Canterlot Mountain – Present Day
Luna
Northern lights, this far south…these were the first signs this evening that a millennium-old failure had at last been corrected. Celestia and I knew upon first sight what the auroras meant.
All was well in the realms. Twilight Sparkle had succeeded in her quest.
At early dawn, the Crystal Empire had returned, and with it that wicked, fallen shade of a former King that sister and I had so vengefully cast down into the Arctic ice a thousand and one winters ago. Now, that dark revenant has been dispelled, and the Empire's collective expression of celebration painted itself across the skies with exalted majesty. Twilight, Princess Cadence, and all their associates had restored the Empire's unity, doing what we, the Regal Sisters themselves, could not. Her citizens once again knew peace, and now all Equestria was left to stare in awe at the return of our once lost and nearly forgotten neighbor of the north.
"Truly, thou hast done well," I said aloud, hearing my own voice echo and ripple down the mountainside. Even with the empire some two thousand kilometers away, I could still bear witness to the majesty of its return.
As dusk took hold, I retreated here to this secluded perch above fair Canterlot to usher in the nocturnal hours and to rejoice the Empire's restoration in the best way my heart dictated.
It was cold here, but the snow, wind, and hoarfrost did little to numb me, warmed as I was by that perpetual fire that permeates the forms of us ageless beings. I basked in the combined glows of auroras and the Moon as I accelerated its ascent into the sky. I quietly savored the lights and the winds, the gentle sway of tree branches, and that feeling of the snow beneath my fur just as I had with every minute sensation since first I returned from my banishment but a year ago.
All that lost time in exile within the Moon should have provided me perspective. But alas, like the fickle merchant that fate can be, my poor subjects were left with the burden of witnessing their Princess' return as that foul shadow of myself, with only my lingering ire and the symptoms of a disheveled memory to guide my initial actions.
Fortunately, the powers of Harmony had healed the former entirely, but still the latter remains.
So on this night, I dwelled hither in meditation and silent celebration, but not as Nightmare Moon, Queen of Nightmares, or any other nefarious element of ill fate, gloom, or evil. I am Luna of Equestria, the bringer of pleasant dreams, the Princess of the Night – my true self. Moreover, my true self who, while co-ruler of Equestria, is merely a subject in the kingdom of her own memories.
I arose, the wind gently parting my mane. For a moment, I decided to focus my attention elsewhere. Using the reflective qualities of the Moon, I altered the view of the stars to appear even brighter than they naturally were, for any and all to gaze upon with wonder. It wasn't much, I know, but it was my gift to the Crystal Ponies this night.
The Empire's return will unquestionably spell great things for both our lands in the coming years with newfound access to its powerful magics, and even as its restoration sincerely imbues me with satisfaction, I must confess that a rebellious part of my mind is still not at rest.
In truth, it was this unrest of thoughts that helped guide me here to so tranquil a place for the moonrise. It certainly was a remedy to the bothersome monotony of Castle Canterlot, that I admit as well.
Clearly now however, even this change of scenery did little to aid me. Howbeit I have largely dismissed him as a bygone evil, my few viable memories of the old unicorn Sombra and the obscured details of his original defeat still count themselves cryptically among my thoughts. They were the cobwebs in the sills and nooks of an old artisan's workshop. No matter how hard one blew or dusted, still they stubbornly dwelled, persistently demanding my rapt attention.
Most vexing, if rather curious. For many a minute, I attempted either to do away with them or understand why the thoughts lingered. Time revealed my efforts to be futile.
"Wellaway! Fie, fie!" Hapless stones shattered under the force of my stomping. "What doth warrant this state of unrest upon me?" I thundered, hearing the snow on the weathered slopes shake as they echoed my words back to me like some impudent foal. The echoing chorus faded down, out into the countryside, and I calmed my breath.
An addendum: I shall declare this matter, absolutely vexing.
I lied down again, and sighed. "What plights me so?" I queried myself once more, my voice descending to a far more civil tone. "Is it not true? King Sombra walks the road of the vanquished and the Empire's curse is lifted, but still my mind besets me!" My right forehoof found its way from the ground and to my cheek in urgent thought, and another sigh of breath caught in the frigid air.
It was as if some things, some more profound aspects about Sombra and the Empire, still awaited to be addressed. To be granted closure. Something involving myself specifically. Truly, if my growing intuition was correct, my addled memory may in fact be the chief architect of what presently perturbs me.
I looked out and up to the stars, hoping for a sudden bout of realization to complete my mounting suspicion. As fate would have it, my gorgeous night sky yielded something else entirely.
The arrival of something from the air was denoted by a quite noticeable impact in the snow nearby. Whatever it was, the object had quite the profound effect on what it had hit. The snow was rapidly yielding to mud, and the atmosphere around was saturated in rising steam and a most peculiar magical backwash. I cautiously approached to investigate.
