Starstruck

by Vest

Chapter 10: Moonlight

Illustration by Bunnimation and Vest.
Special pre-reader thanks to Dracon Pyrothayan

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A remaining deed, give life that she chose.
Lost love guaranteed, in strife to repose.
An aurora gleams, brings night to a close.
Freedom only dreams, moonlight only grows.

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Chapter 10

Moonlight

The time is now.

Time.

The very essence of time, the illusion that was days and nights, had fallen so far back into the musty alcoves of memory that...

That...

Memory.

How long has it been since she had it?

And why did a full millennium seem to disappear with the very emergence of it?

In a blink, it triggered in an unfettered squall of consciousness hinged on the precipice of thought within the orange unicorn. Seeing that grizzled face again. Those downtrodden, desperate, unknowing eyes that quivered in perpetual disbelief in how far he had fallen into his own convoluted weave of contracts...glaring into them again was like wiping clean the span of a thousand years.

A thousand years? Might as well been a week ago. That’s only how much she aged outside the numb embrace of the Gray.

As did he.

He looked no different, no less preserved, than the night when she followed through with his desperate plea for her help. That night when she knew it was all wrong, but the impulsive coercions mandating her daily life begged to differ and took fate’s helm. After all, as she was always taught...hold virtues true to give me might, the wrongs I do to do what’s right.

The wrongs I do to do what’s right.

Right?

Oh how much her clearer mind wanted to finally lament and stew and rage at him for putting her through such misery, to casting her a slave within her own frame. The contract with the stars had been broken by Devon’s quick thinking, and by casting away the only remnant of her fiance’s soul by flinging the architect’s journal through the generosity chamber’s mirror, Devon was free to rework the astral manipulation over her as the sole wielder of magic in his bloodline.

Free. Fuming. Having ten centuries to indulge in rehearsing the words, it was as if the stars had delivered it all to her with a side of hay fries. Yet as the worn architect stood there stoically, her mind could not focus on the pressing circumstances at hoof. She could only see his face. The anchor that rattled her psyche, and dragged her back.

Back.

All the way back.

All the way back to that...

Memory.

Wrenched by the silence that suddenly seized her mind, the whole span of existence between her last enslaved good-bye to him and her first sincere exclamations of vengeance mysteriously absent from this most appropriate of moments vanished. It all mattered nothing now, like her mind had traversed a single momentary gap of irrelevant existence between then and now.

All that remained, all that could retain cognition, was that night over a thousand years ago when she went off to fulfill her star-sent obligation to her love, her keeper.

She remembered.

The night she took the element of magic to save Luna.

She remembered.

The mournful gaze of Celestia wrenching to unbridled fury, plunging her into an opalescent column fading to a parched Gray.

She remembered...

She had a job to finish.

* * * * *

Before any other thought could enter Devon’s mind, roaring rose from all quarters of the room, shuddering through the chamber with a force that rippled every stone like water. With a surge of movement, the floor suddenly rose. The jerky movement of suddenly animate stone threw Devon, Gina and Luna to the lurching ground.

Expecting another trap, the charcoal unicorn gripped the edge of the moonflower sculpture in the middle of the chamber, and exerted himself to his back. He looked up expecting to see the ceiling rapidly approaching to end his foalhardy journey. But instead of a bank of spikes coated in liquid fire, the only danger came from a pelting barrage of loosened rocks.

The room heaved upward, its force pressing everypony down. Whatever was moving the chamber upward intended to waste no time.

The heavy churning swelled intensely matching the unearthly roar of shifting earth all around him. Devon clung tightly to the moonflower’s dias. Luna’s powerful wings allowing her to keep a modicum of balance. Gina pitched and rolled with every list and turn until the back of her head slammed into the wall.

“Gina!” Devon called out. He peered to Luna, motioning his neck toward the stumbling orange unicorn.

The Princess called back, dust folding before her in the force of her Royal Canterlot Voice. But even the gale of decibels cracking through the air faltered and was devoured by the pounding chaos demolishing all sound.

With the dull thud, Gina’s body grew loose and limber, conscious but stunned, tumbling like a scarf lost to a high wind.

Devon only had a moment to ponder the movement before a light, steadily growing in intensity from the stone moonflower, drew his eye.In synch with the rumbling, the light blazed hotter and wilder as the room shook with increasing violence. It glowed with such brightness that Devon’s eyes stung when he looked upon it, yet behind the blaze, he could vaguely spot movement.

A shadowy blur, hidden by the brilliance of the light around it, paced in a tight pattern around the large stone flower, his certain steps unimpeded by the crushing physics pressing the rest to the floor. Through the scraping of stone, his slow steps could be counted out in the usual four-beat of a pony’s walk.

Clip. Clip. Clip...Clunk.

As the unusual pattern of walking made itself clear, Devon realized that while the room still shook, he could lift his shoulders. He staggered to his hooves, wavering and wobbling to keep his balance. Up on all four legs, the unicorn immediately felt the movement of not only the room, but the vast force of something far more behind him.

It was like being on a train, a steady might pushing this room onward. Yet unlike a train, this was pushing the room...up.

“I didn’t expect you,” the shadowy blur spoke as Devon rose. “I was not told you’d be here.” The voice did not match his companions. “Well, speak up then. How’d ya’ get up in this tragedy a’mine?”

The charcoal unicorn’s attention was divided three ways. One third was square on the voice before him, with others aching to find and confirm that Luna and Gina were well. “I...” he started, though his voice did not carry weight or strength.

A sharp clunk pierced through the room’s bellowing cacophony. “Speak up, boyo!”

“I...I am...”

“Shame,” he sneered, breaking the uneasy hesitation. “This must be doin’ a number on your mind, laddie. Can’t imagine how you made it through everything to get here. Unless it was all done before you.” The voice warmed, though lost none of its weary menace. “How bout yer name, kiddo. One step at a time then.”

“Devon.” The answer came on impulse, timid and humble in the manner he always responded to his overlord back at the Archive floor. “Devon Bookmark.” Try as he might, Devon could not make his voice inspiring or assertive. “And you...” If anything, it sounded like a colt in trouble, quivering with the pitiful mews of a newborn kitten. “And you don’t need to introduce yourself, I know you well.” He held his head up, clearing his throat. “I know that you, you’re the one who is responsible for this! Ghasen the archive architect!”

“Aye,” the architect sighed. “Did that sound better in ye’ head?”

“It did.” A charcoal head drooped dejectedly.

“Such is many things.” The stone moonflower blazed and rose in intensity, the contractual script burning hot on the petals as the sculpture gradually woke to life, blooming. “Thinks it sounds great, then when it comes out, it’s just funny.” A thin smile scrawled across his face. “Funny that, y’call yerself a Bookmark?” the unicorn asked with a long-suffering chuckle. “Been watchin ye’ I have, up unto when ya’ threw me journal square through the mirror.”

“You saw all that?”

“Every bit I have, laddie. You shoulda’ heard the whimperin’s of the mirror fellow ya’ kicked me inta’, I thought he’d never stop howlin’ ‘bout his kidneys.”

“Heh, well,” Devon scratched a hoof behind his head. “Never knew just how much strength I had in-”

“But!” A yellow forehoof jammed into Devon’s muzzle. “I may know not of what became my library after that, but I seen enough to then t’know what became of ye. But y’can’t fool me.” He sauntered around, and swat his tail against Devon’s haunch. “Every Bookmark has th’ same cutie mark, been that way forever, and ain’t not a hummin’bird on yer flank, lad.”

Devon huffed, the completed scroll on his flank was the first non-hummingbird cutie mark for as long as he or his mother could remember. “That doesn’t mean anything!” Devon barked, though without a show of conviction to match. “What matters is that I’m not going to let you do this to Princess Luna!” Another simple idea to cling to allowed him a small measure of stability and courage.

“Again, better in ye’ head, lad?”

Oh stop it. Another rueful chuckle was the last thing the charcoal unicorn wanted to hear.

“You know what I mean. I am not letting you do...your whatever star wizardry craziness on her!”

A warm impressed glow emanated off Ghasen’s cheeks. “Oh are ya now, boyo? And just how do you plan to change fate?” Ghasen circled around to another side of the moonflower, shielded behind the blazing light of the petals. “You don’t have the gift, laddie, I do, I do.” Lifting his foreleg, the sandy elder unicorn rubbed his hoof affectionately over one of the petals like it was a treasured antique. “I worked fer’ it, studied hard fer’ it, and I tell ya’ now kid, did I ever lose for it! Every one of these petals is another one of my mistakes, boyo. But I have a chance to make it right tonight. Y’aren’t going to fix this, even if you could.”

Devon pressed forward, mounting the steps towards the floor. All around him, he felt the ebbing distortion that came when he got this close to Gina’s contract, the same feeling of potential energy and unknown force that he manipulated before. “Well, believe it or not,” he murmured, “but I am a Bookmark, and I’ll prove it to you.” Lifting his foreleg, Devon displayed the gauntlet, blazing with its own magic as the captive essences strained to be used with the contract. “I found this and figured it all out. I understand it.”

“All this here falls to me,” Ghasen dragged a heavy hoof along the ground. “You can’t. You don’t understand a thing, boyo.”

“More than you’d expect.” Devon grinned. He knew his position was stronger. After all, without the gauntlet, what could Ghasen do to the contracts? “Stand back.” For a rare moment, Devon held the power. “Watch.” He placed the gauntlet on one of the petals, feeling the magic flowing through him. His telekinesis pulled the Element of Magic out and settled it on his head, only regretting a moment that he had to wear the uncomfortable thing. “I know you need this to do anything. And you can just stay there while I-GHOOOF!”

A blast of force threw him away from the flower and down to the stone floor, rattling his illusion of power like his ribs. Gasping and sputtering, he scrambled back up to his hooves on the vibrating floor, throwing a shocked look back towards the figure of Ghasen.

Clip. Clip. Clip...Clunk.

“What are you doing!?” Devon exclaimed, waving the gauntlet before him. A threatening orb of concentrated magic pulled into a tight fiery singularity at its tip. “You attacked me!”

“Nay, I done no such thing.” Ghasen rounded to the front of the moonflower, fully ignoring the simmering bolt of impulsive destruction primed in his direction. “There are alternatives, safeguards...” Clip. Clip. “A plan B.”

Clunk.

Devon’s eyes slid down to the source of the heavily falling hoofstep. Where the hoof clunked down in the ebbing glow of swirling magic illuminating from the gauntlet, a stone-cased hoof jammed into the ground defiantly. It was carved, intricately patterned in a match to the gauntlet wrapped around his own hoof. “This,” Ghasen snarled lowly, following the charcoal unicorn’s stare. “You’ll learn, too. Stars always have a backup plan, boyo. Plan C, D, aye by now they run the whole Chineighse alphabet.” He twisted his gaze, slowly blinking, his eyelids lifting to impatient pupils. “Needs more than that.”

Ghasen strode calmly towards Devon, his face heavy and weary. The bookkeeper sauntered back defensively, keeping a guarded stance. He shifted his weight around his chest, the tingling of the magic blast still throbbing around his collar. “What’s stopping me from getting that contract?”

“Still on and about with the contract!?” The architect’s voice lightened into a hearty chuckle, then quickly subsided. “I’ll concede to ye’ that ya’ crow with the ol’ Bookmark stubbornness, but not the flame. Ye’ hunger and pain for answers like Bookmarks, but cower from truth.” He hoisted his jaw high, pointing a forehoof to full extension. “Ya’ have the wits ta’ wield my beloved gauntlet, but why no hummingbird on ye’ backside?” Devon flinched as Ghasen circled, eyes intently focused on the scroll on his flank.

“It’s what makes me who I am,” Devon muttered weakly, sneaking a glance at his own cutie mark.“I always had a thing for reading and wri-”

“I see,” Ghasen dejectedly huffed to the ground in a loud sputter, his eyes closed tense in remorse. “Tha’s tragic...and ya’ don’t even know, do ya, laddie? By keepin’ a muzzle so deep in the pages, ye’ don’t even see a world beyond the margins.” The architect waved before him to the ceiling. “Ya don’t even know how deep in’it ye’ fallen.”

Spotting an opportunity, the charcoal unicorn darted forward and pressed his hoof into the flower again. He wasn’t sure what he could do, but he knew that anything to save Luna would need him on the flower.

