Past Lives

by Peridork

Rating: mature
Tags: Sex, Somnambula, Twilight Sparkle, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Romance, Princess Luna, Drama
Length: 33040

Twilight teaches Luna how to celebrate Hearth's Warming. It goes rather badly when Luna tells her of the real reason Hearth's Warming exists.

Luna celebrates her first actual Hearthswarming with Twilight.

She just has one tiny little problem with the holiday. She knows the past far too well to see the colorful holiday as anything but a farce. She'd bear it okay if the ponies didn't keep looking at her like she was crazy whenever she mentioned Somnambula and the other Pillars of the past.

She doesn't know why. They were the ones that saved Equestria from Stygian and the windigos.

Takes place in between seasons 3 and 4

Published 2018-12-19 10:30:01 UTC
Last updated 2019-02-16 08:23:13 UTC

It's Only A Paper Moon

She didn't know this holiday.

Luna sat and watched the denizens of Ponyville create a festival she never had truly known, bright lights and colors festooned trees and the smell of spices that she could only name now thanks to weeks of acclimation to the new Equestrian diet and manners regaled her nose with their scents. She lazily scratched her ear as she watched the weird display of festivity just flit about like Breezies, each pony a hive of activity. She pulled the too small earmuffs off her head with a light dose of magic and tossed them aside with a grunt. Barren white wastelands were too close to comfort for her now, her vague memories of slow insanity creeping up on her on the moon edging right below the surface of her features, the slight frown imperceptible to most living creatures besides her sister and one other.

"Luna, what's wrong?"

Two small violet wings wrapped around her as Twilight lay her head in Luna's mane, her magical aura levitating over a pot of coffee that Luna just stared at, a part of her cursing the wonders of modern living. She let Twilight sit there, a hoof silently tracing the constellations all contained within Luna's mane.

"Nothing." Luna knew that was a lie. She also knew that Twilight could now detect that tiny hitch in her voice that gave away the farce of complete aloofness that she liked to put up. She cursed her sister silently, not caring if the superstitions surrounding Celestia were true. If they were, she didn't care.

Twilight stopped tracing the constellations on Luna's back, got up from her vantage point, and walked around to face the dark blue alicorn, her horn barely reaching Luna's chest, the dichotomy of a powerful being being so relatively small making Luna feel some small sense of amazement every time she watched her Twilight's unsure hooves get that small modicum of potential she saw deep within that purple chest and actually try to lecture her of all ponies about something."

Twilight slowly studied Luna's face. "I know something's up. And not because of the hints that Celestia gave me."

Luna's face faintly blushed at that. "Nay?"

Twilight shook her head. "It's because you've been staring out from my library's balcony for the last hour and a half. I love Ponyville and all the silly things that everypony can get up to now and again, but I don't sit outside in snowy weather for that long because of it. That'd be a death sentence for most."

Luna cocked her head and smirked. "I can see why Celestia had to send you to the Crystal Empire then. I mean if I could expire from a bit of harsh weather. I'm not some hard pony such as yourself."

Twilight groaned. "That's not what I'm meaning." Twilight rubbed her face and stared at Luna. "What I'm saying is that you have a problem that you aren't dealing with. And its not your continued use of weird puns and jokes."

Luna rolled her eyes. "The pink one's efforts to help me understand a thousand years of humor aren't a problem. As she would say, 'humor is a fine art with continuous turns of phrase that create this constant reevaluation of the quintessential idea of the perfect joke."

"So humor is completely subjective. That's what she said. I know that because I was there when she said it." Twilight huffed. "Now so help me, I'll-" Twilight breathed. "That's not important. I just want to know what's wrong."

Luna sighed. "What is Hearth's Warming?" Luna lay her head on the balcony and looked out to the bustling streets with a fine dusting of snow, her wings lightly wrapped around herself.

Twilight stared at her. "What was that?"

"This festival that you celebrate. I don't know why it exists."

Twilight took a deep breath and slowly tried to work out what her marefriend said. "You've been back from the moon for at least a few years. How did this never come up when you were acclimating to normal life? I mean it should have or something, it's a major holiday. You had to be awake once to see it."

Luna shrugged. "I tried to ask some ponies in the palace after I came back but it's been rather difficult to talk to ponies when that continual foppish behavior of the aristocracy that my wonderful sister has so graciously created exists or the cowering in fear I spread by just existing. So no, I don't really talk much to our Equestrian populace."

Twilight rustled her mane in thought. "You're the Princess of the Night. How in Equestria did you never realize that there were possible correlations between upticks in themed dreamscapes and the time of the year?"

"Perpetuated mass hysteria, a very common tactic in mental warfare. Mayhaps I encountered a few villains that used that tactic with gusto. It always was a terrible time for our subjects when dream magic was being readily used." Luna shook her head. "Though now that makes my constant letters from foals saying how I ruined Hearth's Warming for them make a whole lot more sense."

Twilight's eyebrows furrowed. "Lulu, what did you do?"

Luna's body shivered at Twilight's use of her pet name for her. "I thought Equestria was still being influenced by Changeling magic. so I may have explained to some foals that, well, that they were being lied to by Changelings that looked like their parents."

Twilight ran through a whole gamut of emotions as she tried to speak, her words unable to form as her brain briefly stopped working. Finally, she got the words that she could say, the tone of her voice oozing disappointment. "You are going to learn about Hearth's Warming if its the last thing I do. But that's for the morning- not nearly midnight, I'm tired and wanted to get rest for once, not have an existential breakdown of thinking about all the foals you traumatized."

"I mean 'twas only a few hundred foals."

Twilight yelled out a wordless scream, the sound all too common in Ponyville, and pulled her marefriend to bed.

***

Twilight blinked herself awake as the previous night's headache hit her full force. She wiped the sleep from her eyes and looked over to see a completely empty bed. Twilight placed a hoof on it and still felt warmth there, telling her that last night wasn't a dream and some stress related hallucination.

She groaned as she stretched her wings, the stupid things still not comfortable to her at all, their structure and her way of sleeping at odds. She had been raised as a unicorn- the idea of becoming anything close to Celestia was anathema to previous life and yet here she was in some form of a relationship with Celestia's sister. She didn't think about the new demigod status or sexual urges all that much.

She quickly pushed the beginnings of a panic attack down as she tried to relax by replicating Cadance's methods, her breathing slow and stead as she counted to ten.

She awkwardly shambled out of bed, her horn lighting up and straightening her covers.

Twilight could swear she could hear a faint humming as she went down the stairs, some kind of familiar melody that she could swear she knew but couldn't place, the early morning haze of post sleep exhaustion fogging her memory enough to make the least important question be tossed down a figurative mental mine shaft just to be dug up later when it was unimportant.

She quickly took the last few steps of the staircase and turned to her kitchen, her nose being hit by a mass of horrible smoke as she opened the door. Through great hacking coughs, she could see Luna sheepishly grinning as she tried to open a window. "Luna."

"Yes?"

"While I appreciate," Twilight wheezed. "whatever this is. I don't think fire is a great thing to have in a library."

Luna's magic finally opened a window. Long, cold blasts of arctic air hit the kitchen, clearing the smoke almost immediately, but leaving the temperature on the cold side as Twilight could feel her fur stand on end. "I didn't mean to cause you any alarm, just I've been attempting to teach myself all these infernal devices. And for some reason I cannot understand this thing Celestia says is called a toaster. I try to toast things and they just turn out blackened."

Twilight levitated over a piece of toast and stared at the burst hunk of bread, the thing more charcoal than grains. With a quick toss into her garbage, she sighed. "I wasn't really hungry anyway."

Luna slumped her head and sighed. "But I spent a while trying to replicate things I saw in the royal kitchens. Breakfast there was usually rather nice after a long night and I thought that mayhaps it would be a good idea that I could repay you for being rather-" Luna paused trying to find the right words, knowing full well that Twilight often seemed annoyed at her misunderstandings of things. "nice to me and helping me try to be normal."

Twilight craned her neck to glance at the smorgasbord of food that Luna had prepared, a veritable breakfast compared to her normal toast and some leftover food from the day before. Twilight awkwardly chuckled at the thought that Luna of all ponies spent that much effort on making her breakfast in bed. Not that she didn't appreciate it, far from it, just that it felt very weird. "Yeah. Uh, well I mean Heartswarming is known for its food so you really didn't have to go to such an extent here just to say 'thanks'. But I bet Spike would love to eat your food." Twilight felt like she dodged an emotional roller coaster as Luna's face lit up.

"Verily?"

Twilight nodded. "He's really not a picky eater when it comes to breakfast."

***

Luna stared at Twilight's pile of clothes. Hats, scarves, and boots were splayed out in a barely contained chaotic mess on the wood floor as she slightly dodged Twilight's magic.

Twilight opened the door and quickly shut it as she looked out at the near foot of snow that had been dumped on the town while the two alicorns were asleep, her body tense with emotion as she huffed and puffed, pacing back and forth silently ranting to herself. Luna smiled at her mare's silent outburst, the idea that someone as self contained as this little alicorn could be so very animated over such a trivial mess as snow. Luna disliked snow, to be sure, but she had her reasons and all that- Twilight just thought it was a hassle. A rather silly little hassle that made Twilight's nose wrinkle with worry and her cheeks flush with anger. A righteous fury of a mare pacing back and forth. Luna tried holding in her breath so she wouldn't break the moment's charm.

"Luna, are you listening?"

Luna snapped back into focus and nodded. "I think your last few sentences were a little hard to follow with the barrage of garments and slipclothes. Can you repeat your statement, please?"

Twilight sighed. "Yes, well I can't particularly find clothes to fit you all that well so unless you would be okay looking like I dressed you in doll clothes due to your-" Twilight paused. "Regal height. I think before we get with the Hearth's Warming research, we might have to go to Rarity's to get you some clothes."

Luna waved a hoof. "Not necessary. I fought windigos and faced their polar magic for multiple days without a strip of clothing. This mere storm can't hold a candle to the numbness I felt then." Luna flexed her wings and winked.

Twilight grabbed a hat, scarf, and boots and rolled her eyes and she talked, putting away what Luna had just said behind so many mental blocks that she felt like a jailer. "Yes, well I'm still taking you there. I don't want to have a repeat of when I took Spike out during Hearth's Warming and he almost turned into a popsicle just to show off how awesome he was to Rarity." Twilight pulled on her boots and hat, carefully pulling the earflaps down around her face and wrapped the scarf snug around her neck. "And I don't doubt you fought windigos. But the history books don't really like mentioning you at all."

Luna grumbled. "Celestia."

Twilight tried backpedaling that statement, knowing full well how much of a touchy subject Celestia could be for Luna. "I mean it'd probably be far more likely your feats were lost to time after a few thousand years. That tends to happen with books and the pre-modern idea of copying books by hoof. Nothing sinister in that. You know maybe I could see if Cadance has some original books mentioning you." Twilight gently prodded Luna with her magic to try and find the rare tickle spot that she knew the alicorn had. "But that's for another time. While I'd love debating historical accuracy and how history tends to be written after the fact, we do have a little mission to complete."

Luna imperceptably leaned into the faint prodding that Twilight's magic gave her. "Fine, but maybe next week we could find a book or two that corroborates my stories. And maybe I could show how fantastic I am with a little demonstration."

Twilight smiled and opened the door again, this time prepared for the icy wasteland that was Ponyville. A faint hint of a laugh enveloped her voice as she talked. "Is that a date?"

Luna blushed profusely at the thought. "Yes."

***

Luna pushed open the door to Carousel Boutique, carefully ducking to not hit her horn on the top of the doorframe and pressed her wings close as the bell rang for Rarity's attention.

"I'll be right with you in a moment." Rarity's lilting accent came from her back room, a sewing machine chugging away on some unseen piece of clothing.

Luna awkwardly sat down on a chair as Twilight pulled her winter clothes off and left them neatly by the door. Luna stared at the sheer holiday cheer garishly draped on ponyquins, Rarity sparing no expense with garlands and tinsel dresses, hats that looked like trees with tiny ornaments, and scarves that were made to look like snowflakes sitting there overloading her brain with terrible modern sensibilities. She quietly wished that she could curl up in a direwolf hide and be done with modern fashion. Luna did know that the fashion industry had to be rather on the nose with trends and that took a very certain type of pony- Celestia had spent weeks showing her how the trends she knew a thousand years ago with tight shifts and very certain types of fabrics and hoods depending on social standing had exploded into this menagerie of choice after a few hundred years- and the Lady Rarity was such a pony able to shift fabric, cut, and size on a whim when a customer asked politely.

Interesting to be sure, but she didn't have to enjoy every little flighty thing she or the other designers came up with.

Rarity walked in, looked at Luna, and froze. "Oh, Twilight, I wasn't expecting you or Luna here. You really should have said something."

Twilight groaned. "It's fine. And Rarity, I keep telling you to treat me and Luna like all of your customers- being alicorns doesn't change our need for clothing. Or standing in a nonexistent line. I mean decorum is nice and all, but I also like not acting like a princess every moment of the day."

Rarity glanced between Twilight and Luna, briefly unable to speak, her mind trying to reconcile having two princesses in her boutique, even if one was both a decently good friend and also completely insane to not want some form of decent action within prescribed roles. If Rarity was a royal, she'd have all the pleasure and time in the world to appreciate it. She fidgeted as she talked. "Fine. But Princess Luna is still here."

Luna, for her part, had just been looking at the skylight in the boutique, flecks of dust lightly spiraling down from above causing light to scatter between its different waves of light, a mini rainbow dancing across the floor. It was nice seeing something the moon couldn't give her- light and warmth. Even the dust was different. Truer somehow than the chalky rock dust that littered the moon. She had been vaguely listening to Rarity have some strange and utterly pointless meltdown over the sheer inanity that was continuous polite discussion. Luna knew of polite discussion from the hangers on at court and didn't care for them. "While I appreciate your offer of saying my regal title, it would be ever so pointless with you just bowing every five seconds." Luna smiled.

Rarity rubbed her temple and impolitely swore under her breath, the idea of breaking Canterlot etiquette was a no no. And yet here she was being asked to do that just because it was expedient. "Fine, but I have one very important rule."

Twilight and Luna shared a look.

"Just don't mention this if you see anypony from Canterlot. If it got out I was not going by the book every moment of the day when it came to this rubbish, I'd never hear the end of it from Hoity Toity. And that insufferable stallion can be so unreasonable when it comes to that. Yet I want to get into Canterlot. Untapped potential for staying on top of the latest fashion trends and all that. So can we just not mention this cause I'd love to open a store within my lifetime please."

Luna chuckled. "Well that's Canterlot for you. Seems we can agree on one thing, Generosity."

Twilight coughed and quickly prodded Luna in the ribs, her nights of continuously explaining in minute detail her friends' names and what they actually did for a living and here was Luna deciding it would be easier and somehow more appropriate to call them by their Elements and everything. Twilight looked up and mouthed Rarity's name.

Luna sheepishly grinned. "Yes, Rarity, that's it. Sorry about that, my sister's the one with the perfect recall of every pony ever born." Luna awkwardly laughed as she gripped Twilight in her magic and slowly pushed her towards Rarity.

Twilight quickly sighed. Luna was getting better with social anxiety, but she usually tended to devolve back into defensive tics when Twilight tried to push her out of her shell. "Can you make Luna some winter clothes? Seems that most of my clothes are made for ponies with less full figures." Twilight looked back and winked as she saw Luna pout, her cheeks flush with heat as she looked down.

Rarity stared at Luna and pulled out an array of pins and tapes. "When do you want her back?"

Twilight sighed, knowing full well that while it would be rather nice to see Luna in something else than her normal princess attire, she wasn't going to waste all day having Luna model every fashionable whim that the unicorn had in storage ever since she saw the mare. Rainbow Dash had accidentally agreed to model for Rarity once and hadn't left the Boutique for an entire week. So she had to err on the side of caution and act reasonable.

"She just needs one pair of winter clothes- not a wardrobe. So just do the best idea and run with it. Also be subtle. I don't want to be dragging a Heartswarming basket around town so limit your festive apparel."

Rarity feigned indignation well, her rough hints of disapproval echoing softly through the building as she dragged Luna back to her workshop.

Twilight prayed that her marefriend would be safe. Or that she wouldn't harangue Rarity for some perceived slight.

***

Luna looked around the decently sized workroom. A large rack of clothes and fabrics was situated at one wall and Rarity's station of creation sat near the other with multiple ponyquins assembled like a small platoon of soldiers in the middle of it all- possibly an assembly line of thought as she was yanked in one of the only chairs.

Rarity levitated over her own personal seat and stared at the mare, hooves slightly crossed and her eyes awash with movement as she ran them over Luna, ideas popping up and disappearing in a flash. Rarity breathed and spoke. "Celestia damn it, if only Twilight hadn't put those silly rules in place I could give you an entire wardrobe that could make you stand out so you aren't the biggest wallflower in existence. I mean honestly from the few bits of gossip I could glean from Twilight- which wasn't a lot since she is weirdly tight lipped about you- I'm surprised you didn't click with Fluttershy or something. Though with how she's taken and all that, I'm not surprised. Though with how Dash is the least feminine of all of our friends, I can see why those two got together. I mean add a penis to Dash and you change nothing of note." Rarity tossed aside a roll of fabric in disgust.

Luna blinked, unsure if she was being complimented or not. "Thank you? Also I do not know how the sex life of your friends is relevant to my clothes but sure."

Rarity levitated over a cup of coffee and drank it while she just looked at the alicorn. "Sorry, I've been trying to design dresses for the girls for the Gala again and Dash keeps saying that she could reuse her dress. The absolute barbarity. But less about Dash and her masculine ways- let's actually get down to the nitty gritty, and I don't mean the coat and boots. I have one question to ask."

Luna stretched her wings, her eyes trying not to focus on the white unicorn. Already the mare reminded her of the clowns at court, except she wasn't completely a pain. "Yes?"

Rarity hunched her back. "I get Fluttershy and Dash. I most definitely get my relationship just fine with Applejack. I vaguely get Pinkie and Cheerilee- even though that took some getting used to. But you and Twilight? I mean honestly I looked at Twilight when she first appeared and thought she could have been my in to Canterlot, a unicorn with prime access to every single high roller party I could think of? Marvelous." Rarity laughed. "I was naive and realized how wrong I was when Twilight kept being a complete mess. That whole Discord thing and the Smarty Pants Incident a few days later, for example. And I guess there's you. Not that that's wrong. I mean Twilight said she checked-"

Luna huffed. She remembered Twilight knocking on her window in Canterlot and blubbering like a foal after her use of dark magics on this town. It was still a touchy subject that neither spoke about, and yet she could see in Twilight's dreams that she still was haunted by what she did then. What she was capable with just a polite word, a bad day, and the nearly unlimited power she held in a town that had grown to trust her. Discord was well known in twisting the darkest desires of ponies for fun. What Twilight went through wasn't just a 'thing', it was a breaking of a mare for Discord's sheer amusement. She accidentally slipped into her old speaking patterns as she quickly tapped a hoof."I remember the fortnight after being quite tumultuous, pray tell do thou hast a point?"

