Parlous

by Carabas

Rating: teen
Tags: Adventure, Princess Luna, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Length: 11973

A month after her return to Equestria, Princess Luna flies forth to fight a sea monster.

A month after her return to Equestria, Princess Luna flies forth to fight a sea monster.

Cover art from the gallery of Cannibalus.

Spanish translation, by SPANIARD-KIWI.

Published 2019-07-15 17:50:01 UTC
Last updated 2019-07-15 17:50:01 UTC

Parlous

We receive the plea for aid from Whinnigoe late that afternoon, a half-hour after we open our first session of Dusk Court. A unicorn mare in Royal Household livery bursts into the throne room, the first pony to approach us this eve, a slip of paper aloft in her magic. Our Nightguard, new and keen and terribly underworked thus far, tense and narrow their eyes as she enters.

“Princesses! We’ve recei—” The mare pauses when only one princess presents herself to her attention, and not the one she might have been accustomed to. Confusion, realisation, and worry flicker in succession across her face. “Princess Luna?”

One must not let that sort of thing register, and yet our tone emerges curt regardless. “As charged,” we reply, sitting that little bit straighter in a throne we are yet to properly grow back into. “Celestia is still abroad in Zebrica. Fear not, we are quite capable of receiving thy tidings.”

The mare swallows, but doesn’t dither. She canters closer and proffers the slip of paper in her magic. “A telegram for your urgent attention, Your Majesty.”

We reach for the message, even as we eye it dubiously. In the month since our return, our sister has done her utmost to explain the ways in which Equestria has changed in our absence, no small part of which is the dizzying array of technological marvels ponykind now enjoys. Amongst them, which she demonstrated, was the telegraph. The careful torturing of a cable with a small metal stick seems a queer mark of progress to us, but no matter. We levitate the paper out of the mare’s grasp, unfold it, and squint at the print.

For Urgent Attention, the words run. Stormfront Off Whinnigoe, Resisting Weather Team Efforts. Sea Wild. All Shipping Harboured. Silver Magic In Clouds. Unknown Entity Suspected. Guard And Fleet Alerted. Advice/Intervention Requested. From Mayor Broken Bough.

Past the mists of memory, a grim bell tolls. We look up sharply. “Where is Whinnigoe?”

“I … West Coast, Your Majesty. North of Seaddle, I believe.”

An oath escapes us, which — if the absence of consternation or blushes from anypony else is any measure — has thankfully been forgotten over the preceding millennium. “Bring us a map. Now.”

The mare turns and gallops forth, while our two Nightguard attendants shift uneasily. Eventually, one of them speaks unbidden, as was ever the privilege of those attendants closest in our confidence. “What is it, Your Majesty?” the stallion asks. Sir Gibbous, if we remember correctly. There are so many new names.

Our mind still turns over the whys and hows and what-must-be-dones the situation merited. “An old foe,” we reply eventually, quietly. A scrunching noise breaks the hush, and we realise our magical grip has tightened around the telegram. “A very old foe indeed, if our suspicions are correct.”

We turn our attention to the sky past an untinted section of window. Dusk Court commences at the first promise of evening by long-forgotten tradition, and this had been no exception. The sun and moon turn unconsciously through their orbits, and orange-tinted clouds band across the expanse. We would usually use our quiet intervals throughout Dusk Court to set the stars into place. That will have to wait.

It should be dark enough for us to move at speed, in any case. Though not without some effort, diminished as we are.

We turn from our contemplation. “Dame Nox.”

The Nightguard who hasn’t spoken, a pegasus mare, starts and looks our way. “Your Majesty?” the mare asks.

“Bring us a lance.”

Nox’s eyes widen, and she opens her mouth as though she’ll contest the matter. Just for a split-second. The moment after, she remembers herself, bows, bids a, “Yes, Your Majesty,” and flies forth. We remain on our throne, stiff and banner-straight, while Gibbous hovers nearby. For all his trained effort, he betrays nervousness.

“Sir Gibbous,” we snap, and he collects himself and turns to us. “Inform any petitioners outside that we have suspended this session of Dusk Court. Then go to ...” ...the telegraphy? The telegram-room? The grammarium? Is there a name? “...go to wherever that telegram was received, and make sure that a copy of it is sent on to our Zebrican embassy, with our order that our sister is to receive it post-haste. ”

The words ‘our sister’ seem to brighten him. “At once, Your Majesty,” he replies, and flies off in his own turn.

There was a time once when ponies, seeing that we were attending to a problem, would have been immediately reassured. There was a time once, when we were in our full power, before all the unpleasantness, before century after century slipped away without our involvement outwith the realm of histories and legends, where they would have come clamouring for our aid. There was a time when at least our Nightguard would have had faith in us.

But these are modern times, we are told, and they certainly act the part. And are we to fault them?

We close our eyes.

“...And you’re sure you’ll be fine by yourself?”

“We are a princess as well, and acted the part for quite some time,” we replied tersely, that yesterday eve when Celestia was just about ready to depart south. We stood on the platform by her chariot, her team of harnessed Dayguard ready and waiting, her sun still peeping up past the western horizon as if not quite able to bring itself to descend just yet. “Equestria will be somewhat intact by the time of thy return.”

From where Tia stood, towering over us still, she didn’t look entirely relieved. Not yet. “You will bear in mind what I told you about how the laws and customs have shifted? Especially the parts about how imprisoning ponies in the stocks and ordering disputants to engage in trials by combat are no longer fashionable ways in which to handle cases brought before you. And how the Royal Canterlot Voice really shouldn’t be deployed indoors anymore. I only mention this because ...”

“Just because we disapprove of some of the changes does not mean we shan’t grudgingly abide by them. Do not fuss.”

Tia relaxed then. “Beg pardon. Allow a big sister to fret.” She looked us up and down and smiled. “You’ll be more of your old self by the time I’m back.”

“Our withers have gained two inches, and we fancy there’s a touch of sparkle to our mane. We fancy we’ll be capable of dreamwalking again next week,” we replied with satisfaction. Our resumption of our full power and stature cannot come fast enough. Till then, we will remain aggravatingly small and unsparkly and more a figure to adore than inspire awe. But, alas, we must practise patience. “Upon thy return, we shall be resplendent.”

“I look forward to it.” Our sister hesitated, and then leaned closer in against us, her eyes closed, and murmured into our ear, “Promise me you’ll be safe.”

Since returning, we have done our best to acquire modern diction. But we are loathe to shed some formalities and marks of our office. For one thing, we maintain our plurals. Tia may have permitted herself to grow lax, but we remain, despite everything, a Princess of Equestria, and our conduct must reflect this.

But at that moment, we nuzzled Celestia, leaning into her warmth, and at that closeness, from sister to sister and not a soul else to hear … I let myself shed my plurals. “I promise, Tia,” I said.

“Your Majesty?”

Was that one of the Nightguard interrupting? No, that was not from memory. We open our eyes, and blink and behold Dame Nox. “Your Majesty, your lance.”

She has the promised weapon couched under her wing, fresh from the Nightguard’s armoury, and she watches trepidly as we take it in our magic and float it up for inspection.

