It was the only explanation that made sense of the truly wonderful week she was having; it was just too wonderful. Not only had she completed one of Starswirl the Bearded’s spells – a thought that made her squee with fanfillyish delight – she had also somehow been crowned the newest Princess of Equestria!
Twilight’s delight at this life-changing event was matched only by her paranoia. Quite frankly, she was terrified. It was easy to see why: she now held responsibility for all of Equestria, shared with her two peers. It was her duty to be as good a ruler as she possibly could.
And so, as she did in any educational crisis, Twilight Sparkle visited the library.
As she scanned the shelves with something approaching reverence, Twilight picked out several leatherbound books that would serve her purposes: Royal Responsibilities, Duties of a Diarch, Meet the Elite... All of them and more joined Twilight’s floating whirlwind of words.
A whirlwind that froze in midair when she saw the book.
Normally, Twilight would simply see the book, read the cover, estimate its value, then either disregard it or add it to the pile. This one, however, was completely unremarkable. It had no author or title, or any of the fancy decorations that were typical of Canterlot Library books. Instead, it was just a featureless and tattered journal, lying on top of the neat and orderly rows.
Simply put, it was a mystery. And Twilight Sparkle loved a mystery.
Dropping the collection of books on a desk, the purple alicorn gingerly cracked open the ancient diary. She was immediately struck by the date of the first--and only--entry. To Twilight’s delight and disbelief, the diary was written over a thousand years ago.
The hornwriting didn’t escape her scrutiny either; Twilight was sure she had never seen it before, yet it was oddly familiar. Intrigued, Twilight sat down on a cushion and started to read.
Dear Diary Princess Celestia,
Oh dear. I have barely even begun writing, and I have already made a mistake. Or did I? I am still undecided on whether this is, in all actuality, a diary entry. But I am not really trying to communicate with a diary, surely? At the very least, It would make for a poor pen-friend.
I’m rambling again, aren’t I? Of course, you’re probably chuckling as you read this, looking back on our your mistakes with a fondness borne from aged wisdom. Wisdom that I have yet to attain, even in all my years of living.
I really must stop dancing around the subject matter, lest we end up waltzing for eternity. This is the first time in a while that I have been alone with my thoughts, and to waste it would be foolish.
Remember this, and remember it well, Celestia.
For Iyou we have sinned...
****
I remember thinking that it should have been a beautiful morning. The birds should have been singing, the sky should have been a perfect blue, and our little ponies should have been going about their day with blessed ignorance.
Instead, it was a storm-ridden nightmare, both literally and metaphorically. Instead of singing, there was only screaming.
Our ponies were at war, and we were drinking tea. Watching. Thinking.
A long time ago, a pony once said ‘Glory to our Goddesses who have shown us the light.’ It was a sermon, I believe, told by some nameless and forgotten zealot. I had heard similar verses before, of course, but there was something about this one that stuck with me.
We were pondering it over our tea, I remember. Pondering, while others were dying. What was our little excuse again?
Ah, yes. ‘It is a mortal’s destiny to die. They may as well be useful while they’re going about it.’ Not exactly a lie, but not the whole truth either.
Occasionally, a soldier--whose rank could be divined by the garishness of their armour--would clank up to our little balcony and say something along the lines of ‘the enemy is advancing on our position’ or ‘our troops managed to push back the enemy’. We would respond by nodding archly and immediately forgetting whatever vital tactical information we were offered. Such was life.
We did not acknowledge the existence of the raging battle happening just outside our window, for that would only complicate things further. Instead, we would drink our tea and consider pointless things, despite the fact that brooding and philosophising was always Luna’s forte, as it were.
It did not work, however. It never did. That little tug at the corner of my mind was always present, and a battle on the scale of this one just made it more insistent.
That was when the Night Goddess herself took to the playing field.
We were too busy sipping tea to notice at first. After all, according to our tactical generals, cowering inside the war room as they were, our troops were pushing back against the assault. The uprising would be over in a cup of tea or two, if all went to plan.
As such, the blast of eldritch black lightning followed by a disconcertingly large number of our troops being wiped off the face of Equestria garnered a raised eyebrow or two more then it should have.
The first thing I felt when I saw her in battle: surprise at her appearance, that of a ebony alicorn that possessed an almost dangerous beauty about her form. A star-filled mane curled and writhed as if it were truly alive.
Surprise turned into shock as she swept our little ponies aside like ants. Lightning, fire, darkness itself were her weapons. Occasionally, she would resort to simply crushing skulls with a silver-shod hoof, as if the armour wasn’t even there.
And she was smiling. Laughing, even.
She was elegant, beautiful, deadly, and utterly merciless. To see her slaughter was akin to watching a picture in motion, and the awed expressions on her victims faces showed that they thinking the same thing.
And oh, how we envied her.
We envied her freedom, most of all. She had surrendered to her base urges, given up her self-control, and this was the result.
I wished to smile like that. I longed to dance the dance of death.
The tug became more insistent, and our teacup shattered along with our self-control.
And we attacked with a bloodlust kept carefully locked up for countless centuries. How many ponies died with that first attack? We didn’t know, and we didn’t care.
We looked into our demented sister’s eyes and saw that smile reflected in them.
And we laughed.
****
I don’t know how much you have grown since then, Celestia. I don’t know if you managed to subdue our true nature.
But whatever you do, do not forget your roots. Do not forget who you are.
That was enough. Twilight slammed the diary shut, dropped it to the floor, and bucked the horrible thing out of sight.
“Ah, I see you finally found it then.”
Twilight shrieked, reeling around to see her mentor looking at her with pity.
“Princess! What in the world was that? Some kind of sick joke.”
Celestia, to her horror, shook her head. “Tis no joke, Twilight Sparkle. I wrote that, many, many years ago.”
Twilight was trembling. Her mind raced as it fought to make sense of this new information. “Well, you only did it to defend your ponies, didn’t you? It’s not like you had any choice!”
Celestia, if anything, looked even sadder at that. “Does it really justify how I slaughtered hundreds – thousands – of my own kind, and laughed while doing so? If you do, then you’re no better than I am.”
There was nothing else to say. Twilight sank to the ground, trembling mightily. She could feel an odd buzz inside her head, as if something were trying to tell her something, but she couldn’t quite decipher it. “But… why?”
Celestia leaned down, and said: “We alicorns are not gods, Twilight Sparkle.”
Vinyl Scratch liked nightclubs. There was something quite beautiful about them. Like fine art, or a vintage wine.
Many ponies dismissed them out of hoof for being dirty, crowded, pits of sweat, smoke, drugs, and awful dancing. And they’d be right; Vinyl couldn’t deny it.
But those ponies had never seen them the same way she had. They had never seen the colours of the strobe lighting reflecting off silvery garments and tacky jewellery, shining through the miasma of smoke and creating a euphoric haze of light and sound. They had never watched a chaotic mass of drunk and dazed ponies move madly to the discordant tones and beat of the music, somehow transcending comicality and becoming surreally beautiful.
And they had never known the feeling that they and they alone dictated the actions of this beautiful organism of noise and light; they had never wielded a turntable like a conductor’s baton, and controlled the mindset of the crowd like a changeling queen.
Vinyl could see one of those ponies right now. Sitting over by the bar, sipping a martini and looking distinctly uncomfortable. It was quite dark in the club right then, and it was normally difficult to point out an individual in the crowd. But this one was as obvious as a blotch of ink on a canvas; the smooth grey coat, the perfectly styled mane, and the loose, formal dress just made it more obvious.
She was there with a friend, obviously. Perhaps a charming jock of a stallion, with a rather persuasive smile. Or maybe even a mare? It was definitely possible, and even if she didn’t swing that way…
Well, Vinyl could be pretty persuasive too.
Vinyl Scratch nodded her head to the contagious beat, and licked her lips. Ooooh yeah. This is gonna be one fine night.
Twilight ran. It was the only thing she could do, in that moment. Were it any other scenario, she may have stood her ground, may have risked defiance, maybe even managed to conquer the challenge.
Not now. Not like this.
"Twilight, wait!" There was a loud snap, and a building in front of her came alive with a quake of its foundations. "I just want to make some friends!" Mocking laughter echoed through the desolate remains of Ponyville.
Just a little more, Twilight assured herself, ducking under the slowly rising cottage. A literal house-sized fist crashed down on where her head would have been. Just need to get to the library. No trouble, right?
Thinking quickly, Twilight turned the ground behind her into a pit of mud, one that the walking house managed to fall into and sink. The buzz of victory was short-lived, however; a look back over her shoulder showed a very familiar draconic grin. "Hey!" A blast of energy pulverised the earth right next to her. "That was rude! Come back here and apologise!"
Twilight didn't hear him; the library was right there in front of her now, and the relief was clouding her senses. She barrelled through the door and ran up the stairs into her bedroom.
Right there, was a glass case containing six shining gems, each one set into a piece of golden jewellery.
Tears dripped down Twilight's face as she thought of those that the symbols represented. They were gone now. Taken from her. Only she could wield them now; only she could do what was needed to save Equestria.
The laughter sounded again, this time from right outside. "Bravo! I see you managed to find the only things that could stop me!" The voice darkened. "Too bad. I have an aversion to losing. Makes my skin dry, you know?"
There was a loud clap, and the earth began to tremble. Twilight flinched, and looked around fearfully. Then the library shuddered and creaked ominously. It got louder and louder and louder, until eventually...
The entire treehouse began to collapse.
Discord watched the library lift itself off the ground and shake mightily. He imagined the pony inside screaming in terror, and a jolt of exhilaration shot through his long, snakelike body.
The treehouse shuddered once more, and then pulled inwards, like a black hole had formed in its bowels. Which, in actuality, wasn't too inaccurate.
"Friendship..." Discord scoffed. "What a joke. Magic is the only thing that matters in this world, and I have it all." He turned to walk away.
Then he heard something so terrifying, so utterly implausible, that even he, with his penchant for the impossible, froze up in disbelief.
"But Discord, haven't you heard?"
A lavender alicorn rose up from the crater where the library once stood, armour materialising from thin air and wrapping itself around her. Magic poured from her eyes, flowed from her very being, shining with a light so bright that Discord imagined that it could consume the entire world.
Twilight, for the first time in her life, didn't know what to do.
She was stuck, imprisoned from the outside world by a cage of black crystal. Blinded by her enthusiasm, the purple unicorn had made a reckless grab for the Crystal Heart at the top of the tower, and triggered a devious fail-safe, set by the Black Tyrant King Sombra himself.
Her ever-faithful draconic assistant Spike was the only option now. It fell to him to return the Heart to its rightful place, and save the Crystal Empire from another 1000 years of brutal enslavement.
Blasting the crystal with magic was futile, as Twilight had learned, and now she could only watch through a crack as Spike ran from the spreading corruption at the top of the tower. Her heart nearly stopped as he fell from the peak, and the Crystal Heart slipped from his grasp. Desperate, Twilight closed her eyes and projected her perception outwards.
Her astral vision was blurred and indistinct due to her lack of experience using the technique, but she could clearly see her Spike falling through the air, screaming in terror. Tearing her metaphysical eyes away from the sight, she watched King Sombra riding a spire of rapidly growing black crystal, licking his lips as the Heart fell towards him.
Twilight saw something else that day. Something so horrifying she replayed it constantly in her nightmares to this day.
She watched her brother Shining Armour throw himself in front of a razor-sharp shard of black crystal that sought to impale his wife Cadence. She saw it impaled in his chest.
Twilight screamed. A shriek of soul-crushing despair so deep time seemed to stand still.
Twilight knew the crystal cage surrounding her was resistant to her magic. She didn't care.
Reaching out with her senses, she grabbed and pooled the life-giving energies around her. A symphony of power sang in her mind, eventually reaching a crescendo as the corona of blinding light surrounding the purple unicorn expanded outwards. The extreme heat blistered and sizzled, blasting at the crystal walls, tearing and eroding as the crystal crackled with black lightning until-
The air exploded.
White light cascaded from the tower peak, blowing away the black crystal in a nova of energy that lit up the bloody crimson sky like a miniature Sun. Everyone, including Sombra, froze and turned to look at the explosion with a mixture of confusion, fear and awe.
In an instant, a beam of celestial might blasted Sombra's spire, the searing heat reducing the structure to less than dust.
Spike's screams stopped abruptly as he was caught in a golden aura, along with the Crystal Heart, and dropped gently back on the balcony with the despairing Princess Cadence, who he immediately went to assist. Looking up again, he saw another smaller explosion, this time heralding the arrival of a symbol of pure, righteous anger, hovering in the air above the falling empire.
Twilight's rage only grew at the sight of the destruction King Sombra had wrought in his return; hundreds of crystal ponies were either fleeing in terror from the encroaching darkness, or frozen in fear, their minds unable to comprehend the dread of another millennium of enslavement. Catching movement in the corner of her glowing crimson eyes, she, almost lazily, threw herself through space as a bolt of white lightning, a sizzling crack accompanying the feat of mind-blowing magic, and deftly hurled a lance of molten plasma point-blank at the recovering King.
Sombra caught a glimpse of a lustrous gold-white being before he howled in pure agony, the attack cooking his flesh as he was thrown into a nearby house. He snarled and dispersed into a toxic mass of black shadow, then darted towards a foal lagging behind its mother as they ran to the Palace.
A shimmering wall of blazing light stopped him before he could even try. Turning, he caught another glimpse of his assailant in the millisecond before he was struck by dagger-like rays of sunlight, burning away his amorphous mass.
Spike got his first proper look at the being that was thoroughly destroying Sombra, and he didn't know whether he was relieved or afraid; Twilight Sparkle, the cheerful Ponyville librarian and student to Princess Celestia, was nowhere to be seen. This glowing alabaster equine, crimson eyes burning with intent, was someone, someTHING else entirely. There was no hesitance in her attacks, only the will to destroy.
She stalked towards the fallen king, standing in defiance before him and sneering with contempt.
"Is this really it, Sombra? Is this shambling shell of a tyrant before me really the monster that enslaved a nation?"
Sombra snarled, and shot a streamer of twisted black hate at his foe. Twilight snorted before meeting the attack with a needle-thin ray of heat that nulled the opposing magic, cut through Sombra's curved crimson horn and left a warped scar across his muzzle.
"Is this the pony that killed my brother?"
Sombra lay on the ground writhing in agony. Twilight pressed him down with a wall of force, then closed her eyes as she crafted a spell in her mind. Slowly, a glowing sigil formed around the two, etched into the earth. The spell gradually became brighter, while Twilight's form was once again wreathed in heavenly light. When the light became blinding, she opened her eyes to reveal two glowing white beams; a side-effect brought on by the cosmic energies she was wielding and manipulating.
"A shadow. That's all you are, Sombra. A husk. A shell. You succumbed to your hatred, and it reduced you to nothing. It'll be a pleasure to wipe your remains from this world."
Golden chains of solar steel erupted from the earth and wrapped around Sombra so tightly his armour buckled from the pressure, and they burned hot enough to warp the steel.
Twilight turned her eyes up to gaze at the heavens. Casting her perceptions outwards, she felt for the Sun, which was obscured by dark clouds. Reverently, she drew upon a tiny fraction of its strength, and cast her spell.
An immense pillar of sunfire burst from the sigil, melting stone into magma and earth into molten slag. The eruption of magic created a vast shockwave that destroyed nearby houses and knocked ponies off their feet. The pillar bridged the heavens and earth, visible for miles as a white tower.
5 equine forms ran out of the palace towards the explosion. Their muzzles were maelstroms of emotion: terror, anxiety, anger, panic. One emotion stood out from these however: conviction. Their friend needed them, and there wasn't a force on the face of the world that could keep them apart.
When the column dissipated, one figure stood at the edge of a colossal crater. The friends faltered slightly when they took in the alabaster fur and the golden ethereal mane, but when she turned at the sound of her name, there was no mistaking it. It was Twilight.
And she was in pain.
Twilight Sparkle was hunched over, paralysed by the pure agony that stabbed at her. The power she had used to annihilate Sombra was running rampant, and it was beyond her control. She felt an immense pressure at the base of her horn as the energy built up, begging to be released. Hearing her name, she turned her head, with some difficulty, to see her friends. The shock on their faces turned into worry after seeing her grimace.
Twilight fought with all her might, but it was no use. Her eyes glowed white once again and she screamed-
And was wrapped up in great white wings, the energy siphoning out of her and into her mentor's ivory horn. The adrenaline flowing through her veins was quickly replaced by immense fatigue. When all the Light had been drained from her, Twilight looked up sleepily into the alabaster alicorn's stoic features.
"Did I pass the test, Princess?" She mumbled.
Princess Celestia's smile was hollow.
"Y-yes, my faithful student. You passed with flying colours. Please, just rest now."
Twilight Sparkle smiled weakly before collapsing into an all-encompassing group hug.
The disembodied voice reverberating through Luna's skull snaps her from her reverie.
"Hmm?"
I said, this is not going to work. We should attack now, and catch her by surprise.
Luna closes one teal eye and turns her head slightly to look off to the side.
"Maybe it won't, but We have to try. This isn't the same as last time. I will not become a servant to my emotions again."
Suit yourself, little one. But you would do well to remember that there is a fine line between optimism and naivete.
Luna snorts. "How could I forget? This whole ordeal was a result of my being naive. However, being banished to the Moon for a millennium is a steep price if We fail, so I prefer to say that I'm being... Cautious."
Paranoid, perhaps?
The voice somehow manages to gesture at the vastly complex spell seal surrounding them.
Luna smirks and turns back to look at the ominous night sky. "Just a precaution, Nightmare. Neither of Us can predict what will happen, and neither of Us want your tendencies to doom our efforts to failure."
Very well. I shall trust in your judgement.
"Of course. I AM the brains, after all."
A regal chuckle.
And I am the brawn, indeed. How could I forget?
Luna and her companion's mental conversation settles into a brooding silence. Tentatively, Luna breaks it again.
"Nightmare?"
Luna feels her counterpart's attention focus to her.
"Do you..." The Lunar Diarch hesitates. "...hate me?"
When Nightmare doesn't respond immediately, Luna feels like she might have made a mistake.
...Should I?
"I... I don't know, I was just wondering."
No, I don't hate you. I am not sure whether is better to have been created by someone's anger and hatred... or to not have been created at all. At any rate, there is little point in dwelling on our mistakes at this point.
Luna sighs wearily. "Yes, you are correct. I just... I couldn't face another betrayal, not after all this," she says, waving a hoof at the door where her Sister was going to barge in and try to destroy them.
I will never abandon you.
Luna turned to smile at the mirror next to her. "Thank you."
A shuddering rumble tore through the building.
It seems Our sister is here. She's not even trying to be subtle about it.
"That probably means she has mobilised the Elements, as We predicted."
Good. I'll show them what happens when you get involved with the games of gods.
"They also happen to be one of the most powerful weapons in the Known World, so..."
Oh, I know first-hoof how powerful they are. That doesn't stop me from appreciating a good fight.
"If everything goes according to plan, We won't have to fight them at all. They may command the near-infinite power of Harmony, but they're only mortals. Celestia just chose to get them involved in this mess."
Another tremor signals the enemy's approach. Luna's hearing picks out the crunch of heavy footsteps outside.
Hear that? She even brought the guard here to escort us. How cute.
"I almost feel sorry for them. It can't be good for your pride if the ones you are duty-bound to protect happen to be the two most powerful ponies in the world. And that when those two ponies have a miscommunication error, it ends up... Well, like this."
They could clearly footsteps now, one set sounding clearly metallic, as if they were shod in gold. Luna amplifies her hearing, and can just about pick up the susurrus of a hushed discussion.
I suppose this is it. A fitting choice of location by the way.
Luna looks around at the old castle ruins located within the Everfree Forest, the location of Nightmare Moon's encounter with the Elements of Harmony the night she returned from a thousand year exile on the Moon. She had to admit, it was kind of ironic.
The door explodes.
The huge metal portal buckles under the heat and power of a blast of magic from the outside. Stoically, the Goddess of the Sun strides in, flanked on both sides by six very determined looking mares. Resting around five of their necks are gleaming gems in resplendent gold necklaces. On top of the sixth head, a golden tiara with a purple star-shaped jewel shines brilliantly.
Opposite them, standing in the centre of the chamber, is an ebony alicorn with draconic eyes of the most beautiful teal. Despite being hopelessly outmatched, Nightmare Moon retains a defiant, regal posture. Even Celestia is intimidated somewhat by the presence her nemesis emanates, exemplified by the bluish-silver armour she wears.
"Greetings, Dear Sister. And hello to you, Element Bearers." Nightmare chirps almost cheerfully. Surrounding the ebon mare are ethereal chains that simply begin in mid-air, as if they took root in another dimension and penetrate through space-time. They do not restrain Nightmare Moon at all; instead, they surround her within the seal.
Celestia took no notice. She glares at her enemy with obvious hatred. "Begone, monster. Release my sister from your twisted influence!"
Nightmare Moon gazes at her for a few moments, then sighs. "Have you learned nothing, Celestia? We have already tried to explain ourselves to you before have we not?"
Twilight Sparkle and the others, who knew nothing of the situation besides the fact that Nightmare Moon had returned, looked to their princess with pursed lips and raised brows. Celestia ignored them.
"Lies! That was just you playing a sick game with poor Luna's mind!" The Solar Diarch snarls.
"We have told you the truth! Why do you stubbornly refuse to see us for who we are?!"
"YOU are only a tyrant, and a murderer! A fool who took root in my sister's mind and forced her to try and create eternal night!"
The black alicorn closes her eyes. "No, sister." Her eyes open to reveal two ordinary pony eyes, gleaming with mercurial tears. "We are all to blame. Me, Nightmare... And you."
All seven of the new arrivals recoiled at the new voice that drifted across from the mouth of the creature they despised.
"Luna...?" Twilight gasps, overcome by worry and terror. Fluttershy clamps her hooves over her mouth to dampen the 'eek'. Rainbow Dash and Applejack look shocked, but maintain their rigid posture. Rarity and Pinkie Pie just look incredibly sad. Celestia, meanwhile, narrows her eyes, evidently connecting the dots.
Nightmare's form shrinks and lightens as Luna speaks. "You all believe Nightmare Moon to be some demented spirit that came to me at my weakest, and used my power to try and create eternal night. I'm afraid that is not true. Nightmare Moon is formed from countless centuries of repressed feelings of loneliness, anger and jealousy. Eventually, these emotions formed their own consciousness. And Nightmare and I... we became friends, I suppose. She saw my sadness, and sought to make it better. Unfortunately, she has a crippling lack of tact."
Luna smiled gently. "But we are almost one and the same, Nightmare and I. I can't lose her again."
Celestia looked at her grimly. Then shook her head, slowly. "No. I don't believe you. Nightmare Moon is just using you as her puppet."
Her horn glowed with heavenly light. "Prepare yourselves!" The element bearers quickly got into battle-ready positions.
The dark mare standing before them just stared, before laughing, a twisted fusion of deep and powerful, and light and mischievous. The chains suddenly snapped out, pulling the six smaller mares out of the fight and binding them tightly.
She laughed at Celestia's look of horror. "Discover check. You never were very good at chess, were you Celestia?"
And with a echoing roar, the Princess of the Night leapt at her sister.
Oh, what a lovely word. Smooth, sweet, delicious in your mouth—rather like chocolate milk, now that I think about it. And people wonder why it’s my favourite drink. Pah!
Yes, yes, I know I’m getting sidetracked. What do you expect from the Master of Chaos himself? But anyway, I digress—as you so rudely pointed out.
Now, I’m here today, children—
...No, you are children, relative to me. Heck, you’re more like a twinkle in your father’s eye. Except your father is still a speck of cosmic dust.
