“Princess Luna, why do you look sad?”
Princess Luna looked up, then, once she realized who had spoken to her, looked down again, if only a little.
“Pardon?” she asked the young filly.
“You look sad,” the filly repeated. “Do you not like Nightmare Night?”
Memories of her first Nightmare Night brought the ghost of a smile to Luna’s face, if only briefly. She banished both the smile and the memories, preferring the emptiness of the void to the prickling of pain.
“Oh, I love Nightmare Night, little one,” Luna replied. “How could I not? After all, your costume is quite marvelous.”
The filly, her mane died purple and turquoise, with a set of wooden wings secured to her back, giggled. “My mom helped me make it. I wanted to look just like Princess Flurry Heart!”
As quickly as the filly had smiled, she frowned again, Luna’s attempt at a distraction proving unsuccessful. “Is that why you’re sad? No one helped you with your costume? If you want, I can ask my mom if she can help you.” The filly took a quick breath. “Mo-“
Luna gently extended a wing to cover the filly’s mouth, stopping her from finishing her cry. “That’s quite all right, little one.”
“But she can help you if you just ask –“
“I’m just a little…tired,” Luna finished. A lifetime of experience counseling foals in dreams helped a better excuse come to mind quickly. “I stayed up past my bedtime.”
Which wasn’t a lie. Luna disliked lying on general principle – a habit she’d taken to reinforcing upon her return to Equestria, even if recent events had made that a tall order – but with foals, who had an uncanny knack for picking up when somepony was lying to them, it was especially important to be honest.
That Luna’s bedtime was usually early morning was irrelevant. In truth, it had been several days since she had last slept, and even her enhanced Alicorn body was protesting her recent treatment of it.
“Oh. Did you not listen to your mom?”
Another painful smile. “My sister, actually. Although, she likes to remind me that she’s the older one so often that sometimes she's like my mother.”
“Sounds like my brother. Does your sister boss you around a lot too?”
Luna paused to consider that question. “Sometimes. But sometimes I boss her around.”
“Really?” The filly brightened. “Do you think I can boss my brother around?”
Thoughts of what the filly’s mother would say when she found out that Princess Luna had told her daughter that bossing ones siblings around was acceptable quickly had the Lunar Diarch searching for a disarming response. “You know what works better for me with my sister?”
“What?”
“Asking her nicely.”
Another memory - this time of shouting at Celestia for not having listened to her, because of what had resulted from Celestia's previous decision - rose unbidden to the forefront of Luna’s mind. She bit her cheek to distract herself from the ugliness.
“Aww…” The filly sighed. “That’s what my mom says too.”
“And she’s very right to say that,” Luna said, glad her faux pas had been corrected. “Speaking of which, we should probably find your mother. I’m sure she’s wondering where you’ve run off to.”
“She’s at the spider toss.” The filly turned to point at a lavender-coated mare, who was clearly overseeing the game.
Luna tried to ignore the mare’s coat color. “Oh. Still, you should probably go and check with her, before she starts to worry about you.”
“Okay…” The filly picked up her bucket of candy with her teeth, thought better of it, and set it back down again. “Princess Luna?”
“Yes?”
“Is Princess Twilight going to be here tonight? I wanted to show her my costume.”
Pain. Raw, draining, crippling pain filled the void in Luna’s chest, and she briefly closed her eyes to stop the pain from leaking out. Nopony, especially an innocent little filly, could know what had happened. Not yet, and possibly not ever. They'd all agreed to the lie.
“Princess Luna?”
One breath. Two. She opened her eyes again, and fixed a gentle smile on her face.
A lying smile. She knelt down, ostensibly to better look the filly in the eyes. Only Luna knew that it was really because she wasn’t sure how much longer she could continue to stand.
“Princess Twilight wanted to be here tonight, but she had to help some other ponies that needed her, so she can’t make it.”
“Oh.” The filly’s disappointment was evident, but she shook it off with childhood innocence. “But you’ll see her soon, right?”
“Yes,” Luna lied again.
“Then you can tell her how good my costume was?”
“I will,” Luna promised. Yet another lie. She’d told so many this week, what was one more? This one at least had the possibility of being true, even if not in the filly’s lifetime.
The filly smiled. “Thanks, Princess!”