Seven feet of hollow smoke-dark steel for the shaft, made light and sturdy by enchantments twinkling within its steel. A foot more of head, a slim diamond of steel, the faint sheen of its edges betraying a wicked sharpness. More enchantments there, keeping it keen, and at the centre of the lancehead, bisected by its groove, a machine-stamped design of a crescent moon surrounded by stars.

They can make marvellous things these days. We are quite satisfied. “A fine weapon, Dame Nox,” we say reassuringly to our plainly-worried Nightguard. “It should serve.”

Nox does not look reassured. “Your Majesty, if I may, what will it serve?”

There comes the creak of a side-door opening, and we turn to the mare of the Royal Household rejoining us, a rolled-up map in her mouth. We seize it and quickly unroll it for scrutiny. Our eyes narrow as we pore up and down the Western Coast. It has become more detailed since last we saw such a map. Terra incognita is a dying breed these days.

And then we see it. Whinnigoe, a dark dot of a town right on the coast, thoughtfully circled in red by the mare.

We see where it lies, and the part of ocean it sits by, and our unhappy suspicions are all but confirmed. The oath we release this time, judging by the mare’s scandalised expression, has not been forgotten.

No time to waste. We whip off our crown and place it on the seat of our throne. Little sense in risking it. “Bide here!” we bark at both the Household mare and Dame Nox. “If our sister returns here first, tell her that we have gone to fight Cirein-cròin where we fought him last.”

We hope that the name will spark some recognition, some appropriate reaction. Alas, our lot this day is confusion. “Cirein-cròin, Your Majesty?” Dame Nox asks.

“Celestia will know,” we curtly reply. “Is there time for … nay, no time or use for barding. We depart at once. If any others ask for us, inform them we are gone and shall be some time.” We brandish the lance and step off our throne, and our posture is tense, our horn is aglow, as we scrabble to grasp the powers we once wielded with but a thought.

All shadows are ours, and all shadows are kin, and to step from one to the other is but one of the many gifts of our mantle. To step across vast distances of the darkening world is no great feat for a Princess Luna in her full, terrible power. But to us as we are for now, in a world as yet only contemplating the evening rather than entirely embracing it, it is rather greater. And to move the sky onwards and hasten the evening would expend too much of our strength in the face of an unknowing Celestia and the sun she has in steady motion.

So be it. We shall step. A princess must accomplish impossible and parlous things, else she is no sort of princess at all. We bend our will and magic to the task, and force ourself to not bend as well under the aching strain of it.

“Your Majesty, wait!” Dame Nox wails, as shadows swim before our eyes and magic froths about our horn. The shadows perk up at our intrusion, and receive us cheerfully. “Wait for Princess Celestia! The two of you in concert could —”

“Celestia is not here, nor shall she be for long moments yet till thy message reaches her!” we snarl back as shadows fill our vision. “Time is vital, and we shall waste no more of what the telegram has granted us! If we cannot stop Cirein-cròin, we may at least delay him! Stay here!”

Dame Nox, brave as she is, seems as though she intends to argue the point. And a memory comes back, unbidden, that might support her.

“Promise me you’ll be safe.”

I promised her. And I could respect that promise. I could wait here, and wait for a sister who certainly wouldn’t delay once a messenger had speeded the telegram to her, and who could hurl Cirein-cròin back down into the depths far more easily than I.

But plurals cannot be great respecters of singular promises. We donned the mantle of alicornhood, of becoming one of Equestria’s princesses, and no matter our predicament, we safeguard our ponies. It is the first duty before all others. It is the only one that truly matters.

It is one we cannot forsake again.

We and I are weighed in the balance, and the choice between them is made. And it is no choice at all.

The world breaks apart into darkness and spirits us away. All Equestria rushes by underneath us, and we are gone.

Before he haunted Equestria’s waters, Cirein-cròin harried the corvid clans of the far east. They fought him. They were drowned by him. They named him, and their bards wove verse to warn their chicks in their nests. Rendered from Auld Corvic into modern Equuish, we believe one of these verses goes as follows:

Seven herring to fill a salmon,
Seven salmon to fill a seal,
Seven seals to fill a whale,
And seven whales to fill Cirein-cròin.

But then he moved on from Corva, and came to Equestria. There is a legend from that time. Perhaps ye have heard it?

Long ago, in the dawn age of Equestria, after the Founders but before the Princesses, ponies travelled into the unknown West, making their way through the vast forests ere they found the coast, where towering sea-cliffs plunged into deep, dark waters. Those hardy few who made it so far and established homes there found no peace, however. For in these deep, dark waters, there lived a monster. Cirein-cròin.

When the oceans darkened without warning, and distant storms grew on blue horizons, and when a vastness stirred under the waves and silver was glimpsed in the air, the settlers learned that Cirein-cròin would come rising from the depths. And that if they lingered on the shore and failed to retreat inland with their families, they would surely perish. For Cirein-cròin would descend upon the coastline like a calamity, the storms at his van scything down forests and crushing townships and drowning ponies, and those that were somehow left standing were left at the monster’s mercy. He hunted them down for cruelty’s sake, left the coast broken in his wake, and when those who’d retreated returned and swelled their ranks with brave and hopeful new settlers, he would simply bide his time and repeat it all again.

Until one day, when a fair princess, as dark and beautiful and terrible as her own night, came to do battle.

She opened her heart to the pleas of those refugees who fled from the far west, who came pleading at a court she shared in the Everfree with another fair princess. And the dark princess flew to confront Cirein-cròin as he rose from the depths, one overcast day. Their storms met in a battle that straddled the coast and lasted a day and a night. The whole world rang with their clash, and the skies were ripped asunder with thunder.

But that battle was merely a distraction to take up Cirein-cròin’s attention. For even as she fought, the princess took the utter darkness and shadows that dwelt into the deepest ocean depths, and fashioned a great cage from them at Cirein-cròin’s back, to confine a monster too vast for even Tartarus. And when it was done, when morning dawned red over the battle’s most furious height, she unleashed her full power and drew the cage of shadows up and about him, and sank it and Cirein-cròin down below the waves, to keep the monster imprisoned till the End-Times of the world.

We recall reading that in a foal’s storybook shortly before all the unpleasantness, back then. Celestia was always uneasy with our veneration in such a manner, though by then, we were much, much less averse. We were sufficiently desperate for any recognition and acclaim by that time that we consulted storybooks for foals that recounted our deeds from centuries past. And it is not a bad legend, as legends go. It does go astray in some of the details, though.

For one thing, the battle did span quite a section of coastline, but it certainly did not last a day and a night. We do not require that long to fashion shadows to our purposes. We estimate it took ten minutes, at most. Perhaps fifteen, should ye wish to include the time it took to actually force Cirein-cròin into his cage and sink him all the way down into the deep.

And for another, the cage we fashioned would last quite some time, but certainly not until the End-Times. No enchantment can, especially when the enchanter is not around to maintain it.

And should ye wish to know how long it would take for an unattended enchantment to fade away, then a thousand years will do it almost every time.

A forested vastness blurs beneath us as we step like lightning through the darkening sky … but it is not so dark, not yet, this far out to the west. Continuing is a strain, but we persevere. The far west is much as we remember it, an arborist’s fantasy, a sea of wet conifers cut apart by fast-flowing rivers.

