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Luna sailed through the stars, blazing her way through the cosmos like a comet on a crash course for Terra, her vision white with rage and anticipation. A twisted snarl adorned her face as she bored through entire asteroids, not willing to delay her trip by even moment. She would have retribution and she would have it tonight.

“I’m coming for you, sister!” She roared, although it might as well have been a whisper in that infinite stratosphere. Images flickered through her head, of the days when the barrier was weak enough to see them, to see how her sister celebrated the day of her banishment. She remembered the patterns, and after one thousand Summer Sun Celebrations she knew which one her sister would be attending. It was no coincidence that it was at the town nearest to the castle from where they ruled.

“Clever, Celestia.” She thought. “Poetic that you choose to end it where it began.” Thoughts flooded her head of her sister, the arguments, her penchant for stealing glory, the day she banished her, the days they fought side by side, played together, laughed together,bathed together, that time they decided to prank their guards, replacing their helmets with-. Luna quickly forced these thoughts out of her head and reaffirmed her anger. Besides, she needed to be focused. Terra was swiftly coming under hoof and she could not wait to see her sister again.

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The roof of Ponyville City Hall exploded into rubble at Luna’s cacophonous entry. She landed directly on the stage overlooking the audience hall, she savored the brief moments before opening her eyes imagining the fear and confusion on the faces of her subjects. She guffawed in her royal Canterlot tone, she wanted to drive home that this was no good omen for her subjects. They probably forgot today was the day of her return, they probably forgot her all together. With a mixture of cool rage and excitement, she opened her eyes and drank in the emotions of the crowd.

Her laughter instantly ceased.

There was no crowd. Ponyville City Hall was empty. expecting the confusion of her subjects she would have to make do with her own. she leaped down from the balcony craning her neck in every direction. Maybe they’ve hidden from her? Maybe they didn’t forget? As a last resort she looked under every table in the room, no ponies but as she continued her search, checking under every chair, every closet and in some cabinets in case a filly or two were hiding from her. Until something began to dawn on her. Cobwebs adorned every corner and arch of the building, undisturbed dust lined the hallways, and even before her entrance this place was in a serious state of disrepair spider web cracks and holes adorned every wall, all of the windows cracked and broken, furniture uncared for. This place wasn’t empty it was abandoned.

After she was confident that not a single pony was in this building with her she decided to make her way outside, surly her subjects would leave some sign of where they fled from her. she tried pushing open the front door but the hinges proved to be broken causing the door to fall and hit the ground with a rather loud THUNK a thick cloud of dust flew into the princess’ eyes and lungs as she spent the good part of a minute waving a hoof and coughing. as the dust finally settled she got a good look at Ponyville.

Abandoned. It was the first word that came to mind, each building in a similar or worse state of disrepair then the town hall, some missing their roof while others were completely demolished. The marketplace was no better. piles of lumber and tools signifying where vendors once set up their stores while large amounts of detritus littered the broken cobblestone of the street. Luna walked up to a basket of apples, left for what seemed like months. Luna began to feel an emotion she hadn’t felt for a thousand years, worry. For herself or maybe even her subjects she was not sure but she knew that whatever happened here it wasn’t in anticipation for her. walking further down the street she began to notice many things. for one it was still nighttime. While this was her goal in the first place she has not even felt the pull of her sisters magic, not even a token effort to raise her sun. As Luna continued to walk down those desolate streets considering this, a drizzle began. It was almost enough to startle her, not because she was afraid but because once she heard the sound of those droplets hitting the ground around her she realized how quiet it was. not even the smallest of creatures stirred. besides the pitter patter of the rain Ponyville was truly silent. Luna sat down for a moment inside the doorway of a nearby shop to collect her thoughts.

“What has befell these ponies? Is this perhaps a jest? It has to be, you knew I would be back, Celestia! this is for me isn’t it!” She looked straight outside, talking to nopony in specific. It was then that something in the detritus caught her eye, then after the first she started noticing them everywhere. her pupils dilated her original worry replaced with something much worse. Bones, hidden among the wood, tools, rotting food, garbage and other knick knacks laid countless bones. Something incredibly wrong happened here. Luna decided that she would have answers.

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unfurling her wings, she took flight. She could have easily teleported to her sister’s new castle. But she needed to see everything, she inspected every road as she flew over the rain soaked Equestria. Scanning for any sign of life below. All were devoid of life and ill maintained, along them all were scattered carts, saddlebags, and more bones. Always facing towards Canterlot. Most of the carts still stood upright as if they were dropped along with the saddlebags to lighten a load, to travel faster. What perturbed Luna most though was the furrows. Occasionally she would see massive trenches cutting straight through the roads and the rock they were made of, some were messier than others signifying where trees were caught up and uprooted. the thought of what made them sent shivers down Luna’s spine but also filled her with a morbid sort of curiosity. Whatever happened everypony was heading to Canterlot, and that’s where she would find her answers and hopefully something besides bones and the rain to keep her company.

