Luna Story

The Grand Galloping Gala. The biggest and most majestic gathering in the entire kingdom of Equestria. All its most regal subjects from far and wide attend the annual promenade in the interest of high society.

Although, this year, the society was far from its usual grandeur.

"Hey everypony! Ready to par-tay!?"

Pinkie Pie leapt up onto the stage and began kicking as if doing the cancan, drawing scowls and murmurs of disapproval from the gathered ponies of higher birth. She leapt down and joined hooves with a surprised stallion, spinning him into an involuntary dance that nearly dislocated his shoulder and ruffled his mane before dropping him on the spot and rushing over to do the same to his date.

"Come on, guys, it's a party! We're supposed to dance!!" she squealed.

The air rippled in the corner of the room, a concealed figure shifting in place as she watched. A faint smile passed over the blue pony's lips, vanishing almost as it appeared, before she turned and slipped out of the grand hall. She filed down a hallway, sticking to the wall so as not to bump into the partygoers scattered throughout the castle. She followed the wall, slinking through the marble corridors to a large, blue door, and silently slipped inside.

Luna dropped her concealment spell once inside, seeming to materialize out of thin air, and trotted over to her bed. She dropped herself onto it, not particularly upset in her mannerism, and rolled onto her back, staring at the starry sky spattered across her ceiling. The cool blue light of her bedside lamp made the air peaceful and calm, the sounds of the festivities below all but silenced by the soundproof atmosphere at the outer edge of the room. For a moment, the world was quiet.

"Luna?"

Luna opened her eyes. She let out a quiet sigh and turned her head to a vanity at the wall near her bed, landing her eyes on a carving of her sister that protruded from the mantle of the mirror.

"Yes?"

"Why are you shut up in your room like this?" the carving asked in Celestia's voice, its mouth opening and closing like a puppet's as it spoke. "You're missing the whole gala."

Luna sighed and sat up. "I've been around. It's not very interesting..."

"Luna," the carving sighed, "I know you're not used to crowds yet, but you never will be if you don't try. You're a princess; it's our duty to be sociable."

Luna made a face, reaching behind herself and pulling a little stuffed dragon into her arms. "I don't want to..."

The carving was silent for a moment, drawing Luna's focus back to it, before it murmured something inaudible.

"Where are you?" Luna asked quietly.

"I'm in the foyer, greeting our guests," the carving answered. "Twilight Sparkle is here too. You really should come down and meet her, I know you'd be the best of friends."

Luna scowled at the carving and hugged the stuffed dragon tighter. "Twilight Sparkle..." Luna muttered. "Can't you talk about anypony else? All I hear you say now is 'Twilight Sparkle this' and 'Twilight Sparkle that' and 'Oh, you really must hear what Twilight Sparkle said in a letter today'..." Luna looked away from the vanity out a window. "...What's she got that I don't...?"

The vanity opened its mouth, but said nothing for a second or two. "Luna...Are you...jealous of Twilight?"

"Maybe I am!" Luna shot back, throwing the stuffed dragon at the vanity and silencing her sister. The carving was quiet, unmoving, and Luna turned away from it. She crossed her arms, clenching her jaw as tears formed in her eyes.

"...You still have anger your heart," Celestia sighed. "After all these years...I can't break through to you..."

Luna bit her lip, trying not to cry, and clamped her eyes shut. She sniffed quietly, trying not to let Celestia hear her, but the effort was in vain.

"Oh Luna..." the carving said sadly.

Luna wiped her eyes again, sniffing quietly, then set her jaw and sat up straight, looking out her window at the moon.

"...It's because you don't trust me, isn't it?"

She could almost see Celestia twitch, even half the castle away. "Luna..."

Luna nodded. "It's because my magic hasn't fully recovered and you don't know what I'll do when it does. You don't want to take the risk of me trying to take over again."

Celestia was quiet.

"...I don't want to lose you again," the carving said quietly, almost too much so to hear. "Whatever darkness took you away may still be there, and every day it seems more likely that it is. I don't want to have to send you away again..."