Pulsing wisps of light rattled and snapped together at his hooftip, coalescing into a kinetic wave. A sharp punch of telekinesis thrust back with a rattling slam against his bones. He recoiled, falling with full forward force against it, gritting his teeth intently. Another pulse of light formed into a burning ring of energy around the gauntlet, peeled away in a wind-up, then smashed together. A converged blast of a hundred blinding daggers sent Devon arcing through the electrified air.

As he skidded and flopped painfully over stone tiles, Devon felt a soft tuft intercept his crash. He blinked heavily. Wiping dust from his eyes he found himself pressing against Gina’s prone form, the orange unicorn still mumbling from her rattled head.

“My, laddie, seems we...oh how did that stallion explain it to his reflection...” Ghasen tilted his eyes up. “Ah. See. Therein...therein lies our impasse.” He sighed, eyeing the charcoal unicorn. “Obviously, we’ve found a conflict in the contract. And we’ve a problem.”

A heavy thump echoed behind him, a flickering of cobalt reflected off the edges of the moonflower sculpture. Luna pulled her head into her forehooves, tensing heavily on the ground next to Gina. Her forelegs wrapped tightly around her face and eyes and body jerked and rocked with internal pain. “I...I...!” She seethed heavily between each word, desperate eyes laying upon Devon. “Beloved!?”

“Luna I-”

She grit her teeth, gazing intently to the stoic architect.

“My beloved!?”

Oh horse apples.

“Luna!” Devon’s focus immediately leapt from Ghasen to the Princess. What he found was a face contracted in confusion and locked in struggle. “Luna what’s happening?” he asked, risking to turn and kneel beside her, desperate to bring her some measure of comfort or relief. “Luna!”

“An impasse,” Ghasen murmured to himself. “I like that word.”

“What are you-” Devon cracked a forehoof towards the architect. “You’re just going to stand there!?”

“She is stuck, conflicted, you could say she’s...” Tilting up his chin, he lifted his stone gauntlet across his chest. “...Snagged upon two imprints.”

Clunk.

“Nay, until we sort this out, laddie.”

“We?” Devon hissed, picking himself up again, struggling to overcome the shock of Luna’s screams. “What did this become ‘we’ for anything?!”

Ghasen did not answer and stepped outward, tracing a long circle around the room past the prone Luna, who still clutched her head, speaking as if Devon had said nothing.

“It’s simple, boyo. Stars recognize the leader of the Bookmark family as their emissary. The pony with the best control of the gift...the best ability to use it...the best mastery of it, is who keeps it. And,” he ground his stone gauntlet into the floor. “They haven’t decided which one of us that is yet. And until we sort it out...they will pursue their own ends. Gina and I weren’t the only statues given a night of purpose.”

“A night of-?”

“Nay, hold that thought, laddie.” Ghasen lowered his head, peering intently upwards. “This part of the ascent’s a tad spotty.”

* * * * *

With a great heave, a structure burst from the earth beneath the Canterlot statue garden, a single pinnacle of carved stone and tortured metal whose appearance cast Jetstream to the ground in a clattering tumult of armor and feathers.

With his attention so affixed to the moving silent statues, he did not notice the tower’s growth until he was struck. Groaning, the pegasus struggled up to his hooves and looked behind him at the very major addition jetting up through the garden.

As if tonight couldn’t get worse...

There was no time to contemplate the hows and whys pertaining to the garden’s statues suddenly springing to life, or why they unanimously decided to go full attack mode. He could only afford a moment’s glance, for the statues reacted to the tower as well, moving from their orderly and silent procession to a sudden active ferocity. Four of them rounded on Jetstream, heads lowered in aggressive posture.

“Now just hold on...” the pegasus tried. “I’m just trying to figure out just what is happen-” The scorching ray of prismatic light from a stone unicorn quickly ended any form of rapport that the guardspony might have built with the granite ponies. Jetstream only managed to twist away from it just in time to be caught in the chest by the bull rush of a carved earth pony, only the private’s armor keeping it from being more than a blow felt the morning after.

As he fell away from the charge, Jetstream felt training and drills kicking to startled life. Hours of countless instruction finally rustling to use after years of complacency.

Multiple attackers.

To a guard who had never seen worse than an aggressively combative pickpocket in the market, Jetstream found a certain comfort in the strict lines of tactics that he was taught.

Don’t throw your life away. Delay and escape for reinforcements for a better defensive position.

Rolling to his stomach, Jetstream planted his forehooves and bucked backwards, driving his feet into the slate jaw of a rampaging pegasus. The blow’s impact rippled through Jetstream’s legs as they reported that kicking moving stone hurt just as much as kicking regular stone.

Fortunately, unlike most stone, the pegasus statue rolled to the ground. It dropped stunned, giving the private some hope that he at least might be able to hurt them back. It was a short-lived comfort as his wings fired and carried him skyward.

Don’t panic. Keep a clear head at all times, Canterlot Guards are the calm in the worst storms.

Wheeling around, Jetstream finally had a moment to observe the scene around him. At least fifty, sixty, several dozen statues formed into orchestrated lines and began to march outward from the settling tower. They moved with singular purpose, ringing around the tower as if they might be protecting it.

With his focus free to go to the power, Jetstream finally saw the burning torch of light at the top. And the line of statues now arranged in regiments, facing Canterlot.

Other guardsponies, drawn to the clamor, rushed from all directions. Jetstream counted a dozen in rapid approach. The private’s elation turned to regret as the statues’ heads turned and honed in on the motion as well. They did not speak to one another, shared no vocal communication, but they moved like a well-drilled unit.

“Hail!” A frenzied voice called from above. The clamoring of metal shimmering against wind followed a squad of patrolling pegasi. Jetstream whirled and twisted upward, joining alongside them.

“Private Jetstream!”

“Jetstream?!” a helmeted pegasus called. “What the hoof is going on? Where is the Second Captain!?” Before he could answer, a translucent orb of force slammed into the bunched pegasi, caste from a pair of stone unicorns weaving magic in unison. The force bowled them out of the air, dashing all but Jetstream to the ground, where heavy earth pony golems were already on a collision course with, as if they already know where the pegasi would land.

Turning, Jetstream opened his mouth to call for the aid of the unicorn and earth pony guards, but fell silent as he found them harassed and cut off by swirling stone pegasi. Well-drilled Canterlot guardsponies met silent stone, and to Jetstream’s horror, the stone was seeming to win out in every skirmish. One guard fell with an injured leg, and with the weakness in the unit exposed, soon other guards found themselves in a rout. The statues worked with ease, countering every attempt to hold them back with automatic fury and unfeeling strength.

“Fall back!” A guard in the middle distance called out. “Get the injured out of here, there’s no way we can do this alone!”

“Jetstream!” The pegasus guard called to him again. “Again, where...is...Stormblade!?”

“I...” He went to go on a silly treasure quest. “I...” He went scampering off to live out his stupid Princess Luna fan fiction. “I...”

“Get a hoof of yourself, private. You’re most familiar with the Captain’s orders, what’s the call?”

“We should...”

Oh, what would a blatant foalhardly lummox like Stormblade do?

“Chaaarge!” A sweeping line of pegasi screamed three seconds later, plummeting headlong to the waiting stone uprising.

* * * * *

“The equation is simple, boyo,” Ghasen droned, his tone completely free of inflection, even as the tower’s eruption echoed across Canterlot and the stone figures ranked up around it, each one of their wills irresistibly bound to the will of the master Bookmark. “Stars want Princess Luna, I’m here...to collect.”

“But why?” Devon snapped, putting his body between the elder unicorn and Luna’s convulsing body. “Why?! You were trying to free her before!”

“I was,” came a simple answer. “But that was a long time ago, lad. I am not taking any pleasure in this, you are right, after all. This is a betrayal of everything I worked to arrange up to this point.” His voice did not rise or fall, it was not an enslaved monotone, it was the voice of a pony who had simply broken and was cleaning up the pieces. For a moment, as memories flared, a flicker of heat entered Ghasen’s gaze and voice. “Think of a thousand years of being whispered to...hearin’ nothin’ but the pressure to give up and become the monster they want you to be. Stars aren’t so different than ponies in that way. Now, Princess Luna, stand up and join me. I’d like this over and done with.”

“I...of...course...” Luna murmured, her voice and face the same thin mask of obedience over immense agony. Her silver-clad hooves trotted lightly, delicately towards the moonflower altar like she was at a formal procession and stepping up to perform some duty or give a speech that the bureaucracy would quickly forget.

“No Luna!” Devon barked, the voice driving her back to the floor in an unsettling spasm. “What are you doing to her, Ghasen!?”

“Me?” he chuckled. “More like...we.” Ghasen’s stone hoof clicked heavily on the floor as he paced backwards towards the flower. “I suppose I was a mite reckless in my contract writing.” Devon considered the words for a moment before it finally made sense.

Devon stewed the thought in his mind. “We’re both Bookmarks...” He slowly nodded his head.

“That’s a start. Work it out.”

“Luna has to serve the Bookmark family...”

“Makin’ yer ancestor proud now.”

“But we want different things.”

Ghasen nodded once. “And so as long as we disagree and can influence her directly, our Princess of the Night is...” Instead of elaborating, Ghasen allowed Luna’s pained seething suffice as her mind struggled to go in two different directions, neither of her own accord, met with the rending pressure that threw her back to the floor.

Torn.

Conflicted.

“Listen, the stars want her back but they never said a thing about what kind of state she should be in when I bring her in. And while it does irk me to make her suffer so, I’ll deliver her in any condition.” He levelled his glance at Devon and growled. “And just how much of this do you think she can take before she completely loses her mind, boyo? Everypony breaks at some point, even a Princess can lose her mind, so give her up and I-GYHOOF!”

Despite his frail build. Devon found the element of surprise to his advantage as he threw himself into his ancestor, tackling him to the ground. The shock was enough to toss Ghasen to the floor, Devon pressing both hooves down on Ghasen’s mouth before he swung his head to Luna and shouted.

“Luna! Take Gina and get out of here!”

“My beloved!”

Ghasen bucked and struggled, an elderly body straining to match the younger star emissary’s desperate vigor. “Argh...” Devon growled, knowing that he had to at least dominate this conversation. “This isn’t a debate!” He shuddered inwardly in disgust at what he was about to do and looked back at Luna.

Sorry, Luna.

“Luna!” he suddenly roared, fury in his voice as he summoned a tone he would never imagine using on her. “Don’t waste time! I am ordering you back to Canterlot Palace! Take that orange mare with you and do NOT come back until I come for you! IS THAT CLEAR?!” The effect was immediate, causing the charcoal unicorn to wince as Luna reacted much like he feared she would. Quailing in terror, Luna instantly changed her tone to match his whim.

“O-of course, Devon, please be not angry with me. We’ll go!” Luna whimpered, seizing Gina; limp form in an aura of blue and turning immediately for the open windows of the tower. “We shall wait forever for thee should we ne-”

“NOW!”

Moments after Luna flapped from the window, Ghasen finally threw Devon off with a battering strike from his stone hoof. “Bampot! Get offa me!” Rising to all four hooves, Ghasen lit his horn, his stone gauntlet firing in time as he summoned up the raw force he commanded. “Alright then, ya want to do it the hard way, boyo? We’ll do it the hard way!” With a single gesture, Ghasen’s gauntlet pointed out the window, at the walls of Canterlot. “My ponies’ll get Luna back right quick.”

In a quick blur, Devon found himself back on the ground, a telekinetic club pressed against his collarbone. He scrambled, but found his neck pressed under his own weight against the moonflower dais.

The architect’s forelegs pressed heavily against his shoulders, his horn levelled at Devon. “And while they’re busyin’ themselves there, I’ll deal with you, boyo. I’m not going to let you get in the way of my freedom.”

“Well come on then!” Devon barked, fury honing him into a pony aching for a fight. “The more you hesitate...” He grabbed Ghasen’s stone gauntlet with both forehooves, hoisting it off his torso. “...The harder it is!” With a sudden roll, he pressed Ghasen off him, the stone gauntlet still fixed tightly in his hooves. He whirled his back into the architect’s chest, then jammed the stone gauntlet into the moonflower heavily.

