The Lunar Guardsman

Applejack’s leg seized up. Despite the farmpony’s best attempts, she could do little more than drag it uselessly behind her. Fluttershy had to restrain her friend, who was almost bawling in despair, from punching her leg—as though to force it to work under threat of violence—and breaking more of her stitches.

Fluttershy glanced back the way they came in trepidation. She bit her lips, uncertain, and glanced at the webbing above them. She hadn’t told Applejack, but ever since the drumming left them behind, the vicious warning clangs of the black waves, she’d been seeing movement above them. Not much, just shadows moving inside shadows. It was hard to tell, especially filtered through the wisping fog, yet she was sure they were up there. Trailing them, perhaps, or not, but vigilant nevertheless.

Not a problem, she tried to convince herself. Not a problem as long as they stayed there. No, the real problem was Applejack.

The Mountain shook again. Applejack didn’t feel it, but Fluttershy did, like all the previous times it happened while they were running. A tremor passed through the floor and up her bones, threatening to fully awake the agony slumbering in her wing. It came and went, like it did before.

Applejack was leaning left and right as they walked, her sense of balance non-existent. It hadn’t worried Fluttershy too much, at least until Applejack had turned to Fluttershy in a semi-confused state, and Fluttershy noticed her pupils. One of them a pinprick of vivid green, the other large enough to overtake her whole eye.

Fluttershy’s own wing was gnawing at her. Every step brought increasingly larger waves of pain, especially when she used the legs on the side of her broken wing. It would have been enough to make her cry in any other circumstance. Not anymore, though; not when she could think of—and had experienced—much worse fates than a broken wing. More pain than what she felt right now. She could take this. She could live with this, but not the kind of pain that made her mind almost buckle when Raegdan lost himself and went mad. She could still feel his hands wrapped around her throat.

Raegdan and Luna had been right. She and her friends had no idea of how harsh the world could be, and they would have been better off not knowing. She didn’t envy them this knowledge in the least; she didn’t want to have ever obtained this knowledge, either.

She thought of Raegdan again as Applejack sat miserably on the ground. “If… We could go back. Raegdan could carry you if—”

Applejack shook out her hat to get rid of the gunk on it. “He isn’t there,” she said, slurring the “S” like a snake. Applejack didn’t seem to notice.

“He… He might be—”

Snarling, Applejack threw her hat down on the ground, making the pegasus flinch. “He ain’t there, Ah told you! Ah told you, Ah… Didn’t I? That ain’t the guy you knew. If he’s alive he’ll hurt you. If he’s d-d-dead…” She stuttered off. “Luna could carry me. Where’s Luna? Luna!”

Fluttershy closed her eyes tightly. “Luna’s gone, Applejack. Remember?”

“Gone?” Applejack said in surprise. “Where did she—oh. Right. Ah thought Ah dreamed that up. When did that…?” Applejack put her hat on and stood up. “Right. Ah ain’t much for anything, but by golly, I’ll walk. Ah can walk. Ah ca—n… walk. Ah’m getting you out of here. T-Then we’ll see about the rest.” Applejack pointed forward. “Map. He pointed at the map. Didn’t he? Are we going there? Fluttershy? Is that the right way? Ask—Ask Luna. She’ll know.” She hesitated. “Ah didn’t dream that too, did I?”

Fluttershy’s hoof was up to her mouth. She spoke hesitantly, as if trying to block the words coming out. “I… I think that’s the way. I’m not sure. And Luna and Raegdan? We’re abandoning them? W… We can’t…”

Her friend looked lost. Applejack’s lips trembled. She bit them—hard!—and her face became set. The confusion faded. “You gotta get out.”

“We can’t!”

“Darn it, Fluttershy, what else should we do! Luna’s gone, Raegdan’s lost his marbles and got himself killed, we’re still trapped, and—and—and…” Applejack dropped down again.

“Applejack…”

Applejack lied on the ground. “Tired. Gotta… Gotta sleep. You go on. Scoot.”

“I’m not leaving without you!” Fluttershy shouted defiantly. “Get up or I’m staying too!”

Applejack chuckled, sluggishly, and stood up again. “Big lug was right to be like that,” she almost laughed. “You gotta be insane in order to choose.”

“We should go back, Applejack. Maybe they’re okay!”

The farmer pony sniffed. “Nope. Ahead. Or Ah fall asleep. Right here. Get… Get out.”

