Lunarium

by Tramper

Part 2: Chapter 1 ~ A Filly In The Dark (V2)

“Let’s take the dive,” Twilight said to them as she stepped towards the hole.

Then the filly turned around and Raindrops saw her smile. She felt almost inclined to return, but a thought was stopping her. Was Twilight trying to give them hope? Was she making herself believe that they could fix everything, or did she really believe it? Did Raindrops herself even think about believing, even after all that had happened?

Madame and Hugh were searching for them. Goldengrape and Doseydotes had left her halfway to the castle and the city was in ruins. The only thing that had looked more beautiful than ever before was, the sky. Dark blue it was and orange where the sun came down. It was clear for the first time in forever. The filly blinked and as Twilight jumped and then she looked upwards.

Was she really willing to jump?

Raindrops had always taken a certain pride in her youth.

Octavia tried to compensate her own looks by acting as dignified as possible, Trixie was obsessed with being something she wasn’t, but she? Raindrops was a pony of but the color black. Her mane, her coat, they were like coal, with only her eyes standing out.

They had the same color as the cloth of a victorious general, an exquisite purple that would’ve made another filly proud. One who might have lived back in the place where the night sky was lit with a gazillion stars and the father sang songs to best the silence.

She had taken pride in her youth and wasn't afraid to show what scared her. She knew about being judged for it, but as long as she had a family that cared about her, she wouldn’t stop.

Raindrops remembered herself only a week before, crying because of something, she didn't even remember what. Madame had come, smiled for her and hugged her. The silence between them had been most soothing and she’d gone to sleep on the mare’s lap. She was but a little filly, not even ready to do minor factory work.

That was something she needed to remind herself of every day. Children were children, they shouldn’t be anything else.

The others were moving forward, Trixie quietly, Lyra with a guffaw and a warcry. Hugh and Madame, they had cared for all of them, hadn’t they? Was it really right to just go?

Raindrops asked that, because she remembered when a moment of loneliness struck, Hugh would always sit down alone and just stare at the table where they always ate. The smell of muffins had long since been absorbed by the furniture.

She remembered walking in and watching him, just like the other filly had done once before with her own father.

She’d done so on many quiet nights, sometimes he’d notice, sometimes he didn’t. Whenever she escaped his notice, however, he would break down in tears. Nopony else was there, so he allowed himself to be weak, but Raindrops had seen the truth of it.

He didn't have enough room or money for so many foals in one place and even though their presence gave him happiness, he knew that it was but a short-lived dream.

All dreams died eventually, all you needed to do was to wake up, but he never wanted to.

Before she jumped, Derpy smiled at her. “We’ll be fine. Twilight believes it will work, so it will.”

She nodded, but didn’t actually agree. Raindrops had found herself in the Dark ever since she’d seen Hugh alone. The Dark, that's how she called the world the adults lived in. It was a world where you had to pay taxes for everything and were mocked because your house held children that were not your own offspring. A world where a minor problem like Derpy's eyes could get a pony into lots and lots of trouble. A world where you knew of other ponies' worries and even the sweet scent of muffins became salty with tears.

Raindrops didn’t want to know that world. She wanted to jump from one water puddle to the next, wanted to play hide-and-seek with Derpy and let Trixie’s attempts at magic wow her.

She had placed a mobile above her head and tried to sleep with a nightlight again, let herself be told small stories by Hugh or sung herself and the others to sleep while Madame Hooves gently stroked her mane. The warmth of home and family was for her, not the loneliness and the pain the Dark presented. She was but a little filly, not ready to face the world before her.

Octavia jumped right after Derpy, and then only Raindrops was left. She and the sky above them. A cold breeze was playing with her mane, carrying sounds from a distance over to here. They were the noises of chaos, of soldiers marching through the city. They were the Dark and the world she had tried so hard to unsee.

But the Night Terror had appeared and had dragged her back down. The dreams of cottoncandy and warm hugs were destroyed and now she stood before a choice to make. Doseydotes and Goldengrape had left her, because they had been too scared to come.

