Compatī

I spent the night in Twilight’s room. We talked about a lot of things. Life, love, and, eventually, Luna.

I drew the conversation out beforehand. Even with Starlight’s suggestion and the fact I knew it had to happen, I struggled to work up the courage. But even though I finally ponied up and told her a few things, I still chickened out on others.

I did tell her the big thing, though, and really, the hardest part was seeing Twilight the morning after—the way she looked at Luna with hesitation instead of pity. I didn’t know how to feel about it.

On one end, good. Someone else saw her for the monster she was. On the other, though, I took something from Twilight. I stole an innocence, an unbiased trust she could never get back. The thought made me sick to my stomach.

But it couldn’t be helped. At least now somebody knew what I was dealing with.

“So,” Starlight said as we prepared for another dream dive. “We ready?” She directed a smile at me, the kind where she made sure she listened specifically to me. Something about it said she might have guessed what happened last night.

“Yeah,” I said.

Twilight was already marking up a new chalk circle. With how much energy coursed through the spell, the circle needed redoing each time we dream dived or else it could fall apart pretty violently.

“Ready over here,” she said.

Star Swirl stepped in from the hallway. “I’m here. I’m here. I—” He let out a big yawn. “—I will prepare the…”

He stared at the circle Twilight just finished drawing. “I must have slept in later than I thought.”

“Don’t worry,” Twilight said. “We got this. Everything’s good to go.” She turned to me. “Whenever you’re ready.”

I took a deep breath. I wasn’t ready—I probably never would be—but that was par for the course. I noticed Twilight’s smile looked kind of like Starlight’s, that empathetic “you really don’t have to do this” look. But I had to, especially now after the whole Tantabus thing.

If I wasn’t pussing out on fixing one mistake, I was busy causing another. I sat down on my end of the circle, opposite Luna.

Her face had a strangely vacant expression. Usually, she had some sort of look about her, be it a smile or a twinge of worry. But now that she lived inside me, her empty body looked just that… empty.

I remembered what she said last night, that the Nightmare intended to overtake her body and come into the real world.

I couldn’t run away now. I had to fix what I broke.

I closed my eyes and lowered my nose to my chest. A slow breath in through my nose, let it fill my lungs to the bottom, and hold.

The windchime sound of magic tickled my ear, and I felt it ripple down my body like rainfall. My mane floated upward as if I were suddenly deep underwater, and when I opened my eyes, I was back in the dream world.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when I entered. Maybe something violent and scary, or the same surreal blurriness I saw the first time I entered. But there was quite literally nothing to see in this void of a dream. Just me and the darkness.

“Greetings, Sunset Shimmer,” came a voice.

The hairs shot up on the back of my neck, and I spun around, horn flared with the first spell I could think of: Fireball, a classic off Professor Phoenix Flare’s “do not use” list.

Luna stood about three lengths away. Unlike her empty face in the real world, she wore a searching look here, as if trying to see what was going on in my head.

I let my spell fizzle, but kept it at a low simmer at the base of my horn, just in case. “What are you doing here?”

“You are in my dream, and I, as I currently exist, am bound to you.”

“Do you want to be here?” It was a strange question, I had to admit, but the way she spoke so distantly got me curious.

“Of course,” she said without missing a beat. “As I said before, the safety of my subjects is paramount.”

Yeah. Just like mine was. I left her with a glare instead of saying that.

“I know you do not wish for me to be here, but our goal is one and the same.”

“To never have to see your face again? Yeah, I’m all for that.”

She stared at me in what looked like an attempt at stoicism, but a vague tightness to her features spelled out that lie for what it was. “We will proceed when you are ready,” she said finally.

“Then proceed.”

She started as if she meant to follow, but I made sure to keep her in sight. I still hadn’t let go of that spell, not for a good while longer.

We walked through the emptiness in silence for what felt like an hour. Little motes of firelight floated past us in the dark—the first sign that we were anywhere at all other than some gaping nothingness. They bobbed and flickered on a listless wind only they could feel.

It was like walking through a swamp at night and seeing all the will-o’-wisps come out, like in the stories I read as a foal. Something about how they led hapless ponies into inescapable mires or other boggy spots inhabited by cragodiles or arbormaws. Plus, it felt like we were heading down a slope, which, if I knew anything about dreams and symbolism, was a big red flag.

