The Center Cannot Hold
Twilight was thoroughly lost, and not just geographically. She had no idea how they'd gotten where they were, or what Luna was talking about. But her mind was keen and she was already chewing on the problem. She squinted at the sun's position in the sky and looked around. "All right, the change in the sun's angle puts us about two thousand miles to the east and one thousand south. That puts us..." The unicorn frowned. "That's not right. That's the middle of the ocean."
She turned to Luna, the unicorn already starting to sweat under the relentless glare of daylight desert, and was shocked to see her companion crumpled on the stone. "Princess!" Twilight rushed to Luna's side, stopping when she saw the tears leaking from the alicorn's closed eyes. "What's wrong?"
"What's wrong?" Luna's voice held such sharp bitterness that Twilight took an involuntary step back. "Only that I am exiled again. That it wasn't enough that my power be shattered, that my very purpose be ripped from me. That I am found wanting no matter how hard I try!" Her voice had thickened, taking on a lilt from the ancient past. "That after all this time, they only want me to be gone!"
The last three words came out in a deeper register than Luna's normal voice, something different than her magically augmented royal speech, turning the air between them brittle. Twilight knew that voice all too well, but had never expected to hear it from Luna's muzzle. There was a moment of silence, the quiet made only deeper by the distant sussuration of sand. "...Luna?" the unicorn asked at last, hesitantly.
There was another, longer pause, and the alicorn heaved a sigh. "Yes, I am." The princess got to her feet again. "Though that doesn't seem to help much."
"I'm sure it's not as bad as you think," Twilight said with forced cheer, already sweating uncomfortably under the merciless sun. "It must have been an accident. I mean, you said it was reacting to me, so it's probably my fault." She gave a nervous laugh. "And you're the goddess of the moon, so you can just... goddess us back, right?"
"No."
"...what?" Twilight blinked at Luna
"I can't," Luna said quietly, looking away from the unicorn, her ears folded back against her head.. "All of me that was the goddess was bound up in Nightmare Moon. Now that she's gone, that is too. I'm just a unicorn with wings."
Twilight stared. The ground seemed to shift under her hooves, as if the revelation had physical force, knocking her back a step. "But you... then I..." Her words came out less than coherent as her mind balked at all the implications carried in the simple statement. Then she threw her hooves around the princess. "I'm so sorry!"
Luna stood still, rigid with surprise, until Twilight let her go and stepped back awkwardly. "Um," said the unicorn with a slight flush. "I mean, I didn't know -"
"No," Luna interrupted her. "You were right. Nightmare Moon would have destroyed everything." The alicorn turned away, looking out over the blinding white dunes. "You should just leave. This isn't your place."
"Leave?" Twilight laughed hysterically, waving a foreleg around at the endless waste that surrounded them. "What? And go where? We're in the middle of the desert and it's so hot I can't even think - hang on." She frowned briefly, her horn glowing, and a saddle-borne parasol popped into existence both on her back and on Luna's. "There, that's better."
The alicorn looked startled. "What are you doing?"
"Luna," Twilight said earnestly. "You're wrong, it's not true that ponies don't want you. I'm not sure what happened to bring us here, but we've got to get out, and I'm not leaving you behind. Celestia said to take care of you."
"She what?" Luna had the same absent, bemused tone that Twilight had stammered in earlier, as if it were her world that was being rocked.
"Come on, princess." Twilight stepped down the worn steps of the stone dais, prodding at the sand with a hoof. "We need to get moving and find water and shelter. Could you fly up and see if there's anything nearby?"
For a a few long moments, Luna looked uncertain, then slowly shook her head. "Twilight, I'm not -"
She interrupted herself with a squeal as Twilight's horn glowed, launching the alicorn high into the air. The unicorn felt mortified to mishandle the princess in such a way, but it was far too hot to stand around arguing with her. Especially since she had to be wrong.
"Well?" she called up, and Luna glared down at her.
"Don't ever do that to me again."
"Do you see anything from there, though?"
Luna sighed and stretched her wings, the parasol popping off and fluttering downward before dissolving in a fizzle of purple as the magicked construction returned its power to the unicorn. Twilight winced slightly; they'd have to rely on the contents of her saddlebags and what she could make with her magic. No food or drink made with magic would be nourishing, and trying to make too much from nothing would being tiring. With any luck Luna would be able to spot some sort of landmark from up there.
She watched the dark speck of the alicorn spiral overhead, and hoped. At length, Luna dropped back down to the ground, looking somewhat wilted. "There's a dark smudge over there, but it's miles away. I might be able to fly there if it weren't for his heat," she continued sadly. "And you'd never make it walking."
"Then we won't walk. Or fly. Exactly which direction is it in?"
Luna looked at her, clearly questioning her sanity, but pointed with a hoof. "There."
