LEGEND OF THE GODDESSES
Ribbondale, 1,382 years ago
It was nighttime in Ribbondale, and all around the city were set great lanterns, each connected to several others by magnificent glittering streamers. Buffet tables were set up all around, and the majestic pony population of the town were flying around and frolicking under the light of a huge, golden full moon.
A fully-grown Luna stared up at the night sky, noticing the small details: a huge amount of stars, a visible spiral galaxy off in the distance, and occasional twinkling seeming to come from no source in particular.
"Luna."
The pale blue young mare turned, seeing an aged blue-furred immortal, her long gray mane being whipped about by the whirlwind that made up her aura.
"Oh, hello Auntie Tempest," said Luna, hugging her, her own mane getting caught in Tempest's personal windstorm.
"I'm glad you made it," said Tempest. "This would seem to be the most gorgeous Harvest Moon festival I've ever seen… the night sky in general has become more vibrant and beautiful lately. Did you have something to do with that, dear Luna?"
Luna nodded. "I did, Auntie. I have all of Stellaris' powers over nighttime, and thought my best use of it would be to make the night truly magnificent—something to be appreciated rather than feared."
"You're an artist, dearest niece."
"Oh, thank you," said Luna, grinning.
Ragnarok and Xanadu lounged around together in a dark corner of the party, the only light sources there being their own auras of crackling pink and snapping green. Indeed, most of the light at the gathering came from pony's auras rather than the lanterns. This made it all the more conspicuous, then, when the two spotted a lone pony walking through the party with no aura at all.
"Hey look," Ragnarok whispered, nudging Xanadu. "It's Annihilara."
Xanadu followed her gaze to the quietly treading mare—pink, with bright red hair and green eyes. She was as tall as the rest of her family, towering over most of the ponies she passed, but had no aura… and no cutie mark.
"She's still a blank flank?" Xanadu exclaimed.
"Shush, would you?" Ragnarok snapped, smacking her. Annihilara hesitated briefly and scoffed; clearly, she had heard. "Come on," Ragnarok whispered.
Ragnarok and Xanadu took to the air and landed in front of Annihilara, blocking her path.
"Hey, Lara," Ragnarok said, grinning nervously. "It's been a while, eh? How have you been?"
"Don't call me Lara," she said coolly, trying to force her way past the two smaller ponies.
"All right, no problem," said Ragnarok, not budging. "So, listen, how are you?"
"I'm fine," she insisted. "Never better." She kept trying to push by.
"Now, hang on a minute," Ragnarok said firmly, pushing her back to hold her in place. "We're trying to talk to you."
"I realize that," Annihilara sneered. "No thank you. I heard you muttering about my blank flank."
"Commenting on it," Xanadu peeped hastily. "Not making fun of it. Hoping to express my sympathies, that's all…"
"Again, no thank you."
"Sweetie, we just want to apologize," Ragnarok said gently. "For everything we put you through when we were young. We feel terrible. We hope you forgive us."
Annihilara placed a hoof on Ragnarok's shoulder. "I don't," she stated cheerfully. "Not in a million years."
She passed between them and continued walking.
"But… but…" Xanadu stammered.
"Annihilara, you listen to me!" Ragnarok declared, rising off the ground and pointing a declarative hoof into the air. "All that stuff is in the past. Now we're doing the adult thing and apologizing. Why don't you do the adult thing, and help ease our consciences. Your cousin did when we apologized to her."
"Please," Xanadu whimpered.
"I have better things to do than make you two feel better about yourselves," Annihilara called over her shoulder.
Ragnarok scowled. "Fine, you know what? We already do feel better. We apologized. Just because you're a thirty-year-old mare with the emotional maturity of a hormonal teenager who won't forgive us—that gives us the moral high ground! Feels pretty damn good!"
Ragnarok fluttered to the ground alongside Xanadu as they watched Annihilara walk away.
"I feel pretty crummy, actually," Xanadu muttered.
"I know," Ragnarok said sadly. "But it's not our fault. We did all we could, just there."
Annihilara approached Luna and Tempest, who were laughing and talking near a buffet table.
"Hi, Lulu," she said quietly.
"Annihilara!" she said gleefully, pouncing upon her with a tight hug. "I've wondered where you've been."
Annihilara shrugged. "Just thinking about what to say to you. So here it is: you've always been like a sister to me. My life has been so much fun thanks to you. I wanted to tell you that."
Luna blushed. "Why, thank you, Lara! I feel very much the same. You're my best friend."
The two leaned forward, rubbing their noses together. Annihilara then turned to Tempest.
