Luna is a Harsh Mistress

by Starscribe

First published 24th of May, 2019

When Celestia banished Nightmare Moon, she didn't go alone, but with her loyal army. Now they're trapped in an alien environment, with tensions high and the air running out. If they don't work together, their princess will soon be alone after all.

History is written by the victors, but there’s nothing to guarantee they’ll be honest.

When Nightmare Moon’s rebellion tore across Equestria, leaving a trail of blood and horror in its wake, Princess Celestia knew that merely banishing her sister wouldn’t be enough. Her army was too powerful, and too bloodthirsty, to be left behind without a leader. When she finally turned the Elements of Harmony against her, she didn’t just banish Nightmare Moon. She banished thousands.

Now they’re in a race against time, to find a way to survive in an environment so alien that every aspect of it is trying to kill them. They face suffocation, freezing, boiling, starvation, radiation, meteorite impacts, low gravity… the list goes on.

Nightmare Moon thought she should be the ruler of all Equestria. Now, in a world nopony was ever meant to survive, her abilities will be put to the ultimate test.

Updates Saturdays.

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Editing by the indulgent and patient Two Bit and Sparktail. Coverart by Zutcha.

Note: I intend this story to be as faithful to our current scientific understanding of the moon, and I’ve consulted for help with the aspects outside my technical purview. That said, I fully expect to make decisions that some may see as mistakes, based on their own independent interpretations.

I am a storyteller first, and I realize it’s likely I’ll eventually make a mistake, or an arbitrary decision to simplify the storytelling over accuracy. I’m doing my best here, but this isn’t a NASA white paper. Set your expectations accordingly.

This story was commissioned by Canary in the Coal Mine on my Patreon, feel free to contact me if you’d like one of your own!

Chapter 1: Crash Landing

Iron Quill landed with the harsh impact of dust and blowing sand. The incredible force of Celestia’s magic washed over and around him for a few more seconds, charring at his mane and burning at his eyes. Is this the end? The Tyrant has beaten us. Now I die for choosing the wrong side.

But he didn’t die. Alicorns were capable of terrible things, and he’d heard all the stories about the artifacts kept securely in the Castle of the Two Sisters. That was why they had to seize it so badly. That was why the consequences of failure were so high.

After a few seconds, the magic had all burned away to sparks, and Quill finally sat up. He had made a small crater on a gray desert, from the look of it. Dry powder spread around him in all directions, so dry it was uncomfortably rough on his bat wings. He rose, shaking them as clean as he could and taking in his surroundings.

The sky overhead was black, without even a hint of blue. His bat eyes adjusted quickly, and many stars came into view. But no moon—just the stars. The sunlight was relatively bright, though it felt strange on his skin.

Quill was surrounded by army ponies, landed almost in the ranks they’d been marching in. The supply tent’s poles and canvas were strewn around him, and his logs were scattered in the air. No wind blew to take the papers away. “Silver Needle!” he yelled, looking around for his first aid. “Silver Needle, where are you?”

“Here, sir?” said Second Lieutenant Silver Needle from not far away. He turned to see her emerge from the fallen tent, a unicorn wearing the white apron of a clerk. She rose, taking a few steps over to him—and she bounced. She curved through the air in his direction in a wide arc, scattering dust and sand. “What kind of spell is that?” he asked. “I don’t think this is the time. We’ve just been—”

“It’s not a spell, Colonel Quill! I was just trying to get over there!” she squealed as she went past, landing wrong on one hoof and tumbling. She landed past him, though without any apparent injury. “Sorry, sir.”

Quill raised an eyebrow, then jumped himself. He kept his wings folded, yet… he drifted. The earth beneath only seemed to hold him loosely. “No need for an apology, Silver. Just get the crew in order and…” He looked behind him, to the master stockpile.

It was every bit the nightmare he feared. Shelves turned over, barrels of wheat and barley and bales of straw scattered madly. “Moon and stars, what a nightmare. See to the wounded, and… deal with this.”

He bent down, offering a hoof to the fallen unicorn. She was young, too young to be part of a war.

But the Lunar Rebellion needed every willing hoof, even those that weren’t ready. Quill might not have fought in ages, but he could claim the best minds for himself. See that they weren’t wasted in the bloody machine.

“Aye, sir. But what of you?”

He looked away, towards the front of the formation. Where the princess had fought her terrible battle, and the Midnight Guard’s banners still flew proudly. “I’m going to find out what’s going on.”

The rest of his crew were assembling—aside from Silver Needle, they were all laborers of various kinds, young mares and stallions he had snatched as recruits from combat squads in exchange for extra rations. They were a dozen in all. With twice the brains as the rest of the army.

“From her?” whispered Swift Wing, his latest page. “Good luck, master.”

“Stay alive,” he said, shaking the dust from his wings again and taking off.

It was incredible—flying took barely a flap of effort and he was up. Instead of constantly fighting against the ground, he only had to occasionally pay it a little respect, flapping every second or two as he passed over the camp. Most of the soldiers were slower to recover than his inventory had been. The powerful wards around the armory and other supplies had probably shielded him from the worst of Celestia’s magic.

There were thousands of ponies in the dirt. They came from all over Equestria, farmers and blacksmiths and serfs of all kinds. While Celestia’s castles were filled with the elite, her sister had seen the suffering of the ordinary stallion and taken pity. They had all answered her call.

But now many of those brave ponies were lying in the dirt, pierced by white-shafted arrows or charred by magic. He didn’t want to guess at the casualties, but he knew they were devastating. Bad enough that Nightmare Moon herself had emerged to face their attackers. Each company had its own banner, sewn to represent the little villages and towns they’d joined from. They might be stupid louts the whole army over, but they were his brothers and sisters in arms.

And now we’re here. Now that he looked up, he could see that there was a moon after all. It looked strange in the sky, and it wasn’t casting the comfortable gray light he knew. It was so blue, so green… why was everything so wrong?

Something shimmered in the air above him, higher than he dared to fly. Iron Quill knew a shield spell when he saw one, and he kept well away. This bubble is gigantic. Had Nightmare Moon managed to protect the entire army?

He didn’t make it to the center of the formation before the Voidseekers stopped him. They were bats like himself, with black armor and black wraps underneath. Even he knew almost nothing about the sacred sect, except that once they joined no non-bat would ever see their faces again, and they would fight only by night.

They were also terrifying, just as much as the one they served. “Are you Colonel Iron Quill?” asked one—a stallion he was fairly sure, though he didn’t know the name.

“Y-yes,” he answered, slowing to a stop in the air and saluting with one wing. “The Moon shines forever.”

“Yes, yes.” The stallion waved his own wing dismissively. “Come with us. She asked for you.”

“Me?” Nightmare Moon was like a raging storm on the battlefield, but she had nearly zero interest for the day-to-day of how her army was run. When they attacked, they always tried to gather as many valuables as possible. That was about the extent that she helped him keep her army marching. “Why?”

When they turned to fly away, he followed without waiting for an answer. He hadn’t really expected one—the Voidseekers said almost nothing to outsiders.

They passed over the center of the formation, where the medical relief ponies were even now going through the most battered and beaten groups. My job is hard, but at least I don’t have to explain to their mothers why they won’t be coming home.

Then they were past the army completely, and into more of the gray wasteland. There were many little impacts, even where no ponies had landed. Bits of rock and stone were scattered everywhere, apparently thrown here by the force of Celestia’s spell. Except… the soil continued ahead of them, with openings of various sizes. Some were so deep he couldn’t see the bottom in the too-harsh sunlight.

They were flying up a slope now. A pony sat at the top, looking down into the darkness. Her mane radiated up into the air behind her, like a burning storm. Her horn glowed so brightly blue that even the sunlight seemed pale. She was casting a spell, a spell so powerful that getting close made him feel it. It moved through him, too.

The Voidseekers landed on the ground maybe twenty meters from her, at the base of a slope. He followed. The same one that had spoken to him gestured up the slope toward her.

“So that’s it? I thought maybe I’d be talking to General Stalwart Shield, or maybe General Night Stalker. I’m not important enough for this.”

He pointed again without answering. Iron Quill saluted in response, as stiff and angry as he could. Then he started walking.

Not walking as he’d known it before, each step was a kind of bounce, threatening to take him off his stride. He would have to be careful—where his princess sat there was a ridge, looking down into an impact crater of incredible size. Maybe the place she’d landed?

“G-great Princess of the Moon…” Iron Quill called, when he was close. He had only stood this close to her once before, when she’d taken away his feathers and given him the night. “It is my honor to stand before you.” He lowered himself to the ground, eyes in the dust. “I am at your service, as in all things.”

There was a long silence. He nearly stood up, confused as to whether she’d heard him at all. But then she spoke. Nightmare Moon had lost all her venom. Her voice was… weary, defeated. If she had spoken like this when she came to his monastery, Quill would’ve kept copying scrolls and never even thought her name.

“You are… Iron Quill,” she said. “Is that right?”

“Yes, Princess.”

“Rise out of the dust,” she commanded, tapping the ground on the edge of the ridge beside her with a hoof. “You will come and stand beside me.”

He obeyed. As he stepped up to the side of the ridge, he could see what Nightmare Moon had been looking at. A bleak expanse of shady ground, stretching away from them. Various craters broke the surface, just as frequently as the ones surrounding them. It seemed to continue on forever.

He probably should’ve kept his mouth shut. That was the smart thing in the presence of one so great. But curiosity was what got him here in the first place. “What did she do to us?”

Nightmare Moon turned her eyes on him. Those slits seemed to narrow, seeing him for the first time. Then she looked away. “My traitor of a sister… has banished us from Equestria. Look closer, child of the night. You know where we are.”

He looked. It took him a few more seconds—the green and blue sphere in the sky, the dark spots in front of them, the gray soil. His eyes went wide. “P-Princess. We can’t be…”

“We are,” she said. “Welcome to the Moon, Quill. You and every other pony who fought for me. It will be your grave.”

“W-what?” He stiffened, glancing back towards the army. Up here on the slope, he could see them moving. Many were dead, but thousands more were still alive. They were rising up from the dirt, lifting up their banners, righting their war machines. “We aren’t defeated, Princess! I’m no warrior, but I can see your army is prepared to fight. If we call for General Stalwart Shield—”

She draped a wing over his shoulder, holding firm enough that he couldn’t move. “Stalwart Shield is dead,” she said. “Night Stalker too. And whoever else you are thinking of. I do not know how, but their bow mares somehow knew our officers even though you wore no markings. My army’s chain of command has been decimated. Do you know how much danger we’re in? How precarious our survival, even now?”

He shook his head.

“Let me enlighten you,” Nightmare Moon said, lifting one hoof and pointing up. “You stand inside a bubble two kilometers across. It contains the entire army, every pony who stood on our side of the siege, living and dead. As we sit together, the whole of my power holds this thin film and all it contains against the stone. Do you know what waits outside it?”

“I, uh…” He looked out. He couldn’t see the edge of the bubble—at a guess, Nightmare Moon was probably in the exact center. “This is a barren land,” he said. “The sun is high, and the soil seems desolate. Even our earth ponies may have trouble—”

Nightmare Moon silenced him with a glare that could’ve melted rock. “There is nothing outside my spell, child. Nothing but hard vacuum, as merciless as my traitor of a sister. Do you know… of course you don’t. The thing you’re breathing now, that you’ve always taken as endless and inexhaustible… is not.

“My magic contains it, for now. But that power will run out. I can feel it even now, a weakness beginning… when it overtakes me, the bubble will burst. The air I’m holding will escape into the void. You will all die in agony.”

Quill’s mind struggled to even comprehend what he was being told. What did it even mean to have land without air? No wind, no clouds… why would that kill them? And more importantly… why had she called for him of all ponies? Quill felt a sudden chill pass through his spine, unconnected to the blackness overhead. “And why tell me, Princess? What am I to do to serve you?”

“You are the highest-ranking survivor,” she said. “You must lead my army now.” She let go with her wing, though even this small movement seemed an effort for her. Her eyes went unfocused again, and her horn continued to glow.

Iron Quill did not dare contradict the princess directly. But perhaps there was a tactful way he could point out the flaws with her decision. “I haven’t held a sword in my life, Princess,” he lied. An old, famliar lie. One they shared. “My promotion was… a courtesy. I only know how to manage.”

The single eye looking in his direction narrowed, but this time she didn’t even bend down. “That should be no trouble for us here. Do you see an army to fight? Open your eyes and see the doom that comes for you. I cannot move from this place, cannot divert my attention to anything save the spell that preserves your lives. I believe I can give you… three days. Measure them by hourglass, as there will be no sunrise and no sunset during all this time. The light will endure.”

His eyes widened. He barely even understood the problem, and the thousands of lives of the army depended on him? “What should I do, Princess?”

She shook her head. “I wish so badly to bring us back to Equestria and have my revenge. My sister… dared to use the Elements against me. Their magic took us away. But I cannot turn my power to that, or else my army would be lost to the void.” She met his eyes, growing stern. “I grant you the service of Penumbra, my eldest Voidseeker. She will be your mantle of authority.”

A pony settled in beside him, moving so quietly that he hadn’t even heard her approach. She wore the same black armor as the other Voidseekers, with only her eyes visible from inside her helmet. She dropped something on the ground behind him. It was a bloody iron band—the general’s diadem, worn as a symbol of authority. Stalwart Shield had been wearing it last time he saw it.

“Take the diadem on your ears, Iron Quill. My revenge depends on you. Your survival depends on you.”

Had he imagined it, or did Penumbra turn away and snicker as she said it. He tensed, but then turned aside, taking the crown and dusting it with a wing. He settled it on his head, blood and all. “I will try, Princess.”

“No!” Her voice boomed through the bubble, lifting dust from the hill and causing the distant hum of sound to fall silent. The Royal Canterlot voice was always loud, but to a bat it was excruciating. “You will succeed! Our revenge is deserved, we cannot fail. Is that clear?”

He saluted, as crisply as he could. Not very, compared to the last pony who had worn this iron crown. “Completely, Princess!”

She waved a dismissive wing, turning away from him. “Then go to it. When you have solved it, find me here. On my life, you have three days. Use them well.”

Three days to understand the unknowable, then do the impossible. How hard could it be?

Chapter 2: Desperation

If Iron Quill was the kind of general he’d copied stories about in the scrolls of ancient history, he probably would’ve flown proudly through the camp then, uniting the surviving companies and making some decisive orders that would save the army. Unfortunately for Nightmare Moon, unfortunately for their chances of freeing Equestria from the tyrant and getting their revenge, he wasn’t a legendary general.

Iron Quill flew straight back to the place he’d come from—the stockpile.

Despite the disaster he now knew they were in, despite his terror over their future, some small part of him filled with pride when he saw what had happened since he left. Silver Needle had been hard at work, along with every other member of his staff. The supply tent was back up, and the wooden walls of the granary were already rising once again. They had always been temporary buildings—soon they would be back.

“Sir!” Silver emerged from the tent, a quill and a scroll levitating in front of her. A checklist of some kind. She made it most of the way, then saw Penumbra beside him.

He landed. “Silver, this is Penumbra. The princess, er…”

“Knew we would be guano without me,” she supplied. Her voice was dark and smooth, a melody carried through each word. She also spoke far more than the stallion he had last seen.

“Yeah,” he admitted. “Fine. Report, Silver Needle.”

“Uh…” She whimpered. “I can’t give you the complete inventory, but… it looks like we have everything. We will require several shifts to know for sure. I can have the inventory ready in two days.”

“Two days.” He closed his eyes. “Silver Needle, congratulations. As of this moment, you are now Nightmare’s Chief Supply Officer. You’re a colonel.” He reached down, carefully removing the metal pin from his uniform and tossing it towards her. She caught it in her magic, speechless.

“And… what about you, Quill? Was she that upset with you? Nightmare would really… take your commission?”

He shook his head. If it weren’t for his new set of watchful eyes, he might’ve said something like “I wish.” The idea of losing his commission sounded a lot easier than somehow saving this army and everypony that was part of it. But there was no telling what a Voidseeker would do. He’d known them to kill for disloyalty, no matter how important a pony was. He could be taking no chances today.

To his surprise, Penumbra actually laughed from within her suit. His whole life, this sect of warriors had spoken to him so little, but now... “It would be easier for him if she had. Better to be a slave than the work our princess has in store for General Iron Quill, Lord Commander of the Lunar Army.”

The weight of that title settled on his shoulders like a mountain of shattered moon-rocks. He wavered, nearly fell over. Three days. He couldn’t give up.

“Penumbra,” he said, more directly. “I need to know what we have. I’m an inventory pony, it’s what I do. How do I marshal the surviving captains?”

Penumbra laughed again, though some of the bitterness was gone, along with the amusement. She seemed a little… annoyed? “You expect my help?”

“Why not?” He flicked one bat wing up towards the sky. “You breathe air too, don’t you? You eat food and drink water the same as us. Do you want to live through this or not?”

She had no sarcastic quips this time. Good. “There’s a call to assemble. Only the Lord Commander is permitted to blow it. You should have a horn here somewhere, don’t you?”

Right, stupid. He was so off-kilter by everything he’d completely forgotten about the call. Now that he was the Lord Commander, it was his signal to blow. “Silver, get me a horn from the stores.”

A few seconds later, it was in his hooves. He lifted it to his lips, closed his eyes, and let off four short blasts.

Having the entire inventory at his disposal meant he had the resources to erect a pavilion while he waited, filling the inside with an intact table and chairs for the ponies he expected. It shouldn’t take them long.

It took nearly an hour for the army to respond to his call. Each company should have been marshaling to arms, sending their high-officers forward to plan the next battle. But of course there was no battle up ahead. And it wasn’t often that the call came from the rear.

Still they came, beleaguered ponies trickling in. A few actually wore captains’ uniforms. Most of them wore lesser ranks, those who had survived to take their captains’ places. Twenty ponies in all, for the twenty companies. When at full strength, each would represent two hundred fighting creatures. Now… probably less.

“I don’t see Stalwart Shield,” said Permafrost, one of the few captains among the crowd Quill could see. He shuffled forward, looking around at them in disbelief. “I knew in my nightmares I’d have to take command of this sorry lot, you—”

Penumbra nudged Quill sharply in the flank, and he strode forward. Of course every captain knew him, mostly as the pony who stood between their ridiculous demands and the army running out of grain. But whatever they were about to say didn’t make it as far as the crown on his head.

“You,” Permafrost said. “By what right of the heavens above or sea beneath are you wearing that?”

“By appointment…” His voice turned into a batlike squeak, and he cleared his throat. “Nightmare Moon herself gave it to me,” he said. “And the responsibility of saving this army.”

“You?” asked another voice, all disbelief. “The monk? Shouldn’t you be counting rice?” More laughter.

“If I had time to count rice, I would,” he said, ignoring it. He might not know how to command an army, but he did know how to ignore a pony who was mocking him. “Our princess has told me we have three days until we all die.”

That silenced them. The less-senior ponies he saw visibly paled at the news, retreating a few steps. But there was nowhere for them to run to.

“Then why put anyone in charge?” asked Moonshadow. One of the only other surviving captains, one Quill didn’t completely hate. “Open the stores, let the stallions and mares enjoy themselves. If we’re dead anyway…”

“We will die if we do nothing,” he said. “I’ve been chosen to prevent that. There will be no final feasts burning off all our supplies. We will need them to survive up here, once we know how.”

“Survive what?” Permafrost asked. “We’re… I don’t know if you’ve looked around much, monk. There are no armies here. There aren’t even any trees. I have no doubt the princess is correct if she says we are in danger, but I can’t fight what I can’t see.”

“We’re in no state to fight,” a young unicorn said, adjusting his ill-fitting captain’s helmet. He barely looked out of basic training. “Half my company is gone, Lord Commander. We were at the front.”

“You don’t have to call him that—”

They did. He glanced to one side, but Penumbra only shrugged at him, unhelpfully. She wasn’t going to step in to reinforce his authority.

“Permafrost, I need you to keep order. Help the other companies make proper graves for the dead, and make camp.” He spoke quickly, directly. Didn’t even hesitate long enough that the captain could object. “Moonshadow, did your company’s alchemist survive? I want him here. And uh…”

He pointed to a third pony, an earth pony wearing the skull crest of Motherlode. “All your surviving scouts, Motherlode company. Send them here. Everypony else, keep good order in your camps, and do not tell them of the danger we are in. Expect an order to relocate to come any moment.”

Quill expected Permafrost to keep arguing, maybe to try and take the crown from his head. He strode up to Quill, wide bat wings spreading a little at his side. “When you realize you’re in over your head, Quill. You know where to find my camp.” Then he left.

Quill hadn’t called an end to the meeting, but apparently he didn’t have to. The others watched Permafrost leave and scattered themselves, even the greenhorn recruits standing in for their dead officers. Quill felt his shoulders slumping, under even more weight than the strange gravity of this place.

You’d think for all the time we swore on the beauty of the Moon that she would be a little more welcoming.

“I’ve seen worse,” Penumbra said, circling around him like a predator looking for the best half of meat to latch onto.

“You let them walk all over me,” he said, pushing away from his chair and not caring that it fell over sideways. “What did you expect to happen?”

“Wait.” She stopped dead, wing on his chest. “You thought I was supposed to help? To… give you authority or something?”

At his nod, she rolled her eyes. “I take it back, maybe I haven’t seen worse. You…” She hesitated. “Stars above, you really are that clueless.” She sat down on her haunches, reaching up and unwrapping the black cloth around her face. There was nopony else in the pavilion with them, no non-bats to look on her face.

She was even prettier than her voice had led him to believe. Though she wore the armor of battle with confidence and carried her enchanted blade with skill, she was still young. Young compared to a former monk like himself, anyway. “Iron Quill, look at me.”

He looked.

“If I had supported you now, maybe threatened them in Nightmare’s name… would that have helped?”

“Yes,” he answered reflexively. “Everypony knows how powerful you are. You’re her will, while she can’t be here. If she was here—”

“If you need my permission to be in charge, then I’m the Lord Commander, not you. It would only be a matter of time until one of them tried to argue that he or she should take your place. You would have ponies talking to me when they wanted things, asking my permission. They’d see you as an indulgence, a puppet. Is that what you want?”

He didn’t need to answer that.

“If you don’t want them to walk all over you, don’t let them,” she said. “They’re only captains. You’re the Lord Commander. Their lives are in your hooves. They’ll realize it sooner or later.”

“We don’t have later,” he said, walking past her, past the empty table to the pavilion’s wide entrance. There was a pony on their way towards them, struggling a little as he dragged a cart along the dusty ground.

Sylvan Shade, he realized. The alchemist. At least Moonshadow had followed his orders. Maybe Motherlode Company would send the scouts too. He gestured urgently to the pony as he approached, waving one hoof.

He watched as the pony rumbled up, his heavy wooden cart overflowing with crates and tightly-wrapped arcane bundles.

“I’m told I’ve been called for,” the pony said, as he got close. He dropped into a slight bow. “It’s a great honor to be requested by a pony with such a history as yourself. My name is—”

“Sylvan Shade,” Quill interrupted. “Inventor of Builders’ Lime, architect of Manehattan Harbor, intellect so great that Star Swirl himself feared your wisdom.” He rolled his eyes. “Am I missing anything?”

“Y-you’re uh…” He trailed off, visibly deflating. Quill’s recognition had stolen all his energy, replaced with simple confusion. “You forgot about my achievements in agriculture, growing wheat even in the desert.” Then he relaxed, and his tone changed. “Who are you?”

“Right now? I’m the Lord Commander of the Lunar Army, Iron Quill.” He stepped aside, opening the entrance. “Please, come inside. You’re the closest thing we have to a scholar, Celestia help us.”

He heard a hiss from further in the tent, and caught Penumbra glaring briefly at him. So maybe he wasn’t wrong about everything their religion taught.

“An army that needs a scholar,” Sylvan Shade said, standing a little straighter. “I knew my time would arrive. No doubt you’ve reconsidered my offer of a way to penetrate the castle walls without magic. Stalwart Shield rejected my wisdom, but…”

“We won’t be returning to the castle for some time to come,” Quill said. “But I might need your, uh… we can call it wisdom. Do you know where we are?”

Sylvan unhooked himself from the cart, and followed him a moment later. “Yes, uh… yes! I’m fairly certain our princess has moved us to the safest place for her, where her magic is strongest. We’re standing on the Moon, yes?”

He nodded. “How well do you understand the Moon?” He raised a wing, silencing him. “Besides holy, beautiful, sacred, greatest of the sky, softer and kinder than the sun… yes yes. All of that. But otherwise. What is known about her?”

“Well…” Sylvan took the offered seat at his table, when most of the captains hadn’t. “It is a place like Equestria, with its own geography. Its days last for twenty-nine of ours, followed by darkness. It regulates the tides. Many believe it is hollow, or made of various strange substances. Lunarium is the most popular theory, a silvery metal with profound strength and endurance to magic.”

“We don’t need new swords…” he said. Though if it were five years ago and this campaign were still a dream, I might’ve been eager to hear those stories. “Wait, hollow? What makes you say that?”

He shrugged. “I’m an alchemist, Lord Commander, not an astrologer. I can only tell you what has been told to me. Some of it may be true, or perhaps it is all wrong. I never imagined we would be able to travel here physically to test it. When we return, the entire world will shake from the discoveries I will make here.”

At least he didn’t get up to leave. “We… won’t be able to return,” he said. “At least not now. The princess said that the Moon has no air. She called it a… hard vacuum. Do you know what that is?”

He could see from Sylvan’s face that he did. His ears flattened, and he glanced over his shoulder in horror. “How are we still alive?”

“Princess Nightmare Moon holds the air at bay,” he said. “For the next… three days. Less a few hours now, I expect. Three days before her magic ends.”

“And we’re all…” He gulped.

“You knew the term,” Quill said, impressed. “I’ve… I’ve not studied as widely as you, I admit. I mostly managed affairs for the monastery that was my home. How did you know what the term meant?”

“My alchemy, obviously. Certain reactions cannot take place when air is present, and it must be kept back. Some materials transform when the pressure is reduced. Pressure is… the amount of air, usually in some closed vessel of glass. I have a reaction flask in my cart there, one I can use to create a small amount of vacuum. I have… seen what it can do to a mouse. For… entirely scientific reasons, of course.”

Quill shuddered at the thought, though he didn’t ask for details. At least now he got some idea about why Sylvan Shade might’ve ended up with the Rebellion. Perhaps he was a scientific extremist, as well as a braggart who had slept with one too many important mares.

“Suppose we needed to… construct such a vessel, large enough to house the entire camp and everypony who still lives. I don’t know the number, but… if we lost less than half in that siege, we should still have two thousand fighting ponies. Another three thousand in camp staff, followers, and…” He cleared his throat. “Helpers. How would we contain the air they all depend on?”

Sylvan’s horrified face did not relax. “You’re asking how to… contain the air that thousands of us are using to live? Stars above, Lord Commander, I don’t think you know what you’re asking.”

“I don’t know,” he said, without shyness. “So tell me. What am I asking?”

“Air might be invisible, but it has strength. This is why the pegasus can fly so well. A weak vessel that all the air is removed from will shatter. I have attempted to measure this strength, though my results would mean nothing to you. I assume if we wanted to construct something of the reverse, then we would have the same problem. I lost many shattered vessels before I found one strong enough to reuse.”

“Show me.”

Sylvan walked out, his eyes watching the sky as fearfully as a watchpony who knew there were enemy pegasi flying overhead.

As he worked, Penumbra circled past him, sounding annoyed. “Is this really the best you can do to save us? This… charlatan? He sounds like the greatest fool in the army.”

“Do you have a better idea?” he asked. She didn’t, returning to a dark corner of the tent to sulk.

Sylvan Shade returned after a few minutes of shuffling around, with a tightly packed bundle. He removed it, setting a heavy box and bellows and several thick pieces of glass on the conference table.

“Here is my strongest vessel,” he said, depositing the almost clear glass in front of Quill. The glass was curved at the bottom, without any sharp edges, and was as thick as his hoof in places. “This is what it would take, only… larger. Beyond even the greatest glassblowers in Equestria.”

“So it couldn’t be built,” he said. “Are there… any other materials that can hold back the strength within? Spells perhaps?”

Sylvan tapped his empty forehead with an exaggerated hoof. “I know as little of spells as you, Lord Commander. But our princess had demonstrated that there are indeed spells strong enough. But… if you allow me to be bold, I doubt that will be the answer. My entire company had two unicorns. How many does the whole army have?”

“Not enough,” he agreed, voice reluctant. “Buck it all. There must be a solution. I refuse to believe we’re doomed to die.”

“I hope you’re correct… as much as you do, Lord Commander,” Sylvan said. “But one thing I cannot provide you is a magical solution to this difficulty. There are no spells that prevent a pony from needing air. The suffering I’ve… observed under these conditions… will strike us down as well as any rodent, I can promise you that.”

Quill turned over the pressure vessel in his hooves, staring down at its rounded interior. He looked up and out of the tent, where Equus was still high in the sky. A little ball of light, where life was possible. Instead of the gray wasteland around them.

“So a container would have to be… this thick at least to hold air, yes?”

The alchemist nodded.

“And the moon is hollow. Surely to exist for so many thousands of years, it must be strong. Thick enough that we could fill it with air, perhaps?”

“That is…” Sylvan opened his mouth, then shut it again. He looked outside, then back at the container. “Positively insane, Lord Commander. And if I have learned nothing about the most brilliant ideas, it is that they always are.”

“Perfect.” Outside, he could see three ponies in scouts’ green, landing in the sand beyond the pavilion. Motherlode had sent them after all.

Chapter 3: Hollow Heart

Gale was worn, bloody, nearly broken. The monastery stone was soaked with blood, dribbling down from the carnage above. His own foreleg was heavily bandaged, and the ledgers of grain and vegetables were splashed with bandit blood.

There were three of them dead on the floor near the stairs, laying right where they fell. Gale had only taken the time to remove the daggers from them, spreading them casually around the room where he could reach them. Behind him was the final, greatest target of the nameless bandits—a huge steel door, with the wealth of Celestia’s greatest monastery inside.

The only key was around his neck.

Gale wasn’t a warrior anymore, not since the slaughter at Day River. But he could hear the battle just about over above him. The bandits didn’t seem to be taking prisoners. What’s the point? As soon as Celestia discovers this slight against her, she’ll burn them from the planet. I’ll be too dead to care.

Hooves thumped on the wooden steps over his head, two sets. They walked like stallions, bulky and strong. Can I take two more?

They emerged at the base of the stairs, both ponies wearing black cloth over their whole bodies. Dark blue wrapped around their heads, though one still had a prominent horn. He couldn’t see anything but their eyes.

The horned one pointed at him with one hoof, splashed with blood. The other lumbered forward, hefting a crude stone axe. Stone? Captain Starsword hadn’t been wrong, the old fool. This really was a peasant uprising.

Gale was fairly certain he’d heard the old man’s dying screams a few hours ago.

“Go right back the way you came,” Gale said, stepping back, to put the table between himself and the attackers. “Leave with your lives.”

“We can’t,” said the unicorn—not a stallion, despite her remarkable height. A mare, younger sounding than he would've expected. “You have something we need.”

Gale glanced back at the shut vault door. There was a tightly-bound bundle of cloth on the floor there, shaped into a crude pony figure. Gale gritted his teeth, adjusted his wings in the loose monk’s robe. “Something you want,” he argued. “Not something you need. Turn around.”

The stallion swung his axe—crudely. It smashed into the table, wedging deep into the old wood, feet from where Gale was now standing. He didn’t wait, flipping one of the daggers off the table and jamming it into the earth pony’s legs. It barely sunk down an inch before the magic of earth stopped the blade, and he was forced to duck to doge an overhead blow.

The earth pony roared in pain anyway, flailing around madly. The table shattered under him as he stumbled towards Gale, recovering his axe. All the while the unicorn just watched from the stairs, silent.

Gale kicked another blade from the floor into the air, adjusting its path with one wing and bringing it up at the pony’s jaw from below. He dodged the retaliatory strike, which shattered the stone wall in a ring from where it hit.

“Die, monk!” the pony screamed, blood spraying from his mouth.

Gale recovered his first dagger, and shoved it into the stallion’s eye-slit. He squirmed once more, then fell limply to the ground at his hooves.

“Celetia guide you in your journey,” he whispered, rising to glare at the remaining intruder. “Are you the fool who promised them glory? Some… unlanded child of a forgotten house? Their blood is on your hooves.”

“I didn’t promise them glory,” the pony said, her voice bitter. “I promised them freedom. Freedom from the oppression they’ve grown under, near-slaves to the ones who own the land their families live on. No promise of a future, no chance for anything other than working to death. I showed them something better.”

I can’t fight another unicorn. The last one had given him the deep gash down his foreleg, which had been meant for his heart. As soon as she’s done with me, I’m dead. But she was also a mare. There was a chance, however small, that his death didn’t have to mean his failure.

“You showed them how to kill monks? The Ordo Celestial didn’t put their families into serfdom.”

“No, you just uphold the system that did. Strengthen their grip on the people with lies and meaningless worship. You are complicit in it.” The unicorn crossed the room slowly, watching his face with sudden interest. Gale lifted his robe a little, subconscious. In vain. “What’s your name?”

