Titanomachy

Twilight

As soon as she felt she was out of the sight of Grogar, Twilight allowed her gait to shift from a trot to a walk. She was fighting to maintain control over her mind and emotions. She wanted nothing more than to cry, or scream, or rage in response to Grogar’s one-word answer. “Nothing my left-” she cut herself off mid rant. Her research had indicated that it was extremely hazardous to lose focus on her destination when traveling in Tartarus. In response, she forced her mind and body to become still.

Falling back on her training, she remembered a breathing technique that was suggested for purging one’s self of emotional contamination during complicated spellcasting. She closed her eyes and concentrated on the rhythm of her heart and lungs. She forced the adrenalin fueled organs back to their normal speeds and focused her mind on her destination. “Someone who knew. Someone who cared.”

Her heartbeat shifted and she grunted as she felt a lurch in her chest. Her heartbeat wasn't the one she should recognize. It was deeper, slower, and stronger than she ever remembered it being. It felt alien and wrong within her. She opened her eyes and saw that the tunnel had changed around her while her eyes were closed.

Before her was a wall, similar in color and texture to the rest of Tartarus but it was liquid. It flowed and pulsed and made quiet gurgles as waves formed and broke on its vertical surface. Her instincts shouted that the black fluid was about to come crashing down on her but the substance remained in its unnatural orientation, as if to mock the very concept of gravity. Strange shapes drifted and bobbed in the wall, they resembled nothing more than a multi-species collection of dismembered limbs. In just half a minute she saw leonine paws, dragon-like claws, and a feathered wing.

Twilight had begun to wonder if what she was seeing was a draconequus but the limbs didn't appear to sit in any anatomical configuration. She inched closer, her curiosity overcoming her fear. That was when she noticed a faint pulse of magenta light. It appeared far away, as if it was deep within the onyx pool. She extinguished her horn-light so as to better see the faint light.

The cavern was plunged into absolute darkness and Twilight’s breath hitched in memory of her arrival to Tartarus. She found that she was able to continue breathing so she focused on what was before her. The magenta glow was pulsing in time with her own strange heartbeat and it seemed to be coming closer. Her eyes were wide as she backed up a step. A white muzzle broke the surface of the liquid wall. It was long and slender like Princess Celestia’s but built at a somewhat larger scale. Its chin was well-developed but remained feminine. Two graceful horns with a half-dozen points each were perched upon her head (and Twilight noted to herself that she now thought of the creature as both a person and a female). Her eyes opened, revealing metallic silver irises that focused upon the relatively tiny unicorn.

“Kori tou aima mou,” the figure said through black lips that contrasted strongly with her muzzle.

“I-I’m sorry, I don’t understand you,” Twilight cautiously replied.

“Korez tou, pou einai kalae?” The creature blinked its eyes and they were now metallic gold in iris color.

“I don’t know that language. I don’t know if anyone does anymore.”

“Poso kairo echo eedee ton ipno?” Her face began to show concern. Meanwhile the many points on her antlers began fusing into the solid, curving horns of an ibex.

“Is there anything I can do?” Twilight asked the slowly changing face floating before her.

The creature closed her eyes and the magenta glow intensified. Twilight was beginning to become familiar with the sensation of deities entering her mind. She wasn't pleased at this development but perhaps this would allow the draconequus to communicate.

“Hear me? Understand?” a thickly accented alto voice appeared within Twilight’s mind, completely skipping the part of talking that involved the ears.

“Yes, I do. For both. Questions, that is. I mean the ones you asked.”

The white fur had shifted to a tawny color. She looked at Twilight with befuddlement.

Twilight self-consciously re-started her attempt at communication. “Yes.”

The creature asked, “Daughters mine. Do they well?”

“I don’t know who your daughters are. I don’t know who you are.”

“But you no seek me, how you here?” the creature asked. Its muzzle had shortened and now with the tawny color resembled that of a lion. Its horns had shrunk to the proportion of a goat’s.