"And Mother, thank you for everything," she said. "For giving birth to me, raising me, being my rock and a fixed point in my life for all these years."
Tempest sniffled, teary-eyed. "You're very welcome, honey. What brought this on?"
"Just… just had to be said," said Annihilara. "That's all. And… ah. Celestia."
Celestia, stuffing her face with cake at a nearby buffet table, raised her head at the mention of her name. "Hmm?"
Annihilara approached and looked her straight in the eye. "There is so much that I'd like to say to you, cousin. But I won't."
"Um… okay," Celestia said blankly.
Annihilara grinned at her mother and two cousins. "So nice to see you all. Give Aunt Gaia similar regards from me if you see her. Farewell, family!" She spread her wings and flew off, high into the air, to the outer lip of the valley.
"What was that about?" Luna whispered.
"I'm not sure, Luna," Tempest fretted.
"I fear the worst. Excuse me a moment, Auntie."
"Of course."
Luna flew off, following Annihilara into the night sky.
-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-
In an old abandoned barn on the outskirts of the forest valley that contained Ribbondale, Annihilara stood on a high rafter, using her pitch-black unicorn magic to tie one end of a long rope around the rafter, and fashioning the other end into a noose. Checking the security of the knots, she nodded at her work in satisfaction and threw the noose around her neck.
The barn door creaked open, and Luna peered in. "Lara, are you in here? Why are—?"
Annihilara threw herself off the rafter, her wings clamped shut, and plummeted toward the ground, her neck snapping as the rope reached its end.
"NOOO!" Luna shrieked.
Her horn glowed with its midnight-blue aura, while the silver aura that always surrounded her body drew itself into her horn, its light becoming concentrated in that area, more intense than ever before. An immensely powerful silver-and-blue beam of energy shot from her horn and hit Annihilara's dangling body, breaking the rope that held it up. Her body fell to the ground… and dissolved into nothingness, leaving behind nothing but the tight noose.
"NO!" Luna screamed again. Her silver aura reasserted itself as she collapsed to the ground, digging and tunneling at the dirt floor where Annihilara's body had been, as if attempting to find her, clawing frantically with her hooves. "Cousin? Cousin, where are you? No… no… NO!"
She gave up, collapsing upon the turned earth. "Oh, cousin," she sobbed, silver tears streaking down her cheeks. "Why? Why would you do that?" She looked around, bewildered at where the body could have gone, her tear-stained eyes looking for some sort of sign. "And what did I just do to you?" she whispered.
She froze suddenly, at the sight of something truly horrifying: the shadow of a pony on the wall, a pony who wasn't there.
The shadow flickered and wobbled slightly, then came back into focus. Its mane became gray and somewhat transparent, forming the shape of Annihilara's own manestyle. Its horn was long and curved, and its body shape was graceful and long-legged.
"Luna?" said a voice from the center of the shadow's faceless head.
"Lara?" Luna gasped, for it was unmistakably Annihilara's voice.
A pair of sharp-edged, hatchet-shaped gray wings extended from the shadow's back, and it lifted up its hooves, the faceless thing seeming to examine itself nervously.
"What… what happened to me?" The shadow looked to Luna, and a pair of huge red disks appeared on its face where eyes would be. "What did you do to me, Luna?"
"I… I don't know…" Luna stammered, backing away. "Lara… cousin… I don't…"
"What have you done, cousin?" said the shadow through a mouth that had appeared suddenly, a mouth full of jagged teeth, every one of them sharp and curving. "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?"
The shadow's face became three-dimensional then, and the whole thing leapt off the wall, screaming horribly as it clubbed Luna with its pitch-black front hooves, knocking the absolutely stunned young pony down.
She pinned Luna to the floor, her head and body twice the size of a regular pony's and her maw of needle-sharp fangs gnashing in Luna's face as she snarled, "What did you do?"
"I don't know, Lara," Luna wailed. "I don't know! I just wanted to save your life!"
"Who asked you to save my life?" Annihilara snapped. "Isn't it obvious I wanted to die?"
"Well, I didn't!" Luna snapped back. "I did not desire your death! I didn't want you taken away from me!"
Annihilara stared blankly, her perfectly round eyes and lipless mouth making her emotions impossible to decipher. "…Of course," she finally growled, her axelike wings flapping uneasily. "It's not your fault."
She stepped away from Luna. Only the front half of her body had been pinning Luna down; her hindquarters were stretched out, still attached to the wall like a layer of paint. Annihilara stared up at the roof of the barn. "I must seek out the ponies who made me want to die in the first place," she said. "Yes!"
She jetted up into the air, smashing through the roof of the barn, a long tail of shadow following behind her like the tail of a comet. Luna was still flat on her back, breathing heavily and raggedly.
