In the Moon’s Platinum Glow

Chapters

In the Moon’s Platinum Glow

In the Moon’s Platinum Glow

Princess Platinum lurched out of her throne as her attendants swarmed her like a cloud of gnats.

She handed off the minutes of her court session to her scribe and barely had time to catch her breath. Plumeria or Plum Pudding, or whatever the new protocol chief her council had foisted upon her called herself, whisked her through the small private vestibule at the rear of the room and into a horribly stifling chamber suffused with dust and old paper. After the spaciousness of the vaulted ceiling outside, the low stonework here practically threatened to crush her with a glacial slowness she would have missed entirely.

It rather made her think of the frog in a frying pan that her head advisor Clover the Clever liked to prattle on about incessantly during quiet moments. What a horrid thought, but that stallion would lose himself in such philosophical minutiae if Platinum didn’t keep him busy enough.

On went the woolen stole with its knitted pattern of stars, and her personal chambermaid rushed in with the ceremonial gown. “Honestly, is all this really necessary?” Platinum said.

With a frown, Sugar Plum—that was her name—backed away a step. “It’s for your subjects,” she said in a rather lecturing tone. “We need them to see you as radiant, regal, and resplendent.” After a quick forced smile, she resumed applying Platinum’s eye makeup. “Besides,” she continued, her voice muted as she bit down on the mascara applicator’s cap, “I thought you liked glamour and pageantry.”

Platinum gritted her teeth. “Your Highness.” She may not have had as much of the public eye as her father King Bullion, but he had retired years ago, and they would show her respect.

And Sugar Plum’s eyes sparked like a prisoner receiving his condemnation. She immediately bowed. “Yes. Of course, Your Highness.”

The rustling of cloth behind her had ceased as well, but with a rough sigh, Platinum started out into the corridor. Her gown’s train funnelled through the doorway, then rippled over the stonework floor, the gilded feet of plush divans along the wall, and the bases of iron torchieres, until a slight tug said the fillies of this year’s Chosen had lifted the heavy cloth in their magic.

Sugar Plum managed to walk backward at this brisk pace while dabbing a puff of rouge at Platinum’s cheeks. “Now remember, Your Highness, just feel the stillness and peace come over you. Keep your mind on the moment, and the moon will rise.”

Somepony shoved her headdress on, and the little bells tinkled with each soft footfall down the rich purple carpet. Bells on a hat? Star Swirl must have had a hoof in this. And why did Sugar Plum feel the need to give her step-by-step instructions of a process ingrained in her mind for decades?

Now the hangers-on who had little to do but be seen with her fell away, the Chosen fillies spread her train out behind her, and Sugar Plum brushed a blood-red stain onto Platinum’s bottom lip. Platinum paused, took a deep breath, and barely parted the immense carved doors in front of her, the equine figures on them ignoring her in favor of the scrolls and wands and talismans they clutched.

Then she swung the doors open and strode through the assembly. The cantor had already begun singing, and he gave her a well-concealed glare, though he could not know she’d seen it; she kept her eyes narrowed to slits aimed toward her intended place on the dais. Only he stood, as the other unicorns involved in the age-old ritual had bowed, arrayed about her like spokes on a wheel. In the darkness beyond, countless more unicorns doubtless prostrated themselves.

She paused at the center of everything, adding her own magic’s glow to that of the other participants—a great ball of it floating upward, slowly, as the moon crept over the horizon. It rather reminded her of a crocodile surfacing to scout its prey.

No, no, she’d never felt any trace of animosity from the moon. A placid, soft illumination that neither blinded nor burned. Long ago, she’d considered whether the convocation on the opposite side of the castle would have provided her more… satisfaction? A little rumble in her heart told her that perhaps “prestige” was the word she sought and, at the time of her induction to this rite, might have been more accurate.

Her mother, for reasons the elegant mare had never explained, urged her from a young age to choose the moon. Then time had stolen her and whatever wisdom lurked behind those reasons from Platinum.

In truth, it didn’t matter; they exchanged the sun and moon at the same two times of day, so it would not have spared her the early mornings. Thus had she entered the Chosen as an initiate of the moon and eventually become an enchantress, now High Enchantress, as a princess must.

So she cleared her mind as the cantor’s song tapered into silence. Peace, only peace.

How much longer though? Star Swirl had two alicorns in training, and he claimed each of them could perform this entire ceremony alone. Or they would, eventually. But eventually had turned into soon. She didn’t know him that well, but Clover spoke highly of him. How much longer would Platinum be able to meditate and raise the moon?

Her thoughts required stillness. She added her soft humming to the chorus, and closed her eyes, but the foals of the Chosen—her sister Pallas among them—rustled and scraped through their dance around the amphitheater, gamboling, frolicking, swishing around the evergreen boughs that would purify the night, and the firefly lights playing over their faces through the trellises and arbors.

“I want to be just like you when I grow up,” Pallas’s voice echoed through Platinum’s memory. The dear positively adored these rites, and the more energetic sounds to her right surely emanated from her sister. What she lacked in grace she more than made up in enthusiasm, or so the Keeper of the Dance said during the rehearsals, though her startlingly lovely voice would have made her an exceptional cantor. Not that she would allow anypony else to hear it.

All in good time.

With the moon’s rising, Platinum’s knees trembled, but a good night’s sleep would fix that. The other enchantresses would see to the stars and keep their vigil until dawn. Ironically, only the High Enchantress could sleep through the night she had wrought, and in her case, a princess had more mundane duties that required her attendance through the daytime hours.

Thus she relaxed her magical tether. But as had happened increasingly of late, a small itch sprouted at the back of her mind: cold, but not unpleasantly so. She focused on it, did not terminate her magical connection as the others had by now, and she imagined herself giving the moonbeams a questioning glance.

“Hello.”

She blinked and leaned against the cantor’s podium. Nopony stood near her, the audience having shuffled back to their homes and the Chosen retreated to their dormitory to prepare for midnight classes. The enchantresses tended their telescopes and their star charts. It hadn’t even sounded like a spoken word—more the memory of one.

And this hadn’t been the first time.

She caught her head drooping and jerked it back upright. Just the product of an overworked mind? On her way to the door, she gently placed a hoof on Aurora’s shoulder. A newer enchantress, and one whose ebullient yet warm nature had always endeared her to Platinum. Mother had told Platinum once long ago to get an enchantress’s attention with a light touch on the shoulder to avoid startling her.

Aurora looked up with a smile from her page, scored with minute alterations to the pinpoints of light overhead. “My Lady,” she said, briefly bowing her head. Only in this chamber would that supplant the usual address of “Your Highness.”

“Aurora, have you ever heard a voice when we raise the moon?” Platinum said. The huge doors opened a crack, and Sugar Plum peered inside before checking her itinerary.

“From one of the attendees, perhaps. And the cantor, of course. But the enchantresses and Chosen would know better than to disrupt us with noise. Why, has somepony not followed protocol?” she replied with a frown.

“No, not a voice. I apologize. More like something I’d dreamt.” Aurora didn’t understand. And that in itself gave a definitive enough answer.

Aurora’s frown deepened. “My Lady?”

Platinum could only shake her head. “Never mind. I won’t keep you from your work any longer.”

With a raised eyebrow, Aurora seemingly had a question perched on the edge of her lips. Then she scanned the others present. She must have found no eyes directed her way, as she faintly blushed, craned her neck up, and gave Platinum a kiss on the cheek. She hid her grin and returned to her work. “Good night, My Lady.”

Yes, only in these environs could an enchantress or a Chosen call her that. But in more private moments, Aurora had an even less formal name for her. When the council had appointed Aurora as an enchantress, it had… complicated things. They made do.

“Good night, My Heart,” Platinum whispered into her ear.

Then she left through the same great portal through which she had entered, shedding her gown and headdress for her attendants to pick up in the hall.

Platinum stifled a yawn and put her stole on, the one with the star pattern. Lowering the moon in the morning didn’t require near as much pomp. The stole would do, as the stars would aid in her task. But for the moment, she would enjoy the remaining moonlight from her balcony.

She strode outside, away from the dim flickering of her oil lamp, and closed her eyes, letting the waves of luminescence cascade over her face. The few ponies she’d ever asked about it merely chuckled at her as they would a child’s nonsense, but Platinum swore she could feel it.

“Hello.”

Again, a memory of hearing the word descended on her like ashes. She’d never responded before. She’d never noticed it in a situation where she could respond before. “Hello?”

“Greetings, My Light.”

But… Platinum hadn’t even begun casting her spell yet. “Who are you?” A spectral voice? If it hadn’t so gradually made her aware of it over recent months, she might have run away screaming.

“I think you have always known.”

Platinum pursed her lips and leaned over the railing. “But why are you talking to me? And while I’m not even using my magic on you?”

“You are High Enchantress. You are My Light.”

Her thoughts clumped, pressed on her head. “But… my predecessor—”

“She might have been High Enchantress. She was not My Light.”

What… what a…

Platinum shook. Such a gift, such a terrible gift. “What does that even mean? I am sorry, but these types of proclamations usually set the recipient up for some kind of impossible—”

“What have your advisors always told you?”

It sounded so much like her mother. When challenged, return to what she knew. “Stillness and… and peace.” And the answer left her feeling chastened, also much like with her mother.

“Yes. That is all I require.”