A quick pulse of magic ricocheted back, and with a quick repulse, flung Ghasen head under hooves in a skyward twist. A tuft of dust trailed behind him, settling to a smoky drape silhouetting the architect as he dragged himself up in bitter eagerness.

“If that’s what ya want...” Ghasen murmured through the dust. “I don’t need to beat ya physically, boyo.” The elder raised his gauntleted hoof to direct the arcing flows of strained destiny around himself, his eyes piercing with intense luminance against his silhouette. “I just need t’prove to the stars that I’m the one who’s in charge.” Ghasen’s willpower manifested around him as a coruscating barrier of force.

* * * * *

"The statues!" Jetstream bounced into the dining room, his careening armor rattled loosely over his dirtied and sweat-matted cyan coat. "They've...I just- we, hebuh-juh...we, bwuh-buh-buh..."

"Easy there, private," Celestia replied, putting down a cup of tea beside a donut-topped mousse cake. "One word at a time, it's too late for so much excitement! Tell me, private, slowly, just what about the stat-"

"The statues are alive!" The shaken pegasus blurted in a pitched yelp, immediately knocking the Princess back a step. A dim silence fell upon the room, an echoing cough emanated from the corner. Servants and attendants paused in their duties, every eye turning silently towards the Princess. A purple unicorn and her companions all turned, looking straight at Celestia for explanation and direction. The pegasus righted his demeanor, straightening his helmet firmly atop his head. "Ahem, I, umm, sorry your highness. But we really, really, really need a hoof out front like sometime within ten minutes ago!"

"Show me," the alicorn ascended into the air on her glittering wings, gently clearing over the table in a single airborne step, landing into a full charge out into the castle's main passage. “Twilight Sparkle, you and your friends stay close.”

A contingent of groaning, shuffling guards made their way down the hallway, manes coated in the soot and pebbles of white marble, blackberry bruises running long lengths across their shaking bodies. Realizing the severity of the situation, Celestia's eyes narrowed on the archway leading out to the royal hedge maze, where within the great Canterlot statue garden loomed somewhere beyond the darkened haze of the ebbing fog. Nearing the doors, the clanging of armor, the yelling of orders, a fitful war cry, and the throbbing crunch of rock pummeling against earth shook through every surface, particulate, and wisp of air between Celestia and the arch.

"Your highness!" Called the cyan pegasus guard beside her. "We cannot hold on our own! We tried! We really-”

“Easy,” Celestia narrowed her eyes and peered outward. “I understand, just tell me what you know.”

“Celestia, my...we...!” Jetstream heaved for breath, only one word coalescing. “Orders!?"

Orders.

It had been years. No, decades. Centuries? Celestia's memory failed to grasp upon the moment one of her hundreds of royal guardians ever looked up to her demanding action. The very thoughts of olden days formed like a swirling mix of a flour batter, the sights of battles arose in crispy flaky dough, her ears twitched as her own stressful recollections frosted a dripping layer of howls, cries, screams and regimented diction of calloused soldiers icing thick and creamy on the edges.

And yet all she could think about was cake.

"Princess!" The guard called again, bringing the surrounding corridor of limping armored pegasi and rushing unicorns back into periphery. "Orders!?" Desperation lined his voice.

How long? Centuries?

"Private, we must..." Celestia started, her breath falling short. Testament to her grand rule was a lengthy period of undisturbed peace, a time of coexistence woven concisely through Equestria that knitted a delicate but dependable line between pony, buffalo, griffon, mule, hydra, zebra and minotaur. A line that had been in motion for a lengthy duration of history. A line that forged a boundary between even the most tenuous of squabble and the collective memory of modern pony. And in that long time, Celestia had assumed herself into the position of amalgamating into that line, now melded seamlessly into it, a physical manifestation of the peace and carefree world devoid of deception, conspiracy and conflict.

A manifestation of a thousand years of pacifism...being asked to lead by a stalwart youth displaced within an equally crippling sensation of consternation and unknowing that racked the royal alicorn beside him. Without the guidance of their acting captain, or even the Second Captain, the Royal Guard was disorganized, many heads with no direction.

"Celestia!"

"Diplomacy!"

"Your highness?"

"Yes!" She shot her head up, running again for the arch. The blue pegasus slipped on his hooves attempting to get enough traction to pursue after her. "Diplomacy, we must always try that first!"

With the comfort of longstanding peace came the whimsical idealism of utopia tailing behind it.

With a sweeping drop of extended wings, Celestia rocketed upward into the starry sky, perching upon the top of the arch leading into the Canterlot statue garden. Before her, through the gray mists, the shambling tumbles of rock-encrusted ponies lurched menacingly as shadows cast before multicolored bursts of magic thrown from both sides. With each blast, the stone incarnations' shadows projected temporary moments of the battle.

Fwoomp! A blue bolt of telekinetic energy shot outward from a formation of stone unicorns. It was a simple spell, nothing more than their telekinesis turned into a piercing bolt of force. But combined, it was a lash that scattered guards without mercy.

Byauwwm-pff! The telekinetic lash exploded against a shimmering dome of force, white pinpricks of living horn barely visible from such a distance, one of her own barrier teams. While he was not present, Shining Armor had rigorously instructed the unicorn guards in protective magic, and his caution was paying off now as it bought Canterlot’s defenders enough time to carry off the most injured.

The Princess had never seen such a large scale fight in such close proximity to Canterlot. How easy it was to diffuse a hoof-slapping dispute between sugar-intoxicated stallions who went too heavy on the sprinkles. How obvious it was to pacify a quarreling town fighting hoof and molar for a single doll with a dignified wave of the horn to disenchant whatever ward had possessed them. How simple it was to maintain her kingdom with selfless gifts of gemstones, fancy outfits, and...

...Cake.

Lots of cake.

So very much an amazing assortment of the most dazzling cakes.

And no cake could break up...whatever this was.

Another blast of cobalt energy warped sideways, catching into a maelstrom of magical essence, fusing into a twirling torpedo that drilled through a thick legion of stone silhouettes, a combined charge of heavy earth pony guards sending dozens more of the rampaging statues careening through the air before disappearing in the darkening shroud of thick dust.

Diplomacy. Here goes.

"My esteemed subjects, quarrel no longer!" Celestia shook her head, aligning her mane behind her to wisp proudly and elegantly through the early morning breeze. "For I have come forth to hear you!" Her royal Canterlot voice dimmed between breaths, receding gracefully into the tacit drone of pacifist homeostasis. She cleared her throat, and with a deep inhale, readied another volley of booming diplomacy from atop the arch. "Your Princess is here! Speak now and sow seeds of..." Peace? No, maybe, the future? New beginnings. "Friendship!"

Centuries. Definitely centuries since she'd last done this. It was always so easy.

An eerie quiet sliced across the landscape. The clouds dampening beyond the hedged corridors of the statue garden dissipated coldly, revealing the disjointed and separated groups of remaining guards making a quick retreat back to the Canterlot castle. Through the diminishing smoke, a straight line of silhouetted statues stepped forth. Massive, intimidating, brawny and varied. They stood tall with all manner of sword, club, scroll, wand, staff and horn in hoof, each an instrument of their own stone-cased penance, each an accessory to the crime that landed them in the statue garden in the first place. Now, alive, staring coldly with marble-textured glances of fury, all fixated unanimously upon their judge.

Their Princess.

In a cacophonous upheaval of indescribable sound, an explosive chorus of blood-curdling howls lapped against the castle walls. An unsettling roar shattered the moment of silence, it had no words but the message was unmistakable.The air rippled with each decibel striking forth, the unearthly screams for their years of imprisonment channeled forth with the intensity summoned from the stars above, channeled with the driving desire to maintain on top as the million specks of astral light adorning the black sheet of the looming cosmos overhead.

Jetstream landed beside her, adjusting his armor once more. "So...Princess." He smiled, apologizing in advance with a timid look. "What now?"

Another bombardment of stone-laden cries cracked against them, the buffeting noise blowing Celestia's mane back. She opened her eyes halfway, a tight grimace looking halfway between the impetuous line of statues and the expectant pegasus.

"Yep," she mused, blowing a lone strand of hair out of her eye. "Diplomacy failed."

Of course. Her delivery was all wrong.

"And, our orders are...?"

Would've gone so much better if she brought a cake.

“I...” she hesitated. Deep in the recesses of her subconscious, Celestia strove to bring out the fundamental strength that was needed in such times. Part of her was aghast at just how difficult it was to bring forth. Questions and doubt flooded her mind, but with a shake of her mane, Celestia banished them. Doubt could come later.

“We need to make sure Canterlot is safe,” she finally said. The first order made the second come more easily. Old instincts stirred to mumbled wakefulness. “Sound alarms, make sure that the citizens are moved as much out of the way as you can get them.” A rumbling march rose from the direction of the statue garden, they were moving again. “Since Second Captain Stormblade is missing, and you’ve seen the most of them, I’m putting you in charge when I am not here.”

“Wait...me?”

“Is that a problem, private?” Celestia growled. “Canterlot does not have the time to go through the proper channels.”

“N-not at all, your Highness.” Turning back to face the battle, Jetstream rubbed his temple with a hoof. “Just need to take charge...no problem...heh heh...” With a flap of his wings, he took to the air, gliding low to assess the situation. Everywhere he looked, things were going from bad to worse. Guards hauled injured or dazed comrades over their shoulders, statues pressed forward with only faltering resistance to stop them and a clutch of guards on the walls were all pointing at something in the air. Following their pointed hooves, Jetstream spotted wings of stone pegasi in tight formation. At their head was the first statue he encountered.

“They’re headed for the city!” a voice called. Something in the tone of utter panic set off Jetstream’s instincts. He knew he was no formal leader, but he could at least buy them a moment of time to clear out. Beating his wings once, the private squared up to the wing of stone flyers. Following the example, the few pegasi guards who were still flying fell in behind him without a bellowed Stormblade order.

“Right behind you, Jet,” one unseen guard. “What’s the plan?”

They want MY plan?

Jetstream’s heart pounded like drum, his nerves jittered, making his flight unstable.

“Hey, Jet! Come on, boss! We saw Celestia talking to you. You’re in charge now.”

If Stormblade were here, I suppose he’d begin by making a glue shield out of the ensigns...

“Try to peel them off of anypony in trouble,” Jetstream spoke, fighting the tremble in his voice as his mind caught up to the fact that he was asking others into danger for him. “Keep them safe but don’t do anything crazy yourselves.” Behind him, a small chorus of affirmative grunts and responses did a remarkable amount to steady his nerves. “I’ll try to draw their leader off.”

* * * * *

“Holdeth fast!” Luna called, tilting her wings and bringing the groaning Gina in for a landing. “We shall see to Devon’s whims post haste!” Below them, the guards around Canterlot’s walls and towers scrambled, little glints of golden armor leading into a clattering display as they made way for Luna’s landing, a long graceful swoop that would end in the feather touch befitting the most regal alicorns.

“Sister! Luna!” Celestia’s voice made Luna’s eyes bolt open and the landing became a slam, dislodging Gina’s grip and tumbling her to the stone floor of Canterlot’s outer walls.

“Celestia!”

The jarring impact with the ground snapped the orange unicorn out of the dazed fog in her head. Immediately, she knew she was no longer in the tower and her brain desperately struggled to piece together how she wound up here. However, before she could get too far, she heard a familiar voice approaching. Gina gulped loud when a four gold-clad hooves tramped up past her prone position, memories flooding back in a disorienting torrent.

That...

Memory.

* * * * *

Everything had gone out of control by this point.

Even under the misty-eyed guidance of the stars tugging every hair of her coat, Gina felt the terrible repercussions of Princess Luna’s apotheosis. Night eternal fell over Equestria, blanketing it in darkness and terror, reflecting the dark resentment that had consumed their Princess from within.

Her plan had been drawn up in the rare times she was away from Ghasen’s influence, his mere presence and voice enough to completely dominate every action; her saving mercy was that he had become so complacent that he had never suspected her of acting outside of his control.

At the outbreak of the crises, Gina

“Nightmare Moon!” Celestia called, her voice imbued with the fury of a wronged sister and wronged ruler. “This has gone on long enough. If only you had not been so foolish...”

“Hah, spare me the platitudes, Celestia,” the only answer was dry, bitter disdain. “You didn’t come this way to appeal to my good nature again, did you?”

