They returned with a deafening boom of thunder that shook the mountains, and with a flash of light that filled the heavens — just as the prophecy foretold.
…And the Sun and Moon shall return to Equestria, and the sky shall open to receive them. And the very ground will tremble and shake at the Goddesses' blinding glory as they descend from the heavens on their celestial chariot…
And as that day finally arrived after so many moons, it came without warning, sudden and loud. The clouds parted, recoiling from the thunder, the bright afternoon sun sweeping over the great mountain and all beneath its stony and towering presence. But even such light as righteous as the holy sun, the charge of the white goddess, was drowned out by the vision of their chariot.
It descended through the pale blue atmosphere, shrouded in smoke and searing flame, like the maw of a great dragon, and its roar was heard far and wide. And what a magnificent chariot it was, shining with silver and polished alabaster and windows of thick, clear crystal.
And its name was Orion, and it carried a crest of red and white stripes with a blue field of stars. And among the strange runes on its surface was “USA.”, though their meaning was lost to everypony. Surely such a chariot could only transport the mightiest of creatures: the two Goddesses with both wing and horn.
The chariot slowed as it neared the firma, it's surface untouched by the flames that spewed in roiling waves beneath it. And its magic was strong. Hot winds whipped across the valley, the chariot hovering over their creation they had been absent from for so long. Now, they were back, home at last to bring in the new era of everlasting harmony and glory under their righteous reign. That was our hope.
The chariot, content with its surroundings, landed among the tall grasses. Thin legs like that of a bird unfurled from its side and planted themselves atop the fertile soil. And as the thunder subsided, and the fires receded, and quiet was upon the land again, the birds resumed their afternoon chorus from the stretching treetops and the bugs hummed along in unison. Smoke wafted from the charred ground around the ethereal vehicle. It was whisked away on the sweet breeze of blossoming flowers and spring nectar.
For but a moment, nopony moved, nopony blinked, nopony dared to step from hiding. For even the mightiest of us trembled at the sight of the chariot. What would anypony say? What would anypony do when such ordinary ponies could finally gaze upon deities so powerful, sun and moon bent to their righteous will? Would the Goddesses return with open, merciful hooves, or damning judgment?
Like the throaty hiss of an ancient hydra, the door of the chariot slid away, a shroud of mist pouring from inside. Everypony held their breaths, watching in eager anticipation from where they hid.
Then suddenly, there she was! The ivory-white alicorn!
She emerged from the chariot, standing on her two hind legs. She towered over all from the doorway of the slivery chariot. Her eyes scanned the tree lines, but nopony could meet her gaze; a veil of mirrored gold concealed her face.
And such strange garments the Goddess wore, thick and bulky barding the same milky shade as we knew her coat to be. A pair of hoses, like snakes, protruded from the chest of the garment, trailing to a hard-cased saddlebag slung on her back.
Then, another figure, a shorter, but nonetheless magnificent creature in the same garment, yet blue as deep as the ocean waters. Her face, too, was hidden behind a mirror of golden glass. The wings, we did not immediately see, for we assumed them to be covered by the large saddlebag of hoses and wires and tiny lights. Tiny lights that blinked and twinkled like the stars of her night sky.
…Moon and Sun, together as One…
Nopony knew what to make of their bombastic entrance, or why they hid their faces, or of their strange manners, but there was no doubt it was them. The Goddesses had returned.
And then, as if to proclaim their arrival, the Moon Goddess spoke. And her voice was like crackling fire…
“I think we’re being watched, Commander.” The scientist shifted from leg to leg under her clumsy suit, scanning the tree line with her equipment. “There is something out there. Lots of them.”
“I can see them,” Commander Liz assured her companion, her voice steady and calm. “Just stay calm, Astra,” she instructed. “Don’t make any sudden moves.”
“This wasn’t part of the plan,” Astra replied through her helmet, sweeping the instrument in her hand back and forth. “I’m reading close to fifty of them, maybe more. Definitely biological.”
Liz reached back and placed a steady hand on her companion. She could feel Astra's body was tense like a spring underneath, as if ready to leap back inside the ship at any second.
Extra-terrestrial organics were no strangers to Liz, but the sheer bounty and variety of it around her was both astounding and frightening: the crackling trees in the breeze, the humming bugs, twittering birds, and their silent observers. So many eyes were upon them.
“Houston screwed up big time. I mean it, Liz,” Astra hissed feverishly at her. Her helmet twitched from the tree line and then back to her equipment and the unidentified signatures. “They told us a rock, an empty rock. Long-range scans were completely off.”
Commander Liz stretched a section of her white pressure suit back, exposing atmospheric readings on a small display. She scanned over the texts, sharp eyes darting back and forth inside her helmet. “Sensors read a nitrogen-rich environment. Twenty percent oxygen. Carbon dioxide levels are a little high, but it shouldn't be more than a slight headache.”
“It’s a gamble,” Astra tried to warn her. “Let me do my job, Liz. I should run more tests before we determine it safe.” But Liz was already unlatching her helmet.
“They would have approached us by now if they had even the slightest hint of hostility. We need to show them we don’t mean any harm.”
With an audible and heavy click, the helmet twisted away, her face no longer hidden behind the gold-coated visor.
Immediately strange mutters and murmurs and gasps could be heard from the bushes and behind the trees.
The Commander brushed a sun-bleached strand of blonde hair from her face, tucking it into the tight bun wrapped at the base of her skull. She squinted in the light of the foreign sun and watched, enthralled, as one of the creatures poked its head out from the tree line.
Two big eyes gazed at her with awe and wonder; the equine-like creature slowly slinked from its hiding spot. Then, another from a bush, a spiraling horn protruding from the top of its head. Another two more flittered out the treetops on feathery wings, touching down softly among the growing herd of creatures. And their coats were an array of color, every shade and hue Liz could imagine.
“I don’t like this,” Astra repeated her concern, stowing the thermal reader. “We should return to orbit, take further readings to make sure this place is safe. We don't have the slightest scrap of data on what we're walking into.”