Fluttershy thought hard. She tried to remember as much as she could. She tried to imagine what her other friends might do. What Luna might do. What Raegdan might do. She even tried to imagine what Princess Celestia would do.

And she couldn’t. There was no right answer here.

“Only until we find if that’s where the exit is, okay?” Fluttershy begged. “Then I’ll go back and find them.”

Applejack wiped at her muzzle. Snot was left hanging from her dishevelled coat. She shook her leg until most of it flew away, wiping the rest of it on her side with a surrendering sigh. “We’re going that way,” she said, pointing towards the would-be exit. “My decision. Mah fault if it’s wrong.”

Fluttershy couldn’t stop a snicker coming out even though there was nothing that was funny.

“What?” Applejack asked.

“You sound exactly like Raegdan. Or Luna.”

Applejack winced at the comparison. Then, with a slight smirk she said, “Oh stars. Heavens help usssss.”

She and Fluttershy laughed together for a short time. They cried for longer, Fluttershy half-carrying her friend.

They hid, for all the good it would do, behind a cluster of pony-sized eggs. Away and in front of them there were mountains.

The largest of them must have been about fifty meters tall. It had tops and inclines, jagged edges and cliffs, boulders growing out of its rocky surface, and sharp rocks at its bottom.

It was an exact copy of the Mountain they were in.

Around it, there were several smaller twins. They formed a spiral of sorts, as far as Fluttershy could tell, with the largest in the center and spiraling out to increasingly smaller versions.

Upsetting as that sight was, what made Fluttershy’s hair stand on end were the corpses littered around the edges.

Dozens of the tentacled monstrosities lied on the ground, unmoving. All of them had been opened up, carved by an elegant, artistic butcher. The closest one to Fluttershy had its limbs cleaved in two, hacked apart and arranged in a star pattern. Its mouth was torn open, the lacerations reaching all the way to the ground. The jaws were pulled apart, spread like petals. Its insides had bloated up, turning themselves inside out, and poured out of the torn orifice. The limbs were slowly seeping some kind of mucus wherever they’d been cut, piling up and coagulating.

Fluttershy watched carefully, wanting to make sure of what she’d seen. Not that she’d be surprised if it was true. The brutality and anguish this Mountain seemed to feed off was without end.

It happened again. The exposed organs trembled slightly as the creature breathed. It was still alive.

I know what you are: You’re a caterpillar. A fragile creature wrapping itself in a cocoon so it can grow. But when you open your eyes again, when you come back out into the world, you’ll be different. And not like a butterfly.

She followed the deep, wide groove with her eyes until it faded out of view. It led to the Valley, she was certain of it. She wondered why there hadn’t been mountains erupting from the Everfree Forest yet.

Maybe the Mountain was sickly and its progeny were sick too. Or maybe they grew really slowly. Maybe, one day, there would be hundreds of mountains all across Equestria.

Yet all that didn’t matter in the least. They didn’t matter like how the movement above that hadn’t ceased didn’t matter. Like how it didn’t matter that she had spotted two more of the serpents, or how she had finally realized that they didn’t fly, that they were little more than appendages of the Mountain itself, their ends connected to the walls. That didn’t matter, the same way the agony on her back didn’t matter. The pain of grief didn’t matter.

All that mattered was that they should circumvent the mountains lest the babies feed. All that mattered was that Applejack had fallen asleep and Fluttershy had to wake her back to reality, back to trudging through pain and fear to an exit that might not exist.

She did, and Applejack rose obediently. She was confused at first, thinking she had fallen asleep at her fields and night had caught on. She caught up quick enough, like she did every time it had happened so far. She didn’t forget too much.

That’s a good sign, Fluttershy thought. She didn’t know for sure, but she had masterfully convinced herself that it stood up to reason.

Around they went, painfully slow in both ways of the word. Everytime the serpent stirred close—and it did often enough—Fluttershy led her friend so they would cower behind the largest egg close to them.

It couldn’t sense them like the tentacled monstrosities could. It relied on sight instead, and this made it less and more frightful at the same time. Yet every time it failed to spot them. It would hover over, tapping its legs melodically against the leathery surface of the eggs. Sometimes, it would pierce them through. The impossibly sharp tip would wedge into the egg, the black spear almost pulsating. Then it would pop out, leaving nothing but a tiny, surgical pinprick and a trail of amber liquid.

A few times, Fluttershy and Applejack had run across the remains of an egg, leather folds discarded and often chewed. Only once they saw a serpent bent over the remnants, lapping at them like a thirsty dingo at a watering hole. When it was done it bent upwards, imitating a silent choking, only to regurgitate a new egg, shining with phlegm.