“I was looking for someone who cared about Celestia’s fate.”

The face lit up and joy sprang into her now blue eyes. “My Helia lives still? What of Selene?”

“Blue hair, indigo coat, controls the moon?”

The draconequus’ excitement was easy to feel through the mental link.

“Yes, we call her Luna now.”

The figure sighed out loud. “So it was worth it,” she said inside Twilight’s mind.

“Who are you?” Twilight asked now that she had a moment to get a word in edgewise.

“Their mother I am.” Twilight felt her flip through her memories like pages in a book. “You call me Harmony. I am blood-mother.”

Twilight glanced down to her chest, where her heart was still beating with double deep strokes and saw a matching magenta glow filtering dimly through her fur.

“Charay'ghi,” Harmony said with a small smile.

“What?”

“Your name: Charay'ghi.” Eyes, now copper, glinted at the unicorn with something that looked like pride.

“My name's Twilight.” She said flatly.

“Very smart you are but only half your name.” In a tone Twilight was all too familiar with, leaving her with no doubt that this was indeed Celestia's mother.

“O.K., Twilight Sparkle is my name. Why is this important?”

“Charay'ghi Lampu,” Harmony said via the mental link. In her strange alto voice it sounded exotic and beautiful. “Your language breaks my words in your mind. Even now I cannot say the whole of you name name in this language.”

Twilight was utterly confused and made a mental note to herself to apologize to Luna for criticizing her mangling of modern Equestrian. Shaking herself loose from the labyrinth this conversation had turned into she tried once again to steer the conversation back to a topic that made sense. “I came here to ask you something. May I do so?

“Yes.” The dragonequus was still wearing her "ineffable goddess" smile. How it could look so similar to Celestia's while shifting from species to species was beyond Twilight.

“Celestia, er...Helia, has been hurt. Her horn has been broken and she can no longer raise the sun. She believes that she’s been abandoned by the sun and has become mortal. Is there a way to help her regain her power.”

“Who hurt daughter!?!” Harmony demanded. Twilight was thrown off-balance by the power of the wrath behind this statement.

“The Queen of a race that calls themselves changelings defeated her in a magical duel.” Twilight felt her mind once again being ransacked for information. She wondered if she could create a mental construct of a reference desk set up in there complete with card catalog.

“Oh, my Chrysallida, my poor little girl.” Harmony finally replied with immense sorrow. “Is my fault.”

"What? How?" stammered Twilight, shocked.

"I am here, not above. I could give no love to little daughter."

“I’m sorry, but I have no idea what you are trying to say.” Twilight deadpanned.

“Helia and Selene, my daughters by Cosmos." Harmony explained, as if to a slow child.

"Ok, I understand."

"Chrysallida and Aphrodite, my daughters by Chaos.”

"Chaos. You don't mean Discord, do you?"

The draconequus simply smiled in the affirmative.

"You and Discord had, had foals?!?" Twilight's mind relentlessly went on to where it shouldn't. "That means you and Discord..."

Harmony's smile softened and became coquettish at the memory of indiscretions committed long ago.

Twilight's eyes went wide as her subconscious provided a lifetime supply of nightmare fodder. Twilight's relationship with Celestia had always been a complicated one, straddling the line between mentor and mother. So now what could be thought of as her grandmother on her mentor's side was fondly remembering a tryst with a being that tormented her friends and herself and nearly destroyed all of causality.

"Oh, please no. Buck me in the head."

It was obvious that Harmony didn't understand Twilight beyond the wish to not continue the exploration of this topic. That was good enough.

"Chrysallida is Chaos daughter, is Changeling Queen, is likely hate Cosmos daughters and me."

"I'm sorry." Twilight said, unable to think of anything appropriate in scale to say at the implied heartbreak, conflict, and sorrow.

"Why do Helia, um...Celestia think dying?" Harmony asked.

"She thought that Chrysallida was just a mortal monster and if she was wounded like that by a mortal she had lost her divinity."

