Heat and Desire

Heat and Desire
Chapter 4: Luna
By
The Incognito Brony
(Brony Incognito elsewhere)

There is no clop in this chapter. That said, if you're still with me, I somehow doubt that's a huge problem.

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fan made work of fiction written for fun and to finally get this idea out of my head.

Fair warning, this is a very strange and very dark story with badly written sex that descends into the realm of rape. You have been warned.

I do not own My Little Pony in any part, nor is this intended to infringe on any copyright or license owned by Hasbro or anyone else. If you actually read this disclaimer, you deserve a cookie.

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The moon hung high, backed by the glowing tapestry of the cosmos. Far below, the Palace of the Royal Pony Sisters shone silver in its light. A beacon to all the ponies across the plains of Equestria for miles around.

Luna sat on the balcony outside her chambers, her eyes turned to the sky. She watched the universe unfold. Here, a star was dying. There, two more were being born. Nebulas danced across the heavens in a waltz whose first step would outlast her nation. Elsewhere, Orion’s belt buckle threatened to wink out of existence sometime in the next few millennia. She couldn’t help but wonder if she would still be around to see it.

“Lulu!” a voice called. Luna's ear shook from the breath.

Luna hit the railing with a dull thud and fell into a gasping tangle of legs and wings, one hoof pressed impotently against her breast to calm her heart. She glared up at her grinning big sister.

“Thou art still alive. I had feared thou had turned to stone, little sister.”

Luna gathered herself back to her feet, straightening her feathers with a harsh beat of her wings and a hmph. She turned back to the night sky before Celestia noticed the uninvited smirk growing on her lips. “I shall have thee know that I was contemplating the Universe.”

Celestia snickered behind her, came up to stand beside Luna. “What hast thou learned, dear sister? Dost thou feel great and powerful?”

“Neigh, Tia.” Luna lowered her eyes. “I feel frightfully small.”

“Oh?”

“Look to the sky, Tia. Imagine every star in my night a sun. Perhaps, each has a Celestia to raise it for her ponies and a Luna to bring forth their moon. What wouldst thou think?”

“I would think we have many friends waiting for us.”

“However, consider if there are not. Tia, you and I have never seen the stars move from their given paths. What if, in all the grandeur of the night, nopony else exists.” Luna’s eyes hung heavy as she looked to her sister. “What if we are truly alone?”

Celestia looked up to the night. She was still for a moment; a smile slowly lifted the edges of her mouth. “Shall we find out, dear sister?”

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Prismatic rain exploded as her lightning crashed through the stained glass window. Through the shards, she saw the terrified pegasi an instant before the lightning struck. It arced one to another, searing smoking gouges across their flanks clean through their cloaks. They screamed as they fell to the floor of the hall. The scents of ozone, burnt fur and copper remained in their place.

More pegasi hung in the air, terror on their faces behind their garish masks. A dozen Royal Guard pegasi in golden armour flew past their princess into the hall. They threw themselves at the revelers, pinning their wings to their sides and riding them down to the ground below. More screams came, then the wet thuds of flesh on unyielding wood and the cracking of bones.

Two of the revelers slipped past Luna and her guards, frantic wings propelling them into the morning sky. She ignored them. A half dozen of the guards gave chase.

Luna flew through the shattered window.

Her sister stood opposite her in the hall; regal body blocking any exit through the smoldering ruin of what was once a great door. Her horn glowed a dazzling white. On the floor around her, a dozen cloaked ponies struggled to stand as that same glow pinned them down. Guardponies rounded them up. The helpless were hogtied where they lay. More guards tackled free revelers as they tried to run.

Luna set down on the stage. Beside her, a human female struggled to free herself from an oaken frame. One arm was free, never having been tied. That hand tore frantically at the rope holding the other wrist in place. A mote of magic off Luna’s horn snipped the ropes cleanly apart.

The female ran, only to be caught by a guard a few steps later. She screamed and clawed and spit and kicked as he pressed his weight down on her. Two more guards bound her hand and foot with rope. She screamed in that guttural language, but Luna had no need of a translator.

