The herd of the ponies who wandered through the grassy plains looked weathered, rough furred, aged and slightly tight around the ribs. Heather swished around their feet, gorse tugged in their pelts and the sun burnt into their backs. To the front of the group was a muscled stallion, a bright purple paint decorating his face and contrasting against his straw yellow pelt. Feathers were tied into strands of his white mane- some stood upwards like a colorful extension and others dangled across his neck. The others followed him devotedly, though they were starting to look dreary and tired.
"It can't be much further," he said, masking his fear by lifting his head and looking over his followers with authority.
A mare grunted something under her breath that sounded like pfft. There was a quiet "Sure thing." from the rear. The stallion tensed, pressing his ears flat to the back of his head. While they had traveled long and far with only a rare sip from a puddle and rough dry grass to chew on he was determined to not give up just yet. Part of him wanted to give up and lay down, but the herd traveled with something too precious to abandon now.
The only ponies among them that looked healthy were the youngest two ponies who doddered after the herd behind their mother. Small and full of energy, they were the only voices not gravel-rough with thirst and still had plump bodies that carried them fast over the unforgiving landscape. The herd got their only entertainment from calling them the Sisters of Contrast, due to them being sister yet the eldest bearing a swan white pelt and the youngest with fur that blended into the shadows.
Their mother, Thunder, did not take offense from the warm-hearted nickname, but she preferred to refer to them as they had been named- Celestia and Luna. The sun and moon represented great beauty to the herd, and so naming her offspring with such divine names was an honor.
"Sure, give up on me," the stallion said, trotting to stand beside Thunder, "but how could any of you abandon her in this time? We both know you are hungry and tired, but to lay down and admit defeat and let death crawl closer to yourselves is a selfish answer to our problems when there are two young minds with us. I will use up my last wheezing breath to get these beautiful fillies as close to salvation as possible."
Luna had slipped underneath her mother to stand in front of both and blink at the herd. Her sister stood more elegantly to the side, feeling bad that the leader of their group was having to use her and her sister as a guilt trip. She sighed softly, turning and facing the direction they had been headed in before they'd meandered to a stop. Even the herd elder had not spoken her view on the matter, so Celestia knew this time was not the right time to intervene.
She wished she could speak to them but she was too afraid. Talking aloud wracked her with anxiety like rocks filling her chest, and a group was understandably worse. A small tremble passed through her at the thought, soon followed by a sigh by her inability to tell the herd to live for themselves rather than her. Her and Luna were nothing special, she had to admit.
A small voice mumbled from near her shoulder, "They're a bit gullible aren't they?" Luna giggled, glancing up at her sister with big eyes.
Celestia noticed that the herd had stopped moaning and had set off again, some looking a little cheerful again and looking at the sisters with pride. She frowned and looked at the younger and held in another sigh. "I don't know... they're just lost."
The pair hurried after their family, falling into step with Thunder. Luna continued to chat, her incessant commentary on every step of the journey was starting to give the others a headache. Thick grey clouds were far in the distance, giving the horizon a smoky look. The entire herd stopped to stare in awe when the sun had set and thick red light poured through the gaps in the clouds like lava in the sky.
"Do you think any of those clouds are fat with rain?" Luna wondered aloud.
Celestia took a deep breath in hopes she could taste the moisture on the air. "They're too far away, Luna."
Both jumped a little when their mother spoke, having had walked quietly up between them. "Also in the dangerous lands. We will be heading north-west of here. Those clouds are straying into the arcane land only spoken of in ancient tales of our kind."
"Those are just stories to scare foals!" Luna blurted, pouting up at her mother.
There was a sudden flash of light in the distance followed by a loud rumble. A few of the herd whinnied in distress, regrouping close together. Their leader stood rigid in terror, glancing back at his family and friends. Luna didn't understand why it had caused a sudden commotion.
"What's got bees in your tails?" She giggled, trotting circles around the other ponies. "It was mommy! Hehe, get it? It was thunder! Just like mommy! Thunder means rain right? Right? That's good!"
Celestia struck out a hoof and held her sister still. A squeal of annoyance rose from the younger but the white pony still stared into the distance. "Luna, look."