A-hem! Are you all sitting comfortably, my dears? Now, let me tell you a story.
Once upon a time, there was chaos. Everywhere. Nothing in the universe made any sense; to say it was simply chaotic would be an understatement.
I want you to imagine, if you would, the darkest thing you can imagine. Got it? Okay, now imagine the brightest thing. Got them both inside that little noggin of yours?
Now smush those two things together, multiply it by negative infinity, colour it pink, and call it Susan. That’s the brand of mad that we are talking about here. Pretty hilarious, too.
This universe was precisely everything and nothing at all. Every possible possibility was crammed together into shapeless infinity, creating a kind of… sea, I guess you would call it. And in this sea of fathomless stuff, there was one handsome young fellow (and by young I mean he was older than time itself but anyway ahem) who simply swam the countless trillions of meaningless forevers away.
This fellow was rather unique in that he was not just something, he was somebody. In the time before time and the existence before existence, this was something rather new and exciting, you see.
Though, to say he was somebody is also rather inaccurate; he didn’t really have a body, or a definite shape, or even much of a mind. For simplicity’s sake, however, we’ll call him the Serpent. The Serpent couldn’t really think, as such. All he knew was that he loved swimming, and he loved the sea. He loved freedom, and such impure thoughts of—bleaugh—order and friendship never really crossed his simple little mind… at least not for a while.
Skipping forward a few eternities of literally everything and nothing happening at once, and the Serpent was starting to think, just a little bit. He took a good look at his sea of stupidity and wondered just what exactly he was aiming to achieve, and whether he had actually accomplished anything at all. I suppose you could call this his teen years.
In short, he didn’t like what he saw. At all, really. He loved chaos, but the entire reason for chaos is that it is spontaneous. Unpredictability is the word of the day here.
This primal, unfocused, completely nonsensical void of unpredictability had spun in a loop and become predictable again, which is all rather paradoxical and quite hilarious, but this was really quite a dilemma for this strong, independent, young Serpent. Swimming in a sea of nonsense had lost its charm, to his astonishment and vague worry. What was he supposed to do now?
He simply wished it all… made sense, in a way.
And then the most extraordinary thing happened. He changed—he had a definable shape, for the first time in his unexistence. He flexed his talons, and snapped.
And that’s how the universe was made. No, seriously.
That casual snap of the talons, you see, was a spell, perhaps the mightiest spell ever devised. The spell that gave order to the system, and turned the primordial chaos into the quaint little existence as we know it today.
With a snap of great talons, and an explosion of fathomless power, the ocean of chaos became the countless galaxies of the infinite cosmos. The Serpent opened his eyes to see the swirling nebulae and billions of billions of stars. He formed lips and vocal chords just so he open his mouth and say:
“Oh my.”
The Serpent was on top of the world right now, you see. Where there was once boring, predictable entropic mushy stuff, there were actual things! Things that even he and his brand new mind couldn’t have begun to imagine.
Millions of years passed as the great Serpent journeyed through space. He walked on the surface of stars so hot they gave even him a bit of a rash, then watched those same stars detonate with a burning finality. Really, you haven’t seen real fireworks until you’ve watched a supernova. Very sparkly.
For a long time, he simply watched and explored. Then… he began to get bored again. You see, for as much as he enjoyed playing in the cosmic dust, there’s only so many eons you can do it before you start getting tired of it.
So the Serpent looked down at his claws—the same digits that had created the universe, you remember—and thought, Now how can I liven this dingy old place up?
And so, with a spark of inspiration, he snapped those claws and summoned forth Paradise. At first, he filled it with these weird monkey things, which were, quite hilariously, far too smart for their own good. So after they killed themselves off, he created a new species.
Ponies. He created 3 entire races, and gave them their own gods, who were each a fusion of these tribes.
It was quiet in the hospital room, save for the monotonous beep of the heartbeat monitor by the bedside.
There was a knock at the door, and the pony in the bed looked up from her book. "Come in," she said.
The door creaked open, and a tall, white alicorn stepped through. The two ponies looked at each other.
Princess Celestia's lips tried a smile. "Twilight?"
Twilight Sparkle waved a weary hoof and beamed at her mentor. "Hello, Celestia. I'm so glad you could come visit!"
Celestia chuckled. "Of course. I can always find time for my most faithful student."
The two relaxed, ever-so-slightly, and Celestia curled up on the floor by the bed, the cold floor brushing against her warm belly. The two sat in silence for a while, before Celestia spoke up again.
"What's that book you're reading?"
Twilight lifted up the cover so she could see. "My old journal. I thought I'd take a trip down memory lane for a bit." She sighed. "When you move forward so fast, you tend to forget where you came from, you know?"
Celestia nodded, deeply. Yes, she knew that very well. "And have you learned anything new from your... trip?"
Twilight reclined, nibbling her lower lip in thought. "Yes," she said, after some deliberation. "I think I have."
Celestia's politeness turned to genuine curiosity. "And that is?" she asked, a little too eagerly.
"I've had a good life," Twilight said. "I'm happy with... leaving. Even if it is for a long time."
Celestia's smile crumbled somewhat. "You... are?"
Twilight, oblivious, just nodded, her eyes closed with serenity. "Mhm."
Celestia didn't say anything for a while. Long enough for Twilight to take notice. She watched Celestia stare at her, face unreadable.
Then: "I'm glad."
Twilight watched her lips curl into a soft, peaceful smile. Twilight watched her eyes glaze over, becoming both as beautiful and as clear as a diamond.
Twilight sighed.
"Tia."
Celestia flinched.
Twilight leaned over and nuzzled her softly. She whispered into her ear. "What's wrong, love? I know you're lying to—" She moved her head away to cough softly. "To me."
There was silence, for a moment. Then: "I... I just..."
"Yes?" Twilight urged, with infinite patience.
"I... I don't..."
Twilight didn't say anything this time, just wrapped her hooves around her lover's neck for the last time.
"I don't want you to leave me, Twilight." Celestia didn't wail. She didn't shriek. Instead, her body wracked with gasping sobs. "I don't want you to go."
Twilight just smiled sadly. "Shhh, Tia," she said. "I'll be watching over you."
You look upon me now, and you see your companion. Your sibling. Your greatest ally, your eternal rival, and your truest friend.
I am none of these things. Not anymore.
Long, long ago, when the world was little more than a desolate canvas of land and sea, you first knew me. Together, we remade the land, formed the continents, shaped the plane of the world to our image. We danced through the heavens themselves, and drowned in our own perfection. We were everything that mattered, but at the same time, we were nothing at all. We were the beginnings of something greater.
Time passes. The first Life is born. We were curious, at first – we had never comprehended such beings, brighter than the stars, and but a fraction of their breadth. We mocked them, played with them, tested them. We were beings of pride, and such inferior creatures meant little to us.
And yet, with every challenge we threw at them, they overcame it. Time and time again. It was no wonder why we grew so attached to the pitiful things. We had never known such hardship as they. We longed to be as them, yet we were too blind to realise it.
In the end, they showed us the light, through the power of their bonds. We – I – became real. Visible. Corporeal. But still, we were weak.
We were little more than mortals at that time. The unicorns controlled the heavens while we travelled and learned. We strove to understand what made these beings – what made us – so special. Twas more than magic, that was for sure. It was peaceful, for a time.
And then, He arrived.
The world was shattered. The mysterious power that had shown us the light was all but non-existent. There didn’t seem to be any hope, for anyone. We watched all that these beings had created burn, and we were saddened.
In the end, we were the ones who fought for them. For their right to exist. Harmony itself gave us the means to His destruction, and Chaos was sealed, for thousands of years to come.
We had become something more. Not what we once were – rather something… different. You shone as the bright as the sun. Your power had bequeathed Equestria with the guiding light it needed.
But I? I was nothing. I followed you, in the vain hopes of becoming your equal. I watched you at your peak, while I was simply your shadow. More than mortal, but less than you. Bitterness, envy, hatred – they were my companions. You had forgotten me. Equestria had forgotten me.
And then we arrive here. At the fulcrum of our era.
I am more than what I was. I am more than your friend. More than your rival. More than your ally.
I am your enemy.
My name is Nightmare Moon, and I am finally complete.
Wind whistled through the halls of the old mansion, and the floorboards creaked and sighed with the burden of age. Dirty, shredded curtains caught the draught blowing in through the open door and waved almost half-heartedly at the visitor.
Celestia sneezed. The air itself was like liquid: it was so thick with dust that she swore she could drink it up like a particularly disgusting cup of tea. She stepped, hesitantly, out onto the landing, the floorboards whining in distress as the tall alicorn explored the forgotten manor. Celestia eyed the portraits lining the corridors, taking in the wear and tear of the canvas and the grimy frames, dulled with age. She idly tilted a particularly crooked frame back to its rightful place as she considered the rooms around her.
Celestia wandered over to the grand staircase, stepping daintily down the steps and onto the lower floor. A chill swept down her spine as she considered a withered rose in a vase, and she told herself that it was just the wind before continuing on.
Another staircase, this time far less magnificent and far more utilitarian – the basement, surely. Clop-clop-clop went her hooves. Creak-creak-creak went the stairs.
Standing before her was a door: it looked rather unassuming, save for the great iron lock below the handle. Celestia put her ear to it and listened closely. Achingly familiar snoring came from behind the thick oak.
She swallowed slightly, before knocking gently. “Hello?”
The snoring didn't cease. In fact, she swore it only got louder in response.
“Hello?” she said again, this time more forcefully.
The snoring started to break into mumbled words.
“… Is… C… Clover…”
"Hello? Starswirl?”
“Clover… Is th… that you…”
“No, Starswirl. It’s me.”
The snoring halted abruptly. There were a few sounds of small commotion, followed by a clang of something boney hitting something made of metal.
“Arrgh, damn and blast it!”
Celestia let out her breath instinctively. Yes, it was him. It could be no other.
There was some shuffling and some cursing, before the clicks and clacks of bolts and chains being undone. Then, with a great heaving whine, the door opened.
Celestia gagged slightly on the smell that wafted out from between the small crack. It was the smell of sweat, labour, and… some other things that she didn’t want to think of at this moment.
An eye glared up at her from the crack in the doorframe.
“What do you want? Can’t you see I’m busy?”
Celestia’s face fell slightly at the vitriol in his tone, but managed to don a smile all the same. “Hello, Star,” she said softly. “How are you?”
“Fine,” he snapped. “Why do you care? Does the world need saving again? I already told you, I need to finish this destiny spell in order to–”
“No.”
The old pony quietened.
Celestia continued. “I want you Starswirl. Come back to us. Please.”
There was silence for a long moment. It was shattered by a sigh, followed by the sound of the door opening fully.
Celestia looked down at her protege. An old pony with a long, grimy, off-white beard stared back.
“… How long has it been?”
“Seven years.” Celestia winced at the look of anguish on his face.
“I… I’m sorry. I just….”
He choked, and Celestia wrapped him up in a downy white wing.
“I just miss her so much.”
Tears dripped silently down Princess Celestia’s face as Starswirl sobbed in her embrace.
My eyes opened. Someone was calling me, close by, but I couldn’t see anything. It was cold. Where were we?
I moved my hoof and tried to push myself to my hooves, but twin lances of pain dug into my back and I fell to the cold, icy floor of the cave.
Cave. That was it. I was in a cave. We were in a cave, and the windigoes were coming to get us. Sobered by that fact, I attempted to get up again, and managed to work through the blinding pain. Triumphant, I looked around at my surroundings; it was pitch black, and shattered ice lay in clumps around me. Up ahead, I saw a blinding light, the entrance to the cave. Was the sun up already?
I took a step, and almost immediately fell to the ground. What was going on? My body felt… awkward, somehow. And my back. Gods above, it hurt.
“Clover? Are you still in there?”
That voice. Familiar, somehow, yet also entirely alien. I moved again, grunting in pain as my limbs of lead bumped against rock and ice. My back wasn’t helping either. Had I broken something? I wished I’d taken the time to learn that healing cantrip from Starswirl before I left. I continued onwards.
I struggled to recall anything. We were in a cave, yes, and windigoes were supposedly here. Or not. Were they gone? I certainly didn’t hear them. A memory surfaced; blinding light, fires that consumed the sky.
The Fires of Friendship. Of course. I smiled in remembrance. I wondered what the princess thought of them.
The Princess. Yes, she was important. Princess Platinum of Unicornia. Or… whatever it was now. I remembered Chancellor Puddinghead. And Commander Hurricane. They were our… allies? Friends? Presumably.
“Clover! Clover, come quick!”
“I’m coming, Princess!” I shouted, and then coughed harshly. My voice was different. Deeper. It hurt too. Everything did, like my whole body had been stretched. Egads, even my very bones.
The entrance to the cave was there. It was easier to walk by then. My body stopped feeling so heavy, and the deadweight on my back was easing up. The sunlight greeted me like an old friend, and I eagerly leapt from the cavern down to greet my princess, standing there waiting for me.
Then I stopped.
“... Clover?”
This was not her. This was… Who was she?
“Who are you?”
The white thing tilted its head at me, and responded in that same voice. “Who am I? Why, who are you, my dear?”
It was madness, at the time. That this being of white could stand there and pretend to be my beloved princess. Was it a god? Possible, and honestly, I would not have cared if it were.
“What are you? What have you done with my princess?!” I felt my magic flow up into my horn. It was different somehow. Older. More powerful.
It held its hooves up to stop me. “Wait, wait!”
“No!” I shouted. “Not until you tell me who you are and what you are doing here. Be warned, for I am Clover the Clever, apprentice of the great Starswirl the Bearded himself!”
The white pony stared back at me. “By the gods. I…” Tears dripped from its pink-white muzzle, and when it wiped them away with a hoof, it seemed surprised by the colour. “W-What… Clover?! Clover, it’s me!”
“Shut up!” I screamed. I was frightened. I was scared. I was supposed to protect the princess, and she was gone. I panicked. Bolts flew from my horn at the intruder.
And when the smoke settled, two great white wings were outstretched, a golden shield forming around them, protecting the body of the tall, alien pony from my attacks.
“Clover,” she said. “I am Princess Platinum.”
I stared. I looked at the crown upon her long, pink mane. I looked at the robes draped across her back, too small now.
I sank to my hooves, which I noticed, dimly, were of a deep indigo. My powder blue mane fell over my eyes as I wept.
My princess watched me as I cried. Except… she was not my princess anymore.
The pegasus didn’t bother to look for who had said that. She simply stared straight ahead, armour clanking with every hoofstep. Behind her, she could hear the rest of the procession, perfectly synchronised, weapons polished and sharpened, and their helmets freshly plumed. It was a good day, a fine day; snow was only just beginning to fall, and the cold had yet to set in. Trumpets blared, war drums roared, and Cloudsdale was alive with patriotism.
“That’s the General.”
“Huh… Wait, you mean—”
“Yes. The victor of the Battle of Trottingham.”
Ah, yes. The General remembered that victory fondly. The stormclouds of the Lightning Brigade, raining bolts of energy down upon their foes. The clash of sword and wing, the sounds of screams of terror, the feeling of the warm, wet blood as it splashed across her—
The General shook away the nostalgia. There were more important events at hand.
“I heard that she was born blind from birth and finds her enemies by smelling their fear.”
There was a ripple of unease through the crowd. The General smiled crookedly.
“Don’t be stupid. She’s only blind in one eye, and only because she… Well, apparently she headbutted a unicorn once.”
“Really? Why?”
“Because it ‘wouldn’t look at her funny’.”
It was true. The General would have done it again, too, if she hadn’t needed her other eye to see where she was going.
Up ahead, the General could see a tall, majestic, indigo pony. Atop her head was a crown of onyx, and her shoes were gilded silver. For the first time in years, she felt genuine anxiety; what if she made a fool of herself? What if the Princess was expecting something even greater?
“I heard that unicorns killed her family. I bet that’s why she’s so… Well, just look at her.”
“Do you know how she acquired her first kill? You see her sword?”
“Is that… ice?”
“Legend says that she came home one day, and found her family. Dead. She was so angry and grief-stricken that she sculpted a blade from a snowflake, then tracked down the unicorns and slaughtered them in their sleep.”
More memories flashed through her mind. The smell of fresh blood, spattered across the snow. The coldness of her weapon in her hooves. Oh yes, she had not forgotten. She would never forget that night.
Momentarily, she peeked out at the faces of the crowd. All of them stared up at her, looks of awe, terror, and pride upon their faces. The General relaxed, and regained her ferociously confident smile. Yes, she was a terror. She was a general.
She was worthy of the Princess’s attention. She knew it.
All too soon, the Princess of the Night stood before her. She looked down at the pegasus, eyes gleaming like the moonlight on shattered ice, and asked:
“What is thy name, servant?”
In the impossible silence, the pegasus took off her helmet, white locks of mane framing her scarred face, and answered:
I didn’t know how I knew I’d woken up, however. I didn’t know how I knew what ‘waking up’ meant, either. I don’t remember ever going to sleep – in fact, I didn’t remember anything.
It was as if I’d just… popped into existence. Sensations made themselves known: the straps cutting into my skin, the blinding light in my eye, the smell of… things. Undesirable things. Things I could not yet put a name to.
There was a sound, a burst of noise and light, and suddenly there was something – somebody – there, beside me.
“You appear to have awoken,” it said. “Interesting. I hadn’t quite finished you yet.”
The thing hummed. I felt something shifting in my gut. Literally, I could feel my organs moving around inside me.
“The heart appears to be beating, which is nice. Lungs are working, too. Your brain? You apparently have enough IQ to know how to breathe, so all may not be lost.”
The light suddenly vanished, and my vision was filled with a beady red eye. “The eye is responding to stimuli. Good sign.” The eye pulled back to reveal a face, peering down at her. “Hmm. Can you hear me? Hello?”
I look at this thing, this creature, and I nod. He seems so very familiar, as if he were extremely important somehow.
He tilted his head. “Good, good. Can you speak?”
I moved my lips and attempted to form a word. “...Oui?”
He blinked. “Oops. Seems I made an error somewhere.” He disappeared out of my limited view, then returned with a metal instrument in his claw. "Allow me to fix it."
And then the metal instrument was shoved down my throat, and I felt something intrinsic to my being twist and change. He pulled the perverse device out of me and said, "Try again?"
"Yes."
"Marvellous!" He laughed, high and mighty. I did not.
The painful straps disappeared and I fell, hitting the cold marble floor. The creature snickered when I attempted to stand.
"I wouldn’t try that if I were you . You're still missing a wing, among other things." The creature slithered down to my level, and smiled harshly. "Welcome to the world. I am Discord, King of Chaos and your creator."
I stared at him. "Who am I?" I asked.
"You are... Whoever you want to be. What is your name?"
I looked out the window of the laboratory, and saw the sun rise over the horizon, lighting up the sky with gold. A word sprung unbidden to my mind.
Spike liked to think he was a mature little dragon. Sure, he had some bouts of childishness; sure, he liked reading comic books; and yes, he did like doodling pictures of himself as a handsome dragon knight in the margins of centuries-old books.
But he could appreciate just how grown-up he could be when he was put into a situation like this.
"Oh, I do hope we don't wear the same dress – that would be just uncouth!"
Spike smiled indulgently as he helped Rarity fix her mane. His claws were useful for the more fiddly tasks, Rarity had discovered, and so there he was, helping the love of his life put on a gown.
"Hmm... Something old, something new..."
'Love of his life.' But that wasn't really true, was it?
"Could somebody please go fetch Rainbow Dash? One of her feathers would just look divine~ with this lace!"
After all, in the comics, the hero always got together with the love of his life. That was just how it was.
"Aha!" Spike stepped back as Rarity did a pirouette in her resplendent white dress. "Ta-da~! What do you think, Spikey-Wikey?"
"Yeah... Looks great," Spike mumbled.
It didn't seem fair, really. Spike knew that he shouldn't be thinking that, but he couldn't help it.
But really, how was he supposed to compare to a literal goddess?
Rarity looked at him with concern.
"Oh, Spike. What's wrong? You seem ever-so-sad."
Spike opened his mouth, prepared to say something, but the words died in his throat. "Nothin'."
Rarity pouted. "No, it is not 'nothing''. I daresay it is quite something indeed. Now please, a bit for your thoughts?"
Spike shifted on his paws uncomfortably. "Well... Aheh, funny story. I, uh, kinda have – had – a... crush on you?" Spike's smile faltered, and fell from his features. "But I guess that's kind of a lost cause, huh?" He sighed, and looked down. "Sorry. I shouldn't be bothering you with this. It's your special day, after all."
He heard a tut-tut sound, and a hoof tilted his chin up. His tears blurred Rarity's face somewhat, but he could make out the soft smile on her face.
"Oh, I knew, darling. I was just waiting for you to say it."
Spike blinked. "Huh?"
"I'm very flattered, you know. But do you really think this is the end for you? For us?"
Spike just looked at her in confusion and surprise.
Rarity sighed dramatically. "Oh, Spike, you silly old dragon, you! Love works in mysterious ways, after all. Yes, maybe I don't reciprocate your feelings, but that doesn't mean your heart won't find another. You're only just beginning your life, Spikey. And what a life it'll become."
"And remember: forever and always, we will be friends." And she kissed him on the forehead. "Now, what do you think of this dress?" Rarity asked again, with a smile.
Spike blinked. Then he wiped at his eyes and smiled brightly. "You look great, Rarity! Now get out there and go to her!"
Rarity squee'd, and pranced out of the dressing room and to the roaring crowd outside. Spike watched her go.
Yes, maybe Spike was a child. But Spike looked out at the ceremony taking place in the centre of Ponyville, and he realised that, whatever may happen, he would always have his friends.
"We are gathered here today to share with Lady Rarity of Ponyville and Princess Celestia of Equestria as they exchange vows of their everlasting love..."
At the beginning of the night, we had been strangers.
The princess had arrived in Ponyville on Nightmare Night, hoping to introduce herself to the fair folk. Unfortunately, it had not quite gone as planned. It turns out that an eon on the moon doesn't help with your social skills.
And so I had done what I do best: I lectured her.
It was all very proper; I introduced myself, we had a small chat, and then I introduced her to my friends. There wasn't anything deeper to it, really. She was a princess, I was her subject. She was a stranger to me, and I to her, friendly as we were.
It was over the course of the night that something... changed. Changed in the dynamic. I can't point out when, precisely, that it happened.
I mean, the first thing I noticed about her, of course, was how beautiful she was, but that goes without saying. Complimenting her on it would have meant nothing, for it was a simple fact of her station. If anything, her appearance was more than a little intimidating.
But looking back on it, when she let down her barriers — when she stopped being so... royal, I suppose — realise now that I saw something. A kindred spirit.
it never crossed my mind at the time. That night, I could only think of how much I wanted us to be more than strangers. I wanted to truly know that mare underneath.
And so, at the end of that night, I blurted out: "Luna!"
She looked at me in confusion, and with, dare I say it, a spark of hope.
"...Tea?"
At the end of that night, we became more than strangers.
It was quite the impressive contraption, she thought. A collection of mirrors and lenses arranged in such a way that the reflected light would allow for viewing of far-away objects in the cosmos, all contained within a simple cylinder mounted upon a stand.
A device for viewing the night sky... such ingenuity! Truly, it was an example of just how far pony creativity could extend.
All of these reasons, and more, made Luna feel a little ashamed that she had decided to use said contraption to spy on her crush.
Only a little, mind you.
"Blasted gizmo. Your princess demands that you ZOOM-!" Luna slapped a hoof over her mouth, eyes darting around in panic. After a minute of silence, she pulled her hoof away and sighed gustily.
