Painkiller

“What are they?”

Your voice is breathy and hushed with wonder

These creatures that now swarm the familiar landscape before you are like nothing you’ve ever seen

Many of them are small, and they skitter about, looking like ants in the distance

But some are tall and vast, moving slowly and shaking the earth as they do so

“Elementals,” Celestia explains, eyes not leaving them

“They were some of my mother’s earliest creations – her first attempts”

“Before she figured out how to create flesh, she tried animating what was already in reach – dirt, stone, water…”

“They have little intelligence to speak of”

“For the most part, they hide, and until now I was never sure if they were truly what we might call ‘alive’”

“So they’re what’s causing all this crazy bullshit?”

The sun goddess never tries to make you feel stupid, she just does it unintentionally by knowing everything

“Oh no, Anon,” she shakes her head

“As I said, until this moment I wasn’t entirely sure if they were sentient, but I am now”

“Because the terror that stirred us has awakened them as well”

“They’re afraid”

When you look again at the lumbering bodies of stone, you realize that they follow no path to speak of

They aren’t rising to attack the world

They just mill about in confusion

She’s right; they’re just as terrified as you are

“So what do we do?”

If anyone in the multiverse knows what to do it’s her

“What can we do?” she wonders calmly

“Until this threat reveals itself for what it truly is – and I am quite certain we have not seen its final form – we cannot act with any sort of conviction”

You can’t argue with that

“Okay, then onto some slightly more pressing shit”

“That giant, honking rock guy over there is about to stomp through Ponyville”

It’s been years since you’ve walked around that town

Twilight was once beholden to the place, but no longer, and as she drifted away from it, so did you

Now it’s just a distant shape on the horizon presided over by a large – some would say awkward – crystalline palace in which she only occasionally lives

But it was once your home – even if hardly anypony who lives there now would even recognize you – and your heart still sinks into your stomach when you see it about to be trampled by a massive, unthinking creature

“I do see that, Anon, however I have no cause for concern”

“Alright”

“Then you and I are very different”

Even if you could get there in time – which you can’t – you’d be powerless to stop that giant, shambling thing from trampling your “hometown,” so you just watch as its rocky feet draw closer and closer to crushing the quaint, thatched shacks that populate your former hood

Something catches the corner of your eye, and even from here you swear you can feel pressure on your ears

It’s the quiet sound a 747 would make if it was powered by purpose instead of jet engines

An airborne shape hails from the mountains to the northwest

A smile slowly chases away your stricken expression as the enormous, winged creature dives toward the earth with reckless abandon

Just a moment before the titanic stone elemental’s foot crushes one of the first houses on Ponyville’s outskirts, a massive, scaly arm shoves it back

Two clawed feet hit the ground with an earth-moving impact as the dragon throws his immense self between the rock creature and the unsuspecting town

The stone titan is great – were it to stand next to Canterlot Mountain, its head might reach the city – and already agitated

It lashes out in fear and confusion, and you can almost feel bad for it

Spike is a bit small – by comparison only, of course – but he’s fast

And more importantly, he’s defending his friends

He catches the rocky fist in his own, wings beating against the air for support as he absorbs the impact and then musters the momentum to thrust it away

The elemental barely has time to stumble back before it’s torched by a massive blast of green fire

It would take far more to actually destroy a creature of such magnitude, but that isn’t the intention here, and when the flame abates, you can see parts of it glowing with heat

With the weight of a tectonic plate, the elemental staggers and then flees, chased away by a thundering bellow that says “fuck off” in no uncertain terms

“I guess you knew that was going to happen, huh?”

“Yes”

“I trust my friends, Anon, and I trust them completely”

“I don’t think you understand what trust is, Sunny”

She still gazes into the distance, but you can feel her full attention on you now

“How do you mean?”

“It’s only trust if you count on someone without being sure what they’re going to do”

She’s silent for a long time

“Anon?”

“Yo”

“When my sister awakens, I need to see her. This is not a dinner invitation that she can ignore or a teatime she can put off for next week; it is imperative that we meet immediately. Would you please tell her this?”

“You can count on me”

“I know”

“And in fact – were I anypony else – I would say that I trusted you”

“Astra”

“I’ve found you”

In a flash of panic, you awaken, upright and dizzy before you’re even fully aware of your body

You hear short, sharp breaths next to you

You woke up because Luna did

It’s only been six hours since you climbed into this bed next to her, and you’ve both been torn away from your dreamfield prematurely

The sun is still up, but you could swear that the light of a double full moon still stains your retinas

And a strange voice lingers in your ears, laced with anger and malice

She looks at you, eyes wild and unfocused

A capillary has burst in the left one, tinging it red

Her ethereal mane is unkempt, flowing in many tendrils

She has that lamentable look of someone who’s had way too much to drink and not nearly enough sleep

“Holy shit, calm the fuck down sweetheart,” you say, placing your hands on her shoulders

“You look like you’re about to blow a brain fuse”

Luna presides over the world’s dreams

She has the ability to walk in the mind of any creature upon this earth, so long as it slumbers

It’s ironic, then, that she herself never actually sleeps

Of course she must lay her body down to rest at regular intervals, but when her eyes close, she knows no oblivion

She just wakes up on the other side

Ever since she vested in you a part of her powers, you’ve gotten a taste of what it’s like

Sometimes, you fall asleep here, only to find yourself awakening in the dream world

But there are still interludes of nothingness

Not for her, though

At least not usually

“Anonymous,” she whispers raggedly, her bloodshot silver gaze meeting your own

“I had the most horrible hallucination”

This isn’t right

What last you remember, you were both sitting in your field of dreams and laughing together

Things were finally starting to feel almost normal again

The events of last night were becoming a distant memory, and you were once again reveling in your own private realm

There was none of this terror

“Moons…when? And more importantly, where?”

“Between,” she breathes, clutching at her chest as though she must hold her heart to keep it bursting through

You have to stop yourself from mirroring the gesture

Instead you rub your eyes and crack your neck, letting the mid-day sun warm you into consciousness

This room used to be completely enclosed, but now it has a window through which light streams

She doesn’t elaborate, and you embrace her, laying her down so that your heads share a pillow

“Talk to me”

“I was neither here nor there,” she murmurs, staring through you

“Luna,” you implore, shaking her, “I’ve seen enough freaky shit in the past twenty-four hours”

“Please make some sense”

She blinks and swallows hard

“It was like walking in a haze”

“I was…aware – to a certain degree – but I didn’t comprehend that it was just a dream”

“She was smothering me, and I was powerless”

“All of my strength and all of my magic amounted to naught”

“I couldn’t breathe”

“I’m really hoping this is just going to end up being a joke about your sister’s giant ass”

“Anonymous, be serious”

It’s not a reprimand

It’s a plea, half-panicked

“For the first time in my life, I was powerless over my sleeping thoughts”

“And I am so very afraid”

You can see the desperate need for sleep in her eyes, but she’s confused and shot full of adrenaline

Something in your mind is turning, and when it completes its revolution, you can practically feel the pins clinking inside your head

“Moons…you had a nightmare”

“A real one”

“That’s what it’s like for most people”

She stares at some distant point in space many miles beyond your face, chest still heaving, eyes like dinner plates cracked with redness

Her chin trembles slightly before she speaks

“I always knew that ponies sometimes forget their dreams after they wake”

“That they often don’t know that a dream is a dream”

“‘Am I dreaming?’”

“You’ve no idea how many times I’ve heard the question”

“But I never imagined it was like that, not in my wild–”

She trails off

“I’ve no right to say that,” she breathes, falling silent and blinking deliriously

“Moons”

You wrap your arms around her, and she’s rigid, her muscles showing no sign of unseizing as you kiss her neck

“Please don’t turn this into another reason to hate yourself”

She says nothing, still quivering with tension, like a steel spring in your embrace

“Luna, it’s okay, I’m here”

You can feel her heart punching you in the chest

“Do you want some water?”

She shakes her head

“Do you want some beer?”

She shakes it again

“Do you want a back rub?”

She nods

You sit up, gently rolling her onto her stomach and straddling her back

She’s a slight little thing, but your weight is a comfort rather than a burden

Even from a prone position, she could buck you through the ceiling if she wanted

And the ceiling is made of rock

You crack your knuckles

Ever tried to massage a wound-up alicorn?

It’s harder than it sounds

You begin kneading the back of her neck, and similar to last night, it’s like trying to massage metal with skin stretched over it

Your thumbs already ache, and you know you can’t do anything here

It’s all about finding that key spot where your puny mortal strength can actually do some damage, and working from there

Just below the base of her neck, your fingers are greeted with a consistency that feels slightly more like flesh

With a small, painful “ah” she releases the breath that she probably didn’t know she was holding

You try moving out to her shoulders, but they’re harder than diamonds

You could grind at them until your fingers broke

So you keep moving down, pressing against each vertebra, but nothing’s giving

Until you reach the one right between her wings

Aha

You press down with your palms, but your bodyweight isn’t enough

So you switch tactics, coaxing her wings into opening and then grabbing the base of each one, swiveling them in opposite directions and pulling on them

Usually that makes her horny, but you’ll take anything you can get right now

As you continue to turn her feathery appendages in gentle circles, you shift so that one knee is braced between them, pressing down on that one part of her spine that isn’t completely locked up

The rise and fall of her breath is slowing down here and there with tiny groans, and you tighten your grip

Then you yank like you’re trying to rip the arms off a twacked-out grizzly bear, and the resulting pop is like a gunshot in the quiet room as you feel something give beneath your kneecap

“Mmpf”

There we go

The keystone has been pulled, now it’s just a matter of doing the work

You move up a notch, cracking it with a double-handed push and then kneading outwards, feeling the stone-like consistency rapidly melt into that of putty

She moans indecently when you reach her neck, and you can feel her whole body relaxing now

You massage back and forth between the base of her skull and her wing joints for minutes on end, until your arms begin to feel like jello

You take one final walk down her back, past her wings and onward to her rear

A short, sharp thrust of your weight right above her tail causes a final spinal decompression which almost sounds like a “thunk”

“Ummf…”

One of her legs kicks involuntarily, but a couple broken ribs a few years ago taught you to stay far out of the way

You squeeze her ass for good measure – eliciting a contented sigh – and then flop back down on the mattress, slightly winded

Her eyes are half lidded, one being almost closed

You try to kiss her, but her tongue is hanging out, so you opt for the cheek instead

Her ears twitch, and her wings slowly fold back up as she smacks her lips

“Better?”

She gives you a sleepy but adoring smile

“If anything ever happens to me, dear heart,” she comments lazily, “you could make your living as an alicorn masseur…or chiropractor”

“Ehh…I only know three other alicorns, and I’d feel really weird about doing that to any of them”

“Good point,” she yawns, turning to wrap around you in a four-limbed hug and bury her face in your neck

You can feel her wetness grinding against your leg with a gentle, sleepy lack of urgency

She pecks at your collarbone, and the only reason you aren’t ramming her into the headboard right now is because of your lack of sleep and the anxiousness that recent events have instilled in you

You have a question, but you’re afraid to ask it for fear it might rile her up again

“Moons”

“Mmm?”

“You said ‘she’ was smothering you – in the nightmare, I mean”

“Did you mean…”

“No, Anonymous,” she says, head rising to look at you in a moment of semi-lucidity

“I could never imagine that, in this realm or that of sleep”

“Then…was it the Tantabus?”

She shakes her head slowly, and she climbs halfway on top of you so that you’re chest to chest and nose to nose, her forehooves draped over your shoulders

Her silver eyes blink, searching for words

“I created the Tantabus myself, and I knew it very well”

“It was a facsimile”

“It was what I thought a nightmare was supposed to be, and little more than a concentrated version of the same self-flagellation I used to engage in during my waking hours”

“This dream…I’ve only experienced one other thing like it”

The sun from the open window is harassing both of you at an uncomfortable angle, and her horn sparks, sealing the opening with a smoke-like black cloud that you haven’t seen in a very long time

The room doesn’t go entirely dark, as she keeps her aura pulsing ever-so-slightly, illuminating just your faces and the silver streaks in her mane

“Yeah?” you prompt, your eyes relaxing but not wavering from hers

“Madness”

“I spent one-thousand years as an incorporeal essence of rage and envy within the confines of the moon, silently wishing to scream every time I felt my sister’s touch move me to begin a new night”

“But how could I scream when I had no lungs to draw breath?”

