Pathfinder: The Lich of the 5th Crusade

by TenebrisScholar

Chapter 6: Arueshalae Interlude

As she slept that night, Arueshalae felt something odd within her dream. A sort of instinct, or no perhaps inkling was a better word for it. A subtle feeling in the back of her mind. She had felt it the previous night too but had decided to ignore it. She had wanted to enjoy the company of her friends a bit longer and the smiling face of Mors. In her dreams he was just as alive as the day she met him in that cold damp prison cell in Drezen and as happy and jovial as he was during the celebration after Drezen had been liberated from the demons. Something she knew she would never get to see in the waking world ever again, and so she found comfort in it in her dreams.

However, it was back again tonight and she was quite curious. So as much as she wanted to stay in the comfort of her beautiful dream, she decided to listen and follow this feeling. Somehow both unsure and yet completely certain of what she was doing she stepped out of her dream and found herself floating in a vast sea of stars. One drifted by her. Reaching out she cupped the star in her hands.

Then she realized, it was no star after all. It was a dream. The dream of a pony child who was sleeping at that very moment. Her eyes wide with wonder she watched the dream, seeing the little foal running and playing in a field with who she assumed were his friends. She smiled warmly, joy filling her heart as she saw the foal’s dream wasn’t so different from her own.

She released the dream and let it drift away into the sea of stars. She then willed herself to drift through the sea of stars to yet another dream nearby. Cupping it in her hands she looked into this dream as well. It was an old pegasus flying through the sky. She was clearly having a lot of fun. This dream was sort of odd to Arueshalae. It was so different from her own. As much as she had learned and grown since Desna first spared her, she still couldn’t quite understand mortals. Sure, flying may have been enjoyable but it was nothing special. To her it was just another means of getting around like walking. What was so enjoyable about that? What made it worthy of dreaming of? She didn’t understand.

“Lady Desna… It seems I still have much to learn… I suppose I still don’t fully understand dreams.” She said, wishing Desna could hear her wherever she and the others were now.

“Ye doth not understandeth dreams? And yet thou art here within the realm of dreams. How curious.” Said a voice from behind her.

Startled, Arueshalae released the dream, turned and saw Princess Luna floating in the void behind her, looking at her curiously.

“Oh! Princess Luna. What are you doing here?” Arueshalae asked.

“We could asketh thou the same. However, to answer thine query, tis one of our royal duties as Princess of the Night to guard the dreams of our subjects from nightmares and other malign forces.” Luna stated, floating a bit closer.

“It is? So, I suppose you’re a demigoddess of dreams. Sort of like Lady Desna. I guess that means you fulfill a similar role to her, here in this reality.” Arueshalae said, looking away from the princess.

“Oh? Doth this ‘Desna’ guard the dreams of ponies in thine realm?” Luna asked.

“I suppose she guards the dreams of mortals. At least, in my experience she did. Though, maybe it isn’t all mortals. Maybe its just her priests and priestesses? I’m not really sure. I… I never…” Arueshalae sighed and shook her head.

“Thou did something thou regrets sorely. Something thou canst ne’er taketh back, correct?” Luna asked in a quiet, sympathetic tone.

Arueshalae looked at her. “Yes… A lot of things…”

“As have I… Come. We wish to showeth thou something.” Luna requested before her horn started to glow with a dark blue aura. Suddenly there was a flash of light and the two of them were somewhere else. The throneroom of an unfamiliar castle with two separate, currently vacant, thrones..

“Where are we? I know this is a dream but whose?” Arueshalae asked.

“Mine. And tis no dream but a nightmare… Mine worst nightmare… The greatest mistake I hath e’er made…” Luna said sadly.

That’s when Arueshalae noticed a dream version of Celestia walking into the room.