Above her, four more humans struggled inside brass cages that hung like chandeliers from the ceiling. One of them, the only male, worked at the lock with his fingers. Another, a copper skinned female, kicked at the trapdoor with her tender, fleshy feet; her hands clinging to and bracing against the yellow bars. The other two merely cowered in their cages.

Luna lowered her gaze back down. A unicorn mare clad in cloak and a lion mask stood near the stage. She hurled silverware and plates from the long table at a pair of the Royal Guard, keeping them at bay. The princess glanced up at the cages again, then back down at the unicorn. Her lip curled back, baring her teeth. Her horn flared as she loosed herself on the mare.

The magic came out raw, elemental; a blind mass of force and rage. The section of table between princess and mare vanished into a cloud of deadly splinters trailing in the wake of the attack. When it struck, it tore the unicorn from her hooves, launching her into the wall with a resounding crunch. An unmoving lump fell to the floor.

Luna moved to the edge of the stage. She looked down at the broken mare. Red dripped down the unicorn's flank where splinters buried themselves into her flesh and one of her legs now had an extra knee that nature never intended. A thin trickle of blood painted a line from her nose to the floor. A fresh red bead slipped down to join the growing puddle with every weak rise and fall of her chest.

A satisfied grin painted itself on Luna's face. Her eyes began to glow white. Her chest heaved, building to a laugh.

She never saw the pony that attacked her; she felt him. A disturbance, a splinter of life, a soul, coming into her magical aura. It came for her directly. She didn't see his hooves raise up to strike, yet she felt it and reacted. Her horn flared. Magic snapped out and caught. She lifted up and turned.

An Earth pony hung in her grasp, a band of black light wrapped around his throat. His hind legs kicked at the air, his forehooves scratched at the band. He rasped when he tried to breathe.

Two more quick bursts of magic knocked away the pony's mask and cloak. He was colt, barely out of adolescence, perhaps twenty years of age. A fresh swell of anger filled Luna. She lowered him and stared him in the eye. Through her magic she felt his heart race and felt the passing of the thin whisper of air he could still manage.

"Dost thou even begin to understand what thou hast done to these creatures?"

The colt's answer was to soil himself. Luna squeezed, pinching his throat completely shut. She brought him to face her, muzzles inches apart. Her grin widened as his struggles intensified. She felt his heart speed, then gradually slow. He fell limp in her grasp. Her grin died with his struggles. The adrenaline high giving way to hollow pit that widened as the last of the young colt's life threatened to gutter out.

She dropped him and thanked whatever mercy there was when he drew in a strangled breath.

Luna's chest heaved again, though now with a deepening, fearful malaise that clung to her ribs like spackle. She looked out to the chaos. Most of the revelers were tied down or simply unable to move under their own power. A few held out here and there, fleeing or attacking the guards to buy another few precious seconds of freedom. The guards were already breaking into teams. Pairs of pegasi vanished through the doors off the main hall to round up stragglers. Everywhere there were the cries of pain and terror, the smells of blood, smoke and fear.

A knot grew inside Luna. It came undone through the Royal Canterlot Voice. "We would have thee cease!"

All eyes were on her: revelers, guards and Celestia. All stared in silence, save for the moans of the injured.

Across the room, a cloaked earth pony stallion glanced side to side quickly, then darted past a guard and broke toward the door; toward Celestia. The air shimmered white as he crashed into nothing. He collapsed, clutching at his broken muzzle. The guard he’d dodged broke his gaze from Luna only long enough to glance at the would be escapee, then looked back at his dark princess.

Luna felt them all, all the eyes, and swallowed. "We thank thee." Her practiced Voice stayed strong. She held her head high and walked purposefully for the door. She stepped past them all, past her sister, and through the door back out into the chill winter air. Nopony made a move to stop her.

Outside, the cold leeched into her body, outlining her skin and, deeper, her bones to her senses. She walked out, soon finding the manicured skeleton of a willow in a far corner of the estate. She sat down under it, telling herself her shivering was due to the snow under her rump.

She looked back. Nopony came for her.

