The research has been going as smooth as possible, considering we can’t touch the problem or risk infection. It’s been three years and five months. We visit the ponies in their dreams as often as we can, and maintain our duties; but the addition of our sister’s role has made me feel as if far more time has passed.
This must have been what it was like for Celly while I was on the moon. I’m not sure if I can handle this as well as she did, but we must. We must take on both her role and ours, for Celly’s sake. If only the rain hadn’t turned her into a carrier of this accursed thing. If she were able to assist as well, the solution would have been found at least a year ago. Or perhaps we are wrong. Maybe our sister would have had as much luck as we and the others have.
Still, it would be nice to have her by our side at least. It gets lonely, being the only princess in the castle. So very lonely, to be alone in a crowd. Not to mention the nobility can be more difficult than the infection itself. Sometimes I wonder why Celly had to go and save them too. Now she sits in isolation, and why?
Because those filthy aristocratic piles of horse dung refused to leave until the last moment. Delaying the entire evacuation for simple treasures that we now know would not have been harmed at all.
The Rain only harms higher level sentient lifeforms. We don’t know why, nor do the scientists working with us. What we do know however means that those accursed blue blooded selfish ponies with fancy titles caused our sister to be infected for nothing! Normal animals can carry the vectors, yet the infection rarely kills them unless the disease is highly concentrated. The pathogen naturally clears itself from non high level sentient animals, and generally does no harm.
So that Lady Floral Crown could have not wasted time searching for her Fluffykins, an overly groomed tiny dog that quite frankly seems to hate the mare. Not that I blame the poor pet. The time wasted dealing with nobility who refused to make way for civilians, could have been used to save thousands of lives. Lives now lost forever due to those petulant aristocrats. If only the old laws were still in effect, we could exact a blood price from those horrendous horses....I may need to go calm down.
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Where was I journal? Where were we?
Ah yes, the cost of noble buffoonery.
The losses Canterlot suffered to The Rain were largely due to the nobility refusing to act as nobles should. They caused my sister to be forced to go out into the main city, and attempt to save as many lives as she could. Because Nopony could get in due to the aristocrats blocking the gateways and streets to the palace. My sister saved as many citizens as she could, and in the process created the five Rain Barrier zones she still maintains from her isolation. Within these powerful shields are the survivors who couldn’t make it to the palace. Mostly the lower and middle class, or the few impoverished that still exist despite Celestia and Our best efforts to lift them up from the gutters.
Celly, she flew through the oncoming storm maintaining an ever glowing shield of sunlight that held the storm at bay buying precious time. Slowly though, the rain pushed back made its way through. In time, it flooded the streets of Canterlot with a torrent of tainted tears from the clouds above. Those who couldn’t move closer to the palace in time, ended up hiding under whatever shelter they could. Celestia, my beloved sister, she found and retrieved as many of Our ponies as she could. Of course more often than not she was far too late, this was silently spoken the constant tears staining her once picturesque face. Yet she still carried on, flying, shielding, and teleporting all she could manage to find or rescue to safety.
Those Rain Barrier zones started as a place to teleport ponies to so they could await rescue. Unfortunately the nobles who had made it to the palace, curse their souls to Tartarus for the lives lost due their gluttonous selfish actions, protested loudly against bring the remaining survivors here. They argued that those poor ponies might bring the sickness here, that foul death for which we still have no cure. It was agreed that my sister and I would decide what to do later, together, in an open forum once all survivors had been found. Sadly this was not to be, and to this day those ponies remain within domes of golden light visible from the castle towers. Their only protection from the death outside being my sisters magic, so long as it holds they live. The survivors within the castle are made up of only those who made it before the rains hit, and the nobles.
Why did the public forum never come to be? Well, that itself is the saddest and most terrible part of this whole disaster.