“Not another step!” Luna’s voice echoed through the throneroom before she walked out from behind the thrones, glairing at Celestia. “Didst thou really expecteth me to sit idly by whilst they all basked in thine precious light?!” The dream version of Luna demanded

The dream version of Celestia gave Luna a pained look but seemed somewhat at a loss for words.

The dream Luna walked up to a podium between the two thrones. “There can beest only one princess in Equestria! And that princess shall beest me!” Dream Luna shouted, her voice magically reverberating through the room as she stomped the ground with her front hooves. The podium shattered from the force of it.and shadows creeped up the wall, causing it to crack and break before the stained glass window above and behind the podium exploded revealing the sun. Dream Luna then stood on her hind legs raising her front hooves as she floated into the air and the moon rose behind her, eclipsing the sun.

Suddenly shadows began swirling around her condensing and heating up until they turned from pitch black to glowing orange like a ball of fire or blazing hot metal. The core of the ball turned black again before turning blue. Then the ball unfurled revealing Luna, but changed. Warped and twisted.

She cackled maniacally before thrusting her horn forward and cutting a swath through the roof of the throne room with a beam of magic. Thus the roof began to collapse in on itself.

Celestia seemed to gather herself for a moment before walking forwards.

The now transformed Luna stepped through the billowing dust from the collapsed roof, her wings flared.

Celestia launched herself into the air, hovering near the top of the partially collapsed roof. Luna fired another beam, blasting another hole in the roof and forcing Celestia to land.

“Luna! I shan’t fight thee! Thou must lower the moon! Tis thine duty!” Celestia shouted, sounding angry, though Arueshalae could sense a hint of grief in her tone.

“Luna? I am Nightmare Moon! Now I hath but one royal duty! To destroyeth thee!” Nightmare Moon shouted before firing another blast of magic at Celestia.

The beam missed by a hair, blowing another hole in a wall. Celestia flared her wings and took off, flying out through a hole in the roof.

“And where dost thou think thou art going?!” Nightmare Moon demanded before taking off after Celestia.

The dream froze and everything shifted to a sunny meadow where only Arueshalae and Luna, the real Luna, were present.

Arueshalae looked at Luna and saw she was crying. So she knelt down and wrapped her arms around Luna in a hug. It was still somewhat odd to her to embrace someone for non-sexual reasons but Ember had taught her it had other meanings and could sometimes help people feel better. When she asked the Commander, he had confirmed it was true.

Luna seized up for a moment before wrapping a hoof around Arueshalae, returning the gesture. She continued to sob into Arueshalae’s shoulder for several minutes before finally lowering her hoof and pulling back a bit. Arueshalae let her go but stayed kneeling for the moment.

“Th-thanketh thee…” Luna sniffled, finally calming down.

“What happened next, if you don’t mind me asking?” Arueshalae asked in a somber sympathetic tone.

“Sister and I… We did battle… I gave her no quarter and refused to lower the moon… I was determined to slay her and maketh night everlasting… To force all to worship me and my night… She had no recourse… She… She used the Elements of Harmony to banish me to the moon for a thousand years… I made my return only recently… Twilight Sparkle and her friends used the Elements again, and banished the nightmare and its dark powers from my heart…” Luna stated.

“And you’ve been working to redeem yourself ever since but no matter how hard you try or how much good you do, you can’t forgive yourself…” Arueshalae said.

Luna was silent for a moment. With one final sniff, she wiped the tears from her eyes and nodded. “Indeed…”

Arueshalae sighed. “Despite all of that… What I did… What I was, was still so much worse… Now it’s my turn. I have something to show you too.”

Arueshalae placed a hand on Luna and pulled her into her own dreams. Her own nightmare. They stood outside the ruined church where Arueshalae first began her path to redemption. The site of her final crime.

Arueshalae had to look away, as she showed Luna exactly what happened that night. She remembered it in perfect detail, but she didn’t want to see it happen again. She’d tortured herself over it for so long already.

