Back To The Stars

by NotanImportantPony

Rating: teen
Tags: Original Character, Science Fiction, Adventure, Princess Celestia, Crossover, Princess Luna, Gore, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Alternate Universe, Nightmare Moon
Length: 5479

Long ago, a star fell from its cradle and brought life to a planet. The coming of the Princess of the Night will herald a new golden age and she shall lead her people home.

Luna survived the fight as Nightmare Moon but now she must not only struggle with her past, but she must also struggle with the past as it was thousands of years ago. Luna will delve deep into the history of three mysterious forces that influenced life as she knows it. Luna's re-discoveries will reshape both her and her world. And whether she uses the 'gifts' for good or for ill will yet to be seen.

Published 2016-04-08 06:10:02 UTC
Last updated 2016-04-30 00:20:14 UTC

Chapter 1: Stormfall

Deep within the Everfree Forest, high over a castle of twins, a dark storm was gathering. A dark storm brought forth by a dark and twisted mind for an even darker purpose. The sharp clacking of gilded horseshoes echoed around the vacant throne room as a lone equine figure passed through the throne rooms barred doors seemingly indifferent to their existence..

“Not another step!” A voice echoed, thunder and lightning exploding in time with the order. The lone, alabaster alicorn stopped in it tracks; the sound of her hoofsteps fading as the echoes died, giving way to a pertinent silence.

Clip-Clop. Clip-Clop. Clip-Clop clip-clop. The hard, unrelenting sound lived again, harshly intertwining with a cold voice that came from a room to the left of a dark, moon themed banner.

“Celestia! Did you really expect me to sit idly by while they all basked in your precious light!” Sneered the Lunar Princess as she stalked across the dias, lightning showing her path and thunder imitating her heralds. Immune to all that, she stood in front of her throne and basked in the rose colored sunlight that filtered through the stained glass window above her and to her left.

With a hard look she made her way between the thrones to a raised dais, reared up, flared her wings, gathered magic to herself and proclaimed, “There can only be one Princess in Equestria! And that princess will be me!” With that, she brought her front hooves down, flaring her magic blowing out the front of the dias’ railing.

Within seconds a dark shadow spread away from the impact, sliding up the stained glass window behind Luna. Filling the wall behind her, it shattered the stained glass window and the stone surrounding it, sending shards flying throughout the room, flooding the throne room with the dying sunlight of twilight. With the rays of sunlight came a soft golden aura that surrounded the flying shards, stopping them in their paths, the sunlight reflected off the glass shards, sending piercing rainbow light into the eyes of the two sisters. The shards fell, the glass ones shattering, the stones ones marring the previously pristine marble floor with small craters and countless debris.

Silence reigned over the picturesque scene, rainbow hued light gently shone from the scattered glass crystals and powders bathing three sides of the throne room with a peaceful rainbow color. The fourth side held no color, it was grey and cracked, broken like the mind of the raging alicorn that stood before it. Gradually ethereal winds were gathered and ripped through the hole behind her, dragging the wayward stones and rainbow hued glass to herself as she rose up, into the dusty, air.

Rising further into the sunlit rays she ignited her horn, and let loose with such base and untamed magics that the loose stones and sharp glass shards flew towards her with reckless abandon only for them to stop and fall mere inches away from her quivering breast. Through the field of broken glass and shattered stone shone a white light that grew ever more intense, unleashing an ever increasing amount of energy.

Nothing seemed to happen. The picturesque scene seemed to have come to a halt, one sister, kneeling and crying, surrounded by a flickering golden bubble, the small pieces of dust and debris inside her shield slipping out to join with their own; the other surrounded in a growing field of glass and stone, horn shining with a light that outshone the setting sun and the rising moon.

With a bloody, frothy gasp the white alicorn fell down onto her flank and curled up. Her nose, eyes, and mouth streaming blood onto the ruby red rug, both colors mixed and neither one showed more than the other. With a terrible heaving cry Luna bade the sun and the moon to come together and they obeyed her. Her monstrosity bathed the whole of Equestria in the blood red light of a dying sun swiftly followed by the shadowy tendrils of the moon. With the cry still ringing through earth and sky, the field of stone and crystal converged on the writhing form of the Princess of The Night.

The cry cut off, there was no echo, there was no resonating sound, there was only the soft mewling cries of the formerly alabaster alicorn, her coat dyed red by the merciless binding of her sun to the moon. Only one word could be made out through her bloody coughs and heaving breaths,

“Luna...”