Luna shuddered, the thought of returning to the moon sending a chill up her spine, and lowered her head. She knew Celestia was right, that she was only looking out for her little sister, and it was comforting to think about, but it did little to quell her jealousy. She sat still, sifting through her thoughts, then turned back to the vanity with a nervous expression.

"If I come down, do I have to let people see me?" she asked quietly.

"Oh Luna," the carving chided with an audible smile, "I suppose not now, but soon."

Luna nodded, a faint smile passing over her face, and stood up from the bed. She started toward the door, then paused, an idea flashing through her mind.

"Hey Tia?" she asked, stepping closer to the vanity.

"Yes Luna?"

"You said Twilight was really good at teleporting spells, right?"

"...Nice to see you again, have a wonderful time," the carving murmured. Obviously greeter duty was starting to pull her thoughts away from the spell. "I'm sorry, what did you say, Luna?"

"Twilight's good at teleporting, isn't she?" Luna asked again.

"Oh, why yes. It's one of the first advanced spells I taught her," Celestia said, almost making the carving nod proudly.

Luna flashed the vanity a sly smile. 'That's how I'll impress her...'

"Tia, what side of you is she on?"

"She's at my left," the carving answered. "...Why do you ask?"

Luna stepped back from the vanity with a grin and spread her hooves out on the floor. "Get ready to be impressed, Tia. I'm gonna teleport all the way down to the foyer."

Celestia paused in the middle of greeting someone. "Luna, don't try it."

"I can do it!" Luna protested, "You'll see!"

"No, Luna," Celestia said quickly, "There's a ward against teleportation in the castle. Don't try to-"

Luna shut out her sister's warning and released her mental hold on her magic, letting it flow up the fluting of her horn and set it ablaze with a deep violet glow. She formed an image in her mind of a rune, the one she had learned represented teleportation, and visualized that image flowing from her mind up to the tip of her horn, making it flicker as it registered the desired spell. Then she focused on the foyer, on the top of the ornate staircase that lead into the rest of the castle, and placed a circle off to the side of the stairs where she thought no one would be. Then, all her preparations made, she imagined a circle around herself, bridging the two places in her mind, and let released her magic.

"Luna, do you hear me? Don't-" Celestia started.

Bang!!

Celestia fell silent, still holding a guests hoof, and looked over her shoulder. Both Twilight and the gust noticed her sudden distraction and looked up at the ceiling where she was focused, frowning as they failed to notice whatever it was she was looking at. The mare in front of her winced, glancing at their hooves, and slowly pulled hers away while watching to make sure she didn't offend the princess before trotting off to join in with the rest of the festivities.

"Princess?" Twilight asked, stepping in front of her and following her gaze. Celestia's eyes remained fixed on the ceiling, her expression unreadable. Twilight glanced over her shoulder at a new group of guests coming up the stairs and anxiously pawed at Celestia's front leg, snapping back to the foyer.

"Wha...?" she asked distractedly before focusing on Twilight. "Oh, Twilight..."

"Is everything alright?" Twilight asked quietly, sensing that something was not.

Celestia blinked, shaking herself out of her stupor, and put her usual smile back where it belonged. "Oh, yes," she nodded, stepping forward past Twilight to greet the newcomers. "Everything will be just fine."

Twilight frowned as Celestia gave her guests their greeting and sent them off to her left, and stepped closer to her.

"But...it isn't now, is it?"

Celestia remained frozen in place, keeping her eyes on the door, then let out a quiet sigh and turned a somber expression to her pupil.

"As soon as we're done here I need your help with something..."

* * * * * *

Luna opened her eyes slowly, the bright burst of light from the teleportation making it hard to see for a second. She blinked once or twice, then jumped and looked to her left, excited to see the look on Celestia's face.

"See? I-"

Luna stopped her sentence dead. Celestia was nowhere to be seen. She blinked, confused, then looked to her right. The foyer was empty, not a single visible pony obscuring her view of the polished marble floors and walls. Luna frowned, turning around completely, then straining to look out the window that hung above the entrance to the castle to see if her sister had gone outside.