For all her power, all her time, and all her magic; our sister couldn’t maintain resistance to the infection. It kicked in right as she was rescuing a young mare, the poor girl barely out of fillyhood died horribly in her hooves. The moment that happened, she teleported into an ancient basement room meant to isolate magical and mundane pathogens, and put up a final shield. That she even thought to build such a room speaks to our sisters for-thought. She hasn’t left the room since, staying instead in self imposed isolation to protect everypony from what she now carries.
Any ponies that could have been saved before that moment, the moment she became a carrier for the pathogen; were doomed to a horrible agonizing death afterwards. We try not to think about the screams that echoed for weeks from below. Or worse, the nightmares our dying ponies endured as the pathogen slowly ate away at the unlucky ones who didn’t pass immediately. It was something that nopony should ever be forced to endure. The screams, I sometimes think they are still echoing out there in the streets. Like ghosts or wraiths of the dead, haunting Canterlot in the shadows of the clouds and pattering of raindrops.
A good three quarters of Canterlot’s citizens now lie moldering and rotting in the streets. For all her efforts, so many still died. The domes still hold, shimmering orbs in the once vibrant city filled with corpses and bones. The only stars of life left outside those here in the castle. We know some of what goes on in the Rain Barriers, the ponies within are surviving and have not devolved into savagery.
Fancy Pants and Fluer De Lis seem to have been among those ponies in what we call Barrier One. They have been instrumental in keeping the five Barriers in contact with those of us in Canterlot Castle. As for how they ended up there, it seems they had refused to evacuate in favor of offering shelter to those less fortunate. In times of crisis, ones true character shines through and so it seems those two proved themselves truly Noble. Their second home it would seem is in the center of the First Barrier, it currently serves as the communal center. If not for those like Fancy Pants and Fleur De Lis, from both privileged and unprivileged backgrounds, things would be far worse within what remains of Canterlot. That is not to downplay the horror and severity of the situation, things are very grim for us all. For the rains have not let up much since they began. Indeed, they seem unending at times.
Those who made it to the Castle, minus most of the nobles, have for the most part been very helpful. However they all fear the rain. We understand that fear well. Even I feel terror, for not even an Alicorn is truly safe from this horror. We are doing our best to try to find a cure, a resolution to this terror. What we have learned so far is not very heartening.
The pathogen is contact transferred, but has an unusually long half life. It only negatively impacts higher level creatures like Ponies, Griffins, Minotaurs, and those of similar mental capacity. Others have an absurdly low chance of dying, and plants are wholly unaffected. In a pony the pathogen can survive up to three months, that is the longest we have observed a non Alicorn survive till they die from the infection. Unfortunately the situation demands such experiments, however all subjects are volunteers. Mostly infected ponies who have yet to succumb and desire a bit of shelter before the end. Others merely want an end to everything.
Outside a host, it can survive indefinitely in liquids. It attacks the nervous system and brain of higher level sentient creatures, causing convulsions and eventually death. Dissection of the brains of dead infected show massive brain damage, and lesions on average a full hoof in size. Their nerves are decimated, frayed to the point of uselessness. Even if they had survived, these ponies would have been as good as dead. Some also showed intestinal damage, tissue damage to the skin, and elevated cortisol levels.
A trace toxin was also found, it is suspected that the virus causes it to be produced within the Pony body. It’s likely the cause for foaming at the mouth, and bile vomit. It’s quite the distinctive toxin, yet we have no history of it on record. No amount of library research has turned up anything.
It’s as if this pathogen comes from a completely different era, knowledge of which is lost to the ravages of time. However we must continue researching this. We must find a cure. Anything to stop The Rain. We must focus on our work, our duties, so that we may find the solution. If I stop focusing on this, and actually listen to the rain, horrible things will result.
Canterlot is cursed in a way, it’s location being upon a mountain in what seems to be a “cross current zone”, which means that with Pegasi unable to control the weather The Rain rarely stops. It does not lack fuel for storms, and as a result the Canterhorn itself has served as both our fortress and our prison. The snow atop the mountain melts, feeding the storms anew. It has been so long since I last saw the Sun, unimpeded by the clouds above. I never thought I would truly miss the sun so much, more than I miss seeing the moon. Perhaps that is because Celly is not here, so I cannot see the sun shining within her. Maybe I do not so much miss the sun, as I miss my older sister.
