It would be wrong to say that the placement of the bubble was perfect. Had Equestria broken through at, say, the South Pole, everyone would have understood its path, and the larger population in the northern hemisphere would have had more time.
For all that, the placement was convenient. Less than a thousand miles from Hawaii, the need for rapid response became clear. No conversions were done on Hawaii; it took time to develop the potion, and various negotiations had to occur. The world government performed a crash evacuation, and the Equestrians lent valuable assistance. Once the potion was made, the refugees became some of the first to take it.
The pony volunteers for the evacuation made their foothold on Earth and spread to assist people both in conversion and in relief aid. All over they found people in need.
Cheerilee had been among those first relief workers. The worlds had collided during her summer break, and she had taken the opportunity to have something useful to do. She had not worked in conversion, instead distributing food and water among the displaced. If she had five minutes to talk to any one person, it was a long time. The impression she got was of a haggard and downtrodden people. She first attributed this to being refugees, but other ponies assured her that it was like that all over the world. It was a whole planet full of refugees, but until Equestria there was no refuge.
A year later, she signed up for another tour.
This one took her inland, to the deserts of the western Amerizone. The cities, even the small towns were organized, but out on the road were homes where no neighbor could be seen even on the clearest of days. Cheerilee learned that they were not hermitages, just houses along the highway where people chose to live on land that might be worth something someday.
Or would have been, she corrected herself, if the land weren’t about to be swallowed.
Once more she chose not to work in the Conversion Bureaus, nor even as a marketer explaining why conversion was so important. She simply provided care since so many commercial endeavors had closed. It could be difficult enough just to find laundry or cleaning service. Many of her friends had told her that there was no fulfillment to be found outside of seeing newfoals take their first steps to a new life, but Cheerilee had chosen to go where she was needed.
Which had led her to her present assignment. She had come upon a house that had seen better days and found a man named Silas Keane and his son living there. Cheerilee had no scouting report, no advance knowledge of what she might find. All she was told was to travel the road, offer aid, and make sure everyone knew that the Earth was coming to an end. It transpired that the house she found had been built back in the 1850s (in some time scale she didn’t know the derivation of) by people in search of gold (which was rare and precious there, but didn’t have many uses for the non-magical humans) and passed down the generations of Keanes (despite no one ever finding gold or making use of the land for farming). Cheerilee smiled and nodded, believing herself impervious to discovering any new quirk of this strange species.
She could never get out of Keane where the boy’s mother was, whether she had died, converted, or left them. But they were living a threadbare existence. Silas had no visible means of support and received food and supplies from the government. His son, Joey, was five years old and knew his letters, but could not read or write.
She informed Silas that she could stay a week. Finding that he already knew about the barrier and the need for conversion or escape, she could not ascertain what his plans were. He seemed the type to never think beyond one day.
“I wish I had time to instruct your colt in literacy,” she had said. “Perhaps I could start him off and let you continue when I’m gone. Then when you convert and get to Equestria—“
“Don’t need none of the fancy book learnin’,” he’d replied, “but we’d welcome a helping hand with the housework. Haw haw!” He laughed his own joke.
Cheerilee had, she thought, come to understand the humans a little. They could be selfish at times, but it was mostly down to hard living. It was her pleasure to bring some sunshine into their dreary lives, even if she didn’t get a thank you. She spent her time dusting in corners long neglected and scrubbing surfaces stained with food.
“You know,” she said at one point, “If you went to the Conversion Bureau, you’d get a fresh start. The bureaus are clean and warm, and once you convert not only are you safe from the barrier, but you’ll get a new home in Equestria. Good land, suitable for cultivation.”
Silas only grunted in return. She wondered if he even knew the word “cultivation.”
For all his apparent sloth, Silas clearly did hard work. Cheerilee saw scars and marks on his arms and back. Had they worked the land before the Earth fell fallow? It didn’t seem so, since as far as she understood, where they were had been desert for centuries. But they must have done something.
On the second day, Cheerilee’s keen pony nose detected that Joey needed a bath. Silas did too, but he was a full-grown adult and would have to take care of himself. He seemed reluctant to let a pony bathe his child, but when she took off his shirt and said, “See, he’s filthy,” he relented with a smirk.