The Sun Princess’ voice softened. “Only to bid you farewell.” As Gina approached, she reached for the Element of Magic within her saddlebag. It was all she needed. She remembered the incantation, she remembered the star’s decree controlling the Princess of the Night, she remembered...

She remembered.

“Do thine job!” the armored black alicorn taunted her. “Thou hath not the heart nor will to summon all Elements hither without my own hoof, too!” Lightning cracked behind her as a maniacal laugh swelled through the air, punching through Gina’s ears. “And thou hast not the Element of Magic!”

Celestia lowered her shoulders, digging her front hooves into the dirt. “I have enough not to dispel you from my poor sister, Nightmare Moon.” Five glowing lights of different colors emerged around the white Princess, “but it is enough to banish you into your own night sky!”

“What do yo-”

Gina’s experience of the banishment laid onto Nightmare Moon was a flash of light that transcended simple light, its brilliance searing every one of her senses and even into her very thoughts.

“Be gone from Equestria, scourge! Begone, one thousand years, begone!”

“Thou knowest not what thou set in motion!”

“And when she emerges from you, tell Luna I...”

The armored alicorn hesitated, her eyes lifting.

“...I do not blame her.”

Nightmare Moon’s gaze shifted, widened, and her glowing irises pulsed into a gentle teal.

“Sister?” Luna asked in sudden panic. “What art thou-” A sudden blast of white light pierced through the landscape, the intensity emanating through Gina’s own tightly clenched eyelids. “SISTER!!!”

It echoed.

And echoed.

And echoed...

For minutes, her last cry for help reverberated off every tree, off every hillside, off every mountain range, all ricocheting and converging back in muffled reflections of terrified sound. For minutes, it echoed.

Gasping and heaving, the white Princess fell to the floor, struggling for breath. Soft sobs trickled through the deafening stillness.

But as her thoughts coalesced, a new horror replaced the burning impression in Gina’s mind; she was too late! Every risk she had taken to free Luna from her contract without Ghasen’s knowledge, to restore her, had fallen away with Celestia’s pained and impulsive action.

“Luna...” Celestia spoke aloud, eyes cast to the moon and its new glow, its new impression. “Why did you steal the Element? Why did you take it away? If I had it, I could have...I could have stopped you without having to do this!’ Tears of impotent agony rolled down Celestia’s face as she pleaded with the moon. “Everything is changed forever, I can’t bring you back now! Of all of your crimes, I could have forgiven you, Luna, but without all of the Elements, I had no choice. Please...please forgive me...”

Gina stepped forward. Clutched against her chest was the Element of Magic, stolen with ease in the catastrophic confusion when Celestia confronted Nightmare Moon, her plan hastily scrawled on a few scraps of paper to use the Element to break the contract binding Luna to her role as Nightmare Moon. She held it before her. An assortment of images, diagrams, text, and arrows in front of it. The statue of a draconequus. The constellations of a winter night. The sacred hymns of spellcasters of old...no doubt much older now. In the center of it all, revealed with a final wisp of gray dust twisting in a wind-driven helix, a sketch of five jewels in a ring...A rapidly drawn circle and arrow over a sixth jewel embedded in the-

A tinny clatter drew Celestia’s attention. Through a crying haze, she beheld an orange unicorn mare fumbling at the ground, at her hoof was the Element of Magic, thought stolen by Nightmare Moon.

“You...” Celestia whispered, voice hoarse and face wet from her tears. The Princesses’ eyes darted first to the mare, then to the incriminating artifact at her hooves. “It...it wasn’t Luna who...” Gina stammered uselessly as Celestia rounded on her, sorrow morphing into incandescent rage as her mind assembled a new situation in her mind. “It was you who stole the Element! You stole it!”

Unable to speak, Gina could only step backwards, her hooves skidding on the floor as Celestia rose to her full height. The voice that had been whispered cries before now saw the villain. “You.” Celestia’s hooves rang with each powerful step. “Stole.” Her horn ignited in golden fire. “My.” Gina knew she had no hope of escape, she didn’t even consider trying.

“SISTER!”

All Gina had was a small prayer, still ebbing in muscle memory from a full night’s reflection.

My stars above reigning the night,
Our darkened eyes yearn for your light.
Hold virtues true to give me might...
The wrongs I do...to do what's right.

Celestia did not notice the unicorn mare hold still. She didn’t plead, fight or beg for mercy, all she did was step back from the Element of Magic. Gina lifted her head, remorseful, yet accepting.

“You and all of your conspirators will feel justice for this. You are simply the first,” Celestia huffed, still lost in agony, and the rage of her misplaced banishment. “You are the first!” She smacked a hoof down, flicking it in a spasm of emotion. “You are the first!” The Princess’ quivering jaw clenched tight, an opalescent column of light transcended over the orange unicorn. “But be not judged by me!” Gina tried to reach outwards to throw the parchment in her hooves hoping Celestia would see. “But it will be by Luna’s hoof when she returns.”

Yet the paper, the diagrams, the draconequus drawing, the star charts...they did not even clear her hooftip before being crinkling within a stone vice, the details fading...

...to Gray.

* * * * *

“Princess Celestia!” another voice, more immediately familiar, broke Gina from the memory, though with a renewed sense of dread. “This orange unicorn...she stole the Element of Magic and I bet she had something to do with the train and all of this going on!”

Celestia balked. All of this was too familiar, and a momentary glance into the mare’s eyes revealed that they shared the sentiment.

“Where is it?! What did you do with the Element of Magic?!” The purple unicorn barged into the conversation with a full head of steam. “What’s with all the statues?! What are you doing with Princess Luna?!” Even Celestia could not blunt the verbal barrage that hammered down on on the orange mare with her mind so distracted.

“Y’wanna know where it is?!” Gina found her voice this time, aided by the maddened laughs that punctuated her anger. “It’s up there in that tower. Annnnnd I’m going to get it back from the pair of idiots that are fightin’ over it right now!”

“Like I’d trust you with any of that! You aren’t going anywhere!” Twilight snapped. “Princess Celestia, I’m sure this is the pony behind all of this.”

“Luna,” Celestia’s attention refocused to her sister, who sat with a bizarre calm at the guard tower. “Luna, do you know what is going on? What’s happening?” Her sister did not answer until she had walked to the tower and flopped down onto her flanks with a distinctly less-than-royal flop. “Luna?”

“I am fine, sister,” Luna spoke evenly, though her tone was distant. “I was told to stay here by...” she winced, clutching her head in a foreleg. “By...” she shook her head furiously, trying to clear the compulsions out of her head but failing.

“Look there’s no time for that,” groused Gina in exasperation before another few laughs rippled through her chest. “If I took the time to explain all of this, we’d lose it all. We might as well’ve given up. The way we stop this is to get up there and stop em. I can’t get there fast enough.” Gina paced in agitation as her voice rose impatiently. “Take a good look at Luna if ya don’t believe me!” The orange unicorn grinned as both Celestia and Twilight first peered closely at Luna, frank confusion on their faces slowly morphing into a different kind of puzzlement. They realized something was off, but could not put their hoof on it.

“Twilight Sparkle,” Celestia finally broke the uncomfortable silence. “I need to see to Canterlot, I need to ensure that the guards and any citizens are out of harm’s way. Can I count on you to help this unicorn?”

“Princess, I...” Twilight hesitated, torn between her well-founded distrust of Gina and her deep-rooted trust of Celestia. “Is it a good idea to bring her?”

“Hyah!” Gina laughed before the Princess of the Sun could respond. “Not really, heck, I’m trustin’ that you don’t try to tie me up again, but I got too much at stake to not trust ya, and yer in the same spot as me.” Twilight looked to Celestia, who was already galloping back towards the rapidly deteriorating battle.

“What are you waiting for, Twilight?” Celestia barked over her shoulder. “Go!”

“Arrrgh...okay!” Twilight sighed. “Look, keep your hooves to yourself, alright,” she warned Gina sternly as she closed her eyes. “And don’t move til we’re there.” Twilight felt her teleportation spell swelling up, the odd sense of displacement and vertigo as her magic began to channel her body away until the telltale flash of white.

* * * * *

“Give it up, boyo,” Ghasen pleaded, though his tone had the same monotone drawl as any of his other urgings to the younger unicorn. “Please, make it easier for both of us. You don’t need to endure what I went through.” Even as the elder stepped forward, pressing the roiling force into a strength that drove Devon to his fetlocks on the tower floor. “Why do you keep resisting? Why?!” Pleading morphed into frustration. “WHY!?”

Devon quaked under the force hammering into his body and mind. Even though his gauntlet sang with a droning scream as he delved for more power, more reason, more anything to get an advantage against Ghasen. He had to prove that he was the better Bookmark, that his understanding of the astral contracts and magic could overwhelm Ghasen’s mastery of the application of force and condemning rhetoric.

“I know what yer tryin’ to hold onto, boyo,” Ghasen’s voice softened. “But you got no winning play here. It’s a coin toss.” The older unicorn strode across the room, magic radiating from his horn and stone gauntlet as he drew in more power from the amplified starlight. “Heads, I win. Ya give up on provin’ that you’re the rightful head of this outfit and I’m free.” Was Ghasen’s voice turning sympathetic? “You lose your Luna, the stars keep talkin’ to ya and yer gonna walk my path, boyo. They’ll eventually break ya down and you’ll do what they want. Yer gonna become the monster you think you are fightin’ right now.”

Devon groaned, trying to pull himself off of the stone floor before another battering magical wave put him back down like a gavel silencing an objection.

“Tails, ya lose. Ya beat me at this game, and prove you can make contracts better than me...maybe ya save Luna maybe ya don’t.” Ghasen stood and turned a wistful look past the rolling waves of light around the tower to the stars beyond. “But everypony in Canterlot’ll know what you are. What you did. What you could do. Ponies are like the stars, boyo. They’ll keep whispering, they’ll keep talking, they’ll keep thinking that you are a villain, boyo.” Devon could only see sandy-colored legs passing around him as his ancestor paced. “And eventually, no matter how right ya are, you’ll agree with em.”

“No matter what way this coin lands, you’ll give in, boyo. You’ll crack to the stars or to the ponies and you’re me.” Ghasen’s tone was unknowable. “You’ll finally stop trying to defend yerself, no matter how innocent ya know you rare, no matter how much strength ya know ya have. Like I told ya...heads they win...tails ya lose. Don’t matter what you do, the coin is in the air and it’s gonna land...”

Devon collapses to his stomach, eyes pinched shut as he started, inch by inch, to believe Ghasen. He struggled mentally, but it was already laid out in the journals. Ghasen tried to fight off the stars’ influence, and eventually cracked, accepting their desired role for him not because of any desire to be that, but his inability to further resist the constant accusation. By making his own move to save Luna, Devon had cast the coin, and even he would have to abide its outcome.

Heads they win.

“So what’ll it be, boyo?”

Tails I lose.

“DEV’S!”

In an explosion of gossamer light, Gina emerged in a full-blooded charge, orange magic flaring up her horn and eagerly firing off at Ghasen. A coruscating ball of flame splashed across his violet cloak, rippling up and down harmlessly before dissipating into the starlight. “Get her hooves off of him!” Another burst of flame shattered uselessly over Ghasen, though now from the floor, Devon saw something new. Something that Ghasen had never expected. “I said!” Gina roared. “GET. OFF. OF. HIM!” Each word was punctuated with a splattering blast of erratic destruction, and in its wake, Devon rose.

Behind Ghasen, two mares stood. Gina spewed firelight from her mouth and horn as she unleashed every kind of attack she could muster.

The tailing unicorn he only knew by reputation, Twilight Sparkle, prize student of Celestia and frequent cause of many hours of re-shelving books even before he was hired at the archive. She looked frantically around the chamber, struggling to get an assessment of the situation. Even though it was nearly imperceptible, Devon could see fate itself in how Gina’s spells dissipated harmlessly seconds before scorching the sandy unicorn to a cinder. So shrouded by destiny, Ghasen was unassailable, but Devon saw something else in Gina’s reckless charge. At first, it was vague, a slight inconsistency that he only recognized on the periphery. The next raging assault sputtered ineffectively away from Ghasen, but the image grew more focused to Devon.

“I understand now.”