It went on for a while, and the continued silence both irritated and comforted me. I half wanted to argue with Luna, make sure she knew exactly how I felt about our arrangement, and the other half didn’t want anything to do with her.

“Fate is a fickle mistress,” Luna said as if reading the first half of that thought.

“Don’t start that shit with me,” I spat. “Fate didn’t ruin my life.”

Luna seemed to contemplate my words. “I do not deny my overbearing role in what transpired, Sunset. What I speak of is the opportunity fate has set before us. It is strange indeed that she would conspire to bring us together.”

“What are you talking about? Again, that was you. I don't care if Twilight’s the one who talked me into this. You’re the one who brought it up with her. I know her, and I know you. Don’t fucking act like you didn't take advantage of her kindness.”

“That is decidedly not the case, Sun—”

“Bullshit.”

“Please. Allow me to speak.”

“After all the lies you shoved in my face back then? I don’t see why I should believe a word you say. Stop talking to me.”

That sat sour between us for a long time. It was probably only a few seconds, but the way she stared at me could have been its own eternity.

“I have been nothing but—”

“I said stop talking to me.”

“Sunset, I am trying—”

I rounded on her. “No. I don’t care what you’re trying to do. I don’t care what you want or what you think. The only reason I’m here right now is because if I wasn’t, Twilight would be, and I couldn’t live with myself if she got hurt doing this. But you can fuck off and die for all I care.”

I turned back ahead. It was a long while before the sound of hooves started up behind me. I had told myself I wouldn’t let her out of my sight, but goddamnit, I couldn’t stand to look at her.

We went on in silence for about another hour. The downward slope never changed, though the atmosphere seemed to get darker, like a shadow had fallen over the darkness itself. It wasn’t until the air felt clammy that Luna’s hoofsteps stopped beside me.

“Wait,” she said.

I did. I didn’t give a damn about her or what she thought, but her tone of voice said I should pay attention anyway.

“’Tis a threshold,” she said. She looked around, her eyes searching for something beyond the darkness.

“What do you mean a threshold?”

“I sense it. Here.” She pointed a wing at the ground beneath her hooves. “I do not know what lies beyond. But we should take care before we continue.”

I didn’t know what to say. Part of me felt this was just one of her mind games, a reason to start up the conversation again. Caution played in her favor, though. I remembered how the Nightmare could fuck with my dreams, and that hesitation pulled back on the reins.

“So then what?” I asked.

“We steel ourselves. For battle, illusion, something.” She raised a hoof and set it down across her imaginary line. We flicked our ears back and forth, straining for a sound. I could hear the blood running through my veins.

And nothing.

“So much for that,” I said.

“Patience. The darkness knows not the passage of time. Mortality is its own arrogance.”

“The hell’s that supposed to mean?”

But then I felt it. That pinprick on the back of my neck. A sense of impending doom, eyes watching from all around yet nowhere.

Something rose from the darkness ahead. I couldn’t tell what shape it took, but I recognized those glowing white eyes.

Luna leapt in front of me, wings fanned, her horn already glowing. “Stand fast. We slay this beast here and now.”

I readied my own Flamethrower Spell at the base of my horn. From the few times I tried fighting off the Nightmare in my own dreams, it hated fire more than anything.

The Nightmare came forward, its steps shapeless and silent, and it whispered incoherent, overlapping words in the back of my head that made my skin crawl.

Luna guided me back onto our side of the threshold, either thinking it wouldn’t cross or to use as a line in the sand.

When it reached the threshold, it flashed forward as if fired from a railgun. I dove sideways, feeling it shave off the tip of my tail.

Luna had leapt the opposite way, and when I was done tumbling into an ungraceful heap she had already pivoted and fired off a bolt of lightning. It snarled along the ground, sending up a line of smoke and the stink of ozone.

The Nightmare split in two to let it pass between. Like some unholy miasma, it hovered in the air for a moment before congealing into a lightless mass on the ground.

As if emerging from a swamp, its leopard-like head rose to greet us with soulless white eyes. Ears as sharp as horns took shape atop its skull, pointed forward, toward me. Out reached one, then another shadowy protrusion that twisted into the grotesque suggestion of muscle and paw to pull the rest of its lithe, muscular form from the nothingness. It curled back its lips to show off footlong fangs that glistened with malice, and a low growl rolled out from its throat.

My legs went weak, but I gritted my teeth and mustered my Flamethrower Spell to blast a gout of fire in its face. I must have been more off my game than I thought, though. It didn’t even flinch as the flames rolled across its body.