“Iron Quill,” he lied.

“It isn’t…” She was close now, though not quite within reach of his daggers. But she hadn’t lifted a weapon yet—he couldn’t attack her when she hadn’t done the same. It just wasn’t right. “I’ve seen you before. You were one of her generals. I’ve seen those golden eyes, I know that scar. You’re… Cinereous Gale.”

“Not anymore.” He reached down into his robe, removing the little seal of Celestia’s cutie mark, but not the key.

The more he heard her speak, the more he was beginning to realize he knew her voice, just as she had known his face. It hadn’t been obvious at first, but the more he heard… her armor was awfully thick around the sides.

“If you care about the ponies of Equestria, you will let me pass. The gold in that vault was stolen from them. It will help finance their freedom.”

Gale shook his head, then tossed the dagger on the ground at her hooves. “Might as well get it over with and kill me. I can’t win against an Alicorn.”

Her whole body tensed. The magic from her horn grew so bright in that moment that her thick wraps burned away in a few seconds. The rest started to fall away in strips, revealing the one Gale knew would be beneath. Princess Luna, her eyes wild with pain.

“I’d rather not,” she said. “Gale, you won the battle of Sun River. If anypony in the world can help me free the ponies of Equestria, it’s you. That gold doesn’t belong to the order that extorted it from desperate and starving serfs.”

He shook his head again. “There’s no gold in there, Princess. That was always a lie--the Ordo Celestial keeps up the appearance of extravagance. But it’s just an appearance. Most of the time we stock grain in there, but I ordered all of that removed. There’s nothing in there you can use.”

She raised an eyebrow, glancing at the stairs. “You’re willing to die… and to kill my stallions… for what’s in there?”

He nodded. “So were the other Cellerkeepers. They’re.... all dead. Your peasants fought well. But I’ll keep fighting too. You have to kill me.”

She shook her head. “I must have something from this place. I… yes.” Her eyes settled on him. “Arrangement can be struck. Show me what you hide, Gale. Do this, and I will allow you to trade your life. I will leave it behind in exchange. Do you agree to my terms?”

What choice did he have? This was an Alicorn—if she wanted, she could kill him with a thought, take the key, and have both the wealth inside and his life. He nodded, removing the necklace from around his neck and tossing it to her. “I accept.” He stepped out of the way. “But I suggest you cover your face before you open it.”

She did so, replacing the wraps, though she watched him curiously as she did. “I can’t imagine why. What treasures you think are worth dying over.”

She slipped the key into the vault, then turned it. One of the doors swung open.

The smell hit him first, the stink of many unwashed bodies in a small space. Through the partially open door, Gale saw a crowd of hundreds—mares and foals, from the land around the monastery. The farms these bandits had burned and pillaged.

Even now they looked out, desperate and terrified. Somewhere down in the vault, a child cried. Gale reached down, picking up the doll from where it had fallen near the door, and offering it to a foal crouching just inside. “I heard what your ‘army’ did to the ones who couldn’t get inside our walls,” he said. “I don’t want to hear it again, please.”

“The Gale of Dread cares about the lives of the innocent,” Princess Luna said, mocking. “Where was compassion when you set Rock Roost on fire?”

“I can’t go back and die with them,” he whispered. “Just… let these ponies live, please.”

“We made a deal.” The princess turned her back on him. “And you’re right. My army can make no use of that wealth. I will take your life instead.”

He closed his eyes, bracing for the blow. It was what he deserved—much less, really. He’d earned something agonizing.

It didn’t come. Instead, Princess Luna tapped an annoyed hoof on the stone floor. “Hurry up. We have to be gone before the Sky Calvary can be deployed from Cloudsdale. You of all ponies should know that.”

We. “Aren’t you going to kill me?”

She shook her head. “No, ‘Iron Quill.’ I said your life was mine. I didn’t say what I was going to do with it.”

"Sir!" The voice came from just outside his tent. Iron Quill sat up, wiping away the sweat of old nightmares. "One moment!"

The scouts gave him maps marked with several potential destinations. From the look of it there was intense attention to detail, with the heights of the hills and depth of the craters estimated with shading.

So he went to Permafrost, flying quickly across the camp to get a better look at what the other ponies had been doing while he tried to save their lives.

The madman was building fortifications. As he flew, he could see ditches going up, with pickets made from broken carts and ruined siege-equipment. Ponies with bows poked their faces from the burrows to salute as he passed overhead. Most were concentrated in the camp in the middle, where tents had been arranged in orderly rows. Permafrost’s was joined by all the other companies, though none looked quite as clean and perfect as his.

Quill wasn’t alone—Penumbra had come of course, his ghost in everything he did. She hadn’t even left the tent when he slept, hadn’t so much as glanced at the bed. When had she eaten? He didn’t ask.

But Permafrost’s banner flew high, in the center of camp, outside the massive tent he knew belonged to Stalwart Shield. The Lord Commander’s tent. His tent.

Iron Quill bit back his frustration, standing straight as he marched past the officers outside. They lowered their spears as he pushed inside, so confused by his crown and his uniform they neither attacked nor saluted.

Permafrost was there, along with half a dozen other captains. They were bending over a map on the table between them, talking in hushed voices. Quill might not know anything of war or strategy, but he knew that map. It was the Castle of the Two Sisters, with all its fortifications.

You stallions have lost your minds! We’re going to die in hours and you’re plotting the next attack? What kind of fools had Nightmare Moon found, that they ignored the obvious signs all around them.

“I didn’t invite you, Quill,” Permafrost said, not getting up. “You may wait.”

This time, he ignored it, storming right up to the table. “I require you now, Permafrost. Send these others away for a moment.”

Their eyes met. Permafrost’s eyes went to the place at his neck where a weapon might’ve hung, but of course there was nothing there. Quill could barely swing a sword, and knew nothing of daggers and bows. He carried none. “Is that so?”

“It is,” he said, pointedly adjusting the crown on his head. “I could call our princess here to resolve this, if you like.” He could hear Penumbra’s disapproving click of her tongue, though she didn’t say anything. No way Permafrost had heard that… She’s the princess. It’s okay if they think she’s the real authority. They’re right.

Finally, Permafrost nodded. “Very well, mares and gentlecolts. I’m sure the quartermaster has… an important reason for this meeting.”

He stood in place, forcing the captains and interim commanders to walk around him, until it was just the two of them in the tent. Permafrost’s body was tense, and he adjusted his belt so that the hilt of his sword was visible from under the table, catching the harsh sunlight from outside.

“It is foolish, what you’re doing,” Permafrost said. “Making an enemy out of me. Our relationship could be more of what it was.”

With me groveling and having to bow to your absurd demands, even though I outranked you? “Our time is running out,” he said. “We have two days and… fifteen hours, by my best guess. If I am not successful, we will all die. Why are you fighting me?”

Permafrost remained silent for almost a full minute, looking him up and down again. When he finally did speak, there was something familiar in his tone. It couldn’t be… pity?

“This is above your head, Quill,” he said, sounding sympathetic. “I know why you hold that rank—without it, you might be ordered to make decisions that would put the army at risk. If any of the captains could require you to do what we asked… but that does not mean you’re part of the chain of command.”

“Our princess thinks otherwise.”

Permafrost’s sympathy vanished in a flash, and his eyes hardened. “Our princess is testing our resolve. That is the true explanation for this. I understand what you’ve been ordered to do… the story you tell probably comes from her as well. But that does not mean it is the truth. It seems more likely that we are being… tested. Our obedience to the princess must be known. Our resolve before we return to the battle. Those who commanded before made… incorrect choices. They lacked faith. We must do better.”

Could he be right? For a moment, Quill doubted. But then he remembered the desperation. He had seen no anger on Nightmare Moon’s face, only abject despair. “I need an expedition to explore some nearby… caves, we found. If I’m right, one of them will lead to the hollow center of the moon. There are too many for me to search on my own.”

“I can’t afford to help you.” Permafrost rose, turning his back. “I have no doubt you’re right about those two days, Quill. Only we won’t be dying when they end, we’ll be returning to battle. I need to rebuild the command structure, to prepare to fell Celestia’s fortress. I can waste no more time on you.”

“You’re…” Quill fell silent, assessing the bat. He smelled of defiance, just daring Quill to push it too far. If he did… would Penumbra protect him then? Why was she here, if not to be the voice of Nightmare’s authority?

His hesitation was apparently the invitation Permafrost was looking for. “And don’t let me hear that you’ve wasted the time of any other of my troops, either,” he went on. “This charade is… indulgence enough. You have your own laborers in the supply corps. Waste their time, and not ours. I’m taking back those scouts.”

Quill left before he did anything else stupid.

“You’re just going to let him say those things,” Penumbra said, as soon as they were in the air back towards the stockpile. “You know he was inviting a duel. You could rip out his throat right there, in front of them all, and the Moon would’ve upheld your judgement.”

Iron Quill shuddered at the implication. But what could he say that wouldn’t make him sound like a coward?

He couldn’t think of an answer, so he told the truth. “He wanted a duel. If I fought him, I’d be dead. He could’ve nominated his weakest recruit as his champion, but as the aggressor I’d get no champion of my own. I’d be dead in the sand.”

They landed. Penumbra touched her wing to his shoulder, almost respectfully. “Not as stupid as you look, Quill. So maybe you can think.”

Is everything you say an insult, Voidseeker?

The scouts were already gone. But Sylvan Shade’s cart was still here, and that was something. He strode into the pavilion, feeling like the crown got heavier with every step.

The stallion sat up from where he sat at the table, settling down a heavy tome. “Quill, back already? How’d the expeditions go?”

“There won’t be any,” he said, grumbling. “Silver Needle!”

She was beside him almost before he called. “Lord Commander!” She saluted.

“Assemble everypony here, as soon as you can.”

“Even the pages?”

“Even the pages,” he said. Permafrost had said one thing that was true. Quill did have his own company. It might only be fifty hooves, without a warrior among them. But they had twice the brains of the rest of the army together. “Now.”

Whatever enthusiasm Quill had been feeling died after the third shallow crater.

It wasn’t as though he could be that angry with the scouts, not rationally. How could he possibly ask them to “find the entrances to the Moon” and expect anything but confusion and bewilderment.

“I hope the other teams are doing better,” Sylvan Shade said from somewhere behind him, apparently struggling to keep up. Just because it was easier to move here in some ways, that didn’t seem to be a guarantee that getting anything done would be easy. Sylvan Shade might be intelligent, well-read, maybe even some kind of quiet genius. But he was also not physically fit enough to be marching over hills in the scorching sun. His strength was… less than Quill expected from an earth pony.

Magic does weaken with altitude. But what did that mean for literally walking on the Moon?

“How long have we been going?”

Quill looked up to check the sun reflexively, then regretted it instantly, lowering his eyes and wincing. He wouldn’t be able to judge the time of day from that. “Don’t know. Six, maybe seven hours?”

“And… how many search areas left on our grid?”

Quill removed their copy of the map—or their quarter of the map, torn evenly where their group was going. There were several others, Quill’s laborers, carrying supplies and Sylvan Shade’s machines for the (apparently unlikely) event that they actually found anything.

“Uh…” He smiled slightly, relaxing. “One. Just one, looks like.” According to the tiny scribbled note, it was “unlikely to lead to anywhere significant.” But it was on the map, and they weren’t exactly overflowing with options.

So they walked. Quill’s hooves ached, his wings were covered in abrasive white dust, and sweat dripped down his mane. He wasn’t wearing the crown anymore, though he kept it close at hoof under one shoulder.

Penumbra fluttered overhead, barely a ghost in this strange place. She’d never landed during their trek, not for hours. I wish I knew how you have that kind of endurance.

But the Voidseekers were barely even ponies anymore. Their powers were supposedly like Nightmare Moon herself. Would they tell me about their magic if I asked? I’m the Lord Commander now.

But he didn’t ask, just walked. There was one opening left, then he could return to rejoin the rest of his crew.

“Hey, uh… Quill?” Sylvan asked. His voice wasn’t disrespectful when he said it, either. As a civilian, he had no obligation to use rank. “Is that who I think it is?”

Quill looked up, following his gesture. There, at the top of a distant slope, was the outline of an Alicorn, staring defiantly out at oblivion. Her back was stooped, her horn drooping. But magic still radiated out from her as it ever had during the duels with her sister.

We’re near that single huge crater. Nothing but ice down there, that’s not the way into the hollow center.

“Yes,” he said. “She’s keeping us alive, right now. Don’t distract her.”

It wasn’t as though they could afford to waste the time traveling to prostrate before the princess, while they still had so much of their own work to do.

“One more cave,” Sylvan said, his voice distant and pained. “Then we can… go back. See who actually found the way in. Some creature surely did…”

The walk didn’t take them much further at all before the ground started to slope. A wide ramp went down deep enough that they could enter total shade. Quill stepped down, closing his eyes and letting the sunless darkness surround him. Maybe he could just enjoy the peace for a little while…

Not long enough. He had to confirm that there was nothing here, so he could go back to the others. Hopefully their luck had been better.

“Anything down there?” Sylvan asked from over his shoulder. “Are you discouraged already, friend?”

“No.” He opened his eyes, and moved deeper into the gloom. The sand felt cool against his hooves, though still it rubbed abrasively wherever it touched. He could only imagine the difficulties ponies would have who got it in their lungs.

He didn’t have much further to travel before he made it to the bottom of the crater, and struck against solid ice. It thunked under his hooves, a hollow empty sound as empty as their hope.

“There’s… a little ice down here!” he said, turning back up. Now that he was at the bottom, he was briefly taken with the scale of the hill. It had seemed like nothing going down, with how little he seemed to weigh. But at the bottom…

His entire group were scattered on the slope above him, with expressions between helpful and bleak. Sylvan Shade was closest, and he approached a few feet behind. “Ice, huh? Not Lunarium? I was hoping if we died, at least we’d… be able to take some precious metals with us.” He removed a metal pick from his belt, sturdy iron but small enough to swing with one hoof. It was totally clean, without even a speck of moon-dust.

“No luck,” he said. “The others will probably be turning around by now too. I’ll fly back, the rest of you can catch up.”

“Suit yourself,” Sylvan said, bending down beside the ice. “I’ll take a sample. I’d like to study this, see if… maybe it would be safe to drink. At least I can die with a cool beverage, eh?”

Dust scattered around Iron Quill as he took off. It took almost no effort and he was flying, lifting lazily out of the crater to where Penumbra waited for him in the air.

“Well?”

“Same as the others,” he said. “There’s ice at the bottom of this one instead of metal, but that’s it. No entrance to the moon.”

“Because…” Penumbra rolled over in front of him, glaring at nothing. “Because maybe it isn’t? Because that’s the stupidest thing I ever heard.”

Somewhere far away, Quill heard a pony shouting. He ignored the voice—if order was breaking down in the camp, maybe that was for the best. They had so little time to live anyway.

“We aren’t supposed to be here,” he said. “If you know something we don’t, you should share it. Maybe you know the secret we need to survive this.”

“I don’t know,” Penumbra said, circling around him again. “I just know that Equus isn’t hollow. It goes deep. I’ve been in caves that go so far down you can feel the warm heartbeat of the planet against your hooves below you. So far down that the air feels heavy and light itself is a memory.”

“Your… initiation,” he guessed. “The secret temple everypony talks about. It’s underground.”

“Well obviously.” She seemed to be grinning from behind the cloth, though there was no way to be sure. “Pegasus ponies rule the skies; earth ponies have the ground. Unicorns have their castles. Where would a bat’s domain be? In the skies below the planet. The dark, forbidden places. It goes just as far down as it goes up, that’s what they told us.”

“So why is it stupid that the moon would?” he asked, stubborn. But he didn’t get an answer.

A beleaguered page, Swift Wing, popped up from behind, his wings drooping with the effort. The poor bat was young enough that the trip had obviously been a great struggle for him. Though he had still caught up. “Please, Colonel… Lord Commander. Sylvan Shade says there’s something you need to see immediately. Back in the crater.”

Quill opened his mouth to send the page away. Whatever academic interest Sylvan Shade had would do nothing to help Luna’s army of revenge make it back to enact some of that revenge.

But on the flipside, Quill wasn’t seeing too many escapes left open to them. Maybe he could use a slightly longer trip away from camp.

So he turned, angling down towards the crater and the total blackness within. At least the shade would be easy on his eyes.

He landed with a streak of dust on one sloping side, letting the powder scatter and make for a smooth landing. He turned slowly, expectant. “I appreciate the support you’ve given to me, Sylvan Shade. But I do have the rest of an army to run. Even if no one but the princess seems to believe I’m in charge.”

Sylvan Shade was on his knees in the sand, hammering franticly at the ice. Chunks of broken gray surrounded him, and he swung now with the full energy of an earth pony. Cracks spread slowly around the disk of water at the bottom of the crater, widening a little with each swing.

“Quill!” he called, out of breath, but not slowing down. “I believe I found something that might be interesting to you.” He stopped abruptly, gesturing at the crack. “Look at the dust.”

Iron Quill hurried over, and watched. The dust was rapidly drawn into the opening, pulling little pebbles along with it. He held one wing over the opening, and could distinctly sense the current being pulled down.

“That’s pressure!” Sylvan exclaimed, excited. “Negative pressure, to be precise! It means the area beyond this ice has less air than the one outside it. Perhaps… and I don’t wish to get your hopes up, but…”

“The interior of the Moon,” Quill whispered. “The entrance.”

“We’ll know soon enough!” Sylvan lifted the pickaxe again, and started swinging. Quill stepped aside, calling loudly. “Ponies, bring those shovels, hammers, everything! Swift Wing, that was some excellent flying! I have a few more trips for you.”

If Quill’s hourglass-keeper was right, they had just under 20 hours left. Was that long enough to give them a hope?

Chapter 4: Iron Crown

It took over an hour to break a wide enough gap in the ice to permit a single pony through. It didn’t help that the ice had dripped through the cracks in existing stone, melting until it was merged with the rock. The shade had protected the ice on all but the outer layer from melting.

But eventually they broke through, and Plowshare from the labor crew walked over to the makeshift supply area on the slope.

Ponies from his entire crew were arriving now, except for the guards who protected the stockpile.

They had brought anything from that stockpile that might be useful, mostly lanterns and lamp-oil, though there were ropes and picks and various other construction tools.

It wasn’t all that unusual for their army to have to build a bridge as they crossed Equestria, or maybe destroy one.

“I’ve got it,” Plowshare said, pulling down a greasy cloth soaked with gray dust, sweat dripping down his face. “That should be big enough for anypony.”

I should go get the scouts again, he thought, before realizing how unlikely Permafrost was to let him have the scouts. He would soon have to deal with that problem, but… he wasn’t afraid of a cave. He had a pony nearby who would be the perfect partner for this.

“Take ten minutes to recover,” he said, raising his voice so the others could hear. “Then return to digging. We need it wide enough for a supply cart to pass, fully loaded.”

“What if there’s nothing down there?” Silver Needle asked from the opening, lowering the cloth she’d had around her own mouth. They had all worked, even Quill had taken a turn.

They were all just as exhausted, and this time in the sun was not making things better. “Maybe we should be… finding another way.”

There had been a few locations with promise, though none as promising as this. “Hopefully I’ll be back by then,” Quill said, glancing down at the hole. Air still blew past him, though with the opening so wide it was more a breeze than a mad howling.

“Penumbra,” he said, not turning around. Somehow he knew she would be standing beside him, waiting for this moment. “I would like you to come with me.”

He was not wrong about her. “Into the Moon,” her voice said, almost a whisper. Trying not to be heard by all the others watching nearby. “This is… It could be interesting. But will it help us?”

Quill struggled into a climbing harness. His body creaked and protested at the abuse, but he forced it to move anyway. Once it was settled, Silver Needle secured the straps behind him. It would have to do.

“We can’t answer that question out here, come on.” Penumbra led the way ahead of him into the dark.

Quill crawled along behind her, past bits of broken ice and stone that had been cleared away just enough for them to pass. The wind whipped at his mane, ushering him down with darkness and the cool breeze. The light went from blinding sun to comfortable after a short time, though there was still further to climb.

The tunnel was about ten feet in all, before a cavern abruptly opened. It led down into the gloom, past the reach of the light.

Here the constant abrasion of the sand was gone, replaced with a constant whine of unseen wind.

“Stars above,” Penumbra whispered from beside him. He turned, and nearly fell over in shock at what she was doing. The bat was undressing. Her armor came off in a few quick shrugs, until she wore only the bladed belt.

She was beautiful, even more than he’d imagined. All this time without rest or bathing meant her scent practically assaulted him in the tight space.

You are going to bury that thought and strangle it, Quill. He tried, anyway. “You’re…”

“This is where we belong,” Penumbra answered, grinning slyly at him as she tucked her armor into an alcove. She knew what she was doing to him, and she did it anyway. “You know what armor will protect you from in a cave?”

“Monsters,” he answered. “With tusks, sharp teeth. Fangs.”

“No.” Her voice came from behind him now. “Caves are desolate places, long abandoned. There is so little food here that nothing large can grow. We are the largest predators here.”

“That sounds…” He didn’t object. There was no time to argue with his expert. If she said caves were safe, then she would probably know what she was talking about. “Okay. So now we see if this goes into the hollow core. Where we’ll… hide until the princess recovers her strength.”

He twisted his head around, emerging with a lantern. Lighting it was a struggle, but he managed to get the flint and striker together on the third try. It lit up, filling the cave in front of them with orange.

The deeper he looked, the wider the cave became.

It wasn’t like any cave Iron Quill had ever seen. The monastery had caves beside it in the hills, carved into the mausoleums of honored saints. That cave was built of smooth walls, dripping with moisture and broken by spectacular multicolored formations.

This was a single shaft, getting slowly wider as it sloped gently down towards the moon’s heart. The ceiling went from barely cart-height to tall enough for a pony to fly without kicking the heads of ponies walking beneath, and still they walked. It was a good thing it was wide enough for a cart to roll even at the entrance, because there was much too much stone to carve here. Even with iron tools, this would take too much time.

“Have you ever seen a cave like this?” he asked. “I know you’re… trained for this. Or… maybe trained by this. Nopony knows.”

“Yes,” she answered, without anything snide this time. She sounded as awed as he felt. “Once. Aminon calls this a… lava tube. I expected more to be alive down here, though. The one I visited had water trickling inside it.”

They walked for long enough that he had to refill the oil in his lantern, prompting more familiar mockery from Penumbra. But he ignored it, got the faint lantern lit again, then resumed their trek. Eventually they reached the center of the moon.

The chamber rose above them so high that he couldn’t see the ceiling even aiming his lantern directly up, with uneven walls of melted rock and a slick, transparent surface of nearly-clear ice dripping down from one side. It was so large the cavern could easily have swallowed the Castle of the Two Sisters, and had plenty of room left for dessert.

How could such an incredibly massive space remain open without collapsing? There weren’t pillars to hold it up, just a huge, rough globe of nothing.

There were no other entrances, at least none large enough to easily see. The ground wasn’t flat, but continued to slope sideways just like the tunnel. Towards who knew what—the other side of the Moon, probably. We always knew it was small, it has to be to travel around the sky so quickly. We’re here.

For the first time since arriving, Quill let himself feel hope. Maybe they wouldn’t all die up here after all. Permafrost might’ve been right about one thing: he was wrong to doubt Nightmare Moon. She had chosen this location specifically, dumping them exactly where they needed to be.

“Big,” Penumbra said, voice awed. “I would think unsafe, this big. But there’s no rubble on the ground, look. No previous cave-ins. This cavern is stable.” She spread her wings in a submissive gesture, nodding to him. “I was wrong, Quill. Our princess really did pick the right pony for the job. You somehow… led us straight here.”

She says after we hiked across the entire bubble, digging into every opening we could find.

It was more than a little unfair, but maybe he could live with that. They might actually survive which seemed to be the important thing. “It won’t be easy,” he said. “Getting everypony down here, all our supplies.”

“Because their necks are made of iron and they swapped brains with moths,” she countered. “I know, I get that. But maybe that isn’t something to do on your own.” She wobbled, swaying briefly on her hooves. “Does the air feel thinner down here?”

She wasn’t wrong. He could feel a little light-headed himself, though not enough that it bothered him. He reached out, steadying her with a wing. “Golden Gate Monastery was high in the mountains,” he said. “The air was thinner than this. You’ll adapt, the others will too. I can teach them how to breathe if we have to.”

“Good enough.” She didn’t pull away from his touch, as he’d initially expected. Touch he’d given for no other reason than to help her remain standing, of course. “As fun as it was to watch you struggle, I think… maybe we don’t let you do all this yourself from here on. Since we… have a chance of living now, we should fly straight to the princess. We don’t have time to waste with Permafrost challenging your authority while everyone suffocates.”

He glanced up the path they’d come, long enough that he couldn’t even see the faint light of the entrance. Penumbra was right, as she had been about so much so far. “We can keep the army here,” he said again, taking one last glance at the huge cavern, before hefting the lantern and turning back for the surface.

“Until our revenge,” she added, without skipping a beat. “The Tyrant took so much from us. But we’ve proven we’re the ones meant to survive. We’ll return to Equestria, and its rightful ruler will be on the throne. All because of you.”

Quill could accept that praise, even if the flavor of it made him a little uneasy. It was hard to argue with a bat as pretty as Penumbra.

By the time Quill emerged from the rock, his work crew had done excellent work widening it almost enough to permit a cart. They were on the lowest section now, where it was almost all ice and not much stone.

Strangely, several of his strongest laborers were on their backs, panting with effort like a young initiate at his monastery whose blood had still not adjusted to the altitude.

“Good work, all,” he said, striding past them. There was one pony he needed to speak with before he went to the princess—well, two.

“Silver Needle,” he said, tapping her on the shoulder.

“Good news?” Her eyes lit up as he approached, alone. Penumbra would still be in the cave, putting her armor back on. She couldn’t return to the surface unclothed.

“Good news,” he repeated. “The best news. As soon as the crew is finished here, prepare to make the trip down. Requisition every laborer you can to start transporting supplies. I want you to grab the highest section of cave you can near the ice-fall, and stake out twice as much room as you think we’ll need.”

“You, uh…” Her eyes widened. “You want us to move everything? All the way out here?”

“We have to,” he said. “Go to the camp followers. I have a feeling we might be needing more strong hooves, so you can go ahead and hire… as many as you need. Don’t let bits stop you, just get it done.”

“As you order, Quill,” she said, obviously confused. “How will you convince the others?”

“If Quill was the only voice to convince the army, they would all be doomed,” Penumbra said, emerging from the cavern entrance and shaking the worst of the dust from her armor as she went. She moved past Quill, taking off in a rush and scattering more gray dust. Flying north.

They wouldn’t have that far to fly to reach the princess. There was mercy in that.

“Nightmare Moon will have to convince them,” he said. “But you will have a head start, Silver. Make me proud.”

“Have you…” Sylvan Shade hadn’t been working, despite being an earth pony. Apparently he was more interested in the rock-samples they’d extracted. But now that he saw Quill was about to take off, he hurried over. “I don’t mean to interrupt, but have you thought about how we’ll close this again?”

“I…” He shook his head. “I have no idea.”

“Well, good thing you have me,” Sylvan said, looking prouder than ever. “I know exactly how we’ll do it. All this ice… we’ll quarry more, enough to clog the entrance several feet thick. We can use unicorn magic to seal it behind us, once we’re finished.”

“That is…” Quill grinned. “Brilliant, Sylvan. Silver, make sure Sylvan Shade has the help he needs to have that plan ready.”

He didn’t wait for her objections, just took off into the air. The flight to where Nightmare Moon rested did not give him very long to think.

What was worse, the Princess of the Moon had obviously been suffering tremendously, even with so much time still left. From the way her head drooped, nodding slightly forward as they flew closer, Quill guessed she might be on the edge of sleep already.

Please don’t let it be too late!

They landed at the base of the hill, and half a dozen other Voidseekers appeared from the shadowy gloom of nearby craters, their eyes suspiciously on Quill. Penumbra walked off to join her companions, while Quill continued up the hill.

“Princess,” he said, as he got close to the top. Just not close enough that he might startle her. Besides, he understood that exhaustion perfectly. He had only had a few hours rest since they arrived, none of it very helpful.

“You.” She didn’t turn away, though her body did tense a little. “The one I appointed as my commander. I have heard the camp is hard at work. You thought it would be… useful… to use precious air digging bulwarks on the surface of a sterile rock?”

Quill didn’t know what that meant—how could they use air? But instead of letting the stress of it overwhelm him, he just surged on. “I didn’t command them, Permafrost did. He thinks he should be the commander. But I thought I should be trying to solve the problem you gave me, not fighting him for control.”

Nightmare Moon nodded; expression blank. Was that approval? Anger, building to burn him away to a crisp? Considering how long they all might have before her magic ran out, he wasn’t afraid either way.

“We will see,” Nightmare Moon said. “What have you done with this time? So… so much of it gone. I feel the strength leaving me. Even here, I am not invincible. I hope you have not squandered my trust. If you have… I have enough strength to enjoy your suffering. Before the end comes.”

Iron Quill swallowed, unable to meet her eyes. This was the part of being Lord Commander that had always made it much too dangerous for him. The pony Nightmare Moon trusted most was also the one likely to suffer her anger if some failure struck.

“I spoke with a… scholar. The wisest I could find in the army, and he informed me that many believed the Moon to be hollow. I devoted myself to locating an entrance to—”

Nightmare Moon silenced him with one hoof on the stone. She snapped it down, and a little crater spread from where she touched, throwing dust and cracking rock beneath it. “You’ve wasted what little time my survivors had on a primitive myth?”

Iron Quill closed his eyes, bracing for the blast of magic that would kill him in agony. He’d done something wrong, though he had no idea what. The result was… inevitable after that.

But after a few more seconds, he opened his eyes to see Nightmare Moon’s head hanging low, her horn flickering and the spell nearly going out. She wasn’t going to torture him after all. “You truly are doomed then. I will have to take my revenge after… an eon alone in this abyss.”

“No!” He probably should’ve shut his mouth and walked away, but Iron Quill was too exhausted to care. He hadn’t fought the army and the Moon both to curl up and die now. “Princess, we found it. There was an airtight cave, leading down for what feels like forever. We reached the center, just like Sylvan Shade said. It’s more than large enough for the entire camp, and many more besides. We can travel there, and rest while your strength recovers.”

Nightmare Moon finally turned. The glow from her horn stabilized, and she seemed to see Quill for the second time. Her slitted eyes passed through him to his soul, as only an Alicorn could. That dark power was judging him… and this time, it didn’t find him wanting.

“That is… a miracle,” she said. “Your primitive, misinformed… but of course, you can’t be blamed. How little of their knowledge is still taught anymore? They destroyed so much themselves, and the Tyrant erased the rest. No matter. Incorrect conclusions, but useful results.”

She rose to her hooves, and the whole moon seemed to tremble under her. “We will travel there at once. It will take some strength to compress this atmosphere down into the cave you’ve discovered, but we cannot afford to relinquish any of the oxygen we brought. Stars only know where we will obtain more.

“But of all the mountains standing before us, this was the closest. We may only climb them one at a time. We will climb forever, until we reach the revenge that is due to me for this betrayal, and liberation for Equestria from the Tyrant’s hooves.”

She no longer looked like she was about to collapse from anger. Now she seemed resolved, and utterly confident. The Nightmare Moon that had inspired him, as well as so many others. The one who would set Equestria free.

“There’s…” He hesitated, not wanting to take away whatever respect he’d apparently earned with her. But given the alternative was even more of her anger, or worse… “Your army doesn’t treat me like their Lord Commander,” he said. “If I ordered them to move into the cave, they would not follow.”

The Alicorn turned on him, her expression twisting into a sneer. “I wouldn’t expect them to. You’re high officer by name alone. If we were about to return to battle, you would lead us to the greatest defeat yet. But we aren’t in battle. You may even have been the perfect pony for your position. But for now… I will make the orders. Walk beside me, and stop standing like a coward. If you wish to command, you will learn to meet ponies in the eye. With me.”

He obeyed, hurrying up until he was only a wing’s breadth from the princess, on her right hoof. An honored position. When they reached the bottom of the hill, the surviving Voidseekers joined them on either side. Protecting him as well as the princess. There were only six of them left. Where did the others go?

A chill passed through him, and somehow he knew he would never see those ponies again. Maybe three days hadn’t been a measurement of Nightmare Moon all along, but on their lives.

“Loyal army!” Nightmare Moon bellowed, her voice echoing through the bubble with the magical magnification of her best spell. “The time has come to travel below the ground. My chosen Lord Commander, Iron Quill, has prepared a place for us. It is my order that every pony healthy enough to walk follow us, bringing every weapon and supply of any value. Those too injured to walk from the battle should be left in this camp. My magic will see to them. But for you, we must retreat.”

Quill’s eyes widened as he realized what she was doing. But he didn’t question the princess. Nopony could do that. If air is something that can run out, then maybe it makes sense. Not only that, but what about food? Quill knew almost exactly how many months of grain they had prepared for the siege. When it ran out…

Don’t think about months. We’ll be long gone before that.