Raindrops was scared, too. She had seen these nightmares and she’d run from them. The truth was that if it hadn’t been for those two, she wouldn’t even stand here. For better or for worse, she was trapped in the blackness. A filly in the Dark.

Another filly had heard a whisper in the wind once she’d realized the same thing, a call beckoning her to move towards an uncertain direction.

Raindrops used her wings as she took the jump, trying to brake as much as she could so she wouldn't hit the ground with full speed. The hole was deep, but an adult could fit through here, if only barely. For her, it was easy enough to spread her wings. Below she saw more light than just that from the moon. Something was shining down there.

---

She saw Twilight hit the ground first, then Trixie beside her. Lyra chose to use the piebald unicorn as a cushion and landed safely upon her, at least until Derpy hit them instead of the ground. On the last meter, she finally managed to spread her own wings in an attempt to brake. It didn’t work as well she wanted and after a thud the groaning of multiple ponies filled the air.

Octavia landed head first in the sand, everything above her neckline digging itself into the ground. She immediately got up on her hooves and tried to pull her head out. With a plop she managed to get out of her hole, sitting down immediately and tried to look like nothing had happened.

“Everypony alright?” She asked the very same moment Raindrops reached the ground.

Shortly before she made contact, the pegasus took up in speed, which put her off. Instead of attempting to regain her balance, she folded her wings in a panicked motion and fell the last few centimeters right into the sand.

It should’ve hurt, at least a bit, but it didn’t. There was only little resistance and while the ground held her weight, it wasn’t really hard either. In fact, feeling the sand, an old pegasian proverb came to mind.

“This is fluffy as a cloud.”

“I don’t really feel it,” Derpy said.

“I don’t either,” Lyra added.

Trixie groaned. “Then try laying down somewhere else, you’re both too fat for me.”

Derpy frowned and stuck out her tongue. “I’m not fat.”

“To me you are, get off me.”

“I’m not fat.”

You’re a bit fat, Raindrops thought, but didn’t say anything.

Trixie tried to move and Lyra attempted to rise up, too, but neither managed to make the pegasus move. She merely stared down at Trixie, expecting an apology.

“Okay, okay,” Trixie finally relented, “you’re not fat. You’re super slim and wonderful and everypony wants to look like you. Can you now, please, get off me?”

With a happy nod, Derpy tried to get up, but slipped and fell onto the ground herself.

“Woah, it really is fluffy.”

With a, “Wooh,” Lyra rolled off Trixie and onto her back. “Cool, I can totally see the moon from here.”

The light was shining right onto them from the hole above and the sand glowed slightly, too.

Twilight lay on the ground, too. Her eyes were closed and she had a small smile on her face. She clearly enjoyed the feeling of the sand, something Raindrops could relate to. Yet Twilight responded to Octavia’s question just a few seconds thereafter.

“I'm better than I expected,” she said weakly.

She wasn't as full of power as when that horrible, horrible crack had appeared in the sky, that was easy to see. Raindrops spotted her chest move with heavy breaths. Truth be told, she looked like the complete opposite of Derpy, who currently rolled around on the ground. Twilight looked like she’d never eaten anything, with her ribs accentuating her skin and bags beneath her eyes.

Her legs were such thin sticks, too. As Twilight tried to stand up, it made Raindrops fear for her. She looked so clumsy and uneven on them, but at least Derpy rushed to her help immediately.

“Thanks,” the unicorn told the grey pegasus, who tried to give her a confident smile in return.

“That's what friends are for.”

Meanwhile Lyra tried to help Trixie up, but the unicorn stood up on her own and dusted her cloak and hat off.

“Thank you for being my cushion,” Lyra said lightly.

Trixie looked at her with a dull expression. “You know, I think this sand is much softer than I am. Try to land on the ground the next time.”

“She's right, it’s super for landing,” Raindrops piped in.

