Chapter 77: Made
Lilac shielded her face with one leg, coughing and spluttering in the cloud of dirt and broken rock. She didn't expect that to matter much—the cave in would probably kill her, Risk, and Iris too.
Only, it didn't. She lifted her leg a second later, confused. A glowing shell wrapped around them, bowing in slightly under the force of so much rock. Iris stood in the center, staring up at the collapsing ceiling. Even though her head was nowhere near the top of the shield, it seemed to be crushing her downward.
“Lilac...” she muttered, through gritted teeth. “I think now might be... a good time... to put that horn to use. Yes?”
Horn? In the glow of Iris's spell, she saw what on some level she had already seen. A bony protrusion stretched up from her forehead, poking through her scalp. Bone was the right word—it wasn't covered with velvet the same color as her coat, like every unicorn she'd ever seen. Instead it was bone-white, emerging from her still bleeding scalp.
The spell didn't finish with me, she thought. The Watcher had been trying to summon an Alicorn. Maybe if she hadn't severed her connection, the demon would have taken over her body, completely. It would have a stable body of its own in Equestria, to do who knew how many terrible things.
What should she do about the collapsing stone? Teleporting to freedom was the obvious answer—unfortunately, she didn't know how to do that, or how far it was. What could she do instead? There was no huge explosion of energy here to power a shield, the way they'd done with the blasting powder.
What about the spell miners used to form caverns, the same one the Lightless Star had used to make this room? Lilac pictured it, the same as she did when she was drawing it with charcoal. Only this time, she didn't have to.
Outside the shield, the bowl of broken rocks and sand flashed bright orange, melting together into a flattened container of stone. At once, the pressure on Iris's shield vanished.
She slumped to the ground, breathing heavily. “Great work... sweetheart. You're a natural.” Her shield vanished, plunging them into total darkness.
The terrible roar of collapsing stone continued far away, shaking the ground beneath them. But Lilac wasn't listening for rock anymore—she wasn't the one the mountain wanted dead. As the seconds passed in darkness, the one sound she dreaded never came. No demon came to rip apart their thin protection.
“It doesn't look natural to me,” Risk said. He loomed over her, his horn glowing into a faint spark of light. In that illumination, he seemed as badly-off as she was, his whole body covered in dirt and worse. “Does it hurt? It looks like they were partway to changing you, but the magic ran out before they finished. Those wings are... yikes.”
Wings. Lilac had been so busy fighting for her life that two more unexplainable sensations just didn't faze her. Now she looked, and she wished she hadn't.
She had wings on her sides, like they'd ripped through the flesh of her back more than naturally growing there. It was probably for the best she couldn't get a good view.
Like the horn, these wings hadn't finished growing. They had only a smattering of feathers, in a dozen different mismatched colors. It was far less “pretty rainbow” as “half-plucked chicken.”
“I'm the nameless god they prayed for,” she muttered. “Look at me, rightful ruler of Equestria.” She closed her eyes, settling to the ground with exhaustion. “Or... probably we shouldn't talk about this. I don't know how much air we have in here.”
Iris wrapped a foreleg around her, pulling her in close. “I'm... proud of you,” she said. “Not many ponies would stand against the Unmade like that. Legends like the Pillars of Equestria. Whatever the Tyrant does when she finds us here, remember I'm proud of you. If I could've given you more, I would have.”
Lilac was crying again. Not much—not with Risk to see her. But fighting it all back was impossible. “You gave me everything, Mom. I love you.”
Firefly flew with the storm.
The Alicorn Luna was a terrible force in the sky when she wanted to be, like a streak of lightning in the night. An entire detachment of Night Guards flew along behind her in dense formation, but they could never hope to keep pace with the princess.
But after seeing Alicorns in action, Firefly now realized what she should've always known about the guards. They were never the ones meant to take new ground, they were just too weak compared to the princesses they served. Instead, they were the forces meant to hold the ground once it was taken. They would occupy, rebuild, and repair.
They could never keep up with the princess, but Firefly could. She flew in her wake, sheltered by Luna's magic against the flesh-rending force of the rainboom. She could never hope to fly at such speeds under her own power. But with enough control, she could ride along in the vortex.
Her wings told her of the terrifying force that waited just beyond the shockwave, enough to shatter all the bones in her body and leave her a bloody mess trailing through the sky. So long as she kept just behind the Alicorn, she would be fine. With that kind of motivation, how could she fail?
The pressure made it feel like hours, but it was probably less than one. Just as her limbs started going numb and her body was giving out, the princess began to slow.
“Stay up here a moment,” she ordered, as they coasted over Willowbrook from above. The Cumulus Maze was sparse that night, with only a handful of islands. Luna's attention wasn't on any of the clouds, but something moving along the ground. It was so distant that Firefly had no idea what she was looking at. “He's out in the open. All this time we hunted for him, and he's right there.”