Once the grime was washed off his face, Joey’s young body showed similar scars to his fathers, not to mention fresh bruises. There must have been some hard living here, Cheerilee concluded, but the boy was as quiet as the man on that subject.
“Do you like taking baths?” she asked.
“I don’t think I do.”
“No?”
He put his face almost all the way in the water and blubbed something that Cheerilee couldn’t understand.
“Well, we’ll get you clean now.”
“Nice horsey.”
Cheerilee chuckled. “Pony. I’m a pony. Specifically, an Earth pony. Someday you’ll see pegasus ponies and unicorn ponies too.”
“What’sat?”
So Cheerilee told him about Equestria and how it was coming and how everyone would have to become ponies eventually. She hoped that he might be able to convince his father to show more alacrity toward conversion.
That had been four days before, and she’d come to accept Silas for what he was. Joey had taken to her, and he’d become a little smarter over the time she’d been there, but she did not sense a scholar in him. Perhaps how he was raised, or just being that man’s son, had left him deprived of what he could be.
With one day left, she was helping to get the house in order with an eye toward quick packing. One way or another Silas and Joey would have to leave soon.
She sought out Silas to find what he wanted done in the time she had remaining. Thinking that she had not seen either him or Joey for a while, she trotted the house searching.
If she had spent more time with the humans, perhaps she might have understood their cultural concepts of privacy better. A pony never saw a need to knock on a bedroom door in the middle of the day. So Cheerilee didn’t think twice before swinging it open with a creak. She opened her mouth to speak but cut herself off with a gasp.
Man and child were both nude, which didn’t register with Cheerilee at first. Silas sat on the edge of the bed facing her, though across the room. Joey was there, his back to her, turning at the noise, that turning exposing her view to Silas’s lap, and she saw his…
The shock sent her stumbling back, tripping over her hooves and slamming into a wall. She looked to his face as though seeking out for understanding, but she saw a mix of fear and rage. He knew, then, what he was doing and how wrong it was. Then he grabbed Joey by the head and flung him to the ground. The room had no carpet, and bare wooden boards bent under the boy’s fallen frame. Silent before, he now began to cry, not a screaming cry but a steady wail of repeated trauma. Silas took no more notice of him as he advanced on Cheerilee.
She had no intention of finding out what he was doing, as she righted herself and bolted from the house.
As she galloped along the western road she thought back to signs that now became clearer. The bruises and scars on Joey’s body, a healed broken bone that gave him a slight limp. All of these she had thought of as part of the harsh existence on Earth which would be cured upon conversion. Now she knew better. What had been done, she didn’t know if it could be healed.
The barrier had reached landfall on Earth. Cheerilee galloped along half in a trance, but her mind was working out the logistics of what she had to do. First step was to get off this Celestia-forsaken world and back to the world where things make sense. Since the barrier lurched forward periodically, ponies on the other side were constantly expanding the road through the new lands created by the absorbed Earth. When she crossed from the scrublands to the green of Equestria, the road was nowhere to be seen, but, aware of this, the road crews had planted a flag at the previous end which served as a beacon to her.
It took her another twenty minutes to get to a train station, and even that was a ramshackle creation and she had to take a hoof cart to more civilized lands, but finally she was able to reach Canterlot. By that time, she was calmer, but still unable to get the visions from her mind. Entering the castle, she approached a guard.
"I need to speak with the princess.”
“Court is beginning shortly. As soon as her highness finishes raising the moon.”
That brought Cheerilee up short. She hadn’t paid attention to the time of day, but indeed the sun had gone down for the night. Well, so be it. She would see Princess Luna.
The return of Luna a few years back had been the first of many changes in Equestria, She had not fully acclimated to the new life, and now the incursion into Earth was something else that could not be accepted immediately.
Cheerilee entered the royal chamber finding a few other ponies already queued up with a guardspony coordinating the order. She walked up to him and repeated, “I need to speak with the princess.”
“Of course. Take your place.”
“No, I need to speak with her immediately.”
It was unprecedented, but the guard looked at the queue and asked, “Does anypony mind if she goes first?”
