Luna's

Luna’s
Chapter 14

I found myself once more staring into the abyss—the pitch-black hallway down which I had only hours ago thought I was going to die. My heart hammered in my chest, replacing the sinking sensation that accompanied me on my first excursion down this damnable passage.

My gaze darted back over my shoulder to the dining room for what felt like the hundredth time in the last few minutes. Rarity’s voice carried clearly all the way out in all of its shrill, grating glory, but aside from her, I was far enough away that the patrons’ conversations were but a low murmur. As far as I could tell, nobody had seen me leave. The fewer to know what I was undertaking the better. I leaned forward just a hair, hoping to catch a glimpse of Luna resting against the bar, but no such luck.

A sudden creak from the hallway snatched my attention and brought my already racing heart up into my throat. In the darkness, I could make out a slightly darker patch that vaguely resembled a pony. "This way—” came Twilight’s whispering voice "—the cook’s busy in the freezer."

The two of us snuck down the hall with light steps until we passed the kitchen and came to a door with a thick, frosted window. Orange light seeped around the edges, painting a sickly splash of colour on the opposite wall. Twilight opened the door and immediately the gross light from overhead overwhelmed my senses, tainting the green grass and normally white fog in its revolting hue.

We stepped outside and found ourselves in a small clearing behind the tavern. It was markedly more open than out front—certainly fewer trees cluttering the area—but even so, the fog kept its secrets, forming a seemingly impenetrable wall of orange-tinged gray only a few steps away from the building.

Twilight caught my eye and glanced pointedly along the tavern’s back wall. Just a few feet away was a cellar door, nestled between two mounds of dirt.

Without warning she raced over and brought a hoof crashing down on the rotting wood; the doors shuddered but held, clearly more solid than they appeared . Twilight pushed off the wood, now bouncing in place without her hooves actually leaving the ground. "It’s here!" she whispered through clenched teeth. She let out a low whine as she turned her eerily wide smile in my direction. "This is Luna’s secret—the way out!"

My body went cold for a split second as her words slowly registered. My chest felt so tight, breathing had become difficult. "A-are you sure this is the way out?"

Her head rocked back and forth so hard I thought it might just fly off into the woods—which still wouldn’t have been the most unsettling thing I’d seen in this wretched place. After one hard flick of her head, it came to an abrupt halt, and her hoof then snapped in the direction of the cellar. "Come on, open the door!"

I swallowed slowly, deliberately, forcing down the lump in my throat. "It just seems awfully suspicious."

"Trust me,” Twilight said in between her heavy breaths. “I may not know what exactly is down there, but I do know it’s a way out of these topsy-turvey woods."

For so long, I had been longing for a way out of this place, but now that somebody was telling me we had found just that, I couldn’t keep myself from shivering. I pinched my eyes firmly closed and took a step forward. I didn’t look until I was standing in front of the ancient cellar entrance. A thick, grime-encrusted chain held the doors shut, locked firmly in place with a rusted padlock. In spite of this, Twilight said that freedom from this nightmare lay past those doors. I had to at least try to get it opened. After a few deep breaths, I reached out to prod at the padlock, only to gasp and jump back.

The chains and rusted metal crumbled to dust, ghosting away on the wind.

I blinked absently, mouth agape, before throwing a quick glance to Twilight. Metal doesn’t just melt away like that! Certainly she had some sort of explanation, some sort of reason to tell me exactly what had just happened. But she offered nothing, only watching me impatiently as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

“Did you—”

“Come on!” Twilight demanded with a firm stomp. Even I felt the ground shudder, even if only slightly.

Of all the things I’d seen in this place, a vanishing lock ranked awfully low of the list of weird occurrences—between the changing book, Discord, and the fact this place even exists. Questioning everything odd here would put me at wits' end by the end of a single night. I shook my head and looked back down at the door. I fumbled with the rust-encrusted iron ring chained to the grey boards. It rattled heavily until I slipped a hoof through the large loop at the end and pulled the door open. The rusted hinges squealed, the wooden boards protested, but eventually it gave way. As the door swung open, we were immediately hit with a gust of dusty, musty air.

Both of us coughed, spitting out dirty brown puffs from our lungs.

"Keep it down up there!" a high-pitched crackling voice called out from the darkness.

I raised an ear, then shifted my gaze to Twilight, who gave me a helpless shrug.

I sighed, then turned back to the abyss. "Hello?"

A groan was my response. "Shut up!" the voice followed up with a biting tone that felt like a whip against my eardrum.

My eyes narrowed. "This is the most rude cellar I’ve ever dealt with." I rolled my eyes and let out a low groan.