A small but smug smile appeared on Trixie’s face as she placed her hat back where it belonged. Lyra tilted her head slightly, but the attitude made her more happy than not, as she pulled Trixie into a hug.

“You’re back to being regular grumbly, woohoo!”

With another groan, Trixie shoved Lyra away from her and walked a bit away from her.

“And she’s back to silently grumbling. I don’t like her like that at all,” Lyra noted.

Raindrops only shrugged. Trixie’s thoughts were her own, and it wasn’t like she could help anyway. She was just a filly, after all.

“We need to go on,” she said instead. “This Lunarium-thingie is somewhere close, right?”

In truth she wasn't quite sure about this whether she really believed in this thing, but if it got her away from Canterlot and the monsters she was willing to go anywhere now.

Maybe the place they’d visit would hold no more adults, no more looks, no more judging and no more pain. She wanted to leave the Dark now and maybe even go where the filly and her family had rested. Somewhere with clear skies and a bazillion stars.

Or maybe she would go somewhere deep down beneath the earth, where nopony would ever look for her Maybe they would see the heart of the world and forever forget all the things they’d seen until this point.Doseydotes and Goldrengrape, she thought, but there were more names.

Moving forward would make her forget, that was a blissful promise.

Everypony stood now, eager to move on. Raindrops saw that and was happy, because they could leave the Dark behind, they could finish this.

“Uhm,” Trixie said, “in which direction should we go?”

They stood in a large cavern, filled with white sand that had the faintest glow to it, as if it had absorbed the light of the moon. All around them, there were tunnels. Some of the entries were dug into the walls, above the ground, others only slightly peeked out from below the sand. Raindrops easily likened it to cheese.

Yet, all the pathways led into darkness, all but one. The sand formed a road into the unknown. She would’ve picked that one, instinctively. The darkness wasn’t a place for children, every adult ever had taught her that. Raindrops wanted to keep to what the adults of Canterlot had taught her, but then again, these caverns were as much of a place for them as the ruins above.

So sticking together was really important. Quietly, she walked over to the nearest pony, which happened to Octavia, who was as awed by this place as everypony else.

Just as Raindrops stepped close, she could feel how Octy tried to get as close to her as possible, too, all while staring at the walls around them. Was she afraid?

“Wait,” Twilight said, “I read about this. There’s stories about Princess Luna long before she vanished from Canterlot. Some say she went underground and built her garden, with a path of moonsand shining the way.”

Octavia looked at her. “This is a trail left by the … by the princess, herself?”

“Ohmigosh, we’re walking on princessy ground,” Lyra chimed in. “We’ll be lucky until the end of our lives. And rich. And powerful.”

Twilight smiled. “Yes, that might just happ–”

The filly suddenly started to break down in coughs and everypony fixed her attention on her.

Now Raindrops started to doubt again. That’s why you needed an adult, somepony who could understand the situation and make a responsible decision. None of them were qualified for this.

She looked up, and thought about the ponies she knew in this city. There was a whisper-like wind.

“We need to go,” Trixie insisted. “The faster we’ll manage to fix everything, the sooner we can go home.”

Yes, they needed to get away from here and as long as it led them away from Canterlot it was fine. As long as where they were going was somewhere else, she was completely fine with it. Her eyes looked to the path in front of them.

They had all witnessed things in Canterlot, they all wanted to run away, so they seemed to quietly agree with Trixie. As the piebald filly started walking, they followed. Six little fillies, slowly advancing on a glowing path that might’ve been set by the princess of the moon.

As they went forward, Raindrops kept close to Octavia. It was quite comforting to have light all around them, but as they took a corner, the tunnel grew darker and cold, hard earth overtook the warm, fluffy sand.

Raindrops wanted to say something, but the others just continued to walk into the darkness. She felt herself growing smaller and smaller, felt herself pressing against Octavia. The distance between all of them shrunk.

“Should we go back?” Derpy asked. “Maybe this was the wrong path.”