When it got to the point where Arueshalae entered the priestess’s mind, she froze the nightmare and shifted the dream so they were standing in the house she always imagined. Only this time the house was empty, for the purposes of her conversation.

“I killed her. That priestess of Desna. She was my final victim… In her dying moments, I entered her mind. Her dreams. I was curious. You know, demons don’t sleep. Mortals always compare their greatest moments to dreams. So I thought it would be interesting to see for myself, and while I was at it… to mock Desna. The priestess lay in my arms dying of my kiss. I remember everything. Down to the smallest detail… I dove into her mind to see what mortal dreams were like. But the goddess saw me in her realm. And… it turned out I stayed there far longer than I had planned. I thought she was going to kill me. To punish me for murdering one of her priestesses. But… she didn’t. Instead, she gave me mercy… She awoke in me the memories of the sinners whose souls were used to create me… All those humans… I knew nothing of them until Desna showed me. Each of them had their own dreams. And a world without pity trampled them and placed them on a path that led to the Abyss. Their memories… All their hopes and pain…”

Arueshalae shook her head. “When I woke, I was filled with regret. For everything. Lady Desna helped me, in a way. Set me on the path to redeem myself. To finally understand the dreams of mortals and to finally be able to have a dream of my own… It was long and difficult. Sometimes I thought it might be impossible. After all, I am a succubus. A demon. A being that’s supposed to be inherently evil. Or at least I was.”

She paused then an image of the commander when he was still alive appeared in the house, with a genuine smile on his face.

Luna looked at the image curiously. She had seen the illusion he cast of himself when he was alive but it wasn’t the same. Even his illusion lacked something. When the illusion smiled it was like he was wearing a mask. Something he did just for show rather than because he meant it. This image was different. This was how he truly used to be.

“Then I met him, in a cell in Drezen after I had been captured by the demons… We spoke once before when he, his friends, and his army of living crusaders were on their way to take Drezen back from the Abyss and I was still imprisoned… His image was projected in my cell through some artifacts of Desna he had found, and he looked almost exactly like one of the Azata from Elysium.”

Mors’ image changed, growing numerous butterfly-like wings and his features changing slightly, becoming perfect and impossibly beautiful, as little green and blue butterflies fluttered all around him.

“I like to think that maybe, just maybe, had things been different, had he just chosen a bit differently, he might have become like this. A beautiful Azata, like I had seen him that day in my cell. Rather than giving up everything for the crusade and becoming a lich.”

“Tis a shame then that he did not.” Luna stated.

“It is…” Arueshalae nodded. The image changed, depicting Mors as he was now. A skeletal lich wielding a large scythe that oozed a deep sense of wrongness, his empty eye sockets glowing with ethereal necrotic light. “Though, even when he chose to pursue necromancy instead of becoming an Azata, he still helped me. He was there for me every step of the way on my path to redemption. He helped me overcome the urges I felt. Because of him, I’m not even sure if I really am a demon anymore or if I’ve become something else. Because of him I can sleep. I can dream. I even have a dream of my own now.”

The house filled up with all of their companions, both current and former. Laughing and enjoying themselves. Mors was randomly flickering between the human and azata versions Arueshalae had shown Luna.

“What a lovely dream it is.”

“Mhm… Sadly, it’ll never happen. There are friends here we’ll never see again and Mors won’t come back to life. We’ll never be…” She blushed a bit and stopped herself. “Well it doesn’t matter anymore…”

“Dost thou have feelings for him?” Luna inquired, raising an eyebrow.

Arueshalae looked away. “I… No? Maybe? I’m not entirely sure… But like I said, even if I did it doesn’t matter anymore. He can’t return any feelings I have for him. Or had, I suppose…”

“Come now, thou thinks far too little of thineself—” Luna started, clearly trying to be supportive.