There are some signs of change, though. New coach routes and even newer railway tracks snake through it. Clearings have been hacked out in the wake of those tracks, host to stations and homes and little townships. The towns glow with electric and magical lighting, fending off the darkness of the forest all around.

Further on, we see fat airships pressing on beneath wisps of cloud, emblazoned with the colours of the Equestrian Guard. They share our destination, we suspect.

Past all of them, where the forests yield to a coastline of black cliffs, and where the wisps of cloud under us begin to thicken and clot together, we see the lights of new settlements. We descend past the cover of the clouds, and we see Whinnigoe where the railway ends, a last station at the edge of Equestria.

Whorls of low-lying stone-built cottages and bungalows spiral across the space between the forest and a sheer cliff-edge, each painted a different bright colour in the face of the dark woods and black cliffs and grey sea. The reds and sky-blues and yellows and lavenders of Whinnigoe gleam up at us, their chimneys puff smoke up into the sky. Scared ponies mill between them and through the winding streets, carrying foals on their backs, chivvied by an incoming trickle of equally-nervous barding-clad guardsponies.

Past Whinnigoe proper, a stone stairway has been carved into the face of the cliff, zig-zagging down five hundred feet to a natural harbour. Kelp-gatherers scrabble up the winding steps, abandoning that day’s bundles of kelp in their boats. These sturdy little boats rock and pitch in the wild waters of the harbour, and we see several more as yet out on the water, struggling that last short distance onto their moorings.

And past the harbour, facing out towards the Black Ocean, we see an expanse of churning sea, whipped up under a towering stormfront of roiling dark clouds, thunder rolling and lightning spitting in its depths, all across the horizon. Far off and under it, a couple of abandoned boats bob adrift, left to the storm’s mercy, and we see their crew aloft in the grips of pegasi weather teams flying back to the coast.

But the teams struggle also. The salt-edged winds buffet and hammer them, and it is all they can do to hold onto the ponies they would rescue.

How fortunate for them, then, that they have a rescuer in turn. Our flight takes us clear of the cliffs, of the little harbour at the bottom of Whinnigoe’s steps, right out over the roaring grey ocean, and we bring ourself to a halt in mid-air. We angle ourself up, flap once, twice, feel the storm about us on our wings, and bend it to our will.

We were a pegasus ere we were an alicorn, and command of the skies is our first birthright. Cirein-cròin exerts his cruel influence upon the winds here, but for now, he is far away, and we are here, and they will obey us.

About us, as we grit our teeth and flap as if trying to fly through stone, the winds calm, and that knot of steadiness stills the currents. The weather teams fly that little bit easier as the air about them calms down, and they and their rescuees swoop on towards Whinnigoe with all appropriate haste. Below, the remaining boats crash into port and their crews lose no time in scrambling out onto land and for the steps.

Below us, we hear exclamations, queries, and cheers. We are aware of gazes directed up and to us, of confusion and … and of awe and of gratitude, for help unbidden and unexpected.

It is a joy we’ve all but forgotten. We relish it. And for much too long a moment, we just hover there, drinking in the acclaim, of the simple giddy delight of saving our little ponies as we must.

But, as our gaze drifts towards the horizon, we see a glimmer of silver. And we remember ourself and turn back on Whinnigoe. If there is a better time to deploy the Royal Canterlot Voice, we fail to conceive of it.

“HEED THY PRINCESS! WITHDRAW FROM THE COAST!” we shout, pitching ourself above the thunder, and gesturing with our lance. “PONIES OF WHINNIGOE, APPROACH THE RAILWAY STATION AND HEAD INLAND! ALL GUARDSPONIES, OVERSEE EVACUATION AND THEN WITHDRAW! LEAVE WHAT FOLLOWS TO THY PRINCESS!”

We do not bother waiting to see if we are obeyed, but instead wheel around, level our lance, and fly forth. Into the storm, over the face of the roiling waves. We fancy we hear voices at our back, but no matter. We must play our part, and cannot tarry.

As we fly forth, the voices peter away, and soon all that remains is the crashing of the sea far below, the murmuring of the clouds all around, and our own breathing, forced into steadiness. We close our eyes briefly, take a moment to try and centre ourself. Cold winds slash at us, the force of thunder threatens to buffet us off-course. But we fly on.

Deep amidst the thick bank of grey-black thunderheads before us, silver flashes like an unfurled banner. The colour of Cirein-cròin’s magic.

He has noticed us by now. But we know he is a creature who likes to wait. To draw out the moment, stretch tension to breaking point. To relish the moment ere he strikes.

We fly lower, down towards the sea surface, white and frothing and thunderous. Chill bites at us as we descend, and the cold salt spray all but envelops us. Squinting, we look round to see one of the abandoned kelp-boats, pitching this way and that like a toy in the storm’s grip. We fly to it, alighting on its rocking deck. Slick timbers and the see-sawing motion conspire to send us flying again, but we force ourself to remain steady.

We force ourself to do many things. We’ll force more yet ere it all becomes easy again.

A glance eastwards shows us that Whinnigoe is all but lost to our sight, the tiny shape of the cliffs hidden past a haze of cloud. We turn away and carefully tread the planks towards the stern, maneuvering around bundles of deep-water kelp and over fallen hooks and shears, our outspread wings flapping to help us keep our balance. The lance hovers a few feet over our wither, ready to be thrust forth.

Past the taffrail, the seascape rises and falls, rocking wildly, and we lean out over the side. An impudent wave slaps right up at us for our trouble, and we only recover our proper poise after a few undignified moments spent spluttering brine and blinking. Sodden curls of mane fall into our eyes, and we irritably flick them away as we lean out again and peer down.

Past rents in the white foam, dark water roils. Beneath us, a great black nothing, drinking up and drowning all light betwixt the surface and the deep sea-bed. But there’s no darkness that we cannot see through, no shadow whose contents aren’t clear to us. We squint, and in the nothingness, some things reveal clear. Below the surface, scattering shoals of fish. Deeper down past them, shreds of kelp, torn from their deep root-anchors by some unseen force. Wandering ghost-lights here and there, clumps of spectral wild magic drifting on through the dark. And past even them, the sea-bed. Surprisingly shallow, this far out from the coast…

No. Not shallow.

What seems like the sea-bed is rising. Above us, the stormclouds are thickening, growling, pouring down an ocean’s worth of rain. And below us, the black nothing turns to silver. Murky, and rising, and quickly taking shape, vast and terrible and palpable shape as it rises from the deep.

With one great, quick flap of our wings, we are aloft, and the instant after, nothing so much like the tip of a silver mountain punches up through surface, crashes up through the water like the blow of an angry Creator, through the boat, through what seems like the whole of the seascape beneath us. The little kelp-boat is borne up effortlessly along with it, tumbles off the lip of the rising silver, descends, is swallowed up with a splash that seems tiny in comparison.

A fin taller than the greatest warships stood on their end, taller than the cliffs of Whinnigoe, rises up like the world’s greatest trapdoor on the world’s greatest hinge, is still rising. Waterfalls of seawater cascade down an expanse of pitted silver scales, each larger than us, and all faintly aglow with vast and potent magic. We hurriedly flap backwards and upwards, gaining precious space, our eyes on the fin and our lance levelled even as it rises, rises, rises … till it stops, nigh-vertical in the air, a furlong above the surface.