Rarity stared at the livid alicorn and quickly read the room. "Oh, I mean that how do you two even work? All I hear from ponies are that you barely touch or that most of the time you seem to be rather distant."

Luna's eye imperceptibly twitched. "Dost thou believest everything ever said in hushed whispers? Mayhaps thine ideas of propriety are warped to follow the modern idea of love where one must whore thyself like a common trollop? Or is it your sheer fawning over these aristocrats that has warped thine soul?" Luna stood up and fumed at the unicorn.

Rarity stayed quiet.

Luna tried the breathing techniques Twilight had shown her, counting from forty. With a huff, she stared down at the cowed mare. "I have been alive for thousands of years, I know exactly why I care for her. I have loved and lost many lovers and yet I care for her like the others- yet this time I might not see her wither and die like the rest. Do you know the pain of losing everypony you ever cared for just because you were given immortality? Hold them in your hooves as they were tainted by dark magics. . ." Luna sighed. "I don't like public declarations of love, okay? My actions speak louder than your paltry gossip." Luna bent down and stared at the mare. "Tell the others to not cross me for I know where each and every one sleeps at night and what you lot dream about. And some of it is purely disgraceful. Tell Hoity Toity that and he'll give you whatever you ask."

Luna levitated over a dark blue pair of boots, a green scarf, and a maroon coat and quickly cast an enlarging spell on them so they would both fit snugly on her and clip the annoyance in the bud. Luna breathed out. She felt still the darker parts of herself that the Nightmare had amplified and twisted into malevolence. The feelings were still there. Her past wasn't going to change anytime soon- she had her future to look forward to. Luna remembered why the pair had come here in the first place, besides the coat, and quickly shifted back into her much less terrifying self.

"Sorry about that, now what does Heartswarming mean to you?"

Rarity stared at the mare who had only moments before been very, very terrifying and answered in shaky tones, her eyes like dinner plates as she stumbled over her words. "It's my best time for my business. Though that means I can't really see my family or Applejack all that much. And everypony looks like they had a gaudy idea to wear their worst sweaters imaginable, so overall it's a mixed bag." Rarity cowered as she looked at the alicorn.

"A bit too fashion focused, but thank you. And this coat is fantastic. If only you hadn't mentioned that Discord thing, Or the whole brief comment about me, I might have been so much more gracious for it. I could be so awful to you in so many ways, but that would just play into all the terrible gossip that I'm trying to not listen to." Luna ran a hoof through her mane, little constellations swirling around her hooves. She still felt a little bad for being so harsh on a protector of Equestria, even if the mare reminded her a bit too much of the conniving aristocrats she detested. Sliding off her horseshoes, she placed them at this Rarity's hooves and slid her feet into the dark boots. The fabric was of the highest quality and felt like she was laying down on clouds, the cushion beneath her being unfamiliar and yet soothing.

"Perhaps your craftsmareship is finer than your wagging tongue and wandering ears, so in payment for your excellent taste in fabrics, and partially for my own harsh tones, here's my own shoes so you might bypass some of the more distasteful aspects of Canterlot- the rich just love a good bribe. Just be better than today and you'll make it. Cause you are still better than the rest of Canterlot combined. They'd never get a generous donation from me." Luna walked away.

Rarity just sat there staring at the horseshoes as she heard the bell jingle.

***

Luna glared at the ponies around her as Rarity's words echoed in her mind. The idea that ponies were judging her closeness to Twilight every moment of the day made her uneasy, the threat to Rarity more of a force of habit than an actual threat she would enforce. Luna quickly draped a protective wing over Twilight, the size between the mares almost making the protective gesture a blanket of warmth.

"Luna, are you okay?" Twilight looked up at her marefriend with a hint of surprise.

The midnight blue alicorn tried to smile, her face slightly showing apprehension at her thoughts. "Gener-" Luna paused. "Rarity said some things in there about us."

Twilight groaned. Of course she said things. "Like what?"

Luna tried to look away from Twilight, vaguely staring at the coming bakery, the smells of the holiday season wafting through the air. "About you, How we could ever work. The Discord matter popped up right away. I dealt with it with perfect aplomb and all that."

Twilight knew when she was lying. "Luna, I keep telling you to not scare everypony I have ever known if they say something that happened in the past." Twilight sighed. "I told you a while ago that keeping all of our love life in private might cause some eyebrows to be raised."

Luna grimaced. "'Tis true."

Twilight rubbed her temple. "At least swear to me that you won't do it again."

Luna rolled her eyes. "I gave her my horseshoes. I believe I don't have to completely apologize."

Twilight poked Luna hard in the ribs at that statement. "It doesn't matter what you do to make up for it. Even though I know how much monetary value your shoes are. If you don't apologize to Rarity in the next day, I'll have to hear about it from every single one of my friends who all talk amongst each other and come back to me to say how unreasonable you are."

Luna's demeanor shifted slightly, showing a vague hint of worry at Twilight's words. "But you don't believe them?"

The purple alicorn edged closer to Luna and shook her head. "I believe their perception of things." Twilight quickly spoke before Luna could interject something. "And I believe you are trying hard and all, but it's been kind of annoying dealing with weekly 'why your marefriend is a terror to society' letters and talks from every which way. So let's just get in Sugarcube Corner and get something to eat cause I'm hungry and want something to focus on besides my conflicting emotions."

Luna bowed her head and stayed quiet, her mind racing with worry.

***

Pinkie whizzed around Sugarcube Corner, pies and cupcakes stacked high on her hooves, her graceful movements making short work of the packed place. She quickly noticed the two alicorns enter through her peripheral vision, tabling that thought as she skated past patrons and pastries galore. With a flourish, she landed in front of the pair and did a slight bow. "Welcome to Sugarcube Corner, the sweetest place in Equestria, Happy Holidays and Seasons Eatings, what may I do for you on this fine snowy morning?"

Twilight did a quick side eye towards Luna and shrugged. "Probably a table for two." Twilight looked Luna up and down. "Maybe a booth? I can never tell how that works."

Pinkie sized up Luna, her ministrations to administrate tabled justice bringing her to admire the length of Luna's legs- a definite hint to aim for a certain height of table, the longer instep giving her a definite bend when compared to normal pony heights. She slowly looked at each feather of Luna's wings, noting the length of the wingspan and how they might look and act while folded up. And she slightly poked the horn that jutted out of the alicorn's head, slightly wincing at the sharp point touching her hoof.

Luna, for her part, vaguely waited while Pinkie was literally climbing all over her. The unpleasant touching and feeling just a fact of life when it came to the mare. Luna inwardly thanked her luck that Pinkie wasn't in a dream right now. The idea of finding the pink one stumbling across Luna's personal domain like a party spirit, leaving excited ponies in her wake slightly terrified her- the mare being eerily too competent at mixing the dreams to her will for Luna's liking.

Pinkie slid off Luna's back and tapped her head briefly to connect all the dots. "Looks like the best bet to fit your oversized guest, Twily, is the royal table." Pinkie giggled. "Well it's more a table retrofitted to fit any weird customers. And we have a 97 percent success rate with the table."

Luna cocked her head at that. "Why not 100?"

Pinkie stared at Luna. "You've never met Steven Magnet have you? Hard to fit a river serpent like him in the booth." Pinkie grabbed a few menus and some silverware and bounded away.

Luna whispered to Twilight. "Is she pulling my hoof?"

Twilight shook her head. "You should get out more. From what Rarity tells me, he loves the spa."

Luna just stared at her marefriend like she had grown a second head. Celestia had supposedly destroyed most of the river serpents when they invaded the hippogriff lands in search of a pearl the serpents had lost. That was thousands of years ago, It was unlikely a serpent had survived her sister's annoyance at being woken up at an untimely hour.

Twilight and Luna sat down at the table, it's size fitting the two alicorns comfortably.

Pinkie passed out the menus and they quickly said their drink orders to get a kind of quiet moment in the bustling bakery.

Luna twiddled her hooves as she looked down at her menu, the strange spices and even stranger words telling her nothing about the food. Things like a "everything sundae- holiday edition" stood out to her for the absolute decadence of modern living, the idea of a banquet outside of feast days and the price of only a handful of bits all things considered was still shocking to her. She remembered the past like it was only yesterday, where a handful of bits was something the more unfortunate ones squabbled to death over. "Do you have any idea what I should get for food? I mean I've never really been here on a. . .holiday." Luna tried to smile as she saw Twilight look up and then back down in silence.

Twilight was fuming at her. She knew it. It was like watching Celestia be disappointed in her summoning an army of skeletons to test out the limits of the necromantic arts. The silent treatment was her sister's forte and she was staring at her sister's most well adjusted pupil. From what her sister said, there were others, many others and yet here was the one that was both the perfect example of her sister's teachings and yet able to break away from her firm yet oh so very subtle grasp.

And she was performing her sister's look of disappointment disguised as bored apathy with flying colors. Luna uncomfortably shifted in her seat as she tried to keep focus on the task at hand.

"Because I was thinking of this super huge sundae so I can share it with you and not because I feel particularly bad about whatever I did or didn't do. Which I definitely do not care about the thing, that I didn't do. Cause I didn't do it. I think."

Twilight set down her menu and crossed her hooves.

Luna tried to hold out for a while against the focused guilt trip that Twilight was confidently giving her.

"Okay, maybe I shouldn't mess with your friends. Even if some are inveterate gossips that wag their honeyed tongues."

Twilight tapped a hoof.

"And I'll apologize to her." Luna saw Twilight roll her eyes. "I will, and all of the rest of your friends just in case."

Twilight sighed. "Now why would you have to apologize to any of my other friends?"

Luna felt her words come unabated. "I remember scaring the timid one during my first Nightmare Night. This Rarity thing an hour ago. There was also that one time I almost burned down the orange one's barn when I was trying to explain to her little sister that I could not talk to ghosts. Then I may have accidentally broadcast one of the blue one's nightmares when I was trying to hunt down a certain monster in the dreamlands. You're already mad at me now and Pinkie is completely terrifying so I don't know."

"I don't know why you keep calling me scary." Pinkie poked Luna on the nose as she lay down the hot cocoa in front of the two mares. "I'm sorry that I think doing whatever you want when you're asleep is so cool. I mean imagining really cool stuff is fun."

Luna groaned. "I can tell you multiple ways why abusing dreams is dangerous but that's neither here nor there." Luna felt agitated, her mane's stars spinning faster in response, their colors redshifting as she tried to push away the feelings. "I want this 'Holiday' super large thing."

Pinkie's eyes were slightly surprised. "You know that's for a family of ten, right. Unless you have like the most amazing stomach ever which I doubt, no offense, but you don't look like you could fit that. I mean 'Winter Hibernation is-"

Luna cut her off. "It'll be fine. I have my wonderful-"

"I'll have a gingerbread muffin."

"-marefriend." Luna grinned as she didn't want to backpedal her order. "I mean I will totally do this alone."

***

Luna stared at the horrible monstrosity in front of her and cautiously popped her head to the side to see what Twilight was doing. "So do you want to help me eat your friend's insane concoction or not? Because I can slay this beast no problem, but you only got a muffin and us alicorns can't live on bread alone. Or something."

Twilight rolled her eyes. "You didn't have to order the largest thing on the menu to show off your love for me. And no. Not going to help you dig yourself out of this one." Twilight took a bite of her muffin and sat back waiting.

"Drat." Luna dug in and ate the first bite of the sundae, conflicting sugar tastes hitting her tastebuds, the amount of sugar alone already giving her a sugar rush due to how unused to sugar she was. She almost gagged at the strong taste of what she assumed was holiday spices. To her it felt like the culmination of Celestia's cake stash, the spices present almost too much for her.

"So how do you like the food?" Pinkie popped up to check on the pair, the pink pony's ever present smile making Luna at least not completely threatened by her presence. "I mean it's not every day we get a princess, though I guess Twilight comes in every once in a while but I knew her before she was an alicorn so I don't exactly know how to classify you, no offense, Twily, but I don't really see you as the whole idea of a princess."

Twilight sighed, far too used to the idea that she was still in limbo about being a princess. "It's fine. But while Luna here looks like she came in just to show off her alicorn prowess and eating skills." Twilight smirked. "We came in to get out of the cold first, and then I guess to find out the meaning of Hearth's Warming cause Luna never had one."

"Oh I know. Dashie's been complaining about it all morning. Something about the one day off she had in the winter months or something?" Pinkie's mind caught up with her mouth. "Wait, Luna never had Hearthwarming? What were you doing for the last-" Pinkie trailed off. "Oh, sorry, guess you can't celebrate on the moon. Though I wonder how you could make up for a thousand missed holidays. That'd be like lethal holiday spirit."

Luna took another few bites as the pair had been talking. In between bites of sheer decadence, she tried to answer. "It's fine, I'm more surprised that you seem to be celebrating our win over the Pony of Shadows and his windigo army, I really didn't expect such a happy holiday when it cost so many lives."

The two ponies were silent.

"Is it something I said?"

Twilight slowly tapped a hoof on the table. "I don't want to discredit that version of events because I most definitely wasn't there, but couldn't there be two different or multiple different windigo sightings? The things feed off of hatred and from what I've at least spent the time reading and checking- a thousand years ago wasn't the most agreeable time."

"You aren't saying what I think your saying."

Pinkie awkwardly shuffled away as she tried to get anywhere besides an alicorn spat. "Well it's nice talking to you. I have to totally check on the twins and all that. Hearth's Warming. You know, family stuff."

Twilight eyed Pinkie shift into the crowd in the bakery and wished she could go anywhere but here. "I didn't say you were crazy if that was what you thought I meant, and also I'm not saying that you did it. I'm just saying that there was a whole lot of horrible things happening a thousand years ago. Sombra for one, this Pony of Shadows, even though I still think it's just some old mare's tale. Discord was around back then as well, give or take a few centuries, and he wasn't reformed like Fluttershy says he is now. Every one of them were hurling around dark spells like there was no tomorrow."

Luna huffed. "True."

The pair ate their food in silence after that.

What Are They Doing In Heaven Today?

Luna and Twilight trudged through even more snow as they saw their breath on the wind, smoke trails leaving their mouths as they walked. Neither one particularly wanted to dislodge the awkward question on their minds and neither one wanted to break it first. Luna felt oddly amped up and twitchy as the sugar ran through her system, her attempt at something Celestia had mentioned once as romantic weighing her down literally as she felt it sit there in her now pained insides. Her jacket had barely fit, even with a tight breath, so moving around felt like she had eaten for five- even though she knew alicorns weren't supposed to be fertile anymore. She quietly chastised herself at trying something to cheer up Twilight's now decidedly dour mood.

The words of Rarity echoed through her head as she looked at Twilight's backside, the definite clipped walking and faster pace making her continually retread all the things either one had said. Maybe she shouldn't have told Twilight about the whole holiday thing. She should have just buried it and acted like it was fine, an alicorn adrift in the modern era. Looking like a relic as the world moved on and changed in a myriad of ways. Trying to explain that things felt wrong was silly, Twilight probably knew that already through hundreds of moments she had since they had got together- the idea of lights had confused her for an entire week. Or the time she had called Spike Twilight's familiar. Which then brought up rights for dragons and all these foreign terms she had stumbled over like a silly foal.

Maybe she really wasn't cut out for Twilight.

"We're here." Twilight's muffled voice rang out as she knocked on a door somewhat familiar to Luna, the Nightmare Night welcome party still fresh in her mind after a full year.

"Twilight, pray tell why are we here?" Luna slipped in her use of modern Equestrian, the thoughts swimming in her head putting the words behind an impenetrable barrier of time.

"Before we got into our long silence, Pinkie mentioned Dash and I'd rather see why 'Equestria's best flier' took a few days off."

Luna sighed. "Mayhaps she took a day of rest? The sky service in Equestria seems like a harsh mistress."

Twilight rolled her eyes. "Rainbow takes like seven naps a day. Either she's way too good at her job or she's a management genius stuck in a lazy body. Either way it gets done." Twilight knocked on the door. "Fluttershy, where is Dash?"

Fluttershy slowly opened the door. " She told me to let nopony in, I guess. Which seems awfully mean. Uh, I mean it's cold and you've probably been outside in the snow for minutes and that's awful for everypony." Fluttershy shifted on her hooves as she tried to balance letting them in and keeping her promise to Dash. "Oh ponyfeathers, I guess you could come in."

Dash slunk out of Fluttershy's kitchen, a coffee cup in hoof. "If it's Blossomforth at the door I'm demoting her to junior weatherpony." Dash stopped and stared at the alicorns. "Okay, that's new."

Twilight unwrapped her scarf and lay her boots down, careful to keep them on the carpet to not stain Fluttershy's wood floor. "So what's with the weather?"

Dash groaned and set her coffee cup down. "Great, not a 'Hey, Dash, how's the Wonderbolts stuff going or how is Tank? Yeah, the weather. Looks like some pony read the sheets wrong and thought Cloudsdale ordered a foot of snow and not an inch. Or whatever. If I wasn't preoccupied already with my day off, I'd be out there like the rest of the idiots fixing this mess."

Luna piped up. "How are you preoccupied? All I see is a minuscule cup of coffee and nothing else."

Dash looked up at the alicorn, her small height for an adult pegasi making the action of staring up at the dark blue alicorn a chore. "Good morning to you too. I mean being in Fluttershy's house didn't tip you off that I might be planning on doing things later or do I have to wear pajamas to hang around?"

Fluttershy blushed. "Well you do have your stuff here so it's not all that weird."

Dash grimaced. "Well they didn't need to know that Shy, and its only cause Tank's hibernating, nothing else."

Twilight was nonplussed. "Sure, whatever you say. So Fluttershy, what are you two doing on Dash's day off cause I'd think you two would want to do something special." Twilight smiled as she saw her slight needling of the situation slightly bear fruit in Dash's expressions.

Fluttershy lit up. "Well Dash said she wanted to go see the school's Hearth's Warming play."

Twilight grinned. "Oh really, Dash? I thought I remembered you saying that plays were just bad novels or something."

Dash looked down and rushed though her words. "I mean, it's not like they aren't but like Scoots mentioned she was going to be Commander Hurricane and-"

Luna felt a slight twinge at the name, the idea that there were some other ponies that saved Equestria. Which was categorically impossible because she knew her memories. "Who is Commander Hurricane?"

The three ponies stared at her.

"Twilight, you can't be serious. Does your mare have that brain thing?" Dash groaned. "It is too dang early to deal with this. Shy, what's the word I'm thinking of. Like brain fog but like the really garbage version."

Fluttershy shook her head, years of interpreting Rainbow's speech coming back to her in a moment. "Amnesia."

Dash nodded. "Yeah, Twi, she's got that. Cause I'm sorry, but the one other pony who might be alive back then doesn't remember the greatest pegasi commander that lead one third of the Friendship Forces against the Windigoes and helped figure out the whole importance of friendship."

Fluttershy slid on up and lay a wing against Rainbow's back. "Well Private Pansy, Smart Cookie, and Clover the Clever were the ones who fixed that issue with their actual discovery of friendship."

Rainbow sighed. "Yeah, yeah. But Commander Hurricane's still a pretty important one."