"All right. Hang on." Twilight's horn glowed as she concentrated, enveloping the two of them in a sphere of violet light. A line of light shot forth from it, vanishing over the horizon, and there was a sudden staccato booming. The sand shifted past them in fits and starts, an inconstant strobe as the white dunes reflected the sun.
Twilight squinted ahead of her, sweating as she concentrated hard on the teleports. The sand flowed like water under her hooves, and she had to fight to maintain her balance on the constantly-shifting ground. She couldn't spare a look for Luna, having to focus all her attention forward, but she caught glimpses of a dark coat out of the corner of her vision and knew the princess was at least being drawn along.
It was impossible to tell how long the journey lasted. It wasn't long, but the constant ebb and flow of magic, and the rapidly shifting surroundings, destroyed all sense of time and distance. All Twilight knew was that it felt like wading through hock-deep mud, and the crushing, merciless heat battering down past the parasol didn't help either. The air seared her lungs as she panted, and she nearly missed the moment that the looming tor came into view.
A vast mount of blood-red rock sprouted suddenly from the monochrome surroundings, an incongruous presence in the desert. A few more seconds and a series of pops followed, and Twilight barely stopped before she smashed them into the steep crimson slopes. Her vision swam as she looked at the stone, and beside her Luna groaned wretchedly and spat bile.
"Don't," she said weakly, "ever do that again."
"Yeah..." Twilight replied, her voice coming out faint and far away, even to herself. "I don't think that's going to be a problem." The world tilted oddly and she found herself flat on her back. For a moment it felt nice to lie down, but then the heat of the white sand penetrated her coat, and she shot upright again. "Ouch!"
Luna snorted softly and began walking along the perimeter of the rise, toward where a thin sliver of shadow cast a dark patch on the sand. Twilight trotted to keep up, fine grains spraying behind as she matched pace with the larger pony, and sighed with relief as the sun's glare finally vanished behind the mass of stolid stone. "Do you know where we are? I've been trying to figure it out but this doesn't match any map I know of."
The alicorn didn't reply, and Twilight looked over at her. "Princess Luna?"
The darker pony whirled abruptly, tears standing in her eyes. "I don't care! Don't you understand? It. Doesn't. Matter."
Twilight took a step back. "What's wrong, princess? You weren't like this before, and you know we weren't abandoned here on purpose..."
"I was acting, before. If I looked the slightest bit upset, ponies would avoid me and whisper behind my back. Now, there aren't any others. Except you." Luna blinked tears from her eyes, the wetness vanishing instantly into the parched sand below. "I'm stuck with the pony that destroyed me. You... you.." She sputtered wordlessly. "I hate you!" The princess turned and fled, showering Twilight in grains of hot quartzite.
Twilight watched her go, feeling like her stomach had dropped out and fallen clear through the sand. Being stranded in the desert was bad enough, but it hadn't hit her like Luna's words. It was only now, as she watched the princess vanish behind a crag of rock, that she felt truly lost. "What do I do now?" she asked plaintively of the empty air.
•••
It was too bright. It was too hot. At least in the shade the sand no longer scorched her hooves, but the unending white sparkled with a dazzling brightness that forced her to squint. It was as miserable a place as she could remember, and Luna had a long memory. The last tattered fragments of her godhead did little to soothe her parched throat, but she gathered them about her anyway.
The hollow feeling was a welcome companion, something to be embraced for its familiarity. She was by now used to being alone, even if not stranded in a desert beneath an empty blue sky. And yet there was something odd about it, something that rattled around in the back of her mind. Luna followed the line of rock until what was bothering her decided to present itself.
The sand crunched under her hooves as the shadow cast by the ruddy stone lengthened, and finally it edged around into view. It wasn't like Celestia. Luna knew her sister, and knew that she would do anything to safeguard Equestia. But she was far from cruel, and Twilight's presence in this exile was unexplainable. And, she thought, stumbling over a rock camouflaged under a thin layer of sand, the place was far too harsh.
But the idea that this was some other accident, that the universe had cast her out again by blind chance was such a bitter dose that she couldn't accept it. Scar's last look did nothing to help the proposition; she knew he had to be involved, but the dragon hadn't seemed happy about it.
As her mind mulled over bleak possibilities, her hooves carried her up a narrow defile that wound around the rock face. With a start, Luna realized that she could sense darkness nearby, some tiny slice of the night preserved against the uncaring light. She lifted her head, looking around, and picked her way up the side of the narrow gorge.
Luna stepped into the cave with a sigh of relief. Here, the air was cool and soothing, and her ears pricked as the faint burble of running water came from the deeper reaches of the shelter. Gloom was no impediment to her vision, and she followed the sound until she could smell the sharp clean of spring water and damp moss.
