Perhaps the greatest irony of Luna's life was that she so often missed the night she so cherished. To blame it on her ponies would be both unfair, and completely accurate. In order to serve their needs and listen to their grievances, she needed to be awake during the day. In order to watch over their dreams, she needed to be asleep at night. So it was that the Princess of the Night found herself something of a crepuscular creature rather than a nocturnal one.
This night, however, would find the sad upshot of her hypocrisy. As she slept when other ponies did, so she would find herself at the mercy of the same shadows they feared. Under the pale moonlight, down halls bleached of color, her shadow stole towards her slumbering form. It dodged beyond the sight of her guards, weaving around their vision as though their eyes were the brightest searchlights.
With nary a sound, it darted though the doors, passing enchantments that should have barred such a thing. Inside the night princesses' chamber, it stalked over the velvet carpet, casually kicking a moon marked pillow from its path. For a moment, it paused at the foot of its victim's bed, head swiveling to take stock of the soft blue curtains, the star studded ceiling.
A faint light danced around the shape of a horn, lurid green mixed with bloody red. Perhaps in some circles, the mixture might have been comically festive. For princess Luna, it provided only a subtle disturbance to her sleep. “Hnnnng?” She rolled over, and blearily blinked the sleep from her eyes.
The conflicting colors swirled brighter, and had it been any other pony at the foot of her bed, Luna might have defended herself in time. Unfortunately, the pony it happened to be, was herself. “Lovely moon tonight, don't you think?” As Luna's brain tripped over her own visage, it managed to snatch on to two other facts as the coruscating light engulfed her. The first was a red gemmed, black winged amulet around 'her' neck, and the second was a pair of green, slitted eyes, of which she'd heard, but never seen.
Then, with an anticlimactic fffzzzt, the true princess of the night was gone, replaced by a wicked grin upon her counterpart. A grin that abruptly disappeared as the door opened, and one of the guards poked her head in. “Princess?”
The imposter yawned, her magic already concealing the jewelry about her neck, and her expression disguising her glee. She blinked blearily at the guard, and waved her off with a hoof. “My apologizes. I thought there was a bug in my bed.”
When the guard nodded and shut the door, she grinned. Of course she thought there was a bug in her bed. As a matter of fact...
...she knew there was.
Luna fell with a soft whump. The whump only described her impact however, as there was no sound to accompany her landing. For an instant, she felt the desperate urge to breath, her hooves and wings beginning to flail about in the fine talcum dust around her. As she raised a delicately cascading cloud around herself, Luna found herself gripped with a sudden realization: She was quite alright. Sure enough, this close to her namesake, the lunar magic flowed as freely as an ocean. She could well have been cut in two, and would have shrugged off the blow. Best of all, she retained her body, unlike last time, and her magic along with it.
Her initial panic fading, it rapidly refreshed as the last few moments played through her mind. Struggling to her hooves, and nearly flipping herself into the air (or lack thereof) in the process, she started channeling a teleport. The magic came as easily to her as... well not breathing at the moment, but as easily as breathing normally would. She gathered forth a greater sum, and greater, and greater, until it felt as though she held the whole of Canterlot upon her horn. With a thrust of will, she released her spell as a teleport, and hurled herself back home, to warn Celestia and undo her usurper.
Or so she'd planned.
She popped into existence in freezing cold, and what could only be described as sucking agony. Her eyes froze instantly, and only her alicorn physique kept her body from succumbing to vacuum. Before her, Equestria loomed larger, but still painfully out of reach. At her back, she could feel the moon shining upon her, its weakened magic the only thing sustaining her as she floated trapped between worlds. She tried to scream, but no air was left to her lungs. Flailing in empty space, she grudgingly grabbed hold of her moon, and slowly let it pull her back to its surface.
'I should have known better' she reflected through her mostly blinded eyes. The moon made an excellent prison because of its distance from Equestria. No pony could reach it without nearly divine assistance, not even herself or her sister. The moment she'd been sent here unprepared, it was over. Until the elements, her sister, or perhaps even Discord noticed her absence, she was a castaway. As her final, dismal act, she cast one spell with what moonlight drifted to her. She sent it rushing to Equestria, a trigger for those fail-safes she left should something happen to her. Likely the usurper would intercept most of them, but all it would take was one in the right hooves, and help would be on the way.