* * * * *

Jetstream had never thought stone could be this agile, but the pegasus he fought in the skies above Canterlot was handily dispelling that notion with every blackout-inducing twist that the cyan pegasus pulled through in an attempt to escape. Casting a glance over his shoulder, Jetstream saw the statue performing aerial corkscrews that he had never seen before. Were it not trying to smash him into the ground below, he’d ask for tips.

Every passing second of the chase allowed the statue to close the distance by another half-flank. Tightening his body, Jetstream banked hard to bob and weave around the towers and crenellations around Canterlot, hoping to find some kind of weakness in the statue’s flight, yet after every banking turn, it closed.

Desperation crept into the Private’s mind and he dove hard, back over the battlelines and around the sparking tower. Below, Jetstream saw that his fellow guardsponies were in equal straits; they were all nearly equally matched, but somehow the statues held the upper hand in every skirmish. By all logic, even an indestructible golem should be dragged down by weight of numbers. Injured and hurt earth pony guards hobbled back to the relative safety of the walls and unicorn barriers, yet even the magic shields were uncharacteristically cracked and flawed. While Captain Shining Armor’s mastery of shielding magic was missing, they should’ve held better than this.

“FIRE!”

As the disheartening scene unfolded before him, one voice carried over all of the din of battle and onrushing air. Princess Celestia invoked her royal voice as she joined a line of unicorns on the walls. Jetstream couldn’t close his eyes in time as a searing beam of opalescent light streaked from Celestia’s horn, devastation trailing in its wake until it slammed into the base of the tower, followed by dozens of smaller telekinetic blasts from the unicorn specialists. Celestia’s protective fury burned so intensely that Jetstream’s retinas burned and tingled, his pace slowing as he struggled for sight again.

They must have felt that one...

Blearily, Jetstream dared to try his eyes, expecting, if anything at all, a gaping hole in the tower, but the only sign of Celestia’s attack was a trail of wispy magic that sizzled off of the illuminated tower, like the beam missed entirely, or had not happened at all. Statue ponies lay scattered by the blast, but after a promising moment of stillness, all rose again.

“Again! Hit it again!”

Another bellow from the Princess of the Sun mercifully allowed the cyan pegasus to avert his gaze as another blazing light lashed out into the tower, yet left nothing more than the smoking trail. It was clear that it was having some effect on the statues, at least with raw power enough to drive them away, but it was only doing so much, while the battle decayed with every passing moement elsewhere. Doubt and desperation were slowly turning into terror in Jetstream’s heart, if even Celestia was struggling to land a telling blow, what hope did Canterlot’s guard have? What hope did Canterlot itself have?

“Change of plans! Protect the guards on the ground!”

He paused, hesitating to watch Celestia’s movements, hoping that she might have some way to get a hold of the situation.

Jetstream remembered his pursuer at the same time he felt granite on his flank.

* * * * *

“You’re right, Ghasen,” the charcoal Bookmark admitted. “You’re completely right.”

“Dev’s?!” Gina blurted, her attack screeching to a halt.

“Glad to hear it, boyo. I can finally rel-”

“I can’t beat your use of the contracts. I just can’t. You have more experience than me in all of this...” Devon smiled softly. “But it’s clear that you don’t understand any of it.” Ghasen paused, levelling his gaze as Devon finally found a grip against the maelstrom of magic. “After all...you only know one trick. You don’t understand the rest.”

“And how do you figure that, lad?” Ghasen sneered, a slight hint of contempt in his tone as he rounded again on Devon, his attention so focused on him as their eyes locked. “I’ve had to build an army and all of these contracts, I think I’ve more understanding of the price and magic than you could ev-”

“How many have you broken?” Devon interrupted, finding strength in every new word, like the pressure of the room was relieving at last, giving him his chance. “How many did you break?”

“Why,” Ghasen scoffed at Devon’s naivete, “none, of course. You can’t break star contracts, that’s just all in sorts’a oatmeal, kiddo. Stars make em that way. No matter what you do, they find some new way to make you leashed to it. I did everything a pony could do to break one and everything I did was a failure.”

“So it’s impossible?”

The coin is still in the air.

“Yes!” Ghasen barked impatiently. “What are you getting at, boyo?!”

“What if the coin can land on its side?”

“...”

“Ask Gina if she loves you.”

“Hyah!” An agitated laugh bellowed from him. “Thinkin’ that her loves gonna set ever’thing straight, like some no-bit touche villain of yer silly books!” His voice returned to the tone of poured gravel. “Now this her be real life, lad, mine don’t end with no weddin’!” Ghasen narrowed his eyes in a spark of pained anger. “Don’t you be darin’ ta’ wave my failing in my face, boyo...”

“Ask her.”

He growled. “I may be leashed up by the stars, but if you make me do that to her, I’ll find some way to make yer life rough, boyo. I don’t need to hear that little duckling peep out ‘I love you’ and not mean it ever ag-”

“I hate you.”

Ghasen immediately fell silent, turning to look at the mare.

“I hate you.” She had a thousand years to rehearse. “I hate you.” A thousand years to make it perfect, make it as clever and creative as for him to remember it through eternity. “I hate you.” A thousand years...

“Orangina...?”

“I. Hate. You.”

...That might as well been a week ago. That’s only how much she aged outside the numb embrace of the Gray.

Ghasen’s attention immediately left Devon, fully grabbed by the words.

Before him, Gina glared, eyes burning with the fury of her recent freedom. “Did I nicker?” she barked, laughing spitefully as she closed the distance. “Or were you so used to me just whimpering for ya?!” And then... “I’ve waited more than a thousand years to tell you how much I hate you.” ...She remembered she wasted a thousand years rehearsing such rage. “For leaving me like this and QUITTING on me!” Beautiful rage. “Ya think I’m a puppet? Look at yerself!” Angelic rage. “I hate you, Ghasen.” The last sentence was lacking Gina’s animated laughter, it was as harrowing and heartfelt as anything she had ever felt.

Sentiment both from...and of her.

“Gina...I...” Ghasen stammered, dumbstruck and fumbling for words.

“You what? You want me to go back and make you that DISGUSTING mesquite slop you always eat?!”

“I...”

“You want me to bring you more victims?! Find another poor pony who’d do anything to get outta their life and just ripe fer you to make a slave out of em?!”

“I’ve never been so happy to hear that.”

“Lend an ear to your trvi-huh?”

“You hate me...you really hate me,” Ghasen chuckled. “Finally.” The sandy unicorn turned to Devon with a wistful smile. “Well-played, boyo.You did this?”

“His name is Devon,” Gina snapped, the rage all too happy to reignite. “And yes, y’see, he didn’t feel the pressure and run away. And he barely knows me! How much did ya EVER give to a pony ya didn’t know?!”

“Devon Bookmark...” Ghasen mused, lowering his head and then lifting to look out at the stars. “Maybe, but just maybe.” He shook his head, the mist in his eyes dissipating as the strict monotone returned. “Aye, not a hummingbird on ye’, sure. But...” He contemplated for a second, then lowered his brow at him. “Your struggle is not over, Bookmark.” Even though his tone had changed, it was no longer broken, it had a spark of vigor long since forgotten, the name Bookmark was used more like a title than a family now. “You’ve got the ability to fix this but...” The elder unicorn hesitated, as if judging what he was about to say and how it might change his future. “There’s gonna be consequences to this, Bookmark. You got lucky on this coin toss but...you aren’t free, Luna’s not free...not yet.”

Devon rose again, strength growing with every new breath he took. “And what’s that supposed to mean?” Before Ghasen could speak again, the tower suddenly lurched to one side in a violent rumble of stone.

“Ack!” Ghasen gasped, nearly toppling over before catching himself on a wall. “It means that ya got a lot of fixin’ to do and a time limit, boyo! You’re clearly the most accomplished weaver of fate here, Devon Bookmark. And since we sorted that out at last...means the stars aren’t so keen on holdin’ this tower together.”

Devon looked slowly up at the glowing flower. “You’re right, I do,” he said, turning and making a determined path towards the halo of glowing petals. “You teleported Gina here, right?” he asked, not even turning his head to look at the flummoxed purple unicorn. “Can you get everypony else out of here, and then come back for me when I finish?”

“Um...now just hold on a minute...”

“Yes or no. That’s all I need, ma’am.” Devon’s tone was distracted, his attention entirely on the flow of light across the moonflower. Twilight recognized the tone as what she would use when ponies would try to interfere with her planning and research. “You want this stopped, right?”

“Of course, but...”

“Please do it,” Devon paused, turning to give Gina a firm look to silence a protest that was already brewing. “If anypony else is here, it’s going to distract me and I might mess it up. I have to do this right or everything could get a whole lot worse.”

“Now just hang on!” Twilight sputtered uselessly before the older unicorn raised a sandy foreleg to halt her progress.

“I assure you, miss,” Ghasen spoke evenly. “He has everypony’s best interests at heart. This unsavory business is my own making, but it falls to him to unmake it.” Turning, the elder unicorn gave Devon a long look, the gaze penetrating right to the youth’s heart. Saying nothing, he simply nodded once, the elder passing his approval to the next generation a thousand years down the road.

“C’mawn,” Gina broke the silence. “We gotta give Dev’s his space to do his thing. We got the bad pony here.” The orange unicorn mare shifted with clear disgust as Ghasen stepped to Twilight’s opposite side, though her composure held. “And Dev’s...” she hesitated, face heated. “Dev’s look, I know we had our weirdness, but just don’t do anything too stupid, okay?” She smiled, a small giggle wiggling out of her throat. It wasn’t quite the storybook words of encouragement, but Devon rolled with it.

“I’ll only be stupid for as much as is absolutely necessary.”

“Atta boy.”

“Wait!” Twilight interjected. “How will I know when you’re finished?”

“Luna will tell you.” Devon smiled once. “She’ll know, trust me.” Turning back to the glowing aura around the moonflower, the unicorn waited only for a moment for the snapping flash of the teleportation spell to come and go before before stepping into the petal’s light. “And I’ll make sure the Element gets back to you as soon as I’m done!” He wasn’t sure if that last call was heard.

Alone in the miasma of fate, Devon closed his eyes and tried to focus. The sensation was just the same as when he freed Gina, a wailing roar of potential energy that penetrated and resonated with the deepest fibers of his being. But where Gina’s alone was a tremble, all of the contracts contained in the moonflower were a tempest. Simply standing in it and not falling unconscious required constant vigilance and tension. Joining the force of the contracts’ magic were the shuddering spirits from his gauntlet, all aching for the same release.

“Okay...” Devon spoke aloud, mind clinging onto his own voice as an anchoring point in the storm. “Okay Devon, you can do this. I hope...”

There’s gonna be consequences to this.

Ghasen’s warning drifted around in Devon’s mind, much like the gnawing doubt when he first began to suspect Luna’s enslavement. Part of his mind knew that it was the most dire of warnings, yet was equally aware of the necessity of action. Even without Ghasen, the statues still had their mission to take Luna back, and Luna was still bound to her own. All of it was so much for his mind to process that the charcoal unicorn would have preferred hours to consider the implications of meddling with fate so much. But the tower shuddered again, reminding Devon that he had...more like seconds to consider the implications.

Swallowed by so many different contracts, Devon groped blindly, hoping the bound essences within the gauntlet could provide enough guidance as they sought their matching contracts. As the metal-clad hoof pressed into a contract petal, he felt the intense surge of pressure, same as when he freed Gina. Now that he knew how to do it, he could manipulate the quill with more focus and command. It was no easier, just as burning to his mind, but Devon was relieved to see that, at this ephemeral level, the contracts functioned on the same level. Despite the massive power that was so dense it had physical presence, Devon understood its workings. He understood the impact of small changes, the hidden gaps in the magic binding them and the forces at play that he could manipulate.

Armed with all he needed, Devon drew the starlight through his quill with a force of effortless will, and plowed its tip into the first contract. The mind of an earth pony squire, willing to gamble everything with a chance to grow in stature, surged through Devon’s and into the silver quill. Bracing his mind, the unicorn made the final stroke of the pen that he used with Gina, and felt the spirit bound within his gauntlet dissipate as the contract itself lost its starlit glow, its binding energies breaking apart with Devon’s influence.

One down...