Luna just let them banter between them as she slowly realized the point. Luna held back her annoyance as she stretched her wings and stared down at Twilight. "Twilight, I'm sorry, but I just remembered that I forgot that I have to talk to my sister, it won't be very long."

"You usually give me a heads up about that." Twilight frowned, the list of Luna's duties in her mind and shuffled away under various mental locks that would only open when necessary. "You aren't supposed to have a conversation with Celestia until next week."

Luna nodded. Twilight was sometimes too astute for her own good. Sometimes the best answer in those situations was the truth, or at least a part of it, the annoyance and feelings of the day coming back. "It's about the holiday. We have to have some discussions about it." Luna awkwardly bent down and kissed Twilight on the cheek. "Won't be more than ten minutes or so." Luna breathed in and felt the magical connection she was searching for, slowly drawing it out with her horn. She sat down and entered the land of dreams.

Dash rolled her eyes. "You okay with having an alicorn asleep on your floor, Shy, cause that's what it looks like to me."

Fluttershy didn't respond, Dash was being Dash. "So should we, uh, wait for her to get out of her trance or not."

***

Luna breezed through the madness of the dreamlands, easily circumventing any pitfalls or traps that most ponies would fall into- be them daydreams, night terrors, or meditative focus, she could usually skip through the traps she had devised for the more problematic things that ponies or other creatures could create in this realm. She shifted dreamsand like it was nothing as she landed in Celestia's own slice of this place.

Luna lightly touched flowers that only existed now in Celestia's dreams, the rainbow hues of the garden far more colorful than her own slightly muted versions. Luna's mind garden was well trimmed and focused inward, the rows of flowers tended well enough through years of being in dreams, twisting memories and thoughts was something she was supposed to be good at. She could see the difference straight away as Celestia's mental garden was exploding with life, but underneath the grandeur and splendor of the colors, she could see brambles and weeds choking the smaller concerns.

"Celly, mayest we discuss some pressing matters?"

Celestia floated in, the light in the garden coming to noonday sun as she entered, her hair shimmered like an aurora as she set down lightly, her touch ever so deft and quiet. Celestia stood up to her full height, slightly taller than her sister and smiled, her emotions fully on display here as she created a table and chairs out of memory. Sitting down at the golden table, she beckoned her sister closer. "It's unexpected, but I don't mind, Lulu. Far more exciting than one of the aristocrats blathering on about finances yet again. Like I haven't heard a procession of similar problems for thousands of years."

Luna sat down and awkwardly shuffled in her seat, the seat just slightly too big for her to feel truly comfortable here, and her sister's insistence on gold a bit too much for her. "Well I have a slight question about this Hearth's Warming celebration."

"Well do go ahead. I seem to have all day. And if not, I could technically push the sun back a few hours."

Luna sighed. "Well I don't want to take all of your time up, so I'll just spit it out. Why are you lying about it?"

Celestia hummed lightly to herself while she watched her sister fume. "Luna, whatsoever gave you that idea?"

Luna pulled deeply out of her memories, shaping Celestia's garden for a brief moment as conflicting poles of thought, her memories on one end, and a mishmash of the Equestrian dreamscape's collective dream in the other. Images of windigos stalked the garden, passing through walls as their memory could do nothing here. Two differing, yet similar forces of ponies stood at the ready for the creatures' assault, not back to back, but superimposed on top of one another as they shimmered. Long dead and decaying memories conjured from dry books stared back at the alicorns. "I kept wandering in dreams for years seeing a lie and trying to fix it. I kept thinking it was Changeling magic, the mental fortitude to create a nationwide delusion was so like Chrysalis, and yet I kept hearing in Ponyville small things that made me curious."

Celestia humored her sister, knowing full well where she was most likely going. "Ponyville sure is nice around this time of year. How is my former student doing? I mean you should know her better than I do now. Will I have to prepare a wedding before the new year? Cadance keeps telling me that she feels you two are nearly an item."

Luna frowned. "Don't change the subject. There's sea serpents in Ponyville. And everytime I mention the true heroes of this nation that stood their ground against the windigos with us, they look at me like I'm insane."

Celestia smiled and lay a hoof on her sister. "There's sea serpents everywhere now, Lulu. It's been a thousand years. Also I did destroy their culture, not them. Sure their race is now far less impressive than it used to be, but things come back from the brink all the time. And you aren't crazy. I keep telling you that. Your therapy sessions tell you that."

Luna's eyes narrowed, her hair swirling about in slight confusion. "So I'm not crazy. But the holiday-"

Celestia looked away from her sister. "Is a white lie, yes. You knew how bad it got with Stygian and the others. So what If I pushed back the creation of modern Equestria a few thousand years. I gave them a perfectly wrapped up legend that everypony loves. It started out as a lie and grew into something more."

Luna recoiled from her sister. "That doesn't make it right."

Celestia sighed and got up from the table. "It still keeps the fires of friendship going, even if I made the holiday when the soldiers started getting too forgetful of the past. I had a lot of things on my mind back then. There's a difference between those who knew the past and read it in dusty books."

"And I was on the moon for a thousand years. Not that I'm complaining."

The white alicorn rubbed her temple. "And I was stuck on Equestria looking up at you every night. I raised and lowered the moon, feeling each night the place you were and being unable to fix you. I was at a low point for about a hundred years after I had to banish you away- I thought you were going to bring our hard fought victory to a complete halt. So I panicked and used the Elements on you."

"And?"

"I might have made Hearth's Warming to remember you. Kind of, not really, but yes." Celestia hid her face in her mane, the embarrassment all over her face.

Luna cocked her head. "What?"

"Set up a holiday during the winter solstice? Lots of snow and cold. Almost like the moon. And I remember you used to love walking into a few too many taverns and gathering halls when you were younger, the love of camaraderie and festive food usually getting you out of a few too many depressive episodes."

Luna crossed her hooves. "Ale and wine were often free for us, and also I most definitely wasn't sad all the time. Just when promising captains were mauled by foul beasts or we lost."

Celestia rolled her eyes. "Which happened a lot. Don't you remember the years we spent in caves or underground with the few Diamond Dogs that harbored us some goodwill? So yeah, I tried to write a play all by myself one year and create this huge party that was in near darkness for quite a while just hoping you could see the faint shimmer of light coming from below. It kind of took on a life of its own really. And if I could have taken back my writing of it, I would."

Luna stayed silent as she felt emotions well up.

Celestia walked over and quietly lay her head on her sister's back. "Don't focus on the past, it's over and done with. Focus on the one pony you seem to at least have a reciprocal attraction towards ever since you and Somnambula had your moment."

Luna breathed in as she tried to hold back the flood of memories that she had of the pegasus mare, the way she could spin the deepest of riddles and the feeling of having a student in dream magic for the first time ever. It was a raw memory, full of edges of good things but it ended horribly after the Stygian affair. Everything changed after that.

"Sister, can we not bring up past wounds?"

Celestia sighed. "If you never speak of such matters, Luna, you won't have any sense of closure."

Luna pushed her sister away. "Well, can I have some time to think about it? Unlike you, I can think of the past like a fresh memory. I can feel Somnambula's light touch on my mane as she talked about her homeland, the desert clime something I would have loved to see, the reality probably so much more desolate and harsh than her own fanciful tale, but I could see how happy she was telling me about it. I know she's been dead for centuries, but I still see her. Maybe not in the way your ponies whisper about me- how I am some kind of mess or restrained evil. But I see her in Twilight and her love of magic, her curiosity to push boundaries and fix every puzzle imaginable. Sure, Twilight's her own being and to see the potential of new alicorns after so long just because she had cut Starswirl's final problem down with tempered logic. She's magical in every way and she was the first face I saw when back to Equestria. So I have conflicting issues when something that should be so simple in concept to explain to her is shadowed by your lie. I'm surprised I can even be this close to you after knowing that you created hope out of a covering up the sheer horror that seeing every pony you sent against Stygian choke to death on his pure evil." Luna breathed out, her rant of a thousand years of quiet just hanging in the air, unremarked, as Luna saw Celestia's calm mask fall and she could see the hurt lined plainly on her sister's face. Luna quickly backed away, her movements unsure and unknown as she could feel a breach in their relationship form, her first thought was to flee and run, her body running on pure instinct as she quickly pulled herself awake, her dreamself fading away like purple grains of sand on the wind.

Celestia watched the shade of her sister disappear into the distance. "Well that went well. I'm never telling Discord about this. He'd never let me live this mess down." Celestia sat down in her slice of dreamland and stared around at all the carefully tended plants she had spend a thousand years cultivating. And she felt no connection to them.

She looked at them and saw each of the carefully tended dreams she had for the last thousand years just start burning, the rainbow plants shimmering right before they caught alight. As she watched, she felt rain for the first time in a century.

She only realized those were tears when the rain didn't extinguish any of her burning dreams. She watched a thousand years of dreams float away as she had her first cry in nearly a century. She had almost forgot the feeling.

***

Luna breathed in air and flopped off an unknown couch. A few moments passed as she sat there looking at the floor, the wood grain being the most important thing at the moment, the swirling pattern grounding her as she pushed the image of Somnambula away into her deepest memories. She lightly cursed as she tried to get up. Astral projection was something she rarely liked using in the daytime since her powers tended to be tied to the nighttime, it felt unnatural and made her weaker than normal. Not by much, but there were downsides to dream magic, and sadly, most ponies slept on Celestia's schedule, not hers. She groaned as her hooves weren't listening to her for a moment. She always hated this, her reliance on Twilight when something like this happened. "Twilight, can you please help me?"

She heard a clopping of hooves as Twilight scurried into the room, a pitcher of coffee balanced tentatively in her magic. "I knew I should have timed it." Luna could hear Twilight's pacing as it slightly shook the floor, her closeness to the ground amplifying the feel of her mare's worry. "And I mean it's been only. . .twenty minutes. Oh that's bad. That's very bad. I mean you told me that it wouldn't be ideal to do that for more than five and you've exceeded the amount by four times that. I mean sure I told Dash and Fluttershy to go to Applejack's and not wait up for me just in case this happened, but still it isn't great that it did."

Luna rolled her eyes. "I said that warning just so you wouldn't go gallivanting around mine realm like one of your science projects. But I am made of sterner stuff than your soft and plushy exterior. Not that I'm complaining about said exterior." Luna moved and felt her spine pop. "Or at least I was made of it a thousand years ago. May you help me up? My legs haven't really woke up from this romp yet."

Twilight set down the pot of coffee and enveloped Luna in her magic, the pinpricks of dull touch making Luna feel something as her body went slowly back to normal. Gently placing her on the couch once again, Twilight slowly offered Luna globs of coffee, gently held in her magic to help her get some energy back.

"So how was Celestia?" Twilight asked, knowing that Luna never was late exiting an astral projection. So something must have happened within their talk. She could sort of see Luna's emotions in the way she held herself, the close hooves to her body, the uncomfortable atmosphere, the shaking.

Luna laughed. "She was perfectly fine. We had a talk, she brought up a sore topic, I ran. As all siblings do."

Twilight sighed. "Not Shiny and I."

Luna smiled. "If only my sister was like your fantastic brother. Might lessen her pining for Discord and his rather odd tastes. Though your brother married Cadance and she's equally crazy."

"She's not that bad."

Luna stared at Twilight. "Well she tried setting me up with you the moment I came back. Not that I would have truly minded, but I wasn't ready for that."

Twilight passed another few globs of coffee through the air. "Oh really, why is that, you didn't think I was in your words 'the moonlight to my stars'. Twilight winked.

Luna blushed. "No, it's just that I woke up from a thousand year banishment like I had just been sent to the moon. I remember everything that happened before that point like it was yesterday. And that includes a marefriend."

Twilight stopped and set down the coffee pot and let the coffee float gently back inside as she processed that. "You never told me about that."

Luna panicked. "You never asked, I mean it's not something that comes up in polite conversations. I mean I did love her but after years of sort of acclimating, I've come to terms. Sort of, not reallly, I mean you're everything to me but she's still there and it's confusing and I really don't know what to do and Hearth's Warming is a sham and Celestia didn't honor her memory and I guess that's why I ran away and please don't break up with me."

"What?"

"Don't break up with me?" Luna cocked her head.

Twilight facehoofed. "Luna, I'm not going to break up with you. That's silly. I like you way too much, even with all your weird foibles and everything to throw this away." Twilight looked into Luna's eyes and smiled. "Now calm down and try to explain how you feel. Cause it's true that I'm still miffed at you for freaking out Rarity and all the other strange things you've done today, but I want to understand where you're coming from. Partially cause I know if I don't nip this in the bud, all of my friends will probably think you ruined a holiday, but mostly cause I want to know about you and I can't break into your dreams to know you. And finding out you had a marefriend is kind of a major deal."

Luna sighed. "Maybe later. I'm exhausted from talking to my sister. Honestly I don't know how you do it."

Twilight sat down next to Luna and covered her with her wing. "Practice. And I'm not her sister. Probably helps." Twilight leaned her head into Luna's chest and sighed, breathing in Luna's scent. She smelled always faintly of lavender and Twilight loved it.

Luna blushed. "Twilight, this isn't the time to do any of that. I mean we are in this shack and it's your friend's stuff."

Twilight chuckled. "Lulu, I'm just sitting near you. If I was going to do anything else, you'd know." Twilight leaned up and Luna on the cheek. "You need to get out more."

"I thought you were going to-"

Twilight hugged Luna close. "If you want me to, sure, but you don't seem fully into it up there." Twilight poked Luna's horn. "I can't always read you all that well, but I don't feel sex is the best thing to do right now."

Luna sighed, for a moment confusing Twilight's wing for a pink one. She could almost see Somnambula in the way Twilight touched her and then she blinked and the memory was gone. "Yeah."

***

Applejack carefully rolled out the barrels of cider that the Apples had been carefully letting sit in their barn for the last few months, the alcoholic brew lightly sloshing around in the barrels as she moved them. Applejack could see Dash's greedy eyes track the barrels as she moved. That pegasus had a mite problem with alcohol, that's for damned sure. AJ quickly set the barrels up by the side of her apple station and tapped the kegs, making sure the flow was right and that it wasn't cloudy. Carefully taking a nip of it for flavor, she grinned as she felt it taste the same as something Granny would have pulled out when she was little- besides the alcoholic tang of course- it had that holiday feel.

"AJ, this party is totally missing something!" Pinkie bounded past, carefully balancing plates of sweets in her hooves like it was magic. "I mean seriously, no adult games or at least a mistletoe, that's pushing the term 'holiday party' to it's limit."

"I told you to not give me one of those consarned things. Granny hates that kind of stuff."

Pinkie rolled her eyes. "What your grandma doesn't know won't hurt her. Anyway just say that Auntie Pinkie did it and she'll be fine." Pinkie Pie zoomed off before AJ could respond.

Applejack just stood there, knowing full well that Pinkie Pie was the youngest one of her friends, barring Spike.

"So where's Rarity?" Fluttershy awkwardly slid up and looked at the collection of treats. "I mean she doesn't usually miss a party, unless something came up."

Applejack sighed, remembering the blubbering mess that her marefriend had devolved into when she had walked to Carousel Boutique. "She's up in my room. She has to take a while to get ready I guess." Applejack wasn't lying, since Rarity had said she'd still make it. Just maybe not mentioning the neurotic mess she was when she was talking about Twilight and Luna and all the positively dreadful things she had heard. Applejack had just rolled her eyes and moved on, guessing that Rarity was sort of overreacting, the grain of truth still in there but hidden behind layers of histrionics.

"Oh well that's too bad. Also I guess Rainbow wants in her own words, seven of your ciders."

Applejack peeked her head out and stared at Dash, the boisterous mare just hitting it off with Cheerilee. "I'll give you three and she can talk to me once those things are done. She's a fine pegasus, but she's got a problem."

Fluttershy silently stared at Dash. "She said she's working on it. I mean I told her to take off most of the week just in case. But if only she was there we might have not had this weather."

Applejack groaned. "Yeah, it might have been worse. Shy, just remember what we talked about, cause I don't feel super comfortable supplying drinks for your marefriend's habit, even if I know she's got the money for it."

Fluttershy demurely smiled. "Yeah, but you know she'd just go to Berry Punch's bar."

Applejack placed a hoof on Fluttershy's. "Then just talk to Cheerilee. Berry Punch is her sister for Celestia's sake. Just do something cause I like Dash, but she's a functional mess."

Fluttershy just picked up the drinks, nodded, and walked away.

Applejack cussed under her breath, hoping that the yellow mare would get help at some point, cause she wasn't going to have another issue where Dash was hitting on everything with a pulse again. Before she could grit her teeth, she heard Twilight's voice.

"Luna, it's fine. Come on, if you didn't want to come, then you could have said that before we flew a mile here."

The alicorn princess' voice came out muffled. "Well I didn't expect everypony to be here."

"There's like eight ponies, it's not like it's the whole town, and you were the one begging me to help you connect with ponies." Twilight pulled back her scarf and waved at Applejack. "Sorry for being late."

Applejack just waved back and nodded. Applejack wished that she had told Twilight where exactly the school play would be.

***

Luna stayed as close to Twilight as she could, the strange holiday tradition feeling too safe for something built on pain and death. She wished for a brief moment that she was still her depowered form just so she could crouch down and hide as she still worried that somehow these ponies would judge her. She kept seeing the orange one eye her oddly from the side of the room and from Twilight's obsessive coaching she knew that one and Rarity were betrothed, or an item or something. The terminology was all strange to her since a thousand years ago nopony cared if they were married since death was ever present on the doorstep, just a good transaction of goods at most and a right wooing and the marriage would be off until one died horribly of an incurable disease.

That was just how the world worked then.

She sighed as she reminded herself to try and apologize to the lady Rarity at some time tonight- even if it was mainly cause Twilight was a rather harsh mistress when it came to these friendship problems. She heard the jokes ponies said about certain ponies wore the bridle in the relationship, and it definitely wasn't Twilight.

Luna felt a light tap on her leg, and she looked down to meet Pinkie's eyes. "Hi, Luna, I'm surprised to see you here cause you did eat that huge sundae which honestly I can't believe you did cause I made it so only the best of the best ponies can eat it, though I didn't expect an alicorn to eat it so maybe I have to make an even better treat for you next time. Or maybe I can get Twilight to test out how much alicorns can eat cause that'd be a science project." Pinkie breathed as she finished speaking, the air needed for an entire paragraph of pure thought coming naturally to her.

Luna tried opening her mouth to answer, but she couldn't respond as Pinkie was pushed away from her by a quiet and decidedly annoyed magenta earth pony.

"Pinkie, I keep telling you that you don't have to ask for opinions about your food when you are off work. Relax."

Pinkie sighed. "Fine, Cheery, but I really want to know if she liked it, I mean then I can switch up the recipe if she didn't."

Cheerilee turned her her up to Luna and smiled. "Sorry about this, but my marefriend really wants to know that. And I'd rather not have to worry about her and the fifteen foals I usually do while teaching. The foals are perfect little demons, but Pinkie here can really push my buttons."

Luna thought for a brief moment. "Well it was definitely the richest meal I have had in my life, though I don't know if I really like sweets all that much."