“Then why…?”

“A rather large question, My Light.”

And one swirling about Platinum’s mind so fiercely that she could not tame it. Once again, she returned to what she knew. Focus on the now, the moment, precisely as when she raised the moon each night. She stood still, and even without the answers, she calmed the tremors in her body. She could find a peace in not knowing, if she had to.

“Why are you My Light? I do not know why, only that I share a special connection with you, one I have not found for many centuries. Why have I spoken to you?”

It must have been carefully considering its response. Somepony who understood the trappings of diplomacy—perhaps they were kindred spirits.

“I am afraid,” it continued, “this may make me sound selfish, but inasmuch as I grant peace, I find myself desiring it at times as well. The peace of a friend, of companionship. If you do not mind, that is.”

This entity reminded Platinum of Aurora in ways: gentle, tactful, quick to consider another’s feelings. “Certainly, but unfortunately… if you wish to speak, we may have to confine ourselves to times nopony else will overhear. Talking to disembodied voices, particularly ones nopony else can hear, tends to brand one as, to borrow an earth pony expression from Chancellor Puddinghead, ‘out of your gourd.’”

Something like tinkling bells tickled Platinum’s ears. She squinted and peered back into her room, but—

Of course. It had laughed.

“We can more readily speak in your dreams. I think that would give you all the privacy you would need.”

Dreams? Yes it would, but… could she even control that? Left to the nonsensical musings of a dreamscape, and—oh dear, should it even witness some of the scenarios her mind periodically invented, especially the ones involving Aurora.

“Only with your permission,” it hastily added. “I would scarcely suggest intruding upon a pony’s dreams uninvited, and I assure you, the effect would leave you quite lucid, or else we would have very little hope of finding peace, I think you will agree.”

“No doubt. One can learn much from dreams, I would think.”

Silence spread its silky tendrils about the room again, and Platinum nearly asked after the voice, but it spoke up again: “I would not use anything against you. Nor could I wrest it from you by force. I hope you do not think me capable…”

Platinum smiled. “No. But here you are talking to me in the waking world as well. Surely you have learned all about me by now, if what you say is true: that I am your Light. I suppose I was born that way,” she said with a chuckle.

“Actually, yes.”

Her spine tingled.

“About being born that way, I mean. But I can do little to observe in the waking world. I only know what you dream about. I do, however, sense… I do not know. Something profound, something hidden.”

Platinum clenched her jaw. Peace or no, some secrets had to remain secrets.

“But we can talk later. As I said, I cannot interact much in the waking world—”

Three knocks at the door, and Platinum’s eyes sprung open. Of course, when she’d closed her eyes after stepping onto the balcony. She’d dozed off, leaning against the railing.

“Nummy?” came a squeaky voice through the door.

“Yes, Pallas, just a moment,” Platinum replied. She straightened her stole, extinguished her oil lamp, and swung the door open with her magic as she strode past her work table, where she had the beginnings of another piece of jewelry assembled. “What is it?”

Pallas wandered into the room in fits and starts, finally settling onto the floor next to the full-length mirror, where a rather tired-looking reflection applied the few cosmetics appropriate for the morning ceremony of lowering the moon.

“I was just thinking.”

Perhaps one of the more fear-inducing statements a child could utter.

“I was hoping to be an enchantress someday—to be like you! I like my classmates, and we all practice really hard, and did you see me last night? I danced really good for you!” Her little tinkling giggle ran out, but her smile soon faded. “But I won’t get to, will I? Star Swirl said Celestia and Luna would do that soon. We’re probably the last class of Chosen, and they won’t need enchantresses anymore.”

Platinum grinned and draped an arm around her sister. “There’s more to running a nation than participating in ceremonies. You’ll have plenty of opportunities to join me in… whatever.”

“But there’s something…” Pallas scrunched up her nose. “There’s something so cool about magic and raising the moon and knowing we’re some of only a few who can.”

Yes, it did have that appeal. “I’ll tell you what: Just this once, come along with me. Join in with the enchantresses. Don’t worry about the spell—push a little of your magic in, and we’ll use it. Nopony else will know. And when you first feel it, the peace, the…”

The delicious coolness, spreading down her horn with its velvet touch, her eyes subsumed with the silver luminosity, almost seeing everything as if from above, as if…

As if she were the moon.

She hugged Pallas closer. “Come now. It’s time.”

They walked in silence to the amphitheater, though Pallas did have a pronounced spring to her step. She persistently glanced over, an infectious grin on her face, and she even skipped the last few paces to the door. Not many ponies would attend—any who had awakened already tended to prefer watching the sunrise. No Chosen, no cantor. Just the other enchantresses.

Platinum kissed the stars on her stole, gestured to a corner where Pallas could sit without her hornglow becoming visible to anypony in the audience gallery, and flashed a smile at Aurora. “My Heart,” she mouthed to her.

With no preamble, the enchantresses simply called up a spell of rest and let the moon take its repose. It sank slowly, and with another night’s work done, the enchantresses one by one doused their horns and filed out to tend to their own slumber, until only Platinum remained, with a small surreptitious nudge to her magic from elsewhere in the room.

She would have to allow Pallas to sneak a little magic into moonrise sometime soon—all this morning’s ritual would likely do was make her sleepy. But she so wanted to, and she had a point: she may not earn appointment as an enchantress before the duty fell to the young alicorns.

“You are in danger!” the voice hissed inside her head.

Platinum’s eyes jerked open, and the moon ceased its descent. What danger? And how had it spoken to her? She hadn’t fallen asleep. Unless her magical connection…

She reached out for the moon again, encompassed it with her thoughts, and felt its tender touch. But she couldn’t speak out loud to it. Somepony might hear!

No words then. But she must ask! What did a question feel like? She tried sending a bubble of confusion along the bridge between them, and—

“I saw it in her dreams! She knew you would be alone, she plans to kill you, you must stop her, go, now!”

Platinum opened her eyes again, and over past the row of pillars, in the shadows, some movement. “Pallas, stay out of sight!” she whispered harshly.

Only silence, a motion out of the corner of her eye here, then another over there? More than one of them? Or using magic to misdirect her?

Then from her left, a figure burst out from behind the cantor’s podium. Something glinted, slashed, she held up an arm—blackest Tartarus, it stung! A knife—droplets of her blood littered the floor, and she clutched at her wound, but too late! Another strike, she blocked it, but she was pinned to the wall, the knife at her throat.

Platinum may not have had much physical strength, but anypony who underestimated her magical prowess might not even live to regret it. Her horn exploded with light, and her attacker went sprawling, but the assassin sprang at her again with all the tenaciousness of a timberwolf.

Just in time, she assembled a shield to fend off the next blow, but her assailant threw a pouch of red powder at her and—

Her eyes! They burned, and Platinum desperately blinked away the haze, but she could see nothing more than a blur. She levitated any vague shape she could find and hurled it at the masked shadow, but then with a shriek, Pallas charged the attacker, slamming it against the floor and punching it ceaselessly. It grunted with each hit, a… a feminine voice. Over and over, until she fell silent. But Pallas wouldn’t stop.

Platinum had given up trying to see anything, but she flared her magic with the loudest noise spell she could muster, and soon enough, some of the castle guard shoved the door open.

She reached out for the moon again. “Thank you,” she breathed amid the sounds of Pallas continuing to screech as the guards dragged her off the assassin’s unconscious body. Her chest heaved, and the adrenaline surge had abated, leaving her lightheaded. She… she needed to finish lowering the moon, as the sun had come up, and it would confuse her subjects, a-and…

A dreadful chill and a wave of nausea overtook her before she blacked out.

Platinum awoke to find Pallas sleeping on the floor beside her bed. She reached out to pat her sister’s head, but then noticed the bandage on her own arm, with a horrid purple bruise seemingly leaking out from underneath. At least it didn’t hurt, but only by virtue of having gone numb.

Taking a deep breath, she savored the feeling of her body sinking into the mattress. As soon as she looked at the clock, she knew, the reality of being hopelessly behind schedule would dominate the remainder of her day.

But look she did, and her heart sank much further into the mattress than the rest of her. Less than an hour until moonrise. She’d missed an entire day of court, who knew how many appointments, and now she’d have to get Sugar Plum in here to see how they could stuff everything back into place.

So she rolled out of bed—next to Pallas on the floor, another blanket, seemingly rumpled and used. She bent low to sniff it.

Aurora’s hyacinth perfume. She’d never mistake that for any other. But time had run short, and Aurora was required at the amphitheater. As would Platinum, normally, and everypony no doubt hoped she wouldn’t have awakened in time, because little in this world could keep her in bed when she had responsibilities to take care of.

Come to think of it, none of her attendants would be expecting her, so none of them would lie in wait to ambush her with the gowns and headdresses and other accoutrement. Just her stole, and she did quite like the look of the coloration Sugar Plum always painted on her lower lip. Perhaps she could approximate it with some of her makeup.

On went the stole, and she kissed the largest star on it. Then just as she silently cracked the door open to skulk away, Pallas stirred.

“Nummy?” she said, wiping her eyes. “You should be in bed.”

“Nonsense. I have a duty to perform, and I won’t sit idly as it passes me by.” She took a step through the doorway and cast a silencing glare at the pair of guards posted outside.