Lashing out, Devon seized the next petal. Experience made the process smoother, his developed understanding responding well to increasing use. Instead of blindly groping for power and application, the unicorn had complete control of every action. Three more contracts faded into uselessness, but as Devon freed the fourth soul from its astral legalese, a growing realization built. Every time a bound pony was freed, Devon felt an old barrier returning in his mind. Where before he could channel the spirits’ emotions to reignite his magic, as their power faded, Devon realized that his newfound grasp on magic was faltering as well.

Oh no...

For a flickering moment, Devon doubted. Was this the consequence that Ghasen was talking about? By freeing the ponies imprisoned by their contracts, Devon also sacrificed the gifts that they had unwittingly granted him.

I’m going back to how I was...

Clenching his eyes shut, the unicorn banished the thoughts from his mind. They were never gifts. They were never his to begin with.

Worth it.

Devon surged the starlight outward, tearing apart contract after contract. Personalities, memories and lives of ancient ponies flashed through his mental perception. Everypony who has been duped, tempted or blindly led into the stars’ trap surged for the freedom that they pleaded for over the course of a millennium. Soon, the numbers of contracts began to dwindle as the tower shuddered again. The stars were abandoning their fortifications, and without fate bending the magic away, the stone felt the full force of Celestia’s magic.

Come on, Luna....where are you?

Plucking through the petals, Devon finally arrived at the last two. Without such a crowd of spirits in his gauntlet, Devon could clearly define each essence. One essence was undoubtedly Luna, regal, noble and all the things that had drawn Devon’s heart before. Another was heavy with ambition denied, embittered by his failures and seeking respite; Ghasen.

Two to go...

Devon closed his eyes and started unweaving Luna’s, unaware of the terrified colt essence still hiding in the periphery of the gauntlet. Reaching out with his faltering magic and spinning head, he seized the next inscribed petal and felt Luna’s spirit mingle with his own. The contract was powerful, deep and inscribed with very real power. While he could not comprehend the depth of the language, Luna’s essence told him all he needed to of the circumstances surrounding her fateful decision.

A simple desire to be appreciated spiraling out of control into resentment. Resentment over perceived neglect spiraling into seething hate. And that hate spiraling into a maniacal scheme to bring eternal night. It struck Devon, as he felt the binding magic melt away underneath his abilities, that it could have all been averted with appreciation.

Luna never wanted her night sky to be worshipped. She never sought to be more than Celestia. She just wanted somepony to notice her for the mare she was, not some elevated and untouchable goddess. Anypony wants to know they do a good job.

Come on...come on...yes...

Devon felt an immense upwelling of pride as the contract finally gave way. Risking opening his eyes, he saw the words burned onto the petal melting away into the ancient starlight that had served as their ink.

A heavy exhale of wind wafted around him, tugging at his forehooves. The contract pulled back together, the words reforming.

The parchment would have none of that. It wasn’t going to give way at all.

Devon shifted his eyes all over, desperately searching for what made this contract special, what made it unique. A single line in the bottom told him all he needed, a line as ancient as the archives themselves, and a line that needed one extra special authorization.

It needed a co-signature to nullify the contract, a task held to lowly peons whipped into doing the most menial and mundane tasks. It needed an absolute nobody, a lowest rung, a real bottom feeder in the political monotony of Canterlot’s bloated hierarchy.

It needed an undersecretary to an undersecretary.

“Thank you for the training, Lily Boxtop,” Devon groused sarcastically, cursing himself for being thankful for once to his loathsome boss. He leveled the silver quill pendant before him with his own telekinesis, the magic on it pulsing and prickling against the parchment. He carefully started scrawling his name on the line-

“Hyak!” Devon jumped back from a blue jolt of energy shooting up the quill. He watched as his name started erasing itself, fading away. The tower lurched around him in contempt, the contract clearly not accepting of his signature.

But whose was it? Who would know? Who was with Luna when she made the contract?

“Hyrrm, hrr?” A teal chirp emerged from his saddlebag, an origami hummingbird wafting in playful arcs around Devon. “Hrr! Hrr!”

Might as well.

“Tell me, Glyph,” Devon nudged the flittering bird with a fetlock. “Would you know?”

The paper extended and unfolded, and warm magic tendrils reached to the forefront of Devon’s memory. Within the swirling paisley designs and shapes, Glyph transformed into a crystal clear recollection from Devon’s recent history.

The gate from the honesty chamber pinched into focus, the large wooden barricade preventing them from entry looming high above them. He saw the memory of Luna looking at Glyph, maintaining his guard on the door.

"A hummingbird," Luna declared. “We seeketh a hummingbird.”

He could clearly see every detail and line of the design Glyph made to conjure such a memory from Luna’s memory.

A hummingbird.

She could see it in the design. But he clearly was unable to. He distinctly remembered thinking it.

What made that crazy hodgepodge of nonsense a hummingbird!?

He could clearly see every detail and line of the design.

A hummingbird.

By Starswirl’s ancient flecks of dandruff!

“It’s...it wasn’t a hodgepodge of nonsense!”

“Myr-hrr-hrrrn!”

“Glyph!” Devon bounded giddily, making extra effort to not asphyxiate the chirping apparition with his tight hug. “It’s not a hodgepodge! It’s not a hodgepodge!”

It was...

“Glyph, listen, take that memory, take that design you made in that memory, and,” he pointed at the cosigner line, “right there, make it right there!”

...A signature.

The glowing swirls of green and cyan slapped onto the old parchment, and the Glyph crept into the text, dancing between the words to the final line. It then pulsed, tugged on itself, then rearranged into an exact replica of what caused Luna’s memory to see a hummingbird.

A perfect template for a perfect forgery.

Devon hesitated, holding the silver quill in agonizing trepidation. He just realized that for the second time in less than a minute, he was praising his boss for teaching him mundane skills.

“Thank you again Lily,” Devon groaned, bringing the quill to the surface, “for teaching me to fake so many signatures.”

Making the final touches on his trace, and no blue surges of magic to knock him on his flank to be had, the parchment floated freely with the last detail dotted in place. Glyph uprooted from the line, and with Devon holding the origami to the corner, quickly exited with an encouraging succession of whirs and upbeat chirps.

The ground beneath him slid, the supports of the tower buckling and collapsing inwards. He had no time to waste!

“Crud, I totally should’ve had a line for this!” The bookkeeper seethed, then narrowed an eye at Glyph. “When we get back, tell Luna I said something really really awesome when I did this, okay?”

“Myrr-hrr!”

Without a word, conjuring the collective whims and wills of a thousand years of Bookmark lineage unable to bring forth this very moment within his hooftips, Devon gave a final yank on the parchment’s opposing corners.

A stream of cobalt light poured forth, whirling outwards and knocking Devon back.

Done.

It was done.

It was all done.

Yes!

“Mrr-hyrr hrrn!!”

“That’s right! We totally are awesome!”

The charcoal bookkeeper allowed a moment of pride to wash over him as the last magics binding Luna to her old fate melted away.

Come whatever else, she no longer had the stars pulling the strings on her. Trailing on pride’s heels was his old sense of duty; one contract still remained, Ghasen’s, the architect of this entire thing. Desire for power led him to abandon simply reading the futures of fellow ponies and to try to harness the stars’ power, and the cost were so many destinies and stories blunted or fired off course. Every contract up to that point stemmed from his quill.

Last one.

Feeling no urge to leave him suffering out of spite or vindictiveness, Devon pressed his gauntlet into the last glowing petal. While the journal provided more than enough perspective, as Devon’s mind melded with the spirit in the contract, he felt everything. Ghasen was not wickedly toying with fate, he was caught in a spiral where one contract’s mistakes were fixed by another. Rather than understand the source of his issues, Ghasen figured that he just needed more application of his force to free himself until he was utterly trapped. Amazed at himself, Devon found an odd empathy for Ghasen.

I might have done the same thing. I was about to.

The gauntlet was nearly out of power, Devon’s magic nearly exhausted and back to its old repressed form. But he had what he needed.

I’ll fix this for everypony.

It was hastily written. It was desperately penned. It was made on a whim and entirely for serving the selfish author that penned it.

His contract would disintegrate under direct sunlight.

As the final contract melted away, the unicorn felt the magic around the tower dissipating as well. Without any hold on the pieces, the stars’ influence faded. Above Canterlot, the starlight morphed back into its old natural state. Ghasen’s contract broke apart and as his senses returned, Devon allowed himself to relax for the first time in what felt like days.

Or he would if the tower didn’t start shuddering violently.

“Right, that.” Devon exhaled deeply, then shot a glance to the flittering hummingbird beside him. “Well, up to you little fella. Gonna take your own chances?”

“Mrr-hrrn!” The Glyph twisted quickly, and nestled deep against Devon’s chest.

“Yeah, me neither.” The bookkeeper smiled to the hummingbird, and opened his saddlebag for it to take shelter. Glyph was followed by the gauntlet, echothyst shard and, before he forgot, the Element of Magic. "Keep track of these, alright? Hopefully when Ghasen digs us out, he realizes he was wrong.”

“Hrmn?”

Free of the fate-bending protection of the stars, the tower quaked from the magic that was laid on it, particularly the devastating barrage from the Princess of the Sun. And with an unsettling groan, started tilting.

“Yeah,” Devon sighed to Glyph, feeling the floor drop out from under him. “That I do have a hummingbird after all...” The cold darkness of the opening abyss licked across his back.

“...I have his.”

* * * * *

A stone hoof slammed into Jetstream’s flank, throwing his flight path into an uncontrolled pirouette. In the private’s distraction, the stone pegasus closed the gap and grabbed tightly onto Jetstream, hooves clinging and clamping down to pull him off of balance and use his own momentum to crash him. “Oh no you don’t...” the pegasus nickered, suddenly wrenching his body into a twist, flopping the statue around onto its back and hoping to squeeze away from the granite embrace. It was the most basic escape technique, every pegasus was taught it and it always worked.

The statue gripped even tighter. It didn’t work. Jetstream was seemingly not surprised as the statue rolled him and pressed down, pushing the speeding pair on a course to slam into the ground at lethal speed. “Rrrgh!” the cyan pegasus growled as he struggled uselessly to break the lock. Every idea or move he could muster started to work, yet as soon as he was about to free himself, the statue would clamp down or adjust its grip to keep him in place. The statue’s strength simply would not give out, it was as if something else was aiding the golem against Jetstream, keeping the hooflock a perfect vice.

The ground closed rapidly. The sky flickered with erratic blasts of light from the tower.

Jetstream made one last push, throwing everything into an escape attempt. Like before, he could feel his body about to pop free, the statue starting to slip off of him only for it to settle down and squeeze tighter.

But suddenly, the forelegs clutching him released.

Immediately, Jetstream whipped into the safety of the air moments before the statue plowed into the ground in a landing that was sloppy and chaotic, skidding into the dirt near the statue garden’s former home. Expecting it to rise, Jetstream braced for the chase to begin again, yet all the statue did was shiver and quake on the ground, caught in spasms of increasing violence. Before his eyes, Private Jetstream saw the statue arch suddenly and the stone fell away, revealing a stallion pegasus, eyes wide open in shock.

Adrenaline drove Jetstream to charge towards the prone figure, instincts to defeat the opponent spurring the private to press the advantage. Rounding, he lifted his hooves to strike down before the sounds of crumbling stone and confused cries hit his ears. Casting his gaze to the wider world, Jetstream found the battle completely changed. The only statues that still moved were fighting the same convulsions as the pegasus, stone falling away in heavy chunks to reveal the ponies trapped beneath. Each one bore expressions of mixed horror and bewilderment.

“Sir!” a voice snapped out of the din, directed at Jetstream. He didn’t respond.

“Sir!”

Oh wait...he was in charge.

“What is it...” he began to ask, turning to find a sergeant, clearly outranking him, reporting dutifully.

“Celestia put you in charge, didn’t she?” The sergeant barked. “Bout time if I say so. Anyway, all of the statues have stopped, sir. Looks like they’re normal ponies under all that rock.”

“Normal?”

“Well, they’re all pretty senseless, sir, but they don’t look like they’re any more danger. What’s the next move?”

Before Jetstream could speak, could issue his first order ever, the tower behind shuddered began to come down. Tumbling heaps of brick and stone pelted down onto the hedge maze with jarring impacts.

“Oh horsefeathers.”