Pinkie Pie breathed in and tried to wrap her head around that sentence. "How do you not like sugar! It's like the greatest thing ever and I mean I might be biased but like I make everything with sugar! And that's sweets and ponies love sugar!"

Luna tried to motion for Twilight to save her from Pinkie's rant, but she had been pulled away by Dash when the alicorn wasn't looking. "I mean what you term as sugar was something I never really got, and the stuff we had during then were barrels of honey- maybe a brick of sugar. Not the things you have now."

Pinkie whispered into Cheerilee's ear.

"Okay, Pinkie, that sounds fair. Just look in Twilight's history section and see if she can help you with the historical implications of sugar. And no, I can't help you with that, my degree's in foal education. What you are trying to get me to do is almost write an entire dissertation in the history of baking. Now I heard Applejack needs you to finish up your decorating before all the foals get here." Cheerilee lightly kissed Pinkie on the cheek. "Now remember, when there are foals around, I have to be in teacher mode. I can't have Diamond Tiara or Silver Spoon rat to their mothers about how horrible a role model I am."

Pinkie rolled her eyes, knowing full well how obnoxious Diamond Tiara's mother could be. "Okie dokie lokie, but be ready for your Hearth's Warming present after work. I baked you a pie and everything."

Cheerilee whispered in Pinkie's ear and Luna could just barely make it out. "If that's a double entendre about me eating you out later, I'm giving you one gold star for trying and taking away ten for a terrible pun. But sure. I'll need it after this." Cheerilee pushed Pinkie away and smiled towards Luna. "Sorry about that, Pinkie can be a real hooffull to deal with sometimes. Her hearts in the right place though. Now before I forget, I had this idea I wanted to shoot towards you."

Luna raised an eyebrow. She usually wasn't the princess anypony wanted to ask questions to. "Do go on."

Cheerilee tapped her hooves together. "Well the Ponyville schoolboard really wants the foals to have more of an education from the community, kind of a career day, but for actual topics. I had mentioned to Twilight that she'd be perfect for the times we could do science and all the girls think they could teach something, but I can't figure out who to ask for history."

Luna tried to hide a slight hint of a smile. "So you wanted to ask the pony who almost destroyed your town about history? I'd have to ask her if she wants to do a repeat performance."

Cheerilee was taken aback by the unexpected joke. "Well yes, would you like to be the pony that helps for history. I mean I'd be the one doing most of the legwork for the more recent past, but ancient history isn't my forte."

Luna sighed, remembering Celestia's words. "I hear that a lot. And I hope the play is fantastic. I've heard rather good things about it."

Cheerilee beamed. "Well I am really glad to hear it. We;ve been practicing it for months."

Luna watched the teacher walk away as she saw the first smattering of foals walk into the barn. "This is going to be wonderful." She didn't feel hopeful.

***

Luna fidgeted as she watched the curtain rise, a tittering of childlike voices behind it hinting at the same worry echoing through them as well.

Cheerilee cantered out on stage, a rather odd approximation of a doublet adorning her, two sizes too big and with a decidedly floppy hat atop her head like a parody of the past. Luna let out a quiet huff and gripped tightly onto Twilight's hoof. "Mares and gentlecolts, listen to my plea, here is a tale I'll tell to thee, a morality play coached it truth about a time that friendship resoothed. A eerie time when ponies such as I were ripped apart by evil eyes."

Luna groaned, the hoofwork of her sister already readily apparent with the awful rhyme scheme and structure. She kind of forgot most of what Cheerilee said next, since she was inwardly cringing every time she could swear Celestia was in the back feeding them awful lines. Unlike her sister, she was a natural at the theater and this hurt her soul.

The curtain closed after Cheerilee's monologue, and reopened on the stage, a rather quaint attempt at trying to condense fifteen years over a thousand, Luna laughed as she heard mention of the unicorns raising the sun and moon- knowing full well that had never happened. "Twilight, this is completely wrong."

Twilight shushed her and rubbed her hoof.

Luna had thought it was going to be at least passable- she was gravely mistaken as she slumped down, her hooves holding her head up in defeat.

***

Diamond Tiara strode on stage, livid at having to play second fiddle- Smart Cookie was not what she was going to accept as a role. Her daddy said she was his princess, and the only princess in the stupid play was being played by the blank flank unicorn. Tiara grit her teeth as she paraphrased the stupid, old lines. "It sure sucks that earth ponies can't raise the sun like those unicorns or fly like the pegasi, if only we could have a land of our own. Right, Puddingdome?"

Twist cocked her head. "Uh, DT, I don't think that those are your lines."

Diamond Tiara elbowed Twist in the ribs. "I don't care, say your lines."

Twist sighed and tried to focus on speaking, her lisp on full display. "Right, Smart Cookie, and I as the best and mosth brightest pony in my mind, agrees with you to get a land I'll call Landlandia."

Diamond Tiara rolled her eyes, the sarcasm heavy on her voice. "Don't you mean, we have to speak with the other leaders first? Cause that's act two."

Twist fidgeted. "Yes, you just threw off my lines because of your logic. Oh great and wonderth-ul SC."

The curtains shut hard as Luna could slightly hear Cheerilee's faint cursing.

Luna's heart dropped as she saw the curtain open and a familiar orange pegasus and small grey one stepped out. This might hurt. "Ponyfeathers."

Scootaloo adjusted her fake armor- a washboard and bucket approximating the armor she guessed they were going for. "Private Pansy, please tell me why I'm even touching the ground again."

"Pick up the pace, Magnus, I want to meet the others before morning." Somnambula breathed in the frigid air of the mountain passes, her side scarred by Stygian's fall, his dark magic burning her wings. She looked at the stubby things and wished she was in the desert, the feel of a sandstorm abrading your flesh far more comforting than knowing that frostbite would take her limbs if she wasn't careful. If only Prince Hisan could see her now, though he had been with the ancestors since last year, praise him.

"Come on, Namby, I'm going as fast as I can. You're pushing me harder than the Royal Legion of Cloudsdale did and those bastards were known for harassing the weak."

"And you made it. Or are you lying when you tell the lowly wenches about your magical dragon battle?"

"And what of your Sphinx? I've never heard of one of those."

Somnambula sighed. "Because I forced it to the edges of the world when I bested her. Winner's privilege. Now get over this ridge before I tell Rockhoof what you think of him."

"You wouldn't dare."

Somnambula smiled. "So you do have a thing for him. I would have never known." The pairing of those two was such an open secret, that she was surprised he wasn't telling it to every passerby they met in every town they saw.

"The unicorns were not much better off than the rest." Cheerilee scampered around, performing both as narrator and slightly agitated director now fully engrossed in making sure this play wouldn't be derailed any further. "And so the Paradise Valley unicorns all came towards the meeting."

Sweetie Belle walked slowly out to the front barely looking up as she tried to scope out where Rarity was in the back, just to stay focused on her lines. "I do hope we get to the meeting to figure out what is going on with this cold. Because it sure would suck to freeze to death while raising the sun. Don't you, Clover?"

Snails sighed as he pushed the hemline of his dress to the correct position, the tight thing made for a filly, not his lanky awkward self. He tried not to think why he felt okay in it, even if he felt ridiculous. "I think it's because all of our unicorns aren't working hard enough so it's cold. Windigos are a complete old mare's tale."

"Yes, well, my father says they aren't and I believe him so before we all starve because of those-" Sweetie paused, unused to calling somepony a bad name. "dirt lovers." Sweetie cringed. "I want to make sure they won't back out of our deal."

Snails yawned. "Fine. But we are going to stop and get lunch along the way. Long journeys are awful hard on my bones."

Luna chuckled at that. For all the complete bastardizing of history Celestia did with this, at least Starswirl's general affect came through even if he seemed to be some distaff version of him since the ponies in the audience called him Clover the Clever which had to be a mare's name, even if the pony playing him appeared to be a colt in a dress. Luna didn't mind that, the theater in her time was stacked with quite a few impressive specimens of stallionhood tightly packing a dress.

"Mistmane, please stop trying to fix my beard, we have better things to worry about. Now where are Celestia and Luna?"

The old looking unicorn pointed over near the nearby tree. "They are right over there, not a windigo, changeling, or siren in sight."

Starswirl rubbed his temple as he quickly magicked up a crackling fire with just a word. "I hope there's no more Sirens. Trying to keep them from unbalancing the small grasp of harmony we have here was crucial if we want to have something outlast us."

Mistmane chuckled. "I hope you don't mention that to the girls over there. They've just improved so much, though Celestia seems to have a better knack for magic."

Starswirl opened his pack and pulled out the last of his rations. "Celestia is gifted to be sure, but don't doubt her sister. She plays dumb, but I can see it in her eyes. She's probably even more gifted than her sister or how do you explain all of our dreams, Misty. You and I know ponies aren't supposed to dream walk around like that. That breaks like seven laws of magic."

Mistmane looked straight at Starswirl. "Let the girl have her dalliance. Love is a beautiful thing and I don't want the future rulers of the pony races to come off as cold, heartless creatures unable to feel emotion. And you created those laws. That's like me saying there's ten rules for beauty. Maybe there's more magic in heaven and earth than hairs on your head. You ever think about that you old fool?"

"Every day" Starswirl watched the two alicorns, their hair shining in the late sun, the alicorns full of promise and yet he just looked at Luna and saw her as the worst kind of promise. He could feel the draw of dark magic around her as he felt her mana, the possibility for evil was in every pony's heart what with the windigos all about, but he saw in her eyes what he saw in Stygian's.

The craving for attention.

"And so the mighty leaders and their attendants met in an agreed upon place to talk. Tensions ran high as the windigo threat loomed over them, their food stores depleted after years of hardship and each pony stared daggers into each other." Cheerilee frowned as she was mentally checking off every mistake the foals had made, and realizing this was the loosest adaptation of the Heartswarming tale she had ever heard. She grumbled as she counted the days she had spent memorizing all three acts of the play. Eyeing Pinkie, she nodded, an imperceptible tell that she would take Pinkie up on any offer later. Anything. Just to stop the worry that she would be called in to atone for this theater monstrosity.

Six foals who particularly didn't care for one another sat across from each other. "So Chancellor Puddinghead, our stores are getting low. How's the grain?" Scootaloo eyed Twist halfheartedly, her focus entirely on Diamond Tiara who was kicking her hard under the table, the jolting pain in her knee telling her that DT was aiming for her.

"Our ponies are working hard, but the harvest is bad. It's cold and everything is dead." Twist stammered out.

"Ho-ow- are you doing Princess Platinum? I think my troops are alive and kicking. Isn't there a way to help against all these earth ponies?"

Cheerilee stopped, her script she was following didn't have this part. She cursed under her breath, seeing the chaos unfold in her head. And yet she couldn't exactly step in. Not that she didn't want to stop the play and call this farce off, but because she was unfortunately the only pony capable to be the narrator. Everyone else was either not up to grade level in reading or had a complete and utter stage fright.

Well besides Tender Taps, but he had the flu.

She breathed in and tried to cue the ponies, inwardly questioning why she had not pushed back against Spoiled Rich's incessant idea to have ten year olds recite a play about how friendship cured hatred and racism. The mare must be trying to get her fired. "I said, they talked plainly and calmly about things."

"Diamond Tiara, stop kicking me." Scootaloo snapped.

Tiara feigned ignorance. "I'm not, it must be your own failure trying to get it through your head."

Twist sank lower in her seat as Rumble and Snails just walked off stage.

"Who has a leading part, Diamond?" Scootaloo fumed.

"I would if I was a unicorn. I mean Sweetie's not even playing Platinum right. She's supposed to be a princess, not an absolute dead eyed wreck."

Sweetie awkwardly piped up, her voice squeaking as she tried to gather her courage. "Well my sister said I was pretty good."

Diamond laughed. "So where is she. I mean if you're so good, why'd she miss your performance. Bet she didn't want to hurt your feelings."

Sweetie breathed in and tried to hold back a film of tears at that comment. "No, she's probably just running late."

Diamond Tiara smirked. "Oh then maybe she can pick up the chicken a mom."

Nopony said anything for a few moments. Scootaloo eyed Sweetie and she calmly pushed her friend away. Tension hung in the air as the audience itself stayed silent. Scootaloo stared down to her makeshift armor and glanced to Diamond's complete lack of it as she just stood there and took her abuse.

"Come on, I thought you were Commander Hurricane, the greatest chicken in the army or are you a dodo? Cause those are stupid and totally can't fly for s-" Diamond Tiara got off her relatively high horse as Scootaloo decked her square in the jaw. Tiara stared at Scootaloo as the shock wore off. "You hit me. That isn't how this works. My mom says that ponies like you are worthless-"

Scootaloo stared over at Dash, her mane completely standing out in the crowd and she fought back tears. "What would Commander Hurricane do?" She breathed out and tackled Diamond Tiara to the floor and didn't stop punching.

"What would Somnambula do?" Luna stared up at the moon, her connection to it calling to her, the night sky a canvas for her ideas. She brushed back her mane and stared at the form of her sleeping sister. "I don't know."

"Dearest Luna, why don't you ask her yourself?" Somnambula's low voice came from behind her.

Luna's face brightened as she raced over to the pegasus."I thought thou were not appearing here tonight, what with Rockhoof and Meadowbrook being without a trace these last few days."

Somnambula smiled. "Aye, but Rockhoof and her straggled in saying the the Ghastly Caverns were filled with an entire shadow. From how Rockhoof tells it, it was some amalgam of every living soul in the nearby town of Dirtville. Just a writhing mass of limbs, eyes, and heads as he tells it. I could not get a response from Meadowbrook so I don't know if Rockhoof is making up drunken tales or not."

Luna shivered at the thought. If the tall tale was true, Stygian's power was unimaginable. "But that's supposed to be impossible, no pony is supposed to have that much magic. Fusing living tissue is supposed to be impossible."

Somnambula wearily draped a wing over Luna. "Somepony has been paying attention to the old fuddy duddy. I don't know. Maybe he bonded with a thing from beyond. My pharoah often talked of such possibilities- our books spoke of creatures that came from below the deepest abysses and further away that the furthest lands. We called them the followers of Apep, the primordial chaos and a great winding snake. I have never seen one of those chaos serpents, but in all of my travels I've seen things beyond what even I guessed was possible."

Luna played with her hooves. "So tomorrow I'm guessing you are going to kill Stygian."

The pegasus sighed and placed her hoof in Luna's "Whatever gave you that idea?"

Luna sulked. "I heard Misty and Starswirl talk about it. About what you might do to him. I hear a lot of things."

Somnambula ran her hooves through the alicorn's mane. "Of course you do, little dreamwalker." She lay her head on Luna and stared up at the sky, the fresh scent of lavender surrounding her. "And maybe we will."

Luna breathed out. "And what if you don't? I mean he's beaten you before. Your scars on your wings. I mean he bested you when he was at his weakest. . ."

Somnambula chuckled. "I have hope that we will win."

Luna blushed as Somnambula brushed her mane. "Som, I have a query to ask. But it might be dumb."

The pegasus laughed. "There are no dumb questions. Please do go ahead."

"Dost thou likest me?"

"Now that is a riddle. I do like you like every one of our party does. But I sense a deeper riddle, for you already know that." The pegasus thought for a moment. "I have seen how you look at me and other mares."

Luna blushed crimson. "I am no peeping stallion, just an admirer of strength and I'm surrounded by mares."

Somnambula rolled her eyes. "I never would have guessed that you see our stallion companions as mares. How you'd make Starswirl's beard and nethers tremble in indignant anger. Especially after a decade of travel. Unless mares look different in this land. . ."

Luna fidgeted. "No, I mean. . ."

Somnambula hugged Luna. "I got what you meant in your heart. There is a saying my lands that the hardest riddle to unravel is the one within your chest. Though with how you seem to be always in my dreams, Luna, I did wonder how long it would take for you to truly approach me. Though I was probably the one that had the first idea. I did ask for you to show me your little tricks."

Luna moved her head, carefully keeping track of her horn and kissed the pegasus on the lips, the taste of her making the alicorn's wings ache as she popped her first wingboner. She could feel dampness in the cold, her insides pulsing with an unknown need.

Somnambula returned the kiss, her technique basic and unsure, more used to the way to please a stallion than a mare. She ran her tongue down the alicorn's wings, her rough tongue sending pinpricks up Luna's spine. The pegasus stopped for a moment and hovered over Luna's wing, breathing light puffs of air over the now damp feathers. "Now let me check if you aren't dreaming."

Luna's eyebrow raised at that statement. "What?"

Somnambula gently bit on the place where Luna's wing met her body. The pegasus giggled as she felt Luna's legs buckle as her first orgasm hit her, great wracking shudders of pleasure rocking the alicorn as she massaged the pleasure center with her mouth. Somnambula let go and gently held onto Luna, the blue alicorn slightly dazed at the foreign contact.

Between gasping breaths, Luna tried to talk. "What was that?"

Somnambula brushed the loose locks of Luna's mane out of the alicorn's eyes. "Pegasi pressure point. Don't worry, it won't cause you harm, it's just a way some of the pegasi in my country get beyond those of just friends. If a pegasi was on your back in the way I was right now, either you'd be dead with a spear in the throat or you were in the palace's royal gardens with the prince's harem. Guess which one most ponies got."

Luna unsteadily stepped forward. "So how did you learn that move if you were just an advisor."

Somnambula rolled her eyes. "I advised the king's matters in every way. Which included his harem. You can infer the rest. Now I would love to talk about how they were in bed, but I think I see some more pressing matters I need to attend to."

Luna awkwardly lifted her tail, her teats and inner lips on display. "Should I move or something?"

The pegasus waved a hoof. "I am used to serving royalty." She winked. "Just let your lowly adviser fix that leak in your dam." Somnambula inched ever closer to Luna's liquid need, her hooves dancing on the alicorn's belly, tracing each curve as she moved down, slowly sketching Luna with her touch. Somnambula stared at the light blue nipples that Luna had, the idea that this dark as night mare had such dainty things made the pegasus chuckle. She moved on and hovered above Luna's marehood, the soft inside just there waiting for her ministrations. "Do you want this?"

Luna didn't hesitate. "Yes."

Somnambula steadied the overeager mare and began probing Luna's inner depths with her tongue, the taste of her like copper, her hooves lightly flicking the alicorn's buds.

Luna just lay back in the last few living blades of grass, her legs wrapped around her new love's head and bucking her hips in time to get the pegasus' tongue deeper into her folds.

She was in bliss and let the worries that maybe this was the first and last time she'd be with the pegasus out of her mind. She had better things to think about.

To The Great Unknown

Luna felt Twilight shake her. "Equestria to Luna, you okay?"

The blue alicorn sighed, the memory of Somnambula floating away on ethereal dust. "I'm fine. What did I miss?"

Twilight groaned. "Besides the whole Scootaloo beating Diamond Tiara within an inch of her life? Oh not much."

Luna cocked her head. "So that wasn't a perfect Heartswarming play?"

Twilight breathed, her hot breath fogging up in the late afternoon air. "Whatsoever gave you that idea? Was it Dash drunkenly cheering on Scootaloo? Or maybe when the Apples and the Riches almost got to blows over that."

Luna raised an eyebrow. She must have tuned that out. "I definitely don't remember any of that happening."