The bleeding ball of glass and stone did not respond, it only dripped the life blood of her sister onto the scarred and blackened dais.

“Luna...” Celestia moaned using one hoof to try to claw her way towards the dais.

The dripping stopped, the last dribbling hole filled with a clink of stone on glass. The throne room fell into silence once more.

“Luna.” Celestia struggled to bring her hooves under her, to lift her sopping, bloody body off the the sodden rug.

Slowly as if obeying an internal source, the blood light of the eclipse was pulled into the orb through the stone and the glass. The shadows followed the light, from every corner, from every crevice, from every dark thought it flowed up and into the orb, where it was mixed and stirred into a dark concoction for an eldritch abomination. Colors of the night, wrong and horribly mixed swirled along the surface, spinning and swirling, dipping and diving. As Celestia watched, the spinning fluids changed, they spun faster and faster, letting loose arcs of magical plasmatic energy.

“Luna!” Celestia gave a heave, expelling bloody particulates from her nostrils as she shakily stood and braced herself against the coming storm.

A bolt of black lightning emerged from the black orb and went for Celestia. Lighting her horn, Celestia wrenched her head to the left, and the black bolt skittered off a golden hued glob of blood and blew and hole in the roof.

“Luna!!!” Celestia shouted spraying blood all the way to the foot of the dais, “I will not fight you! You must lower the moon!” She finished, sinking to her front knees.

The orb, now a mixture of black, and varying shades blue spun, aloof; until it drew Celestia’s blood into itself.

“Celestia.” A voice moaned as if from behind a thick veil.

The orb stopped spinning and two cyan orbs came to the forefront and seemingly gazed at Celestia before disappearing behind a veil of dark fluids. Slowly the orb descended letting the blood light flow once more into the room anointing Celestia’s kneeling form in crimson glow.

Touching the shattered surface of the dais, the orb stopped and the cyan eyes once again rolled towards Celestia who was gazing despondently at the emerging figure.

First came the long slender horn, alight with foul, cruel magics. Second, shone the cold lunar armour that contoured her head, feet and chest. Light, now a hard white light projected from the moon bathed the supple ebony figure in the dreams of a thousand stars.

Striding forward, snakelike pupils roved languidly over the ruined form of Princess Celestia and a hiss echoed from the demons black maw.

“Celestia, kneeling before me?” The demon spoke spat, “You give yourself too high a station. You-”

-Hauling herself up to her hooves Celestia took a single trembling step forward,

“Luna, I will not fight you! You must lower the moon!” Taking a breath, Celestia exhaled, “It is your duty!”

“Luna.” The demon spat, “Y-You think I am Luna. Ha! Hahahahaaa...” The demon dissipated in a plume of smoke and reappeared in front of Celestia.

“I am Nightmare Moon! I have but one royal duty now. To destroy you!” And with that she let loose the dark things that terrorized children in their dreams. Only to have Celestia blind her and dissipate her slaves with a flash of golden light, reminiscent of the sun at high noon. When her vision cleared Nightmare Moon found ash and charring extending from where Celestia had been kneeling. Looking up into the twilight sky above her, Nightmare Moon beheld a being of fire and light, truly the very embodiment of the Celestial Body that hung captive behind her glorious moon.

With a sharp breath Nightmare Moon launched herself towards her foe. And as if over a great distance she heard a soft, broken whimper deep within her mind, it came from a dark and twisted thing locked in a skeletal cage of its own making,

“Oh dear sister, I am sorry.”

With a beat of her wings she burst through the towering stone roof, shedding pebbles and dust as she flew upwards. With a second beat of her wings she charged her horn leaving an iridescent contrail in her wake. With the third beat of her wings she met the her opponents radiant blast with a dark, putrid lance of her own. Using those monsters and demons locked deep within her soul, she carved a long and bloody furrow through the celestial beam and met its maker in a burst of dark, prismatic light.

From the first moment the fight began, Celestia knew she would not be able to survive, suffering from injuries that went far beyond mental and physical she knew that she would lose. She would be brought down and drowned in the fears and panic of this demented demon that had stolen her sister and her sun. So, when she gathered to her the memories of the hopes and the dreams of every pony she knew in preparation for her fall she found a new source of energy and let loose a roar that shook the heavens as she fired a beam swirling, cleansing light at the demon. Then everything fell apart.

Her magic, some of the most powerful in Equestria fell apart, it unraveled even before it touched the demon. Her magic was shorn through like a hot knife through hot butter. And she, Celestia; Solar Diarch, an immovable object in her own right was met with an unstoppable force, and she shattered.