Until then, she reflected as the moon passed into view, she could do naught but wait. She was about to become melancholic when something strange struck her. The moon was getting larger. A lot larger. A lot faster. With sudden alarm, she realized that there was no atmosphere slowing her decent, and that her free-fall towards her new home was rapidly becoming a crash landing. She grasped rapidly at the lunar magic, trying to push off it, but such was the nature of their bond that she only accelerated her approach.
'oh horseapples' she reflected in those last seconds.
Luna landed with a whump for the second time that day. Assuming whump could adequately describe the thirty foot impact plume she made. In total silence, dust and boulder alike began to drift back down, leaving Luna to pick herself out of her crater amid a snowstorm of debris. She attempted to sigh, the gesture having no effect without air, and flexed her legs experimentally. Anywhere else, and she'd likely be a mess of sprains, if not fractures. Here, however, she felt only a minor strain on her limbs, already fading. In fact, as the ice melted from her eyes, she reflected that she actually felt better after the crash than before.
At least, she did until she saw the figure.
“Guys. I think... OH GOD IT'S LOOKING AT ME.” Vask had never been on board with the idea. Never. He'd been happy back on Terra, or as close as any of them could come anymore. How he'd wound up on this merry band of interstellar pirates was anyone's guess. It was certainly a mystery to him, almost as large as how he was currently being stared at by a naked pony on the moon. Even with his regrets, he had to keep his priorities in order.
And right now his priority was running.
“I need evac, I need evac STAT!” He practically screamed into the radio feed. To be entirely fair, he couldn't technically scream, lacking a throat, or any of those frail fleshy bits his companions seemed so fond of, but attempting to push his transmitter past safety tolerances basically amounted to the same thing. Especially when he 'lost his voice' as the circuits proceeded to fuse.
'well that was dumb' he was able to reflect in a moment of clarity.
That moment rapidly fled as his cameras detected the pony proceeding to bound after him. Again terrified by the inexplicable creature behind him, Vask picked up the pace, his hydraulic limbs gouging through the lunar dust. Most days, he was glad to have legs instead of wheels or tracks. Made traveling easier and a bit cleaner. Today, he wished he'd sprung for solid fuel rockets.
He made another bound, trying to shift his weight to throw himself forward faster. As a reward for his impetuousness, he managed to send himself into a front flip, the top of his armored carapace bouncing off a crater's edge and sending him higher than he'd have liked. And slower, he realized, as the pony closed on his botched jump. Rapidly approaching panic, he tried firing one of his leg grapples into the ground, desperate to escape his sluggish arc. It whapped into the soft dust, only to pop back out as he tried to retract it. Cameras sweeping around, pony almost beside him, he fired another at a more exposed jag of rock. As soon as it impacted, he yanked desperately, the sudden acceleration just barely pulling him out of the Pony's reach.
'that was too clo-' his thoughts stopped dead as he saw a soft glow envelop the pony, and she started to maneuver after him. 'oh come on!'
He couldn't keep this up. He was just too clumsy out here in low G. He had to find a way to end this chase, preferably without antagonizing the mysterious impossibility that chased him. Quickly, he flashed through the maps stored on his processors, and checked for nearby landmarks. Against all luck, he was next to Quarry Beta.
He might just have a chance.
Luna continued to follow the strange... device? She wasn't entirely sure. Though she could see steel and cables similar to those of airships and trains, the four legged machine acted more like an animal in the way it fled from her. In fact, the resemblance to the ponies of her first nightmare night was slightly... distressing. It was for this reason that she didn't simply grab it in her magic, lest she give the poor thing a heart attack... assuming it had one.