The foal of some hidden brook or distant artesian well issued forth from the side of the cave, frothing briefly over a pebbled scape of moss-covered stone to land in a shallow pool. Luna bent gratefully to drink, and the water was cold and sweet. The crawl of gray-green moss promised a more comfortable place for repose than bare rock or sand, and the princess almost thought it was actually a nice little place.
Guilt stopped her. She wasn't the only pony who was hot, parched, and tired. Somewhere in the desert Twilight Sparkle was just as stranded as she was, and Luna had abandoned her. Even if she could find Twilight again, what could she possibly say? They hadn't exactly parted on the best of terms.
"Good job, Luna," she muttered aloud, her voice echoing back from the walls of the cave, thin and thready. She dropped down on the moss with a sigh, scrubbing at her muzzle. Time slipped. Over the endless days, weeks, years, and centuries, she'd learned how not to pay attention and only dabble her hooves in time's flow. Since her return, 'Tia had helped center her, helped her plant all four legs in the current. But sometimes she found it passing her by.
She became aware night was falling. The alicorn shook her head, a gesture of half-negation, half-frustration, and rose to walk outside. The oppressive heat of the day had turned into an equally bitter chill blowing off the lifeless sands. The blue was turning toward purple, and Luna shivered as she looked out over the desert. She might not be able to raise the moon anymore, but she could at least watch.
There was a soft tapping of hooves from behind her, and a thermal blanket draped itself over her. She turned and stared as Twilight Sparkle stepped up to join her at the lip of the defile. The purple unicorn didn't seem any worse for the wear. She wasn't wearing a parasol any longer, and her saddlebags bulged despite their contents - Twilight's cold weather gear - being spread out over Twilight and Luna. "...I don't understand," Luna said at last.
"Just a modification of the finder spell Rarity taught me," Twilight said happily, a flash of purple rippling over her horn. "Works for greenery, water, and apparently princesses." Then she sobered. "I know you don't like me, but until we get out of this we'll have to stay together."
"I don't understand why you came back."
"Oh." It was Twilight's turn for surprise. "I couldn't just leave you. I mean, it's not... I just... I couldn't. Besides." Now her expression took on a glint, a sharp-edged determination that Luna had last seen through different eyes. "Celestia told me to take care of you."
The alicorn had to physically restrain herself from stepping away from Twilight. That was not a tone she cared to be on the wrong end of again. Silence lingered for a moment, then Luna tentatively floated a reply. "I didn't mean it."
"What?" Twilight blinked at her.
"I don't hate you."
"Oh."
There was another round of silence, and Luna sighed. "I am - I was - Nightmare Moon. That was my choice. It was a bad choice, but it was still mine. And you saved me, so I owe you everything. But you also destroyed me, Twilight. Shattered me. When I have nightmares, they're about you."
"...Oh."
This time it was Twilight who looked away. The unicorn scuffed at the rock with a forehoof, embarrassed. "I'm not that bad a pony, I swear." She looked up again, her eyes wide and earnest. "Princess, I don't have anything against you. I'm just an ordinary unicorn. Even if - even if we can't be friends, we can still get along until we get out of this."
Luna shook her head slowly. "It's not something we can simply walk out of. We haven't just lost a path, we were sent here. By Scar or Celestia or something else." She gestured out at the desolation. "It's an oubliette."
"Place of forgetting?" Twilight frowned. "It's just a desert."
"It's nowhere. It's a very specific nowhere. Where we arrived was built, built in the middle of the desert." Luna looked up at the sky. "We're stuck."
"Oh, I'm sure it's not that bad." Twilight's laugh was uncertain. "Once the stars come out we can figure out exactly where we are and from there it shouldn't be any trouble to figure things out."
The alicorn felt a smile form unbidden. "If I know anything, I know the stars."
"That's the spirit!" Twilight smiled back and turned to look at the horizon, where the moon would be rising. The sky turned to match Twilight's coloration, then Luna's, turning to black at the far horizon for a moment before the silver coin of the moon rose over the dunes.
Slowly, slowly, it crept upward, and the two of them stared as the moon sailed, alone, through the dark vault overhead.
•••
"My sky." Twilight heard Luna's words come out pained and breathless, as if she'd been stabbed in the heart. "Where is my sky?"
The unicorn didn't have an answer. She was staring upward at the traitorous sky, only now feeling cast adrift. "I don't know, princess," she said at last. "I... don't see how it's possible."
"My sky..." Luna repeated a third time, then bowed her head and sobbed. Twilight could only awkwardly pat her shoulder through two layers of blanket and stare helplessly upward. It was a long, long night, but the princess finally cried herself out and slept, just before dawn. In the silence the there was a high and distant crooning as the white sand dunes sang in the wind.
It was a strange, exotic sound, and it lulled her into a semi-slumber where she rode the sound through a bleak and endless empty landscape. The half-dream ended when she abruptly realized she could hear words in that song, and she bolted upright, blinking.