* * * * *

Like bursting from an infinite depth of water, Luna gasped as a haze burst away from her mind, every compulsion, word and act that was forced out of her despite her mind’s protests dissipated instantly. There was no confusion or muddled air in her mind, she had seen the entire battle unfold and sat idly as her sister attempted to bring Ghasen’s tower down. She remembered Gina and Twilight’s panicked and hasty alliance to get back to the tower. She remembered...Devon’s apologetic look as he turned to face Ghasen and his machinations alone after shouting her away.

All of the memories were clear and real, even with her motivations and desires so twisted, and as her mind awoke, the pieces quickly began forming in her head. Devon had succeeded! It took a moment for the thought to fully emerge, but it did with joy. At last she was free of the insistent pressure that had lived in the corner of her mind since the day she had struck that accursed bargain. However, before her mind could fully appreciate the fact, a conversation caught her ear.

“Whaddya mean she can’t go back?! We still got somepony in there!”

“Princess! We can’t just leave him up there! The Element of Magic is up there!”

“I won’t allow you to go back now, even with your magic, nopony is that fast, Twilight Sparkle. Do you think I’d be light about this? I have to make sure that you’re safe.”

“But-”

“I’m sorry, Twilight Sparkle.”

“Twilight Sparkle!” Luna’s voice boomed with a vigor that had not drawn out to its full strength in what felt like weeks. “Devon Bookmark!”

“Huh? Princess Lu-”

“Tis no time to stammer, the unicorn that you found in the tower. Where be he?” The purple unicorn stammered, adrenaline making her words come in unsteady jumbles before Gina spoke for her.

“Dev’s stayed behind,” she said, plainly before a small laugh rippled through her. “He said he had two left to go, he had you an-” Before Gina could speak further, a shuddering rumble in the far distance drew every eye to the tower. Without the strands of destiny holding it together and upright, the impact of Celestia’s magical fusillade was finally seen as the structure began a slowly accelerating inward collapse. “Oh horsefeathers, Dev’s...”

By the time Gina had finished the utterance, Luna was already in the air.

“Princess!”

“Sister!”

Devon!

The Princesses’ wings beat in powerful, broad strokes, each one increasing the power and thrust of the last in a crescendo of speed and force. Luna’s face crushed in determination as cold night air whipped around her face, the crumbling and shaking tower looming larger and larger as the distance disappeared. For hours before, her mind had fought for control of her body and words, and even though she had acted so strongly, everything was swallowed in conflict and discordant impulses. For days before, she was consumed and distracted with a growing worry that such a price might be called to collect. For years before, she knew that it was a decision that would not leave her lightly, and it colored her judgment.

Now she had never been more clear.

Devon, thou imbecilic hero. If thou whilst stop mine own muddled head from taking my life, then I shall happily stop thy own foolishness from taking thy own. Thou wouldn’t dare.

* * * * *

So this is it...

Another twist and Devon skidded and flopped head over hooves towards rocky oblivion. Reflex and instinct caused him to scrabble for a grip, yet a growing part of his mind was coming to terms with the stark reality around him.

He may have saved the Princess, but it was clear that the price he was going to pay was his life.

Another twist of the diminishing tower pitched Devon in a sickening circle with a downward angle and he had a look through the dust at Canterlot and the few straggling ponies fleeing from the tower.

Worth it.

He tried to look towards where he had ordered Luna to flee to, vainly hoping for a last glimpse of the whole reason for this, to know that he had accomplished what he set out to do in his single challenge to Ghasen and the stars. All he could see through the stone dust were many confused bodies that were little more than specks of movement. He knew the palace was far too great a distance to spot anypony, but he at least hoped he saw that the others were safe.

I’m sorry, Luna.

The thought hung heavily in the strange arrest of time that Devon assumed to be what all ponies felt when the end was coming quickly. All he could muster in his final moments were apologies.

I’m sorry, Luna. I never meant to put you through all of this. Love does terrible things to a pony. I’m sorry.

I’m sorry, Gina. I should have trusted you more. I should have listened to you more. You knew exactly what was going on the whole time, but I let it all get to my head.

I’m sorry... mom. Sorry for everything. Sorry for how...he turned both of us into what we are.

* * * * *

“Everypony get back NOW!” Jetstream bellowed, looping his foreleg around the dazed pegasus who had mere moments ago been encased in stone and engaged in trying to kill him. “The tower’s coming down right towards us!” Beating his wings, Jetstream drew on every bit of training in protecting ponies he could.

Falling debris. Move away fast and perpendicular. You don’t need to be as far away as you think. Look for cover. Put yourself between falling objects and the victim, you have armor for a reason. It’ll protect others as well as you.

The private-in-command managed a small smile of relief as the other guardsponies reacted to his command, or at least saw what was coming as well. Enlisted ponies, officers and others hurriedly drug stunned bodies out from the danger, putting themselves between the tumult of stone and the injured. But the tink of a partially disintegrated brick across the crest of his helmet quickly put Jetstream back in his place, and his mind back on his duty.

Heaving to the side, Jetstream rolled his body over the mumbling and shocked pegasus just in time to catch a barrage of small stones and rocks with his helmet and back plate. The staccato percussion over his head worked far better than any watch sergeant's training calls and Jetstream zeroed in on the stone archway that marked the entrance to the garden. Figuring it was better than nothing, the cyan pegasus bundled his adversary into the furthest corner and turned to watch the tower come down.

Seconds after he threw into the meager cover, Jetstream felt pelting debris begin to rain down across the field. Smaller chunks of masonry or ornamentation reported their impacts with a staccato melody, occasionally drowned out by basso thuds of heavy pieces digging into the earth.

He had no choice but to watch for now as the tower came apart. Jetstream couldn’t see much from his position, but at least his cursory appraisal assured him that he was the closest pony to the tower, and that nopony else was in any immediate danger.

The tower shuddered, rocked by internal crumbling that could be felt in his chest.

“I sure hope nopony is in there...”

* * * * *

“Hey! HEY!” Stormblade barked upwards as a shower of debris and noise fell all around him. “What are you foals DOING? I’m in charge here!” His blustering shouts passed like irrelevant wind to the guard ponies in flight. Before him, he saw not the stalwart regiment he had envisioned under his iron hoof, but several prone and unconscious ponies whom the guards were pulling. Not one of them standing to face stampeding demise muzzle to muzzle, but instead making a hasty, unrehearsed retreat away from the tower.

A surge of fire plumed within the Captain’s chest. “Where are you running to!? Stand! Stand!” Stormblade slammed his hoof on the dirt, but the sharp crack ricocheting through the air was immediately devoured by the thundering reverberation of sound. “I command you, hold!” Not a single iris even shifted in his direction.

Fine. If that’s how they want it.

He had no more orders for them.

“Cowards!” He had no faith in them. “Cowards!” And he shouldn’t have expected greater. “Each and everypony all!”

This wasn’t their story.

The stallion barked irritably before a rumble above him caught his attention.

*K-KWOOM!*

A falling slab shattered a half-haunch from his hooves.

“SQUEEP!” The captain flinched sideways, “Fweeee...” deflating in a long high pitched exhale.

Another blast of stone slammed down beside him, the shuddering impact carrying through Stormblade’s chest. Then another. And another. The Second Captain clumsily hobbled and danced while weaving through the blazing salvo of pony-sized granite chunks.

Surprisingly, the Captain somehow managed to go against his recent intuition, and did in fact have a new set of orders for those retreating cowards.

“WAIT FOR MEEEE!”

While far more reasonable, the Captain’s exclamation was also lost to the sound of falling rubble. In his flight, Stormblade did not see the shadow closing down on his head until the shadow’s owner struck him solidly. “AH! NO NO! I’M TOO HANDSOME TO BE...hey...” he started to moan before his brain caught onto the fact that the object simply bounced off his head, and was much softer and gentler than stone.

Assuming stones were not made out of canvas and buckles.

Thankful to not be squashed, Stormblade quickly reeled to face the offending projectile. A saddlebag, crafted with old buckles and straps, leered up to him in the flickering firelight. Thinking quickly before another chunk of deadly masonry could crash down upon him, the stallion seized the bag in his teeth and quickly darted sideways. A break in the wall peeled open, and with no other opening presented in the churning chaos, the Captain dove for it, rolling shoulder-first into the protective alcove. A thick sheet of dust and pebbles slapped across his face as a landslide of shattered masonry slammed to a rest at the tip of his tail.

“Ah, now...” Stormblade exhaled deeply, curling his rear legs away from the felled stone. He shifted his attention to the heavy saddlebag. “And what brings you to me?”

The bag responded as most bags do.

He snorted, twin wisps of dust pelted out his nostrils. “Let’s find out how fate is helping me this time.” Reaching a hoof into the darkness of the bag, Stormblade withdrew item after item. An unusual ornament that looked like it hung on an ear was first, the shimmering blue of the gem catching his eye. “Ooooh...” he cooed, holding it up in front of his eyes before he murmured in a quietly respectful tone. “And for saving Canterlot, we award you with the Blue Medal of Valor and...er...” A moment’s pause. “The Aquamarine Medallion of the Sun and Moon. Now enjoy your honeymoon with Luna, PRINCE Stormblade.” He peered upward through narrowed eyelids, letting the name swirl in his cognition. “Yeah...”

Cognition likey.

Digging further, his hoof banged against a heavy sleeve covered in intricate fixtures and decoration. “A boot?” “He pulled it out, the loose fixtures underneath pinging his memory. “A gauntlet!” He recognized the raw shape of the garment, any guard would get that much, though few others would keep going on. “What are you doing in here anyway?”

The gauntlet responded as most gauntlets do.

Stormblade set it aside gingerly. “Must belong to Canterlot’s long lost war heroes! And it is just...erf...” Stormblade’s monologue came to a halt as he tried to press his hoof into the gauntlet and found it five sizes too small. “Oh come on...really?” the black earth stallion muttered, struggling as much to fit the undersized armor into his narrative as much as onto his hoof. “Guess old war heroes were much...erf-gh...wimpier in...hrrf!...olden days.”

Plan B?

“Okay okay...um...recovering the long lost relics of the past?” Plan B. “Your knowledge of history and ancient treasures is stunning, Professor Stormblade.”

Cognition also likely.

Tossing the gauntlet back into the bag, he found the last big object inside purely by accident. “Ow!” Stormblade whimpered, withdrawing his hoof as it snagged a sharp point. He reached back in with care, gracing a fetlock against more and more points. Whatever it was, it was clearly elaborate. Or a mutant hedgehog. His thoughts raced ahead of his hoof and began filling in his future already. “What a weapon, Captain Stormblade, you smote the Hydra Legions of Black Swamp in one fell swoop!” Finally finding a grip that didn’t feel like broken glass and lemon juice, he tugged the object outwards into the revealing light, a lone glisten of brass luminance fluttered from the shimmering surface. “And you did it so well that Canterlot can expand and your actions will be rewarded...this will be your land, Baron Stormblade! You and Luna can oversee all of this with our blessing.” The item came free from the bag.

“Your new royal chamber is this...”

Stormblade’s eyes widened with unrestrained glee. It couldn’t be. But the dazzling golden shimmers and flecks of light jetting from all the ornately gilded edges and grooves, the perfectly symmetrical design, the solid purple gemstone embedded firmly within its ornate casing.

Oh Luna would just smother him with nuzzles for this.

In his hoof quivering hoof, singing with the angelic choir in the Captain’s head, the Element of Magic radiated before him, glittering softly in the erratic light caused by rolling dust and starlight.

He peered into the tiara’s purple gemstone. “Hero of Equestria Stormblade,” he declared to his reflection within it.

Hastily, the Second Captain stuffed everything back into the saddlebags save for the small gemstone. “Now get in there you...” he muttered, jamming the shard of echothyst onto the overstuffed patch of medals and awards before it hooked in. “Perfect! Awarded for saving Canterlot while finding irreplaceable treasures under extreme danger and duress.”

He could see it now, his own story writing itself before him. All the narratives, all the symbols, all the adjectives just fell into his mental grasp. The inky blackness of the...inky black hidey hole where in the inky blackness he...

*Shff-Cloomp!*

He’d figure it out later.

*Kr-Klam!*

The marble slab behind the Captain peeled away, a rush of brilliant fiery light washed over him. The ground beneath him surged and lifted in heavy waves, pressing the Captain back up onto stumbling hooves. Gripping the saddlebag in his teeth, he dodged sideways into the piled stacks of debris and stone, his eyes searching for any pathway out through twirling smoke.