In fact, the creature/machine reminded her of a daddy long legs, a roughly lens shaped body attached to four equidistant legs. At least in appearance anyway. Its behavior recalled ponies and other mammals, the way it leaped and bounded through the air. She thought she'd finally caught it when it botched one of its jumps, only for it to cast out a cable into the ground, then yank it back. The action puzzled her for a moment, until its second shot connected, and pulled it away from her.
She was uncertain whether to admire its ingenuity, or roll her eyes at its tenacity. Truly it reminded her of her silly ponies.
As she followed at a sedate distance, she noticed an odd shape on the horizon. It looked like a crater at first glance, but as she approached, she realized the shape was wrong. The pit was square, its edges sharp and sloping. With a shock, she realized it was a quarry, and it was to this place that the machine was headed. As she watched, it bounded out into open space, then tossed a few small fragments of... something into the pit it sailed over, followed by one of its grapple-cables. As it zipped out of sight, a number of dusty clouds erupted around it, and too late Luna realized it was going to lose her.
As she rushed over the pit, however, the dust obscured her view completely. She hurried down into the cloud, but it was too thick to see anything. Flicking a light spell from her horn, she proceeded to search the quarry. Several times, she thought she'd found the machine, only to realize she'd stumbled across something completely different. The pit was filled with massive metal constructs, the devices mystifying her momentarily, until she thought about the purpose of the quarry. It was then that she realized she was among a number of digging machines, and felt a sense of awe overcome her. Each of them was as tall as three ponies at least, and could probably do the work of twenty judging by the tools mounted to them.
Just what manner of business was occurring on her moon?
Space Pong is Best Icebreaker
Vask never considered himself a coward. He tended to leave that task to others. However, as he squatted there amongst a large pile of rocks, half buried in a feeble attempt to disguise himself, he had to admit they might have a point. He almost flinched as he recognized the shape of the pony amid the dust, only his sterling self control and complete lack of organic reflexes sparing him from certain discovery.
As he watched the pony continue to explore the quarry, it occurred to him just how much he hated suspense movies.
Luna slowly made her second circuit of the quarry, her horn shining on yet another massive construct. This degree of machining astounded her. While she might have seen larger airships or trains, she could at least comprehend the design of those. Now, as she stared at the massive six wheeled lozenge of steel, the barest details of its design escaped her. Briefly, she considered that it might be alive, like the machine she had chased into the quarry, but a quick hooftap on its side solicited no response.
She huffed silently, looking over the quarry one last time. Whatever the machines had been mining here, they were quite done now. She gave a short hop, using her telekinesis to lift her higher, until she could see the entire quarry laid out below. Though the machine she'd chased had disappeared, something else caught her attention. A thick path of wheel tracks slithered away from the work site, leading off over the horizon.
She only hesitated a moment, taking one last glance over the dig, before pushing herself off towards the tracks. She wasn't sure what to think, as the soundless moonscape floated past beneath her. She'd always considered her moon a lifeless place, her ward and nothing more. To think she might have been shunting around a civilization at will... it troubled her.
The tracks went on, and on, and on slightly more. What was at first a sense of wonder and trepidation, gave way to boredom, then annoyance. Why would any creature build its mines so far away? It wasn't as though the moon lacked for real estate, or that it suffered under a plague of swamps and obstacles. The geography of her moon was quite pleasant and accommodating, in fact! If one liked the color gray, that is.
She was so focused on the cartographic virtues of her realm, she nearly missed it. There, on the horizon, a lone shape rose up from the irregular curve of the world. Squinting, she drifted a little higher, before the absence of breath caught in her throat. Ahead was one of the most massive structures she'd ever seen. A titanic half pyramid, the entire building was as broad as two Canterlots, if only half as tall. Dozens of lights and windows studded its pale gray surface, the structure itself hiding just below the edge of twilight. She quickly shut her jaw, and tried to shake some composure back into her expression. She was princess of the moon, she was going to act like it!
As she drifted closer, however, she found her composure waning. The aesthetic of this place was so alien. There didn't seem to be a single flourish or adornment, simply the blank stone face of its titanic facade. It had an austere dignity to it that she'd never seen in Equestria. She wasn't sure if she liked it, but she certainly had to give it credit. Down below, the tracks dwindled to little more than a scratch before the gigantic structure, their dark path winding in through a square of light at its base.