“It was like suffocating”

You listen with rapt attention, drinking in the rare details

“Were it not for my mother’s shards taking pity upon me, my shattered mind might’ve been ground to dust”

“Regardless”

You feel a slight disappointment that that’s all you get

“I can’t say this feeling was identical, only unsettlingly similar”

She finishes with a yawn, as though speaking of a distant memory

You think for a moment, fingers tracing the feathers of one wing

You’re sure her nightmare is connected to the strange events of this morning, but you can’t bring yourself to say so

She hasn’t remembered anything yet, and you can’t bring yourself to inflict further anxiety on her until she’s gotten some sleep

Her head slowly comes to rest again, nestled into your chest

She’s got problems and the world’s got problems, but now is not the time to deal with them

Still, you gave Celestia your word

You must tell Luna to go to her

However, you reflect as sleep takes you and your princess once more

You don’t have to tell her here

Your eyes open to a gently rolling green

You wouldn’t even call them hills, more like knolls

Yeah, knolls motherfucker, you just casually used that word

Two hundred years of perusing Luna’s journal – often with a dictionary next to it – has expanded your vocabulary considerably

The field stretches out infinitely in all directions – or at least it appears to

You know that beyond the horizon are forests, mountains, and even great bodies of water, only as close or far away as you want them to be

When you were younger, you sought to explore every corner of it, but lately you’ve been staying put in this – your favorite spot in any world

Looking up, you see a sky of pristine clarity, salted with stars arranged into many simple constellations, many of them constructed subconsciously during decades upon decades of quiet reflection

But the sky is dominated by one celestial phenomenon, and every time you look at it, you feel like laughing

Yet it also conjures a wealth of emotions that stretch back over lengths of time that possibly no other human being in the multiverse has weathered

Two full moons

One resembles that which watches over Equestria each night, the other looks much like the one under which you lived most of your old life

The only thing from your homeworld you saw fit to conjure here

They’re so close that their edges touch, surrounded by an arrangement of stars that form a comically suggestive mural in the sky

Your princess sits next to you, and her eyes open without blinking even once

Her gaze turns up, as do the corners of her mouth

The joke is too old to get a full chuckle anymore, but she always smiles

It’s part humor, part flattery, and part memory

“It’s going to be time to redecorate soon,” she comments

“Nah, I like the feng shui we’ve got going here”

She rests her head on your shoulder

“Very well”

There’s a stretch of silence in which you debate whether or not to voice your concerns

Fuck it

You don’t get this far by hiding your feelings

“Luna?”

Your tone makes her raise her head and meet your eyes

“Do you remember what happened last night

“It’s hazy,” she admits, “but I know the gist”

“And I know I failed to do anything about it”

“Look, just promise me that when you wake up – I mean really wake up – you’ll go see her”

“I think it’s inevitable, Anonymous”

Silence overtakes this party of two, and you think of the promise you yourself made to Twilight

That together, you would fix them

So you do the one thing you know will at least get the gears turning, and ask your princess to explain her feelings

“Why are you so…”

You don’t want to say “afraid”

That won’t get you anywhere

“…reluctant to see her, Moons?”

“It’s gotta be more than her turning into a paper-pusher”

“And if her being disappointed that you never talk to her bothers you so much, then why wouldn’t you just talk to her more?”

She doesn’t say anything just yet, but a gentle breeze picks up, just enough to move the air about and bring with it the smell of a perpetual summer night

Her mane dances about, finding its way across your back and curling around you

“That makes me think of a story, Anonymous,” she says finally, and your heart skips a beat

“One that might answer those questions and others you’ve no doubt been entertaining lately”

You look at her with both excitement and apprehension

It’s been a while since the last story

“Would you like to have a dream?”

You’ve been with Luna for so long

Or at least it feels that way to a human

Yet you know so little of the past, but for the history books, and those rare details

And her “dreams”

“Yes”

Her silver gaze stares into yours, eyebrows knit slightly, accompanied by a wistful smile

A single tear rolls down one cheek, and she catches it, touching her hoof to your lips

It tingles when it touches your tongue, and you can only blink twice before the veil of this realm begins to peel back in a wash of silver light

“Then dream you shall”

Your body is no more – you are only a sight, blinded by an expanse of blank whiteness

You feel no hands or feet, only the tingling of her tear and the coolness of her starry mane wrapped around your soul

As in previous times, it’s the only thing that keeps you from feeling terror

“There was an era I sometimes speak of”

“When the world was still young and vast”

Her voice echoes in your mind as it often does in the waking world, but it has no direction, coming from all sides and infinitely more commanding

The blankness begins to resolve into colors, as though you’re emerging from a thick cloud, and suddenly you see it

“The sky was just beginning to turn blue, still stained with crimson from my mother’s dividing”

Beneath the mottled sky float clouds of many colors

Below your slowly moving field of perception is a green valley that stretches so far you can only just make out the hazy mountains at its other end

It is surrounded on all sides by jagged, rocky peaks that rise as high as Canterlot Mountain itself, but with none of its familiar gentleness

Through the valley flows a great river, fast and wide

Instinctively, you follow it to its origin, a waterfall that plummets from a cliff on the highest mountain

“Before Equestria, the whole earth was our home”

A figure stands atop the cliff, and as you draw closer, it is both familiar and not

Celestia’s youthful self is still tall and regal, but there are noticeable differences

The regalia you are accustomed to – including her crown – is absent

In its stead, a great golden plate covers her chest, rising into a collar that encircles the base of her long neck

Her mane is almost completely lacking its ethereal flow, as well as its color scheme – the light pink hair ripples more in the breeze than it does by magic

But the most striking difference is her face

True, it looks just the same in terms of features, but her jaw is hard set and her head held high, mouth turned down in contemplation

Her eyes narrow as they gaze into the distance

The sun above reflects off her unblinking eyes, and they gleam with steely brightness

She squints towards a hazy dark patch at the valley’s far end, her head tilting to one side

“And we sought to leave no corner of it unexplored”

Celestia cranes her neck around to look behind and calls out

“Luna”

She is joined shortly by a second figure, and could you feel your body right now, you’re sure your hand would slap itself over your mouth

While the sun princess looks more or less identical to her present-day self despite a few obvious differences, the same cannot be said for her sister

The younger alicorn is at least a full head shorter than she is now, as well as a full shade lighter

Her short-cropped, cornflower-blue mane is tied back in a utilitarian ponytail

Unlike her elder, she wears no armor, but instead a long, flowing black cloak, and a tunic of what appears to be leather with a thick, high collar which buckles tightly around her neck, adorned at its front by a blue gem that matches her hair

Underneath the billowing fabric, you catch glimpses of two small saddlebags

“Yes, sister?”

“I require sight,” Celestia explains

Or at least you assume it’s an explanation

You have no clue what the fuck she means

Luna thinks for a moment, then opens her left saddlebag with a teal aura and withdraws a small vial

The day mare takes a drink from it and gazes once again towards the dark patch in the distance

The younger sister tucks the vial back into her satchel with a clink that belies many others like it, and you think of the cabinet in your room stocked with so many unlabeled bottles and flasks

“What do you see?” she wonders

The eldest is silent for a moment, and when she speaks, she her tone is grave

“Nothing good, but it’s obscured by more than just distance”

“What do you see, sister?”

Luna closes her eyes, as though listening instead of looking, her cloak billowing just a bit more than the wind warrants

“The same,” she says finally, snapping them open

“This land looks peaceful, but it is sick in the soul. I do not wish to walk here, Tia – there is evil in this place”

“And that is why we must,” the white alicorn says simply

“Then I suggest,” Luna offers, extracting another vial from her bag and hoofing it over, “that we tread lightly”

“What’s this?” Celestia wonders

“A perfume of valerian and opium poppies,” the dark alicorn explains

Her voice has an odd echo to it, and you realize she’s speaking inside her sister’s head

You can only hear it due to your currently omniscient perspective

“Dab it about your neck”

“I cannot make you invisible in broad daylight, sister, but those who do look upon you might find they can’t quite remember what they saw”

“Very well,” Celestia says after doing as instructed, “now let’s tarry no longer”

She takes flight, the sun catching her armor in a flash, followed by a trail of black and purple smoke

You look back to watch Luna do the same, but she’s already gone, and you realize what the smoke is

“We were travelers – wandering for the sake of wandering, looking for a place and a purpose”

“And we had begun to find both, putting our adventurousness to good use by helping those who needed it when we came across them”

“The village we found twenty miles upriver feared this valley, for none who had attempted to settle here had ever returned. Many of their friends and loved ones had vanished in this place, sometimes in numbers”

“And so, young and intrepid as we were, we sought to find out why”

Celestia dives, her wings tucked in freefall mere feet away from the cliff face

They only open to catch her just before she breaches the treeline in a move that would no doubt be suicidal for any pegasus

As she slips through the canopy and glides the last few yards to the ground, you notice the sun on her flank

The moment her hooves touch the ground, so does the nebulous black fog, and Luna rematerializes next to her, the dark cloud swirling about her until it takes the form of her cloak

Before the enchanted fabric comes to rest over her body you note the crescent moon stamped on her own hindquarters

“Wait,” you wonder incredulously, “isn’t this way before Equestria?”

“Indeed”

“So that’s before you two started raising the sun and the moon, right?”

“Yes”

She says nothing further, willing your attention back toward her past self

The forest is deathly silent

No insects hum and no birds chirp

The only sound is that of the waterfall, distant and muted by the trees

You can see just how aware the two sisters are of the unnatural quiet

“I do not like this at all,” young Luna echoes, her mouth unmoving

Celestia doesn’t vocalize a response, instead sparking her horn with golden light

Two objects materialize out of thin air on either side of her

One is a helm that matches her body armor, and she magics it carefully over her head

There are four holes atop it – two for her ears, one through which she draws her mane, and another just above the brow

Below the latter is a curved steel blade with a ring right where its clip begins

Her horn fits through this fourth hole and then through the ring, anchoring the wicked knife to it

The second object is massive, and takes more time in its conjuring

A long shaft of gold-tinged steel burns into existence

At one end forms a heavy steel ball

At the other at the other, an axe head of unwieldy proportions

The enormous curved blade stretches nearly half the length of the weapon, almost touching the middle point of the handle at its end, and you know you’d be unable to lift the thing, much less wield it effectively

Young Luna regards the halberd with a single raised eyebrow as her sister holsters it in a large ring on the right side of her armor

“Are you so eager for a fight?”

“Preparation does not necessitate enthusiasm, Lu”

“True,” the dark alicorn reasons, “but certain kinds of preparation belie it”

She dons the hood of her cloak, and you note that it comes to rest against her head as though she had no horn

“You think you’re so clever, don’t you?” Celestia wonders with narrowed eyes

Even under the hood, you can see Luna stick her tongue out

The eldest sister cracks a small smile, eyebrow arched in accompaniment to a rough, roguish prototype of the expression you’ve become so familiar with over the years

“Let’s not dally, sister…more than likely, we have work to do”

When they cease to speak, you’re once again reminded how quiet this place is

If it were some kind of wasteland, you could understand

But a forest this lush should not be so silent

The soft padding of their hooves against fallen leaves and the patches of grass which spring up in ever-more-frequent shafts of sunlight is unsettlingly loud, tempered only by the rushing of the river whose distance you cannot gauge

When at last the canopy breaks, the valley stretches out in equal silence, bathed in light save for that cloud-shrouded murkiness in the distance

The river – which you can now see is little more than a stone’s throw away – fills the valley with frothy echoes

You can see the sisters’ ears panning and twitching back and forth, searching for any other sound and finding nothing

Celestia dares not break the silence, but Luna mutters into her mind every so often, and she responds with almost imperceptible nods or shakes of her head

For a long time, they walk in silence, growing ever more wary with every step

The grass grows a little taller, interrupted by patches of trees here and there, and they fan out, walking a few yards away from each other

Ahead, atop a few gentle hillocks rises a tangle of greenery – a dense grove that obstructs the immediate view of their path, leaving only the surrounding mountains and that remote, impalpable darkness

But the only signs of life are the vultures that circle the sky, far above whatever fell magic might infect this place

Then Celestia’s head turns up sharply, and a fraction of a second later the stillness is split by a violent bellow

The sound of leaves and twigs being crushed by hooves rapidly intrudes on your aural periphery, but it does not sound like the gait of any equine

The crashing of branches and brambles joins it, and with another ragged howl, the source of the noise bursts through the thicket

If your disembodied dream consciousness had eyes, they would be as wide as Celestia’s as it charges right towards her