A flying carriage arrived, pulled by a team of four pegasus mares. The carriage was built like a stage coach, a flying shelter from the cold. It landed near the door. One by one, the humans were led from the hall and ushered into the carriage. The poor creatures all had their hands tied behind their backs and they all flinched when their tender, unprotected feet hit the harsh snow. The pegasi took off once they were aboard and vanished into the clouds toward Canterlot.

More carriages arrived, these pulled along the ground by Earth ponies. Now came the revelers. Some still fought, others cried, most were carried out bodily, but none went quietly. They were packed in, ten to a carriage meant for four. The guardponies locked and barred the doors. Their trip back to the capital would be far slower.

An hour passed from when Luna left the hall to when the last carriage vanished over the hill. She watched it all and then she was alone. She found herself looking at the mansion. Wind whistled through it, through the ragged wounds she and her sister had cut. Inside, winter busily reclaimed the warmth. Food and blood that nopony had any intention of cleaning were already freezing.

There would be investigations. The owner of the country club would be found and questioned. His friends would be questioned. And their friends. Scores of ponies; perhaps one would have even a sliver of connection, and the process would begin again.

"Lulu?" Celestia said into Luna's ear. Her voice was soft. Luna neither seen nor heard her approach.

Luna turned her head to her sister. There was a somber expression on the Sun Princess' face. Her eyes were heavy.

"Tia?"

Celestia laid her neck over Luna's, her skin warm against the chill left by the air. "Nopony died, Lulu."

Luna let out a harsh, laughing sob and buried her face into her sister's chest.

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In the highest room of the Palace of the Royal Pony Sisters, Luna worked. She moved from chart to chart, checking and rechecking a year's worth of collected data before heading back to the runic circle in the center of the room. She lay down inside the lines, letting her consciousness slip. The circle, painted in painstakingly collected moonlight, shone rippling silver. The light rose into a column around the princess, reaching up to the enchanted ceiling that showed the living cosmos.

A month of effort from scores of ponies had gone into the room. New spells were written, old ones revised. Countless hours spent poring over scrolls upon scrolls of math and magical formulae. The court enchanter's apprentice, a young colt named Starswirl, had become so engrossed he'd neglected to shave until it was done. But done it was, and never before had even the Royal Sisters seen such a thing.

In the circle, Luna's mind extended up to the tiny patch of night encompassed by the column of moonlight. She let her mind spread out into the spell and up to the hundreds of thousands of stars in the tiny circle. Hundreds passed through her mind every second.

Nothing.

She made notes on a few. A quill across the room scribbled down her thoughts. It was part of the spell. A handful of worlds had specks of bacteria or traces of proteins. She would check back on those in a few million years if she were still alive.

Thousands of stars passed by.

Still nothing. Everywhere was darkness.

She went blind.

The spell flickered and failed around the princess. Her brain throbbed, pressing against a skull four sizes too small. She cried out, rolling on the floor, hooves holding her head. The sensation soon passed. She blinked her eyes clear and looked up at the faint trace of a silver circle still visible on the ceiling.

"Impossible..." she said to the night.

Once more she laid down in the circle. The spell began again and she rode it to that same star. Slowly, gingerly this time, she looked to the planets. On one perfect blue sphere she saw life. The planet teemed with it, shining so hard her mind's eye had to squint to look upon it even after she dampened the spell.

She crept closer to the planet. The spell made 'seeing' difficult, all the creatures and plants glowed in her vision, obscuring them. She dampened the spell further until each creature appeared to her as a figure of shimmering blue. She looked across this world, at creatures she almost recognized to others she'd never dreamed.

She saw a city.

Stone walls and roads, buildings carved of living rock or, perhaps, poured from stone. Creatures walked the streets. They were strange beings that walked upright on two legs. They were there, waiting for her.

Luna squealed in delight. The spell failed around her, unnoticed. She leapt to her feet and bolted out the door.

A moment later she ran back into the room, grabbed the note scroll in her mouth and ran back out.

The midnight quiet of the Palace gave way to the hammering of hooves as Luna galloped through the halls. As soon as she saw Celestia's door she threw it open with her magic. She ran through without slowing and slammed it shut behind her. Sparks danced up around her hooves as she skidded to a stop beside her sister's bed, her shoes screeching and skittering on the stone floor.