She drifted her way closer, the approach taking inordinately long due to the sheer scale of the place. By the time she actually reached the entrance, she found her awe replaced by impatience. Why did everything on the moon take so damnably long? She shook her head, and approached the great portal before her. Her back straight, mane blowing in a nonexistent breeze, she looked every bit the lunar princess as she approached the threshold.
And then a massive shape emerged and nearly ran her over.
Jumping clear at the last instant, she shouted a few soundless curses at the massive contraption as it wheeled past, surely off to trace yet more paths through her lunar soil. Of course, the impassive brute didn't even spare her a second thought, simply rolling on its way like some great ferrous glacier. She almost took off after it, prepared to give it a piece of her mind, when she noticed she'd fallen into shadow. A quick about-face, and she beheld the path into the pyramid slowly sealing itself shut. With a pulse of her magic, and a distinct lack of forethought, she hurled herself through the opening even as it slid shut behind her.
She found herself in a massive, well lit chamber, easily the size of Canterlot castle, packed wall to wall with dozens more of the massive wheeled contraptions, all sitting idle as those at the mine had done. As she examined the room, there was a sound like some great, rushing river, and she felt a breeze caress her fur. Inside of seconds, she was again covered in air, able to breath and hear once more.
There was a clank in the distance.
Luna dove behind one of the large wheeled things, eager not to cause another panicked incident as she had last time. As she peered around the edge of the wheel, she was shocked to see none other than a unicorn trotting into an empty space in the garage, what seemed to be a long green table and bucket drifting along with it. As she watched, the unicorn, a flat gray specimen with a short black mane, set the long table upon the ground, and produced a pair of paddles from beneath it.
As Luna watched, the mare produced a small ball from the bucket, and bounced it off the table, only for it to thump dismally into the surface and roll to a stop. She sighed, and placed the ball back in the bucket, producing another one that she again bounced off the table. This one hurtled clear towards the ceiling, leaving one of the paddles to chase dejectedly after the ball before it rebounded off one of the rafters and zipped back towards the ground. Without warning, it ricocheted off one of the steel wagons filling the chamber, and bounced directly into Luna's nose.
There was a startled gasp, and Luna slowly turned to see the other unicorn staring dead at her. “Uhm, forgive me, little-”
“You're Princess Luna!” The gray unicorn squealed in a cheerful, and surprisingly pleasant voice. Truly, even in the heights of glee, it found itself pitched in just the perfect range, ecstatic but not grating. “Ohmygosh, I never ever thought I'd get to meet you!”
“Just what-” Luna never got to complete her question, being promptly barreled over by a gray hug-seeking missile.
“Oh this is simply the best thing ever! A real live pony! A princess! I thought I'd have to wait centuries!” She again squeezed Luna, leaving the moon princess to try and carefully extricate herself.
“Truly, your delight pleases us...” The moon princess grunted, again trying to squirm free of the fluffy death grip wrapped around her. “...but (urk) might we ask a few questions first?”
“Questions! Of course! You must have a ton!” She hopped off Luna, happily bouncing in a manner not entirely dissimilar from a certain pink pony. “Oh, but just answering them would be no fun...” Her pale slate eyes flicked to the table, and she quickly thrust a paddle at Luna. “I know! I'll play you! One point means one question!” Before Luna could even react, she found herself scooted down to one end of the table, the gray pony at the other. “Okay! Here are the rules! This is called ping pong! You use the paddle to bounce the ball off my half of the table, and I use my paddle, to bounce it off your half! If you fail, I get a point! Same goes for me and you!” Without further ado, the gray mare released the ball she'd procured, and bapped it across the table at Luna.
For all that the princess of the night was startled, she was no slouch at games, and certainly not at 'fun'. Reacting quickly, she countered the blazing arc of the ball with a lightning fast counter strike, bouncing the ball clear of the other half of the table. As it bounced off the floor, the princess of the night realized just what she'd done. “Oh Tartarus.”