Only then did her equilibrium falter, and Pallas instantly stood at her side, keeping her on her hooves. “The knife was poisoned,” she said, her face blanching, “but the royal physician treated it right away.” With a gulp, she helped Platinum take the first few paces down the corridor. “And I know I’d be wasting my time to tell you to rest, so at least lean on me.”

Perhaps in two ways. “Pallas, would you mind… like last night, add your magic. It would assist greatly, I assure you.”

“Would it really?” Pallas replied with a frown. “I didn’t feel much, just a little chilly. And calm, I guess, like you said.”

“Moonrise is…” All the ostentation, the formality, the upwelling of vitality, not to mention the larger audience. “Moonrise is different.”

Pallas gave her a dubious grin, but then they’d stepped through the door to more than a few gasps, and even the cantor had no trace of thinly veiled disdain at her late arrival. And it struck her. “Who was the assassin?” she hissed in Pallas’s ear, though she’d already discerned the answer. One of the enchantresses’ places should have stood vacant, as one would take Platinum’s role. But a second empty position adjacent to it burned like a solar flare in her sight.

Celadon. Platinum had never quarreled with her. What would drive her to this treachery?

She seethed on her way to the center of the dais, where Aurora stood, but she bit down on her fury and lightly brushed shoulders with Aurora.

“My Lady,” Aurora said hollowly, her mouth agape.

Platinum nodded. “You may resume your place. And thank you for taking the initiative to fill in.”

Aurora bowed her head and blushed before retreating to one of the empty positions. And come to think of it, nopony would dare challenge Platinum on anything right now. “I would like my sister Pallas to occupy the remaining place,” she said aloud, in the decidedly stentorian tones of her station. She gave Pallas a squeeze and whispered, “Go on now. Just follow Aurora’s lead.”

Then the hour struck, and the cantor began his litany.

Even with her eyes shut, Platinum could feel the myriad gazes on her. She would not have the magical energy to bear the moon’s weight tonight, but she could still forge the connection and employ the other enchantresses’ power. The connection itself would suffice for her.

It came more rapidly than she would have anticipated.

“Hello, My Light. It is good to see you again.”

Her previous experience had taught her much. She centered her mind on that dancing point of light behind her eyelids and felt herself slip through it, to the other side. A trance-like state she’d learned as a Chosen years ago and that the enchantresses always used, but one that had a newfound purpose: she could converse in the dream realm without being overheard.

“You sound like you haven’t seen me in days,” Platinum replied.

“Three, to be precise.”

Platinum almost cracked an eye open to peer at Pallas. She’d withheld that particular detail. “I trust you found Aurora a satisfactory replacement?”

“Yes. She is agreeable. But she is not My Light.”

Slowly, Platinum took a breath. As to whether her true body did, she had no way of knowing. “How did you know?”

“I told you, I saw it in her dreams. I can learn much from them. Celadon had dreamt ceaselessly the previous night of impaling you repeatedly, through your heart.”

“And you could not convince her otherwise?” If it were possible, that is.

As if expecting that precise question, the voice immediately responded: “No, I had not considered it before, but I think I can! In fact, it is that which I wish to speak of. Your sister, she…”

Platinum’s back stiffened. If it wanted to spew accusations about Pallas now—

“These last three nights, she has suffered from horrid nightmares, understandably. With your permission, I would like to help.”

Nightmares? But she hadn’t seemed troubled upon waking. “Of course, help her any way you can—”

And Platinum stood in a red-tinted chamber.

She glanced around her, and in the distance—Tartarus, somepony had tackled a figure on the ground and plunged a knife into it over and over. “Stop!” she shouted, but the assailant only grinned at her, so with bared teeth, Platinum shot a magic bolt at it, but it merely dissipated like a swirl of fog. The victim croaked to say something, and Platinum rushed to its side, turned the bloodied head toward her—

Her face. Her own face, staring lifelessly back.

A whimper sounded to her right, and she parted the hanging bowers. Pallas stood there, shaking and sweating profusely.

“I couldn’t save her,” Pallas breathed. “I couldn’t, I couldn’t, I couldn’t…”

“Pallas, you did save me. I am right here.”

Her sister didn’t even look up at her. She only rocked back and forth, but then she gasped, and the figure dove out of the wall.

Platinum caught the streak of motion just in time and sidestepped it, kicking out to strike the knife from its grip. The metal blade clanged across the floor, and the empty-hooved assassin lunged for Platinum’s throat, but no way would Platinum fall to that ploy again. She lowered her head and charged, dodging between the outstretched hooves to stab the point of her horn right at the base of her attacker’s, a chip of bone breaking free. As the assassin howled, Platinum slammed it to the floor and stomped a forehoof as hard as she could to its neck, leaving only an echoing cry of rage to die in the darkness.

She stood panting for a moment. Then she approached her sister again. “See? I live. I live because of you. You did save me.” When Pallas finally diverted her attention from the horizon and met Platinum’s eyes, they hugged. “You are my sister, and I am not going anywhere.”

“N-Nummy?” Pallas said. She blinked, and silver moonlight washed away the red, flooded everything with its peaceful glow.

Platinum blinked as well, but not… not in that place. The cantor had finished, and a low hum of conversation had begun in the audience gallery.

“Thank you,” she whispered to the moon before her connection faded. It could bridge their dreams!

And Pallas came running up to her, tears in her eyes. “I was so scared,” she said, clinging to Platinum’s leg. “But—” she sniffled “—I feel better now.”

“What’s wrong, dear?”

Pallas shook her head. “Just a dumb dream.” Then she positively brightened like a meteor. “I felt it, Nummy! I felt the moon! It was like I could see all over the whole kingdom and—”

More sniffling and tears now, but of a different character. “It was wonderful,” Pallas said with a beatific smile. “Is this what I have to give up when Star Swirl’s alicorns are ready?” That sour note had her lips pursing.

“Come now, Pallas. I do feel a bit overtaxed. Maybe I should rest.” Perhaps lighting her oil lamp would invigorate her a trifle as well.

“Now you listen to me,” Pallas replied with a roll of her eyes, one that would do a teenager proud, and here her sister had only recently turned seven.

The enchantresses had taken up their normal duties at the star charts, and on her way past Aurora’s desk, Platinum just so happened to stumble in her poison-induced weakness. She leaned into the shoulder offered her for support, and she covertly nuzzled Aurora’s neck. “My Ladies,” Aurora said.

“My Heart,” Platinum whispered back.

The council meeting had run unusually smoothly today. The most influential members had deferred to Platinum on almost everything, and if that weren’t enough, they looked happy about it.

“Your sister is not the only one we can help,” the voice had told her on the following night. Almost a month ago now. “And if we do, I believe your subjects would see you in a more beneficial aspect, even if they do not attribute the assistance directly to you. They would associate you with relief from their troubles, and image is everything.”

Perhaps that last part hadn’t sat right with her, but she had to admit, the results had proven dramatic.

On the advice of her physician, she retreated to her room to rest for an hour or so before moonrise. Off with the finery of her rank, then she sparked her oil lamp with her horn and finally melted into her mattress. She hadn’t even noticed her eyelids fluttering shut until—

“Greetings, My Light. I do not often have the good fortune to speak with you during the day.”

Platinum stood on a beautiful lake shore, with waves gently lapping at her hooves. Silver light shone everywhere and reflected off the cascades of leaves behind her like the scales of a titanic serpent. From within a nearby ring of stones, embers glowed a seething red, and a smoky odor of roasting eggplant wafted over. She glanced back across the water, and the moon’s crescent smile danced with the water’s surface like a gentle pas de deux.

“You have lovely dreams,” the voice said.

“I’ve grown practiced at them,” Platinum replied, smiling as if enjoying a private joke and lightly running a hoof along her cheek.

“You must. I cannot recall ever seeing a nightmare of yours.” The voice had tapered off peculiarly, as if it hadn’t finished.

Platinum did have a question, however: “Why don’t you help ponies with their nightmares yourself? Why did you need me to help Pallas?”

“I can merely observe. Only My Light can interact.” Still, it had that unsatisfied tone, like a customer hesitant to send back an undercooked stew.

Platinum could wait. Crickets chanted back and forth from the underbrush, and fireflies drifted above the water’s surface like dandelion seeds. Somewhere down the shore, a bullfrog abandoned its watch and landed with a splash, and soon enough, the moon’s dance on the ripples momentarily took on a new fervor.

“What do you fear?” the voice finally said.

Platinum’s back stiffened, but just as quickly, she relaxed. A singular question, even a potentially alarming one, given the source, but it had said it couldn’t influence her dreams. Besides, it had asked so gently, not as a reporter digging for compromising information, but as a curious lover.

“Apparently not assassins,” Platinum answered wryly. The moon would have to remain unsatisfied on that score.

The waves sloshed a few seconds more, and then the voice returned: “Why do you light that lamp?”

Platinum could imagine a triumphant little smirk accompanying the question. “An old habit. Nothing more.”

Their travails through the dream realm had worked admirably in winning her own people’s support. But that stubborn Commander Hurricane and flighty Chancellor Puddinghead—what if she could win favor with them as well? An interesting thought, but just as she sensed the voice might press her again, the lakeside winked out.

Platinum opened her eyes to a light touch on her shoulder. “My Joy,” Aurora said. Had she come in through the hidden door? “It is about thirty minutes until moonrise.” No, official business. The guards would have let her in the main door.