It took its time piercing the new egg, then. The spears would tremble in excitement, its pustules of prisons pulsating. It took its time making its choice.

When it was done and gone, Fluttershy and Applejack rushed off before it could return. They only delayed for a second, long enough for Fluttershy to see that the new egg was empty.

They continued on. They had been seeing the serpent less and less, as if reaching the end of its territory. This spurred them only to be more cautious, fearful of entering another’s.

They found the end of the chamber at last, meeting the same old wall that was everywhere: meat, muscle, and sinew, blended together and rippling with veins. They followed it, hoping they’d find something. Applejack fell down a few times, and while Fluttershy tried to reassure her friend, she grew heavier and heavier considering the pegasus’ own exhaustion. With Applejack’s mumbling growing unintelligible at times, and the worrying state of her mismatched eyes and her limp leg, Fluttershy wondered if Raegdan had broken her in some way. A small part of her, the part that wasn’t terrified of him being gone and leaving them alone in this awful place, was thankful that he could no longer harm them or anypony else. He couldn’t hurt her, or Applejack, or the child he’d abandoned ever again. He was finally able to rest in peace. Him and Luna.

They expected something to the likes of a titanic rip on the wall, like an open wound. If not that then perhaps a small passage, a fissure that would narrowly let them through.

Instead, and not much to their surprise, they found a button. Just like the one that let them in here.

Fluttershy was the one to press it while Applejack stared at the wall and mumbled loudly. Fluttershy couldn’t make the words out, but she knew it had to have been a rough prayer of sorts. A pleading, to whatever force there might be or hear them, to give them a break.

If there was one, it heard them for once. The wall bared itself open, a section at least as wide as the one that was first supposed to open on the way in.

Beyond it lay darkness, every now and then parted by a red light as strong as a dying star. There wasn’t a room waiting for them here. It was a corridor, large enough to let through ten ponies striding side by side.

“Do we go?” Fluttershy asked.

Applejack spared a forlorn look behind them. “Go,” she said with a pained rictus stiffening on her face.

The corridor was long. It went on for seemingly forever, bending lazily like a river, sometimes to the left, sometimes to the right, sometimes up, sometimes curling around to places they could have sworn they’d been before. Smaller caverns led away regularly, their uniform repetition making Fluttershy feel she was wandering inside a castle of flesh and bone.

It probably did go forever. It might have been going around the mountain, serving as the main artery. Or it could have led to a proper exit, like a guarded gate of a castle but an exit nevertheless. Whether it did or not, Fluttershy and Applejack wouldn’t find out.

Their way forward was blocked by scarred tissue. It was as if the very flesh and bone that made the mountain had melted and ran down in rivulets. In the paltry light, they searched for another way forward.

Applejack tripped and fell with a pained cry. Fluttershy rushed to help her up.

“Your leg can’t keep going like that,” she said, ignoring her own myriad injuries. “You should rest for a bi—” She landed on her own muzzle, having tripped herself.

Applejack prodded the ground with her hoof. It gave way.

“Ssssomething. Here.”

The surface they stood on was like an elastic membrane. Fluttershy prodded it carefully, and she found a hard, cylindrical rod under it. It wasn’t the only one. A number of objects were hidden away.

“Do we… try to take them out? It might be something like that stone,” Fluttershy said.

Applejack nodded warily. Her ears flicked straight, listening for any reaction as she prodded harder. “Ah don’t—don’t know. Try.”

Fluttershy’s efforts to tear open a hole by pulling did nothing. “I can’t pull it off,” she said, giving up.

“Knife?” Applejack questioned. She had almost nodded off to sleep again while waiting on Fluttershy.

“I think Raegdan and Luna had the last knives. I didn’t think to… Do you have one?” she asked, hoping against hope that there was something they could do.

Applejack shook her head, unsurprisingly. She glared at the thick film, and a hard grimace settled on her face. She bowed down, and grabbed it in her teeth, chomping as hard as she could.

Fluttershy couldn’t help her sound of disgust.

Despite the oozing liquids gushing in her mouth, Applejack kept working her teeth, her neck pulling the skin to the limits of its tension, shaking it back and forth like a rabid dog tearing at a hunk of meat. As soon as her teeth worked through she started over again, until Fluttershy and she could finally spread it open.

They came face to face with the grin of a white skeleton.