Strangely enough, Raindrops didn’t think so, or at least hoped. Anywhere would be better than Canterlot, because there had been Goldengrape and a beast of shadows and blood and teeth.

“Don’t step away from me, please,” Octavia whispered into her ear.

“Yeah,” she whispered back.

Now, the darkness was truly all around them and they slowed down more and more. Somepony was starting to sniffle, fighting back tears of fear. Raindrops fought, too, because in the stories, there were always monsters hiding in the shadows. Everypony must’ve thought that.

The truth was that they weren't meant to adventure, they all just wanted to go home. She thought of what she could say to them at that moment. Should they go back to where Hugh and Madame were? Was that place even still there?

Maybe, yet the sniffling was broken by the weak Twilight.

“Everypony, stop,” she said and they did.

“What is it, Twily?” Octavia asked.

“Lyra, can you do me a favor?” the unicorn asked between huffed breaths.

Raindrops raised an eyebrow.

“Y-yeah?” Lyra answered.

“Close your eyes.”

“What?”

Raindrops was just as perplexed as Lyra about that question.

“Just do it,” Twilight said softly and after a pause she added; “Now think about something warm and bright, a small flicker, a little flame.”

“Why?”

“You’ll see. Just close your eyes. …”

“Okay.”

“And now do it. Think of a dark room and a fireplace in its middle. Think how warm it is, about how the light it spends paints the room in golden colors.”

For a second, there was a small flicker, then it vanished as Lyra giggled. “Fires aren’t gold, silly.”

“Just concentrate, Lyra,” Twilight said, “trust me, it’ll be worth it.”

“Okay, okay,” Lyra said into the darkness. “Okay. Eyes, closed. Thinking of a fire place. Some stone, some wood and whoosh it goes burning.”

“No need to describe it aloud, just concentrate on it in your head.”

“Roger, roger.”

A small flicker, there in the darkness.

“Now a sun. Think of a sun, bright with hope and love.”

The light grew brighter and for a moment Raindrops could see it as it flowed from Lyra’s horn. Then, the unicorn giggled again.

“A sun can’t be bright with hope and love.”

“Lyra,” Trixie suddenly said, “just concentrate.”

“Meh,” Lyra said, “only if you cheer up.”

“Lyra!” Trixie yelled out.

The green unicorn sighed. “Alright, alright. I’ll concentrate. Sheesh.”

And then it appeared again, the small flame. It grew slightly and then even more. Raindrops could hear Lyra grunt as the unexpected strain rushed through her and then a small, glowing orb appeared over her head. Her horn glistened with green, magicky energy.

“It’s actually working,” Twilight exclaimed with a wide smile. “Let the sun soar above you, Lyra. Relax,” she instructed, sounding absolutely dazzled by the sight.

Lyra followed suit, sitting down, relaxing her shoulders and the orb starting floating in circles around her horn. Twilight smiled confidently and nodded.

“Good. I think it should work on its own now. You can open your eyes now Lyra.”

So Lyra did and she looked at the orb. Her mouth opened, but at first, not a sound escaped her. Then she squeaked, “Ohmigosh! I. Am. Doing. Magic!”

She jumped up and down and threw her arms around Twilight. The filly danced to the front of the group, laughing loudly while doing so. Even the others were really relieved that they weren’t in the darkness anymore.

“Oh yes! Look at me! I’m a wizard!” Raindrops said and threw her arms up.

The light vanished and the group was in darkness once more.

Raindrops couldn't hold it in.

“Oh, Come on!”

Comments

[Remmy4warlord]

Raindrops, sarcasm is not appreciated right now.

[Cedric Bale]

Huh... this updated, and I'm tracking this, but FimFiction isn't telling me about it. Had to find out through the featured page. Hope that doesn't happen with every update.

[Fire_Starter]

YES! A new chapter, oooh how I've been waiting!

[Via]

[The Cynical One]

Twilight, a pony smart enough to educate while hardly having done it herself! Impressively onwards!