Rise from the Dark

"Sister! Please, just listen to me! Equestria, your own ponies, are completely ignoring me, as if I am merely your shadow! They are disrespecting the night, and I demand you to do something! Just say something to them!" A young Luna cried out, hoping to get her older sibling to hear her. Celestia, however, was not keen on the idea that she'd have to listen to her sister's whining.

"Please, Luna, today is Saturday. That means, I get today off. This is my only day to relax from my daily work, and you've seen the stacks upon stacks of paper I have to sign. So, let me ask you this," Celestia lowered her head to look her sister in her eyes, which now had tears running from them, leaving streaks on her face. "Why must you be so selfish as to take this time away from me so you can whine about nonsensical imaginary issues?" Celestia asked harshly, her expression dulling. Her sister sat down and froze in place, shocked from her sister's words.

She couldn't say anything except whimper a pitiful, "B-but . . Tia." All though she could've said something more, and explanation of some kind, she knew to stop when her sister lifted her head and looked away.

"I don't have time for this right now," Celestia stated flatly. With those words, she began to trot off down the hallway, leaving her sister sitting in the floor stunned. Luna blinked a few times to clear the remaining tears from her eyes, and stood up shakily. How could she say such a thing? How dare she say such a thing? Luna thought to herself. As she walked down the hall of the Castle, her confusion turned to sadness, and soon, became anger. The more she thought of what had happened, the worse that anger got. The ponies of Equestria practically worshiped Princess Celestia, for it was she who rose their sun in the morning. Yet, Luna brought them the moon's glow on cold nights, and they couldn't care less.

Soon, she found that her anger became rage, gnawing on her heart and mind. She let out a frustrated cry and ran down the stairways of her home, almost ramming into a guard on her way down.

Though it seemed like hours to the furious mare, she found her way to the main entrance and ran outside to the castle grounds. Her eyes were once again blurred, and she didn't look around. She simply focused on looking in front of her and kept walking. She didn't care where, just so long as it was away from her wretched sister.

She soon cleared her eyes of tears and began to calm down. She looked around, and for the first time since leaving the castle, noticed where she was. Judging by the shadowy bushes and gnarled trees who's leaves blotted out the sun, it became very clear that in a fit of rage, she'd run into the Everfree. Most would become anxious or frightened, but Luna however, did not. In fact, she quite liked the serenity of the forest. The shadows seemed to provide a comfort to the dark mare that the castle could not.

As she wondered the forest's worn trail, she noticed something strange. She glanced to her right, and saw a gap in the trees, as if there was a path there, long ago. She weighed her limited options. Either I go back to the castle where my sister is, or I keep walking. Or, of course, I could see where this trail leads, as surely it wasn't a mistake for it to be here. And, if I get lost, I can just teleport myself to the castle or fly out. Deciding that a mystery that was so bold as to present itself shouldn't be ignored, she turned and began walking down the trail.

As she walked, it started to become dark, even to Luna. She lit her horn in a light spell, casting a blue glow on the trees as she walked. But this was not like the other parts of the Everfree. It was silent. Not with the occasional hoot of an owl, or howl of a Timber Wolf, this part of the forest was dead silent. The only sound she could hear besides the pounding of her heart in her ears was the soft crunching of dead leaves beneath her hooves.

After a while walking though, the path began to open up into a brighter clearing, and the suffocating silence was penetrated by the forest noises once again. Luna let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding and scanned the clearing. It wasn't much, just as if the forest was missing a patch of trees and undergrowth.

But there was something she'd never seen before in the center of the patch. As she cautiously approached the oddity, it became clearer what it was. There was some old, cracked stone in, what used to be, a diamond pattern. Carefully positioned in the center was a skinny, short stone pillar. On that pillar was a book. It was stationed right on top of the pillar, balanced as to not fall off and risk bending the pages.

As she approached the book, the air around her seemed to try and strangle her, and the area became darker. The book was thick and looked aged, as if it had been through many years of abuse. She looked for a title, but found it to be blank. Her curiosity getting the better of her, she reached a trembling hoof out towards the book.

As her hoof became closer, if felt as though her vision was slowly becoming darker, and the world around her was closing in, trying to crush her. But she was too close to stop now. Her hoof landed on the book, and she felt her mind become clouded, and her legs trembled. She lifted the cover of the book, and her eyes widened with fear. The only thing in the book was darkness. The pages had stripped of their words, and in the center of the book was an all consuming black void.

The black started to crawl out of the page, as if somepony had spilled ink onto it, but the ink was alive. She tried to run, to scream, but she could do nothing but watch. The darkness fell off the book and began to crawl it's was up her legs. She could do nothing but watch, petrified in pure horror. The blackness made it's way up to her head, and came terrifyingly close to covering her eyes and mouth. Her vision swam, and she felt like she was falling through a hole into nothingness. The world went black.