It shimmers briefly, silvery magic wreathing about the scales. And then it begins its long descent, coming down upon the water on the other side with a clap of thunder that sends great waves roaring forth. Below, past waters surging as if in protest, we see Cirein-cròin’s vast form twist and his back begins to breach the surface. A long ridge of tower-tall spines slide up from the water, ablaze with magic.

And to our right, a silhouette past the sea-mist and clouds, we see his neck and head begin to emerge. We see them rise like a mountain in motion, the impossible serpentine length of his neck arching swan-like to the sky, rising and rising till he is crowned by stormclouds.

His neck comes curving around, with grace unbefitting his sheer scale, curving around to us. His head looms down through the sky over us, emerging from seething, lightning-flecked blackness, and we behold him.

Alas, time has made him no handsomer.

Cirein-cròin’s head and snout are long and broad, capable of swallowing up all Whinnigoe without a thought, and gaunt too, the scales stretched tight over his skull. His rows of ragged fangs are bared, long and slender as redwoods. The silver of his scales is pockmarked and blackened and rent in places. He sports scars from our last battle, and older ones yet, the scars of a whole aeon.

We look right past it all and try to meet his gaze. His eyes are deep-set, all but lost in skull-like sockets.

For a moment, as quiet and still as any moment in the heart of a storm can be, a princess and a monster regard one another, half a mile distant from one another, close enough for the monster to lunge out and snap her up. We hover where we are and keep our lance close, become a still point betwixt the raging waters and sky. He looms from the sea to the clouds, waterfalls of seawater still cascading from him, his forest of fangs bared.

Last time we were in this position, we recall, he barely had time to speak before our shadows seized him from underneath.

We are not here to beat him, we instruct ourself. We cannot, not at this time. We hold him here, and harry him, and make him rue every second it takes for Celestia to arrive, for arrive she shall. We tell ourself that again, and then again in hopes that it sticks. The lance itches to be used.

But, ere we can dwell on the matter, we commence pleasantries. Our wills brush against one another, and his voice comes crawling into our mind.

Luna. Cirein-cròin’s burr is unsettlingly thin and dry and soft for so vast a creature, like rustled papers given a voice. And he sounds dismayingly pleased. You’ve grown smaller.

“To thy feeble eyes, perhaps,” we reply curtly. Dissembling is the prerogative of princesses. We level our lance at him. “Flee back where we put thee, or be dragged there. Choose wisely.”

He doesn’t answer immediately. His head leans down a little closer, like an oncoming stormfront, close enough for us to now discern his eyes. They glitter in the depths of his skull, white pin-pricks within the shadowed socket.

And weaker, he murmurs.

“Cherish thine optimism. It shan’t last.”

The great head tilts slightly, seems to look over our wither. At distant Whinnigoe. And then Cirein-cròin turns back to us, and we can feel the storm thrum upon our wings as it intensifies, feel the winds roar about us, all but taste the lightning aching to be unleashed. Waters spit and spray so high as to almost soak our hooves.

We angle our lance forward. Before us, Cirein-cròin waits, and draws out the moment. All around us, the world rumbles and murmurs, as if it were an audience awaiting its show.

For a foolish moment, we fancy there comes a distant drumming. But it can only be our own heart, bracing itself for battle. We force it to not unsettle us, force our motions to stay steady, breathe in and out and focus on the moment, heed only the sensation about us, will ourself into stillness with the practise that only long centuries of training could have afforded.

Never give an inch to threats without. Never give an inch to the fear and darkness within. Be the still point around which all must bend or break. Never, ever yield. Not an inch.

Breathe in. Hear the thunder rolling. Breathe out.

And feel the lightning coming scything down ere it strikes.

We corkscrew aside, and white-hot tendrils snap down inches from us, leaving blue-and-orange ghost-trails in the air. As we spin down and away, we are aware of Cirein-cròin snapping forwards, turning the whole world silver. His vast head comes driving down, and we raise our lance to greet him…

...and the second ere he comes down upon us, our magic flashes, and we step through the shadows to just beside a scarred cheek the size of a castle wall. Without thought, we slam the lance home into the unscaled tissue there, slam it several feet deep, send dark fire coursing down its length, make his old wound burn.

Blood erupts past the lance head, so dark a red to be almost black. The sound of our snarl is swallowed by his furious bellow, and battle is joined.

We tarry not. The moment he swings his head to smash us out the sky is the same instant we teleport away, yanking the lance free and cutting a dark passage from his head to the open air far up over his back. We emerge spinning through stormclouds, through whirling black, and arrest our motion with one flap. We stop, twist so that we come to face down through the clouds. Far down past their veil, we glimpse his great length writhing. Four vast fins churn the sea white, and his neck snakes sharply down to submerge his head below the waves.

We do not bother looking for a sign of the wound we dealt. It is much too small. As well to stick a pin into a mountain.

Let us see how many pin-pricks he can stomach.

Thick stormclouds close in around us, his stormclouds. Rain drums off us, enough to blind, to drown. A conjured bubble about us keeps off its full force, but to maintain it shall be a strain. The air thickens, and lightning from a dozen different quarters threatens.

Time to put his storm through its paces, then. Our wings close in against our sides. And we let ourself fall, even as two fronds of lightning crackle through where we’d been hovering. One arcs down at us, and we almost absently slash out to catch it on the steel lance. There is a flash, and when it clears, our lance still plunges down at our side, blazing red-hot down through the dark.

The world whips by as we weave down through the thunder, down towards the raging sea, and our lips curl back, baring our teeth in a smile.

A part of us has missed this.

We near the expanse of his back, curving along to his rising neck and rising head, and we fly furiously to speed our descent, to send us hurtling down till it seems like the sky must break beneath us. Lightning screams at our back and crisps the hide there, but it is no match for our speed, and onwards and onwards we plummet, closing the distance to his back. Two hundred feet, a hundred, fifty, twenty, ten…

At the last possible instant, at our breakneck speed, we flap. We adjust our angle at a speed and force no other pony could so much as survive, curve with the least of space to spare, hurl ourself into an equally breakneck flight over his back. We see the lightning bolts reflected at our front as they course off his scales behind us.

We see their reflection. We summon our magic. Dark fire crackles about our horn. And we aim at the reflections before us, and let fly.

Nightfire flames down from us, seethes into his silver scales, and as it does so, we slam down with our lance and punch through into the flesh beneath. We fly on with all the fury of a storm at our backs, dark fire at our van and our lance tearing a bloody trail underneath us. It cannot be more than the thinnest of scratches to a thing like him, but he bellows with surprise and pain like a thunderclap from Hell, and that’s enough. Stars, that’s enough. We have his attention. We have him—

A hammer-blow of wind punches athwart us. The world spins all around as we are knocked off-course, dark clouds and silver and black fire whirling about till we crash into something hard, and then plummet down upon something else equally hard. We lie on our side, which boils with agony, and we wheeze in badly-needed breath, and the beastly world shan’t stop spinning.

