Romance and the Fate of Equestria

All right! It is now 2017, specifically the 24th of March. Now that we're back from what would qualify as a hiatus if not for the fact that several previous normal updates have also taken three months, there's an important thing I need to tell you: tonight somepony dies.

Ahem, that is to say, sometime in this quadrant of Part Three—sometime between now and Chapter 186—there will be a major character death, of equal or greater severity than that of Granny Smith in Part One. You have been warned. It's unorthodox, I realize, not exactly a subtle or elegant way to foreshadow something, but it had to be said. I just thought I'd, you know, do that.

Chapter One Hundred and Sixty-Three

Cadance took a spiral staircase up a tower, silent but for her echoing hoofsteps, lit only occasionally by torchlight.

Her flickering shadow turned to her, peeling itself off the wall. "So…" Annihilara said, conversational but clearly uncomfortable. "Do you think I'm scarier with my face or with no face at all?"

She alternated between the two, keeping herself linked up to Cadance's shadow, as Cadance continued walking.

"Goodness, I don't know," Cadance admitted. "Is there a middle ground, perhaps? You're such a deft shapeshifter, after all."

"I'm a shadow, yes," said Annihilara. "And shadows will… do that. But no, as much as I've tried, when I want to conjure up a face, it's either this face or no face at all, just like when I decide to take physical form it's always the same. And always hurts. I have a lot of weird rules like that to deal with… and I had to figure them all out by myself, one by one. There's nothing else in the world anything like me, after all."

"That's not something to lament, Princess."

Annihilara attached herself to the wall once again. Cadance watched her shadow's hoofsteps carefully, and found they perfectly matched her own steps despite her shadow being currently possessed by Annihilara. Cadance's eyes went from the shadow's foot to its face, and she couldn't hold back a giggle.

"What's up?" Annihilara inquired.

"You just… you kind of have a nice profile," Cadance said. "I never noticed before… but you do."

"Thanks," Annihilara said casually. "You do too." She gazed at Cadance, expressionless as ever. "In fact… I saw that Fleur Dis Lee chick on a magazine cover, they were calling her the most beautiful mare in Equestria… that's ridiculous. You blow her out of the water."

"Oh, well, actually," Cadance said proudly, "I win that award every year and I just let the magazines talk about the runner-up instead."

"…Really?"

"No, I'm kidding. …Well, okay, I'm not really kidding, but… well, okay, I won every year from when I was seventeen to when I was twenty-seven, so they don't put me on the ballot anymore. It's like a rule… if somepony wins ten consecutive years, they're not eligible anymore. I don't know if I'm the only pony ever to pull that off, or if they just made it up when I won the tenth time."

"That's a shame," said Annihilara. "You shoulda won this year, you've never looked better."

Cadance blushed. "Aw… I just wear a lot of makeup."

"Nothing wrong with that," said Annihilara, as the pair of them emerged from the spiral staircase and into a hallway. "Historically, makeup wasn't used to deceptively make ponies better-looking than they are, it was an art and style decision."

"Hmm," Cadance said thoughtfully. "That's true. That's good, really. We should tell Rarity that next time we see her. She's derided herself over her use of makeup once or twice."

"Mm, yeah, heard about her," Annihilara said solemnly. "That poor thing."

They turned a corner, and froze in surprise. at the sight of Celestia and Luna, filling the hall with their wings spread wide and their manes flowing triumphantly.

"Oh!" Cadance cried out in shock. "Hey! You're back early! I was just going up to the topmost tower to wait for you." She rushed forward to hug Celestia.

"My goodness…" Luna said softly. "Forgive me for being so blunt, but your very short time on the throne has aged you. What happened?"

