To Chase The Shadows of Redemption

Twilight sat back in Celestia's personal bedroom chambers, having just taken in the horrific tale Celestia had just laid out for her.

"And you said she's here now? Is she still asleep?"

"Yes Twilight, she is."

"I sure do hope she doesn't remember her actions, even if she didn't get to see the direct result of them. To accidentally cause a rock slide that destroyed an entire town... wait, why was she going in that direction anyway? She... must've been searching for help! It all makes sense." Her eyes became pinpricks, "Oh goddess! I told her about the town when I had visited her, she must've been searching for it, this is all my fault!"

"Do not say such a thing Twilight! We cannot be certain what was going on. Please, I cannot have you taking blame for something that is no where near the case."

"You're... right. Sorry about that. I just can't help but feel that perhaps she thought of the town in a haze or something. It frightens me."

"What I do want you to think about is your continued role in all of this. I will allow you to visit her if you wish, but as you know I already have a team working to get her back on her feet. I would not forbid you from looking into what they discover or showing you what they report myself. You could even participate if you truly desired, as I know you love your reading. I would ask you don't allow for it to take over your life like it would've in the past, though."

"Heheh, I will definitely consider it princess. I'll see her before I leave today."

"Good. Remember to go to Rosebud for access to the room. She is managing entry."

At an unknown time, Luna woke up. The world felt like it was spinning, she was burning up and every sense was slamming down on her like she had drank too much. Her entire being felt ruptured. She wanted to get up, but the surge of lethargy had her recalculating that right away. As she became more awake, she became aware of a voice in whatever dark room she was in. Wait... why was she in some room? Her memory was hazy and voided, and nothing made sense.

"The night, a canvas, where fantasies roam free and unmasked. The city sleeps, its chaos stilled to a tranquil healing. Embraced by the darkness, the sleepers find their light, so let us cherish each fleeting hour."

She found the strength to look to the side where she heard the voice coming from. A white furred pony with a scarlet mane and tail was speaking softly, reading and reciting from a book she was reading by the bedside sitting in a wooden chair. She put it down, leaned down to something unknown, and brought up a towel to Luna's forehead while removing one Luna didn't realize had already been there. The pony had been looking away at the start of this, but as she turned her head she found Luna staring back at her she kept the gaze, recognition flaring in her vision without reacting too harshly.

"Your highness! Please, allow for me get others, it is a miracle that you're awake, I will be back."

"No!" Her voice was weak, but it was enough to stop the pony, "I'd love for you to continue reading from that book, if you don't mind."

"As much as I'd love to, I must go. Be back, your highness."

This time the word had registered in her mind, and she immediately hated it. Highness.

As the mare left the room far too quickly, there was nothing to stimulate her anymore, and fight as she could it all started slipping again. She swore she could hear something in the distance as the sweet embrace of sleep retook her. Her dreams dominated of the sweet and caring touch that soothed her in her final waking moments.

"I swear she was conscious just no more than five minutes ago, princess Celestia. This is a wonderful sign."

"Indeed it is, but I wish I had been here for it all the more. Did she say anything?"

"She mentioned wanting to hear me read more, but I was too concerned with getting you. Please understand, princess."

"You were right to do that, but you may as well have heard nothing. Still, I'm glad that she was conscious again, I had begun to fear that she was in coma. Perhaps your reading could guide her mind back to us."

"..." she saw the nostalgic smile on Celestia's face that imagined something she could not see. "Yes... I will continue reading for her, your majesty."

Two weeks later

"And I'm telling you that life energy and the soul are closely related, the two are so close in fact that it may as well be the same thing under certain contexts, but they are two different forms of which it can exist. Think of the soul as a pure object, a complete unit, which is self-sustaining, while life energy is some crude version of that, like taking an orange and squeezing it into an indescribable form. It cannot be denied that the energy we see here constitutes a thickness no singular soul could handle. Well, except for an alicorn perhaps as we've seen."

Manfred Song had spent the past thirty minutes explaining his research, and the rest of the team had sat through it patiently.

"So far we've confirmed several things about the nature of the magic around her, but we've been too scared to probe deeper. We should get Celestia's approval tomorrow."

