Everyone dreams, whether it be through sleep or for a future that we hope for. We reach for that dream, believing that nothing can stop us on our way to the ‘perfect life’. For some, that dream is simple to achieve, for others a long and hard road with many bumps in it. We come to think that nothing can stop us, no matter how hard that dream may be. We work until it seems just in reach, telling ourselves that we are invincible: that nothing can stop us here. Then, when it is just within our grasp, as we are about to obtain that perfect life... the world turns against you and denies you everything.

I wanted to fly with the greatest, most powerful pegasi in modern Equestria and it was taken from me. I didn’t do anything wrong: I didn’t want those things to literally rip my wings off my body. The Solar Empire, my old home, had the ability to recreate them, but my parents took me away for a reason I don’t understand. This wasn’t what I wanted, but I don’t think they ever really understood or believed me. Silvia is the only one who really seems to understand what I went through during my trial, and that’s why I fear for her…

… I fear that she has not truly found the lie everyone has told her, even if she tells me otherwise.

Ralf had lost track of how long she and Rainbow had been staring at each other, neither willing to speak up. It didn’t register in Ralf’s head that he had just asked a very sensitive question to a mare that seemed scared by the events behind it. Yet her silence spoke volumes to him, and it was that lack of words that told him everything he needed to know. The fact that the wings were gone from her back seemed to fit what Silvia had told him about the Rainbow’s parents. The worst part is, most ponies don’t survive encounters with the monsters of the darkness, who Ralf knew all too much about.

“You already know, don’t you?” Rainbow asked, Ralf realizing how the somber tone in her voice seemed strangely… incorrect. “Why bother asking the question when you already know the answer?”

“Just because I know what the end result is doesn’t mean I know what took place,” Ralf explained, motioning for Rainbow to come into the room. It took several minutes for the mare to decide before accepting his invitation and sitting in a corner on the floor. “You do know the bed’s free, right?”

“I’d rather not, and I don’t feel comfortable telling you without Silvia around.” Every time he heard Rainbow speak, Ralf felt more and more uncomfortable. His sister had told him a little about the Dashs’ daughter, but he had a feeling this wasn’t how she was supposed to be. “How do I know you won’t spill everything to them? My parents made sure my dream was crushed, and who knows what they will do if they find out what I’m planning?”

“I’m Silvia’s brother; if she found out I told them anything, I’m pretty sure my head would be severed,” Ralf explained, hoping that it would reassure Rainbow enough to the point where she could believe him. “Please Rainbow, if you trust my sister, then I promise that you can trust me too. If I don’t know, then how can I possibly understand why you don’t trust your parents with this.”

Rainbow sat there, silent for what felt like hours as she contemplated what Ralf had said. He had no idea why the mare seemed to distrust her parents so much, and why she seemed so speculative of him. Of course he knew how sensitive she must feel about the subject, considering that a pegasi losing its wings was about as bad as a unicorn losing its horn. When he heard Rainbow sigh, he knew he had managed to persuade her, a talent that he had picked up from his time with Silvia.

“Fine, I’ll tell you,” Rainbow said, looking extremely uncomfortably at the floor. “I’m sure you already know why, given what you and your sister do, but it was the wendigos. Those are the things that took away me wings.”

“Wendigos?” Luminous asked Silvia as the two traveled through the eerie quiet of Ponyville. “What are these wendigos that you keep mentioning, and why are they much more dangerous than any of the other creatures out here?”

Not long after the two had left the small pub, Luminous started asking Silvia many questions on the things she had seen. In all honesty, she only knew about these creatures because of her brother, who had more than a few run ins with them in the past. Her father gave her that amulet to keep her safe as well as be able to see paradoxes without her dark magic interfering. Despite how little Ralf cared about being a Paradox Hunter and how he never wanted to do anything when asked, he had been lucky to escape without harm. She had no idea how he did it, but his details about them made her glad to have the amulet.

“The wendigos were once ponies whose souls never past on, either because they were forgotten or was killed by one of them,” Silvia explained, doing her best to remember everything her brother had told her. “Most of the stuff around them are rumors and as I’ve been lucky to not ever see them than I don’t know much beyond that. That said, they are believed to be the cause of many disappearances and deaths for travelers, and the best you can hope for in most encounters seems to be losing a limb.”