"...Tia?" Luna called down the stairs, flinching as the word echoed back to her. She looked around again, the echo bringing to her attention that the band in the grand ballroom had evidently stopped playing. Luna took a step toward the door to the ballroom, straining her ears, and felt herself shiver as she realized that the voices of party goers had also fallen silent. She took another step, the sound of her hoof clicking against the sleek white floor echoing quietly.

"...T-Tia?"

Luna gulped quietly as she made her way over to the door to the ballroom, her eyes scanning its surface in nervous confusion. It had been open when she saw it last, or, at least, she thought it had. 'I was on the other side of the room...maybe it just looked like it was open...'

She stepped up to the massive double doors and stopped, suddenly unsure what to do. This was where the party was being held for the most part, so it stood to reason that there would be someone inside that would know where Celestia was. What didn't stand to reason was the fact that, even when pressing her ear to the door, Luna couldn't hear any sound coming from inside.

'That's so strange...' she mused, straightening up. 'Maybe...there's been an accident? Oh I certainly hope everyone's alright.' She flinched. 'What if Tia got hurt?' She flattened the side of her face against the door again, worried. 'What if they're all in shock because she...slipped and broke her leg? Or worse! Oh my...What do I do?' Luna pulled herself back from the door, nervously bringing a hoof to her face, and looked back down the hall for somepony who might be able to help her. She gulped again, seeing no one, and turned back to the door. She hesitated, her hoof still raised to her face, then slowly reached out and pushed on the great door.

The doors, perfectly weighted as they were, yielded to Luna's effort easily, sliding open with a prolonged creak that sent chills up the little blue alicorn's spine. She shifted her weight as the door opened, keeping herself hidden behind it as long as she could and scanning the inside of the room as it came into her field of view. The chills continued as Luna saw the grand ballroom appeared to be empty, all the visible space in the room left with not a single pony in sight. She turned her head, following the edge of the door, then flinched as a figure came into view. She nearly let out a surprised yelp, but realizing who the familiar form belonged to put her fears at rest and she stepped forward into the ballroom with a relieved smile on her face.

"Oh, Tia," Luna sighed, starting to walk toward the alicorn in the middle of the room, "I thought something..." Luna slowed, the emptiness of the room finally asserting itself in her mind, and she looked around herself in all directions to find that not a single other pony was in the room with them. She frowned, looking back at Celestia, and gulped as she realized her sister was just standing there, right in the middle of the room, facing away from her.

Silent.

"Tia?" Luna asked quietly, taking a step closer. "...T-Tia? ...Are you okay?"

Click.

Luna flinched, looking behind herself, and felt herself shiver as she saw that the door to the room had drifted closed. Another shiver ran through her body as she remembered its weight, and the creak it made when it moved. One would have let her hear the door closing before it was shut completely.

The other would keep it from closing on its own.

Luna gulped and turned her body back toward Celestia, still watching the door. "Tia, what's going on? I'm scared"

Luna looked ahead of herself and fell silent. Where Celestia had been the moment before now stood a pink pony just shorter than Luna herself, her hot pink mane and tail falling behind her like ribbons. Luna gulped, terrified and confused by the unfolding events of the evening, but a sudden spark of recognition took the edge out of her fear.

'That's...that's that pony from earlier...' she thought, running her eyes over the silent mare in the middle of the room. 'She was there...back in the old palace...with Tia...' She steadied her hooves on the ground and wagered a half-step closer. 'One of Twilight Sparkle's friends...'

The pink pony remained still, facing in the opposite direction just as Celestia was. Luna hesitated, her hoof hovering above the floor for a moment, before taking one last step closer, placing her a good five yards behind the statuesque mare. She took a second to breathe, still very frightened by the situation, before quietly clearing her throat.

"Hello?"

No response.

"...You're the pony from earlier, right? You were trying to dance with everyone?"

Silence.

".....Where's your dress? It was pretty..."

Something resembling a slow, deep breath echoed through the ballroom, making Luna flinch. She shuffled a few inches closer to the pink pony, looking around the room, before stopping and focusing on her again.

"Um...is the party over?"

The pink pony's ear twitched. Luna gulped, edging backward as the pony's head turned to the side, her wide eyes and smile just coming into view before she suddenly stopped.

"Over?" she asked quietly, making Luna flinch.