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Luna found her way into Canterlot a bit easier than she had hoped. She casted a flare with her magic as she approached the pockmarked walls and the crumbling mess of towers that was once Canterlot. Not a single warning quarrel, hail or even sign of movement came from the ramparts as she descended past them into the streets below. She landed at the train station. Luna squinted, trying to adjust her eyes to the dark. All the more reason to be suspicious. Luna was more than just nocturnal, she was the deity which controlled the night, a darkness even she couldn’t see through shouldn’t be, is not natural. Her horn glowed casting a cone of light in the direction she faced.

The tunnel in front of the railway was caved in. It was fortunate for her that she had the ability to fly, some ponies aren’t as lucky . She scanned the rest of the railroad, her eyes falling upon the locomotive which traveled the tracks. It was knocked on it’s side, laying parallel to the tracks. It would have been much more messy if it was an accident on the train’s side. Large circular holes were cut into the passenger compartment. she peered inside one of the holes.

-----------------------------------------------------”Lulu?”-------------------------------------------------------------

The royal sisters stood on the outskirts of ponyville and listened on as an excited, well dressed stallion clamored on about how his invention would revolutionize equestria. Behind him another stallion and a mare pumped on a hoofcar propelling it on a circular railway to demonstrate its effectiveness.

“... What do you think of it Lulu? I can’t keep up with him.” Celestia whispered.

“It’s amazing Tia, take a moment think of how far we can expand our borders with a device like this, and not to mention how the citizenry will rejoice!”

Celestia “hmmmm’d” in confusion, but a mischievous smile on her face belied something else. Luna knew her sister couldn’t help being as excited as her, after all, Celestia was a political beast while she was a master logistician and they both tended not to-

“I bet we could go faster than them.” Celestia’s words cut off Luna’s thinking

“What?” was the only response Luna could come up with. Celestia giggled a moment before ordering the two ponies working the hoofcar to disembark, she then grabbed Luna by the hoof and began pulling her to the car.

“C’mon Lulu it looks like fun!” she said nodding towards the car. The well dressed stallion ended his tirade rather suddenly and looked on in utter bemusement. Luna’s cheeks flushed red with embarrassment. Here was her sister, the most powerful being on the planet besides her, giggling and pulling on her hoof like a filly going to a fair for the first time. It was mortifying, and despite that, Luna couldn’t help but smile.
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Luna shook her head, pushing out the pointless memory. Nothing noteworthy was found in the train besides discarded luggage.

Luna focused her attention inwards towards the rest of the city, she would have to walk, the unnatural darkness surrounding Canterlot would make it almost impossible to spot anything from the sky. So luna began her trot down the somber streets of a rainy Canterlot. The city itself carried a sense of wrongness that superseded everything outside, It did not share the sense of abandonment that most villages she passed over did but instead it showed the signs of decimation. Large swathes of buildings seemed to have been swept to the side splaying the gutted remains of buildings along the roads and alleyways. It was not unlike an infant threw a tantrum with his building blocks.

This caused Luna to make detours many times on the way to the royal palace and as she continued she noted more and more the obvious signs of combat. Spears laid discarded next to dented and broken sets of armor, and among the wreckage she also found multiple shards of a hard black material. She picked up a piece and scrutinized it.

“Carapace…” Luna thought to herself. “Was this the fault of the Changelings?” She believed that to be the answer at first. But it didn’t quite fit with the picture, changelings were surgical, precise, they’d never fight a prolonged battle unless they had the overwhelming advantage, and their mastery over telekinetic magic was subpar at best. It wouldn’t be logical for them to scatter buildings like this. “Perhaps they had assistance?” Luna discarded the chitinous shell and put a hoof to her forehead. It felt as if she was trying to put together some puzzle she didn’t have all the pieces to. She decided that it was useless to guess at what happened without clues and decided to continue.

Luna emerged from an alleyway only to arrive in front of a massive building, a rusted fence surrounding it. The bars were bent at multiple intervals and the main entrance had one of it’s gates barely hanging off a single hinge while the other was completely torn off, laying in the street that separated the alley and the building. A sign hung above the entrance, mostly destroyed. It read:

“CELEST A S CHOOL OR G FTED UNIC RNS”

Both sides of the street seemed to be blockaded with makeshift barricades, and being the first building of note she’s come across, Luna decided that she might find clues here. As she approached the school she scanned over it with her light, the entrances seemed to have been blocked off by piled up junk but there were plenty of broken windows and holes to enter through. While casually running the illumination spell across the building she spotted something, something red. She quickly refocused her attention on that part of the wall. What she saw disturbed her.

“EQUESTRIA DIED SCREAMING” Those three words in blood red were graffitied across the wall, accompanied by a stylized image of a sun, her sister’s cutie mark. Luna’s blood ran cold and she could have sworn her heart may have stopped for a second. Did her subjects truly believe that they were going to be wiped out? Did they believe that her sister would simply fall, that she would let everything her, they worked on for thousands of years be taken away in the span of one? Were they right...?

Luna had enough of this, she charged inside the building. She was tired and she was done with this. She would have answers even if it meant tearing this city's dead heart out to find them.

Friendship is Fleeting

by Lord Erhswin Wholewheat

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