“So they’re ghosts?” Luminous asked, her thoughts going back to Sweetie Belle and the fact that she no longer had her body.

“No, at least not when they become wendigos. It’s believed to take a few days, and there have been cases of a soul being found and put to rest before this, which is something my brother has done before.”

Both Silvia and Luminous had found interesting topics of conversation over the walk, and as short as it was, the ex-captain couldn’t help but feel like Silvia was stalling. The wolf was walking at a much slower pace than her own, which caused Luminous herself to slow down. Luminous originally thought that Silvia wasn’t happy to bring her along, but the idle banter between them made her rethink that immediately. This wasn’t the first time Luminous had seen this, as well; many times back in Canterlot she would purposely slow her walk in an attempt to avoid something. She had even done this to her own sister when they got into an argument, though usually it was Neon who tried to keep the distance more than her.

“Is something else on your mind, Silvia?” Luminous didn’t even think as she asked the question, her mind too stuck on the subject to even think about how personal it might be.

“Well…” Silvia managed to hide the surprise on her face at the sudden question. She thought it over, only to realize that Luminous would probably not let go of it until she got a satisfying answer. “If you really want to know, the family I’m staying with isn’t exactly on the best terms with their daughter. She had a dream that was taken away from her, and then was brought out here to the countryside for some reason.”

“Brought to the countryside? As in, they lived in a city beforehand?” Luminous asked, rather confused given the state of the world around her.

She didn’t hear anything else before feeling a scene start to play out in her mind. Luminous watched as three pegasi soared through the sky, being cheered on by a crowd in the stands she was sitting in. The moment that seemed to get her attention the most, and one that seemed to repeat multiple times in her memory, was when one broke formation. They flew high into the sky, Luminous’ vision being blocked by a light before the pegasus came back down. She could almost feel the crowd around her and hear them cheering as the pegasus flew down, a cone shaping around her body before—

“Luminous?” Silvia’s face was inches away from hers, giving the pony a shock as she awoke from her daydreaming. “Is something wrong? You were staring off into space.”

“Oh, sorry,” Luminous apologized, realizing how sudden her mind seem to move away from that moment. “I got caught in my imagination. We can talk a bit about this pony you're so worried about when we get to the house I’ll be staying at.”

Silvia nodded and the two started walking again, though the wolf was unaware of how confused Luminous was. Whatever that scene was that played in her mind was giving her the same feeling that she had after the memory gap that occurred when she met Arcane. The problem wasn’t that her mind was wandering, as it did all the time, but rather just how familiar the scene she had just had felt. She knew it was just her imagination, yet it was almost as if it was a memory from a time she didn’t remember. That couldn’t be true, though, as she recognized the thing blocking her vision from her visits to the Farplane, and it hadn’t existed in Equestria for over a thousand years.

That thing that had blocked her vision was most definitely the sun.

“So your family is originally from the Solar Empire?” Ralf asked, receiving a nod from Rainbow in response. “I’ve heard things about that place, more bad than good. Supposedly it’s beautiful, shining like a beacon among the darkness, but I’ve also heard that the ‘emperor’ as he calls himself is still rather fresh.”

“Fresh would definitely be the word to describe the pony, but it is still better than a place like this,” the mare said, spreading her hooves around the bedroom that the two had being talking in. “I was going to part of the Shadow Runners, the most daring group of pegasi in the entirety of Equestria, and that was taken away from me from those wendigo creatures. I was lucky to be alive and found by others during my flying test, but I still wanted to be a part of them in some way.”

Despite how little the wolves knew about the three cities and what was inside them, the Shadow Runners was one thing that they knew all too well. Paradox hunters were especially familiar with them, due to the Solar Empire’s tendency to help paradoxes, even with all the danger that came with that. The alphas and elders have had their own run-ins with these pegasi as well, but instead of hatred they saw them as courageous. While they despised the Solar Empire for housing ‘terrifying and strange monsters’, they knew that they were strong.

“Anypony who had the daring spirit to head into complete darkness without any magic should be praised,” Ralf thought as he recalled one of the many long, drawn out speeches made by the elders. “Though their cause is the opposite of ours, they are not to be smited down because of such things. These are no unicorns who cheat logic with magic, nor are they paradoxes who can bend and destroy reality, they are pegasi. It is through the Shadow Runners we learn why Equestrians who have no magic can still survive. Praise them…” And though he knew the alpha meant no malice towards him, Ralf ended these recalled speeches the way he always did, “... stupid, flea-pelted, dry-nosed, omega.”