The light dimmed slowly. Looking up at a disorienting angle, the Captain was unsure whether the ground was lurching upwards to the tower, or if...

* * * * *

“The whole tower is falling!” Luna panicked.

The Princess of the Night knew time was short. Bands of ethereal color rippled around Luna’s forelegs as she tightened her body and hit her full flying stride.

Each wingbeat pushed her further. Faster.

She angled upward to where she hoped Devon still stood. She hoped. She did not hesitate.

Push.

Faster.

Coiling drapes of color turned into a rolling nimbus at her forehooves shaking feverishly against thickening cushion of resisting air. The smoke-draped atmosphere, the shrieking cascade of wing deafening her ears, the very laws of physics, all conspiring to slow her down.

In vain.

“Devon!”

There was no stopping her.

“I’m coming!”

The air collapsed into itself, surrendering to a pinched ring of emanating light steadily courscating in waves of green, blue, red; icy and cool.

Push.

Luna’s eyes widened in surprise at the sudden bolts of energy coursing at her hooftips. They were not of the colors of day, but the cold tones and hues of the rarest of night skies.

Aurora.

A spellbinding curtain of light expanded through the air, radiating from her in surging waves of green, teal and cyan.

Push.

All eyes, all attention turned to it, all witnesses turned agape to the sight, nebulous to the streak of cobalt careening through the raining stone.

The tower’s last fragments gave way, falling out and crumbling in a final heave. Through narrowed teal irises, Luna spotted a tumbling object, silhouetted against the moon. Unmistakable. It was not stone but it fell as fast and helplessly as one. As it plummeted through a cloud of gray dust, Luna spotted a single shimmering bright spot...

A stray beam of starlight glinting off of a silver quill.

Faster.

The wind would not surrender any more.

Faster.

Her wings could not deliver any more.

Faster.

Physics itself decreed it couldn’t give any more.

Faster.

A beam of aurora colors fired across the starscape. Natural forces no longer holding any rules, no longer holding any relevance to the speeding Princess, Luna torpedoed a straight-shot through the narrow gaps of collapsing masonry, unimpeded by drag, dust, or peril.

Alien green bands swelled from blinding ripples into a churning of dazzling color radiating out from Luna in irregular swaths of color. All eyes stared shocked and frozen, first overwhelming the fatigued denizens of the statue garden, then spreading across Canterlot’s skyline in previously unseen tendrils of luminance. Greens melted into blues, which sparked into chilling violets and reds. Luna’s aurora trailed off of her wings and body, loosely hanging off of her as she pushed past its ability to keep pace around her.

Twisting in the air, Devon saw the explosion of green aurorae in the same instant a force slammed into him, moving far too quickly to realize what it was.

“I have thee!”

Speed blended Devon’s senses into a whirling tempest of colors and sounds, moving so fast that his battered mind could only catch the most muddled of sensations. He was moving sideways, something other than falling, that was certain. Risking opening his eyes for the first time since losing his footing on the tower, the unicorn only saw blurs of color as the world whipped sideways.

Looking down, he saw the ground approaching on a steady descent; but he also saw a solid pair of cobalt forelegs banded around his chest.

The ground slowed to a smaller blur as a harsh back killed the speed they had. For the first time, he allowed a taste of relief to enter his mind.

They did it!

Ghasen was wrong! As the ground pulled closer, he felt the cobalt vice clinging to him from behind loosening and weakening. Devon’s relief swelled again as the pace slowed to a speed that might be more comfortable for a landing. Just five haunches further down...

The grip on him weakened again, and Devon slipped downward. He looked up to the Princess, but where he expected a pair of comforting teal irises-

“Ee-ack!”

A blinding flare of silver light assaulted his eyes.

“Lun-!”

His gut wrenched to his neck, his body flopping into a sudden freefall.

The grip was gone. The cobalt hooves were gone. The sensation of her tightly clenching him close to her chest was...

Was...

He reached his hooves outward, cast into a tumbling fall to the earth. Momentum curled his path until soft grass bashed across Devon’s back, jarring him with the shock of a hard impact. His breath expelled from his lungs in a gnarled puff of air, his vision rattling to a fade.

I have thee.

“Urrgh...”

I have thee.

She really did say that to him. He clunked his head back on the grass, breathing heavily in the sudden silence that enveloped him. Her words repeated in his head as his consciousness tiphoofed the line between his aching body and comforting darkness.

I have thee.

He shot up. The world recoiled in a dizzy spin, lazily banking from side to side. Seconds passed before Devon’s eyes refocused and his thoughts caught up with him.

Am I alive?

He shifted around and felt the aches and pains from his struggle atop the tower. A sharp breath filled his chest and strained his ribs. He buckled inwards, his brow clenching his eyes shut, a pained exhale seethed through grit teeth.

Oof...unfortunately.

With that question satisfactorily answered, Devon’s mind focused on the next.

Where am I?

With his back on cool grass, the unicorn deduced he was some distance from the tower, which he guessed was in the direction of the heavy crumbling noise behind him.

Opening his eyes, he peered upward, the brilliant aurora that blanketed Canterlot and the surrounding countryside greeting him in thick glowing wisps of crystalline jade, teal, and cyan. The slow plodding steps of ponies silhouetted in the distance, their jaws as open as their eyes, came into focus through the dissipating stone fog. They too were all looking up.

They were looking up to her aurora.

To her sky.

She did this.

Luna...she did this.

The night she wished for.

The night so brilliant, so beautiful, she would sign her soul to Ghasen to have everypony talk about it for generations.

The night, to last forever...

He found his attention going back to the aurora, it was comforting, familiar. If anything, it reminded him of how he felt for that fleeting second when it all seemed worth it in her arms, in her warmth, but this comfort came sincerely. It was like she was still there, wrapped around his shoulders and...

Where’s Luna?!

The question hit with a sudden shock, the aurora suddenly dissipating. Above Canterlot the embers of her fleeting nocturne peeled away, retreating to a clear night sky dominated by the moon and vast sea of stars.

But the moon...it was different.

Yet somehow familiar.

It bore a new shade and tone, but one that didn’t identify as alien to the bookkeeper’s memory. It was no longer wreathed in the pure, cool light that he had loved in the past two years since Luna’s freedom from exile.

Now, it shone in a dull...somber...

...Cobalt.

Devon remembered that hue.

It was the shade that he grew up with, his constant companion in lonely foalhood nights.

The moon shimmered again, a blotchy pattern, still fresh in Equestria’s memory, returned. The Mare in the Moon stared down over Canterlot, to Devon, its eye squarely focused on him.

I have thee.

Comments

[Wet]

U Wot..
That was Brilliant.
Well Done, But Wow..

[Bookmaster]

You know what...... Vest, you just win. You just win alright.

[Vermilion and Sage]

" They stood tall with all manner of sword, club, scroll, wand, staff and horn in hand, each an instrument of their own stone-cased penance, each an accessory to the crime that landed them in the statue garden in the first place."

Did you mean to say 'in hoof'?

[Vermilion and Sage]

"“Yeah,” Devon sighed to Glyph, feeling the floor drop out from under him. “That I do have a hummingbird after all...” The cold darkness of the opening abyss licked across his back.
“...I have his.”"

I almost cried. And I was in public, wearing my uniform.

[Themaskedferret]

bloody hell mate....I...I honestly don't know what to say. I am just so in awe and shock and amazement.

[Raven Flight]

Aaaaaaaahhh! Nnooooooooo!!! Luna, come back!!!

[Vest]

2436218 Thanks! Got that issue fixed. Silly human idioms, interloping to my stream of consciousness.

[ultra1437]

Well, it's official. Best chapter to date.

[Rust]

@$&#!?!?!

[curran]

Ahhh the reactions to this chapter are exactly what I was hoping for. Those last couple of pages kinda get ya right in the gut, don't they? This chapter is rather special to me, as RL recently blindsided me with a layoff, and working on this has been a major source of focus and motivation for me to be just doing something. I'm very happy that the feedback we've got so far has been positive, well, positive after people have had the time to pick their jaws up off the floor.

I'm in the odd position that I know all of the mysteries and reasons, and I can't say anything! It's a strange bit of glee and "ARGH I WISH I COULD TELL YOU THIS" going on. I will drop the hint though that throughout the past chapters, there are hints of what is going on. Like Ledger_Allen_Pony has said, there's stuff in there that will become "oh!" moments when you read it again or remember it. The clues are around, folks.

2442237 - I think your reaction and avatar match pretty well. But I do hope I didn't break you so much that all you can do is kinda divide by zero. I am very much looking forward to what you think of the rest of this chapter, after the brain-breaking moment at the end. Mwhee.

2441013 - Really happy to hear it! This was a big one for us because we kinda got to blow the budget on special effects, so to speak. My biggest worry about it was the pacing and keeping the overall flow of action coherent. There was a number of times in the creating of this that I had to rearrange huge chunks, as I would have actions happening in illogical places. That's what ya get for writing it in sections, I suppose.

2439209 - I wholeheartedly agree. So does Devon, hehe.

2439041 - Working as intended, but I'm very flattered. This whole project started out as a little character bio, and now...well, between seeing the ground I have covered to this point with vest's help, and the feedback from everyone here, I'm seriously lining up attempting a novel of my own. If I can indulge though, was it all from the end? Or did any other scenes do it for you?

2436375 - Gotta hand it to vest for that one. It was his idea, and boy did it work. Props to you, vest.

2435245 - He most certainly does! Go give him love!

2435182 - Mmm. I love reactions like this. It lets me know I hit the exact right spot. Basically, I was going for a long, crazy roller coaster ride through this whole chapter. But when the roller coaster starts to slow down...the rails drop out from under you and you're in the bumper cars. Love it! Thank you!

2436324 - You don't need to worry, the stars are not going to be in the role as just big background villains. It's been something that I've worked and talked with vest alot to hash out exactly how the stars work and, more to the point, WHY they work the way they do. While I can't go into big details now, since that's yet to come, I'm hoping that as the details and answers collect and clear up that the role of the stars will be worthwhile and appropriate to the other ideas and themes throughout Starstruck.

As always, the more feedback or communication, the happier I am. Everyone should feel free to respond or PM me, as I'd love to hear back from folks and talk the story out with them. Well, at least as much as I can given spoilers and so on.

[TacoTown]

...i have no words.

[Shachza]

Luna's time in the moon wasn't actually up, was it? The stars "aided in her escape" and got her out early?

But then why would she return only after saving Devon? I think I'm missing something.

Ehhh... I need to sleep on it.

Also, congratulations on getting me on the edge of my seat rooting for Devon to get a moment with the real(?) Luna.

[djthomp]

Wow, now that's a climax! And that ending!

[Themaskedferret]

2442436 Umm, honestly it was this scene but only because it had so much weight behind it. Everything that has come before it adds emphasis to where it ends. If that makes sense?

I like to think if it's really hit me other times i've commented but I could be wrong.

[curran]

2452425 - I gotcha, and yeah, it does make sense. :3 Thanks!

[Alondro]

Chapter 10.

Ok, Celestia, in this universe you are retarded. Nuff said. Seriously, how did a twit like that outwit Discord long enough to get the Elements? I've never fought a single battle myself, I'm only 37 years old, and even I don't go practically catatonic at the sight of open warfare.

Next, we see the value of capital punishment! If only foolish Celestia had EXECUTED those ponies (and burned their bodies to ash which was then scattered to the four corners of the world to eliminate the possibility necromancy), then the evil stars couldn't use them!

Finally. I am going to blow the stars up. Ever. Single. One. I don't like creatures that play dirty games or make contracts with such blatantly wicked clauses. Such things are the domain of demons of darkness.

[Alondro]

Chapter 10

>>>“But everypony in Canterlot’ll know what you are. What you did. What you could do. Ponies are like the stars, boyo. They’ll keep whispering, they’ll keep talking, they’ll keep thinking that you are a villain, boyo.” >>>

And right there is the point where Ghasen would have lost that argument to me. I have never cared what others said about me. The masses mean nothing to the force of my inner strength. I stand alone against the darkness if need be.

The moment he'd have spoken those foolish, selfish, cowardly words to me, I would have utterly destroyed him.

Damn, I'm so friggin' awesome! Worship my awesomeness!