Achtopa niyāz
achtopa cotlatocāz
zatepan tiyāz
zatepan totlalacotāz
The voice was coming nearer, thin and dry yet still tuneful, cradling each word of that unknown language. A claw scraped on stone and a reptilian figure hauled itself into view. It must have been bulky at some point, and bigger than a pony, but now the scarred hide clung loose on sinewy limbs, six of them, and the tail ended abruptly at half its natural length. Its scales were a faded, burnt umber, and around the serpentine head was tied an incongruous white cloth, covering its eyes.
Achtopa nictlamiltiz
in centeotlalotli
in cencomolihuic
It sang, hauling itself the rest of the way out of the narrow gorge, and headed directly for the ponies. Twilight heard somepony scream, and only until after it stopped did she realize it was her. Luna scrambled to her hooves beside her, and the reptile halted. "Ai, kenin otimo uika?"
"I'm sorry, I don't understand you," Twilight replied, already trying to remember a translation spell. The effort proved to be unnecessary as it gave a wheezy laugh, and spoke in accented but understandable words.
"Ai, my apologies. I get so few visitors." It chuckled again, though she didn't know what was amusing about that. "What brings you to bestow your presence on an old, blind basilisk?"
Luna stepped in, preempting any reply Twilight might have made. "I am Princess Luna, and this is Twilight Sparkle," she told the reptile in a cool, clear voice. "And who might you be?"
The basilisk bowed deeply, abasing itself before them. "Forgive me, I am not supplied for royalty. What I have is, of course, yours. I am called Tozómuc."
"Your hospitality is appreciated, Tozómuc, but we do not intend to stay long. I merely have some questions for you." Twilight stared at Luna as the alicorn's voice slid into something resembling silk-clad steel. This wasn't the Luna who had been helplessly weeping only a few hours ago, and the pony had to wonder how literally Luna had meant it when she said she'd been shattered.
"What," Luna demanded, "happened to the stars?"
"Ai, I cannot tell you, oh dread sovereign," the basilisk said sadly. "I have not seen the sky in a long, long time. I cannot remember what it looked like."
That was frightening. That casual admission would have been sweeping destruction to Twilight's world, but the basilisk seemed more upset by his inability to answer the question than his inability to see the sky. Twilight saw Luna's muzzle tighten and the princess inclined her head in a tight nod; a useless gesture, but an instinctive one. "Very well," she said. "Then I ask, where are we?"
Tozómuc tilted his head. "Ai..." he said in a slow, careful voice. "Then I dare ask, you have not come to pass judgement?"
"Judgement?" Twilight blurted, unable to help it. Luna twitched, a movement half arrested, and the scaled head swiveled in the paler pony's direction. There was a shadow of something hungry in that motion, and despite the fact that Tozómuc was pressed flat against the ground, Twilight took a step back.
"I obey," the basilisk sighed in a voice like the wind rustling dead leaves, "the onus of justice gladly. Even happily. But an old, blind basilisk can hope, ever hope, for mercy."
"What are you talking about?" Twilight stared at the reptile as the first hot breath of wind came in from the rising sun.
"Twilight," Luna said quietly. The unicorn looked over at her and Luna shook her head. "Let me." It was almost pleading. Twilight put her hoof to her muzzle and gestured for Luna to go ahead.
"Tozómuc," Luna said. "Where are we?"
"My desert," he replied with inexpressible weariness. "Where I walked, long ago, and turned people and cities and fields and forests to sand and dust. The dust has long since blown away, but the sand remains."
Twilight Sparkle gasped. The princess closed her eyes briefly, giving a convulsive shiver before she addressed the basilisk again. "Then, Tozómuc, tell me how we can leave your desert."
"Ai, I can lead the way, if you would but grant me one moment to drink and another to regain my strength."
"Of course." Luna stepped aside, and the basilisk lumbered toward the cave. As he passed by, Twilight could hear his bones creak. Once he passed inside, the smaller pony turned to stare at Luna.
"But... he's a murderer! He admitted it!" Twilight didn't understand what Luna was doing at all. All she wanted to do was to get as far away from Tozómuc as possible.
"...that could have been me," Luna said in a trembling voice. She dropped her head, looking as frightened as Twilight had ever seen. All in a flash, Twilight understood. Understood the bright mirror that the basilisk held for Luna and the ultimate end of Nightmare Moon's eternal darkness. An eternity alone in a dark desolation created by her own hooves.
"But it's not, princess." Twilight took a step toward her. "You could never be like that."
"Then you don't know me." Luna's eyes flashed and she took a breath. "I wanted to, Twilight. I wanted to so badly. To just crush everything."
"I think we all have days like that," Twilight said with a nervous giggle. The sad princess was bad enough, but this Luna frightened her badly. Even if she understood, at least in part, where Luna was coming from, it didn't help her with how to react to it. There were no books she could consult, and magic was useless in this. She chose her words carefully.