With a short hop, the Commander vaulted off the ship’s embarkation deck. “It’s fine. Come on,” Liz insisted. “Or would you rather be poking in a puddle of microbic sludge for your data?”
She watched the scientist survey her surroundings again nervously but finally relented. “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Astra muttered quietly. “Where is the respect for remote and scientific observation and data collection?” She reluctantly followed suit, removing her helmet, her short blue hair washing over her slender neck like a waterfall.
Liz slowly bent down on her knees, trying to coax one of the creatures forward. “Don’t be shy, little one. We don’t mean any harm.”
“Is that a good idea?” Astra begged to question, scanning the clearing with various instruments from her science pouch. She was keeping her distance. “It might bite.”
But the little equine was already taking a tentative step toward the silvery-white astronaut, tenderly and slowly stepping one hoof after the other. It reached up, gently touching the fabric of the Commander’s suit before recoiling with a gasp, but a grin.
“Etrallan Celeste drak makkan frasia,” it turned and said in a strange, garbled tongue to its scores of comrades. Immediately, profound elation swept through the colorful creatures. “Celeste! Celeste! Celeste!” The word rang like a chorus through them, filling them with what Liz could only imagine to be glee. It lit up their wide eyes. “Celeste entutamanken LaLuna!”
“LaLuna!” Several of them pointed ecstatically toward Astra, rushing to meet her.
They crowded around her legs, causing the woman to wince and recoil uncomfortably as the creatures reached out for her blue pressure suit. “LaLuna! LaLuna!” they cried in unison.
“I think they like you,” Liz chuckled, several of the creatures tugging at her legs in an attempt to get the human to follow.
“Well, it seems I don't need a scientific consensus to see their species doesn’t have a concept of personal space,” she said. One of the winged creatures clung to her arm, pulling her along as well. She tried shaking it off to no avail.
“I think they want us to follow them,” Commander Liz remarked at the equines dancing around her legs, allowing them to guide her along.
“I’d much rather stay with the ship,” Astra groaned. “Besides, I have a full panel of scientific data to collect. There isn’t time to go gallivanting off. Besides, you know it’s against protocol.”
“Won’t you live a little?” she poked at the pouting academic. “We expect to find a desolate rock and we stumble upon an overlooked paradise. Do you want to waste time on soil samples and atmosphere gauging, or do you want to learn more about these little wonders?”
With a begrudging grumble and an exaggerated huff, she finally relented. “Fine,” Astra quipped. “But only because splitting up is against protocol. Somebody has to watch your back around these little cretins.”
“Well that’s kind of the spirit,” Liz admitted. It was as good of a blessing as she would get.
The equines resonated with another cheer as the blue astronaut trudged alongside them through the tree line.
Passing through the treeline, grassy pastures and meadows stretched before them like lush, green carpet, and the sky was filled with avians. Through the sweet-smelling air, they twisted and flew, the equines with wings joining their feathered friends in a display of aerial acrobatics. Up and up, they sailed, Commander Liz craning and straining her neck to follow them. And her breath escaped her at what she saw.
“My God,” Liz gasped. “Either there is something in the air, and I’m seeing things, or we just hit the freaking jackpot, Astra.”
“Yeah,” Astra chuckled as her face stretched into a rare grin. “Houston is going to get a kick out of this.”
Like a giant guarding the valley floor, the city was perched high on the soaring mountainside. It dominated the land, clinging to an outcrop a few hundred acres across, thousands of feet above them. A waterfall roared like a beast, shooting from the outcrop in a torrent and collecting in a slithery river across the valley. And towers of white and purple and shimmering gold reflected high above in the late afternoon sun.
Astra was already pulling out a camera, snapping picture after picture as she tried and failed to contain her excitement. “This is big Liz, really big. None of the other expeditions have found anything this big. Nothing more than primitive life forms in anything other than caves or mud huts. We may be looking at the first indications of a classical civilization here,” she giggled.
But Liz caught by the vision of the great city, unable to give a hint of recognition to the science officer snapping pictures wildly beside her. “Wow. Just…wow.”
She could have stood there all day, neck craned, and have admired the magnificent structures from below.
But the little creatures were insistent that the two travelers follow. They pushed them eagerly toward a path at the base of the mount leading higher.
"A closer look, perhaps?" wondered Astra.
Liz nodded. "So much for protocol."
Up and up and up, they climbed, their company of merry hosts singing in their tongue and skipping and trotting and flying through the air. Astra continued her documentation, snapping pictures and collecting the odd sample, even going so far as to pluck several loose hairs from the coat of one of the creatures into a clear plastic bag. It gave a startled gasp, muttering several incoherences.
It was some time into the trek when one of the creatures approached the Commander. Liz was breathing heavily from the steep climb, but she was delighted when the young creature presented her with a band of woven flowers. They were pulled tight in a circlet.
The equine had a soft jawline, thick eyelashes and a bountiful mane of shiny, orange curls. The horn on its forehead glowed, even in the bright sunlight, and before Liz could stop, the flower crown lifted into the air. A thin haze of shimmering particles, a pallet of colorful light, enveloped it. Liz remained as still as a statue and in quiet amazement as the circlet was levitated and placed gently atop her head.
“Pritsesnet trella dut Celeste,” the creature spoke softly, giving a reverent bow before her. It then hurried off to join the pack leading the way in front.
The same courtesy was repeated for Astra, the astronaut graciously accepting her own floral arrangement atop her blue locks.
“L-like magic,” Liz whispered.
“A realm of physics we cannot even begin to wrap a head around,” Astra offered.
Higher still, they climbed. The sun had long passed its zenith, now making the trek down toward the distant horizon. The two astronauts legs were tired from hiking in their suits, the weighty packs on their back filled with precious oxygen and essential supplies and equipment. But they pushed on.
Here and there, the occasional patch of cobblestone peeked through the rich layer of dirt. The path had once been paved, and expertly too, Astra pointing out the precisely cut rock.
