Lunarium

by Tramper

Part 2: Chapter 15 ~ Here Is Where The Night Won't End

The pain was a much familiar one. As someone twisted her arm, fixated it with something, it was all too familiar. They're gonna ask you how you got your arm broken. You're a unicorn, so, if you don't want to get hurt worse, just tell 'em that you fell down some stairs. Be a good filly, at least once in your life.

She opened her mouth.

There was no sound, only the familiar pain. Maybe if she opened her eyes, but they didn't want to.

Feels weird.

Are you leaving us? Somepony asked in the silence. She wanted to tell them it was for the better, but then they'd caught her and nothing had been better. She was in the darkness and someone twisted her broken arm.

She allowed it to happen.

Look, somepony told her in the darkness. She wanted to open her eyes, really she did, but they were too heavy. It's snow. And soot, and the scent of the factories.

She remembered, and opened her eyes, remembering that she always liked the sight of the snows that seemed to fall so often here. It made the whole world seem so much calmer. When she was sitting together with Trixie, Rarity would agree, although she preferred winter because pony fashion got so much more elaborate during this season. Fashion was a hobby for Rarity, although she wasn't the type who could answer why. The dresses were pretty, the hats look fuzzy, and ponies wore little boots over their hooves. Little! Boots! Trixie never cared much for it.

“Look here,” Rarity would say and show her pictures from magazines, point to ponies visiting the orphanage, a big smile on her face. “That's an haute-couture,” Rarity told her friend, eyes glittering like stars.

There seemed to be stars in the darkness, too.

Looking at Rarity now, hearing her words again, Trixie found herself not caring for what she talked about, but for how much Rarity bloomed when she could talk about it. The way she threw words around neither she nor Trixie understood let the piebald filly be awe-inspired. I'm thinking that she knows what she's talking about, she remembered.

You're a unicorn, you're less than us. You feel not the caress of the wind nor do you hear the beating of the heart of the world. You're less than us.

Somepony said those words way back, but Rarity talked over them, using big words that made her look like a big pony. Trixie felt proud of knowing Rarity. I'm treasuring you still.

Rarity's parents weren't big on orphans. They never had been, they never would. Even now, though they may be dead. Trixie remembered how they always made them feel bad about it, how they told them that they were weak and small and how they laughed at everything they did wrong.

Her time in the orphanage had taken its toll, but, despite the darkness, she still felt Rarity close to her. Most orphans despised Rarity, even though she wasn't anything like her parents, and maybe Trixie was the only friend she had in the orphanage. Trixie, even back then, had always wondered how it could be that she was the only one noticing Rarity's kindness. As a matter of fact, even though Rarity was bruised just as much as the rest of them, they thought she was her parents' favorite. She tended to laugh at that. “Whether it's us kids or themselves, they need someone they can hurt.”

She remembered the sound of the laughter, she had heard it so often, and always in the same place. The nightsky was filled with grey clouds and snow was falling softly, in her memory and right now. Trixie sat here again, in her old spot, as she always did, however, this time she was alone with her thoughts. The other orphans were sleeping and Rarity, too. No laughter, no whispers, no fashion, but Trixie still liked to imagine that her friend dreamt of dresses and galas to visit. To the back of her, the fourth bed to the right of the door, that was where her bed was. She turned towards it, but couldn't catch a look at the small box she kept her things in. Her imagination shifted, to roads and towns she might visit, a wagon of her own. In her own dreams, she was a wandering magician who moved from one place to the next, putting on shows for the ponies to enjoy, showing them flashy tricks and bringing smiles to their faces.

You're a unicorn. You're less than us.

“I don't care,” she whispered to herself, down on her little windowsill.

Yet, it would never happen the way she dreamed. She was stuck here, in this place, this orphanage, with nopony ever asking where she had come from or who her parents had been. Nopony except Rarity, who had been so delighted to hear about them being magicians. There's one who cares, she thought. The windowsill was cold.