"We all get angry, princess. Well all make mistakes and say or do things we don't mean. But that doesn't make you a bad pony, and I don't think you're a monster, like him."
"Maybe not..." Luna took a deep breath and lifted her head back up, looking down at Twilight. "I don't think he's a monster anymore either, though," she said at last. "You heard him speak."
"It's possible," Twilight said grudgingly. "And a basilisk's power is in his eyes, so I guess he's not really a threat. But still, he creeps me out."
"You gave me a second chance," Luna argued. "Why not him?"
Twilight blinked, and turned to look out over the desert. The sun reflected off the red stone, staining the white sand bloody crimson. She waved a hoof at it. "This. This is why. You've never done anything like this."
Luna followed her look, then straightened up, seeming somehow reassured. "You're right," she said, her voice regaining some strength. "I just felt - feel - a kinship to him. One monster to another."
"You're not," Twilight insisted. "You're Princess Luna."
The edges of the alicorn's muzzle curled upward in a small smile, and the scrape of claw on stone came from behind them. They turned to see Tozómuc emerge from the cave, laden with stone jugs that sloshed as he moved. "Hraah," he said, head bowed. "On your order, I will lead you to the edge of this desert, great ladies."
"Lead the way, Tozómuc," said the princess Luna.
They straggled back down the rock face, onto sand that was already starting to warm. Twilight remade her parasols, shading both her and Luna from the rising heat, and looked forward at their guide. She would rather not have to talk to him too much, but she couldn't be rude. "...would you like an umbrella, Tozómuc?"
The basilisk laughed his dead-leaves laugh. "Ai, the lady is too kind to a condemned criminal. Too kind. My thanks, but the sun and I have reached an understanding. It shines, and I am hot. Without that, I would not know day from night."
"Right." Twilight shared a glance with Luna, then opened her saddlebag, horn glowing as she lifted out some plump orange-striped fruits. She passed one across to the princess, who took it as they trekked across the trackless sands. "Something to eat, then, maybe?"
"I could not accept -" the basilisk began, but Luna cut in.
"You won't be able to show us across the desert if you collapse from hunger, Tozómuc. Do I have to make that an order?"
The reptile wheezed a laugh. "That is not necessary, oh princess. Your point is taken." He came to a halt and turned, and Twilight floated yet another fruit over to touch his paw. The reptile plucked it from the air, and the unicorn winced as something buzzed oddly where his flesh touched her magic. "My deepest thanks."
He turned and started off ahead, moving on five legs through the sand. They started off again, the two ponies stepping in the broad shapeless footprints of the basilisk. "That odd reaction to my magic," Twilight ventured hesitantly. Tozómuc still disturbed her, but curiosity was a strong force. "Do you know what it was?"
"Ai, part of my sentence, I believe."
"Sentence, judgement, criminal - what court sentenced you?" Luna asked, finally putting words to questions that had been rattling around in the back of Twilight's mind.
"The highest court, oh great lady," Tozómuc replied. "The gods themselves. The great mover of the sun sentenced me, broke my power, and bound me here."
Twilight gaped. He could only be describing one pony, but Celestia had never mentioned anything like this in her stories. Beside her, she heard Luna's intake of breath. But the princess' tone remained cool and even. "Bound you here why? What was your sentence?"
"To understand." The basilisk sighed. "That is all she said."
"Typical," Luna muttered. "Just typical of her."
"Hraah... forgive me, dread sovereign," the basilisk ventured in its dust-dry voice. "But do you know the goddess of the sun?"
"Of course," Luna replied absently. "I'm her sister."
Their procession stopped as the reptile flung himself flat on the sand, covering his muzzle with his forepaws. "Forgive me, oh great goddess of the moon, I did not know."
"Rise, Tozómuc. You have done nothing that I could find fault with." Even if Luna felt some sort of kinship with the basilisk, Twilight thought, she was remaining distant enough. She was suddenly, intensely glad that the princess never talked to her that way, disturbing though Luna's confessions could be.
"My goddess is most kind," the reptile murmured, rising to his feet, but still keeping his head bowed. "Most kind."
"I'm just me." Luna shook her head. "Tozómuc, I am merely passing through. Please, let us continue."
"Of course, my goddess." The reptile raised his head to the sun, then turned and began to head back over the dunes. On the downslope, Twilight had to step around a smooth spike of ruddy stone peering out of the drifts. It wasn't until the crest of the next dune that she saw it was far from a singular outcrop.
Red rock pillars stretched out in a vast field before them, some almost entirely buried in the sand, some standing tall above. For a moment the unicorn thought they were a natural formation, but then she saw they were covered with symbols and rough striations where something had hewn them from the living earth.
"What is all this?" Twilight blurted, forgetting for a moment that the basilisk couldn't see what she was referring to.