“Cellars aren’t usually rude.” Twilight’s ears twitched as she leaned forward to peer into the darkness. Her head tilted slightly. “This is definitely a special one.”

I fought the urge to slap my face with a hoof. “Of course not. Cellars don’t usually talk.”

"Oh, for the love of—I’m not a cellar!" the darkness called out.

“I know,” I replied with a dry bite before rolling my eyes once more. “I have quite enough to deal with without another pony diving headfirst into utter nonsense, thank you very much.”

“If you’re not a cellar…” Twilight gasped, a big grin spreading across her face. "Who knows what mysteries lie inside! I have so many questions!" Twilight bounced once before bolting down the stairs into the abyss.

I pressed a hoof to my face. For somepony who insisted that she was sane, she certainly didn’t show it sometimes. It would have been so easy to just close the cellar door and turn back, and for a moment, I seriously considered it. After all, a half-full cup of lukewarm coffee still awaited me inside. My eyes turned to the back door of the tavern as I bit my lower lip.

"Is this it?" Twilight’s voice echoed up. “You’re just a pony!”

I sighed, and turned back to the hole. Reluctantly I took a step down onto the stone stairs. As much as I wanted to return to my seat and finish the cup of swill that Luna claimed was coffee, part of me still believed in Twilight—even if she was certifiably insane. I pressed on into the cellar and once I reached the bottom of the stairs, my eyes widened.

Instead of a dirty, musty basement filled with cobwebs, the walls were dark-stained wood with a slight polish glinting in the soft candle-light. A brown fur rug took up most of the room, with smooth cobbled stone around the edges. My eyes were drawn to a heap of pillows in the middle of the cellar. A candle cast a warm orange glow from its place on what appeared to be a nightstand.

Crowning the throne of pillows was a light blue pegasus mare with a vibrant rainbow mane. She smacked her lips with eyes hung heavy before she let out a long yawn. I felt her deep rosey eyes slinking across my skin like a snake. After a moment she raised one shoulder for a shrug, but fell off balance and toppled over onto the pile of pillows.

I looked over at Twilight, who glared at the mare. “I feel so lied to,” she muttered.

“No duh! What else would I be?” the mare replied just as she sucked in another lungful of air for a loud yawn. Her eyes fell closed until just barely a crack remained. “I guess I could be a spider or something down in this basement. Well, I did dream I was a spider, once. That was so weird.”

Twilight lessened her glare and took a step back. “You dreamt you were a spider once?” She pressed her hoof to her chin.

“This all sounds fascinating,” I said, rolling my eyes once more, “but would you happen to know a way out of here?”

The mare lay silent with her eyes lazily locked on mine. “I dreamt about being out of here once too, but it was kind of a hassle.”

My jaw clenched tight. “Listen—”

“Well, a dream about something fascinating will have to do. Could you tell me about that time you were a spider?” Twilight clapped her hooves together before dropping onto her haunches. I opened my mouth to protest, but she pulled a quill and notepad from seemingly thin air. "It would be nice to know their respective perspective."

The mare rolled onto her back, her legs hanging limply skyward. “I could tell you about a lot of dreams I had.” A small, pleased smirk spread across her face. “Flying high above, in the sky—” Her hoof waved slowly across the ceiling “—being pretty much every animal, on a stage in a fancy dress with a crowd of cheering ponies, making everypony in the world smile, and getting a pat on the head from some big shot.” She let out a small chuckle as her eyes drift closed completely. “I even remember one where I played to a sold-out crowd.”

I raised an eyebrow and sighed. “She sounds mental,” I whispered to Twilight. “All this about dreams, but where’s the way out?”

She cracked one lazy eye open and glanced at me. “You two are too loud. Just chill for a while.”

“Unlike you, I have things I’d rather do than stay here!” I snapped.

“Me too!” she replied. “I’d rather be sleeping, because in my dreams I can be whatever I want. I don’t need to be tied down by anything. My imagination can just run wild, and when I know what I want to do, I’ll finally be ready to get out of this place.”

The voice of Discord echoed in my head once more. “What did you say?”

She smacked her lips after another yawn. “I dream because it’s the only thing that keeps me going. What else is there to do if you don’t have a dream?” She shrugged and rolled onto her side.

My heart slowly crept up in my chest once more. It couldn’t be a coincidence. She said the same thing as Discord, which meant she might just be my ticket out of here. “Could you tell me about that dream then? The one where you dreamt about getting out of here?” I asked in a soft tone, barely above a whisper.

“I don’t remember it too well. It was a long time ago.” She groaned and rolled over. “Maybe I could have it again if you leave me alone, okay?”

“No!” Twilight jumped up, stomping her hoof hard on the ground. “I wanted to hear about you being a spider!”