It was bipedal, and it was huge. Larger even than Raegdan himself was. Not terribly so in height—though there would have been a distinct difference if the owner of those bones stood next to the armored guardsman—but in girth and width of the shoulders as well. The bones themselves were thick, as if the biped was made to be able to lift tons of weight.

At first, of course they believed that they found the skeleton of another of Raegdan’s kind.

Then they saw the teeth.

They were the teeth of a shark. The huge skull was filled to the brim with them, the ones further behind carrying a wicked, serrated edge. Fluttershy’s imagination made it worse when she envisioned them in a living mouth, hidden behind red lips and ready to be revealed in a cruel smile.

Fluttershy worked her tongue for a few moments, her mouth suddenly dry. “Do you think they were trapped here too?” she asked Applejack. If they had been, that didn’t bode well for their own chances.

“Fluttershy,” Applejack said tiredly behind her. “Fluttershy, look!”

Fluttershy followed Applejack’s gaze. The wall to the side of the blockage, over two meters above the ground, sported a giant hole.

Giant, indeed. It was wider—by far!—than the humongous corridor they had followed so far. It flowed upward in a steep angle—but not impossible to climb! Torn flesh, healed but forever scarred and mutilated, swamped with lacerations that wouldn’t stop bleeding and drainages that never stopped flowing, laid across its length.

And at its very end, small, faded, and so precious, was a circle of dark sky filled with stars.

“It’s the outside…” Fluttershy breathed. She had… She’d lost all real hope that they’d actually make it! She didn’t think it was actually possible…

She cast her eyes at the skeleton. The way he was facing this grand tunnel to the outside, the way his knees were buckled under him, almost as if he had fallen to his knees, exhausted and spent, only to die.

The size of this tunnel… the sheer volume of it… Was there enough magic in anypony to do something like this?

Or did it cost him more than that?

“Thank you,” she whispered to the skeleton. She wasn’t sure if he did it for them, for ponies. If he was the one who had first called on the map and injured the Mountain. If he sacrificed himself for their sake or if he had reasons of his own that ponies never factored into.

But she’d be grateful to the unknown person, who died with nopony ever knowing why, for the rest of her life.

Applejack called her over, standing to the side of the wall beneath the lower point of the hole. “You first. Okay, Sugarcube?” She lowered herself down, in preparation.

Fluttershy was hesitant to step on her friend’s bandage covered body. “...Maybe you should go first?” Applejack looked and moved as if unable to lift her own weight.

“You first. Then help me up.”

It took a large hop from Applejack standing on her hind legs—Fluttershy could not believe her friend had strength enough for that!— and all the thrust Fluttershy’s remaining wing could provide for Fluttershy to make it. She turned around and reached down, precariously holding to the edge. Applejack lifted her hoof as high as she could.

There was no way to reach low enough.

“H-Hold on. If I half-climb down you could try reaching for my back legs,” Fluttershy suggested.

Applejack didn’t respond. She moved away, sitting down next to the skeleton as if he had been an old friend.

“Applejack?”

Her friend moved her hat to cover her eyes and laid down.

“Applejack!”

“Just… gonna close mah eyes a bit. You go on. I’ll be… with you… all the way.”

“Applejack!” Fluttershy shouted until her chest was sore and her throat hurt, but her friend wouldn’t answer back.

What was she supposed to do now?

She had two choices. Get down again and stay with Applejack, no matter what. There would be nothing she could do to help her friend and chances were that if Applejack didn’t answer back out of stubborness, then she wouldn’t be able to make it up again. Not these couple of meters that were so beyond her reach without her wings. She could go back. Try to find Raegdan. Try to find Luna.

But they were gone. They were d-dead. If she… There was nothing to find.

Or… Or she could go out on her own. She’d be able to climb up easier—and it was a daunting climb even so, thousands of slippery meters on a steep incline—and from that point all she’d have to do was head north. There would be guards. She could find Twilight and Princess Celestia, medical help, and they’d come back here and get Applejack out.

The latter option made sense. It made so much sense. It wasn’t like she could do anything else. There was no help coming, so she’d have to go get help herself. She had to.

Right?

She wanted to leave so badly. To get out of this constant drop from one horror to another. She wanted to go home!

But to go home meant leaving her friend behind.

Was this… Was this really the sensible thing to do?

Or was she making excuses?

She didn’t know, she didn’t know, she didn’t know, she didn’t know, shedidn’tknow! How do you choose, how do you make that choice, how do you say yes to turning your back and not go mad, and not regret it for the rest of your life, not carry the shame and blame for the rest of your life?