“Submit, demon!” Luna shouted from above, and a streak of blue magic came screaming down from on high before either me or the Nightmare could look up.

The Nightmare leapt backward just before the blast landed, and I had to brace myself against the shockwave that nearly sat me back on my ass, even from this distance. The heat from the explosion brought a flash sweat to my face, followed by a sudden chill in its absence.

Luna landed beside me, her horn preparing another spell. “I will not command thee again. Submit!”

Well behind its side of the threshold, the Nightmare lowered its head. Its body wavered like a heat mirage on the distant horizon, and when it crouched low, it seemed to lose its shape.

It came at us in that indistinct, four-legged shape, but before coming within range of our spells, it swan-dived into the earth to become like a black puddle crawling along the ground.

I didn’t know what to do. What did I hit something like that with? My Flamethrower hadn’t even fazed it. What did—

The earth heaved as if a bomb had detonated just below the surface.

A massive, rhinoceros-like thing surged out from the flying debris and shook the earth with its landing. With legs like tree trunks, it stampeded toward us, and its mouth split impossibly from one side of its body to the other to reveal row upon row of teeth the size of my head. Every raging step it took was an earthquake that tried shaking me from my hooves as it barreled closer.

I liked to think I was a brave pony. I had faced off against Sirens, stopped rampaging magic from tearing apart the universe. But as this behemoth came within spitting distance, its mouth twisting and opening up wide enough to swallow me whole, all I could do was tremble.

My hooves went limp, I collapsed to the ground, and I all too suddenly felt the world lurch underneath me as a heavy force smashed into my side.

I tumbled maybe a dozen feet before coming to a stop, and when I gathered my bearings, I saw Luna’s body bent and mangled between its jaws. Feathers fell in tufts from a wing twitching helplessly between its teeth. Blood ran in little rivulets down its jaw to pitter patter on the ground. Her eyes were on me.

“Leave,” Luna said. Her voice came out raspy and strained, like every muscle in her body tried and failed to hold together. There was fear in her eyes. “Leave.”

“I…” was all I could get out.

“Now!”

The Nightmare’s jaws clamped down another inch, and Luna’s screams couldn’t drown out the symphony of splintering bone.

The blood. So much blood. I felt the warm spray on my face.

A surge of bile rose up in my mouth, and I choked on the acidic taste. I couldn’t see anything anymore, couldn’t catch my balance, couldn’t hear anything but her screaming.

I managed to light my horn, and I felt myself falling upward as everything around me faded away. I passed through a film of some sort, like really thin curtains, and the weight of the world disappeared.

I drifted through nothingness for what could have either been a second or an eternity. My brain was in standby.

A sense of some unknowable existence threaded in around me like a sweater being knit while I wore it, and all too suddenly I realized who I was and what just happened.

“Luna!” I screamed. I opened my eyes, but the world swam in colors like unstirred paint. I reached out, and something hard touched me on the shoulder.

Teeth.

I screamed and backhanded it as hard as I could. A sharp pain shot up the little bones of my pastern, but I didn’t care. I shifted my hips to square up a kick that would send that shapeless monster back to whatever hell it came from.

A strange sound thwumped in my ears—it was the only way I could describe it—and some small fraction of my brain recognized it as magic, an illusion-class spell. The rest of me felt some common sense leak back into my head, along with the reasoning to slow down and take stock of my surroundings. I could practically feel my eyes dilate, and my lungs finally decided to open up, letting me breathe in the deep, sucking gasp I needed so badly.

“Sunset!” A pair of hooves grabbed my cheeks, and Twilight’s face was inches from me.

Oh, I was so happy to see her I could have kissed her. I hugged her tight and never wanted to let go.

“Sunset, it’s okay,” she said. She smoothed out the fur of my cheeks and down to my shoulders. “Whatever it was, it’s gone now. You’re safe.”

“What happened?” Starlight asked. She had a cup of water in her magic waiting for me. She rubbed a red mark swelling up on her cheek, and a pang of guilt shot through me.

“What happened to Luna?” Star Swirl asked from the opposite side of the chalk circle. He struggled to his hooves, the strain of maintaining the spell probably harder on him than he let on.

I took a deep breath. As much as I wanted to keep holding Twilight, I knew they all had plenty of questions, all of which I felt obligated to answer.

