A Player without Her mask is hardly fit for the role that She shall play in Her own tragedy.
In a room far within the dim halls of the Everfree palace where the Princess of Light dare not walk, there is a room sealed with the burns of ancient magic. Great talons of lightning were clawed across it in ages past, each put there by a wrathful Goddess. Within this room lies the remains of hundreds of papers that plaster the stone walls, like the husk of a fragile and ancient cocoon. Scrolls are sloppily attached to spiked chandeliers that have not borne candles in a very long time. Papers lay upon most of the floor; not a breeze in the dead, stale air of such a tomb to stir them.
The only traces of whatever had been are few in number, but the sight of such a thing is hardly as subtle as whatever forgotten numbers suggest.
Life lies in the thick, wild, and frantic strokes of ink. They were scrawled with neither pen nor brush, but with a madmare's magic and written by the light of a single, yet petite artificial star wrought by Her same hooves. A star that scraped its own marks in the ceiling of the cold and bare chamber, radiating the bitter fierceness of the caster's intent. That burning life of a force that, if replicated with any earthy fire, could drag all into the dark, but not before going out with a catastrophic show.
This was Her work, the hanging papers that are now quiet still bear the drips of this black blood as it hit their brethren below. Few hoofsteps mar the power Her madness has written here.
Slashes of a different kind of life-blood that was dried smooth by Her artistic chaos spell out things only She would know. This is a lost language only a heart of poison could ever hope to speak — as the younger Princess had, only because of the elder's demands — the angel who had yet to fall. She wrote out all that could be a crooked salvation from the corner the caged bird found Herself in.
Each was Her last word and testament before the lights would be lit and all focus would be on center stage. She would no longer hide and be virtually mute amongst the shadows, carrying a fire uncontained raging within. Such divine fire was burning bright enough to blind all the glass puppets of ponies that Her sister called subjects, whose sneering mechanical jaws clacked and created twisted knives of lies to stab Her with. All of that only pushed Her farther and farther into what little honest darkness remained. Her throat, too, choked from tears that would never come forth; this was Her retreat as Her time ticked to a stop and a different kind of madness blurred Her sense of everything.
With too much of every feeling, more miserable and desolate than She had ever known, words ceased to be spoken. She faded within the mystic symbols She saw flashing behind Her eyes were transcribed exactly as Her breaking heart wished them to be.
No more vain sister to tell the ghost of the same things the chittering little puppets did. Those dolls could not find Her now. Each feeling burned until smoke misled frightened eyes that no longer could cry from any sight of the future She could no longer see — not that She could care — as a voice that was but a raving fury of Her own sang. Wordless songs rang to the beat of Her forsaken heart in Her ears, which was the only encouragement She had. For too often, Her eyes the color of earth and sky — of Life itself; the very life she was giving up on — were buried in Her hooves, whether the Goddess could summon tears at all.
Hope, which She alone had always seen, was gone, gone, gone...
The little angel — lost where there were always maps and surrounded by all who wanted to rule the world — could only try to save Herself now. Her sister was a stranger with royal shackles of a crown smiled only at the dolls, had fallen long ago. Her elder sister had been wrapping curtains of light around her own white-coated form, all so she might fall sightless from the pedestals that she had placed herself so high on. Now, Her heart knew only desolation could come from waiting, and Her mind saw only images of the rebellion-to-be, a grand finale that none would see coming — something above the chaos, harmony, balance, and all the petty squabbles of the world below Her.
She had always stepped toward the infinite road that stretched into the horizon and soared to whatever enlightenment could be found no longer felt wonder. All that was left was only a yawning abyss of despair within Herself where She had once seen her life, and where all the engagement with the world She could muster had been. A once-forgotten friend in stone, a sister happily chained to her throne and driving the younger sister from Her twin chair. There was nothing of Her life but shards that slipped through Her hooves, going, going, and then like hope — which had always sung truest to Her... gone.
Why not rinse Her hooves of the life that She had long since given up on trying to piece together?
There was no longer a painless past She could see, the future was a but ghost if it were anything at all. The present was no longer a gift, just afternoons finding Herself unable to pull Herself from bed after lowering the moon. Her back was turned towards a future that could only end with Her beaten to nothing but a husk by the world which had been drowned in something so unlike itself, a coat of light that blinded all, a shimmering bright and sun-like thing that shed all it could on every idolization and glaring prejudice. Such blazing fire tried to sizzle each honest shadow to a silence that was but a morbid twist of peaceful solitude She could no longer find.
For the sake of all, it had to be purged. She who squinted through the eternal day that only She could feel, the cuts of countless little betrayals fraying the stitches that had held Her heart together for so long. Each little scar that outlined all that remained of Her brave new world. It was there, in the past which was a Tartarus all Her own that She recalled had the demon king of the north.
Her open mind knew not what magic his own had been, but that there was no liberation in all that surrounded Her. This is where She began, alone in the world, with only a disused room. Within these four walls, She only needed the company of Herself in order to save the world. Even if it was but a single sisterly soul by tying the cloth around the wonder-struck eyes of Luna as She knew Herself — it was undoing the last few stitches to meet all that lay beneath Her own surface, a distorted and fallen rebel angel to save the one Princess of Equestria from her own crown...
...however wishful that was.
Runes of insanity and every possibility outside all order did their feral dance from a mind that slowly collapsed in on itself, a demonic inspiration was all She needed, and so She had it.
Her plans were possible.
The final curtain call for this tragedy was coming, as all the world really was a stage, and She would play no encore. To all that never loved Her, there could be no farewell.
The final act would come, and it was here that the world might really be able to see Her, and the monster that She became. Finally, they would have their demon at last. She would drag all the world with Her, remaking every bit of it all by Herself. Maybe only then would She set the stranger, villain goddess of a sister free from the prison that She would have her come to know.
With this magic that knew only the barest of laws, She would be the perfect Player where She failed as a Princess. The Moon would become the only Star, as all were of the Night and the day was but a thin curtain that was stitched of lies that were meant to veil all from Her and the realm that She governed. That brief, thin barrier was dividing this unenlightened rock from the rest of the world.
Her whole world.
Even if it would be near-impossible to do so, She would remake each mortal, each plant, and wonder all over again. With Her life, everlasting, it would be possible. She could learn where Her sister never had. She would be their truest god, their one and only tragedy, and every sin that ever is, was, and could have been. What else was there left? She would bear the universal strife of Her new world. She would weep all that she must and scream everything all over again if She could save Her home for the blindness it had been plunged into. For while She never had hated ponies, She hardly loved them.
Maybe She wouldn't have the power to do all this, but She had the time to try.
Luna would be the tragedy.
Her character would fall with Her, and rise with the darkness that She held under Her moonlight. For the final act would turn every head. She would be the real Star, the sole Player all would recall. This magic would be possible, although it wouldn't be as dark. Maybe She wouldn't be able to control Herself, but Her disguise would be perfect. Her costume divine, a Night-wrought disguise to fool them all. A warrior's helm stitched from swirling turquoise lines of gossamer aura, a body born from runes and the coldest blood to run in Her veins.
A flawless mask, every bit the ruler She could not have been. That is what this room is because the greatest tragedy of all was not the lines blurred with magic and tears unseen, but the mask She wears.
Author's Note
[Revised for printing 8/31/2020]