"Cousin," she whispered, hauling herself back onto her hooves. She took to the air, following Annihilara through the hole in the roof.
-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-
Ragnarok and Xanadu chatted over drinks and small plates as they leaned against the wall of a house. They fell silent at the curious sight of two columns of black smoke seeping out of the ground.
The coils of smoke grabbed them around the ankles, first slamming them against the ground, then pushing them toward a pair of huge trees, pinning them there by their necks. The duo stared in horror at the ever-expanding cloud of smoke, then at the gruesome red-eyed face which appeared in the cloud's depths.
"It would seem I can't do anything properly," the face sneered, "not even commit suicide. But maybe I can squeeze the life out of you two."
Xanadu's jaw dropped as she recognized Annihilara's voice. "Annihilara? You… you tried to kill yourself?"
"Do I look like I didn't succeed?" Annihilara retorted. "I did kill myself. But now I'm… this." Her head took shape and shot out of the cloud, alternating between the two of them, mere inches from their faces, menacing them with her scimitar-shaped horn. "You'll pay for spending my whole life slowly driving me to this."
She started squeezing their throats.
"We apologized to you!" Ragnarok spat. "It's not our fault you didn't take it!"
"We never wanted you dead," Xanadu squeaked, tears pouring from her eyes. "Never."
"COUSIN!" Luna cried out, diving down from above and hovering over them. "They are innocent. Do not harm them."
Annihilara stared at Luna for a moment. "Fine," she said coldly. Her entire smoky form was sucked back into the earth; Ragnarok and Xanadu tumbled to the ground, gasping and rubbing their throats. Luna dropped to the ground as well and started looking around, searching from some sign of Annihilara returning.
Her eyes were drawn toward Celestia, who had been staring mutely at the scene unfolding, but was now looking in concern at the ground beneath her hooves, which was shaking and rumbling.
A gargantuan Annihilara burst out of the ground from the waist up, looming over Celestia. "You!" she snarled. "Queen of making me feel like garbage! Lulu—let's take her down together."
"Hey, I've got nothing to do with this!" Celestia objected, backing away.
"She doesn't, Lara," Luna said firmly. "Let her be."
Annihilara quivered with rage. "Is there anypony in this town I can kill without being made to feel guilty about it?" she demanded.
"My sweet daughter, I sincerely hope no such pony exists anywhere."
Annihilara turned her head, to see Tempest staring up at her solemnly.
"Mother…" she said with a tremor. She turned her gaze to the ground guiltily and slowly began to shrink and morph, for the first time assuming the complete shape of a pony. Her tail was pale gray and transparent like her mane, and though no longer monstrous in size, she was still tall, head and shoulders above what she had once been, taller than any pony in Ribbondale.
The entire festival had gone silent, all eyes on the specter of Annihilara.
"Does… does anypony else hear those voices?" she asked. "I'm hearing voices. Is it just me?"
"Lara?" Luna said, new layers of concern creeping into her voice.
Annihilara brought a hoof to her head. "It's the thoughts of the dead. I'm hearing the thoughts of every being who has ever died… and those who are dying right now…" She stared at her hoof, then at her entire body, feeling and looking at the mass of pure shadow she had become. "What… what am I now?" she whispered pitifully.
"Annihilara, your cutie mark," Tempest said breathlessly.
Annihilara snorted. "That's absurd, you know I don't have a…" She turned to her flank absently, then did a double take when she realized there truly were marks there on her shadowy hips. Her neck extended like a ribbon, bringing her face directly to her flank so she could get a good look at the mark.
It was a scythe, with a long and crooked handle, and its blade covered in what could have been either rust or blood.
"I got a cutie mark… for this?" she whispered. "That's the mark of suicide. THAT'S MY CUTIE MARK?" Her neck returned to normal and she stared blankly into space. "That's my destiny?" she raged. "My special talent is SUICIDE?"
An unearthly scream escaped from her mouth, piercing the ears of all the surrounding ponies. Her body collapsed upon itself, becoming one-dimensional, a simple vertical black line. From this line burst a pair of leathery black wings, hundreds of feet across, which beat ferociously and soared away into the night.
"Where has she gone?" Tempest whispered. "…Luna?"
"I don't know, Auntie," Luna sobbed. "I'm so sorry… I tried to save her, but instead my magic did… whatever it did to make her… I'm sorry."
Tempest rubbed Luna's back with a hoof. "It's not your fault," she whispered.
The silence stretched out painfully, interrupted only by Celestia surreptitiously grabbing another plateful of cake and sneaking away with it.