The other ponies shook their heads and stood aside, curious. After a few minutes, the night princess entered with suitable fanfare and then beckoned the petitioners.
Speaking to the princess at court was one of those skills that everypony picked up through popular culture. Even if the etiquette wasn’t perfect, Princess Celestia wasn’t fussy. It was the first time that Cheerilee had addressed Luna.
“If it please your highness. I have been assisting with the effort in the foreign lands of the humans. I don’t know how familiar your highness will be with that--”
“Sufficiently so. Pray continue.”
“I was assisting one of the natives when I came upon him...he was...”
Luna’s ordinary face was stern and impatient. “Go on.”
“It is difficult to speak of. May I share with you my thoughts?”
Luna raised an eyebrow. Mind-reading magic was not difficult, but it was perilous to get wrong and could damage the mind being read. Because of this it was forbidden without consent and rare for it to be done even then.
“If you think it necessary. Step up.”
Cheerilee approached closer and held her breath. She saw Luna’s horn glow and closed her eyes. She felt her memory being guided back to the house in the desert. Instinct told her to recoil and not think of it, but she knew that Luna needed to see. She allowed herself to be guided forward in her recollection, until she came to the moment when she had seen Silas…
“WHAT?!” It was not the royal Canterlot voice that Luna had been known for, somewhat anachronistically. It was simply a scream. Then she stood and hovered a short distance off the ground, her eyes slits as she said to Cheerilee, “Attend.”
Cheerilee didn’t understand, but Luna pounced on her like a cat, scooping her up with a hoof and carrying her beneath her body. Before Cheerilee could catch her breath they were out in the balmy night air, thin at that height.
At breakneck speed they covered the ground it had taken her the day to traverse. Luna’s wings sent hurricanes behind her as she continued to accelerate. They burst through the Barrier back into waning daylight.
Luna found her progress stymied and remembered that in this world travel was limited to the speed of light. It was fortunate that both she and Cheerilee were made of dweons instead of the atoms that composed the world of Earth. Had they been atomic, the speed that their mass was traveling would have caused nuclear explosions throughout their path.
“Direct me,” Luna ordered. Her curt tone was not that of a superior to a subordinate, but simply one of so singularly focused that niceties had to be put aside for the moment.
Pointing with her hoof, Cheerilee felt for the first time mistress of herself again. The enormity of what she had seen had driven her to seek out somepony more qualified than her, but now that pony had taken charge. Cheerilee was a leader in her own fashion, able to control classes of rowdy foals, but distributing the high justice was not her role. In any case, she was able to sight the road that led to the Keane house and guide Luna in.
Although the time of day between the worlds was not perfectly synchronized, it was now night there on Earth as well. Atmospheric and light pollution had occluded many of the stars above, but Luna’s magic glow restored some of the night’s glory as she opened the door. She realized that the crude brass fitting was supposed to represent a lock.
Silas and Joey were in the kitchen, dressed in denim, returned to their routine. They had finished supper, Silas adding the dishes to a sink already full.
Even at her height, tall for a pony, Luna had to look up at Silas to see his eyes. She was also thinner than him, and as they were square on to each other, he did not see her length and the majesty of her full body, wings spread, hooves wide. He chuckled at the appearance of another of the funny animals. Joey was wiser and cowered back toward the pantry.
“Thou! Thou creature of barren land! This mare has shown me such a transgression against life as has never been thought of in my world. And thou its perpetrator! Doth thou deny it?”
Silas understood nothing of the words, but saw the anger and laughed louder. He’d faced down smaller people all his life and used size and power to his advantage.
Cheerilee walked behind Luna and found Joey shivering. She took his hand in her hoof. “Come on, let’s go to your room,” she said. “She seems scary, but she’s really very nice. She will want to speak with you, I think.”
Luna gave a passing glance to the exeunt. Now alone with the foulness, she could deliver swift correction to what she saw as a fundamental error of existence.
She reared back. Her horn impaled the ceiling, which gave Silas a last moment of comedy as he thought she would be stuck, but she tore through wooden beams like cardboard, readying a spell of destruction. At last understanding and fear took hold of Silas as he saw the figure of death in the blue light pulsing above him. Luna’s hooves were earthquakes as she crashed down and flung the spell at him.