“Then we still have a little time, My Heart.” Platinum pulled her into a soft kiss, then rolled over to make room on the edge of the bed. With a quick glance toward the door, Aurora smiled and lay down, letting Platinum wrap her arms around her.

Even five minutes of snuggling and kissing the back of her neck and smelling her hyacinth perfume could sustain Platinum forever.

Platinum’s closed eyelids fluttered as she put some force behind her magic. The cantor’s voice sounded dim and distant like wind through a canyon, but the enchantresses around her added their humming. They didn’t have a fixed part to sing; they merely harmonized where they felt inspired to, and fortunately, the ones without sufficient talent to follow by ear tended to remain silent.

She easily picked out Aurora’s lovely mezzo-soprano and smiled. It brought to mind Platinum’s brass oil lamp: bright but warm.

More and more of the outside world faded away, and as it surely would, the moon spoke to her: “I… hesitate to suggest this.”

“What?” Platinum murmured, in case she’d also said it aloud.

“My role is to observe only. Even so, dreams can reveal much that is useful. It enabled me to warn you of the assassin, for example.”

Celadon. Somehow, that ugly business continued to hover past her grasp, something unreal. Of course, the palace guard had confined Celadon to the dungeon ever since, and no doubt interrogated her. Vigorously. Platinum had never thought to visit, to…

To what? They were acquaintances, not friends, but no hostility had ever bloomed between them. To ask her why, Platinum supposed, though she suspected she would find the answer unsettling.

“While assisting dreamers with their nightmares has won you allies, might you take the position of observer as well? Rather than wait for allies to come to you, it would allow you to use the knowledge gained to… influence ponies?”

Cold, down her shoulders, in her chest. It felt like Commander Hurricane’s favorite prank of concealing a small ice storm inside his cape, then unleashing it once Platinum had her back turned. Using dreams in that way, it… it seemed so invasive. She couldn’t resort to blackmail!

The moon lacked the ability to read her mind. She’d already proven that to her satisfaction. Still, it anticipated her objection perfectly: “I do not mean to threaten them with this knowledge, merely to understand how they think—to give you an advantage in negotiation.”

Platinum had just finished deciding she would consider doing so with only two ponies. By calling on negotiation specifically, the voice could have only intended to name those. Was she sure it couldn’t read her mind?

Commander Hurricane and Chancellor Puddinghead. She’d had no end to trouble with them. Yes, if she could find a way…

“Hurricane lies asleep, slumped over a bar table at this very moment. Would you allow me to show you?”

“Yes,” she coughed before she thought better of it. The word tasted horribly acerbic, and she shuddered at it.

But then the blackness behind her eyes lightened into an empty plain, the bare dirt churned up by hooves and wagon wheels, the sounds of clashing metal echoing throughout the morning fog. Tendrils of mist curled about shadowy figures only a short distance away, but above it all came a bellow in a resonant baritone: “Charge!”

The mist parted, and a wall of earth ponies flung themselves into the battle line of… dragons? Clawed forelegs, yes, but not so large. Griffons! But the griffons held the high ground, and they settled behind a row of pavises, largely absorbing the assault. What a foolhardy maneuver! Yet from his command post, Hurricane continued to grin and wring his hooves. Did he not care? The pony army had them vastly outnumbered—he should hold an immense tactical advantage, but he licked his lips like a bloodthirsty timberwolf and relegated himself to winning a battle of attrition. What a brute! All the reports of his successful campaigns, his defensive actions, his endless skirmishes with the griffons and diamond dogs. Had they all run this way? Had Platinum sat in her high castle, blissfully ignorant, throwing her own unicorns into Hurricane’s reckless schemes?

She clenched her jaw. At their next trilateral conference, she would explain some things to him in very blunt terms.

Platinum leaned over the map they’d unfurled across most of the table and brushed the little infantry figures aside. “Does all of your strategy consist of massing your troops in one inelegant knot and ordering them to run at the enemy?”

For a moment, Commander Hurricane’s eyes went unfocused, but then he broke into an eager smile. “Yes, except some of my troops fly. Works every time.”

“I see,” Platinum replied. Across the table, Chancellor Puddinghead tried to suppress a giggle. Platinum subjected her to a particularly withering glare. “It’s mostly your earth ponies who have endured the losses for this tactic. You find that amusing?”

“No,” Puddinghead mumbled, her muzzle drooping toward the floor.

“And as for you—” Platinum swiveled back to Hurricane and grabbed an eraser in her magic. All those dreadful arrows drawn in heavy pencil, parallel to each other and leading right into the griffon defenses, leaden smudges that spelled little beyond unnecessary casualty reports. She rubbed away the offending marks as best she could, as if she might excise even the concept of them from existence. “Have you learned nothing from the diamond dogs’ assault just three months ago?”

As Hurricane scratched his head, Platinum blew the flecks of eraser debris off the paper and sketched a new flurry of movements. “They hold the high ground, but in several of the low places, there are stands of trees that would provide cover.”

“But our ponies would stick out. They’re so brightly—”

“I realize you have an ingrained sense of how formal battle is supposed to occur, but why should you abide by that? Recall how the diamond dogs used camouflage.”

The hoof that had scratched his head now moved to scratch his chin. “But our traditional uniforms—”

“Have gotten far too many ponies killed. You can’t deny the camouflage was effective. We couldn’t accurately determine their numbers, and they made a few dozen soldiers seem like hundreds. Wouldn’t you want to wield that advantage?” A small sparkle of understanding glinted in his eye. And the voice had proven correct. Knowing how he thought gave her priceless insight into how to deal with him. “Besides, you could sneak into those wooded areas overnight, and the ones to the south—” she gestured toward each in turn “—would have them in a crossfire from unicorn magic or archers. You could use that to reduce the return fire on your main ground force, which could even be employed as a feint.”

She assembled a merciless smile. “I have many additional suggestions as well. Perhaps I could formulate a strategy and plot it out for you? Subject to your approval, needless to say.”

“Um… uh, okay.” Hurricane’s forehead wrinkled. “Yes. Yes! I think this would work nicely!” He added a hearty clap to Platinum’s shoulder. Too hearty.

But she’d made her point. And won his obeisance.

She settled back into her chair and tapped a hoof on the eagle’s head carved into the armrest. “We can iron that out later. Now, Chancellor Puddinghead, I believe you had some difficulties with your agricultural policy?”

“I did?”

Puddinghead glanced behind her at Smart Cookie, who nodded.

“I did.”

“Well, then,” Platinum said, “shall we get started? I realize that the more—” she circled a hoof in the air and pursed her lips “—aristocratic tastes of the unicorn tribe have made certain crops more profitable, but to be completely transparent, we don’t really need them. Watercress, carnations, endive, kohlrabi… the list goes on.”

Puddinghead squinted one eye and straightened her collar. “But if ponies pay more for those, the farms get more money for them. What’s wrong with that?”

“Two things: one,” Platinum said, holding up a forehoof and cocking it to the left, “some of those crops take up more acreage per bushel of produce harvested, so while bits per pound is higher, bits per acre might not follow proportionately.” Then she cocked the hoof rightward. “And two, only the unicorns have expressed a preference for those items. The earth ponies and pegasi still largely purchase things like wheat, corn, and rice, which can be grown more densely, but with less of it being produced, the prices are rising. Many cannot afford what they need anymore.”

After continuing to stare for a moment, Puddinghead frowned and looked into her lap, that ridiculous dessert-shaped hat quivering atop her head. “So… you mean… um…”

“Ponies are going hungry.”

Puddinghead whirled around to Smart Cookie. “So that’s what you were trying to tell me the other day?” Another nod from her second in command, and Puddinghead worked her jaw. “What do we do about it? The farmers are making more bits than ever. They won’t give that up willingly, and if I order it…” She leaned across the table and stage-whispered: “We may have a revolt on our hooves.”

In her unadorned chair against the wall, Smart Cookie rolled her eyes.

“I know,” Platinum replied, “but their revenues are rising faster than wages. And even so, that concerns wages only for the farm workers. Other sectors, like the blacksmiths and carpenters, don’t see the same gains, so they can no longer afford as much of those basic crops as they require.”

Puddinghead’s frown deepened, and she stared at the table the way Pallas often stared at a particularly difficult math assignment. “What do we do? I… I can’t tell the farmers not to grow what they can get more money for.”

With a grin, Platinum positioned her last piece for checkmate. “What if I offered your farmers a subsidy? Like I said, luxury items don’t necessarily fetch a higher total revenue, when production rates and sales volumes are taken into account, but where they actually do see a reduction in earnings, I will pay them the difference to keep producing those three staples at the same levels they did, say, two years ago.”

Judging by the size of her gape, Platinum had Smart Cookie’s full attention now. Even Puddinghead had whipped around to face her again, and at Smart Cookie’s vigorous nod, sans eye roll this time, Puddinghead smiled. “Wow, you’re good at this! I should just get your help with it from now on!”

Meeting adjourned then, and no need to dally. Platinum levitated the troop markers into their little wooden box and rolled up the map before sliding both over to Hurricane. But Puddinghead angled her head slightly to the side and wrinkled her brow. “Why would you do that, though? You don’t have to, and I don’t get how it helps your tribe any.”