“Luna’s…” I swallowed the lump in my throat and sucked in another breath. I hated her guts, but the shock of actually seeing it happen punched a hole through my psyche like a fist through drywall. “Luna’s dead.”

Silence fell on the room.

“What do you mean she’s dead!?” Star Swirl roared. He stormed up to me, eyes and horn ablaze. “Look me in the eye when you speak such blasphemy!”

“Star Swirl, Star Swirl!” Twilight grabbed him by the cloak, but it didn’t do shit for slowing him down.

I backed up onto my haunches and almost fell over backwards for how he got nose to nose with me. “I—”

“Luna is a master of the Dreamscape,” he shouted. “The dream realm bends to her will. There is no way in Tartarus she would—”

“Star Swirl!” Twilight yanked on his cloak hard enough to spin him around. She set him with a stern glare. “Let her explain.”

Star Swirl raised his chin, and I could tell a silent war of words crossed between them. When he turned around, I saw more worry in his eyes than anger.

I took a deep breath and hugged myself. I had chills running all up and down my spine that I couldn’t shake.

“We traveled. Down. Down this invisible slope. It was dark, and it felt like the air itself was pressing in like we were underwater.”

I put a hoof to my head to steady myself. I couldn’t get the image out of my mind. The screams, the sounds. So much blood.

“We… We got to what felt like a gateway or like a line in the sand. I don’t know. There was nothing there, but Luna told me to stop. And I felt this… this feeling, like this sense of impending doom. Like when the hair stands up on the back of your neck and the darkness has eyes you can’t see.”

Starlight, Twilight, and Star Swirl gathered in front of me. Twilight put a hoof on mine, and the touch broke me down enough that I couldn’t keep the tears from coming out.

“And the Nightmare. It… came at us, and we fought it some. But then it changed. It changed into this giant rhino, hippo, bull thing I’ve never seen before, and… and…

“Luna pushed me out of the way. I think that’s what happened. But her magic wasn’t strong enough to stop it, and it grabbed her.” I tried wiping the imaginary blood off my face, but it wouldn’t come.

Why was I crying? Why in the actual fuck was I crying? She stepped in front. She chose to die like that. Just like I told her. She wanted to repay me for what she did, and good riddance.

So why couldn’t I stop crying?

And as if the universe wasn't finished bending me over the metaphorical table, the latch clicked on the hallway door behind me.

I wasn’t sure who I expected to walk through that door when I turned to look, but I knew who I didn’t expect. The longer I stared, the harder my brain ground its heels into the dirt and refused to believe.

I refused to believe the pristine white coat. I refused to believe the unforgettable, regal smile that carried with it a ray of sunshine even into this darkened corner of existence. I refused to believe the flowing mane and all its pretty, perfect pastels. But most of all, I refused to believe the happiness I saw in those eyes, the very same eyes that last looked down upon me with scorn and condemned me to the hell of the last seven years, and her name crystallized on the tip of my tongue: Princess Celestia.

Upon seeing all of us, her smile warped into a concerned frown. “What happened? Is everypony oka—

“Where the fuck have you been?” I yelled.

I didn’t pick those words. They just sort of tumbled out.

I had planned for years what I would say to Celestia when we eventually met—no small amount of apologies, the things I’d learned in my absence, heartfelt stuff like that. Every time I thought of seeing her again, my heart pounded in my chest and my throat closed up. I never figured out the exact words, only the feelings.

But there in the silence of the portal room with the imaginary blood of the pony I hated most on my face, all I felt was rage. The silence that had fallen over us cinched up like a noose, even the perfect decorum I remembered so distinctly about Celestia buckling within its stranglehold.

It was too much.

I stormed past her and shouldered open the door. Nobody tried stopping me. I assumed they were a little too shell-shocked themselves. I got halfway down the hall before a little voice popped into my head.

Stop running away, you little bitch.

I ground to a halt. The hallway lay silent, and I couldn’t block out the voice of reason that decided now of all times to fuck me over.

This was my fault. I messed up, and now Luna was dead. Someone died because I was too much of a chicken shit.

My breathing sped up, and I felt the muscles in my legs tense as if ready for someone to punch me. Sunset Shimmer didn’t fail, but what the hell was I supposed to call what just happened?

I knew the answer before the voice even spoke up. Falling down wasn’t failing; refusing to get back up was. I had to get back in there. The day still needed saving.