A cacophonous harmony rang throughout the shack as the blue light met a golden light that came from all directions to strike and negate it. Followed a moment later by a call for attention. “Sister!”
Celestia faded into view, translucent. She was not literally there, only projecting an image. Luna knew that under no circumstances would either princess leave Equestria when the other was not present. She pieced together that her attendants at night court would have, after her hasty departure, alerted Celestia. If indeed the power Luna expended and the rash action she had taken had not apprised her. The two sisters were linked in many ways that ordinary ponies did not understand.
“Hinder me not! Here is a stain on the world that must be removed forthwith.”
Celestia was calm. “No, here is a resident of a land not ours, a land we have made treaty with. That treaty binds Equestrians to follow their laws on their land.”
“What he has done warrants punishment by the laws of any land!”
“As may be, you do not stand within our diarchy, and in the world you have traveled to, no single person has the authority to execute that punishment.”
“But you know not what evil he has wrought,” Luna spoke rapidly, still focusing on her intent to blast Silas into nonexistence. “On the flesh of his own colt!”
“Yes, I do.”
The simple proclamation pulled Luna’s attention toward her sister. Her shoulders slumped. Although only a projection, Celestia could show subtext that told Luna the deeper truth.
“Yes, you do,” Luna repeated, speaking out her realizations. “You know all of what the people of this world are capable of. For I now see that he is not the greatest atavism this planet has, else it would be so unlikely as to be beyond consideration that he should be encountered so early in your campaign to save this world.
“And when you learned of their nature, in your logical coldness—no, your logical warmth--you concluded that even this should be forgiven.
“There are reasons that, in our rare conflicts, you have the final authority...but I aver that in this case I do not agree with you.”
“Nor would I wish you to,” Celestia replied. “Nonetheless, if you were to strike this man down now, it would lead to greater misery later. The government of this world would call him a martyr, you a murderess. And our hope for saving innocent lives—and guilty ones—would be lost.”
A sneer returned to Silas’s face as he understood that he was reprieved and immune from Luna’s wrath. She turned away from him. “If I mark my memory rightly, thy legal structure will not stop me from acting in defense of others, nor of engaging in the practice of healing. I shall therefore direct my efforts where they shall now do good.” If Celestia had anything further to say, Luna did not hear.
Walking away, she listened for the sounds of life elsewhere and found Cheerilee and Joey huddled in his bedroom. Luna saw the little human colt holding onto Cheerilee and shivering. She realized that he would have heard the argument in the kitchen or at least the raised voices, and she resolved to comfort him.
“Greetings.” It was her kindest voice, full of lilt and sweetness.
“Go on, say hello,” Cheerilee said.
“H-hello.” He was speaking more out of fear than genuine interest.
Luna let herself slouch down so that her head was on his level. “What is your name, little one?”
“Joey.”
“Would you like to hug me as well as Miss Cheerilee?”
“tsOK?” he said rapidly?
“It is.” She extended a hoof and he leaped to her like a swimmer lunging from one anchor to another.
“Big horsey!” That effected a chuckle from Cheerilee and a smile from Luna herself. “Unicorn.”
“That’s right. Would you like me to show you some of my magic?”
“I gotta go to bed. Pop gets real angry if I stay up past my bedtime.”
“Don’t worry about that. Do you sleep in the dark?”
Joey shook his head and pointed toward the corner. “I need my nightlight.”
Plugged into the wall was a harsh LED bulb, flyspecked and yellowed with age. Luna pulled it out of the wall magically, plunging the room into darkness for a moment, but light returned as her horn pulsed. From out of the tip of her horn a sphere expanded until it touched the walls and ceiling. On all surfaces, the soft light of stars brought dim visibility.
“These are how the stars look in my world.”
The boy looked in awe. Even far from the cities, he had never seen the night sky, never looked at it with the reverence that men had since they first stood erect. He gasped and smiled. “Pretty.”
“And I shall tell you another little secret. This dome of stars is an impenetrable barrier. No one and nothing will enter this room tonight. You are, as of this night, under my protection. You are Safe.”
He tore his eyes away from the stars and looked into Luna’s eyes. There was a gentle look in those eyes he had never seen. Joey Keane clutched at her mane and cried into her fur.