But the ravages of time and neglect were slowly reclaiming what had once been built probably long ago, slowly swallowing the road until it was nothing more than a dirt rut once more under Liz's boots.
Thunk
Liz nearly stumbled, but caught herself, her heavy boot striking a dull metal ridge hidden beneath the dirt. A shorter step and she would have walked over it without even noticing. Another thick length of rusted metal could barely be seen just a step ahead, enshrouded in grass and shrubs that blanketed the mountain path.
Liz followed the parallel lines with her eyes, the twin rails running around a steep bend in the mountain. She dug at the ground between them with the heel of her boot, revealing a weathered and rotting square timber. It was a crosstie.
“I might be crazy,” she told Astra. “But those look like railroad tracks.”
“I don’t know,” she muttered. “Doesn’t look like they’ve seen a train in decades, maybe more.”
But there was no time to stop and wonder, for their hosts were very eager to show them what lay ahead, so along the path they climbed, ushered onward.
There were only a few hours of sunlight left when the path led them away from the ridge and onto flatter ground, though the peak still towered higher above them.
Far below, Liz followed the valley. It rolled into the distant woodlands and further still into smothering thicket and mesas of rock red with iron in the distance. The sound of water rushing like a torrent told them that they were close to the falls they had observed from below. They were nearly there. The city would be just over the next hilltop.
Liz’s heart beat like a booming marching drum, thrumming with excitement. It would be the achievement of a lifetime, she reminded herself. The first recorded higher civilization the expedition program had ever discovered. Intelligence on the same predestined path as their own, a short distance behind compared to the stretches of cosmic time.
The second the towers came into view, and they crested the hill, such thoughts immediately evaporated. And Liz felt like she would be sick.
"No," Astra quietly gasped.
Now they could see the tremendous, white metropolis, and they saw that the city was dead. What had once been a city built for gods, was little more than a shell of cracked marble and overgrown and crumbling stonework.
The perimeter wall had fallen in sections, mounds of rubble buried and reclaimed by the highland carpet of grass. A large gate lay rotting on the ground before them, monstrous hinges of iron hanging where they once stood, resilient no more. The drawbridge had collapsed long ago into the water that flowed down the mountain peak and over the edge.
But scavenged boards and the odd timber had been strung together, providing a rickety crossing over the exposed metal strappings of the drawbridge left behind.
Neither of the two astronauts spoke — no words were exchanged. The ecstasy had faded and the atmosphere was somber, but their curiosity remained and pushed them forward. They had already come this far.
Liz took the first tentative step onto the makeshift planks, testing the weight. The boards and timbers creaked but held. Slowly they inched their way across, their hosts bouncing like springs from board to board, oblivious to the rushing water beneath them ready to sweep them off the mountain.
Liz could spot one of the chains that once held the bridge aloft that had been swept into the river. It lurked beneath the water like an obsidian snake, waiting to prey on those that crossed its domain. She quickly returned her eyes to the rotting planks, crossing the last one in two bounding steps
It would be more than a minute after they reached the other side, and firm ground, that Liz's heart stopped trying to leap out of her chest. She could see Astra's knees were weak, her legs quivering beneath her. Both were winded from the ordeal and the long trek, but the ancient streets of the ruined city were now before them, beaconing them to enter the carcass of what once was.
As they walked the streets of the neglected city, Liz marveled at the design and detail of the buildings and abodes weathering away to dust around them — high, barreled archways of stone, mezzanines of now-dulled marble and quartz, and towers of alabaster. But even as everything slowly eroded to nothing around them, signs of life still emerged from the dim interiors. One by one, more of the equine-like creatures poked their heads from broken balcony and crumbling doorway. Their arrival had garnered a reaction from the remaining populace.
“Retraturned!” one of their guides called out with great excitement. “Celeste entutamanken LaLuna retraturned!”
The announcement was immediately met with outstanding ovation. “Celeste! LaLuna!” the inhabitants called out in the streets, joining the procession as the procession continued further into the heart of the endless ruin.
Here and there the inhabitants had carved out small dwellings for themselves amongst the stonework. Fallen walls were roughly patched with mud and rubble to keep out the elements, and small fire pits roughly chiseled into the marble floors lit their interiors.
“Celeste! LaLuna!” their hosts kept chanting, multitudes of them now filling the streets.
“What do you think they keep saying?” Astra struggled to ask over the commotion. “What does it mean?”
“Well, if I had to guess, I think they’re referring to them,” Liz said and pointed, her eyes locked ahead.
The parade had reached a large square, the creatures spreading out to line the sides. And in the center, two figures towered over all of them.
They were huge, and surprisingly well maintained. Probably the only thing preserved by the inhabitants. Like two great guardians with outstretched wings and elongated horns, they stood before a massive temple of white marble and flaking gold filigree. And on the statues, one borne a crescent, and the other, a sun.
But before either woman could make further comment, from out the dissolving temple, a single occupant emerged, walking out into the last rays of the waning sunset. The temple doors boomed as he descended the crumbling stairs. He had an air of authority about him, the crowd reverently turning their attention to him, meeting his intense green eyes. The creature stopped before them, giving a long gracious bow.
“Celeste,” he said in a quiet, soft voice, hoof extended to Liz. “LaLuna,” his hoof moved to the science officer. “Pavo,” he then gestured to himself, touching his orange-coated chest — clearly a welcome and introductions.
“Those words?” Astra began. “Celeste, LaLuna. They keep on saying them.”
“I thought they were referring to them,” Liz replied, pointing to the statues of the two reverent beings.
“Are you sure they aren't referring to us?”
Liz had to admit, the thought, though however strange, was beginning to make sense.
“You might just have something there, Astra,” she admitted, noting the emblem of a sun and a moon chiseled into the breasts of the two creatures glorified in stonework. Not unlike their expedition patches sewn onto their suits. Liz rubbed a gloved hand over the patch, the threads of the embroidered sun and moon. And slight similarities as well shared between the two astronauts the Commander noticed. Little things. Maybe something in the face or cheeks. Or something in the chiseled, stony eyes.