Trixie looked at the falling snows outside. There were crystals in the dark sky, slowly being eaten away by the darkness between the stars. And the windowsill was growing too small for her. I need to take a walk, Trixie thought and looked towards the door.

She was four or five years on this world as she took that choice, couldn't be much older, for they still hadn't managed to beat the intrigue, the curiosity for all things around her out of her. They never could, Trixie remembered, thinking about her mother smiling and a tower by the sea.

On silent hooves she snuck across the room. Hornblower was snoring, Merry Mistle was whispering to herself in her sleep, Luminosity was running away from something. None noticed her and she opened the old door with a slight creak. The youngest of them–was it Pitchy?–woke and asked what was going on, Trixie told them that she was going to the toilet, so that one mumbled something and went back to sleep. She closed the door behind her, then, but remained for a second.

She hated the guts of some of them, but others had been fun to be around. She put her hoof against the door again and said something. Not back then, right now, something she'd never gotten to tell them.

“Sleep well,” she said and turned around, walking along the corridors of the orphanage. They were without light, but she could navigate them without a problem. There was the door to the toilet, one that led to the kitchen, to the the room where they ate, the one that would bring her to the cellar. None mattered, none but the only door that looked well kept and welcoming, the front door. She didn't even want to put on her boots, instead simply stepped through the door and into the white.

As she took her steps, for one moment, she saw a spot of green, glowing in the dark. The monster's breathing, someone said, but Trixie ignored it, walked farther and then stopped, looked up, allowed the snow to fall onto her body, covering it lightly. Nopony else was here right now and nopony else was coming. I'm alone, she thought.

The orphanage behind her was a ruin and there were no more orphans in their beds. Rarity was gone, just as her parents. Trixie, however, remained.

“Might I Confess something?” she asked the sky. Her voice sounded so hollow, so hesitant. How strange that must've looked, after all, it was just Trixie and the night here.

A mass of grey cut her off from the stars. Later, Raindrops would talk about blue skies, about the stars and all that lay beyond the clouds. Now, maybe there was nothing beyond that anymore. The dark was still eating, after all, especially now that only Trixie was left.

She began to move and the snow fell off her body. Her path led her to the rusty old front gate of the orphanage. She remembered how the sign above it looked, but instead of welcoming visitors now the giant metal letters spelled out something else.

DON'T GO TRIXIE

But why would she? Nothing was left, so she left the ruins of the gate behind and let the world around her orphanage die forgotten. Her steps carried her towards Canterlot, that ugly city she called her home. Snows were still falling.

We need to move, a voice said, perhaps agreeing with her.

The road to Canterlot had been the most beautiful road in the world, back when the sisters ruled over the Equestrian realms. Trees stood by its side, colorful flowers around them. Birds chirped their most gorgeous melodies from high above and beyond them, beyond Canterlot and beyond the mountains lay towns where ponies lived their lives happily and without know of the misery to come. Walking down the road, on her own, every road she knew that led to Canterlot and from it was ugly. Acid rain had long since killed every plant that grew along the mountains and what trees remained were hollow with branches twisting without leaves, falling down once even the lightest of touches hit them. Snows were falling, even in this dead land and Trixie marched down a road dimly lit by lanterns, feeling the pavement beneath her hooves. The city was in front of her, nothing behind her, and she wanted to cry at what she saw.

The road to Canterlot had been the most beautiful in the world and she really would've liked to see it as that.

Are you leaving, again? Rarity asked and Trixie was gone.

She walked the streets of the city, right through the industrial district. On every roof it looked like there were a dozen chimneys, big ones, small ones, some even medium sized. For once, however, not a single one of them was emitting the black smoke she always saw when she thought back to Canterlot. It was so strange, and even the streets were empty.