In a discolored halo of force and light Celestia was bloodily flung far below her position. And down she fell, through the stone roof and into what many considered to be a chapel. She came to rest curled around the fading shadow of a cruel and deadly lance.

With a distant ‘whumpf’ the dark winged demon closed the distance with murderous intent.

Celestia uncurled, the hole in her barrel contracting and bleeding out, the stump of her wing wiggling in the cool night air. Her vision, heightened by the remaining adrenaline made out a room, one that brought back memories of a weapon powerful enough to bring down gods and demons. With the light around her horn fading, Celestia activated the only thing she knew could stop this demon.

A rumble filled the air and the sound of grinding gears and rusted chains and steadily rose out of the damp, earthy depths rose the pedestal. Upon that pedestal sat the greatest and most terrible weapon known to anyone. The Elements of Harmony.

With one last desperate flare from her horn illuminating her failing vision Celestia pumped her remaining magic into the elements begging them to work not for her, but for her sister. With one last gasp Celestia’s magic failed her, the elements fell around her body as the shadows closed in.

“Oh dear sister, I am sorry.” And she headed towards the light.

Warmth. That was the first thing she felt but not the first thing she remembered. Images and feelings haunted her, a cage of grinning, laughing skulls and a feeling of hopelessness, a feeling of darkness pressing ever closer. Searing heat, like that of the sun and a feeling of weightlessness as she flew ever faster. The sight of prismatic rainbow shards, dark melted stone and a feeling of rage, unrepentant, uncontrolled, unfocused rage hotter than the sun. A lone alicorn figure bathed in red, blood dribbling from the eyes nose, and mouth. A light in the darkness then a feeling of sleep.

Warmth and a vibrant ringing sound. Warmth, the kind you get from laying with somepony, and the sudden realization of what you’ve done.

With a gasp Luna jumped away from the soft, white form that was her sister... That was her sister. The great, powerful, majestic alabaster alicorn called Celestia; called sister, now lay on her right side, her left wing askew, feathers rumpled and broken and the other, the left one, it was a stump, there was no wing. Instead, there was a great off white mass right in front of the fleshy stump. A scar.

A scar that, as Luna timidly paced around the body, she could not help but marvel at.

“Wh-What monster could...do...this...”

And her rear legs collapsed, her mouth opened in shock, she brought her down low enough to view the twisted, warped flesh that made up the left side of Celestia’s breast. But one spot in particular, a deep spot, a spot where it looked like someone had taken a jagged piece of steel and brutally ripped and carved a hole into the left side of Celestia’s chest.

“M-Me. I-I-I d-did this.”

Celestia’s right wing twitched, searching for the warmth that Luna’s body had provided. Luna jumped away from the twitching limb tripping over a stone in the process, she fell over in a heap.

The wing continued to twitch, growing increasingly spastic as it searched for it’s missing charge. Luna continued to look on in fear as she backed away but stopped as she passed a round orb.

‘The field of stone and crystal converged, blocking out the light.’

She shook her head to clear the vision away and it faded like smoke before a wind. Before her, at her hoof lay the Element of Loyalty, she reached forwards and touched it.

A feeling of rage, unrepentant, controlled, focused rage.

Luna ripped her hoof away, shocked and repulsed.

“Luna...”

Time stopped. And the facade fell. Through tear soaked eyes Luna turned her face upwards and locked her cyan eyes onto the unfocused red pits that were Celestia’s. A deep primal fear exploded in Luna, she cast a shield spell and averted her eyes but still she saw her eyes. Those sad, hurt eyes.

“Lulu? I-Is that you?”

All at once, the sound of her voice seemingly carrying the weight of all of Luna’s crimes fell upon Luna shoulders, binding her in white hot chains, denying her the rights to life, liberty, and happiness. They dragged down and away to the deepest pits of Tartarus and she went willingly.

Spinning away from Celestia and her eyes, Luna spread her wings and leapt, she flapped them once, twice and on her third try her right wing crumpled sending her spiraling to the floor where she landed in a sweating, shaking mass.

She froze as she heard the sound of a body shifting and the tones of her sister pleading.

“Luna! Luna! Why! What-”

Luna did not hear the rest of it, she flung herself away from the sum of her crimes and jerked her wings open again, she stumbled and tried to fly but only managed to collapse again as she skidded to the edge of the chapel. Her sister’s voice, growing stronger with every passing second cried out to her,

“Luna! Wha-What are you doing!”