Twilight glanced over at Luna and shrugged. "Be glad. That was not the friendship problems I signed up for when I got this job."

Luna chuckled, her worried and thoughts far away for the moment. "That's what Celestia said when she found out she had to raise the sun everyday."

Twilight and Luna trudged home without much of a word, the cold day and their tired moods just making it easier to just exist in the same place, not speaking, just feeling the other pony there and feeling better.

The pair's mood only brightened when the lights of the Golden Oaks library twinkled in the dusky distance.

"Hopefully your drake is okay."

Twilight rolled her eyes at Luna's insistence on calling Spike that. "He's far more capable than he looks, though he has a few childish moments. As long as the library looks okay, it's probably fine."

"Okay." Luna sighed.

Twilight gripped the door in her magic and opened it, the heat and warmth of the inside warming the alicorns immediately as smells of a cooking dinner hit their noses, hay and daffodil crusted fish, a taste Twilight had picked up from being around Luna and growing into her wings. Fish was something that pegasi often dined on every once in a while, the taste of meat otherwise a no no for polite society.

Spike scampered into the room when he heard the door open, his baby phoenix perched on his spined head. "Twilight, how was the play? I kept hearing Pinkie talk about it."

Twilight groaned. "Went great. You missed out on the most action packed version I've ever seen in my life."

Spike looked crestfallen. "I knew I should have braved the cold."

Twilight lifted him up in her magic and smiled. "Well maybe next year. At least." Twilight took off her coat and stretched her wings, her body still unused to jackets that hang like that. "So you want to tell me about your day or am I going to have to tease it out of you during dinner?"

Spike shook his head, knowing full well what she meant. Both Twilight Velvet and Celestia had just loved making that really awkward and uncomfortable. "Uh, no, let's see. . .the restricted section books all are stacked in a pile so you can deal with them, I wrote down every question I was asked today by the few ponies that came in- mostly just the normal weird stuff for Lyra and-" The pair walked out and Luna smiled as she sat down, the day and her memories tiring her out. Curling up with a thick, woolen blanket she carefully angled herself on a chair too small for her and closed her eyes for a brief moment. She breathed in and let her mind wander again. She had disliked every memory so far, but she knew the importance of dreams and let it come wash over her.

***

Luna carefully whispered to Somnambula. "So about last night."

The foreign pegasus smiled, carefully hoisting her bag onto her back and tightening her shift. "If it's about when exactly we can do that again, I'd have to say we should talk about this after we defeat Stygian. And no, I don't know why you waited that long to get past you teaching me how to dreamwalk into something more." Somnambula winked. "I mean you had so much restraint in your affectation that I just thought you took a bit too much from Starswirl's lessons on how to never get with a lover."

Luna was taken aback. "I- that's not what I meant at all. " Her face felt hot as she tried to look away.

Somnambula laughed, her peals of laugher echoing through the hills. "Sorry but you have to be five hundred years older before you can get that classic horny colt question past me." She rustled the alicorn's hair, quitely picking out twigs and leaves that had got in her hair while she had been indisposed. "But I do have to say you weren't half bad. Now let's get us cleaned off, because I highly suspect Rockhoof and Magnus would just love joking about your rather musky smell. And while I'd love debating if we should run away and live our lives, the old coot would hunt us down."

Luna wrinkled her nose. "Fine. But I won't like it. Flash and Rockhoof are ones to talk. From how they talk, they seem to bed every mare in fifteen leagues."

The pegasus rolled her eyes. "Those two could swindle a dragon out of its hoard. From how the pair talk about mares, they don't even seem to be attracted to them."

Luna cocked her head. "Truly? I would have never suspected."

Somnambula stretched her wings as she quietly straightened her own feathers. "Both are the peak ideal of stallionhood in their own way, molded by years of training surrounded by men. It's not my place to deride their attraction. Now please focus so I can finish cleaning you up."

Luna huffed. "If only there was some way Stygian didn't exist. I mean from your stories he was once good."

Somnambula sighed as she poured water over the alicorn. "That's life. You have to come to terms that some things are just the way they are, and change the things you can. Stygian brought us together. Without his influence, the Sirens would still be here bringing endless winter."

Luna pouted. "But he went evil and brought darkness and winter anyway."

Somnambula rustled Luna's mane. "He did, but there's been hints of ponies growing food again. I see that as a possibility that there's a little sliver of the Stygian I knew deep in there somewhere and trying desperately to be heard. Unlike the Sirens, the cold isn't as biting as it used to be."

Luna shook her mane as she tried to get warm again, the freezing cold water in what should have been midsummer not making her believe all of Somnambula's words.

---

"Ay, where is the little lassie and Somby, I cannae belive that those two are off dallying their time away when we here are all waiting." Rockhoof stretched, his body sore and tired from yesterday, grog in hoof, quickly forgetting any of the last day's horrible findings.

"Rocky, please, don't be sassing out loud. We're all on edge, they are probably coming."

Rockhoof crossed his hooves. "Well I'm not the one bellyaching up a thunderstorm."

Starswirl paced back and forth, visibly agitated. "Celestia doesn't know where her sister is and we're already late for stopping the Pony of Shadows."

"They've been coming up the hill for the last two minutes, give them time." Flash Magnus adjusted his sleeping spot in his tree. "And no, I wasn't hiding information from you guys, I just thought that maybe you had more pressing matters. Luna and Somby are looking real close. They totally fucked."

Starswirl facehoofed. "I'm getting far too old for these things. If I had it my way, I'd have each and every one of you castrated just to keep you on task."

The late pair walked up and awkwardly looked around. "Good morn to you all." Luna stammered out not used to being so very noticeable.

"Hey, Som, how was last night? You didn't come back from your night shift. Did any good stargazing?" Flash giggled as he tried to see if the mare might react. He hadn't really seen her react since they had started on the journey.

"I did."

Luna tried to hide her face in her mane.

Starswirl quickly picked up Magnus in his aura and yanked him out of the tree. "I would love to see this farce continued, but let's just get on with our mission. Magnus, if you will. I seem to have forgotten where to go."

Flash quietly grumbled as her rubbed his shoulder. "Yeah, yeah. Well we've scoped out the darkest places in Equestria, except for one. He's probably in the Everfree Tangle. I mean we've searched out caves and everything. Though we'd have to be careful."

Mistmane piped up, unfamiliar with the dangers of the patch of land. "Why is that?"

Flash sighed. "Deer. Those antlered bastards took out an entire royal legion. If any of you have a map. I'd gladly mark out the death zones so we can give them a wide berth."

Starswirl rummaged through his bags, casting aside notes and tomes. "I believe I might have something. I jotted down a few notes from travelogues and things sailors said. Sure I can't verify most of the taller tales, but I got a good idea of what this land is shaped like." Pulling out a long piece of parchment, Starswirl unfurled it and lay it on a patch of grass. "Here is the whole world."

Flash glanced at it and laughed. "I guess your sailors couldn't fly. I mean honestly that looks like a blob. A shapeless and completely wrong blob, but at least it has the forest in it." Flash Magnus pointed out two spots on the map. "Near the Ghastly Caverns is a no go, there's hints of fire there and it's not a dragon. And don't go near the Appaloosan Wastes, that was where the legion entered and they never came out."

Starswirl nodded. "Duly noted."

The travel was rather uneventful, days passing as the two sisters raised and lowered the sun and moon with relative ease. The land was harsh and desolate, the group finding more monsters of shadow as they walked closer to the forest, each thing worse than the last, husks of buildings left in shambles as ponies either had fled or were assimilated into pure darkness. Whatever Stygian had loosed and merged with had no regard for life. Nopony talked as they slunk around the hordes, the chittering, almost intelligent creatures having their own language, long swooping vowels and consonants unpronounceable to ponies echoing through the night. They hadn't used fire for days, the few windigos in the air screaming for food and with the ground even worse, the party welcomed the cold as it was the only thing that told them that they were still alive and kicking. Once Luna imagined that Starswirl and her sister had left them all to die, the two of them walking far into the distance and whispering about some seed. Then she woke up in the morning and they were in camp, nothing wrong. She had not asked and chalked it up to her mind playing tricks on her, nothing else.

She hadn't learned what it was about until everything was over.

----

Luna sat outside in the pouring rain waiting for the Pillars to come back, Somnambula had said they would.

"Luna, please come in from the rain, I've tried to tell you that if the rain started back up again, everything's back to normal." She felt Celestia's wings on her back, her sister perfunctory and nonchalant about winning.

"Then why haven't they come back? Somnambula said she'd come back."

Celestia sighed. "About that. . ."

Luna didn't remember what Celestia said. It didn't really matter. Somnambula wasn't coming back. She just lay down in the mud and felt comforted by the freezing cold rain. At least she could say the wetness coming from her eyes was just the rain hitting her face. She breathed in the damp air, almost still smelling the pegasus' scent, a mix of saffron and lilies, just there on the tip of her memory. The way they moved as one. The way she could just complete her thoughts. She was perfect and Celestia just would never truly understand.

She wished she could do anything to bring her back. No matter the cost.

***

Luna was lightly shook awake. Through misty eyes, the alicorn saw Twilight stand above her.

"You definitely aren't okay."

Luna wryly smiled just too tired to really care anymore. "What gave you that idea?"

Twilight levitated over a couch and lay down, her body turned towards her marefriend. "Well it's midnight. So you've been asleep for nearly a quarter of the day, which makes sense if I gave you every benefit of the doubt since your schedule's not diurnal, but what really threw me off was trying to explain to Spike why you were having a night terror. Hard to do when you once joked that you could never have nightmares. I got to hear more stuff as I tried to see if you'd pop out of it, but to no avail, you had kind of an entire meltdown on one of my chairs."

Luna hesitated. "It's been a really long day."

"Blame Celestia for that. She controls the sun." Twilight laid a hoof on Luna and sighed. "Sorry, Pinkie told me a few times that humor helps cut tension, though I don't always get her humor."

Luna lay back, looked up at the ceiling and laughed. "You tried."

"So you want to tell me about why you kept saying something about a old mare's tale Rainbow Dash once randomly told me about. Cause Somnambula's a bit of a forgotten name."

Luna hunched over and looked at her hooves, turning over the implications in her head. The weight of each word carefully on her mind as she started thinking of where to start and how to explain her feelings about a pony she knew was never coming back. She had tried so very hard once to break her and the others out of limbo, calling on the remnants of the shadow ponies to her side just to see if she could force her way through. She breathed in and out trying to steady her breath. "This is going to be a very long story."

Twilight checked the clock and looked at the time. She counted how many hours she'd lose of sleep. She's regret it in the morning, but this was far more important. "Ponyville can miss me for a day. I mean it's Heartswarming week. Ponies will understand." Twilight put a hoof on Luna's. "I'll just be a moment. Need to put the coffee on. I'm a night owl, but even I have my non-caffeinated limits."

Luna watched Twilight walk into the kitchen. She could see strands of mana wrap around the small uncorn, unseen to most but the most trained eye. Luna smiled as she watched that corona of magic trail her like a comet's tail. She could see what Celestia had seen in the mare- sheer potential for evil balanced by a well meaning, if slightly misunderstood, heart.

"I'll be waiting."

***

"Wow." Twilight sat there, coffee pot fully empty, limbs slightly twitching from the caffeine, popcorn bowl on the neaby table, half full with popcorn. Twilight had raced to make some popcorn once Luna had gotten to the rather juicy parts with Starswirl doing all the cool magic bits she had only ever dreamed about. "I feel wholly inadequate now."

Luna raised an eyebrow. "Why is that?"

Twilight ran a hoof through her mane. "I mean first of all this throws out every history focused on the ancient period. There's entire sections of the library right here focused on the Heartswarming tale and none of them mention any of that. Secondly, I don't know-" Twilight paused. "Do you even like me?"

Luna sighed. "I knew I shouldn't have mentioned this."

Twilight groaned. "I didn't mean that, I meant you kind of tried to destroy Equestria cause you lost somepony. And I feel like I only heard you mention you two having sex once. Though it's been eight hours. I might have missed a few other times."

Luna awkwardly twiddled her hooves. "It was only once."

Twilight smiled. "Well don't tell Rarity, she'd just love trying to needle you for details. I mean you just lived through one of her high fantasy romance novels she just eats up like a maniac and here you are having a relationship with little old me. It's like trading in a rare manuscript for a dime novel." Twilight coldly laughed as she said it.

Luna looked up and saw the slight hurt on Twilight's face. She had always noticed Twilight's proclivity for undercutting her own self worth in these pithy comments that she sprinkled in her dialogue with her friends- downplaying her smarts, her beauty, her courage, her everything. Luna sat there and watched Twilight's mask slip ever so slightly, the usual annoyed and cute demeanor she had showing the Twilight she actually grew fond of.

The self doubting mare that saved the world countless times.

She knew exactly what she had to do. "Twilight, I loved Somnambula, 'tis true, but that's just a memory I hold dear. And you aren't some trashy novel." Luna put a hoof on Twilight's neck as she talked, lightly stroking the mare's fur with her touch. "You are far more than that. You are the story that holds so much deep in its pages, the twists and turns of your story so much more meaningful than some dusty manuscript." Luna's voice hitched. "Somnambula's no longer here. My chance for happiness there cut short through my juvenile longing and circumstance. But don't you ever think you are of less worth because I chose you after. I have told you things about myself that even Celestia doesn't know, and I have appreciated your company and charisma ever since you picked me up off the ground in the Everfree. You remind me of her, true, but it's not because of your similar affect and slightly teasing natures- even if that's so very apt a connection in my eyes. It's because she never gave up hope on the absolute worst enemies of ours, even when they committed horrible atrocities. You and your friends have the hope she prized above all else. Who else would think of using the Elements of Harmony outside of their intended use?" Luna kissed Twilight, the kiss lasting for what felt like forever. Luna broke the kiss and stared at Twilight. "Sorry, was that too strong?"

The purple alicorn blushed profusely as she tried to find words. "No. Just. . .unexpected."

"So what should we do now?"

"I'll be right back." Twilight fired up her horn and teleported, the magic laying heavy in the air.

Luna sighed. "Celestia said to not be creepy and I-"

Luna heard a high pitched scream and loud yelling. Before she could yell to anypony to see if she was needed, Spike burst out of his room and scampered down the stairs. "I told you before to knock Twilight, sweet Celestia, knock." Spike stared at Luna and hastily ran into the kitchen. "If anypony needs me I'm going to Rarity's. She probably needs a few extra claws to help."

Twilight flitted down the stairs, her eyes fixed dead ahead and unblinking. "Note to self, study dragon mating habits and biology, cause I didn't need to see that at nine in the morning." Twilight shivered as she tried to burn the image away.

Luna cocked her head. "So I'm guessing you don't want to perform coitus?"

Twilight shook her head. "Are we going to have the library all to ourselves again in the new year? I don't think so."

Luna felt a slight tug on her tail, tendrils of Twilight's magic snaking up her nethers as she stood there, digits tickling her sides as she felt Twilight's magic begin to envelop her. "Don't be so eager." Luna grinned as the pair popped into their shared bedroom, the bed large enough to fit two large alicorns comfortably.

"So what should we do next?"

Luna hummed as she got a rather silly idea. "Let's celebrate Hearth's Warming."

Twilight was stumped as she tried to figure out Luna's rather odd switch in tone. From how she had described the past and the whole- Twilight felt the hint of magic telling her of what Luna was probably going to do. She closed her eyes and opened them a second later, Twilight now firmly on the bed.

Luna slid up to the bed, her sultry walk keeping Twilight's gaze fixated as she swayed her hips back and forth as she walked ever so slowly forward, her eyes on Twilight. The purple alicorn shivered as she felt little touches on her fur, the air moving ever so purposefully over every nook and cranny of her body. She looked up to the ceiling and traced the wood knots of the tree in her mind, the mental exercise keeping her focused and ready for what was coming next.

"I love you Twilight Sparkle, Happy Hearth's Warming."

Twilight gripped the sheets as she felt a hoof probe her insides, the wet heat of her sex gripping onto the foreign invader, sucking it ever deeper into her as Luna pushed in and out. Twilight bucked her hips in time with Luna's hoofwork. Twilight tilted her head up to look at the glowing horn of her lover.

"What."

Luna's magic enveloped Twilight in a misty haze of sensory overload, one moment Luna was pulling gently on both of her nipples, the next Twilight was having mindblowing orgasms over and over as Luna massaged her wings. She could only grip onto the bed and jerk her hips up with each wave, her action burying Luna's snout firmly inside her and leaving her empty as she lay prone, her body glistening with sweat as the session went on.

Twilight's focus on pleasure let her magic have a mind of its own, sparks dancing off the tip of it, down her body and twinkling like stars in Luna's mane as they reached the blue alicorn, her swirling mane reacting playfully to Twilight's magic, stars and constellations dancing and swirling through a pattern of colors and poofs, each mote of magic a firework of potential.

Luna could only hear Twilight moaning her name and see the mare lustily bite her lip in response to her love for the next few hours.

***

Luna carried a breakfast tray up to her lover, carefully balancing the glass and plates as she took the stairs one at a time. She cantered slowly into their room and quickly opened the window a crack as she tried to air out the room as the cloying smell of their lovemaking hung in the air. Twilight curled up under the blankets, her hair a mess and her legs splayed out. To Luna, she looked like the most beautiful thing in the world. Carefully dodging the mess of sheets that had been pushed off their bed by their furious lovemaking, she placed the tray on the dresser and sat down on the edge of the bed for just a moment. She felt complete somehow, still slightly pained that she had lost so much time with her banishment and return, but she had lucked out finding somepony she dared to say was far better than Somnambula. She was here and in the moment and she lightly touched Twilight's cheek just to make sure she wasn't dreaming. "Twi, time to wake up."

Twilight grumbled. "Just a few more minutes, I hurt all over."

Luna sighed and rubbed Twilight's cheek. "Okay, but you might miss out on some food I made."

Twilight rolled over and groaned. "You didn't burn down the library?"

Luna playfully tousled Twilight's hair. "No, silly. I heeded your directions and made a breakfast worthy for post coitus sex."

Twilight snuggled close to Luna, smelling her lavender scent. "Don't tell me it's some joke thing Pinkie told you about where everything looks like a dick. Cause I'm already squicked out by you saying post-coitus like its not the weirdest way to mention sex. And that's coming from me, in Rainbow's words, "a pony that gets off on books."

Luna laughed. "Well it's not. Just some eggs and toast. Should I have done the opposite?"

Twilight nuzzled into the side of Luna's thigh. "No. Please don't do that."

"So do you want some food before we have to prepare for our trip to the Crystal Empire?"

Twilight's head popped up. "That's today?"

Luna shrugged. "Thought it would be better to take the prerogative and go before Hearth's Warming's end. Then we could call it a vacation. Just the two of us."

Twilight rolled her eyes. "Just as long as it doesn't involve rutting every day. It'd be hard to explain to my brother that I'm in cahoots with his aunt in law, or however that works."

Luna covered her mouth as she tried not to laugh. "So you're telling me the Princess of Friendship didn't tell her own brother about our carnal relationship? How odd, I remember one purple unicorn saying something oddly similar about the Royal Wedding. Seems like that runs in the family."