“I care for all my ponies,” Platinum said. Without making eye contact and while still closing up her agenda book and stowing her quill set, as if it were no big deal. “My” ponies, the voice had told her to say. Quite an ingenious construction, she’d judged, subtly insinuating possession under the guise of concern. Nopony had questioned her on it, not even Smart Cookie.

Yes, observing dreams had taught her rather a lot.

The voice had remained strangely silent during that evening’s moonrise, and through Platinum’s preparations for a night’s rest, too. It couldn’t converse as readily outside of her dreams, but it would normally at least greet her.

So she had toiled at her jewelry until the hearth had burned down to embers, then lit her oil lamp for an hour or so to provide her enough light to read and settle her mind. At some point, the words on the page had swirled and blurred, the black ink obscuring her sight, and then with a timid breath she emerged on the other side of it and stared at the stars overhead from a moonlit meadow.

The voice was with her. It said nothing, but she felt its presence.

During the day, she had nothing but company, most of it unwelcome. However, the night could bring a melancholy loneliness with it, one which Aurora’s duties prevented her from alleviating. If only—no, Pallas had said it well: the exclusivity of their service to the moon proved alluring. Aurora would not give it up any more readily than Platinum would. But when the moon itself served as that company…

She let out a sigh and fluffed the moonlight about her shoulders as if it were a plush wrap. The first chill of autumn had crept into the air, yet a pleasant warmth suffused her body.

“You wish to ask me something,” Platinum said as she ran a hoof through her curls. Something about the soft feel of it—during the day, she would never dare touch her mane, but in dreams, it never failed to stay perfectly styled.

“My Light, you have become quite powerful these last months. Even Commander Hurricane and Chancellor Puddinghead defer to you in matters they used to govern.”

A frown crept across Platinum’s face. She’d had enough nobles in her court to recognize a litany of her achievements as a preamble for a request. Yet the voice had never become obsequious before, only warm, companionable, tender… intimate.

“I do not wish to try your patience, My Light.”

Again, it had seemed to read her mind. Except she knew it couldn’t, ever since it had asked her what she feared.

“I feel I could do more. However, I currently serve more as an advisor, whispering in your ear much like Clover the Clever. I also realize how fatiguing this can all be. Dreams make for restful slumber, normally, but not so much when your day’s work carries into them.”

Platinum did find she required a nap before moonrise more often recently. Helping her subjects in their nightmares had taxed her stamina, though late afternoon naps had proven a great comfort, particularly when she shared them with Aurora. “I don’t see what other role you can serve.”

“And serve you I do. You are My Light, My Radiance, my incarnation among the people of this world. Without you, I am nothing. If I allow harm to come to you, I allow it to come to myself. Please, please let me be your life, your soul, so that you may draw my strength as if your own.”

Only now did it occur to Platinum: if she had found the moon distasteful, how would she ever rid herself of it? If she stepped down as High Enchantress, would it depart from her? Or voluntarily leave her in peace?

Peace. Peace and stillness: the moon’s hallmark. Who would ever reject that?

“I assure you, I have already found strength in your counsel,” Platinum replied. She imagined Pallas, attempting a different approach in asking for another cookie after dinner. She chuckled at the thought, but what was the voice even asking?

“I could serve you as regent.”

“Regent.” Before she had uttered the word, her back stiffened. “You wish to replace me?”

“No, no, I could not, I cannot. A regent takes on the burden, to help, when… when a sovereign cannot, or desires not, or—” Never before would Platinum have considered whether a disembodied voice could cry, but the moon sounded on the verge of tears. “I asked you once what you feared. I fear for you.”

Platinum stood in silence and watched the grass ripple. She’d delegated before, to Clover, to Aurora. But delegating herself, or—how would that even work? “Do I stand aside? I’m not sure I relish the prospect of being possessed—”

“No, you misunderstand, My Light!” the voice erupted with the alacrity of a foal opening a birthday gift. “I would never supplant you. Just embrace me! Embrace me as you would your sister, and I will carry you, give you the rest and peace and stillness you deserve. When you are weary, I will strengthen you. When you hurt, I will comfort you. When you wish solitude, I will go.”

At that last one, Platinum jerked her gaze up to the moon. A reassuring sentiment, certainly. “I will think about it.”

“Thank you, My Light.”

Platinum hadn’t said yes, but she hadn’t turned the moon’s request aside, either. She must have conspired to make that a tacit acknowledgement: her vitality had increased markedly in the few weeks since. Perhaps things had worked out fortuitously in this case, gradually introducing her to what this… partnership could do. She became less aware of the dreamers they aided and the information they learned, presumably because she was actually able to rest while sleeping now, but it hadn’t diminished the results in the least.

“You oafish lummox!” she barked across the table at Commander Hurricane. “If you think forming a defensive line against the griffons with cannons is a good idea—look,” she said, running her hoof over the map, “I realize the earth ponies are strong enough to haul them through the lowland, but it gets swampy this time of year, and the mud would slow them down terribly. It would take at least two pegasi per cannon to airlift them, but against the griffons, who all fly, you can’t spare the aerial troops!”

He opened his mouth to respond, then frowned.

“Honestly, you’re trying to use the same tactics you did against the diamond dogs. It worked wonderfully against them, but you have to adapt to the unique capabilities of each opponent. It’s like you’re inexperienced at coordinating an army of more than just pegasi.”

He shared a glance with Private Pansy, who whimpered and sank to her haunches. She didn’t even warrant a chair—none of the seconds did. Platinum had dismissed Clover to go help Star Swirl with some secret project anyway.

For his part, Hurricane looked down and gave a quick nod. Good thing he was still open to correction.

“And you,” she said to Chancellor Puddinghead, her words spitting venom. “Who told you to raise prices on carrots? After we finally got grain under control, the last thing we need is another scare that basic food is becoming unaffordable. The people will deal better with a shortage than feeling like yet another staple might rise to a luxury item!” The ineffectual simpleton gulped at her, but Smart Cookie fired back a glare that could have peeled the varnish off the door.

Hurricane and Puddinghead had proven malleable. Private Pansy would rather hide than argue, and Clover was already trained to do whatever Platinum told him. But that Smart Cookie. What to do about her? Platinum had never gotten a sense of whether Smart Cookie merely had Puddinghead’s ear or had realized she could manipulate her superior from the shadows. Unless Puddinghead trusted her and… listened to her. Such a deadly show of weakness would never fly in Unicornia.

Platinum thumped her sheaf of papers on the table and stood abruptly, her chair catching on the edge of the rug and toppling backward. “I have run out of time to deal with this for today. Moonrise is in an hour.”

With a toss of her mane, she stalked out the door, and at least three attendants immediately fell into formation around her. Sugar Plum, the head guard, and her chambermaid, whose name she couldn’t recall. She undid the clasp on her robe and let it slip off her shoulders. One of them would pick it up.

So frigid in these hallways. They’d had first frost two days ago, and the feeble sunlight today had failed to bake the night’s accumulation of hoar off the stained glass windows. It spread like a fungus, and Platinum swore she could hear it pop and snap as it took advantage of the sun’s retreat.

No matter. The hearth in her bedchamber would have a cheery blaze stoked up by now.

One by one, the portraits of her forebears filed past. She would make them proud. She hadn’t constructed a new castle here and brought her inheritance with her just so she could lie atop it like a dusty old mattress and let fate take her according to its whims.

The pair of guards posted at her door opened it, and only the chambermaid entered with her. She had the robe draped over a foreleg and immediately moved to stow it in the wardrobe.

As the door clicked shut behind them—the hearth stood there, as gray and cold as an ossuary.

“I thought I ordered a fire—”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“—and at this rate, I shan’t have any hot water for a bath before the moonrise ceremony—”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

The empty-headed fool had begun trembling, and she busied herself with dusting the furniture. “Well? That won’t warm the room, I daresay. Do something to rid me of the horrendous chill,” Platinum said with a shiver.

The chambermaid sparked a flint in the hearth and lit the small pile of kindling, then set two dry logs over it. The cauldron floated over to the water pump, and its ghastly screeching sounded like a banshee summoning her to her death, but she could do little except climb under her covers and grit her teeth. If that low-class idiot had any sense, she’d have left the cauldron on its hook over the fire and brought the water to it one batch at a time, using the ewer by the washbasin, but now she had the pleasure of levitating several hundred pounds of water by herself. Fortunately, she had the wherewithal to keep her horn lit after she’d exhausted herself, adding what energy she could to get the water heated more quickly. Platinum finally stopped shivering.

While the fire matured, the chambermaid went back to her routine, swishing the feather duster over everything. From the bookshelf to the desk to the windowsill. Platinum’s back knotted as the servant lifted up the brass oil lamp. Her neck constricted, her breath wheezed the same way they always did. Then a muttered voice: “Wish I was anywhere but here…”

The insolent harridan! Platinum’s eyes blazed, and her horn stripped all the shadows from the room, banished them to the corners, gathered them up and flung them at the offending words. The mare didn’t even have time to turn.

A search for the chambermaid had turned up nothing. Not too surprising, but there was a small chance she’d remained around the castle somewhere. Chambermaids came in endless supply, however, and another had stepped in to fill the vacancy. And with an hour to go until moonrise, a pleasant fire crackled.

From the back wall came a whisper of oiled hinges, and Aurora stepped into the room. “My Heart!” Platinum said, practically springing from the bed. After such a day, she hadn’t expected a ray of moonlight to refresh her.