The gray mare giggled as she retrieved the ball. “Beginners mistake, you'll get the hang of it! So what brings you to the moon?” She bounced the ball off her paddle, sending it towards Luna once more.
Luna's expression fell for a moment, her frown quickly replaced by hard determination. “I was banished... again, and I fear my sister may be in danger. Alas, until somepony discovers my plight, I've no alternative but to remain.” As she spoke, she managed to bounce the ball off the correct portion of the table, only for the gray mare to return it, forcing Luna to bounce it back. “I hope my rescue will not take long.”
“Aw, I'm sorry to hear that.” The gray mare kept pace with Luna, gently returning each bounce of the ball. On the seventh volley however, she flubbed the return, letting the ball bounce past her. “Oh! Your first point! What would you like to ask?”
“Oh! This is quite fun!” Despite herself, the lunar princess found a smile gracing her lips. “Well, what manner of place is this? It's... exceedingly bizzare.” He eyes scanned over the massive room, soliciting another laugh from the mare.
“Yes, it would look rather strange, wouldn't it?” She passed the ball to Luna. “Your serve, you get to hit first. Anyway!” The mare started to chew her lip thoughtfully, her eyes unfocusing even as she blocked Luna's serve. “Hmmmmm, well, it was a long loooooong time ago. There was another planet, a lot like this one, except a lot less colorful and a lot grumpier. Anyway, our leader didn't like how things were going, so he gathered us all together, and we stole a starship! Then we flew around for a few thousand years, and wound up here!” She flubbed another return, smiling apologetically. “I don't think that answers all your questions.”
“Not... entirely, no” Luna furrowed her brow, beginning another serve. “What are you all doing out here?”
The mare grinned broadly. “Oh, whatever interests us! That was the entire point of leaving! None of us got to do what we wanted back home, so we all left. Our leader believed that the world should be built on what makes us happy, and left so we could build such a world!” She missed another return, but Luna grabbed the ball before it could hit the floor.
“That's a noble sentiment. Though, may I ask that we change the rules of the game? I would rather you not keep losing for my sake.” She served the ball again, this time with a knowing smirk.
The gray mare laughed. “Alright, ask as many questions as you like. Buuuuut...” With a grin that was nothing short of wicked, she spiked the ball past Luna at something approaching the speed of light. “I'm not gonna take it easy on you anymore!”
“Fair enough!” Luna laughed as well, her competitive streak starting to come out. “What is your name, little pony, and what... 'makes you happy' as you put it?”
“Oh! I'm Dusty Hoops!” She grinned and fired another lightning fast spike, but this time Luna blocked it right back. “Good one! I love games! All games! Old ones, new ones, ones I made myself! Games bring us all together, and let us compete and share, without hurting each other!” Her effervescent expression faded slightly. “Though, that's kind of the irony of the thing.”
“Oh?” Luna hesitated, letting the next shot sail right past her. With a grunt, she retrieved the ball and passed it to Dusty.
As she served, Dusty let out a chuckle that could only be described as dark. “Yes. We came here to build life on our wants, and... we did! But...” She trailed off, her cheer draining out like a punctured balloon. “Well, everyone's so busy doing what they want... no one has any use for games anymore...” She tried to intercept the ball, but the move was halfhearted, letting it bounce along the floor by itself. “I mean, why bother? Why would you ever need to unwind when you love your job? When all you love is your job?”
Luna trotted around the table. One of her hooves found its way around Dusty's shoulders, and she pulled the smaller mare into her embrace. “I'm sorry...”
“Don't be sorry, I came on my own... I just...” The smaller mare blinked tears from her eyes. “It just gets so lonely up here sometimes. No one even talks to each other, most days. They just... sit in their rooms and obsess over themselves. It's like I'm living with ghosts.”
“Shhh, it's alright.” Luna gave Dusty a squeeze. “I would be happy to play games with you.”
“Really?” She stared up at Luna, and the blue pony realized that while she might be far from home, her work as a princess was far from done.
“Of course.”
