Author's Note
Welcome one, welcome all, to my 85th try. Ok, that's an exaggeration, but still! Fearless dies when I do, and I'm not dead yet!
Look at that. I made the exact same scene last twice as long. Hopefully, this will be even more popular that the original version. Can you tell that my pony words have improved? I think it's pretty obvious. If you want to edit/preread, you have but to ask.
Enjoy.
For which Gods may weep
"Hold on, Ah'ma comin'!"
Twilight risked a quick glance down. There, she saw the same sight she had seen while she was falling- the ground waited eagerly for her some twenty meters below. She turned her head back and shut her eyes tight. There was no possible way she was going to live through that fall. Twilight Sparkle was going to die in that forest. She would never rescue Celestia. She would never see her home again. Her parents or her brother, what were they going to do? Shining Armor was strong, and would probably be the most collected of them all. Her mother and father, however, would be devastated. Moreover, the night would last forever. She'd failed in her duty to Equestria. It was over.
She snapped out of those thoughts when she felt a pair of hooves wrap firmly around her own. Even without her sight, there was only one logical conclusion as to their owner. "Applejack, what do I do?" she screamed into the night, hoping against all hope that the farmpony would have a solution.
There was a short pause before Applejack spoke again. "Let go."
"Are you crazy?" Twilight's eyes shot open wide rather violently, silently noting the seriousness of the other mare's voice. All the ponies in Ponyville were crazy, of course, but Applejack seemed to be at least somewhat level headed. Well, she seemed to be at least somewhat level headed up until she flat out told Twilight to fall to her death. Then she was crazy.
"No, Ah ain't. Ah promise, you'll be safe," she replied. Twilight had a very hard time keeping up her attitude at that point. Applejack was right in front of her, almost in the exact same predicament, but she wasn't freaking out.
"That's not true!" Twilight called back, still praying that there was a safer way out of this. She didn't doubt the farmpony's words, per se, though she had hoped that there would be a solution that didn't involve her falling. She hated falling.
"Now listen here. What Ah'm sayin' to you is the honest truth." The words had a significant calming effect. The lavender unicorn dropped her look of fright for a second, listening intently, as ordered, to every word the earth pony had to say. "Let go, and you'll be safe."
So that was it. Just let go, simple as that? Twilight had passed much harder tests. Applejack promised she'd be safe. Applejack didn't seem the type to lie about that, especially not when a pony's life was in danger. Then again, she'd never been the best judge of character. Nevertheless, she could hear her proverbial gut telling her that she was right. Twilight shut her eyes tight.
And let go.
She was briefly made aware of a moment of falling by her own screams piercing the air around her before she stopped suddenly. She hesitated to open her eyes, but when she did, she found she was hanging precariously by one hoof. Grabbing onto said hoof was Fluttershy, who was quite obviously not the strongest flier. The pegasus wore an expression of great pain on her face, as though struggling against gravity to save Twilight.
This isn't right.
Where was Rainbow Dash? She could have easily carried Twilight to safety. However, she was nowhere to be found. She screamed again. She was falling again now, Fluttershy having seemed to vanish into oblivion. "Rainbow Dash!" she cried. "Fluttershy?" It was futile. There was nopony to save her now.
Twilight hit the ground hard enough to cause an audible echo throughout the canyon. She was alive, miraculously, though in a lot of pain. She felt like she should have been screaming still. Every bone she could feel was obviously broken. Her body itself felt numb, though her insides were mush. Her eyes fluttered open gently, as though not to disturb the motionless state in which she was trying to exist. She immediately wished she hadn't, despite finding it impossible to turn away.
Nightmare Moon herself stood not two meters away from her, glancing over her limp body with a devilish smile on her face. "All the elements, sealed in stone. All of their bearers, dead. Their leader, a miserable pile of broken bones and aching flesh." She paused to walk closer to Twilight's body, standing directly over her before continuing. "I think this is over."