My eyes registered what could only have been a fractured unicorn's horn, its curved tip impaled in the frozen ground like some bizarre marker. 'Twas was now plain as day what was producing the magical effects around me. As I examined the horn's point of puncture into the earth, something emerged from it.
It was a mist, vaguely reminiscent of the very kind I once utilized as the abhorrent Nightmare, but it was a light and lively amber, and possessed a gentle quality to its movement mine had not. But that curvature of the horn, no other unicorn within my knowing ever possessed that but the dread King himself!
Before my ageless heart could scarcely chance another beat, I readied my magic, anticipating the phantasm to be malignant. My suspicions doubled. Its apparent harmlessness was surely a plying ruse!
Vigilant, I witnessed the mist assuming an almost corporeal form, much to my subdued astonishment. The muzzle, a fair and prominent nose, eyelids with delicate short lashes shut fast, and ears – the stout head of a stallion. Vague outlines that suggested of legs, tail, and a horn took form.
The appearance of the latter confounded me. This apparition's horn was the mirror opposite of the very one from whence he himself had sprung, being straight and spiraled.
Natural, unlike that of Sombra.
It was this detail and my mysterious compulsion to merely observe that prevented me from outright destroying this specter that was surely a resurgent remnant of Sombra himself.
Posture-wise, the apparition stood still and statue like, a translucent beacon on this snowbound precipice. He held his head low, eyes still shut. In mere moments I would have done the deed, were it not for his lips parting, producing a most otherworldly sound.
"Peace, at last? My curse has lifted…" The phantom, he speaks! "The nightmares and corruption that had claimed me are cleansed forever. Yet I cannot rejoice. One still bears the unwitting burden of my crimes." With that, he said no more, for a time.
Gasping, I retreated from the horn and its supernatural denizen, taking a few hoofsteps back. I was unsure rather to lament his renewed silence, or celebrate it. The ethereal unicorn's voice had been eerie and wistful, yet comforting and beautiful as well in some esoteric way. Sombra's limited speech had been known as nothing but an enraged, demonic rasp had it not?
Seconds passed, and the apparitions' features continued to manifest in greater detail, until I could at last discern a black flowing mane framing a coat of fine, dark gray fur. The tattered remnants of a once regal cape lay clasped at his neck, and shoes of solid mithril covered his hooves.
All the faded vestments of a monarch.
I remained still, awaiting further action from the apparition.He prodded at his forehead, and issued a groan like that of one who had awoken from the deepest of slumbers. His eyelids fluttered open, revealing irises the color of gray green, not the startling red of the wicked tyrant that I had expected. So inexplicably startled was I, that the unreleased spell within my horn involuntarily cast itself.
Wincing, I heard but did not witness the bolt of magical lightning impact a cliff face far behind me. It detonated, sending a shower of pebbles that fell through the adjacent stand of trees like sleet.
In an instant, the apparition's attention was finally drawn to me. His eyes widened as much as mine surely were. Those green eyes, that benevolent glimmer shining within them, even with the rest of his body being translucent and nearly immaterial. Yes, they carried great resemblance of someone lost to me, long ago. When those eyes met mine, a most intense sensation of recollection overcame me.
My heart skipped a beat. My throat grew taut; weakening legs threatened give out under me. In that moment, I felt equivalent to the mass of the entire mountain and all resting upon it. Oh skies above, fickle fate may yet be your kin!
That horn. The lack of armor, or crown. Those eyes. His voice and his words. All of these things bellowed the truth at me as dozens of images – lost memories, all of them – flashed before my mind's eye in rapid succession. This is what my thoughts had tried to reveal to me all along.
"Luna?" My name, it was murmured by the apparition with such care, such reverence. It was as if the speaker himself felt almost unworthy even to utter it. His evanescent face was one of elation, and even greater disbelief.
"Sombra, be…be it you? Be it truly you?" I answered, nearly breathless.
"What remains," Sombra replied softly. He studied me closely as I finally acquiesced to my legs' demands, collapsing down in the snow and resting my head on my forehooves, peering up at him. Sombra moved as if to embrace me, but halted. He must have read me clearly then, for his joy and disbelief gave way to be host to sorrow and horror. His face fell pallor in spite his transparency as our consciousness fully synchronized in a most extraordinary and momentous display of magic. "My darling Luna. If I'd known…if I'd seen the signs in time…"
Sombra's eyes betrayed his thoughts more than his words ever could. Our memories must have been intermingling at that very moment. And what a profound intermingling it was. The unicorn broke his gaze with me for a trice, looking down to the snow and subduing a sob as he too collapsed to the soft white ground. My own eyes were misting over when we at last made contact again.
The words hung before us in the frozen air like the dissipating vapors of my haphazard breath.
"Do you…remember?” he asked me.
“I do,” I answered, mentally occupying a bizarre land between grief and astonishment. “I do.”