When his sobs diminished, Luna carried him to bed and set him down. He fell asleep quickly, a deeper sleep than he had had in a long time.
Cheerilee whispered to Princess Luna, “Your highness, what will happen to him tomorrow, when you abate your spell and the stars no longer bar entry?”
“That is what I am thinking about.”
Indeed, thinking was an understatement. Luna was an alicorn princess of Equestria. If the people of Earth understood her true powers, they would call her a god. Celestia had been able to split her focus and appear in the house while being physically still in Canterlot, That was child’s play for Luna. What she considered to do now, though, would not be easy. But as she considered, it was within her measure.
Sitting under her projection of the stars, she had spoken true. The room was impermeable, even to energies such as the sound of the sharp scream from without.
Luna heard it though, and smiled.
The next morning, Silas only grunted at both ponies at breakfast, after which he disappeared and neither the ponies nor Joey saw him for the rest of the day. Luna was now smiling openly, not just the sympathetic smile she used when dealing with Joey the night before, but the confident smile of a princess in charge. She had flown back to Equestria to lower the moon, but it had taken less time than the blink of an eye.
Although other than that blink she never allowed Joey to leave her sight, Luna set him to a few learning games, and even consulted Cheerilee as to what she thought was best. She assured the teacher that Silas would no longer be a threat.
“But what should I do now?” Cheerilee asked. “I was set to leave today and move on to another home. Can I leave now? What will happen to these two? The sun has risen, and you’re still awake, but you can’t watch him forever. Most of all, how can I continue work to help these people having seen what I’ve seen.”
“As to the last question, it is precisely because you and I have seen what we have that we must continue. You speak rightly that I cannot watch him forever. But I give you my word as princess that I shall care for Joey Keane until he reaches a Conversion Bureau. So, I prithee, carry on and seek out others in need. You may even find me to aid you.”
Cheerilee nodded and bowed, accepting this as a dismissal. “May I at least say good-bye?”
“No, but you may say, ‘until we meet again.’ And mean it.”
She walked across the room and draped her hoof over Joey’s shoulder. “Joey? I’m sorry...” I couldn’t stop it, she wanted to say. “...that I can’t stay longer. Be sure to listen to Princess Luna.”
He put on a questioning look and stumbled over the name. “P...Pr...Lunana?”
Cheerilee laughed, but cut herself off, fearing to insult the princess.
“Nana!” Joey insisted. “Nana Luna!”
“Nana? What is that?” asked Luna.
“I have read that,” Cheerilee said. “It means grandmother.”
Luna smiled and picked Joey up. “I like that. The age difference fits. You may call me Nana Luna if you like.” He gave her a sloppy kiss on the cheek. “Now, normally I sleep during the day, but I’ll try to stay awake for you if you like. We can go for a walk with Miss Cheerilee so she you don’t have to part so soon. Would you like that?”
Joey nodded, and they all headed out the door. The boy’s shoes were nearly worn through, and so he couldn’t walk very far before complaining that his feet hurt. Luna floated him onto her back and gave him a pony ride. A few miles down they came to a crossroads where stood a general store with an old-fashioned look.
“This is where I have to turn off,” said Cheerilee. “I hope I’ll get to see you soon, Joey.”
“I think you will,” Luna replied. “Once he reaches Equestria, my swathe is wide. I shall arrange for him to be placed in your class.”
He gave Cheerilee a good-bye hug, but she could tell that he’d found somepony more interesting than her. Maybe that was for the best. Cheerilee trotted off with the start of a smile.
At the store, Luna bought Joey a new pair of shoes and some clean clothes, as well as needed toiletries, then threw some food into a picnic basket and bought that too. The proprietor was skeptical of her payment, not being used to Equestrian bits, but when she explained that it was real gold she was passing, there were no more questions.
“Would you mind if we tarried some while on your grounds to consume this fare?” she asked.
“Lady, you pay in gold you can tarry all day.”
Luna thought this might not have been proper reverence, but she was more concerned with her charge. In the shade of the store Joey ate a better meal than he’d been accustomed to, then he curled up in her side and took a nap. Luna nodded off herself for a few hours’ sleep, still girding herself for the task ahead.
