The Trinity of Moons: Mending Shards

by Cloud Ring

Chapter 51: Betrayal

☀️☀️☀️

Once upon a time, in a magical land of Equestria...

To be precise, at half past five in the morning, Sunset Shimmer, the first ever student of both Princesses, for the first time in her short life understood that she had lost. It was a new and very unusual feeling. More than unpleasant, too.

Especially knowing what was at stake.

She had previously made mistakes, even though she was reluctant to admit it. Due to incorrect initial data, lack of knowledge, imperfect tools. Because of the stubborn, obstinate ponies.

At such occasions she was furious, smashing tools against a wall, vowing to leave and never return. Then she would get more books, more accurate instruments, and the best assistants. She rarely repeated the same mistake twice.

Before today Sunset has never failed a project. She had seen others fail, but If she herself would not succeed, the world would collapse around her. It was the gut feeling, beyond any rational thinking.

Apparently it was not a feeling anymore.

Half a year has passed since the day Celestia commissioned her to investigate anomalous solar activity. Princesses, possessing immeasurable magical power and a direct connection with the luminaries for this very reason were useless as researchers — their attention by itself was affecting Sun or Moon.

But there was Sunset. Faithful, reliable, invincible Sunset, to whom, in strict secrecy, they explained what would happen if the sun went out — or, rather, when it would go out.

The princesses will have a few days to live. Both of them because the Moon is a reflection of the Sun; only a few awful days. First, their magic will dry out in a matter of hours. And then their age will quickly catch up.

Six months have passed. Twelve hours ago, the sun went down for the last time.

Sunset had no solution.

She spent the first night planning. She launched several projects at once, demanding that the ‘least stupid’ ponies of Canterlot University be at her disposal, whether they wanted it or not.

The up-and-coming social engineer, utterly cynical Starlight Glimmer was tasked with preparing a plan for a refuge outside Equestria — in deep space or in parallel worlds. This plan failed. Equestria was permeated by the magical field of a planet-size creature, which was Equestria itself. Everypony knew this from foalhood. After all, even the foals knew about the Tree of Harmony. They did not know another detail — parted from it, the ponies could not exist for prolonged time. At first they would fade — emotionally and physically. Then they would lose their Marks; and finally their sapience and speech, becoming nothing more than creepy animals with a spark too dim to be seen.

After reading this, Sunset shuddered and was about to ask how it was first found out and who were test subjects but changed her mind.

Even if they would find another ‘Equestria-like’ entity, there was the most important thing — ponies were a complementary part of the eternal magic-processing cycle and without them Equestria would perish too. This way led to leaving their world to die. It was not worth it.

The project of a massive hollow planetoid was rejected too. For it to inhabit Equestria, the required building material would cannibalize Equestria in the first place. Improved on the same idea was an ‘eggshell’ approach, to shield the planet with another layer of matter reinforced by magic that would keep heat, magic and life inside. It really could work, except the risk of losing balance and damaging Equestria beyond sustainable state was above great — an edge to keep the dance going on would be more sharp and fragile than an actual broken eggshell.

The project of not an underground vault, but a whole new world of natural and excavated caves, illuminated and heated by magma, could work. It was something to consider. This would save a fifth of the ponies and enough non-sapient animal and plant species for Equestria to keep living, even if gravely wounded. No rescue was planned for the Princesses. Sapient animals and all other sapient races were out of the question from the beginning.

Having read the project to this point with Sunset at her side, Celestia confided that she wants to turn the author into stone and launched project ‘Xenophilia’ instead. According to it, the underworld to come would be inhabited by the common offspring species of ponies, diamond dogs, griffins, dragons and chimeras. Starlight was urged to work on this project.

Twilight Sparkle, whom Sunset reluctantly recognized as her equal in magical theory, was tasked with creating a new sun for them. This project could be considered successful to some extent. The alchemical reaction that heated it required less magic the more massive the reactor was. In theory, as Sparkle argued, a sufficiently massive sun could shine without any outside help at all, which raised interesting questions about the structure of distant worlds... and there was no time to research this.

There was a nuance. Reactors smaller than the current sun, capable of illuminating and heating the planet's surface, required a lot of magic to trigger the cycle; and it would not be self-sustaining. For each infusion the need was much more than living unicorns can provide — even as a collective, at the theoretical limit of efficiency for magical circles which was estimated around a few thousand of unicorns.

A breakpoint existed, though.

It required a consecutive sacrifice of all participants of the most powerful circle, performed without a single misstep in a refined and fragile order that Sparkle theoretically devised herself and Sunset verified and confirmed, with unicorns preferably the most young and most talented, in a week-long ritual.