She stopped before another gate, another place she knew, remembered, and peeked through it. There were still the furnaces, as she'd seen the last time she'd been here. In her memories there were workers, big, brawly, stallions and mares and along them little, miserable fillies and colts that worked the same load, but got naught but angry gazes in return. Last time she was here, there was one of them, seeing her and giving her a curious look. A colt of some strength, also noticed her and gave her a court nod for a greeting. From behind him there came another one who also noticed her, with the greenest eyes Trixie had ever seen. Her mane was blonde, her coat brown. Bones left their mark beneath her skin, like there was close to no flesh between them and the filly's hide, and she shook beneath the weight of the coals she carried. Still, her brother gave her a look, a mixture of pity and annoyance, and urged her own, saying some words, nuzzling her and whispering something with a kind expression. After their working hours she'd met them, when the sun had long since set and the streets got dangerous for young ponies like them. She met them on the street that led to the train station and somehow they had ended up in a conversation.

It couldn't have been too long ago.

They were heading back to a town called Ponyville, where they lived on the remnants of an old apple farm, now in too bad a shape to be a viable business. They needed money to get through the day, both their parents were in bad shape. Their mother was pregnant, their father sick from the fumes. The little filly, the one who called herself AJ, told her all that and her brother only ever nodded in stoic agreement.

“You know what? Whenever ya find yerself close to Ponyville, ya should come around the Sweet Apple Acres, soon we'll have another good harvest with the best apples in all of Equestria.”

Trixie had answered that one day, she would. And that was the last she ever saw of AJ and her brother, for they hadn't come back to the factories again, but she heard rumors and she knew all the storiers. Ponies talked about how both the young and the old frequently died during their work here. How the fumes were poison, how nopony who worked there ever truly grew up, how their bodies grew weaker and weaker with the years.

Are you dead? Are you alive? I hope you're well, AJ, cause this district is cold without you, Trixie thought. The snows were still falling and she decided to continue her walk, to wherever it would lead.

The old marketplace was next. Here, the orphans were lead to one summer day, to visit an office of sorts. Rarity's parents hadn't taken one–Merry Mistle laid in her bed, struck over the head with a bottle, weeping and fearing the time they'd return–but all others were present. It was along the road that they were allowed to look at the booths, mayhaps even to buy something from the few pennies they'd made for themselves. Trixie took to the booths together with Rarity and Whistleblower, but he got distracted by a band of youths he needed to impress and Rarity got stuck with a filly from town she knew and their talk of dresses bored Trixie, so she continued on through the marketplace on her own.

“Pie's rockfarm products! We have the most glorious gems! The most rotund rocks! The most solemn stones!” A man yelled and while he sounded enthusiastic about it, his face was much like the products he sold, an unmoving rock.

Trixie approached, curious, earning dirty looks from the rest of the family as they tried to sell their wares. She didn't look like she had the money, but still she looked. The rocks and gems they sold were of all sizes and colors. Some were worked into figures, others remained as mined. Some had a clear purpose, others eluded Trixie entirely. She decided that she could afford a single pebble made of a rare stone found only by the eastern coast.

I bought it and gave it away. But to whom?

The one who sold it to her was a particularly sad and tired looking filly close to her own age. She had a fine, straight mane combed to hide half her face, a half Trixie instantly noticed to be bruised, but still managed to smile as she saw the pebble Trixie picked up.

“That's a good one. It was the quietest, Maud told me, didn't cry when we took it from its home. It always wanted to see the world.”

“How do you know?”

“Maud can talk to rocks,” the filly whispered into her ear. Her hidden side had taken more than a punch, was battered by some violence.

Everypony looked at them, but her father, sighing, dismissed his daughter if she wanted to play with the strange child. He knew I was a unicorn and he didn't frown at me because of it. He didn't like me because I had no money and liked me because I spent all I had on his shop.

Pinkie told her, trying to jump onto the well's edges; “It's sad how everypony doesn't know how to smile. Maud doesn't know how, and that's fine, but most of them know but don't want to. Papa says money's better than joy, but I'd rather be happy than rich, but laughter can't buy you food.”

Trixie wondered why she couldn't have both. “Life's rocky enough as it is, you don't need to be stone cold for the majority of it.”

“Well, diamond dogs manage, I wonder if we could be diamond dogs. ...”