Turning her head ever so slightly, but averting her eyes, she mouthed two words.

“I’m sorry”

And flung herself off the edge of the chapel into the gaping maw of the canyon.

Chapter 2: Restitution

“I’m sorry.”

And Luna flung herself off the edge of the chapel into the gaping maw of the canyon.

Time seemed to slow as she felt her rear hooves clip the jagged edge of the chapel wall. Below her extended a gaping maw bathed in twilight’s embrace. Far below her at the bottom of the canyon Luna saw through tear stained eyes a gleaming star strewn river flowing into her moon. Sound came flying back to her, assaulting her as she fell.

The sound of the wind screaming her name grew faint as she fell away from the crumbling chapel wall. The maelstrom buffeted her wings, mane, and eyes, it brought pain; for her crimes. It relaxed her; soothing her broken body and mind. And still she fell farther into the abyss.

Her body tumbled through the air, broken and kneaded by her trials, each turn and twist brought new pain to her mind. The moonlight shone off the onyx canyon walls, reflected off scrapped pieces of armour each glinting with dangerous intent.

Her eyes widening, and her nostrils flaring, Luna brought her eyes forward and focused on one piece. A helm. A midnight blue helm that haunted her and laughed at her. With rage in her eyes Luna locked the helm in her shaky, unstable magic and crushed it, banishing the doubts and memories that thing.

Her magic dissipating, Luna blinked and shook her head as if waking from a deep dream and gazed around. She saw pieces of blackened and melted armour falling with her, she saw the alabaster moon from the peytral spinning as if it had not a care in the world. She grasped it in her magic, released a burst of crackling cyan magic; brought the crescent moon piece to her; cleared the area around her and readied her wings.

With the gently flowing river approaching fast, Luna spread her wings and locked them, the air rippled over her coat as she stayed her path. The wind ripped and tore at her flanks but Luna stayed strong, she fought against the pain and struggled to angle her wings upward. She was falling fast. Too fast.

Luna hit the water hard, her barrel taking most of the blow. She tried to give one final flap of her wings; she failed. On the upbeat her left wing cramped and moved to her side but caught on the river’s surface dragging Luna over onto its cold watery surface.

Luna struggled for a few brief seconds, her limbs flailing as she fought to extract herself from the river’s grasp. But, with her strength and magic gone; her body and mind broken; she stood no chance. Her struggling slowed, her head dipped beneath the waves as she spluttered and fought for breath but with each inhale she consumed more and more water, finally her body gave up and seized. With her mind and vision darkening, Luna fell into the yawning black abyss of unconsciousness. And as she faded away, she heard a voice coming to her as if from a great distance,

“I will not be stopped...”

For Celestia, the moment her sister jumped was when everything stopped. Time, heart, magic; it all ceased to exist for her and the image of Luna --her dear, sweet baby sister jumping into the abyss-- froze in her mind.

Celestia sat impeccably still for several seconds, the event of that night playing through her mind.

She ran her actions through her head. Why? What had she done to turn Luna into that-that monster?! Celestia had known that something was wrong with her little sister. But for Luna to go and do something like that to herself. To give herself over to a monster like Nightmare Moon. Celestia had never thought that her sister was ever capable of making such a dark pact. That is where she had made her mistake.

As she sat under the twinkling evening sky and tried to find reason, it actively eluded her. She tried to find hope, but it deserted her. She tried to cry, and she did.

She cried not just for herself, but for her sister who would never again see her night, who would never see new foals blossom into strong stallions and mares. She would never see the world in the daylight. Daylight...

“-while they all basked in your precious light!”

Daylight. Light.

It was all her fault. She drove her dear sister to madness. It was all her fault. How had she been so blind?

With a keening wail that shook the very foundations of the earth Celestia threw herself onto the rubble strewn ground in front of the new chapel opening and vented all her sadness and anger into the solid night air. Her horn sparked then erupted in light, her power reached out and ripped the moon from the sky, the tattered remains of her sister's touch that still clung to the moon gave Celestia strength. The moon vanished beneath the forested horizon flooding the land with a tide of darkness.

Mothers sheltered their fillies and colts as the wails of some feral beast echoed throughout the land. They cried out in fear as the moon disappeared and the starry pinpricks of light that gentley accented the night sky flickered and died. From the Badlands to the Frozen North, Celestia's anguished wails could be heard.

