Luna’s eyes shot open, her body jerking upright with her wings pushing outright only to be yanked back by the clattering old rusty chains. The cold iron dug into her feathers, biting into her flesh as she struggled against them, her breaths ragged and panicked.

Darkness enveloped her, thick and oppressive, but it wasn’t unfamiliar.

Her pulse quickened as she took in her surroundings ... a room ... her room in ruins. Broken furniture lay scattered, chairs overturned, tables splintered. Torn paintings hung around her. With a single oil lamp next to a thin spread hay bed.

And then her heart stopped. She knew this place.

“no...”

The walls, once made out of pristine well polished Everfree stones, were now covered in countless tally marks, each etched with desperate precision. Hundreds... thousands. The sight sent a chill racing through her. Her eyes darted to the remnants of a torn portrait with a few familiar face, Celestia, shredded beyond recognition with her formal tutor only being recognised by his beard.

“No... not here...”

Her breath quickened, Panic surged through her veins. She whirled around, searching the room, her mind racing.

“Not again”

The place of her nightmares, the place of her imprisonment

“no no no no NO NO NO!”

Her gaze landed on a massive steel door across the room, rusty and old but still on its place. Without hesitation, Luna bolted toward it, her hooves pounding against the cracked floor. She reached the door and slammed into it with all her strength, her forehooves pounding against the cold metal over and over.

“LET US OUT!” she shouted, her voice raw with tears forming in eyes.

She struck the door again, harder this time, her horn surrounded by a ring sparkled with magic as she poured her strength into it, but nothing came.

“LET ME OUT!” Luna screamed again, tears rushing down her fur as she struck the door with renewed force. Each hit sent shockwaves of pain through her hooves, but she didn’t care. She couldn’t be here again. Not after all this time.

Crushing her hooves into it she ignored the pain the blood flowing from them.

"Somepony! Anypony! CELESTIA! TIA! HELP!" she cried, her voice cracking as it echoed through the empty room. But no reply came only the suffocating silence of her old prison.

Luna didn’t know how much time had passed. Hours? Days? Time seemed to come and go in this oppressive place, slipping away from her like sand through her hooves. Every moment stretched into eternity, the cold gnawing at her, the silence deafening. She remembered how she woke here up the first time around after... that.

‘Maybe it was all a dream... ‘

Her hope died the first seconds as her panic settled down.

‘Was I ever outside this place?’

‘Maybe this room is all it is’

Her gaze drifted to the cracks in the stone, the twisted remains of her once-royal chamber. Nothing felt real anymore. The weight of the chains, the scent of decay in the air, the oppressive darkness that swallowed every thought it all felt wrong, like a nightmare she couldn't wake from, but the more she tried over her years she could never wake up and ‘I tried a lot’, her eyes fell on a rope from above ‘oh I tried’ crimson glass shards ‘It never worked’.

-

With her wounds healed again, Luna pushed herself up once more. Her eyes never left the door for a second. She couldn’t look around into the room. Aligning her body to face the door charged forward, hooves pounding against the cracked floor, But as her body collided with the steel door, a sickening crack echoed through the room. Pain shot through her foreleg, snapping the bone clean.

‘Buck’

She stumbled, collapsing in beside the door. Her leg hung limply, twisted in a grotesque angle. Yet, the pain barely registered twisting it back into the right angle it started to heal faster. A broken leg was annoying but her prison would heal it, as it always did. But her muzzle... the sharp sting of it, now bruised and aching from the impact, would take longer and is still something she couldn’t get used to. The pain wasn’t the issue, the taste was , warm liquid always pushed her to remember faces or things, but never freed her to hold onto it long enough to actually remember.

She needed... something. Anything to break the crushing quiet. She opened her mouth, and a soft hum escaped her lips. It was shaky at first, but there was no comfort, no magic. Just her voice, trembling and alone....

Then, she went silent.

At first, it was pure instinct listening. The silence wasn’t comforting. It felt wrong. Strange noises had never been unusual here. Sometimes she would hear knocks, even voices, always distant, always behind this cursed door. But this time, it was different.

For the first time the sound was insidethe room.

Her ears twitched, straining to catch the faintest hint of movement, her heart skipping a beat. A single drop splashed onto her forehead, cold and wet. Luna recoiled instantly, her entire body stiffening in shock.

She didn’t move. Her face remained expressionless, but her eyes... her eyes widened, wider than dinner plates. Frozen in place, her breath caught in her throat.