“You starting to see what I’m seeing?” Astra wondered.
Liz watched as the crowd fell on bended knees along with “Pavo”, his green eyes turned to their feet.
“It sure looks like it,” Liz said, giving her a wary look. “You remember how the Aztecs heralded the Spanish Conquistadors as Gods?”
She nodded. “I remember reading it in a history lesson once. Treated them like earthly kings, giving them gold and silver.”
“Well, if memory serves me correct, it didn’t turn out so well for the Spanish in the end. Not when the Aztecs discovered the Spanish to be men, just like them. Bleed, just like them.”
“Are you anticipating these little guys to draw spears on us then?” Astra scoffed.
“Let’s just keep both eyes open. And stay close. That’s all. Just play along with them.”
“I hope this is the right idea,” Astra groaned through a false smile.
Pavo stood up, turning back to the anxious throngs of creatures. “Fasteal!” he proclaimed loudly, to a jubilant reply.
Immediately tables large and small were pulled into the square. Many looked to be heirlooms, intricately carved and inset with precious stone, meticulously maintained. Others were nothing more than a rough cobble of scraps. But none of the creatures paid attention as they went about joining all into a massive banquet table that stretched the length of the square. Chairs, too, were brought out in the same manner.
Both astronauts watched as two thrones of marble and shiny metal were carefully levitated out of the white temple by several of the creatures with horns. Gently, they were set side by side at the head of the table, right next to Pavo.
“Celeste, LaLuna. Comethe.” He motioned them over as the smell of food wafted through the air, carried to the square in the evening air. Even on a planet so foreign and strange, so far outside of inhabited space, the smell of hot, cooked food was unmistakable.
Liz's mouth watered at the thought of food, something other than their protein packs and dried rations. It looked innocent enough when it arrived: greens, plants, some kind of fruit perhaps. A glance at Astra's scanner gave Liz her answer. They would eat.
Astra and Liz slowly lowered themselves into the thrones, Astra in the one bearing a crescent moon, and the Commander in the one embossed with a blazing sun.
And though the feast would run long into the night, and no word would be understood between the two species, it was a night Liz never wanted to forget. A feast to remember. And all the while Pavo watching them intently, following her every move with his intense green eyes.
The high bronze doors, tarnished and pitted by the ages, swung open on buckling hinges. A dark cavern, the ceiling, loomed overhead, stonework arches rising several stories upward into the gloom. Polished marble had cracked and splintered with the restless shifting of the mountain and columns lay where they had fallen, like uprooted trees after a gale.
The procession followed the stuffed and sated newcomers into the temple, several hurrying ahead and igniting wall sconces of oil with their horns. Those with wings darted in and out of the arches with the grace of birds, clearing the musty air and brushing away the cobwebs.
Astra leaned heavily on Liz. She could hardly walk straight as she snapped pictures, the flash of her camera illuminating the darkened corners of the ancient structure and blinding several of the creatures.
Liz was full and tired and exhausted to the point she swayed as she walked, Astra's weight borne on one side, but everything she saw relit the fire of excitement within her.
“My God, it's like we hit the lottery, Liz," Astra murmured through a yawn. "Houston is going to have parades for us when we bring this documentation back.”
“How old do you think it is?” Liz asked, marveling at the architecture.
“Hard to tell really,” she said with a shrug as she continued her documentation. “The structure appears hundreds, maybe thousands of years old. I’ll have to run some tests.”
“It seems like it was abandoned, like everything else.”
“Cultures have their ups and downs. Technologies and sciences are lost, then rediscovered, then lost again. It is a good possibility these are only the descendants of a once-great civilization — living in the ruin of their former glory — their previous accomplishments weathered away or lost in translation to the passage of time.”
“Like ghosts,” Liz remarked, a shiver traveling up her spine. The room was cold, the air chilling. She turned up the heater on her suit to quickly ward it off.
The one named Pavo stopped in a deep antechamber, two doors before him, either one bearing the familiar crescent and sun.
“Restmanastera,” he said, laying his head against his hoof. The meaning was clear enough. They would be sleeping here tonight.
“Don’t plan on taking separate rooms tonight, are you Liz?” Astra wondered aloud.
“I was hoping you would think the same,” the Commander said, breathing a sigh of relief. “Today has been…taxing,” she admitted, feeling the burnout hitting her like a barrel of bricks. “We can get up early and make the trip back down to the Orion for more supplies and equipment. I don’t think we packed enough to even begin documenting everything we found.”
Pavo swung the door with the sun open, standing reverently aside for the two to enter. “Restmanastera Celeste entutamanken LaLuna,” he told them, bidding them farewell, his piercing, green eyes disappearing with a soft click.
The first thing Liz noticed was the lack of dust. The room had been kept spotless while everything else crumbled away around the equine creatures. A bed fit for a queen was situated in the center, surrounded by mementos and ornaments.
But Liz was much too tired to look around. She stumbled toward the bed, stripping from her pressure suit to her thermal layer. She passed odd curios arranged on dressers and bureaus: a fireishly bright orange feather, yellowed and moth-eaten scrolls, an ivory hairbrush, and a sagging pointed hat of stars and bells.
It was all too much to examine tonight. Liz was fading fast between the banquet full of strange, yet tantalizing dishes, and the arduous afternoon trek. Groggily, she slipped between the aging but soft bedding, laying her tired head on one of the fluffy pillows. The moment she could feel Astra lie beside her, Liz was already drifting into a deep and fitful sleep.
It was a sleep unlike any she had ever had before — a strange sleep filled with smoke, and phantoms, and Goddesses.
The world was on fire. Consuming, living, unending fire.
Liz could see it fill the horizon, a thick blanket of smoke and ash and death, thick enough to block out the sky. And all around Liz, creatures were screaming.