Harmony shocked Twilight by stifling a laugh behind her now llama-like muzzle. "Helia always was cry-baby. Bruise hoof think leg falling off. I see, no change. She get better on own. Need nothing but rest."

"Nothing." Twilight growled Grogar's answer.

"Do Selene still tantrum? Such angry foal. Never cry from sad or scared, just mad."

It was becoming clear to Twilight that Harmony, while a primal deity that helped form the world, was also a mother who dearly missed her foals. Those foals might have grown up to be goddesses, queens, and nightmares but to their mother they were always going to be her wobbly-kneed foals. "How about I take you to them? What do I do to get you out of this wall?" Twilight began probing the strange, liquid surface with her magic.

"No escape Charay'ghi. I am not alive."

"How...what does that even mean?"

"I gave up heart long ago for daughters, I gave up life to save from Chaos."

"But then how are you-"

"You bring back my heart, blood-daughter. It beats for two now but not long or you die."

"I have this crown-thingy back home. Its an element of harmony," of Harmony, she mentally corrected herself, "I can give it back to you."

"Crown-thingy important but not element. You, your heart are true element. Are part of me."

"What if I brought your daughters to you?" Twilight asked, tears now leaking from her eyes.

"No, they had to do to me this. They cried then, they'd cry now. Better just to tell them for me."

"Tell them what?" Twilight snuffled.

"Love them, always. See them at End."

"Harmony?" Twilight asked, her voice shaking.

"What?"

"I know some stories about your daughters, about some things they've done since you've been...here. They aren't all happy but as far as I know they are true. Do you want me tell them to you?"

"Yes, please." Her eyes were now green and filled with tears of her own.

Celestia

Celestia waited, patient on her surface but tense and worried on the inside. Applejack's reply would set the tenor of the entire negotiation. If she agreed that slavery was immoral in the abstract then, Celestia hoped, perhaps this entire thing could be over before dinner. She was tired and sore and was looking forward to getting back to her immense, soft bed.

“Well, I reckon that there is the simple truth,“ Applejack finally replied.

Celestia, smiled. “Good! I’m glad that we can-“

“I wasn't done.”

“-come together in agreement…” the Princess trailed off as she parsed the thick dialect. “Oh! Pardon me. You were going to say?”

Celestia noted a worrisome glint in the eye of the orange pony. “As I was tryin’ to say, I agree that slavery is immoral or wrong or however you wanna put it. But what does it mean ta your average pony when th' gov'ment supports a morally wrong position?”

“I suppose civil disobedience is then acceptable in those cases,” Celestia replied. "Perhaps the pony could petition the government to change said position."

“Well, I admit, tha'da been the most moral position to take. But tha’s also the one tha'd end you up broke if y’aller a farmer. As a farmer, I kin tell ya that if I had been payin these cattle and pigs, I couldn't compete with anyone who did. When the gov'ment allows a system like this, anyone who doesn't partake will lose their livelihood. So, yer sayin' that the right thing ta be doin' would’a been to go broke, lose yer farm, and starve?”

“Well, I suppose that would be unreasonable to expect. That’s why this is being handled in a civil manner and I do not intend for any retributive actions or assignment of blame.”

Applejack then pulled over one of the many sheets of blank paper that had been placed alongside the tea service and gripped a pencil in her mouth. She wrote a series of numbers, large numbers on the scale of a simple pony’s livelihood. Spitting the pencil out, the farmer explained. “Well ma’am, this here is tha total current value of the livestock we got on Sweet Apple Acres,” gesturing to a number at the top. “This here is tha value of tha work and agricultural products they’re expected to produce during their lifetime, corrected inta today’s bit values. An this here is the depreciation rate, on average, for each head and here’s tha’ same averaged over the herd. You take this an’ put it all tergether an y’all got what your “Dicto Emancipatio” is gonna cost one family.”

“That seems… a bit high.” Celestia cautiously replied.

“Are ya callin’ me a liar or are ya just callin’ me ign'rent?” Applejack countered in the tone of a thunderhead.