Though she is tall for a pony – which really isn’t saying much – this thing towers over her

It has the head of a bull and a torso that is a rough approximation of a man’s, with goat-like legs, and you recognize it as a minotaur, a creature whose likes you’ve seen a few of in your travels

And this one looks pissed off past the point of sanity

Luna – her tiny frame hardly visible in the tall grass – adopts a defensive stance

But Celestia does not raise her weapon

She simply steps out of the way, and the roaring creature barrels right past her

It runs maybe twenty more yards before stumbling and collapsing in the bushes, making no attempt to stand back up

You can see its back heaving with exhaustion

The sisters lock eyes

The youngest is utterly bewildered, but you can see the cogs turning in her older counterpart’s mind

Before they can exchange words, there is a muted flash of emerald light from within the brush, and the sound of more hooves, this time a familiar four-legged gallop

A pony trots into view, following the swath cut by the minotaur

Though the beige unicorn stallion is rugged and battle-worn, he’s still a relatively normal-looking pony

Yet they react with shock

“The land that would one day become Equestria was not even on this continent,” Luna narrates, as if – or maybe very deliberately – responding to your thoughts

“It was exceedingly rare for us to meet one like ourselves”

The pony’s eyes flit between them, but he doesn’t slow down, making a beeline toward the fallen beast

As if sensing his presence, the minotaur rights itself, standing and bellowing with all its might

The sound is halfway between the mindless screech of a beast and the desperate battle cry of a man making his last stand

When you take a closer look at the creature, he is a terrible sight to behold

Yes, he’s intimidating, but clearly not what he once was

You’ve seen enough of his kind to that they’re almost invariably large and muscular, but this one looks wasted

Above his sunken stomach, ribs poke at the hide underneath his filthy copper-colored fur

His coat is matted and his hair is long and tangled

A wicked scar dominates the left side of his face, running across a damaged, milky eye

The pony charges toward him without hesitation, withdrawing a rope from his pack with a viridescent magical glow

Tied at its one end is a painful-looking chunk of barbed iron that resembles a large fishing hook

He twirls it overhead in his aura before launching it toward the minotaur

The bull-headed animal weaves, but the throw is expert, and the rope lands on its left horn, swinging underneath its outstretched arm and looping around and around until a cry of pain signals that hook has imbedded itself in flesh

Arm now tethered awkwardly to its own head, it stumbles about helplessly

It only takes one tug on the part of the unicorn to bring it crashing to the ground once more, the gust of air from its lungs sending up a cloud of dirt, dust, and grass

You’re just getting ready to say “that’s that” when the minotaur rolls onto its back and – with a grisly squelch – rips the hook from its arm and staggers to its hooves once more

You don’t know where this guy came from, but wherever it was, he does not want to go back

He leaps at the pony, who only just evades being crushed by a hammer-like fist

The stallion retrieves another rope and hook from his pack, but before he can put it to use, the massive beast crashes into the grassy earth yet again, bound by a set of translucent, blue-green shackles around its wrists and ankles

Luna’s horn glows, freed of its concealing hood

The stranger says nothing, removing something else from his satchel

It’s a leather strap, which he hastily cinches around the minotaur’s mouth

It groans, closing its wet eyes and succumbing to exhaustion

“Bind him,” the night mare instructs

“I cannot hold this spell indefinitely”

Obviously prepared, the stallion produces shackles of a more tangible variety, cuffing the unconscious behemoth

Once finished, his bright, emerald eyes regard the alicorn sisters with guarded curiosity

His build and the numerous scars lurking under his coat suggest that he engages in this type of activity regularly, and indeed he doesn’t look at all shaken

Luna returns his inquisitive look, but Celestia is stony and silent, wearing the expression of someone who is trying and failing to pick a lock

“Thank you, travelers,” he says finally, his voice a bit higher than you expected

“It’s not often we have passers-through in this place,” he continues, “and even less often are they anything but a nuisance…or worse”

You recognize that he’s probably winded, but he talks like he doesn’t quite understand how to breathe through his nose

Still, dude just took on a raging minotaur without a second thought

He’s okay in your book

The vultures circle tightly overhead, and you realize they must have picked up on the minotaur’s blood

“What are you called?” the young Luna wonders

“I have a few names,” the unicorn smiles, sitting down to catch his breath

“I know this fellow” – he nods his head at his fallen opponent – “and his ‘friends’ have a few choice words they like to describe me with”

“But you can call me Warden,” he finishes with a dip of his head

“That sounds more like a title than a name,” the alicorn comments

“It’s both, at this point,” he admits

“What is this place?” Celestia interjects harshly, her inflection odd and strained with tension

She doesn’t look him in the eye, her head swiveling around as if searching for the missing piece of a puzzle

“I see you’re a bit confused…a bit on edge, but don’t worry,” Warden placates, “I’ll explain”

“This valley is deceptive”

“I wish it could be used for something happier than it is, but I have no control over that”

He taps his chin with a hoof, but you get the sense he already knows exactly what he’s going to say

“Simply put, it’s a prison”

“Or at least it houses one,” he amends, pointing toward that black stain at the far end

“My kin and I make it our business to intern the dangerous and the wicked – to spare the world from their cruelty and madness”

“It isn’t a glamorous life, but it fills us with…satisfaction”

“A noble cause,” Celestia concedes slowly, “but why here? This valley could be a paradise; why sully such a lovely place with such a gloomy purpose?”

“Because,” Warden explains, “as you no doubt know having traveled here, it is far, far out of the way, and when these brutes escape”

He nods again at the unmoving form on the ground

“We have time to catch them before they inflict any further harm upon the civilized parts of the world”

The Evermare’s eldest daughter still looks skeptical, but you see her beginning to soften

“May I ask your names?” the stallion inquires innocently

“Luna Selena,” the young version of your princess proclaims, bowing and flaring her wings

“And I am Celestia Astra, second name my mother’s first” her sister adds with a cautious nod, eyes refusing to leave the stranger

“A pleasure,” Warden returns, bowing lower this time

He wears the look of one whose suspicions are confirmed, and it does not go unnoticed, only unacknowledged

“Had we met under happier circumstances, I’d pour you a drink”

“However, I bear no bottles or flasks, only the unpleasant task of dragging this…thing back to where he belongs”

“I don’t suppose you’d care to help?”

“He’s a bit heavy”

As if sensing his impending fate, the minotaur awakens, lids fluttering open

Celestia’s head snaps toward him and their gazes meet

The longer she stares at him, the more her eyes narrow and the corners of her mouth turn down

The stallion looks back and forth between the two of them, a bit confused

“Under normal circumstances,” she tells Warden, “I would help you”

“But I’m afraid I cannot”

“And why is that?” he wonders nonchalantly

“Because your smile is false” the demigoddess breathes, the beginnings of a snarl forming on her lips

“And everything you just told me was a lie”

There’s a metallic snap, and the shackles that bound the minotaur just moments ago now encircle Warden’s hooves

“What is the mean–” his outrage is silenced as the leather strap completes the ensemble, pulled taut by golden light

His own aura flares green, but dies quickly when her blade touches the base of his horn

“It seems you know of me, creature,” she hisses threateningly, “so you may be banking on the knowledge that I do not like to kill”

“But I will not hesitate to disarm you”

“Permanently”

His struggles cease and he stands still, shivering slightly

Luna looks a bit surprised, but otherwise unfazed, waiting patiently for some kind of explanation

The minotaur snorts, opening his unbound mouth and looking around in bewilderment at the sudden turn in his circumstances

Slowly, he rises, staggering to his feet and clutching his wounded arm

Trickles of blood run down it, staining his copper fur and dripping at the elbow

“Forgive me,” Celestia begs him with a sigh

“Rarely have I met a liar so adept as this one”

With a small shove, her axe makes a tiny bite in Warden’s horn, and he shudders

The minotaur’s eyelids flutter, and his legs look like they might buckle

“You should sit down,” Luna tells him gently, trusting her sister implicitly

“Let me help you”

The beast ignores her, gazing intently at the elder sister

“Give him to me,” he demands, finally speaking, his voice a deep, parched rasp

He points a damning finger at the restrained stallion, who whimpers

“I’m afraid of what might happen if I do,” Celestia replies earnestly

The minotaur’s gaze bores into hers, even his ruined eye glaring daggers and glistening with wetness

His whole body trembles with rage and his jaw quivers, mouth turned down and lips curled back in contorted agony

His accusatory claw points at her now

“Unless you mean…to kill me”

His words are labored, each one scouring his parched throat like sandpaper

“You will not stop me”

They stare at each other for a long moment

Tears stream down his face

Her eyes grow ever wider as she searches deeper into his thoughts

Her breath catches in her throat, and her own cheeks becomes stained with rivulets of sorrow

She lowers her weapon and steps back

Warden squirms and thrashes as two great, muscular arms lift him off the ground

His horn sparks, but a clawed hand wraps around it

You can see the flesh blistering under the heat of magic, but its owner heeds not the pain

With a wet pop the magic is cracked off at the source, and the splintered horn lands dead in the grass

A muffled scream escapes the stallion’s bound muzzle, but it fizzles into a guttural moan as his neck is twisted further and further toward its breaking point

You can see every cord and fiber resisting death as the minotaur grasps his body in one arm, using the other to twist his skull around in a lethal circle

His shackled legs kick and spasm, beating any piece of his assailant within reach

But the pounding of hooves against that hard-corded wrath is like shooting bullets at a freight train

With a final, strangled exhale and a snapping of gristle, Warden is no more

He is ruined, and yet you can see no relief in his executioner’s visage, only regret and disappointment

Whatever unfathomable grief he caused the starving creature, this grisly act of violence has done nothing to assuage it

The corpse hits the ground with a wet thump, and the minotaur gazes up at the red-stained sky and its multicolored clouds

“That wasn’t nearly as satisfying as I thought it would be,” he comments

“I don’t condone murder,” Celestia tells him, her voice tentative, feeling him out a bit, “but in this case, I don’t mind looking the other way”

“What are you called, sir?”

“My name is Willing,” he answers, giving no gesture of greeting beyond eye contact and a nod

“But among good company, I go by my surname”

“So call me Abel”

If his middle name is “Nathaniel” or anything that starts with an “N,” you’re going to ragequit this dream

The sisters bow

“This was not murder,” he continues

“It was justice”

“That,” the sun mare says, raising one eyebrow and turning her head as she looks up at him, “is a very dangerous way of thinking, and one I do not wish to fall into”

“Philosophy is the sum of experience,” Abel replies gruffly

Celestia doesn’t hear him, instead looking at Luna, who is staring at the ground with increasing alarm

Not the ground actually

Warden’s corpse

You notice, as she clearly has, that the blood – if that’s even what it is – trickling from his mouth is not red, nor does it flow like a normal liquid

It oozes like sap, a shimmering, phosphorescent green

All gathered watch with varying degrees of disbelief as the broken body begins to glow with the same pale emerald light

The dirty beige of his coat is slowly disappearing, as if the hair is growing in reverse

The skin turns black and hardens, taking on a leathery consistency

“What is this devilry?” the young alicorn hisses

“I don’t know,” her sister whispers, watching with similar disgust and fascination

But you know

You’ve heard many tales, and even see a few of them in your travels

When the transformation is complete, an alien being lies before them, staring up with multifaceted, insectoid eyes and a fanged mount frozen in an expression of desperate agony, despite its bindings

“What is this?” Luna repeats, her shocked gaze trained on Abel

“I’ll explain later,” he assures, “but right now we must get out of the open”

“Her eyes see far”

“Come with me”

He starts toward the thicket from which he originally came, but then stops almost immediately, pausing thoughtfully

Bending down, he grabs the carcass by a leg and then continues toward the overgrown tangle of trees and bushes

The two mares share a glance and then follow

“What do you intend to do with that?” Luna wonders

Abel turns and gives her a rough but almost apologetic smile

“I’m hungry”

The sun is low in the sky, darkness fast approaching

A strange fire blazes, a spectrum ranging from teal to blue in place of the normal warm yellows and oranges

The wood from which it rises never blackens, which is a good thing considering the dangerous amount of dry brush that surrounds it

A wet crack resounds through the small, well-hidden clearing in the thicket, and two sisters wince

Abel sits in front of the blue-green flame on a recently-moved rock, prying the skin off of Warden’s severed leg

A thorough cooking has given it a shell-like quality, and he breaks it apart in pieces and digs the black and green meat out from within, stuffing his face with reckless abandon

A great trail of sticky grease runs down his chin and into his goatee, his chest and hands being fairly well-coated too

Luna watches him intently, fascination and disgust pulling her expression in two opposite directions

Celestia keeps her glazed eyes trained on the fire as one hoof cradles her stomach

Her telekinesis absent-mindedly runs a whetstone over the blade of her halberd

“What does it…taste like?” Luna wonders hesitantly, and her sister groans silently

The minotaur pauses in his scarfing and taps his greasy chin

“I take it you don’t often eat other creatures, yes?”