The world was deaf, mute, but she could feel them; they were like vibrations traveling up from the soles of her feet to the cap of her skull, a resonating amplifier.
The vision swirled before her, materializing from the nothingness of unconsciousness. The city she had laid eyes on mere hours ago was under siege. But this was not the same dilapidated ruin, withering away to dust. This was the heart of their civilization — a beating heart filled with life, and with towers that loomed skyward, and palaces of marble. A heart that was in its death throes.
Specters resembling phantoms, clouds of dark smoke, tore through the outer walls. Liz could sense the screams of the small pony-like residents, feel the stampede of their hooves, see the fear painted in their eyes as they fled the horrors that had breached their city. So many little lives tried to run from the sight of the specters. So many fell below stampeding hooves in the panic.
And Liz could feel it too, the same sickening dread. It was a boiling, dark pit in her chest. Her stomach roiled and tumbled, and she wanted to be sick. She wanted to cry and scream out in their familiar pain, but nothing could escape her lips. Not even a whimper. She was frozen, forced to live the horror for herself.
But all was not lost. Not yet. A light, brighter than a thousand suns, pierced the heavens, driving the nightmares back. The unknown force stood against the attackers, white hooves planted firm, wings outstretched like impenetrable shields, horn aglow, and mane aflame. Her statue in the city square did her no justice. To Liz, she was all, and more, a god.
Another beam of thermal energy shot from the Goddesse's horn, vaporizing swaths of the invaders. All to bide time for the populace to retreat, to escape the coming wave of death and smoke.
But Liz could see that there was little hope. Though the Goddess’s powers were strong, their enemy was just too numerous. More of the nightmares were pouring in, the walls breached. A writhing, living spectral blanket of darkness coming to consume the light.
From out the sky, another goddess, her coat blue like deep sapphire, flew to the white one’s aid, the energy exploding from her horn barely keeping the hordes back.
The blue one landed, nearly collapsing from exhaustion. Her companion was immediately by her side, the white goddess propping her up with a bloodied hoof.
Though chaos churned all around them, it seemed detached from the strange and powerful beings. An unnatural peace surrounded them. Their manes gently waved weightlessly in the windless air with a life of their own. The white goddess gripped her companion tight, as if clutching onto a solitary liferaft in stormy seas. A glance between them, some knowing look that needed no words — a moment of understanding. Supporting each other now, wrapped in an embrace, they stood before the collapsed city gates. Several more of the citizens and residents shot past them, but the goddesses paid them no attention. The city was already lost.
Liz watched as the two goddesses' horns began to glow, first soft, a nightlight then growing into a raging inferno. The power ripped through them, the very ground underneath Liz’s feet trembling like an earthquake. Across the city, towers collapsed and buildings crumbled with the tremors, but the Goddesses' power only continued to grow in magnitude. It was blinding, a mind-rending explosion of light.
The shadows fought to pierce the shroud of holy light surrounding the two. Liz watched the final exchange, saw as the white goddess looked deep into the blue one’s eyes, tears cutting through the ash and blood painting her face. Three words came across the blue one’s lips, though Liz could not hear them. Then, an explosion of light. Light so bright it overpowered Liz’s senses. Light so bright it was deafening.
And then it was over. And there was darkness.
Liz was left alone, very alone. Alone in a city devoid of anybody. No citizens were fleeing, no invaders advancing, no divine rulers or goddesses. There was nobody. All had vanished.
Liz ran. She ran as fast as her legs could carry her in their dreamlike state. She ran down the alleyways. She ran down the boulevards, some of which had not even been damaged in the attack, glass windows still spotless from being recently washed. And she ran to the gates, but she could not find a single living creature amid the ruin. Everybody was gone.
And as she turned to look upon the shining city, though it now bore her battle scars, a deep sorrow finally spilled over the dam containing it.
Liz cried. She cried as she had never before. The loss permeated the city, the same feeling she felt as she had entered the ruins only hours previously. It was a taint, a stain in the very ground she trod. Only it had been dulled by time.
And so she cried, collapsing behind the city gates as she repeated the final three words on the blue goddess's lips over and over till her head hurt.
“I love you.”
“Liz!”
The cry caused her to leap out of bed. Liz landed in a heap on the cold stone floor. So hard that her helmet clattered off the bedside table, striking her in the head. Liz's vision was immediately filled with stars, and she could feel the sensation of warm blood seeping from her scalp. Her ears rang with the impact, like a dozen bells tolling fervently. But she still heard the call again.
“Elizabeth!” the unmistakable voice screamed, rife with horror in each syllable. It was Astra. And she was far away.
“Astra!” she replied, struggling off the floor, heaving herself up by the bedpost. “Astra, where are you!” In an instant, she was suited up, running for the door while fumbling with the straps of her pack.
Liz burst from the bedroom, helmet clutched tight in her grip. She wiped away the blood trickling over her eyebrows, struggling to see in the dusk. No sconces were lit. All was quiet except for Liz’s ragged breath. Not a soul stirred the dark tomb.
The Commander ran through the corridors, drunkenly stumbling in her disorientated state. She was moving on instinct alone, going wherever her feet pulled her. “Astra!” she cried, weaving through stone-cut halls, receiving no reply.
She rounded the next corner, a bright flash of light suddenly assaulting her vision, followed by her colliding face to face with Astra.
Liz tried to blink the spots in her eye away, dazed by the light. “Astra what happen–”
But Astra violently shoved Liz back. She stumbled, her boots skidding across the cracked stone. Liz was surprised the small woman could have so much force in her.
“Run!” the scientist commanded. Liz's vision had cleared long enough to see the terror before her. Astra’s eyes were wild with primal fear, a large gash bleeding down the side of her face.
Before Liz had the opportunity to open her mouth, the sound of shuffling broke Astra away.
Something was coming.
Something was coming fast.
Astra whipped around, flashing the high-intensity beam of her camera in rapid succession.
