I. Black or White
All in all, it was calm. But Philomena twitched.
Luna raised an eyebrow instinctively, her ears perking up. Sure enough, it wasn’t but a moment before her bedroom door flung open wide, the mahogany bearing a hairline fracture after its collision with solid stone. A cyan hue that had previously enveloped the gateway had now began to fade, much contrary to its source. Standing in the doorway was a steaming pink alicorn, her usually bouncy hair having fallen straight down with more than a couple loose ends attached.
“Aha,” Luna said, a small grin appearing across her features as she continued to stare out of the windows, unfazed by her sudden intruder. “No wonder Philly was so itchy. She can sense your negative aura, you know.”
Cadence let out a long sigh, slowly traipsing across the room in order to sit down next to Luna. Joining her in looking outside, Cadence allowed her head to fall between her hooves.
“Amoré,” Luna began, extending a hoof to gently stroke Cadence’s frazzled mane. “What has angered you so?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she replied flatly, drawing circles in the ground with one hoof.
“That is an untruth,” Luna replied, smirking. “For if you truly hadn’t the intentions of speaking to me, you would not have come. Unless of course, you only came so you could lose.”
“Lose?” Cadence asked, raising an eyebrow at Luna quizzically. Instead of her usual, darker regalia, Luna was wearing a silver necklace, crown, and horseshoes. To go along with that, a cloak of bright cobalt trimmed with white covered the princess’ back. Luna wore a gentle smile, bathing in the morning sunlight as if she was Princess Celestia herself. It was strangely out of character, not to mention the fact that she and Philomena had taken quite an interest in each other. The phoenix, a brilliant mix of gold and scarlet, stood perched atop one of Luna’s bookcases as she surveyed the scene below her. She seemed somewhat critical, taking in every aspect of the conversation going on between the two.
“Do you not play?” Luna asked, returning the raised eyebrow. “I would have taken you as someone who played.”
“Play what?” Cadence asked.
Luna did not respond, instead she got up and went to one of her closets. She pulled the door open, looking up and down as she browsed. Sparks of blue shot from her horn, illuminating the dark space while she continued to search. After a moment, her efforts died down, having found the object she was looking for: a brown, cardboard box with nothing written on it. The box in tow, Luna returned to Cadence’s side. Focusing inward once again, Luna closed her eyes as she began to manipulate the room around her. Her mane and cloak raised, waving to the pulsations of her magical excess. A round, mahogany table floated into the center of the bedroom from its previous settlement up against the wall. The table was then set with a silk mat of red and gold, upon which Luna placed her box.
“Go ahead,” Luna urged, taking her seat on one side of the table. “Open it.”
Cadence lightly prodded the box, a filly’s matched sense of caution and curiosity quickly returning to her. She even began sniffing it, only to realize seconds later how obscure the prospect of that was. Shrugging, she levitated the cover from the object, peering in to examine its contents.
“You want to play... chess?” she asked in confusion.
“Unless you wish not to?” Luna asked, her eyes fixated upon the checkered board.
“No, no,” Cadence reassured, taking the board and game pieces out of the box. “I’ll play.”
“Very well then,” Luna said, clicking her teeth together to call Philomena over to her. The phoenix obeyed, leaving a short trail of flames in her wake as she flew. She landed on Luna’s shoulder, illuminating her with a soft orange glow that was comparable only to a morning sunrise. “I will bestow upon you the decision: black or white?”
Cadence cocked her head sideways. “Black or white?” she asked, trying to consider whether she should be grateful or not for the option. “Does it really matter?”
“Does it matter?” Luna repeated, chuckling softly. “It makes all the difference.”
“How? It’s just a color,” Cadence said.
“It is everything but,” Luna argued, arranging the pieces to their set positions on the board. “It tells you how a pony thinks, and knowing how they play is what changes the game.”
“You can’t possibly tell what moves somepony will make by how they choose a color.”
