Chapter 10: The Fall
Celestia lagged behind her mother and sister as the three of them crossed a dried riverbed whose stones were still slippery with a ghost of a river. Luna looked back at Celestia with a calm expression, almost as though she'd forgotten the day before.
"We're almost there," said their mother. "Luna, Celestia, I think it's best if the three of us work together on this spell. How does that sound?"
Luna kept looking at her sister, saying nothing. "I'm not sure I can," said Celestia.
"You two can start, and I'll help you. That's the best way for you to learn."
They came to a large circle of stones arranged around a flat patch of dust at the forest's edge. The shadow of the tree-line fell jaggedly near the circle's perimeter, courteously allowing the sunshine to reach the ground where the three ponies drew together.
In the center of the circle lay a neat stack of fresh, green reeds, all cut the same length. Mother inclined her head, the air around her horn shimmering as two of the topmost reeds steadily rose.
"Each of you take a reed, and I'll show you how to make the first knot."
As Celestia magically grasped one of the reeds and her mother loosened her hold on it, it slipped into a distinct, unsteady wobble. It gave her some satisfaction to see the same thing happen to Luna's reed.
"Now, you start by weaving them together like this…" A light tug led one end of Celestia's reed towards Luna's, twisting around it, slipping under it, wrapping back, widening into a loop…
"Slow down. It's bent right here, you see?" Celestia realized that she'd been moving the reed on her own. She watched as her mother slowly undid a knot, straightening a bent segment before retying it. "Now, this next knot is very similar, only it goes in the other direction…"
As Celestia did her part in creating the floating construct, she was distracted by rough tugs on the ends of her reeds. She glanced, confused, at her mother before realizing that the interference was probably coming from Luna, whose brow was furrowed in intense concentration.
Mother seemed to notice the lack of synchronization. "No need to rush, Luna. We have plenty of time." As a pony's head took shape, Celestia was struck by the realization of how large their creation would be when it was finished: larger than she was, and nearly the size of her mother. She shivered.
Several times, Celestia or Luna would make a mistake, only to see it corrected by Mother. As the reed pony took shape, its unfinished legs dangled unsettlingly, like shredded strands of flesh. Celestia was thankful that it had no eyes.
"Keep in mind, you can only make the same pony once. It's very important that you understand that."
"Yes, Mother," said Luna without averting her gaze from the particularly difficult back joint she was building."
"There's no way around it. Even if you finished this one, took it apart, and put it back together exactly the same, it wouldn't be the same pony."
Celestia glanced up at her. "How can that be?"
"It's hard to explain. You'll understand someday."
"Why does it matter if it's the same pony?" asked Luna.
Mother was silent for a long time. Then, a voice that was much softer than the words called for, she said: "I suppose it doesn't."
After that, she was silent for a long time, glancing periodically at the sun as it crawled across the sky. Celestia felt the back of her neck tingle as the reed pony reached completion, resolving into a shape that was like her, but made of a material that was unlike her, and filled with intentional gaps and fibrous, green knots. Why was the sight so unnerving?
Mother smiled. "You've both done very well, but we still have to do the hardest part. I want you to close your eyes and concentrate. This will feel very strange, but bear with me."
Not wanting to let their creation out of her sight, Celestia tried to keep one eye slightly open, but noticed Luna glaring at her and shut it. Thrilling, swarming motes of magic coursed through her head, so alien and complex that it took her a moment to realize that the magic was Mother's. Convoluted, fractal afterimages danced across the backs of her eyelids; her breathing and heartbeat suddenly had a pitch.
"It's not enough just to make the pony move. It has to decide to move, and before it can do that, it needs to be able to see and feel."
A twinge of alarm shot through Celestia as a falling, dizzy sensation claimed her, but she trusted Mother, so she kept her eyes tightly shut. The ground dropped away beneath her as her magic snuck out of her horn of its own accord. She was momentarily placeless and thoughtless before her skin made a rude return, itchy and nearly numb, around some new, nebulous self that felt nothing like herself.