“Rarely,” she confirms

“Still,” he continues, “have you ever been to the coast? Seen the ocean and the villages there?”

She nods

“Ever eaten a crab?”

“Once or twice,” she admits, “but only for politeness’ sake”

“Well,” he says, using one claw to free a piece of meat from between two incisors, “it’s a lot like that. A great big, oily crab with rubbery flesh that tastes like the kind of mold that grows on old cheese”

“It’s an acquired taste”

Celestia has been wilting further and further during the exchange, her grimacing muzzle now pointed toward the ground

“What is this place?” Luna prompts, both sensing the need for a change in topic and being the only one who still has no idea what’s going on

“That’s a good question,” says Abel, “and it shouldn’t be answered by a thirsty throat”

“I don’t suppose you’ve got anything to drink?”

“What do you desire?”

“Whatever you’ve got”

“I’ve got quite a few things”

“Just give me something, cow!”

Luna’s head jerks back

Her brow is furrowed, but there’s a hint of a smile on her face

Abel bites his lip and rubs the back of his neck

“My apologies,” he says hastily, “there are certain Tauric idioms that don’t ah…translate well into other cultures”

“If you happen to have any mead, I’d be grateful”

Luna nods bemusedly and opens one of her packs, rummaging through it

As seconds and then minutes tick by, the minotaur watches with increasing bewilderment as she digs and digs, and you begin to suspect that – like many of Luna’s possessions – her saddlebags give a steadfast middle finger to the laws of physics, a notion that is confirmed when she finally produces a flagon that is twice the size of the bag itself

Abel swiftly uncorks it and empties half the contents in one gulp

He wipes his mouth with a greasy hand and offers it back to her with the other, his arm trembling slightly

The wound near its shoulder has gone unattended

A steadily drying river of blood runs down to the elbow

Luna takes a deep draught and then hoofs the flask back

Celestia silently refuses the same offer

Abel takes another great pull and then sets his drink down, looking slowly back and forth between the two mares who sit on either side of him

“Before I say anything else, I wish to thank you both”

“I’m not a bull who puts much stock in sentimentality”

“But my heart beats strong, and I thank you from the bottom of it”

“I would rather die than go back to that place, and it is only because of you that I didn’t have to pick one or the other”

“Your gratitude is not necessary, but it is appreciated,” Celestia tells him, apparently recovered from her queasiness

“What place?” Luna presses

“Ah, yes,” Abel coughs, clearing his throat

“Now I will answer your question”

He takes one more drink before proceeding

“You were wrong about one thing, Astra,” he begins, turning to the elder sister

“Please, call me Celestia”

“Not everything he told you was a lie, Celestia”

“This place is indeed a prison, yet it houses no criminals”

“Well, there are surely a few,” he amends, “but if so, the punishment they receive is not for their crimes”

“There are quite a few names for Warden and his kind”

He picks another piece of flesh from the leg and chews as he talks

“They live here and there in the dark, damp places of the world, and if you believe you’ve never encountered one before, you are wrong”

“You just didn’t know it”

Realization flits across Celestia’s features

“I am blind to them,” she breathes mostly to herself, eyes swimming with memories

“His thoughts clouded my mind, and I’ve felt it before”

“My people call them faeries, and the Zebras call them night crawlers in their own tongue,” Abel explains

“Some call them dragonfly ponies or changelings”

“They are wretched things by nature”

“They will steal you away and take your place, just to feel your family’s love”

“The forests of the north – the place where I was born – are home to many of them, and when I was growing up, more than a few children in my village were taken by fae ponies, who would live amongst us until they were found out”

“But they’re a cowardly people, and they would always give up their captives when we threatened them”

“By and large, they’re more frightening in legend than in person. Most of them aren’t much more than a nuisance”

“Most,” Celestia interjects softly, giving voice to the implication

“But not all,” the minotaur finishes, completing the thought

“These ones…they’re a different breed”

He falls silent for a moment, needing to put the next part perfectly and gathering the words

His dead eye doesn’t always close all the way when he blinks, and he rubs it as though it itches

“Why take one person and send a single changeling to infiltrate a family when you can just take the entire family?”

“Or the entire village”

He snorts, clenching his fists

“That thing you see there,” he points toward the dark end of the valley even though it can’t be seen through the trees, “is Tartarus brought to earth”

“They take anyone unfortunate to fall under their sight, and as far as I know, no one has ever escaped”

“No one except me”

“If it weren’t for you two, I’d be unable to say even that”

“How did you get out?” Luna asks, her voice laced with sadness but driven by curiosity

“I’d rather not talk about it,” Abel says, draining the last of the mead

“Regardless,” she continues, “it’s fortunate we just happened to arrive here on the day of your escape”

Abel chuckles mirthlessly, tossing the empty bottle over his shoulder

“No, you didn’t”

“I climbed out of that slimy pit over a month ago”

“A month? Why are you still here?”

“Oh, I’ve found many ways out of this valley,” he admits, rubbing his eye again, “but I cannot leave”

“My wife, my son, and my brother…we were captured together, and they all perished in that vile hive”

He speaks of his family without emotion, as though they’ve been dead for a very, very long time

“But there are many others like them who still live, and I have spent the last few weeks at this very spot” – he points at the ground – “trying to think of a plan to free them”

“Then Warden found me…and you saw the rest”

The little clearing goes quiet but for the breathing of its three inhabitants and the crackling of the spellfire before them

The sun is setting, and the clouds thicken above, taking on hues of orange and purple

“Sister”

Young Luna breaks the silence

“We have the loyalties of the zebra tribe to the west, and the fisher griffons on the coast, do we not?”

Celestia gives a concessional nod

“I can move swiftly on my own,” the night mare says confidently

“Give me three days, and I will fly upriver and raise an militia that can wipe these faerie creatures off the face of the earth”

“No”

The day mare has been relatively silent for a while now, but when she looks up, her eyes look through her sister

She gazes into infinity and all the questions it brings

“I have seen his memories, Lu”

She tilts her head toward Abel

“And I do not wish to see such things ever again”

The trees are thick, and they limit the sky

The clouds grow denser, and they blot out what little is left of it

But as the sun bows behind the mountains, a small patch of the heavens remains unobscured

And the stars sparkle against her eyes in the twilight

“We don’t have time to raise an army, little sister”

“People are suffering every moment we wait”

“This ends tonight”

Abel gives his endorsement with a nod and a grunt

The two alicorns lock on each other, and Luna raises her chin

“Very well,” she nods

“Then give me a few hours to prepare”

“This will not be easy”

“No, it won’t” Celestia acknowledges

“But this is why we came here”

“And it will be right”

As her sister wastes no time in opening her packs to prepare potions and spells, she turns to Abel

“I’m going to ask you a question to which I already know the answer, dear minotaur”

“Will you not stay behind and rest?”

“Will you not let your wounds heal?”

He chuckles

“It is good you already know the answer, because frankly, I am tired of speaking”

He unrolls the bandage that Luna gave him earlier when he was too hungry and thirsty to care about his injuries, and begins to cinch it tightly around his arm

“Besides, you will need a guide”

“The faeries’ keep is more treacherous than you could possibly know”

“And they are without mercy”

He lifts the bottle of mead and then remembers it’s empty, a fact which puts a grim expression on his face

“I know your type, Astra, and it worries me”

“Celestia, please, and what do you mean?”

“You’re afraid to kill”

“I am not afraid,” the alicorn corrects, and you can hear a hint of indignation

“I am seven-hundred years old, my friend, and I have never encountered a situation that couldn’t be solved without resorting to murder”

The minotaur shakes his head, chuckling

“There it is again”

“To you, killing and murder are one in the same”

“Because you’ve never encountered true evil”

The future princess remains silent

The last bit of daylight finally vanishes, and he stares up at the gathering clouds, his nostrils flaring as he sniffs the air

“You couldn’t have picked a more perfect night,” Abel says, words punctuated by the clink of flasks and vials as Luna hastily hones her own weapons on the whetstone of her mind

“The moon is new”

He draws another deep breath

“And it smells like rain”

An assault in the dead of night

As you watch the torrent that pours from the sky, it occurs to you that you’ve never seen an alicorn run before

Like, really run

They always teleport, but doing so now would give them away

Luna moves with such speed that her mane and tail – despite being soaked through – whip through the air behind her

Her cloak billows, unaffected by the water

The towers of the changelings’ keep stab at the sky above

Organic spires that resemble wasp’s nests stand atop steel, brick and mortar, and you realize the foundation is not of their own craft

The fortress that forms the base of the structure was built by somebody else, but now it belongs to them

It strikes you that this young version of Luna is the perfect scout

She’s small, quiet, evidently fast, and most importantly, she can relay messages to any party with nothing but a thought

Before you even have time to think, a lone changeling meanders out from around a corner

His bluish eyes don’t blink as raindrops pound against them

Without a moment’s hesitation, Luna hits him with a full-body tackle, and you can hear a snap as they roll three times in the mud

On the third she somersaults forward and continues her silent dash, stride unbroken, unlike the changeling’s neck

You realize that even back then, Luna’s admiration for her sister never equated to following her code of conduct

The front entrance to the keep is shut tight, occluded by an iron portcullis

She slides to a stop, sticking an indiscernible object to the center of it

Her horn sparks with the barest of light, and whatever the thing is, it begins to pulse with a glow that would be hard to notice even on a clear night

Under the cover of this storm, it is all but undetectable

She turns around and backtracks, skidding around the side of the fortress and making for a nondescript spot in the rocky cliff face that cradles it

Behind a jagged boulder and some rotting trees lies the opening of a narrow, hidden tunnel

After one final scan of the surroundings – hurried but thorough – you hear her unspoken call

“Come”

“Now”

After just a few minutes, mud-muted hoofsteps signal the arrival of the rest of the party

Celestia’s wet hair is plastered to her helm, her weapon fastened to her back

You begin to wonder why she of all people carries such a thing

Abel follows close behind her

His right hand is wrapped around the base of his own armament – a crudely-fashioned bludgeon, carved from the trunk of a small tree

One end is thick and heavy, the other ends in a point whittled to vicious sharpness

When they reach their scout, all three huddle behind the rock, their gazes panning about uneasily

“We have one hour,” Luna whispers

“I hope you know what you’re doing”

“Trust me,” Abel says solemnly

There is no trace of humor in his voice

Celestia is quiet

With a collective nod of agreement, the three enter the foreboding passage before them

The day mare goes first, the minotaur follows her, and the youngest sister brings up the rear

Inside, it’s pitch black until Celestia’s horn flares

Her warm, golden light reveals a rough chasm that you’re not sure whether to peg as a natural formation or a deliberate creation

Luna’s magic sparks as well, encircling her sister’s horn

She then throws her hood over her head, hiding the glow rendering herself a pegasus to the eye

The tunnel descends, curving to the north, and as it does it slowly widens

Uncounted minutes pass, and you can see the silent tension mounting among the three companions with each second

Then Celestia stops abruptly and the other two nearly crash into her

Just before her hooves, the floor suddenly drops off into a pit deep enough that the light doesn’t reach its bottom

She opens her wings, not wanting to risk the snap and flash of a teleportation

It’s close – their tips touch the walls on either side – but she jumps without hesitation

Halfway down the chasm shrinks, and she has to tuck them in, making for an ungraceful landing

Abel climbs after her, his clawed hands and hooved feet having no trouble finding purchase on the rock

He’s done this before

Luna remains at the top, watching their tail until both of the others are on solid ground again

She herself descends in an incorporeal billow of black smoke

Though this vision is carefully constructed, you can’t feel what they’re feeling

But you can hear the hot, musty humidity in their labored breathing

You can see the smell in the taught expressions on their faces

This place is like a rancid sauna

The walls are wet and sticky with grime, and through them run pulsing tendrils that look like veins of fluorescent blue and green

This cavern is much wider, and the trio finally has room to breathe

Even if they’d rather not

The minotaur takes the first step forward, but clips it short

A high-pitched scream reverberates from deep within the hollow ahead, cut off just as abruptly as it begins

