Dead Weight

Princess Luna slumbered.

Her mind curled in on itself like a cat within the depths of her own dreamscape, peacefully alone, untouched by the quandaries of the waking world. Her thoughts spiraled through the many doors of this special realm, deeper and deeper into the embrace of unconsciousness, through water and stardust, diamonds and cerulean sand. Without the possession of a physical body, her mind became liquid mercury, graced with a freedom unlike any other as it made an endless and fruitless journey toward the end of all things.

Always go towards the end, she knew, because it was not the beginning.

She had been on this path a thousand times, recognized its every mark. The familiarity never bored her, but gave her an outlet to reflect.

The voices of the night had ceased their noise when the first light of dawn had shattered across the horizon, leaving the mare drained and aching when she was relieved of her duties. In this relief, she was eternally grateful for her sister's light in providing it, although her thanks would never be put into words. Along with her sister's mercy came the tendency to coddle, and Luna had yet found the solution to just how she was so taxed during her nights. Perhaps it was the numbers, perhaps it was the demands, perhaps it was because she was weaker. All plausible. But she didn't know for sure which or any, and that was troubling.

She weighed this, just as she weighed the words of the bureaucrats and diplomats who had visited her court, with their demands; weighed the worth of the latest to join their throng - Thuldruem, she believed the drake had referred to himself - and the worth of the desires she had heard lately.

She focused on the desires, seeing them to be much more meaningful and worthwhile than politics.

Always it was the same subconscious fears perpetuating their idyllic scenes, their desires underlined by the rushed nature of mortality. Fame, fortune, love, companionship. Her little ponies never wanted anything else, nor did they think to ask of the bigger picture, or fear what was most like to be feared.  Death, snakes, spiders, and laughter were all so mundane. Luna wondered why this was so. Wondered, as came the occasion, if something could not be done to change that.

Perhaps if she were to grant their desires within their dreams, perhaps her little ponies would grow wiser. It was a dark thought, one that seemed spurred on by boredom at first glance - but as it did not directly hamper reality then surely it would have been fine to do. She was the Warden of Dreams as well as a ruler of a fortunate kingdom, a kingdom in fact that was now coming into its own in an age she could hardly imagine. Surely change was necessary, to herd her citizens into their age of glory.

Surely, she ought to be doing as much as Celestia -

The mercurial flow evaporated into a cloud at its pained sigh, before it was caught and sucked down into a cavern alight with stars. In the vast antechamber, the cloud stretched itself thin into the fog where gigantic, white-eyed, stony beasts swam with creaking groans and stalactite faces across beds of rolling sands and  frothing waves.

She would not, nae, ever go there again. Envy was not that which she ought to feel, the Princess told herself firmly. She would not steep so low.

The halo of moonlight enshrouding the land dimmed in her fright. The Princess of the Night reflected upon this, carefully gathering and unwinding her coils with some aid from the falling stars who offered their support. Tiny filaments of starlight took the form of ribbons, curling about her clouds, warming her with their affection. Luna thanked them, and breathed again.

I should nae be so unkind towards mineself, Luna remarked with a nervous laugh. I should not be afeard of what others should think of me. It is foolish, to be so skittish as to dread my own mind, to jump toward the worst with nary a consideration for the better.

Her voice, the first sound to be heard, echoed through the dreamscape. The stony beasts turned their glowing eyes on her. Suddenly, the stone behemoths were swarming, grinding their bodies into the sand and curling about the princess for attention like so many fond pets.

I hath made friends, and I am loved. I should thus be free to make my own decisions, with no qualms of harm to any and all. I will discuss my ideas with Tia, Luna resolved, stroking one craggy form after another, watching in amusement as their eyes, as large and bright as spotlights, flickered on and off in pleasure. She was in turn enveloped by whiteness.

Luna was surprised to find another being in this field of white, one that she knew immediately was not a part of her realm, but other.

"Who are you?" Luna asked the shadow. It was a very cold thing, very dark.

She was startled to watch the being lay itself prone before her. As the shadows shifted, they came together in the form of a pegasus with over-sized wings. Her subject, the being's intentions declared from her subconscious.

Luna eyed the pony, carefully. "You may rise," She told it.