“On the contrary,” Luna said. “Someone who chooses white... they are a fearless risk-taker, arrogant in their own right. But that arrogance is earned, for they assume that they can go first and still command the game. They take control, they seize the moment, and they pray for their cruel, unanticipated blitzkrieg to make such an impact on their opponent to a point where they haven’t a single hope of making a comeback. But someone who chooses black? They are the silent, dangerous threat. They are the scholars, the intellectuals of the game. They study you, learn from you, and patiently sit back until you make a seemingly insignificant mistake. Do you know what happens when you do make that mistake?”
“They strike...” Cadence answered, more to herself than Luna as she took in the gravity of the older pony’s words. “I’ve made a decision. I know what I want to do.”
“And what would that be?”
“I have decided,” Cadence began, a smirk of her own forming quickly on her face. “To let you choose first.”
Luna broke out in hearty laughter, wiping a stray tear as it slid down her face. Philomena extended her wings, having lost balance due to Luna’s sudden, exaggerated movements. Once laughter turned to coughing, Luna began to calm down, turning the board so her desired suit was on her side. “For the sake of the game, I will choose white,” she said. “It is the color of my moon, after all. I must remain loyal to it.”
“But is black not the color of your nights?” Cadence asked, her gaze drifting to Philomena as the phoenix readjusted herself on Luna’s cloak. “Why are you loyal to one, but not the other?”
“Because my nights are everything except black,” Luna replied matter-of-factly. “They are every hue of blue, golden, orange, yellow, and green. They are purple, they are white, and they are pink. But the one color they are not is black.”
“That’s absurd,” Cadence retorted. “I’ve never seen anything but black and white in the night sky. How can you tell me that there is no black in the sky?”
“You are simply not looking at it from the right angle,” Luna said.
Cadence sat in silence, considering the implications as she did so. Luna took the quiet moment to begin her turn, looking down to view the board while she thought. Her horn came to life, electrified with the harmonic dance of blue and silver as she took hold of a knight. The figure began to rise, giving off flowing energy as it moved gracefully through the air. The aura brightened the faces of both ponies sitting at the table, its gentle magic making the hairs on their muzzles strand up in delight. As the knight landed on a new space, Luna’s magic faded, bringing an abrupt end to the journey of the knight.
“Moving a knight first?” Cadence asked as she pushed one of her middle pawns up with a hoof. “Nopony does that. Why?”
“The best laid plans aren’t laid at all,” Luna answered, smiling. “They are simply acted out by instinct.”
“Yeah... you could say I’ve done a lot of acting without thinking lately...” Cadence whispered, shying away from the board and covering her face with her golden mane.
“I will ask again: what has brought you here, Amoré?” Luna asked, moving up a pawn that had previously been blocking her rook.
“You keep calling me Amoré,” Cadence stated regardless of the current topic.
“It is your name,” Luna reasoned, studying her niece intently. “Do you find it unfitting?”
“Everyone else just calls me Cadence,” she replied. Just then, Philomena took flight from Luna’s shoulder, landing instead on Cadence after her brief trip. Cadence looked up and found herself staring into the divine beauty of the phoenix, captivated by the feathers intertwined. Philomena herself was not so intrigued by Cadence; she gave her wings a powerful flap before settling down and falling asleep to the rhythm of her host’s breathing.
“Philly likes you,” Luna said. “I don’t think she cares about your nickname all that much more than I do.”
“She’s amazing,” Cadence said, carefully petting the bird as if it was a newborn foal that could be broken with the slightest slip of the hoof. “But why is she here? Doesn’t Philomena belong to Aunt Celestia?”
“Philomena belongs to Philomena,” Luna corrected. “And she enjoys spending time with me, so she does.”
Cadence turned away from the phoenix, looking back down at the chess board. She moved up another pawn, slowly becoming more apathetic towards the game as they played on. Noticing her sullen expression, Luna brought her hoof to Cadence’s face, raising the young princess’ chin up to meet her at eye level.
“I screamed at Shining Armor today,” she admitted, looking away from Luna once again. “I just... let him have it. It wasn’t even his fault, and I was so angry and I can’t believe I could-”
“Why?” Luna asked, interrupting Cadence’s self-prosecuting rant.
“His guards,” she began, levitating one of her bishops across the plane of black and white. “They just won’t leave me alone. They think I can’t handle myself.”