It’s just… what was I supposed to do? This wasn’t a simple “keep calm and carry on” situation. This was life or death, with all of Equestria and possibly the human world on the line. I couldn’t do this. Not with that… that thing waiting for me, that whatever-the-fuck the Nightmare was capable of becoming now that it was sucking the life out of the Tantabus. It was getting hard to breathe.

At least Luna tried.

The tightness in my chest reached a breaking point. I screamed at the top of my lungs; mustered every last drop of magic I could to my horn; and unloaded all my frustration, all my anger, all my sense of abandonment into the crystal wall beside me. I screamed as loud as my lungs would let me as I carved a fierce gouge from floor to ceiling. It oozed downward in glowing molten chunks hot enough to get a sweat going on my brow, and the effort of it all had me shaking.

The swath of molten crystal cooled to a blackened, charcoal-like luster, like someone had melted a box of crayons together. I took a deep, shaking breath to compose myself. When I let it out, I was calm, tranquil, at peace. Breathe in, breathe out. I headed back.

I thought that calm would last, but I hadn’t planned on Celestia coming out to check on me. Not alone, anyway.

Before I let any more memorable quotes tumble out of me, I took a moment to size her up. Her beauty always stopped me short—that tall slenderness that never failed to draw all the attention in a room—but the way her eyes danced back and forth looking into mine said way more about how worried she was than the thin line her lips made.

“What?” I said.

Her eyes went past me to the wall over my shoulder. “Are you feeling better?”

A pause. “What do you care?”

I didn’t know what else to say. I looked down and scuffed at the floor. The silence between us said she probably wanted to do the same, but I knew her well enough that she wouldn’t show that kind of weakness. Hesitation wasn’t her strong suit.

“I’m glad to see you again,” she said.

It was genuine. I could tell that much. The barest hint of worry hung in the way she said it, though. Even after all these years, I could still pick up on that. She was nervous about how I felt. And why shouldn’t she be? I hadn’t exactly left on the best of terms.

“Twilight has told me a lot about you,” she said. “What you’ve been up to.”

“You mean fucking everything up? Yeah, I’ve been pretty good at that lately.”

“I meant making the friends I had hoped you would.” Something in her eyes tried its hardest not to show my language bothered her. Not that I hadn’t already set that precedent back in the portal room.

“Yeah. That didn’t turn out how either of us hoped, did it?”

“Sometimes things don’t turn out how we want them to, but like a sapling from a forest fire, there is still beauty to be found in the end, and bigger and better things wait for us on the horizon.”

That was a carefully measured speech, even for her. Sounded like she’d been waiting to use that one for a while. Still, she wasn’t wrong.

“I’m sorry,” I finally said. “I didn’t deserve to be your student. I was the furthest thing from it.”

“There is nothing for you to be sorry for, Sunset. I made you my student because you were deserving of it. I wouldn’t have taken you on if you hadn’t been. I, on the other hoof, should have been more attentive to what you were going through.”

“Except you were. You tried to warn me, you tried to stop me. And…” I looked down, ashamed. “And I didn’t listen.”

I gave a tiny laugh and shook my head, then said weakly, “You warned me exactly what would happen. And then it did.”

“That doesn't put you at fault, Sunset. Falling for whatever lies she fed you and what you did as a direct result of them is not your fault.”

The lies she fed me. If that wasn't the understatement of the century, I didn’t know what was. This wasn't just some insignificant “oh, woe is me” bullshit.

Luna didn't simply feed me lies, she shoveled them down my throat. And by god, I consumed them—so completely, so wholeheartedly—until they consumed me. No matter the circumstances, I chose to follow through on them, and just… Celestia didn't get that. Nobody got that.

I didn’t have the energy to fight her on it, though, but thankfully the look on her face said she had no intention of pushing that line any further.

She followed through on that sentiment with another moment’s silence, punctuated by an errant flit of her wings. Seemed she wanted me to pick the conversation up again, but I honestly had nothing to say. I had already worked through how I felt about us and what I had done, how I had failed her. Seven years could do that to even the densest pony like me.

Seven years… How in the fuck did this conversation feel so… normal?

Sure, what we were talking about was anything but, but the tone of our conversation hardly felt… I didn’t know. It didn’t feel right. It felt, what was the word… incongruent?

Fuck, I couldn’t think straight. I wiped away tears I just now realized ran down my face. The motion brought back the feeling of blood and with it the crunch and screams. I broke down crying all over again.