Celestia’s chest rises and falls rapidly as she drinks in the disquieting ambience

Her young self lacks the immaculate composure you’re used to, but her expression is stony and her eyes like steel

She removes her halberd from the holster on her back and hovers it at her side

Luna’s head tilts forward ever-so-slightly, the blue-green glow of magic that surrounds her sister’s horn thickening

“We need to move,” she urges with a whisper

More unsettling noises echo in the distance as they proceed, making their ears twitch

The shouts and cries are carried on a low, phased rushing sound, like static from a television funneled through a glass tube

Their cautions hoofsteps sound uneven, sometimes hitting rock and other times squishing against whatever damp filth coats the ground here

But their pace quickens out of necessity, and after a moment the tunnel makes a sharp left turn

The veins in the wall thicken in both size and frequency, and the source of the rushing noise is revealed

Water from the river above works its way down into this subterranean network, forming a shroud at the passage’s end that completely obscures whatever lies beyond save for the light

A pale green radiance that dances and flickers off the stone and the three faces as it filters through the liquid

They stop when they reach the waterfall, having no idea what lies behind

After a moment of silent deliberation, Luna opens one of her packs to retrieve a telescoping spyglass made of brass, one end of which she uses to breach the falling veil

She puts the other end to her eye, and you can tell from the wide, slow arcs in which she moves it that the room beyond is vast

When she finally puts it away and looks back at the others, she’s shaken

“How many?” Celestia wonders

“Only five,” her sister replies

The day mare nods

“Quickly and quietly,” she says

Luna assents wordlessly and then turns to the minotaur

“Abel, there’s a ten-yard drop…”

“Don’t worry about me,” he cuts her off gruffly

“Time is ticking,” the night mare reminds

“Let’s go”

In the glowing grotto beyond, green tendrils cease to be veins in the walls and instead become the walls

Chitinous, cocoon-like pods hang from the ceiling, emitting the same sickly light that bathes the entire place

Celestia bursts through the waterfall with Abel in her wake

He lands hard but firm as she dives at the first changeling to turn its head, knocking it out with a single jab from the balled end of her weapon

Before the others even have time to react, there’s a flash, silent but blinding, and the room fills with dark purple smoke

You hear the thump and crack of wood against carapace as the minotaur dispatches another one of them

The next one might not’ve even known he was dead as Luna reaches out of the haze to snap his neck from behind

The last two charge side-by-side at Celestia, their horns sparking

She releases the magical hold on her halberd and spins on a forehoof, her back legs kicking it like two pistons

The flat of the blade slaps one changeling into unconsciousness, its handle taking the other’s legs out from under him and sending him skidding to a stop before the alicorn

A sharp blow to the temple sends him the way of his fellow

Before the weapon touches the floor, that golden glow enwraps it again, and it returns to its owner’s side

She holsters it and kills her magic

This chamber is bright enough that her light – and Luna’s concealing spell – are no longer necessary

She spares a quick upward glance as the smoke begins to clear, regarding the glowing sacs that hang from the ceiling among black stalactites

“These ones are eggs,” Abel comments, wiping the green blood from his club

“We best leave them alone”

He turns

There are many holes and channels leading out of this pit in different directions, but he homes in on one of the largest ones

The clatter of hooves and the buzz of insectoid wings begins to echo in the distance

“Come,” he hisses, “the vault is this way”

They hurry through the opening and round another sharp corner

Luna once again trails behind, and just before she disappears around the bend she takes a final look back

Scores of blue, multifaceted eyes gaze at her from many dark holes

“Gods damn it,” she breathes, opening her saddle bag once more and retrieving a large flask that looks to be made of steel

Etched on its side is the image of an equine skull and two crossed bones

Atop its neck is a metal stopper held in place by no less than three clamps, which she hastily undoes

She turns her head away and holds her breath

The contents pour like syrup, and she splashes the liquid all about the entrance to the tunnel, finally dropping the bottle and magically digging through her pack, no longer concerned with being spotted

The next thing she digs out is no mysterious arcane weapon

The metallic object is both familiar and unfamiliar – a lighter

You’ve never seen one this large or this rough-looking before, but it’s still recognizable – like a very crude version of the silver zippo you used to carry many years ago in your old life

You wonder why she needs such a thing; surely she knows a plethora of spells that can produce fire

She ignites it and takes it in her aura, hovering it above the noxious oil that soaks the floor

She dashes after her companions with great haste, leaving it floating behind

Your vision follows her as she overtakes Abel and her sister, nearly running up the wall when she rounds the corner

“Run!” she barks as she passes them, and both put on a burst of speed

She glances back repeatedly

Abel can’t match their immortal swiftness, and Celestia stays with him, but the buzz and clicking of mandibles is growing louder

“Tia!” Luna cries desperately

The sun mare grabs the minotaur in her aura and throws him on her back, his mass no burden to her

Her hooves pound against the stone hard enough to chip it with each stride as she catches up to her sibling

With a final glance back, Luna’s horn goes dark

A chorus of shrieks is eclipsed by the billowing rumble of flames as blue-green spellfire chases the two alicorns through the damp passageway, forcing their pace and illuminating the path ahead

Even your incorporeal vision is warped by the heat that lashes at their manes and tails, burning their ends into frizzled brown ribbons

Abel chokes and holds on for dear life as Celestia accelerates, her hooves shattering the rocks they strike

Most of her mane clings to her helm with sweat, but its ends flail in the heat

Luna’s legs cannot match her sister’s clip, and she dissipates in a black and purple flash, racing ahead as a cloud of smoke

The tunnel ends, and with a flare and turn of her wings, Celestia redirects her momentum to the left, sliding out of the path of a column of multicolored flame that erupts from it

The sharp turn finally causes the minotaur to lose his grip, and he hits the ground with a thump and a groan

“Are you insane?” the eldest alicorn demands when her sister reincorporates next to her

Luna opens her mouth to retort, but she doesn’t get the chance

Her gaze falls upon the cavern before her, and her mouth just stays open, jaw growing ever-more-slack

A wetness that has nothing to do with the sting of heat forms in her eyes

“Old gods…”

The only light is that of the glowing green tendrils that weave in and out of the gray stone like ancient tree roots, but it’s all that’s necessary

In the sudden silence, you can hear a slow, rushing pulse emanating from them

The eerie yet smooth landscape of dark rock and organic hideousness that your eyes – and theirs – have grown accustomed to is rent by jagged, rusted iron

Cages

There are cages everywhere

They hang from the ceiling in droves amongst the stalactites

They are shoved in corners and stacked on top of each other all over the cavern floor

There are cells carved into the walls, sealed by iron bars that do not attach to hinged doorframes, but are anchored into the ground

Hundreds of eyes of all colors and shapes stare at Abel and the sisters

Wide and bloodshot

But not a word is spoken

There is no sound but the slow drip of poisoned water, and the scuttle of chitinous things crawling in the distance

Luna looks to her right, into the nearest cage

The creature appears to be a zebra, but it’s covered in so much dirt and grime that you can’t be sure of its species, let alone sex

You thought Abel looked ragged and starved

This filthy, trembling thing looks like a corpse buried for a week, dug up, and then reanimated with just enough will to stare blankly into the distance

Celestia’s chin quivers and she keeps blinking as she peers into this gallery of dark, shivering forms

Her gaze rests on no one particular thing

Glazed pupils reflect the green light from all directions, and she scans them like a field of stars

“Save your sadness,” Abel tells her and her sister in a loud whisper

“They know someone’s here”

“We have to work quickly”

Luna physically shakes off her emotions, but her elder sibling remains rooted in place

“Tia, come on, we don’t have much time”

“Tia!”

Even when shoved, the great alicorn doesn’t move

Her head continues to pan slowly back and forth

“Get her up and let’s go,” Abel hisses, heading for a nearby passage, club at the ready

“Wait,” Luna calls, holding up a hoof and then gesturing at the room

“Where are you going? Help me with these bars!”

The minotaur turns around, ears agitated by the growing buzz that reverberates from the spell-burnt cave at their rear

“No,” he says, shaking his head

“We can do nothing for these ones”

Without another word, he disappears into the next tunnel

The night mare stammers and stamps her hoof in confusion, her expression furious and confused

“Luna,” Celestia breathes, body still rigid

“They all want to die”

A loud snap reverberates through another small, fluorescent cavern

A muffled cry follows

It comes from a creature whose likes you’ve never seen before

Well, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but while you recognize it as a griffon, it’s not like the ones that inhabit the Equestrian continent

Its feathers black like a crow’s, as is its body, which resembles a panther more than a lion

The catlike back is covered in long, open wounds

Luna narrows her eyes and raises a hoof towards it

“No pain”

She turns her gaze on the changeling, who is readying his lash once more

“Know pain”

The whip cracks again, but this time its bearer screams, dropping it as the glow from his horn suddenly fizzles out

A thin, oozing line runs across his leathery back, though it was never struck

He has no time to recover before a blow to the side of the head sends him sprawling

The griffon’s shackles clink open, and she – you can tell it’s a she – slowly rises turns to her rescuers

“Abel?”

Her tone and expression are suspicious, as though she can’t trust her senses

He just nods curtly, and she seems to relax

“You came back?”

She has a thick accent that you don’t recognize, but the sisters’ ears turn subtly forward, and you can tell they do

He just nods again

“No time to explain,” he says, dismissing the implied question with a clawed hand

“If you know the way out, go, otherwise hide – we’ll be back”

“I don’t think we should come back this way,” Celestia says, hovering her weapon over the unconscious changeling

“No choice,” Abel counters gruffly, pointing to a wide stair on the left

“That’s the only way to the surface”

Skittering and shouting echo from the passage the trio just emerged from

“They’re already onto us, and we’ve got about fifteen minutes before the entire hive knows we’re here,” Luna reminds

“If they don’t already”

She looks to the minotaur to guide them

Just as he’s beginning to move, he stops himself and turns toward Celestia, grasping his bludgeon by the thick end and raising it so that the spike at its other hovers above her head

She steps back in surprise just before he brings it down, piercing the changeling’s neck and showering her in sticky green blood

“If you leave your enemies alive,” he snarls, jamming a finger in her muzzle

“You murder your friends”

Without another word, he sets off down the next tunnel at as rapid a pace as caution allows

The griffoness, apparently confident in her own abilities, bounds up the stairs on feline paws

“Tia, let’s go”

The sun alicorn blinks and then gathers herself

As she follows, she spares a final glance at the bleeding changeling

Dawn is approaching

With an abruptness not normally found in natural formations, the passage they follow opens into a vast cavern with no floor

It reaches high, but infinitely more deep

A thin, stone bridge arcs from their hooves to an opening on its far side

Below there is nothing but unmeasurable distance, further obscured by mist and that ubiquitous green glow

Without hesitation, Abel dashes across, the sisters having enough room to follow him on wing

He charges through the rift on the other side, and they follow

Before the alicorns’ hooves even touch the floor, he’s already delivered a killing blow to an unsuspecting changeling

Dozens of blue-green eyes fix on him, and all is chaos as screeches and the blur and hum of insectoid wings descend out of the crevices above

Bright flashes fill the air with smoke and confusion as Luna vanishes in a turn of her cloak

Chitinous hooves hit the floor at a gallop while the drone of wings grows louder as more and more of them emerge from the cracks

A golden glow fills the hazy hollow, and in a burst of light that seems like the sun brought to earth, the first wave is blown back by a concussive surge of magic

But it doesn’t stop the swarm

Another golden glint of a more metallic nature flits through the dark, and the balled pommel of Celestia’s halberd sweeps through the air, knocking back a dozen of the faerie-winged creatures

She releases it from her aura for just a moment and flips it over her back, letting the flat of the blade smash two more into unconsciousness

Her magic grips it just long enough to pop it into the air, and she wheels around and kicks it in a more powerful version of the move she pulled earlier, bowling them over in droves

You wondered why a mare who refuses to kill would carry such a weapon, and now you know

Her precision keeps the blade from touching her foes

But it’s there if she needs it

The halberd trips yet more attackers on its magically-fueled return to her

It tumbles over her back again, guided by her wings, and the axe head anchors itself in the ground as she releases the next massive stunning spell that she was buying time for

Luna flits in and out of corporeality, leaving smoke, distractions, and fallen assailants in her immaterial wake

Abel fights with none of the finesse of his comrades

But he is strong, and full of rage

He swings his club with brute force, breaking backs and crushing skulls

He gouges eyes with his clawed fingers and his powerful bovine teeth snap at any limb within reach

The sisters fight to defend

He fights to maim and kill

As many as possible

Celestia’s horn charges once more, and a final jolt of golden force stuns the last of them

As the dust begins to clear, your ears and theirs are met by a sound you would never have expected down here

Cheers

“Abel!”