"Feeling is bound to feel strange to something that has never felt before." Mother's voice started off warbling and distant, but grew louder and steadier as she spoke. "Do you hear me, Celestia? Do you see me, Luna?"
Celestia briefly wondered why her sister was allowed to open her eyes, but was distracted by a sudden burst of electrical, shuddering waking that rippled across her entire body, like a numb leg returning from its sleep. Light, color, sound, and air shot through her entire being, immolating her every nerve with a pain that did not hurt, a terror that was not frightening. She saw and heard the world new, felt particles of air slamming against her reeds like stones, heard the song of the earth and the sky as a vibration that threatened to shake her to pieces.
"Is this what it feels like to be born?" The voice was a tidal wave of shrill echoes, but Celestia guessed that it belonged to Luna. Her muscles shook and spasmed as dense, liquid proprioception oozed through them, forcing her to contort, arching her back as stars sang and danced in front her eyes.
The feeling was too much, to be was too intense, and just as she thought she might lose her mind, a gentle tug from somewhere unseen jolted everything out of focus. As more tugs followed, panoplies of colors that would have taken centuries to count blurred into pure white, and sound so full she heard it mostly with her bones faded into a soft buzz.
She awoke, as from a nap, lying in dust that only felt like dust. As she struggled to her hooves, furiously shaking her head, she heard Luna groan.
"Remember the experience you've just had. You'll need it the next time you cast a spell like this."
As her eyes adjusted to the light of her own reality, Celestia saw the reed pony standing on solid ground, lifting and shaking each of its hooves, one at a time. It froze and stared at her, then at Luna, and then at Mother. Its ears twitched as it made a shuffling sidestep that signaled intense, purposeful caution. It can see us, thought Celestia, the notion slamming against the walls of her mind in a failed effort to make her understand its significance.
Just as Luna began to back away, the pony whipped around and began galloping away, parallel to the edge of the forest. A few times, its wings would unfold, only for it to tuck them away again, as if it had changed its mind about flying—which it probably had, since it now had a mind to change.
"Mother," said Celestia, "you did most of that spell for us, didn't you?" She nodded. "So then, how long will it be before we can do that on our own?"
Again, Mother's gaze went to the sun. "Many years, I think. You should practice the spell every day."
"Yes, Mother." Celestia watched the reed pony in the distance, galloping across the hillsides. Her legs tensed as she imagined running for the first time.
"And remember what I told you: you can't make the same pony twice."
…
They spent most of the remaining daylight walking through the forest, and by the time they emerged, Celestia discovered that the sun had set behind her back. She gave a meaningful look to Luna, who cocked her head. Celestia kept her eyes fixed on her sister's and slowed her pace until both of them were a good distance behind Mother.
"Where do you think those ponies go after we make them?"
Luna shrugged. "I don't know. They run off. Why are we whispering?"
Celestia glanced at Mother. "I think she's trying to distract us. Remember yesterday? She seemed so afraid, like that black pony was going to do something terrible to us."
"She said he would leave us alone."
Mother looked over her shoulder at them, causing each to take a step away from the other. She gave them a smile, which they weakly returned. As they drew close to the castle, Mother lit her horn and let her daughters pass through the door before her, lingering for a moment before following them inside.
…
Before long, Celestia found herself intoxicated by the taste and aroma of thick barley soup. The three of them stood around a table, each of their wooden bowls filled from a large central pot. As Luna ate, a thin trickle of soup wandered through the air and into her bowl along a winding, spiraling path.
Celestia snorted. "Just use a spoon." Luna looked up with a start as the soup trail fell onto the table with a soft splash. She bit her lip and began magically siphoning the soup into a floating, rippling ball before she looked around and realized she had nowhere to put it.
"The table's clean," said Mother with a chuckle. "You can still eat that."
Luna's nose twitched and she raised an eyebrow. "I'm not sure I want to." After some consideration, she strode over to the window, flung it open, and cast the soup ball out into the night before closing the window and returning to the table with evident satisfaction.