Since she cannot come out of isolation, the closest I can get to her is her Sun. Which itself, is so rarely seen as to make it seem like a dream when it appears in the sky. Shining brightly in those rare moments where the rain relents for but a few minutes before the constant torrent resumes once more.
The rain seems to interfere with long distance magic communications, even dragon fire is affected. We do not know why, perhaps there is another quality in this storm of death and destruction yet to be discovered. During the few days in the past few years where we could messages beyond the city itself, I must admit we had to prioritize other locations than Ponyville. We could do nothing but hope that Twilight could manage alone. Manehatten, Baltimore, Horns Ridge, and many other locations took precedence. Though I could at times reach Ponyville through dreams, I am exhausted from the many duties we find ourself with since my sister is indisposed.
Recently, we finally were able to send word to Ponyville. It seems that my close friend Twilight has proven her worth as a true leader. Alas, it was through this that we also learned of the loss of Loyalty on the day the Rains began. Rainbow Dash is presumed dead, and if, no when these horrific storms end there will be a state funeral held for her. To the end she proved her bravery, loyalty, and friendship. Twilight says things are going well, but I know the truth. I have seen her nightmares, we know what eats her from the inside.
It is similar to what whispers in the edge of our own psyche, the temptation and pain that cries to us in our darker moments. That terrible voice, the shadows of the past and future, all screaming and whispering in a mockery of a musical chorus to us. Without our sister, I fear we are not as capable as we once believed. Our recovery still too fresh, our darkness still waiting in the wings for a chance to live anew. The strain and agony of our new duties, the recent loss of lives by those who “walk into the rain”; those blasted nobles whom we wish we were able to hang like marionettes from the belfry. Those darker impulses have begun to take shape as phantoms, it is not so unlike what happened so long ago.
The constant reverberation of raindrops upon the shield, and the few windows that it coats like a thin outer coating of fresh paint. That sound, that infernal sound that brings with it not the life of old but death. A death that takes lives still, as it stalks the edges of the mind with visions of endless serenity. The type of death that can take an Alicorn who carries the sun, and turn her into a carrier, no a harbinger of this foul disease. There are days and nights, for we must stay up for both now, where the desire to simply purge everything with the pure power of the night rises from within the depths of my mind. To take hold of the problem and command it as our own. That ancient evil that has seeds within us all, the dark side of the psyche that can manifest as Nightmare.
The isolation within these walls, stuck in a prison called sanctuary as the doom is literally just outside the castle gates in a form so seemingly benign. This sanctuary is driving us to the brink, it takes much effort to keep ourself together for our little ponies. For our sister in her self imposed isolation. For my friend who herself is plagued by similar phantoms and temptations.
I, we, are not immune to the depredations of the mind.
The longer this rain goes on, the worse it gets, we need a cure for this plague soon. Or we fear we may revert to Nightmare Moon.
This is why we work tirelessly. We fulfill our duties as princess, as dream watcher and guardian; as we search for a cure. We drive those who work with us ever onward, driven by a fervor and fear that is all to real.
The fear that this rain, this storm of plague and death, shall bring rise to our darkness once more. Oh Celly, oh Twilight; when will this rain end?
Author's Note
The fate of Canterlot is grim, Luna hangs on by focusing on the research for a cure to the pathogen. But slowly, ever so slowly, The Rain is claiming her mind.
The domes, the Rain Barriers, protect those who couldn’t make it to the castle in time yet did not fall victim to The Rain. However, they are in the end barriers created by Celestia. They are not that large either, maybe a three to six blocks at most in size, with Barrier One being the largest. They are maintained by her from her self imposed isolation far below the castle. How long can they last? How long can she last?
Next up in the series is Fluttershy, a time skip forward, and changes anew. Will The Rain ever end?
Glen Gorewood