The pony did so. He was tall and almost colorless save for the barest hint of blue in his dark and graying coat, his mane sweeping back, platinum streaked with white. He was an older stallion in his fifties, she saw. His eyes were a very pale green she had mistaken for gray, as he neared with her unconscious admittance gazed upon her with reverence.

"Your Majesty."

It was strange to be called that after so long. The epithet itself, Celestia had told her, had gone out of date along with their old titles a few centuries ago.

"You are dead," Luna said softly.

The pegasus nodded. Although now it could be seen that his representation was beginning to rot at this acknowledgment, fur and feathers falling out, his body shriveling with decay. He paid the changes no mind, his gaze upon her steady.

"I ask for your aid."

The stallion was lost, she sensed. There was turmoil, but his purpose was to save the life of another.

"I cannot pass you over unto your next life," Luna informed the stallion. "Your spirit must journey through Tartarus to reach the White Fields. Your loved ones will rest easy once you do."

The stallion smiled thinly, an expression that widened with the decay of his lips into a shallow grin. "You misunderstand me, Your Majesty. My loved ones have long since passed."

An undercurrent of tragedy marked his words, and Luna did not ask further just what he meant, but rather focused on what he implied - he had been dead a long time, and of his own volition, remained.

"What is it that you need of me, my little pony?" Luna asked.

"I have harmed an innocent, and she is dying," The pegasus answered, his skin flaking away before her eyes. "I ask that she be healed, and for my life to end as so many have wished."

Luna's brow knit. "If she is dying then I cannot help you. Balance must be kept between the realms of life and death. You may have escaped from those laws, but not all have that rare ability, spirit." She paused. "Why do you seek death?"

"I do not," The stallion answered, his eyes turning milky and cracked. "But it seems fitting, that as I have become the monster that others have prodded me to become, I should be punished."

"Prodded..." Luna's words trailed off.

Visions came to mind from this being, and she cut them off before they could overwhelm.

"Why did they come searching for you, after you had made your retreat?"

"I do not know," The stallion answered. His cheeks were sunken to such extremes, his grin seemed manic. "Perhaps your divine sister happened to remember I was still here."

"What did you do to her?" Luna's voice hardened.

"Nothing," The wraith before her replied simply.

There was silence as Luna stared into his blind orbs with a piercing stare. She reeled back with a gasp.

"I will speak to her," Luna announced in a low voice, standing up in the expanse of white. " I am...Very sorry that you have been persecuted so, in my absence." She paused as a second thought formed. " Or that in my return," She breathed, turning her head back to the lich. " I have paid you no attention in your plight. I did not know any undead yet lingered in our lands."

Another thing to inquire to her sister. Why were there no vampires or ghouls in Equestria, when they were her people, the citizens of her night? Why were there only ponies? Luna had wondered what it was that felt off, that made her feel restless, and now she knew.

Why had she not asked sooner? Why had she allowed herself to be lulled into a false bliss, and carried away by her sister's designs? Why had she not remembered?

Gratefully, the pony before her did not have the answer. "I've known of no others, so I couldn't say why." He bowed his tattered head. "You owe me no apologies, Your Majesty. The dead do not dream."

"You may leave," Luna said, making an off-hoof gesture of dismissal with her wing. The dreamscape began to fade around them as the princess urged herself to ascend toward consciousness.

How could she have forgotten of the extent of her domain? Had the Elements meddled with her mind in their desire to cleanse her of her darkness, and gone too far?

"What of the the plight of the innocent?"

"The innocent need not be ignorant," Came her distracted reply. "You have not committed any crimes, and so you are under my protection. Go now and remain peaceful."

The being left with a sigh, a plume of dark vapors vanishing, tainting the white to grey in his wake.

Luna arose, eyes sore and blurry, and found it to be nearing dusk when she stumbled to the window and drew back the curtains. Shadows were cast about the grand bedchamber, deep, long things that desired to be her company in her half-asleep state.

Her magic found her mane-brush and royal ornaments as she stumbled across the room, urging feeling to return to her hooves with every prickling step, wings folding and unfolding for balance on instinct. Her skill with her telekinesis allowed her to dress and groom herself simultaneously as she sat before her vanity.