Many voices call his name

The cages that line this expansive chamber have actual doors

Probably so their occupants can be regularly taken out and beaten, you realize

The creatures within are disheveled from abuse and gaunt with starvation

But they are alive in more than just the physical sense

Zebras, minotaur, and dark-colored griffons dominate them

It makes sense, as they are – from what you’ve gleaned – the majority of the local population

But there are other, rarer beings as well

An Arabian equine

Several large, shaggy yaks

Even a dragon, still young enough to fit in one of the small enclosures

Unfortunate passers-by who have spent more time in this valley than they ever intended to

They are not like the first ones you saw in that dreadfully silent room

They grasp at the bars and peer through them eagerly, hope, curiosity, and even smiles on their faces

Other than a few nods, Abel ignores them for now

His eyes dart worriedly over the scores of dead and unconscious changelings

“We have to find the key,” he tells the sisters

“Nevermind that,” the sun alicorn grunts as she tears the door off one of the cells with her magic

Two prisoners taste their freedom with hopeful caution

An older-looking minotaur female, and a skinny, young male, barely a bull

She clings to him anxiously, and you realize they are mother and son

As you observe the rest of the captives, it begins to dawn on you that the cellmates are not just arbitrarily thrown together

There are families here

“Luna,” Celestia shouts, “help me get these open”

The shrieking and scuttling from the direction of the bridge tells them they have mere seconds to do so

“There’s no time, Tia,” Luna says in a harsh whisper

“Guard the entrance”

“I need to concentrate”

As her sister takes a defensive position by the door without hesitation, she magics open her right pack and withdraws a delicate little object

A small metal skull – an alicorn’s, if you’re not mistaken – from which stems a thin, brass shaft

As she turns it in her magical grasp, you can see hundreds of miniscule, intricately-crafted telescoping pins that emerge from it in all directions

The craftsmanship is identical to that of the spyglass she used earlier, as well as being reminiscent of a few disused tools you catch glimpses of when Luna opens her potion cabinet

The screeches and clatter become louder

She inserts the skeleton key into the lock on the nearest cell door

“Hurry, Lu”

“You mustn’t rush me, dear sister”

Luna’s words are gracious enough, but the edge in her voice and the sweat that sticks her mane to her temples contrast with them sharply

“Then I will,” Abel growls

“Work quickly”

Her eyes stare at some indeterminate point in the distance as soft – but impossibly rapid – metallic clicks emanate from within the keyhole, and you realize that while her tool is elegant and her magic dexterous, she’s just bruteforcing it

From your vantage point, you can’t see the other side of the bridge, but when Celestia and Abel’s postures lower in preparation, you know their time is almost up

With a slow breath, Luna’s eyes snap back to cognizance and the quiet clicks cease

But instead of turning the key, she withdraws it

She studies the configuration of the pins for a few long seconds, turning it around and around in her aura

Then she closes her eyes and her horn flares

With a resounding clack of bolts, every single lock in the vast cavern snaps open simultaneously

The cheering almost drowns out the sound of charging hooves and buzzing wings

Almost, but not quite

Just as the prisoners are beginning to push past the barred doors, a shriek fill the cavern, and in a golden flash, the first changeling is struck by the pommel of Celestia’s halberd

This place was clearly designed to be difficult to escape

The small archway through which the two sisters and their guide originally entered is the only way in or out, and just beyond it is that thin, treacherous bridge

This structural isolation is now both a blessing and a curse

There is no way for the enemy swarm that hovers outside to force its way through all at once

They can barely enter two by two, and those who do fall instantly to the sun mare’s blows

They gather outside, hissing and spitting as they peer in with their dead, insectoid eyes, but after half a dozen are dropped within a few seconds, they think better about trying to enter

Celestia stands rigid, weapon at a threatening ready with a menacing snarl on her face, but you know her well enough to see the anxiety and frustration tugging at her young self’s features

This is exactly what they didn’t want to happen

With another spark of her horn, a thin wall of bright light spreads across the entrance and she lowers her halberd, turning around

Her hair still sticks to her helm

The forelock that emerges from underneath the front of it clings damply to her forehead

They’ve been out of the rain for a while, and you realize how humid this place must be

Luna stares at her, clearly at a loss

Abel’s expression is grim, and you have no doubt he’s ready to die right here

But the weighty slump you can see in her shoulders comes from all the unfamiliar faces that peer at her through the dim, green glow that pervades this place

Her minotaur companion is hard – maybe he was born that way, maybe this is what the world made him, but regardless, he’s a fighter like her and her sister

These disheveled people of many races that look at her with expectant hope are not warriors

And yet the odds they face do not paint the picture of a battle that can be won without casualties

At least not if she follows her rule

With each passing moment that their stares weigh upon her, you can see that long-held principle beginning to erode

Just kill them

You can practically hear her thoughts

Just kill these repugnant, cruel things, and then none of these good people will have to suffer anymore

Hell, all she needs to do is hit them with a stunning spell

Technically, the blood wouldn’t be on her hooves, but on the bottom of the pit below

With a sigh, she looks back toward her magical barrier and the slavering horde of faerie ponies that hover just beyond it

“Lu?”

“Yes sister?”

“You’ll have to guide them,” she says, “I’m going to be occupied for the next few minutes”

The night mare nods in assent, and despite the fact that they aren’t looking at each other, the understanding is implicit

Celestia holsters her weapon and takes a deep breath, her horn beginning to glow

Then she exhales, and the shield drops

With a shock and a flash, she dives through the archway, blasting her attackers back and taking flight in the cavern on the other side

Another pulse releases an even larger stunning spell, and nearly the whole lot of the changeling horde is slammed against stone walls

Broken bones and concussions send many of them plummeting into the murky pit below

But they don’t fall far

A golden glow ensconces each individual form, and Celestia hovers in place, eyes closed in focus as she suspends every single one of her foes – conscious and unconscious – in the air

“Go!” she shouts, face screwed up in concentration

Luna mutters something that you don’t quite catch

You can’t make out what she’s saying, but her expression does a fine job of conveying the exasperation that her volume doesn’t

The prisoners are all too eager to leave, and the more intrepid among them start towards the thin bridge

The cloaked mare halts them with a hoof

Her eyes are narrowed and her gaze turned upward as she counts under her breath

She closes her eyes, and suddenly the whole cavern grinds and shudders as a deep roar echoes down from the keep above

Rocks and dust fall from the ceiling and cracks race through the walls

You could swear you see the ambient green glow flicker in and out like an electric light

Celestia is startled and nearly loses control of her spell, but she quickly recovers

“Going a little overboard with the pyrotechnics this evening?” she wonders raggedly as beads of sweat begin to form on her brow

“Better safe than sorry,” her sister calls back

“Apparently we have different understandings of what that means, Lu,” she says, rolling her eyes as much as she can while engaged with her magic

“Now go,” she shouts, “get these people out of here”

“Come with me,” Luna calls to the crowd

“Go quickly and don’t look down” she says, pointing toward the bridge

“If you fall, I will catch you”

Abel takes the lead, and the motley assortment of minotaurs, zebras, and other, stranger creatures follow him across the precarious stone arch that connects the two sides of the cavern

Those fortunate enough to have wings – the griffons and the young dragon – fly across and wait on the other side

As you saw on your way in, there are two passages there

The one through which they entered, and the stair leading up to the surface

The hum that comes from both tells you that stealth has gone out the window

The whole hive knows something is up

Suddenly, the noise turns from ambient to loudly present

The buzz of insectoid wings and the clatter of leathery hooves drown out the panicked cries of the prisoners as another slew of changelings gallop from both directions

A burst of orange and yellow spellfire lights up the drab darkness as the dragon unleashes his breath, incinerating the attackers that descend from the stair

You hear a guttural shout and a series of wet thumps as Abel swings his club, cracking the skulls and breaking the legs of the attackers that charge in from the other passage

The bug-like creatures continue to swarm in

Bolstered by another explosion of dragon flame, those prisoners who have safely crossed the bridge meet the assault with reckless abandon

You know they are not warriors, and they have no weapons, but this is a life and death fight in its plainest form

Tooth and nail, hoof and claw

A stricken Celestia watches the skirmish, her magical faculties already tied up to their breaking point

Flashes of light and explosive snaps dazzle your vision, and the air fills with smoke

From within the murk, a laser-like beam of blue-green light carves a path through the onslaught of fae ponies descending from above

Their broken bodies tumble down the stone stairs

With a bellow and a resounding crack, the minotaur caves another changeling’s head in

“Abel!” Luna calls to him through the obscuring haze

“Go!”

She points up the stair

“Take them!”

He nods, but something catches the corner of his eye

Celestia grips the changelings with all her might, but those few who remain unhurt are beginning to struggle against her

The cavern rumbles periodically, unsettled by the explosion from above

The last of the former captives are still making their way across the bridge

Abel’s gaze falls upon a pair of minotaurs that you saw earlier

The mother and the son

Despite Luna’s reassurance, they fear the fall, walking slowly and staring down into the abyss below

The young minotaur looks up just in time to see one eager changeling free itself from the sun mare’s golden glow and barrel towards him

Abel drops his weapon and runs

Minotaurs are – at least to your eye – very oddly proportioned creatures, so the burst of speed he puts on surprises you

With a cry of pure exertion, his cloven hooves leave the ground, propelling him over the great chasm like a rocket

He intercepts the changeling in a full-body tackle that sends him plummeting to his doom

Then all hell breaks loose

Celestia’s magic stops Abel from falling to his death, but in rescuing him, she releases the changelings

The broken ones fall, swallowed by the darkness below

But the conscious ones shake off their disorientation and dive toward the bridge

The creatures who still stand on it panic, several of them falling

She catches them as well, and levitates all her charges to solid ground

She drops them roughly, refocusing her magic just in time to blast back an attacking swarm

Luna appears to have cleared the stair for now, while her minotaur friend wastes no time in getting up and continuing to beat back the steady influx of assailants coming from the other tunnel

“You go,” he calls to her between blows, “take them up! There will be more on the surface!”

She looks around anxiously

He won’t be able to hold them off for long

Celestia is still in the air, weaving and dodging around the vast cavern, tailed by some very pissed-looking changelings

But it seems she’s conscious of the exchange

Turning on a dime, she dips under the bridge and then arcs back up, causing her less-agile pursuers to scatter

She lands next to Abel, and another powerful burst of golden light knocks back the attackers and buys them all some time

“Go, sister!” she shouts through the smoke and the pale green light

Without a moment’s hesitation, Luna motions for the prisoners to follow her, leading them up the stair as quickly and quietly as possible

The only ones that remain behind are those helping the elder alicorn and the minotaur stave off the onslaught

That dragon may not be full-grown, but he’s still a big motherfucker

He stands at the base of the steps, swinging his spiked tail back and forth in wide, powerful sweeps that stop anyone thinking of pursuing the escapees dead in their tracks

“Wait a sec,” you say, speaking for the first time in a long time

“You just left”

“How are we seeing this right now?”

“You weren’t there”

“You’re right, Anonymous”

“I never saw it first hoof”

“But I was there when she relived it every night for many years after”

“It is clearer in my mind than many of my own memories of that night”

Strike

Strike

Kick

Stun

Celestia is faster and more agile than any mere mortal could ever hope to be

But every blow is mitigated by that principle

Thou shalt not kill

“Go!” she shouts to the last remaining prisoners, “get out of here!”

The escape has been made

All they need to do is fall back and not get killed in the process

Abel is her opposite

He fights for no ideal other than his own survival

His teeth tear at ears and his fingers gouge eyes

He aims the spike on the end of his weapon straight for the heart

Together, they form a wall of blows that no changeling can penetrate

They are alone now, slowly giving ground and ascending the stairs as they fight

A sudden shrieking, grinding noise puts a hush over the mêlée

The minotaur spares not a moment’s attention, using the distraction to take out several more opponents

But the sun mare looks up, realizing they have bigger problems

Cracks rush through the rock above like spidery veins, sending jagged shards plummeting to the floor

A boulder large and sharp enough to cleave her in two is deflected by magic at the last second

She retreats up the stair, and her horn flares

Layers of overglow immediately ensconce it, and a hot, gold light permeates the collapsing ceiling

“Abel!” she cries, “let’s go!”