A gentle hoof brushed back my mane. I jerked away on instinct and shot Celestia a glare.

She pulled back, her ears falling to the wayside. “I’m sorry. I remember that being something you loved.”

“Yeah, well, someone else happily ruined that for you.” I couldn’t stand this conversation anymore. It felt too awkwardly normal and… just, not the way it was supposed to feel. I headed for the portal room. “And now she’s dead. So who’s laughing now.”

She let me get all the way to the door before driving one last knife through my heart: “He’s doing better, by the way.”

I shut my eyes and forced myself to not fall apart again. I knew exactly who she was talking about, and I didn’t need to think about that right now. Three breakdowns was enough for one day.

Celestia waited a good two seconds for me to answer, but I was too busy keeping it in. “He’s walking again,” she added.

I swallowed. Somehow, I managed to keep the tremors out of my voice when I said, “That’s good.”

Just as I put my hoof on the doorknob: “He forgives you, Sunset. He wanted you to know that.”

That did it. I squeezed my eyes shut and willed myself to breathe. I was not crying. I was not crying. A quick sniffle, and I pushed through the door.

The others looked on in a mixture of sympathy and curiosity, and it was the worst goddamn thing. I hated it when people looked at me like that. Even Twilight’s little smile got me sick to my stomach. I just… I couldn’t.

She put a hoof on my shoulder, but as much as I couldn’t stand it, I was also afraid to pull away. She was reaching out to me on an emotional level that I didn’t deserve, but I also didn’t have the right to refuse. All I could do was stare back into her eyes and let her believe she was helping.

“I’m glad you’re safe,” she said.

I had already primed a “yeah, I’m fine” on the tip of my tongue, but I hadn’t expected something so radically different, something so… fundamental.

Words failed me. I fell into her hooves and hugged her as tight as I could.

She held me like a mother would, her hoof rubbing up and down my back. We stayed like that for a long time, only letting go when I was ready. When our eyes met, she gave me that same little smile of hers from a moment ago, and it suddenly felt like… like everything really was going to be okay.

“You should go get some rest,” Twilight finally said. “You’ve been through a lot.”

I stopped to consider that, but I also knew myself. If I took a break now, I wouldn’t have the willpower to go back. Objects in motion and all that. I pushed past her.

Luna or not, I needed to get back in there and do my job. I couldn’t let Twilight take my place, not with that thing waiting for her.

It wasn’t until Star Swirl of all ponies stepped up to me. He wore a look that danced between anxiety and concern. I couldn’t tell if it was for my sake or Luna’s.

“Go get rest,” he said. “You are in no state to continue.”

“And what state do I have to be in to continue?” I wanted that to come out more forcefully, but the truth was I didn’t even have the energy.

I sighed. They were right. I was being stupid and stubborn. This would only end up with me fucking something else up.

“Sorry,” I said. “You’re right. I’ll just… Yeah.”

I slumped out of the room, numb to all the eyes trained on me. I didn’t know what I should have felt.

Part of me was happy that thing got Luna. Part of me retched at the thought I could believe something like that. And another felt so overwhelmed to the point of apathy. What was the point of it all?

If I were to go back in there, it’d mean needing the right state of mind, which meant…

Which meant running away like a little bitch. The same way I solved all my problems lately.

I couldn’t even get mad at that. My earlier temper tantrum sucked all the energy out of me. I was too tired to be angry.

Whatever. I trudged through the castle. I didn’t bother looking at that scar I left in the wall outside the portal room. It would only rekindle everything I just got over freaking out about.

I collapsed into bed without bothering to shut the door. With nothing to block out the thoughts in my head, I went back to that moment—that disgusting, unthinkable moment—and the sounds and screams and…

That should have been me.

I didn’t want it to be. God, it terrified me enough just seeing it happen. But it would have gotten me, if not for Luna.

Why the hell would she do something like that? Did she really think that it counted for or amounted to anything? Was that enough to make up for what she did? I didn’t even know anymore. What sort of standard existed for something like this?

I thought of the classical Lady Justice, blindfolded with her scales held out for the world to see. I scoffed at myself. Justice was why I ran away in the first place.

It just… it didn’t feel right. The scales were imbalanced. Something was missing from the equation, and the more I thought about it, the more I hated everything about the situation.

I was done with it all and just wanted to sleep without dreaming for once in my life. I wanted to forget about Luna and enjoy the fact she was dead and would never bother me again.

So why was I still crying?