They passed through each camp, pausing just long enough for Nightmare Moon to repeat her orders to the ponies there. Soon he could see a frenzy of activity as defenses came down, tents were stowed, and cargo wagons were packed. It would take hours to break down a camp, but they might just have those hours now.

When they reached Permafrost’s camp, he could see the resentment on his face, the anger. Yet the insubordination was gone—he could argue and hiss at Quill, even threaten him. But not with Nightmare Moon beside him.

That pony is going to be a thorn in my side as long as I’m wearing a crown. I wish the bucking fool would’ve had this office instead. But then again, Permafrost wouldn’t have understood the meaning of Nightmare’s command. They probably would’ve waited for an attack until the moment their magic ran out, and they all died.

When they reached the entrance to the cave, Quill was pleased to see one of his own cargo wagons rolling through, with Silver Needle directing the next one. She dropped into a deep bow as Nightmare Moon approached. The princess didn’t so much as speak her name, just walking past with an approving look on her face, into the icy entrance.

To his surprise, she did stop on the other side. Sylvan Shade stood there, along with a crew of laborers, cutting down a huge chunk of ice until it was about the size of the opening.

“You’re going to freeze it closed?” Her expression looked doubtful. “I don’t believe…” She shook her head. “Well, I suppose it could work. Roughly a single atmosphere, depending on the volume within. We must work with what we are given.” She walked on, horn casting a brilliant green glow to illuminate the cavern. Quill could hear several carts rolling along ahead, their wooden wheels grinding against stone.

“What do you think?” Quill asked, when they finally reached the center of the Moon. Tiny lantern-lights glowed in one corner; in the place he’d told Silver Needle to build their camp. They would probably have the best place of all, thanks to that advice. “Is the Moon large enough to…”

“Your questions are ignorant and absurd,” Nightmare Moon said harshly. “But irrelevant. I have no doubt you will understand plenty in time. This was only the first of many terrible trials ahead of us.” She walked to one side, where she would be out of the flow of traffic.

“Inform the soldiers on the surface they have two hours to reach us here. And… good work, Lord Commander. I believe I will have further need of you.”

Chapter 5: Dead Air

Cinereous Gale sat at the back of the high table, surrounded by ledgers and records. The Nightmakers were more than just a faction of barbarian marauders—they were an open rebellion against Princess Celestia and Equestrian authority in general. Of course every member was more important than Gale—his service to the princess might be eternal, but he still refused to kill for her. So instead he managed her finances, so her troops could keep eating while they killed.

Even without his tactical experience, without even looking at the map, he could tell from the faces of everypony here that the war was going badly. “Skyforge has fallen, Princess,” said General Night Stalker, his voice flat. “We were unable to hold back the legion. Their solar device evaporated the clouds, and the city fell.”

A city of fifty thousand ponies. Not all of them had been loyal to Princess Luna, only their rulers had.

The princess no longer hid her face, but dressed in the same royal armor that she’d once worn to parades and rituals in the capital. Where they’d once been shiny and perfect, the armor was dented and scratched, mended and reforged a hundred times. Luna led from the front. “And how many escaped the city?”

“Of our troops? Twenty thousand warriors, Princess. Twice that many citizens of Skyforge as well, all flown here to Datura.”

“More mouths to feed,” somepony else muttered. “Who let them in? We’re full.” Uncomfortable, frustrated mutters filled the room, as ponies blamed one another.

Finally Gale rose. He still wore his monk’s robe, though there was a rank pin stuck through at the breast. It was still lower than anypony else in this room. “I did. I’m master of stores—I decided it would be better to suffer the hardship than let word spread that the princess allows her allies to starve.”

More uncomfortable muttering, with various dark words from the lips of generals Gale didn’t know and liked even less.

Eventually it was the princess herself who silenced them. “I support Quill’s decision. Last I checked, half the great cities were still undeclared. We will have to find a way to weather the short-term disadvantage in the interest of winning more of Equestria to our side.”

Gale sat down, returning to his wall of books and trying very hard to be unseen. These ponies didn’t care that he existed—he was a nuisance, the one who stood between them and ridiculous requests for their troops. Sooner or later he was going to wake with a dagger in his back.

“And the Legion’s losses—” Luna continued. “I’ve seen reports that they’re making for Trottingham. How many did they lose?”

Silence descended on the room again, much more swiftly this time. Ponies glanced awkwardly between each other, and again only Night Stalker was brave enough to finally speak. “Just over… one hundred thousand, Princess. They march slowly, seizing the grain from farms and villages to supply their advance. But we can use this to our advantage—they’re in unfamiliar territory, cut off from supplies. Once they steal all the food they can find, they won’t have any left for themselves. They can’t besiege Trottingham for long enough to break our supplies.”

“Our brave soldiers can be there first?” Luna asked.

Stalker nodded. “All of our soldiers can fly. The Legion… not so much.”

Yes, but how long until they turn that against us? Gale had warned against this tactic—and been completely ignored. Forming an army of pegasus ponies alone, and only using the others to reinforce static positions was bound to segment the army. When they did fight together, Luna’s soldiers fought as two groups—the pegasi, and the land folk. They didn’t see themselves as the same faction.

“We have… five thousand souls defending Trottingham,” Luna said, inspecting the map. “Even if our forces make it there, we’ll still be outnumbered four to one, isn’t that so?”

“It is,” said General Stalwart Shield, in a thick accent. She wasn’t even a flying pony, and as a result could visit the fortress for a meeting like this only with the aid of her unicorn magic. “Every brave stallion and bannermare is worth ten of them, Princess. You’ll see.”

It isn’t enough, Gale thought. We can’t keep suffering losses like this without losing morale.

He wasn’t the only one who thought so, because another pony spoke near the front of the table. Aminon said even less during these meetings than Gale did, though his interruptions were always more welcome. “There is an alternative, Princess. A thaumaturgic solution to this martial problem. Every student of war learns that magic always triumphs against mean force.”

Gale looked up from his books, at where Aminon had risen to stand in his seat.

Even at this distance, Gale felt a shiver of discomfort in his presence. Aminon was one of Star Swirl’s own apprentices, or he had been. Gale didn’t know what had happened, but now he was blind in both eyes and his mane had gone white. Yet he still seemed able to see.

“I am always open to considering other avenues,” Princess Luna said. “But we’ve already tried that kind of intervention, Aminon. Star Swirl’s protection cannot be overcome.”

“Against their soldiers, yes,” Aminon admitted. His voice was bitter, and his glassy eyes seemed to glare down in a direction none of them could see. “But we didn’t consider the solution might be the reverse. If we cannot attack the Legion with spells, we can augment ourselves. Then boasting like Stalwart Shield’s here might be true.”

“How?” Luna whispered, tone desperate. Gale knew that voice as certainly as he knew anything—the princess was going to agree no matter what Aminon wanted.

“With the Sun Tyrant’s restrictions lifted, I have studied in domains she would forbid. I have plumbed far and deep in search of allies, and I think I found one.”

Night Stalker cleared his throat, glaring at Aminon. “Princess, my stallions and mares require no arcane crutches. They will triumph for you on their own.”

Princess Luna silenced him with a wing. “Tell me.”

“It was not easy to find a creature with sufficient power to serve us, but with enough eye for mortals to care what becomes of us. The one I discovered calls itself Nightmare.”

Was it Gale’s imagination, or did the candles at their table flicker and dim at the mere mention of the name? The clouds under their hooves kept drifting, blown towards Trottingham by the brave pegasi outside.

“Be cautious, Princess,” Stalwart said, her voice nervous. “I’m no great wizard, but I have heard… never to traffic with spirits. They always take more than they ask.”

Princess Luna stomped one hoof, glowering at her. “Thank you for your advice, Stalwart Shield. But I have been studying magic since before your mother’s grandmother was born. I’m aware.” She gestured over one shoulder. “My ponies of war, return to your preparations. Do not concern yourself with this. I will converse with this Nightmare and return to you if its terms are agreeable. Trust in the wisdom of your princess.”

They rose as one, bowing to her. Gale remained where he sat, however. He wasn’t a general. Technically, he hadn’t been told to leave. Nopony seemed to care that he was left behind. As the captains filed out, Gale wondered if they were hoping that Aminon would make him disappear next.

She didn’t continue until they were all gone. “What does the spirit require?” she asked, as soon as they were alone again.

“I do not know,” Aminon said. “But we could ask it now. It gave me its secret name—I can call upon it whenever we require.”

Princess Luna levitated the large map of Equestria off the table and onto a nearby shelf, pushing aside the histories and books of strategy.

Aminon walked away, gathering his cart of possessions from near the far side of the room and carrying it back in his magic. He settled a circle of candles on the table, and began marking it with powder. Not chalk as would be used on the ground, since chalk and clouds didn’t tend to work well.

He set a wicker cage in the center of the circle. Gale winced at what he saw inside—a gray squirrel, lean and terrified. Its eyes darted around the room, as though it knew what was coming.

Luna looked up, noticing Gale on the far side of the table. “You’re still here?”

He nodded once.

“Are you here to judge my rule? You know my sister has left me no choice. She’ll sacrifice any number of lives at the altar of stability and prosperity. While the ponies who love her prosper, thousands of others are crushed under their hooves.”

Gale nodded. He didn’t get up, barely even met her eyes.

After a few seconds, Luna looked away, losing interest in him. That was just as well, though just now it wasn’t the princess that Gale feared. She could kill him whenever she wished, so that wasn’t a change.

Aminon took a long breath, then started chanting. Gale retreated a little behind his books, unable to understand but still shuddering at the sound. Whatever it was, he was saying things that no pony was meant to hear. He lifted a knife in his magic, and there was no mystery about where it would go. When a faint, pained squeak echoed from the little cage, he knew the source of it too.

The room darkened around them, until the circle of candles was nothing more than faint specks. The sunlight streaming in from outside was shifted so far red that it barely lit the room at all.

He could only see the princess by the occasional twinkle of her mane, the only thing immune to the effects.

But while he couldn’t see whatever was happening in the circle, he could hear it. A voice—not a pony’s voice, not male or female or describable according to any other terms familiar to him—but a voice nonetheless.

It spoke strangely, with a cadence of unusual pauses and diction. Like a pony who had memorized several books on Ponish without ever meeting a pony.

“The light dwellers come to me, as they always did. What can one who serves do for those who live?”

Princess Luna stared straight forward into the circle on the table. “My sister rules Equestria with a neck of iron. She lives so high up in her tower that she can’t see the suffering of the ponies below her. I want to stop it. Take Equestria for the ponies without a voice.”

There was a strange sound—not laughter, though Gale couldn’t tell exactly what it was. Something similar, maybe. “The living speak of generalities. We are not… well-equipped to see thus. Even the concreteness of physicality is anathema. Describe in what is seen, and what is needed. Then we will decide.”

Luna hesitated for a moment, then continued. “I need my army to be invincible. I want soldiers that can fight for days with low supplies, fight through night and snow and thirst and famine. I need soldiers that don’t break with fear when they are outnumbered, and their friends die around them. Most importantly, I need to be the pony who leads them. Only I can repair what my sister has broken.”

Maybe it was Gale’s eyes adjusting to the gloom, or maybe the darkness between them was just growing more distinct. Either way he could see it now, the sparkles of an outline—an Alicorn shape, though far smaller. It seemed to be overlapping with the princess, its mane covering hers. Its eyes were frightful, and it had sharp fangs.

It dissolved a second later. “Your request is great,” the Nightmare said. “The price will be equally great. Will you pay it?”

Luna didn’t hesitate. “I will.”

Iron Quill woke from the nightmare—but in some ways, he never could. His wings were still tight skin against his sides, his eyes well suited for the gloom at the center of the moon. If it wasn’t for his adaptation, he might be dead now. But he wouldn’t be thanking the Nightmare for it.

“Master,” the voice spoke again, quiet and nervous. It was Watershed, one of his supply ponies. Despite his new appointment, despite a week of life these ponies couldn’t have expected and certainly didn’t deserve, they’d given him no additional resources. Not one set of hooves to help him.

He groaned, then sat up in his folding cot. “What is it, Watershed?”

The voice that answered was terrified. “Uh… it’s her. She’s waiting for you in the command tent.”

Iron Quill rolled out of bed instantly. His own tent wasn’t that different from any of the others tucked away in the center of the Moon, although it was lit with unicorn glowstone instead of candlelight. He removed his cloak from a hook, then lifted the crown from beside it and settled it on his head. There was no time for personal grooming—their princess was not a patient mare.

He didn’t gallop so much as fly to the command tent, though at least there wasn’t far to go. The torches outside burned low, but still they provided blinding light for his sensitive eyes and ears. Penumbra fell into step beside him as he pushed through the doorway, as though she’d been beside him every moment. It doesn’t matter how quick and stealthy you are. I would’ve felt you in my bed.

Sure enough, Nightmare Moon stood beside his great table, looking down at the ledgers and maps with a quizzical, disinterested eye. She had something with her, a bundle of dark cloth that filled the tent with a strange scent. What was it, and why did its outline repulse him so much?

“Lord Commander,” she said. “You kept me waiting. I don’t like to be kept waiting.”

He nodded awkwardly—it was the only thing he could do. An argument with the Princess of Nightmares had only one ending. “Apologies, Princess.”

“You’re sleeping in the middle of the night?” She raised an eyebrow. “I’ve had many an inattentive Lord Commander, but I expected better of you.”

“I… I wasn’t aware.” He looked down. So far he knew, he wasn’t the only one having difficulty with natural rhythms since arriving on the Moon. But just because it was happening to others didn’t mean he could use it as an excuse himself. “Apologies again, Princess.”

“Is that all you do? Bursts of brilliance, punctuated with long hibernations of failure?”

He shrugged. In her eyes, he saw fires reflected, and thousands of empty eyes watching him. “Yes, Princess. I told you I was a poor choice for this post.”

“And yet…” She circled around him, glancing briefly out the open tent window. “Your competitors are building war fortifications in a cave. They work their stallions raw preparing for a battle we certainly won’t be fighting here. The realities of your failings are not as convincing as the impression.”

He said nothing, voice down. “How may I serve you, this… night, Princess?”

“Not me,” she said, gesturing at the bundle she’d left on his table. “Do you know what that is?”

He walked over, dreading every step. He was right to dread—inside the wrapped bundle was a foal.

Its eyes were open and staring in death, strangely bloodshot. Its lips were blue, and its little horn stumpy and uneven as all foals were. Yet there was no blood on the bundle, or other signs of trauma. Nightmare Moon hadn’t brought the dead infant for any dark purpose. Then why…

“You saved my army for me once, Iron Quill. They would be dead in the sand above our heads, and you acted. Another threat approaches, one subtler and more sinister. It takes the young first, then the weak. In time it will take you all, and once again I will be left to madness on this dead rock. I require you to solve it for me.”

Iron Quill reached out with one wing, gently closing the baby’s eyes before covering its face with the cloth. Then he turned back to face his princess. “With respect—Princess Nightmare Moon, you are wiser than I, stronger, and you have the power of an Alicorn. Why risk so many lives on a pony with so many failures?”

“Because… I don’t know,” she said honestly. “I don’t know how to solve it, just like I didn’t know how to save these ponies. You discovered this lava tube, you sealed it and kept my army safe here. If it had been left to my wisdom, the only loyal ponies left to me in all the world would be dead. You gave me a miracle, Iron Quill. I need another one.”

He nodded slowly, settling down in his chair. “Do you mind if I…” He looked back at the body, shivering once. Nightmare Moon shrugged, ambivalent. So he stomped one hoof, waiting until a soldier emerged from outside. “Guardsman, take this child.” He pointed. “Return them to their mother for a proper burial.”

“I took her from the camp followers,” Nightmare Moon whispered. “Near the cavern’s highest point. You’ll find the mother with the whores and dancers there.”

The soldier saluted, lifting the bundle with great reluctance. Soon he slipped back out of the tent, leaving the two of them alone again.

“What killed that child, Princess?”

“Suffocation,” she answered. “It is… difficult to explain to you. Equestria lacks the very concepts that would make these ideas understandable. You know now that the air you’re breathing is a precious resource. Protecting it is one reason this cavern made for such an opportune solution.”

He nodded. “I do now, Princess. Thanks to your teaching.”

“Now you will learn further. The air is not a single substance, that can sustain life forever. It contains three components of relevance: nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon dioxide. Do you know of them?”

He shook his head.

“Of course you don’t. You’re a child of ignorance—this state cannot continue. So listen and hear. Most of the air we—”

“Excuse me!” A voice called from outside the tent, a voice that Quill instantly recognized. The guards would let Sylvan Shade pass without request, since they knew the importance of his help. He was part of the reason they were alive. “Excuse me, but I can’t help but overhear subjects of relevance being discussed in…” He trailed off, ears flattening and tail tucking as he saw the ponies inside. He gulped, retreating a step. “Forgive me, Princess—”

A faint glow gripped him around the neck, dragging him up to the table and slamming him against it. He fell limply, bleeding faintly from where it had cut into his side.

“Do you know this oaf, Iron Quill? Is there any reason I shouldn’t kill him for interrupting us?” The glow around his neck tightened, and he gasped, clawing weakly at it with his hooves. Whatever he was trying to say was completely lost in that desperation.

“Yes!” Quill exclaimed. “Oaf he might be, but this is my alchemist, Sylvan Shade. He assisted in finding this home for us. I’m sure I’ll be unable to solve this next crisis without him.”

“That is a shame.” Nightmare Moon sounded reluctant. She watched Sylvan struggle, smiling with satisfaction at his kicking and hacking.

Then the glow vanished, and he slumped limply against the table. Whatever thanks he might’ve wanted to offer were lost completely in his coughing. “I suppose we can leave him here to listen. Whether he knows these things already or not, soon everypony must if we wish to survive.”

She returned to her casual sitting position, disinterested in the pony who had nearly suffocated at her hooves.

“Aside from the nitrogen you’re breathing, one part in five is oxygen. This is the gas absolutely required for life—without it, you will all die.”

“And it’s depleting,” Quill supplied. “Without replenishment from… wherever oxygen comes from in Equestria.”

“No.” It wasn’t the princess who answered, but Sylvan Shade. “We use it slower than you think. A pony trapped in a tight space will suffocate not because their oxygen runs out, but because they’re poisoned by everything else.”

How he managed to say that—or anything, for that matter—after nearly suffocating, Quill had no idea. But Nightmare Moon seemed pleased. “That’s correct. Avoiding the technical details you do not understand, it isn’t the absence of oxygen that is our first fear, but that final substance, carbon dioxide. Ponies produce it just by being alive, but they aren’t the only ones. All animals exhale it, as well as every flame.

“To survive, we must find a way to remove it from the air around us, and replace the slowly draining supply of oxygen.”

Iron Quill scratched down everything she’d said on a scrap of paper. “How long do we have, Princess?”

“To solve the first problem? Days. I don’t have the sensors, but that newborn suffocated. I have heard many of my soldiers complaining of headaches, stomach sickness, nausea. This is the result of heavy exertion in our depleting air. These effects will spread to all of you in time, slowing your thoughts, impairing your judgement. The weak will continue to die, and movement itself will be difficult. At the present rate, I give you two days until you’re too impaired to act. Two more before you perish, in agony.”

“You mentioned fires,” Quill said. “We should order them all extinguished at once, and all construction halted. Ponies should be ordered to rest in the dark—this will extend our time, will it not?”

Nightmare Moon only shrugged. “Do whatever you think is necessary. I can tell you only what we cannot do. I know no spells to simply remove the poison from the air, or to acquire more air from the planet to replace what we spend. Celestia’s banishment is… so far… unbreakable. I will continue to attempt to break it anyway. If I am successful, then I may be able to return us, solving this problem for you.”

She rose, turning her back on them. “But I do not anticipate success in time, Lord Commander. If I’m right, you will be dead a thousand times over before I can return us. Give me my miracle.”

“I will,” he promised, without knowing or even suspecting how he would. “Somehow.”

The princess stalked away, letting the tent swish closed behind her.

“I had no idea our ruler was such a… delightful mare,” Sylvan croaked, rolling onto his back and looking up at the ceiling of the tent. “Save the world twice in one week? Does she think you’re an Alicorn too?”

“Thankfully not,” Iron Quill muttered. “Or she’d probably try to kill me first.”

Chapter 6: Fiery Stone

Iron Quill deflated visibly as the last of the messengers finally left his chamber behind. He slouched into his chair, tossing the Lord Commander's crown angrily to the table in front of him. "I’m not sure what the point of this damn thing is if nobody is going to bucking follow my orders. I save their lives days ago, and suddenly I'm not worth listening to now?"

Sylvan Shade was gone now, off to retrieve his equipment and "some friends" from Moonshadow's camp. But since he hadn't yet returned, Quill was alone with Penumbra and his angry thoughts. "You should be pleased. In a way, they're seeing the world further ahead than you are."

He raised an eyebrow. "They're planning for a military defense of a cave on the Moon. Explain to me how that's seeing further ahead."

"Simple," Penumbra stalked around him, brushing past him with a wing. She'd removed the wrapping from around her face, as she seemed to always do when the two of them were alone. Quill couldn't blame her—she didn't have the monastery anymore, and there were so few of her kind left. He'd get lonely too in her position. "You're seeing only as far as the battle for our immediate survival. They're looking to what comes after, in the continued struggle for position within the army. They have an eye on taking your crown."

Quill growled under his breath, a string of profanities he didn't dare speak louder. "The princess told them I was right about the last disaster. What witness is better than their own princess?"

She stopped on the far side of the table, looking down at the camp's new map. They'd had to make substantial adjustments to make it fit in the long and thin cave, but they'd done it. "You're a bigger fool than you appear if you think this army is won by witnesses and achievements. How long have you been serving our princess?"

Cinereous Gale's shoulders tensed, and suddenly the dagger on his belt felt like it was pressing him into the chair. "A while."

She waved a dismissive wing. "Then think about what you saw. Nightmare Moon doesn't convince her ponies that she's right, she commands their will and delivers death to those who oppose her. These generals prospered under that system. To really earn their respect, you'll have to prove you can work within their system. What punishment have you exacted for defiance?"

Only his silence answered. He rose from his chair, shoving past her and opening the ledger and showing her. "See this?"

She stared down, expression blank. "Words."

You can't read? But he wasn't going to insult a pony who was helping him. He couldn't let the past distort in his mind until he forgot the advantages he had. Luna's soldiers, even the Voidseekers, wouldn't be classically trained. "I have twelve soldiers. Not twelve battalions, not twelve platoons. Twelve."

He tensed again, seeing back through time through the screams and a flaming sword. "They're good stallions, legionnaire trained. But those generals have thousands of raping, barbarian louts. What am I supposed to do to discipline a general whose troops could destroy us in moments?"

Penumbra moved so fast Quill couldn't see her as anything more than a blur. A dagger sunk straight through his ledger, right down to the hilt. "You have the power of life and death, Lord Commander. Those who defy your will spit in the face of our princess. I will kill them for you."

"Absolutely not." He turned his back on her in disgust, returning to the table. "If I ever kill anyone, they'll be on their feet. And they'll be armed."

"Lord Commander!" Sylvan Shade's voice came in through the tent outside, eager. "Tell your guards to let us in! I brought friends!"

I could use those right about now. "Send them in!" he called, settling back into the head of the table as dignified as he could.

Penumbra wrapped her face again, though he could still see her disapproving eyes. "Noble," she whispered harshly. "Your enemies won't be."

Quill couldn't meet her eyes—she was right, of course. It was a series of little miracles that he was still alive, with as many stupid mistakes as he'd made. In another life, you should've been the one fighting Luna's army. You'd be a hero right now, instead of trapped up here.

Sylvan came in first, pulling a familiar cart of laboratory equipment. He wasn't alone this time—a gaggle of ponies followed him, half a dozen in all. Quill knew instantly why the guards had been skeptical of letting them back in—these ponies didn't belong to any of the companies. They were camp followers.

Bells jingled around the hem of the unicorn's cloak, in a cheap imitation of Star Swirl's hat. Exaggerated nighttime shapes were sewn into her dark robe. The others were similar—the sort of ponies that another general would’ve left out on the lunar surface to die. Quill hadn't, but now he wondered.

Celestia temper my judgement. "Friends!" Sylvan said enthusiastically. "This is Cozen the Sorceress of Greenheart. And this is Smokey and Freefall." Quill stopped listening as he introduced the others, his eyes glazing over a little. If there was one consolation here, it was that half of these were unicorns, a rare resource in the camp. I wasn't allotted any by the army, so I had to requisition them from camp followers. They're going to whisper about this.

"I'm glad," Quill said, and wasn't sure he fooled anyone. "Forgive my curiosity, but… we don't have much time. Why was it necessary to bring them here?"

Sylvan winced slightly, then took one of the nearby chairs, gesturing for the others to sit as well. Most of them didn't, bunching up near one wall.

Only Cozen was brave enough to join them at the table. "That depends on whether you want to die or not," she said, voice flat. "I don't see you coming up with a solution in your command tent."

His eyebrows went up—there were generals who would kill her for language like that. Can even the mummers tell that I'm too spineless for that? "I'm used to managing resources," he said. "But I don't know how to budget what I can't see. Do you have a solution for us?"

Sylvan Shade rested one hoof on her shoulder, silencing her. "We did discuss some options on the way. Our feelings on the utility of each were not universal, however.”

Cozan levitated something off the back of the cart, settling it down on the table between them.

Quill stared intently at the contraption, searching for some clue as to what it could be.

“This pot here, with the black stuff around the rim, this is a… it’s trapped lightning.”

He tensed, pulling the pot suddenly closer. He could see a little glass from inside, and sure enough, there it was. The Maker’s Mark of Skyforge, and the swirling blue lightning inside. In days long gone, Luna’s soldiers had an endless supply of Skyforge weapons, and could dismantle any fortress with them.

“I thought we had requisitioned every surviving storm cell,” he said, raising his voice just a little. “I happen to know there are precisely sixty-two of these in existence. How many do you have?”

Cozen rolled her eyes, yanking it away from him with her magic. “You can’t be serious, Lord Commander. I have a solution for you, and you’re suggesting that what matters is that we held material from confiscation. Everypony does. If my shows aren’t entertaining, ponies don’t come. I don’t eat. I starve, your troops get bored and don’t fight well, etcetera, etcetera…”

Cozen was lucky it was Quill in charge, and not Permafrost. With him, this would be the end of the conversation. “Right. I suppose you could tell me about these changes you’ve made. I’ve never seen the jars opened again after lightning is trapped inside. I assume there is a reason they use different metals as well.”

Her eyebrows went up. “Our Lord Commander knows something other than how to murder ponies with an army? You didn’t say so, Sylvan.”

“Our Lord Commander deserves more respect,” he said. “You’d be dead without him, Cozen. Please.”

She deflated, settling back into her seat. “I apologize if I’m somewhat… sharp. I haven’t felt myself in the last few days. I think it’s the cave. I’m not a bat like you. Sometimes it feels the walls are closing in…”

“You’re not at fault,” Quill urged. “But that isn’t why. You’re being poisoned. I don’t know how much Sylvan explained. In healthy ponies, mental effects are first. Changes in mood, difficulty concentrating, disorientation… it’s a reminder we are running out of time. Quickly, so if you wouldn’t mind getting along with the rest of this.”

He leaned in close, inspecting the machine she had built. There was a large glass vessel, split down the middle with a metal plate. Thin metal string ran from the lightning into either side of the glass vessel, where large upside-down jars had been waxed into place.

“Sylvan and I assembled this. I provided the, uh… energy. And he provided the expertise.”

Sylvan nodded eagerly, relaxing only when it was clear that Iron Quill wouldn’t be attacking his friend for her contraband. So he shuffled around in his cart, and emerged with a scroll in his mouth. He deposited it on the table between them.

“I’ll assume you don’t know alchemy and be quick. There are six elements—air, fire, water, earth, life, death. Everything in the world is made of some combination of these, and thus, transformed from one to another.

“It’s easiest to transform along the edge of the wheel. If we’re running out of air, to make more we need to transform fire or water. Given what the princess said about flames, and your orders… water seemed the wiser choice.” He pointed with a hoof. “Look closely at the wire, you’ll see. Bubbles of air forming as the water is transformed, lifting into these two containers. There’s only… one minor difficulty with the reaction, which I’m sure I’ll perfect in time.”

“You’re wasting time…” Cozen muttered, sitting down with a thump and looking away. “But go on, keep wasting it.”

“Difficulty… how?” Quill inspected the mechanism again. “Your lightning is depleted too quickly to make this sustainable. Or… perhaps we lack the heat to melt enough ice to keep this up. Is that it?”

“No, you’re… taking it too far already.” Sylvan Shade pushed over a dead candle from the side of the table. They used glowstone now, held in a mesh bag overhead. Candles were brighter, but Quill followed his own orders. “May I light this?” At Quill’s nod, he just pushed it towards Cozen.

“May she do all the work,” she muttered darkly. “Sylvan, we should’ve showed him my solution first. Yours is the second thing we need. Please, Lord Commander. The flaws with this solution can be worked out later. You need to know how we will solve the sooner problem. It is the poison that matters, not the lack of air. Is this not so?”

“It is,” he admitted. “Very well. You know how to remove the poison our princess called carbon dioxide from the air. How is it done?”

“Well…” Sylvan Shade pushed the mechanism away, settling the chart in front of Quill. “In principle it is easy. It is known that poison is composed of fire and death. Our unique flavor of it involves a little air as well, to keep it invisible before us. We need a more exacting transfiguration—into earth, as this is closest to death and fire. To water, if the air is more dominant.”

“He’s leaving out the important part.” Cozen flung back the large sheet on the back of her cart, exposing several wicker baskets. She settled each of them on the table, making Quill’s face twitch slightly as dirt fell onto the records and ledgers…

But Cozen either didn’t notice or didn’t care. “We’re not transmuting the principle elements anymore, but compounds. This requires a salt—the symbol at the center of the chart. We need to find a salt that is the precise inverse of the ratios of fire, air, and death. More importantly, we need a salt we can find here in this Harmony-forsaken place. These are our choices.”

There were a dozen baskets here, each one with different minerals inside. None of them seemed to contain the white powder used in preserving foods, but Quill didn’t question. “So do it then. Find the right salt, transform the poison into earth. Let’s get started.”

“Well…” Sylvan winced, suddenly avoiding his eyes. “We’re working on it, but there are some…”

“We can’t transform something we don’t have,” Cozen said, voice flat. “Yes, I know it’s in the air. But what we’re breathing now is… small amounts, yes? A wisp and a breath, or else we’d be dead already. How are we supposed to experiment with the proper reagents? We need something more. We need the poison itself, in its strength.”

“Which we don’t know how to get,” Sylvan finished for her. “If we did, we would already have the solution to this problem. Producing the poison in a form other than air would mean we could bury it, or hide it away from ponies. We can’t.”

Iron Quill rose to his hooves, turning away. “I’ll get it for you. Take whatever resources you need—I’ll be sure to authorize Silver Needle to give you anything you require. We have less than two days, so work quickly.”

“Uh…” But he didn’t even stay long enough to hear their response. He slipped out of the tent. By the time he’d passed his orders on to Silver Needle, he felt Penumbra slip in beside him. She thought she was clever and that he hadn’t noticed, but…

“Well? How’d I handle that?”

She didn’t show any shock, or any sign she was impressed. “You want praise from me for basic competence?”

He winced, but didn’t argue. Maybe Voidseekers and assassins just weren’t capable of being friendly. Unfortunately for him, he needed her to be just now. “I need your help on something, Penumbra. No, not killing.”

“Then I can’t imagine why you would need my help. We seek the void, Quill. That’s all I’m good at.”

Now who’s lying? “Aminon is still alive, isn’t he? I saw him the day we arrived, and never since.”

“Yes,” she answered, voice flat. “It’s forbidden to share our missions with outsiders, even the Lord Commander. I have been allotted to you, Aminon has not.”

He rolled his eyes. “I know, I know. I’m not… look, we’ve known each other a long time. He—” sold out our monastery to the rebellion, sacrificing hundreds of lives. “Knew me before he was a Voidseeker. Before he founded your order. I know his skills—he’s a master of all poisons, all forms of death. I need to speak with him. Can you arrange it for me?”

Penumbra looked him over for a long moment, eyes lingering on his crown, and the lump of the dagger emerging from his robe. “I can, for a price. I want you to burn that awful robe and wear some armor.”

“The Lord Commander has forbidden fires until the current difficulty is resolved,” he said, smiling faintly. “But I can promise to burn it two days from now.”

She groaned, then stuck out one hoof. “Then by stars, it is sworn. Let them punish ruthlessly all that break their oaths.”

Iron Quill snapped his hoof back, eyes going wide. Those weren’t just oaths, that was the magic of the Voidseekers. It was the kind of magic used to bind informants to truth and spies to dedication to their cause even through torture. Why use it on him now?

“Find a place so dark even your bat eyes cannot see,” Penumbra said, grinning smugly at him. “By the time you do, Aminon will find you.” She took off, flying up into the massive vaulted space. There were fewer fires burning now—though still plenty of watchmen’s torches and pointless lighting in the tents of camp dignitaries in distant sections. The Lord Commander had been disobeyed, again.