It went from there, if only for half an hour. First it was just the two of them, then Rarity and her friend joined, Mistle, Heart Joy, so many ponies. They played a game, first they were just Diamond Dogs, then they were town guards, then they played robbers.

Then Pinkie's mother broke it all off, grabbed her daughter by the ear, smacked her on the behind, yelled at her for disgracing her family, for filling other ponies' heads with her nonsense. The filly had told her, as she saw her mother approach, that she had fun, that she wanted to play again someday, even though she knew what the old mare would do to her. “Can I tell you something? Life's dull enough as it is, but fun's better than sad. Let's do this again.”

Now, the snows were falling and she'd never seen Pinkie again. She had known laughter, and maybe Trixie should've laughed more thereafter. It was getting cold now, however, and she decided to move on, a sad little smile on her face.

Pain ran through her left arm one second, then in the next second it was gone. Be careful, Chrys, a voice told the darkness and the darkness apologized.

The world around her grew black and white and nothing else. Lanterns stood by the side of the road and as she went past them, they started to flicker and once they left her sight, the darkness ate them. Stairs led upwards before her and she took each step. Nobody was here with her, she always avoided this part of the city. Yet, and she didn't know why, when she reached the very end of them and saw the gates of the palace, she decided to turn around. Trixie witnessed a sight that she knew should've been glorious, yet all she could see was a graveyard, a dead city that lived long past its time. Its colors were ugly greys and browns and even the snow could never fix its malicious look. Stories told of Canterlot as a hub of art and craftsmanship, but if it ever was, nothing remained by the time Trixie had been born. Now, there was naught of worth in this place. Now, Canterlot was no more.

The darkness heard and accepted. Only the stairs remained. The stairs, the ruins, the snow and the darkness.

As she walked through the gate, the remnants seemed endless. Were it not for the snows covering up the majority of them it might've looked like a labyrinth. An old, wrecked labyrinth, yet, even with the destruction, the main building of the palace still looked to be intact. Trixie moved towards it.

There was naught else. Stone and wood, splinters of glass and splatters of blood and bone were all spread across. The corpse of a guard cowered by a pillar, a guard she knew. He had seen his comrades die in the dark.

“Why isn't it over?” The corpse asked her.

The heart of the world calls us all, you and me and her too.

Whether she should answer the corpse or the voice in the darkness, Trixie didn't know, so she turned away and continued on her path towards the palace.

Another gate, grand and glamorous, with burnt doors and rotten banners. The path led along marble walls, where empty pictures hung of ponies she had known, adults who had claimed to be her parents, who beat her and told her to be quiet and proud. She was a unicorn worthy of their attention, to be dragged out of the mud with stick and stones and broken bones. Yet, now that they were all gone, were they okay?

Then came the last door, she knew. It was small and led into a tower by the cliff. It smelled of salt and it creaked in the wind. Are you leaving, Trixie? Rarity had asked and with one more breath, one more step, she left.

She walked across an indigo carpet, through a room with no roof. The snow was still falling, white powder on white stone. The pictures were of ponies she knew. Of Rarity, of Raindrops, Derpy, of Lyra and Tavi and then there were only two pictures flanking the grand throne of Celestia. There was a rope, a hat, and a million million memories.

“I want to go on,” she told the throne as she sat down. “But I also don't.”

Nothing alive ventured through these halls, which kind of made her happy. “Mostly, though, I want to sleep, but … I know I can't. I fell, everything hurts, I feel it. I know I'm not awake. When I wake, I will regret it. And even if I could walk again, what about everypony else? They're probably dead. I'm sure of it, and I couldn't do anything about it. I thought I protected them, but that thing followed us and we can't fight that.”

She felt a gust of wind, the warmth of the sun touching her heart despite the cold of winter and the darkly night. It was like the inside of the entire throne room lit up with the day's sun. The summer heat spread across the room, melting all the snow away and the light grew ever brighter. Wings spread out from the heart of it and one gently wrapped itself around Trixie. The mare's coat was a white as pure as a pearl, her mane was many colored and ethereal.

