Alicorn Song

Alicorn Song

Chapter 7

Memories

Luna was floating through the void that was her mind, looking for anything that was amiss. She had already noticed that there were parts missing that would usually belong to her personality. Namely, the innocent part of her was almost completely gone. In the mares opinion, there was only one explanation for this.

When she had watched the moon rise through her magical senses, her emotions had been stirred up and she had remembered the days in which she could enjoy the company of her sister. The days, in other words, where fighting and killing was as far from her mind as it could have possibly been.

The dark purple mare sighed as she came by a memory of these days that had manifested itself in the form of a bubble. It was of one of her last days in freedom, before everything had gone terribly wrong. Looking into it, Luna could see herself and her older sister stroll over a carnival, enjoying themselves. Both of them wore wide dresses to hide their wings since, even back then, they had been aware that they were different.

A tear rolled down Lunas spectral cheek as she remembered that day. Celestia and herself had spent almost all of their pocket money, and had to rely on their ability to fly to get home in the end. They had done so countless times before, but this time somepony had seen them...

One stomp of her hoof later, and the memory bubble disappeared into the back of her head once more. Had they just been more careful, they could have taken the bus back home. What stung her even more, was that she had been the one to talk Celestia into flying. The older sister had wanted to call their parents to pick them up, but Luna had still been young and naïve. In the end, her sister had given in and that had led to...

Luna clenched her teeth and began to scream while tears ran down her face uncontrollably. Her wings were spread wide, while the mare screamed her agony at the void around her...

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

        “Huh? Lulu? Is everything alright? Why are you crying?” Candy Cane asked as he saw that tears had begun to flow down Lulus face. The mare beside him raised a hoof to her face, looking quite shocked as she herself noticed the tears that were dampening her coat.

        “I... don't know.” she sniffed in response, feeling a terrible sadness that was hers and, at the same time, not hers...

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

It took Luna what felt like an eternity to finally get her emotions under control again, but she managed it eventually. There was no use in freaking out about these things now. They were things of the past that nopony could change anymore.

The void of her mind was missing a lot of things, she noticed. Some integral parts of her were missing, and she suspected that these missing parts were forming the mare known as “Lulu”. Luna huffed as she thought about it. It bordered on an insult that someone, except her older sister, would call her that. On the other hoof, she was quite sure that this condition would not last for long. A week, or maybe a month but surely no longer than that. She was already able to walk her own mind again after all, and she was aware of her alter ego. Both were signs that she was healing from the injury that had been inflicted on her.

The physical part had not even been the problem. A quick spell on her part had taken care of most of that in just a few seconds. No. The real problem was the neurological damage. She couldn't fix that with magic. Instead, she would have to trust on her brains ability to heal itself. Once it had done so, and the chemical balance in her brain was restored, her personality would most likely reabsorb her alter ego. At this point, it was simply a theory, but one she could work with.

Then she came across another bubble. Curiously she concentrated on the floating sphere... and froze in her tracks. This one showed the night she had been captured. The night... in which she had...

Luna hung her head as she remembered, her heart sinking. The Ponies of the organization had come to their home to take her and Celestia away. She remembered that night as clear as day. Her sister and herself had already been in bed, when somepony had broken down the door to their apartment. Raised voices from the living room had finally woken them, and their mother had come storming into the room.

The beige mare had stood protectively in front of her foals, spreading her wings to shield them from the eyes of the intruders, while their father was trying to fend them off. A gunshot had silenced the Unicorn stallions struggle, making tears well up in her mothers eyes. Celestia seemed to have grasped the severity of the situation, and had tried to grab Luna and make a run for it, but the younger mare had refused.

Luna remembered that she had wanted to run off to see if her father was alright, even though her mother was screaming at her to run away with her sister. Then, he had entered the room. A black Earthpony stallion with a red mane and tail, wearing sunglasses even though it was almost completely dark in the room.

Faust, their mother, had not waited for him to start speaking. It might have saved her life if she had done so, but all she had been able to think of was her dead husband, and the safety of her two foals. Another bullet had ended her life, and the sisters had been forced to watch as their mothers life blood crept ever closer to their hooves as her eyes broke.

        “Come with me quietly.” the stallion had said in a casual tone of voice, as if he was talking about the weather. Luna, her eyes brimming with tears herself, had lost control of her emotions for the first and last time in her life that night.

Seeing the dead body of their mother, she had lashed out with her magic. Celestia, seeing what her younger sibling was about to do, had tried to stop her by extending one of her wings over Lunas eyes but... it was too late... Instead of stopping the attack, the older filly lost her left wing forever.

Driven by the wish to keep her sister safe, so she could apologize later, Lunas magic had formed a teleportation entry vortex, in which Celestia disappeared. Her sisters face had been a grimace of pain, and that was the last time Luna had seen her.

Shortly after she had teleported Celestia to safety, several Unicorns had sedated her with slumber spells. The magic had been so strong, that it had taken her a month to actually wake up again. The first thing they had shown her, was a video tape of Celestia being cornered in a forest. The older filly hadn't even fought back as they put shackles on her...

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

        “Ehm... Excuse me? I think you lost this.” a young Unicorn mare called out after Celest, holding up her wallet. Checking quickly, Celest noticed that it had indeed disappeared from her saddlebags.

        “Thank you very much. It would have been quite embarrassing to go grocery shopping without it.” she said, as she trotted back towards the beige mare with the blue mane. She wore a simply blue dress with a tie in her hair that was tied like a bow.

        “No problem at all miss. But... Would you mind if I asked you a question? Have you seen this mare?” the younger mare asked, pulling out a photograph from one of her dress pockets. Celests eyes widened as she checked the picture and recognized Lulu. Sure, it was not a very good picture, and the mare had a cold expression on her face instead of the cheery one she knew, but the resemblance was definitely there.

        “You know Lulu?”

The other mare cocked her head slightly, as if she wasn't understanding what Celest had said, then smiled broadly.

        “Yes... We are old friends.”