Of Law and Friendship

The mirrors were offending. Every side, every angle was scoffing at her. Into all eternity they would blame her, not caring for what really happened. But why should they, when even intelligent ponies, alive and equipped with working brains, didn't want to see the truth? No, it was futile to hope for release. As endless their were, the pain wouldn't give the naïvety of those diurnal fools a run. Always throwing the gaze back. No more they could do. How could they blame a goddess? They didn't bother with the art of reasoning any more then Discord did. She didn't want roses on her grave; only the full truth. She didn't need to be were the roses of live grew. They were too uninteresting for her garden anyway.

Alas, it was too late. A black wound replaced her home now. They would see the truth that lays behind celebrating the blood-red burning sky every day again. She could already taste the prays and chants that the moon will stay veiled. Bitter-sweet prays. Wasn't the moon, like the mirrors below her, the sole creation that reflected the cruel light into her Stygian night? Perhaps cruelty lost its façade in the dark as any shadow did. They could not see in the dark, those fools.

She closed her eyes and moved her head close against the mirrors she walked on. A perfect darkness surrounded her, melting, with only one perfect pony standing before her. She lost any feeling for her body, didn't felt the cold glass beneath her. But losing her balance was no danger – she was already falling. The pony smiled at her and she felt falling, falling until she saw the grey ground form below him and her, a wide landscape ready to consume her before she reached her destination. Soon countless burning stars surrounded her. They burned against a superior enemy, glary and holy. It reached out for her without harm and help, igniting her in her fall until her body hit the ground and soil burst.

She opened her eyes again.

She was lying on a stone field, not far away from the furthest outposts of a city. The air was cold and the sky above her shown in the loudest blue it could wear. The ground beneath her was burnt to ashes by the rescuing fire that had engulfed her own body only seconds ago. She rose up from the ground and scream of delight escaped her. There she stood, the cold air in her lung and the burned ground beneath her. The skies promised a perfect new start. Nothing would be the same, at the end. Silently smiling, and an ancient tone humming over her lips, she descented over the flat fields into the direction of the ponies who had fallen just as she did.

The town was the most stunning one. Buildings, streets and even lampposts blocked her vision self-confidently, built of the stones that she had blown out of her own prison an eternity ago. Ponies passed her, not paying her attention. An urge befell her. She raised her hoof, watched it hovering in the air. Solid. Flawless. Another pony passed her and she threw her hoof against him. A scream reached her ears when a skull broke. Warm fluid ran down her hoof and flesh hit earth. They were paying attention now. A mare came running to aid the stallion. She lowered her head to his, muzzled him, asked if he could hear her.

She shifted her weight to her back-hooves and in a moment that cut off gravitation her hoof met yet another skull, trapping it between Luna and earth. She saw hint legs twitching, not for long. Ponies screamed at her. Soon snow would come and cover this wounded earth for the night. She felt a pony shaking her. She didn't understand what he screamed. A blue aura was glowing below his head and soon his screams faded into the silence she came from. His eyes were twitching and didn't seem to stop until a sharp pain cut through the blue. She felt the sun reach her heart. She turned her head. A guard was standing behind her, terror in his expression. His spear was sunken deep into her flesh. Red blood spilled out of the wound, deep into the ground. The guard took his hooves off the spear and she felt that her hooves wouldn't carry her weight no more. With a smile she hit the ground. This earth was strong, well fed. The forced her gaze into the sky, where a black cleave had formed. She saw black creatures stream through it, begging for her attention, and the ground shook and blasted before everything faded into darkness.

“This is not the time for rest, my Queen,” a voice said that could only be owned by a perfect one.

She turned her head into then direction it came from and saw him standing there in perfect darkness.

“I am no queen,” she said. She didn't hear her voice.

“I know,” he said, pointing at her, “the price has been paid.”

She looked down herself. A big hole was where she expected fur and flesh. She smiled.

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Don't you remember? Since centuries ponies dance at this day to please the volcano, so that he wouldn't burn their homes into ashes,” he said.

“True.”

The pony blurred. The colours of his mane and fur mixed, and with time he lost more and more of his shape.

“Dance,” she heard him say, “Dance.”

Her rest was lost in uncontrolled movement. She shifted her weight between her legs, only slowing growing in intensity. Her head shifted, driven by the movement of her body, and with the physical unrest the colours of the pony began to resharpen.

“Let us break this cage. Let me become your song and scream,” it reached her ears.

She moved faster, swung hear head and while the pony before her grew more and more into shape, she saw other colours appear around them. Yellow, lavender, white, blue, pink. Tiny balls and strings of every colour light could produce were born into the darkness. It was decay she was summoning.

“Between death and eternal life has to be something third.”

The colours grew brighter, louder, until the sea of colours hurt her eyes. She drowned. The colours fought back the air she breathed, and soon there was barely anything left for her. But she couldn't stop moving. Tears of agony ran down her cheeks and a third voice attacked her perfect agony, sharp and cutting.

“Dance with us. Dance with us into the mirror-world. Dance with us until the mirror breaks.”

–

A loud scream filled the halls of Canterlot Castle when Luna's body shot up from a deep slumber. Her fur and mane were wet from sweat. The air laid cutting cold on her face, and her breath was heavy. Would a pony have seen her, it would have seen the expression of the goddess laying in the strongest denial, terror and panic one could imagine.

But she was all alone.