On hooves that all but refuse to cooperate, we slowly rise, and it takes all our effort not to slip on slick scales. We totter in the shadow of the great ridge of spines running along his back, as tall as Canterlot’s towers overhead, and we must have been knocked into one of them by the wind he sent at us. Our lance has come skittering along with us, and as we catch sight of it, it threatens to go skittering back the way, down into the water. We snatch out and grab it with our magic, and resist the foalish urge to hug it close.

We look up. Over us, the black storm roils, rendering the air thick and oppressive. Rain still drums down, and crackling tendrils of white thread through the darkness. A great silhouette looms behind it, and we recognise the arch of Cirein-cròin’s neck, his head curving around to behold us.

We summon another bubble to keep the rain off, our first having dissipated, and wince at our horn’s twinging.

Surely we cannot be facing down magical burn-out. Not now. Not this early into a battle. We can’t be this weak still. Fates befoul the carcass of whatever force decreed that shrugging off one’s Nightmare leaves one drained for a time. Befoul them, we say.

And as if we didn’t have enough to curse in this moment, Cirein-cròin’s burr slides like a sawblade across our mind. Much weaker.

If he wishes another brief bout of repartee, let him keep wishing. We spit in his head’s direction, stretch aching wings, scoop up our lance, and canter forward to take flight.

We are not sure where we take flight to, not initially at least. Tactics sketch themselves for our appraisal as we fly on. Let our magic be conserved, at least for now, until such time as we may direly need to get his attention. For now, may pegasi magic let us fly rings around him and his storms. May earth pony resilience keep us at it for as long as needed. This is an alicorn’s fight. Let us fight it.

Our wings beat the clouds around to froth, bear us upwards and onwards. Their ache’s forgotten. The rush of combat makes forgetting easy. The sensation of an oncoming headwind brushes over them, and we dip sharply up over it, rolling over the force pelting down at us, and keep going, keep going, onwards, onwards, onwards. Lightning cuts white across the skies, cuts down at us, and a quick swerve rig— no, up again, strong winds cut right, we discern just in time — carries us out of harm’s way, keeps us going.

We near Cirein-cròin’s head. Silver scales gleam dark under the storm, ragged forests of teeth glisten, nigh-unseeable eyes glitter down at us. He lunges down like a thunderhead in motion, breaking through the clouds beneath him. From far away, it might look ponderous. From our position, he all but comes blurring at us. We blur on in our own right, couching the lance by our side and counting off the seconds as the distance closes. Our lance gleams like a sliver of moonlight, aiming for him. Three, and his head fills the world. Two, and teeth part to reveal his deep maw. One—

—And we rise up, throwing ourself up at a nigh-vertical angle with a clap of thunder. We fly up, and our horn seethes. We have left our lance behind to greet Cirein-cròin, and greet him it does. His jaws champ on empty air as we fly up and over his head, and in the air below, guided by our magic, the lance dances about him, striking at whatever we fancy.

There are rules to a spar, depending on who and when ye may ask. Ours are old-fashioned and are as follows: endeavour not to be hit, aim for the eyes, and kick any available wound. As we ascend further up into the clouds, we will our lance to adhere to all three. It cuts silver arcs around Cirein-cròin, darning the dark sky with slivers of moonlight and flying in to jab at his eyes, his old scars, anything which seems vulnerable, anything bound to distract. From below, we hear his roars, and know he dips and thrashes to keep the lance at bay.

We cannot help but grin fiercely, even as we rise, our wings hammering on through the layers of clouds. Wind howls and lightning crackles on every side, but without direction now, without the guiding force of Cirein-cròin’s will. We punch through one thick bank, greet thin air for a blessed instant, and then greet the next mass of stormcloud, over and over for achingly long moments.

Until we near what we guess is the storm’s uttermost height, and push up through the last of the clouds, to be greeted by startling, brisk emptiness. The air is thin up here. Cirein-cròin’s roars seem distant, muffled things. Roiling darkness fills the world below. Above, we behold a clear expanse of blue, darkening towards night.

Stars twinkle at the edges of that blue. We take heart from them. Briefly, wordlessly, we close our eyes and savour the peace.

We then look away and down, and hover in place for a moment. Below, we have kept the lance moving, but the span of distance makes it effortful, and our vague sense of events below make its motions equally vague. Our horn twinges anew, our wings are spread to their fullest, and we take the air. Our pinions flare, and the high wind breathes through them. We flex them, experimentally, and they briefly disperse. Another flex, and the wind currents that come tumbling into their place flitter about our wings, caught within our weathercraft.

We keep looking down. Our lips part briefly, in a smile and snarl both.

And then we begin our descent, aiming in a straight plummet to whence we arose, with just a hint of spin. Our wings spread, flex, craft. And as we go, we take the storm with us.

Captured clouds caught in the wake of our weathercrafting tumble down, are caught in the spinning winds we have made our servants, and are shaped into a great point trailing down in our wake, like a whirlwind thrusting down towards the ground. Lightning crackles and churns in the storm’s heart, fighting for release. We grit our teeth and force it into quiescence, forcing the greatest of storms to follow us down as our own weapon, waiting to be unleashed. The pegasi warflocks of old moulded their storms, built great thunder-rams to blast dragons out of the sky. We are a warflock unto ourself.

As we plummet, we sense Cirein-cròin’s wariness as the unclaimed weather churns and grumbles. The silvery hue of his magic glistens throughout the dark. Our absence has been noted. The lance has annoyed him, but not for long enough. And as he looks up for us, his attention turns back to his own storms, and he knows what we are doing. Gale-force gusts come scything in at us, fronds of lightning stab down. But we fly harder than we have ever flown, strain our senses for the weather to their utmost, and take them as they come, twisting aside and bending them into our own seething weapon. Fronds of lightning descend at us, and though our wings ache with the effort and our weathercrafting senses stab a fresh spear of pain into our head, we fold them into the storm-whirlwind.

We lock horns with Cirein-cròin, match our weathercrafting against his. And we don’t have to win, we remind ourselves. We just have to fend him off for the next few moments.

And the royal wrath within snarls, and then we win.

Without warning, we find ourselves punching through the last thick layer of the high storm, and below us, intent on the heavens, awaits Cirein-cròin. Past wisps and trailing clouds, we see him and meet his gaze. White pinprick eyes glint up at us from within dark sockets.

We flatter ourselves they widen in surprise. Just a fraction.

He hurriedly bends his head away, trying to twist aside from the thunder-ram. Though it now has too much mass and momentum to ever be obligingly steered, we correct as best we can, and aim for the arch of his neck, as near the head as we can manage. The world goes screaming by, and an expanse of silver rises to meet us, and once more, with the barest of margins to spare, at the last possible half-second ... we twist aside and fly clear of him.

And the instant after, the world collapses into light and noise, all our senses scoured away. We tumble in freefall for one giddy, terrifying moment, willing at wings that will not work amidst the all-engulfing forces in the sky. Lightning screams at our back, a thousand bolts of it painting even the sky before us white. Deafening thunder fills the sky, like a legion’s drumbeat. We flap desperately, clawing for any purchase, any control, anything. And as we tumble onwards, we spin around and catch the briefest glimpses of lightning-spitting blackness cascading down over Cirein-cròin’s silver form, before being hurled onwards.