Celestia was still asleep. She was on her side and facing away from Luna. Luna spat the scroll onto the bed.

"Tia, I have found them!"

No reply.

"Tia?"

Celestia snorted and kicked at something in her sleep with her forehoof.

Luna reared back, set her forehooves on the bed and gave her sister a deft poke her shoe.

"Tia! Wake up!"

Celestia rolled over, eyes still closed, and grabbed Luna about the shoulders. She turned back over, dragging the younger alicorn down onto the bed with her.

"Oh, Daisy, thou art insatiable some nights."

"I am not Daisy!"

Celestia pulled Luna into a closer embrace, Luna's back to Celestia's front. "Yes, thou art," she whispered into Luna's ear.

"I am thy sister! Luna!" Luna struggled harder, squirming in her sister's forelegs.

"Hm... we are being naughty tonight." Celestia gently bit Luna's ear.

Luna shrieked and kicked, breaking her sister's hold and tumbling off the bed. She stood back up and turned on Celestia in a huff. Her sister lay there on the bed as though she'd just awoken, though her eyes danced with faux innocence and mirth.

"Oh, good morning, dear sister," Celestia said. "I was just having a dream about thee."

Luna glared back at her. She picked up the rolled scroll with her magic and gently smacked Celestia upside the head with it.

"I have found them."

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"We would see her."

The guardmare didn't reply at once. Instead, her eyes darted up and down the hall of the castle. Nopony else was there, of course. Few ponies even knew this hall existed, let alone what was behind this door.

"Your Majesty, I was told that Celestia would be handling all of the humans."

Luna leaned in close to the guard, glaring straight into her eyes. The mare swallowed.

"Are we not a princess? Has Celestia more authority in this castle than I?"

The guardmare shrank back, though she kept eye contact. She started to sweat. "I, um, no?"

"And knowing this, dost thou deny us entry?"

"No?"

"Very well then." Luna moved beside the guard, toward the door. "How is this human?"

The guard blinked and turned to her princess again. "The unicorn who examined her said that she's been in Equestria for several days. That she has been well, um..."

"Cultured?"

"Yes, your Majesty."

Luna swore. The guard just raised an eyebrow. Luna spared a thought to wonder if the mare even knew what she'd said. Had she truly been gone that long?

"Thou art dismissed. Thou shalt wait outside this hall for us to have finished."

"I... yes, Your Majesty."

The guard left and Luna was alone. The princess pushed the door open with her magic. Inside was a small bedroom, though not one meant for ponies. The ceiling was nine feet high. Against the back wall was a bed seven feet long; more then any pony, even the Sisters, would ever need. The copper skinned human was on the bed. She was still bound, though now her wrists were held together with cuffs made from the softest silk. She had been dressed in a simple tunic to afford her some dignity. So much as one could expect when tied to a bed, at least.

The human jumped when the door opened. In seconds she'd struggled upright and pulled against the cord that held her to the headboard. A steady stream of words flooded out in the guttural human tongue.

"Please, fair human, we mean thee no harm," Luna said.

The human continued to rant. She pulled against the ropes hard, the jerks sending her dark mane flying in fits and starts.

"Human, we would help thee. Be still so we may see what has happened."

The human didn't stop.

"Very well," the princess said with a sigh.

Luna let herself see into the ethereal and looked at the human. What should have been a void glittered with tiny filaments of energy and light. Magic gathered in the human’s body, collected in the spaces between muscle fibers and filling the hollows of her bones. It traced along every sinew, every nerve; filling her like the beginnings of moss in the crevices of stone.

Everywhere it touched, the energy leeched into the tissue, bleeding into the cells. Only a relative few had changed, the magic was still too sparse in most of her body, but it was a purchase for more. In her brain, however, was a familiar, cancerous knot. The paths of a spell not yet active laid there by the magic that had brought her here.