I jabbed her with my elbow.

“I mean, we want to get out of here!” she corrected. “So you have to tell us!”

“Tell you what, exactly?” My spine crawled with a frozen chill racing up it as a familiar voice came from behind. I glanced back, although I could have saved myself the effort—I already knew who it was. Nobody else could infuriate me like she could, not even that pompous harlot Rarity.

There, standing at the top of the stairs with the moonlight spilling in from behind her, was Luna. My heart stopped dead in my chest, and once more dread tried to shove it right out into my throat.

“L-Luna.” Twilight dropped her quill and pad, shrinking down into a quivering pile as the tall mare slowly descended the stairs.

“Please, continue,” Luna said in a lazy voice. “Maybe I can offer some insight.” No sooner had she sashayed into the candlelight than I saw her eyes—lidded but cold, staring directly at the mare on the pillows. Her lips, usually twisted into her staple teasing smirk, now were pulled tight in a less-than-amused scowl as she stepped slowly, calculatingly towards us before stopping just past Twilight and I.

“Oh, hey, Luna,” the mare on the pillows said with a small wave. “It cool if I come out yet?”

“That depends. Can you stay awake?” Luna tilted her head quizzically.

The mare chuckled slightly. “No way.”

“Then it’s best you rest here until you’re done dreaming, Rainbow Dash.” Luna’s eyes flicked to Twilight. “I said ‘don’t make me regret this,’ did I not?”

Twilight nodded, still quivering.

"And you,” she went on, running her oily gaze over me. I could feel it sliding across my coat. Disgusting. “Disrespecting others’ privacy all in the hopes of getting out of some foggy woods? You should respect the power of a lock.”

I pinched my eyes closed and sucked in a lungful of air. Again, she tried to act superior to me when she had somepony locked in a basement. “You can’t keep—”

My gaze was caught up in hers, cold and piercing, and I couldn’t keep myself from taking a step back. “Oh, yes,” she said with a chortle. “This should be rich. My lovely guest is going to set me straight in front of the oppressed."

Instead of her usual light laughter, this was slower, more striking with a harsh delivery; somehow her chuckling leached the warmth from everything around us, and for a moment, I thought I saw my breath between us as she loomed over.

"Now, tell me, I can’t what?" She tilted her head to the side, ghastly stare still keeping me locked in place. "Keep ponies locked up?” She loosed another laugh, and again the stabbing chords sucked all the energy from my body. “And we go once more, another round on the broken record. Well, it’s time we get off this tired track, wouldn’t you agree?” She snorted, stepping forward and lording her stature over me. “But, you won’t. So please, tell me again how I’m wrong for ‘keeping ponies against their will’ in that condescending, sarcastic tone of yours. We could use a dose of your wit to lighten the dreary mood."

I opened my mouth to speak, but nearly choked on my words.

Luna craned her neck down, shoving her glare right down my throat as I stared into her icy-blue eyes like a helpless filly. "No snarky comeback? No faux-moral superiority to assume? It was always so good for a laugh to see you storm off muttering some cheap insult from the safety of a doorway or your smug high horse.” She slammed her hoof down, pressing her chest forward, bumping my chin, and toppling me back onto my haunches. "So tell me how foolish I was when I opened my bar to you, offered you shelter from the harsh elements, and provided you everything you needed to survive when I could have just as easily tossed you out.”

Staring up at her, with those fiercely flashing eyes and flaring nostrils, something inside me snapped. My jaw clenched firm. I shan’t be spoken to like that—not by her. I sucked in a deep breath ready to unleash hell back upon her, but before I even said a single word, I noticed something wonderful. I saw it deep in Luna’s frigid eyes—a fire. She was mad. Luna—the monolith—had been shaken. My jaw loosened, and instead of chewing her out, I laughed. I laughed like I had never laughed before.

Her eyes, usually flat and uninterested in the world around her, widened as I laughed right in her face. She opened her mouth to speak, but stopped as I got to my hooves and took a step towards the stairway. “I can’t believe it,” I said between chuckles. “All this time and I finally got to you for once.”

Luna took a step back, eyes narrowing once more.

"This is too much," I said with a pleased sigh. "I think I had best go to bed. I won’t be topping this tonight." As I took the first step onto the stairs, I was stopped.

“Before you get too full of yourself, just remember whose name is on the front of the building. I may be generous enough to open my business to you, but if you go snooping in somepony else’s business again, it won’t end well.”

I glanced back to find her glare had been replaced with her standard uninterested look, though she had yet to put her tired smile back on. Without giving her the satisfaction of a reply, I climbed out of the cellar and returned to my room.