Our hurling ceases when we hit the water. We punch through the lip of a wave, and splash down into the water beneath.

The water arrests our fall, we grant it that much, and the chill shocks our discombobulated mind back into something approaching sensical. We flail around at the water, choke as we accidentally swallow some, blink around in the raging darkness, frantically trying to orientate ourselves, to find up.

In one direction, light suggests itself past blurry ripples, and we kick in its direction. But as above, so below. The sea is in full storm, and our strength avails little against the currents that buffet us through the water. We kick, and strain, and when nothing avails, we coax magic to our aching horn and simply lift ourselves clear, turning the ache to a keen song of agony.

We emerge, spluttering and blinking and hissing with pain, the winds sharp and cold against our sodden hide. Far away, we glimpse towering silver wreathed around with storming blackness. But even as we watch, Cirein-cròin bends the winds upon himself. The clouds are knocked away, sloughing away like skin being shed. Patches of storm scud wildly every which way, and as the winds howl and as the monster thrashes, we see the mark we’ve left.

Fresh thin fronds of scars, running down his neck like a tree’s roots, scorched impressions of the storm hacked into his silver. Thinner rivulets of blood meander down from them, sketching a spider’s web as they join together. Deeper marks pockmark him here and there, and on his face, a fresh new scar cuts across the one we made earlier.

His winds finish blowing the storm away, and Cirein-cròin’s head slowly turns to face us. We hover above the waves, trying to ignore our hurting horn and aching wings and tired everything. We look him right in the eyes, and for a long moment, we each simply hold our ground and wait for the other to act. He rasps out a long breath, like a gale collecting itself.

We realise that our lance has been lost. A shame. It was a well-made piece, and did its duty.

At last, Cirein-cròin’s mind saws across the surface of mine once more. Again.

It has been a tiring day. We blink, and turn the word over in our head, and finally give him a weary look.

Again, he hisses. Scales peel pack from his forest of teeth. Bring that storm again.

Our wings throb at the mere thought, and we plaster the sensation over with whatever repartee we are capable of. “Cultivating an appetite for punishment, then? Well-warranted.”

Past the gulf of overcast, lightning-laced darkness, we swear his eyes glint. You’re spent.

“Optimism will be the death of thee. Optimism, and ourself.”

He doesn’t reply then. Not immediately. Instead, after a long moment, he slowly, ponderously turns away from us, his casual movements frothing the water to a fury, and angles himself towards some unseen point past the mist and clouds.

Watch my work, he purrs, and nothing else. Fins churn the water, and he begins to move away into the murk, a mountain in motion.

We stare after him, briefly confused. The idiot thought arises that we’ve beaten him, that he’s fleeing. The next and altogether saner thought comes after, that he endeavours to bait us into action, into action where he may yet triumph.

The clouds part ahead of him as he swims forwards, and then we suddenly remember. And realise.

He makes for the coast. To Whinnigoe.

And that is all the reminder we need to put aside the pain, to erupt forth from our position and hurtle towards Cirein-cròin with all the wrath we can bring flaring to the fore. A red-dimmed mist descends, fit to do any earth pony shieldbiter of old proud, and we embrace it.

“Do not turn thy back on us,” we hiss, softly at first. “Do not threaten our ponies!” we snarl, louder now. “STAND!” we roar, and the Royal Canterlot Voice rolls across the distance. “STAND AND FIGHT! FACE US, CRAVEN!”

Our wings hammer the air like never before, and before us, we see his great head turn towards us. Storms still straddle the great distance between us, and we feel them gather, clot together, build in intensity. Even if they didn’t thwart our approach, evading them would render us too tired to so much as fly by the time we neared him. Our limits are making themselves all-too painfully known, and they are nearing fast.

So be it. The red haze cares little. The silver tower that is Cirein-cròin looms before us, past a growing veil of cloud, and we slow down ever-so-slightly, enough to suggest we intend to weave through the storm.

And then we do no such thing. We dip into the shadows, and teleport through it all towards him, our horn boiling with pain as we emerge. One instant, Cirein-cròin is distant and triumphant; the next, he is imminent and caught-off-guard. And we have preserved all our speed.

No more displays of magic, for we have nothing left to us. No more weathercrafting, for we have so little power left to expend. We fly forth at him with all the fury a Princess of the Night has to offer, straight at the weeping scars across his face, and kick them.

Immense as his head is, even it rocks back with the force of our blow. We roar an inarticulate battle-cry in the Royal Canterlot Voice as he staggers, and we immediately spring back to cut a loop through the air and plunge in for another kick. We slam our hoof into the weeping wound, relish his roar of pain as if it were applause, and sweep away and back again at the same wound, this time to ram our horn in up to our forehead before ripping ourselves away, foul with his blood.

We weave back, and come slashing in again, and again, and again, throwing kick after goring blow after kick into Cirein-cròin with force fit to crack mountains, diving and slashing down to keep pace with his own frantic twists. He snaps up at us, missing as we bob back with breathless ease, as if riding lightning. We cannot lose now. We are tiny next to him, the meanest speck, but for a brief and exhilarating moment, we are mighty beyond measure. We are atop a red tide that can never come crashing down, and every savage blow we land and tight loop we cut is a note in a red song. We will win.

His head dips away, lowering as if cringing before our onslaught, as if seeking quarter. As if we’d grant it now. Atop the red tide, we press the assault. Our wings spread—

—And wind strikes us, a gale stabbing down right at us. We whirl helplessly, tangled briefly in our own wings, and snarl as we try to right ourselves.

And we are too slow. Silver rises, and Cirein-cròin’s head slams up to smash us out of the sky.

All our senses desert us for an instant, as we tumble like a broken doll towards the sea far below. The red recedes, and past pounding waves of pain, we catch a blurred glimpse of the monster himself regarding us, towering overhead as we descend, a terrible smile on his features.

And then we hit the water, punching metres below the surface. The same chill shock restores a dribble more sense, and as we bob back up towards the surface, we are conscious enough to wheeze in a desperate breath, to mewl in pain, to thrash around and to see the sky turn silver and fall down upon us.

Cirein-cròin’s fin hammers us back below the surface, hammers us down into the deep.

And we are gone.

Wakefulness is slow in returning. Indeed, it is hard to realise at first that we have. All remains dark.

But when we were insensate, we did not feel ourself drowning, and there’s our clue.

We slam our eyes open to no effect at all, and choke. Bubbles ripple out from our mouth, and our head thrashes without our bidding. Our legs twitch, equally unbidden, as if trying to claw their way upwards to air, but they are too sore, too battered, and the sheer unrelenting weight and pressure all but paralyse us. Our useless mouth continues to just open and bubble, wasting precious air, and we choke on the salt water that rushes in to replace it. Panic blossoms in us, and our horn feels as if a knife is being drawn up its length as we frantically coax light to its tip.

A soft blue glow spills out all around us as we drift down through the deep. Illuminating nothing. Past it, only cold, crushing, fathomless darkness, above and on all sides and below.