“They are there to protect you,” Luna said. “Not to inflict upon you such turmoil.”
“I know, I know. I just don’t know. I mean, I do, but I don’t. Why do I not want this?” Cadence asked herself, twisting the knife she had already plunged inside. “All I could ever think about when I was a little girl was growing up to be this strong princess. A role model to my country, my ponies, and even Twilight Sparkle. Now she’s out there saving the world over and over again while I just sit here on my flank. What in Equestria’s name would she think of me? I’m a failure, and I can’t even walk across the hall without a regiment tailing me because they know it too.”
“Do they think that?” Luna quipped, stealing Cadence’s bishop with one of her own. “Or do you?”
“I guess I do,” she said, crestfallen.
“Cadence, you are a young alicorn,” Luna began, ignoring the board as she spoke. “You cannot hope to yet understand your place. You have an eternity to find your way here. Now isn’t the time to do that, child. Now is the time to enjoy what you have.”
“Enjoy what I have?” she asked, her expression darkening as Luna’s tone took a turn for the worse.
Luna sighed, grimacing. She breathed in as she closed her eyes, her face pointed down at the floor. “While your health will remain, your husband’s will not. He will endure, but eventually, his age will get the better of him. You will appear more of a daughter than his wife, until... the end. It is not an exciting concept, but you are young, and both Celestia and I have learned this lesson the hard way more than once in our lives. We are very old, and one day, time shall have spanned on for so long that you seem to be just as old as us. Then, and only then will you truly understand what you were meant to do. You have a purpose, but right now, it is unclear. Be happy for that. Be happy that it doesn’t come sooner than it’s supposed to.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Cadence asked.
“I am a very old pony, Amoré,” Luna started, meeting Cadence at eye level. “But I am not the oldest. Nor am I the wisest, not by a long shot. There are many elder beings, more powerful and more knowing than me. There are things in this world that Celestia and I may never understand. I just try to make the best of them. I am not perfect.”
“You seem it,” she argued. “Have you ever been as stupid as me?”
“Even more so,” Luna admitted, noticing then that the game had halted. She took her turn before returning her attention to Cadence. “But the circumstances were different. It wasn’t like it is now.”
“How so?” Cadence asked.
“It was when I ruled the world.”
~L~
“It’s over,” Luna said, looking up at the statue. “It’s finally over.”
“As it should be,” Celestia added. Her silky pink mane flowed in tune with the breeze, dancing a seemingly ethereal dance. Unfortunately, this made it impossible to hide the deep, red scar on her neck. She looked outwards at the barren, dead plane of tree stumps and burnt grass. Disgusted, she growled angrily, spitting at the earth and stomping her hooves. “This... this could have been avoided...”
“No, it could not,” Luna argued, walking over to join her sister. “Nothing could have stopped this once we got involved. I just don’t know where we’re going to live now,” she said, her gaze drifting up at their broken home where the Everfree Forest used to be. It was charred, entire rooms burned and smashed to rubble. What was once nearly a castle looked more like an abandoned building on the outskirts of a long-dead city.
“Our primary objective should be returning to Astron,” Celestia decided, beginning to walk as she turned away from the scene. “I do not wish to be here anymore.”
Luna sighed. “What about him?” she asked, pointing to the side. There lay a menacing, horrid outline of a sick-looking creature. The otherworldly being sat frozen in stone, its claws extending from its body as to dig deep into the animate life around it. But these claws were not normal, no. The beast wore the claws of both an eagle and a lion, the tail of a serpent, wings of a dragon and pegasus, the legs of a goat and lizard, and most unfitting horns ever conceivable. But this was not the worst of it all. This wasn’t even close. The truly stomach-churning, body-wrenching part of it all were its eyes. Its dastardly, beady eyes. They matched its arrogant, knowing grin. They dug deep into Luna, and judging by her discomfort, Celestia as well.
“Burn him,” she said, closing her eyes. “Smash him to pieces... then burn the remains. When you’re done, soak the ashes, soak them in the blood of the innocent from which he drew it!”