The smaller pony could still find it in herself to offer a futile resistance. "You will not win," she began in a raspy voice, struggling for air. The Nightmare shot her a curious look. "You lack conviction. You seek only power and attention. You can't win."
"Ha!" Nightmare Moon's laugh resounded through the open forest. "You make me laugh, Twilight Sparkle. So I will let you know this, as you die in vain." Using her hoof, the spirit of darkness flipped Twilight onto her back, the action rattling her bones and causing her to scream out in pain. She brought that same hoof to the unicorns chest, right over her shattered sternum and heart. "I already have." With that, she pushed, causing shards of bone to fly off into Twilight's heart, killing her almost instantly.
Twilight jolted from her bed, her rapid breathing bordering on hyperventilation. Her eyes darted around the room, trying desperately to search for anything that would indicate it was a dream. Her entire coat was soaked in a cold sweat, usually a sure indication of a nightmare. She gave her wings a cautionary flex, settling into remembering they were still there. She wiped off her forehead with a hoof, then settled her face into her forelegs. Once her breathing had returned to normal, she whispered into the night, "Day sixteen," certain that nopony was listening.
Slowly, she managed to pull herself out of bed. Sixteen night in a row now she'd been suffering from these nightmares. They weren't normal nightmares, either. No, dreams were fluid, fleeting. They were almost all but forgotten mere minutes after waking up. So why did she still remember sixteen nightmares in perfect detail? Part of her wanted to say it was just her incredible memory, but she knew better than that.
Using her magic, she lit a small lantern on the study table in her chambers, taking not of everything there. Nothing seemed disturbed, fortunately. She'd been known to break out into telekinetic spasms during particularly strong dreams, but her personal library seemed to be just the way she'd left it. Right down to the cyan-colored banner rolled up and sitting in the corner of some of the bookshelves.
Twilight turned away immediately, unable to bring herself to even look at it, just as she'd done for the past three months. There was little else to do, as she was certain she wouldn't be sleeping any time soon. Instead, she walked out to the balcony through the glass doors and gazed up at the moon. Did Luna know about these dreams? She would have to, with them being her domain and all. So why didn't she help? Why did she allow Twilight to suffer?
As simple as it would have been, she couldn't bring herself to really blame this on Luna. Likely, the hallucinations she'd been experiencing were a result of her own inaction. Three months ago, everything had been fine. Rainbow Dash, having long since become old enough to be incapable of taking care of herself, had moved in to Twilight's palace in Ponyville. They still had a great time together, even after eighty years. True friendships really did last a lifetime.
Then, it was all taken from her. Three months ago, her last true friend had died. There had been mourning, of course, and consultation. Despite having been to the gates of Tartarus, Twilight Sparkle did not believe in Elysium. Tartarus was nothing more than a highly-magical prison. Elysium was simply impossible. In Tartarus, there were living, breathing criminals who were supposed to pay the price for their actions. She'd seen Dash's body. There were no such thing as ghosts, and subsequently souls, and no body to go to this "paradise". No matter what so many had told her, Rainbow Dash was not in a better place.
For three months, Twilight had done nothing but mourn. She'd neglected her royal duties as a princess of Equestria. She'd even missed the last Council, something that no princess had done since its conception. She'd neglected her friendships. Luna and Cadence were sure to have missed her, Cadence even having her own struggles, but for three months, she couldn't even bring herself to think of them. And Celestia... It hurt to even think about what her dearest teacher might have been going through.
The violet alicorn sat down on the cold stone, gazing out into the Everfree before her. "Where did it go wrong?" She'd been just fine after the deaths of her four other friends. Or at least, that's what she told herself. Was that true, though? Could these long nights be the penance she paid for treating their losses so heartlessly?
No, that couldn't have been right. She was fine, but her friends weren't, and she'd devoted a considerable amount of time to consoling them. It was only fitting that one of them keep her head about it. That was just it, though, wasn't it? She kept her head to help her friends. But now?