Fluttershy started climbing. It took her hours.

She didn’t look back once.

Fluttershy reached up to drag herself a few more paltry centimeters. She felt nothing, and in her sapped state fell forward. She grappled the ground in sudden panic, preparing herself for another slip, more progress lost, more—

She touched grass.

She was out.

There were trees around her. Real, full trees, and not even the kind that signified she was still in the Everfree Forest. The winter had cloaked most of them, but there were fir trees and green, sun-doused moss.

A soft wind blew, making her shiver and causing the wounds and tears on her body to sting, but Fluttershy didn’t care. She laughed, feeling free like she never felt before. The only thing that could compare was when she found her Cutie Mark! She twisted around herself, inhaling deeply the forest smells, the wind! She looked up at the stars and they were so, so beautiful!

She was out! She was out! She laughed, laughed in her freedom and absolute relief that flooded her, until she fell down, still giggling madly, tears pouring from her eyes as she pressed her hooves over her muzzle, quivering. Her eyelids got heavy, and she closed them to rest them for a moment.

Fluttershy fell asleep. There had not been an ounce of strength left in her. The whip of fear was gone from her back, and her body had run out of endorphins and adrenaline to keep her going. She was dead to the world without even realizing it.

Somepony breathed next to her. Fluttershy wondered who it could be, her eyelids were made of stone.

There was a deep, muted thump coming from somewhere, beating like a heart. Thump. Thump. Thump. Sometimes there was a pause, long or short without rhyme or reason. It driveled on like a broken clock.

The unknown pony jostled her, and a heavy tail flicked her back legs. She sat up, her exhaustion more manageable but somehow deeper.

Applejack snored lightly next to her. The dying embers of a small fire lay next to them, keeping them warm. A burning smell filled the air, wood and coal, and something else mixed in between.

Fluttershy looked around in disbelief. There, laying against a tree trunk was Luna, peacefully staring at the stars.

Feeling her heart sink, but not surprised, Fluttershy made her way to the Princess of the Night and Dreams. For a pained moment, she thought it was real. Maybe, in a way, it still was.

“Hello,” Fluttershy said. “You’re looking well.” It was a falsehood, but it was kinder than the truth.

The Princess’ mane and coat was matted with a resin-like saliva. She laid in a way that had to be uncomfortable but she was either too tired or incapable of adjusting herself to a satisfactory stance. Her eyes were sunken beneath her dulled, cracked horn.

The corner of Luna’s mouth moved in the barest hint of a smile. “Thank you,” Luna croaked. Her voice sounded papery and dry. “I’m glad to see you safe.”

“Me too,” Fluttershy said, sniffing. She wouldn’t cry, not now. She’d cry later, spend days and nights weeping, but now she had to be strong. She always wished, privately, to be a stronger pony. But if that was how you became strong, she’d rather stay meek forever.

“You should lie down and rest,” Luna advised. “Stars know, it won’t be easy to reach aid in this state. Recollect your strength.”

Fluttershy rushed forward, embracing Luna. The princess felt cold, the dredged muck on her coat scummy and miasmic. The Alicorn weakly patted her side, the smile pulling harder at her taut skin.

Fluttershy pulled back after a very long time, rubbing her eyes. Applejack was still asleep, and she questioned what that meant. She wanted to wake her up, hear her friend’s voice one more time, but she hesitated. She was afraid that she might not be able to wake her or that this whole dream would pop if she did, like the fragile bubble that it was.

“I don’t see Raegdan,” she said aloud, noticing his absence. “Is he… not here?” Did he have dreams? Did he appear in them, she wondered. Or was that vision of madness and rage the last image she’d carry of him? The final ending she’d have to share with Twilight?

“You can hear him, can’t you?” Luna said, closing her eyes. Her eyelids sunk with drowsiness. “Be wary. He is in... a mood.”

And she was gone, lost to a sleep that Fluttershy didn’t dare disturb. The thumping continued, now more attention-grabbing. She walked towards it, going around a copse of hugging trees and thorny bushes. It reminded her of the dreary drums, the slapping of tentacled appendages and the gnashing of hungry teeth, but as she came closer it became clearer it was nothing like that. It was common and predated both life and death.

He was digging.

He knelt in the center of an empty space, rocks and bushes torn from the ground and thrown aside. He held a flat stone, using it like a spade, carving up the earth and dragging it back, a mound of dirt already piled high next to him.