"We are sorry." Luna closed her eyes and carefully wove a stream of energy that snaked across the room into the human's forehead, into the half formed spell. The human's eyes widened in shock, then fear. She shook her head away from the stream with no success. A pained grin split her face as the spell finished forming inside of her. She made a small whimper as she twisted and fell face first onto the bed.

"What did you do?" The human's voice came strangled. Her back twisted as her body writhed, pressing herself onto the sheets.

"What is thy name, fair human?"

The human gasped. She twisted her head to look at the princess. Her face was turning red. "How did you..."

"Please, human, there is precious little time. You must tell us thy name."

There was a moment of disbelieving silence, then: "Blue. My name is... no." The human shook her head. "No. That's not right. What did you do to me? Ah-oh-ii."

"Canst thou tell us who did this to thee?"

"Horses. Unicorns. They... I was at home with my mother, then I was in a basement. They..." She trailed off into a sob and a groan.

Luna could already see the magic inside the human spreading beyond the spell and growing like a fungus, traveling down the preexisting lines of magic. Her body soaked it up like a damp sponge.

The air was beginning to fill with the human's scent. Pheromones, twisted, perverted and empowered by magic, tickled at Luna's senses. She quickly wrapped a ward around her head to keep the worse of it at bay.

The human curled up into a ball, arms still bound behind her. She cried out in frustration. Luna stood beside the bed and watched.

"We are..." Luna stopped herself and shook her head. "Neigh, I am sorry. If I could do more for thee, I would."

Luna stepped up to the bed, laid her horn onto the human's head and opened herself to her. For an eternal moment two souls merged, though one far greater than the other. Magic poured out of Luna, flooding the human's body. The change cascaded through the flesh, bones twisting and snapping into and out of place. A pair of wings ripped out through the muscles of the back. There was an agony, but it was distant. Both of Luna and this human, and of somewhere else.

The princess held the human's mind separate, kept it untouched even as the flesh of her brain twisted into a pony's. She held her in limbo, a soul and a life without a vessel. The tiny part of Luna that was the human was confused. Luna hesitated. The human part grew fearful. It screamed when the first memory was torn away.

Luna moved through the human's life. She tore away the faces of her family: a loving mother, father and a young brother. They were replaced by a vague outline, something scarcely remembered. She added the false memory of their deaths, crushed beneath a runaway cart as the family crossed the road, this human turned pony spared by the grace of inches.

Her hometown was moved aside, hidden. All the places intact though the people removed. Luna put it all into a place only remembered in dreams and déjà vu. Friends, loved ones, her first time with a boy, all rewritten and revised to be ponies. All set in a place now and forever beyond the young girl's reach.

School, culinary school, that Luna kept. She rewrote more faces and removed the recipes involving meat. She built it up. Already it was the girl's passion, but she made it more. Made it her life.

Finally, she came to the ponies. Her last days as the creature she had been. Luna picked through every moment, every thought. There was nothing. The human remembered it all only as horses. The sizes and colours were not those of Equestrians. They were the memories of a being trying to make sense of a world gone mad in the only way she could. Luna stripped them away, burying them as deep as they would go.

When the moment ended, the human was gone. In her place was a young pegasus mare. Bluebell. One day soon she would invent the stirfry and bring tofu to Equestria. Still, she struggled vainly against the princess, more from principle and half-remembered pain than in defense of anything. Luna let her slip back into herself. Into the new body that waited to carry her into her new life.

Luna finally broke the connection and staggered back. The air had grown thicker with the scent and her ward had failed during the spell. She stumbled away. She would never be sure how, but she found herself outside the room.

She stumbled down the hall. She felt as though she'd been struck in the head with a hammer and had her entrails torn out with a dull knife. Half blind from tears, pain and exhaustion, she pushed through the door out of the hall. The guardmare waited for her there.

"Your Majesty? Let me call..."

"Neigh."

"But..."

"We will recover." Luna's knee buckled. The guardmare caught her in her wings. "...given time."

"Princess, please, at least let me take you to your room."

The feathers that held Luna were so soft, the pony's frame so strong, her eyes so blue. Perverse magic played in her head. It would be so very easy.

"Thou dost not know what thou ask."