The alicorn looked at the throne, too, and the smile she bore was awake, alive. Trixie herself only could gape at her, how clearly she saw the mare she knew so well from pictures and stories. In front of her, ever so clearly, the sun in winter could not have been a more welcoming sight.

“You're. ...” was all she managed to say as the princess smiled down upon her, a kindness in her dull eyes that almost made her look alive.

Then, Princess Celestia spoke and her voice resounded throughout every corner of the dream. But a remnant of a memory, Trixie Lulamoon. I have died a long, long time ago and only the thoughts of my sister kept a part, maybe my best or worse, in this world. She sat right by the side of Trixie and though the snow melted she just felt a warmth to her that reminded her of a time she knew neither pain nor sadness. Oh little Lulamoon, we all lost so much to Magia and all that happened left our Equestria to a fate that seems hopeless, does it not? The city outside, the ponies you met, they and what became of them may just be a product of the influence of it. Her expression changed, she looked sad, tired, for but a moment,then, the princess of the sun looked towards the sky. Still, I trust. There is a chance to fix the world.

Her voice spoke softly and her smile was benign, trusting. They might have not been in the throne room anymore, maybe they'd never been. It didn't matter, Trixie focused on Princess Celestia.

“I've lost so many. I don't wanna lose anypony else. I want to go home,” the tower by the cliff, “I want to go to the orphanage,” left behind by me and Rarity. “I don't care about magic anymore,” because everyday I wake up, I'm still no wizard.

A part of you, yes, but you went forward despite that part. You walked away from the orphanage, from Canterlot and you didn't want to go back to the tower.

Trixie didn't know whether she should turn away, but then did, looked towards the door. The wing was still there, but she could see it. A tower, an orphanage, a thousand hating faces. She could leave, she could have left, she knew that. She could have just gone somewhere else anytime she wanted, but she never did. She'd gone to a place with blueberry muffins once, but this wasn't it. Why had she come here, then? Why, of every place she knew had she gone to the place where she and five other fillies had taken the dive.

Loyalty, Trixie, like every other piece of harmony, we believed to be gone from our world. I remember the days when ponies cared mostly about each other, and less their own happiness. There are pieces of remnants remaining, always. But now, after our demise, it only grew worse and worse. The child, Cadance, could not fix it, and we witnessed her attempts. After that, ponies lied to each other, used each other only to gain advantages. You are a victim of this, maybe moreso than most others. Yet you, little Lulamoon, possess a loyalty in your heart few others do. I know a part of you wants to leave this world, but all dead souls wish for that. What is important is that you know that that part is wrong. There are still ponies who are need of you, are there not?

Two ponies sat before the Day's Throne, a relict lost to time itself, a throne built after the happenings of an ancient legend, after the defeat of Discord himself, to celebrate the new-founded monarchy of Equestria.

“I know I already lost something and when I wake up, I won't be what I was before. Princess, will there be more sacrifices?” She asked, her body cold, her heart unwilling to make a movement.

The princess, her smile unmoving, turned towards the throne. There are always more sacrifices, little Lulamoon, but in the end, it will be worth it. For there will be laughter, kindness, loyalty, honesty, generosity returning to the hearts of the many. Above all else, though, there will be magic, there will be harmony.

Thinking back to Luna's long monologue, she was sure that this was right. After all, this wasn't yet over and if she really wanted to help the others, if she really wanted to save this rotten world with all its sunforsaken denizens, then she couldn't just lie down and die. There were many ponies in this world whose lives were worse than hers, many ponies whose lives she could still fix. If she held no hope, then why had she spent so much time dreaming of a better tomorrow?

She's moving, a coarse voice said in the distance, moving ever close.

“Princess?” Trixie asked, her voice growing in strength, as if she took in the air for the first time in a long time.

Her heart began to move within her chest.

Yes, Trixie Lulamoon?

She felt something touch her, someone saying something to somebody else and then bidding her to wake up.