For this plan, Equestria would have to drastically revise its demographic policy as the approach, in laypony terms, required throwing foals in the furnace.

To this Celestia said nothing, but shared a mysterious glance with her sister. Undoubtedly, she also had some ideas of her own.

Twilight was advised to try and optimize the reactors as much as possible, to lower the frequency of the ritual from ‘once per year’ to at least an order of magnitude.

Finally, there was the main project that Sunset could entrust only to herself. To save the sun. But first, to figure out why it goes dark.

Twilight's calculations showed that there should have been enough material fuel in it for an unimaginable number of years. The problem was magic.

Thus Sunset found out that there was not too little magic but rather too much of it. Each and every day — spells, magic lamps, magic carts — all this had been creating noise.

The noise that was drowning out, extinguishing, smearing the spell of light as ponies were drawing more and more magic from Equestria.

If ponies would drop the use of magic to the absolute limit, destroy all household magic items, reduce the number of magical creatures to a minimum and ask other races to do the same without starting a war, then the Sun will pass through the lowest point of dimness and flare up again.

The final calculation was ready today. To prevent the brightness of the Sun from falling below the collapse threshold, this had to be done two hundred years ago.

The princesses were doomed.

For the first time, Sunset had no plan. She dropped her head on the pile of reports and stared blankly out the window, waiting for dawn.

There will be no dawn.

Sunset watched the candle burn out. There were no thoughts.

The candle flame quivered. She knew what that meant, but she didn't turn around. It was time to give them a report.

She got up and took a deep breath, as if preparing to jump into icy water. She was hoping to keep remnants of dignity so that her voice would not tremble.

“No need to tell, Sunset. We know.”

Sunset exhaled.

The princesses knew how to speak in different ways — in a melodious, forever young voice that was their ordinary speech, and directly invading a pony’s mind. When they did that, ponies could not lie and could not disobey. Whatever they asked for, could only be fulfilled — no hesitation and no regret, and a pony would like to do it no matter what the ‘request’ was. They did not abuse this power. Sunset, in secret, loved to be used that way.

Celestia spoke in her normal voice now. This could mean one of two things: either they were going to talk about minor things, like choosing cakes for tea — or Sunset will be offered to do something of her own free will. Something that should not be ordered.

For Sunset, there was no difference between a request and an order. Everypony knew it, even Sunset herself.

“We have a solution,” Celestia said, and Luna wanted to object, but said nothing.

Even through her adoration, Sunset felt a pang of anger, They have it, while I don’t! They were withholding information from me when..., but she put her anger in a pan, covered it with a top and sat down on a said pan, looking into Celestia's face as a faithful student.

“We thoroughly followed Twilight's calculations—”

I will kill her! No, I will marry her! I will marry her then I will kill her! There was not a muscle that moved on Sunset's face. If the Princesses read her, they didn't show it.

“And your calculations—”

Yes! Yes-yes-yes-oh-yes!

“We will split and share the sun.” Celestia finished

“...What?” Sunset blinked.

Luna entered the conversation, “According to our solution, if we divide the solar mass into three or four parts, we can keep the flame in them.”

“But the power for the spell—”

Luna stopped Sunset with a gesture. She looked back at her sister and continued in a voice a bit lower, “Yes, if the spell comes from the surface. But if four alicorns are to be constantly on... I don't know yet what we will call it, then we can feed the reaction constantly and keep Equestria illuminated and warm. We have to give up the physical form though.”

"But there are only two alicorns, as far as I know?" Sunset was at a loss for now.

The princesses looked at each other again, “You, Sunset Shimmer, will share the heavens with us.”

“When? How?”

She was not against the offer, but neither had there been an actual offer in the first place, nor time to consider what had been said, as the princesses did not answer and the joint ice and flame of their magic destroyed the body of Sunset Shimmer, all but dispersing her very soul — but the unicorn was not going to die, even after such an abrupt change, especially when so much depended on her.

Sunset Shimmer felt as if she was falling apart, losing memories, reasons, aspirations.

She had no time to prepare, and, frankly, nothing except Celestia’s and Luna’s love and care could make her ready for that, and each next lane on the track of Ascension forced her to leave something of herself behind, in a miserable puddle of frozen ash on the floor.

She gripped at the most important parts of what she was before she was killed. She will win, as she always does. This desire to win became the core of the Red, as it, maybe, always had been.

So they took off and the wind of space blew away remaining matter from what they truly were. No more alicorns, but instead, three living fires stretched out in speed: white, blue and fiery red. There was neither Equestia nor the starry void around — only the hum of space.