But just now he wasn’t looking for a solution to all that.

He walked past them all, past the edge of the enormous center of the cave where he took the Moon’s hollow core to be. Then past it, to one of the thinner tube-like caves that met their own. Its sides were hard and vaguely metallic, unpleasant against his hooves. Perfect place not to find anypony.

After only a short distance and a single slight twist, the last of the camp’s light was gone. But Quill was not recently transformed, and so he understood how to use his other senses, clicking and listening carefully for the responses. He slowed in his walk, listening to the return echo of the floor in front of him.

How far should he go?

He’d been walking for what felt like hours before he finally noticed another behind him. Aminon’s touch on the stone was so light that he didn’t hear it at all. But he didn’t need to—he felt the weight. The universe worked a little worse when this pony was around. He might not be a unicorn anymore, but that hadn’t stopped his magic. I don’t need to experiment to find out what alchemical compound he is. He’s all death.

“Lord Commander,” Aminon said, open mockery in his voice. “I’ve been told you wished to speak with me. A long time since we did that, old friend.”

He shuddered with disgust, spinning slowly around. There was only blackness there—total and complete, like a physical force against his eyes. But he could still feel Aminon there, without his ears or eyes. “Our friendship ended a long time ago, Aminon,” he said. “But we are allies, and I require your alliance now. The army of our princess will be destroyed without it.”

“I am always pleased to serve her,” Aminon said. “But I make no oath to you that I will obey your instructions, should I find them lacking. Whatever words you whisper to me, she will hear.”

And every demon still desperate enough to think you will grant it power. “I need a poison,” he said flatly, before this could slip back into an old argument. “A very specific poison, in order for my alchemists to remove it from the air around us and stop the army from dying.”

“All the army won’t die…” Aminon muttered, advancing slowly towards him. Quill held completely still in the silence, wincing as the other pony advanced. He had no way of knowing if this ancient enemy was coming to slit his throat, or just to listen more closely. He hadn’t brought a glowstone or a torch. “The Voidseekers will live on, far beyond all those who were too cowardly to make our vows. When you are ashes, Cinereous Gale, my service will go on. If you suffocate here beside all the others… my service will go on. I will return beside my princess to take her rightful vengeance on the Sun Tyrant and put out her star.”

Quill shuddered again in open disgust. You’re a madman, Aminon. She meant that the rule of the night would be eternal, not that she wanted to stop the sun from rising. You shouldn’t swear so many oaths to spirits. But he couldn’t say any of what he felt when he wanted help. “So you aren’t going to help? I’d reconsider, Aminon. Who do you want digging latrines? Who do you want moving boxes and cleaning camp? You? Or your peons? You might be eager to sacrifice their lives… but it would be better to preserve us. You don’t want my job.”

He laughed, taking a step back. “True enough, old friend. Your, uh… wisdom is as poignant as ever. You want poison, and I will grant you poison. The Nightmare is always near me, always listening. Watch.”

He lifted into the air on strangely skeletal bat wings. “Nightmare, hear the voice of your loyal servant!”

Quill felt it bubbling up in his chest—the revulsion he always felt, the fury. This being was the reason that Princess Luna was gone, it was the reason they’d been banished here. And some small part of it was in him, too.

I am always beside. This world will be ours in time. In the air between them, something appeared. It wasn’t light, somehow the opposite, casting reverse-shadows of greater gloom that bent the wrong way.

“Yes.” Aminon landed again, eyes focused on the dark patch. “We require the terrible poison that is killing those who haven’t yet sworn your promise. Enough of it to preserve their lives, long enough to make your choice correctly.”

It is not a poison only that you ask—like all things, you ask for only one link in the chain. What leaves your mouths flows again into the leaves of your grain, feeding your armies. What is poison to you is critical to them. There are no dreams without Nightmares.

“Will you grant it to us?”

The darkness before them deepened. A pair of faint red dots appeared in it, like the eyes of an unseen Alicorn. The already-chilly cave rapidly got worse—his breath was blowing out in front of him, though he couldn’t see it to confirm. A fierce wind blew from behind, lifting his fur and that of his companion.

An object formed in that darkness, a growing mountain of… ice? Its shape was outlined by the terrible parody of light, much larger than a pony and still growing. It towered until it blocked half the cavern.

From the lungs and cells of every animal, condensed before you to ice. Fumble with it in your ignorance, if you can. Die if you must. The demon vanished a second later, leaving the two of them alone. Iron Quill’s nausea settled back to tolerable, joined by a faint shivering focused on the mass of not-ice before him.

“There you are,” Aminon said. “The Nightmare grants your request, and so our conversation is concluded. Use it, or die, as you prefer. I think we both know what I prefer.”

He took off silently, vanishing into the darkness. Iron Quill could not see him go, but he could feel the moment where there was no longer something terrible beside him, and that was enough to relax.

Cautiously, he leaned forward, feeling for the massive block of poison. He found it, touching it with the soft frog of one hoof.

He pulled back sharply, wincing at the feeling. It was cold, but hot at the same time! How could cold burn? He searched around the cavern for a moment, until he found a stone, then chipped at the block of poison. He removed his robes, and used them to catch the biggest chunk of poison he could. That went into his saddlebags, and finally he could make his way back to camp. With luck, it would be enough.

Iron Quill deposited his dangerous cargo on the conference room table, jostling the strange mechanism these ponies were testing. He couldn’t begin to guess at how it worked—tubes and pipes all waxed together, leading from tiny containers to heat crystal and the lightning.

“This is it,” he said, nodding towards the robe. Here in the glowstone’s faint light, the bundle seemed to fizz slightly, a thick fog that dropped down off the table instead of rising around it. “The poison in the air.” He unwrapped the bundle with the edge of a hoof, careful not to burn himself this time. He opened the robe, revealing a chunk of strange ice, chalky white. There wasn’t a drop of water around it, just the strange fog rising from it, now released to pour off the table and onto the ground around them.

“You converted it to earth,” Sylvan Shade muttered, nudging the edge of it with a hoof. He winced, pulling it back. “Buck, and fire! Solid fire.”

Cozen levitated a chunk off the mass, depositing it in a wire mesh container. “I don’t suppose you can repeat this process and solve the problem for us?”

“Sadly no.” He shook his head. “Nightmare gave it to me.” Even as he said it, the glowstones faded just a little, and the tent got darker. It was whispered by many creatures that one ought not speak its name—Quill ignored those rumors. But maybe he shouldn’t have. “If the spirit could be persuaded into saving our lives, we wouldn’t need to go to all this effort to save ourselves.”

His ponies both nodded, looking back to the sample. “It doesn’t seem to want to be earth very much, does it? It’s transforming back to air before our eyes. I’ve never seen passive transmutation this fast.”

Something rested on Quill’s shoulder suddenly, and he looked up. There was Penumbra, her leg gentle but unyielding. When she spoke, it was with two voices overlapping. Sylvan Shade and Cozen stopped to stare. Quill felt his breath start to fog out in front of him again, just as it had when the spirit last spoke. “I could save you, Gale. My offer is there for every pony in this army. Only your persistent refusal guarantees your death.”

Penumbra let go a second later, shaking her head as though she’d just bumped into something. She wobbled a little, then caught herself on his shoulder. “Did I miss…”

“No.” Iron Quill didn’t push her away. “Whatever this is, finish it quickly. We don’t have much more time.”

Chapter 7: Lunar Company

Iron Quill dreamed of distant Equestria that night, of campaigns fought and won and prices paid to forbidden things. When he did wake, it was to another harsh knock on the tent outside, and the nervous face of Chain Mail appearing inside. “It’s your, uh… circus performers?”

“My what?” he asked, not even getting the words out his mouth before several of the ponies forced their way in.

Cozen was at their head, with Sylvan Shade in the rear looking extremely uncomfortable to be there. Cozen levitated two containers with her—a glass vial, and one of the mineral baskets.

“I hope you have a good reason to be…” He yawned, then uncovered his glowstone from the wall.

“Yes.” Cozen levitated his camp table over, brushing his belongings onto the floor and depositing both baskets there. She held up the glass vial. “We did it. Conversion of poison to earth. We can save this army.”

Iron Quill leaned down, taking the tiny vial in one wing and inspecting it. Chunks of chalky rock were inside, faintly tinged green. They didn’t smoke or hiss, and actually the vial was slightly warm to the touch. “In that case, I’m no longer upset you interrupted me. By all means, enact your solution. Save our lives.”

“Well…” Sylvan shoved his way through to the front. “Apologies, Lord Commander. Cozen here didn’t mention some fairly important caveats. I was hoping we would have more time to perfect the reaction. A little more time can often prove the key to a better conversion.”

“A little more time we lack,” Cozen said, annoyed. “This is the best we’ll get.”

Iron Quill turned away from them both, walking to his mirror. He lowered his face briefly down into the washbasin, then dried with the cloth hanging there. Finally he turned around. “Can we do it or can’t we?”

Sylvan opened a worn bit of parchment, holding it out to him. Quill skimmed it as quickly as he could, though it was entirely alchemical in nature and that was beyond his study. During his retirement Quill had mastered much of economics and planning, not so much physical philosophy.

“Very interesting,” he said. “Now make it make sense.”

Sylvan passed the scroll to one of his assistants. “Any conversion from one element to another involves balance, yes? You can’t create or destroy, only transform. We experimented with various salts available to us, and settled on that one.”

Cozen helpfully lifted the edge of the basket, exposing the mineral inside. Crushed greenish powder, with larger bits of rock jumbled in around the dust. “Olivine. It was one of the minerals I found while we were above. All it needs is one of the fundamental alchemical spells, Acceleratus, to speed the transformation.”

Sylvan glared sidelong at her. “A basic unicorn spell, and many stones-weight of salt that we can’t find inside the moon. Broken to powder, in a shallow pool with as much exposure to the air as possible. Do that, and we can capture our poison, transforming it to harmless earth.”

“There’s tons of it up there,” Cozen muttered, gesturing up with a flick of her horn. “All we have to do is go back with a few carts and collect it. That can’t be too hard.”

“Depends on our princess.” Iron Quill turned for the door. “Do you know how to do enough of this to remove all the poison from the air?”

“It’s not a question of enough,” Sylvan said. “The salt eventually loses its savor and we’re forced to replace it. The stone created can be carried off. For every pound of salt, we will remove a pound of poison from the air. Unfortunately we don’t know exactly how much the army produces… but we can always just keep replacing the salt, if we can keep gathering it.”

“Prepare to begin,” he said, taking a large unpowdered chunk of the salt in his wing and turning to leave. “I’ll find a way to gather it.”

“We’ll need more than just my magic!” Cozen called after him. “I don’t know how many unicorns it will take, but the spell can be… exhausting. More than me.”

He stopped. Iron Quill already knew how much success he would have attempting to recruit the camp wizards from each of the other companies. He’d fought and lost that battle once already. “Are there unicorns skilled enough among the camp followers?”

“You mean the whores and dancers and worse?” Penumbra asked. Quill hadn’t even realized she was here, yet she appeared from the shadows at the edge of the tent. For all he knew, she’d been standing there watching him sleep since the first moment.

He could sense the wave of hostility rising from these new ponies—they were camp followers too, even if they came from the more respectful class of performers.

Iron Quill nodded. “They are exactly who I mean. There are sixteen unicorns among all the army, and none of them have reported to me. What about the camp followers?”

His guests huddled for a moment, whispering to each other in hushed tones. Sylvan too was excluded here—he had been a member of a camp before, if shunned and ignored in his position.

Eventually they looked up. “They’ll want pay,” said a tiny earth pony, the smallest pony Quill had ever seen. Definitely a circus performer. “Not just scraps off the army floors.”

“And a real space!” Somepony else added. A pegasus pony with only one wing, and a nasty scar running from their eye all the way to where their wing should’ve been. “There is so much cave, but we are kept to the top by the icy door, so our ‘stink’ will not come down and offend you.”

Cozen cleared her throat. “I haven’t done a census, and we don’t have official records like yours. But I know of a hundred unicorns at least who are old enough. But you can’t have them unless you take our families as well. We can’t leave them up there to starve while we grow fat in the luxury of the camp.”

An idea struck Iron Quill then, as insane as the alchemical conversion of poison to earth. Quill didn’t have an army, only a handful of trusted officers from another life. He didn’t have unicorns. But what he did have was all the food, and all the gold.

“Chain Mail!” Quill called, turning away from her.

He appeared in the entrance a second later, saluting. “Lord Commander.”

“Instruct Silver Needle to allocate a full company allotment bordering us and… Permafrost. Tell her to use everypony she can find to build a perimeter and assist the ponies in establishing an orderly presence here.”

“The… ponies?” Chain Mail looked confused. “Which ponies, sir? Every company is already here.”

“Not quite,” he said. “As Lord Commander, I hereby create, uh… Lunar Company. Number… 13, composed of the population of merchants and camp followers.” He turned slightly to Cozen, watching her expression. “I will serve as their commanding officer. Every working mare or stallion will receive a legionnaire’s wage, effective immediately.”

Chain Mail stumbled back a little, utterly bewildered. “Lord Commander, are you quite… are you quite certain those are your orders?”

“Absolutely certain,” he said. “Oh, and tell her to prepare a dozen carts as well, with ponies to pull them. Take them from among the new company, and be ready to depart within the hour.” He nodded towards the open doorway. “That will be all.”

Chain Mail saluted, then hurried off.

“You’ll have a dagger in you by daylight,” Penumbra said, turning away from him in disgust. “Which captain do you think will do it? Tallow? No, I think Permafrost. He’s been waiting for an excuse to challenge your right to rule by combat.”

“Let him,” Quill said, and for the first time he meant it. “I’m going to save these ponies’ lives, or bucking die trying. I don’t much care which it is at this point.”

He stopped Cozen with a wing before she could leave, forcing her to meet his eyes. There were tears running down her face, and she obviously didn’t want him to see. While her companions cheered, she tried to stay strong.

“Do you understand what this means, Cozen?” He didn’t wait for her confirmation. “There won’t be any more battles, but you’ll still be soldiers. Our days of fighting in Equestria might be done, but our new enemy is even more ruthless. Outside of this hollow space, the moon is trying to kill us. Even if we win today, it won’t be the last battle we fight.”

“I know…” was all she could say. Her voice melted into tears, and she kept wiping them with one leg. But he could still see.

“One more thing.” He pulled her back. “I don’t require training or birth from you, as the other companies do. But I will still expect you to act like soldiers. Anypony who walks into this camp leaves their whoring and cavorting at the picket line. Are we clear?”

She sniffed, nodding again. Cozen was out the tent seconds later, along with all her companions. Only Sylvan remained, watching them go. “Are you certain that wasn’t a bit… premature?” he asked. “I admire your determination, but… does the salvation of our army have to come at such a price? Their kind let… in here?”

“There was a time I could’ve had ten thousand brave stallions at my command. Those years are long over. We have to win this war with the army we have.” Iron Quill turned his back on him too. “Get to work. If you’ll excuse me, I have to speak to my armorer.”

By the time Iron Quill stepped out of the armory, he no longer dressed like a monk. The enchanted armor worn by the dead Stalwart Shield weighed heavily on his shoulders, even though the entire set had been tailored to him and fit perfectly. He knew well what terrible things had been done wearing this armor, in the name of his princess.

The armor was entirely black, overlapping scales of metal with a few larger plates along the chest. There was no helmet anymore—it had been so badly mangled with poor Stalwart’s head that it couldn’t be salvaged. The blacksmiths had better things to do than fix armor he no longer needed. He still wore the crown, settled high on his head as a reminder to everypony who might see to question him.

As he marched through camp, he passed a steady wave of ponies moving the other way—not soldiers of good breeding and discipline marching in a line, but a crowd of disorganized peasants and worse—mostly mares, along with the lowest and worst members of the army. But in some ways, there’re the most innocent of any of us. They didn’t agree to serve the Nightmare Queen. We did.

Even Quill had a choice, back then. He could’ve died.

“You think dressing up is going to stop this, you’re wrong,” Penumbra said, falling into step beside him as they approached the princess’s throne room. Well, “room” and “throne” were currently both a little subjective. It was a large tent with a round front, lit by huge torches and with the largest chair anyone in camp could find as the throne. Even from a distance, Quill could hear the voices inside—captains’ voices, no doubt complaining about him. But they weren’t yet to the entrance, so he wouldn’t be visible quite yet. “Do you think the princess will kill you, or them?”

“I think Nightmare Moon is wiser than she is proud,” Iron Quill whispered. There were more Voidseekers here, lingering without tents or rations or even cots to sleep on. So far as he knew, they didn’t need to eat, didn’t sleep… didn’t do anything besides serving their queen. “Only Aminon knows her better than I do.”

Penumbra rolled her eyes. “And yet you were the master of the treasury, and not her army. Why is that?”

“Because I refused to kill for her,” he whispered, so quiet he wasn’t even sure Penumbra had heard. “But up here, I’m not killing for Nightmare Moon. I’m killing for them.” He gestured vaguely at the armory with one wing—even his wings were armored, with an enchanted chain so thin he could still fly in it, if he had to.

A ring of soldiers blocked the entrance—not Voidseekers, but Permafrost’s personal guard. They all wore purple plumes on their helmets and white uniforms. As Quill approached, they stepped together in a single wave, forming a perfectly coordinated shield wall. “None may pass,” a stallion said, voice gruff. “Permafrost is not finished conversing with the princess.”

He could see past them, or at least over their heads, thanks to the increased height his armor gave him. Quill cleared his throat. “I am the Lord Commander of the Lunar Army. I order you to move, now.”

They held still, a few glaring and some others rolling their eyes. “Our orders are not to move,” the stallion said.

“Tell your captain the Lord Commander is here. Tell him that if you aren’t out of my way, he’s going to lose his bodyguards.” He nodded slightly to Penumbra, raising his voice just a little. “If this stallion isn’t gone in thirty seconds, kill him.”

Penumbra stiffened, eyes wide with surprise. Then she dropped back, vanishing with a burst of darkness.

“I suggest you speak to your commander now,” Quill said again. “I will not be prevented from fulfilling my duties. Not by you, and not by anypony else.”

“Steelshod, Replace R-7!” He stepped back, and the wall closed around his empty place. A few soldiers shifted, glowering at him with their spears ready.

Cinereous Gale took a few steps back, as though they were casual movements he intended to make anyway. In reality, he was getting out of range of a single spear-thrust, though he was still plenty close enough for them to try and kill him if they wanted to. He could see crossbows on several of their backs, and those would be harder to avoid if they attacked him.

Don’t be a fool, Quill. You haven’t fought for years. You aren’t fighting through this now.

A few seconds later and the soldier returned, expression dark. “Captain Permafrost says that I’m not to permit you through.”

“By my count, you have ten seconds, son,” Quill said. He reached down with a wing, drawing the Lord Commander’s sword. The torches lining the entrance went out, and a chill spread between them. They were suddenly in darkness, with only the faint glow from within the throne room visible past them. The sword itself wasn’t metal, but solid darkness. “It would be a shame to see good stallions like you die for this.”

“You’re a scholar!” a pony called near the edge of the shield, raising his voice a little. “Stop strutting around in that and go back to count grain.”

Iron Quill didn’t move. “Five seconds,” he said. “The lives of every pony in this cave are mine to protect. Move.”

The captain hesitated a moment longer, glowering at him. Then he broke. “Gate formation on R-6… pace!”

The line of soldiers split open down the middle, with spears and shields pointed in at him.

Penumbra glided down beside him, tossing her dagger from her mouth and back into its sheath. “Good timing, kid.”

Iron Quill shoved his way through, sliding the sword back into its sheath. He stormed into the tent, pushing past the flaps. There were three captains in here, Permafrost and White Tallow and Moonshadow, all conversing with Nightmare Moon beside her throne. She listened with a tone of exceptional boredom, though his arrival was enough that she finally looked up.

The captains shared a confused glance, with Permafrost in particular tensing. “You shouldn’t be in here,” he said flatly, interrupting what his companion was saying about the outrage of bringing “drunkards and whores” into the camp.

“I don’t believe that’s for you to say, Permafrost,” he said, marching up to the throne. “Princess permitting, I believe your conversation is over. There are matters of consequence to discuss. You may leave.”

Nightmare Moon sat back on her throne, nodding slightly to him. But she didn’t move otherwise—didn’t so much as twitch. She wasn’t going to make this easy.

Permafrost actually laughed. “You’re lucky I didn’t tell Captain Tallow to gut you, Quill. Crawl back into your ledgers. The princess will soon be done with this farce.”

Quill glanced to the side, meeting Penumbra’s eyes through her slit. She shook her head, just a little. The message was clear enough. She couldn’t help him, not against captains. They answered to the princess herself, not like their soldiers.

Quill didn’t move. “If I do that, your soldiers will be choking on their vomit by tomorrow. I’d happily leave and let reality prove it—but there are good mares and stallions who don’t deserve to suffer because their leader is a fool.” He raised his voice just a little. “Princess, I have a solution. But I’ll need your help to enact it.”

Nightmare Moon met his eyes. “My help, or the night workers’? Don’t you think my service demands a little dignity?”

“If you thought we wouldn’t notice, or that we would ignore it… you were wrong,” Tallow said. “You can’t throw everything of history and dignity into the midden heap and expect us to allow it.”

Quill ignored him. “Princess, there were a hundred unicorns of magical strength among the camp followers. Their service in the bedroom is done—their magic will keep this army alive.”

“He can say it about anything, Princess,” Permafrost said. “It is simple for a captain to say that what they do is ‘for the army,’ that we will be destroyed if we don’t follow their brilliant plan. It is precisely that kind of thinking that got us here in the first place. We can’t take your revenge with an army of cowards and fools.”

The princess remained silent, watching him for his response. Finally Quill sighed, drawing the sword in a single quick motion. “I wanted to avoid this, Permafrost. Your camp keeps good order, and your stallions love you. But if the choice is your life, or all of theirs, then… here we are. If you want this crown, come and take it.”

Permafrost’s toothy smile stretched from one side of his face to the other. “You will regret that invitation, old man.” He glanced to each of his companions in turn. “You heard him, yes? Witnessed by these captains and our princess herself. My challenge is invited. I wish no rebellion against her majesty’s order.”

Then he laughed again. “You think because you can wear a better pony’s armor and hold their sword that you can be him? All the army will see the rule of scholars come to an end. Now.”

“No.” Nightmare Moon’s voice was suddenly harsh, commanding. “I wish for it to be an event. You three, go and inform the troops. Inform the rest of the army as well. Establish an arena. Iron Quill, how much time do you require?”

“Two more days,” he said. “As you warned.”

“Two days, then,” Nightmare Moon said. “It has been a long time since I’ve seen an event like that. Where are your grand promises about swords, Quill?”

“In Equestria,” he muttered, defeated.

“You hear my command,” Nightmare Moon said. “Now, take your stallions and go. Do as I have ordered.”

They bowed, meeting his eyes for a few last gleeful looks.

“I did try to protect him, Princess,” Penumbra said. “But I can’t protect him from himself.”

Nightmare Moon rose from her throne, shaking out her massive feathered wings. “Those foals live on a rim of melting ice and refuse to see it. Quill’s real test is not a duel, it is seeing that there is anypony alive to watch. What have you found?”

He explained as quickly as he could, showing the alchemical diagrams he had copied from Sylvan Shade’s original sketch. “That’s why I need those unicorns—” he finished, a few minutes later. “The conversion must go more quickly. There is a spell for that, one they can cast on a body of water…”

Nightmare Moon sat back, staring up at the stony ceiling. “I see no reason this should work,” she eventually said. “Alchemy as you know it is a mockery, a hearsay passage of truth from one ear to another until only the form of knowledge remains, and not the realities that underpin it. This solution should not work.”

“It will,” he said, confident. “Please, Princess. I ask so little from you, and the alternative is death. I don’t want to see any more dead children.”

She rose to her hooves, fixing him with her furious, slitted eyes. “What is it you want from me?”

“The salt we require is a green mineral from the surface. There is much of it there, but we need to gather a supply. I’ve prepared laborers to make the trip. I need your spell to protect them while they work, and bring them home. As you cast when we arrived here.”

“The green mineral,” she repeated. “That can somehow fix carbon from the air we breathe into… carbonite rock, I assume. I can’t imagine why that would work, but I’m no chemist. We must use the tools at our disposal.”

She stopped beside him, lowering her voice to a dangerous whisper. “Penumbra, I have new commands for you. If this plan fails… make sure no one kills Iron Quill here, even himself. I want him to watch in agony as the army dies.”

Penumbra nodded once. “It will be done, Princess.”

“I will meet your laborers at the exit,” she went on, as though she hadn’t just threatened him. “And Gale—I require strength from those who serve. Even if you succeed, I will not save you from the death you have invited. You asked for a duel, and so you will have it.”

“I know.” He bowed, just as the others had. “If my life is what it costs for all of these, then I’ll pay. But… maybe I won’t have to. Maybe when Permafrost doesn’t suffocate, he’ll change his mind.”

Nightmare Moon only laughed as she walked away, leaving him and Penumbra alone in the tent.

Iron Quill was not with the ponies when they left to the surface, though not for any reason of fear. Nightmare Moon was going up there—if anything, the trip would be safer than remaining behind. But he couldn't take the risk that any of his rivals might decide that his absence would be a good time to raid his army. Let them see that he was still here, and Penumbra was still under his command. They might not be afraid of him, but they could fear her dagger in their back.

He watched as they returned, roughly two hours later. Laborers marched in, rolling their carts covered with a fresh layer of the surface's ever-present gray dust. Each cart was overflowing with stone, large boulders and small and ample green powder shoveled right off the moon's surface.

Nightmare Moon had not come back with them—probably she had gone straight to her throne room, to wait out the end somewhere she wouldn't be subject to the indignity of visiting Quill's camp.

There was no missing the mark of the “soldiers” he had recruited, with their loud singing and the stench of infrequent bathing they brought. He could see the grins of officers from other armies as they watched.

Let them mock—they would learn respect when they kept breathing.

Of course, much of the camp wasn't for the former night-ponies, reassigned as makeshift heroes. Most of the space was occupied with Cozen's contraptions, the ones that would somehow save all their lives. There were a dozen identical hollow troughs, dug right into the cave floor by aid of earth pony strength. Each was lined with simple unicorn markings, and lines for irrigation connected them all.

Sylvan Shade joined Iron Quill as he approached, standing to one side as everypony worked. "We're ready for the stone," he said. "And none too soon. The news is not good from elsewhere. I hear of ponies stricken with fever, foals bedridden. They might soon die if we are not successful."

"Where did we get all this water?" Iron Quill asked. "I've seen our supply, it doesn't run this deep."

"Melting," Cozen answered, appearing behind him with less grace than Penumbra ever had, but no less smugness. "We quarried it from the underside of the glacier. We're running out of oil, by the way."

You burned oil to melt ice. No wonder ponies are getting sick a day before we thought they would. “Lantern oil is the least of our concerns," he said. "We can dismantle our siege weapons if we need more. I don't think we're going to be lobbing those casks over castle walls anytime soon."

He watched from the side as Cozen directed her friends and colleagues from the edge of camp. They didn't act with anything like professional decorum; they lounged about and worked casually—but they worked. Soon each of the troughs was full of crushed green rock, broken by earth pony hooves. Unicorns surrounded the circle, and began to chant.

"This is how our lives continue?" Penumbra asked from beside him, quiet enough that none of the non-bats could hear. "Are you sure it will do anything at all? There's no point to any of this."

He retreated a step, standing beside her. "What would you suggest? That we all swear ourselves to Nightmare?"

She tensed, and the eyes that met his from within those wraps were far more intense than he'd seen from her so far. "Never. You should die. You in particular, Iron Quill. I don't want to hear your complaining if this fails."

But how would he even know if it succeeded? The unicorns stopped chanting after a few moments, leaving a faint glow surrounding the clearing and its many pools, bright enough to keep it lit without glowstones or torches. Iron Quill walked away from where Penumbra had waited, approaching the edge of the nearest pool. As he came, he had to shove his way through the laborers and unicorns, who either didn't see him at all, or didn't care. We'll have to work on that.

The water frothed and bubbled faintly, though he couldn't have said exactly what it was doing.

"We did it," Cozen declared, pointing down past his shoulder. "We used the olivine we had to set this up, and we'll need to quarry more. The magic empowering this conversion should run out about when the salt does."

"I guess now we wait," Sylvan said, staring down with them. "See what happens."

Quill laughed. "We can't do anymore here, but we aren't waiting." He turned to Cozen. "I told you the ponies you brought would have to start living like they're creatures of repute—that starts now. Assemble everypony on the parade ground, right now."

"No rest?" Cozen asked, exasperated. "We just… look at all that."

He lowered his voice. "I'm not going to have them running drills or anything. But we need to learn if they're capable of this life, and that starts now."

She shrugged. "Your funeral, Quill."

He blocked her path with a wing. "Your funeral, Lord Commander," he corrected. "We can't ask of others what we can't even manage ourselves."

"Lord Commander," she returned, turning away. "I'll call them. Sylvan, you can help. Get your rump over here."

So it was that Iron Quill's new "army" assembled beside the pools of shallow water and pale green salt, surrounded by a faint breeze. It blew in from all around, which meant that it didn't smell terribly pleasant.

From the edges of camp, Quill could see soldiers from other companies watching them, occasionally pointing to one another and laughing at what they saw. He did his best to ignore them. Even so, the ponies he had assembled weren't much better. They spoke to each other in casual tones, barely even looking up or listening.

There were more creatures here than he'd thought, the refuse that followed along behind this army and ate their scraps. But there just weren't the same kind of scraps to go around now that they'd been banished. It was time for them to learn to pull their weight—or die.

By inviting them here, I've inserted them into this conflict. If I fail, the army will not be kind to them. The whores would be the lucky ones.

"Ponies!" he called, lifting up into the air where they all could see him. His voice carried well, particularly in an enclosed space. He knew how to shout for a drill.

Around the edges of the camp, his actual soldiers were ready for battle at a moment's notice, with armor tight and weapons polished. There was a chance Permafrost wouldn't wait, and he intended to be ready for it. "I know many of you have worked hard to make this possible. But I suspect you don't know the importance of what you've just accomplished here.

"This strange spell you've built, this construction of alchemy—it will allow all the army to live on. It takes from the air a poison that was killing us, that would bring even the greatest officers of the highest birth low."

"No change for us!" somepony called from the back—he couldn’t see who. "That's where we always are. Lifting up our betters, and walking in your shit."

Agreement echoed through the mob, far more enthusiastic than any sound they'd made for him.

"That is how it used to be," Iron Quill called. "But those days are over. This strange world we've been banished to is far crueler than the one you left behind. Its winters will not take away the grass you eat, because there's no grass here at all. The waters aren't fouled by marching stallions ahead of you, because there's no water. There are no fresh mosses to make into your beds, no trading ships—only a void without beginning or end. Permafrost and those like him have mocked the idea of you contributing to our survival.

"I think differently. I think that every stallion and mare here is the equal of those who mock and mistreat you. Fate has been unkind to many of you—you've lost loved ones in the war, suffered terribly at the consequences of the Tyrant Princess, or ours. Not anymore. Those who stay in my camp will live different lives. I won't train you to fight a battle of swords and claws, but of iron and grain. You will be a greater army than any of theirs—there are no enemy armies to fight here, no fortifications to take, no villages to massacre. Only the void.”

He landed beside the alchemical troughs, feeling the slight breeze brushing past his mane. He could only hope that meant it was working. "Silver Needle, step forward."

She waited by the edge of the group, with her clipboard levitating beside her. From her exhaustion she had helped with the spell, even given all her other duties. But she came anyway, under the watchful eyes of peasants and whores.

"Tell then, Silver. Where were you when I found you?"

She squeaked faintly, balking under the pressure. But Silver Needle owed him much, and she wasn't going to turn and flee no matter how uncomfortable the situation. "I, uh… running messages to the front."

"And now what do you do?"

"I'm, uh…" She looked away. "Quartermaster Captain, sir."

"Right." He waved her off, and Silver scurried back to the edge of the crowd with the laborers. He let her go. "I saw a pony with potential, and I lifted her. I have seen potential in you—all of you. I see a world where ponies like you are respected leaders, not the ones soldiers use for their amusement. But to make that future happen, I need your help."

That was the cue to his plants among the crowd—laborers he'd suggested to cheer at just the right moment. They did, and soon their voices were joined by many others. It felt like the whole moon began to rumble, with little sprays of dust falling from around them. Their voices echoed, and he had no doubt that even the furthest companies would be hearing them.

Let them listen. He could only hope that he was telling these ponies the truth. "Silver Needle and her assistants will sort you according to your skills and experience. Some of you will be given weapons, others will be assisting with projects like the one behind me. But we will all work, until either we return to Equestria, or we no longer have to fear for our survival in this place."

Or the rest of the army murders us all.

Chapter 8: Conflict Resolution

Iron Quill woke without his extremities buzzing and without a headache. He sat up, cleaned without interruption, then dressed in the underclothes he'd worn under his armor for half a lifetime.

