The Ghosts of the Past

2000 Years Ago

So far, the entirety of his legs had succumbed to, whatever this was, and it had spread across most of his torso. He knew that most of his organs including his heart and lungs were now nothing but crystal, if even that; but strangely he hardly noticed their absence, the only noticable change was no longer needing to breathe. That was... disconcerting, but he currently had a more pressing issue.

He was too exhausted to stop the transformation, if such a thing were even possible, and he knew that his mind would soon follow his body.

The change spread to his mane and tail; halting their ethereal breeze, as had never been done before. His wings had also succumbed to the alteration, each feather now a work of art. The strangest thing was that the crystallisation was not painful, it was more like... an anaesthetic that moved up his body.; it didn't hurt, it just, stopped being.

Now his neck had changed, with his muzzle doubtless soon to follow. The most peculiar thing was, despite his impending doom, his greatest urge was to record this in his journal. Ah well, a wasted oppurtunity. Nothing more could be done than wait for the inevitable.

As it spread across his eyes, something occured to him. It would seem that fate had a sense of humour, his spell HAD worked, he DID now have the crystal he had strived so hard to create. The bitter irony was that it was going to be HIM. He would have laughed, had his mouth not been frozen.

As his horn was consumed, he thought about the black humour of it all. To think, the perfect gift for his sister, a life-size, realistic crystal statue of himself.

The last part of his horn turned from dull grey to a dark blue as all his thoughts ended, and he began what would best be described as hibernation.

Present Day

The museum had handed over the statue the day following its unveiling. Admittedly the curator had been, less than eager, but he had quickly changed his mind. Luna had that way with ponies when she was like she was now, a conflicted mess of emotions that could barely understand what 'rational action' was, let alone practice it. After all, her Royal Canterlot Voice was intimidating at the best of times; when she was as she was currently, it could cow any pony and was proven to bring even the strongest, most stoic of guards to their knees at 100 paces.

With that, plus some more... controlled intervention by Celestia, the statue had been moved from the museum into the palace. It was now stored in a subterranean room, one that was designated as 'storage' but as the castle was so large, it had yet to have anything stored in it besides dust. It was in this room that Luna had devoted every moment she could spare to finding out if she truly wasn't mad, that she really hadn't imagined it.

The infuriating thing was that so far, all her efforts to inspire communication had failed. Come-to-life? Nothing. Empathy? Zip. Telepathy? Nothing had worked, and she was steadily losing faith in her own sanity. Celestia had gently asked her if she wasn't overreacting, if she was grasping at straws. But Luna knew that this couldn't be a coincidence, the statue was far too well crafted to have been made by any pony she had ever heard of, and that was saying a lot. Besides that, Terra was literally NOT in history books; he had never entered recorded history and thus there would be no image to base it off, that meant that if it HAD been sculpted, it would have had to have been done with him actually posing as a model. And Luna knew in her heart that her brother would never be so self centred to actually commission or even agree to a statue being made of himself, and even if he had, he would never have kept it from his sisters.

Luna knew Celestia was worried about her; if their roles were reversed she would most certainly be worried about Tia, but right now she didn't really care. She had a chance of getting her brother back, and nothing was going to stop her from pursuing it.

Luna couldn't figure out why she had heard him before, all attempts to allow conversation since had failed. Then, she realised something. She had been so preoccupied with finding a spell that she had skipped what could be the most important step: scanning the damn thing. She almost facehoofed at her own negligence and oversight.

The spell was a simple one, requiring little effort or skill. She prepared to cast it, internally laughing at her own ignorance and hopeful that this would reveal the secrets she sought.

Luna could honestly say that she was not expecting what happened.

Celestia came down to the chamber, she had not seen her sister in a good many hours and had decided that she should come down personally to remind her to pace herself; she could not blame Luna, her sister had still not come fully to terms with the loss of Terra, and being locked away with only herself for company on the moon for a thousand years had most assuredly not helped the matter. She didn't blame Luna, but she was worried that she was becoming a bit... obsessed.

When she entered the chamber, it was completely dark. That was very strange, since the torches were powered by a simple spell, or failing that by simple flint and tinder. As she lit some of the torch sconces, a very disconcerting sight met her eyes.

Luna was apparently doing a perfect imitation of the statue, completely still and staring vacantly into space.

"Luna? Are you alright?" Celestia asked, worry clearly evident in her tone. When Luna didn't respond or even give any reaction, it only stoked the fire of her fear. Celestia walked over to where her sister was standing in absolute silence.

As she got closer, she saw that Luna's eyes had become glassy, as though she was focusing on a point beyond physical comprehension. What was even more worrying than that however, was that her younger sibling was making absolutely no movement or sound whatsoever. She was barely breathing, her heart rate had slowed, she wasn't blinking either. These things were not overly dangerous to an alicorn, their inherent magical abilities enabled them to exist without such, well, 'mortal trappings'; if only for a time.

Her worry increasing exponentially, Celestia had to resist the urge to violently shake her sister, instead sating her panic by firmly nudging Luna. That is to say, she sharply struck her sister with her shoulder.

Much to Celestia's relief, Luna immediately snapped out of her trance at the physical touch. She looked around, apparently somewhat bewildered as to how long she had been there and where Celestia had come from.

"Celestia!? W-What happened? I was just scanning him then..." Her eyes shot open as she remembered what she had experienced. "Tia! Quickly, scan him!"

"Luna, what are you going on ab-" That was as far as Celestia got before her sister started to push her towards the statue.

"I'm sure this time sister! Just trust me on this!" Luna's voice was quickly growing even more excited at the prospect of... whatever she had gone through being seen by Celestia.

Celestia sighed. She knew that when Luna got like this it was just much simpler to go along with whatever she was so worked up about.

Luna, sensing her sister's resignation, redoubled her efforts and quickly pushed her close to the statue.

Soon enough, they were once again right in front of it. Celestia could really now see that it was, oddly enough, larger than her. Significantly larger even; it stood almost three inches higher even without a pedastal. In fact, now that she thought about it, it hadn't been on one in the museum either. How very odd for such an old statue, surely the carver must have been even a bit concerned about it falling?

But then, all thoughts of that kind were banished, along with any higher thinking when Luna suddenly yelled in her ear, "You need to scan him!"

Sparing a moment to glare at her sibling, she decided she might as well; after all, what was the harm?

As she cast the spell, Celestia thought about Luna's recent obsessive behaviour. But then, she wasn't really to blame. It had been two thousand years since they last saw Terra, and though Celestia had been able to at least somewhat come to terms with the loss thanks to the constant distraction from being Equestria's ruler; Luna had been locked away on the moon for a thousand years. That kind of time alone tends to bring up things better left forgotten, such as the sudden disappearance of one of the ponies she loved most (not forgetting that Luna was doubtless rather... angry, to put it mildly, at Celestia for trapping her there), so seeing as near-perfect recreation of him would be difficult to handle. Celestia herself was having trouble coping, so this must be hellish torment for Luna.

Regardless, the spell was now ready, so she cast it, wondering just what could have Luna so excited.

She quickly discovered the reason why.

A.N. I think I'm getting into a bad habit with these cliffhangers; regardless, I am continuing to work on this, and I will not cease until it is complete, or some disaster befalls me and renders me incapable of continuing.

Expect semi-frequent updates, and as always, Peace out.

CD