“My Joy,” Aurora responded, clasping hooves with her.

Platinum kissed her, hard.

“My word!” Aurora said. “What brought this on?”

“Those two bunglers taxed my patience to no end today—” another kiss “—but I put them in their place. Slack-jawed ruffians and morons—” yet another, more forceful, and she held it until she had to breathe again “—will soon find they have little power anymore.”

Aurora’s smile faltered.

“It’s useful to keep them as figureheads, but I only let them do the mundane things they couldn’t possibly fail at.”

Aurora braced a hoof on Platinum’s chest and pushed back slightly. “Wh-what… what happened to your ‘realm of equals’ you always used to speak of?”

“Oh, don’t be so naive. Most of the people are equal, right down where they should be.”

Platinum leaned in for another kiss, but Aurora had turned her head; she caught Aurora on the side of her mouth. “Come now,” she said, tugging Aurora toward the bed. “We have yet half an hour before we must report for the ceremony. We could both use a nap first.” Platinum gave another tug, but Aurora lagged behind, lurching with each pull. “Come.”

She lay down, her arm curled around Aurora, and kissed her neck, her ear. That spot right at the bottom of it, where she dabbed on her hyacinth perfume each morning, and she often replenished it before sneaking in here.

“Y-your new chambermaid,” Aurora said. “How is she working out? Have they found out what happened to Sterling Platter?”

“Oh, was that her name?” Platinum replied. She paused and creased her brow. “I don’t know. And the new one is fine. Interchangeable parts.” Then she let her head fall to the pillow and closed her eyes. Such lovely warmth against her. She imagined herself snuggled under a heavy woolen blanket with Aurora, in the park, with the gentle snowflakes dancing in the moonlight. Every little sound, sponged up by the minute crystals, and only the breathing in her ear let her know she wasn’t alone in the universe. Then from the stage, the music began, and Pallas’s voice rang out clear and pure, like a burst of snow melt cascading down the alpine heights.

Platinum awoke to an empty room. She’d had a wonderful dream, but the voice hadn’t said anything. It didn’t speak to her in dreams anymore. It had no need—it was with her now, part of her.

Almost time. She strode from her room, and Sugar Plum matched her pace from a side hall, a tributary merging with the flow. Platinum fixed her head level as Sugar Plum applied the rouge and mascara, while the other attendants fitted her gown and headdress about her.

Funny, she’d never really enjoyed this process before, but if she thought about it, she could treat it more like a spa appointment. Everypony fussing over her because the most important function in the realm could not happen without her. “The purple gown today?” she asked. “I prefer the blue one.”

“Yes, Your Highness, but purple is traditional for Fridays,” one of the young attendants answered.

“Ah.” Then she rubbed a hoof at her shoulder. “My stole—I left it in my room. Somepony go back and get it.” After a modicum of hushed conversation, one of them rushed off.

Platinum had always eschewed the ornamental shoes that came with the regalia, but perhaps she should embrace the full pageantry. Perhaps tomorrow. She’d endured as many delays as possible already. Sugar Plum held the brush with the blood-red pigment in her magic, and it wouldn’t do to have it crooked or jagged, so she stopped, and whoever had departed earlier now galloped up and tossed the stole over Platinum’s shoulder.

She held a hoof out to stall Sugar Plum and kissed the large star on her stole. No need to stain it. Then she nodded as the protocol chief painted her bottom lip. She waited a moment, breathed across it to help it dry, then resumed her walk to the amphitheater.

On her way to the center of the dais, she brushed past Aurora. “My Heart,” she breathed. A quick glance—had Aurora’s mascara run?

“Your Highness,” she replied. Quietly enough that nopony would have overheard it, had she said anything else. Aurora kept her gaze fixed on the floor, and if Platinum wasn’t mistaken, she trembled.

“What’s wrong?” Platinum whispered, but Aurora only set her jaw.

The cantor had started anyway, so Platinum began her humming and concentrated on her magic. No mezzo-soprano resonated from beside her. She couldn’t hear Pallas’s voice from among the Chosen, either. Her nerves tingled. What had happened? They should both adore her now, revel in the moon. They were of the select, the elite who had earned the right to participate in this singular ritual, and the most important pony in all Equestria held them both dear. Who could want more?

C-calm. She needed the calmness, the stillness. She wrapped herself in the moonlight, squeezed her eyes shut fiercely, and grasped for that peace.

“My Light.”

No longer like a memory—it pealed throughout the sky. Had everypony heard it? If so, they… they would know! They would hear it for themselves, leave no doubt that she held this mandate.

But the cantor hadn’t paused, the enchantresses and Chosen who had decided to hum along did not stop, no gasps sounded from the audience gallery.

“What did happen to your chambermaid?”

Platinum made no reply. Even as inseparable as they had become, it still didn’t share her thoughts. The minutes dragged by.

“It is not important how,” it said at length, “but I did not expect that of you. I am impressed. If you are willing… I believe others are plotting against you as well.”

More traitors?

Somehow, Pallas had gotten to Platinum’s room first after the ceremony.

Platinum gave her a broad grin and went about lighting the oil lamp on her windowsill. Pallas waited patiently and silently, but she wore a shallow frown. What could have her upset? She should be worrying about getting her cutie mark, and though her beautiful singing voice had gone absent this evening, each time she did use it, she got a little closer. It wouldn’t be long now.

She let out a mirthless sigh.

“What has you bothered?” Platinum finally asked.

After several false starts, Pallas spoke up. “You’ve changed. You’re angry all the time, and you’re not very nice to ponies. What happened?”

Angry? No, she’d found unequaled peace! The harmony of the moon and—she sat on the bed and patted the mattress next to her. When Pallas had joined her, she took a deep breath. “I don’t know what you mean. You’ve felt it yourself, yes? The unsurpassed calmness and peace of the moon. I’ve found it! I’ve found it better than ever before, and I want to share it with you! Isn’t it wonderful?”

Pallas looked away. “Y-yes, I did feel peaceful during moonrise. I’m glad you let me try being an enchantress that one moonset, and thank you for teaching me how to feel the connection during moonrise.” Then she abruptly stood. “But you don’t look peaceful. And you sure don’t treat anypony else like you’re peaceful, not lately.”

Her breath choked off, Platinum could only gape.

“Aurora talks to me, too. She doesn’t like who you’ve become.” Pallas licked her lips as if she had more to say, but she settled for a quick hug, and she ran from the room.

“Your Highness,” Aurora had said.

Aurora and… and Pallas. Had they turned against her, too? Would she have to do something about them?

No. No, no, no, please no.

Star Swirl had asked Platinum to include one of the young alicorns in the moonrise ceremony earlier that night. He had said they were ready to begin learning that role, and the young mare took to it eagerly, a beatific smile on her face the entire time. She even sang along with the cantor, softly. They had intended her to replace Platinum alone, or so she had thought. Now it appeared she might replace them all.

And Luna, as she had introduced herself, stood between Platinum and Aurora. Would she also stand between Platinum and the moon?

“Will I still be ‘My Light?’” Platinum breathed into the air. She received no reply.

When she arrived back at her bedchamber, she once again heard a familiar humming through the door. It sounded like one of the songs her court composer had invented for the upcoming one-year anniversary of their triumph over the windigoes, an event that she and Hurricane and Puddinghead had elected to dub “Hearth’s Warming.”

Her guard closed the door behind her, and Pallas turned to her with a pleading look, one which had become all too common, practically a nightly ritual. “Nummy, I wish you’d listen to me.”

Curious choice of words, not that it’d make a difference. But when had Pallas grown up so much?

Platinum walked around the implied question and lit her lamp. She burned it almost daily, though she didn’t have to—just the aesthetics of it felt right. “I do listen to you.”

“But you’ve been manp—manplu… controlling everypony around you. If even I can see it…”

The moon thought nopony would notice. But if ponies did notice and still wouldn’t challenge her on it, wasn’t that better? A clearer indication of where she stood with them?

“Please stop,” Pallas said. Her own sister! Why would she question this?

With a ragged sigh, Platinum covered her eyes. “I don’t expect you to understand, but you will. I’m pleased at how you’ve matured, but you still have much to learn, particularly in how we need to deal with the treachery of friends. Or have you forgotten that one of my own unicorns tried to kill me?” Odd, Platinum seemed to have forgotten that as well. Presumably, Celadon still languished in some fetid corner of the dungeon.

“How could I forget that?” Pallas erupted, clutching her head and smearing her tears across her face. “I was so scared, and I thought I’d lost you, and it gave me horrible nightmares!”

“I know—” No, Pallas wouldn’t have known that was actually Platinum in her dreams. “I know how hard that must have been for you. But we learn from our mistakes, and we never make them again. I trusted too many ponies, and now I look out for my own interests. And that includes you. If—” her voice trembled, and she might have slapped herself for that show of weakness “—if Aurora al-also…”

“I like her,” Pallas whimpered. “She loves you, and I love you, and she makes you somepony I love even more.”

Platinum started back from the windowsill to put on her nightgown, but Pallas stood in the way, so she shoved her sister aside roughly, and Pallas yelped as the sharp corner of the bedpost struck her.

“You’re not the Nummy I know!” Pallas screeched, rubbing her injured arm. “I want my sister back!”