She turned down into a sharp dive, dropping rapidly through the air. There was nothing so magical about the movement that Firefly couldn't follow. She was good at flying, not so good at following instructions.
The princess was interested in wilderness far outside of town, towards the mines. Of course it would be the mines. Where else would the evil cult be doing their evil rituals? Firefly didn't understand their reasoning the way Lilac did, but she didn't need to. The unicorns could figure out the magic.
It was too dark for Firefly to really see where they were going, until Luna had already landed. A lump lay on the ground there, crawling away from the mine. It was about the right shape for a pony. But why would anypony wrap themselves in so many layers of cloth?
Princess Luna landed before the strange outline. She lifted a sword from her armor, a thin silver blade that radiated the soft white of moonlight. “You will go no further, Watcher,” she said. “Surrender, or die.”
The blob of cloth and misshapen limbs collapsed to the dirt. Firefly caught a glint of gemstone from inside, and suddenly she knew what she was looking at. The Watcher! But what was he doing up here? “You are too late to kill me,” he said. Out in the open, his voice was barely audible over the gentle evening breeze. The words of a ghost. “Around and around we go. Forgetting, trying again, dying. Over and over again. Where's the justice in that, Alicorn? Why do you live, while we die? So many times...”
The princess lowered her blade, eyes fixed on the Watcher. “Necromancy? How many years have you stolen, Watcher?”
He laughed in answer. His voice stretched and distorted in the darkness, echoing off the rocks, the distant mountains. “Someone had to carry the memory of the True Gods. But when I reached for them... they didn't answer. Something else did.”
“Where?!” Firefly demanded. She didn't land, didn't get anywhere close to the stinking, rotten creature. “Where did you do it?”
He looked up, turning gemstone eyes on her. “Firefly... I order you to... no. There's no purpose in more bloodshed.”
“Where?” she yelled, louder. “Where is Lilac? What did you do with her?”
More laughter, quieter this time. “She tried to warn us. As though we would listen... should have, though. She claimed to know where they really went. But how could she? We found you there.”
“Your time is over, Watcher,” Luna interrupted. “One day, the ponies of Equestria may come to know the ancient Alicorns. When they do, it won't be because of a hateful cult. If you had somehow brought one back today, how do you think they would feel? Would they reward you for murdering their children? Would they be pleased that you tore holes in the fabric they lovingly sewed on your behalf. I don't think so.”
He wasn't listening to her. His voice was barely even a whisper anymore. She heard a memory more than sound. “Remember the True Gods, when I am gone. Don't let the tyrants erase us. What we built had... meaning. We would have seen them on their thrones.”
Light burst from Luna's blade, shining down on the fallen pony. His feeble cloak of fabric blew away in a sudden burst of wind. For a second, Firefly saw a rotten, shriveled husk of a pony, mummified and long dead. Then the light touched it, and the corpse crumbled away.
She heard a final whisper on the wind, a long sigh. Relief, as somepony who had carried an immense load for a long time, and finally set it down. Then a sapphire and an emerald clattered to the ground, where once eyes had been.
“So ends the Lightless Star,” Luna whispered, sheathing her blade. “I thought I told you to remain in the air.”
“I'm still flying!” Firefly countered, hovering along behind her.
Luna groaned. “I fear our work has only begun, young Firefly. I felt the truth of his words on our approach. One of the Unmade is here, or... was.” She tilted her head to the side, her horn glowing again. It went out after a second. “Curious. I no longer sense its presence.”
“Maybe Lilac Empathy killed it already.” Firefly landed beside the princess, though she kept her wings open. There was more distance to fly. “We fought demons once before. We're basically experts.”
“Careful.” Luna raised one hoof, fixing her with a sudden, intense glare. “My patience is greater than my elder sister's, but it is not eternal. Do not callously disregard the Unmade. Even with your lifetimes of magic, they can still do worse than kill you. Do not forget, you were not created here. Until you are born here, they could rip you away if you give them the chance. I do not wish for that future for you, Firefly—dragged across the gulf of misery and endless woe.”
Firefly felt a wave of sudden chill cut through her. “Lilac Empathy—could a demon do that to her too? We have to find her!”
Luna nodded solemnly. “Somewhere in this city is a hole bored through reality—an opening in the tapestry. Do you know where?”
She took off, scattering the ashy remains of the Watcher behind her. “Follow me! We're close!”
It did not take them long to reach the mine. As they arrived, they found a steady stream of ponies pouring out from inside. There were so many—way more than the small numbers she had always guessed for the cult.
They were so terrified that seeing the princess barely fazed them. They parted around her and Firefly, scattering into the darkness.