They were all gone. Now was Twilight's turn to mourn. Glancing back to her room, she knew what she had to do. Slowly, she got to her hooves and walked back into her room. She lit her horn both opened the door into the hallway beyond and grabbed the cyan banner in the corner. She would need both of them. Without another word nor thought, she left.
Great pains shot through Luna's heart. Another one, she thought to herself. She'd lost count of Twilight's nightmares, though she figured them to number somewhere around fifteen. Fifteen dreams to prevent her from her duty. Long ago, the Princess of the Night had sworn to defend the dreams of her subjects- a thankless job, to be sure, but her duty nevertheless. There had only been two rulers at the time, and Celestia hadn't been comfortable having her sister poke around in her head. She wasn't allowed to watch over her fellow princesses. Thus, the current predicament grew dire.
Atop her balcony on the walls of Canterlot Castle, it was quite easy for Luna to survey quite some distance out from the city. Tonight, however, only one locales caught her attention- the Everfree to the southeast. There lay a suffering princess. There lay a debt that for eighty years she'd never had the chance to repay. That was about to change.
Not that she would put it that way while explaining it to Celestia. While it would be nice to have that debt off of her shoulders, this was to help Twilight, plain and simple. That was what she told herself during her short flight to her sister's chambers. After landing, she repeated it one last time before knocking on the glass door to the bedroom. She knew that the goddess of the sun was in, of course. Luna could see her. She appeared to have let her mane settle for the night, no longer a shining rainbow, but rather a short cut of bright, flowing pink. In her golden magic, she held a small brush, gently caring for the each strand. A rather obvious reminder of how long it had been since Luna had done the same.
Still laying there, Celestia used that same magic to open the door. "Luna," she began, quite shocked to see her sister enter her chambers this late at night. It really had been far too long. They ruled in harmony, of course, but something needed to be done about the appalling lack of time they'd spent together since the Return. "Do you need--"
"We need to talk." Luna's words were short and precise, the elder noted- she was frustrated. And, she'd interrupted her- she was frustrated with her. And Celestia could hazard to guess what it was about. "Cele, we are concerned. Twilight Sparkle--"
Celestia held up a hoof, immediately silencing her sister. It wasn't a command, but rather a heavily-weighted suggestion to be quiet. Fortunately, Luna respected her authority. "Lulu, you're doing it again." The younger alicorn facehoofed herself, angrily noting how she had called her sister by her fillyhood name rather than a more formal title, thus opening herself up to being called Lulu. She hated being called Lulu. "Second, I am well aware of Twilight's nightmares. And no. It is not your place."
"How is it not our place? We are the Equestria's mistress of dreams. This is our duty!"
"My duty." Luna tilted her head to the side, confused by Celestia's statement. "This is my duty."
At first, the younger thought that her sister may have been trying to steal her job. It was entirely irrational, but she mentally prepared a long-winded speech about it nevertheless before she realized that Celestia was trying to correct her use of the old tongue. "Sister, this is no time to be correcting our... er, my speech. We have a serious problem here!"
"No, we don't. Twilight has a serious problem. It is neither yours nor mine to deal with." Luna closed her eyes tight, only now allowing herself to sit down. Her sister was right, of course. She was always right. This wasn't her battle. Why did she care? "Luna, I know you feel as though you owe something to Twilight, but I can assure you--"
Luna opened her eyes, the fire within almost scaring even Celestia. "She is a friend, 'Tia." The mare of midnight stood, turning back around towards the balcony. She slowly walked out, and once outside, added, "Are not friends supposed to help each other?"
Celestia sighed rather loudly. It was becoming increasingly obvious that there would be no talking Luna out of this. That didn't make it right, but it did make it inevitable. "It is not your choice to make," she called after her sister.
"Nor will it be." With those parting words, Princess Luna vanished off the edge of the balcony, riding her wings off to the southeast.