Arueshalae cut her off. “No you don’t understand. It has nothing to do with me, it’s him. He’s…” She hesitated and then released a deep exhale. “I probably shouldn’t say this, but… when Mors became a lich, he had to sacrifice something… A piece of himself… I don’t know what happened exactly but whatever his teacher, Master Zacharius, did to him to make him a lich it killed him. And I don’t just mean physically though it did kill him that way too… He… he changed…”

Arueshalae looked at Luna with a pained expression. “He says his emotions have been dulled. That he can hardly feel anything anymore. And it’s true. All of us know it. Ever since then he’s barely expressed any emotion at all… It’s so bad that at first I wondered if he still thought of us as friends at all or if he only saw us as tools to be used and disposed of as he saw fit. Sort of like how demons see others…. But even after he became a lich he still went out of his way to help us. To help me. He still treated us almost the same as he used to. Just… without the same emotions that used to be there. So I know he’s still in there, somewhere. Lost. Numb… But even if he is, he’s not capable of feeling anything for me or anyone. And certainly not like that.”

“O-oh… That’s… horrifying.” Luna said, the concern clear in her tone.

Arueshalae looked back at her dream. In place of the human or the Azata, the lich now stood. Whole and present unlike the previous flickering images of him. She nodded in agreement with Luna. “Horrifying. Macabre. Sad. But it’s the choice he made. The worst part is, even if we could theoretically find some way to help him regain whatever he lost when he became a lich, he's already dead. So even if we could help him, it might just kill him. I mean, he is a necromancer, and a very powerful one at that, so it might be possible he could just... choose not to die? But at that point he'd probably be a ghost or some other different type of spectral undead. And what if whatever method we used didn't actually bring his emotions back or even destroys his soul entirely, by mistake? Then it would have all been for nothing anyways and we would have either killed him or simply made it so he can't physically touch things. Plus, is that something he'd even want or would he want to stay a lich even now that the war is over? So there's nothing we can do... the Commander we knew is gone forever.”

Luna gave Arueshalae a sympathetic look. "I do not envy thee, thine situation."

"Can we change the topic? I don't want to talk about this anymore..." Arueshalae requested.

Luna looked at Arueshalae’s dream. “As you wish... We neglected to ask during our prior meeting in the waking world, how did thee and thine friends come to be here? Thou claimest to be from another reality. How is such a thing possible?”

Arueshalae wasn’t sure how to answer this. She didn’t want to tell the truth otherwise Luna might get the wrong idea and try to attack Mors. But she didn’t want to lie either. “I don’t fully understand how it all works, but… How do I put this…? After we killed Deskari and Baphomet and won the war, some of Mors’ enemies sent us beyond the maelstrom. No one knew what would happen. We could have been found and killed or devoured by some unknowable god-like entity or just kept traveling forever into nothingness. It was supposed to be a death sentence. We only ended up here by pure luck. You’ll have to ask the Commander, Lady Areelu, or Nenio to explain the maelstrom to you. They know a lot more about interplanar things than the rest of us.”

“I see. Very well. I shan’t bother thee further. I must return to mine royal duties for the night.” Luna said.

“You’re going to go protect people’s dreams from nightmares, right? Would you mind if I came with you? I’m very new to all of this and I just think it might be a good way to start learning about my new abilities… If you don’t mind, of course…” Arueshalae requested.

Luna hesitated for a moment before smiling at her. “Verily. I welcome thine company. Perhaps we might explore more pleasant dreams whilst I defend the dreams of mine subjects from nightmares.”

Author's Note:

Hopefully my "Luna Speak" wasn't too bad. Let me know if I messed anything up or how I might be able to improve.

I'm hoping to give everyone in the Commander's party their own interlude like this. Originally I wanted to write each character's interlude in this chapter but I couldn't find a way to make them fit at this point in time. So they'll be interspersed at points that lend themselves more towards their individual stories and how they're adapting to the world they now find themselves in.

Not all of them will feature Mors so heavily. This chapter did mainly because he was so integral to Arueshalae's story in particular and he's at the forefront of her mind right now.