No matter how bad he felt about it, he couldn’t say something like that to Silvia because of two reasons. The first was the derogatory language he just said would have only made her angrier than she already was when talking to him. Omega was the lowest class in the pack, and to say such a thing to anyone above that rank was worse than any insult. The second was less direct, as he knew the words would make her sister cry when she remembered what they truly meant. He was only around six or seven when he heard his father told that message to Silvia, though the target was very direct.

“You hate me, don’t you?” Rainbow asked, seeing how Ralf’s muzzle had pulled back into a snarl as the thought of his pack entered his mind. “You hate me because of what I wanted to be, I know you do. I know how you wolves see paradoxes and-”

“That’s not why I’m angry,” Ralf told her, realizing that this wasn’t the time to think about his father. “Silvia doesn’t know the real reason I’m out here, and until it’s really necessary, I’d rather it stay that way. I’m not here because she’s training me to become a paradox hunter. That’s only something I told her because I know what happened during her exile. I’m here to keep an eye on her because they knew what she was doing, and I know what will happen if they find her.”

He looked to the book that was still laying out on the bed. Despite what he wanted to think, Ralf knew what was contained within that book. That, most likely, was the spellbook his father had given to her before she was exiled, a forbidden spell book at that. If he combined that from the strange energy given off by the amulet, it became more than obvious what that was really for. Those things weren’t meant for hunting paradoxes, it was meant to use dark magic.

“And these wendigos are the things that attacked Sweetie Belle?” Soarin asked Arcane, both of whom had stepped outside after Topaz and Rarity started yelling at each other. “I guess that explains the… bad state of her actual body, but how did you manage to save her soul if she was already dead?”

Despite knowing well what Arcane really was, it was the only company that he still had, or at least the only one that wasn’t currently yelling at him. He was surprised at how much the former tyrant seemed to enjoy conversation, though it all seemed to fall along the same lines. It quickly became clear to Soarin that Arcane was obsessed with these ‘conduction crystals’. That was Arcane Glyph’s area of expertise, and the reason that he had forcibly taken control of the Crystal Empire: to satisfy his obsession and research their power.

“The wendigos are an anomaly that I have still yet completely been able to understand, but it seems they have the power to ground a soul in the living world,” Arcane replied, looking off in the distance as if Soarin was just a voice in his head. “What I have learned is that conduction crystals can not only be used as a means to enchant metals it’s infused with, but also has the ability to enchant a completely exposed soul as well. In other words, her body isn’t a machine or even metal, but rather the product of many conduction crystals shaped into a body. After that, all I needed to do was infuse that body with her soul, and it changed itself to replicate a metal form of her own body.”

“That’s possible?”

“Possibility is only logical in math and science. You can’t relate it to the study of magical properties,” Arcane continued to explain, not giving Soarin the time to completely comprehend what he was thinking about. “If unicorns were to ground themselves in the realm of logic and impossibilities, then how could we create anything? To believe the impossible, despite all the odds, is the first thing any unicorn learns, because otherwise we would be lower than the long-forgotten earth ponies. I saved Rarity’s sister, but I couldn’t do it if I saw every magic spell in a sense of possibility. Now that I have answered your questions, it’s time for me to ask you one of my own.”

The sudden change caught Soarin off guard, as he was certain they had been on this same topic for hours. For the first time since the beginning of their conversation, Arcane looked at Soarin, who gulped at the look in his eyes. The look he gave was not one of somepony who was satisfied with simple idle banter, but rather the look of a pony who held a vendetta. If it wasn’t for his strange horn and status as an umbrum, Soarin was sure he would have felt a lot more comfortable. Now, he didn’t know what to think, for it seemed as if Arcane was ready to turn him into dust.

“What is your reason for traveling with Luminous?” he asked, the words coming out more as a growl than a comprehensible sentence. “You have done nothing but sit around, and from what Luminous told me, you are merely here because she had nopony else to trust.”

“Isn’t that all anypony needs in order to travel with another?” Soarin asked, hoping that it would be enough to satisfy Arcane. However, the umbrum’s gaze only become more soul-piercing from the response.