The mare's eyebrow crooked up, "Oh?” then shot up, “Oh!" Luna felt herself carefully returned to her feet.

"We have a task for thee. In that room is a pony named Bluebell. Thou shalt wait until the air clears, then thou art to bring her to Ponyville and place her in a hotel. Furnish her with a cooking cart, something with a skillet, I think, a license and as many bits as you believe a young pony would need to start a business. On my authority. Dost thou understand?"

The guard blinked again. "I'll do it," she said after a moment.

"Very well," Luna said, giving the guard a slight bow. The guard returned it. “Thank you.” Luna turned and stumbled away into the halls of Canterlot Castle.

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A great press of pony bodies surged through the door and tumbled to the ground just beyond. Two guardponies slammed the door shut and dropped the bar in place as soon as they were clear. Something heavy slammed into the door from the other side. Guttural cries echoed through the door, though somewhat muffled.

"Why does it have a horn?" Starswirl asked from somewhere in the pile. "Why is it detachable?"

"Did you see the scales? They covered its whole body," another pony in the pile said.

Luna pushed herself out from under her sister's wing and somepony's rump. She shook herself off. "Starswirl, we had thought thou were to place a language spell upon them when thou brought them here."

"Your Majesty, I, who's on my beard?"

"Sorry."

"Your Majesty, I promise you, I'm certain the spell is there. Perhaps it simply didn't activate properly."

Celestia pulled herself out of the pile. She was laughing. "Perhaps? Well, let us see." She stretched and flicked her horn. The door glowed white as it opened to reveal the creature beyond. It stood upright on two legs, a shining metallic horn held in the talon of its right upper limb. On its metal capped head it bore the red crest of a rooster and on its core were metallic plates that slid together as it moved.

The thing advanced. Celestia flicked her horn again, as though picking up an apple, and sent a tiny orb of energy into the thing's head. It dropped its horn, talons coming up to clutch its skull.

"Dost thou understand us?" Celestia asked.

The thing looked up, eyes wide at Celestia. It was silent a long time.

"Yes."

"Tell us, what may we call our guest?"

"Velius." The creature then took off part of its head and a pony next to Luna fainted.

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Luna stood on her balcony and looked down at Equestria. Her night had ended, soon she would settle in for the day. A few hours had already passed since Celestia had raised the sun on this, the eighth day of the renaissance. Out in the fields she watched two humans work and show a group of eager ponies how to use a series of hand tools. There would need to be modifications, of course.

Further out, an eager young Earth pony was trying out the 'plou.' Luna had read a report the dawn before about how this device would singlehoofedly end crop shortages in Equestria for all time. It had taken the humans a few days to get it right, working from memory as they were, but there it was for all to see. The elegant straight line in the earth behind that pony was a path to a brighter future for all her subjects.

Below her, much closer, a human played a stringed instrument to the delight of an assembled mass of ponies, mostly fillies. Even from her distance she caught the looks in their eyes and a few subtle cues on how they moved. A curious unease was setting in when there was a knock on her door.

"Thou may enter, Clover."

A green Earth pony opened the door, a stack of scrolls in her mouth. She laid them on a table and bowed to her princess.

"Shall we guess?" Luna said, "or shall we simply assume those are more reports about our human guests?"

"You would assume correctly, Your Majesty." Clover cleared her throat. There was a hesitation in her voice. "The Palace summoned three more humans yesterday. There have been new techniques for pottery taught to us. We still haven't gathered enough ore to use the forge yet, and the 'plou' is complete and being tested today."

"We have seen it outside. A rousing success."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

Luna's brow creased. She looked at Clover, her head cocking slightly to the side. "Clover, thou hast not called us 'Your Majesty' in private in years. What is the matter?"

Clover lowered her eyes. "There is another report, Luna. A dragon attacked a small town east of here: Manehattan."

Luna's eyes went wide. She turned and ran to her writing table. "What? Why didst thou wait until dawn to tell me? We must send help at once!"

"The dragon is dead."

Luna stopped. A quill she'd levitated clattered down to the desk.

"How is such a thing possible?"