"Nothing," Cadance admitted. "I just did a lot of freaking out that something might happen. But nothing really did." She embraced Luna as well. "Well… Blueblood ran away from home. And there was this kinda massive altercation at the museum in Manehattan… but that didn't really have anything to do with the diplomatic meeting with Westeroceros. Just happened around the same time and place. So… yeah, haven't had all that much to do besides fretting about having to do stuff." She chuckled bitterly. "I don't think I'm gonna want to be in charge of a country again anytime soon…"

"And you've well earned a reprieve from it," said Celestia. "You have done well. You are formally relieved of duty, Princess Cadance. We're home."

Cadance bowed to them. "Thank you."

She hurled herself bodily out of an open window, her wings folded. A moment later, she could be seen gently gliding over the dark castle.

"HEY! SHINING ARMOR!" she cried out at the top of her lungs. "I JUST LOST MY JOB, YOU WANNA MAKE A BABY?"

Celestia and Luna turned to each other in surprise and laughed.

"Well… it's nearly sunrise," said Celestia. "It's been quite surreal being in different time zones. It'll be nice to see the sun actually rise at the very moment I cast the spell to raise it. After that, I think I'll head off to Ponyville to see the girls."

Annihilara peeled herself off of the wall and took form, giving her customary small cry of pain.

Luna's face brightened. "Lara. You came after all."

"I'll leave you to it," said Celestia. "It's good to see you, Lara." She walked off in the direction of the highest tower.

Luna lifted a hoof as though to silence Annihilara, though the latter had given no indication of being about to speak. "I know what you're going to say," she said, softly but with a cold edge.

"Yeah, well… I know what you're going to say," Annihilara countered lamely.

"So we understand each other," Luna said. "I'm not going to let this subject drop, not even for a second, until you consent to live here with us."

"It's not really 'consent' if you put me under that kind of duress, now is it?" Annihilara retorted.

"It's for your own good," Luna stated. "You can reach your home in the broken-down castle in Everfree Forest in an all-too-literal instant, I assume? Well, I can get there almost as quickly, and I will drag you back here."

"And what if that's not where I'm going?" Annihilara snapped.

"Then I will find you. I will devote all of my time to finding you. It's not as though either of us is getting any older, now is it? If you pick up a new home, I will search every nook and cranny of this planet until I find that home, and there I will implore you to come back. And if you run away from there and find another home, I will find you there and bring you back. And if you run away from there and find yet another home…"

"I get the picture," Annihilara said, annoyed. "It's… it's just…"

"Just what, Annihilara?" said Luna, a small snarl creeping into her voice.

"It just ticks me off so MUCH that nopony listens to me!" said Annihilara, stomping her hoof, her leg briefly taking on the consistency of a smoky whip as she did so. "Nopony get it! Read my… well, I don't have lips, but watch my jaw open and close real careful, all right? I'm. Bad. News. If I live here, the castle will start crumbling! It's already decaying from my presence, I'm sure of it! All my homes do!"

"Broken things can be repaired," said Luna. "They are only things. Things that cannot be repaired by hoof can be easily repaired by magic if one has sufficient talent and power, and I… well, I move the bloody moon around, don't I? I think I can replace a few loose bricks."

Annihilara was still and silent for a moment, before finally saying, "…Huh." She chuckled. "That is a pretty big piece of magic, isn't it, the moon thing?"

"Well, yeah," said Luna, grinning. "I am, as they say, kind of a big deal."

"Well, I knew you were a big deal, I just never thought of the moon magic that way…" Annihilara mumbled.

There was a very long silence. Luna simply waited, until Annihilara seemed to be about to say something, but changed her mind.

"Yes?" Luna prodded.

"I know where I belong, Lulu," she said tightly. "Where I need to be. Where I deserve to be. Where…"

Luna tried to interrupt, but Lara silenced her by wrapped a smoky tendril around her muzzle.

"…Do you want me to stay?" she finished softly.

She released Luna's face, to find it had broken into an enormous, toothy grin. "That's the first thing you've said in a very long time that wasn't complete nonsense," Luna said delightedly.

"Well… every fiber of my being is screaming at me to take it back, to run away and hide, so yeah, I guess that must mean I'm finally making sense," said Annihilara. "…Well, I don't really have fibers in my being, do I?"