“Trust does start a bond, but it doesn’t cause something on the level you're trying to tell me you have,” Arcane shot back at the recruit who knew all too well how right he was. “I could tell from first glance how scared and cowardly you are. You may not completely understand why you came here yourself, but you will figure out soon enough. However, until that point I suggest you learn to actually be useful.” As he finished speaking, he started walking away from Soarin, only looking back to throw one last insult at the pegasus. “A princess has no need for a cheerleader such as you.”

As Arcane made his way through the quiet streets of Ponyville, he found himself lost thought as for what to do with Luminous. He had told her about the Tantabus — or ‘Lunar String’ as she continued to refer to it — but not what it really was meant for. He could tell that he knew more about Luminous than she knew about herself, and more about the danger that thing could cause. Arcane Glyph knew that Luna was aware of that danger, and yet she had given it to a pony who was far from capable from understanding how to use it.

“She must be in a worse situation than I originally thought if she would make a mistake like that,” Arcane said to himself taking a minute to look up at the bland, absent sky above him. “Not the first time she has done something like this out of desperation. Heh, guess nothing really has changed since that should-be-corpse came into her life. How desperate could one mare really get?” His muzzle formed a grimace as he thought back on that. “That dragon should’ve stayed as dead as she originally was.”

Of course, he also had to wonder how the Lunar String was even able to attach itself to Luminous. The only possible explanation he could think of was a family member already having part of the Tantabus inside of themselves. Despite how Luminous saw the thing as inanimate, Arcane remembered from time with Luna that the Tantabus was just as alive as the soul it protected. He couldn’t be sure of this, but unless it somehow felt comfortable in the princess’ body, the only way it would separate itself was if somepony else near her also had a part of it.

“If it really did choose Luminous out of comfortability, than she is even more curious than before,” Arcane whispered to himself as looked around, finding Luminous and Silvia talking to each other. “They’re still out and about. I figured they would have already been at that house by this point.”

The constant shivers that went up Moondancer’s spine didn’t help the calm demeanor that Thunder Shield tried to keep up. Neither had had a chance to sleep since they made their way out of the city, and given how late Thunder had woken the archivist up, she was even worse. Even beyond the shivering her movement was frantic, eyes glancing left and right as if expecting the absolute worst. Thunder could hear her breathing, and despite how unstable it was, she was doing better than he expected.

Moondancer had never set a hoof near the city’s entrance, as did most ponies who weren’t traveling merchants. There was a barrier placed over the city at some point which protected ponies inside the walls from the horrors of the wilds and, in the present day to protect Neon and Luminous. The reason why that last part was so specifically made wasn’t known to the public, but Thunder Shield and Moondancer knew too well why. Thunder had faced the same danger himself by being taken in by the sisters’ late mother, who saved her life when she was much younger.

“We’re getting close to wherever Her Highness currently is,” Moondancer informed Thunder Shield, as she was the only one able to see the trail that the pathkeeper spell made. That spell was another reason for her delirium, as she had to recast it every two hours. “At this rate, we should get there before both the pathkeeper and cloaking spell wear off.”

“Good, that means she’s still alive,” Thunder whispered loud enough for Moondancer to hear. “Hopefully we can make it in time before they find her, because if not, then—”

Moondancer wasn’t paying attention to the pony in front of her as she collided into Thunder Shield. Before the archivist could even ask what was going on, Thunder forced her body flat on the ground. Despite that blue essence the pathkeeper spell made, she couldn’t see anything else in the darkness around her. There wasn’t even a breeze around them; the only thing Moondancer could hear was the sound of their own breathing. Not even giving an explanation as to why she did, Thunder Shield quickly jumped back onto his hooves and helped Moondancer do the same.

“What was that for?!” The archivist yelled at her companion. “Didn’t you just say we need to get to her as soon as possible?”

“You may not be able to hear it, but I most certainly did,” Thunder explained, “I heard them; they’re coming for her. We gotta get to wherever Luminous is before they do and hope we can somehow make it out alive.”

“What do you mean? What’s coming for her?” Moondancer questioned.