Horrible animalistic screeches resonated and echoed from the corridor. Liz’s blood flushed cold as ice as she shielded her eyes from the blinding light, only catching the last glimpse of dark figures shrinking and disappearing into the shadows.
Astra was pushing her back from where she had come, keeping the light of her camera trained down the passage.
“Run! We need to get back to the ship NOW!” Astra was barely functioning, trembling so hard it seemed like she would shake herself apart.
“What’s going on?” Liz pressed frantically. “You’re hurt.”
“It was a lie,” Astra sobbed, swapping the batteries in her camera’s light while backing up. The metal cylinders clattered to the floor, several piercing shrieks following close behind. “It was all a damn lie,” she choked. Astra was limping hard now, favoring her right leg, the other dripping a trail of blood behind them. “It’s all been an illusion, Liz!”
“What has?”
“All of them!” Astra shouted, slamming fresh batteries in her camera. “We need to get back to the ship, get the Orion back to orbit. We can’t stay here.”
“Astra, you’re hurt,” Liz pleaded. “We won’t make it down the mountain in the dark.”
“Then you have to make it back at least. Leave me,” she growled, desperately gritting through the pain.
The words, "That is not an option," never got the chance to make it out Liz's mouth.
“Look out!” Astra screamed, throwing Liz down and bringing the light of her camera to bear. Liz watched as a jet-black creature with twin fangs like daggers was bombarded by thousands of lumens of light. Its blue eyes glowed in the fire before the retinas burned, and the four-legged creature tumbled in mid-air, landing in a heap before skittering into the darkness.
“Get out!” Astra cried hysterically before chasing after the creature with her light. She disappeared into the passage, more terrifying shrieks following each flash of light.
Liz was already back on her feet. She wanted to run after Astra, to stop her friend, yet her feet were going the wrong way. She was sprinting for the main hall and the double doors leading back into the square. The maze-like structure with its winding halls might've had her searching for hours, but Liz could see the entrance just ahead.
She had already thrown her weight against the doors, shifting them with her momentum when she heard the scream. It was human. And it died with a whimper.
Astra.
The moonless sky was dotted with millions of stars, tiny portals of light to other worlds hanging above her. All around her, Liz could hear the shuffling of hooves and something chittering.
She took off across the empty square, the skeleton of the ruined city rising above her, towering tombstones of crumbling stone and masonry. She could never make it back down the treacherous mountain path. Not with whatever horrible nightmares were crawling from the rubble all around her. She swore she could feel them, pressing in around her, descending upon the throbbing beat in her chest that boomed like a drum. There was only one other option.
Her helmet was already clamped down tight, its headlight blinking to life and her heads-up display flickering across her visor. Liz was nearly at the edge of the cliff, and she could feel the pressure of the air currents rising over the mountain, hear the thundering torrent of the waterfall.
The valley stretched out before her as she sprinted faster across the square, the nightmares closing in behind her, teeth chopping at her boots. There was no hesitation as she reached the edge of the ruin and leaped into the open air.
Liz plummeted like a rock, weighed down by her spacesuit. Sixty miles an hour, ninety, one-twenty; the airspeed on her HUD clicked faster and faster. She was buffeted by the air currents, her vision going dark as she began to spin. Her altimeter chirped faster and faster, the valley floor rising to meet her. She couldn’t wait any longer. She had to deploy.
"Inertial dampers!" she screamed.
Fire shot from her space pack, and jets of white-hot exhaust that kicked like a cannon burned in the night sky. The force nearly crushed her chest, and Liz could hear the unmistakable snap of a rib. Thirty miles an hour, fifteen; she was slowing.
The leaves of the trees were singed and quickly burned up as Liz descended through the treetops and touched down softly beside Orion.
Liz collapsed, struggling to breathe through the pain of the broken rib as the jetpack nozzles retracted into her pack. The Orion was right within her reach, but each step was agony. Step by step, she struggled up the embarkation ladder. She punched the airlock panel, the door sliding open with a wheezing hiss.
Liz screamed and howled in agony as she pulled the restraints of the flight chair tight around her.
“Flight Command, prepare for immediate departure to high heliocentric orbit,” she instructed the flight computer through labored breaths. "Emergency priority."
“Unable to comply,” the computer chirped. “All crewmembers must be aboard to initiate launch operations. First Science Officer Astrallis is not aboard at this time.”
“Command Override. Orion Flight Commander, Elizabeth Warren – override authorization Foxtrot–Echo–Alpha–Romeo. Authorize emergency launch.”
“Override authorization functions accessed. Proceeding with emergency launch procedures. Stand by.”
Like a great beast roused from its slumber, the spacecraft came alive around her.
“Powerplant online. Access passage secured. Flight systems enabled, automatic control. Fuel pumps nominal. Prepare for engine ignition.”
“Come on, come on!” Liz cried and screamed at the computer terminal as if the bundle of copper and silicone might hear the urgency in her voice. “Get us off!”
“Systems go for emergency launch. Final authorization require–”
“Yes! Yes! Authorized!” Liz yelled over the whine of the craft.
The engine cluster beneath her ignited spontaneously, the entire ship rattling till it felt like her molars would be shaken from her jaw.
“Authorization match – Commander Warren. Ignition. Automated emergency launch to heliocentric orbit.”
The spacecraft slowly lifted off the ground, her belly exploding with fire and smoke that lit up the night. Liz gripped the sides of her flight chair so tight they went numb. They were airborne, but the ship was accelerating at the pace of a snail.
"Ascending. Ascending," the computer delivered in its monotone.
“Come on! Faster!”
The dark figure of the mountain was rising out one of the cabin’s portholes. Higher and higher, the ship clawed, fighting the planet's gravity. Featureless mountain rock rose with them till the crest of the city ruins came into focus. They shot past the cracked and torn ivory towers, illuminated by the rocket engines with brilliant orange.
Liz knew a few more moments, and the ship would be passing through the bulk of the atmosphere. They would be supersonic, shooting their way to a high orbit as air friction was reduced and the craft gained momentum.