And after a time, the mothers, with tears streaking down their muzzles withdrew from their fillies and colts as the message in that wailing echoed throughout their souls. The howl was not from a feral beast, it was from somepony who had lost what they never knew was the best and most important thing to happen to them. And the whole of Equestria wept.

Clutching the last strands of magic, Celestia unceremoniously thrust her blazing celestial body far into the sky peeling away the darkness and banishing the ponies fears. Luna would not want the one and only Princess Celestia to wallow in self pity and think herself weak. Luna would want her dear sister to stand strong. It’s what Luna would do in Celestia’s place.

Her emotions exhausted and her body trembling, Celestia stood on marked, shaky legs and started limping through the chapel towards the daylight that streamed through the broken doors for she still had a job to do. No... Not a job. The job.

The only job of a Princess: To help and to lead, to heal and to care; all for her little ponies.

Chapter 3: Landfall

There were many things that the Cragadiles of Saddle Lake knew. They knew how to hunt. They knew how to hide. They knew how to sleep. That is what all of them knew. That is what they were taught since birth. But there were some, now only one who remembered the olden times. The golden times.

The times when many sapient beings lived together in peace and harmony. Much like they didunder the rule of Princesses. But there are some things that even the Princesses couldn't pry from the minds of the Cragadiles. A story. A story passed down through the generations. One not of words, not of thought nor intention. No. This story was one of genetics. One of the ‘beginning.’ And the ‘end.’

The Cragadiles were the sole remaining result of the story. A story of heartbreak and a final lesson, for it was on one day that the world knew that the hearts of men were easily corrupted. And the powers that permeated the veil, be them fate or fantasy, had a will all its own. It betrayed the newcomers, and led them to their deaths.

And some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend. Legend became myth. And for two and a half thousand years, the knowledge that was brought down from the stars was buried under a mountain of sin. Until one day. One day, their legacy would be unveiled and it would bathe the world in golden light. Until then, they would lay dormant, watching, and waiting.

Splish. Splash.

Went the waves that crashed.

Upon the shores they dashed.

And the stones were bashed.

Upon the mare they thrashed.

And.

She.

Lived.

Splish. Splash.

Wet. That was how Luna felt. She shivered and corrected herself. Wet and cold. Two terrible things that should never be together lest one catch a cold. A normal pony would just get a runny nose and a fever. But for an Alicorn like herself, colds were deadly. Not for herself, no she could handle them just fine. But for everypony else if an Alicorn got sick you stayed away from them. Not that Luna ever had many ponies around her in the first place.

In fact, now that she thought about it she couldn’t really think of anypony who was near her even when she wasn’t sick. Luna sneezed and several stones ranging from tear sized pebbles to hoof sized rocks went flying away from her. She sniffled and inhaled, she stopped as she felt something tickle her nose. She focused on the source of the offending feeling. Laying across her muzzle was the ragged leading edge of a black primary feather.

Luna’s crossed eyes worked over the feathers split and broken vanes. The quill was jagged and rough, almost as if it had been snapped off. The very tip of the feather’s shaft seemed to possess an alien coloration. The tip was her color. Luna’s color. A beautiful sapphire blue hew was seemingly contained at the tip and lay a rough hewn line across the tip of the feather. Further down there seemed to be a contested area that gave of a oily rainbow sheen. But as Luna’s gaze descended she saw the rainbow sheen give way to a permanent darkness. A portal to her soul.

And she blew the feather off her muzzle with a ferocious huff. The feather spiraled down out of the air then stopped as it came to rest on a soft bed of indigo magic. Luna’s eyes narrowed as she sought to see the feather through her horn’s twinkling aura. She could see it outlined in the late twilight sun as she bade magic to bring the feather, her feather closer to her. Luna’s twin cyan eyes sparked as she recalled that this thing was part of a body that deemed its dominion would be better off without a Princess of the Sun. Cooly she levitated the feather to the ground and bent her horn to it.

Looking back, Luna could see that everything she had done. Everything she had been, had been because of a spark. A spark of life. A spark that urged her to live and be free. And in the same fashion that she had been given a life of her own, so too would she take the life of another. With fire and fury.

“From one to another, another to one.” And so Luna, reciting the first part of Starswirl’s unfinished spell began to burn.

She turned deep, deep into herself and scoured every corner, every shadow and every grimey place she could find and drew them out through her horn. First there was one drop, then two, then a small stream of bubbling black tar oozed out of her horn and fell onto the feather. And still she scored every nook and cranny until her darkest places were shining with a bright white light contrary to her own moody darklight. And her horn oozed blood, as the first droplet fell. Luna’s eyes locked onto it and she let loose a primal scream.