Moondancer knew Thunder Shield too well for her to not know what this sort of attitude meant. The pegasus was usually one of the calmest ponies in the castle, and the most focused at that. That said, any danger towards Luminous in any form - even if it was something like the point of a fork being too sharp - sent him into a frenzy. The lieutenant had some of the best hearing in Canterlot, and if she had heard something she didn’t that made her this concerned it was definitely a problem.

Thunder’s response to the question was pretty simply because of that. “Paradox Hunters.”

“Here we are,” Silvia said, opening the door expecting for Mister and Missus Dash to be at the front door. She was surprised to see how quiet it had already gotten. “I guess everyone has already gone to sleep.”

“Silvia!” Looking up at the top of the staircase in front of her, she found Rainbow Dash and Ralf standing next to each other, both with smiles on their faces. “You took longer than I expected to get a single pony here. Did something happen?”

“No, everything is fine,” Silvia told Rainbow as the mare started trotting downstairs. “Just wasting some time so that I could introduce you to Luminous.” The wolf moved to the side, letting the wingless pegasi and ex-captain meet each other's eyes for the first time. “Your highness, this is Rainbow Dash. She is the pony I mentioned to you on the way here.”

Luminous held out her hoof, an action that caught Rainbow off guard considering the kind of evening she had been having. Quickly catching herself before she showed a sign of surprise, Rainbow Dash accepted the invitation and shook with Luminous. She was surprised at the big smile that adorn the princess’ face, but none of them were aware of Ralf’s nervousness as he felt something was… off. He could tell that Luminous was a generally nice pony as she and Rainbow made their way past him and upstairs, but watching them walk up gave him even more concern. It wasn’t because the new acquaintance was acting weird, but because he noticed the light blue glow emanating from he and his sister’s bedroom.

As Ralf had run away from the pack before any proper training (something that he did admit to Silvia upon the two meeting each other), he couldn’t sense when a paradox was about. The thing was, a quick glance at Silvia told him something else was wrong. It took a few seconds to fit it all together, but a quick look back upstairs helped him figure it out. The light in their bedroom was off, which means that it couldn’t have been switched back on; the only other thing he could think of that could have glowed in there was the amulet. The problem was that there were only two ways for that glow to activate, and since Silvia was right next to him, that ruled out one of them.

Of course, the reason Silvia was nervous was an entirely different story. Though her dark magic caused many of the things she was trained to do the impossible, like sensing paradoxes, she had learned to sense other things. She had told him that the souls of ponies and wolves had one distinct difference: the former was blue and the latter was purple. Though she didn’t understand why, that did cause her to make many detours during their travels. Ralf knew exactly why, and he knew that Melody wasn’t the only pony in danger right now.

“Ralf,” Silvia said as she looked to her brother, only to find him already looking back. She had realized the exact same thing he had. “Head to Vinyl’s and tell her and Melody to follow you. After that head to the pub, grab the three sitting in the same corner booth we were, and tell them to come as well. Run out of town and take them to someplace, anyplace, that will keep them safe.” The mixture of worry and courage that filled Silvia’s voice as she spoke told him just how urgent this was. “I’ve got something else to do, and don’t worry, Luminous will be safe.”

“What do you mean run away? You know just as much as I do what these wolves want,” Ralf barked at his sister. “We have more than Melody’s life on the line and—”

“You want to do this now?” Silvia asked her brother. “I don’t care if Luminous is a paradox or not, because I am not killing royalty.”

Realizing that her sister had already made up her mind, Ralf nodded and headed through the door. Once he was gone Silvia ran upstairs, first rushing to her room and grabbing her amulet. As she placed it over her neck the light started to fade away as she could manually control it’s magic. She next looked to the book that laid on the bed and put it back in the bag, deciding it best to not ask why it was even out. As she finished Silvia turned to make her way to Rainbow’s room, only for her and Luminous to be looking right at her.

“Silvia… that headache Luminous had as she turned the corner,” Rainbow said, reminding the wolf of how completely wrong she had been back at the pub. “Please don’t tell me that means…”

“Now isn’t the time to talk about that,” Silvia said as she walked up to them. “We have bigger problems, and I need her to come with me… now.”

Author's Note

I really want to thank Okemos Brony for what has been done for this story recently. He helped out a lot with editing and his review on Reviewers Café really helped me realize how much I had to fix and what I was doing wrong. This chapter is easily the best looking chapter in the story and it has a lot to do with his help.