Then, she noticed it a single, small crack above the doorway. It had released the drop, and now it slowly began to fill with more, the water tracing the cracks sharp edges. She stared at it, disbelief settling in. She knew every inch of this room, every crack and imperfection, every flaw in the stone walls that had become her prison. Yet somehow, she had failed to notice this one.

With a grunt, she pushed herself to her hooves, wincing as her barely healed leg wobbled beneath her. Steadying herself, she narrowed her eyes at the crack.

Drawing in a deep breath, she reared back, gathering all the strength she had left, and slammed her hoof into the wall with everything she had. This kick was actually more painful then she felt before, the crack widening, growing larger, as small bits of debris crumbled down from the ceiling..

Ignoring the lingering ache in her leg, Luna gritted her teeth and prepared for another strike. This time, she wasn’t stopping.

She reared back and slammed her hoof into the widening crack with all her strength. The stone split further. Suddenly, the wall crumbled, and with a sharp hiss, icy water surged into the room.

Luna's heart skipped a beat. The frigid water flooded across the floor, rising quickly. She staggered back, splashing through it as it reached her knees, soaking her fur and numbing her legs.

With trembling hooves, she dragged the splintered wood and shattered chairs into a pile. The water was rising fast before she knew it the entire room was getting flooded abnormally fast.

She pulled herself onto the unstable heap of broken wood, clutching onto the scraps.

But the water wasn't stopping.

The cracks in the wall grew larger, letting more and more water rush in, a relentless torrent that churned and roared in the small space. The debris floated precariously, tilting under her weight as she balanced on it, shivering uncontrollably.

Before she knew it, the water was rising fast, threatening to submerge her completely. Her breath quickened as she realized it would soon cut her off from the last pocket of air. The frigid cold made every movement sluggish, but she didn’t care and used up all the force she could.

Luna knew that no matter how much the room could hurt her, it would always heal her broken body but drowning?

She grabbed the oil lamp in her teeth, its flame flickering wildly as the water surged around her. Desperately, she searched for an escape, her hooves splashing through the icy flood as she pushed through the rising waters. The furniture she had scrambled onto was quickly becoming useless, sinking beneath the relentless flow.

Her gaze darted to the wall the source of the flood and she knew there was only one way out now.

Forcing herself to wait as the water crept higher and higher, biting at her injuries .

‘once the room was full, I could attempt to swim through the breach in the wall’

The water rose to her chin, and she inhaled sharply, holding the last breath of air as it enveloped her completely. The icy cold burned her lungs, and the weight of the water pressed against her from all sides.

With all the strength she had left, Luna swam to the area above the door, her forehooves slamming into the weak point where the cracks had spread. The water pushed back against her, but she refused to stop. She kicked again and again, feeling the wall and her leg shudder with each blow. Small rocks broke loose, swirling in the water as more stones crumbled away.

Her lungs screamed for air, her chest tightening painfully, but she couldn’t stop. She wouldn’t

In an instant, the pressure holding back the flood was released. The room erupted in chaos as the wall crumbled, and a violent torrent of water surged through the opening. It crashed into Luna with the force of a raging river, slamming her back as the rush of icy water swallowed her whole.

She barely had time to react before the powerful current yanked her from her place, tossing her body violently through the gap. The walls of her prison had vanished, replaced by an expanse of icy water stretching endlessly in every direction.

Her lungs burned, desperate for air. She looked up, seeing the faint shimmer of light above her. Kicking her legs, she began the long, agonizing swim upward. The cold gnawed at her, slowing her movements as her body protested every stroke. .

The surface grew closer, the shimmer of light brightening as she neared the top. But just as she allowed herself a brief moment of hope, she felt her body back hoof being pulled, looking back she found a dark long shadow from the depths of the icy expanse.

Pulling her hoof free she increased her speed with newly found energy of fear. But just as she neared the top, her hoof slammed into ice.

Her eyes widened in horror as she realized the surface was frozen solid, a thick sheet of ice blocking her escape. Luna frantically began pounding against it, her hooves striking the frozen barrier with desperate force.

Her lungs screamed for air, panic surging through her as the seconds stretched into eternity. She pounded harder, gritting her teeth as her strength began to wane. The cold was overwhelming, sapping what little energy she had left.

And then, from below, she felt it... a familiar, terrifying pull.