“A MaRk-”

The droplet hit the distilled essence of lunar sin and started the reaction and Luna, so enraptured by the growing, hungry flames leaned in and quieted her trembling voice so as to not disturb her child.

“-of one’s destiny-”

Luna’s slitted pupils contracted and she lept back, her horn flaring, the smoke stinging her eyes and the flames licking her face. Shaking her head and running a wing over her face to gather her ash stained tears Luna whispered,

“-singled out alone-”

With a sigh, Luna shuttered her magic and the blue curling flames stopped eating away at the embodiment of her sins.

“-will always be alone.”

The minute pile of fine ashes stirred gently in the cooing wind and Luna gently placed her tears in the middle of it.

Luna sat down on her rump, and with her hot, salty tears freely flowing down her shattered facade she cried and let loose a century's worth of pain and punishment upon the valley that contained her.

Through it all the ashes barely moved. They shifted when one of the rocks under them moved or when Luna stepped on them but other than those few things, the pile of ash didn’t move. At the end of Luna’s cathartic tantrum she fell down in a shallow puddle; a small result of her release.

Rolling around in the now muddy water, Luna cooled herself off and lay her head down upon a smooth river rock as she felt the efforts of her tantrum catch up with her. She was just closing her eyes to give herself over to the dark void of sleep when she heard an odd warping noise come from behind her. Rolling over to face the noise, Luna lit her horn and it spat a small stream of pitifully weak sparks out and onto the ground. Now fully turned over Luna had to blink and shake her head many times to ensure that she was not imagining things. For sitting, upright and unmarred was her helm. Nightmare Moon’s helm, and it was staring at Luna.

Luna saw the slitted cyan eyes of a snake, liar, and manipulator. Nightmare saw the eyes of a tired, broken mare with no where else to run. Luna brought her magic to bare and crushed the helmet with her magic. As it was crushed, Luna saw the dull light in Nightmares eyes wink out. The helmet landed on the worn stones with a heavy clunk and tumbled away from Luna. She smirked.

Laying her head down again and banishing distracting thoughts from her mind, Luna prepared to sleep, out in the open and completely vulnerable.

Luna did not hear it over the sound of the small waves coming onto the shore of Saddle Lake, but the helmet she had crushed slowly broke apart and drifted with a phantasmal wind back into the shadows of a walkway long forgotten. It reformed and sat there, waiting as the faint cool tendrils of the moon curled around it. The Nightmare blinked and the scenery changed.

High above Luna, far beyond Celestia’s Equestria lay the bright unmarred moon. And it did something it hadn’t done in aeons, it cried. It cried for something that no being on the planet could see or feel. It cried because no one else would. A single snow white tear fell through space. It fell through clouds. It fell and fell and fell until it didn’t need to fall anymore. For it had landed.

And Luna woke up.

There are eyes. Eyes in the night and they are always watching. Always seeking. Never resting. Ever sleeping.

Luna woke up. Her eyes shot open and she launched herself into the air to escape the creeping sense of dread. Only to be brought to a halt by the well hewn roof of a well lit cave. She smashed into it and fell down onto the floor, throwing up a plume of dust upon landing. Luna spent the next several minutes attempting to stop coughing long enough so that she could clear the air. But each time she tried to stop coughing she couldn't and she threw more dust up and into the air, creating a cycle.

Eventually she got her body and by extension, the dust, under her control. She waited for her eyes to stop watering and her chest to stop heaving. They did both of those things in short order. And Luna cast a charm to purify the air around her, blocking any air-bourne debris from interfering with her-

-Luna spun around and looked down.

And glaring up at her was the dust covered helm of Nightmare Moon. And behind that was a mottled, hazy, imperfect vision of herself outlined in a diagram of squares, each stacked next to and above each other with a perfect spiral growing out of the center. And looking closer, Luna noticed that there were faint words etched along the notched and tarnished spiral. She could barely make them out and she struggled to read them.

“Only one; a mix of equal tempers may enter our sacred temples.”

Creasing her brow and narrowing her eyes, Luna looked deeper than the surface and lay her cracked and chipped hoof upon the spiral. It lit up and at the base of the diagram, the helm of Nightmare moon became clouded and obscured by falling ash. The helmet shifted out and away from Luna’s body as she collapsed. The helmet tipped over and the darkened cave rang with the funeral knells of a thousand lost souls.