When they returned, Silas was surly and irritable, but Luna stayed by Joey’s side like a shadow, and Silas feared to raise a hand to the boy. This continued the next day, Silas getting angrier and more frustrated.
By the fourth day, he had left the house, ostensibly to drive into town for supplies, at heart to get away from Luna, who never spoke to him even when he tried to accost her. He thought that she was looking for an excuse to attack him physically. In fact, Luna was not and would have acted only in defense.
During his shopping trip, a clerk in a store chanced to ask him a question about his purchase, and Silas, for no apparent reason, attacked him. The police were called and he was arrested, but he stayed in the jail only one night. By the next morning the jailer found him banging his head against the wall hard enough to draw blood, and Silas was transferred to a hospital.
The admitting doctor found him smelly, unkempt, and mentally deranged. Indeed, she thought Silas a homeless indigent. After shining a light in his eyes, she asked him when he had last slept.
“Four—five days ago. Can’t remember.”
She prescribed a sedative, but when a nurse told her later that he was still ranting and screaming, the doctor attended him personally. She administered progressively stronger sedatives and narcotics, until she was injecting him with enough to knock out an elephant. Nothing worked.
Silas was diagnosed with fatal familial insomnia, and given a month to live.
***
“Put on your coat, Joey. It will be cold at night, and we have far to go.” Luna held the jacket in her magic, which Joey never ceased to marvel at. Once he had it on, she led him to the door and prepared to lock it for the last time, when once more the translucent image of Celestia appeared.
“What is it that you are doing?”
Luna smiled at her, then lowered her head to her charge. “Joey, go wash up one more time. I must speak with her.”
“OK, Nana Luna.” He tottered off toward the bathroom, and her smile only grew wider.
“He calls me Nana, which is grandmother in this world. Perhaps that is how the children will know me as.”
Celestia exhaled deeply. “You are disobeying my instructions then?”
“Not in the least. I have disobeyed no laws of this world in letter or in spirit.”
“Kidnapping?”
Luna cocked her head in amused thought. “I’d assert no. As no guardian is present for the child, I am simply delivering him into the charge of a lawful authority. True, it will be a Conversion Bureau instead of more conventional child services, but I fully and enthusiastically will obey the law and act as though I were a responsible citizen here. But, please come to the point. It is a different violation you have in mind, no?”
“You are driving his father insane.”
“Again, I think you misinterpret. If I were to, say, cast a spell on him to effect madness, it would still be considered an assault by their laws. I have not done so, though. I have done nothing on Earth.”
Celestia shook her head. “By the physical understanding the humans have, you are harming him. He has not slept.”
“Certainly not! And fie on the misinterpretations that the humans have of existence. As you said, I am bound by treaty not to interfere on Earth. But, with respect, the realm of dreams and slumber are mine. That plane of existence has no treaty with Earth. Even you are not mistress there. I administer it with the same strict care that you do in Equestria. But it is still in my control who is welcome to enter. That one is not.”
“He will die then.”
“Not necessarily. There is one medicine that will cure him, that same which cures all human ailments. If he finds his way to a Conversion Bureau, the potion will effect anesthesia for his transformation. I then leave his fate to you. I give you my word that no pony will suffer his fate.” They both heard the water in the washroom turn off. Luna turned to go. “Incidentally, that is not his only path to salvation.”
“This conversation is not over,” Celestia’s image said.
“No it is not. I shall return to Equestria shortly, once Joey is on the right path. We have much to discuss.”
Celestia’s image faded as Joey emerged. “I’m washed up, Nana Luna. See?” He showed his hands.
“Very good. Joey? Do you like ponies like me?”
“Sure.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that. You see, something dangerous is happening. Dangerous to you, but not to ponies.”
“But you’ll protect me, won’t you?” Joey asked, wide-eyed.
“The easiest way to do that is for you to become a pony yourself.”
“I don’t think I’d be allowed.”
“You will be. We are flying now to a place where you can be turned into a pony by drinking a special drink. And once that happens you can come home with me, to my world, and find a loving family to care for you. You can go to school and play with other young ponies and make friends. Would you like that?” Luna heard no answer from him, and when she craned her neck to see him, he was weeping. “Don’t cry, little Joey. I promise you it will happen.”