Leaving the shackles of matter behind, for the sake of their own power that they will give for the good of Equestria, they have woven into themselves other, close, perhaps once rejected colors. Deep night darkness and ghostly evening blue haze intertwined with the bright blue ray of Luna, not suppressing the main color, but emphasizing it; Celestia's white flame began to slowly shift through five shades — from orange to ash.

A strange dawn rose over Equestria, casting triple colored shadows.

White, hot light ascended directly to the zenith, promising, “Everything will be fine, everything will be right. We will forever care about you and strive to improve our ruling." And the flowers raised their heads for White Moon.

Blue fire was catching up, proclaiming, "The world will not run out of beauty, magic and love." And animals, big and small, were looking for Blue Moon.

Red fire rose at the horizon and it was utterly silent. Something was off with the Red, as in Her rays there was no good and ponies shielded their eyes against them.

Only Moons heard Sunset Shimmer’s voice and even They could not read the yellow pony’s face anymore as there was no pony to look at, “I understand that I am an equal to you now. That I will have no body and no life from now on. I think it is fine, by itself. Apparently, you were in a hurry, as you did not even tell me what exactly you wanted to do… that you wanted to kill me, for the sake of Equestria. You thought, I will agree. So no need to even ask.”

“Yes, We knew that,” White Moon said, calm. “There were no exceptions before, our love.”

“And, knowing that I will, for sure, agree, you were still afraid that I might still… just not. That I will not follow you into the unknown.” Red Moon followed on, still in monotone.

“That is true too,” Blue Moon confirmed, “We felt there was a minuscule chance that you would refuse, despite all Our past together. But what is done, is done. We can’t accept Your servitude anymore, our love. Your voice is just as important as ours for our ponies and our land.”

The Red did not wait until these words would stop echoing through the heavens. She reached for a few stars, sparkling and icy cold and stars followed Her gesture, if slowly; a new constellation was born at that second, “Still, I will provide you with one last service that you have asked of me. I will be an equal to you. For being equal, I will be the first above you. I will be just as assertive as you. As you cast me out of service thus betraying me I will define terms of fulfilling your last — and I do mean last — order above me, as I see fit.

“You will learn to fear my name.”

“What are you… saying?” Blue Moon asked.

White Moon replied, and Her voice trembled, “I see… You do not know how to love, and live, without servitude. You are lost, Sunset, but… it can be helped! Please wait it out, and we will be there for You.”

The Red turned to Her former teachers and She was not even angry — just calm, collected, and ready for action. The sky was full of power. Unimaginable, enormous power that can be used for anything.

She started, and went on, with already claimed sources to make a point.

“You will be there for me, yes — as my prey.”

The power over reproduction and growth — and the Moons barely had time to keep a few bits of the aspect. Most of it was swallowed by the former Sunset Shimmer.

Life and living things in general — Blue Moon was ready and the Red bit off only the liminal parts of these possessions.

A luck that accompanies those who work hard and honest — White Moon utterly lost this third of the overall luck and more than that.

Sleep, dreams and phantasies — the aspect has split in a jagged crack, contested by two Moons at the same time and many dreams have become a road with no return.

“Stop it! Calm down and let’s speak! As equals, if you say so!” the Moons called for Sunset.

“If you can, stop me!” the Red replied, laughing.

“Then it is a war.”

Time passed. The Red did not even wage a war — She played, clumsily tearing off one or another aspect of power, and bleeding lacerations were to be found in place of what She felt useful, or necessary, or just pleasant and shiny enough to toy around with, sometimes losing back a piece or two, as two other Moons were trying to catch up with Her.

Down in Equestria, the ponies stopped, gazed at the battle-engulfed skies — until they were caught in a ray of the Red, who playfully changed the composition of their blood. The beam could linger, to make a fresh corpse move. But soon She got bored and the Red looked at another part of the planet below her, and many monsters were born from Her ‘that would be fun to test.’

This did not last long. Less than a day after the Ascension, the Red did not see the traitor that came to aid Her former teachers. She did not see the traitor in the most literal sense — black on black, the new Moon was invisible.

Less than a minute later times changed forever, because then, for the first time, the Trinity of Moons had been formed; then, for the first time, the Trinity unleashed Their ultimate power; and then, for the first time, Sunset Shimmer had been truly defeated.

Because then Time heeded to Their call and came to the battlefield of heavens.

Comments

[Numinos]

Huh, so it was not really the canon universe but some close another. Nice story though.