What am I doing? Luna thought despairingly. Why can't I just... go to her?
Luna already knew why, of course, but she wasn't sure she wanted to admit it to herself.
"Well, no more!" Luna shouted, leaping to her hooves. "I am going to walk right up to Twilight Sparkle, and I am going to say 'I love y-'"
Something moved in Twilight's window.
"Ohwhatamisayingimacoward." Luna dived for the telescope, practically shoving her eye onto the lens as she stared at the distant treehouse. Pain flared in her eye, making her hiss, but she ignored it. Her trembling hooves held the telescope steady, as she peered closer... closer... closer...
"Luna?"
The telescope snapped in half from the force of Luna's spasm. Ever-so-slowly, her head turned around to stare at the door.
Twilight Sparkle stared back. "Um, what are you doing?"
Luna's eye twitched. Her jaw fell open with a rusty clunking sound.
"Ok... I'll just... go, I guess." The purple unicorn slid out of the room, leaving the door to slowly shut on its own.
Luna slumped to the floor of the balcony as soon as the other mare disappeared from view. She sighed again, perhaps even more gustily than before, and crawled into the bathroom.
She glanced into the mirror, and froze. Around her eye, there was a clear, black ring.
She knew.
She knew.
Luna dashed with a mad, stumbling, gait to the door, opened it slowly, then peeked her head out. She spotted the object of her - somewhat unhealthy - desire trotting down the corridor.
As she watched, Twilight glanced over her shoulder, winked, and, without warning, lifted her tail.
Luna glanced for barely a second before flattening herself against the wall, hoof held against her pounding heart. Distantly, she heard the echoes of soft giggling.
What... Luna thought, smile threatening to split her face in half. ...have I gotten myself into?
Luna snorted, her eyes snapping open. A moan sounded off from the pony lying next to her in the bed. She turned around to see her marefriend sitting up, wiping her nose with a hoof.
"Good morning, Twilight!" Luna chirped cheerfully.
"Bleh." Twilight bleh'd blearily.
"How are you feeling on this beautiful morning?" Luna asked as she leapt out of bed and walked over to the window.
Twilight responded by way of an askew glance, coupled with a very wet and disgusting snort that — somehow — managed to sound rather indignant.
Luna turned her head away and smirked. This was just too perfect. "Oh, would you just look at this beautiful day?" Luna said, hamming up the "morning pony" attitude that she knew s despised. "Oooh, maybe we should go out for a stroll around Ponyville! Wouldn't that be just divine?"
Twilight groaned as the stream of sunlight struck her eyes, half-heartedly lifting a purple wing to protect herself from the unholy rays. "Nuuuuurr..." She mumbled, before sneezing again.
Luna's eyes were clenched shut with the effort it took to stifle her sniggering. The sight of the normally collected pony in such a ridiculous state was becoming too much for the Night Princess to hold in.
Twilight looked at her giggling marefriend, then crossed her eyes to peer at her snivelling snout. "I thing I hab a cold." She declared, after a few moments of deliberation. Then sneezed again.
That was all it took. Luna immediately burst into fits of laughter, rolling on the floor of Twilight's bedroom while the pony herself looked on with a frown. "Shnot funny." She huffed.
Luna eventually gathered herself back together, crossing the room to examine the bleary, bedridden alicorn, who glowered at her with sleepy eyes. "Oh, I'm sorry, love. I will admit, I have been quite impolite as your guest."
Twilight glared at her. "Yur could shay that."
Luna coughed out another chuckle, then painted on a look of motherly concern. "Oh, my darling Twiley-poo's caught a frightful cold! Now, don't you worry dear, Lulu is here to help!" With that, she scurried out of the room.
Twilight watched her go with confusion, amusement, and more than a little bit of abject terror. She let out a sigh and sank under the covers.
Well, it wasn't that bad, Twilight admitted. It was actually pretty funny. She imagined herself going cross-eyed, and giggled.
I'll let her have her fun. She's deserved it, after all. Twilight relaxed with a bashful smile. There's still that one experiment with the socks that I don't think she's forgiven me for quite yet.
Ten minutes later, Luna still hadn't returned, and Twilight was starting to get anxious. Her optimism from earlier was threatening to fade. It's okay, Twilight. Maybe she's just- The bed-ridden alicorn perked up. Maybe she's making breakfast! Twilight drooled slightly at the thought of pancakes, dripping with syrup. She wondered if they'd get topped with baked apple slices this time...
"Twiliiiight~" Luna called from outside the bedroom.
"Yeah, Luna?" Twilight hollered back, eyes still closed peacefully.
"Do you, perhaps, remember that one incident with the socks...?"
Twilight's eyes snapped open. For a moment, she swore that her heart stopped beating. "Oh no."
A voice whispered right next to her ear. "Oh, yes."
And to this day, the ponies of Ponyville still remember the mad cackling, against a backdrop of screams.
Twilight stared at Luna. The book before her flopped to the floor in its death throes. She was vaguely aware that her lower jaw was hanging at some undignified angle, and if her brain wasn't so distracted, she would have probably already calculated said angle, written a research paper on it, and sent it to the Canterlot University professors.
Unfortunately, she was a trifle too busy deciphering the sounds that had just escaped her marefriend's mouth. "I-I'm sorry," Twilight tried not to stutter, and failed horribly. "I didn't q-quite catch that...?"
Luna remained unperturbed by her love's catatonia, continuing to stare into the fireplace in front of them, occasionally glancing down at something in her hooves. Twilight swore that she was smirking a little bit. "I said that I was akin to a changeling, if you were paying attention."
"Oh." Twilight stared at Luna some more. If she was being honest, she didn't really know where that left them. She did, however, think that the Encyclopaedia Equestria on the floor in front of her would make for an excellent blunt instrument. It wasn't every day that your loved one declared, out of the blue, that they were not too dissimilar to shapeshifting emotional parasites. May as well err on the side of caution, Twilight thought.
Luna looked at her expectantly, and only responded after the silence had become sufficiently awkward. "Oh, for the love of..." she groaned, slapping a hoof down on a glowing, heavy, leather-bound tome that had snuck up towards her. "I was just being poetic, Twilight!"
"O-Oh." Twilight stuttered, still staring at her marefriend. "Of course."
More silence. "You don't get it, do you."
"No."
Luna looked at her, then started giggling. Twilight both loved and loathed that giggle; it sounded like the stars themselves were singing, yet more often than not, Twilight tended to be the butt of the joke. Once again, she found herself blushing as she heard Luna laughing daintily. And once again, she hated how much she wanted to keep hearing it.
That beautiful laughter died away after Luna noticed how Twilight had shoved her head in-between the pages of her book, as if trying to transpose her face onto the pages. She placed her hoof on the book and gently tugged it away, revealing Twilight's flaming face to the world. Luna wrapped a wing around the blushing alicorn and pulled her closer.
"Love is everything to a changeling." Luna began, stroking her marefriend's mane with a hoof. "It nourishes them. Sustains them. Empowers them. Feeds them." She paused, and looked Twilight straight in the eye. "It is as necessary to them as food and water is to you, me, and everypony on the planet. Perhaps even more so."
Twilight couldn't look away. Those perfect teal eyes were as entrancing to her as the stars she saw through her telescope, night after night. Luna continued. "And I wasn't lying. You mean everything to me, Twilight. My love for you is what gets me out of bed in the morning, and your love for me is what keeps me going. The memories of my life before you..."
She buried her face in Twilight's mane, relishing in the softness, the smoothness, and the feeling of knowing that this pony loved her, above all others. "It's just so dark and empty without you, my Star."
"You nourish me." She kissed Twilight's neck.
"You sustain me." She nibbled her ear.
"You empower me." She nuzzled her tenderly.
"And above all..." Twilight felt a whisper of warm breath on her cheek.
"You feed me."
And Twilight's words were lost in the lips of her love.
If a pony were prone to understating the reality of things, they would have described Princess Luna as being "a little grumpy" that day. Her sister, diplomatic as she was, would have argued that she was "still adjusting", but her guards, who were accustomed to her eccentricity at this point, would have just said she was "as batty as usual".
Prince Blueblood had a very different opinion of the Night Princess on that day. One that included a variety of uncharacteristically crude curses and no small amount of frightened sobbing.
To be fair, calling her marefriend a common whore probably wasn't the best idea he'd ever had, in hindsight.
In a rather rare moment of reflection, Blueblood peeked past his hooves and pondered the celestial embodiment of perfect darkness on the dais before him. To say she was glaring daggers at him wasn't really accurate. It was more like "aiming twin white-hot rage beams".
Yes, he thought. Probably not the best of ideas.
"Nephew." Both syllables roared in Blueblood's ears, and he swore he felt something tightening around his neck. "Would you kindly repeat yourself? I'm having a hard time staying... civil, at this precise moment."
Oh, Celestia have mercy on my humble, handsome soul. Blueblood tried not to imagine a sword dangling over his head as he unwrapped his limbs from around himself. He ahem'd once. It sounded far too loud in the dead silence.
"I-" He managed to squeeze out one letter before his royal nose pulled his attention away again. He sniffed slightly, and caught a flowery whiff. Most ponies would describe it as sweet, the scent of spring. Blueblood would say it was the greatest smell he had ever sniffed, or would ever sniff again.
The divine darkness looked up from the noble stallion —said stallion had to force himself not to collapse with relief — and visibly began to shrink. He heard her mutter one word: "Lilacs..." before the doors creaked open behind him.
"Luna?"
Blueblood looked over his shoulder and saw a lavender alicorn peeking in sheepishly.
What in the world is she doing? He wondered, disbelieving. Can't she see Auntie is going... to... He took that moment to glance back at the princess. Instead of an eldritch nightmare being, he found a beaming Princess Luna relaxing in her throne.
"Just a second, Twilight!" she called out. Luna looked at Blueblood, and said "We hath decided to forgive your trespass this once, Blueblood. Thou may leave our presence."
A disbelieving Blueblood nodded drunkenly, and then stumbled his way out of the throne room. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Princess Twilight smiling apologetically at him as he closed the doors.
Dimly, he could hear giggles from inside the chamber, aided by the smell of lilac.
It was midnight, and Canterlot was asleep, save for the sprinkling of lights visible from the bedroom balcony. A lavender alicorn sipped from her steaming mug of cocoa and huddled closer under the indigo wing draped over her withers as a chill breeze swept over the two.
Twilight sighed happily, beaming up at the stars in the night sky. They twinkled cheerily in response. "Thank you for dragging me out here, Luna. The nobles were getting kinda grating."
"Mhm." Luna mhm'd. She continued to stare at something hidden between her forelegs, horn glowing. Her tongue peeked out the side of her mouth as she concentrated.
"On the bright side, Blueblood hasn't bothered me once since that incident in the throne room. In fact, he bought me some thank-you chocolates just the other day! Had the cutest little blush too." Twilight began giggling. "I think he likes my new shampoo!" The giggling transformed into a laughing fit.
Luna hummed. "Mmm, shampoo is nice..."
The laughter petered out. "Um, I... guess?" Twilight frowned slightly, then painted the smile back on. "Oh, so the other day, the Princess walked into the throne room."
"Mhm."
"Celestia, I mean. She's the Princess."
"Yes, love."
"Because there aren't any others."
"I agree, darling."
Twilight growled. "Anyway, my favourite princess, Celestia, declared her undying love for me the other day."
"Oh?"
"And then we made sexy forbidden love right there on the steps."
"That was nice of him."
At this point, Twilight was visibly snarling. The frayed ends of her wits snapped, and she rounded on the alicorn at her side. "Luna! Are you even paying attention to-!"
"HUZZAH!" Luna suddenly leapt to her hooves, holding a small rectangle of canvas aloft in her aura. "We hath finished it, my love! Our masterpiece!" The ensuing silence drew her attention to the Twilight Sparkle that was currently splayed out on her side. It would have been an adorable sight, Luna thought, if it weren't for the bloodthirsty look on her marefriend's face.
"Oh, uh... Oops." Luna sat back down and used her wing to roll Twilight back into her seat. She coughed awkwardly.
Twilight maintained her pout for a few moments, then released it with a sigh. "This had better be good, Luna." Luna let her take the canvas from her grasp.
The first thing Twilight noticed were the eyes; two shining amethysts, gazing wistfully up at the night sky. In them, she could see the reflection of the stars, lit up by the warm orange light of the city below. Those two perfect eyes were set in the face of a lavender alicorn, with an indigo mane that fell neatly across her brow and curled around her ear. The mare was smiling happily, and the steam drifting off the top of the mug in front of her curled into a tiny heart halfway up the canvas.
She heard a cough, and she tore her eyes from the portrait to see Luna looking at her worriedly. "Is it good? Do you like it? I am so, so sorry, love, for ignoring you, I just I saw it and you and the stars and I couldn't I had to-"
Twilight cut her off with a boop on the nose. "It's perfect, Luna.
"Absolutely perfect."
Luna smiled at her gratefully. Then her ears perked up as she recalled something.
"Oh, and about that Celestia comment..."
"Oh. Hehe, yeah, sorry about-"
"I was actually wondering when she would come clean. I'm happy for her."
It was a mystery, is what it was. A mystery on par with the age of Applejack's hat — Twilight was sure it dated back to the Paleopony era — or even Pinkie Pie, dare she say it.
"Luna," said Twilight, "whose underpants are these?"
Unfortunately, hangovers were abound that morning, so that may have affected their perceptions somewhat.
"Blargh." Luna reflected. Twilight agreed. "Mine or yours?"
"They're pink."
"Pink?"
"Yes." Twilight confirmed. "Diabolically so."
"I don't have any pink underwear."
"Nor do I."
Twilight heard a ponderous hum from the blue lump on her bed. "Anything else?"
Sniff. "They smell like elder flowers."
"Huh." Pause. "Wait, how can you tell?"
"Experiments."
Luna nodded. "Ah, of course." She said, as if that made all the sense in the world. (And it did. Finding Leylines requires a trained whiff sensory device, as discovered by Starsmell the Bearded in 50 B.D. (Before Discord)).
"So," said Luna, after a time, "where does that leave us?"
"Well, they're not yours. Your rump smells like blueberries."
"And yours carries the scent of lavender. Quite splendid."
Twilight nodded thoughtfully. Then she stopped. She looked back at her flank. Her eyes widened, with the look of someone who had just comprehended something they had never dared to comprehend before.
"Luna." She breathed.
"Mrrrgh." Luna threatened. "What?"
"We don't wear underwear."
The library bedroom was silent as the grave. Or as quiet as a library is generally supposed to be.
"... What."
"I don't know."
"Is there... some kind of panty pilferer on the loose?"
Twilight mulled over the question. "But we have not lost any panties. Rather, we have acquired them. We do have a sock thief, though."
"Really?"
"Well, you try explaining how they keep disappearing." Luna had to concede that point.
The two lovers sat in silence for a while, listening to the song of the morning birds.
"So."
"So."
"... Want to snuggle?"
"Of course."
And they totally did.
A second later, the bathroom door opened, heralded by the flush of the toilet and a faint smell of elder flower. A dripping wet Rarity stepped out, towel perched on her head, akin to a bird's nest.
"Good morning!" She sang, far too cheerily. "Have either of you seen my underwear?"
The Amorphous Mass of Snuggle considered unwrapping itself. It opted in favour of remaining adorable.
Luna loved Nightmare Night. And if she was being honest with herself, Twilight could understand why.
There were a lot of good memories linked with the old holiday; they'd bonded over this very night, exactly two years ago. Twilight loved the way Luna's eyes lit up when she saw the date on the calendar. She adored the way her marefriend would squeal with excitement as the clock turned midnight, almost like a filly when they received their cutie mark.
Twilight loved Nightmare Night. Well, she used to. And that was the problem, when it all came down to it.
There was a place in Twilight's mind, one that she liked to call "Pandora's Box". It wasn't like the other mental constructs she had devised; this one was locked up tight, concealed to the point that even she herself was almost unaware that it existed. It was necessary, in order to prevent the contents from interfering with her thoughts during the day.
But during the night, the Box would open, enough for things to... leak out.
Twilight watched Luna's chest rise and fall gently. If she listened carefully, she could hear her breathing softly. Usually, this never failed to make her smile. But then, she could usually keep the worries, the fears, the doubts, the envies, all the little toxins of the mind locked away, safely.
This was not one of those nights.
Twilight imagined the upcoming Nightmare Night celebration. They were visiting Ponyville once again this year, and there was going to be a whole attraction set up just for "Nightmare Moon". It would go off without a hitch, as usual. As Twilight tried to remind herself.
But Twilight could only imagine the excited shrieking turning to bloodcurdling screams. She could only imagine the moon glowing a bright red, reflecting the burning streets below.
She could only imagine a pair of teal draconic eyes, gleaming in the brutal darkness of the Eternal Night.
Twilight loved Luna, and she would always be there for her.
It was horrible. It was infuriating. It was degrading. Above all, it was humiliating.
In Rarity's own words, Luna thought, this is. The. Worst. Possible. THING.
Twilight's head popped out of the material mountain that had, upon the opening of the closet, decided to appear spontaneously in the bedroom. She blinked blearily, then peered at Luna, eyebrows located somewhere in the room above them. Except that was impossible, because Luna's chambers were at the top of a tower, so actually they were located either on the roof or somewhere in the atmos- DAMMIT LUNA STOP PONDERING YOUR METAPHORS AND SAY SOMETHING
"Um," began Luna – rather eloquently considering her overwhelming terror – "I can explain everything."
Twilight didn't respond. Instead, she pulled an adorable "Best Princess!" sock out of her mouth, and made a show of studying the ten thousand other socks that were currently devouring her, all while Luna watched her with an inescapable feeling of sheer dread.
A minute of terse silence passed as Twilight engaged in a staring contest with a googley-eyed garment, embroidered with the name 'Mr Sock'. Eventually, it was broken: "Can you, Luna? Can you?"
"Yes, actually."
"How-?" Twilight was cut off by a wide-eyed Luna shoving a rather bemused Mr Sock into her face.
"Look at those eyes, Twilight." Twilight went cross-eyed trying to keep up with the wildly googling eyes of Mr Sock. "Look at them and tell them that they will never be worn by a chilly filly on a Winter's evening." Luna shoved them even further, pressing Twilight back into the swarm of saccharine sockiness. "Tell them that they will never be loved."
Luna abruptly pulled her socked hoof back and began stroking it tenderly. Twilight remained cross-eyed for a moment, before shaking it off and glaring at her marefriend. "Luna, they're just out of fashion. I mean," Twilight gestured to the sunlight streaming in through the window. "It's the middle of summer!"
Luna barked out a harsh laugh, and petted Mr Sock even more vigorously. "Hah! That's what they all say, isn't it. 'Oh, it's out of fashion Luna, just throw them away.' To them, I say: Poppycock! Balderdash! A sock is your treasured friend and companion, but come summertime, oh noooo, they're just trash." Luna peered up at Twilight with watering eyes. "Somepony has to give them a home, my love. All I'm doing is collecting them so that they won't feel all alone..." Luna sniffled, cooing softly to a stoney-faced Mr Sock.
A tear shone in the corner of Twilight's eye. "Luna... that was beautiful."
Luna looked up, hope lighting up her face. "R-really?"
"No." Twilight wiped the tear away. "I have sock fibres in my eyes. Now get out while I figure out what to do with these." She held out a hoof. "Give me Mr Sock, and nostocking has to get hurt."
Luna pouted, throwing Mr Sock at her marefriend's face with a "Phooey!" and proceeded to stomp out of the bedroom.
Twilight peeled the googly-eyed sock off of her face. She stared at it. Glancing around, she leaned in closer.
"Finally, my love. We can be together." She whispered tenderly.
Mr Sock sighed with relief. "Oh, how I have waited for this day." He said.
Twilight Sparkle wasn't used to normal things. Normal things implied common, regular, everyday occurrences. Things that you'd wake up to find in your bedroom and not even give a second glance; things that you would certainly not use an ancient magical artefact of unrivalled power to turn said objects into stone.
In this way, Twilight Sparkle is far from normal. As far as she was concerned, normal things were just things that happened to other ponies. It was a way of thinking that naturally comes to one who is exposed to a quirky, quaint little village called Ponyville for an extended period of time.
And so, when Twilight Sparkle woke up in her bed one morning and found a princess-shaped void in the bed next to her, her reaction was quite expected in its own rather unexpected way.
"GUARDS! GUARDS! PRINCESS LUNA HAS BEEN KIDNAPPED! QUICKLY, SUMMON THE ELEMENTS, AND POSSIBLY CELESTIA TOO IF SHE HAS THE TIIIIiiiiiiiime..." Her delusional ravings trailed off as she saw the guards standing at the door staring at her awkwardly.
Clearly, some more tact was required. "Um... If you wouldn't mind...? Please?"
The guards looked at each other, smirked, and said, "Of course, your Highness. Why don't you go search for Princess Luna while we guard Mr Sock for you?"
Twilight blushed violently, and ran out of the door and tried to ignore the intolerable sniggering. She loathed sniggering. Sniggering was never a good sign for somepony as socially inept as her. She made a mental note to outlaw sniggering of any and all kinds.
Her ears perked as she wandered through the corridors of the castle; she could hear singing. There wasn't any particular rhythm to it, just a tuneless melody that nonetheless managed to worm its way into her head. She followed the humming down some stairs and through several more corridors, before she found herself in the kitchen.
Wearing a pretty pink apron—adorned with the slogan, OSCULATE THY CHEF— and rather clumsily manipulating a pan over the burner, was Luna. Her singing was accompanied by an occasional rump wiggle and spontaneous giggle. Behind her was a table with a feast fit for a princess sat atop it.
Trying not to drool at the two very delicious things standing in front of her, Twilight hesitantly spoke up, "Luna? Are you... cooking?"
Luna stopped humming, and turned to look at Twilight with a bright smile on her face. "Oh! Fair morning to you, love! And yes, we had heard of these tantalising treats known as 'pancakes' and decided to experiment. Such fun!"
Twilight didn't hear her; she was staring at the breakfast spread with her jaw agape. "Maple syrup, jelly, Frosted Filly Flakes, toast, butter—" "Actually," Luna interjected, eyes focused intently on the sizzling pancakes, "it's not butter."
"Really?"
"Uh-huh."
Twilight gazed at the not-butter with newfound respect. "I can't believe it!"
Luna's tongue stuck out the side of her mouth as she flipped the pancake into the air. After a moment of intense silence, it landed safely back in the pan again. "HUZZAH!" Luna bellowed. A glass of orange juice shattered. "Success!" If she were to look up now, Twilight was somehow aware that she would find several flat pastry treats stuck to the ceiling.
After her ears stopped ringing, Twilight wandered over to her ecstatic wife with the glazed-over look of a pony who still wasn't quite in tune with reality somehow.
"So how was your morning, sweetie?" Luna asked, smile as bright as moonlight.
Twilight waved her off. "Not bad. Thought you were kidnapped for a moment or two. The guards thought it was hilarious. Oh, and remind me to outlaw sniggering at some point. Speaking of mornings..." Twilight gestured vaguely towards the great spread. "Where did all this come from?"
To her eternal credit, Luna took Twilight's response in stride. "I can't rightly say. I suppose the inspiration just struck me, you know? The muse is an odd beast. Also," Luna carefully flipped the pancakes onto a plate, and brandished them with a flourish "ta-daaaa! Breakfast is served!"
Twilight clapped her hooves excitedly. Without further ado, she lathered her pancakes in syrup and a sliver of not-butter. She felt Luna sit next to her and kiss her on the cheek. "I do hope you enjoy them, love. And how about afterwards..." Luna's voice dropped to a sweet, sensual whisper. "...We have breakfast in bed?"