He knew anyway. "Ai..." The rustling of dead leaves. "It is my remembrance."
"I think," Luna said, looking out over the obelisks, "that you should tell me what you've been doing in the desert all this time."
"Hraah." The basilisk's wordless expression seemed entirely inadequate to the task of explaining the endless expanse of carved monuments. The reptile stopped briefly by one of the standing stones, reaching out until his paw encountered the surface. Twilight swallowed as she saw his claws matched perfectly the marks scoring the surface.
"In the beginning I was angry. I raged from one end of the desert to the other, but one cannot injure sand." The basilisk began moving again, but slower, as if the memories were a physical weight upon his back. The ponies watched him somberly from under the shade of their parasols.
"I was a long, long time alone. There was nothing to do but think. When the anger burned itself out, ai, something else was waiting to fill that void. Shame? Remorse? I do not know. It took me far too long, but at least I realized how much I had destroyed, and how I could never, ever undo what I had done."
"I began to carve out what I remembered. Each person, each place, each name. Everything. In the beginning, it was so others could know. But now..." He stopped at another stele, reaching up to run his claws over the writing on its face, and Twilight wondered how many times he must have made the journey to know everything so well even when blind. "Hraah, I no longer recall most of this. And there is so much I have forgotten, so much that I did not record, so much that is gone forever."
The shadows of the monuments painted stripes across the sand, growing shorter as the sun rose and the heat washed over them. They seemed taller in the bright morning sun, their color more intense, like freshly shed blood. "They remind me, now, why I am here. Why I cannot leave this desert. What I have done, and what I must remember."
Silence reigned after that. They walked onward, Twilight keeping her brow wet with the water she and Tozómuc carried. Luna didn't seem to be as affected by the heat as she, but they both were sweating under the gaze of the sun. The rows of monoliths went on and on, hour after hour and mile after mile, and by the time Luna called a halt at midday, Twilight found tears running from her eyes.
She didn't know who she was crying for. For Tozómuc's victims, somewhere in the sand beneath her hooves. For the basilisk himself, and the endless weight of grief and guilt and responsibility he carried. Or maybe both, combined to create some enormous well of tragedy.
She jumped as a hoof touched her shoulder, and looked over at Luna. "I understand," the princess told her softly.
"What?" She blinked her vision clear.
"The weight. The expanse of time and experience that immortals have. Good or bad or even indifferent, it... it hurts. But I admit, it is not often spread out like this." She looked around them at the pillars rising from the sand.
Twilight nodded, squinting up at the sun, and her horn glowed as she brought a shelter into existence for them. The blankets were spread to protect them from the still-hot sand, and they had a small luncheon in the middle of the desert. It was not a joyful picnic, not with the incarnated memories of a dead land stretching to the horizon, but it was better than trying to march in the stifling heat. Tozómuc seemed content to simply wait in silence a short distance from the impromptu pavilion, describing symbols in the sand with his claw, then wiping them away and starting over.
"How do you deal with it?" the unicorn asked eventually. "I mean, it never seems to bother Princess Celestia."
"'Tia, I think, is the best of us," Luna said distantly, and without even a hint of bitterness. "I don't know how she does it. Myself... I don't remember so much. Not since I came back," she added broodingly. "Just fragments, here and there."
"...right," Twilight said awkwardly. Every other statement from Luna seemed to hold a reference to the events surrounding Nightmare Moon, and she felt more guilty about it each time it was brought up. The fact that Luna agreed that what she'd done was right only made it worse.
A few other desultory attempts at conversation fell flat, trailing off into vagueness, and after a while Twilight left the princess alone to whatever thoughts had her so occupied. All the shadows but the one under their awning vanished as the sun reached midday, then began to reach in the other direction.
"Maybe we should get going again," Twilight suggested at last, and Luna blinked, then nodded.
"Yes, we should. Tozómuc, lead on."
"Ai, as you command, great goddess." The reptile's bulk shifted as he got to his feet, half the water jugs he'd been hauling emptied between the three of them. They started off again among the standing stones, walking amid the sentinels of a dead land.
The air rippled with the heat, turning even the nearest dunes into dreamlike mirages, the ground nearly scorching Twilight's hooves. She breathed shallowly through her nose, nostrils dry and sore, sweating and wondering if they shouldn't have waited until night to travel. Surely the cold would have been easier to deal with than the heat.
But as the sun sank down toward the west, green glimmered on the horizon, a break from the unrelieved red and white of Tozómuc's desert. Twilight squinted at the shimmering color. "Is that the edge of the desert?" She immediately snorted as she realized she'd again asked someone who was blind about something she could only see.
Again, though, the basilisk knew what she was talking about. "Hrrah... only a few thousand more steps until the sands end."