Soon everyone had finished eating. Celestia shuffled towards the hallway, throwing Luna a subtle tilt of the head. Luna rose to follow her, but was stopped in her tracks by Mother's embrace.
"You know I love you very much, don't you?"
Luna smiled and twisted her head around in a failed attempt at eye contact. "Of course, Mother. I love you too."
"The same goes for you, Celestia. Come here."
As Celestia squeezed her way alongside Luna, she was alarmed to notice that Mother wasn't smiling. Her gaze passed vacantly through the floor, into somewhere dark and unnamed.
"You two don't know it yet, but there's nothing you can't do. The world is a beautiful place, and it belongs to you. Don't ever forget that." She drew a long, unsteady breath. "Now, go to bed. Tomorrow will be a big day, just like today was."
She held her daughters close for a long time before releasing them, turning to walk away a second too late to prevent Celestia from spotting tears in her eyes.
The sisters walked to their room in a somber daze, neither looking at each other nor avoiding each other's gaze. Celestia came to a stop on the floor next to her bed, staring at nothing as Mother had done.
"He's coming tonight," said Luna in a shaky whisper. "Something bad is going to happen, and she wants us to be asleep so that we don't see it."
Celestia nodded. "I'm not going to sleep, though. I'm going to pretend I'm asleep, and when that black pony shows up, I'm going to spy on him."
Luna's expression became resolute. "I'll follow you. I want to know what's going on, no matter how bad it is."
They lay there in the darkness, almost breathless. As the moon rose and peeked through the window, Celestia gave it a challenging stare, a silent ultimatum demanding that it surrender, as she would not. Sleep tried to slither in unnoticed; her legs grew heavy and her eyes began to drift shut, but she shook her head and clung to consciousness with new determination.
"Luna, are you awake?"
"Yes. Are you?"
"I am."
"Good."
As empty, silent time drifted passively by, it occurred to Celestia just now long a night really was. She braced herself for a long and difficult fight against that insidious trickster, sleep, and tried to measure out the time in her head.
It must have been an hour by now, right? (Or at least half an hour.)
By now, it must have been at least two hours. Then again, would the second hour feel longer than the first one?
At one point, she was sure she would fall asleep if she lay there another second, so she leapt out of bed, forcing herself to breathe quickly as she stumbled around in circles, shaking her head for a few seconds before rolling back onto the bed.
There. Five hours. I think the moon moved, so maybe I can tell time by looking where the moonlight lands.
Every couple of minutes, she would thump her head against the headboard or slap herself in the face a few times. She settled into a rhythm and focused herself completely on pushing through the dizzying, numbing, stupefying poison called sleep.
Ten hours. This is easy. Just a little longer until morning.
She gritted her teeth, squirming and fidgeting every time she got too comfortable. She put a colossal effort into her eyelid muscles, forcing them to open as hard as possible, only to find them disobeying her by blinking and shutting again.
Fifteen hours. I don't think I've been counting right.
It occurred to her that she had heard nothing from Luna in almost fifteen hours, give or take.
"Luna?"
No response. Her face burned hot at the realization of her sister's betrayal in leaving her alone, ready to drift off to sleep with the hopes of a wake-up that would never come. How selfish and inconsiderate it was to shirk the one responsibility she'd had: staying awake. Celestia began to rise, planning to wake Luna by any means necessary, when—
Thump.
The hoof-step from the hallway left her frozen, staring at the door. As more steps followed, she flung herself towards her pillow and curled up with her eyes closed, heart now beating too hard to let her fall asleep. She winced as she realized the hoof-steps were getting closer. With the utmost of caution, she steadily rotated her head and opened one eye as little as possible, hoping dearly that she looked like she was asleep.
The sound stopped and the door began to open, agonizingly slowly. As soon as she could see the pony's face in the faint moonlight, she breathed a deep sigh of relief—it was Mother.