Twilight gulped, and smiled a smile that clearly said "I am the luckiest pony in the world right now", complete with a vivid blush.
So this is a "normal" morning, then? She thought, popping a piece of pancake in her mouth. I could get used to thi—
"GUARDS! GUARDS! PRINCESS SPARKLE HAS TAKEN ILL! QUICKLY, SUMMON THE ELEMENTS, AND POSSIBLY CELESTIA IF SHE ISN'T EATING CAKE IN HER CHAMBERS AGAIN!"
"Yes, your majesty! Fetch the stomach pump! The princess was cooking again!"
Twilight Sparkle isn't a normal pony.
And she'd like to keep it that way, thank you very much.
Hate is a very strong word, in Luna's opinion. Disliking somepony was normal, common even. But hate? Hate is a much rarer, darker beast. Many ponies knew to avoid it, and learn to love and tolerate equally. A cohesive community is a happy community, after all. Hatred has little use in such a world as Equestria.
That doesn't mean that hate didn't exist, however— hatred is akin to an infection; spreading and manipulating, digging its hooks in and not letting go. For some ponies, hatred had transcended mere emotion and become a way of life, of sorts.
Luna had known King Sombra. More so than any other pony, in fact. She had seen first-hand the effects that hatred could have on a soul. She had peered into that abyss of loathing, darkness, and self-destruction, and had come away from that precipice with new-found understanding and more than her fair share of scars.
And when tensions had been stretched to the breaking point, the infection that had taken root in her heart had offered her a way out. A new destiny. A new world; a world of darkness, dreams, and dominance.
In the end, Luna had gone down that path. When she returned, she swore off hatred forever.
"...and so I picked up that cactus, and I..."
Luna glared over the rim of her teacup at the two ponies sitting and chatting opposite her. On the left sat a pretty little lavender mare, hair cut cleanly across her brow, just above two beautiful eyes of amethyst. She was smiling brightly.
Luna, normally, would be over the moon when she saw that smile. It was what made her world go round, after all. No, her glare was aimed at the pony that Twilight happened to be smiling at. Not Luna, oh no.
Celestia finished her story with a burst of cheerful laughter, like ringing silver bells. Twilight joined in, giggling in a way that stabbed at Luna's heart. She loved that laugh. But there was something wrong about it this time. Something different.
Luna looked at Celestia again. Just what is that look in her eye...?
Luna shook her head wildly. "No, no, silly Luna, those are silly thoughts. Everypony is happy and so are you." She whispered hurriedly under her breath.
Despite her own words, their laughter continued to needle at her. Breaking down her will. Allowing the voice into her head; thoughts of envy, greed, and...
No. Not hate.
Luna watched her sister wrap her wing around Twilight. Luna watched Twilight lean into her sister's side and nuzzle her neck.
For too long, she had watched happiness fall away from her. For too long, she had sat alone while all that she held dear withered, aged, and died.
Not this time. Not when, for the first time, she had experienced true love. True happiness, without the constant fear that she would be rejected for who she was. No, Twilight loved Luna for all that she was; the light, the dark, and everything in-between.
Luna flew through the icy night air at legendary speeds, lightning illuminating her anguished features, and the rain pounding at her flesh like bullets.
She needed to be there for her. She'd promised that much, after all. It didn't matter that they had fought; it didn't matter that, for a short time, they had been apart. None of it mattered. They were destined to be together, Luna knew it.
Faster.
Trees whipped by, the branches slashing at her sides. She ignored them.
Faster!
Lightning struck. Too close. She careened out of control, before guiding herself back with sheer willpower.
FASTER!
Twilight felt empty. She had been for a while now.
She had expected their separation to be hard. She had expected it to be painful. She had not expected the horrible feeling of a void inside her chest, like a piece of her heart had been stolen from her.
But what was she supposed to do? Luna wouldn't want her back now. Not after that. She could have any pony she wanted, now that Twilight was out of the picture. She didn't need her.
Twilight lay on her bed and stared up at the ceiling. Lightning flashed, thunder roared, and her soul wept.
There was a crash on the balcony, loud enough to shock Twilight out of her ennui. She looked up to see a sodden, dirty, dripping, beautiful alicorn, standing there gasping and panting.
Their eyes met.
Luna leapt onto the bed and bombarded her with kisses, holding her as if she were some precious, delicate treasure—gently, as if she would shatter at any moment, yet with a need to hold her tight and never let her go.
Twilight hugged her love tightly, and wept with equal parts joy and regret. She felt two wings wrap around her, shutting out the outside world and leaving only them. The moon and the stars.
"I'm so sorry!" Twilight said, over and over and over, until the words became meaningless and yet so very meaningful at the same time.
Luna stopped kissing. She held Twilight at an arm's length, and silenced her with one word. "Twilight."
"I love you."
And then she kissed her, right on the mouth. An instant later, Twilight kissed her right back.
That night, the moon and the stars rejoiced in their love.
Twilight peered up at the night sky through her telescope, her eyes dancing back and forth between the constellations and the star maps by her hooves. After a few moments of tense silence, she nodded. "Yep. Everything checks out." Twilight ticked off her checklist.
Luna sighed in relief, wandering over to a nearby cushion and collapsing onto it. "I am glad! Always a bother getting the stars back after a certain trickster god messes with them like that." Luna glanced up at Twilight, who was idly clearing up the star charts and getting ready to turn in for the night. "I thank thee for thy help, my love."
Twilight chuckled, walking over to her lover and curling up next to her on the seat. Luna wrapped her wings around her and rested her head in the curve of her neck. "No problem, Luna. Though, I'm kinda curious; does moving the stars drain you at all?"
Twilight felt Luna's contemplative hum against her neck. "The actual magic itself does not draw from a pool, like unicorn magic does. Rather, alicorn magic flows from the world itself. I suppose you could say that it is a mechanism of the world, and that we are the ones who maintain it."
Luna chuckled ruefully. "Well, that is the theory, at least. Many call us gods, but truthfully we are as bound as any mortal. More so, in fact. Our cage is just far more gilded."
The two fell into a solemn yet thoughtful silence as Twilight mulled over the new information.
"So... Were you worshipped? Did they always think you were deities?"
There was a pause. A rather ominous one. "No," Luna said. "We were not always seen as such. That was only after we defeated Discord." From where she lay, Twilight couldn't see Luna's expression of anguish.
Oblivious, Twilight pressed on: "Oh? What about before then?"
"...They called us witches."
After a moment, Twilight laughed. "Witches? But that's so silly!" She elbowed Luna playfully. "Come on, be honest. Nightmare Night was days ago!"
"Tis no lie. We realised early on that, while our friends and neighbours grew old and failed, my sister and I still looked young and fresh. It didn't bother us at first, but when we discovered that our magic was growing, seemingly without limit... well, things got rather grim."
Twilight's playful smile withered and died. She felt Luna squeeze her tightly, but her voice remained flat and cold. "They tortured us. Tied us to cinder blocks and dropped us in lakes, watching as we drowned. We couldn't actually die, of course, so we just waited until they got bored, more often than not."
Luna wasn't hugging her now; it was more like a pony adrift at sea, clutching desperately to a piece of driftwood. "Then they burned us at the stake. Celestia went first. I can still hear her screams. I was so angry. I wanted to burn them all. And then the sun rose, all on its own. Celestia's body glowed just as brightly. She came back, with wings aflame with the fires of judgement. Eyes glowing with all the power of her charge."
The room fell into grim silence. Twilight didn't speak, just allowing Luna to hold her tightly. She was trembling.
"..What happened next?"
Luna barked out a harsh laugh. "She forgave them, in the end. She always was the more benevolent of the two of us. But I wasn't. I destroyed them, with all the divine might of the moon and the night itself."
Twilight’s eyes widened. “You mean—”
“Yes. Nightmare Moon was born that night.”
Luna laughed. It sent shivers down Twilight’s spine.
A brush of a wing against her flank dragged Twilight Sparkle's eyes up from her notebook. Princess Luna sat down next to her and peered over her shoulder at her scribblings.
"Oh, hi Luna. No, I haven't discovered anything new yet. I mean..." Twilight peered upwards for a few seconds. Far above them, an enormous vein of crystal, shaped like a snowflake, glimmered in the half-light. "It just looks like regular old crystal so far, but that doesn't explain why it was built like this. How does it even work?"
Luna smiled indulgently. "I am sorry that I cannot help you any further in this matter. I was never very familiar with the workings of the Crystal Empire, even before my banishment." She hummed thoughtfully. "I did not know that this—" Luna gestured vaguely at the subterranean chamber surrounding them. "—even existed. Nor did young Cadence, for that matter. However, I have no doubt that you can figure this out in the mean time, my dearest." She kissed Twilight on the cheek affectionately.
Twilight blushed. "Aheh. I do hope so. The benefits of this discovery could be revolutionary. The Crystal Empire has only been around for a few years now – who knows what kind of secrets it holds?"
Twilight's smile drooped slightly. "And... well, that's kinda the problem, actually. The whole thing is just... so insane. It has the power to influence the mindset of an entire nation on its own. I have nothing to compare it to!" Subconsciously, Twilight began to rub her hooves together, her eyes widening as she continued to speak. "I just don't get it! It's casting some kind of spell, somehow, but there's nothing here to cast! Is there some kind of rune system? No, they couldn't have worked all this time without breaking, but – Oh! But the whole Empire was frozen in time wasn't it? No, that's impossible it had to be—"
Twilight was cut off by a deep blue hoof on her lips. Luna looked at her with a frown, but her eyes glinted with worry. "Twilight. Be calm. Take a deep breath, like Cadence taught you."
Wordlessly, Twilight nodded, before breathing in slowly, pulling a hoof towards her chest. She exhaled deeply and pushed her hoof out from her chest.
"Thanks for that, Luna. I was getting kinda... excited there, for a second." Twilight blushed bashfully.
Luna just chuckled, pulling her favourite librarian in for a cuddle. "Do not even mention it, my dear. I must admit, the prospects are exciting me as well." She grinned, then kissed Twilight on the nose. "Just not quite as much as that cute little blush of yours does."
Twilight squeaked once, her blush threatening to consume her features as she darted back in to steal a kiss on the lips. All at once, she felt her horn tingle. The crystal above her lit up like a star, and they heard a distant explosion of energy from far, far above. A blanket of contentment and good cheer settled over the kissing couple.
The couple glanced upwards in wonder as they finished their kiss.
Twilight whispered. "It just casted a spell. But how?"
Luna just smiled. "Love works in mysterious ways."
"Luna," Twilight began, for the third time that evening, "why are we up here again?"
Luna just looked at her, smirking as she caught her facial expression; it was rather like she had just taken a bite of a lemon as she was about to sneeze. Her wings flapped sporadically, like a pegasus filly on its first flight. Luna thought it was adorable.
"You'll see in a moment, love," Luna replied, once again, with that same enigmatic smile. Twilight would have glared at her if she weren't so busy trying not to fall.
The purple alicorn gulped. Was this even safe? Probably not. Luna had assured her that she would be there if she slipped up, but she had her doubts. Flying up above the atmosphere was definitely not a good idea for a neurotic sheltered introvert like Twilight.
"But you told me that there was meteor storm happening tonight," Twilight complained. "Why are we all the way up here?" Again, Luna just smiled in that mysterious way of hers.
Luna glanced back and saw her marefriend struggling, and danced through the wind towards her. "Remember not to look down!" she said. Twilight looked down.
Far, far, far below lay the continent of Equestria, so distant that she could see over the horizon on either side, so small that cities and mountains were indistinguishable from one another. The night hugged her tight, like the indigo wings that enveloped her as her own gave out from under her.
"I told you not to look down," Luna rebuked her, despite the edge of worry in her voice. Twilight just smiled bashfully.
Hugging Luna tight, Twilight watched as the once-distant stars drew closer, hovering in the void like enormous lanterns. Slowly, the couple glided over to one solitary ball of light, and—against all rational sense—landed gently on the surface of the sphere.
Twilight looked down at the star with awe. "How is this... I thought..." Her face scrunched up in thought.
Luna laughed, like the tinkling of silver bells. "There is more to this world of ours than what can be found in a book, Twilight Sparkle. Certainly, the foundations are rooted in that most wondrous of things..." Her horn lit up, and the star below them resonated. "Magic."
As Twilight watched, the stars in the sky fell, plummeting through the aether and leaving a trail of sparkling light in their wake. The star they stood on shifted, and it too began to fall.
"Luna!" Twilight said. "What's happening?" Her wings fluttered in panic. The odd sense of lightness flooded her body, as gravity enacted its toll.
"Follow my lead, love!" said Luna, as she took wing once more. "Remember: magic is the key!" And with that, she pulled in her wings and dove down, down towards the planet below them. Wind rushed past her and made her astral mane fan out and billow like a parachute of star-stuff. Twilight gulped again, then glided out into the void again, stars brushing past her as they plummeted faster and faster.
She closed her eyes. Reaching out with her senses, she pulled in the energy surrounding her, imagining herself as a bright, burning star, falling through space as a meteor. The magic pulled in tighter, draping over her being as a cloak of pure energy.
She felt her mane blow in the wind, and she opened her eyes.
Twilight saw the stars around her, streaks of light in a sky of blacks and blues and violets. By her side was Luna, screaming and laughing as she wove through the falling heavens. Twilight, herself, was falling, but she didn't feel it. Instead, she was in perfect control, guiding herself with the magic that flowed through her form.
She couldn't help it; she laughed.
Celestia peered up at the sky through her telescope. The night was alight with streaks of falling stars, with two particularly bright ones dancing with one another as they fell past the horizon.
"Achoo!" Luna sneezed. For a normal pony, this would not be particularly notable.
However, for someone with alicorn-sized lungs, something like a sneeze could, in fact, send something roughly the same weight and shape as their marefriend tumbling out the doors to their bed chambers.
"Thorry, Twilight..." Luna mumbled, with a gunky snort.
A purple head poked back into the room. "it's alright, Luna," Twilight chirped as she limped back towards the bed piled high with pillows. "Just focus on getting that cold out of your system!"
"B-But Twilight—" Luna reared back as if to sneeze, and Twilight tensed up instinctively. A moment passed, and Luna continued to speak. "Ith not gettig any bedder..."
Twilight tutted. She lit her horn, and a mug of hot chocolate levitated over to the fevered princess. "Well, maybe a bit of your favourite drink will help~?" Twilight said.
Luna's eyes lit up with glee as she saw the cocoa, and she sat up and reached out with her hooves and took it. She didn't say anything, choosing instead to stare into the brown liquid, hypnotised by the warmth that suffused her very being. She felt something pressing against her—Twilight was hugging her.
"Th-Thanks, Twilight," Luna said. She attempted to move the mug to her mouth, and frowned when she realised she couldn't move her limbs. She grunted, forcing her arms to bring the chocolate to her mouth.
She was so focussed that she only passively acknowledged the light in the room slowly disappearing, the cold that covered the floor in an icy sheen, and the weight that pressed harder against her.
"Urgh!" Luna's numb arms began to move slowly towards her muzzle. The draught was blowing in now. It ruffled her mane and made strands of hair snap against her face, but she continued to grunt with the effort.
Eventually, slowly, Luna inhaled a mouthful of the hot chocolate.
And then she spat it right back out. It didn't taste like chocolate. It didn't taste hot, either. It had the taste and texture of frozen dirt.
Luna looked up, and noticed, for the first time, that she was sitting in pitch black, ice-covered room. Howling winds tore at her skin. Her body was numb, and a huge, titanic weight pressed down on her. She turned and saw Twilight slowly treading away from her, out the door to the transformed chamber.
"Twilight!" Luna called out. She grunted and threw the pillows and covers off her frozen body. "My love, come back!"
But Twilight didn't come back. She continued to walk towards the effort, without once back.
"Twilight! Twilight!"
The door swung shut with a crash.
Luna woke up to pitch blackness.
Immediately, she tossed her limbs and screamed. Her entire body ached and froze and hurt, but her limbs thrashed at the overwhelming darkness enveloping her as if it were a beast attacking her.
Light blinded for a moment. She couldn't breathe. She was drowning. Luna crawled towards the light, and surfaced in an unending plain of snow and ice. A blizzard tore at her mane and skin.
Luna's mind was barely working, but it managed to conjure a single thought. One lonely mantra that brought vigor to her dying limbs.
Turning toward the mountainous horizon, she continued on her journey.
Twilight discovered, to her horror, that someone was sitting in her seat. This was, in fact, an unprecedented disaster.
It had never been a problem before today: it wasn't a particularly desirable seat, that one in the gloomy corner of the coffee shop, far away from the windows where one could watch people amble to and fro across the pavement. It was an old chair, too, and looked it might topple over and collapse at any second. Why the shop decided to keep it around, Twilight wasn't sure, but she was grateful nonetheless.
She eyed the woman sitting in it with baleful eyes. That was her seat. She liked sitting in the gloomy corner, and she liked the weathered wood of the old chair, too. And this woman – this thief – was sitting in it as if it belonged to her.
Twilight swore she would have marched over there and taken it, had she not been so... distracted.
It was the hair, really. It was long and blue and almost seemed to sparkle and shimmer, as if it was a piece of the night sky. That was probably just a trick of the light, Twilight thought, but it was dazzling nonetheless.
Before she knew it, Twilight was sitting down in the seat opposite the object of her ire/intrigue, pretending not to notice the look of confusion as she pulled out her books and laptop and set her coffee down on the table.
Twilight seethed slightly at the indignation of having to sit in a different chair, but found herself ever more enraptured by her nemesis's appearance - her skin was pale, very pale, almost silver. It reminded her of moonlight. She was wearing a simple blue shirt and black skirt with matching leggings, and she had a silver crescent moon necklace around her slender neck.
"Uh, excuse me, miss?"
Twilight was snapped out of her reverie, and looked up to see the woman looking at her with concern. "Whuh?" she said.
"Are you okay, miss?" the woman asked again.
"Oh. Oh, yes, yes I'm perfectly fine," Twilight rambled. Then she laughed. "Haha."
The woman tilted her head and smiled. Twilight caught herself staring at the graceful curves of her neck. "Oh. OK then," she said. "Did you want to sit here, or...?"
Yes.
"No."
The woman blinked. "No?"
"No! No, it's just... just fine and dandy."
The woman nodded, but still looked bemused. "Ah. Sorry, you just keep... staring at me, like that."
"That's because you look amazing and I want to rub my face in your hair."
Twilight didn't know what produced those words, and probably would have exploded in a ball of embarrassment and social anxiety in any other coffee shop, or with any other person.
But the woman sitting in her seat laughed – a rich, heavenly laugh that made Twilight feel warm and gooey inside.
"That should have been creepy," the woman said, her smile as warm as Twilight's face was becoming. "But actually it was rather endearing. What's your name?"
"Twilight Sparkle," Twilight said, "and I get that a lot. The creepy thing, I mean, not the endearing bit. Who are you?"
"I'm Luna. Call me crazy, but I get the feeling that I was very lucky to have met you today, Ms. Sparkle."
The Stars looked upon the world of the immaterial, and tilted their metaphysical head in curiosity.
"What is this?" they said. They had no method to produce sound in the void of the world beyond worlds, but in the world of dreams, thoughts were as loud as words.
The Moon was there, wrapped in and around the Stars, providing them with clarity. "This is the Beginning, my dearest Twilight. The place where gods are born."
The Stars perused this new knowledge thoughtfully. "So... When you said that we could..."
The Moon nodded (in a figurative sense). "Yes. Biology may limit us, Twilight, but divinity has none. I warn you, however..." The Stars imagined the Moon shuffling its hooves nervously as it paused. "It is quite... intimate."
"Intimate?"
"Yes. More so than any kiss. Perhaps more so than any physical act of love. We will meld our essences, our very souls, in order to spawn a new life. A new piece of eternity."
The Stars pondered this. "Are you sure this is okay, Luna?" they spoke. "Does Celestia approve?"
"Oh, I do."
The golden light poured forth from a burning orb of white soulstuff. The Sun looked down upon the Moon and its Stars, and warm benevolence washed over them.
"Show-off," the Moon said.
"Hush, you. In response to your question, Twilight, I heartily approve. There's a limit to what we can do with just us three, after all. I think it's time for a change."
"What about Cadence?" the Stars asked.
"She is a different being. Related, but ultimately a different concept. And concepts are everything here, if you have not yet realised."
The Moon and the Stars looked at one another.
"So uh," the Stars said. "Intimate, huh? Celestia, uh, won't be watching then, right?"
"She has already left, if she knows what's good for her. Now hush, my Twilight. Only dreams now."
Without further preamble, the Moon and the Stars mixed and merged together, the two ideas spawning something new. Something greater.
It began at midnight, the same instant as the bell rang in the silence of the sleeping city.
When it began, Twilight Sparkle awoke, suddenly and seamlessly. She didn't remember falling asleep, and she didn't quite recall waking up either – she simply became aware of herself as she was trotting down the empty hallway in an eerie darkness. Moonlight shone, blisteringly bright, almost alien in its intensity.
There was a lilting sound on the cool night breeze that flowed through the palace. It was barely an echo, but Twilight felt an odd need rise within herself, the urge to hear this sound in its full intensity. And so she ran, her rapid hoofbeats creating a discordant melody in the somber halls. She didn't really consider where it was she was going at all. Rather, it was as if the path was being whispered into her ear.
Twilight turned another corner, and found herself at the top of a grand staircase. The sound was louder now, hauntingly close. It was deep, and mournful, and graceful, and made her soul twist as if it were a physical force, and as she listened and hummed in sync, her hooves carried her down the staircase.
But as she descended the stairs, the song became more distant, harder to recognise. Twilight looked around her, and saw the huge opulent walls around her crumble, screams of fear and defiance ringing in her ears as flames licked at her hooves and consumed the grand wooden steps beneath them. Panicking, she began to run for the great doors ahead of her, but the flames and the screams built higher and higher until they reached a crescendo, and Twilight touched the doors just as they exploded open with white light.
In the next moment, she was standing in an old, tattered courtyard. Around her were the remains of an ancient castle, open to the night sky above her. Behind her, an enormous bell tower stood, still pealing. Twilight turned back to face ahead of her, and noticed a small gray form sitting alone, facing away from her, in the centre of the yard. From where she stood, Twilight could see only a limp gray mane, a cracked horn, and a pair of tattered wings hanging loosely from its back.
Twilight stepped forward. As she approached, she began to hear sobbing. Not the loud, hacking sobs of despair – rather, they were quiet sniffles, ones that a filly would make. She stepped faster, until she was standing right by... her. It was a her, that was it.
She was staring at something intently. Her focus was unflinching, even with Twilight standing right next to her. Twilight followed her gaze, and realised that she was looking into a small pond, right by their hooves.
In the pond was a thing of darkness. Two draconic eyes stared unblinkingly from the midst of a black void, right back at the crying pony by Twilight's side. Twilight turned to look back at the pony, and simply watched for a while, as tears trickled down her cheeks.
Slowly, she lifted her hooves, and wrapped them gently around the crying pony's neck. Her coat was soft, like fine sand, and her mane smelled of moonflowers. She held tighter, and became aware of her own voice whispering sweet nothings into the pony's ear.
Her mane was glowing. It was soft, gradual at first, but it was there. The limp gray mane darkened and thickened, with pinpricks of bright light shining through. The stars were here, in this pony's mane, and Twilight felt herself smile.
She saw the pony smile too. She heard her laughter, felt her return the hug, and together they stared down into the pond. They saw a bright light wrap around a thing of darkness, and the blackness vanished, revealing a deep blue smiling pony in its place.