In the mirror a concerned face stared back, at a loss to soothe the mare's questions or her trepidation. Her head swam. Although she knew better, it was difficult not to think of this as another dream. To imagine her sister, outright betraying her.

"Nae," Luna groaned. "It is foolish, to jump toward the worst with nary a consideration for the better." She had said it before, but it was worth repeating, especially now. It was nice to hear her own voice in the old dialect. It was her secret for when she was alone, the words bringing forth grand memories before the hearth, nostalgia, and a sense of self that lain untouched by the scars of time.

As she awoke, so did her mane,the filaments billowing and stretching where her brush carried its strokes, the bristles providing guidance until it could float ethereally on its own in a clean manner. Stars twinkled within the inky, nebulous mass, reminding her of her duties.

She repeated the process on her tail, which always seemed to like lingering behind in the waking ritual.

Celestia? She probed tentatively. Tia? Will you be finished soon?

As soon as the ambassador from Timbucktu and a cabbage farmer sort out their differences, came Celestia's voice, warm as her light. Good morning to you too, Lulu.

Luna sensed her sister was waiting for her to speak. Might we talk, after I raise the moon?

Certainly, came Celestia's reply. With tea and scones?

That would be nice, Luna admitted.

Earl Grey, Morning, or Persimmon-Peach?

Sister dearest, you're getting distracted, said Luna, smiling.

Breakfast is a very important meal of the day, Celestia replied. And for scones, I know we have raspberry, blueberry, orange, wildberry - which would you prefer, and with or without frosting?

Tia, Luna groaned. Pray, do your job. The mare paused. But if you must, bring us a sampling of everything.

That sounds lovely, Celestia said, chuckling. I'll call you when I have everything together.

Very well, Luna agreed

Luna ended her spell. With a deep breath and another look at her puzzled reflection, she abandoned her mirror with the need for air.

The balcony was her destination, her magic unlatching her window in two and folding back the pieces.  Her eyes were met with pristine white stone as she stepped outside, pink in the dying light. All of Canterlot and Equestria sat beneath her as she turned her attentions beyond the rail.

She heaved one breath, and then another in her contemplation.

Her sister was... Something. Not something bad, certainly not. Her sister was warm, generous, and kind. Very much the supportive motherly figure ever aware of the needs of others, if timid in ways the public did not oft see. Sensitive would have been the phrase.

Delicate would have been another, but Luna did not yet fully grasp the depths of her sister's growth in her absence to claim as much. Perhaps in Celestia's maturity, the fragility she had possessed had faded, crushed under the walls of her own devising, whence she hid to hide her tears. These were walls Luna sometimes met face to face, in the rare moments of her sister's breakdowns.

Luna did not know what her sister was capable of in this new millennium, but she doubted cruelty would have become one of her natures. If anything, the extinction of undeath came about as a misunderstanding that would now be easily resolved. Perhaps it had been done out of grief than spite, and the dead had been the reminder of what she couldn't save.

Or so she hoped. Luna sighed. But neither of them could handle another war, so there was solace in that too.

Her heart was aching. It was a pang that started deep and gradually made her feel sick, to think of the many faces that had been obliterated from existence. Loving, innocent creatures beneath their gore, annihilated.

The dead had trusted her to keep them safe, and they had paid with their lives.

The thought brought tears to her eyes. Burning, prickling things that reminded Luna of fire. The alicorn cried silently, long after the tears had dried, gasping out sobs without any fodder.

She remembered a little colt who had died. When he had been raised, and not by her own hoof, he had given her a flower. That flower had wilted and dried at his touch, but it had made none the difference.

Luna? I'm ready for you, came Celestia's voice, her gentle tones shattering through her sorrow.

Luna's horn flickered to life in between her sniffles. Coming, She said quietly.

Are...Are you crying? Celestia asked. Her love and concern rippled through the telepathy spell, and for a moment Luna basked in the daylight she rarely felt.

Yes, Luna admitted. I'll...Tell you all about it, Tia.

Luna turned to make her exit, then paused. She had been forgetting herself. The moon yet needed to be raised. Her horn glowed.

The ascension was quick and clumsy, certainly clumsier than her previous efforts. Still, as she gazed up at the waxing crescent, she was proud of what she could manage. There was a comfort in the moon's glow, an embrace that told her things would be all right.