Her back hoof was grabbed, yanked with bone-chilling force. Luna looked down and saw it , the dark, twisting shadow from the depths of the icy expanse. It coiled around her leg, its grip tightening, pulling her back toward the dark abyss.

"No!" she screamed, her voice muffled by the water as bubbles escaped her lips. She kicked with all her might, wrenching her hoof free from the shadow's grasp. Her heart raced as fear surged through her veins, giving her a burst of strength. She struck the ice above her with renewed desperation, but the barrier wouldn’t break.

Suddenly, the shadow wrapped around her again, this time stronger, thicker, and colder. It climbed up her legs, coiling like a serpent as it pulled her downward. Luna thrashed, her body twisting in the icy water, but the shadow was relentless.

Her vision blurred as the light above grew dim, and just as the cold, crushing darkness seemed to win her over and pull her down a brilliant flash of silver pierced the ice above her, slicing clean through the frozen barrier. For a brief, stunned moment, Luna stared in disbelief as a long, gleaming blade shattered the ice in front of her.

Before she could react, a minotaur hand? pale, and furless plunged through the broken ice, reaching down into the water. The fingers, long and powerful, wrapped around her foreleg, pulling her upward with a force breaching the ice and dropped her onto the cold surface.

-

Luna lay on the freezing ice, her chest heaving as she gulped down air. Her vision blurred as her body trembled, both from the cold and the adrenaline still surging through her veins. The icy wind howled across the surface of the lake, biting at her soaked fur.

‘the sword, the hand’

but now, there was nothing. No sign of the mysterious figure who had pulled her from the depths. The ice stretched endlessly in all directions, the faint shimmer of the moon casting long shadows across the frozen expanse. Beyond the lake, a dark, frozen forest loomed, Willows like twisted silhouettes against the pale light.

Luna's pulse slowed as she finally managed to steady her breath. She pushed herself up, wincing as a sharp pain shot through her leg. She looked down, expecting to see the familiar sight of her tissues slowly knitting itself back together the cursed healing that had plagued her in the prison. But this time... nothing.

Her leg was still swollen, bruised, while she could still feel her muzzle bleeding lightly.

‘Why isn't it healing?’

Luna pressed her hoof against her injured leg, hissing in pain.

She scanned her surroundings, desperate for any sign of what had pulled her from the lake, but there was only the eerie silence of the frozen world around her. The frozen forest ahead stood as still as a graveyard, its dark branches reaching like skeletal arms toward the sky. No movement. No sound.

Not taking long to decide on dying on a frozen river or taking her chances in the forests ,Luna limped forward, her hooves sinking into the snow with each step.

As she neared, her eyes caught a faint outline beneath one of the towering, Willow trees. An entrance, half-buried beneath the snow and twisted roots, leading down into the earth. Luna hesitated, her heart pounding, before she forced herself to move closer.

With a deep breath, she crouched down, brushing aside the snow and dirt, revealing a rusted iron door set into the ground. The hinges creaked as she pushed it open, revealing a narrow, dimly lit passage that descended into the earth. Her pulse quickened as she stepped inside, the temperature dropping even further .

“Is anyone here? Is the one who saved us here?”

The cold, stone walls were covered in frost, but what drew Luna's attention was the the frozen bars before her.

An open cell...

with old rusty bars was before her. Looking inside she found a pony or what seemed like a small minotaur sat slumped against the far wall. The figure was clad in dark, onyx armor, its surface faintly shimmering in the dim light. Runes etched along the edges pulsed with a faint purple magical glow, while its limbs were tightly bound by thick, spiky roots from the tree above, entangling the figure in place.A sword, as dark and formidable as the armor itself, lay at the figure's feet, its blade gleaming with a silvery glow.

"Are you well...?" Luna began, her voice tentative as she stepped closer.

But before she could finish, the figure stirred, a weak, raspy cough escaping from within the armor. Slowly, it raised its head, revealing a pair of piercing, icy blue eyes that locked onto hers. The intensity of the gaze sent a chill through Luna's spine.

"Find him... Find me," the figure whispered, its voice barely more than a breath, but laced with an urgency that cut through the cold air.

Before Luna could respond, the world around her began to blur, her vision darkening as if the very shadows were swallowing her whole. She stumbled, her breath catching, but just as the last flicker of light faded from her sight, a sudden, brilliant light erupted before her—blinding and pure, cutting through the encroaching darkness.

Author's Note

Finaly got time to post more chapters , glad to get to the fun stuff