Yes. Yes, that's right, she was blue.
She heard a giggle, and she turned just as her vision became filled with stars.
And when she became aware again, she was flying. Flying far away, with the deep blue pony with the mane of a starry sky and the moon emblazoned on her flank. Her horn was long and resplendent, and her wings were impeccable. And as they laughed, the land below growing father and farther until it was just them, Twilight and Luna – for that was her name, she remembered – together in the infinite sea of stars.
And it ended as it began, with the eternal ringing of the bell in the sleeping city.
Twilight's breath was misty in the cold night air of the Frozen North. There was a frosty sheen on the crystals that formed the balcony where she and Luna lay wrapped in one another's hooves.
"It's beautiful," Twilight said, looking out over the Crystal Empire with a sleepy smile on her face.
Luna hummed in agreement, her head resting on top Twilight's own. "It does bring back memories. This place is a relic of the past, really – I feel something of a kinship with it."
Twilight lifted her head and wrapped her neck around Luna's in such a way that she could speak quietly into her ear. "It's still not as pretty as you." She buried her muzzle in Luna's mane and listened to her laughter.
"Such bold words," Luna said with a smile. "One dares to ask where this confidence is coming from?"
Twilight just shrugged halfheartedly, still drinking in the scent of Luna's magical mane. It smelled vaguely of blueberries. "Iunno. You look nice with the crystals and all." She hummed for a moment, before pulling her head back and asking, "So, you've been here before?" She paled. "Uh, I mean, obviously before... that."
If Luna took note of Twilight's blunder, she hid it well. "Hmm... Once or twice. The first couple of times were diplomatic meetings with the Cadenzas." Luna grinned preemptively as she heard Twilight's gasp. "And yes, Our fair niece does indeed have roots here. The noble family who used to rule the Empire are Cadence's ancestors. Celestia discovered this soon after she adopted the girl, I do believe. 'Tis extraordinary." Luna's smile turned to a slight frown. "And... There was a time after that, I think."
Four black hooves landed gently on the crystal floor of the Palace with a melody of sharp clacks. The midnight black mare they belonged to shook herself clean of the snow that clung to her coat. Her features formed a razor sharp frown as she looked back at the blizzard that raged outside the balcony window she had entered through.
"It is beautiful, is it not?" A sultry voice slithered out of the shadows. The mare suppressed a shudder and turned to face the ash grey stallion that smiled softly at her from the darkness. "The snow and the crystal sparkle so perfectly in the moonlight." He faked a shocked gasp. "Oh, but where are my manners – It is an honour to finally meet you, my Queen." He bowed low to the ground, his muzzle scraping the floor.
Luna snorted. "Get back to your hooves, you sniveling sycophant. Tell me why you called me away to this pathetic hole."
Something flashed across King Sombra's face, so brief that Luna wasn't sure she'd seen it at all, before he stood up to his full and rather impressive height. "Of course, of course, her Highness has important business, I'm sure." The smirk on his face made Luna's skin crawl – he wasn't so pathetic as to mock her, was he?
He circled Luna slowly as he began to speak. Luna's eyes never left him for an instant. "It's quite simple, really. I admire you, Princess– Queen Luna. I can give you power. I can give you the honour you deserve. And I think, together, we could create something beautiful." He swept his hoof towards the balcony once again. "Just look."
Luna did look. She saw the moonlight reflecting of the icy crystals of the sleeping city. She saw it sparkle as brightly and as brilliantly as her own night sky in the background.
She felt the darkness crawl across her fur as she watched, in wonder, as the storm danced to the song of the night. "It does look... beautiful," she said, with grudging awe.
She heard a voice whisper in her ear. "It's still not as beautiful as you."
Luna reached out and, with a twist, tore the darkness from his grasp. With a flicker of a thought, she sent the stallion crashing to the icy floor behind her.
"Are you truly such an idiot?" Luna snarled. She wore the darkness as a cloak, as armour, as her own skin. "You tempt a goddess, Sombra – We have no need for your kind words and your little display. Our night is beautiful without your meddling, and We shall have the entire world know that. Now, begone. Your sight offends Us."
The shadows, sharp as daggers, descended on the speechless Sombra, who whimpered in fear and crawled away from the wrathful being of darkness that stood before him like an ancient war god. He staggered to his feet and shouted, "I could have given you everything! I could have made you an empress! But no, return to your little hovel with your sister that hates you and your country that ignores you. See how much the world loves your "beautiful night", you wretch."
Luna wondered, for a moment, how it would feel to crack that handsome head like an egg in her hooves. She pondered the feeling of his body impaled on her horn, and the metallic bite of his blood on her tongue.
After a minute of idly watching the pony tremble in his shoes, Luna turned and vanished into the night as a fleeting shadow, his final words to her echoing in her mind.
"Luna? Are you alright?"
Luna started. She felt warm tears dripping from her muzzle. She batted ineffectually at her eyes and forced a smile onto her face.
"Yes, We are fine. Thank you, Twilight. For everything."
The wind howled against the mouth of the cave in the mountainside as a icy storm thrashed against the rock and wound through the desolate peaks. Water dripped and echoed loudly, creating a steady beat that resounded throughout the cave.
A metal shod hoof reached up and clung tightly to the lip of the cave entrance. It slid uncertainly on the icy stone, before finding purchase on the uneven crag. Muscle rippled beneath black fur and a pitch black alicorn heaved herself up with a grunt, collapsing against the floor of the cave. She allowed herself a moment to breathe before dragging herself further into the dark crevice, away from the howling gales and biting cold.
Shudders wracked the alicorn’s body. Blood dripped slowly from fresh wounds and slashed skin. Cracked and twisted shreds of armour still clung to her chest, legs, and head. Her battered wings hugged a small purple body tightly to her side.
A hacking cough racked her body. She was alive – barely. That wasn’t important, though, not as important as her precious cargo.
The Nightmare slumped against the wall and numbly unfurled her wing. A muddy and bloody purple alicorn slipped out from beneath it, and she hugged her tightly to her body and wrapped her wings around her to conserve heat.
The Nightmare couldn’t feel anything at first, and she fell so very, very close to losing what sanity still remained. But she pushed the dark thoughts away and went about cleaning the comatose body of Twilight Sparkle carefully and lovingly with her tongue, grooming her hair and mane and licking away the blood and mud that coated her.
Then, she felt it – the faint beat of a heart inside Twilight’s chest. Tears stung the edges of the Nightmare’s eyes, but she didn’t bother to wipe them away. Instead, she slumped over, and curled up around her love.
There was silence in the cave, save for the steady drum of the water and the matching thud of Twilight’s heart in the Nightmare’s ears.
Twilight began to stir. Nightmare opened one teal eye and watched her features shift and her eyes open, slowly. Twilight looked at her, purple eyes glazed over with pain, and there was fear there.
Nightmare– Luna– Whoever she was now, she stroked her love’s hair and shushed her as she began to whimper. Her horn glowed and the battered and cracked champron slid off her head and dissipated into ether once more.
“Luna…?” Twilight whispered. “Is that you?”
Teal eyes flickered to draconic slits and back again. “Yes, dear.” She tried a smile. “‘Tis Us, in the flesh.”
“I… I thought I was…”
“No, Twilight. You’re okay. We’re all okay.” Luna repressed a sob and hugged Twilight tighter. “It’s over now. It’s all over.”
Twilight whimpered and pushed her feebly away. “B-But you’re hurt! Luna, you’re bleeding!”
“It doesn’t matter.” Luna held her close and whispered reassuring nothings into her ear. “It’s okay, Twilight. Just rest.”
The cave was quiet again. Liquid shadows mixed with blood as they ran down Luna’s back and pooled in the cracks of the cave. Her mane dimmed and corporealised as the magic receded.
“...What happened to Sombra…?” Twilight asked quietly. Her eyes were closed and her breathing was laboured. Luna didn’t say anything at first, just lit her horn and swept a healing spell across Twilight’s bruised and broken body.
“We’re going to be okay, Twilight.” Luna repeated. Twilight nodded. She understood.
Luna’s magic went out with a small, pitiful spark. She collapsed again, breath escaping with an ominous rattle in her lungs. Her light blue mane fell limp across her face and clumps of black shadow still stuck to her indigo coat.
“Luna!” Twilight tugged at her with her hooves. “Luna, wake up!”
Luna didn’t respond.
Twilight choked on a sob. This couldn’t be happening. Not now, not after all they’d done to survive. She lit her horn and gathered the darkness that coated the floor around them. The shadow mixed with her magic, dying it a thick black. Ignoring the pain that threatened to tear her horn apart, Twilight wrapped her and Luna in a thick cocoon of solid dark magic, cutting off the unearthly cold and the howls of the blizzard outside.
And as the spell finished, Twilight collapsed onto her marefriend and blacked out.
The client was Mild Manners, a student at Canterlot University. He was an earth pony. He arrived at my office door late that afternoon wearing a necktie, a tweed jacket, and a frown upon his face. He had a certain definition to his jawline that immediately pegged him as one of the “Canterlot Elite”, although his facial expression wasn’t quite as snooty as other ponies would have imagined an aristocrat would look.
He knocked, three times, sharp and brisk. Was he in a rush, or did he want to make a good impression?
As he entered my office and closed the door behind him, his hoof reached up and tugged at the collar of his jacket. He looked uncomfortable in tweed. He probably didn’t wear it very often. That made sense, then – he wanted to make a good impression.
I glanced around at my office. It was dusty, barebones, and existed in the middle of a downtown apartment complex. It was not an office owned by a member of the upper-class, in short.
The client must have realised this as well – his nose twitched a little bit as he took in my empty little office, although he tried very hard to hide it.
Mild Manners retrieved a handkerchief from his jacket pocket and cleared his throat into it. “Excuse me, sir?” he spoke, in a polite, friendly manner. “You are Private Detective Clue Seeker, yes?” He was smiling.
I smiled at him. “Yes, that’s me. I must infer that you are Mr Mild Manners, who arranged a meeting with me earlier today.”
As I spoke, Manners’ smile became more subdued. Had I slighted him, or made him uncomfortable? Or was it related to his issue? “That would be me.” He stepped up to my desk and stuck out his hoof. “I was told that you were very good at your job, Mr Seeker.”
I took his proffered hoof and shook it. “Yes, well, I–”
“Although you wouldn’t have known it, seeing the state of your office.” He laughed at that. I didn’t know whether he meant it as a joke or not. “I mean, for a moment there I thought I had been mistaken! I think it might have been the clothes.” He pointed at my coat with a look of plain distaste. “You should really try picking something a bit more professional. Ponies might take you more seriously, then. I mean, I already feel rather silly for wearing tweed, you understand.”
And with that, he sat down and smiled at me innocently. I decided, then, that I quite disliked Mild Manners.
“I see,” I responded. “Anyway, if we could get back on topic…”
“Oh, right, of course. I have an issue I need your assistance with, Mr Seeker.”
“I inferred as much.”
He chuckled. “Right. Now, my issue is rather... domestic. I’ve lost something important.” He paused.
I raised an eyebrow at him. “Go on. What did you lose?”
“A dog,” he admitted, eventually, in one quick exhale of breath. Was he embarrassed about this?
“Did you lose it, or has it simply gone missing?” I asked.
“The latter,” he told me. “I went off to my classes this morning, and when I returned at around midday, it was gone.”
I sighed internally. “Did you leave the door open?”
He looked almost offended at that. “Of course I didn’t!” He managed to maintain the expression for approximately three seconds before it collapsed into general anxiety. “At least, I don’t think I did…”
“Right.” I got to my hooves. “Well, the only place I can think to look would be your apartment, Mr Manners, unless you can think of anywhere else?”
Manners got to his feet too, and gave me a smile that was not quite grateful but definitely relieved. “Sounds like a good plan of action to me, Detective. Follow me, it’s not a very long walk, I assure you.”
I couldn’t really think of anything else to say, so I simply opened the door for my client and tried not to dwell on the disappointment swelling in my chest.
Another day, another dog disappearance, it seems.
-----
The walk to Mild Manners’ apartment was exactly as uneventful as I had imagined it would be.
The ten or fifteen minutes we spent walking to Manners’ place of accommodation was mostly spent in not-quite-awkward silence, spotted here and there with a halfhearted question regarding the case from myself and a few attempts at light conversation from Manners. Both lines of dialogue didn’t really go anywhere – the case seemed incredibly cut-and-dry, so there was little for me to ask about that wasn’t self-evident or irrelevant, and Mild Manners was also not somepony I particularly wished to speak to, so Manners tended to hold conversations with himself most of the time.
“Are you always like this?” he asked me, at one point.
I blinked. The question caught me off-guard. “What? Always like what?”
“I don’t know.” He peered at me. “Are you daydreaming? Or just distracted by some musings on esoteric philosophy? You’re quite distant, is what I’m saying.”
“I was just thinking about the case, Mr Manners. That’s kind of my job.”
He looked quite scathed at that. “Hey, come on, I just–” He paused, took a deep breath, and when he spoke again his voice had regained that annoying, wrong-generation register. “Sorry, Detective. You are a professional, and I respect that.”
I grunted, and we continued on.
Eventually, as we drew closer to his apartment, Manners stopped, turned to me, and said, “Uh, just before we go inside…”
“Yes?” I responded. He looked a bit uneasy. Was there actually more to this than there seemed? Or was I just looking for something interesting to think about?
“You… will keep this whole ‘case’ between ourselves, won’t you? Is client confidentiality part of your, ah, modus operandi?”
I raised an eyebrow. “If you want me to. Are you hiding something from me, Mr Manners? Because we both probably want to sort this out sooner rather than later.”
“Yes, yes, sorry, I just… It’s nothing. Let’s go inside, shall we?” And with that, he cantered forward to the entrance to the building, urging me to follow suit with a somewhat synthetic smile.
We climbed the stairs at a brisk pace, up to the third floor. There was hardly anypony else around, so I assumed that they were taking their classes still. Nevertheless, Mild Manners ushered me into his apartment quickly, as if he didn’t want me to be seen. Or maybe he didn’t want to be seen.
I think I was getting tired of Mr Manners’ odd behaviour by that point. Then I remembered the rent and my rather rundown office space, and I shouldered my complaints.
Mild Manners’ apartment was, to say the least, not what I had expected. There was soft, white, fluffy carpet padding the floor, and the room itself was larger than my office and apartment put together. A soft pink bed sat in the far corner, and the kitchen, dining area, and lounge made up the rest of the apartment, all of them polished and practically luxurious.
I sniffed the air. It smelled of… perfume?
“Strange taste in decor,” I commented, with a glance at Manners, who just gave me a rather nervous-looking smile that was probably intended to reassure, and did nothing of the sort.
“What can I say? Strange tastes for a strange pony, I suppose.” And he laughed. I waited for him to stop, then asked him to show me where the dog slept.
It took him a suspiciously long time to find the dog’s bed – it sat in one corner of the lounge, near a glass sliding door that led to the balcony. The bed was worn from years of use. A little food bowl before it had a name etched into it lovingly – “Maisie,” it said.
“Alright, now we’re getting somewhere.” I peered at the bed and shot a question to Manners over my shoulder. “What colour is Maisie’s fur?”
I could hear him pacing back and forth next to the dining table. “Um. Black, I think. It’s quite short and curly, too. Why?”
“There’s some of it here.” I lifted a hoof and prodded at a bit of curled black fur that had gotten caught on a nearby piece of furniture. It was the only hair I could see from a quick examination of the rest of the living area – even the bed itself seemed quite clean of dog hair for how lived-in it looked. “How often do you clean this place? It seems quite spotless.”
“Rather often, yes,” Mild said.
I took a quick sniff of the tuft of hair. It smelled and felt very fresh, still. “In that case…” I walked back to the front door and took a closer look at it. Lowering my head, I spotted another small tuft of hair caught in the doorframe. “Well, that solves that.”
“What?” I heard Manners get to his hooves. “I’m telling you, I didn’t leave the door open. It can’t have gotten out that way.”
“Did you lock the door?” I asked. “You didn’t when you left to come to my office. Might you have forgotten this morning, as well?”
He blinked. “Um.”
I scratched my chin. “Actually, a better question: does your dog know how to open doors?”
“Dogs can’t open doors. They’re dogs, not ponies.”
I gave him a blank look. “Dogs can learn how to open doors with handles, Mr Manners. I wouldn’t normally consider it, but I’m confident by now that you don’t know anything about this dog. It’s not yours, is it? Do you even own a dog?”
Manners shrank back a bit. “Well, I…”
“In fact, I’m also quite sure that this isn’t even your apartment.”
Mild Manners sighed. “Alright, alright, I get it. I lied. This isn’t my apartment, and we’re not looking for my dog.” He ran a hoof through his mane. “It’s my… friend’s dog. This is her apartment – she wanted to me to look after her dog for a day while she and her class are in Ponyville studying and working around some important apple farm. Something Apple Acres.”
I tried to avoid rolling my eyes at how he hung his head like a fallen hero. “Mr Manners, it’s not the end of the world. I doubt the dog has gone very far, and pet thievery is absurdly unlikely.”
He gave me a sour look. “I know. I’m as aware of the statistics as you are, Mr Seeker.” Mild Manners looked as if he was going to say something else, then just sighed. “It doesn’t matter. I’m sorry if you believe I’m wasting your time, detective. I just… I panicked. Sunny is coming back any minute now, and I don’t want to imagine what would happen if she found out her dog disappeared.”
I chewed my lip absently for a moment. “Hm. How long has the dog been gone?”
He looked at me in surprise. “Oh, well, less than a hour, easily.”
“Let’s ask around and see if we can find it. There’s no reason for me to quit now, and I have a job to do.”
He smiled at me, then, a genuinely grateful one. “Thanks, Clue. I owe you one.”
“Thanks. Though, I really would prefer it if you didn’t call me Clue.”
“Fine. Let’s hurry now, chop chop!”
We left the apartment and hurried down the steps to the front door. I decided, then, that this might not have been a particularly interesting case, by any means, and while I still found that most of everything about Mr Mild Manners rubbed me the wrong way, I could at least concede, at this point, that he had good intentions. I felt optimistic, then, which was a pleasant surprise.
And in fact, we almost made it out the front door before everything went entirely wrong.
“Mild?” a demure voice called out. We froze. "Mild, what are you doing?”
We turned, slowly. A petite pegasus mare – a very noble-looking one, with a pale coat and that same telltale quality of the jaw – as giving Manners a severe frown. Her back was laden with saddlebags full of papers and notes. She looked tired. “Care to explain?”
“Sunny! There you are!” Mild Manners said, stepping towards her. “So glad to see you back! Do you want me to help with your bags?”
“No thanks,” the mare said. She turned away, abruptly, and started fiddling with the clasp for her saddlebags. “How is Maisie? Was she any trouble?”
“No! No, she was an angel.” Mild smiled at her. It was a heartfelt expression. “Just like you.”
I turned my nose up at that. Pretty cheesy line. Evidently, Sunny thought the same thing – she snorted, then tugged open the clasp to her bag. A little dog with long, curly, black fur poked its head, and barked happily.
Mild’s jaw dropped. “Maisie?”
“I found her wandering around, digging through other pony’s rubbish.” Sunny shook her head. “If you have any excuses, I don’t want to hear them. It was pretty obvious that you were going to try and keep it hidden from me anyway.” And with that, she turned away and started climbing the steps.
Manners let out a cry of equal parts shock and frustration. “Sunny, please, I just didn’t want to worry you–”
Sunny turned her head sharply. Her eyes had the beginning of angry tears in them. “Face it, Mild Manners. This isn’t the first time you’ve done something stupid and insensitive over something like this – not by a long shot. And I’m sick of it. We’re done.”
Mild Manners didn’t say anything for a long, long moment. Eventually, he simply turned around, and walked out of the building.
I went to follow him. “Wait,” the mare said. I stopped, mostly out of complete surprise – somehow I had completely forgotten that I was even in the same room – and I turned to look back.
The mare looked me over, then sighed and walked back down the steps toward me. “You’re Clue Seeker, right? I’m really sorry about all this. Here, this is for all the trouble.” She held out a few bits – about enough as Mild Manners promised me for the case in the first place.
I accepted them gladly. “Thanks. I appreciate that.” I glanced at the open door behind me. “Although… Don’t you think you were a bit harsh? He was being stupid, yes, but his heart was in the right place.”
Sunny followed my gaze. “Mm. Maybe.” She sighed and shook her head. “I don’t know. Mild Manners is… I don’t know how to feel about him. But that’s not really something for you to worry about. Take care.”
I watched her go, for a moment, before leaving.
-----
Mild Manners looked very silly sitting there on the flagstones outside the building. I came to the conclusion that this was either due to his rather red cheeks, or it was because of his rather ridiculous tweed jacket.
I stood next to him and looked down at him. He continued to stare at the stones beneath him. “C’mon, Mr Manners. No point in hanging around here.”
“Oh, just call me Miles, like everyone else. Please.” Mild Manners pulled off his jacket and folded it under his arm. “This was a shambles. A complete and utter shambles.”
I just hummed, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. His voice had changed – it lacked the affected formal register. I wondered if he was even aware of it, or if that speaking style had just become a subconscious tic on his part.
“Urgh. This is going to be all over Canterlot soon.” He rubbed his eyes with his fetlocks. “And I’m supposed to be a model student too…”
“Are you going to be alright?” I asked him, somewhat hesitantly. I wasn’t really used to these kinds of conversations.
He looked at me and smiled a somewhat bitter smile. “Yeah. I’ll get over it eventually” He climbed to his hooves. “We should both be getting back home. I’m sure we both have work to do. It was nice meeting you, Mr Seeker. Really.”
I tried on a smile of my own. “Likewise.” And I’m sure somewhere in my heart, I meant it.
And that was how I met Mild Manners. It was a case like any other.
Sure, the buildings looked nice, and the streets were clean, and the view of Equestria’s rolling meadows from the mountainside city was among the most beautiful sights he’d ever seen, but Trinket was a country pony – Hoofshear was small, and tucked away into a cosy corner.
He felt out of his depth, he supposed. Although, from what Cadance had told him, that was not at all unusual.
Cadance. Trinket jolted out of his daydreams, looked around at the train station he was standing in (and looking kind of silly in), and trotted off towards the main street. He huffed a little bit – his packs were laden with gizmos and gadgets, trinkets and tinkerings, and endless bits-and-bobs he’d put together over the last year or so.
I quite liked some of these, he thought. But good golly, my workshop is cluttered enough as it is.
Stepping out from the surprisingly modest train station into the opulent streets crowded with tapered towers gave Trinket a bit of vertigo, but he was used to it enough by this point. His tinkering habits meant he came to Canterlot pretty much every year to sell off his various creations and get some money back. Sometimes he made a profit, sometimes he didn’t. He didn’t really care either way – as much as Canterlot unnerved him, it was at least a nice change of pace. Bartering his wares with the especially animated ponies of Canterlot tended to be more interesting than making horseshoes all day.
It didn’t take long to make it to the market. It should be confined to Diarch Square, but it had formed a habit over the last few years of just kind-of sprawling out, like a freshly-fed feline, in order to accommodate new arrivals. Stalls had a habit of crowding the streets. Trinket liked it; he could hear and see ponies chatting and smiling at one another through the chaos. It felt quite homely despite everything.
“Hey! Watch out!” somepony shouted. Trinket’s ears flickered, and he turned his head on reflex, but that didn’t save him from the unicorn carrying far too many books in his magic.
“Oof!” Trinket, predictably, lost his balance, the heavy weight of his saddlebags carrying him onto the flagstoned streets. He landed with a tinkling crash, as if someone had broken a pane of glass, and he winced at both the landing and the ominous noise. I probably should have expected this to happen.