“No, neither!” Celestia rapidly added. “I would just like to give my actuaries a chance to look these over.”

“I ain't in no hurry an we got Spike just down the road.” The farmer hoofed over the sheet of paper that implied economic disaster as if it were simply paper and not a live grenade.

Celestia nodded to the guard stationed inside the room and passed the paper to him, after folding it so none of the contents showed. She quickly penned a cover letter instructing the palace staff to wake every accountant they had on retainer and have them estimate the cost and effect of immediately freeing all livestock. She watched the guard go, hoping dearly that Applejack was wrong.

“So, I hear that this Hort fella can whip up some darn fine vittles. Dinner while we wait?” Applejack smirked.

An exhausted-looking pegasus interrupted them during the coffee service. This was no great loss, as Celestia found coffee too bitter for her tastes and Applejack was obviously having trouble with the demitasse. “If you would allow me?” Celestia asked the orange mare across from her.

“To what?”

“Um, nevermind.” Celestia then opened the envelope that the guard had brought. Her actuaries proclaimed that the farmer’s estimations were depressingly correct. They also went so far as to extrapolate the total wealth lost to the entire economy, estimate next year’s horrendous drop in GDP and rise in unemployment (calculated with both counting the several-hundred thousand unemployed former livestock and without).

“I knew we shouldn’ta had that there funny cheese. ‘Bound ta make ya sick,’ I thought ta myself an here ya are goin' all green in the gills.”

The farmer’s smug tone made Celestia want to incinerate her on the spot, just for a moment. Placing the report face down on the table Celestia made her eyes meet those of Applejack. With absolute candor Celestia said, “We can’t afford to pay all of the farmers for their livestock’s value.”

“An' who’s problem is that, oh Great Emancipator?”

Equally honestly: “Everyone’s. If we pay you, the state goes bankrupt and everyone suffers. If we don’t pay, the farmers go broke and everyone suffers. Also, if you call me that again I will clap you in irons and find someone else to treat with.”

Applejack appeared to have realized that she may have gone too far, “Yes’M. What do you propose?”

“Perhaps, if we view this situation as a mess that everyone contributed to...” Celestia began.

Applejack nodded that this line of exploration was provisionally acceptable.

“If that is the case, then everyone has a responsibility, a fiscal one, to correct this error. Perhaps an equal responsibility?”

“You mean a fifty percent kinda equal?” the farmer asked.

“It sounds reasonable,” the Princess offered.

“Well, this livestock wasn't jus' sometin' you put on a shelf an sold later. They were capital investment, kinda like a tractor. They have an amount you expect em to earn per year or we wouldn't buy em. Their value, to a farmer who's bought them is that work.”

“Half of their estimated productivity, corrected for inflation, depreciation, et cetera?“

“That can work.” Applejack agreed.

“And half of that sum going to the former livestock, to pay for the establishment of their new lives.”

“What! No way. Twenty-five percent of their productivity is highway robbery. At that rate we might as well get back on the wall.”

“You don’t think they deserve compensation? Are they just to wander off of your farm with no resources or even shelter?”

Applejack’s honesty stopped her mid-argument. Sullenly she admitted, “Nah, it wouldn't be right ta just cut em loose wit' nothin'. But productivity is the wrong number ta be goin' off of fer that. This is establishment costs, like ya said. Their cut should be calculated from purchase price.”

Celestia didn't like that the former livestock was getting a smaller payment then the farmers but she was fairly sure that this was as far as she was going to get Applejack to give on this. "So, here’s where we stand: The crown will find funds totaling one-half of the lifetime productivity for all freed livestock. To the freed livestock we will give the portion of said monies equaling one-quarter of the purchase value to these freed individuals. The remainder of the funds then goes to the farmers, in proportion to their livestock herds.”

