My tendrils of shadow charged forward with deadly intent.

Celestia lit her horn, and a shield of sunlight appeared before her, protecting her and the soldiers behind her.

"Get out of here!" she called to the soldiers behind her.

My tendrils slammed into the glimmering sunlight shield.

I felt my eyebrow twitch in irritation.

The soldiers fell back towards their helicopter, their rifles firing sporadically.

I recast gaseous form as several bullets whirled by.

I heard a demonic growl emanate from my throat as the focused their fire on me, but was distracted by Celestia retaliating with a flash of light.

My shadows burned in the concentrated sunlight, but I pushed through and redoubled my efforts on Celestia's shield.

I had triumphed over her once, I would and could do it again!

I suddenly found myself sitting in my bed. My laptop open in my lap.

I glanced around in confusion.

It was the bedroom of Lucas Maan.

The walls, the posters, the Knick knacks, the dirty laundry were all the same as I remembered.

I glanced down at my hooves.

The fleshy fingers of Human hands greeted my gaze.

The familiar cry of Sarah somewhere in the house, but her words were muffled by the thin drywall.

I put my hands back down, letting the fingers rub together.

What was this? Where was-

My eyes happened to glance at the computer screen.

My ears remained still, human once more, but the blood in my face suddenly felt cold.

I- I remembered this...

This was years ago. I had been bored, and had been entertaining myself by trawling through Youtube for music to listen to.

I clicked the link I had seen on the screen.

I had never played any Guildwars game, but the title of the song stuck out at me for some reason.

It called to something deep in my chest. Something that ached dreadfully.

Music began to play.

"Fear not this night. You will not go astray." the cheap earbuds in my ears hummed.

"Though shadows fall, still the stars find their way!"

The quietly throbbing ache, deep in my mind was too stunned to even jump in surprise. Overcome with an emotion so deep that I physically hadn't known existed or even be at such a depth.

"Awaken from a quiet sleep, hear the whispering of the wind."

Already tears welled in my eyes as I was taken on an emotional rollercoaster that I had no basis for understanding.

"Waken as the silence grows in the solitude of the night!"

The emotion was that of a fine wine, aged for so long that its single, smooth flavor had an entirely new spectrum of taste on its own.

"Darkness spreads throughout the land and your weary eyes open silently."

It was of longing, rage, hope, regret, and calm acceptance all at the same time.

"Sunsets have forsaken all the most far off horizons!"

I could not hope to stop the tears, even if I had wanted to.

"Nightmares come when shadows grow!"

It was such an intense emotion that I wasn't sure that the actual adults in my life would, or could ever feel the likes of it with only a single lifetime.

"Eyes closed and heartbeats slow!"

It was sorrow... Pure unadulterated sorrow.

"Fear not this night, you will not go astray."

It drove me past the edge of insanity, only to burst forth back into a sound mind.

"Though shadows fall, still the stars find their way!"

My face was so wet I had to press the sleeve of my sweater to my face in a vain attempt to not drown in my own tears. There was nothing else I could do.

"And you can always be strong!"

That renewed the assault of that perfect sorrow.

"Lift your voice with the first light of dawn!"

Dawn... Why did the word 'dawn' tear that gaping wound open just a tiny bit more?

"Dawn's just a heartbeat away!"

I pushed the laptop to the side, suddenly unable to keep sitting in this position. It did not even occur to me to be rough with it. I had to listen. I needed to finish the song.

"Hope's just a sunrise away!"

I rolled over, hugging my chest in an effort to contain my heart inside. So radiant it had become, I was afraid I had suddenly undergone supercritical nuclear fusion.

"Distant sounds of melodies calling though the night to your heart."

The beat of the song's tempo did nothing to calm my racing mind. As if it were happening to someone else. So consumed by the raw emotion, that I couldn't have answered what my own name was.

"Auroras, mists, and echoes dance into the solitude of our life."

And yet I dared not let a word of the melody to slip by. They were more precious than any amount of gold or jewel, worth even life itself, just to hear one word more.

"Pleading sighing arias gently grieving in captive misery."

It was impossible to think, that any being, Human or otherwise, could ever experience such a depth of a single emotion. Yet it was impossible to believe that there couldn't not be anyone who's experienced such a sadness, even if they only stepped into it's shallows.

"Darkness sings a forlorn song, yet our hope can still rise up!"

This emotion was the thing that songs were made of, a song that anybody who had heard it, could not help but be stirred with at least some emotion, whatever it may be.

"Nightmares come when shadows grow!"

If there ever was a realm of emotion, there most certainly had to have been some sort of major shift in its landscape at that moment.

"Lift your voice like it's hope!"

I curled and grabbed my legs, curling up in a ball as my best effort to defend myself.

"Fear not this night, you will not go astray!"

I could not help but lift a sword to my mind's chest, pressing the flat of the blade against my front side. A sad, yet gracefully proud salute to names I knew not.

"Though shadows fall, still the stars find their way!"

Was... Was this love? For... For... For someone whose name was on the tip of my tongue, yet could not have dared to hope that I knew the answer.

"And though the night sky is filled with blackness!"

I needed to know! Who was this mysterious person who could cause such an emotion? What was their name?!

"Fear not rise up! Come on and take my hand!"

Being aware of my whole body became too much, and I withdrew my awareness to what I could perceive, the heat of my own breathe on my face, the clenching darkness of my eyes against the murky blackness inside the cave of my own curled body, and the music in my ears.

"Fear not this night, you will not go astray!"

Whose hand could possibly behind such a clarifying emotion? What sort of action or deed could've possibly caused this?

Though shadows fall, still the stars find their way!"

I wanted to pound on a grave, as if over a departed loved one. So lost in my own wailing that I would give anything for the person to return, alive and whole. No deed too dark, no loyalty greater, and no amount too much.

"Fear not this night, you will not go astray!"

This was not love. Not the kind that most thought of as love anyway, that of the romantic fairy tale couple, sweeping each other off their own feet.

Though shadows fall, still the stars find their way!"

No, this was the worst sort of love. There was no beginning, no joyful time to gaze back upon, to be overcome by nostalgia and longing... This was an end. A mature and sad end for a tale long over and told.

And nothing else.

"And you can always be strong!"

Despite feeling as if nothing else could possibly hurt me any more and thus immortal in a sense, I felt incredibly fragile, as if the wind of a door opening would blow me away.

"Lift your voice with the first light of dawn!"

My life had been changed. As thoroughly as if I had become another person entirely. Yet almost nothing had actually changed. I was still me. And, as strange as it sounded... I could never go back to being me.

"Dawn's just a heartbeat away!"

But there was no future beyond me. No path forward, nothing left to do, no goal to reach, nothing else to learn.

I was the final me.

"Hope's just a sunrise away!"

The song faded away.

Could not go forward, can not go back...

So I stayed.

I could do nothing else.

All I could do, was wait for fate to catch up with her industrial yarn spinning factory and push me over the edge.

So wait I did.

The memory faded away, falling apart like glass puzzle pieces that had suddenly broken.

Leaving me to darkness.

Celestia... That had been the forgotten name on my tongue... She had been the person who inspired such an intense emotion.

She was the one whose grave I wanted to weep at... Except, she didn't have a grave. No, she was still alive. Which was, arguably, more painful than if she had indeed died.

If she had, I could have grieved like anyone else with a lost loved one.

But she hadn't.

She wasn't the one who had died.

The vibe!
https://youtu.be/GGfN_-87e8c?si=f31zwjTMZrR5-FCy