His armor was torn to shreds. Where before there had been dents, now there were gouges and terrible marks that promised grievous wounds for the body where the armor had failed. There were torn up lines, with razor-like edges reaching inward or outward, tinted a rusted red. He was less dressed in armor and more wrapped in bent and beaten iron, like a sardine in a can that had been trampled three times over, and once more.

He was like a toy soldier that had spent a lifetime passed on from neglectful owner to neglectful owner, refusing to throw it away until all limbs had broken off and the body cleaved in two.

Raegdan’s bandolier was completely empty of explosives, just like the life in his eye. He didn’t even glance at her, his focus on the grave alone, if at that; truthfully, she’d wager he was anywhere but here, lost in some dream or nightmare of his own, his body an automaton that would work despite the pain and trauma.

And it was obvious how much trauma had been piled onto him. She recognized the smell that hovered around him; she’d smelled it so rarely, mostly the few times she’d been careless with her stove. His armor was filled with grunge and blood, most assuredly his own, and in the dark recesses of his armor there was the source of that smell.

“Hello,” Fluttershy said hesitantly.

The large, narrow stone sunk into the earth with a final, dull thunk. Raegdan’s hand stayed on it, unmoving. His head turned slightly, the beaten helmet’s dents making the shadows on it even more malevolent.

He turned back and continued digging. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.

She could imagine this being his afterlife; a literal translation of his life. Eternally digging graves with his own hands, always for others and never for him. It sounded like a punishment, and what did that mean for the life he had led? How many graves had he dug?

Fluttershy stood, her legs shaking. Should she… apologize for leaving him? Would he apologize for hurting her? Did he even care, either way? Did she care? The old her would, but the one that had been… tortured by him, no matter why or how—there never would be a reason good enough—didn’t believe she did.

Not so strangely, she didn’t feel as ashamed as she thought she would be when a tiny part of her had wanted him to never come back out to the light ever again.

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.

She had shared Twilight’s reasoning once upon a time― that he was sick and lost control. Even that notion flew out the window: Fluttershy had treated animals that were mad with fear or in pain and sought to hurt whatever made their insides ache so. These poor animals lost control.

Raegdan had looked at her, and knew exactly who he was looking at and what he wanted to do. He didn’t lose control. He changed his mind.

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.

“At least you did as told in the end.”

He didn’t sound angry. He didn’t sound happy. Thankfully, he didn’t sound dead toned either.

“That’s the only reason I hauled up Applejack,” he solemnly said, his look rooting her at the spot. “No more. I owe nothing more. My debt to her is paid.”

Fluttershy’s heart hammered against her chest.

Hauled up? He saved Applejack?

Fluttershy walked up to Raegdan, her eyes wide as saucers. It couldn’t be true. This was a dream. This was a dream. They were dead. She had fallen asleep and it was all some mad joke fashioned from the corners of a diseased mind.

Raegdan grabbed the hoof that tried to poke into one of the holes on his chest. His head swivelled towards her.

“You’re alive…” Fluttershy said, dumbstruck.

He titled his head. “You don’t care for me enough to conjure me up out of guilt.”

“B-But Luna… Y-You…”

He turned away from her and went back to digging. He stopped using the stone and used his large hands to pull roots and pebbles out.

“Who is this for?” Fluttershy asked, fearful of the answer.

Raegdan paused. “Who knows?” he answered after a thoughtful moment. “It could be for any of us.”

He reached over to his side. His cloak was sitting next to him, folded around and tied in a makeshift bag. He dragged it closer, undoing the knots.

Fluttershy pulled back, horrified.

What she had seen so far, had been going from worse to worse. But she was out now. It should have been over, yet it wasn’t. She had moved from the horror of darkness and stone, to the undoing threat of magic and savagery, finding herself at the heart of darkness; a heart made out of every little nightmare and bound in one, wrapped in alien sinew and eldritch weaves.

But, she now realized, the strongest of horrors was the simplest.

She had never seen one before; how could she? Raegdan was the only one she’d met, and he wasn’t young, not young at all. Yet she could identify what she was seeing all too well: She could tell from the gentle, soft chin and the round face. The short locks of hair, the smooth skin. The little fingers at the end of the remaining hand. The blue eyes, so brilliant even in death.

It was a child. It used to be a child.

Fluttershy was amazed to find that she still had tears to shed. She wished she had more, a river of them, that her drained body would use her blood if it had to, anything to cleanse that heartbreak from her.