Crack!
Liz was thrown sideways, her helmet striking the side of her flight chair but deadening the blow.
“Collision warning!” the flight computer squawked. “Irregular trajectory. Attempting to correct anomalous flight path.”
The creature had struck them, clinging to the porthole and lashing wildly at the thick window. Its bloodthirsty shrieks could be heard even above the engines and through the porthole.
“Get it off!” Liz pleaded to the flight computer, shrinking back as the black creature slashed at the porthole with its enormous fangs, coating the viewport with thick, slimy saliva.
“Trajectory correction failed,” the computer continued to rattle off.
The sound of rending metal outside assaulted Liz’s ears before she saw the creature rip away the thin metal skin of the craft like a tuna can.
“Flight control failure. Engine control failure. Engine termination imminent,” the flight computer screamed. “Eject! Eject! Eject!”
Liz didn’t think — didn’t even blink. She pulled the striped handle between her legs without hesitation. The nose of the Orion was already dipping toward the horizon.
BANG!
Liz’s world exploded in a split second, but to her, it played out in eternity: the hatch of the flight deck dropping away in a puff of smoke, her flight chair shooting out into the cold nighttime air like a bullet, and a thin trail of smoke in her wake.
Liz tried to scream, but the force of her chair’s rockets had knocked the air from her lungs. The scream died in her throat.
Poof.
Fabric rustled overhead, her freefall strung to a sudden stop. The parachute had filled almost immediately. She hardly noticed the snap of another rib.
Liz gasped for her breath, pleaded for breath to fill her mangled and burning chest as she slowly drifted through the atmosphere. Straining her neck, she scanned the sky for the creature, seeing nothing but stars. Such beautiful, unfamiliar stars.
A sudden burst of orange light lit up the lone mountainside. The Orion met its fiery fate near the peak, exploding in a ball of volatile propellant and debris that rained down upon the foothills.
Liz looked down, pulling against the seat restraints. And her face went ghostly pale.
“No,” she gasped, tugging at the buckle on her chest. “No, no, no…”
The great mountain city, a ruin crawling with mystery and strange inhabitants, was rising quickly from below.
Liz shook and rattled the buckle of her restraints, but it was no use. It was jammed. She was pinned in the chair.
The flight seat slowly descended over the ruins, the cold mountain air causing it to buck and sway. From up above, Liz watched as multitudes of blue orbs lit up the ruins below. They were watching her: waiting.
But there was no stopping her descent into hell. And no matter how much she struggled, how much she screamed, the cries resonating in her cracked helmet, there was no escape. She barely even had time to notice the crumbling tower rising directly below her. And her world flashed to black with a bang.
Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?
The words echoed across the barren ethereal plains. They swirled in the nothingness, twisting their way into her head. Liz could hear them all around her. Every last one. Enough of them to fill an entire sea — each asking the same question.
Who am I?
The Commander could feel their sorrow, their pain that had seeped into the very ground upon which they stood. She wanted to help them. All of them. But there was nothing she could do.
Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?
“I don’t know. I don’t know!” she cried, screaming into the void. There was an overbearing presence, a suffocating weight pressing in from every side.
Who am I? The Goddesses know. They can tell us who we are, what we once were. But why did they leave us? Where has everypony gone? Surely they will return. They will return and tell us who we are. The Goddesses will return. Who am I?
Liz’s head felt like it was about to explode. She clutched it, spinning in the nothingness toward oblivion.
“Make them stop,” she pleaded. “God, make them stop.” The infinite walls were closing in all around her, eternity imploding to a singularity. And all she wanted was to help them. To tell them who they were. If only to make them stop.
She opened her mouth to scream, but nothing came out. Only a face of agony, and pain, and surrender.
Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?
“You’re lucky. You know that?”
Liz blinked in the dim light. Then the pain hit, exploding from everywhere around her. Her chest felt like a dump truck had run her over, and she swore her head was about to split open from the unbearable pressure.
Liz turned and retched, the bile burning in her throat. She could feel her hands bound behind her and that she was sitting in a small alcove. Everything was dark and damp, but she knew she wasn’t alone. Something was waiting for her.
"Who?" she managed.
A single point of light approached out the darkness, a strange voice she did not recognize, but that she could understand. It was speaking English.
“A few more seconds on the ground and the Others would have descended on you like piranhas. That’s the name of the fish, right?" the voice asked. "A piranha? I admit it's hard to read you with such a hard bump to the noggin. I can feel your head practically spinning,” the voice told her, ominous but certainly not threatening. There was almost a hint of pity dripping from his words.
The ball of light was coming into focus as well as a pair of intense eyes. The light was shining from the tip of a spiraling horn — the horn of Pavo. He stepped out the darkness, his emerald eyes sleepy and bloodshot.
“You… It’s you. P-Pavo, right?” Liz, bewildered and dazed, asked.
“You at least picked that up,” he sighed tiredly. “I’m guessing you didn’t understand the bit where I told you and your comrade not to leave the bedroom till sunrise, hmm? No matter the circumstances.”
“Astra,” she choked, tears finally flooding forth. She remembered the single scream. “God, no.”
“Yeah, it’s a shame what happened to her,” Pavo said dryly. “But you shouldn’t blame them, the Others. They wouldn’t know any better. They’re just confused.”
“Confused?" The words burned on her lips. "What were those things?” Liz sobbed, struggling against her restraints to no avail. “Astra– Why do you have me here? How do you know our words?” The questions spilled forth without resistance.
Liz felt the urge to vomit again, but there was nothing left. She could only heave and gasp from the pain enveloping her chest.
“Its probably better if I just show you,” Pavo said, his eyes shimmering in the dim light.
A surge of light sparked from his horn, a ring of emerald fire wrapping around him. Liz watched in mute horror as the fire peeled away Pavo, each and every one of his equine features, leaving only one of the jet-black creatures before her.