He exited the tent, nodding once to Chain Mail beside it. "Excuse me," he said. "Chain Mail. Have there been… reports, since your watch began?"

"A few," he answered, saluting. "What do you wish to know, Lord Commander?"

"Have there been any more deaths? Children and foals among the camp followers would be the most likely candidates. I'm sure you would've heard about it from our, uh… our new recruits."

"No sir," Chain Mail answered. "No dead that I've heard of. Cozen has appointed ponies to change the salt in the toxin pool, and has begun storing what remains. The only other news that anypony speaks of is your, uh… your death tonight, sir."

"At the hooves of Permafrost," he finished. "The arena is finished, then?"

Chain Mail nodded. "You need not do it, sir. We know you can't fight. The other stallions and I would fight to the last."

"I know." He returned the salute. "But you're wrong. I do have to. Our princess hasn't ruled this army with reason and persuasion, she ruled it with blood. If I'm to take it for myself, I must do so with blood. It is that, or surrender to Permafrost, and depend on his mercies not to get everypony killed."

"Will he, sir?"

Quill nodded. "If he had worn this crown, you would've died a week ago. The others too." He walked away, leaving Chain Mail at his post. He grabbed a bowl of porridge from the mess tent, then wandered to the edge of camp where he heard the most noise.

Sure enough, an arena had gone up. It wasn't nearly as grand as anything in Harmony or Luna Bay, with their expansive pavilions and floor that could be flooded for naval battles. Permafrost’s soldiers might not understand the gravity of their situation, but they sure knew how to dig a hole. Benches ran around the arena three levels high, though some cheating had been involved. Stone was cut to form the lower seats and the arena floor, and that stone was used to form the higher seats, as well as a ring of seven pillars around the arena. Soldiers and camp attendants from all the other companies were already gathering there, along with food vendors from the camp followers. Music played, and ponies sang.

"They don't know to be grateful for their lives," Nightmare Moon said from behind him.

Quill jumped, but he didn't turn around. She would expect more dignity from him. Besides—he knew how to cope with surprises by now. This wasn't worse than anything else that had happened in the last two weeks.

Nightmare Moon wore only her regalia, and a somber expression. Where had this pony been during the campaign? We wouldn't have left such a bloody trail all the way to the capital with her leading us. "I have examined the air in ways you couldn't understand—your process worked. Even as we speak, the air we breathe is scrubbed of CO2. So long as our mineral supplies persist, my army survives. You have given me a second miracle, Lord Commander."

He couldn't meet her eyes. "We aren't finished yet. There were two problems you spoke of, I remember. Oxygen must be replaced even as the poison is removed. But we already have a method for that. Sylvan and Cozen have a…"

Nightmare Moon's eyes grew suddenly harsh. "We will see if you live long enough to enact it. There is another obstacle before you, no less pressing than those two you have solved thus far. You cannot flee from this battle now."

"I never intended to flee," he whispered. "Permafrost is the best and most respected of any of the captains. When he falls, I will have his soldiers, and the other captains will know to obey.

"What about returning to Equestria, Princess? I know how badly you want your revenge. Why would you allow a duel that could kill one of your best surviving tacticians? You'll need Permafrost for your revenge, won't you?"

The Alicorn didn't respond right away, seeming to deflate a little at his words. She lowered her voice, quiet enough that only his oversized bat ears let him hear at all. "How much do you know about the Elements of Harmony?"

He matched her volume. "I know they were created by the missing Pillars of Equestria. Imbued artifacts, three you carried and three wielded by your—" He stopped abruptly at her harsh glare. "Three wielded by the Sun Tyrant."

"No more," she said. "I lost the use of them after… certain arrangements were made."

You mean they rejected your bargain with a demon. What a surprise.

"Celestia turned them against us. That is how we were banished so thoroughly. I have probed and prodded at the lock wrapped around the Moon, but so far it is impregnable. We can teleport anywhere on its surface we wish, but not back to Equestria."

"We could fly back."

Nightmare Moon threw her head back, laughing so loudly that creatures from the arena turned to stare, and laborers in his camp lowered their heads to cower before her. She kept going for almost a minute before she finally relaxed. "Iron Quill… if you survive tonight, please continue to make absurd suggestions in plain language. I haven't had cause to smile in long enough that… no, you know exactly how long."

He nodded. Maybe he should've been upset with her, but for a few moments, his princess actually seemed happy about something. That was worth a little mockery. "Are you going to explain what was so funny about that?"

"No," she said. "Know that it is impossible, Iron Quill. Not in the way that can be overcome by resourceful use of unicorns from outside the camp, either. Physical travel between Equestria and the Moon was not known even to Carcosa, in the days before the Fall. Do not waste your effort on rediscovering it here. Our only hope to see Equestria again is in my power. Are we clear?"

He nodded. There was no mistaking that confidence—it wasn't the tone of a pony who still harbored doubts in this, the Night Princess was absolute. "I understand, Princess. From where I stand, it seems there will be many more miracles before the ponies of this army can sleep soundly."

Nightmare Moon laughed again, though more subdued. "If you think you can. You may not be alive to worry about them tomorrow."

"I don't know," he admitted. "But if you'll excuse me, it isn't nightfall yet. There is still work for me to do."

Iron Quill left the princess where he had found her, returning to his camp and his “company” of recruits. But he wouldn't be mocking them, not after waking normally to a cave that was still breathing. There was a chance he wouldn't be when night came, and there were a few more arrangements he needed to make with his ponies first.

He called them all to his command tent, Silver Needle and Sylvan Shade and Cozen, along with a handful of the other ponies who had impressed him so far. No more captains, though Penumbra was there, along with Chain Mail to represent his old guard. Even among ponies who had trusted him for so long, he could see doubt and confusion. Silver's camp had been almost empty, and now…

"I know you don't know why you're here," Quill said. "Maybe not all of you. But we can't keep existing as several disparate units. We have to somehow build a single company out of… the wave of new recruits."

"A company," Chain Mail repeated. He glanced once towards Cozen, but clearly didn't care about her glares. "Each of us owes you a debt, Quill. Our old squads are dead, but that doesn't mean we agree with this."

"I know," he answered, cutting off Cozen before she could even begin. "But there's something each of you need to know. I want your oath to me that it doesn't leave this tent, are we clear? And before you answer…" He glanced to the side. "Penumbra, if anypony here breaks their oath, kill them."

Penumbra didn't have a seat at the table, but now she stepped up beside him, drawing a dagger from her belt and tossing it casually into the wood. A blade of solid darkness sunk deep, little wisps of shadow rising from around it. "As you command, Lord Commander."

He looked back up. "And now you know what you're promising. If I can't trust you, walk out."

A few of them did—two of the circus ponies, and a laborer whose name he didn't remember who had helped carve most of the air troughs. He waited for them to go before going around the circle, getting a promise from each pony in turn before he continued.

"I have spoken with our princess. I don't believe we will be returning anytime soon. I think it may take her more than one pony lifetime to break the spell trapping us here. We will never see Equestria again."

All the muttering and angry glances at the table stopped abruptly. Cozen stared down at her hooves, Chain Mail's face hardened, Sylvan began pacing back and forth behind his chair.

"Each of the other companies acts like this banishment is something temporary—Nightmare Moon doesn't think it is. I think our grandchildren will be the ones who return to Equestria to exact our revenge."

"So why bother?" Cozen asked, voice bleak. "Why are we even trying?"

"Do you want to die comfortably in your bed fifty years from now, or coughing up blood in the dirt?" Silver asked.

Silence returned, and Quill let it linger. Maybe now they would understand the gravity of their task. "If Permafrost wins tonight, your problems won't last long. He'll get everypony killed, and that will be that. But if I win, I need each of you to settle in. I know what it takes to keep an army supplied. Silver does too, I think she's learned tremendously well. Every option that was once open to us in Equestria is now closed. We can't negotiate with farmers, or rob them. We can't trade with Griffonstone or Mt. Aris's navy. There are no deer, yaks, or bison to supply us when Equestria cuts us off. We're alone. Everything this army needs must be found, made, or maintained on the moon. What does that mean?"

"Food?" Cozen suggested. "There's no salt in the world that can convert sand into rice."

"Actually, in theory—" Sylvan interrupted, but fell silent at Quill's glare. He nodded towards Silver again.

"We expected the Castle of the Two Sisters to resist our siege all the way to winter and beyond. With careful rationing, I believe we can last five months."

"It's just one execution to the next," Cozen whispered.

"No." Quill glared. "The size of the difficulties before us makes them appear monumental, but only when you see them all at once. Until we are stable, we will face each as they come. We now know how to remove poison. This is a good start, but it’s only the beginning. We must take that knowledge, and replace the good in what was taken. Our princess suggested we had longer for that. But we’ve already been here a week, so we can’t take it for granted that we have unlimited time.”

He turned towards Cozen and Sylvan again. “That model you built with lightning—I want one of those, large enough to produce air for all. Silver, furnish them with supplies as they require. Nothing is more important than breathing.”

“Maybe not yet,” Chain Mail whispered. “But Lord Commander, it’s getting colder. Do you feel it? The chill seeps in further every day. How cold is it up there?”

“When I was with the princess, I asked her that,” Cozen said. “She said that now that night has come at last, it is ‘colder than the peak of the tallest mountain, or the remotest depths of the ocean.’”

“We’re underground,” Quill said. “Maybe that will keep us warm enough until the sun returns. I don’t know. She said it would be two weeks of sun, followed by weeks of darkness. We need to be able to breathe to find out.” He gestured to one side. “Silver, add the heat to a running figure of potential dangers.”

She nodded, removing a scroll and quill and scribbling on them with her magic. “If I do, Lord Commander, I should add light as well. Our supply of glowstone is finite, and our oil is already running low. We used much of it to melt the ice.”

“Fine,” he said. “And add water to the list, while we’re at it. We will need a steady supply for the conversion to air anyway.”

“There may be a way to capture heat during the sun, and retain it when darkness comes,” Sylvan muttered. “Metals absorb it differently, and something could probably be done with glass and mirrors. The sand here would probably make good glass if we could find the right flux.”

“Later,” Quill said, raising his voice just a little. “I appreciate your enthusiasm, Sylvan. Just remember we need air first. For now… buck, what I wouldn’t give for a dragon.”

“Dracaris died at Sun River,” Chain Mail said quietly. “He isn’t here anymore, sir.”

“I know.” He stood straighter. “Go on then, you three. This army requires air. Give it to them.” He watched as they left—Sylvan eager to get started, Cozen’s expression still downcast. Silver was impossible to read. But she would follow his orders. All these ponies would, now that they understood what was at stake.

“What about us?” Chain Mail asked, as soon as the scientific ponies were gone. “We’re just soldiers, Lord Commander. There’s little my stallions can offer. We aren’t trained to understand… alchemy and magic.”

“I know. But your mission is just as important.” He glanced briefly out the open tent door. “I’ve given you an impossible task. There’s a reason none of these ponies were recruited. I’m sorry about that.”

“I’m sure you have a reason,” Chain Mail said, though his tone didn’t suggest he believed it.

“I do.” Quill leaned closer to him. “I had Silver Needle choose the strongest and most capable-looking from the recruits to assign to you. They aren’t going to be your cooks and support staff, you already have those. I want them trained.”

Chain Mail stiffened. “I got the list this morning. Two hundred fifty ponies in all, greener than the worst fifth-son of a landed mare you ever sent me.”

“They aren’t going to be fighting a siege,” Quill went on. “They don’t need to hold against the Solar Legion. I’m looking for police. This cave… the longer we’re stuck here without fighting, the more it transforms into a prison. There’s only so many times a soldier on half pay can go drinking and whoring before he wants to get back to killing.”

“You took away half the whores. I believe I saw some of their names on my roster,” Chain Mail muttered darkly.

“Precisely. These ponies are going to be a peacekeeping force. I want them trained to stop a mob, to fight unarmed ponies acting rough, or put down a soldier who has gone out of line. That’s what I need from them.”

“Sure,” Chain Mail said. “I was wrong to think we were better off than those alchemists and scholars. You want all of us spinning shit into gold.”

This time Iron Quill laughed along. “Unfortunately true,” he agreed. “And no less for me. I still need to defeat a stallion half my age after spending two decades without a sword in my hooves. With… the whole army watching.”

“I wouldn’t trade with you,” Chain Mail said, rising with one final salute. “I’ll do my best, sir. I can’t promise your orders even can be followed. But I’ll tell you after we’ve already tried.” He left too, hurrying from the tent.

Leaving Quill alone with Penumbra. She made her way to the edge of the tent, twisting the flaps closed with a tight knot before removing the wraps from her face. “You know, there is a way you can win this fight. Something Permafrost won’t be expecting.”

Quill looked back to his table, and the ledgers there. Silver Needle had left him an inventory report, frighteningly empty in most respects. He pushed it aside. The realities on that page were not going to make this duel easier. “I know what you’ll suggest, Penumbra. I can’t.”

“You can,” she whispered, just beside him. All her cynicism and mockery were gone, all her skepticisms and disdain for him. “Princess Luna chose you for this. If you die with Permafrost’s sword in your gut, then the army will die with you. I don’t want to be alone with the princess for the rest of time.”

“You don’t want to…” He trailed off, shaking his head dismissively. There were secrets there, weight to her words that he’d never guessed at before. The Voidseekers had always been more forthright with the Lord Commander, he knew that. But he still felt like even hearing them was forbidden. Punishment could only be seconds away.

It didn’t come.

“I know the power Nightmare promises, Penumbra. But I know the price he asks.” His eyes glazed over, and he saw backward through the mist of time to better days. He saw the face of a princess who believed she was breaking the wheel that ground ponies down to dust. He didn’t think there was much left of that pony anymore.

“Isn’t that price worth paying?” She was in his face, shoving him away from the table. “I need you to live through this, Quill! You can’t make up for a life cooped up in monasteries, but you can get an edge. I know you’ve been through the Hvergelmir. Shouldn’t Nightmare Moon’s lord commander have Nightmare’s power too?”

He shook his head again, more reserved this time. Now he knew the expression he’d seen in those eyes—he’d been wrong to assume he’d never see a mare look at him that way again. He was old… but Penumbra was the oldest of the Voidseekers, wasn’t she? Her youth was part of the magic. “If I win tonight… I want you never to ask me to do this again.”

“WHY?” There was no way her voice wasn’t carrying through half the camp by now. “WHAT GOOD DOES DYING FOR YOUR DEAD RELIGION DO?!”

He met her eyes without blinking. The waves of darkness radiating up from her mane didn’t frighten him, even though he knew how easy it would be for her to kill him. Penumbra wasn’t just the oldest of the Voidseekers, she was the best of them too. “How much do you know about the last rebellion?”

His words had the desired effect. “What?” Penumbra retreated a step, the darkness from her mane fading and light blue returning. “What are you talking about?”

Quill sat down, wishing he had the armor to hide in. The Lord Commander’s diadem was little shield for him now. “Princess Luna wasn’t the first rebel in Equestria’s history. There was a city called Rockroost—an ancient Griffon colony.”

“This isn’t going to save you in the arena tomorrow,” Penumbra barked, voice harsh. “Permafrost doesn’t care about your knowledge of history. You can’t talk him out of killing you.”

He went on, ignoring her. “Princess Celestia sent her best negotiators to ease tensions and prevent a war. Among them were two ponies I knew… Pensive Gale, and Amaranth Gale, landed wife and heir of Cloudsdale. King Grover wasn’t impressed with their offer, and he had the diplomats… executed. Their bodies were hung on the city walls, as a warning to Equestria.”

Penumbra froze. Whatever rude thing she’d been about to say waited. Maybe she could sense the agony he felt.

“They’re waiting for me, in the Elysian fields,” Iron Quill went on. “But Nightmare’s oath includes a promise of service after your death. If they can wait for me… I can go to them.” He turned away from her, drying his face with a wing. He cleared his throat, straightened, and turned again.

“I’m sorry for what you’ve lost, Quill,” Penumbra whispered, resting one wing on his shoulder. “But superstition won’t bring them back. I’ve been through the Hvergelmir. There’s nothing on the other side of death but an endless oblivion. You aren’t being loyal to those ponies by dying for them and taking the whole army with you.”

“I won’t die today.” Quill turned his back on her, reaching the tent’s exit and untying the knot. “Before the duel, go to my historians. Ask them what happened after Rockroost killed our envoys. Ask them about Sun River.” He felt her pained eyes on his back as he left, along with the sniff of tears.

Apparently the stories were wrong about Voidseekers. They could feel after all.

Iron Quill heard the drums as he approached the arena, echoing through the camp and around him from all sides. Quill didn’t know where ponies could’ve gone to find zebra drums to beat for the occasion—but he shouldn’t have been surprised. It was an occasion, and all the Lunar Army had come to see.

Ponies hadn’t just packed every seat, but those without the honor to warrant one filled the land all around, occasionally flapping up to catch a glance at what was inside.

Quill met Chain Mail and his troops beside the far entrance, removing his borrowed helmet to get a better look at the cave past the torches and flames.

Penumbra didn’t come.

“I think they’re waiting for you in there, sir,” Chain Mail said. “Permafrost is already speaking.”

His voice didn’t carry as well through the crowd—he’d only ever been a captain before the battle killed his predecessor. But that wouldn’t matter if Quill never went inside. He might lose his chance to secure the troops before it even began.

“This is the cowardice we can expect from an army ruled by scholars and mares! Should we be surprised the one given the costume of a captain to wear would turn around and try to do the same to other ponies? When this is over, I will put this army back in order. Our new world is hostile, too much to afford waste!” And on, and on.

“They are.” Quill nodded to Chain Mail. “Clear a path. Let’s go.”

They walked into the arena, under the chorus of Permafrost’s promises of a better army under his rule. Ponies stomped and cheered—mostly from his half of the arena.

Then Quill passed through an opening in the arena seats, and got a good look at what was inside. Huge bonfires burned on the inside, made from the wood of broken siege engines. Permafrost stood in the center, his own helmet off. There was something strange about his mane, though Quill couldn’t immediately identify it.

His eyes were mostly for the princess, who sat at the highest level at the center of the arena. All around her were the Voidseekers, keeping the crowd well back. Penumbra was there in the lowest row, her face concealed in dark armor just like all the others. She didn’t even seem to be looking at him as he came into the arena.

His soldiers stopped at the edge of the circle, and Quill crossed the dusty ground alone. He passed the bonfire, wincing at the line of smoke rising from it. We need to melt ice to drink, and we waste fuel on this. Where does Permafrost plan on getting wood when he finishes burning what we brought?

He already knew the answer, of course. Permafrost hadn’t been stuck as a captain for no reason. If he’d known what supplying an army meant, he could’ve been a better officer.

“Here he is!” Permafrost yelled, his voice echoing from the ceiling high above. “Captain of whores and laborers! The captain of scrolls and quills! His method of rule is over.”

Ponies on the edge of the circle booed and hissed as Quill passed them. But he ignored them. Ignored them until he was beside Permafrost in the center of the circle. “Are you done?”

The other pony turned to face him, grinning wickedly. Why did his presence feel so… dark? Quill met his eyes for a second, then felt the twisting in his gut of dark magic fresh on the air. He watched the blurring at the edges of Permafrost’s mane.

His eyes went wide. Stars above. Penumbra thought Permafrost would never have guessed he would make this choice—but she’d been wrong. Permafrost beat him to it.

The other bat pony smiled at him. “I am finished.” He lowered his voice to a whisper, far below anything even the listening bats all around them could hear. “Have no fear for the army when you’re gone, Quill. I have a plan for preserving these ponies against the darkness here. There are a thousand others among the princess’s first who haven’t taken the oath yet. Far fewer than we would like to retake Equestria… but I’ve heard that the Voidseekers fight like ten stallions each.”

Quill finally looked away from him. “You shouldn’t have, Permafrost. The road you’re walking now… I’ve seen where it leads. You’ve seen where it leads. Look what happened to our princess… does she look happy to you?”

“And now the treason begins, Quill? Is that it?” He laughed, grinning wicked fangs at him. “I should thank you. You were the one who inspired me, turning your pet against my Indigo guard. I’ve replaced all of them with others who have taken the oath. A few years from now, they’ll all be Voidseekers. And you will be ashes.”

His face twisted, briefly contorting with pain. He spoke again, a chorus of two voices overlapping. “Long have you refused me, Gale. Surrender to me, and I will grant you your life in service.”

“It’s not mine to swear anymore,” he whispered, turning his back on the demon-possessed captain. He took off into the air, lifting the metal-banded horn from his belt and blowing it with four, short blasts. The Lord Commander’s horn shook the whole cavern, activating instincts drilled into every soldiers over months and years of practice.

It was so loud and unexpected that the army fell silent, shouting and booing and objections all stilled. Iron Quill landed, looking from one face to the next. These might be the last words he ever spoke. “Many of you don’t know the dangers we faced since the Tyrant banished us here. Instead of overcoming those enemies, Captain Permafrost would have those of you who can be transformed, and leave the others dead.

“I know you’re better than that, brothers and sisters. I see your flags—Trottingham company, Skyforge company, every other mare or stallion who believed that Equestria could be better. When this day ends, if I still live, I swear to keep the oaths made to you when you swore to the moon princess. I don’t ask for your souls, or even your lives. Only your trust.”

He landed. There was no applause, not even from his own section. His own laborers and inventory ponies watched with horror on their faces.

“Pointless,” Permafrost said into the silence. “You can promise them whatever you want, Quill. You’re just a scribe. Let this be a lesson to anypony after who thinks they weren’t born into their station.” He lifted his helmet from the dirt, donning it.

Iron Quill did the same, lowering the ill-fitting steel to his head and settling the visor into place.

“I have heard the petitions of my servants!” Nightmare Moon called, her voice echoing through the cavern. “Let the stars above us judge the rightness of their choices by the might of their hooves.”

From around the arena, the drums started to beat.

Chapter 9: Lord Commander

If Iron Quill closed his eyes, he could almost imagine the beating drums were the pacing orders of the siege engineers, directing a constant stream of flames down on Rockroost. The distant screams occasionally cut through the grinding wood and gears of the trebuchets as earth ponies marched around reloading them—but he hadn’t hated those sounds then.

They had filled him with satisfaction.

He felt none of that now as he walked to the far end of the arena, where a simple box was marked in the stone. He stepped inside it, checking over his armor one final time. There was the ill-fitting helmet, which would jostle over his eyes if he jerked too quickly to one side. Stalwart Shield’s sword, black even from within the sheath. And his own dagger, tucked away under the breastplate.

It was all they were permitted—duels did not allow for magic, or ranged weapons. Only what they brought into the arena, only what they could swing at each other would be allowed.

Quill squinted across the arena, watching Permafrost in front of the massive bonfire. He didn’t seem to be carrying any forbidden weapons, only his single steel great sword. Why bother, when he knew he had the strength of a demon against a musty old scholar?

Nightmare Moon stomped her hooves once on the stone, and the drums abruptly stopped. The signal for them to begin.

Permafrost drew the great sword, holding it in both wings. Only a steel blade, which meant it took a careful grip and the counterweight under the handle to swing. The steel itself would fall as part of every swing, and it took an expert to catch the sword with each attack and not break it against the ground.

Quill let him come. He kept his back to the bonfire, even if he didn’t expect Permafrost to master his new powers in a day. Then he drew his sword. It was a shorter blade, made from something thin and black and not quite metal. The flames behind him shifted from orange to red in its presence, and the sword clung to his hooves as though it were covered in glue.

“That’s it, scribe? You stand there and die?”

He didn’t move, didn’t speak, just held the sword in a high guard, utterly patient. The audience seem to get a different impression, pointing and laughing. “He doesn’t even know how to swing it!” some of them said. From the bottom row, Penumbra looked away, shielding her face.

“Alright, old nag. Die then!” He swung, the incredible weight of the great sword pressing down from above. Even the Lord Commander’s armor would probably have been crushed under a blow like that from so much steel.

But Iron Quill didn’t hold still long enough to find out. He jerked to one side, catching the blow on the edge of his sword. As it fell, he angled his own blade upward, biting into Permafrost’s wing.

The captain roared, pulling back in pain from even the slight nick—and the sword spun over Quill’s head, landing in the bonfire.

Quill didn’t intend to let the opportunity lapse. He jerked forward, slashing at Permafrost’s pauldron along one shoulder, then the other. The sword bit into the steel like it was tin, tearing chunks away with each stroke.

Before he could draw blood, Permafrost flashed away in a puff of shadow, and his sword passed through empty air.

He appeared beside the other bonfire on his own side of the arena, nursing briefly at the wound to his wing. It wasn’t bleeding exactly, but something black and pulpy oozed out, like blood that had congealed weeks ago and been left in the sun.

Permafrost no longer taunted him as he drew his short sword. His eyes watched him constantly, along with the rest of the crowd. Even Penumbra was looking back.

“What’s the matter, Permafrost? Why don’t you get your longsword?” His voice echoed across the arena, through what was otherwise total stillness. Almost none of the soldiers would understand him.

Permafrost did, though. His lips curled back, exposing his fangs. Quill settled his hooves, then spun as another flash of shadow and mist briefly blotted out the campfire. He swung his sword around in a wide arc, catching against Permafrost’s blade as he reappeared.

Like all of the Voidseekers, Permafrost was otherwise unaffected by the injuries. “I could’ve just cut your throat, scribe! But I think I know another use for that bonfire. I wonder how long you’ll last while burning alive.” He was strong, much stronger than Quill. But up in the air he lacked leverage, leverage Quill had. He pushed, bracing his back legs against the stone and throwing Permafrost towards the bonfire.

“It’s two minutes, before you go unconscious from the shock.” He advanced, still keeping his even guard. “Another few more until you die, but you’re not awake to experience them.”

Permafrost vanished again, and this time Quill rolled back towards the bonfire. Wrong guess—his enemy wasn’t trying to knife him in the back again, but appeared walking towards him, sword balanced carefully. Already the blade had rusted along the edge where Quill’s had touched it. But it was good steel, too thick to break so quickly.

“I know how long ponies like you last, Permafrost,” he went on. He already had his back to the flames—the safest place for him to stand. “Ten seconds.”

Permafrost surged forward again, swinging hard with each strike. He’d stopped trying to show off, swinging short and crisp like he was in the practice field. Only each strike was harder than Quill could swing, hard enough that it would probably break his leg if he tried to stop each one outright.

He caught the sword on the flat of his blade each time, deflecting the swing and taking a step sideways with each one, along the rim of the flames.

Sparks filled the air from each swing. “You… think… a… scribe… could…” Permafrost roared. “I’m filled with Nightmare’s power! I see backward into infinity!”

He cut low, forcing Quill to roll. Or try—he wasn’t a young stallion anymore. His legs moved too slowly, too weakly to spring all the way. Permafrost’s sword bit deep into the steel, and heat followed as it cut straight through to his skin.

Warm blood seeped out, dripping down past his armor to his boots.

He lurched, his leg momentarily giving out under the pressure. He fell more than rolled after that, skidding in the dirt until he landed beside the ring of stones that contained the campfire.

Heat blasted him on one side, heating his metal armor, and his head swam. His helmet slipped up and off against the dirt, rolling away.

But Quill didn’t let the pain distract him—he’d been cut before, worse than this. He rolled, catching a swing aimed for his neck on his sword.

“You’re dead, Quill! You’ve used all the mercy I had for you!”

Iron Quill eyed the blade, pushing out with his own even though it cost much of the strength he had left. His three good legs bent under the pressure.

“I’m not,” he said. “I can’t. Or you’ll let the rest of these ponies die.”

“Not the ones who matter!” He took a step back, lifting his sword high in the air. He didn’t care that he was forecasting the swing this time—he knew that Quill didn’t have the strength left to resist it. “Watch, ponies! This is the death of our past! Our weakness, our fear to serve!”

He swung, putting all the force he had into the sword as it angled for Quill’s unprotected face.

Quill might not be strong, but he was still fast enough. He brought his sword up at a sharp angle, right as Permafrost’s own came down. Straight for the bright orange mass rising from the good steel.

The short sword exploded in a shower of broken metal and hissing rust, showering around him. Pieces of hot metal cut into his face, but he ignored the pain.

Before Permafrost had even finished with the swing, Quill let go of the blade, drawing his dagger from his armor and shoving it forward, right under his guard and up through the mail around his neck.

Permafrost backed away, clutching at the blade. A living pony never could’ve moved, not with such an important artery severed. But Permafrost was only stunned. He held it with both hooves, eyes wide. “That’s all?”

Quill kicked sharply into one of his hind legs. The steel might stop a sword, but it wouldn’t stop the compressive force. Permafrost teetered, wings flapping wildly—then he fell.

He landed in the bonfire.

The flames roared upward, as though he’d just doused them in oil. They changed to sickly green for a second, pouring black smoke. Something screamed from within, something that wasn’t quite alive anymore.

Quill was right—it took about ten seconds.

Then the flames died down, returning to placid orange.

Quill bent down, scooping up his bloody sword and holding it in the flames for a few seconds, until what was left of Permafrost hissed and sparked away. Then he advanced, dragging his injured leg and a trail of blood through the sand. He stopped in front of the princess, dropping into an unsteady bow. “Princess… Nightmare Moon,” he coughed, panting and covered in sweat. “This victor comes to… ask your blessing in judgement.”

Nightmare Moon’s expression remained dark. Something warred behind those eyes, fears and guilt and anger that Quill couldn’t quite read.

Eventually one of them won. “Your regent, ruler of all Equestria, finds in favor of the victory. Lord Commander Iron Quill has triumphed in this challenge. Permafrost’s company will be absorbed, and his holdings forfeit to the victor. So it is decreed.” She stomped her hooves again, and the drums resumed. Somehow more subdued than they were before.

The army remained in shock. Ponies stared, faces white.

Quill turned away from the princess, ignoring the medics on the edge of the arena, waving them off with a wing. Quill knew what a serious wound felt like, and this wasn’t that. He had their attention as he never had before. He might never have this opportunity again.

“Permafrost was a captain of death!” Quill roared. “He demanded your souls in exchange for your lives. I demand only your obedience, and in return I grant you your lives. Permafrost died today because he wished to kill those who opposed him. I obliged him in his request. Obey me, save your swords for the Tyrant’s armies, and I swear to fight for your lives until I die.”

He waited, listening to the painful silence as his eyes scanned the crowd.

His own ponies started stomping first. Others joined them—a few of them, anyway. Hardly the uproarious applause he’d been hoping for. But the support came from both sides of the army. It would do.

From around Nightmare Moon’s makeshift throne, he saw mostly anger. Even if the Voidseekers had enough of themselves left to be real ponies, they would still have their emotions twisted. Just as the princess had.

He watched her chair in particular, trying to read her feelings. There was a pony in there somewhere who would’ve been cheering for him. Her captain had called openly for the agonizing death of the ponies she had saved from oppressive nobles near and far. Didn’t she care?

She met his eyes. For a second—and only a second—Iron Quill imagined he could see something past those slitted eyes and predatory teeth. Past the fire and the screams, he saw a princess in a monastery, promising something better.

Then she spread her wings, taking disdainfully to the air. The Voidseekers joined her, accompanied by four new bats from the other side of camp. I guess I won’t be inheriting his bodyguards. That’s for the best. They would’ve put a knife in my back anyway.

Except for one. As the others all took to the air, Penumbra remained in her seat, watching him. He didn’t look away.

Silver Needle rushed into the field, surrounded by ponies in white robes. “Let’s get that armor off,” she said, her hooves shaking.

He complied, letting them lead him to a tent on the edge of the arena, settling into the low cot there.

“Stars above us, Lord Commander. What kind of fighting was that?” Silver asked, as the attendants removed the last of his bloody armor from his left foreleg. “When did the Ordo Celestial teach you that thing with the sword?”

The flaps rustled, and Penumbra slipped in.

“They didn’t,” he muttered. “My father’s bannerman did. Magnus… you won’t know him.”

An older mare cleared her throat, pulling her hook-nosed mask away from her muzzle. “Lord Commander, uh…”

“Go on,” he said, extending his leg for her.

“Stitches, sir,” she said. “On the leg, with Stilweed to cleanse the leg and your face. There’s… likely going to be some scarring. Moon bless you that the metal missed your eyes. I recommend a diet heavy in beats for the next week, to balance the blood you’ve lost.”

He nodded to her. “Begin your work, healer. I can be still.”

He sat back, letting the other attendants remove the rest of his armor while the healer went to work cleaning his leg with a damp cloth, wiping away dirt and blood.

He gritted his teeth together as she brought out the clear vial of Stilweed, so he wouldn’t scream when an apothecary started rubbing it on the wound. Even after half a lifetime feeling it, Quill hadn’t ever quite adjusted to that pain.

When they’d finished, his face was drenched with sweat and he felt like his teeth might explode.

“Do you have a moment?” Penumbra’s voice was low, almost embarrassed. She whispered from a distant corner of the tent. She still wore all her armor in the presence of these strangers, the way she always did.

“Oh sure,” he muttered, glancing briefly up at her. “I’m only getting stitches. You have me captive, Voidseeker.”

Every herbalist and healer in the tent froze where they stood, staring in shock and fear at the robed figure who had just appeared in their midst. Even the magical grip of his surgeon slipped, and Quill had to twitch his leg out of the away to avoid just getting stabbed in the meat of his calf.