The small pony grumbled and turned back to look at the clouds. What had previously been a calm sweep of grey in the distant skies was growing at a terrifying rate. The thick black mess was rising and coiling like a living beast and with each roar of lightning the clouds exploded- one by one they burst like bubbles and all the tiny pieces began to move and swarm. From a distance it looked like the black specks were mere bugs but as the cloud expanded at a terrifying rate it stretched far beyond the known border of the plains into the unexplored territory of legend these became creatures all too familiar.
"That is bad magic!" the elder of the herd rasped, tugging on a pony near her with her teeth, "We must go! We will die! This is the end!"
Celestia almost felt rooted to the spot as the voices of her family turned into screams as they fled. Thunder yanked her back and in turn she grabbed Luna's tail to startle her into running. She sprinted after the others faster than she was used to in her lifetime, her muscles already burning with pain as she exerted herself to keep up. Luna was wailing and falling behind, her smaller baby legs stumbling as the herd fled. Celestia barely knew what was happening or why.
It had been so sudden. Nothing had made sense. When she glanced over her shoulder her heart lurched. The swarms of cloud creatures looked just like the ponies down here on the ground but they had wings like birds and bodies of pure black. But it wasn't these beasts that had turned Celestia cold. It was Luna. She had tripped and was a heap on the group a few meters back, the distance growing as the herd ran.
"Mother! Luna has fallen we have to-" A loud explosion of thunder directly above them and the ground shook until Celestia slid onto her side.
She tried to writhe to her feet and get a look around for Luna. Light burst all around as a flurry of lightning hit in quick succession all around. Celestia's head was spinning with fear and confusion. Never before had she seen magic like this. Only in stories had she heard of ponies who could fly and even less of ponies who could use magic. Her ears were ringing from the constant explosions and she closed her eyes and prayed that it would stop.
The gutteral bellows of the beastly horses sounded as she heard their heavy compact bodies hit the earth. Now on her feet she hurried through the burnt craters carved by the deadly lightning bolts in determination to find her little sister. It looked like there was a cloud sitting on the ground but when she neared it dispersed into the terrifying dark ponies whose bodies shimmered like fire as they moved. Wisps of smoke rose from their wings and they reared up threateningly as if daring her to come closer to taste their bone-crushing hooves.
Tears burned in Celestia's eyes as she tried to stand her ground without choking on her own voice and collapsing in the heat. "Where is my sister!?" she demanded, gritting her teeth.
More turned their attention away from grouping in a cloud and revealed what they had been examining. Luna was writhing on the ground, being nipped and prodded as the shadow creatures tried to turn her over and get a look at her. Celestia cried out but she was too terrified to move, knowing that diving in for the rescue would inevitably end in death.
"Let her go," she choked out, tears streaming down her face, "What did we do? You were all over there..."
One of the shadowy winged ponies suddenly spoke in the deepest, most demonic voice she had ever heard. "The Pegasi Dominion destroys all in their path. Unicorns who try to cross the border and escape must be captured. No pony leaves Equestria. Not during our war!"
The roaring voice echoed in her ears and she took a step back, more and more confusion clouding her ability to think. She tried to speak but she couldn't. Even now with her herd running or possibly dead from the explosions and her sister being dragged around helpless by the beasts she was filling with the same fear as she had with them hours before. She could not answer. She could not tell him that she didn't know what he was talking about or tell him she was not a unicorn and neither was her sister. Her entire herd were just ponies.
Another winged pony growled from near Luna. "It has no horn!"
The one who had spoken to Celestia whirled around, snarling and baring its teeth. "Nonsense! They don't have wings they are our enemy!:
"Is it a runt? Are those defective unicorns now spawning duds?" a more feminine voice mocked.
The deep voiced male turned back around and flared his nostrils. "This one does not have a horn nor wings. There is something wrong with them. It must be investigated, take the small one back to Cloudsdale."
"Wait!" Celestia coughed but it was too late. In ghostly speed the dark creatures slunk into one heap which resumed the appearance of a deformed cloud around her sister and they rose with wing beats like roaring thunder and joining the writhing storm still raging above leaving the dirtied white pelt of the sun to collapse without her moon- throbbing, exhausted, dehydrated and sweaty as the world turned black around her.