Instantly, Platinum was upon her, pinning her to the mattress. “Don’t you mouth off to me!” Platinum shrieked. “You just want to usurp what’s mine! High Enchantress, Princess, My Light!”

She kept a foreleg pressed across Pallas’s chest while raising the other. Her teeth ground, her heart raced, she squeezed her eyes shut until they hurt, and then she finally looked again.

Pallas stared back, her lip quivering and her eyes wide as if an Ursa Major had just charged her. Her throat spasmed, and she coughed out, “Wh-what is ‘My Light?’”

Platinum blinked, and her own eyes widened. She fought to breathe, trembling uncontrollably at the sight below her: Pallas, in abject terror of her. Not her own sister…

She gagged and nearly vomited, biting down on her tongue to keep any more words in, but her teeth: pointed, sharp. Her own blood painted her lower lip as skillfully as Sugar Plum ever could, and it dripped onto the sheets, next to… next to the trickle from Pallas’s arm. Her own sister!

As loud as she could, Platinum screamed into the night, staggered over to the windowsill, clutched at her skull, where the things told her what to do to Pallas, but she wouldn’t! She swung out with a hoof and smashed her lamp off its perch, sending flaming oil across the floor. Fire licked at her hooves, and she picked up the lamp in her magic, beating it against the wall, though it didn’t so much as scratch the finish, but no matter—she poured the last trace of its contents on her face, at the base of her horn, and it burned, so sweetly, so purely that it wrenched her into a moment of clarity. Peaceful, like the moon, while enduring the sun.

Pallas flung a blanket over her and tried to beat the conflagration away. Platinum was sure she’d told Pallas to run, to get out of danger, to save herself, but another blanket and another piled on, small hooves pounding at the flames, and the guards burst in.

The darkness, the red, red darkness in her little smothering domain! Had it come to this? Had she failed the moon so utterly that she’d never feel its chill again? If only she had done what it asked, rid herself of Aurora, of Pallas, but she couldn’t, she couldn’t, and it had judged her unworthy. She could accept it with peace as her final act in service to her silver-faced sister from the heavens, be My Radiance one last time.

Then her consciousness finally surrendered to the seething red.

It sounded like water.

As children, Platinum’s mother would place her and Pallas in the bath together, and they would duck their heads beneath the bubbly froth to call to each other underwater. Pallas would giggle about it endlessly, but the sound of it always put Platinum in mind of a dream, the way it felt both distant and eminently present at once. She could have listened to it forever, its strange echo, until she remembered her need to breathe, and perhaps continued to stay submerged a bit too long as her ears rang and her vision sparkled.

It sounded like water: “My Light?”

Platinum gasped. She quickly lifted her head off the pillow, but immediately realized the mistake of it. Her skull throbbed, and her horn felt like somepony had scoured it with sandpaper.

“My Light?”

Even under the thick covers, Platinum shivered. “I am sorry. I failed you,” she said.

“No! You could never fail me! You are My Light! I love you like a child—you are very dear to me.”

“But I didn’t—” She didn’t what? Everything in her memory felt like looking through a tangle of cobwebs.

“Just rest. I am so happy that you are alright! If anything had happened…”

“I’m alright?” Platinum attempted to lift her head again and glance herself over, but she had no more success than before. She didn’t feel alright.

“I will let your physician tell you, but yes.”

She managed to roll onto her side, and more of the familiar entered her view: the large mahogany wardrobe, her jewelry work table, her full-length mirror. She was in her own room! And there on the floor beside her bed, Pallas slumbered all wrapped up in a blanket, with a thin frown on her face. The foreleg protruding out had a thick bandage on it.

Only then did a flint-spark dance on her memory: fire, all around. A heat of righteous fury, but only a trace of black showed on the stone floor. None of the furniture burned that she could see, but the end of the bed curved out of her vantage, and one of the area rugs had disappeared.

At least her arms didn’t throb as badly as her head, so she lifted the covers a bit and patted around her body. Some bandages, but nothing too extensive. She would live, apparently, but for what? To face the moon’s judgment again? She still couldn’t dredge up any sense of her transgression.

Pallas stirred, and Platinum cast a gentle smile upon her. “Good morning, Sister.”

Such an expansive grin! “Nummy!” she called as she sprang up and locked Platinum in a hug. But she flinched back. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“No, dear, I’m actually feeling reasonably well, despite a rather persistent headache. I’m told I will be alright?”

“Who told you?” Pallas asked, but Platinum simply made a vague gesture toward the door, which she seemed to accept. “Yeah, just superficial burns, and in a couple weeks, you’d never know by looking. The worst was the burn around your horn, but it’ll heal, too, and—” she leaned in as if sharing a secret “—it shouldn’t scar.”

Of course Pallas knew that would concern her, but suddenly Platinum felt a bit ashamed for it. As her eyes drifted down, she saw no sign of an additional blanket on the floor. With the salve on her burns giving off its scent, she might not have noticed any other smells, but for want of a trace of hyacinth, she did peer across the floor one more time.

Pallas backed off a half-pace, and her lip trembled. “What was that? It was like you were somepony else.”

Yes, Platinum had that sense as well, but still without a realization of why. “A-Aurora…?”

Pallas shook her head gravely. “I’m sorry. She’s gone.” Then she leaned back in for another hug. “I still believe in you, though.”

And she always would, if Platinum had a voice in the matter. But Aurora… She held back tears as long as she could; it only served to intensify the hammering on her temples, so she stopped trying, and she shook against Pallas’s shoulder. With a heavy breath, Pallas squeezed her.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Platinum said. “Of all the rare and beautiful things in the royal treasury, you are the one that means the most to me. If I could, I would tell you so much—I want you by my side, as much as I wanted… Aurora…” She couldn’t say any more. In time, in time she would tell all, she would let her sister join her in the most wonderful secret she had ever discovered, and they could raise the moon side by side, in front of their entire nation. The unicorn princesses, the only ones granted the moon’s favor and the mandate to bring peace to all tribes. Aurora would see as well, her fears misplaced and her confidence in her lover restored. All this, if only she refused to cede her lunar duties.

A soft knock at the door—Platinum sniffled and wiped away her tears. “Yes?”

“May I speak with you?” a male voice said through the door. No mistaking that resonant tenor: Star Swirl. He would have made a good cantor, too.

“Enter.” But not only did Star Swirl stride in—he had the two young alicorns in tow!

“It is a great relief to see you in this good a condition,” he said with a nod. However, he still had a darkness cast about his brow. “I have concerns.” Leave it to him to employ such a blunt instrument.

“As do I,” Platinum replied. She sat up, never loosing her embrace on Pallas, and while the effort did her headache no modicum of good, it did bring a moment of clarity. Along with that having been the case sometime else recently, but the reason why continued to elude her, to tease her.

No matter.

“I have overextended myself. Not only with my injury, but I believe I had done so anyway. It is time to cede some authority back to the other tribal leaders.” Her chest seethed. It boiled at that naked show of traitorous wickedness, but she swallowed it down, knit her eyebrows, and felt the world surge.

Star Swirl had stood like an eager recruit at his first dress inspection, but presently he relaxed his drawn posture. “Good,” he said. “Good.” He turned to his left and beckoned the darker alicorn forward. “This is Luna. She will be taking over the moon ceremonies. I thought it would be a good idea for you two to discuss it.”

Yes, the council had decided that many months ago. No more cantor, no more enchantresses, no more Chosen—next to her, Pallas let out a small sob at the finality of it, but they had all agreed. And thus went the last reason Aurora might wish to remain.

She should not allow this, should not abide all these challenges to her authority! It was clear what Star Swirl wanted, but no, she would not give those oafs Hurricane and Puddinghead back any power, she would not allow this novice upstart to raise her moon. Had Star Swirl masterminded this? Did he want Pallas on the throne and Platinum in the dungeon, or better yet, succumbed to her mortal injuries? She glanced at Star Swirl’s saddlebag—had he brought a weapon? Some poison? Maybe Pallas had maneuvered everypony into this subterfuge—

“N-Nummy?” her sister said with a clear note of urgency.

Her arm had tightened about Pallas’s neck, and a warm embrace had nearly turned into a stranglehold. She loosened it at once, and she trembled fiercely. Nothing made sense anymore! Perhaps she should have died in that fire.

She sniffled. “I’m sorry, Pallas.” With a meager offering of an apologetic smile, she withdrew her arm entirely. “You should go attend to your studies. But please do come back to see me after lunch.” Studies. She still had her normal coursework, but the Chosen curriculum would be cancelled, her hours shifted back to the daytime like everypony else. No more of the intrigue, the mystery, the uniqueness all of them in the moon’s service had enjoyed.

Star Swirl gave Pallas a pat on her withers as she walked past, then he guided the other alicorn—Celestia, if Platinum remembered correctly—out with him, leaving Luna to watch her.

Only now, while propped up, could Platinum see her brass lamp lying on the floor, past the foot of the bed. Luna followed her gaze there. “I was told,” she said in a voice reminiscent of frost—cool, yes, but not aloof, more quiet and enveloping, “thou wouldst not permit anypony to touch it. Thou wert most insistent.”

And for good reason. “It will not hurt for it to remain there for a day. I will put it back when I feel I can move about.”

“Three days,” Luna stated plainly.

That long?