She tracked the lights of a city until she landed within, and inquired of a passing pegasus where a conversion bureau could be found. The pegasus was only too happy to direct her princess, and Luna promised her a good dream that night.
It still took Luna a few circles in flight to find the bureau, as she expected a tower in an open field, not a storefront in a strip mall. She let Joey off and had him walk with her. The opening room was brightly lit with harsh fluorescent bulbs, but from the back rooms softer light encroached. The human at the reception desk noted her appearance, but without any particular reaction. Nor was there any from the one pony in the outer room, who was a newfoal.
Very well, she would enjoy the brief moment of anonymity. She approached the receptionist. “Greetings. I have here a young boy who is in want of conversion.”
The human looked as bored as he could for being part of the effort to cushion the blow of the end of the world. He looked at the boy and the pony. “An orphan?”
“I am in loco parentis, I’d say. No one else will come to claim him, barring a very thin chance, and even then I would know about—“
“Your highness!”
A pale-yellow pony came out of a back room and had dropped to her belly. Luna sighed at being recognized so quickly. “Rise, please,” she said. “What is your name?”
"Pastel Palette, your highness.”
“And you are helping service at this bureau?”
“Yes, your highness.”
The title wasn’t necessary after first reference, but Luna wasn’t going to quibble just then. She put her hoof around Joey and inched him forward. “This is Joey. Could you please see that he gets into the conversion program forthwith?"
“Immediately, your highness!”
Luna put her head down and got very close to Joey. “Be sure to do whatever Ms. Palette tells you to.”
“Then I can be a pony and have friends?”
Luna nodded.
“And I’ll see you again then?”
Again she nodded, happy that it wasn’t a tearful good-bye.
“And Miss Cheerilee as well?”
Before she could respond, Pastel broke in. “You know Miss Cheerilee? She’s my friend too. We have both taught in the school in Ponyville.”
“Excellent. It was Our desire that, upon conversion, this young colt should make his way to Ponyville for education from that same Cheerilee. Could you ensure this happens?” If she was going to be obsequious, Luna would take advantage.
“Of course! Come on, Joey, we’ll get you a bed for the night and something to eat. You’ll have to learn something about becoming a pony before we can convert you, but you’ll see your friends soon enough.”
He turned back to Luna. The expression on his face was a mélange of emotions. Gratitude, sadness, hope, trauma, healing. She had helped him cease to fear to sleep at night. Now somepony else would help him want to wake up in the morning.
“Buh-bye, Nana Luna.” He hugged her leg one more time, then stood next to Pastel.
“Farewell, Joey.” She looked up and made eye contact with Pastel. Doing her best to communicate nonverbally, she indicated that she wanted a further word with her. She waited patiently for Pastel to return.
“There was something else, your highness?”
“Two things. One, please understand that Joey has suffered greatly in his short lifespan. Be gentle with him. Second, that suffering was witnessed by Cheerilee. If you get a chance, you may want to seek her out. She could use a friend.”
Pastel cocked her head, not really understanding what Luna meant by suffering. “Sure, I’ll talk to her when I bring Joey to her class. I guess it’s the part I can play. One kitten.”
“How’s that?”
Blushing, she replied, “Oh, just something the humans here taught me. Sometimes you find a stray or sick kitten around, and you want to help it. But, you know there are so many other kittens out there who you can’t help. And yet, you do your part anyway, help the one kitten.”
“I see. That makes sense. Thank you, Pastel Palette.”
“No, thank you, your highness.”
Luna nodded in leave-taking, and flew off to the west, through the barrier. She was no longer using her top speed, not blazing across the sky like a shooting star, but drifting steadily like a ship aimed for harbor. From far away she espied the towers of Canterlot Castle. Lighting at the highest window, she climbed down to the throne room.
Another day had passed in Equestria, while the night passed on Earth. Soon it would be time for her to raise the Moon. She resolved to take special notice.
At the appropriate time, Celestia entered. “It is good to see you in body, sister.”
“Is it? I regret to have deprived you of the pleasure then, sister.”
