Solaria ~ Book 1: The Runaways

Her sister enjoyed spy-related stories, that was something Luna knew well. Every night of her entire life Celestia had always seated herself by her younger sister’s bed and just gone on about the most fantastic things. She had talked about warriors in shining armor, large castles and monsters the monsters within. She had spoken of battles amidst the stars, with brave ponies flying from one star to another. She had spoken of old forests and proud cities; of bleak skies and clear oceans. The things that Tia found the most intriguing however, those had been the stories that involved ponies just sneaking through the dark, past all hurdles, through an enemy’s encampment and back to their home where milk and cookies waited, a loving wife or husband, the laughter of children and a realm that would thank them for their work. Celestia never made a secret out of it and Luna always slept well when her sister had real fun telling her stories.

As she walked down the street with the suitcase in her teeth she remembered one particular story. It involved a pony stealing something from a vile lord, something very important and very powerful. She did not remember the thing’s name, but that it could destroy the world as everypony knew it. The story went on how the pony had been kept prisoner for aeons before she finally found a chance to escape her captors, taking their greatest treasure, which was also their greatest weapon with her. With these things the pony fled to the country, her old master not far behind. She slept beneath the trees and in holes, dug in the ground. She drank from the rivers and ate the grass and flowers that grew on the earth. Never did she stop at an inn, never did she ask another pony for help. She was all alone. She sneaked past patrols and toll-stations she managed to evade. Yet, no matter what she did or how she did it, her lord and master followed her.

After a week or two he then found her and captured her again. She remembered Celestia’s look, her eyes staring at her sister. She had told her, that he took what the captive had stolen, showing her a brutal smile of crooked teeth and rotten gums.

“This treasure is mine and mine alone, wench,” he had told her and she had looked him in his eyes and had answered his smile with her own radiant one.

“Is it?” Mockingly she had asked that question and he hit her for it, smacked his hoof right across her face and only a second later he understood what she could’ve meant, so she checked the treasure and found it wasn’t what she had stolen. He turned to her and asked her where it was.

“You can chain me down, beat me or crush me, you can kill me and revive me as often as you’d like. This treasure is lost to you and when it will come back to you, it will be in the hooves of a pony stronger than me.”

He had roared at that and promised her that he would do just that. He had chained her down in the darkest dungeon his castle had, he would beat her and crush her bones. Then he would kill her and revive her, heal her and repeat the procedure until his strength was failing him and age had taken over. The last time he had gone into the dungeon she had laughed at him. “You wasted your time beating one mare and your world turned to ashes already.”

“I don’t care. You will tell me where the treasure is.”

“Even if I told you it would already be gone from the place I left it at. Somepony took it, maybe gave it to another, I don’t know. Maybe it is already in another kingdom, maybe  we were lucky and someone managed to destroy it. I wouldn’t know, I’ve been chained her for more summers than I’d like to count. You go on, you go out and look at the world. You are old already but you’ll still see it, won’t you. The moment you climb your own battlements, I promise you, you will see the fall of your own kingdom.”

Tia had then told her that he had laughed, killed her once more and gone to climb the battlements of his own castle and before he’d reached the top she had always told her sister good night. She wondered, why she thought of that story now and even more, what the name of it was, since it surely wasn’t coming to her. It was the treasure its name, too. She still knew that part but the name itself was lost to her. A sad thought, since it seemed almost important. The suitcase had been important hadn’t it? Had she stolen some kind of great treasure? That made Luna feel even more daring than she already had. She was truly the greatest of thieves if she had done something like that. Maybe she could brag about it to Tia later, when she came back and maybe that would be her new nickname: “Luna, king of thieves.” The thought alone made her giggle, yet the weight of her collar felt more heavy than usual at this moment, as if it wanted to slow her down.

Tiny Luna felt more daring than ever before, though and walked straight over the streets towards the next best elevator She had decided to descend to the lowest level and then simply throw the suitcase away. Nopony would find it and if they did, they’d carry it out of the reach of the pony who wanted to harm her sister. That thought made her even more happy when she’d already been and so she walked towards it.

Luckily, there was no line by the elevator. Only another pony she didn’t pay much attention to, much like that pony probably wasn’t paying any attention to her. That’s how it went, wasn’t it? Nopony was really seeing others on the street. Like robots they’d walk to work, or home or the market. Luna thought that a bit sad, but ultimately she had better things to do.

She had butterflies in her stomach as she stepped into the elevator and saw the other pony press the button for the lowest level. She didn’t even have to press any buttons today, so Luna thought this was going well until now. The ride down could take several minutes, considering how high up they were and Luna actually had never went down that far.

Why had she come up with that kind of thought right at this point?

The doors closed and the ride began. Suddenly, Luna started to feel very nervous. Something was wrong. She wasn’t allowed to go this far down, she shouldn’t even have tried to steal something. She’d never stolen anything before and surely not from a friend of her mothers.

Suddenly her breathing got much heavier and she let the suitcase fall to the ground. She looked around and then at the other pony.

A pink one with a mane that was extremely puffy and a white lab coat. She smiled the most contaminating smile Luna had ever seen.

“I heard the stories, but to think they were true,” the pink earth pony suddenly said and Luna realized it then, the other mistake, the thing she should have noticed.

The earth pony wasn’t wearing a collar.

She couldn’t even say anything, with one loud screech the elevator stopped immediately. Luna lost her balance and fell and the lights went out immediately.

“I had thought they’d do it. I hate this part,” the earth pony grinned and a second later a flashlight lit up between her teeth, “you ‘kay?” She mumbled.