"Not long," Luna said quietly, and Twilight had to fight the urge to dash toward their destination. It was still only a blurred promise, hovering tantalizingly at the edge of vision. Yet step by step it came nearer, resolving not into scrub or grassland, but a lush forest with an unnaturally sharp edge.
When they drew close enough to distinguish individual blades of grass, Twilight did run ahead, leaping over the interface between sand and earth and landing in the cool grass. The unicorn gave a long sigh of relief, the climate under the tall, spreading trees instantly more pleasant.
The other two followed not long after, but while Luna stepped onto the grass, Tozómuc stopped short. "Ai, this is where we part." The basilisk gave his rustling sigh. "I cannot leave the desert. Good journeying to you, oh great ladies."
Luna's head rose, and her voice was no longer distant. "Wait, Tozómuc."
The basilisk stilled, his head cocked slightly to one side, waiting.
"You have been here so long. You have learned what is right and what is wrong. You have done everything in your power to address your debt, and you have admitted that you could never fully pay it. I think that you have reached the understanding my sister sentenced you to."
Tozomuc pressed himself flat against the ground. "You are merciful, oh great goddess," he whispered.
"You're letting him go?" The unicorn stared at Luna.
"I am ending his sentence," the princess replied softly. "It's not the same thing."
"What do you mean?" Twilight blinked, looking from alicorn to basilisk.
"Dust," Tozómuc whispered. "And sand. I have been here far longer than any mortal should."
"So you... so he..." Twilight was speechless.
Luna bowed her head, a brief glow of dark purple limning her horn. "Tozómuc," she said. "You're free."
A spark kindled between the basilisk's eyes, a glow that spread to suffuse his entire body in a single blink. He raised his head, as if he could actually see them, and his muzzle curled upward in a smile before his body crumbled into a pile of dust and white sand. The dust blew away. The sand remained.
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So far, I am enjoying it very much. Love the mythology you are weaving into it.
But it could be better. When I begin reading each chapter, your writing is preparing me for a long, enjoyable ride. But then, it ends. I feel as though I've missed something, like there are paragraphs and whole scenes that have been omitted. I hate to compare stories, but in my opinion, in this story I should be reading something with around the length of the chapters from End of Ponies. Which happens to be one of my favorites.
Advice I would have for you is to be more descriptive, add more content and expand on the situations the characters find themselves in. More introspection, less rushing emotions. This certainly is a good story so far, don't get me wrong. But with more work, it could become quite epic.
Of course, these are only my initial musings. We'll see how things turn out.
Wandering around in a dead land with its destroyer is a pretty powerful image. I also liked the characterization of Luna and Twilight's relationship. Great stuff so far.
an interesting chapter, i guess with enough time to think and reflect everyone would come to see more clearly on ones own actions if they have nothing else they can do. but i must admit i almost find this tozo more interesting than the rest of the char so far and i would have liked to know more about him and the people that he destroyed and why. onward to chapter 3!
139898
You just wanted to see more of the basilisk. :|
Anyway... ONWARD TO THE NEXT CHAPTER! This train has no brakes!
I find, looking back, that for me, personally, this chapter, and one later on that also happens to feature a... reptile, of sorts, are the most powerful.
There are close runners; but this entire story, from this chapter forward, captured my attention from the first and until I got to the end I refused to put it down, to divert my attention, because from this point forward every chapter, every event, every character, every word becomes fascinating.
At this point, to me, it ceases to be just a story and proceeds to become one of the most in-depth and deeply symbolic character studies I have ever seen. When I got here, I realized that I would enjoy this story, as long as the rest of the chapters were anything at all like this one.
And really, that's what it is: a character study, intertwined with adventurous overtones, yes, but the adventure is through Luna's own psyche--maybe?--or at least through places, things, echoes of the world that form up around her and reflect the pain she feels on the inside.
This chapter, out of all of them, hits me possibly the hardest--because Tozomuc is such a vast abyss, so much of him remains unknown, but what we learn hurts--hurts almost unbearably, and Luna understands. Luna comprehends, in a way that Twilight (and we, the readers) cannot, the bone-shattering agony of a measureless age of isolation. In a way, the basilisk also foreshadows her: he is still trapped in the desert until Luna frees him, but he has reached his conclusions, he has learned, he has understood in a way that Luna has not yet, and though he is bound in bitterness and sorrow and regret, he has accepted what he did and what he must do in a way that Luna has yet to grasp.
It is difficult to say, especially now that the fic is over and done with and you probably don't remember, how much of this is happenstance and how much of it is intentional, but though she tells a good portion of the story up to this point, Twilight still feels largely incidental. She has purpose; the story would not function without her present. But the story is so focused on Luna and told through Luna's own perspective, bitter and terrible and honestly frightening as it is, a lot of the time, especially in this chapter (although she gets better as the story continues, which is what makes me wonder how much of it is intentional) she feels like a child, standing back and watching a discussion between burdened, weary adults, knowing only that something's wrong and that she really can't help much but wishing, wishing desperately that she could.