The princess drew her sword again, watching the opening. “It's possible the Unmade has hid itself from me. It might do this if it had taken a pony as its host. Even so, I will know it when I see it. When it comes, you should flee.”
“I'm not afraid,” she lied. Actually, facing one of these monsters had been the single most terrifying moment of her life. Watching her father almost die was worse, but that was a different kind of pain. “But what if... what if it is inside a pony?”
The princess made a subtle slashing motion with her sword. “I wish there was another way. But killing the host will free the one within, rather than trapping them in endless torment with the Unmade. Death is not so terrible by comparison.”
Minutes passed, and the press of ponies became a trickle, then finally came to a stop. The last and weakest stragglers hobbled past where Luna and Firefly waited. The Alicorn stared at each one, but whatever she was looking for, she never found it. Finally she lowered her blade. “No demon. I don't understand.”
“My friend is still down there!” Firefly exclaimed, barely containing her desperation. “Please, we have to rescue her!”
The distant horizon was stained suddenly purple, the first signs of the approaching sunrise.
Luna sighed, sliding her blade back into its sheath. “Do you really think the Lightless Star would leave your friend down there? These ponies believe you are gods, do they not? The ancient Alicorns, returned again. Why would they leave her?”
“She... ordered it,” said a nearby pony. Firefly had seen him before—he worked in the Vale estate? Or maybe he ran it? He wasn't wearing a mask like the others. “My son was with her. Please... Firefly, find them.”
He begged her, not the princess standing just beside her. Even now, the cultists still believed. Firefly couldn't even imagine.“
“What happened?” Luna demanded. She appeared beside the Vale steward, cutting off his path of retreat. “You will explain everything, now.”
Within five minutes, they were sprinting back into Cyan Mines.
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I hope they can save Lilac along with Iris and Risk. The watcher being undead isn't surprising.
With the Watcher dead, the threat of the cult is over. Hopefully, "Derek's" body is dead as well. It remains to be seen how Luna will react to Lilac's mutilated horn and wings. A broken alicorn created from forbidden rituals likely won't go over well with the full alicorn.
I knew the Watcher was a lich. Not sure what’s going to happen to Lilac, physically I mean. Will her wings finish growing? Will velvet come to cover her horn?
Well Luna, maybe if you and your sis had not deliberatedly hidden the truth from said children, some of them wouldn't have gone to the Lightless Star for answers.
So I guess the Watcher actually didn't know what he was doing. But then there's the question of how he came to believe what he believed. Where did the belief that the Old Gods were banished come from?
That made me cackle. It's such a Rainbow Dash response that somewhere she is really proud and doesn't know why.
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the puppet master was himself a puppet of one who remains in the shadows
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I wonder about that being the end of the Lightless Star, actually. I mean, the Watcher had to have gotten his false information from somewhere given his ignorance of what he was dealing with. Then again, I suppose it could have been the Unmade giving him false visions when he peered into the void.
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it really is, I almost expected Luna to say something about Rainbow obviously being an influence.
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The horn is exposed bone that ripped a hole in lilacs forehead. I think surgery, or healing spell would probably grow velvet over the horn like other normal unicorns, and the wings can grow new feathers if they're not covered in scar tissue.
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I'm thinking The Watcher may have been a member of an original cult that was around before Luna was banished to the Moon. He sounded like a "True Believer" that embraced necromancy to perpetuate the cult for the last thousand years, but because of the fear of the alicorns never did a deep thorough inspection of Canterlot, and the caverns below, to find the original rip in the fabric of reality that had the set of spell books that lilac empathy found.
”Do you remember how much hay you have eaten?”
In any case, it’s all over but the excavating. And Luna really should listen to Firefly. It’s not all bravado, even if she does admire Rainbow Dash.
Looking forward to whatever’s left, especially Luna’s reaction to Lilac’s current state.
Small tiny demon pony.
So, reincarnation is a thing here? The watcher seems to have confirmed it. Very interesting. I suppose integrating the sisters' souls into that network will be a choice for the future - or perhaps (Lilac?) will choose to travel the dimensions hunting for the alicorns...
So, we have a risk of a symbiote. Spooky. We know Lilac's clear, but she's all mutated and likely has Unmade essence clinging all over her - Luna will be skeptical... That leaves Iris and Risk. Iris mentioned the Pillars of Equestria, which an extradimensional interloper wouldn't know (why do I have the feeling that was intentional?) - leaving only Risk as a possible host. His speech seems normal for now ("Yikes" doesn't seem in character for Derek to say) - so perhaps the risk of a symbiote is a red herring, and we're in the clear... Time will tell.
Too bad they're not tagging all the survivors. Oh well, they'll all repent how, right?