"No, you're quite ethereal," Luna chirped.

"Being among family has been nice," Annihilara admitted. "So… yeah, Where's my room?"

"Take your pick. We've got loads of them." A sob was creeping into Luna's voice, and water was welling up in her bright, joyful eyes.

"Don't cry, Lulu," Annihilara said sadly.

"Not crying. Sand. Been hanging around Kolassa for far too long, it's still all up in my eyes…"

Luna pulled Lara into a hug, and the shadowy princess responded to the embrace with a disgruntled, "Meep."

They parted. "If I could just briefly go back to the castle," Lara said cautiously. "I still have a few possessions there that the adventurers didn't take… it might be nice to put it up in the treasure vault."

"The vault is still undergoing repairs," said Luna, "but very well."

"Really? Thought you just said you could repair this whole place."

"Shh! It's a secret. If I repaired all the damage to the castle by myself, all the hardworking gentlemen putting the vault back together would be unemployed."

They walked along a corridor together, heading for the lower levels of the castle.

"So," said Annihilara after a pleasant moment of silence, "I've been spying on the production of the Snowdrop biopic."

"Oh? Has it been going well?"

"I'll say it has. I think it's gonna be amazing. I mean, I'm not much of a movie buff, but… Snowdrop had a really amazing life. I'm so glad the world is going to get to see it with their own eyes! And that you're the mastermind of it all."

Luna frowned in confusion. "You knew Snowdrop?"

"Briefly," Annihilara admitted. "When she worked in her workshop all by herself… I knew she was a friend of yours… and since she was somepony who wouldn't be scared of what I looked like… yeah. I visited her, whenever there was nopony else there. Never gave her my name or a straight answer for what I was doing there, but we became… passing acquaintances, at the very least. Right up until she passed away."

Luna pondered that. "You haven't spoken to her since she passed away?"

"I… I don't want her to know what I am," she said quietly. "I lied to her, by omission, her whole life, about… so there's no way I'm gonna be up front about it now."

Luna gasped. "Hang on a moment!"

She frantically began rummaging through her saddlebags, and produced a thick, red, leather-bound book: her copy of Snowdrop's autobiography.

"I think you're in here," Luna said to Lara eagerly, immediately flipping through the pages.

"What? Really?" Annihilara said in horror.

"Yes!" Luna declared gleefully, locating the proper page. "Yes, here it is. She talks about how, for decades, there was somepony who would visit her in her workshop. Listen to this passage: 'Like clockwork, it happened whenever I was alone. This friend was always so kindly asking me about the goings-on of my life and my family's, as though desperate for this knowledge, even hungry for it, saying little but listening intently. She never told me who she was, and as I had the feeling that such an answer would only be forthcoming on her terms, I never asked. And though she said nothing to give me clues, there were a few puzzle pieces in her presence which were most wondrously strange.'"

"Wondrously strange?" Annihilara whispered.

"'This mysterious individual made absolutely no sound. Not a breath, not a hoofbeat, no sound other than her voice. And yet, even before she spoke, it was easy to tell when she was about to arrive, for when she did, my brisk and chilly workshop grew colder, one might say as cold as death. I can only conclude that this treasured friend of mine was some sort of departed spirit, lonely in death and seeking out the company of somepony who would not be frightened by her ghastly appearance… though that is only a theory. I'm sure that I, nor anyone else, will ever truly know.'" Luna closed the book and beamed at Annihilara.

She gave a low whistle. "Wow. Had me pegged, didn't she? She was… sharp."

"Yes, very astute," Luna agreed. "You really shouldn't assume that the blind have no idea what's going on around them."

"Guess not," Annihilara admitted. "She was astute, and not just in the sense of having sharp senses because she was blind, but truly, exceptionally intelligent. And creative, and insightful… ugh, she had such a brain on her."