Twilight playfully smacked her on the rump. "Don't get me started."

***

The Crystal Empire was a maze of wide pavilions and narrow corridors as they walked through the festive city, snow slowly falling as the two mares walked into the palace. Luna smiled as she watched her smaller partner fidget as the doors opened to the large entrance chamber.

Cadance stood there in the center of the room, her throne empty as she was levitating a smaller throne. "Unexpected tidings to Twilight and you, dear Auntie."

Luna bowed as Twilight stayed up. "To you as well, we are most sorry to not give you the proper warning for our stately visit but it is the holiday season and we both decided it was a perfect time to visit family."

Cadance smiled. "I mean it's only a long train ride away, and Twilight's always welcome to the Crystal Empire. And Spike as well, but it might have been apt not to bring him. He's a celebrity here, something about some weird prophecy some of my ponies speak of, though prophecies are rather obtuse and all." Cadance hummed to herself. "Now if I just move this throne just a bit, then I won't have to hear Shiny complain about how odd his role is."

Twilight cocked her head. "What's Shiny complaining about?"

Cadance pushed the second crystal throne into place. "Oh nothing. Just how odd being prince-consort is to him. I mean I can't make him a general in the army anymore due to how big a target he is with the marriage and royalty decree. But I can't make him a king either due to how the Crystal Empire is really in this mood about how terrible King Sombra was. So he's in political limbo, which totally worries his cute little head." Cadance laughed. "But that's married life for you. How are you two lovebirds doing?"

Luna and Twilight shared a look. Twilight spoke first. "We aren't-"

Cadance lay back on her throne. "-in a relationship." Cadance smiled. "But we're all adults here, and we got through the rather boring bits of niceties and all that junk, and I could tell from a nation away that you two got together so humor me a little bit since it's kind of cute. Even though that invalidates my theory that Twilight is only attracted to books."

Twilight narrowed her eyes. "What?"

Cadance waved a hoof. "Oh nothing, I most definitely wasn't building a paper golem that you'd love in the dungeon so Shiny wouldn't question it, nope. Not like my hormones have been oddly out of whack lately." She awkwardly chuckled. "You were saying?"

Luna groaned. This was going swimmingly, Cadance was only half ranting about sex every few sentences. "On that odd note, we came to see the Crystal Empire library to check if we could set up a program for trading knowledge as a goodwill mission."

Cadance pointed and sighed. "It's to the left."

Luna pulled Twilight along as she wanted to get out of there as fast as possible.

Cadance lay back and looked up to her vaulted ceiling. "Good save, Cadey, almost gave away the surprise to Twilight. She'll love learning about her niece." Cadance grinned at the thought. "Though you've been a rather bad baby, making me all love crazy." Cadance groaned. "Though now what will I do with the paper golem? Matbe Shining could use it for a butler? Though I'd have to deprogram all the code words." Cadance rubbed her temple. For all the fun she could have, being the Princess of Love was such hard work.

***

"So Cadance was rather strange." Twilight awkwardly tried to whisper through the large library.

Luna rolled her eyes. "She's an alicorn, it comes with the territory, though I think her obsession with her aspect is rather troubling." Luna shivered at the thought of a Nightmare version of Cadance, the idea slightly horrifying her. "As long as she doesn't ruin our date, I think we'll be fine."

Twilight tried to figure out the organization of the stacks, possibly the Draft system or the Canter Method, but as she scanned the shelves, she couldn't place the organization- sometimes it was by author and sometimes by date, color, or page number. Shelves were just a mess as she stared through, trying to see where the pre-Equestria section was. "I think finding the books will be harder than what I had expected. Who in their right mind would organize shelves like this?"

Luna smiled, Twilight was in full librarian mode. She lightly touched the marble pillars with a hoof, the Hippoi columns a hint to their age, memories of Starswirl lecturing about the minutest detail of architecture bubbling up, the cut stones humming with faint traces of olden magic from before she was banished. "Truly? Mayhaps a very old mage or three that knew how to build some rather impressive works of art."

Twilight huffed, the disarray annoying her. "No self-respecting mage would ever be caught dead here."

Luna smiled and pressed her magic to the pillar and whispered the books that she wanted.

"Luna, we can totally just ask a librarian that should know something."

Luna put a wing on Twilight's back. "Be patient."

Twilight sighed and looked up to the ceiling and groaned. "I would be if there was a sorting system."

Luna chuckled as the first few books started lazily falling off the shelves. "There is, you just had to ask it nicely to sort itself."

The purple alicorn stood amazed as books reorganized themselves by date and topic. Entire shelves of books shuffled themselves like a deck of cards, each correct location falling into place as the magic library woke up from a deft touch, the first hint of Starswirl's Liber Generis spell after more than a thousand years. "Luna what in the world did you do?"

"Well if we can't find the librarian, we can just make the library sort itself. Barring of course, you wanted that to be the second part of our date, which if that was the intended series of events, then I can just put the library back to normal.

Twilight shook her head. "No, I just really want to learn that spell."

Luna rolled her eyes and leaned in to kiss Twilight on the cheek. "Maybe later, now let's figure out what this library has in store for us."

Twilight smiled as she felt her wings flutter. "Yeah." She would see what lay in store and see what the future held.

Author's Note

Something a bit more festive

still feel.

Luna smiled as she reached out and touched the dreams of Ponyville, the sky in her dreamscape a mix of colors, each slightly different as each pony had their own loves and wants and fears, the emotions mixing into a unique tapestry. She looked at the town from on high as little vignettes of life populated the dreamscape, her nightly watch over Equestria for any odd dreameating creatures or umbral shades that still existed. Her pruning of Equestria's garden was still in it's early stages- her slight detour into fixing Celestia's mistake now dropped as she just didn't want to touch the wall of lies that her sister had built around her subjects.

Luna knew that facade would have to be broken at some point- Equestria had barely survived the Changelings and Discord. Not to mention the Crystal Empire and its own issues readjusting to the present. She chuckled at the thought of an entire nation dealing with future shock. She could relate, these modern woes and troubles so very quaint to the death and torment that plagued her memories. Luna banked to the Crystal Empire's slice of her world, the architecture all grand columns and arches, soaring towers of crystal twinkling in the dim moonlight of night, the whole castle shimmering a pale pink light as she passed its flower garden. Roses of every color dotted the garden and as Luna set her hooves down onto the ground, she lit up her horn and picked one singular rose, staring at Cadance's rather singular focus write large- a field of love dreams all encircling the center of her slice of dream.

Luna sighed and walked into the twisted center and stayed vigilant as she dodged the brambles and thorns of the intertwined flowers.

"Cadance, where art thou?" Luna slipped into her more fanciful speaking pattern, cautious due to how unstable she viewed the pink one.

Cadance stepped out of the bushes with a flourish, her glowing mane similar to the hints of power that Twilight had now but refined and focused a few hundred years. Her ethereal mane, while not visible to most, glowed in flashes of reds and pinks, her odd aroma something Luna couldn't place.

"Sorry, sorry, had to deal with some midnight snacking." Cadance stretched her wings and made a large couch appear as she lay down upon it, patting the empty space as a hint to the midnight blue alicorn to sit down.

Luna complied and tried to get comfortable.

Cadance giggled at her aunt. She could see the slight worry all over Luna's face. "So I heard from my Captain of the Guard that Twilight just loved the library."

Luna nodded.

Cadance raised an eyebrow. "Auntie, you know you can say actual words when I speak. Unlike some ponies we both know, I won't be spilling your deepest darkest secrets to anypony. Well except for maybe Shiny, but if it's a Twilight thing, I won't be spilling it to him. Though limit your adult thoughts here, I still have moments where I think Twilight's five." Cadance winked.

Luna sighed. "It's just that it's odd. I'm still trying to get past the whole idea that our relationship is truly real."

Cadance smiled. "Well I can pinch you to check. But Luna, it's perfectly fine. I mean I still have those moments, though I think Celly called that the honeymoon phase."

Luna sat down and stared up at the dreamscape, the slight tinge of Twilight's dream ever present in her view. A bright purple glow on the highest point of the castle told her all that she needed to know- Twilight was asleep and thinking of romantic dreams. Luna pushed her mane out of her face and looked at Cadance. "I know, but I worry about the future."

Cadance rolled her eyes. "Of course you do." Cadance stretched her wings and got up from the couch, her slight annoyance with the midnight blue alicorn giving her wings a slight hitch as she walked towards Luna. At that moment, the midnight blue alicorn reminded Cadance of Twilight- slightly unsure and nerdy about odd topics, clumsy, and weirdly hung up about her own future. In effect, Luna was perfect for Twilight cause she could understand the new alicorn."You know what I do when I worry about the future?"

Luna's ears perked up. "What, pray tell?"

"I just focus on what I feel like at the moment and see what that brings me. Worrying about the future is completely meaningless- not that it's useless. Far from it. But every moment is slightly closer to the future, so just worry about the now and it will fall right into place. And Twilight won't care anyway, Auntie. She'd have already planned for any eventuality. Even the one you have right on your mind right now."

Luna hesitated. "I didn't think you'd have noticed my hesitation on the Pony of Shadows. Was my slight apprehension writ that large that even you could have seen it?"

Cadance awkwardly laughed. "Uhm, I was meaning that you were hungry, what's that about Shadow Ponies?"

Luna shook her head. "Nothing, just something in the past."

Cadance didn't push the outright lie. "Okay." She didn't want to push it, since she had tried once to learn more about Luna from Celestia before she had come back from the moon and that had devolved into a political gaffe that almost ruined their trip to Yakyakistan. "Don't be too stuck in the past."

Luna tried to smile. "Yeah." A part of her worried about if Stygian would ever get out of Limbo. She had this fear that maybe he would. Not because Starswirl hadn't been the best mage of his time, far from it. But she'd gotten back from the moon and that had to have used a similar kind of banishing spell. Spells always seemed to have their weaknesses. Even the most learned of ponies couldn't plan for every single eventuality.

Maybe she was just being paranoid. Twilight often joked that even she overreacted more than the purple alicorn thought was necessary on things.

Maybe Twilight was right.

***

Twilight stretched as she felt the light stream into the room. She felt her wings pop back into place as she pulled back the covers and turned to see an odd sight. Luna fully asleep in bed, her hair splayed out in all directions, the constellations swirling around in her hair as she dreamed, her wings at full attention as she slept and her hooves slightly kicking the same spot over and over as Twilight watched.

It was kind of cute.

She awkwardly crept out of bed, her horn lightly firing as she pulled the sheets back around Luna's sleeping form. She didn't want to wake her due to Luna's last few days of not sleeping right and just running on pots of coffee. Even the most focused alicorns had to have some beauty sleep.

Twilight walked out of the guest room, barely cognizant of where exactly to go in the foreign castle. The last time she had truly been here was months back with the girls- and even then she had only spent a few hours with Cadance and Shining before running back to Ponyville to explain to Celestia what had truly happened. In effect, she had no clue where she was. Her hoofsteps echoed on the crystal floors, slabs of marble inlaid within the stone as a slight aesthetic choice some pony a thousand years ago thought would work well.

It did in practice, but it felt oddly cold. She sighed as she tried to focus to hear any noise to center herself towards.

She could barely hear the sounds of clanking metal on the wind, she guessed it was the guard training some recruits or some similar sound due to how the clanging metal echoed. She rubbed her head as she tried to focus and felt it slip out of her grasp, the noise fading away as her hearing went back to normal.

She groaned, a new slight headache building near her temple as she moved outside.

She held a hoof to her face as she left the shade of the castle. She tested the air with a few furtive flaps of her wings and craned her head towards the training grounds of the Empire, the guard companies laid out in large battalions, their bodies moving as one as she watched.

"Admiring our new Guard Captain's hoofwork I see."

Twilight turned to see Shining standing behind her. "I wasn't. I was just trying to get to somewhere I recognized and followed the only sounds I could hear."

Shining nodded. "I see. Though I'd expect something a little more than 'I got lost' from the pony who could tell me, with pinpoint accuracy, how to get from the nearest bookstore to home. Where did that Twilight go?"

Twilight rolled her eyes. "I can still do that. I just don't have a sense for castles."

Shining raised an eyebrow. "I'd think Celestia would have words with you if she heard you say something like that."

Twilight blushed. "I didn't mean- I get Canterlot Castle just fine. I mean-" Twilight swept out a hoof to show the size of Cadance's castle. "I can't figure out how to get from here to over there in this case."

Shining chuckled. "I know, Twi. And honestly, I get it. I mean I've been here six months or so and all I get is ponies bowing to me for breathing. Honestly, I can't leave the palace without a guide." Shining tousled Twilight's mane with a hoof. "So I just ask the first pony you see if you're lost." Shining stared down at the soldiers training under the new Captain of the Guard and looked back at Twilight. She reminded him of the sister he had so long ago- even if she had a new set of wings. "You know sometimes I wonder what mom and dad do sometimes."

Twilight raised an eyebrow, her brother's non sequitur catching her off guard. "I don't follow."

Shining grinned. "I mean look at us. Do you think that they ever expected having two kids that somehow became royalty or was that a thing that happened naturally?"

Twilight wondered what her brother meant. "I could do a theoretical experiment on the chances of that happening."

Shining shook his head. There was the Twilight he knew. "No, I'm good. Just been thinking is all. Hard to do much else right now. I mean it's been kind of a shock to my system is all. I was Canterlot's Captain of the Guard and now I am up here looking down on ponies and it's a bit weird."

Twilight laughed.

Shining stared at Twilight. "What's so funny?"

Twilight wiped a tear from her eye. "It's just that you sound like me. You know minus the wings. I mean I thought you'd at least have it more figured out than me."

"I don't. You think I know what to do in a crisis? Sure I know how to evacuate castles in a flash and I know at least seven different ways to fight enemies and make shields. I don't know how to deal with bureaucrats. Or whatever Cadance is doing half the time."

Twilight giggled. "Same. I mean I don't have a castle. I'm an alicorn and I don't have one of those. Though Luna doesn't seem to mind. At least it's fun having her around."

Shining looked at his sister. "Luna doesn't mind what?

Twilight stopped and realized what she said. "Uhm, nothing." Twilight stared at Shining as one thought came across her mind. Run. With a quick flash, she was ready to run as far away as possible.

But her brother was slightly faster as his spell weaved through her own and countered her teleport. He had once needed to corral his own sister while babysitting when she was small enough and thought popping through walls and objects was a totally safe and awesome idea. He sighed as he looked at his little sister. "I'm going to owe Cadance like twenty denarii for this."

Twilight stared at Shining. "I was just going to teleport away to see what was going on down there."

Shining stared at his sister, his natural bullshit detector going off as she spoke. Well he didn't need his ten years of interrogation skills and Changeling detection to know when Twily was lying cause she was terrible at it. "That's a lie. And Twilight, I'm married to Cadance. You might hide whatever you and Luna are doing, but Cadance has the worst habit of acting like a manic mess when love stuff happens. It made our honeymoon completely insane." Shining winked.

Twilight felt her ears lay back on her head as she tried to look away from what Shining was trying to say next. And her mind wasn't helping with the horrible image of her brother and Cadance on their honeymoon.

Shining bent down and smiled at his sister. "It's time for a talk. It won't be that long, but between brother and sister I have to give you some pointers. Can't be having my curious little sister playing with magic and destroying the world cause of you getting too creative in the bedroom."

Twilight blushed. "That doesn't happen."

Shining laughed and let down his anti-teleportation spell. "I was joking. But if you want to talk about it, the new archmage talked about some new place and how it reminded him of home. Supposedly, its a little hole in the wall. It'd be my treat. I mean sure with how Cadey's been acting, I'm guessing this was recent. But who else would know what it's like to have what you two have." Shining puffed out his chest. "It'd be me."

Twilight rolled her eyes. "Okay, Shiny."

Shining bent down and whispered in his sister's ear. "But if Luna somehow does something oddly reckless, you know where to find me and I know exactly how to get into her chambers no problem."

Twilight tried to defuse the awkward situation. "That's not going to be a problem."

Shining smiled. "I was just joking Twilight. Now how's about the lunch?" Shining bent down and whispered. "And no, Cadey and I didn't consummate our marriage until weeks after our honeymoon. Though we did have a weird time in Manehattan. Love potions are not a great idea on a couple relaxation cruise."

Twilight blushed harder. "I don't doubt that."

***

Luna felt her sister pounding on her mental link with her as she opened her eyes. She hadn't answered the connection at all since she had let her feelings out in a manner that was, in the aristocratic way, most unbecoming of a Princess. She didn't mind the slight headache she had due to Celestia being there. It wasn't like her own sister caused her own problems.

Luna pushed back and broke the connection. She looked down and stared at a thing she didn't expect to find even in the Crystal Empire.

She traced a hoof over the faded leather. She knew of this book rather well since she had glimpsed it in Starswirl's own saddlebags when they had trekked all the way to the final battle with Stygian. It was a rather ugly tome, squat and tiny for what weight it might hold within its pages.

She carefully opened the silver clasp with her magic and slowly untwined the multiple spells Starswirl had enchanted the journal with, carefully folding each encryption spell and flame sigils into inert rocks. She marveled at the book. Unassuming and taciturn, like its own writer. Matter of fact spells dotted throughout to keep the most prying of eyes off it.

She opened to the first page and began reading exactly what Starswirl planned to do to fix the mess.

Starswirl breathed in and out as he finished his final quill dip into his inks and stared at the page. He wove a final spell into it's very own pages to give his two students something to look at if their current spell didn't work. He wove the memento mori spell right into its pages, just in case all six of them failed in their mission.

Celestia trotted up and bowed to him as he finished up the final preparations for the trek to Stygian's very own stone monument. "Keep this journal safe." Celestia nodded. She knew exactly what that meant.

"I promise you on the aether connecting us all that I will."

Starswirl touched Celestia's bowed head and tousled the far older alicorn's hair. "I know you will."

Luna flipped through the next few pages. carfully skimming through any mention of Celestia, who unfortunately popped up far too much for her liking. She remembered these memories far differently than what was in Starswirl's own journals. She noted all the times Starswirl mentioned her. The difference in tone was rather enlightening at points.

Not that it truly mattered anyway. Starswirl was dead and gone and the only thing he left were two alicorns, these notes and a dream for a unified Equestria. And he got his wish. So wherever he was now, he was looking in full approval and probably gloating over the fact that everything went according to plan.

She sighed and read to the beginning of his last entry.

Starswirl and the others slunk through the deer section, careful to not make a sound as they had seen the few scouts out and about, their war paint streaked in their fur, and beads dangling from their horns. Flash Magnus stayed silent as they passed, his eyes glaring daggers into the back of their heads as they disappeared deeper into the Everfree Tangle.

Flash turned to the others and said little as they passed piles of bones, his joking demeanor washed away as he focused on the mission and guided the five other ponies through the absolute confusion of the Everfree. "I told you all to stay on the path for good damn reason and we only saw those mule deer guards. Be glad you didn't see the shamans or the king. But, let's see, it should be right around here." Flash pulled out his sword and slashed away some of the vines and popped his head through for a brief moment and pulled back. "Yeah it's here. Starswirl."