He slid out from his saddlebags and pushed himself back up onto his hooves. There was a momentary lapse of silence when he looked around as everypony nearby noticed the tumble. Trinket looked down himself – a little knocked about but otherwise fine – and then over at the pony who’d crashed into him.
He was a white, smartly dressed unicorn – hardly a rarity in Canterlot – and he was sitting on the ground, eyes closed and rubbing his head. Books were splayed out around him. Some polite ponies trotted over and asked him if he was okay, to whom he smiled and assured them that was, in fact, perfectly fine. He got unsteadily to his hooves and looked around at his books. For a moment, he looked furious, as if he was going to punch something petulantly, before his placid smile snapped back into place so fast that Trinket thought he was just imagining things.
“Hey.” Trinket walked over and picking up a book in his telekinesis. “I’m really, really sorry,” he said, immediately feeling awkward, but pressing on regardless. “I should have got out of your way. Do you need any help with these books?”
The unicorn just smiled at him. “That would be great, thanks. Maybe you should check on your bags first, though?” His horn glowed as he spoke, his books lifting off the ground and forming a stack on the flagstones.
“Oh. Right.” Trinket looked down at his bags, hefted them, and heard the tinkling of broken bits inside. He sighed, opened the flaps, and peeked inside. “That’s not good…”
“What is it?” The white unicorn said from over his shoulder. Trinket heard his hoofsteps as he approached and looked into the bag. “Oh. That isn’t good.”
Do I still have enough to sell? Or should I just not bother this year?
“Wow, hey, I’m really sorry about this.” Trinket felt a hoof on his shoulder. He looked up and saw the unicorn looking at him with a miserable expression on his face. “I’ll help you get set up. How’s that?”
“W-Well, I–”
“Then it’s settled!” The unicorn pulled the saddlebags on with his magic, then turned around and lifted his books into the air, where they teetered ominously. “C’mon! Where are we going?”
Trinket looked at him. He was tall, taller than Trinket, but wasn’t particularly buff either – he looked ready to collapse already, and he hadn’t even moved. Trinket would feel bad if he just brushed him off, though.
“I arranged a spot in Diarch Square itself, I think…”
“Okay! Follow me!” The white unicorn began to march into town, Trinket at his heels.
Trinket learned a little bit about the surprisingly helpful unicorn during their ten minute trip to the town centre.
One: his name was Mild Manners. Trinket didn’t think this was a very good name for him – he seemed to flip between sadness and excitement at the drop of a hat. Trinket didn’t mention that, though. He didn’t want to be rude.
Two: he was studying at Canterlot University. He said this with some subtle pride, so Trinket assumed that was something worthy of respect, but Trinket didn’t know anything about Canterlot, let alone its university, so this didn’t really mean much to him.
Three: he was nobility. Mild hadn’t mentioned it at all, but Trinket just got the impression. He said ‘bath’ like ‘barth’ and ‘grass’ like ‘grarss’. Trinket would have pointed to his white coat as a reason, as well, but Mild Manners was strangely stringent on the fact that it was cream coloured.
“Oh, hey, here’s the spot!” Trinket said. He pointed to a small corner of the marketplace. The crowds were especially concentrated around Diarch Square, but Trinket knew how to squirrel without any real issues.
Mild, on the other hand, was lugging around more weight than he should be, even after Trinket took some of his books to carry. He was sweating and taking huffing breaths. “G… Good…” He said, between breaths. “Let’s… Let’s get you set up.”
The two trotted over to the little corner, where Mild pulled off the saddlebags and dropped his books before sitting down to rest. He caught his breath, then looked around in confusion. “Wait… Where’s your stall?”
“Oh, it’s here.” Trinket rooted around inside the saddlebags, then pulled out a cubic contraption. “Let’s hope my fall didn’t break it.” He dropped it in the centre of his assigned area, then lit his horn.
The cube immediately began to move. Seemingly independent of Trinket’s actions, the box flipped, folded, expanded, and, eventually, transformed into a modest stall.
“Phew.” Trinket wiped his brow. “That’s a relief.”
“I’ll say!” Mild leapt to his hooves, poking and prodding the stall with his hooves. His eyes were wide with wonder. “How in the world did you make this?”
“Oh.” Trinket fiddled with his hooves. “Well, it’s like, you take the shape of the stall, and you kind of unfold it, like a cardboard box, and then you kind of…” Trinket made vague box-shaped gestures. “It’s not that impressive, anyway. Mostly just magic.”
Mild Manners didn’t seem at all disappointed by Trinket’s vague explanation. If anything, he seemed only more excited. “So you sell stuff like this, then?” Without waiting for Trinket to respond, he opened the bag with his magic and pulled out a hoof-ful of gadgets.
“Oh.” Trinket’s fiddling became more erratic. “Yeah. Well, mostly make them, but sell them too. Mostly metal stuff, you know.”
Mild peered at the trinkets, one by one, before placing them on the stall. “I can’t even tell what half of these do. They look amazing, though.” He pulled out a weirdly shaped piece of metal. “Wow, what’s this? Some kind of modern art? A sculpture, maybe?”
“Oh.” Trinket, eventually, got his fiddling under control. “No, that’s… broken.”
Mild deflated at that. “I’m sorry.”
“No, no! We’ve been over this, it’s my fault, I…” Trinket pleaded, but he trailed off when he realised Mild had gone back to wallowing in self-pity. “Look, how about I…” He thought quickly. “Maybe I can show you how to make some of these?”
Mild’s head jerked up, astonished. “You would do that?”
“I guess? I mean, sure.” Trinket looked away, abashed. “I mean, you seem to be pretty good with your magic, and you have to be pretty clever to go to Canterlot University, right? You can get the hang of it pretty quickly, probably.”
Mild made a show of looking skeptical, but his breast swelled up a little regardless. “Well, if you think I can…”
“I definitely think you can.” Trinket smiled. “But let’s get set up first, shall we?”
It had been about an hour since they’d set up the stall.
Trinket had been glad to discover that only some of the things he’d brought had actually broken, and that most of them were still sales-worthy. Amongst the scrap, he picked out a slightly broken old clock he’d made a long time ago, and a few spare parts that he kept around with him. After going over some of the things he knew with Mild, and showing him generally what he had to do, Trinket handed him some tools and asked him to fix the clock. Mild nodded, then sat near the stall and began to work on the clock.
Trinket, meanwhile, put some of the more useful things he had up on display – a watch, a set of horseshoes, some nails, as well as the odd peculiarity he found in the bottom of his bags. His corner of the marketplace was relatively quiet, and so only a few ponies actually came nearby and pondered his goods, but Trinket didn’t mind. He liked being able to relax and tinker with something idly while he sat at the stall, as well as help his new friend with his own project.
As time passed by, Mild got more and more annoyed.
“What does this do?” he asked Trinket, for the third time. “I can’t get it to fit.”
“Just think about it. Imagine it’s a puzzle, and you need to put the right pieces in to fix it.”
“But…” Mild huffed. “You keep telling me that, but it doesn’t really mean anything. Aren’t you supposed to be teaching me?”
Trinket fiddled with his hooves. “Well… I don’t really know what to say that’ll help you. I can show you what you need to do next, if you want.”
“Okay.” Mild shoved it at him with his magic. “Try that.”
Trinket took the pieces in his hooves, looked at them for a moment. “See, you just need to put this here, and then this goes here – you need to be careful with this, ‘cause it’s fragile – and then…” He handed it back, slightly more completed than it was beforehand. “Try working from there.”
“Why do you use your hooves?” Mild gave him a suspicious look. “Does magic not work, or something?”
“Of course not.” Trinket looked back at the stall, hoping to see a customer there. “I just… work better with my hooves. Always have.”
Mild stared at him for a moment. Then he returned to his corner and went back to working.
Another hour passed.
“I can’t do this.” Mild trotted up to Trinket. “It’s beyond repair,” he said, slamming the half-finished clock down in front of his friend.
Trinket looked up at him, then frowned at the clock. “Hmm. That’s a shame.”
“‘That’s a shame’? Is that it?” Mild sat on his haunches and glared at him. “I thought you said you could teach me to do it.”
“I can! I think. Maybe.” Trinket looked around, then down at the bits and pieces in his hooves. “Here. Take these, and try just, like, tinkering with them. See what you can make.”
Mild looked down at the pieces with a skeptical look, then, as if to copy Trinket, took them with his own hooves.
Trinket winced when their hooves touched. “Ouch.”
Mild looked at him, slightly surprised. “What? Are you hurt?”
“No, no.” Trinket turned his hooves over and looked at the multiple burn scars on the back. “Just some old bruising.”
Mild spared them a glance, then turned and strode off into his corner again. “Alright, I’ll be back in a bit.”
The market was only halfway over when Trinket heard the noise. It was a rather familiar scream of frustration, followed by an even more familiar tinkling crash.
Trinket’s head whipped around. Mild Manners stood, huffing and puffing, while a little pile of twisted bits and pieces lay in a little pile on the floor. Trinket got up and trotted over to his friend.
“Stupid broken silly little pieces of…” Mild jolted when Trinket touched his shoulder. “What?”
“Are you alright?” Trinket asked, and immediately regretted it.
Mild’s head whipped around and he glared at him, with tears of frustration budding at the corners of his eyes. He seemed like he was getting ready to shout, before he paused, looked down at himself, and let it all out with a heaving sigh.
“I’m sorry, Trinket.” Mild looked at him with a miserable expression on his face, then kneeled down to pick up the twisted pieces on the floor. “I just… I don’t get it. The pieces never seem to come together, no matter if I use magic, or hooves with the tools, or…” Mild levitated the pieces onto the stall counter and trailed off. “Maybe I just don’t have the knack for it.”
“No, I get it.” Trinket smiled at him, as if to reassure him. “I was sometimes like that too, even to this day. But I had a way better teacher when I was learning.” He rubbed the back of his head. “I’m gonna be honest, I don’t even know the first thing about teaching. Most of it came naturally. You must be like that with some stuff too, right?”
Mild hesitated, then nodded his head, smiling bashfully. “Yeah, I suppose so. Ah well.”
“Oh, hey, I also finished fixing that clock.” Trinket levitated over the old clock, which ticked along merrily. “I mean, not to show off. I just want you to have it. As a gift, you know?”
Mild looked down at the clock. Then he gave Trinket a large, sincere smile. “Thank you. It means a lot. Also, I just realised this second that I’m gonna be late for my afternoon classes, so I should really, really get going now. Bye, Trinket!”
And with that, Mild Manners took the clock, picked up his books, and galloped off towards the University.
Trinket sat down at his stall. He looked at his gizmos and gadgets, trinkets and tinkerings, and endless bits-and-bobs that had plagued his workshop floor, and he smiled.
The first words out of my mother’s mouth that day were, “Make sure you’re on your best behaviour, Mild.”
We were on the train when she said it, about halfway to Ponyville. The last hour or so had been spent in near-total silence, save for the sounds of my father smoking as he stared out the window at the passing countryside.
I looked up from my textbook, stared at my mother, and went, “I’m sorry?”
“This festival is really very important to us, darling,” Mother said. She sniffed once, frowned, and reached for a pre-emptive handkerchief. “Especially to your father. We’d rather appreciate it if you didn’t… didn’t..” She sneezed, rather elegantly, into her handkerchief. “Oh, confound this cold.”
It wasn’t a cold, I wanted to remind her. It was hay fever. She’s the only earth pony I’ve ever met who has hay fever. Needless to say, it wasn’t something she liked to talk about.
So I didn’t mention it. “I’m twenty years old, Mother.”
She gave me a look. “And?”
I sighed internally. “Nothing. I’ll be on my best behaviour, Mother.”
“Good.” She looked at me a tad more warmly this time, and I even thought she was going to ruffle my hair or pinch my cheeks or something, but she just walked over to my Father and began to speak with him, just quietly enough that I couldn’t hear the words.
I glared down at my book, closed the cover, and dropped it onto the floor next to my bed. I stretched out on the mattress and felt like punching something. Doing so would probably end up costing my parents a lot of money – we were in a private carriage, reserved for the occasional noble customer, and it was far from cheap. It was exactly like my parents’ home, which probably explains why they insisted on hiring it despite it being kind of against the spirit of the whole “being in touch with our humble roots” ordeal.
When I was much younger, on my first trip down to Ponyville for the Forest Festival, I’d tried to complain to my father that I didn’t want to go. That I’d rather stay in Canterlot and play with all my friends there.
Father just said, “Sometimes family is more important than friends.” I don’t think I ever really understood what he had meant by that. My friends were, well, friendly. My family was just… there. I told him that, if family was so important, he’d let me stay in Canterlot. I don’t really remember what happened then. Perhaps he just ignored me. Moving out as soon as I was able was one of the most refreshing moments of my life, in any case.
Whatever. I asked my parents how long it would take until we were there.
“An hour,” Father intoned, before plugging his pipe back between his teeth. Mother was humming a little song to herself and rubbing her husband’s withers. Lost in their own little world.
I was wondering if I should attempt a conversation, but I felt, rather bizarrely, as if that would be intruding on something. So I turned over, away from the light, and tried to sleep.
The Forest Festival is an earth pony tradition which nopony knows who, or what, actually started, but has existed for as long as anypony can remember. Many scholars make the rather reasonable assumption that earth ponies brought it with them all the way back when they helped found Equestria.
It’s a very simple affair, which some ponies might say is quite befitting of an earth pony festival: singing, dancing, drinking, and more drinking, often outdoors and amongst Mother Nature, naturally.
Really, I had nothing wrong with the idea on paper. I mean, I enjoy a nice party as much as anypony else. But it’s different when you’re there in person, in a way I can’t really put my hoof on.
Anyway, we arrived into Ponyville station precisely one hour after I took my nap. My parents gathered their luggage and we stepped out onto the platform. It wasn’t long before somepony noticed us waiting.
That somepony happened to be wearing a crown. “Excuse me, sir,” Princess Twilight said as she approached us, with an infectious smile. “Are you Sir Temper, from Canterlot?”
Father nodded brusquely. “Yes, your Highness.” He gestured to us. “My family and I are here for the Forest Festival.”
Princess Twilight nodded excitedly. “Yes, of course.” She caught Mother staring at her with open surprise. “I’m, um, sorry if I surprised you, ma’am. Applejack asked me to help organise the Festival this year, as a favor. And how could I say no?” She laughed, kind of nervously. “So, shall I help you with your accommodation?”
Father tilted his head at her, not unkindly. Mother beat him to the punch: “Oh, no, your Highness! We wouldn’t like to take up your precious time, after all.”
Princess Twilight waved a hoof. “Oh, it’s no trouble at all. This is my job, after all. Please, just follow me.”
Mother hummed happily to herself. “Hmm, well, if you insist.”
“I think I’ll go explore Ponyville first, actually,” I said. I didn’t really want to listen to Mother trying to butter up the princess for the next half hour or so. “It was an honour to finally meet you in person, your Highness.” I bowed as best as I could without looking silly.
Mother looked almost disapproving, for a moment, before she gave my words some actual thought. “Good idea, Mild. You’re old enough to look after yourself, after all!” she said, smiling at Princess Twilight all the while.
I turned to leave, but Princess Twilight stopped me with an, “Oh, Mild Manners, is it? You go to Canterlot University, right?”
I looked back at her, again, trying not to look stupid. “Oh. Um, yes, I do. Why do you ask, your Highness?”
She smiled. She seemed almost conspiratorial. “The castle library is open to the public. My assistant Spike is looking after it while I’m organising the festival. I think you should go there if you’re looking for something to do.”
I smiled. My final exams were right around the corner. She knew. “Thank you, Princess,” I said, and I meant it.
About a year ago, after Tirek’s brief reign of terror, somepony mentioned Princess Twilight’s new palace to me, and I didn’t believe them – a crystal castle, just growing out of the ground? It sounded like some enormous exaggeration, or a joke, or any one of the endless stories that ponies like to produce about the youngest princess. But then I started seeing pictures of it in newspapers, and later in photographs taken by waves of tourists, all of which seemed to only confirm the rumours.
Today marked the first time I’d seen it with my own eyes. And it was… really impressive. If a bit garish. It was a sunny day, which only made the massive crystalline structure difficult to look at without hurting your eyes.
The doors were wide open in welcome, with a few ponies standing around outside, taking pictures or chatting with one another. Most of them were earth ponies – they were probably in the same boat as me, or at least a similar one. Canterlot didn’t really have much of an earth pony tradition, while Ponyville was literally founded on it.
A few of the ponies outside seemed to come to the same conclusion about me, and smiled my way as I walked past. It was strange. I mean, I’ve lived in Canterlot all my life, and that’s a unicorn city – being an earth pony had precisely no impact on my social life, but at the same time there was never this implied feeling of… solidarity, that only ever seemed to occur here. Maybe there wasn’t, and I’m just imagining things, but it certainly felt that way.
The castle library was, thankfully, a tiny bit more subdued in design than the exterior. Despite being relatively new, the room was clearly well lived-in – amidst near piles of books, you could see used coffee mugs, paintings of Ponyville hanging lovingly from the walls, and slight soot-stains in the empty hearth.
I wandered between the shelves for a long while, just kind of thinking. Honestly, my upcoming exams were far from my mind right then. The library was weirdly hypnotic – it was pleasantly quiet, with the distant sounds of rustling pages and the ticking of a grandfather clock. It didn’t have that same feeling of sheer age that many of the archives of Canterlot shared, but it was infinitely more homely.
After about… I don’t know, maybe half an hour or so of aimless wandering, I found a little seating area, tucked away into a corner of the library, with a table and some comfy looking chairs. That’s where I met this particular pegasus. It was really hard to ignore him – his orange coat and flaming mane were almost garish, or at least noticeable enough to snap me back to the real world. He was currently curled over his book. I couldn’t see the title.
I wondered if I should bother interrupting him. Absorbed would be a good way to describe him – his wings were flat against his side and his eyes were open wide, as if they were trying to optically consume as many words as possible. I think it was both that and his appearance that made him stand out to me, in the end.
“Hello?” I whispered. The pegasus’s ear twitched, and he peered up at me, blinking rapidly, as if he’d just woken up from a nap. “Hey. I was just wondering what you were reading.” I pointed with a hoof at his book, which, when I got closer, seemed to be pretty huge, like an old textbook.
He blinked at me. Then he smiled, albeit hesitantly. “Oh, it’s uh…” He stood the book up, so I could read the title: ‘A Brief History of Magic’. “Just some light reading.”
I raised an eyebrow at the thick tome. “Heh. Sure.” I slid into the seat next to him. “So, you’re interested in magic?” I propped up my head on my hoof, inviting him to speak. Small talk tended to be a good way to pass the time, and, if nothing else, there was some stuff I wanted to ask about.
He blinked at me again, his eyes flicking up to my forehead for a moment. “Oh, um, I guess I am.” He shook his head. “Sorry, I just need to ask… you’re from Canterlot, right?”
I blinked, looked down at myself. I was wearing a jacket, as most ponies I knew were wont to do, and a very fine one at that – cut to my size, in fact. “I am, actually. Why do you ask?”
“Miss Twilight mentioned to somepony that ponies would be coming from Canterlot today, for the Festival.” He shrugged, and looked somewhat bashful. “I, uh, actually thought you would be unicorns. But I guess that doesn’t really make sense, does it, considering you’re probably coming here for the Forest Festival….”
I frowned. “Are you… disappointed, that I’m not a unicorn?”
He looked surprised, and shook his head rapidly. “No, no, nothing like that! I just... Miss Twilight told me stuff about Canterlot before, and apparently it has a stronger unicorn heritage than Ponyville has an earth pony one. I wanted to ask a few questions, is all.” He rubbed the back of his head. “I’m a bit of a magic buff, see. I just think the whole thing is fascinating.”
“Well, I know plenty of unicorns, and I go to Canterlot University.” I felt my chest push itself out a bit. “My name is Mild Manners, pleasure to meet you. So, what did you want to ask?”
He tilted his head and looked uncertain. “I’m Firefly. Are you… sure? I mean, I wouldn’t want to take up your time, if you’re here for the Festival.” He scratched at his chin, then, and fired out another question before I could get another word in. “But why?”
“Why what?”
“Why come here?” He looked genuinely confused. “Ponyville’s an earth pony town, historically, but surely it’s a long way to come for what I’ve always thought was a national celebration.”
I blinked at that. “Well, Canterlot has plenty of earth ponies, but they’re not really… it’s just not a big thing back home.” Though it did make me wonder. I think Mother would much prefer it if there was something a bit closer to home, but then, Father likes to stick to traditions.
Firefly gave me a confused look. I snapped back with, “I could ask the same of you, you know. Pegasi stay in Cloudsdale, historically. Why are you living in an earth pony place?”
Firefly shrugged. “We all have places where we belong. I’m a pegasus living groundside. You’re an earth pony who lives among the Canterlot nobility. Maybe it isn’t the norm, but I don’t see why it shouldn’t be, y’know?”
I blinked. I hadn’t even intended to get into this discussion, but I found myself lost in thought. I didn’t like my family. Sure, I loved them – they were still family, after all – but there’s a reason why I was so reluctant to get on that train ride – Canterlot politics doesn’t infect ponies with the same simple optimism that seems to pour out of everypony in Ponyville. Quite the opposite. Even then, I couldn’t picture any of us living here, away from Canterlot and high society, even if we would be away from it all.
I didn’t really know what to think. I glanced at the clock, realised that the Festival was starting soon, and left Firefly to his books.
The Forest Festival went by in a strange blur. The Apple family, the hosts of the event, invited the numerous guests into a rolling meadow, which had fire pits, a stage, numerous stalls selling snacks and drinks, and an enormous tree standing tall atop a small hill, which had been decorated with ribbon and filigree.
There was a speech or two, I think. They were short, and they probably talked about earth ponies being great, and I’ve forgotten what words were said. I was mostly just watching my parents out of the corner of my eye. Mother, despite her sneezing, seemed at least somewhat content. Father, though, just stood silently, his expression unreadable.
I tried to distract myself, for a while. I joined in on the dancing, and drinking, and I played games, but in the end, I found myself wandering over to the fire pit where Father sat, drinking cider and speaking on occasion.
I sat next to him, holding my own mug. “Hey.”
He raised an eyebrow at me, sipped at his drink, and asked, “What is it?”
I just shrugged. “Nothing, really. Just saying hi.”
He nodded. We sat there, quietly, and we drank. Talking was an easy thing for me – I was good at. I think my father is as well – he’d have to be – but most of the time he just chooses to be silent.
The question burned inside my chest. “Father?” I said.
He looked at me.
“Why do we always come here?” I gestured to the party going on around us. The sun had just set, but the fires burned brightly enough to light up the night. “Every year?”
He tilted his head. “Did the idea that I might just enjoy this Festival not occur you?”
“Well, I mean.” I waved a hoof. “I get that, but if you enjoyed celebrations, you could just… make your own. Canterlotians held plenty of parties.” I should know. University life had its benefits.
He looked down at his cider. “This one is special,” was all he told me. I think I knew why.
I put a hoof on his shoulder. “Did you used to live here?”
He glanced at me. “Hmm?”
“You told me once that family was important. I didn’t get it at the time, but this is family to you isn’t it?” I sipped at my cider. “More than just us. More than just me.”
We lapsed into silence, for a time.
Then, “Mild.”
“Yes?”
“I know how you feel.”
“About what?”