"The villagers, Luna. They summoned humans to protect them. They killed the dragon."

A chill ran down Luna's spine. She suddenly felt very ill. "The spell has spread that far? We should not have allowed this to happen. Our friends mustn't be used such. We must talk to our sister." She turned and ran out the door.

She heard Clover call after her, but didn't catch the words. Once out into the hall proper she broke into a gallop. More voices called out to her. She passed the human Velius on the way. She ignored them. She threw open her sister's door with her magic and skidded to a stop inside.

Celestia lay on her bed in a sprawl, a blissful smile on her face. Her eyes opened a slit when Luna came in. "Lulu?"

"Tia, there was a dragon." Luna paused. "What is that smell?"

Celestia stretched and rose from her bed with a sigh. "In Manehattan. Yes, dear sister, I heard the same report in the evening yesterday. Don't worry, Lulu, an envoy has been sent to the village to collect them." She smiled at her sister. "And to the other towns to tell our citizens not to summon any more humans until we have decided on laws so as not to abuse our guests."

"Thank you, Tia." Luna sniffed the air again. "Sister, thou art in heat?"

Celestia smiled coyly, her eyes making exaggerated glances at the corners of the ceiling. "All friendship, and all friends, are a gift, dear sister. These humans are your gift to Equestria and they have so many wonderful gifts to share with us. Would it not be rude not to accept when they are so very willing?"

"Tia, thou didn’t!"

The Sun Princess leaned in close to her sister and whispered, "I believe that young potter has his eye on thee. His hands are very skilled."

Luna opened her mouth, then closed it and looked away. "I should sleep. Enjoy your day, Sister."

"Or perhaps it is time we summoned some females." Luna stopped in her tracks. "You and I have talked of this, dear sister. We will need to bring them someday if we truly want to make the humans part of Equestria."

Luna looked back. "Sister, we cannot. We have yet to be able to return any and," she paused, "it would not be right to bring them to satisfy my preferences, especially in this."

"Starswirl believes he is very close to creating the spell."

"Sister, please, promise me thou shall not summon any more humans until we can be sure they can be returned. Especially females."

Celestia's smile turned sheepish. Her eyes darted back and forth across the room. She leaned in close again, even closer than before so that their faces nearly touched. "I promise not to summon any more females."

"Tia, what hast thou done?"

"Tonight, when you wake, there will be a feast already underway to welcome our new guests."

Luna said something decidedly unladylike and marched from the room.

"Sleep well, Lulu."

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Luna rose an hour before twilight. She stepped out onto her balcony, throwing wide the doors to welcome the end of another glorious day for Equestria. Outside, however, she saw nopony nor any of the two score humans who now lived in the Palace. She thought it odd, but she bathed as usual and stepped out into the hall.

Silence.

Her own echoed hoofsteps were the only sounds that reached her as she walked the halls of the Palace.

"Anypony?" Her voice echoed back. "Where is..."

Luna's eyes rolled as the answer entered her sleep-fogged mind: everypony was at the feast. An anticipation crept into her. Concerns aside, she longed to see the females with her own eyes. She put a skip in her step and trotted to the dining hall.

She turned the last corner, flared her wings for show and pranced into the hall. "Good evening, every..." She took in the scene before her, "...pony?" Luna's wings fell. Her legs continued to carry her forward out of momentum.

Celestia appeared and blocked her way. "Luna, please. Thou shouldn't be here."

Luna brushed her sister aside with a wing. Celestia shook her head and stepped aside. A tang of copper hit her nose. Ponies lined the walls of the hall or huddled in pockets in the corners. Some cried or simply looked destroyed, eyes blank as though their souls had fled from behind them. Other ponies tended to them, comforted them. In another corner sat two fillies she’d never seen. They looked at her with the uncomprehending eyes of a newborn.

On the tables were a handful of blankets covering human-shaped lumps. She counted five in all.

She moved to one and pulled back the cloth. It was the young potter, chest-down on the table. His face was twisted into a death mask of pain, thankfully his eyes had been closed. A pool of dried blood collected under his mouth and nose. Another look showed a patch of dried blood soaked into the blanket, this one at his rump. She replaced the blanket over his head. She didn't even know his name.