But the minotaur is incensed

He’s gone berserk

He swings his club in a graceful arc, incapacitating no less than five changelings, then brings it down on every one of their heads, splitting their skulls open in a wash of green blood

Celestia retreats further up the stair, and another cloak of shimmering light enwraps her horn

You’ve only seen magical exertion like this one other time in your life

When your princess challenged the power of the Goddess

She opens her mouth to shout again, but no words come out, only a scream – long, loud, and defiant

She fights the will of the earth itself, but it’s a losing battle

Her horn goes dark but immediately blazes again, and you hear the distantly-familiar sound of a gunshot going off in reverse as she teleports herself and her friend out of the fray

She is weak, and only takes them mere yards, just beyond the falling stone

The entire cavern collapses, crushing most of the changelings into oblivion

But a few make it out, and they rush straight for Abel as he hits the ground hard, disoriented in the wake of his magical transportation

They attack without mercy, goring him with their jagged horns and biting him with sharp teeth before he can regain his faculties

“NO!”

In an explosion of desperate light, Celestia casts another stunning spell, but in her current state it’s barely enough to knock them off their hooves

With a second guttural scream, she raises her weapon in her weakened grip and swings

A changeling’s severed head hits the floor with a thump

Another collapses as his leg is taken off

She cleaves one cleanly in two

They are terrified and routed

But the only way they have to run is up, toward her sister and the prisoners, and you can see that realization in her eyes

There are only three left, and they don’t flee far before she grabs them with her aura in a final blaze of magical exertion

Her legs falter – possibly with exhaustion, or possibly with remorse – and she snaps their necks

All is silent, and she falls to the ground

Her hooves scrabble against the steps as she lurches toward the minotaur, but he is beyond help

“Astra,” he wheezes as she reaches him

“I’m so sorry,” she whimpers, tears streaming down her cheeks

“There’s no time to be sorry,” he breathes, pausing to cough up a bubble of blood

“Kill her”

Fear and confusion crease her brow

“Kill the queen, or this will happen again”

Her mouth tries to say “who?” but he cuts her off

“I lied to you, and I am sorry”

“My wife, my son, and my brother still live”

“They live in that chamber full of broken wretches that wish to die”

“I hope it collapses and kills them so that we might all be reunited in the afterlife”

His chest rises and falls rapidly in a death rattle

“You are irredeemably good”

“But you must kill her”

“Destroy her, so that nobody will suffer like this ever again”

Celestia opens her mouth once again to respond, but she would be speaking to no one

In a last shudder, the light of life leaves Abel’s eyes

All she can do is cry, and cry she does

For him

And for her useless, broken principle

The rain pours down outside the gaping hole that has been blown in the front of the keep

The iron portcullis has been rent to ribbons by a magical explosion, and the former prisoners spill though it, tasting wet freedom as they dash out into the downpour

“Where is Abel?” past Luna wonders, not being privy to the haunting dreams her sister will have for years to come

Celestia’s teeth clench in agony

She communicates all she needs to with a simple shake of her head

Luna wilts

“Go, Lu,” the eldest alicorn says through hot and sticky tears that are whipped back by the wind that drifts in from the outside

“Get them out of here”

“There is something I need to do”

“As usual,” Luna smiles sadly, “you underestimate all but yourself”

“They are free, but I am not yet”

“I must follow you, sister”

The dragon’s fire cooks any changelings that dare challenge the escapees

The prisoners are out of their hell

Unlike the future sun princess’s conscience

But she has her sister

They ascend another set of stairs with heavy hearts, traveling into the core of the hateful keep

As they rise, they notice something peculiar and unique to this place

Sculptures of changelings and other things

All around them are intricately-carved statues of the creatures that crawl through these chasms

And depictions of their victims

Luna passes a sculpture that appears to be broken

It’s a gryphon, but the head is missing

Then she looks closer at it, and you see the detail in its severed stump of a neck

The shredded flesh and protruding vertebra depicted in stone look as though they would’ve been cut with a dull saw

This was made by someone who was looking at the real thing

They proceed cautiously, but it seems there’s no need

The stairs go up and up, and the higher they ascend, the quieter it gets

No screeches or skittering from the shadows

All is silent

Except for that tapping

Tap

Tap

Clink

It speeds up and slows down seemingly at random, filling the dark passage with an echoing staccato

Luna’s ears twitch as they draw nearer to the source

Her tail flicks back and forth

Celestia’s expression is blank, stony, and very familiar

That’s the face you know

As they continue up a number of steps that the perceived size of this fortress simply does not warrant, the tapping becomes more and more even

Rhythmic

Tap

Tap

Clink

Tap

Tap

Clink

Then, suddenly – yet quietly and gently – a voice joins it, melodious and ethereal as it reverberates through the empty halls, accompanied only by the tapping and the soft, green glow of the tendrils that snake through the walls

“Rest my child, upon a bed”

“Of dust and stars, lay down your head”

Both sisters stop dead in their tracks

“The sun and moon will always rise”

“I know this as you know my eyes”

Celestia’s breath catches in her throat

Luna’s eyes are wide and shimmering

“Rest now”

“Rest now”

“I’ll give you all the best now”

“Rest now”

“Rest now”

“In crimson light caressed now”

The lyrics dissolve into humming that follows the same tune

They don’t quite look at each other

Their faces remain fixed in the direction of the song

But their eyes dart sideways, and you can tell they’re sharing some sort of psychic exchange

Celestia mutters something that you can’t hear, and they continue on, gaits still cautious but now much more hurried

They’re forced into a sharp turn as the stairs end and the passage leads to a room in what must be the highest spire of this keep

That climb was not nearly enough to wind two alicorn demigoddesses

The way they’re panting must mean this place is impossibly hot

Their mouths hang open and their eyes water

Everywhere else you’ve seen has had those green veins creeping through the walls

But here, they are the walls

Thick, glowing, organic trunks of some material halfway between flesh and wood

They pulse and roil like upset intestines

And all around the circular room are sculptures

In the center of it is the source of the tapping

And the song

A great mare rears toward the ceiling, many yards tall, her mane flowing behind her with impossible length

Her eyes sparkle like gems, as do the red stars in her mane

But she doesn’t move

That great mane doesn’t billow

Judging by the state of the two daughters, if it was real, it would be wet and sticking to her back

That is, if hair made of dust and stars could do so

Her left foreleg is unfinished, still embedded in unshaped stone

But it is slowly being freed by that rhythmic annoyance

Tap

Tap

Clink

Because at her base – diligently working with a hammer and chisel – stands a thing, and that thing’s ears twitch and turn backward as it sets down those tools with a pair of appendages quite rare on this earth

Hands

Hands with the longest, thinnest fingers you’ve ever seen

The sisters’ probing expressions tell you that they have no more idea what it is than you do, but that it certainly isn’t whatever they expected

Four hooves clack gently on the floor as it turns around, and after a moment, you see its face

You want to ask Luna what in god’s name this thing is, but you don’t

The, large, bright-gold eyes are flecked with the same green that permeates this place

There is black where white should be, so all but the shimmering irises nearly blend in with changeling skin

They stare down a gently-pointed equine muzzle

Their lids blink inquisitively, batting long lashes

With a skeletal index finger almost the length of your arm, the creature brushes aside a lock of lavender-purple hair as it examines the intruders

The texture of its nearly floor-length mane is unsettlingly reminiscent of the present-day sisters

But instead of billowing, it climbs

Spidery curls crawl up its cloudy expanse, dissipating at the top

The thing cocks its head to the side and squints, as though peering through a haze

One eyebrow arches up toward its jagged horn

Then it speaks

“Is it really you?”

The multitonal whisper is delivered between two long fangs that resemble most changelings’, but a bit more delicate

“How do you know that rhyme?” Celestia demands, ignoring the question

The creature clasps its hands together, and all the macabre beauty of its face is split apart at the middle by a hideous smile

The wide grin stretches from ear to pointy, elfin ear, revealing many dagger-like teeth, green either by design or age

It doesn’t matter which; the effect is the same regardless

But despite how ugly it is, there is joy in it

“Oh, it is you,” she says, ignoring the alicorn’s words in turn

Her voice is deep and melodious with flamboyant affectation

“Welcome to my humble home, my dearest sisters!”

“What a joyous reunion this is!”

She spreads her arms wide and walks toward them on four hooved legs attached to what resembles the abdomen of a praying mantis with an almost human-like torso at its front

The way she sways her body back and forth makes your skin crawl

She receives her response in the form of Celestia’s blade pointed at her nose and murderous stares from both her “guests”

“I don’t know what kind of twisted dementia rots your mind,” the sun mare snarls, “but you are no sister of mine”

“Indeed,” Luna assents

The changeling’s head lolls to the side, her grin growing wider as a high-pitched titter escapes her throat

She waves a limp-wristed hand at Celestia as though she’d just told a terrible joke

“Oh, you’re just like her – so serious, so emotional”

“You even look the same”

“But so tiny”

She’s a full head taller than the eldest alicorn, and towers over the youngest

“And you must be Selena,” she simpers, ignoring the weapon shoved in her face and bending down to address the latter

“Are you old enough to talk yet?”

Luna’s eyes blaze with the fury of however many moons equal a thousand suns

“If you speak to me like that again,” she says slowly, “I will wear your face as a sleep mask”

“Only kidding, only kidding,” the changeling assures with another high-pitched laugh

She turns around without the slightest hint of trepidation and walks lazily back in the direction of her statue

“When you’re as old as I am, everyone just seems so young”

She shouts the last two words fervidly, her arms spread wide, gaze toward the ceiling

“Do not talk to us as if you know us, you hideous freak,” Celestia spits

The creature pauses mid-step and straightens her back

“Hideous freak?” she wonders

Though she’s turned away, you can see she’s tapping her chin

Then she looks back over her shoulder, like you or anyone might

But her head keeps turning

Luna swallows hard and Celestia takes a small step back

The changeling’s head completes a full about face, her visage still split by that jagged, green smile

“Now, now,” she titters, “if I were a hideous freak, could I do this?”

When she sees the revulsion on their faces, her head whips around into its correct position and she throws it back in a long, hearty cackle

She turns her outlandish body around properly, wiping a mirthful tear from an eye with a spindly finger

“I’m just joking,” she explains, “I can’t actually do that”

“But if you wish to call me names, you might as well call me the right one, so – since you don’t seem to know me as I know you – why don’t we start this glorious occasion with an introduction”

She places a hand to her chest, and bows her head while maintaining eye contact

“I am Lucilla”

“Lucilla Aphelia”

She genuflects enthusiastically with a manual flourish, touching one knee to the floor and holding the position for a long moment

“And,” she continues, “I am delighted to finally speak to you”

“I came here to slay you, not converse with you,” the sun mare growls, baring her teeth

“Well,” Lucilla chuckles, standing back up and whipping her head to the side to produce a loud, wet crack, “congratulations on thus far accomplishing the precise opposite of your goal”

Despite her words, you can see Celestia rapidly losing her conviction

Though she still holds her halberd close, this strange creature has disarmed her in a different way, tempering her wrath with curiosity and something else you can’t quite make out yet

“What are you?” she asks, her tone still commanding but touched by a genuine need to know

Luna just stares

“I,” Lucilla says, the single syllable spoken with the haughtiest pride, “am the reason that you are not the hideous freaks”

Her eyebrows arch, smile as disconcerting as the finger she points at them is damning

Celestia is incensed

“Do not play cryptic with me,” she shouts, rising to her full height as her eyes begin to glow

“I am Celestia Astra, first daughter of my namesake second, and I will not be toyed with by the likes of you, wretch”

She’s levitating a few inches off the ground, and a violent wind whips through the windowless room

The green light that pulses through the walls flickers

Lucilla yawns and brushes a strand of hair off her face

Every so often, one of the curls that crawl up her mane doesn’t dissipate, choosing instead to hang around her horn and over her eyes

“Please, my dear,” she entreats with another lazy wave of her long fingers, “don’t sully our first meeting with such egotistical ramblings”

For the first time since you’ve seen her, she frowns

That wide mouth turns down and pulls her entire face with it, revealing green veins around the edges of her eyes

Her brow furrows and her slitted pupils contract in a menacing expression of impatience