“About us. I was the same, once. I wanted to strike out. I wanted to be me. My own father and I grew distant, eventually. I moved to Canterlot, eventually. The rest is history.” He sighed. “But I forgot myself. I woke up to it eventually. You wanted to be your own pony, so I let you be that, even if it meant parting ways.” He rubbed his chin. “Nowadays, I just keep coming back to this, and I keep dragging you along with me. Maybe so you can understand.”
“There’s always a place where we belong, you know,” I said. “Maybe at heart, you’re no Canterlotian, just like I’m no Ponyvillian.”
He looked at me, then. “Perhaps,” he said.
The rest of the night? We just sat, and sipped our cider, and watched the fireworks, and thought.
Celestia blinked, and tore her gaze from the horizon to look at the Draconequus that had chosen to wrap himself around her. Discord leaned his head on a paw, a glass of chocolate milk in his other hand.
"Bored?" She asked. Bored of what?"
"That." He pointed with a claw. Celestia followed it back to the sunset before them. The skies were painted vivid shades of red, orange, and pink. It was, perhaps, Celestia's favourite time of the day; when the sun slowly returned to its slumber, and the moon took up the mantle. "How do you put up with it?"
Frowning dubiously, Celestia searched Discord's face, and found – to her astonishment – absolutely no sign that he was joking. In fact, she almost believed that there was genuine curiosity in those mismatched eyes of his.
Almost believed.
"Discord." She asked, with a tired sigh. "What are you getting at?"
Discord was unmoved. "Every day, the sun rises. Every day, the sun sets. Every. Day. Over and over and over and over and – well, you get the idea." He looked at her properly now, and asked her again. "How?"
Celestia's mouth instinctively opened with a retort already forming. Then it shut again. Then she thought.
"I don't know." She eventually answered, and with complete honesty. "It's just how it's always been, I suppose." She frowned again. "Why do you ask?"
Discord shrugged, taking another sip of his chocolate milk. "I want to know more about you. I mean, we're married now, are we not? And let's face it; whoever invented the phrase 'opposites attract' would have taken one look at us and laughed."
Celestia hummed thoughtfully, before taking a sip of her wine. The couple sat on the mountaintop in a companionable silence while the sun slowly sank below the horizon.
Then Celestia spoke, "What about you? What would you do instead? Let the moon and sun trade places randomly?"
Discord scratched at his goatee lazily. "Perhaps. Yes, that sounds about right. Unless you were expecting it, in which case I wouldn't do that at all." Discord gestured with his paw. "Because, you know, Master of Chaos and all that. As long as the system is thoroughly destroyed, I'm happy."
For perhaps the first time in her long, long life, Celestia tried seeing the world from Discord's point of view. "What about the beings who rely on that system, though? Ponies need plants, and plants need the sun. That's how it's always been."
Discord smiled mysteriously. "Ah, but you forget; life can adapt to change. Astonishingly quickly, at that. And being confined to a system is just so..." he shuddered. "...orderly."
Celestia laughed. "I suppose it is, at that. Who knew!"
Discord pouted at Celestia, and she laughed even harder. Eventually, the scowl broke into a smile, and the two laughed together, as the day came to yet another end.
"Lunaaaaa..." a sweet voice sang playfully. "Come to bed, you silly mare!"
I looked up from my desk to see Twilight poking her head around the door to my office, the endless rows of books lining the walls making it seem as if she were calling to me from the top of a deep pit. I rubbed at my tired eyes and smiled at her such that my fangs poked through my lips. Twilight loved that smile of mine.
"My apologies, love," I said, rising to my hooves and wincing as an old injury on my leg burned briefly, "I just had a few papers to finish."
"You always have papers to finish." Twilight curled her lip into a devilish and mildly flirty pout.
"Queens often do."
"You never used to have papers to finish," Twilight said, pushing the lacquered door open fully and sashaying her way into the room. Her long and graceful silks drifted across the carpet behind her. "So that begs the question: are there just more papers, or are you just getting old and tubby?"
I winced. "Ouch. Thank you for hurting my feelings, dearest."
"Someone has to keep you humble, Your Majesty." She stuck her tongue out at me.
I swept my eyes across the remaining paperwork and took in none of it. "Is this because of my commenting on your posterior the other night?"
Twilight sniffed. "I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about."
"It's not my fault you're so sensitive." I flicked a long, black wing at her rump and relished the sharp eek! that followed. "See? It's a hair trigger down there."
"That was a low blow." She smothered a smile and shot me a glare.
"So we're equal, then." I stuck my tongue out, and got a playful slap in return.
"Yeah, yeah." Twilight turned away and glanced across the bookshelves idly. Her damp mane was tied up messily, and she smelled of lavender. She had just come out of the shower, apparently. "How long are you going to be, Luna?"
I swept a wing across my desk. "Strangely enough, I just finished." I stepped up behind my lover and lowered my head down to nibble at her ear and listen to her hum and laugh in delight.
I enjoyed these brief pleasures in this uncertain world of ours.
"You have so many books in this old castle," Twilight said distantly. I trailed kisses down her neck. "I'm an egghead, and even I don't know what half of these books are about."
"I'm a busy mare," I said. My mane of stars brushed against Twilight's cheek. "And I'm quite the dabbler, as well."
"Or maybe you're just a hoarder."
I snorted. "Please. I prefer 'collector.'"
Twilight giggled. "Well, you're quite the avid collector, then." She sighed. "I remember when I first saw the library here. I couldn't believe my eyes. So many books!" I heard her giggle to herself. "Spike wasn't impressed at all, though. Silly dragon."
Immediately, the moment shattered, and I recoiled as cold terror swept down my spine. Twilight didn't notice - her eyes were strained shut in concentration. "Wait... No, that was... Who's Spike? You were with me... right?"
Twilight shook her head and opened her eyes again. "Luna?" She looked back at me and her eyes widened. "Luna, what's wrong?"
I blinked and realised that I had opened my wings and beared my teeth on reflex, and forced myself to stand normally despite the mild horror turning in my gut. "My apologies. Something you said just... brought back memories."
Twilight blinked. "Oh. It's alright." She looked up at me in concern. "Are you sure you're okay? You look tense."
I glanced over at a mirror on my desk and stared briefly into my own reptilian eyes, then turned and walked to the door. "I'm sure, dear. Shall we go to bed?"
But when I turned around, Twilight was still peering at the shelves. "Mhm. Just a minute."
"Twilight."
"Yeah, I heard you."
I stepped toward her. "Twilight, can you please-"
"Hey," she said, "Did you know this book is in the wrong place?" And she lifted a hoof and tugged a very particular hardback out of its place.
There was a loud crash and clunk of moving machinery, and the bookshelf that Twilight had been facing slid backwards and to the side. Ethereal light bathed Twilight in a silver hue as she stared disbelievingly into the hidden corridor.
"Ah," I said, striding across the room towards her. "I was rather hoping you wouldn't find that."
"Luna..." Twilight breathed. "What is this?"
I stood behind her and followed her gaze up to the huge magic circle, inlaid with glowing runes that shifted and turned even as we watched. "It's..." I wasn't sure what to tell her.
"No, wait, I can read these. This is... a containment field?"
My injured leg twitched as I stared at my magical creation. "Exactly that."
"But... What's it for? And why was it hidden here?"
"Twilight." I lay my hoof on her shoulder. "We should go to sleep. I'll tell you all about it in the morning."
Twilight didn't move. I called her name again: "Twilight?"
I heard her giggle. "So, is this your little secret, then?" she said, in a sultry tone.
"What?"
"Don't you try and lie to me, Lulu." My leg twitched again. "I know you've been squeamish about something. Is this it?"
"I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about," I said with forced cheeriness.
"What happens if I do this?" She put her hoof directly in the middle of the circle. "Ooh, it's warm."
"I'd very much rather you didn't."
"Oh?" She was loving every minute of this. It would normally be endearing, but right now it just fed my greatest fears. "Then what happens if I do this?"
Her horn glowed. I didn't even have time to throw her out of the way before the seal came undone and golden, heavenly magic exploded into the room. I only just managed to avert my eyes as the power washed over me like a divine wave, and my horn burned black as I reforged the circle and banished the energy back to whence it came.
The damage had already been done.
"L-Luna?" A tiny voice spoke. Twilight stared at the seal and didn't turn around. I couldn't see her face.
I didn't answer at first. I instead stepped aside and closed the hidden passageway, the weathered bookshelf sliding serenely back into place as if nothing had happened.
"Luna? What happened? Where are you?"
"I'm here, Twilight."
She turned and looked at me. "You... You're not Luna," she stammered, stepping away from me. Her eyes were wide and terrified. "You're..."
I felt the condemnation smash my heart in two. "Twilight, please."
"Oh no." She took another step away from me. "This isn't right. We stopped you. You're gone. Why are you here. Please let me go."
"It's all going to be okay." I stepped towards her gently, keeping my voice soft and calming. "I'm not going to hurt you."
"Where are my friends? Where am I? I just want to go home." She was curled up on the floor, now, breathing in and out and in and out and in and she was hyperventilating and she was crying and all I wanted to do was scream in purest rage.
But I didn't. Instead, I curled up around my broken lover, and stroked her mane until she was sobbing quietly into my midnight coat.
"Princess Celestia? Is that you?" she whispered.
It hurt. Oh by the gods, it hurt.
"I'm here, Twilight. It'll all be okay."
I took a deep breath, and brushed my hoof against the runes set into the back of Twilight's head.
Twilight woke up in the darkness, and she was cold. It was a deep coldness that she felt – a coldness that permeated her skin and bones and deadened her limbs 'till she could no longer feel the downy softness of her pillow against her coat.
These cold winter nights tend to get pretty nasty, Twilight figured. She reached out and fumbled, blindly, for her duvet, but she felt nothing. Twilight frowned, opened her eyes, and lit her horn.
Or, at least, she tried to. She couldn't feel her magic, and her horn did not ignite. She could no longer hear Spike's deep, throaty snoring.
Twilight got to her hooves. She was lying on the floor, although it was certainly not her floor. Ear cocked, she heard the sound of running water (although the sound was subtly off, in a way she couldn't quite put her hoof on) in the distance, and began to walk. Her hoofsteps clacked against the stone beneath her, but the echoes were deadened in the vast silence that surrounded her.
Twilight did not know where she was, but she did not feel scared. She just felt tired, and alone.
The darkness began to recede, as she walked, or perhaps it was being replaced. Stars grew, in this void, and they watched her silently as she passed. Judging. Knowing. Their light was harsh, and it hurt Twilight's eyes, but she knew that they did not hate her. If anything, it was the opposite.
She knew lots of things, now that she really thought about it. She just hadn't been in the right frame of mind to realise it until now.
The echoes of her footsteps grew louder. The stars bled blue blood and it seeped through the sky until it was stained the colour of night. The moon rose. Twilight walked on.
Eventually, Twilight could see a tiny island, in the centre of a huge sea, and she was walking on a bridge. The moon's light was soft, softer than the stars, at the very least.
Twilight could see her now. She was standing there, waiting. Smiling.
It began to rain. The rain was heavy and sunk into her coat.
"So," she said, as Twilight approached. "You've returned. Welcome home."
Twilight's voice was flat, when she spoke. "Thanks. Although, I don't think I ever really left."
The other mare's teeth flashed white against her deep, dark coat. "You're a good thinker."
Twilight shrugged. "I assume you're just buttering me up so that I slip into your trap easier, or whatever this is."
"Why would you assume that?" she asked. She seemed almost genuinely hurt by it. She was a good liar.
"Because..." Twilight frowned. She couldn't remember. It had been so long ago, hadn't it?
The other mare noticed her distress, and she draped a great wing across Twilight's back. Twilight didn't notice her when she moved, but accepted the gesture grudgingly. "I understand. Sharp minds need to rest, you know, and that's exactly why you're here."
"But I was just sleeping."
"You were. You still are, technically, but you won't be waking up any time soon." Silence, for a moment. "I'm sorry."
"I don't think you are."
"And yet I am." Her eyes glowed a deep teal. Her irises were thin slits, the eyes of a predator, but they held no malice when Twilight looked into them. Only regret, and sadness, and something else that Twilight had forgotten. "Is that so hard to believe?"
"Perhaps," Twilight said. "But you don't act like I remembered you do."
The mare shook her head, and offered a forsaken smile. "That wasn't really me. My image was taken in vain. She asked me for it, and I could not refuse. I do not resent her for it."
"You should," Twilight told her, neither approving nor disapproving.
"But I cannot. I love her too much," the Nightmare said. "And you, as well. Are you satisfied with how you left things?"
Twilight pondered. Her hooves shook, and her bones creaked, and her back ached under the weight of her wings. "Not really, no. But I'm a hard pony to satisfy. A lot of things were left undone, and a lot of things were done that I shouldn't have, and in the end I wonder how things might have gone. Ponies left me behind. I left ponies behind. Things that seemed constant were not so. Things that seemed like a fleeting pain would last forever. And yet, despite it all, I do not wish to go back and undo all I have wrought." Twilight shook her head. "But you know all this, don't you?"
The Nightmare smiled. She did know. She was perhaps the only one who ever would.
Twilight stepped closer on trembling and unsteady hooves. The true Mare of the Night smiled widely and accepted the little purple alicorn into her embrace.
"I love you," Twilight whispered.
"And I love you too. I always will." The sound of rushing water grew louder.
Nightmare Moon held Twilight Sparkle close, and the darkness flooded them both. It was warm, and Twilight sighed.
Luna hummed a jaunty tune as she strode through the castle corridors. She'd heard by way of guard's gossip that her dear friend, the unicorn Twilight Sparkle, was visiting Canterlot for the weekend, and Luna was fortunate enough to have finished her duties for the day. Celestia had told her that she was going to be "busy" with her, but Luna was sure she was just being selfish. Twilight was her friend too, after all.
Luna danced up the tower staircase to her sister's chambers as she thought about all the things she could do now. A walk in the park? A stroll through the gardens? A trot through the fields? Who knows! The world was her oyster, after all. An errant thought made itself known, and Luna grinned; if she was not mistaken, Twilight Sparkle was a renowned astronomer.
Oh, this will be so much fun! Luna thought, as she approached Celestia's room.
"Oh, Tia..."
"Oh, my Twilight..."
Luna froze, her hoof floating uncertainly before the door. A lance of ice shot down her spine. Slowly, she turned her head to the side and listened with rather ashamed intensity.
"Mmm, you've been practising, haven't you..."
Luna forced herself to swallow. She was painfully aware that her jaw was hanging loosely somewhere near her hooves, but she was a tad too distracted to fix it. This isn't happening this is all just a dream oh no oh no-
"Ehehe, thank you, my queen..."
"MY QUEEN?!" Luna shoved a hoof in her mouth. The silence was almost threatening in its absoluteness as she peeled inched backwards down towards the stairs.
Luna tried to desperately not to think of what was happening behind those evil, evil doors. I think I'll just go talk to Blueblood some more. It will be far less soul-destroying than this...
"Did you hear something, Princess?"
Celestia peeled her eyes away from the door to look at her student, who was looking at her worriedly. She smiled reassuringly, and drew some relief from watching the frown pull itself back into a smile.
"Nothing to be concerned about, my dear Twilight. And, please, call me Tia." She looked down at the board and pondered, pretending not to notice Twilight's blooming blush.
"Bishop to E4. Checkmate."
Twilight snapped out of her daydreaming and stared at the board. "Oh darn it. I lost again!"
Celestia watched Twilight's beautiful smile fall once again. Her Faithful Student was sad. That, she could not abide.
"Twilight."
"Yes, Prin-"
Celestia kissed her gently on the lips. She pulled away after a moment.
"Twilight!" She heard her name. She heard the voice and the pain that it carried. But she didn't respond to it. She couldn't turn back now.
"Twilight, talk to me! Please!"
She watched the rain as it slashed against her skin. She listened to the wind as it whipped at her mane. She looked down at Equestria, and she took a deep breath. No turning back now, she reminded herself.
"My love, please! You don't have to do this!"
The voice was close now; if she were to turn around now, she was sure she would see the owner there, her eyes wide with betrayal. So she didn't.
Just take a step. Just one. It'll last for a little while, and then it'll all be over.
She looked down at the ground again, and wondered if it would hurt.
"Twilight."
The voice wasn't shouting anymore, but it cut through the pounding rain and distant thunder as if it wasn't even there.
And then it asked her that question again. The one that finally tore her eyes from the end.
"Why?"
"Why?" She turned around to face the voice. The betrayal in those eyes threatened to overwhelm her, but she glared past the tears. "Because it's too much, Celestia. I can't..." She choked. "I can't..."
"Twilight, please." The voice begged. She ignored it.
"No. Twilight, stop." She turned around and took a deep breath.
Twilight Sparkle had always loved history. There was a certain element of awe, of intrigue, of mysticism to learning about the past. Indeed, Celestia had always taught her of the importance of remembering one's failures, and striving to learn from them. After all, one who does not know the past is destined to repeat it.
In the dim bedroom, Twilight's horn flickered a bright violet as she turned the page of the book. She could practically smell the history in the dust that wafted off the weathered paper, and she sighed in content.
There was a light chuckle from the head of the mare curled around her on the bed. "Enjoying that book, my dear?"
Twilight smiled, a light blush on her cheeks. "That obvious, huh?" She lifted up the book and held it a little closer to the bedside candle, so her lover could see the title. "It's an account of the history of Equestria, from its founding all the way up to the beginning of the Modern era." She shrugged. "So, a pretty light read."
"A light read." Celestia echoed. She looked pointedly at the couple of thousand pages bulging between the front and back covers. "Of course."
Twilight giggled rather bashfully, before noticing Celestia's own reading material. "What's that you're reading?"
Celestia blinked, then looked down at her scrappy leather-bound tome. "Oh, this? Just an old journal I found. It piqued my curiosity, shall we say."
Twilight subconsciously tilted her head, a habit Celestia claimed made her look 'adorkable'. "A journal? By who?"
"Me."
Twilight blanched. "Really? But look at how worn it is! How old is it?"
"Oh, just a few piddling centuries, I'd say. I can't say I missed those times very much," Celestia smiled slyly. "You weren't in them, after all." Her head dashed forward and dared a quick, passionate kiss on the lips. They both laughed, and held one another close.
Then a thought occurred to Twilight. "Celestia?"
"Yes, love?"
"What was it like back then? Before Equestria?"
No answer. Several moments of silence passed before Twilight spoke up again, her voice laced with uncertainty, "Celestia?"
There was a deep sigh; a sigh that carried the weight of countless centuries, and would continue to until time itself had ended. "I'm sorry, Twilight. It was just unexpected is all, though honestly I should have foreseen this question sooner." She rested her head on top of the enraptured Twilight's. "I actually don't remember much of that time, so long ago. I can recall certain things, however; sensations, emotions, sounds. I can remember being lost. Lost, with no goal in mind. And being alone. So very, very alone."
Twilight felt hot tears landing on her head, but she was so distracted that she barely acknowledged them. Celestia's eyes were shut, clenching as the memories flowed like a river.
"It was all so empty. Luna wasn't there—she arrived later, I think. But nothing meant anything. There were no cities, or anything of the sort. Just... emptiness. Maybe the odd plant, maybe the odd pony. And... and it was cold. So very, very cold."
Celestia was shivering. Twilight felt her shuddering against her side. No, more than that; she was shivering too. Now that she noticed, the whole room was freezing all of a sudden, a deep cold that permeated through the blankets, through her skin, all the way down to her bones. The candle on the bedside table sputtered, casting odd shadows around the room.
Celestia wasn't even speaking proper words at this point. The flow of memories had transformed from a river to a crashing waterfall. "Cold, lonely, empty, alone, Luna's gone, where am I, too bright, dark, chaos, where's Twilight, too dark, so alone, Twilight, help me, cold, empty, empty, Twilight where are you, empty, empty, so empty—"
That was enough. Twilight leapt up and wrapped a shivering, freezing, crying Celestia in all four limbs, as well as her wings. She held her there, in that bed, whispering sweet nothings into her lover's ear. Tears fell from her eyes as she apologised, over and over.
Slowly, the shivering stopped, and Celestia opened her eyes to find a sobbing lavender alicorn holding her. "Twilight...?"
"I'm so sorry, Celestia!" Twilight choked out between sobs. "I didn't know—I didn't think... I—just, I'm here for you, don't worry—"
Celestia shushed her tenderly, nuzzling her lover reassuringly. "It's okay, Twilight." Twilight looked up at her, and saw that familiar perfect smile on her face. "I feel... better now, somehow. I didn't realise just how... poisonous those memories were." She shuddered again, and Twilight clung to her in fear of another episode.
"I never realised how empty it was, without you, Twilight."
Celestia was awake. She knew it to be so; her eyes were open, her mind was alert, and the sun was already up. It was almost 9 AM. She would have to go see Twilight soon.
Celestia knew that she was awake, but it didn't explain why she felt so... heavy. Like her blood had turned to molasses, and her bones to cement. Her eyes rolled over to look at the bedside clock. She couldn't read it; it was broken.
Celestia knew that she was awake, and that she could probably fix the clock with her magic. But she didn't feel like doing it right now. She'd do it later. Probably. Maybe.
Celestia knew that she was awake. She could hear somepony knocking on her door. Again. She was getting annoyed, honestly; couldn't they see that she was busy?
"Your Highness? Your Highness, please get up... We need you."
Celestia knew that she was awake. She could feel the dust in her fur, like a second skin. She didn't know where it came from; it just seemed to have built up since that day. How long ago was that? She didn't know. She'd have to ask Twilight.
Oh yes. She had to go see Twilight soon. Later. Probably. Maybe.
"Your highness..." Celestia could hear sobbing outside her door. "I know that you're sad. Please, just let us in."
Celestia knew that she was awake. She had been ever since that day. If she slept, then she would dream. If she dreamt, then Luna would be there. Begging her. Again.
She didn't have time for that. She had to go see Twilight soon.
"Celestia! Open the door!" Luna again. Couldn't she see that she was busy?
She had to go see Twilight soon. She hadn't seen her in a while. A long while.
The knocking ceased. "Celestia... Tia. I know that you're hurting. I miss her too. But please, don't leave me. Not again."
Twilight stared at the thing on the table before her as if it was some kind of animal out to get her. Which, in a way that made bile rise in her throat, wasn't really too far from the truth.
It was horrible. It was disgusting. It was barbaric, most of all. She had tried to ignore the temptation as much as she could, ever since she got back from her trip to the human world. In the end, she had failed. Miserably. She loathed herself for her weakness.
But goddammit, steak was just too delicious to resist!
Even now, Twilight felt her mouth watering like a fountain as she watched the steam drift gently off the perfectly cooked meat, red with a tinge of pink. She pressed down on the steak with her fork and watched the juices ooze out of it, like a greasy waterfall of ambrosia.
Slowly, she picked up the knife in her magical grip and hovered the two utensils over.
"No!" Twilight shouted, turning her head away and dropping her knife and fork in disgust, "I won't do it!"
Twilight... She heard it whisper. Eat me...
"No! Even if you are succulent... moist... and delicious..."
Love me...
"Shh. Only dreams now..."
Just as she was lifting the steak off the plate with her magic and opening her mouth wide, the door to the pantry exploded inwards, and Celestia marched in, flanked by two guards.
"Halt!" The princess barked. "You will pay for your crimes, thie—" Her eyes widened in realisation. "Twilight...?"
Then she saw the steak.
"Guards! Wait outside while I... deal with her." She commanded.
The two guards looked at each other, gulped audibly, then left the room, slamming the door shut behind them.
Twilight looked up into those cold, emotionless eyes, and sighed. This was the end for her. She knew she only had one last chance. "My love, please. I know I did wrong. I know I almost ate the meat of a beautiful, innocent, intelligent, delicious—"
Celestia snatched the steak right from under her nose with a "Yoink!" and began to chew on it messily, moaning in delight.