Luna stepped back and looked around again. There were no living humans in the room. She had no idea where they were or if they were even still alive. Her breathing began to come deeper, more ragged. Magic crackled through her. She spun on the ponies huddled in a corner.

"What happened?" The Royal Voice shook the walls.

The ponies whimpered and cowered before her.

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Midnight, when all the good little colts and fillies were meant to be tucked safely in their beds. It was Luna's favourite time of the night. She walked the battlements of Canterlot Castle, taking in the moonlight, letting it and the winter cold cleanse the sting of the mansion and Bluebell's remaking the day before. She made her way to a landing overlooking the Royal Canterlot Garden. There was another already there when she arrived. He leaned on the stone wall and looked down at the skeletons of the trees.

"trev-er?" The name still sounded impossibly alien in Luna's mouth. "What art thou doing on the grounds so late. Shouldn't thou be asleep?"

He looked back over his shoulder, a motion that, for a human, required actually twisting his torso. Moonlight glinted off the glasses they had given him. Luna still saw that his eyes were bloodshot. "Princess?" He turned back and leaned on the wall again. Most of his weight was on his elbows. "No, I couldn't sleep. I've been thinking. I can leave if you want."

"Neigh." She looked around and saw nopony else. "Wouldst thou like some company?"

He nodded. She came up beside him and looked down into the garden with him.

"I'm going to die," he said.

Luna's eyes pinched shut. "Thou shouldn't think of it in so dark a manner, friend human. Thou art merely becoming another being. As a pony thou shalt begin anew. A new life, new memories, new..." She sighed. "Yes, trev-er shall cease to be."

"There's really nothing you can do?"

"Would that there were, friend human. In two thousand years we have never found a way to return thee and thy kind." She looked at him. She wanted to nuzzle him, but fought it down. Instead they shared a gaze into each other's eyes. She imagined hers would be full of sorrow. His were full of dying prayers. "All that we may offer is thine. Thou need only ask. We do swear to make these last few weeks pleasant for thee."

He took off his glasses in one hand and rubbed his eyes with the thumb and finger of the other. He shook his head. "It's okay." He laid the glasses down on the stone beside him. "I'm okay. I just think I need some time alone right now. Please?" He gave her a small, pleading smile.

Luna glanced down, then nodded. She returned the smile just as weakly. "As we said, whatever thou dost need."

She walked away, closing her eyes as soon as her back was turned. Her hooves had learned the battlements well in the last year and she walked them without sight.

She still flinched when she heard the body hit the frozen earth of the garden below.

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Together, Luna and Celestia planted the fifth and final tree over the fifth and final grave. Like each of the four times before, there was a flash of released magic and a complaining creak as the tree took on several years worth of growth in an instant. None of those assembled had expected it, and each of the line of evenly spaced trees was now a different height.

The Royal Sisters traded a look. Celestia nodded. Luna squared her shoulders and drew herself up, turning to face the assembled crowd of hundreds of ponies and thirty humans.

"We have sinned," Luna said, her Voice carrying clearly across the crowd. "We meant only the best for our ponies and for our guests, but we were rash. We should have known better. We know now what is becoming of the humans and we swear that nothing will be spared to find them all a way home before that comes to pass.

"We decree that no human shall ever be brought to Equestria unless such a day comes that they may be safe. We decree that no being shall ever be so shackled as these fair humans are now." She motioned to the line of trees behind her. "We present thee with this: the Garden of the Everfree. A tribute to our shame. To remind the Royalty of Equestria for the next ten thousand years of this tragedy. To forever show us the cost of this mistake. May another tree never be added."

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On the first day of spring, two alicorns greeted the dawn by leaping from the battlements of Canterlot Castle and taking wing. Each carried a load beside them with their magic: one, a six foot long bundle wrapped lovingly in a blanket; the other, a sapling.

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Notes: There is a side story that takes place between this chapter and the next that can be found here.

Well, thanks for staying with me this far. I actually feel a little bad now, but there's still more swimming around in my head. We'll see how this goes.