“Y-yes. What’s going on?” Luna felt herself shaking, cold and without any sense of what was going on.

“Lots of things,” came the answer, “For one, one of my friends is currently baking a cake without me. Then I think another one is playing some bizarre griffon sport, another one is currently trying to get out of the friend zone of another pony and-”

“I meant here,” Luna yelled, tears coming from her eyes. The other pony leaned down and smiled.

“Nothing much. Right now we’re trapped by the evil government but don’t you worry. Auntie Pinkie has just the solution for all our problems.”

She moved her hooves and for a second Luna wondered what she was going to do. Then, with one wide movement confetti started flying everywhere and the earth pony named Pinkie exclaimed: “Elevator party!”

Silence followed.

“No? Just me, then? Fine,” she rolled her eyes,  but her smile remained. “You’re a hard one, eh? Hold the light and this muffin for me,” she gave both to Luna, who just stared for a moment at the blueberry muffin.

“Where did you-”

“Now! Let’s get down to business,” she sat down before Luna. “I need you to listen carefully: We’re four or three floors below the one we came from, the doors will open soon enough, however: You can’t go home again.”

“What,” Luna asked, “Why?”

“Because in the next few hours the fate of this entire country will rest on your shoulders, princess.”

Princess? Luna stared at her, her mouth wide open. Pinkie just nodded. “Alright, looks you don’t know yet. Meh, everything’s going to be fine anyway.”

“What about my sis, my mother?”

“Everything’s going to be fine, I told you. I know it’s a lot to swallow, even though I haven’t even shown you the kinds of dishes we have here, like the fruit salads, the normal salads, the candy salads. I mean, sure candy salads don’t really exist, but they totally should.... Anyway, here’s what I can tell you right now: I know the collar around your neck isn’t functioning properly, I know you are not really a pegasus, and I know that your name and title is Princess Luna, Ruler of Night and Lord Paramount of the Realm of Dreams. I don’t know about the suitcase, whatever’s up with that, but I do know that in the next 30 seconds the doors are going to bust open and the police’ll try to murder us. I give you a choice: Will you let me protect you, teach you how to fly once more and help us restore Equestria?”

Luna stared at her, not knowing what was happening. There had been a treasure and a pony had taken it far, far away. She didn’t remember the treasure’s name nor the dark lord’s face. She remembered the words, the eyes of the glorious leader watching and somewhere deep down, she remembered a castle and somepony’s smile.

Sister, she thought as suddenly the doors swung open, a dozen armed and armored police ponies standing there.

“Yes,” Luna answered with as much determination as fear and anxiety. The ponies lifted their weapons up, but Pinkie was faster, one hoof going into a pocket of her coat and doing something.

Before anypony could shoot, Luna heard an explosion, the elevator shook and suddenly they were falling down. The entire elevator was falling and they were hovering within it, no gravity holding them to the ground anymore. Pinkie Pie was only laughing, though.

“Geronimoooo~” she yelled and Luna didn’t know what was happening, instead she closed her eyes and let the wind brush against her head, as they were moving faster and faster. Was she going to die here? Really? Just like that?

“I hope you're not thinking anything bad. The worst has yet to come,” Pinkie suddenly announced against the wind and grabbed Luna, who in return grabbed suitcase, she didn’t even know why.

“One!” Pinkie laughed. Luna only kept her eyes closed and thought of her mother and her sister.

“Two!” She thought of a castle in a forest, like in Celestia’s stories.

“I’MTOOBOREDTOCOUNTFURTHER!” With that she felt another gust. She just knew Pinkie had kicked herself through the elevator door and a moment later they landed on the ground, rolling a few times, with Pinkie letting go off Luna, not stopping to laugh.

The tiny filly herself just blinked a few times, before she sat herself up and looked around. Whatever floor they were on, it was completely dark and nopony was here. No rooms, no lights, no nothing. All they had was the flashlight Pinkie had given her. She stared at the nothingness for a moment, the tears coming on their own before she started bawling openly.

Pinkie Pie sat herself up, her bones making cracking noises as she stood up, she herself grunted a bit and then sat down by Luna’s side, trying to figure out what to say.

“I’m sorry,” was what came out.

The little filly didn’t stop crying, so Pinkie simply picked her up. “I’m really sorry. With everything going wrong I’m just happy that you’re fine. They would’ve killed you on the spot if I hadn’t been there,” she only seemed to realize that you didn’t talk to a child like that after she had said it and facehoofed immediately.

“Anyway,” the pink pony said, picking Luna up and putting her on her back. “I told you everything’ll be alright and I mean it. Forget what I said earlier, I’ll get you back to your parents.”

Luna looked at her then, tears still falling. “What is going on?” Was all she could ask.

This time, Pinkie didn’t smile. “A war’s about to start and one side doesn’t enjoy the idea of pet alicorns now as much as they used to.”

“Alicorns? What’s that?”

Pinkie ruffled through her mane, “Short answer is: You.”

Luna blinked at that, her crying stopped, taken over by sheer confusion. What had happened to her? Who was this Pinkie? Where had she taken her? Why had the police stormed the elevator? Why had she stolen the suitcase? It all didn’t matter when Pinkie smiled at her.

“The long answer waits on this floor and since the other princess said I should show you when I could, well, how about I tell you a bit about Equestria, a stolen treasure and a princess that was killed and at the same time not,” the pink pony said and Luna thought only one thing: Like the story, the one which name I forgot.