Where are we? Memories shamble back into our aching head, even we panic and thrith in the water. What is happening above us? Cirein-cròin is attacking Whinnigoe, attacking our ponies. How do we get back up? Our twisted wings creakily unfold, but to move them even an inch to try and propel us upwards is an exercise in agony. We try to muster magic to lift us up, to teleport us, but sheer pain and magical exhaustion cuts us short. And all throughout, our lungs keen for air, our body thrashes of its own volition, and all is cold and painful about us. The pressure mounts excruciatingly, as if a vice grips us from all around, and we know that were we not an alicorn, we would already be dead.

We scream silently into the dark, and thrash upwards as best we can. And our best is nowhere near enough. We just choke on water, and our head and windpipe and chest hurt under the crushing depths. With no great ceremony, our light begins to fade.

And around the edges of that fading light, utter blackness presses in around our vision. Our feeble motions slow.

We have lost.

We are alone at the bottom of the world, swatted there by a foe we could never have hoped to overcome, who we had to overcome for the sake of our ponies.

...I am no Princess at all. I have lost.

And the ponies in Whinnigoe shall suffer for it.

Every pony has their own way to deal with failure. The one I have made ample use of is to sleep. To sleep away the days, sleep away the bitterness and fury as they fester, sleep through the Nightmare that arises when the bitterness and fury can be contained no more, desperately try to sleep till a better day comes.

And sinking into the depths then, a similar impulse overcame me. Just sleep. Just let the blackness roll in. It would stop hurting then.

All around, I am dimly aware of things shifting, of great — faded, discernibly, but still great — magics uncoiling, as if receiving their interloper. And with dim surprise, I recognise the magic as my own.

Black tendrils and the great shapes of broken arches, darker even than the abyssal sea around, rise around me as I sink. Pure shadow-stuff. Are these the remnants of the cage I once fashioned for Cirein-cròin, over a thousand years ago? With a burst of feeble, barely-conscious effort, I reach with my arcane senses to sound it, to get its measure.

And it is. There are the patterns I wove, sundered and twisted. There are the shadows I plucked forth from the deepest reaches, faded now. My working has seen better days. Haven’t we all. And as I reach out to it, the shadows seem to lean into the sounding. The shadows recognise who fashioned them, gave them shape and purpose, and my foolish imagination fancies that they receive me with concern, receive me gently.

There are worse places to come to rest, I think as the blackness rolls in, as the last of my light fades.

A tragedy fit for the poets, for the playwrights. The prodigal princess, gone for a thousand years, only to perish gallantly, uselessly, scarcely a month into her homecoming. How ponies would weep upon reading about it. How they’d reach for their tissues upon witnessing it on the stage. How they’d pass it down through the years, embellish it with every telling, give it a meaning it sorely needed.

How Tia would have to live with it, down all the lonely centuries.

“Promise me you’ll be safe.”

Unbidden, without thinking, the darkness about me thickens.

No.

I refuse to be no more than a sad song. There are too many as is. I still have so much to do. I was going to have a steam engine demonstrated to me. I was going to meet with the six brave ponies who wielded the Elements to save me. I was going to try dreamwalking again tonight after Dusk Court, for the first time in over a thousand years. I was going to visit all Equestria’s cities, and wander its shrunken wildernesses, and delight in what ponykind has made of itself. And I...

And I made a promise.

Great shadows curl about me in the dusk, like beasts hearkening to their mistress. I force my eyes to open, even as the last of my horn-light fades. Sheer panicky foolishness on my part to summon it at all.

Darkness is my element. And down here, there is nothing but it. I may see clearly through it, if I but will myself to, and I do. All the seascape around reveals itself to me, then, the great plain of clay and silt streaked with lustrous veins of metal. To the west, its gentle slope runs down endlessly into the true darkness, to the deep trenches. East towards Equestria and Whinnigoe, it rises sharply into rocky cliffs, the bones of the world bared. Vents sprout from these cliffs, the Fires of Creation blazing from them in red and gold, blue and black, emerging in a rush of steaming bubbles and wild magic. Around them, compact-looking fish and little glowing jellyfish bask in the magic, gangs of migratory limpets slowly bumble around them, and a travelling cast of spider crabs scoop up some of the unluckier limpets into nets woven from their own silk and slung over their back shells. Atop the cliffs, stems of the impossibly tall deep-water kelp rise far up to where the sunlight reigns and their fronds make forests beneath the waves.

And though my lungs and head still scream for air, I give myself just a moment — the merest moment — to drink it in. To savour it all, as I have been unable to for an age. Even here, there is beauty. Vibrancy. Treasures within the night. My night, as all nights are.

I turn away, back to the great remains of my age-old magic, the shadow-fashioned remnants of a colossal cage and chains fit to contain Cirein-cròin. Their pitch-black shapes swim before my vision, as if they strain to reach me, the shadows trying to pull free of their structure. They litter the ocean plain like twisted and toppled monsters, and rise over me, as if waiting eagerly for a new command.

I have not the strength to fashion a new weapon. But here the rust-eaten old one yet lies. A faded and broken relic. But even faded and broken relics can achieve impossible and parlous things.

It hurts to reach forward. To tap into the shadow-stuff. But needs must, and I have found my second wind. Besides, that which is already present is all the easier to work with. At the touch of my night, the darkness of my old shadows deepen, take on a richer hue, begin to reknit into the old shapes they once held.

My shadows rise like leviathans all around me, crowding out the ocean, and I look up. To where the distant day must be.

The shadows ascend up through the ocean blackness. All shadows are mine, and all shadows are kin, and I step up from one to the other, for all my weary frame and magic object. The darkness snatches me up and away, flitting up through the deep, alongside and with my shadows, and I am gone…

...and the instant after, I emerge, free and weightless, erupting up and out through the surface, from pounding darkness into breathtakingly-cold grey, from the deep into the storm. On reflex alone, I retch up brine, more than I thought I could contain, and between retches, I suck in painful, desperate breaths. My body trembles with cold and agony, objecting to its shabby treatment and quick-changing environments as any sensible body would. So be it. It is an alicorn’s body; it has endured worse, and it will endure a little more yet ere I finish here.

Through blurred vision, I strain to catch sight of Cirein-cròin, and flap forwards on wings that adamantly refuse to make the process of using them in any way enjoyable. There — past a haze of dark sea-mist, I see something immense looming over the silhouettes of cliffs. I flap on grimly, the darkness following in my wake and turning the sea to ink.

As I draw closer, I make out the vast and silver horror that is Cirein-cròin. He is distant yet from Whinnigoe, drawing out his approach for maximum terror, but even a great distance from him leaves him looming. Over the winding steps and cliffs, I see multiple Guard airships, rocking and bobbing wildly as winds scythe into them. Specks of pegasi huddle on their decks, as if rallying for battle, and far far up, where a glimmer of blue still reigns, great war-clouds are being towed towards the scene. Flashes from the ground below suggest staggered teleportation, trained unicorns bringing in detachment after detachment and leaving to retrieve more. From the airships and atop the cliffs, I see manned bolt-throwers hurling iron bolts up at the towering monster, as well as batteries of unicorns slashing forth with arcs of spellfire. Most fly wild, caught by the wind, or skitter harmlessly off his scales, but they persist.

My ponies are brave. And they shan’t be brave alone. I flap my aching wings and bring myself up, flying at Cirein-cròin’s back. And as I fly, I muster all that remains of my magic, the very last dregs. I tap deep into my essence, my very alicornhood, and coax it to the fore. Behind me, the shadows roar silently onwards, and as my magic rises, they stream on like a tsunami.