A whisper off to Luna's side made her jump, looking around in the direction it had come from to find herself still alone with the flat-haired mare in the middle of the room. She blinked, squinting at a little light that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, then looked around with widening eyes as she saw that the little floating orbs were suddenly everywhere. She looked toward the center of the room, about to ask what they were, to find that the pink pony had disappeared, and let out a whimper as one of the little balls of candlelight drifted past her face. She backed up, trying to distance herself from the cluster of floating lights, then squeaked as she backed into something and whipped around to find herself face to face with the wild eyed pink pony.

"The party has yet to begin!"

The room went dark, blinding Luna. She covered her face, the abrupt change to total darkness stinging her eyes, then pulled her hoof away and felt her sore eyes shoot open, her blood freezing in her veins.

The world was illuminated with a dark, harsh shade of red. The walls had all changed, the once polished white marble coated with splashes of black and red that pulsated as if alive. The majestic décor had become twisted and macabre, the golden statues that stood atop the pedestals in the corners of the room broken and bent at odd angles and colored as though they were real ponies that had met some terrible demise. The pillars that filled the sides of the room had become what looked like towers made of ponies, both whole and in pieces; full bodies, random organs and limbs, and skeletal protrusions jutting out from the fleshy columns at all angles.

But the most sickening sight of all was what had become of the orbs.

Each ball of light erupted into a ghostly, transparent flame that engulfed the form of a pony. Luna recognized many of them as the party goers she had seen earlier while watching from the corner of the room, but now they had all been twisted and mangled. They were brutalized corpses, wandering around the room and conversing with each other in guttural moans and other unintelligible sounds that made Luna's skin crawl. She shook her head, eye's wide and watering, and jumped back as one of the bloodied ponies walked by her face, shrieking as she bumped into another that seemed to give some indignant and pompous retort in its choked sounding babbles.

"No, I, oh! I-I'm sorr- AHH!! Oh dear, I-I...I..." Luna whimpered, trying to get away from the twisted guests. They seemed to be going about their business, casually chatting with each other in squawks and growls, as if nothing had changed. Luna tried to shrink, tried to avoid touching them and quickly made her way toward the wall of the room next to the door she had entered from, quickly turning to face it once she was there and clamping her hooves down on the sides of her head, staring at the bloodied wall with bulging eyes and a racing heart. She struggled to get her breathing under control, rocking slowly as she shifted her hooves to cover her ears and drown out the awful sounds of the deathly ponies around her.

"It's not real, it's not real," she mumbled, tears starting to stream out of the sides of her eyes, "None of this is real. I'm dreaming. I'm dreaming, I'm dreaming, I'm dreaming. I'm dreaming. I'm dreaming..." Luna started to choke, her throat stinging and vision blurring as her panic continued to increase. "Oh Tia, please let me be dreaming..."

She shut her eyes tight, whispering the phrase to herself until she began to trip over it. The noises of the room seemed to grow louder the more she tried to shut them out, the atmosphere growing thick and heavy as if the room itself were shrinking. The walls felt as if they were closing in, crushing Luna into a little ball as she sat practically screaming at the doorframe that she was dreaming. The phrase began to collapse on itself, not really coming out as words so much as a stream of frantic crying, until Luna had completely emptied her lungs and took a deep breath to begin the string again...but stopped.

She opened her eyes. Her hooves let up the pressure on her ears. She blinked, pushing a final tear from each eye, and slowly sat up.

The room had fallen silent.

Luna gulped quietly, hesitantly turning around, and clenched her teeth together to keep herself from making noise as she found all eyes focused on her. Her wide eyes darted back and forth between the rotten eyeballs and empty sockets of the assembled ponies that stared back at her. Her first thought was that she might have concerned some of them with her screaming. Maybe they were just regular ponies that looked scary. But the more she saw of the faces that had her in their sights, the more she saw they hadn't a care for her in their minds. Their eyes, even the ones that were whole and undamaged, seemed lifeless and dull. They were looking directly at Luna, but they weren't really seeing her.

"It's not polite to make such a ruckus when people are trying to have fun."