Swallowing the lie without a care, the filly ran off back to her mother, leaving Luna alone in the void once more.
Twilight Sparkle was dead, and there was nothing Luna could do about it.
The brambles were thick, their thorns snagging on her coat, pulling at the wounds that had proven slow to heal.
But that was hardly a surprise, her fuzzy mind reminded her. She’d been awake for what felt like days, making complex thought difficult, but she knew how long magical injuries could take to heal under the best circumstances.
As a bout of fatigue washed over her, she briefly considered stopping to see if there were any edible berries on the bushes, but just as quickly decided against it. If she stopped, she knew she might not start again, and if she didn’t start again, then the void – always calling to her – would claim her for good.
And yet, the more she struggled on, the harder that call was to resist.
Reaching forward, she dug one hoof into the ground, grit her teeth, and pulled herself forward, muscles straining and popping as she did so. A thorn snagged on one of her open wounds, tearing it afresh, and she felt wetness staining her coat once more.
She was too exhausted to cry out, too exhausted to even shed a tear. The pain was swallowed by the void, feeding the encroaching darkness. Anything she could throw at the monster to distract it was a good thing.
Yet she knew she was close. Voices – whispers, really – cheered her on. Even if they weren’t for her, they were something she could use, something she could cling to. Anything to stay above the darkness.
Another reach, another pull, another reach, another pull. The pattern – she liked patterns – repeated again and again.
A small incline slowed her pace, and yet she pulled more doggedly than ever. This had to be it – the final hill. One last push was all her body had left to give. She knew she couldn’t ask more of it.
She heard drumming in her ears, rising to a crescendo. The void pulled ever harder at her, threatening to swallow her up, body and mind. She fought it, fought harder than she had for her family, for her friends, for anypony else except the one she loved most.
With one mighty reach, she pulled her front half over the small incline, giving her a blurred sight of what could only be Ponyville.
The drums receded, even as the darkness grew.
She had strength enough for one spell. The ghost of a memory flickered in her eyes, and she smiled, her chapped lips cracking as she did so. Letting the magic flow through her horn, she exhaled in relief as the spell left her.
Princess Luna stood next to the chariot that had borne her to Ponyville. The two stallions that had flown it were currently engaged in a game of limbo, and she’d waved for them to finish before returning to her.
In truth, she envied them, envied all the ponies going about with merriment, unaware of what had been stolen from them.
Most of all, she envied that precious little filly, so full of innocence and wonder.
Looking away from Ponyville, with its bright lights and unwelcome merriment, she turned her eyes to the Everfree.
Where most ponies saw darkness and reasons to be afraid, Luna saw only the place that she had once called home, a place that now desired only to be left alone.
She sympathized.
Ponies didn’t enter Everfree, and creatures didn’t come out. Both sides seemed content with the arrangement.
Hearing a cheer behind her, Luna started to turn once more, stopping when a small flash of purple caught her eye.
Rising into the sky was the outline of a purple heart-shaped spell construct, which wobbled as it continued to climb.
Luna kicked off the ground, her wings bearing her effortlessly forward despite her fatigue. Her mind whispered that this was a cruel trick, an ill-timed concidence.
Another lie.
But her eyes saw the truth, saw the crumpled form of Twilight Sparkle at the edge of the forest. Careful to land gently, afraid to break what had to be an illusion, Luna bent down to touch noses with the one she cared for the most.
The closed eyes opened, recognition sparking in their glassy depths.
“Hi,” Twilight Sparkle whispered.
Luna opened her mouth, tried to say something, failed, and closed her mouth again. Finally, she settled for the best thing that came to mind.
“You came back to me.”
Twilight smiled, her eyes closing again. “Sorry it took so long.”
Gently, gingerly, Luna wrapped one wing around Twilight, sending a spell into the air to draw the attention of her guards.
As the fireworks exploded overhead in all their glorious color, the void was driven back, and love rushed in to take its place.
“We’re going to get you help,” Luna said. “Just hold on a little longer, Twilight. Stay with me just a little while longer.”
Twilight opened her eyes again, the piercing fierceness of her gaze at odds with the state of her body. “I’m not going anywhere, Luna.”
It was less a statement than a command.
And Luna believed.
Author's Note
The prompt for this is Twilight Sparkle / DETERMINATION.