"Quite a brain indeed," said Luna. "You'd never guess that her entire claim to fame came about because she waited until the last minute to do her homework."

Annihilara barked out a laugh. "Heh, so true."

"But my, how wonderful!" Luna said in delight. "I can't believe I didn't realize she was talking about you. I thought perhaps she wrote this passage when old age was beginning to get the best of her mind. But it was you! I viewed it as the proverbial 'big-lipped alligator moment' and simply skipped over it entirely when I was writing the screenplay, but now—"

"Please don't put me in your movie," Annihilara said tensely. "It would still be a big-lipped alligator moment. The audience wouldn't get it. Most ponies have no idea I exist and I'd rather keep it that way."

Luna stared at the cover of the book. "Yes… yes, I suppose you're right. It would be a lot of work explaining that one. I'd doubtless get criticism for introducing such a fantastical element to what was otherwise a true story… but Lara… the general public doesn't need to be ignorant of your existence."

"One thing at a time, all right Lu?" Annihilara said meekly, slouching. "I mean, any minute now it's gonna really hit me that I just agreed to live here and I'll be like, 'What was I thinking? I gotta get out of here!'"

"Understood," said Luna. "Calm yourself, please. Breathe. …Can you breathe?"

"I don't, but… I can."

"Good."

Luna waited as Lara took a few slow, calming breaths. When she was done, something caught Luna's eye out the window and she turned to face it in surprise.

"Oh look, here comes the sun," she remarked. "It's another day."

"Yeah…" Annihilara replied, still sounding strained.

"Well, I'd better get to bed now," said Luna, "or I'm going to be a snippy little bitch when I get up to raise the moon tonight. And there's so much to do! Alterations that need to be made to my royal guard… lots of tedious government work like that, to be sure. To say nothing of the fact that I need to take over directing the movie now! Good day, Annihilara."

"G-good… good day," Annihilara stammered. "I'll see you at sundown. Maybe during the day I'll pick out a room and do some decorating… I'll invite you in to see what I've done once you're awake."

Luna smiled. "I love you, Lara. So much."

Meekly, Lara hid within a cloak of shadow, becoming shapeless. "Love you too, Lulu," she peeped. "Very much."

"I will rest peacefully, safe in the knowledge that you're going to stay with us now. Forever."

Luna walked away and rounded a corner. Lara watched Luna's shadow on the wall slowly begin to diminish in size as she grew farther away.

"Your feeling of security is… is… is well-placed," Annihilara called after her reluctantly.

Luna's shadow stopped walking. Annihilara could see the faint outline of a smile.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Endnotes

"Big-Lipped Alligator Moment" is a fairly well-known term on the Internet, and refers to a moment in a story which comes completely out of nowhere, makes no sense, contributes nothing to the plot, and, most importantly, is never alluded to again after it's over. It's named for a scene in the film All Dogs Go To Heaven, where a huge alligator starts singing a song to the canine protagonist out of nowhere, this makes no sense because the entire film up to that point had been establishing that animals of different species cannot understand each other's speech, and the actual song contributes nothing to the plot. As the alligator himself later takes part in the film's climax, the moment does not tic the final box of never being alluded to again, so the original BLAM is in fact not a proper BLAM, but its oddness definitely stands out enough for it to have named the term.

When writing the bit about how Snowdrop knew Lara, I couldn't resist using the term, I can't get enough of putting modern turns of phrase like that into Luna's mouth. It makes very little sense, of course; where would such a term have come from in a world where All Dogs Go To Heaven was never released? An orphaned etymology, to be sure, like when someone says "jeez" in a universe where there was no Jesus. I don't fear orphaned etymologies in this story too much, seeing as how two very early episode of MLP:FIM had Twilight address Spike by the very, very earthly names of "Romeo" and "Casanova". Now where could she possibly have gotten those terms? Heck, if those names exist in the MLP 'verse, that kind of justifies my Faust joke from back in Chapter 100, doesn't it? I fit things together sometimes.