“On second thought…” Penumbra whispered. “I’ll wait for them to finish. Your face is ugly enough without them slicing off your nose by mistake.” She vanished in a flash of shadow, briefly dimming the glowstones. They came back a few seconds later.

Quill’s own surgeon hesitated in her work, clutching at the little sun charm around her neck. How’d she get away with keeping that?

“Can’t imagine how you can stand to be around them, Lord. Know it isn’t my place to say.” She tucked the charm around her neck, then straightened her grip on the hook. “I for one am glad there’s one less of their kind around.”

“Penumbra isn’t like the others I’ve known,” he said, wincing as she went back to work. “Silver… Needle. How goes the work on the… device?”

“Completed, sir. Simpler than I could’ve thought, but… there’s some discussion about its placement. I don’t know the details, Sylvan made me swear not to explain it and get it wrong.”

“Right.” He waved a wing. “I suppose you should… tell them I’ll be returning to the camp in short order. Instruct Cozen, Shade, and anypony else they think they need to brief me not to rest until they explain. Our lives aren’t saved just because a fool is ash now.”

She saluted with her quill, sharper than he’d ever seen from her. “Right away, Sir.” She left, vanishing out the tent door.

Is that what it takes to win their respect? Blood?

But Quill didn’t think about much of anything, as the healers moved from his leg to his face. If the Stilweed had hurt on an extremity, he actually screamed when they brushed it on his face. By the time he came to his senses, the healers were gone, and a pony settled down in a camp chair across from his cot.

He looked up, and Penumbra had already removed the blue cloth from around her face. Her eyes were dark, just like they’d always been. Just like all of them were. “You knew that would happen,” she said, voice flat. “You knew you were going to kill him.”

He shrugged. “I thought it would be… a bit easier than that,” he groaned, glancing down at the deep gash down his leg. “Thought it would be so quick that maybe I wouldn’t have to kill him. I could show how merciful the new Lord Commander would be.”

“It’s a good thing you didn’t.” Penumbra reached down, tossing something onto the ground at his hooves.

It was his dagger, or at least the blade. Arcane flames had not been kind to its copper hilt, and bits of it stuck to the steel. The cloud and anvil of his ancient house were more prominent now with ash and gray dust outlining them. “Our number have a few like him already. Permafrost would’ve been a waking nightmare. His death was a mercy for all of us.”

“Not him,” he whispered. “At least until he admitted he wanted everyone to take Nightmare’s oath or die.” He shuddered. “That isn’t good enough.”

“You could’ve told me,” Penumbra argued. “Hey, bodyguard, I’m actually the lost child of an extinct house, trained by the greatest swordspony who ever lived. Oh, and also I have iron skin, you’re really an Alicorn, and…”

He nodded. She was right, obviously. But that wasn’t much of an answer. “I wanted that pony to be dead.”

Penumbra was silent for a long time, resting beside his cot. “When Nightmare Moon chose you, I felt a twinge of doubt. I was wrong to disbelieve.”

He chuckled. “I bet your friend Aminon doesn’t think that.”

It was her turn to laugh. “He was the one who put that plan in Permafrost’s mind. I’m certain he will try to kill you, or make life misery for you until you take the oath.”

Same thing.

“I won’t, Penumbra. Not for anything. When this generation ends… assuming, stars willing, there’s another. Our princess may order me to train them for invasion. I’m certain that I will… but the Hvergelmir is in Equestria. There will be no more Voidseekers until the princess finally defeats the Tyrant’s magic and sends us home.”

“He will kill you,” she said, more confident. “As soon as he can find some way to justify it. You’ll have a knife in your back.”

“Then it’s a good thing I have such a capable bodyguard.” He rose to shaky hooves. But the strain of standing was too much too fast, and he started to sway.

Penumbra caught him, her head near his ear. A pony apparently so young, so strong. But just under the skin, she was as rotten as Permafrost. “You think I’ll stop him?” she whispered. “He does Nightmare’s will, like I do. Maybe I won’t have a choice.”

He struggled to pull away from her, to stand. She squeezed a little harder, momentarily trapping him. “Of course you have a choice,” he said. “Nightmare wanted this army sworn to it the instant we were banished here. Every action you take to help me pushes their deaths further away. You can choose.”

Quill didn’t know that, of course. They’d thought an Alicorn of all ponies would be able to choose, and overpower the desires of the demon that inhabited her. The ruin they left behind in Equestria testified to the error of that hope.

But Penumbra let him go, grinning something he recognized a little better. “Those ponies you’re waiting for: does that include other aspects of your life as well?”

He tensed, momentarily feeling more afraid than Permafrost’s swords had ever made him.

He traveled straight back to camp, though it was still night by the time he returned. At least as much as night and day even meant anything underground. Where many other companies had probably retired early in somber contemplation, his was celebrating.

It wasn’t just his own soldiers reveling in his unexpected victory, though he could hear plenty of them. But for each of his old laborers or guards, there were twenty recruits from the camp followers. They'd been given new uniforms since last he looked—instead of the mismatched cloth so many of them had worn, bits of dresses and scraps of merchants' garb, now many wore either nothing at all or apprentice smocks.

He ignored the invitations to join the feasting, though he heard plenty of them from all around the camp. He didn't know where he was going, but he knew he'd recognize it when he got there.

He wasn't wrong. Cozen and Sylvan Shade had built something massive, so large it had consumed an entire cart and several more crates besides. A huge chunk of ice rested on a set of makeshift sled runners not far away, dripping slightly as it slowly melted. Very slowly.

They'd also obeyed his orders, because they waited by the cart of strange machines along with half a dozen workmen. Sylvan waved, meeting him in a friendly embrace. "Will you be offended if I tell you that I didn't think you'd make it back?" he asked.

"Too late," he answered. "No, I wouldn’t expect you to. That was partly the point. But we won't be unringing that bell." He looked past him, nodding respectfully to Cozen. "Your ponies are safe now. Well… these ones are. There's little I can do for the outer camp."

Cozen shrugged one shoulder. "We can worry about them once the air situation is fully resolved. They need to breathe it as much as you other ponies do." She looked over her shoulder. "Will you explain it, Shade? Or shall I?"

Sylvan Shade gestured to the cart. "We may've… stole the princess's bathing tub."

Quill winced, taking off and surveying the damage. The tub wouldn't be used again—its internal surface had been completely sealed with pitch and wax, and a sheet of rough, opaque gray glass was mounted to the top with wax and oil. Through it were three holes, two with thick metal sticks running down and one obviously a filling hole.

He landed again. "You found a glassblower who could… that might be the single largest sheet I've ever seen."

"Because it's a terrible window," Cozen said. "It doesn't matter if we can see through it very well, so long as we can see the water level underneath to keep it full."

"What's the second basin for?" Quill asked. "Is that the problem you wanted to talk to me about?"

"No," Sylvan said, walking around the edge of the cart with him. This section was clearly connected by thin metal, though it had no lid. He looked in over the edge, at a strange bending loop, suspended away from the wood and with a rack above it.

"I don't remember seeing this in your first mechanism."

"You didn't," Cozen said, grinning proudly at him. "What you're looking at is the first true advancement in physical philosophy I've ever seen, one not written of in any book. When scaling our model, we discovered that the lightning was heating the water around it, boiling some of it rather than transforming it. Discovering the cause eludes us for now, but… that doesn't mean we can't put it to use." She nodded towards the rack. "We don't have water here, only ice. Wherever this mechanism is finally placed, we need only to place the tray above it, and connect the tube to the fill-hole. We've matched the wire to the melting of the ice, so even a dumb laborer should be able to operate it by keeping the ice-tray full."

Iron Quill sat back, impressed. "We could build more of them if the one wasn't enough, yes?"

"For now," Silver Needle spoke up from the other side of the cart. "Lighting is not infinite. We don't know how long a single bolt will last. We don't know, because we had to shut it down."

Sylvan Shade continued from there, walking back around to the main machine. "We have one central difficulty, Quill. Despite classical understanding to the contrary, it's clear that… not everything I thought about alchemy is wholly accurate. Water cannot be directly converted, only split into air and something else."

He leaned down, fiddling with a tiny clay pot with a narrow neck. As he did Cozen and Silver Needle both took a few steps back. A thin layer of waxed cloth covered the top, wrapped tight with twine. He held out a length of thin wood, with a scrap of cloth tied to the end. "Would you mind, Cozen?"

She groaned, then her horn glowed. The cloth caught fire, charring slowly. "You might want to get back, sir."

Sir this time. Quill did back away, watching closely. The flames touched the little pot, igniting its waxed lid.

BANG!

The pot cracked violently down the middle in a single flash of faint orange, far dimmer than a torch or even than the fuse. A few bits of clay tumbled away.

Quill winced; his ears flat by reflex. He hadn't been quick enough. "What in Gaia's name was that?"

"Fire," Shade answered. "The conversion process, we… weren't able to perfect it. One half of those two pipes releases a stream of fresh air, invigorating to breathe. The other releases air tainted with flame—harmless, impossible to smell. But if it nears a flame…" He nodded. "A fire started near the pipe would probably burn forever."

"That's why this controversy is pointless," Cozen said, exasperated. "We can just burn it away. I've seen it done before—when mines grow too toxic, sometimes the gas must be burned. It was done in the Canterlot Caverns, we can do it here."

"No we can't," Quill realized. "Our princess… she was clear. Flames produce poison, just like ponies do. I may not know alchemy, but… if I was a betting stallion, I would bet that the fire we burn would waste almost as much new air as we create. It would make the entire process pointless."

"But we must do something," Sylvan continued. "This path is too useful a prospect to abandon, even if a perfect conversion would take too long to master. I wonder if we might not be able to send the tainted air somewhere else."

"You have somewhere in mind?"

He nodded again. Cozen rolled her eyes, looking away. But she didn't stop him. "While we were quarrying for ice, we discovered that not all veins are equally thick. Our present cavern has another branch—likely leading elsewhere in the moon's hollow center. I wonder if we might carefully melt a hole, just wide enough for a single pipe. The fire-air could be sent inside, kept far away from us."

"It's inviting disaster," Cozen argued. "And I think you're both wrong about the conversion. Even if burning the air robs us of some of the air we need, surely there's more good air than bad."

"There is not,” Nightmare Moon said, emerging from behind the cart. She looked like she'd been inspecting the apparatus, though whether she was impressed or afraid of what she'd seen was less clear. "The alchemist's solution is the better one. The hydrogen gas can be vented into space. A tragic waste, but it isn't as though we have the means to make use of it now."

All of them bowed—Cozen and Sylvan right to the dirt, though Iron Quill only lowered his head. He was the Lord Commander after all—he didn't need to grovel.

"Get up." She strode past them both, gesturing furiously with a wing. "I want you to be listening to me, not cowering. Though you have not remained with me long enough to see, you may know with confidence that I reserve my rage from the useful."

They stood; Cozen much faster than Shade. "What were those words you used, Princess?"

"Hydrogen." Nightmare Moon pointed in at the tub. "Go on, come here. You stole my bath from me, now you will listen." They did. "This process is known, though not to common ponies. I... remember less than the Tyrant probably would. I was so young…" She trailed off, turning briefly away. The strange slits in her eyes seemed almost completely gone for a moment, and for the second time Quill thought he could see Luna buried somewhere underneath.

I wonder how much power Nightmare wasted on Permafrost. That’s influence the princess doesn't have to resist anymore.

"What is it?" Sylvan asked.

Nightmare Moon pointed in with one wing. "Water is composed of two elements—hydrogen and oxygen. One replenishes what we have lost, while the other is… dangerous. I don't know much about hydrogen, except that it burns, and all fires consume oxygen. So we must vent it. The airlock will present some difficulty… but you've already proven yourselves to be capable with mechanisms. If something goes wrong, we can always melt a little ice and seal the door closed again."

Cozen stared at her in open shock. "How do you know all this?"

Nightmare Moon laughed, her voice bitter. "My indulgence is bounded, foal. You have just crossed it by inquiring into what you ought not know."

Was that a tear? Quill was almost certain he'd seen it, if only for an instant. But then Nightmare Moon took off, spraying dust behind her. "Send word to me when you are ready to build. I will not sit for you at the quarry and wait."

She looked away from the two of them, her eyes settling on Quill. "Two miracles are not the end of your usefulness to me. Heal quickly, and do not grow too comfortable. When morning comes and you retire to sleep, feel the chill grip of death seeping in around your blankets. So too will every creature in this cavern freeze."

She turned, soaring off into the cave towards her own tent.

"We're not even done with one impossibility and she heaps the next upon us," Cozen muttered, glaring weakly off in the direction she flew. “Iron Quill, are you her most trusted advisor, or her slave?"

"Yes."

Chapter 10: Steel Salvation

Iron Quill wandered through a field of the dead. His legs faltered under him, and more than once he nearly lost his grip completely and had to spread his wings to keep himself moving forward. But he had to keep moving—if he wasn’t here to give these ponies final mercy, who would?

The Solar Legion—fifty thousand stallions and mares, along with uncountable numbers of sellswords, mercenaries, and other hangers-on—lay on a battlefield as vast as a city. Nightmare Moon hadn’t burned them with Alicorn magic, as he’d seen done many times before. Flames were dramatic, but even for such powerful beings, they were costly. These ponies had been frozen.

He passed through marshaled ranks of the Legion, still standing with their shield walls ready and their spears lifted high. Nightmare Moon’s magic had frozen them in place, their dead eyes staring. With the battle over, some had started to thaw, slumping limply to the ground where they stood and knocking each other over. As the morning sun broke over the trees, Quill felt waves of stink wash over the battlefield.

Celestia preserve us. Many nightmares will be born here when these dead start to rot. There would be nopony to bury them, not with the army’s frail remains in terrified retreat and no friendly settlements nearby. This terrible necropolis would last a generation.

The bodies weren’t the worst part, though. Whatever Nightmare Moon’s terrible spell had been, it had not killed equally. For reasons he couldn’t easily see, some of the creatures were still alive. Some ponies had only been exposed in a single leg, or maybe a wing, which poked through with frozen spikes of blood. They screamed in terrible agony, begging for death.

Quill’s inventory battalion passed through the battle lines. Whenever he heard the screams, he pointed, and one of his officers would move forward to deliver a merciful death to the pony. He had no illusions about their chances of surviving the infection.

“Sir!” a voice called from just beside him, one of his soldiers. “Sir, you should see this.”

Iron Quill turned, adjusting his thin brown robe and hurrying in the indicated direction. Past a hundred frozen crossbowmen, he found an overturned cart of supplies, and several soldiers waiting beside it. Huge pots of oil had exploded here, overturning the cart and spreading black flames over the otherwise frozen ground.

His stallions watched the underside of the cart warily, pointing their weapons down. A figure crouched there, a pegasus wearing a blue Cloudsdale uniform with officer bars on his shoulders. He was bloody and his face was burned, but not severely.

The cart preserved you. But you’ll probably wish it hadn’t.

Quill waved his soldiers back, advancing towards the opening. A crossbow pointed out at him, shaking slightly in the grip of the one holding it. “Stay back! I’ll kill every last one of you traitors!”

Quill winced. “Put down that thing, Chain Mail. You aren’t going to kill me.”

His eyes widened, and the crossbow did start to droop. “Gale? What in Celestia’s name are you doing with the Usurper’s army of traitors and cowards?”

“Maybe you shouldn’t… say that so loudly,” he said, as sensitively as he could. “The army of traitors and cowards are the only reason you’re still breathing. They’re very loyal to my orders, but don’t make their job any harder.”

Chain Mail looked back, nearly dropping the crossbow completely. “Is that why the Usurper is winning, Gale? Are you leading her army? What about your oaths?”

Iron Quill rolled his eyes. “Do I look like I’m dressed for war, son? I’m not leading anything. I thought I was here to remind the princess of what she was fighting for… but clearly I was wrong about that.” He trailed off, glancing behind him at the devastation. Probably the largest loss of pony life in history, not sparing messenger-colts or field healers or anypony else who had been too close to the front. “That isn’t why I’m here now. Right now I’m here to keep fools like you alive.”

He turned, glancing over his shoulder. “Fetch a uniform from the stores, Bowline. Something to fit this pegasus here.”

“Sir?” Bowline raised an eyebrow, but Quill didn’t look away. After another intense glare, he hurried off.

“You’re wasting your time, Gale. If you think I’m going to tell you anything about o-our current strength, after seeing you on her side—”

Quill snapped forward suddenly, so fast that Chain Mail couldn’t react. He tried to fire the crossbow, but Quill brought his knee up against it, tilting it harmlessly out of the way. The bolt flew wide, and meanwhile he wrapped one leg around the stallion and heaved him bodily from the opening onto the dirt. Air billowed about him, carrying every stroke with blurring speed as only a pegasus could.

“Look around, Chain. Keep your bucking mouth shut and look. Do you think the princess cares what you know?”

He waited, watching Chain Mail’s expression. His eyes darted around, getting his first clear view. No stallion or mare standing in the open had survived, and now he would see it. “Stars above,” he swore, slumping forward onto the ground. “She killed…”

“Everypony,” Quill agreed. “Now listen to me. I’m not one of her captains. I manage her supplies. I’m permitted my own guards, to protect the stores from thieves in and out of the army. It’s time for you to choose.”

Bowline returned at that moment, landing beside them and tossing the bundle of cloth and metal there. “Take that Legion stuff off, before too many ponies see you. Put this on.”

“I won’t serve her,” he spat. “How can you?”

“Look at it this way.” Quill nudged the bundle closer to him. “You can stand up straight, and when anypony else from the army finds you here still alive they’ll just cut your throat. Or you can shut your damn mouth, pretend you saw the moonlight’s truth, and joined her cause. Nopony looks twice at my stallions. You’ll be safe.”

“It ain’t so clean, sir,” Bowline corrected. His voice was low, disgusted. “I saw Permafrost’s troops on the eastern flank. They’re, uh… it ain’t right what they’re doin’. Kinder to kill him ourselves.”

“Right.” Quill turned back. “Choose, Chain Mail. I’m not fighting for her, and you won’t have to either. Maybe… maybe we can help temper her. Either that, or stand in her way, and get destroyed by her.” Before today, he could’ve made that argument easily. He had, to several of his guards. He’d taken them from fallen cities before, passing them off exactly as he hoped to do to Chain Mail now.

“This is… I almost think I should die here. With the others.” He spun around, toward the slaughtered archers. “But I’m a coward, Gale, always was. I could’ve come out from under the cart and fought with the others. I watched my stallions die, while I was safe.”

Probably. But Quill was in no place to judge anymore. His price was already paid. “There’s been enough blood here, Chain Mail. I can use you.”

The stallion finally looked down, then shrugged out of his jacket. He hurried to the gear, pulling it on.

“I don’t think we can trust him,” Bowline whispered, while Chain Mail changed. “None of us had to see so many friends die.”

“I trust him,” Quill answered. “He’s one of mine. But if anything happens, you can tell the princess I forced you, threatened you into it. Get reassigned to somepony else’s company.”

That silenced Bowline’s objections—along with the motion behind him. A pony landed with a weighty thump, shaking the ground around her. “Iron Quill,” Nightmare Moon said. “The time has come for those ponies loyal to me to prove their loyalty by oath.”

He turned to face her, expression neutral. She didn’t seem to have noticed Chain Mail, now fully (if sloppily) dressed in the padded armor of his inventory guard. Her mane blasted behind her like the aurora, stretching for hundreds of feet before it was lost in the sun. The ground under her hooves began to freeze, with white fingers of winter creeping from the blood-soaked grass.

“Or at least it would be,” she went on. “If this wasn’t a dream. But you know you aren’t really here, Quill.”

There were a few seconds of terrible disorientation, then the world came crashing back into focus. He was still standing on the battlefield, surrounded by thousands of dead. “I wasn’t aware your judgement of me had been so harsh,” Nightmare Moon went on, circling him like a predator. “Rich, coming from you. I killed soldiers. How many civilians died at Rockroost?”

He tensed but didn’t lash out. It might be a dream, but this was just as real to the princess as it was to him. Even before, Luna had mastery of dreams. But neither one had ever used that power against him before. “I don’t know,” he answered. “At least… five thousand.”

“Five thousand,” Nightmare Moon said, stopping directly in front of him. She yanked on his neck with her magic, forcing him to meet her eyes. “And don’t you forget any one of them. In their screams, remember that you know the same lessons as I do. Those in power must sometimes make terrible choices for the greater good.”

He nodded in submission. “Apologies, Princess. The pony you see in this memory was… on the edge of sanity, shocked and horrified. Don’t take his foolishness as an indictment of your sovereignty.”

“You do love to apologize.” Nightmare Moon turned away, down at the cowering, submissive Chain Mail. “Are you going to apologize for this too? Say how you quake before me and you’ll hasten to correct this error in judgement with an immediate execution?”

Quill swallowed, then straightened, facing the princess openly for the first time. This wasn’t how she really looked, but the terrible visage she’d still worn after her contract with Nightmare, and the touch of demons was still strong on her. Her features twisted and distorted, her eyes red pits, her horn wickedly sharp. “No, Princess. I only apologize for my mistakes.”

“I could command it,” Nightmare Moon said—but not angrily. Her tone was almost amused. “Demand you kill this wolf hiding covertly among my peaceful sheep, or face my eternal torture.”

“You could,” he agreed. “And you could force me to watch Chain Mail die in agony, before you kill me too. But I don’t think you will. Half the soldiers in your army once fought for the other side. I think you know what enforcing purity by the sword would do to this army. They’re already at the point of breaking, trapped in this freezing cave with no hope of escape. If you set that example, or force me to set it—you won’t have any army anymore.”

There was a long, tense silence. The princess didn’t look away from him, her eyes furious and intense. The seconds passed, and maybe she expected him to turn away, to bow to her. He didn’t.

Finally she nodded to him. “Do you know what they say about a bold vizier?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “He best get results. Your boldness is amusing now, Quill. But you may find it less so on the day you no longer give me what I ask.”

He shrugged. “We want the same thing, Princess. Safety for this army, and a swift return to Equestria. Nopony else on this moon could grant you what I have.”

She shrugged one shoulder. “That may be, Gale. For now.” She turned, eyes scanning the vast battlefield around them. “Next time I will show you my nightmares. We will see if you judge so harshly then.”

There was a crack of magic, and the dream dissolved.

Iron Quill shivered, pulling his cloak closer about his shoulders. Not the threadbare monk’s robe that he’d kept with him since the early days of his time with Nightmare Moon—he’d burned it, just as he promised he would. His new one was a padded vest and cape that might’ve been worn under metal armor.

It helped, so much as being a child of the sky didn’t already give him some resistance to the chill. He emerged from his royal tent, breath puffing out from in front of him in a thin cloud. Wherever moisture had condensed, patches of ice lingered on the ground

Affairs in camp were bleak to say the least—well, camps. His new soldiers, inherited from the death of Permafrost, no longer spent all their days digging fortifications in the stone, but they weren’t sitting idle either.

Quill’s position as Lord Commander was no longer questioned. In the last few days, his authority had redirected pointless effort towards something more important. Instead of digging trenches, ponies now excavated stone to build permanent structures. Camp stores, latrines, the outline of where fields might be someday. If we can discover a way to light them.

Penumbra joined him as he passed out of his camp and towards the princess’s quarters, just as she did every morning. At least she didn’t bring the constant air of resentment with her like a caul that hovered over everything he did. She’d backed the right horse.

“I trust you already know,” she began, her voice muted beneath her face-wraps. Unlike everypony else in the faint glowstone light, her breath didn’t puff out around her, and she didn’t shiver with the cold.

“About the dead in Motherlode Company?” He nodded. “The third in as many days. Ignoring my communal sleeping order, and they suffer the consequences. Why is anypony surprised?”

This time it was only the Voidseekers waiting outside the throne-tent. They parted without objection, though he could see the resentment on their faces. Aminon wasn’t here, thankfully. At least that pony was too important for Quill to be worth his time.

“Princess,” he said, bowing his head. “I was wondering if you had considered my proposal.”

She looked up from her throne, eyes reflecting a little of the amusement he’d seen from her in the dream. And the threat of what she would do the next time. “I have,” she said. “And it’s a waste of my time. For once I am confident your proposed solution will not yield fruit. The surface of the moon is a wasteland beyond fathoming. The sun will not return for eleven days. We must somehow survive that time, until the soil above us warms again. Backward and forward we will go, until our grain runs out and you all starve. Or perhaps our supply of stored lightning will deplete first.”

They’d burned through a lightning shell every three days so far. That did not reflect optimistically upon the time left to them.

“It’s a good thing we have stores of food to supply the army before we were decimated,” Quill muttered. “But Princess, please. You’re the only pony in this army who can allow us to travel to the surface. We cannot ignore any solution, no matter how remote it may seem.”

“Perhaps you can’t,” Nightmare Moon muttered, meeting his eyes. “But I am not so quick to forget insults. Instead…” She levitated something from a large chest, holding it before him. A tightly rolled parchment. “Here is the spell I used, scaled down two orders of magnitude. A skilled unicorn should be able to cast this, and maintain it for several hours. Be warned, however, that less air brought means a shorter trip. Likewise—dress not for the cold, but extreme heat. Insulated in a sealed vessel, your own heat will quickly become the dominant force.”

“And we…” He took the scroll, tucking it away under one wing. “We can’t use a spell like this to warm the army? Enchanted upon the stones themselves, perhaps.”

Nightmare Moon leaned back, laughing energetically. “You’re… yes, I suppose you are that ignorant. Cast your mind back a few short weeks, and remember the effort it cost for me to insulate such an area. There is no power short of that to cast such a spell. I could cast it—but doing so would occupy every aspect of my attention, and over time drain the power from me until I was a withered husk.

“To survive, this army must find its own method. And quickly—the sun will not return for eleven days.”

He left, feeling defeated. He had expected retaliation, beyond mere threats. But over her own army? Luna wouldn’t have done this.

Luna’s dead, Quill. Pining for her won’t bring her back.

He hurried from the tent, and was so lost in thought he barely even heard Penumbra’s voice from behind him. “I know what you’ll say…” she began.

“Yes, you do,” he countered. “I won’t, not for anything.”

“Not you, then.” She yanked on him with one leg, stopping him cold. They were in the no-man’s-land between camps, standing in the gloom outside of every fire and glowstone. Other ponies would’ve been uncomfortable there, but not either of them. Bats never feared the dark. “Whatever it is you’re looking for on the surface, there’s another way.”

“I wouldn’t need air,” he said. “I wouldn’t freeze. But I won’t—”

She smacked him lightly with a hoof, right in the shoulder. Not hard enough to hurt or anything, but enough to express her annoyance clearly. “I’m not asking you to do anything. Listen, stupid. I could go up there. If you let the alchemists explain to me what they’re looking for, I could see if it’s there.”

Quill froze, turning over the idea in his mind. “Are you… are you sure that’s safe? I know the Voidseekers are immune to many things that would kill common ponies. But what’s waiting up there—”

“I’m positive,” she said. “Look, I can’t tell you what the others do. But I know, okay? We don’t need this… shield thing, not during the lunar night. I can’t tell you how I know, but I know.”

He met her eyes, nodding weakly. “Alright. Maybe you can help. We can tell them, come on.”

He hurried back to camp. Past the over-attended burrows of ground stone filled with water, where poison was still drawn from the air. The stone was no longer changed nearly as often, and the process had slowed enough that they hadn’t yet needed to return to the surface to replenish it a second time. But they would.

His command tent was now a command building, or at least four walls. No ceiling yet, since they were still discussing exactly how and if those would be built. But four walls and a cloth door, anyway.

Inside he found Cozen and Sylvan sitting side-by-side in intense conversation, bending down over several large scrolls.

“Ploidies interdiction states that the source of energy must be external,” Sylvan argued. “Explain the source for—” He blinked, turning slightly, then rising in his seat. “Quill! Did you bring, uh…”

“No,” he said, cutting him off. “No princess. I did bring another plan, though. And a copy of her spell.” He lifted his wing, tossing it to the table in front of Cozen. “Study this, please. Come to me at once as soon as you have a unicorn who can perform it successfully. It should be safe to test here, perhaps with more of the solid ice from the downward cavern to trace its seal with smoke.”

“We don’t need to be told how to perform our duty,” Cozen snapped, taking the spell in her magic and unrolling it. “But I admit, that does sound sensible. I’ll consider that methodology.”

“What other plan could there be?” Sylvan asked, once Cozen had buried her head completely in the complex spell-diagram. “Is the princess helping us directly for once? All those things she knows that she won’t tell us… maybe we’d be better at this if she would be more generous with information.”

“It is not for us to decide how the princess shares what she knows,” Penumbra said, voice clear and glowering at him. “Or to decide to what extent she should intervene. She has preserved this army through her choices, and she will continue to do so for those who love her will. The Moon protects her own.”

“The Moon protects her own,” Sylvan repeated, defeated.

“It wasn’t her idea, it was mine,” she went on, after a few seconds of meaningful silence from the earth pony. “I don’t need a shield. You can tell me what you’re looking for, and I’ll shadow-step up to get it. The surface above us is bathed in total darkness on all sides—there is nowhere I can’t go.”

“O-oh.” Sylvan looked up, back to Quill. “I’ve never seen the, uh… never seen them help with things like this before.”

“I think Penumbra believes in us,” Quill said, meeting the Voidseeker’s eyes. “In spite of the evidence to the contrary. Be thankful for her help, don’t second-guess her.”

“R-right. Of course.” He lowered his head. “Sorry.” He nudged Cozen with a hoof. “We’re sending a one pony team to the surface. We need to tell her what we’re looking for.”

Cozen looked up from her reading, muttering something arcane under her breath. Her horn now glowed periodically, light enough in the dying glowstones that Quill could see it directly. But with a few more seconds of attention, even that faded, and she met their eyes. “Sending somepony… right, Voidseeker. Well, uh… you explain, Sylvan. I’m reading.”

Sylvan Shade rolled his eyes, then pulled over another scroll. He unrolled it, displaying a sketch of the surface. It was remarkably detailed, complete with the strange holes in the ground, the distant reflection of ice in the single largest one that was so frighteningly close. The burned and broken carts of the many dead.

Whoever had drawn this was a remarkably skilled artist. “Do you remember these?” He pointed at one of the largest holes on the illustration—mostly for Penumbra’s benefit, clearly.

She nodded. “I have been back to the surface more than once since our arrival here. They are a constant nuisance. And a boon I suppose, since some are so deep that the shadows are eternal.”

Sylvan shivered once, avoiding her eyes. “Well, Cozen and I believe these holes are not generated spontaneously. After her work extracting olivine salt for poison removal, she’s convinced that each one contains an object—a stone, probably—that struck the moon to make it. Many of the largest of these openings have very obvious objects at their bottom. Smaller ones, less so, though it may just have failed to survive the crash.”

“I don’t see how this helps mortal ponies not to freeze,” Penumbra said, pushing the drawing aside. “I’ve been in those craters, and they’re very cold. Colder than death itself.”

“Some.” Sylvan was undeterred. “Look at this chart of the primary elements. See how earth and fire are neighbors? We believe the impacts that made these craters would have converted some of the earth in the rocks into fire instead. If we brought them back, we could use them to keep the army warm.”

Penumbra rose from her cushion, backing up a few steps. “You’re asking me to bring something with the element of fire. Did you… see what happened to Permafrost? Voidseekers and fire do not get along.”

“It wouldn’t be actual flames, would it?” Quill asked. If Penumbra couldn’t read, then she probably wouldn’t know enough alchemy to know these things. “Just a conversion of some of the earth in the rock to fire. It would make them warmer, not actually producing flame.”

“Crude, but… yes,” Sylvan agreed. “And if you did see flame, you could mark it on a map for others to collect, rather than putting yourself in danger. Perhaps you could bring something flammable to test it with?”

“No.” Penumbra scanned the room, removing Quill’s empty saddlebags from a hook on one wall. “Flames do not burn out there. I probably wouldn’t burn until I brought it back. But I’ll be safe and touch none of it, just to be sure.” She settled the saddlebags over her armor, turning towards Quill. “Tighten these for me?”

He approached, bending in close to pull them with his mouth. Penumbra held perfectly still, letting him approach. Even though he felt no heat rising from her, he imagined he could feel another sort of tension there, waiting for him. He ignored it, tightening the straps.

She almost sounded disappointed when she spoke next, though the emotion was far too subtle for any of the younger ponies to pick up on. “How will I identify this stone when I find it? There are uncountable millions of rocks up there.”

“Feel their heat,” Sylvan answered. “And if any are warm, bring them back.”

She nodded, to Quill. “My turn to help you keep ponies alive. When your scholars write a book about this, I better be in it.” She stepped back, into the gloomy corner of the room beside a stone bookshelf. As soon as she was obscured in shadow, there was a brief surge of darkness, and Penumbra vanished, taking all their hopes with her.

Chapter 11: Last Chance

Penumbra was gone for hours. Iron Quill had other tasks to do in the meantime—being the Lord Commander of the army wasn’t a position ponies aspired to because it was easy.