“You are still angry?”
“Not in the least,” Luna said. “I am beyond anger. For anger has ceased to be useful. Anger clouds the mind and the magic. And tonight I have need of both. To which point, I believe at our last meeting the subject of a certain adult human came up.”
“You’re still torturing him by not letting him sleep?”
“Unless he has converted, which is your province. Or repented. I did mention another path to his salvation. You see, what is to be visited upon him in his dream is every torture that he himself placed upon his son. I have not added to it one measure. I have simply combined it into an instant rather than a span of five years. It is his own mind that flees from my realm. I have simply put a ward at the door.
“Also, please mark your time and lower your orb from the sky.”
Celestia turned away from her sister and counted with the clock in her head. At the precise moment, she brought down the Sun.
“Are you telling me this in the spirit of gloating or purely for information?” she asked.
“Neither. There is a practical purpose. Since you are managing the conversion project and our interactions with Earth, I think you should publish the information about what has happened. Let the humans know what may befall them.”
“Luna! You do not propose to repeat your actions?!”
Now Luna was gloating. “Would it not be fair and just as you approve of? To treat all transgressors as I have that one? But at your request I will show mercy. I merely ask you to think before making such a request. And consider all my actions.”
“You cannot stop all human crimes.”
“No, I cannot. As a wise pony has recently said to me, you save the kitten in front of you, even if you can’t save all the kittens everywhere.”
Darkness covered the land. For a moment, even the stars could not be seen. Luna faced to the east, past the new lands, and cast her spell. A white light, pale and gentle, poked over the horizon. Luna’s voice was as soft as the light, and then rose in time as she raised the full moon.
“I do understand. You could not purify the humans without destroying them utterly. Which I would have, without a second thought. Your course must continue forward, for the time remaining. It is the path of wisdom. Yet, I find that wisdom conflicts with what is right. For even having taken a second thought, I would stray from the path of wisdom. I would, given my sway, save all the kittens.
“How to resolve this dilemma? By choosing my measure. Humans will remain free. They may, and will, injure one another in body, in mind, in property, in honor. They will commit murder, rape, arson, and I will stand by in inaction. But there is a standard beyond which I will not go. Mark my oath well, Celestia, for this I swear unto you in the name of the Moon, the Stars, and the Glorious and Endless Dark: Child abuse ends tonight!”
The Moon reached its apex, and the glow of Luna’s horn shifted, no longer pouring power in, but drawing it forth as water from a bottomless well. The glow surrounded her entire body, then there was a flash of light. Celestia blinked as she saw that Luna had made division of herself and two of her stood there.
But the light remained and a moment later the two split into four, and then the four into eight.
“Stop!” cried Celestia. “You cannot split your body so much. You will damage yourself!”
“Nay. The mental separation is no worse than what I do each night,” sixteen Lunas responded in chorus. “The physical is more difficult, but I believe I have the magic to sustain it, if you will resume your thousand-year duty and raise the Moon for me each night. For this is my pledge, that every child will be protected by me personally until they reach Equestria.”
Celestia winced. This, then, was her own penance for the collision of the worlds. She would have to learn anew to manage the sky herself, to have to relive the loneliness. Only six years instead of one thousand, but sharp still. No one, human, pony, or alicorn goddess, would escape being Converted.
“If you do not, and insist on me spending all my power, then I will be lost to you,” thirty-two Lunas continued. “Conversely, with each conversion of a child, a piece of me shall return to you. But tonight, all the children of the Earth shall meet their Nana Luna in a dream of comfort and love, and when they wake, there Nana Luna shall be.”
Sixty-four. One-twenty-eight. Two-fifty-six. Lunas were crowding the throne room and those nearest the windows were spreading into the night, still doubling themselves. Thirty-one times, one each for a night in the longest moon, Luna split in twain, until over two billion Lunas, one for each child on Earth, poured out of the castle toward the Earth.
Celestia, wisest of all creatures, nodded in agreement.
"I understand,” said Celestia to the departing Lunas. “Go and win the love of the children, the love you have for them. I shall be content to enjoy it in reflection, as the light of the sun is reflected in the moon. I love you, my sister, and once more I shall await your return.”