“Strange to witness it firsthoof, I take it?” Pavo said through his fangs, his voice calm and serene. He ran a dark hoof pitted with holes over the web-like crest of his mane. “It’s been so long since I’ve returned to my true form, it's strange to me, too.”
Pavo must have noticed the scream caught in Liz’s throat, her eyes wide and full. “That's pretty much what I expected,” he told her. “But I already know much about you, Elizabeth Warren.”
The emerald fire returned, peeling away his monstrous form. Instead, a shaggy ox now stood before her. “I know that you’ve probably already had the dreams, seen the vision,” he said, cocking his head. “We don’t know why, but we all see them from time to time, even though it happened so long ago.”
The visions flashed across Elizabeth’s swirling brain, images of the destruction assaulting her. She could see the two Goddesses holding each other one last time in their end, feel the loss of everything they sought to protect. Remember their bond, their love…
“Sisters–” she breathed.
“Right you are, Elizabeth Warren,” Pavo congratulated her, smiling through the mop of his ox mane. “The visions were strong with you. Sisters they were, but to our kind, something different.”
The fire returned, Pavo now transforming into a large bird-like creature with half the body of a lion. “We used to be enemies of them, the great ones you saw, the Goddesses,” he told her with a gruff squawk. “They always feared what they didn’t understand, as did our kind. For so long, our kind, our leaders, plotted to seize the great city.” Pavo’s hawk-like eyes drooped sullenly. “When the day of the invasion finally came, we walked right through the gates, both fallen like the walls. They were all gone. Every last one of them. Even the Goddesses.”
Pavo paced about Liz, observing her carefully. “I’m not sure what evil attacked them, but from what I’ve seen in those same visions, they vanquished it, along with themselves. Every sentient creature wiped in an instant. All except us.”
“But why?” Liz wondered, still struggling against her bonds. “Why would they do that to their own and themselves?”
Pavo stopped to run a paw across a dark column beside him, wiping the centuries of dust from its surface. It looked like part of a subterranean foundation. They were probably somewhere below the ancient city: in the catacombs?
“I can only imagine such a fate as the ponies of Equestria, and her leaders was a better one, spared from succumbing to the nightmares invading their home. And I guess we have them to thank as well.”
Another transformation and Pavo had returned to his pony-like form. “For a long time, we stayed. Where else were we to go?” he asked, an old pain coated on every word. “It was only when we lost them, did we realize our enemy could have been something more. Maybe something strong enough to fend off the shadows. The mimicry–” he waved a hoof over himself “–it became a memorial. A way to remember those that were lost. A reminder of the cost of our old, foolish ways."
"But that was so long ago," Pavo continued. "So long in fact that the Others have mostly forgotten. They have their primal lapses, such as you saw tonight. But it all fades by morning. And they’re still here, waiting. Believing themselves to actually be ponies. Believing Celestia and Luna will one day return.”
His eyes narrowed, pinned on Liz as if piercing into her. “And then you showed up.” Green fire once again swirled around Pavo, twisting and curling higher and higher. “And they hailed you as the Goddesses, as if a fairy tale had come true right before their eyes.”
Astra strode out of the fire, her short blue hair untouched by the flames. Liz’s heart tried to leap out her throat, and she choked for air.
“The connection,” Pavo said, opening and closing “Astra’s” fingers, " it’s deeply personal. With it, we have their words, their hopes, aspirations. All stored within our form until the line between us and our mimics becomes blurred. You and Astra captured that in the Others today, made the part of them that is pony feel the love that their Goddesses were back.”
Astra, but Pavo, knelt beside her, Elizabeth recoiling in revulsion as her friend reached a gloved hand toward her cheek.
“But you are not Gods,” Astra told her sweetly. “Your kind is mysterious, otherworldly, no doubt. But Gods?”
Astra sighed, placing a firm hand on Liz’s shoulder. “The Others, they will be distraught, but I can’t allow them to see what you really are — false idols. For that would only break them. I hope you know that I do regret this, Elizabeth Warren,” he told her dejectedly. “I want you to know they did not mean to do what they did to her. The dreams can send them into a frenzy.”
“Wait,” Liz gasped, struggling through the tears. “Just, wait. You don’t have to do this,” she told him. “I can go away, far away. Nobody will ever see me again. I promise,” she pleaded.
But Astra only shook her head. “Now, you know I can’t let you do that. The citizens will be troubled in your absence, but they will persevere. Only if it is that they believe the real Goddesses will someday return. Even if we both know that won't happen.”
Hot tears ran down Elizabeth's face, making her eyes red and raw. “Don’t do this,” she begged, but it did little to stray Pavo’s shape-shifted form.
“Don’t worry,” he said, straightening up. “It will be quick. Your friend didn’t even feel it. But I can tell you that she was thinking of you. It’s here.” Astra tapped her chest. “Stored with everything in her final moments, etched into her form. In that final instant, it was you she thought about,” Astra told Elizabeth, as if it would give her the assurance she needed, the strength. “A true friend, she thought of you. A fine leader and perhaps something more. You can go easy knowing this.”
Astra knelt back down, crouching before her. The green fire made its final return, slowly pulling itself over Astra. “Think of her, Liz Warren. Think of Astra.”
And tied to a chair, far, far away from home, in a foreign land not her own, Elizabeth’s final moments were filled with thoughts of Goddesses with wings and horns, and ruined cities, and Astra who had tried to warn her. Warn her of the gaping maw of teeth and fangs opening before her, ready as if to swallow her whole. It enveloped her reality, consuming everything that was Elizabeth Warren, Commander of the Orion, and the one who had tried to find the answer to the question "Who am I?". And the maw devoured the fear and the distant hope that was so far away from everything Liz had been or ever was. And all Liz could hear in that final moment was the pitiful calls of those above, the Others, who had forgotten who they were and the monsters that they hid inside.
Who am I? I don't remember who I am. But they are back. I can feel them among us now. The Goddesses have returned. Who am I?
Who am I?