Trixie rose, walked up to the throne. The snow was falling, Rarity nodded at her, accepting. Her mother smiled upon her deathbed and her fireworks whirled around her father as he finished up a magic trick for his daughter. Then, at the foot of the throne, Trixie felt life surging through her. Outside the dream, her eyes moved and the breath of a dog reached her nose.

Inside the dream, she turned and bowed before the alicorn named Celestia, first princess of Equestria and bringer of days. “Thank you. I'm gonna do my best.”

The dream ended, Celestia was gone and Trixie returned to the world of the living with surges of pain that almost sent her back to sleep. Yet she willed herself to stay awake. Before her eyes, in the dim light of a fire, she saw directly into the eyes of a diamond dog. Brown coat, young, mangy, his breath foul and his teeth either rotting or missing.

“Hi,” he said, and suddenly another head came in sight from the other side.

This creature was small and haggard, her skin chitin-like and ravaged with scars and claw marks. Her mane wasn't quite like real hair, with holes in it, hanging from her head like old seaweed. Her one eye was glowing green and a small smile was on her face. “She's life.”

“Where am I?” was Trixie's first question, as her sight got blurry again.

The dog smiled. “Here is where the night won't end.”

And in the distance, in the farthest corner of her eye, the darkness began to move.

Comments

[nodamnbrakes]

IT LIVES

[SoulOfAsh]

Well, now I have to go and re-read the entire thing to remember what it was about. ;p Thank you.

[Almeryst]

Awesome!!!!! it still lives. I'm so glad I kept a tracker on this, just shows that there is always hope :)

[Tramper]

8523803
You won't believe how many human sacrifices it took to raise it from the dead. On the plus side, the leftovers were pretty tasty.

8523865
I feast off people's time spent reading my stories. Just imagine it's all part of a great plan and you'll feel better about it.

8523887
So, the next update is probably gonna happen in 5 years time. I wanna beat GRRM's time for 'next release made'.

[QCosmic Derp]

Holy crap, what? Did this thing just... update?! I'm speechless. It's been a very long time. I'm so surprised right now. Seriously, blast from the past.

[breyercrazy]

“Pie's rockfarm products! We have the most glorious gems! The most rotund rocks! The most solemn stones!” A man yelled and while he sounded enthusiastic about it, his face was much like the products he sold, an unmoving rock.

Mighty odd stallion you have there. ;)

I really enjoyed reading this, even if it is sad. Very good writing.

[Cedric Bale]

There's a certain poetry to this story coming back to life with a chapter about Trixie coming back to life.

Keep going.

[Queensarrow]

8524358
huh, five years? That's okay, I once waited for a decade for an update. This story is worth the patience.

[Stonecrop Sedum]

Wow.

I think this is the first fanfic I read on this site?

Bravo.

[Tramper]

8525490
I always thought necromancy was awesome, so there's that.

8525550
Well then, hold my beer.

8527567
And you still didn't give up instantly? You're a sturdy one.

[bonberjean]

huh? where is the next button?

[Prysmkitsune]

8527870
is this story finished and just being rewriten or will i start reading and hit a brick wall like i did with the Sparity fic Eternal....

[Tali_The_Lamia]

Ok it been roughly 2 years since I read this story, and I seem to notice something.
In the description, you state that ALL magic has disappeared. So that would mean Pegasus`, AND Earth ponies would also lose their passive magic abilities, not just the Unicorns and Alicorns.

[Tramper]

9946428
They did, hence why I mentioned that the pegasi can't manipulate the weather and don't live in cloud cities. Earth Pony magic was, if I remember correctly, mostly a connection with the land, which made them agricultural powerhouses. They're relying on other methods now, I think in the original version the only time that really got mentioned tho was in the epilogue.

[Tali_The_Lamia]

8525550
Heh, same here.

[Kichi]

Found this in my list of "To read" and wanted to ask if still have plans to continue

[Tramper]

11354478
I'm unsure. I still have plans and lots of ideas and I do want to return to this story. A lot of life happened the past few years, though I still want to gather my strength and finish what I started here someday.

[Kichi]

11354609
Well, it's been five years so I can understand but it could be good to know if at last you are going to continue or just give up