What they had gone through was horrible beyond words. That a child had… There was no feeling of betrayal that was deep enough to express how… how…

How unfair the world could be.

Raegdan moved the tiny body as if it were a relic. He deposited the child at the bottom of the hole, naked and nameless. He packed the earth back handful by single handful. Slowly and with the care of a concerned parent that might wake their child from their light sleep. He had saved the rocks and gathered even more, placing them over the shallow grave like guardians.

“We…” She sobbed and had to start again. “We should say something,” she said.

Raegdan stood up. He was holding one last stone in his hand. He opened his palm, letting it drop and clink off the rest. “I hope I got you out, kid.” He sighed. “Don’t… I’m sorry if I didn’t. I swear I tried. Go home.”

He turned and left, picking up his cloak and flicking it in the air a few times, leaving Fluttershy alone in front of the grave.

She stayed there for a long time, trying to think of something to say. The night ended, and the dawn passed her by, the golden light showering her over the horizon.

Eventually, she left without saying anything at all.

What was it I said to Luna? She asked herself. Something about… That there is hope. A new day. But for some, there were no more days. Sometimes… there was no hope, she realized, as the new day’s sunrays broke the horizon and washed over her.

A small tongue of fire, a brief flicker of a dot, lit itself and died far away among the distant trees, right below the rising sun.

It couldn’t be! It was a trick of the light, a—a—

She ran back to Luna.

The Princess was exactly as she left her. Applejack had woken up at some point, but her body hadn’t moved. Only her green eyes, heavy with exhaustion and grief, were open. Raegdan had his back turned to Fluttershy, feeding dried up branches to the fire and coaxing it to full life again.

“I saw them!” Flutteshy shouted. Nopony seemed to move or care much. “I saw them!” she repeated, excitement filling her up. “I saw Spike’s flames, I know I did! Applejack, they are here! We got out in time! They must have been delayed too! We can still reach them, Applejack, we can still take back Applebloom and the others!”

Applejack’s expression was astounded and disbelieving. The mare slowly realized what Fluttershy was saying, and life returned to her. She pushed with her legs to stand, a wide smile—hope!—coming alive and—

The toe of Raegdan’s boot struck Fluttershy’s muzzle. She felt her nose break. A second kick landed on her belly, slamming her against a tree.

“Raegdan, stop! Stop!” Luna screamed outside the haze of gray that Fluttershy occupied.

Raegdan ignored Luna completely, towering over Fluttershy like he was a reasonable adult putting down a stupid filly. “You want more? You want to play the hero? What are you going to do, huh? Throw rocks at them?” His hand reached behind his left thigh. “Oh, wait. I have this. Do you want it? Play the little hero with a little flashbang?!” He shook the holey grenade in front of her nose like a dog treat.

“P-Please...” she begged, sniffling blood and mucus.

The sole of his right boot pushed her head down into the frosted dirt; he lightly pressed his weight into the side of her face, not enough to hurt, yet all she felt was gratitude that he chose to step on her face rather than her wing.

“They are gone. You lost.” Raegdan’s weight vanished. He moved to the fire and knelt back down again, his attention returned to the fire as if the past few seconds never happened.

Fluttershy looked to Applejack and Luna for support, but there was none. Luna wouldn’t look her in the eye, and as for Applejack… Fluttershy almost felt guilty for giving her hope.

Nopony was going to say anything more. It was over. Fluttershy wiped the blood off her muzzle. It didn’t seem to bleed that much. It might not be broken after all.

Staring at the blood on her hoof, she said to Raegdan’s back: “Y-You said you owe m-me.” Chills ran down her spine. She was afraid of what could happen if she continued. She could taste the acidic difference between fear and dread.

Raegdan’s head snapped at her.

“‘I owe you for helping Luna.’ You told me in that room. I… I want to call in that favor. I want you to tell me, truthfully, if there is anything... anything we can still do. If we can follow them or… or let Princess Celestia know where they are. If we stop we stop because we c-can’t do more, not because we g-gave up—”

He had been crouching by the fire, but when Fluttershy blinked he was towering over her. She was scared; her wing tingled with pain-riddled memories, the pain rushing back. She almost thought she was safe because Luna was there, but… that didn’t stop him earlier.

“You die with them or live.”

A single choked sob rang out. Raegdan swivelled to look behind him, tensing as he forgot Applejack was there. “What kind of choice is that?” she whispered.

Raegdan’s answer to the farmer was to storm off in disgust.