Celestia closed her eye completely. A long silence followed, filled with the creeping tension brought by Mother's visit. Eventually, Mother closed the door, leaving Celestia to listen as her hoof-steps grew quieter before fading completely.
I still need to wake Luna. I should get up, go over there, and push her out of bed.
Celestia lay still.
I need to roll over, put my hooves on the floor, pull myself out of bed, walk over to Luna's bed, climb onto it, climb around to the other side of her, and push her until she falls out of bed and wakes up.
Celestia lay still.
I need to push my left front hoof against the bed until I'm in a position that lets me roll over, push my right front hoof against the bed until I'm facing the other way, use my back hooves to push myself towards the edge of the bed until my front hooves can reach the side of the bed, push the side of the bed with one of my left front hoof until I can reach the floor with my right front hoof, pull myself forward with my front hooves until my back hooves can reach the floor, lift my left front hoof, move it forward, lift my right back hoof, push myself forward with my right front hoof, do the same thing on the other side, keep taking steps like that until I reach Luna's bed, put my right hoof on top of her bed, push myself up onto to her bed, use my left back hoof to push myself to the right of Luna, move past her, push myself back to the left with my right back hoof, turn around, put my front hooves against Luna, and push with my back hooves until she falls out of bed and wakes up.
Celestia lay still.
I need to make my left front hoof start moving up against the sheets, move it to the left, move it down, put it against the bed, push hard enough to make the rest of me move backwards, pull my left front hoof back towards me, move my right front hoof out from under my side, move it forward, put it against…
She woke up to a distant ringing sound. She stared at the ceiling for several seconds before realizing that in order to wake up, she must have fallen asleep. Panicking, she jerked around until she could see the window, and confirmed that it was still dark outside.
"Luna." The name came out slurred, her tongue stumbling from the 'U' to the 'N' as though it were walking on ice. Luna gave no response.
"Luna." Again, no response.
She managed to twist and drag her way out of bed, her body reflexively taking a moment to stretch the instant she was standing up. As soon as she could move again, she rushed over and began nudging Luna with her hoof, repeating her name intermittently.
"Huh?" managed Luna. "I'm awake."
Celestia glared at her. "No, you're not. Now, listen. Do you hear that?"
Luna blinked blearily, nudging her face with her hoof. "I think so…" Suddenly, her eyes shot wide open and she looked at Celestia for the first time since she'd started speaking. "It's that sound. That same sound I heard before, from that black thing in the ground."
The ringing traveled through Celestia's ears into her bones, instilling in them an unsettling vibrating sensation and seizing her stomach in an icy vice grip. "Where is it coming from?"
Luna struggled into a sitting position, leaned towards Celestia, and whispered "From him."
Celestia shook her head. "Well, where is he? We need to go spy on him." Even as she spoke, she began to regret the decision. Nevertheless, she moved to the window, squinting at the shadows on the landscape.
"Let's try to find Mother," suggested Luna. As Celestia turned towards her, an intense yet brief flash of light filled the room. She whipped around to face the window, but everything outside looked exactly the same as before. She dashed out the door and down the hallway, with Luna trailing closely behind.
She lit her horn as she ran, dimming it momentarily when she reached Mother's room. She glanced at Luna, who simply nodded, and then opened the door. A lump formed in her throat as her horn-light fell on an empty bed.
With that, the two of them set off for the front gate. As they left the castle, Celestia felt a chill breeze rush up to meet her, and heard the ringing grow louder.
"It's coming from the woods," said Luna. They charged up the hillside, Celestia's head pounding as the insidious vibrations birthed noxious emotions in her mind, swirling, unformed ideas involving fears she couldn't name but felt as acutely as needles.
She ran through the trees, no longer following Luna, since she could now hear where the sound was coming from. She wanted nothing more than to run away, to hide back under her warm sheets and never have to learn why she was afraid—yet, she had to know.
As they approached the epicenter of the ringing, Luna's labored breathing devolved into strained whimpers, and the two ponies slowed down. Celestia darted her eyes about, feeling strangely vulnerable, as though the darkness might gobble her up, never letting her see the sun again.
