as if the Moons dropped beyond the horizon all at once. She chalked it up to a modifier. She realized that something was wrong not before streams of red-brown fog creeped in. There was a grinding sound too, as if somepony grated a stone against uneven concrete.

White’s aligned ponies do not want to admit this, but the Red grew wiser. When the ponies learned to hide from its rays, the rays began to turn matter into brown fog. Nopony knew what the gas would do to the body then. Nopony wanted to think about what would happen when the Red got to the point of creating viruses, bacteria or mold.

Stripe pushed bewildered Acute Angle into the shelter and shut the door behind her. But a small trickle of rusty mist managed to seep into her lungs.

The following time was delirious, clingy and painful. Do not get up. Don't try to breathe on your own. Do not leave the insulated box. Do not use direct communication: it was not yet known whether the agent was transmitted magically and whether the White's followers would have to burn part of the building. And whether they would need to burn it with Stripe in it, too.

She survived. She would like to add ‘to everypony's relief’. It would be a lie. She stopped every two throws to rest. She was advised not to appear in public places. She paid extra for sterilizing delivery drones. Sexual contacts for her were effectively not an option, though she did not admit that to herself until much later on.

A third of a round wasted in this new life later, Black Stripe, earth pony, a psychologist, petitioned her Moon, Black Moon, for euthanasia.

Black Moon, friend and teacher, answered the call. In the rarest moment of the true darkness when all the Moons were below the horizon, at the very edge of the round, at the end of its last slice, She manifested in Stripe's lonely apartment.

Black Moon could not undo what had happened. She refused to end Stripe's suffering. But...

It is not possible for me to cancel the will of the Red, but I can do the impossible and break the boundaries, Black Moon said. The rusty fog is not contagious, Black Moon said. Over time, the body will recover, Black Moon said.

And it became so. Or, maybe, it always was so.

First, it was a thought. Then it was an idea. Then it was a plan, and finally a project. A party to throw.

Of course she needed friends’ help for it. They discussed the party. They made preparations in advance, chose the perfect time, and when the time came, friends, regardless of the phases of their Moons, rushed to her house in less than a slice.

The door opened and Angle's narrow face appeared beyond. He grabbed the bags with ponykinesis, and, supporting Stripe herself with gentle caution, led her inside.

Oh, all the Moons and the fourth one with Them, thought Stripe. In any case and for any price, he was worth it.

Everything was all but ready inside. Dusty checked the list. Quiet Melody was finishing decorating the room. Black Moon loved checklists — and that was also part of a plan.

Hang a humble sign ‘Sorry, we are closed for a cycle’ on the door of an old library: check.
Decorate the room: check.
Bandages: check.
Food and drinks: check.
A sacrificial knife of volcanic glass: check.
A game ‘pin the tail on the pony’, just in case: check.
An octagram: check.
Well-read and clever companions: check.
Black candles — Angle finished gutting Stripe’s last bag — yes, final check.

Everything was ready.

What they were up to was reckless. Even unbounds would not dare to follow up on it. In the worst case, it could end with reality forgetting about them all. But Stripe asked, "Are you with me?" and how could they say “No”?

Black Stripe suggested summoning Black Moon once more. To thank Her.

The blood ritual meant that Black Moon would not have to waste Her powers on manifesting. And that She can stay long enough to be at the party in Her honor.

Melody told them that ‘Electra’ or ‘Starfall’ would not be the best name for this call, and — in a befitting whisper, taking a promise to keep the secret — spelled the correct one and made sure that they spoke it right.

The candles were lit. The knife, in a firm Angle’s grip, slid down Melody's front leg, then Stripe’s, then Dusty’s, then his own; ruby ​​drops fell into the center of the octagram, where they immediately blazed with black fire.

“With our blood we call for you, Black Moon! Hear our call, Twilight Sparkle!”

The black flame shot up and took the form of a tall, dark alicorn.

She asked why they called Her. They sheepishly answered Her. For a long time She was silent in response.

“Okay,” She said.

Three of the five present here burst into joyful shouts, and fell silent, having caught the icy glare of the two librarians at once.

They drank the punch. They talked about literature. They drank some more. They danced to the music of Melody, specially written by her in accordance to Black Moon’s taste. They woke up side by side. In the company of a black alicorn who never thought of disappearing anywhere.

Stepping down from the porch, Stripe realized that something had changed. The Blue Grove sector has lost its elusive blue hue. All the colors were now equally present in it, and Stripe could separate each of them from the next. They shone with an inner light against a background of thick, inky darkness.

Most importantly, the darkness itself has changed. Instead of empty, transparent, autumn blue coolness, thick, warm summer black reigned between the trees.

This sector no longer belonged to the Blue Moon. Nopony knew how this was possible.

Quiet hoofsteps were heard from behind. She was not quite the Moon anymore. She was shorter. She was more lilac. She was almost alive. She had a book to bear henceforth.

“I will stay here for a time,” still not quite Twilight Sparkle said.

She stayed with them — in the renamed sector 0-S, for Starfall or Sparkle — for nine nines of rounds, only occasionally going absent for the Conjunction or for a call from outside, while they were living happily ever after, ever together and proud of their own Moon living nearby — but not boastful over it. They were throwing other, less ritualistic, parties; they were working for themselves and for society; they were sometimes visiting their relatives and, eventually, making new families and giving birth to new foals.

They were normal, and accepted, and, above all else, healthy — just a bit different, affected by the darkness.

Over the rounds 0-S was slowly populated with new ponies that came drawn by curiosity or an inner call, or simply stepping in to, maybe, stay there; and it kept changing, assuming the new form of reality; they were changing along, their colors tasting of serene ash, exalted gold or fluent silver. Neon green of true knowledge touched their irises too but, being at once frugal and picky, took its full reign only in next generations, and in the most talented foals at that.

Much, much later on, old age and diseases became nagging on them — all of them except Melody — and Twilight Sparkle said that She would care about their souls in the afterlife.

For each time one of them died, another small shining star appeared on Her breastplate. Having seen off Acute Angle, Black Moon finally left 0-S and took Quiet Melody — the last one of them, and still alive and young — with Her.

Over time, there were more stars.

Comments

[Numinos]

Oh, nice! So here's what S sectors are about. A glimpse of the past (or of another reality, I'm still not sure about that aspect of the story)