He reviewed proposed settlement maps for the caverns, in particular one that Silver Needle had drawn up just the day before.

“We might not even need a magical solution to this,” she said, gesturing at her illustration. “Ponies have been living in frozen environments before, and we’ve always managed.”

“Ponies in the Empire used the Crystal Heart,” Quill said, inspecting her drawings.

They depicted a slice of the huge cavern, no longer structured into military camps but instead into much smaller dormitories, with whole companies sharing each one. Instead of parade grounds and open storage, each one used buildings she’d drawn on another sheet, packed as close to each other as the shields in a defensive formation.

“In the city, maybe. But everywhere else, ponies improvised.”

Silver wasn’t the only pony here—though none of the scientific ponies were present, representatives from his new “company” of non-combatants were here, along with the leaders of the two larger labor organizations from outside the camp. The ones that had once been responsible for supplying their army, and building the permanent fortifications they needed as they advanced into Equestria.

The builder was an older earth pony stallion named Mortar, who scowled down at the blueprints with disdain. “You don’t want us to build this. It’s wasteful, just look.” He held it up towards Quill. “Lord Commander, look at these walls. Two inches, then a cavity, then three more. What a stupid waste of cement.”

“I didn’t think we had cement anymore, Mortar,” said his rival—the only griffin in the entire army, so far as Iron Quill knew. If the old bird knew who he was, she hadn’t ever indicated as much. The burned feathers down her left side wouldn’t be making it any easier for him to sleep tonight. “You can’t build it anyway. But we can, Lord Commander. We’ve already discovered a useful mineral. Our masonry is limited only by our supply of water.”

And our supply of water is tied back to our fading heat. It’s all connected. Nightmare Moon had not lied on the first day, when she said there were a thousand ways they could die. There were probably more than that, all connected and no less terrifying when it finally killed them.

“We’re working on a way to address the water problem,” he said. “Or more accurately, the heat problem. We have a limitless supply of ice, but the oil to melt it is… dwindling rapidly.”

Silver Needle tapped her quill against the table in her magic. “E-excuse me…” she said, voice timid. “It’s, uh… it’s not silly, Lord Commander. Putting everypony together like this, it puts all their heat together too. The internal walls are thin, only the ones built around it use this design.”

“But why?” Mortar asked gently. “Empty space doesn’t keep ponies warm, stone does. Other things would work better—wool maybe, or even straw. But I think we need every bite of it we can get.”

Iron Quill nodded. “The supply of straw is already being mixed with our rations. I suppose there’s no reason we couldn’t store it inside a building.”

“We don’t need to,” Silver said. “Lord Commander, just having the building hollow will be enough. The fort in Defiance is built this way, as well as Castle Icefalls. Those engineers knew what they were doing, even if we don’t. I grew up in Defiance, and it was toasty warm even during the worst blizzards.”

“Very well. Mortar, have your stallions begin making bricks. Store them here, in preparation for assembling the first of these structures.”

He turned. “Jacinda, I want you to pick a place outside of camp, and build two rooms for me, each five foot square. One with walls five inches thick, and another using this method. We will put this design to the test before we commit the resources of the entire army. Send for me when you have my results.”

Both nodded, accepted their payment, and left. Though the gold isn’t unlimited either. How long until ponies start realizing there’s nothing to spend it on?

“There’s really no need,” Silver said, once the contractors were both gone. “I’ve seen it before. This isn’t gambling on something new, it’s well established.”

He nodded. “I’m sorry, Silver. But sometimes I need to waste a little in order to head off challenges before they come. This army will resist your plan—they enjoy their independence. The companies will be furious when we force them to live closer. I must be able to demonstrate that every aspect of the plan is proven.”

She nodded weakly to him. “I… understand, Commander. I’ll continue to learn from you.”

“And pray you never wear this diadem,” he added, as she left. “It isn’t the army we really have to be afraid of, it’s the one who commands them.”

Silver Needle pulled her hood up, shivering as she left the tent behind and returned to the cavern.

The glowstone overhead suddenly dimmed, and the furniture shook. Silver turned to glance inside, and he waved her off. There was nothing for her to do about what was coming.

A second later, and Penumbra emerged from the shadows, bringing a cloud of dust with her that puffed up into the air and scattered all over everything. She brushed it away from her face with one leg, shaking herself out and settling the saddlebag down on the table with a heavy thump. “Why can’t you just ask… something reasonable next time?”

“You’re back!” He jumped to his hooves, hurrying over and scanning the bat for any harm. Even knowing that she wasn’t alive—not really alive, anyway—there was no way not to feel worried. She’d just done something that would’ve killed a regular pony in several different ways, and returned to speak of it. “Are you alright?”

“Fine,” she said. “Just dirty, and maybe a little annoyed. Everypony else was walking around out there, and I thought I got off easy. Stay inside, follow around a pony. Maybe somepony tries to knife him, maybe I have to cut a few throats.” She coughed, expelling a lungful of dust into the air. Not so much exhaled, more like she’d just dumped it from somewhere. “Ugh. That’s awful.”

“You sure you’re alright?” Frost was forming on her armor, turning the polished metal cloudy white. It spread over more than that, covering her coat and mane and her face with a dusty white layer. “You look, uh… cold?”

“Don’t feel cold,” she muttered, brushing away at the ice from her eyes. “Annoying, though. Fairly sure my eyes froze open or something.”

He shuddered, looking away. Too bad I can’t go back and help you make better choices. But that didn’t work out very well for Nightmare Moon. “Do you need a healer?”

“Nothing to heal,” she answered, hacking out another mouthful of dust onto his table. “Just give me a minute to warm up. Well… maybe more than a minute in this wasteland.” She nodded towards the saddlebags. “Found your thing, though.”

Quill leaned forward, flicking the bag open and looking inside.

There was an uneven lump of metal, its shape strangely melted and swept back along one side. It was dull and lumpy, with vaguely circular patterns where it hadn’t been hammered or cut.

But how it looked was less important than the warmth he felt radiating from it.

“Broke that off… something bigger,” Penumbra said, gesturing to the other side, which was almost perfectly flat. “Bottom of a shallow hole, I don’t know how far from here.”

“Wait.” He spread his wings to make her stop, then glanced over his shoulder. “Chain Mail, are you there?”

He poked into the tent. Like most ponies, he now wore full winter gear, a thick cloak over his body along with boots and a hat. “Of course, sir,” he said, breath billowing out in front of him.

“Bring Shade and Cozen, right away.”

They didn’t take long to arrive—Sylvan arrived almost instantly, and Cozen slunk in three or so minutes later, wiping the frost from her face as she clambered in the tent. “Oh, you’re… where’s the campfire?”

“It’s not that much warmer, don’t exaggerate.” Even so, Sylvan sat beside the rock, holding one hoof above it.

“And for the record, it doesn’t burn,” Penumbra said. She’d returned her wrappings by the time these other ponies arrived, though they were still covered in surface dust. “It’s warm, that’s all. Like leaving your sword in the sun all day.”

“What was it like?” Cozen asked, hurrying forward and touching the rock cautiously with one hoof. She didn’t catch on fire either—nothing particularly happened, in fact.

“Was there anything better?” Sylvan asked, not giving her time to speak. “I was looking for something obviously transfigured. This just looks like a semi-pure metal lump.”

Quill just found a chair and watched. He could barely even tell that the tent was warmer, assuming it even was. But he’d felt the metal himself, and it was certainly real.

“I didn’t find anything warmer,” Penumbra said. “I couldn’t tell they were warm without touching them, through my uniform. I went to as many craters as I could. All I can tell you is the more metaly-looking ones like this were the hottest. There were lots that seemed more… rocky? Those weren’t as warm. But still warmer than the sand.”

“The rock didn’t finish elemental transmutation,” Sylvan muttered, finally taking his hoof away and hurrying across the room to his cart. He started shuffling through it.

“No,” Cozen said. “I think we were wrong about transfiguration. The impact must not have been strong enough.” She looked up, meeting Quill’s eyes. “Did you feel this when it first arrived, Quill?”

“Lord Commander,” he corrected, without much anger. “Yes, as soon as she took it out. It could probably warm one soldier’s bunk quite nice, but not much more. It isn’t the solution we were looking for, is it?”

“It’s not that.” Cozen gestured. “Could you touch it again? I want you to tell me if it doesn’t seem as warm as the first time.”

Sylvan hurried past them with a file and a little box. Before Quill could protest, the earth pony scraped away at the rough edges of the stone, sending sparks up into the air. “Ah hah!” he said. “I’m nearly certain, just give me another moment…” And he dashed back to the cart, digging through little jars and vials.

Quill walked past him, eyeing the earth pony skeptically in case he was going to charge across the room again and run into him. When he didn’t, he touched the stone with the side of his leg. Not the frog, that was just too sensitive.

As before, the rock felt pleasantly warm to the touch. “I, uh… I suppose it might be a tiny bit cooler. It isn’t as uncomfortable this time.”

“I don’t think this is alchemical at all,” Cozen muttered, slumping into one of the cushions. “Another dead end, Sylvan.”

“How?” He looked up, holding up a little clear vial. He added the metal filings, and it tinged slightly green. “Because it’s just iron?”

“Well yes, but not just that.” She turned, addressing Quill. “There’s no conversion here, Lord Commander. This is just iron. It’s warm because the craters your… she found it in were in the sun. They must have… retained some of their heat, somehow. It really is like leaving a sword in the sun. I don’t see how this could help us during weeks of night.”

“It’s just iron?” Penumbra stomped past them, removing her armored gauntlet and reaching out for the metal. The other two turned away, shielding their eyes and shivering. But there was nothing under there but pony.

“Oh please.” Penumbra pulled her leg back, sticking the armor back on. “You know that’s just a story, right? You won’t have a life of nightmares if you see me.”

“Really?” Sylvan relaxed, settling his vial on the table. “I thought that information was reliable.”

“Those stories are to protect our identity from outsiders who can’t be trusted,” Penumbra said. “But there aren’t many outsiders here on the moon, are there? Ponies saw my face all the time when I was working, and they didn’t have nightmares.”

“There’s so little real magic out there,” Cozen agreed. “Even when we want it, there’s nothing to be found.”

“Usually we just cut their throats,” Penumbra went on, her tone so casual Quill didn’t believe for a second she wasn’t doing it intentionally. “So they couldn’t reveal who we were.”

Sylvan froze, clutching at his throat with one leg.

“You saw her leg,” Quill pointed out. “Don’t frighten the ponies I need to be clever.”

“It sounds like they were saying I took that trip for nothing,” she said, glowering. “You know how hard it is to get dust out of your mane when we don’t have the water for bathing anymore? Very.”

“I’ll go myself next time,” Cozen muttered. “Look, I’m not happy about it either. But the truth isn’t going to change just because we don’t like it. If it’s not the solution, we need to find what is. Before we freeze.”

“Seems like you have it already.” Penumbra sat down beside Quill at the table, something he couldn’t ever remember her doing. She showed no sign of returning to the shadows. Maybe she wanted to get dust all over them.

Sylvan turned, walking away from them to the construction sketches on the far side of the room. He didn’t seem to be paying attention.

“We don’t,” Cozen snapped, glowering. “We’ve explored every option, believe me. There are spells that make heat, but they take concentration from the caster, and tremendous energy. I don’t think anypony besides the princess herself could do more than five minutes of the spell before it collapsed.”

“Not that,” Penumbra said. “I don’t know anything about unicorn magic. What makes you think I was talking about that?”

Cozen glared. “Well, there’s no alchemical way to just make heat either, not with what we have. Many reactions produce fire in direct or indirect ways, but we don’t have them in quantity. We would need to mine an endless supply.”

“Not that either,” Penumbra said. “I know even less about alchemy than I do about unicorn magic. At least I sometimes have to fight unicorns, and I have to know how they might try to kill me. But alchemy—that’s for scholars in high towers. Totally safe.”

“There’s conversion,” Cozen went on. “And we’re already working on that. It might help, I don’t know how much. Lord Commander, you don’t need to have her do this. Just because I forgot your—”

“I didn’t tell her to do anything,” Quill interjected. “But I do find it useful to hear what you’ve tried and what failed. What do you mean, Penumbra?”

She took another moment before she finally answered. At least the frost seemed to be gone from her coat, melting away in the more comfortable temperatures of the tent. They weren’t all freezing to death quite yet. “The thing you’re doing to melt water,” she went on. “The… metal. You heat it up with tiny bits of lightning, it gets warm, ice melts. Why not just stand up one of those facing the cave, really huge, and just… blast it? So long as nopony touches it, they shouldn’t get fried, right?”

“Because…” Cozen stopped. “Why don’t we do that?”

“Because making something that large would take ages, and by the time we finished forging it the sun would be out already. And because we only have so many bolts. Those are how we’re making air, so… when they run out, we’ll be double-dead.”

“There’s a better way!” Sylvan hurried over, dragging one of Silver Needle’s preliminary sketches. It showed the camp all packed in near the top of the cave, where it was still long and thin instead of the expansive dome they were in now.

Other than the basic wall design and close quarters everypony would be living in, the design had been so covered in Sylvan’s sketches that it barely even resembled the same plan anymore.

On the lunar surface above, shown only as a single line in the drawing, a vast flat sheet was now visible, made of metal with a few conical spikes running down—all the way down, into the cavern itself.

“This is…” Quill frowned, studying the drawing. What it had to do with the things they’d learned, he honestly had no idea. Metal getting warm in the sun of the lunar surface, sure, but…

“It’s all back to this rock,” Sylvan said, tapping the warm metal lump with one hoof. “Why this is still warm… it’s all connected!”

“Okay.” Quill sat back in his cushion. The sketch didn’t just have metal running straight into the center of each camp, there was some strange interlocking mechanism. But he ignored those for now in favor of the more obvious problem. “The hollow moon is what’s holding our air in, Sylvan. You’ve just made holes in the roof.”

“Yes yes,.” Sylvan waved a dismissive hoof. “There are clearly ways to stop it from leaking with rock and ice, or it wouldn’t stay here in the first place. That’s the least important part of all this.”

Cozen leaned across the table, inspecting his design. “You should stick to alchemy, Sylvan. I’ve built enough magic tricks in my time to know it won’t work. Too many moving parts. We need something simpler.”

“This is cute and all.” Penumbra glared between them. Particularly at Cozen, who was hurrying over to the drawings and looking through more of them. She found an early version of the structures in the current dome, and stole Sylvan’s quill to mark it up herself. “But you didn’t actually say how this stupid plan is supposed to work. You’re already changing it, without even…” She rose from the table, turning away. “Whatever, Quill, you sort this. We’re all still alive so far, I assume you know how to herd these bats.” She stepped back, vanishing into the gloom.

And of course, she wasn’t wrong. “Please explain, Sylvan. We went to the surface to find fire-stone, and we failed. So what’s the point of… all that?”

“Heat,” he said. “Well, heat and water. It’s all connected. We play to our strengths. What do we have in endless supply? Ice and stone. And the surface has as much metal as we could ever need. I’ve been…” He trailed off. “I’ve been part of this army long enough to see what a determined Alicorn can accomplish when she really wants to. Her and the Voidseekers could fly far, bring back tons of metal like this, then she could use her magic to melt and shape it into the largest possible sheet.”

He nodded towards the lump. “It’s warming in the sun. The more metal can see the sun, the more it heats. So it’s widest at the top, then narrowing and thickening to bring the heat below. Down here, they’ll be submerged in water, with more thin metal on the outside facing into everywhere ponies live. We can use screw-pumps to lift it out and into smaller tubes. If it gets too hot, we just shut them off, and close the water off with—”

“Too complicated,” Cozen said again. “Good premise, way too hard to build.”

She turned her own sketch over. “See these changes, Lord Commander?”

It looked much the same, except that instead of a dozen little cones pointing down, there was just one massive section, leading into a large reservoir filled with water. “Instead of one cone and one tank and one pump for each company, we have just one of each in the center of our single building—or the cave, whichever. When it’s warm or we’re thirsty, we add ice. When night comes, we open a chute here, and the hottest water can flow down through more metal in each building around it. The water flows passively back to a collection tank at the bottom, and we have a single pump there to lift it back into the top.”

“I do like your design,” Sylvan muttered. “The difficulty is getting the single large chunk of metal. The entire plan revolves around the princess’s cooperation. Nothing will work without her.”

“Actually it seems to rely on… thousands of bits of construction, a total reorganization of our camps, and some still fairly-complex mechanisms.”

“Don’t worry about the last one,” Cozen said. “We already have some skilled tinkerers in the new camp. They can build the pump.”

“I’ll have to take the plan to the princess,” Quill said. “Only she can decide if she is willing to scour the moon searching for metal, and flatten it in this way. But supposing she supports the plan, we still have to survive ten days before the sun returns. And… we’ll still have one opening to the outside, won’t we? This metal spike drives right through the ceiling above us.”

“Melt it,” Sylvan said. “Melted sand is glass, and glass holds air. Melting enough for a vessel for all of us is beyond our power. But melting a seal around a single object is certainly within reach of an Alicorn. Considering everything else she’s done…”

“It depends on her.” Quill rose suddenly, lifting a fresh parchment scroll and settling it in front of them. “Draw a clean version of the second plan. I have another plan to keep the camp alive in the meantime. These ponies are going to bucking follow my orders this time.” Even as he strode from the tent, he unslung the Lord Commander’s horn from his shoulder, and gave three short blasts. The cave rumbled with it, and his summons was given.

They came. Not galloping in with their honor guard within minutes at most, as had once been the case for the best-honored of all the army’s Lord Commanders. But they still came, meeting him outside the tent. All had fitting uniforms now, cleaned of the bloodstains and tears that had been common on the first day.

Or maybe that was just the thick coats, covering up everything but their eyes in some cases. A few captains had forgone armor completely for bundles of winter marching gear.

“Three blasts,” Uttermost said, as soon as they were all there. “Are we marching back to Equestria, at long last?”

“My stallions are at the breaking point,” another captain said. “We better be returning soon. I don’t know that the army will survive much longer.”

Iron Quill shook his head once. He watched for the signs of disloyalty, or the arguments about to begin, but none came. He saw a little fear from some of them, in fact, eyes that glanced to his belt and the sword hanging there. Iron Quill had taken the most powerful warrior in the army and burned him alive before their eyes.

If fear is what it takes to get them to follow me, then I’m okay with that. So long as their ponies survive. “We march, but we cannot yet leave the moon. Only the princess can do that, and she devotes all her power to it every moment.” She also doesn’t think she’ll be able to do it for years and that we’re all doomed.

“Then where are we marching to?” Uttermost asked.

“The tunnel entrance,” Quill said. “You have two hours to marshal your troops. Tell them to leave all supplies of war behind—no weapons of any kind. They are to carry camp bunks, any blankets or freezing weather clothing they own, and their personal effects.”

“And we’re marching to…” said White Tallow. He’d been first to side with Permafrost, which meant he was now among the most fearful of these ponies. But apparently willing enough to question him.

“The tunnel,” he said. “We will march past my camp, to where the camp followers have begun establishing their… whatever they’re building.”

“I assume you’ll be leaving your soldiers here,” Tallow muttered. “With all that’s left of our oil and wood to burn. While the rest of us freeze with the scraps.”

“No.” He cleared his throat, glaring harshly. “And if you ever suggest I’m disloyal to this army again…” He didn’t follow through on the threat, staring intently at White Tallow until his ears finally flattened and he looked away. Quill went on. “My scholars have determined a solution, but it will not help us until the sun returns. We must survive until then with what we have. Any of you who have served in the far north should recognize what I suggest.”

“Smaller tent is a warmer tent,” somepony said.

“Right. We will make a tent warm enough to survive, while remaining close enough to briefly allow the cold in and keep exchanging our air with what is produced in my camp. Many of my ‘soldiers’ will be forced to continue their work so that you can keep breathing.”

There might’ve been objections before, either in the form of fierce arguments or silent agreement that hid a true intention not to act. He saw neither now. “I’ll be bringing all the oil we have left. Not the wood—my alchemist tells me we must conserve that. But the oil we will bring, and we will burn if necessary. If you do not follow my orders, all your stallions will freeze. Are we clear?”

He waited for their agreement, one at a time.

“Then go.” He lifted the horn, blowing three blasts again. “And remember—no weapons. If I find so much as a dagger on any of your stallions, I’ll order the Voidseeker to stick it in your gut.”

A lie of course, he still wouldn’t break the sacred protection captains were afforded. But as he stormed away, he caught one last glance of their faces.

They believed him.

Chapter 12: City

Iron Quill watched from the front of his camp as the army passed. They marched in tight order, with many of the soldiers looking eager to be moving. Don’t worry, I’ll have you all working soon enough.

But ultimately it wasn’t these soldiers or their captains that he feared. These troops were demoralized, but he hardly needed to force them into doing something whose only intention was warming them up. Their captains were now suitably frightened into submission… though he would’ve preferred they think for themselves instead.

But far more critical than either, the princess herself. The pony who had watched as her captains nearly killed the pony who’d saved their lives twice over. The only one with the skills to manage their supplies. The one who didn’t order the troops to dig ditches and burn torches for light.

Penumbra joined him in the air as he crossed the cavern towards the throne tent, so quiet that he didn’t even notice she was with him until he glanced behind and saw the little trail of dust she was leaving.

That seemed like her sign to speak, moving in closer so he would be able to hear her even in flight. “You’re really going to ask her to… build that thing?” she asked, nodding towards the long blueprint emerging from one saddlebag. “The princess herself, using her power as bidden by one of her servants, instead of at her own pleasure?”

He shrugged. “I’m sure it’s at her pleasure to save all our lives, isn’t it? If she wants an army to take back Equestria and get her revenge, they need to survive. This is the way. She said so herself, over and over—she doesn’t know how to save these ponies.”

“And yet she knows so much,” Penumbra said solemnly. “She knew to make a bubble of air for you, she knew about the things that make up the air. Things nopony on Equestria have any reason to know. Why do you suppose that is?”

Quill slowed in his flight, though hovering in the icy cave was no longer a terribly comfortable thing. He had to remove his wings from his robe to fly, and they did not like the cold anymore than he did. Up near the ceiling, he could see ice condensing on almost every surface, an even coating that dribbled down to stalagmites on certain rock-formations.

“Nopony knows where the princesses came from,” he finally said, stopping in the air. This wasn’t the kind of conversation he wanted to have outside the princess’s tent, where it would be overheard by the Voidseekers and repeated to her. But he trusted Penumbra more than that. “Presumably the secret is there.”

“What do you know?” Penumbra asked, turning on him in the air.

Better question, what are you trying to tell me?

But he had no reason not to answer. “I know they arrived after the Allwinter, in the first century of Equestria’s unification. That was… long ago. They took over the role of the Council of Seasons. They’re ageless, nearly unkillable…”

“None of that answers the important question,” Penumbra said. She hovered closer, flying so close that she pressed her face up against Quill’s ear, whispering into it over the sound of his flapping wings. “Ever since we got here, the Voidseekers have been looking for something, everypony but me. Several of us were killed trying to find it—you know first hoof how hard that is.”

If Permafrost didn’t think I was a shriveled old stallion who had never lifted a sword, I wouldn’t have stood a chance. “What is she looking for?”

Penumbra pulled away, her eyes suddenly pained. “Ask her.”

Quill turned back, and angled into a gentle dive. Moving his wings in the cold was getting harder, despite how much easier flying had been at first. He glided back towards the throne tent, watching for any sign of change.

He found it—several Voidseekers were there, each wearing thick traveling clothes or armor, dented and scorched. Dust covered several of them, along with frost on a few. They’ve just come from outside. Why bring all of them back, unless…

He ignored that thought, shoving through the crowd and into the tent. The door was open, so there was no reason to fear Nightmare’s reaction.

She stood over a massive map, showing what Quill could only assume was the lunar surface itself, plotted in immense detail. Only instead of the one he had of their first bubble, this map continued for what he guessed was… That can’t be right. There’s not that much moon.

Aminon was the only one here, though like the other Voidseekers he seemed to be dressing more for the desert than a blizzard. His robes were thin, and obviously would have covered his whole body. Now his face was exposed—safe in the presence of the princess and other bats.

“Surely we can send him away, Princess? We don’t have further need of him anymore.”

Nightmare Moon ignored him, raising a wing to silence him. “Iron Quill only enters my presence when he requires something of me. I heard you’ve been making changes, Lord Commander. Again.”

He nodded, stepping up beside the map and glancing covertly down once. It was centered on their current location, though the cavern they were in was but a single dot. And somewhere far away, hundreds of leagues at least if he was reading the map right, were sketched… ruins? That couldn’t be right.

“Guilty, Princess. I believe my team and I have discovered a solution to our temperature problem, and our drinking water supply problem as well.”

“An empty accomplishment. You’re the reason the army still needs them. They wouldn’t have chosen death over a promise.”

Quill’s expression hardened. But he didn’t want to get into an argument with Aminon here, not in front of the princess. They all needed her help.

“Explain your solution as quickly as you can,” Nightmare Moon said, settling back on her cushion. “And before you open your mouth to say it—there is no coal here, and no oil either. The volcanic activity that created this cavern-system is unfathomably ancient, and the crust does not warm meaningfully at the depths we can reach. We cannot use unicorn magic or build a structure large enough to harvest angular momentum.”

Quill stared, feeling even more confused than he had when Cozen did this. Nightmare Moon had thought about this, she hadn’t just turned over the solution to him. A pony with far more power and experience than me already tried to come up with a solution and failed.

Quill removed the blueprint from his saddlebags, stretching and unrolling it atop the lunar map. “We cannot continue surviving here if we treat the moon like some Equestrian field. This is where we will live now—every creature in your army, and all the others we brought. The design can be expanded as needed if the population increases, or sections closed off if we no longer need them.”

Nightmare Moon stopped looking imperiously out at nothing and levitated the blueprint up to her face, inspecting it. Quill had ensured it was printed perfectly, with clearly-labeled sections, and diagrams for the mechanical parts where possible.

Finally she set it down, expression utterly baffled. “How did you conceive of this? Did you find… no, absolutely not. I refuse to entertain the thought that my entirely mortal Lord Commander… monk and recluse of dirt farming primitives located my home before I did.”

Quill shook his head. “I have…” He didn’t want to lie. “I knew you were searching for something, but I wasn’t. I don’t even know if I have unicorns who can travel to the surface yet, Princess. Please, consider the plan we’ve constructed. It will require significant assistance from you.”

He explained the plan swiftly, the large lump of metal that would channel heat down into a vast cistern of water, which would melt their ice and heat water they could send into individual sections of the structure as needed.

“The mechanism is fed by water’s natural flow, which we have observed even here—at a reduced rate, but that will still suffice. Please, Princess. Gathering enough metal to cover enough surface for this project is beyond anything that could be conceived up without an Alicorn’s power. And since the metal must pierce the ceiling overhead—I would trust no other to that, even if it were possible for my workers to complete that labor.”

“Ever wasting time,” Aminon whispered, as soon as he had finished. At least he hadn’t interrupted during the process, just glared daggers and waited for him to shut up. “Princess, we have Vanaheimr. We require nothing further.”

“Aminon, you never fail to impress. Consider your efforts rewarded as we agreed. But Nightmare’s drive can be overwhelming for a single mind, even one as sharp as yours.” She held up the blueprint in her magic again, before rolling it and offering it back to Quill. “This is why I have always had a mortal Lord Commander. Outsiders do not build.” Nightmare Moon turned her back on him then, her horn glowing faintly blue. “I promised I would show you my nightmares, Quill. Come with me and see.”

He tucked the blueprints away, sparing one glance over his shoulder for Penumbra. She wilted under Aminon’s gaze, though no words had been exchanged. I hope you’re okay, Penumbra.

“Princess!” The Lord of the Voidseekers rose, following her quicker than Quill could. “Shouldn’t I be with you? That shriveled old… pony… will not be any help to you.”

Nightmare Moon turned, fixing him with an intense glare. “It would destroy you,” she said. “Do you wish to die today, Aminon?”

He retreated, ears flattening. He made no further objections.

What about me? You praise our work, but does that mean you’ll help, or… Quill had no choice but to follow. “Will it kill me, Princess?”

“I don’t know,” she said, voice flat. “But we will find out.”

Her horn flashed; whatever spell she’d been building finally complete. A doorway appeared on the tent wall, outlined in glowing blue. It swung open, into a smooth stone hallway. They stepped through together.

Quill followed his princess through strange corridors of stone, perfectly black and lit only with a flicker from Nightmare Moon’s horn. “You must remain beside me at all times,” she said. “There is no atmosphere here, and there are magical dangers beyond your comprehension. Your only hope of survival is to remain at my side.”

They crossed from one twisting corridor into another that was much wider, with bits of rubble and collapsed ceiling fallen at random. It wasn’t much further before they reached their first body.

Where he could see skin and fur, it looked a little like a mummy, shriveled and frozen. A stumpy horn poked from its head, though the bulges in its clothes also suggested it might have other things. Probably just the way it rotted.

The pony stared forward with empty sockets; its face twisted in death. Even its clothing was unlike anything he’d ever seen before, impossibly fine-stitched, with a slightly reflective cast where Luna’s horn struck it.

A broken object had fallen onto the ground beside it, made of something dull with a pane of glass fixed inside. A mare then, and this was her makeup mirror.

Nightmare Moon stopped, staring down at the dead. For once he could see no rage on her face. Even in the gloom, her eyes didn’t look slitted anymore. “Do the dead bother you, Quill?”

He shook his head. “I assisted with many burials with the Ordo Celestial. And before that, I put many ponies in their graves in other ways.”

She rose, dropping the strange object. Quill caught it, slipping it into his saddlebags before hurrying to catch up. The princess didn’t react, and apparently didn’t care.

“My sister and I… we swore we’d never talk about this place again,” she said, voice faltering. “But now the Tyrant banished me here, any oaths I made to her are broken. Look upon our home, Quill. See what no mortal pony has witnessed.”

They passed through another doorway—and back in time. Some distant part of his mind recognized the dream-magic working. The Nightmare Princess had overlapped the real world with a dream so real that he could walk through it, hear it, smell it.

They emerged from a stone hallway into a massive atrium, so tall that the ceiling was lost over his head. A spectacular fountain dominated the center of the room, with paths that led under waterfalls and between lush trees and well-manicured flowers.

The ponies living here were Alicorns. They flew in small groups overhead, between the structures that lined the strange vertical space. He heard their voices, their happy conversations in a language he did not speak.

Nightmare Moon strode forward towards the fountain, taking each step nervously. Quill soon saw why—there were two figures playing in the edge of the water. Fillies, with their strange clothes left hanging on a branch.

Celestia and Luna.

“She doesn’t think I remember…” Nightmare Moon whispered. “But how could I forget?” The atrium around them transformed. A spectacular glass dome far overhead was now open to the sky, caked over with dust in places. The sun showed through the dome through various openings--the sun his own ponies desperately needed. But so far away. Dust had rained down on everything here—the dry fountain, a few skeletal remains of trees.

And many bodies.

They were all arranged on one side of the room, wearing bulky, oversized armor unlike anything he’d seen before.

And unlike the corpse he’d seen in the hallway, these had clearly rotted in their armor before they froze. But they were frozen now, mares and stallions, adults and foals. “How many died here?”

“All of us.” Nightmare Moon turned her back on the dead, crossing a bridge over a dry water-feature and towards one of the other large hallways leading away. “Some of the old magic is still working. We must disable it if the Voidseekers are to be able to penetrate this place.”

Quill hurried to catch up with her, before the thin veil of air she brought for them could leave him behind. “This is how you know… the things you know,” Quill said, as soon as he’d caught up with her. “This place has been… above us all this time? How has nopony discovered it?”

Nightmare Moon laughed. “We’re on the moon’s ‘dark’ side—facing away from Equus below. You would need to send a probe over our heads, and even then it’s a little metal speck on the scale of planets and moons.”

They passed through a series of metal doors, each one thicker than any vault he’d ever seen. Each one broken and shattered, with little pieces of metal all over the ground. There were bodies, but more of the things he saw looked like broken… clockwork? He couldn’t place them.

“Only the betrayer knows this is here,” Nightmare Moon continued. “I wonder if it is where she meant to send us. I think she believed there were survivors. Do you know why it took my Voidseekers so long to find this place? We’re exactly reverse to camp right now, as far from Vanaheimr as it is possible to be. For the best, perhaps.” She lowered her head. “Nothing and no one survived. No reactor, feel it? No, you don’t. There’s nothing here but corpses.”

Quill followed as they entered another large space, this one packed with more unplaceable metal… cabinets? Many had glass faces shattered, with long strings of metal spilling out like their guts. He followed his princess between them, as she searched for—who knew what.

“Why are we here, Princess?” he asked, quietly. “Unless you feel that educating me is reason enough. Of course I respect that. But shouldn’t we save the army first?”

“We will,” she said, without apparent insult. “We are here for the metal, as you suggest. But we are also here for something else.”

They emerged from the aisles of metal cabinets, into an open space. Thick pipes ran from several different directions to a pedestal, with a single object resting on top. It looked like a diamond, larger than his hoof and with a brilliant glow, as even as the sun.

Quill felt his eyes watering as he saw it, and for a moment he could almost imagine he was back in Equestria, walking through Golden Gate’s gardens.