Celestia crouched as she heard wing-beats up ahead. She crawled forward, ferns brushing against her belly as she emerged from the shade of the trees and into a moonlit clearing. She breached the last layer of undergrowth just in time to see a winged, horned silhouette rising up past the canopy, where it continued its ascent until its shape was framed against the full moon.
The ringing is getting quieter, she realized. Each step forward seemed to lift her higher, until she was barely aware of the soil beneath her hooves as she melted into the moonlight's surreal embrace. She approached the prone form in the center of the clearing with a half-numb, drifting stride. Without a sound, Luna was alongside her, the two of them kneeling by Mother, whose every breath sounded like a raspy struggle against some unseen oppressor.
Her breath caught in her throat as she saw Celestia leaning over her. Her eyes seemed to glaze over; her jaw hung limply for a several seconds. She managed a heavy, dry-sounding swallow before speaking in a cold, cruel voice that sounded like it must have belonged to someone else:
"Tell him he meant nothing to me."
Her eyes closed. Her head fell to the side, slumping against the ground. Luna leaned down and began nudging Mother's face with her nose, whispering soft, half-formed pleas that she couldn't quite assemble into complete words.
Celestia's muddled thoughts went to the reed pony and the overwhelming strangeness of creating it. This is another moment like that one. Here was something fundamentally new to her universe, unnamed and unknown until it had collided, without mercy, into her consciousness. She wondered what the throbbing nausea inside her was called, where her tears had come from, and what exactly she was supposed to be looking at.
She joined Luna, nudging Mother, imploring her to wake up and take them back home. Her weight shifted only as far as they pushed her, producing an odd, persistent yet passive resistance that Celestia had never felt from a pony. It was like trying to flip over a large, mossy boulder—none of her efforts got the slightest response. Her struggles grew feebler entire her entire body relaxed, nuzzled against a wall of fading warmth as sleep remembered her.
…
The next thing she knew, she was hearing wing-beats again. Her eyes shot open in the muffled sunlight filtering through the fog, and she frantically surveyed her surroundings through half-awake eyes. As her thoughts and vision began to adjust, she looked up and immediately began scrambling backwards.
The black pony was drifting downwards in slow circles, like some great, terrifying bird of prey. Celestia bumped into a tree, turned around and hopped around its base in two short bounds. A glance over her shoulder gave her the stark sight of the black pony leaning over Luna, who was shuffling her wings in her sleep.
"Leave her alone!" Celestia stepped back out into the clearing, holding her head high. Even in her gut-wrenching terror, she noticed that the ringing he'd brought with him was much quieter than before.
His mouth curled into an indecisive half-frown as he studied her, as though she'd presented a problem he wasn't quite sure how to solve. Luna stirred and murmured an inaudible question, creaking her eyes open and staring at the black pony for a few seconds. As soon as she'd processed the situation, she jerked around until she was on her hooves and leapt to Mother's other side, where she crouched and hid.
"I'm not going to hurt either of you," he said, looking at Celestia now that Luna was out of eyeshot. "I came back because I didn't think it was right to leave her here."
Celestia shivered. His voice was much deeper than she'd expected, and drastically different in timbre from any she'd heard from a pony.
"What do you mean?" demanded Luna, lifting her head up. "You're not taking her away, are you?"
"I am. It's the kindest thing I can do at this point."
Luna stamped her hoof. "No, it's not! If you wanted to be kind, you'd wake her up!"
"She isn't asleep, Luna. Besides, she told me she didn't want her body left here. Otherwise, I wouldn't have come back."
Luna's jaw worked silently for a few seconds after hearing him speak her name. Finally, she said "I don't believe you! Stop lying and bring our Mother back!"
He let out an exasperated sigh, as though he were being pestered for snacks. "What you don't seem to understand is that she's dead. Bringing her back is beyond my power."