There come fresh cries from Whinnigoe as I approach, and though Cirein-cròin doesn’t turn, he does seem to hesitate briefly. I fly faster, faster, will the shadows onwards faster, I can’t be interrupted now, not now.

Overhead, I am suddenly, dimly aware of a shift in the sun and moon, as if they have hurriedly been pushed back in their orbits, eking out more daylight. From the south, the light changes subtly, becomes that little brighter past the storm’s veil, and then steadily brightens and brightens with all the grim unstoppability of a sunrise. Cirein-cròin does turn then, glancing south and betraying sudden trepidation.

He guesses what’s coming as well as I know it. Celestia has received the telegram. Tia is coming.

And as he towers from the sea and looms over the land, briefly lost to indecision and … could it be worry? … I strike. With all that I am, and all that I was. The age-old power I laid down rises at my back, the memory of doing so lends the strength and will I need to wield it, and present wrath and urgency drive the blow forth. All that is Princess Luna strikes.

My magic and mantle blaze, setting my form aglow with night-coloured flames. And from underneath, the darkness rises. And then descends.

Cirein-cròin doesn’t have so much as the chance to scream before vast tendrils of shadow clutch at him, wind round him, bind him from head to neck to torso. They take solid form, becoming great bars and chains, tightening about him, remembering their old shapes well. And he screams then, a great ululating roar that sets the sky and sea alike to churning like never before. His magic lashes out blindly, and ribbons of lightning howl across the sky overhead. He thrashes wildly to try and break the shadow-bindings once more, and I pour my all into them, blazing like a dark star over the ocean.

“Ye chose,” I hiss past everything, gritting the words out. “And now ye’ll be dragged back where ye came from. Back to the depths, monster. Do as I have done, and learn to be better.”

And the shadows pull, and Cirein-cròin is pulled with them as they pinch tight around his neck and fins. He roars with desperate savagery as his prey recedes from him, as the brine beckons, and thrashes the sea white in one last wild attempt to break free.

But the reknitting shadows know their business. When I crafted them, I certainly knew my own business. And though it costs me my absolute last, leaves me little more than a groggy Luna-shaped shell flapping vaguely above the waves, his wrath crashes off me like water off rocks.

I watch the shadows pull and descend, bearing Cirein-cròin with them, and his silver vastness sinks below the waves. His neck snakes up to futilely try and stay above it all, and his head champs in my direction. His pin-prick eyes are wide, seething with hatred, and I meet them as they descend along with the rest of him.

And then, with one last despairing roar, Cirein-cròin vanishes into the depths. For a long moment, black and silver blur together beneath the water. Blur, and at last, disappear.

In a detached sort of way, I flap once to stay in place, twice, and then stop. The world’s quiet now. I’d forgotten what that was like. It has something to recommend it. And it’s all numb as well. From Whinnigoe, I hear pony voices. They’re exclaiming about something. I should fly over. Ask them what about. If only the world would stop rising past me.

Overhead, the sun’s higher in the sky than it was. Tia’s dilly-dallied with setting it on time. Silly Tia. Was she meant to be coming?

I try to think, but everything is so far-away and numb. My legs and wings refuse to answer when called.

A realisation hits me. I’m falling.

First that realisation, and then the ocean.

Consciousness gradually dawns.

Consciousness hurts.

There are voices above me, several of them. I recognise Tia’s. Her ‘calm masking deep pools of worry and stress’ tone is distinctive, and most familiar. A cool breeze cuts across my head and hooves, and I belatedly realise a blanket covers the rest of me. With supreme effort, I crack one eye open, and though it takes a moment to process the world when seen side-on, I manage it in the end.

I am looking up at the Whinnigoe Steps, and I blearily turn my head to try and follow them all the way up, zig-zagging to the lip of the far cliff. Ponies peer down, and others come climbing both ways, bearing baskets. Townsponies, and ponies in barding, and all sorts. Airships bob at attention. And past it all, a cloudy late afternoon, with weather teams at work to disperse the clouds. Dark blue brushed by rose-coloured clouds peeks forth, the last blue of the day.

And I remember why they are all here, and the unspooling memories make me groan and try to huddle deeper within the blanket.

“Luna!”

Celestia’s exclamation rings out like a bell, and whatever conversation she’d been having is left forgotten as she whirls on me, sinks to the damp grass by me. One broad, white wing comes down across my blanket, adding an extra layer. I turn up and around, and meet her magenta eyes. She meets my own bleary gaze, and a giddy, relieved smile breaks across her features and tears spring to her eyes.

“Oh, Luna,” she murmurs, leaning down to nuzzle me unabashedly. Other ponies mill about in the background, and background is what they become. But before Celestia occupies my full attention, I get a look at their faces. And they seem delighted. Awed. At I. One takes off his hat and dips his head when he sees me looking. But then Celestia interjects, and I turn to her. “You’re fine. You’re alive. You’re alright, you’re alright, you’re alright.”

“‘M fine. Alive,” I gurgle back. It isn’t my eloquent best. “Ngh. ‘Membered thing. Shadows. Fwoosh. Fwooshed Cirein-thing good.”

She laughs and beams down at me through her tears. Her eyes briefly close. “Luna,” she murmurs.

“Fwoosh?”

“You utter, utter idiot.”

Were I presently capable of clouting her ear for the remark, I would. One has to crimp one’s sibling’s tendencies to insolence, after all. But alas, all I can muster is a pained look, which differs little from my default expression at this time, and she just elaborates on her theme.

“I extracted all of one promise, and what happened? Oh, stars save you. Luna, you idiot. Why didn’t you just fetch me, rather than risk yourself?”

She can never help being a big sister. “Did fetch ye,” I croak defensively. “Telegram. But … had to protect Whinnigoe till ye came. Protect our ponies. Did. Held him off.”

“Oh, stars.” She leans towards me again, and we nuzzle one another again. Stretching myself up to meet her is at the limits of what I can currently achieve, but achieve it I do.

“Don’t ever do that again,” she whispers. “Not while you’ve still got to regain your strength. You’re far too important to risk yourself like that. Not when I’ve only just got you back, after so, so long.”

“‘Course I‘m important,” I mumble back. “Important’s why I have to do it. Impossible and … parlous things.” I nearly slump, but at the last moment, make myself stay upright and nuzzle my sister. “‘Course I’m important.”

And with that effort spent speaking, I permit myself to slump. She rises to her hooves, and my sister calls out to some passing ponies. I do not hear what she says. Every part of me hurts. My chest remains a solid mass of pain, and the world remains black around the edges. My wings feel as if some maniac tried to unscrew them, and my horn is a burning brand plunged into my forehead. Not even dregs of magic remain to me, my very self seems hollowed-out, and I shall be convalescing for days, if not weeks, ere I so much as cast a cantrip, take flight, dreamwalk properly, call upon the Night and have it answer, so much as move the moon without Celestia’s help. The last of the sunshine beats down, bright and painful, and all the outside noise is so much muffed roaring.

And there, in that time, in that place, amidst an intact Whinnigoe and its ponies, it all feels like victory.

It feels like progress.