And honestly? Seeing Twilight of all ponies in such a position is rather refreshing.
that was a good, albeit slightly sad chapter :3
celestia is such a troll
Bloody hell.
Wow, I am very intrigued. You have included old Nahuatl poetry into it. That is a very good poem to include into it. It explains the emotional side of his exile very much.
At first I thought "Shit, we are in an oubliette."
Then "Shitfuck, we are in an oubliette and the sky is wrong."
Then "Double shitfuck, we are in an oubliette and there are other people here."
Then it got interesting.
You probably have no idea how much that means.
It means a lot. Every one of those sentences filled my head up with new and interesting concepts (at one point I thought Twilight and Luna were going to have to navigate a rogue's gallery of Celestia's greatest foes from throughout history), and then you showed me more of them.
amazing job on tozumuk. i love characters that have lived for long enough to know as much about themselves as he does.
also the image you create is a really powerful one. if i could have one critique it would be that we didn't get too see enough of tozumuk. i would have loved to be told some of his stories, be told about his victims. and maybe a little more buildup before killing him off.
otherwise amazing chapter
. looking forward too the next.
2057526 Yes, I really wanted to hear Tozumuk tell me a story.
Wow. this was some good imagery. Contrasting what the first guy said, I feel like this is the right amount. Not too flowery, but enough for us to get the point across without drowning me. Great concepts, too. Onwards!
i was listening to the song brothers from the fullmetal alchemist soundtrack during the part when Luna released Tozomuc and it fit so well it actually almost made me cry damnit all.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXQLrkW33f0&list=PL073FC821892ADD13
Wow, incredible storytelling. Reminds me of The Neverending Story (the book, not the movie) and the short stories of Lord Dunsany.
Rereading this now, I find it interesting to realize how much your portrayal of Luna has likely influenced my own without me even realizing it. This really is a well-written and powerful story
Wow. I was a bit iffy on this story - I felt like I didn't really understand what was going on, that things lacked a certain amount of backstory. But this chapter? Woah. That was powerful.
Kudos.
....
death to the sun tyrant.
Dammit
Once again you have introduced a creepy ass character in a creepy ass way and there is a creepy ass backstory to it.
Well done.
That was powerfully well-done. ... 0.0
You were really tugging at the heartstrings here, weren't you.
Well played
Wow... Only the second chapter and my heart strings are being pulled on like this? I think I'm gonna live this story... Now I understand why it was so highly recommended.
Abrubt biome edges, oddly-plain sky, caves and sculptures everywhere... Why do I feel like this is Minecraftia?
Luna is a step closer to her recovery. This was a great scene.
3327698
This for me too.
Best line for me so far: "When I have nightmares, they're about you."
I've seen at least one other fic that mentioned Luna's purification being a traumatic experience, but you've done a great job of showing what some of the consequences of that are. Well done.
Wow. Tomomuc is a freaking great character and this story's high concept fantasy is mind-blowing. I don't believe I've seen a story tackle the scope of so many years gone by so well. This chapter absolutely rocked.
I still like the angle of Luna's purification being very traumatic.
I hope that they're other gods that rival or exceed Sunbutt's power, her being the only supreme power would be very worrying.
Umm, yes it is, just phrasing it differently.
He recognized what he'd done wrong and he could never make amends for lives he took. Since Luna did something she regretted and is becoming a better pony, she sympatized with him. So she let him go.
A journey toward truth begins.
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Why? She gave the appropriate sentence to a murderer.
It's both sad and compelling how broken Luna is. Twilight's kindness to her is a nice touch.
I do feel bad for Tozomuc...now. Probably wouldn't have before he repented. (Did you know the Celtic Moon Goddess is associated with mercy? Very nice touch if so.) Luna's understanding of Tozomuc was very interesting.
We spend a lot of time, as a species, arguing who is right. Who is wrong. Who is good and Who is evil. And we should. Some people to do far down the hole of relativism that they even start to question whether such things like right or wrong even matter.
Out entire system of justice is built around the concept of punishment. Of justice. Of what people deserve.
The thing is, nobody deserves mercy. That's why it's called mercy. When we get what we deserve we call it justice. Balance. Retribution and recompense and reconciliation.
All very important. All vital that we learn and discuss and debate to more perfectly understand. Justice is very very important.
But I think that sometimes we can forget about how important Mercy is, too.
Twilight Sparkle, Element of Magic, Student of the Sun Goddess, Vanquisher of Nightmares and Chaos. Bringer of Harmony, Shatterer of the Divine, Killer of Gods.
Probably survival extroadinare and ultimate egghead too.
She has many titles, yet she will insist she is 'Just a unicorn'. Yeah right, Twi, face it you are probably a Demigod or something if Celestia and Luna are actual Goddesses.