Upon hearing the word dead, Celestia felt an electric jolt travel directly from her ears to the pit of her stomach. This strange new facet of reality, this impassable threshold at the edge of her universe now had a name, a distinct form she could sound out with her mouth, to go with the shape she could see on the ground, or the bitter twinge she could feel somewhere in her chest.
"What does it mean?" she asked. "What is it like to be dead?"
He locked eyes with her. She gritted her teeth and forced herself not to flinch or look away. "It's like nothing," he said. "She can't see, hear, feel, or move. She can't think or dream. Nothing we say or do now will reach her, and the time that's passing right now is nothing to her. A day or a hundred thousand years could pass, and she would still experience nothing. This is the way she is now, and it will be forever. Even with her body lying there, it would be fairly accurate to say she doesn't exist anymore."
Every muscle and every bone in Celestia's body felt weak and shaky. Tiny stars danced in front of her eyes; a wave of sheer numbness briefly passed through her body, leaving behind a disorienting tingle. A powerful sickness gripped her, forcing her into a place as alien as the creation of the reed pony had been. The world started to spin and the ringing grew louder.
"Do you understand now?" he asked.
Celestia shook her head. "It doesn't make sense. How is something like that even possible? And why would you do something so horrible?"
He looked away. "I had no choice. Don't you know what I am yet?" He spoke his name, and in an instant, the spell he'd set in motion was complete. The ringing grew louder than ever, injecting Celestia and Luna with pure, liquid cruelty until they both lay crumpled on the grass, whimpering, legs quivering.
Their oppressor's voice boomed over the awful sound echoing from his soul. "She died so that I wouldn't have to! I would expect two frightened children to understand that better than anyone." His voice sounded strangely shaky, thought it might have been distorted by the rippling waves of hatred emanating from him as he circled the two sisters. "I think in time, you'll both make the same decision I did."
Luna stamped her hoof. "No! We would never become monsters like you!"
Celestia feared an attack, but she couldn't bear to open her eyes in her current state. "Are you so sure?" asked a voice that sounded inches away. "I'm willing to offer you a deal right now. You see, there's something I believe you two can help me with. In return, neither of you will ever have to die, like she did."
Celestia wasn't sure she could stay conscious much longer. Her world was being reduced to a blinding migraine, the blood pounding in her ears, and a throbbing white light filling her vision…
"Are you both so short-sighted, so eager to die that you would turn down my offer? Would it really be worth it, just to spite me, just to feel satisfied for a while before you stop feeling anything?"
Celestia gritted her teeth, waiting for Luna to offer a retort. When none came, she forced herself to stand, determined not to let her sister betray her again. "We won't do it!" she yelled as loudly as she could.
"I should have known you were too young to make the prudent decision. Very well—I'll give you a hundred years, no more and no less. If you ever decide to hear out my offer, simply call my name, and I'll find my way to you. If not… you know what's coming."
In an instant, the ringing stopped. Celestia panted as the green poured back into the grass, and the shape of Luna, supine, wide-eyed and shivering, resolved into focus next to her. She rushed over.
"Luna! What did he do to you?"
She shook her head. "I don't know. I was so sure he was going to make both of us dead."
Celestia glanced around the clearing, but Death seemed to have left. She realized that he must have taken Mother with him, because the only thing left of her was a flattened patch of grass.
"We have a hundred years," said Celestia hollowly. Even now, everything that had happened still felt like an impossible nightmare, a twisted, feverish imagining, conceived out of some sudden miasma of her mind.
"We won't let him keep her," said Luna, staring at the ground through a thick layer of tears. "In a hundred years, we'll be bigger, and we'll know more magic. We'll be too strong for him to take us away—and maybe we'll even strong enough to bring Mother back."
Once again, Celestia remembered the experience of building the reed pony, of creating life inside a hollow shell. Her coat bristled as she visualized eyes seeing for the first time, a newly-made consciousness shining out into the world like a beam of light. An idea rapidly coalesced in her mind, built from all the lingering hopes and fears strewn about her mind.
"I think that's exactly what she was counting on."