Something moved at the back of the room. Luna's eyes shot toward the obscured figure as it weaved its way through the mass of ponies toward a break in the crowd, her breath growing shorter as the creature slipped between the corpselike party goers until it finally came into view. Luna froze up, her shivers stopping, and felt her breath catch in her throat.

The pink pony meandered to a lazy stop in the open section of floor, watching Luna with dark smile. Her coat had become a sickly shade of scarlet, her mane and tail now burgundy, and the whites of her eyes and her teeth were both pitch black and seemed to be melting or leaking darkness down her face. Glowing little red dots were all that remained in the black pools of her eyes, and looking directly at them made Luna's body suddenly feel cold. They were quiet, watching each other, all the other ponies in the room remaining dead still as if not to distract them from each other. The once pink pony giggled, a normal sounding noise that under such abnormal circumstances came across as horrifying. She tilted her head slightly to both sides and a wave of movement seemed to flow through the room; that is to say, not the macabre ponies scattered around her, but the very room itself. The pillars and statues seemed to come alive, their various heads turning in sickly jerking motions to look at Luna, several of the loose body parts of the columns falling to the ground as the blood stained skulls twisted themselves loose to shift their gaze. Luna scooted herself backward until she touched the wall, then jumped away from it with a suppressed squeal as she felt it undulate against her skin. The entire room, probably the entire castle, had suddenly come to life.

And it had its sights set on the little blue alicorn.

The dark pony giggled again, drawing a laugh-like murmur from the crowd at large, then started toward Luna at a snail's pace. Luna gasped, backing against the wall again before jerking away from it. All the ponies in the room began to shuffle forward, dragging broken and twisted limbs toward the princess, following in the wake of the floating monster that seemed to be in charge of the dark world Luna had fallen into.

"G-GO AWAY!!" Luna screamed, scrabbling backwards as far as she could without touching the wall. "STAY BACK!! PLEASE!!"

She waved her forelegs in front of her in a frantic attempt to stave them off, looking around in a panic for any means of escape. She landed her eyes on the door beside her, momentarily feeling silly for having forgotten about it, then shrieked as one of the large statues in the corner of the room clambered down from its post and began to hobble toward her with the rest of the crowd. She scrambled to her hooves, leaping toward the door, and slammed her shoulder into it. To her horror, however, the door would not budge. Luna reared back and slammed her hooves into the heavy door, pushing as hard as she could, and began to panic again as it refused to heed to her efforts.

"NONONONONO, LET ME OUT!!!" she screamed, shooting a glance over her shoulder at the approaching mob. The dark pony let out another little giggle that sent chills up her spine and made the pillars begin to unravel, their individual parts dropping to the floor and dragging themselves into the crowd toward her. Luna stopped pushing and flattened herself against the door, beating furiously at it and screaming at the top of her lungs. "LET ME OUT!!! LET ME THE HAY OUT OF HERE!!! PLEASE!! HORSEAPPLES LET ME OOOOOUT!!!!"

The dark pony let out a full forced laugh, the sickeningly cutesy sound cutting through the air like a razor and making Luna scream. The princess slammed her hooves against the door, her eyes locked on the fast approaching specter, then with a final loud shriek threw herself against the massive sheet of bloodied gold and wood. Suddenly, the door flew open, throwing Luna off balance, and sent her tumbling forward out of the ballroom and into the cavernous, dark pit on the opposite side. She screamed as she fell, what little dim light the ballroom had to offer fading to utter blackness as she careened down into the dark.

The echo faded slowly, the door hanging open to the infinite expanse of black that extended from the hellish ballroom. A blood colored face appeared over the lip of the pit, peering down into the blackness, a dark grin twisting its mouth. The figure lifted its head, the mob of death and decay behind it reacting violently to the motion, then turned and started a leisurely walk through the sea of collapsing ponies as its followers began to fall apart. The open door began to fade in color until its surface was a shade of black that matched that of the darkness beyond it, the shadow of emptiness spreading inward and consuming the walls and floor in the dark pony's wake. Soon the darkness overtook the blood colored pony, surging forward to consume the room and plunge it all into a black darker than a moonless night.

"Now the party begins..."