Don't Stop Believing

by Seer

Working Hard To Get My Fill, Everybody Wants a Thrill

Luna looked at her levelly, seemingly unmoved by Twilight’s brazen defiance. It was amazing, how much of what Twilight did recently that seemed to prove utterly, totally futile. Then she cocked her head, and cut open her own cheek, and stood silently as the blood poured down her face.

“And what will you do if I don’t give you this?” Luna asked, as Twilight watched the drops hit the floor.

“I can find other ways of dealing with this,” Twilight said.

And she believed that.

Because she had to.

But a wobble in her voice betrayed her.

“You really are a remarkable specimen, Twilight, truly. To have gone as long as you have without draining any magic from Rarity, it defies belief. I wonder now, whether my sister ascended you not out of esteem, but out of fear. Out of self-preservation.” Luna said, seeming darkly pleased with how Twilight looked at the sanguine liquid, “That niece of hers up North in the frozen waste is a winged unicorn, nothing more, incapable of even using the elements. But you, Twilight? My sister was right, you can be a real alicorn.”

Twilight would have crawled over to lick Luna’s blood off the marble, a few metres away, such was her hunger. Thankfully for her pride, her limbs wouldn’t manage the trip.

“I told you before about the genocide that our subjects enacted upon our species, the gods by which they live. Imagine them with you at their helm? They would have been unstoppable. Like they were when they had my sister. But of course, to lead something like that, you’d need to be at full strength, wouldn’t you?” Luna asked, still tauntingly standing too far for Twilight to cross the distance. Her horn lit and she seized Twilight’s wing, folding it over and regarding it appraisingly, “A shame that is the case no longer,”

“I will not drain Rarity, I won’t live as a parasite. I’d rather die,” Twilight spat.

“Oh you won’t, my sister would never allow it. But more than that, you’d never allow it. You’d lose your mind before you got to that point and you’d take every bit of magic from her until nothing at all remained. And that, my student, is when your mind would return to you. And all that needs to happen is that you no longer have a source of alicorn blood to keep you going,”

“You’d…” Twilight muttered, struggling to stay awake, “You’d do that… I grew up loving ponies, not feeding off them, I can wait a while longer,”

“Still not listening, are we? Once again, my stude-”

“I… I am not your student!” Twilight barked, feral and dying, “Now… now tell me why you and Celestia were arguing.”

“As I said, do not deign to interfere in the business of gods,”

Twilight rolled over onto her back, looking at the ceiling. The delicate tilework depicted the alicorn sisters, and Twilight couldn’t help but laugh.

“Care to share with the teacher?” Luna asked.

The ceiling’s version of Celestia was a relatively modest design. She stood, unassumingly, lit by a sun that decorated her background with warm looking light.

Luna, on the other hand, was resplendent. She was up on her hindlegs, prancing in ful pride and fierceness and carpeted by an infinite universe of shifting stars, made from precious metals laced into the tiles themselves.

She looked like a god.

“You’re so much less than her…” Twilight said, and laughed again.

The temperature of the room dropped considerably.

Twilight didn’t care if Luna came over and stamped her head into a mess of bone and brain.

She could have done without the godhood. She’d be glad to be rid of it.

To Twilight’s surprise, Luna simply began to talk.

“My sister and I were arguing because we were unable to defeat Tirek, as we had countless times in the past. Were we at full strength, we could have parted with him with his eyes and ears, then flayed him living, reducing his entire universe to agony before drinking his magic and his power and his soul. But we couldn’t do that, because we cannot feed like we used to, we can only do as if the act is some shameful secret,

“My sister and I were arguing because her regime is rotten and will lead to nothing but ruin for this entire world because its gods are eating nothing more than rations, and must rely on a whelp who’s stubbornness is killing her. We were arguing because she has weakened you her entire life by filling your head with a fantastical, fallacious philosophy that she doesn’t even believe herself. Her domain is, and always has been, lies, and I respect that lies have their place in governance, but sometimes it is time to wake up from the dream.”

Twilight rolled over and looked at Luna, who had her back to Twilight. She was lightly, almost affectionately, stroking the Dias with a forehoof.

“So if she, and you, and that half-breed in the Crystal Empire refuse to wake up from your slumber, then I will do my duty, as I always have. I will watch over your dreams, heedless of disapproval, or disdain, or disgust, and I will do what I need to to continue my parent’s line. I will not allow anymore alicorns to perish, Twilight.”

“Wh…what are you going to do?”

That inscrutable face moved so close to Twilight’s, who cursed herself as she was unable to refrain from opening her mouth and craning her neck to lick the blood off Luna’s cheek. But the moon princess wasn’t for moving, and she pulled back before Twilight was able to.

“Fear not my student, for this is a lesson, and I will educate you… sleep.”

And Twilight was unable to resist the dreamlord’s request.

XXX

Twilight dreamed of mares withhite white coats, warm bodies that smelled of perfume. She looked up, seeing above her the blessed maiden with forelegs outstretched. And then her purple mane gave way to pink and blue and green, and wings larger than anything Twilight had ever seen, and the warmth became scorching heat.

And the comfort of love became the awe of the presence of an angel.

Twilight’s eyes fluttered open, she had been moved to a plush bed in the royal chambers. Celestia was looking down on her, a serene smile on her face, crying tears of blood.

The droplets were falling from her cheeks and landing onto Twilight’s outstretched tongue. The coppery taste had once made her vomit.

Now it felt disgustingly like home.