To whom the disgust was directed, it was hard to tell.

Fluttershy sat next to Applejack, thinking. Applejack herself was staring blankly into the fire. There was nothing the pegasus could do about Rarity. Her white-coated friend was beyond her reach. But Applejack was here, and she’d have to… somehow help her through whatever was coming.

Fluttershy’s mother would urge her to pray. Fluttershy could hear her as clearly as the sparrows singing on the branches above her. One of them came to land on her extended hoof, singing to her of the dark time’s passing. At least that’s how Fluttershy imagined it.

She brought the sparrow closer and laid a kiss on the top of its tiny head. Mother’s voice died off. She motioned her request, and the little sparrow flew and landed on Applejack’s hat, singing its song.

Thoughts of her tormented wing dashed in her mind for a moment, but she pushed them aside. She didn’t care if she lost it or could never fly again, even as little as she did it. It was a small price to pay.

They were out of the dark.

“Fluttershy?” Luna called from her little huddled corner. “Could you… help me up, please? I’m… I’m getting cold,” the Princess requested, tense and expecting defiance.

Fluttershy was thankful for the distraction. Anything that stopped her from thinking. She gladly helped the Princess to her hooves. She wasn’t sure if—whether Luna should be blamed for anything, really.

Luna let you come along to what she knew to be beyond you, her ravaged body reminded her. Luna let Raegdan do anything he wished. She watched as he terrorized you and hurt you.

…Could she blame her for not doing enough? Was it Luna’s fault for not stopping everything bad happening?

Wasn’t this the spoiled ungratefulness that pushed her to Nightmare Moon?

You don’t blame her for not doing enough. That wasn’t what happened here, her body continued. Yet it wasn’t her body. It wasn’t somepony separate. She didn’t…

Fluttershy was tired and sick of it all. She wanted no more of this. No more dark and bad, red, miserable thoughts.

Only a few steps away Luna tripped, her legs wobbly and unsteady. Fluttershy tried to help her up, but the Alicorn was too heavy and Fluttershy too weak.

Fluttershy called for Raegdan.

Silence.

This time Luna called, with all the strength she could muster. Raegdan again didn’t respond. Didn’t return.

As if he wasn’t there.

“Did… Did he leave?” Fluttershy asked nopony in particular.

Applejack was shaken out of her stupor. “And leave Luna on her own out here? Where would he— No. He wouldn’t…” Luna’s ears perked as she turned to Applejack, who almost made it to her hooves. “He said there’s nothing we can do!”

Luna, struck by an immediate understanding, nearly began hyperventilating. “No, no, no,” Luna chanted. She dragged herself after him on shaky hooves, letting out a cry of pain before falling to the earth once again, but her exhaustion didn’t deter her. “He can’t do that, he can’t… They’ll kill him! They’ll see him coming, the sun is at their back! Raegdan! Raegdan!”

Fluttershy didn’t know what to say. She wanted to say he shouldn’t have, but on the other hoof… Rarity, Spike, Applebloom…

Fluttershy held the panicking princess before she hurt herself. Her kicks were so weak and her thrashing pitiful. It was child’s play to hold her almost entirely still even for Fluttershy. She spoke soothingly, trying to reassure the Princess, but Luna was too caught up in her desperate hysteria to listen.

“Liar! Traitor! You promised me, you fucking promised!” she yelled. She yelled until her voice broke. Still, she tried―spitting out air into the nothingness and the silence―to thrash and reach him.

Luna’s cracked horn glowed. Sparks bloomed around her, and a white hot light blazed at the edges of the cracks. Luna was sweating and the veins of her neck stood out.

The shadows shook as the sun moved, a small tremble, and then it stopped when Luna’s scream of pain bellowed out of her.

Luna collapsed to the ground, her blue mane falling limply around her shoulders, no longer shining with the wondrous stars above. She looked smaller than before. Her horn smoked, shimmering with a convalescing light at the depths. “I can’t…” she said, panting. “I can’t do it.” She looked surprised at her own words, furrowing her brows as she shook her head. “He’ll die because of me. Because of me…”

The sun had frozen in the sky.

Then, with a swiftness only employed by Discord himself when he played with the celestial bodies, the sun dove to hide behind the distant mountains. The moon soared to take its place, and then flew higher, crowning the night sky.

Luna looked up with gratitude, the tears in her eyes reflecting the stars perfectly. “Thank you, sister,” she whispered. “Thank you for trusting me.”