Luna opened her mouth, breathed the beginnings of a word, then started anew: “I know something of the moon.”

Did she really know? Had she divined what the voice told her about Hurricane and Puddinghead, how she had…?

Platinum rubbed the bridge of her nose. The moon had accompanied her for a long time now, even since those gentle silver rustlings during her Chosen classes as a filly. She hadn’t realized it at the time, of course, but now the whispers she’d dismissed as a draft or a classmate rang clear in her mind: “My Light.” All of it had led to last night—no, three nights ago, unless Luna had misled her. But what had happened that night, when a lifetime of inculcation had driven her to… what? She’d dashed her lamp across the floor, surrendered herself to immolation, yet her sister had saved her life yet again, and she understood that, but what had made her do it, and why?

“The moon granteth us peace,” Luna said, her voice a decidedly low contralto for her age. “That is all I desire for everypony. And especially for thee.” She strode forward and wore the first smile Platinum had ever seen on her. Such a serious and studious pony, or had Platinum mistaken peace for a lack of passion? “Thou hast been such a faithful steward of the moon for thine entire life. Thou hast earned a respite, but please, I do not intend to replace thee. I must assume the function, but not the spirit. If thou ever wishest to attend me while I raise the moon, I would welcome the companionship.”

Respite? Not even the dream world gave her rest anymore. Only on the rare nights she awoke from a shallow, dreamless sleep did she feel refreshed. She sank into her pillow. Rest it must be. They had agreed, the council had, anyway, that no one race should control something as crucial as the sun and moon.

They had also decided, against Platinum’s vehement exhortations, to neuter the ritual of its ceremony completely.

“I must say, I disagreed with the decision to make my duties a more private affair,” Luna said, poking her muzzle diffidently at the patch of sky through the window. Curious, she had voiced no objections during the council session.

“You could have said something.”

Platinum expected one of the eye rolls for which Pallas had developed such a proficiency, but once again, Luna’s maturity belied her youthful stature. “I am the newcomer Star Swirl hath shoved into the middle of things. My sister Celestia hath it no easier, though she is much more skilled at the linguistic arts needed to smooth over times of change. I fear that if I injected myself into the argument, ponies would oppose me on principle.”

And she was probably correct.

“Still, I think that if I requested a special public display on the winter solstice, nopony would object.”

“A reasonable demand,” Platinum said. Luna winced at that choice of word, but she let it go. Yes, somepony who devoted that much of her life to performing a vital function deserved more than to fade into the darkness and be forgotten, relegated to casting in isolation what all should revere.

Luna took another breath. “The few ceremonies I was able to join—” she gulped and looked directly at Platinum “—as practice—”

“Rest assured, I understood your presence there, and I enjoyed introducing another to it.” Like Pallas, Luna had positively beamed at her first taste of the gentle frosty touch and the joined voices of all around her.

And before Platinum had finished speaking, Luna already began nodding. “Yes! The community, the harmonic singing, not by set part, but by each one’s inspiration! The audience watching, the Chosen in their elegant dance steps and decorations and fragrant boughs of cedar, accents of lavender…” Her voice had risen, and when she finally caught herself, she sighed. “I do not give that up lightly, and even less willingly. I sense it is the bonds between ponies that mattereth the most, and of all the rites and traditions this nation hath cultivated and preserved, sometimes pointlessly, that one most expresseth the embodiment of our strength. It giveth the clearest buttress of who we are.”

Despite herself, Platinum wept softly. Something so beautiful should not die, but to her credit, Luna understood, even shared Platinum’s mindset so thoroughly. What used to happen every night, reduced to an annual event. Ponies would cease to care.

As much as the moon had, Luna seemed to anticipate Platinum’s thoughts to the point she did momentarily consider whether either one could sense them. Perhaps they did make a fitting pair.

Did Luna want the headdresses, the gowns, the cosmetics? Would she take pride in the blood-red tint of her lower lip only she could wear?

“Can I present you with my stole?” Platinum asked. “It would be a shame to have it go to waste.”

Luna smiled. “I shall hang it in my bedchamber.”

She closed her eyes momentarily. But something didn’t feel right…

Luna had picked up her lamp to set it back on the windowsill. Platinum gritted her teeth. “I ordered that nopony touch—”

But Luna held up a hoof, the lamp cradled in her foreleg. “Please. I mean no harm. I just want to restore everything to the way it should be.” With a sigh, she laid it on the stone but left her hoof on it. “I only wish I could bear thy burden for thee.”

No, the… the red-hot fury ignited in her chest again, and Platinum’s horn blazed, the charred hair around its base cracking free, and then—

Wh-what?

Had Platinum heard a noise? Luna stood there, shaking her head at the floor as if an errand had slipped her mind “Did I just…?” But she lost whatever she meant to say. Quickly, Platinum snapped her gaze to her lamp, but Luna hadn’t taken it. Still it sat, undisturbed, in front of the window.

Yes, Luna, the alicorn who would take over the moon rituals. It seemed fuzzy, but to Platinum’s recollection, nothing interesting had ever happened with those. Learning the Chosen catechism, becoming appointed enchantress, participating in the horribly monotonous ceremonies. As a filly, she used to fancy conversing with the moon, but the silly imaginings of childhood had become eclipsed by the realities of adulthood. The moon could talk no more than the clock on the wall, and any sort of bond that she fantasized as giving her…

Peace. Calmness, stillness. Why did those words stick in her head? “I apologize,” she said to Luna, “I just had the strangest sense of… I don’t know what.”

“I-I, too,” Luna replied with a vacant stare, but she shook it off and turned to leave.

“I may attend a moonrise occasionally for nostalgia’s sake, but I always found raising the moon to be so… uneventful.”

“I hope I will like the moon.” Luna nodded, the dazed pallor still on her face, and then she was gone. Platinum could finally rest.

Only a few weeks until Hearth’s Warming, and Chancellor Puddinghead had nearly finished planning the festivities. In the spirit of togetherness, they would even bring a holiday dinner down to any prisoners in the dungeon.

Upon hearing her friend make the suggestion, Platinum blanched, and it had taken her a good ten minutes until she could stand without feeling vertigo. She had forgotten all about Celadon.

A mere hour later, Platinum stood on the spiral staircase leading into the depths, a tray of roast squash, mushrooms, cranberry cobbler, and fresh cider hovering in her magic. Not Hearth’s Warming yet, but the back of her mind had pricked at her to indulge her former colleague.

“Celadon?” she said as she approached the cell door.

Something stirred in the far corner—a head lifted. Her teeth gleamed in the moonlight. “The false god brings me a gift?”

Instinctively, Platinum backed up a step. The rigid grin, the stiff posture… What had happened to her? The guards hadn’t tortured her, had they? No, they wouldn’t dare. “Turnkey?” she called back up the stairs.

“Yes, Your Highness?” floated down the stairs.

“How many times was Celadon interrogated?”

Pages flipped in the logbook and: “Never. Cap’n noted she was ‘out of her gourd,’ as the earth ponies say, and we wouldn’t get anything useful out of her.”

Platinum stepped forward to the door again and slid the tray through the gap at the bottom. “I brought something for you.”

Celadon’s teeth clicked together. “The false god, the deliverer of faithless prophecies.”

Sliding a chair over, Platinum let out a sigh. Through the barred window, the moon hung suspended from the stars. She had thought to assemble the Chosen and enchantresses and cantor once more and raise the moon for old times’ sake, and while the idea had instantly sent a thrill up her spine, she quickly realized that it had never been anything but a chore. Pallas certainly had no interest and seemed rather relieved that she would never have to. Besides, Luna raised the moon from her private balcony, so they couldn’t convene the whole ceremony anyway. Plus the council might see it as seditious. So Platinum had let it drop.

“The moon only wishes to bring us peace and stillness,” Celadon prattled from her shadowy corner.

It seemed the Captain was right: Celadon’s mind had succumbed to madness. But peace and stillness… they felt right.

“Why did you do it?” Platinum asked through her yawn.

Celadon stood, stalked to the door, pressed her face against the bars. “Peace. Peace and peace, and I only wanted to bring you peace, the peaceful serenity anypony shows while lying in their casket.” Still she wore her grotesque smile. “She said you would find peace that way, eternal peace, and I would be her messenger.”

Her ears perking, Platinum set her jaw. “Who told you?”

“The moon, the moon, the silky silver sliver crescent ascent in her perfect light and her perfect peace.”

Pointless ravings. Poor thing, but it served no purpose to continue listening to her.

“She calls me ‘My Light.’”

Platinum paused, her whole body tingling. That name, that name, it meant… she had heard…

And then it was gone. She thought she had remembered something similar, but she must have been mistaken. She shook her head and climbed the stairs back to her world.

Luna could have the moon.

Author's Note

In case people don't notice this in the comments, the moon itself isn't evil, but I'm borrowing from the Nightmare Rarity comics arc that there are evil spirits living there which caused the Nightmare influence.

There are a few details left unresolved here, that could have implied explanations self-contained to this story. But I thought they would make an interesting lead-in to a story I wrote years ago, so I have now marked that one as a sequel to this, which I still intend to be able to stand alone. If you’d like to see what a few specific ones of those lead to, like what Platinum fears, why she’s preoccupied with lighting her oil lamp, and what might have happened to her chambermaid, check out “A Wish for the Ages.”