“You’re not out of the cycle, my dear,” Celestia said, a sad smile ensconced by two red rivers, “Blueblood sustains me, and I sustain you. You’re still feeding, as an alicorn would. One level removed, still consuming magic of our subjects, just in a roundabout way.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you ask me before you did this to me?” Twilight said, finding the renewed strength and clearness of mind allowing her to cry her own tears. Completely clear, nothing more than salty, colourless liquid.

“I believed you’d understand. I truly did, I do, because I believe in you Twilight.”

“This isn’t living,”

“You’re not going to hurt Rarity, Twilight. When have I ever lied to you?”

“You told me I’d be a good princess,” Twilight said, cursing herself for how she sniffled so pathetically, “You pretended my whole life that I wasn’t your prey.”

“You are not my prey, Twilight,” Celestia said, her face screwing up in frustration, her need for Twilight to understand written in every worry line, “I wish I could make you understand. Our feeding need not hurt those who sustain us. Milking a cow hardly kills it, does it? Picking apples doesn’t hurt the tree, which can live for millennia!”

“I’m scared of Luna, I think she’s going to do something,” Twilight confessed, and Celestia tilted her head in confusion, “Ever since the ascension, she’s been different. Ever since that night she visited me in my dreams. She doesn’t treat me like a friend anymore. She doesn’t treat anyone like a friend anymore. All that work from nightmare night is gone. She’s been looking at everyone like…”

Twilight wanted to say she was looking at ponies like they were prey.

“...like they’re less than her.”

“I know you mean well, Twilight,” Celestia replied tenderly, “But it’ll take more than nightmare night celebrations years ago to make Luna come around. She may try not to show it, but she’s not remotely adjusted to these times. I’ve had a millennia to do so, it may take her the same amount of time… why are you scared of her?”

“That night I heard you arguing… the things she’s been saying in her lessons…”

“Let me guess, she’s going on about that Dias she loves so much?” Celestia said, rolling her eyes as if the news was nothing, “She’s always had a flair for the dramatic, that one. I used to keep a little book with her myriad of colourful threats in there, between you and I. Pay her no mind Twilight, she never means anything by them,”

She did once, Twilight didn’t say.

“Luna told me that you’re not at full strength, that’s why you needed me to defeat Tirek, is that true?” Twilight asked, feeling like a parasite as she opened her mouth to catch another drop of blood.

“It… it’s true that we used to be much more brazen with our…feeding. And we’ve paid for it dearly, Twilight,”

“Why did you used to be more brazen?” Twilight pressed.

“I offer no excuses.” Celestia replied simply, “We were wrong, all of us were wrong. We were new to our lives, new to our godhood, and we were wrong,”

“But I’m new to godhood,” Twilight countered, and began to shake with sobs. Celestia leant in and pressed her face against Twilight. The two tried to provide each other some modicum of comfort. Celestia licked Twilight’s mane as a mother would a child.

Twilight licked the blood from her second mother’s cheeks.

“Twilight, you are the most remarkable mare I have ever met,” Celestia began, pulling her head back to look Twilight in the eyes, “You can, and will be a far stronger god than me or Luna… however. I know you don’t want to hurt Rarity, but the more and more you starve yourself, the less control you’ll have over yourself, you’re dangerous when you’re like that, Twilight. I wish you’d let me help you. I don’t know how much longer we can keep feeding you our blood. Look at what happened with Tirek, what if we’re not here one day?”

“Luna… Luna told me once…” Twilight said, her voice speeding up in a panic, “That I might drain all of Ponyville,”

“I don’t say this to upset you, Twilight, only because I owe you the truth,” Celestia began. The curtains billowed behind her, blowing open as the room was filled with a bright, white light, “You are the element of magic… you are the single strongest mage I’ve ever known… an alicorn like you? If it got bad enough? I worry you’d drain the whole world.”

Comments

[Bicyclette]

“That niece of hers up North in the frozen waste is a winged unicorn, nothing more, incapable of even using the elements. But you, Twilight? My sister was right, you can be a real alicorn.”

ah dang, being an alicorn in this universe is pretty bucked up! and makes Luna seem more, well, alicorn-like in context

You’d lose your mind before you got to that point and you’d take every bit of magic from her until nothing at all remained.

foreshadowing! except that it’s happening in a flashback after this was shown to happen so idk what that is

“My sister and I were arguing because her regime is rotten and will lead to nothing but ruin for this entire world because its gods are eating nothing more than rations, and must rely on a whelp who’s stubbornness is killing her. We were arguing because she has weakened you her entire life by filling your head with a fantastical, fallacious philosophy that she doesn’t even believe herself. Her domain is, and always has been, lies, and I respect that lies have their place in governance, but sometimes it is time to wake up from the dream.”

and augh love how well this fits in with the fact that in the canon Luna and Celestia are often so helpless and reliant on Twilight to save the day. and augh it’s like i’m reading a twisted mirrored version of some of my own ideas about Luna and Celestia’s conflict, it is distressing to me personally!

“You’re not out of the cycle, my dear,” Celestia said, a sad smile ensconced by two red rivers, “Blueblood sustains me, and I sustain you. You’re still feeding, as an alicorn would. One level removed, still consuming magic of our subjects, just in a roundabout way.”

well that does explain Blueblood’s whole deal!

“You are the element of magic… you are the single strongest mage I’ve ever known… an alicorn like you? If it got bad enough? I worry you’d drain the whole world.”

and ooh, what a direction to take the events of this story’s prequel!