"—Hey! Give that back!" Twilight growled, diving onto her love and biting down on the succulent meat.
The two ponies fought, racing each other to see who could devour the meal first. Rolling over and over, knocking over shelves and hitting bags of flour, the two battled.
Until they met in the middle with a sloppy, meaty, messy kiss.
Twilight lost herself in the kiss for a moment, then pulled back and looked down at her food covered coat. "Oh. Well, that didn't work. Are you okay, Cele... stia..."
Her marefriend was, at that moment, glaring at her with a much, much hungrier look in her eye.
"Turn around. There's some more meat I wanna eat."
Twilight Sparkle pondered the flowers growing in the Garden. She wondered why there were so many different kinds, each with their own shapes and colours. Why wasn't there just one species? It would certainly be simpler. More organised. Twilight Sparkle liked organisation.
Tentatively, the little filly picked a small flower with her mouth, and ran over to a lush green tree in the centre of the luscious meadow. Curled up in the shade by the great oak, a white alicorn sat, reading an old journal with a gentle, wistful smile upon her face.
When she saw Twilight, her smile became a bright grin. "Well, hello there, little one. What have you got there?"
Twilight blushed, and dropped the flower in front of her mentor. "Princess, why are there so many different flowers?"
"Why?" Celestia gestured grandly to the lush, beautiful Canterlot Gardens around them. "Because so many wonderfully talented ponies worked together to plant and grow all the plants in this meadow—"
"No," Twilight realised that she had interrupted the princess, and blushed wildly. "Um, I mean, uh, sorry, but... why isn't there just one type of flower?"
Celestia blinked. Then she pondered the question, scratching her chin with a hoof. "Let me answer your question with another question," She bent her neck down to give Twilight her full attention. "Have you ever heard of the language of flowers?"
Twilight bent her head and bit her lip, then shook her head no. Smiling knowingly, Celestia raised her head and cleared her throat, and the filly immediately sat down and perked her ears.
"A long time ago, earth ponies asked themselves the very same question you just did. But before books and libraries, ponies had to find their own answers," Celestia plucked the flower off of the grass and inspected it, "And thus, the language of the flowers was born."
There was a moment of silence as the little filly mulled over this new information. Then: "So what's that flower mean, your Majesty?"
"This one is called a daisy," Celestia tucked it into Twilight's mane, "And it means 'innocence'."
Twilight's eyes rolled up into her head as she tried to look up at her forehead, and Celestia had to stifle a giggle. Then, with a gasp of delight, the filly ran off into the bushes again. She returned a moment later with two more flowers in her magical grasp. "Princess! What about these!"
Celestia took a tall, bright yellow plant from her student. "Ah, now this is a sunflower. Earth ponies grew them in honour of the sun and myself."
Twilight's bright eyes sparkled in the sunlight. "What does it mean?"
The princess blushed in embarrassment. "'Adoration', I believe." She frowned at the sunflower. "Shame about the taste. Far too many seeds." She stuck her tongue out, winking at her student as if they were sharing a private joke.
Twilight giggled, then prodded the other flower. "And this one?"
Celestia smiled indulgently as she picked up the bright red plant. "Oho, now this one is special. This flower is called...
"...A rose?"
Twilight smiled at Celestia, who looked at the flower in her hooves with stunned silence.
"Mhm. I went back to the Gardens recently and... well, I saw this and I couldn't not give it to you, really."
"A red rose," Celestia smiled, tears prickling at her eyes.
"'The flower of love.'" They spoke simultaneously. Celestia laughed, and darted in for a long, passionate kiss.
Twilight broke away, walked over to the door to the bedroom, and gave her marefriend a sultry grin. She held the rose in her mouth.
"Shame about the taste. Far too many thorns," she purred.
Light shone through the open balcony window and danced across Twilight Sparkle's purple eyelids. Groaning mournfully, the alicorn cracked open her eyelids and slowly sat up, rubbing her bleary eyes with a hoof. She glanced over to the window, and stopped.
A slender white alicorn sat on the balcony, eyes closed and horn raised as she cast. The sun gradually climbed over the horizon, and the beautiful colours of the sunset spilled across the land. A corona of light wrapped around Celestia's body, lighting her up like a star. Her wings stretched out, each feather gleaming like a sliver of gold.
As Twilight stared at Celestia's glowing form, a distant conversation wormed its way to the forefront of her mind...
"Mommy?"
"Yes, Twilight honey?"
"What happened to Grandma?"
"She's gone somewhere, honey. For a very long time."
"Aww... Will we ever see her again?"
"Someday, sweetie. Not for a very, very long time."
"Oh. Mommy?"
"Yes, dear?"
"Where did she go?"
"A better place, honey."
"What kind of place, mommy?"
"Nopony really knows for sure. Many ponies call it the Sunlit Fields."
"What's it like?"
"Some ponies say that it's... Well, do you remember the Canterlot Gardens?"
"Yeah! It was the best!"
"Imagine that, but it goes on forever. The sun is always shining, everyday for the rest of your life. You get to see all your old friends and family there, too."
"Wow! So Grandma is there waiting for me?"
"Mhm. When it's time to go, an angel will come to take you away."
"What's an angel like, mommy?"
"They are all that is good, kind, and happy. Beautiful, majestic, pure, divine. They love every living thing as if they were their own."
"Like my BBBFF?"
"Yes, Twilight. Just like your brother."
"Wow. They sound perfect."
"Well, I wouldn't know. But they wouldn't be as perfect as you, little one."
"Hehe! I can't wait to meet my angel. I bet we'd be super best friends!"
"...Mommy? Why are you crying?"
"Twilight? Are you alright, my love?"
Twilight blinked rapidly, her eyes filling with tears as she looked up to see two magenta eyes looking at her worriedly.
Twilight hummed a familiar tune. It wasn't a particularly complex melody, nor beautiful. Really, it was just a small song she'd picked up in some shape or form and kept to herself, fine-tuning it, singing it to herself when she felt alone at night.
She'd never really taken conscious note of it... That is, not before she found herself sitting by Celestia's bedside on these late nights. Not before she found herself singing it over and over and over, reminding the pony lying in the bed that she was not alone, never alone—not until Death itself tore them apart.
Celestia's eyes cracked open. They blinked rapidly, her eyes darting around the room. For a moment, they looked directly at Twilight, and the blank unrecognising horror in them stabbed at her already tattered heart.
"Wh-Where am I?" Celestia whimpered. "Hello? Is anypony there? What's happening?"
She sounded so lost, Twilight thought, as she always did when she woke up. Humming that same, silly, stupid song under her breath, she stroked her love's ragged pink mane. Celestia kept squirming and shifting and whimpering in her bed, the nightmares working into her mind as time passed.
Slowly, eventually, Celestia stopped shaking, and her head would nod along to the song. Her eyes slowly began to shut once more, but not before clutching at the pony by her bedside with her feeble withered limbs. Not before whispering, "I found you, Twilight." and falling back asleep.
But always—every single time—she would miss Twilight whispering to her:
"Please wake up. Please."
Tears dripped onto Celestia's wizened cheeks, as she smiled softly in her sleep.
Twilight was going to do it. Today was the day, she knew.
She looked down at the page on the desk. It seemed quite daunting, the task ahead of her. But, really, it was quite simple – just put the quill, the long red one she got from Philomena, to the paper, and write.
All she had to do was put all her thoughts down, her emotions, maybe a few poetic metaphors. Those were romantic, right? Right.
Twilight put the tip of the quill to the paper. Yes, that's a good start.
All she had to do was tell the recipient, one particularly important pony, all about how – from perhaps the moment she first saw her – she wanted to just kiss her and hug her and never let go, how she wanted to take her on an adventure across the world and through the mountains and over the sea in pursuit of her affections.
She could picture it in her mind; the look on her face as she kneeled before her and waxed to her perfection, listened to her perfect voice, and revelled in her perfect little laugh, the one that sounded like bells tinkling in the soft, warm winds of summer.
She could picture a future together, the two of them in a small cottage out in the meadows, or a palace on a mountain, or even just a comfy little library in the middle of a comfy little town. It didn't matter where, as long as she was with her.
And all of a sudden, Twilight Sparkle blinked and found herself sitting at her desk in the middle of the night, watching the wax drip from a stealthily placed candle by the blank white paper.
She blinked once, then put the quill down, the long red one she got from Philomena.
All she had to do was write. She was quite good at it, actually.
It had been a long time since Twilight had seen the sun as it rose over the peaks of the Spindels, the mountains that straddled the borders of Equestria. So long, in fact, that she stopped, and looked, and let her mouth fall open slightly in shock, for the first time in...
How long had it been? How long since she'd experienced something as mundane as awe at a sight yet unseen?
The rays of light struck the razor peaks just so, creating the silhouette of the clawed hand of an ancient beast reaching up towards the sun.
A rare smile split Twilight's wrinkled lips. Too long.
A rich voice spoke from beside her, echoing throughout the valley. "Oh? What's that I see on Her Royal Visage? Could it be...?"
In all the centuries she'd lived, Twilight swore that Celestia hadn't changed a bit. Sure, her ethereal mane was done up in a simple braid instead of flowing freely as it had, and sure, her crown and vestments had been abandoned in favour of a travelling cloak and saddlebags, but, as ever, her pearly white coat remained pearly white, and her beautiful magenta eyes still held that damned look of irrepressible good cheer.
And to her eternal irritation, the smile just wouldn't leave Twilight's face.
Celestia grinned at her. "By the gods, it is."
"Shut up," Twilight huffed. She attempted to march off up the dirt track with her usual grumpy efficiency, and to her horror, she found a spring in her step.
There was a loud 'pffft' from behind her. "I swear, you look like a little unicorn mare again. Impressive."
"Or maybe," Twilight said, stopping to check her bob, "you're trying to get me to brighten up. Which is more likely?"
"Oh, I don't know." That damned grin. "Miracles can happen."
Twilight thumped her staff into the dirt. "So is this the only reason you brought me on this little sojourn of yours? As a foolish attempt to 'remove the stick up my plot'?"
"Maybe," Celestia said dismissively, checking her hoof idly.
Twilight raised an eyebrow. "I think you underestimate just how far the stick is buried, Tia."
Celestia smirked. "Oh, I don't know. You've always been damn good at clenching."
The two stared at one another. Then they fell into each other's arms, laughing so hard there were tears in their eyes.
It had been a while since Twilight had laughed like that. After expelling centuries worth of pent-up mirth in one giggling wheeze, she found herself lying in the mud, her bob undone and her old, faithful robe sullied. She turned, just as Celestia did, and the two looked at each other.
Celestia's eyes crinkled, and a spark of gentle maternity returned to those eldritch eyes. "It has been so very long, my dear."
Twilight's smile came easier this time. "Mmm," she hummed.
The two pulled themselves to their hooves. The relaxed air became somewhat brittle once more, and Twilight looked at Celestia with a serious edge as sharp as the peaks before them.
"Really, now. Why did you bring us here?"
"Quite simple." Celestia, for her part, simply pointed at the sprawling metropolis of Canterlot, far off on the horizon. "What do you suppose lives there, Twilight?"
Twilight's brow raised once more. "An enormous amount of paperwork. Speaking of–"
Celestia snorted. "One can only do paperwork for so many centuries, Twilight darling. Even you." She sighed, and Twilight could feel the exhaustion that went with it. "But really, now. Ponies. Civilisation. Have you not felt a little... Overwhelmed?"
Overwhelmed? Overwhelmed implied she was being swamped. Outdone. Overtaxed.
"Nothing I can't handle," Twilight's smile had vanished into stoney purgatory, once again. "Now, if that was all..." She turned away from Celestia, unfurling her wings and preparing to take flight.
"Twilight Sparkle."
Twilight froze, and immediately hated herself – hated Celestia – for doing so. "What?" she barked, glaring at that beautiful white alicorn, the one that had been there, just behind her, for so very long indeed. "If you haven't noticed, I do not have the time to go off on flights of fancy with you. My ponies need me."
"Do they?"
Twilight froze again. "What do you mean?"
Celestia looked at her now, and Twilight recalled her age, and just how many zeroes it featured. "Ask yourself. Do they need you? Do you need them? Or do they overwhelm you? Do they march ahead of you, into the future?"
Overwhelm. Implied that she was vulnerable. Weak.
Princess Twilight Sparkle, Archmage of Harmony, was not weak.
But she was not strong enough to answer that question.
She looked away, and heard the beating of hooves as that insufferable mare walked closer. "Face it. You're old, Twilight. A relic of the past. You are an alicorn. They don't need you, not anymore."
A familiar white wing swept Twilight up into a hug. How long had they been the same height, now?
"And nor you them. It's time, Twilight. Time to move on."
Twilight looked at Celestia. Then she looked back at Canterlot, at the centre of civilisation, the civilisation that marched forever onwards.
And she looked forward, towards the Spindels, at the path that led beyond this continent, beyond all that she knew.
"We've known each other a long, long time, Tia," Twilight said. "And we've had our disagreements over things. Some of them small. Some of them... rather large. But..."
Twilight reached up with a hoof and, slowly, undid her bob. Her mane fell across her face, and Celestia gasped in wonder at the hues of dawn and the stars that sparkled within its lustrous curls.
Twilight the Alicorn looked at Celestia, at the mare that, for so many years, had stood beyond her, leading the way.
"You know, I never liked that stick up my butt anyway." Twilight smiled.
The water of the river of the Duat tastes, Twilight thinks, like how she imagines magic would taste, if it were a liquid splashed upon the tongue and not a vague feeling in her horn. Twilight hasn't used her horn in a long time, though – the dead have no need for spells. The Duat is beyond such things, in any case.
As Twilight pulls herself out of the Duat, hooves digging into the thick and lush soil of the riverbank, the water pours out of her mouth and escapes back into a current that has flowed unceasing for countless eons. It glints, like mercury, reflecting the pulsing light of the fierce and mighty stars of the Duat's sky, closer here than anywhere.
Twilight remembers. Memory and thought and knowledge are not constrained to mortal bodies and their constraints in the spirit world. And so she has witnessed, personally, the stars as they were first born from Luna's own flesh, the tears from her crying eyes in the beginning of all things given life and purpose in the realm of the gods.
And she remembers, too, the feeling of sand under her hooves made of meat and bone and not the stuff of spirits. She remembers, as if it were yesterday, the feeling of a warm body against her own – fur against fur, silken sheets and honeyed lips and all the pleasures of the flesh.
She remembers the sound of a laugh that is like the trickling of the water of the river of the Duat, and the heat of the Sun in all its glory.
She smiles. Twilight remembers these things every night, for it is the hour of the dead.
The Sun is a barge, built from gold by Celestia's own hooves, forged when she first fought the Serpent, Discord, at the beginning of all things. It burns surprisingly softly. It is not for battle, this hour, but for celebration.
Around it, the dead awaken from their slumber.
Slowly, gliding across the river of stars like a dream, the Sun comes to rest by the riverbank, where Twilight stands, waiting, as she has for countless years. There is a moment, where the Duat itself holds its breath, and then Twilight rises by some unseen force, crests the side of the great golden barge, and lands lightly on the deck.
Celestia is waiting for her.She is pristine white, like the heart of the Sun over which she holds dominion, and her hair glows all the colours of the rainbow, and blows in an unseen solar wind. Her eyes are lined with kohl, and she bears a gentle smile.
She does not wear her battle garb, for it is not yet the hour of battle, although she carries with her the symbols of her office – a flail, and a crook.
"Hello, Twilight," says Celestia. Her smile, slowly, deepens, until her lips part and reveal gleaming white teeth. An honest, open smile, now.
"Hello, my love," says Twilight. The magic of the Duat suffuses her, pays fealty to her station. She wears now the regalia of a pharoah, dark lines of kohl lining her eyes also, and she too smiles.
The dead celebrate, for this hour, as they do every night.
Lord Blueblood IV of Canterlot, member of the Royal House of Equestria and rightful heir to the Blueblood family fortune, hadn’t felt it was presumptuous of himself to accept Lady Luna Selene Artemis’s challenge – at least not until she took off her waistcoat and revealed an entire Blueblood’s worth of muscle underneath.
If it had been a nicer day and if Blueblood wasn’t about to get stuck into a game of hooficuffs with them, he probably would have said something clever and flirtatious about the shape and tone of Lady Luna’s legs. But now that he was standing there, staring at them from across the alleyway, onlookers looking on with rapt fascination, the only thing he could say was, “And you’re positively sure about this, your ladyship?”
“One hundred percent,” Lady Luna said, flashing a smile, although it was probably more of a sneer, dripping with malice, but maybe Blueblood was just imagining that. She tied her long, flowing hair back into a tight bun. “Hast thou prepared thyself, good sir?”
In Blueblood’s defence, he hadn’t really intended to say what he did about Lady Twilight II and the question of the existence of certain… evening activities she may have involved herself in, but he had been drunk, and also she’d looked at him in a way that Blueblood felt he didn’t deserve. Maybe if Lady Twilight didn’t surround herself with such a variety of mares, day-in and day-out, then rumours wouldn’t propagate and Blueblood wouldn’t have thought to say such a stupid thing as he did.
Or rather, he might have avoided saying it when Lady Twilight happened to be being escorted by Lady Luna Selene Artemis, who was as close to the throne as a pony could get without being Her Serene Highness herself, and who also apparently packed quite the athletic arsenal with her.
“I, uh. I’m ready, your ladyship,” Blueblood said, eventually, wishing he sounded a tad more sure about the whole thing than he did.
They didn’t engage one another immediately – in the soft, orange glow of the street lamp that stood by the back entrance to the Ailing Alicorn, Blueblood and Lady Luna circled, waiting for their moment to strike. In the background, there was the din of the gathered crowd, eager to see scandalous blood spilled, or at the very least some supremely ruffled members of the nobility.
Then, after a few moments, Luna got bored and just went for it.
Blueblood squealed – something he’d later call a “war cry” upon retelling the anecdote of his great victory – and reared back, then staggered as a hoof crashed into his gut, forcing all the air out of his lungs and making him wheeze.
Blueblood righted himself, took one vague swing in Luna’s direction, and then crumpled to the cobblestones in a heap, whimpering as he went.
Luna turned to the crowd, which had fallen immediately silent, put an arm into the air, and said, “Yay! We win again!”
“You didn’t have to do that, you know,” Twilight said, eventually, sipping on a brightly coloured cocktail.
It was a quiet evening, now that the ruffian Blueblood had been dealt with. Ladies Luna and Twilight, honour defended, had been showered with drinks and good cheer, and had since folded themselves away in a small, comfortable corner of the public house. There was a rose in a glass on their table, and a few candles, and plenty of drinks, which were steadily being emptied as the hours crept by.
Luna looked up at Twilight, stunned, with white foam from her beer lingering in the hair around her lips. “But… But he besmirched your good name! Of course I had to defend you!
Lady Twilight, out of public view somewhat, had removed her long and flowing dress, and let her mane down from its usual ornate style. “Well, yes. I guess that’s true. But you could have been hurt! And what would Her Highness think if she saw you walking around with a split lip or a black eye or something? Again?” She leaned forward across the table and laid a hoof on Luna’s own, delicately.
Luna’s ears folded back at the contact, and she avoided looking into Twilight’s concerned gaze. “Well. It was only Blueblood. I really do hope you didn’t expect me to be hurt by that cretin.”
“Actually? I’m surprised you handled him as well as you did. He just… crumpled.” Twilight’s concern split open to reveal the beginnings of a satisfied smirk. “Like a sack of potatoes.”
Luna felt herself blush a little, a similar smile tugging at her own lips. “Celestia has been teaching me. Just a little.”
There was a pause. Twilight’s face went through a few different permutations before settling on ‘bemused amusement’. “I see. Well, it’s certainly done wonders for your form. Not to mention your physique.”
There was more than a hint of a growl at the edge of that last word. Luna bristled, leaned forward and stared into Twilight’s eyes with a sultry grin painted across her face. “I have many more… techniques I can show you, if only I were to receive a peek at those ankles in return.”
Later that week, when the rumour mill had sufficiently turned, ponies would come to the Ailing Alicorn and ask the owner if certain stories had more than just the smell of truth about them.
And the owner, with a knowing smile, said not a word.
I think she was hiding when I came in, or maybe I was just in that kind of mood, because I didn't see her until I'd already crawled into bed and began to feel sorry for myself. I heard the curtains rustle as she pulled them closed, then there was silence for a moment while she tiptoed across the room and into my bed. She didn't ask me how it went. She just unfurled her wings and held me tight and didn't say anything at all.
It was exactly what I'd wanted, and I hadn't said a word.
Luna and I were silent for a long while. Maybe I fell asleep, maybe I didn't, but I don't think Luna did. She was just there for my sake, probably.
Eventually, the door creaked open and Celestia wandered in, looking quite sombre but smiling nonetheless. "Good afternoon," she said.
I yawned and sat up. "Hi, Celestia." Luna brushed a wing against my own as she rolled off the bed, allowing me to wrap myself up in the duvet. "Do you need my help with something?"
Celestia shook her head. "Not quite. I was about to ask the same thing of you."
I sighed. "Yeah. Yeah, I kinda do. Although, I don't really think there's much you can do about it. It's kind of a personal thing."
Celestia nodded in understanding, but trotted over and sat next to the bed anyway. Luna busied herself with picking stuff up off the floor of my room – it was only a guest room, but it was unofficially officially reserved for me – and stowing it away neatly.
I didn't wait to get asked; I just started talking. "I feel like I'm a bad pony."
Celestia gave me a reproachful look. "Twilight."
"No, I know, just..." I shook my head and started again. "Okay, that was a silly thing to say. Let me just cut to the chase."
Both Luna and Celestia had their eyes fixed on me, then, with concern in their ancient eyes.
"So I went down to the town square this morning, to meet with my parents," I began, dropping the duvet a bit as I sat up slightly straighter. "We were going to have lunch and catch up with each other while I was still in Canterlot. I was really looking forward to it, you know?" They nodded along with the story as I told it. I thought I hadn't told them all this already, but at the same time they seemed to already know everything. "And they were at the cafe already, and we hugged and they made 'wow' noises over my wings and yadda yadda. It was good. It was nice."
"And then?" Luna urged, after I lapsed into a brief silence.
"And then things started getting a little... heated. They were asking me all these questions about my life and I was fine with that, because we hadn't spoken to each other in a while now, right? But then they just started saying things, just a word here and there, a nasty comment about Zecora or Discord maybe... I started getting a bit uncomfortable. And I think they knew that, because they stopped talking much too, and then the whole mood soured and we started arguing over things, stupid things, petty things–" I stopped and took a deep breath. "And then it hit me."
Celestia and Luna exchanged a glance, and said nothing.
"I think... I think we're like strangers to one another, you know? I realised that when we were talking, and I just... I made an excuse and I left. Then I came here."
I sighed. "And that's my story. Thoughts?"
There was nothing, for a moment. Then Celestia rubbed my shoulder with a soft hoof. "It's okay, Twilight."
"Is it, though?"
I felt a pair of hooves wrap around my waist. "That's for you to decide, Twilight." Luna was speaking next to my ear – her hot breath made them flick. "You are the Princess of Friendship for a reason."
"I think... I'll think about it." I relaxed back into Luna's arms and hummed. Celestia gave me a reassuring smile before getting to her hooves and slipping out the door without another word.
Luna was silent, too, in the soft darkness of the bedroom. Maybe I'd go home. Maybe I would put it off another day, so I could further enjoy Luna's company.
It didn't really matter what I chose. Princesses always understand one another.