Starswirl breathed and channeled his mana to his horn, warping its natural inert state towards heat and said the spell's name to focus his mind. "Ignis." As he felt the heat radiate from his horn he lobbed the fireball at the hedges and brambles nearby and watched them crackle and spark into burning embers.

Rockhoof rolled his eyes. "I'd say that was a good show, but I cannae help but wonder if Stygian knows we are here already"

Starswirl stared at the burned opening to the castle. "He knows."

---

The six ponies stared at the large reception hall that they found themselves in, the decor sparse and all black. Starswirl stared at the long line of bookshelves filled with incomprehensible titles and runes that didn't correlate with any language he knew as the six walked. He glanced at Mistmane and she shook her head, their silent language between each other honed by years of focusing on each other's body language. She didn't pick up on any terms either and her eastern unicorn heritage gave her ins with many of the rarer and more remote creatures. If she didn't know the languages, they weren't any creatures on this patch of earth.

Somnambula picked up a book and tossed it aside. "I don't like this."

Meadowbrook chuckled. "And you think I like this? This is a right mess we're in and I don't believe we're going to have a picnic."

Nopony answered as they all had the same idea.

They knew it was a trap and yet they were still there because if they failed, then the whole land would be covered in darkness.

Quietly, they heard something getting closer, the clacking of hooves on stone making it a little clearer as to who was approaching. They quietly stared at one another as a high warbling hum echoed through the halls. It was like Stygian was right there and laughing at them. Which they all quickly figured out that he was as he walked ever so briskly out of the shadows and waved.

"Why hello there, my ever so amazing friends? What brings you here to my ever so humble abode." Stygian smiled, his blue mane and gray coat nondescript, his Northern Equestrian accent crisp and clear. He looked positively normal.

And he was now the most dangerous creature in Equestria.

Starswirl stepped forward and took charge, as the leader of the group, and the closest to Stygian's equal in terms of raw magical power, he decided to take the lead and just protect the others, silently casting a protection spell over the other five. "You know why we're here, Stygian. We've decided to put you away somewhere for the sake of the future of Equestria."

Stygian laughed. "By what authority? Look around you and within yourselves." Stygian teleported to Somnambula's side in a flash. "I mean look at yourselves. Namby here is missing a few feathers. Nice healing by the way, gives you a right kind of austerity or whatever burned husk of courage you want to call it." As Starswirl reading a spell, Stygian teleported out of range and bowed. "I would applaud your efforts, but I wasn't done talking. You know what? I'll do you one better. You all try and kill me and I'll only use my wits and spells to stop you all. No eldritch god, though I bet you'd just cream yourselves to see it. I mean who wouldn't? It's kind of a bloodrush to see yourself as what you all made me. You know. The bad stallion with a who cadre of friends to set him right."

Starswirl rolled his eyes. "I doubt we made you steal our things."

Stygian walked down the obsidian stairs that he had teleported to and stared daggers into the six there. "You doubt? You were everyone's heroes, everyone's saviors from all manner of foul beasts. You are on your way to any number of bardic tales and legends with how the idiots speak of you ilk. Mistmane the Beautiful, Rockhoof the Giant, Meadowbrook the Healer, Flash Magnus the Brave, Starswirl the Teacher, Somnambula the Wise. The peasants love you."

Flash piped up. "Well at least we are memorable."

Starswirl stared at him.

"What? I mean he's trying to cover the world in darkness and kill everything. If he wants to be remembered, I think he's going about it all wrong." Flash shrugged.

Stygian stared at Flash Magnus. "I remember exactly why I didn't like you."

"Well the feeling's mutual."

Starswirl blinked. He felt the teleportation before he saw it, waves of rage coming off of Stygian as he moved in a flash towards Flash faster than anypony expected, as they tried moving towards the pegasus, Flash tried to roll out of the way, his battle instincts honed by years in Canterlot, and a decade of helping Equestria in any way possible, helped him dodge Stygian's first strike. A gout of flame barely singed his wing and Stygian turned to face Flash.

"I was expecting to roast you alive like a chicken, but I guess clipping your wings is preferable."

Flash stared at his wing, nerve endings firing in pain as he tried to focus on the moment. "You never shut up." He readied his sword and charged forward, his stance changing as he accounted for his burnt wing.

Stygian yawned and parried his sword strike with an obsidian staff. "Predictable." The gray unicorn turned away from Flash and whispered a spell, his body splitting off into copies of itself. Starswirl stared as he saw hooves exit from Stygian's eyes, the unicorn's body convulsing as he cast forbidden magic. Stygian fractaled as heads were built on heads as he copied himself in what Starswirl termed as grotesque, as the unicorn opened his mouth, rows of teeth and multiple tongues lolled out of it. Stygian exploded into chunks as his skin itself tore from the pressure of containing too many organs within itself, bloated and misshapen as each fought for space. The blood rained down and everypony stood stock still as they wiped the gore off of themselves. Meadowbrook separated from the group for a brief moment as she vomited her breakfast all over the floor, gagging as she tried to stay calm.

Somnambula raised an eyebrow as she wiped blood off of her. "That was both unexpected and disgusting." She stared at the blood that was pooling at her hooves. "Did we win?"

They figured out quickly that they hadn't as they stared at the husk of Stygian, his body mangled and twisted into quickly hardening rigor mortis, the black magic speeding up the rotting process. As they wondered if they won, they saw something that they couldn't completely explain- his corpse moved and jerked around like it was still vaguely alive. The bloated corpse of Stygian wriggled around and as they watched, Stygians walked out of it, six of them echoed each other in a morbid dance of jerking movement.

"Sorry, guys, I guess I just couldn't contain my excitement." The Stygians all laughed at their joke, their cold voices echoing on the obsidian walls. "Now where were we?"

Flash grimaced as he readied himself. He tried to think back to every training exercise that the Royal Canterlot Legion ever had.

He blinked and six Stygians came at him, six poles of obsidian razor sharp and always too close for comfort. Flash contorted his body in ways that he hadn't since Ironhead commanded the Legion to perform one on ten drills. It had been Tartarus bound and completely insane, but as he dipped through the forest of spear points, he thanked the stars that he had a fighting chance.

He forgot that Stygian played dirty.

"You bore me." Stygian's horn lit up and he whispered a spell "Funiculos in tenebris." His mana oozed out of his horn in long ropes and wrapped Flash in pure darkness. Stygian stretched his hooves and walked away from the rather dangerous pegasus, quickly tossing him aside like an old scrap of parchment as the gathered ponies all heard the darkness constrict around their friend like a snake, his bones snapping like twigs as they imagined the pain. "One."

Stygian teleported next to Meadowbrook and tousled her hair. "Sorry, love, this'll hurt. Though you probably have a salve for it." He rammed the obsidian spear through her heart and she stared at him, her eyes wide with surprise as she slid down the spear, her legs slowly giving out as blood wet the stone beneath her. Stygian winced. "Two. Though honestly I did like you."

Rockhoof charged at Stygian, his hefty axe swinging around him, his earth pony magic shaping his strikes with obsidian bite as he rushed towards the unicorn who had done the unthinkable. "Laddie, you dinnae know what you have done."

Stygian bowed. "Well, besides taking down two of the supposedly best in this land and-" An axe swing stopped his speech as it almost connected with his face. "I seem to have hit a rather painful nerve. Interesting."

Mistmane and Starswirl looked at each other and nodded. It was time to do the last ditch plan. While the valor of Rockhoof and pure anger he felt at this moment was a good thing to focus on- the reality was that Stygian would leave the castle if they didn't do anything. Somnambula would be next and then the rest of the land if they didn't seal him here. He was toying with them and from how the unicorns saw his aura, he was cheating.

Mistmane and Starswirl mixed their knowledge of Eastern and Western Unicorn magic, the mana and chi of each intermixing into the ground as they watched Rockhoof pound Stygian into dust, the unicorn giggling as Rockhoof broke his spine over and over.

"I hope we know what we're doing." Mistmane whispered.

Starswirl just prayed as he poured every last bit into a sealing spell. Hoping that the use of multiple magics could confound even a nondescript prodigy like Stygian. "I hope so."

Stygian grew tired of letting Rockhoof let his anger out. While he did like the massage the beating was giving him, he'd see the earth pony break his own legs before Stygian actually was hurt by his little show. As he stared up at the massive earth pony he saw the chink in his armor and grinned. "Boring." He only let out a small burst of magic right near the large pony's knee, twisting the natural mana that held each pony together and expande it outwards to a rather more gruesome fate.

Rockhoof's entire leg exploded in a fountain of blood.

Stygian would have gloated. He would have. Except her forgot that Rockhoof was an earth pony who knew more about rocks and how to shape them than most would learn in their lives due to some latent magical skill and training. Rockhoof groaned in pain as smoothed obsidian, still sharp enough to prick him ever so slightly, was fused to his bloody stump.

"Round two."

Stygian raised an eyebrow. "Touche."

He readied his weapons, his clones, echoing him, as he mentally decided to ramp up the pain since little Rocky here was being ever so much more interesting than any of the remaining threats. He wished to see the limits of earth pony magic and see what happens if you surgically removed each leg from a rather interesting specimen.

He smiled as he was completely blindsided by the intertwined spells of Mistmane and Starswirl.

Starswirl and the others stared at the large void that opened up in the middle of the castle for a brief moment as they watched Stygian convulse in pain, his true form apparent. Eyes covered his head, blinking furiously as he was slowly being ripped in half by the competing magic- the chi rotating his body in knots as the mana that Starswirl used pulled his other half in reverse. His organs kept rupturing as the pressure overtook them, then rehealing imperfectly, copying the body part again and again on top of one another like a tumor. Starswirl stared at the husk that was his old friend and realized from what he looked like, tendrils of darkness covering him as a coat of limbs and wings fractaled off of his back in long sheets of black feathers. Heads screamed in wordless pain as they tried separating from the main mass. Starswirl knew that whatever Stygian had summoned to best them had taken over his body and killed him.

Even if Stygian was there in that mass, still alive and conscious, he didn't know how to fix this.

He looked at the creature and as he watched, he saw Stygian's branching horn try and flash a counterspell.

The unholy abomination screamed in pain as he aimed and fired.

"Get down-"

Luna stared at the journal and breathed heavily, her eyes brimming with tears as she realized why exactly the six of her heroes never came back. Why Somnambula never came back.

And she had wanted to break that thing out just to see her first love again.

She flipped furiously back and forth in the journal, pouring over each and every page to see exactly what Starswirl's plan had been. Any knowledge of what to do would be more preferable than the apocalyptic idea that festered in her mind. What if he came back. Even if Starswirl and Mistmane's final gambit had paid off, Luna knew full well how common it was for ancient evils to come back from the brink of defeat or death. She glanced around and could almost feel the shade of Sombra gloat in the distance. She just had to look in a mirror and feel her own failure.

It wasn't a question of if Stygian, or whatever eldritch creature he was now, would ever climb out of whatever hole he was stuffed into, but when.

She carefully stashed the book in a nearby saddlebag of Cadance's and got up. She had to tell Twilight.

***

"So how's Ponyville?"

Twilight looked at her brother. "It's fine."

"That's great. I mean from how Cadey talks about your journal, it sounds like a real mess."

Twilight did a quick double take. "I thought that was supposed to be classified information."

Shining shrugged as he took a bite of his daisy burger. "Guess not. Really should get on who leaked it then cause that's the book I hear about all the time. The "Journal of Friendship" by Anonymous. Really terrible title if you ask me."

Twilight rolled her eyes. "I guess I know what I'm going to talk about with Celestia when I get home."

Shining laughed. "It can't be that bad."

Twilight her eyes. "I put everything that ever happened to me in that journal. Every single thing. It's not something I really want to have out in public. Cause it gets explicit."

Shining scratched his head. "Huh, okay. Didn't need to have that image of what my sister's been doing in my head." Shining shook his head. "But I don't think Cadance has mentioned anything like that. I'd have known. She'd probably have a panic attack if that happened."

Twilight raised an eyebrow. "Celestia damnit, Shiny, I said explicit not full on pornography. I meant like I shared way too much about my friends and thoughts to have that out there."

Shining stretched his hooves. "Twilight, you know how prevalent using explicit for stuff like that is. From what I get from my wife , it's all changed around to hide the important info. Why else would you think Canterlot released a document that's so damning of their issues with you and your friends?"

Twilight sulked. "Cool, still doesn't make-"

Luna popped out of nowhere as Twilight almost finished her sentence.

"Twilight, I've been looking for you everywhere."

Twilight blushed. "Sorry, I got lost and then my brother wanted to go out for brunch."

Shining awkwardly waved as he took a bite of his food.

Luna stared at him. "Of course. I should have known."

Twilight coughed to break the tension. "Well what do you want to talk about? I mean we already talked about most things on our way here." Twilight looked away as she remembered the long nightly sessions.

Luna fished out Starswirl's journal and placed it gently on the table. "This."

Twilight carefully opened the book, feeling the vague remnants of mana entwined within its pages, read the frontispiece and glanced up at Luna, eyebrows slightly raised as she tried to process what this meant. "Luna, this is a priceless artifact. I know ponies that would pay multiple lifetimes worth of bits just to read what this contains."

Luna grimaced at the thought. "After reading that, I would say they are complete fools."

Shining glanced over and noticed what book the pair were talking about. With a speed that rivaled Pinkie Pie in her deepest sugar binges, he zipped underneath the table and poked his head over the side. "Nopony touch that book."

Twilight rolled her eyes. "Shiny, I already opened it and Luna brought it here. If it was some eldritch evil, I feel like maybe it would have done something by now."

Shining shook his head. "Tell that to the fourteen assistants of Sunburst who all are still being treated for various things. From the weekly briefs I get from the Unicorn Legion, it really isn't pretty."

Luna glanced down at the book and sighed. The black magic that had been vaguely infused within it was gone now- a totally inert and safe book stared up at her. She had felt the tangle of something possibly being there, out of sight, maybe. It was rather hard to pin down dark magic, especially when it was so old. It could have been cast in the last thousand years or the last five, dark magic had a stain on it that was hard to wash away. "From what I could parse from the writing, it seems like being in the same room as pure evil caused some blowback thanks to one rather foolhardy unicorn."

Twilight sighed.

"No, it's not you, Twilight. You're at least somewhat cautious when it comes to magical spells. Even if I still find hints of you tampering with temporal magic and your ascension itself being a culmination of grossly misusing magic, at least you don't summon otherworldly entities and bargain with them."

Shining coughed and put a few denarii on the counter. "I'll just take my food to go. Nice seeing you, Twilight, I'd just rather not have nightmares of anything worse than Changelings on my mind for a few months."

Twilight almost responded before a white flash of light showed her an empty space where her brother used to be. She grumbled and felt her feathers stand up in annoyance as she realized he did the exact thing she wanted to do. Escape the conversation by teleporting away in time. How lucky. She turned and looked at Luna. "So disregarding my brother running off, what exactly do you want us to do about unknowable evil coming back? Or not coming back? Or whatever."

Luna ran a hoof through her mane as she saw the rain pour down, unsure of what to do next. Starswirl's Journal was only so helpful at figuring out how to beat Stygian when he escaped. Because she knew firsthoof that banishing spells were temporary. The string of ancient evils that Twilight had to face on a seemingly weekly basis was truth to that. He was coming and she didn't know what to do.

Luna carefully entwined her hoof with Twilight's and stared into her eyes. "Be prepared for when Stygian appears."

Twilight stayed quiet for a moment, remembering full well the name and what it meant. Though she was slightly annoyed that Luna wasn't being totally open about this, she was getting more used to it by the day. Sometimes Luna could be rather obtuse with her meanings. Stygian possibly coming back would freak her out, so she discounted Luna's terseness and pushed onward with the barest hint of a question."And what does that mean exactly?"

Luna stared out the window, drops of rain streaking their way down the glass. "Training. Lots of it."

The cold, unfeeling rain poured down, covering the Empire in a dark cloud of rain.

***

Trixie breathed the cold air of Rockville, her hat and cape tattered from months on the road, her body sore and in dire need of both a good meal and a shower as she crested the hill. She felt a headache come on as she felt her magic reserves run on fumes as her work as Equestria's greatest entertainer was both a usually thankless job, the few fans she had gained from her performances were rare and always getting rarer.

She glumly noted that her last show had been months ago and rather sparse in attendance, the ponies that had shown up talking about how odd she was and how hokey her magic was. Trixie gritted her teeth as she cursed her rotten luck, the whole Alicorn Amulet debacle still following her. "All I heard in all those silly little towns- Appleloosa, Dusty Hollow, Ironhoof- everypony just heard the news about Twilight's magic duel and just yakked it up about how grand it must have been to fight the-" Trixie facehoofed. "the newest princess. How quaint."

Trixie wrapped her cloak around her as she felt the wind pick up, the deafening silence of the surrounding area just leaving her to her own depressing thoughts. If only her father could see her now. Defeated, in the middle of nowhere, hooves cracked and worn from hundreds of miles of walking in roads less traveled. She'd say it was her scenic route to success, but she'd lost her cart. And besides her cloak and hat, she only had a few coins in her pocket. The last of a rather respectable haul dwindled down to nothing as she had just stumbled through life.

She trudged on, using the last bits of magic she had to warm her body enough just so she wouldn't freeze to death even in this oddly warm weather in the plot end of Western Equestria. Beautiful craggy rocks and who knew what monsters lay in wait for the blue unicorn. Trixie cracked a smile at that. "The Great and Powerful Trixie amazes you rubes with death defying stunts and magic." Trixie felt tired as she went around the bend and saw Rockville, the sleepy little town that was barely eking out a living from the hard soil.

She brushed her mane out of her eyes and tried to look presentable as she felt weeks of hoof pains abate for a moment as she thought of sleeping on something better than the cold hard ground.

She's lost the right to boast about her skills when Equestria viewed her as a sideshow attraction and a laughingstock.

The blue unicorn felt the winter chill hit her and she thanked Celestia that she had remembered that Rockville and the surrounding areas didn't need rain or snow- they focused on rocks and the only thing they needed were some weird mumbo jumbo earth magic and some time to grow rocks. Or at least that's what she had heard from some Saddle Arabian merchant a few years back. She wasn't picky with her information sources and if they were actually true, the more fantastical the better. She didn't hear anything on the wind as she entered the town, the normal sounds of everyday life absent and mute as her hooves stumbled over the uneven road. She glanced around and felt uneasy as she felt watched from something just outside her vision as she tried to relax.

Trixie tried to think of anything as she walked towards the inn, her hoofsteps echoing as she approached the counter and tentatively rang the bell for service, hoping that something wouldn't jump out and terrify her.

A door creaked open and a head popped out to check the front. A normal pony.

Trixie breathed a sigh of relief as she mentally chided herself. The last few weeks had made her doubt herself and highly paranoid about small towns, each a weirder and wilder version of the last. "Hello."

The quiet mare stared at her.

Trixie stared back. "Hello?" Trixie sighed, carefully fishing out her bits and letting them fall onto the wooden desk. "That's all I have right now, so can you manage something with that?"

The quiet gray mare stared down and scooped up the coins, quickly counting them and checking for their real quality by biting down gently on each, the action slightly bending the golden coins.