Glint Presley frowned, "then is it how me and Ruby feared then? I was unable to find any hints of anything normal that could be plaguing her, but as we can all see she is clearly being affected by something, and she has stopped waking up. None of us even saw it happen the two times it supposedly did."

Suture Gadget finally broke in: "I must admit I feel bad, my entire side of things has been fruitless. Trying to design an entirely new technology for what would basically be a project on my own that will be designed for something we still don't understand and that has been frustrating to say the least. I wish I could get started proper. We should present to Celestia our main theories for now and ask her which one to act as the work toward treating them for the time being while we still confirm what it is."

Manfred shuffled nervously on his hooves, readjusting them several times. "I still cannot shake the feeling of that cursed like energy that flows around her. I'm telling you, I could sense her signature all the same about it. It's also still being soaked into her. It's clearly helping her in some way, goddess we ignore where it came from. I posit that it's some form of survival mechanism that an alicorn soul can go through. We are utterly lacking in any information or history here, this is entirely new territory." They all looked in silent agreement. "We knew that from the beginning, and we simply do not know enough still. What I can say is that the kind of bubble this mare has formed would theoretically help prevent her soul from collapsing. Think of it like a plug in some sense. I know that we cannot confirm this, to your point Suture, but we should keep moving forward with that as the main idea."

"I'm going to say it, I still don't like this. We're running out of time, how long until that magic around her runs out? It must only be a week and a half at most. What happens then? This is a ridiculous timeline to follow when we haven't even fully confirmed anything yet. Let alone start working on solutions." Glint glared at the rest of them, long hours spent in the hospital having colored the rest of his life as of late.

"I just suppose we're going to have to work even harder. Overtime from now on on off duty it is." Ruby cracked her neck. "To be blunt for a moment... I must say from a logical perspective this case has been nothing but fascinating. I almost wish I could present on it some day. It is not every day you get to work with an alicorn, and one that supposedly controls the divine realm as well. It's the goal of ponies like us in academics to discover something new and present it, so let us count our fortunes that we could accomplish half of that. Most do neither. We're even being paid for this. I couldn't believe the very generous amount I received."

"Yeah well count your blessings later," Gadget gave her a look of disapproval, "because if we don't figure out something soon who knows what will become of us. This is Celestia's sister we're talking about. Failure is not an option. You heard it from the mare herself."

"You're correct. But we all have limits regardless of how much we want to find results. We should conclude here for today and meet again tomorrow at the usual time. I will see you all then, as I have to be going now. Good luck and make sure you all don't allow your schedules to ruin your time to recovery despite this added work, we cannot allow ourselves to be run into the ground. Goodbye."

"Guess I'll be going too."

"Me as well. Let's leave together."

"..."

Ruby Aura lingered a moment longer than the rest.

"Not leaving yet?"

"No... I just wanted to check over something one last time before packing it in. Please go ahead." They both promptly finished their departure and closed the door behind them.

Once they were gone, despite there being little reason to be paranoid, Ruby checked that no one else was around in the room. She let out her breath. Walking over Luna's bedside, she started casting a particular spell that had shaken her earlier today.

The spell was one well designed to take a sample of life energy and figure out the origins. She decided to test this aspect of the situation just to cover all of the angles, if you will. The result had shocked her, and while it would've been obvious something had been wrong to any pony who saw her, she had counted her luck that she always showed up a little bit early before the others. That way no one had been there to see her reaction. This time was no different, except she was mentally prepared for it. There was no question about it - the life energy surrounding Luna had been taken from equines. It disgusted her. Ruby was not one to take rash action, and that bode her well, when her oath to the princess came to her recollection quickly.

She cast darkened eyes over the mare they believed to be on the verge of being comatose, who knows if she already was. Just what had truly happened around this mare? How did she capture so much equine life? Was Celestia lying about the circumstances for the destruction of Riftly? She couldn't stop thinking about it. She wouldn't be surprised if the information they already all knew kept the rest of them up at night, but this surely would for her.

She knew she would keep this secret, but there would come a time she demanded the truth from Celestia. But now was not the time.

She got up and packed her things, and her departure soon after leaving the room in a dull buzz of nothingness.