“And if you really think you are the first daughter of the goddess,” she snaps, stretching her neck toward them, “then you have been woefully mislead”

Celestia is angry

Luna is not

Her one forehoof hovers in the air, quivering at the ready

But whether it’s ready to charge or turn tail and run, she can’t seem to figure out

Yet just as quickly as it came, the menace in Lucilla’s expression and posture disappears

Her mouth arcs back upwards into that Cheshire smile

“I want to show you something,” she grins, rubbing her hands together

“So you can see what we are”

She turns and walks around the nearly-finished sculpture, beckoning with a finger

It’s not far, but the warm, wet haze that hangs about the room swallows her as she rounds the great chunk of stone

After a glance and another inaudible back-and-forth, the sisters follow very, very slowly

The glowing green grotto is steeped in misty heat, but it has a quality you’re very familiar with

It looks lived-in, and you feel a sudden onset of unexpected emotion

Luna’s quarters – your living space – is always being cleaned by servants

Everything has its proper place, and whenever you leave and return, order has always been restored

But that isn’t the case here

The floor is an uneven carpet of dust and rocks from what you figure must be years of stonecrafting that number in the hundreds

If not the thousands

All around sit unfinished works

A few tables – strewn with personal possessions and arranged with no thought for order – stand against the walls

One is made of wrought iron, but another just a few feet away from it is made of wood, and it reminds you of the heavy desk you used to sit in front of every night in your past life

There is one spot on the wall where the green tendrils abate, revealing stone

There are shelves carved into it, housing a modest collection of books

Or at least it’s modest by today’s standards

For its time, it’s probably the equivalent of a library

There are tools everywhere

Picks, chisels, and hammers litter the place, some bearing the scarred shine of recent use, others rusted to hell and likely untouched for centuries

However alien, it feels reminiscent of Twilight’s castle or your old apartment, and you feel both guilt and disdain at the wistfulness that wells within you

Whatever else it might be, this is a home

The alicorns examine it warily

Their heads remain pointed toward their “host,” but their eyes sweep in wide arcs, taking in the organized chaos

Nonchalant and unbothered as ever, Lucilla leads them to a particular corner which bears a shroud of dusty disuse impressive even for this place

In it stands an object just slightly taller than herself, covered by a large, ragged cloth

“Tell me, young Astra,” her raspy voice prompts, shattering the silence

“Have you ever wondered why you’re so perfect?”

Celestia’s eyes narrow, but she doesn’t speak

“I’ve been making sculptures for longer than you’ve been alive,” the changeling explains

“Many of my old works are lost or turned to dust”

“But I’ve always kept this one”

With a sharp pull, she whisks away the cloth to reveal the thing underneath

“It’s my self-portrait,” she beams

Past Luna peers at it intently, scrunching up her nose

Her sister only glares

The statue is coarse and bulky, sharing none of the others’ detail and polish

But its shape is familiar

A small, rough-cut prototype of the enormous mare in the center of the room

“Have you looked in a mirror lately?” the night mare wonders, her brow creased and her mouth turned down

“The portrait,” Lucilla explains primly, strolling around the thing with an examining eye, “lies in the concept, not the subject”

“I am getting very tired of exchanging pleasantries,” Celestia growls

“Oh please, my dear,” the changeling titters with a wave of her spindly fingers

“If these are ‘pleasantries,’ then why are you being so thoroughly unpleasant?”

She snaps the last word, jerking her head toward the alicorn, whose blade rises threateningly

She pays it no mind, sinking back into her lazy drawl as she completes her circle of the statue and stands next to it

“You both know what it’s like to hone a skill, yes?” she wonders, but it’s not a question

One finger traces over the rough – sometimes jagged – edges of her work, and a far-off expression crosses her face as she continues

“To achieve perfection, we must fail many times, mustn’t we?”

Her eyes look beyond the pulsing, green coils of the walls

“This was the tenth sculpture I ever endeavored to carve”

“I wasn’t skilled, but I had just enough experience that some boldness had crept into me, and I wanted to try something just a little more grand, even if it might not work out”

“I mean, one doesn’t create something like that,” she points to the unfinished – but thus far immaculate – statue that towers in the center of the floor, “or like you,” she turns her gaze on Celestia, “without leaving a wake of imperfect attempts”

“By necessity, you never met her”

“But you must know, because you are her”

“You hear the echoes of her being”

“Like a lullaby”

“And they tell you”

Luna’s eyes are full of hungry curiosity, and the last of Celestia’s aggression is holding at a slow boil

Seeing their eagerness, the queen splutters and covers her mouth with a hand, waving the other one at them manically

“Oh! Oh! Go ahead!” she giggles

“You simply must’ve figured it out by now!”

“I don’t play guessing games,” the sun mare says icily

Lucilla’s fingers are long enough so that even when she clasps them together at her chest, one can still reach up to tap her chin

“You know, Celestia Astra, I was going to say that you’re not nearly as empathetic as I imagined you”

“But who am I to talk?”

“Anywho, we could talk about this disaster” – she gestures toward her experiment of a body – “all night – or at least I could”

She pauses to cackle, and while it sounds cracked, you can’t help but notice that it isn’t bitter

“But the big mistake here lies under the surface,” she explains, wiping away a tear

“The Evermare had so much love”

“She had so much to give, and there was no one to receive”

“Not without going mad or being vaporized, or both”

“So she made me”

“And believe me, I can take it”

“More than that”

“I need it”

“But something just wasn’t quite right”

“I was made to take, take, take”

“To always be hungry, so that I would always need her”

“But this thing that I need…”

“Well, that’s all it is – something I need”

“She forgot to tell me how to give it back”

“She created a thing that wanted love, and that’s it”

“It doesn’t change me like it does the rest of you, but my goodness, do I want it”

“I need oodles of it just to maintain my sanity, which – let’s be honest – is something of a cosmic in-joke,” she titters, flicking her wrist

“‘Oh, that Lucilla,’ they say”

“‘Fighting to keep something she never had in the first place’”

“I’ve lost my mind, sister”

“And every time I get close to holding it down and forcing it back into its place”

“I realize it never had a place to begin with”

“Because I am this”

She rests her hands on the roughly-hewn statue of the world’s creator and closes her eyes

As though touching it soothes her

“A necessary failure on the road to perfection”

Luna’s eyes are wet, and you don’t have to wonder why

You’ve spent enough long, tearful nights with her to know that she believes herself to be something similar

The penultimate attempt

The very failure that enabled her corresponding success

The part that was left over

But the ultimate is having none of this

The great, white mare rises to her full height, and the tears that stream from her eyes do not fall for any present

“I’ve been waiting on you for aeons,” Lucilla continues after a moment

“Because you made me”

“And I believe you can fix me”

“What did you do?” Celestia hisses, her entire being trembling from words to hooves

“What is this place?”

“You are so beloved, young Astra,” the changeling whispers, ignoring the questions

“Look at you”

Her voice is breathy and reverent as she waves a hand across beautifully-fashioned form in front of her

Your parsing of the scene gives you pause as the realization that’s slowly been ascending the sublevels of your consciousness finally reaches its destination – something you’ve always know, but never really thought about

Celestia and Luna were not born

They were crafted

For various reasons

“Wearing golden armor and bringing righteousness wherever you walk”

“Scouring this fledgling world for hurts to assuage”

Those long fingers ball up into fists as best as they can

“Even if you weren’t creation’s darling, you would still have her”

One of them breaks formation to point at Luna

“To adore you every second of every day”

“You don’t know what it’s like to be cast aside”

“You don’t know what it’s like to starve”

“What have you done?” Celestia demands again

“I did what I needed to,” Lucilla spits, but her indignation is not the product of painful memories

You get the feeling she’s only angry because she doesn’t understand why her sister is angry

“You tortured and murdered people – families – for no reason,” the alicorn fumes, her chest heaving

“You don’t understand,” the changeling says, hands out and palms up as if she’s physically presenting her explanation

“I was left alone,” she reiterates

“Alone, confused, and so very, very hungry”

“Mother succeeded in creating something that she couldn’t hurt”

“Something that could withstand her presence”

“The irony was that she couldn’t stand mine”

“That I hurt her”

“Suddenly, I had only myself to rely on, so I took what I needed from this world”

“Cruelty holds no intrinsic value for me; I’m not some fetishist who touches herself to the sight of blood or the sound of screams”

“But love is a tricky thing”

“It’s hard to get, and even harder to understand”

“Occasionally, what I see makes perfect sense, yet other times it seems like a form of insanity that makes my own deficiencies look like a head cold”

She taps her chin, eyes on the ceiling for a moment before she continues

“When I was young, thin, and more inclined to wander, I once broke into the hut of a zebra to escape a cold night”

“He was a healthy specimen, and he tried to fight for his land and possessions, but even that smaller and scrawnier me was stronger than he, and he fled”

“Then,” she counters herself with a different inflection, leaning thoughtfully on the figure of her mother, “not too long after, I did the same to the burrow of a diamond dog”

“It was filthy and hardly warmer than the outside, but it was all I could find”

“She was no bigger than a zebra, and I was even a bit older and stronger”

“Yet that night it was I who fled bleeding into the cold”

“So, what was the difference?”

“The stallion lived alone”

“But the bitch”

“She had two pups huddled against her in that hovel”

“And for a long time after that, I thought I understood what love was for”

“Until I came to this place”

With a flourish, she opens her arms to indicate the citadel as she continues to stalk around the coarse rendition of her maker

As her circle passes close to the crawling organic glow of the walls, the sickly light briefly illuminates a hide crisscrossed by a chaotic lattice of scars

“I honestly don’t know where it came from or who made it,” she admits

“The construction outclasses most of what the young world had to offer

“But whatever luck delivered such a secure and secluded structure to the griffons who lived here when I found it – cousins of the fishers from the coast – finally ran out with my arrival”

“They’d been living in this valley for generations, and it gave them everything they could possibly want”

“Rabbits and mice in the forests, fish in the river, and green grass all around”

“I doubt trouble found them often, but when it did, they retreated from their nests into this fortress”

“I know this because they did so when I decided to make this land my permanent home”

“By then, I was no longer that malformed nymph who famished in the darkness and shivered in the cold”

“I was more than I am now”

“My body was lean and hard from a wandering the world, my army of progenies prodigious”

She flexes a spindly, humanoid arm, and you realize just how menacing her tall, wiry frame would be with some muscle and youthful vigor

“They didn’t stand a shadow of a chance, but they all died”

“Every last one”

“Even though they didn’t need to”

“No,” Celestia breathes

“They didn’t”

“But that didn’t stop you, did it?”

A sudden bark of laughter escapes Lucilla’s throat

“No, no, that’s not what I meant,” she chuckles, wagging her finger at the alicorn

“I’m saying that most of them could’ve escaped”

“At least back then, when I hadn’t given as much thought to sustainable food sources”

“But they laid down their lives to the last protecting the young, the old, and the sick”

“All the ones who couldn’t flee”

“The ones that don’t matter”

“And it made me realize I truly knew nothing about love”

“Up until then it seemed so simple to me”

“I thought it was a weapon that could be used to win fights”

“A powerful stimulant that turns the weak into the strong”

“But that night”

“It seemed like nothing more than a tax levied on the strong by the weak”

She shrugs with an offhand smile

“I just don’t get it”

“That’s because you’re completely insane,” Celestia explains with a narrow-eyed hiss

“Funny,” the changeling grins, examining her claw-like fingernails

“That’s exactly what I thought about them, and what I think about all of you”

“But”

She whips her hand around, raising an index finger

“I was not so blind as to overlook the truth that night presented me”

“That love – this thing that I need – blossoms with suffering”

“Its true power doesn’t manifest until it is put through trials”

“You withstand so much pain for your cherished ones, and that strength is my nourishment”

“That potency is an adequate substitute for the affections of a goddess”

“And there comes a point when…”

Her eyes are slits as she tilts her head, fingers curling as though grasping at her own thoughts

“When that reflexive struggle for self-preservation finally fades away in a quiet decrescendo”

“And you want to die, but you still do not seek death”

“You still fight”

“Because of the love”

“Because you endure for those dearest few”

“And that”

A shudder that very well may be an orgasm worms its way from her shoulders all the way down to her ethereal tail

“Is when the love becomes perfect, and most delectable”

“You’re mad!”

The young, pink-haired Celestia screams this declaration raggedly into the darkness

“Don’t you see?” Lucilla wonders, spreading her arms

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you”

“I’ve been waiting all my life for you to fix me”

There is an explosion of light