“Eyup,” the farmer agreed. “Now, we’re gonna need to figure out tha payment schedules fer both parties an to decide what prices we’re gonna call ‘market’. Oh, an we should probably go over what this is gonna do to the tax deductions that’re already in place. Oh, an we should also go over….”

Celestia sighed and missed her sister for very selfish reasons. Tax law was something Luna read for fun; Celestia eyes would cross within ten minutes of starting to read the dense, soulless documents. She signaled Hort to bring another round of coffee, this time in big mugs. Bitter or not, she knew she would need it to get through the next few hours.

Luna

The chains slid home, binding Luna in mute darkness. She couldn't see, she couldn't speak, she couldn't move. The panic rose within her. Memories, forcibly repressed since her redemption, bubbled out of her subconscious. Dark airlessness, chains, and dust. Raging. Cursing her sister, her mother, her father. He was here with her then. She could feel him, remote and silent as always. In all those years he never said a single comforting word. He never judged her. He simply was.

Endless eons passed as her moon slid along her father's black void. Luna could feel him watching, staring, but never acting. She was so lonely then and yet he gave her nothing. All it would have taken to salve her wounds was a single word, the slightest touch, any acknowledgement at all. When she was a foal her mother told her again and again that her father loved her despite not being able to come see his daughters. No matter her assurances, Luna's heart eventually broke as she decided that her father's love was just a story told to comfort her. That was about the time she and Celestia left their mother's cave and headed out into the shiny new world.

Her mind wandered amongst her memories of the bygone age of her foalhood. It was only a few centuries after they left out on their own when Discord suddenly changed. Up until that point he was just a trickster who loved to steal a free lunch and humiliate those who thought too much of themselves. But then one day, without warning, he came for their blood. There was no provocation nor discussion, not even one of the monologues Discord so loved to deliver. Instead, he came with fire in his eyes and hate in his heart; wanting nothing else but for them to die.

Ages later, Celestia would call what happened between them and Discord a war but Luna never forgot what it really was: a hunt. For years, they ran every day and hid every night. They took turns sleeping, terrified that Discord would find them slumbering. No matter what pains they took to hide themselves, eventually he'd find them. In those seasons of fear, she and her sister learned harsh lessons they've remembered to this day.

One day, the endless hunt brought the sisters back to their mother's cave. It was smaller than she remembered but still cozy and warm, the same as their mother. She gave them food, hugs, and kisses in equal measure. With mother everything was always equal in measure. After supper their mother showed the sisters her new foals, yet unnamed. One was pink and gold and the other was black and green. Despite their different colors they were twins. Luna liked them. They had laughed at the silly faces she made.

Her sister talked to their mother while she played with the foals. Both Luna and Celestia were scared, tired, and hurt but didn't know why Discord was chasing them. Luna expected mother to get angry when Tia told her about Discord's attacks, but instead she became quiet and sad. Luna's met her eyes when Harmony glanced at the basket with a look of guilt. Luna hadn't realized what that emotion was at the time, only now in retrospect could she identify the pained expression. Her mother then told them to stay in the cave and watch over the newborns while she left "to deal with things."

As things often seemed back then, the cave was a bit timeless. Luna played with the foals while Tia sat next to the fire worrying. The memory felt like a permanent image, as if it was somehow imbued with an independent existence if its own. Eventually, the moment ended and their mother returned, looking sad. Harmony kissed the two foals on their foreheads and then asked Luna and Celestia to follow her. She told them not to ask why and this bothered Luna a great deal, but she was a good pony and did what her mother told her to do.

Their mother led them over the hills and forests for three days, Discord never attacked them during this walk. Luna asked her mother about the little foals left behind. She told her that they were not alone, that their father was taking care of them. Luna remembered being very upset at this.

She had cried, "Why does their father come and love them? That's not fair!"

"No, its not, my sweet Selene." she remembered her mother replying, tears in her eyes.