“And once their blood has seeped into his unrecognizable remains,” Celestia uttered, gagging as she swallowed a lump in her throat. “Burn him again.”
“Celestia...” Luna started, taking a few steps closer to her sister so she could rest her hoof on the young alicorn’s neck. “Just calm down, it’s okay...”
“It’s not okay!” she declared, growing more angry by the second. “It will never be okay! How could we have let this go on for so long? How could we have never known?”
“We are barely adults,” Luna said, trying her best to console the enraged Celestia. “We weren’t supposed to understand. We did what we could when we could do it. You need to calm down, sister, and look in front of you.”
Celestia opened her eyes. The remaining forest that had been left untouched during the fight had been set on fire without her even knowing it. She sighed, collapsing to the ground below her. Luna took the initiative, lying down next to her sister as she continued to stroke her mane. Celestia welcomed the touch, as affection from anypony was desperately needed by her right about then. Her chest rose and fell with the world as she played idly with a leaf of dead, brown grass.
“I did that,” she concluded, the fire dying down as her anger faded. “I did that.”
“It’s okay,” Luna assured, shushing the other pony. “We all have our emotions.”
“Emotions don’t do that,” Celestia said. “We do that. We’re freaks, Luna. I want to leave here. I want to go to Astron. We don’t have a home anymore, so there’s no point in staying.”
Luna opened her mouth to reply, but before she could, a large streak of orange and yellow entranced her. Her voice trailed off, watching the light above move about gracefully throughout the red sky of the twilight. Transfixed upon the trail of ember, she had only then come to realize its source: a brilliantly-colored bird, spiraling in the air without a care in the world.
Celestia took note of her sister’s silence, following Luna’s upward gaze. “Is that a...”
“Phoenix,” Luna confirmed, her eyes moving in perfect harmony with the fire hawk’s movements.
“The immortal bird,” Celestia said absent-mindedly. “It’s so majestic...”
Somehow tuning into their conversation, the phoenix gently descended in front of the two alicorns, landing softly upon the ground in front of them. It watched as they breathed, and they did the same to it.
“Did you...” Luna began, staring straight into the eyes of the magnificent animal. “Did you do that? Did you burn the trees?”
The bird didn’t confirm nor deny anything. But Luna knew. Luna knew.
“I wonder what it would be like,” Celestia mused, yawning and stretching her achy legs out. “To be deathless. To have an eternity to understand the world. Understand why it’s so horrible. Maybe make it bette-”
Celestia was cut off suddenly as her breaths became more rapid and dysrhythmic, her eyes widening fully as a sharp pain shot through her chest. Her strength faded immediately, leaving no energy to even writhe in agony or cry out to her oblivious sister, who was still hypnotized by the phoenix. She began gasping for air that never came, twisting up inside as a strange sense of serenity came to her.
Then there was only silence.
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Them tags. Dis gon b gud.
I like it.
1764943
1st. Not bad, cant wait to read more,
2nd. GOD DAMN it regidar. I keep finding you
o/~ It's been a long day's night... And I've been working like a Diamond Dog... //dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/Luna_lolface.png
Intricacy upon intricacy. Count me in for however long it takes.
I definitely like this. You have some real nice moments between cadence and luna, and I like how she only called cadence by her first name. At first I was disappointed by the sudden ending, but a quick check to see that it's not complete makes me very happy. Before that, I was trying to glean some deeper meaning out of the ending, ha.
In my headcanon, Cadnece isn't immortal, for precisely the reason that being so means outliving shining, and I don't like that, so I simply make it not true. As it is, you've got some real good character interraction, and I'm looking forward to more between cadence and luna, the two royal sisters, and even cadence and shining. Keep it up, LUC.
Also, I always like to know: how long did it take to write this, from coneption to now??
1765345
about three hours
1765374
....
You don't say
...Now I'm jealous.
This is good
I respectfully ask for Moar.
And if you managed to write this in three hours you have an uncanny gift for writing.
i1300.photobucket.com/albums/ag83/TrollestiaSubject/Discorded/Spike%20is%20Orphan/a01.gif
Interesting, plz continue.