"I mean if you have to. But I'd sleep in a closet as long as I'm warm."

The gray pony walked over to the black wall and started writing.

I heard you the first time. Name's Marble. You should probably go back where you came from. Got a bad feeling is all.

Trixie groaned. "Yeah, I'm going to walk in the middle of winter all the way back home. I'm in the middle of nowhere and you're telling me to walk back. You realize that I had to walk through ten different towns that hated my guts one way or another." Trixie sat down. "Hate me or not, this is the first place in weeks that's anywhere close to warm. I'm not going."

Marble sighed and wrote some more. Your choice. Don't come crying to me when the nights get all weird.

Trixie crossed her hooves. "Not budging. Show me a room to sleep in or I'll sleep right here. Don't test me. I totally slept outside for a week, anything's more comfortable than that. I still find leaves in weird places."

Marble rolled her eyes and beckoned Trixie to the stairs. The pony walked up the stairs in a flash leaving Trixie in the dust. Trixie thought she had to be imagining things, but the gray pony reminded her eerily of one of Twilight's friends. The pink one. Whatever her name was. She felt odd about that, it brought up bad memories of the Alicorn Amulet, or the lack thereof. She tried to come up with those memories on certain occasions just to say something to the mobs of interested ponies and all she could come up with that she just didn't remember.

She trudged upstairs, her head aching as she tried to relax. As she walked, she noticed Marble's odd scrawl, almost anticipating questions as she thought them.

We don't get a lot of ponies here, so take the first left and I'll be there. Food's at seven, since you want to stay.

Trixie sighed and walked up the rest of the way, her journey to a bed nearly at an end. She followed the directions to the letter and saw Marble walk briskly out of the room, hooves full of what she guessed were old linens. "Thanks. And don't wake me up for anything, unless really necessary."

Marble nodded and left.

Trixie shrugged. She hadn't ever heard of mute ponies before, but there were always outliers. Still would have been nice to have somepony to actually talk to instead of a sort of unsettling innkeeper. She laughed and looked around. The room wasn't much to look at- a chest of drawers in the corner, a bed that felt like it was badly packed with straw, a mirror on the wall. The absolute bare minimum to call this place a room instead of a makeshift hovel. She stared at her reflection, unfamiliar lines on her face drew her attention as she absentmindedly traced her sunken cheeks with a hoof. She looked awful, dark bags under her eyes from weeks of sleeping out in the wilds of Equestria. She took off her hat and noticed a few holes in its brim that she hadn't before,

She sighed and shut the door with the last of her magic reserves and lay her head on the pillow, staring up at the ceiling. Trixie kept counting the wood panels as she drifted off to sleep.

***

Trixie woke up in an unfamiliar place. She felt the grass beneath her as she vaguely remembered not being here before, especially when she vaguely remembered a bed and a sparse room as her last memory before bed. She tried her horn as she tried to test for any illusions or trickery. She felt none touch her mental checks as she swept around her surroundings. Her father told her of the problems that such spells were- ponies lost themselves in lies and dreams easier than most when they were at their lowest points.

The trek to Rockville had been hers.

"Hopefully this is a dream." She decided to walk in the only direction she could think of- south. Mainly cause if it was a dream, she'd get wherever her mind was sending her, or if it wasn't, it'd just be better than just sitting here waiting. "Still if this is a joke from the only pony I've seen in two weeks, this isn't funny."

She could see wisps of smoke come from her left and she decided to follow the one hint that mattered now. She turned down a well worn path, trampled into ruts and valleys by overuse, the ground bumpy and odd, her hooves following the ponies that might have come before as she walked, on and on. Her hooves hurt for some reason and the red clay dirt on the path contrasted heavily with the green grass, it was her only way forward and she put one hoof in front of another. She quickly worried about her decision as she heard a rumbling noise and screams of terror. Trixie breathed in and out as she tried to think of things that were marginally better than whatever was now past that hill- food came to mind, beating Twilight Sparkle at her own game was a nice fantasy, and her family. All these things were slightly better than whatever could be on the hill. As she crested the hill, her worry started to dissipate.

There was nopony there save for one rather nondescript unicorn. His blue mane and grey coat just being different enough to her eyes that he seemed almost a pony in greyscale. She laughed at herself. This was a dream. This had to be. He was no pony that she'd ever seen- maybe that lanky colt from Ponyville sort of looked like him-. What was his name? Escargot? Whatever, she guessed this new pony was probably some odd mix between old memories and false ones.

Her father told her enough about dreams for that to make sense.

The unicorn stallion sat with his back towards her, focusing on the fire that was roaring next to him. As Trixie approached, she saw him lazily toss bundles of sticks into the fire. As he did so, the fire burst and crackled with life. Trixie sighed. Stallions and their fires. She used to know a few circus performers that could do tricks with roaring blazes.

The unicorn turned and stared at Trixie. "Look at you, absolutely marvelous." He had a bit of an accent, Trixie guessed, some sort of Trottingham sounding accent making his words slightly more proper than she was used to.

Trixie awkwardly kicked a hoof and looked around, the world nondescript green hills all over the place. Like each hill was repeating ad infinitum as far as the eye could see. Just staring at the whole picture for a moment made her feel queasy. She stared down at her hooves and breathed for a moment to focus.

"Oh do sit down, I mean I haven't talked to a pony in what feels like forever. Oh, and very sorry for the surroundings. Very hard to get my few memories to work exactly right."

Trixie shuffled over, not looking up. "Totally a dream, this has to be a dream."

The stallion laughed. "Undoubtedly. I mean think about it in your perspective. There's just you and me out in a fractal field always repeating the same motions. You come up and talk to me. I answer. You leave. Another you meets me. I answer. I sometimes throw sticks onto the fire. It's rather boring, this whole cat and mouse game I have been playing just to have something to look forward to."

Trixie cocked her head. "Multiple times? I've only met you once."

The lanky stallion sighed and stoked the fire. "That's what they all say." Stygian got up and stretched, his view of the world so much more exciting that this blue strumpet's. He had to laugh, the pony mind being so very malleable and exciting. But unfocused if they just didn't want to look at reality. He stretched his limbs. He was exhausted. He still knew that the six bastards had to be somewhere in Limbo, he felt their presence on the back of his mind, a phantom pain as he moved. "But after five thousand iterations of the same exact dialogue you give me, I just pray that there's some sort of change."

Trixie backed away slowly, feeling the air shift around the stallion. She wasn't an idiot per se, possibly a boaster too sure of her own skills at times, but she knew when to run.

Stygian cocked his head. "You didn't do that before." He stared down at her hooves, the road worn thin by Trixies that had repeated the exact motions, repeated the exact words, and were thrown into some unused part of Limbo, a mountain of failures that had grown ever so high. He looked at the valleys and saw that Trixie's hoof was touching the grass. Stygian realized what Starswirl had inadvertently set him in.

A trap so devious and fun that Stygian almost wished Starswirl could see the irony.

Starswirl never thought Stygian would move in the array. Like he didn't expect the team leader and strategist to devise a plan outside of the norm. He also hadn't expected another pony moving on, near, or in the spell. The spell worked in a completely closed system. Reliant entirely on Starswirl forgetting that a thousand years of imprisonment was rather boring.

"Starswirl, you absolute idiot." He stared up into the nonexistent sun and chuckled for a brief moment and set his eyes fully upon his savior, sure she was an absolute dolt as he had mined her corpses for any hint of the world outside Limbo. He had found a delightfully inane world helmed by Runt One and Runt Two. He felt the powers of his umbral forces deep within this vessel, a hint of darkness in her soul as he felt her memories. Trapping a town within a glass jar. Being annoyed with a new alicorn, how odd. He'd take any hint of darkness in a pony's soul. Bit weak and kind of a let down for his bored manner of darkness, but he had only a few options and this was the best. It was this or wait until some idiot accidentally freed him. This Plan Z was so much better. "Sorry, sorry, I've been such a forgetful host, my name's Stygian and Bellatrix, I feel like we are going to have so much in common. I dislike some alicorns and other unmentionable creatures, and you dislike one Twilight Sparkle."

Trixie's voice piped up. "I don't dislike her."

Stygian placed a hoof on the blue dolt. "You do. I can feel the lines of doubt and worry, the sad little filly that tried so very hard in getting accepted and flunking out of Celestia's school. You tried so very hard to eke out a living as an entertainer, tried to get a hoofhold within society as something ponies cared about, even just a little bit, the traveling shows ever so similar to the sky circus you remember from your fillyhood. You loved the spotlight."

Trixie bowed her head. "How'd you know?"

Stygian didn't say his trade secret of torturing out the answers from every single repeated version of herself. A literal mountain of bodies just to get some handle on this weak unicorn who would have been tossed off the side of a mountain a thousand years ago for not having enough mana. He fibbed a lie, built from a past memory of what he wasn't now. "Because I could see it in your eyes, the longing for love and attention as you dealt with a father who only loved his own magic tricks." Stygian wrapped a few tendrils of darkness around Trixie's hooves, imperceptibly hypnotizing her as she listened to his rolling cadences, lulling her into the slightest hint of trust, of weakness. Celestia be damned, he loved the feeling of twisting her own ponies into some fun. He missed it so much. "You remind me of me so very long ago, a colt in the cold as he watched all his friends get the credit he wanted. The admiration, the love, the medals." He pushed down the vague memories of before. Those were not important now.

Trixie swayed back and forth. "So what do you want me to do?"

"I just want to be out of this infernal blank slate. I want to go home."

Trixie hesitated for a moment. "This doesn't sound too good. I mean there's like a lot of ponies there."

Stygian facehoofed and cursed under his breath. Hypnosis always brought out the idiocy from his targets. "Altruism, a heinous crime." Stygian breathed in and out, his breath black clouds of miasma. "You know what? I know. That's really, really bad. But if you let me out, I'll give you the barest hint of power. You know you want something. I mean how exactly will you compete with Twilight Sparkle again or show your face in Manehattan? The laughingstock of Equestria, a failure, I mean if I were you I'd be a real tosser, the braggart of the century. Except I'd actually have something to show for it."

Stygian held out a hoof.

Trixie ran.

"Bloody hell. Just a mite more and I would have had her." Stygian sighed. If he was going to leave Limbo, this was his one shot. He had been here for a thousand years in unblinking repetition. Whatever let him reel in a dreamer, he silently thanked them. He groaned as he stretched out the magic he'd been mostly separated from for a thousand years, a thousand years of mentally changing his little slice of Limbo into a grassland or a house or something. Illusions were so hard to maintain. Being affable when dealing with ponies far below his mental capacities- or being alone for a thousand years stewing in his hatred for the six ponies trapped here with him.

He knew they were alive and well. But dealing with those six were for another time.

He put out his hoof and with a thought, he set his slice of Limbo ablaze, his eyes oozing with darkness as he walked, the mental fire stripping all of his illusions that he set around himself. A mental image of a long forgotten pony that had asked for power and was given it without realizing the cost.

He let his umbral form out and spread his dark wings as he floated above his old prison. As he flew he cast a whole litany of spells, his magic flowing in greater streams as he thought and looked down from on high, imagining the world that had forgotten him.

"Bellatrix Lulamoon, I wish you hadn't done that. Check one off for sympathetic connections I guess. Now for the second and far more painful choice."

***

Marble hummed to herself as she watched the rain fall on Rockville, the inky black clouds rolling in like conquering armies. She felt a tinge of worry as she felt the air shift and broil with magic that she had never felt before. Old magic. Magic her family had only talked about in hushed tones as they whispered about the far past. She twitched as she felt it, the electric signals sending her blips of information on what could be happening.

She tried to speak, her words mute and unformed as she felt waves of ill intent emanate from the room with the traveler.

She had warned her. She had seen shapes in the darkness and dreams portending ruin. Some evil was coming and even if her father told her explicitly to never leave the inn when a pony was here, she took one look at the ceiling and decided that maybe disobeying her family for the first time in her life might be a good idea.

She stared up and could see ichor dripping from in between the floorboards, the black ooze pooling right beside her desk. She shivered as she looked at it, feeling something deep within the watery mass almost look at her and whisper things she didn't want to hear.

She ran as the rain started its switch from a persistent drizzle into the beginnings of a downpour, her resolve broken and, with a final note she scrawled in haste, she ran home to tell her family. Maybe they hadn't taken one look at the inclement weather and the feelings of unease their Senses were giving off and had put two and two together. She hoped that was the case cause she had left her chalk in the inn.

She would have to rely on charades to get her family to understand. She thanked Celestia that she was really good at holding a conversation.

Room is free.

She didn't look back.

She didn't want to.

***

Trixie sat on the floor, dry heaving as she stared at what had come out of her, the black oil like substance had pooled around her and as she watched it drip towards the other floors, she couldn't just pass off the dream she had as a bad nightmare. She shivered as she touched the stuff just to feel it cling to her and coat her hoof in dark. Her mind didn't come up with wet or cold or anything. Just dark.

She blinked as she could hear somepony talk to her.

Opening her eyes, she looked at the stallion sitting ever so neatly on her bed. Glumly staring at her with his head in his hooves.

She stared back, her throat dry and pained. She tried to talk but nothing came out.

Stygian lay down on the bed and looked up at the ceiling. "Equestria sure is nice today."

Trixie blinked.

The lanky stallion stretched and got up. "Now, would you think I'd be in some aetherdamned room just because I felt like it? I mean I thought we had some kind of a back and forth dialogue while I forced myself out ever so slightly to freedom. If I was actually here in full force and power, I'd just go to this Canterlot place I've heard so much about from you and introduce myself. But since I'm not technically here, and you survived my torture session-" Stygian sighed. "Which I hate doing. The whole torture thing. Never was one for the whole stick method of things, though after a thousand years in there you get rather loose with things. But since you survived, I guess I'm here."

Trixie groaned.

Stygian facehoofed. "By Aether, I didn't cut out your tongue. Don't tell me you little modern ponies can't take some beatings. Some rather soft beatings at that. I mean back in my day, to get to the level of a master magister of some renown you had to bust a few dozen heads. Have you seen ponies heads pop like ripe fruit? I have, it's rather messy. Just ask Starswirl and the others when we get them out of Limbo, they got all the blasted credit. And I did everything for them, I set up the team, I spread their names in the towns, I got them their blasted whores when they needed one. And who do they still talk about in your history classes? Not me, that's for sure."

Trixie chuckled, her voice quiet. "Great, I have a pony that boasts harder than I do in my head. And loves the sound of his own voice. Great combination there."

Stygian rubbed his face. "Laugh all you want, but I am at least talked about in old mares' tales. Though they tend to be brief mentions, if your memory is anything to go by. You would barely get a mention in a common play. Unlike you, I actually tend to back up my promises."

Trixie rose carefully to her feet, her body swayed from side to side as she stood there staring at the gray unicorn. "And what if I just don't listen to you? I mean you dug around in my memories and all that crap. You know how headstrong I am. I mean it's probably easy to block you out. Who else would get stuck in a field for a thousand years."

Stygian's eye twitched. "That was a complex series of seals and rituals designed to seal me away and trap me there for eternity. If you had seen the actual mess I had been untangling, you would have contracted a form of early onset insanity. It was actually a brainteaser for me. Not some ruddy, garbage field you twit."

"Still it took you a thousand years. I know ponies who'd get out of that kind of trap in a day."

Stygian closed his eyes. "You are a gross exaggerator of truth. And I'll show you how I was actually planning on getting out of this humble establishment." Stygian chanted a small spell as he stared at Trixie and slowly raised his hoof. Trixie saw that it glowed black as he drew it slowly across his neck "Also I would rather speed up my comeback tour and not have you talk my ear off..

Trixie would have laughed if she wasn't also doing the same motion.

"Don't worry, Bellatrix, this won't hurt. . .much. I have enough magic to heal us both up when this is over. Not much more than that now, but give me a bit to recharge and we'll be on top. Real spotlight hogs, as some of these dreary Manhattanites you dread might say. Just give me a few weeks with your body to iron out some of the kinks and you'll be right back on top. I can see it now."

Trixie fainted as she heard Stygian's short laugh.

***

Stygian walked down the stairs, the blue body he'd so graciously borrowed feeling off as he tried to figure out how walking worked in the real world. He twirled the tattered hat of Trixie's as he walked down, feeling his center of gravity shift as he swayed his blue hips back and forth, feeling the motion as he walked down the stairs.

He noticed the empty feeling as he realized the rather humiliating part about hijacking a mare's body. Grimacing, he looked down at the rather empty lower half of his pony self and sighed. If beggars could be choosers, he'd had picked somepony far more of a stallion than his current self implied. He ran his blue hooves down the stair rail, feeling each and every slight imperfection in the wood, stopping and pricking his hooves on each splinter, relishing in the feel of blood well up slightly on his hooves- a hint that he was truly outside of Limbo. That place's pure perfection, the cold and lifeless interior, its boring existence for a thousand years. The inability to feel pain of any kind. What excitement lay in reality. Inert Limbo hills couldn't hold a candle to the sheer joy he was feeling just walking down stairs. Actual movement felt like pure magic to him.

Even the pain that he felt as his throat mended- it's gout of blood having poured down his blue coat, making a large purple splotch of color drying in the cool air- that exquisite pain brought him clarity, his black tendrils of darkness piercing the skin, stitching the wound back to health. Those pains told him he wasn't dreaming.

He turned to look at the large blackboard wall and sighed, feeling the pure mana surrounding him. Somepony rather powerful had been here, a slight chaotic mass of possibilities ran through his head. It wasn't Discord, too much like a pony, not enough pure chaos. A pity. Whoever had been here, even if they lacked the male self confidence he so desperately wanted, would have been a better choice than the aqua mare he had now.

He dragged his hoof across the bar and sighed. If he worried about every single failure in his life, he'd be here all day. And this place was not ideal for an existential reflection. He glanced in a nearby mirror and groaned as he noticed that the magic he'd used to stitch up this Trixie had left a rather odd discolored scar.

Shaking his head and gathering his new coat and hat around him, he stepped off into the beautiful day. The rain accentuating the feelings swirling in his head. Maybe now he'd show off his magical talents. He looked at Trixie's memories and rolled his eyes.

"Dear Bellatrix, whysoever did you think speaking in the third person was becoming of a budding sorceror?"

He felt no answer from her. He guessed she was asleep. Good for him. It'd be hard to consolidate power with a sobbing mare echoing in his head, whining about the pain.

Sometimes pain and discomfort was necessary for growth.

He carefully picked through her memories and found the image of this Manehattan in her head and saw it as a rather nice refuge to regain strength, the large towers blotting out the sun just enough to have a shade of darkness in midday, the size of the town large enough to slip away.

A completely perfect location for a down on her luck magician to appear again. He whistled to himself as he walked towards Manehattan- due east.

He didn't care that he was soaked. He would later, vaguely remembering that food, water, and shelter were a thing, but for now he felt content just walking down the road in pain.

He felt alive and he loved every pained second of it.

Author's Note

Didn't feel right to end it on chapter 3, felt somewhat incomplete. Brain says that this chapter is done and with how long it took to get out, I agree. Sequel's coming some time in the future.