At seeing her mother's tears, she made herself be brave and quiet. If her mother was sad then it was her job to be strong. Three days later their mother had led them into the belly of a gigantic beast that was also a dark cavern. Luna wasn't afraid of the dark but this was a bad place, she could tell. Mother led them to the bottom of the cavern to a room Luna had forgotten. Her mind shied away from the memory of this room. Her subconscious brought up a flood of other memories to shield her from what lay within: Her first kiss with a colt. Her first kiss with a mare. Her first lover's death. A comet streaking across the sky. A bone-white flower blooming by moonlight and kissed by a moth.

Up until now Luna had been drifting with her memories, not taking an active role in the reminiscence. But it bothered her that her subconscious would so abruptly and unilaterally intervene. She tried focusing on the blocked memory but her subconscious met her with equal force. She then tried to trick herself into remembering the forbidden room, coming at the topic obliquely and then rushing towards her goal. She caught glimpses using this technique, something about the Elements of Harmony but no details. Frustrated, she used pain to break through the mental wall. She pulled against the chains and they dug into her many injuries. She gasped at the pain and reeled as she nearly blacked out but, unfortunately, her gambit worked and she remembered.

She saw the wall, the blood, the pieces of her mother's body torn by hoof, claw, and magic. She saw her sister helping her mother in this terrible suicide. She remembered her mother begging her for her help with the same. Her mother couldn't complete the ritual herself and needed both daughters to help her in this obscene act. Luna cried but eventually helped her mother and sister make the Elements of Harmony. The crown and torque each held three gems of different colors, each one was the distillate of a portion of her mother's body and soul. Chaos, her mother explained, was an intrinsic aspect of the universe and could not be killed without destroying the world. These tools, the Elements, were crafted to meet Discord with a power equal to his own to render him safe without unmaking reality.

Three days later the pony sisters returned to Harmony's cave and petrified Discord mid-monologue. He was a creature that could not conceive of a world without himself in it and had no means by which to comprehend the act of self-sacrifice. During their many fights over the past year, nothing the sisters had tried had been able to significantly harm him. He had no reason or ability to expect this confrontation to go differently. He literally had no idea what hit him. The foals were not within the cave, Discord having already stashed them somewhere. Despite all attempts at making him tell them where the foals were, he never divulged a single usable fact. Heartbroken but alive, Luna and her sister sealed the cavern with Discord inside.

Luna had gone back to that cave ages later when she was becoming Nightmare Moon. She had unearthed him and brought the chatty statue back with her to her fortress. She had hoped that she could get him to divulge secrets that would give her an advantage over her sister. Despite his lessons and the power they contained, she was soon defeated; banished to the moon by the very Elements her mother had provided.

Perhaps a portion of her mother's soul was still within those relics. Instead of destroying her or petrifying her the prismatic beam had sent her into isolation where she could contemplate her crimes. Upon her return those same beams purged her of the Nightmare mantle she had crafted for herself. Maybe her mother's touch was now that of burning rainbow, but perhaps it was still interested in a foolish foal's well-being.

Luna then gave herself up to sorrow. She cried for her lost mother and absent father. She cried for her sister who she was so jealous of she nearly destroyed herself. She cried for the little purple mare who was so brave and smart. "Twillight!" she was jarred out of her reverie by the thought. "She's why I came here! She's in danger! I have to get loose and find her!" Luna felt a surge of shame as she realized she had been wallowing in her own memories while possibly allowing the young mare she came to rescue get further in in trouble.

She began throwing her weight against the chains, fighting for freedom. The narrowest links bit into her flesh, causing her to gasp, but she continued. Blood coated her and the chains, "Perhaps," she thought, "the liquid would allow them to slip." As she continued her struggle she noticed the chains were not passive. As she broke a wing bone to allow it through a loop of chain, the unholy things slid and shifted to as to re-bind her tighter than before. Panic made her heart flutter as she tried to buck and kick her way free to no avail. Exhausted and broken she collapsed onto her side.

Next she tried sorcery. She summoned power to her horn and focused on teleporting out of the chains. It was a complicated spell and risky but when she released it, she felt herself folding along a direction that did not normally exist. Bones tore through her muscles and fluids gushed through the many tears in her skin as she was magically compressed. Immediately, she cut power to the spell and the terrible sensation ceased. She moaned at newly discovered levels of pain.

After eventually catching her breath Luna then tried pulling the chains off of herself via telekinesis. She found that the chains somehow transferred the magical force into energy for tightening. The harder she pushed the tighter the chains wound. She eventually blacked out from burking herself.

She woke up sometime later, there was no way to judge time in a place like this. She supposed that was part of the intended torture. She had no way of escaping and as a goddess no way of escaping the pain of her body. "Her body," she thought with a weak smile. She felt for the "strings" that connected her essence to this broken body. She released herself from physical form and expected the pain of her body to stop. Instead, the chains bit deep into her tenebrous substance but did not pass through. The blood, her blood, gleamed on the surface of the chains and she knew that her own essence that betrayed her.

Without her body to shield her, the chains cut into her soul. Memories vanished, instincts died, spells were lost. In a desperate struggle against oblivion she reconnected her essence to the body she was in the middle of leaving. She reformed but the damage was dire. Chains now ran through her since she coalesced around them. The chains, now flushed with an unlimited supply of blood to power them twitched and slithered through her body. As nerves were touched spasms wracked Luna, further tearing open the wounds that covered her body.

It was now that Luna knew that she was doomed. Her mind was damaged by chains passing through her skull and she could no longer think clearly. Thoughts and sensations came only as disjointed flashes. Only the simplest concepts didn't immediately slide out of her hooves. The broken goddess lay upon the cold, smooth stone whimpering, praying for her life to end.

Light.

It was just a pinprick in the vast darkness but it was magenta. Magenta used to be important, a portion of her mind remembered. Magenta and violet used to make her happy.

The light grew until it was a spark bobbing in the blackness.

"Oh, you." the spark said.

The voice made her sad. It knew she was a bad pony. She didn't want to be bad, but she knew she was.

"You must have thought you were so sly, telling me 'Nothing,'" the voice continued scolding

"I'm sorry mama." Luna croaked with an agonizing jingle of chains.

"That's right, you should be...What?"

"I'm sorry mama, come back. I'll be good. I promise."

The magenta glow grew closer and brighter. "Who is that?" it said.

"Tia, is that you? Can I come home now?"

It hurt when the light pushed on the chains with magic. It pulled on places that made her think wrong.

"I'm sorry."

"Oh no. Please no. No, no, no. Luna how did you get in there? What did they do to you?"

She could see that the light was on top of a horn, it was on top of a pretty purple face. She was crying and that made her sad, so she cried too. Luna didn't want to make the pretty face cry. "I'm sorry," she apologized.

"Oh Celestia they're in you!"

"Tia. Miss you." Luna closed her eyes and sighed.

"No!"

The light changed, instead of cool violets and purples a burning white radiance burned its way through Luna's eyelids. Where the pretty pony was there was now a burning white alicorn. Her mane, tail, and wings were made of fire and her coat was like white-hot steel. In a voice that shook the cavern she shouted, "Don't you dare give up on me! Not after all this!"

The flames comprising Twilight's mane reached out for the bound goddess and consumed her with fire. Her broken body was blasted away by the furnace heat of Twilight's rage. Luna was in agony until the last drop of her blood boiled away and then the chains lost their power over her. As thick black smoke she slid between the enchanted links as they clattered to the floor. She swirled once around Twilight, her incandescent wings guiding her to a space just out of reach of the longest chains.

Luna pulled herself together, both physically and mentally. She condensed out of the smoke and began building herself a new body. It was smaller than her previous form, close to her size the night she was freed from the Nightmare. Her coat remained dark and her mane was full of stars but she appeared smaller, humble in countenance. She turned new eyes to Twilight, who was once again just Twilight. Gone was the terrible specter of dawn. The young mare tackled Luna and wrapped her in a rib-crushing hug while both mares laughed and cried at the same time.