Just behind it was another metal door, larger than all the others by far. It was angled slightly down and shut with jaws of interlocking teeth thicker than his whole body. “What is that?”

He turned and realized suddenly that Nightmare Moon hadn’t stepped into the light. She crouched in the shadow of a broken cabinet, staring ahead. “This is the Polestar. When my parents’ parents fled here across the universe, it lit their way. It protects the armory even now. Three of my Voidseekers were destroyed trying to open it.”

She raised her voice, though it was hard to be intimidated when she cowered in the shadows like that. There’s something so powerful that even Nightmare Moon is afraid of it? “It does not permit me any further. Go, Quill. Take it and open the armory. With the weapons inside, my sister’s spell will shatter. Equestria will kneel.”

Quill turned away from the strange stone, walking back to the princess. Surrounded by unnatural sunlight, he felt braver than he ever had. “If I can’t, or I die…” He lifted the blueprints out of his pack, passing them to her. “We don’t give up on them, even if we’re stuck here. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” she said. “And if you die—at least open the door in the process. However many we can save on this dead rock; we can save more below. We can save all that we brought, and all those who suffer under my sister’s rule. Release us from this prison.”

Quill turned away, back towards the strange stone. Was it his imagination, or was it watching him? As he walked, he subconsciously removed his hood, then unwound the scarf from his neck. He started to sweat in the heat of the warmest Skyforge summer.

He stopped beside the pedestal, which was slightly too high to comfortably reach. It had been built for Alicorns, like everything else in this strange place. That meant the gemstone was right in front of him, almost at eye level.

Through the brilliant glow, he saw something black, a perfect sphere with a single line traced around it. How can the darkness light everything so bright?

He wiped the sweat from his brow, circling the stone. He could see nothing holding it in, no spells so far as he knew how to recognize them. But then—he could feel the heat, and an even white light so bright that he felt like it should be making him transparent. If that wasn’t magic, he wasn’t sure what was.

Iron Quill reached forward cautiously with one hoof, touching the stone.

He fell—through space and time and places that had neither. His mind stretched through places as bright as the Hvergelmir had been dark, places of impossible curves and numberless angles and a million unblinking eyes.

A figure appeared, a patch where light wasn’t so pale. It was so indistinct he couldn’t tell what it was meant to be. It was too tall to be an ordinary pony, certainly.

Then it spoke. Not with words—but directly in his mind. “Present uniformity seeks Eigenstate Switch? Why?”

He screamed, dropping to the floor as blood dribbled from his eyes, his nose, his mouth. His own memories dragged in front of him—battlefields filled with the dead, cold nights, watching Rockroost burn. He hacked and coughed, vomiting what was left of his breakfast out onto the icy floor.

“Uniformity presents contact with low-energy state,” the voice said, forcing him to see another memory. An ancient stone archway somewhere lost in the Everfree forest, with steps that floated through the void and led to a tower of black onyx. “Sacrosanct? Purify?”

“Had… to…” he croaked; voice feeble. “No… choice…”

Thousands of soldiers—all of Luna’s officers, and many others besides. Less than half of them would return.

“Purify?” the voice asked again, tone completely unchanged, utterly disinterested. “Odium of disillusion insufficient. Eigenstate Switch consecrated.”

If I say yes… Nightmare Moon gets a weapon like this. “No…” he stammered. His whole body shook with pain, anguish that was now as mental as it was physical. How many more Rockroosts would there be if Nightmare Moon took a weapon so powerful that a city of Alicorns had to lock it away? “Kill me… first…”

“Entropic scarring repaired. Input request—protect. Compromised agent: Nightmare Moon. Observing.”

Something lifted Quill off his hooves, towing him across the room like a doll, trailing smoke. He spread his wings desperately, catching himself before he could smash into the metal furniture.

He wobbled, then flopped to one side, breathing heavily. It felt like he was someone’s pastry that had spent a few days too long in the oven. Maybe the cold isn’t so bad after all.

Next thing he knew, Nightmare Moon towered over him. He looked up, and nearly screamed at what he saw—the princess had a shadow, stretching forward towards the Polestar’s light instead of away from it. She stared down at him, a mixture of disappointment and awe on her face. “It didn’t kill you.”

He rolled weakly onto his hooves or tried. He barely had the strength to stand anymore. “I think I… might wish it had. I think I’ve gone from rare to well-done.”

Nightmare Moon laughed. “My sister said that a thousand ponies came to this place at the end, to take its weapons and defend Vanaheimr. It burned Alicorns to cinders, and you… you’re only lightly scorched.”

“Maybe it likes bats,” he grunted, struggling to his hooves. The light had felt so welcoming before—and it still did. But he wouldn’t try to remove it again. His legs shook as he crossed the room to where the blueprints had fallen, scooping them up again and sliding them into his saddlebags.

“I don’t… know.” Nightmare Moon looked away from the light, and didn’t watch him until he returned to the alley with her. “Did it tell you anything? There’s an intelligence in there—a powerful one, older than you can imagine.”

He nodded faintly. “It said… words I don’t understand. Uniformity, low-energy state… purify. A few others.”

Nightmare Moon shrugged, glancing down at the blueprint he carried one last time. “A terrible shame. The weapons in there would certainly get us back to Equestria. It was a distant hope, however. My sister must’ve known we would fail, or else we wouldn’t have been banished here in the first place.”

“You could try,” Iron Quill said, wiping a little of the slime and sweat away from his face. He probably should’ve kept his damn mouth closed.

All of the Alicorn’s sympathy vanished from her face, eyes narrowing to slits. “Even for a Lord Commander, you grow too bold.” There were two voices speaking then, though the effect was far subtler than when Nightmare simply took control of one of its lesser creatures. “If you ever speak of this again, I will scatter your ashes to the solar wind.”

“I won’t,” he promised, unable to meet her eyes. He could only guess why she didn’t accompany the threat with violence—but nothing came. Maybe it was the strange light. “Humblest apologies, Princess. I would rather narrow my focus to our true purpose. Building that.”

Nightmare Moon glowered down at him for a moment more, before she turned away. Was that confusion on her face? “You’ve proven yourself a… faithful servant today, if anything. I know a place where we can find enough metal for your purpose. Come with me.

The trip was not long, but it also wasn’t pleasant. They passed through thousands of the dead, both wearing the strange armor, and not. The latter were easier, since the cold and the void had done nothing worse than embalm them. He did his best to see them as little as possible.

They returned to the lunar surface, protected by Nightmare’s powerful magic. It was Quill’s first look at the city called Vanaheimr. At first, he was a little disappointed.

There were humps under the soil in places, and a vast field where the rocks had been cleared and the soil itself was tilled in little rows whose purpose he couldn’t imagine.

Only the massive atrium tower seemed to stretch above the soil. It was even stranger from the outside, looking like something even larger with huge sections missing. Tunnels ran into its base and spread out from it, all below the surface.

Except for a flat stretch of land, not far from a tunnel exit. The ground was a single strange rock, flat and gray like nothing he’d ever seen before. It stretched as large as a castle’s footprint, maybe larger. Objects lay broken and smashed on it, along with thousands more bodies.

As they approached, the field changed. The expanse was airless and silent, yet he could still hear the agonized screams. Ponies fled from the tunnel, towards a set of towering metal objects that emerged nose-first from the ground. They didn’t make it. Lumps of metal rained down on them from above, so fast that they caught the air on fire and melted anyone standing too close.

Some of the Alicorns tried to defend themselves—their magic wasn’t strong enough. A flash of silver came hurtling for Quill—and suddenly they were standing at the base of an ancient metal hulk. There were six like it, though no two had broken in exactly the same way. Roughly cylindrical objects, each like a crushed barrel caved in.

“She was wrong,” Nightmare Moon said, settling down on her haunches and staring out at the field. “All six ships are still here. We really… we really were the last.”

“What was that?” Quill asked, voice still shocked. “What killed you?”

Nightmare turned to glower at him. “Do you wish for an answer, or for my help?”

“Help,” he said instantly, pausing to hack and cough. He could barely stay on his hooves anymore—the Polestar had left little of him behind. “This is the metal you mean to use?”

There was so much, polished perfectly silver, with the strange writing all over it. He could read it now. “Evacuation Shuttle 1” said the first. The ground at their hooves read “Main Launch Platform—keep clear at all times.”

“We never should’ve died here,” Nightmare Moon whispered. “But at least some of what we built will serve in death. Rather like the Voidseekers.”

She took to the air, spreading her wings. She didn’t actually flap them though, holding herself there with magic alone. “This is my moon, sister. It was a mistake sending me to the place of my greatest strength.”

The ground began to shake under Quill’s hooves, and he took off as well. He could barely fly, though at least the cold wasn’t bothering him right now.

The first of the massive “evacuation shuttles” lifted up into the air, glowing blue along its edges. It tore free of the remains of metal scaffolds on either side, shedding strange mechanical devices and corpses that had been fleeing up the ramp. For all her connection to this place, Nightmare Moon didn’t seem to care much what happened to the dead. “If you won’t… fly us home… then you will serve us another way.”

Nightmare Moon roared, her dark shadow stretching longer and longer in front of her. Quill hardly noticed it in the dead city, but in the light of her own magic it was impossible to miss. The shadow stretched opposite from her mane, its red eyes seeming to watch him from the soil below.

The massive metal object began to deflate, turning bright red and warping. Quill had seen this shape before, though he hadn’t expected to see it all at once. Nightmare Moon was crafting in a single instant what he had thought would take many weeks to forge and hammer and nail together.

The flat metal sunshade, tapered downward to a hollow rod that would pierce the moon’s surface, and descend to the camp.

The air before them tore open in a single gigantic line, just barely wide enough for the sunshade’s top. “With me, Iron Quill! Let us leave this city of desolation.”

He glanced back at the single exposed tower of Vanaheimr, then followed Nightmare Moon through the portal.

I guess we might not freeze after all.

Chapter 13: Sunrise

Some part of Iron Quill hoped that some of what the Polestar had done had made him magically immune to the cold. But as he returned to the colony beside the exhausted princess, he was disappointed. The air still caught in his chest with his first breath, sucking what little of his strength was left and assaulting him like a physical force.

As he entered the cave, he stopped for a moment to appreciate Nightmare Moon’s work. A gigantic metal spike pierced the ceiling now, almost directly overhead. It didn’t make it quite to the cave floor, but close. There on the far side of the cave was the shelter he had ordered, with everypony except those cleaning the air tucked away in a tiny area for sharing warmth.

He didn’t go to the warmth, but straight to his own camp. He tried to fly, but the ice bit into his wings so quickly that he had to land, tucking them under his robe and tightening his scarf about his face. The frost he exhaled didn’t even float away anymore, but straight down to join a surprisingly thick layer of moisture on most of the cave floor. How cold can it get up here? Nightmare Moon had said, when they first arrived: colder than the void.

He stopped outside his tent, where many of the gawking crowd was looking and pointing. Nightmare Moon had done nothing—either too exhausted from the effort, or content to let him take credit. Whichever, he wouldn’t waste it. Did he still have the strength to yell like a soldier?

Yes, as it turned out.

“Ponies of the Lunar Army, and those trapped with us!” He shook free of his robe, spreading his wings again. He could hover for a few seconds; he had enough warmth for that. That way the ponies would be able to see him, even with the slope. “This is not an attack, or any reason to fear. My engineers have designed a method to prevent this cold from returning!

“We have some work to do if we wish to survive the next cold. Our princess has provided the most important part. The rest will fall to us, the product of hard work and cooperation. For now, return to the shelter and pass the message on. This is the last time we will face this cold. When the sun returns, it will take the ice away for good!”

For the first time since Quill had become Lord Commander, he heard cheers. Uproarious shouts began at the center of the crowd, then spread backward. Soon the whole cave seemed to be shaking with their voices. Quill hovered there for another moment more, so they would all see him. This was his promise, and each promise he kept meant an easier time winning their support.

Then he landed, turning back to his command tent. He could only hope that it was still being heated.

The command tent had been covered with several layers of thick cloth, several interlocking sections of other tents and scavenged blankets. Before he could find the entrance, a pony nudged him from behind.

“You went with the princess to Vanaheimr and came back,” she said, impressed. “Aminon said she was taking you there to sacrifice you to the spell that killed us.”

“Penumbra.” He turned slowly—everything he did in this awful cold was slow—and for the second time he stopped dead to stare.

Penumbra had a shadow too, stretching towards the light instead of away from it. There were the same red eyes peeking out, the eyes Quill knew well. How had he spent years with these ponies without noticing? He didn’t wait long though; it wasn’t as though she’d done anything. “We did try to get through the defenses. There’s…” How much did Nightmare Moon want him to say? She’d been harsher about the contents of that room than anything else since the rebellion began.

“There was a hope that we could’ve returned to Equestria. But it didn’t open for me.” Because I begged it not to.

“That’s what that smell is.” She circled around him, sniffing and turning up her nose. “Smells like it burned you. But you don’t feel injured. I’d have sensed that before I left your tent.”

It did something all right. Quill couldn’t imagine an actual use for seeing shadows, but maybe if it made him smell bad to Voidseekers, that was enough of a purpose right there. Except for with Penumbra.

“I’m glad it left more of you alive,” she went on, sounding almost casual. It was a little forced as she rested against him, silent. Her whole body was icy cold, but he didn’t mind. “The others… three died wandering the outskirts of that place. It smells like you walked right up to it and came back.”

I don’t think it likes demons very much. “I’m glad too. But… we still have to survive this frozen nightmare for ten more days. I didn’t think it could get any colder, but… is it warmer in there?”

She shrugged. “Maybe. Your friends are burning charcoal. Look up.” She pointed, to a hole in the top of the tent, and a trail of smoke trickling upward.

Quill stood beside her another moment longer. “I’m glad you’re okay,” he whispered. “I thought Aminon might… he didn’t seem…”

She chuckled, pushing him gently away with a wing. “Aminon can’t hurt me. We serve the same master. You, though… if you keep refusing Nightmare’s promises, he’s going to find a way to kill you.”

“I assume you… don’t have to listen to him if he demands you do it?” he asked nervously. “I’ve grown comfortable trusting you.”

Penumbra froze for a moment, her expression a mask. Was Quill imagining it, or did the shadow stretching towards the tent glowstones no longer seem so dark? “Not him,” she said. “It’s the princess you must appease, Quill. If she orders it, I must obey her.”

“She won’t,” he said, hoping it was true. “Nightmare Moon doesn’t want to herd cats. Even when the army is suffering, she always let captains settle matters amongst themselves. She would let Permafrost kill me…” There was an implication buried in that, just below the surface. She’d let Permafrost try to kill him. That probably meant she would let Aminon do the same.

He wanted everyone to swear to Nightmare and kill the rest. The closer I get this army to stability and safety, the further from his goal we are.

“Can I…” He hesitated. “Ask you to help me if Aminon comes?”

She met his eyes, silent for a long moment. She was so close, close enough that he might’ve wanted to do something else. Except that he was frozen and wrapped up in so many layers that he couldn’t escape even if he wanted to.

“I can’t stop him,” she whispered. “I’m a better fighter, but he knows Nightmare like none of us do. He would make Permafrost’s dueling look like a foal learning to walk.”

“Warn me,” Quill begged, not letting her look away. “That’s all I ask.”

It looked for a moment like she was suddenly frozen—but then she nodded her head, just once.

“Are you two gonna kiss or what?” Cozen asked, poking her head out of the tent. “Your adorable little inventory pony is having a nervous breakdown in here waiting for you. Come in before her heart gives out.”

“It would not!” a pony’s voice snapped, though she hardly sounded very confident. Silver Needle was in there.

Besides, he was freezing his flank off. Quill turned away, ears flattening in his hood as he went for the opening. Penumbra followed, and the two of them stepped into the tent. As soon as they were through, Cozen began carefully overlapping the cloth again, sealing the freezing outside away.

The heat inside was almost as much a physical force as the cold of the cavern. Iron Quill removed his hood, unwrapping his face. Everypony inside the tent was still wearing their jackets and cloaks, so he left his on as well, even if the warmth was oppressive.

His three most-trusted advisors were all here, though Sylvan Shade was the first to speak. “She actually did it? How did she find the metal so fast?” He nudged the metal lump Penumbra had found with one hoof—from the way it sat near the end of the table, Quill guessed it wasn’t warm anymore. “That should’ve been… days of flying, maybe.”

How much could he say? “We found one big piece,” Quill said, removing his saddlebags and hanging them in their usual place. He thought about showing them the artifact he had brought but dismissed it for now. They could investigate the strange and unknowable creations of Vanaheimr when they weren’t freezing to death. “Never mind that—she did what you asked, all at once. Metal is installed, and as you can see we still have our air.”

“The power of an Alicorn,” Sylvan whispered, awed. “You see them walking around, and you forget they have the strength to move the sun. We need to work our local goddess into our calculations more often.”

“I wouldn’t.” Penumbra sat down on an empty cushion on the far side from everypony else. “Her patience is limited, and it seems like Quill spent much of it. It might be some time before she helps again.”

You didn’t see her in the ruins. Luna is in there somewhere, no matter how powerful Nightmare is. Luna wouldn’t leave her friends and supporters to die. “I want a report,” Quill said, severing this line of reasoning before it could waste time. “What happened while I was gone?”

“Two more dead,” Silver Needle said, interrupting. “One from outside camp, one a still-recovering soldier from Motherlode Company. I ordered them stripped and interred in the crypt-cavern with the others.”

Quill nodded. “There will be other consequences of these next ten days, even if the majority of our army survives. Frostbite leaves deep scars, and we have no unicorn healers.”

“One,” Cozen corrected. “She’s in your new company, Lord Commander. Marine Kelp is an adroit enchantress—but she is fiercely loyal to the Ordo Celestial and would probably poison any of your soldiers you sent to her.”

“And you just…” Penumbra stared openly. “You just told me we have a heretic hiding among our soldiers? Why do you do things like this?”

“Because I’ve learned you aren’t a homicidal maniac like Voidseekers are supposed to be,” Cozen snapped. “You’re sitting at this table and helping us save Luna’s army. What do you care who they pray to?”

Penumbra had no answer to that. In the light of a modest charcoal-burner, her shadow seemed to fade almost completely. She looked confused—almost the exact expression Quill had seen on Nightmare’s face after visiting the Polestar.

“Regardless.” Quill smacked one hoof on the table. “Needle, finish your report.”

The shy unicorn smiled gratefully before continuing on. “Shelter strategy seems to be working. If you visit, you’ll find it’s much warmer than this tent. I’ve rationed all our oil to last through these ten days. So far, soldiers seem to prefer giving up personal space to freezing to death. We’re still fine-tuning the timing of opening the bottom of the shelter to exchange air with the cavern. Oh—our treatment pits have frozen solid, so the ponies aren’t working those anymore.”

“Unfortunate, but… we lasted more than ten days before dying last time.” Quill turned to the others. “You can stop the oxygen-machines as well.”

“We did,” Sylvan said, without annoyance. “And drained them of water to avoid shattering the mechanisms. We want it broken even less than you do, Lord Commander.”

He raised a wing in surrender. “Apologizes, Sylvan. I shouldn’t assume… You’ve seen the way this army acts sometimes. I’m not used to predicting intelligence.”

Cozen rolled her eyes. “Let’s skip past all that and to the important parts. We did it, Quill. If the length of time before we ran out of air holds, we’re going to make it. We can stop worrying about freezing to death this time and concentrate on how we’re going to build an entire underground castle in a month.”

“We, uh…” Silver Needle squeaked, then straightened. “Tests are complete on the room sections. It’s exactly as I suggested, of course. The double-insulated room stays warmer for longer. It doesn’t produce heat, obviously, but…”

Quill nodded. “Then we can appease the idiots and fools. What about my other instructions?”

“We’re saving everything,” Silver Needle said. “Everything, just like you asked. Right down to the campfire ash and latrine pits.”

Penumbra burst out laughing. She slumped forward, unable to hold herself upright. “You’re… bucking joking. You told them to save the contents of latrine pits?”

Quill nodded without shame. “I did. And burned firewood, and scrap cloth, and literally anything else that we use or dispose of. Even the dead will be safely stored in the crypt.” He met her eyes without blinking, or any shame at her laughter. “I know how to manage an army, Penumbra. A large part of keeping a force like ours fed and supplied is managing profit from raids with expenses to merchants. If you’ll notice, there are neither here. We cannot requisition food from villages we visit, we cannot raid hostile cities for gold. We cannot trade with merchants. What you see in this camp is all we have.”

He lowered his voice, barely above a whisper. “It may be all we have for our entire lifetimes. We must survive on what we brought, and what we can build. That is all we have.”

Penumbra stopped laughing. He couldn’t see her face, but he guessed she was probably still amused by everything. Whatever, he didn’t mind.

“I think these ponies are tired of living in tents,” he went on. “An army can only remain deployed for so long before they become frustrated with the experience. Perhaps they don’t want to live so close together—but we can tell them that the choice is that or keeping their tent when it gets cold again. See what they pick.”

Quill removed the tightly packed scroll, the one he’d used to show Nightmare Moon their plans. He spread it on the table, covering all the other manifests and casualty reports and everything else. “We need to look ahead. We have half a month of warmth before the sun departs again. I want construction plans to build the most critical sections first. Plan for the absolute minimum amount of space to safely hold every pony in every camp. And the followers as well. We’ll want to house them separately eventually, but for now it’s just about survival. We can…”

There was a plan forming now, a solution to his growing fears about their failing gold supply. “For the short term, we will let them lease space in our cold shelter. Camps too.”

Cozen whistled. “Pay labor companies to help the army build a fortress, they make them pay you to use it? They won’t like that.”

He nodded gravely. “I’m sure they’ll be furious. But…” He stood up, meeting her eyes. “We. Won’t. Tell. Them. Until. They. Finish. Are we clear?”

He expected argument, but she didn’t offer any, just nodding curtly.

“And let me be clear.” He leaned closer, folding his wings. “Nopony outside this tent knows. Penumbra would die before violating my orders, Shade works for the army, and I would trust Silver with my life. If they come to me, I’ll know which of us betrayed my trust.”

Apparently he’d guessed right about her intentions, because Cozen rose from her chair, glaring furiously at him. “It’s wrong! Everypony deserves a safe place! They shouldn’t have to pay for it!”

“They shouldn’t,” he agreed, exasperated. “But right now, we don’t have a choice. Everypony still expects their bits to have value, and that’s part of the reason we’re still able to get things done. Let me remind you, Cozen. I have all the food. For every mercenary outside the camp, I have ten veterans. I have captains calling for the outsiders to be marched out to the surface and left to die.”

He slumped back to his chair, lowering his voice to something calmer. “Look, Cozen. I promise not to let them die. Anyone who can’t pay, I’ll find a way to get them in. But we don’t have the luxuries we had back in Equestria. They can’t choose to leave; they can’t forget about food and eat grass. They can’t switch sides.

“All of us have to work together. That’s why I built a new company from those ponies, a company of laborers and magicians instead of soldiers.”

“And whores,” she snapped. “You could just call them what everypony else does.”

“No. The builders and mages are still builders and mages. But the whores are something better now. I won’t call them by what they were. And you will remember that I’m the reason they aren’t frozen and suffocated out on the surface. You will remember that I intend to save everypony here, including them. Is that clear?”

She met his eyes for another moment more, then nodded. “Yes, Quill.”

He didn’t push her on the name this time, just turned back to Silver Needle. “As I was saying—I want a work schedule for the most critical parts.”

“How many hooves?” she asked, removing a scroll and a quill from somewhere and glancing at the blueprint. “All two hundred fifty, I assume?”

“No.” He shook his head once. “How many hooves still live, in the whole army?”

“Two thousand, eight hundred… something,” Silver Needle said.

“And of our followers…” He did some quick addition. “Work orders for four thousand stallions and mares. When the sun returns, and the cavern warms again, we will make new orders. We won’t be selling food to anypony able-bodied in the army or out. If they want to eat, they work. Make sure you allocate enough supervisory positions for their officers not to feel insulted. But they’ll be working too.”

“Seems like you’re determined to make the army hate you again,” Penumbra muttered.

He shrugged. “I’m not so sure. Soldiers might complain about working, but most of them hate sitting around more. You can only play so many hooves of cards and drink so much wine before you’re ready to get out and work. Or kill, but we don’t have any enemies to fight up here. So work it is.”

They had to survive first. The moon didn’t make that easy on them, not with the cold getting worse every day and ten awful days to survive. After three days it became basically impossible to leave the shelter, even for the strongest and best protected. Only the Voidseekers were immune, though there was little for them to do.

They packed in tighter, rotating ponies from front to back in the cavern to take turns against the blistering entrance. What physical conflicts there were—or fights between soldiers and camp followers—those all came to a halt by the fifth day. Ponies were just too cold to fight.

There was only so much oil, for their sparse fires. They burned them at the cavern-end, where they could be most rapidly exchanged with the larger supply of air, and where they would help keep off the worst of the chill. But they didn’t have anything near enough.

At the end, even Nightmare Moon entered the cavern, striding through the entrance with her entourage of Voidseekers.

Quill was there, guarding the place their oil supply had been with Chain Mail and a few other loyal stallions. There was no oil anymore, no fire. Just the frost that coated everything, and the air that pressed down on them with the weight of icy blocks.

He had the strength to rise for the princess—not everypony did.

“This is what became of my army?” she asked, looking down the tunnel. “I expected more of you, Quill.”

There were no longer camps anymore, just ponies huddled together as close as they could under what blankets they could find. There were no more camp kitchens, no more sparring circle or library. Nopony played their instruments anymore. They just cowered.

“They live,” he answered, not meeting her eyes. “Mostly. We lost a dozen ponies last night. Six before that, four the night before—”

“I hear you,” Nightmare Moon said, silencing him. “What would you have done if the night was twice as long?”

“Die,” he said.

She didn’t laugh, but one of the Voidseekers behind her did.

“That does not serve me.” Her horn began to glow. Her shadow reached towards the flames, more subdued than usual. It still watched him. “Even when the sun returns, it will take time to heat the cavern through our thermal conduit. Without the rest of the system you designed, there will be no way to regulate it.”

“I know,” he croaked. “We, uh… work schedule…” His head swam. “There’s a method. We will… get the reservoir built first… something something… ice… water…”

“You’re dying too,” she whispered. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. But it won’t serve.” She looked up, staring straight out at nothing. “I cannot warm what is frozen. But the moon is mine to command.” Energy stretched from her, scorching the walls, and causing ponies to retreat in fear. Even her Voidseekers backed away. “This night is ended!”

Quill’s hooves froze to the cavern surface, as energies he couldn’t even imagine gripped the moon along its axis and twisted as only the Princess of the Moon could command. Whatever Celestia’s curse, it didn’t stop her.

Nightmare Moon landed roughly on the cavern floor, sagging visibly. “N-now…” She turned. “Voidseekers… back to… the throne room.” She glanced over her shoulder, meeting Quill’s eyes. She said nothing, but he imagined he could feel her reproach. You thought I would leave you to die?

In that moment, he knew Luna was still in there, somewhere.

Even without a single window to the surface, Iron Quill knew Nightmare Moon’s command was obeyed. Over the next few terrible hours, the cavern began to warm. They felt it from the entrance first, spreading downward towards the larger cavern.

Quill wasn’t sure how long he slept. Days, probably—there was no one strong enough to turn the hourglass for something as insignificant as tracking hours. But eventually he woke to the sound of music from down the cavern.

Somepony had a lute and was playing a simple hymn. One of the old songs, written before the rebellion. A song of thanks for the mercy of the night, and its time of rest. Quill listened in silence until the song was done. Then he rose, shaking once at the moisture on his clothes.

Moisture, not ice.

He wept.

Then he stumbled back into the main cavern, with a sizeable crowd of ponies just behind him. They were no longer separated by company—they were all survivors now, of the moon’s terrible wrath.

It was still too cold to return to the main cavern—the huge metal mass took more than a single day to heat, and the cave was deep. But the shelter was warm enough that nopony died that night. They left just once—to hold a memorial for the over a hundred dead. The oldest, the sickest, and the young.

“Tomorrow we will return to work,” Quill said, when the service was complete, and the dead had been carried away to the crypt-tunnel. “The terrible cold will return. If we aren’t prepared for it, we will all die. Every set of strong hooves must take up their tools and labor together.”

He hopped up onto the raised wooden platform, pointing at the huge metal spike above him. Water dripped from it almost continuously now, forming a growing pool underneath. He stayed out of the flow. “With your hard work, and the Princess of the Moon ruling over us, we cannot fail. We will survive.”

Nightmare Moon rose from her throne at the end of the platform, stalking forward towards him. Quill bowed, and so did most of the army. She stopped at the edge of the stage, looking out at everypony.

“I always believed the strongest ponies served the night, but now I know it. Many hardships wait for us—but they make you stronger. At the end of all your pain waits our revenge. We will return to Equestria and take back what was stolen from us. I will return your suffering a hundredfold on the loyalists and petty tyrants of Equestria.”

The crowd cheered.

Chapter 14: Sow

It didn’t feel quite right to call Moonrise a city, in the sense of the places in Equestria that were cities. But neither was it a military camp anymore, since nearly two months had passed since any of them had done anything remotely military. Given the two options, Quill preferred to think of it as a city. It wasn’t a place for soldiers to wait until they fought again—it was a place for them to live, with no more expectations beyond that.

Quill passed through the outer barrier to the central warm core, lit only by the faint light of glowstone brackets along the walls. It was better than torchlight to keep the space lit through their second lunar night, even if it did mean a full fourth of all their unicorns did little more with their work-shifts than recharging spells.

It’s either this, or spend the months in darkness. Bat ponies were good at living in the dark, better than any other kind of pony that had ever lived. But with such large numbers, the constant squeaking for navigation would’ve been confusing. To say nothing of the other creatures in the dark with them. How real bats manage not getting themselves confused with so many brothers and sisters all calling out together, I’ll never know.

Through the thick cloth shroud, Quill stood before the massive metal core. He could feel it even from many paces away, the heat rising from it was so intense that during the day it eventually glowed a dull red in total darkness. Now that the night was nearly over, there was no glow left. In fact, Quill nearly tripped over a pony huddled on the floor near the railing. She wasn’t the only one—the room was packed in tight with ponies, basking in the warmth of the warmest part of Moonrise.

Silver Needle told him that they should all be kicked back to their living areas, that even laying on the floor compromised the efficiency of the heat-exchangers. But Quill didn’t have the heart to send them away. This was the only part of Moonrise that was above freezing. We need more heat, or more metal to store it. But somehow he doubted they would be making another trip to take destroyed tubes from Vanaheimr and making them into a bigger storage.

He took to the air, flying over the tightly packed group of ponies. There was enough room for him to pass, barely. More importantly, stretching his wings in someplace so warm was a tremendous relief, after spending so much time in a barracks no different than the rest. If anything, the problem with the core was unequal access. It didn’t look like the weakest and sickest were getting the warmth they probably needed.

A problem for next night. We didn’t see huge numbers freeze this time, that’s what matters. Our insane plan worked. Quill finally reached the door on the far side, which ponies at least had the good sense to keep clear. He slipped through, then stopped for a moment in the stairwell. A line of ponies stretched up from below, each one tightly bundled in their warmest robes. Yet as he emerged, every one of them rose from where they cowered, soldier and camp follower and ditch-digger alike. “Lord Commander,” they whispered. With honor now, instead of spite.

Iron Quill passed between them, trying to look more dignified than his old body and rickety joints would allow. He did wear a little of the armor at all times, at least the breastplate and the heavy cloak. It made him stand apart from the other residents of Moonrise. It meant that all who saw him had to look a second time, just to be sure.

Currently there were four finished floors, each made from lunar bricks and mortar. They were already encountering trouble with the floors, with at least two reports of the thin-rock sheets they’d sliced caving in under the pressure of many hooves. But without wood, they’d thus far found no better solutions.

Eventually though, he reached the top floor, and the “section” where his own camp was staying. A common room was packed with ponies, huddled around the metal heat-radiator and a ring of glowstone as though it were a fire pit. There were no fires anymore—both on his order and because they’d burned just about every bit of scrap material left on the moon surviving the previous night. Ponies lifted hooves to salute him, though his own stallions didn’t rise the way strangers did.

Where before the ring of tables and chairs around the vent had been spread a good distance away, and ponies had sung and chatted amicably with each other—now everypony huddled on the ground, as close to the vent as they could. The only ponies who weren’t right beside it were doing some chore, cleaning the common room or preparing the next meal of potato-gruel.

Quill passed these as well, sliding a bowl for himself as he turned past the bunkrooms to the single part of his section that no other section had: the command rooms.

“Took you long enough,” Penumbra said from behind him, her voice its usual collected cold. “Where did you fly off to, anyway?”

Quill didn’t speed up, holding the bowl in his wing and eating while he walked. It wasn’t terribly dignified, but these ponies already knew he was only mortal. He was no myth to them. “Making sure… Moonrise is still alive,” he said. “After last month… still have dark visions. The crypt has enough caskets.”

“There aren’t any caskets. We didn’t have time to carve them, remember?” Penumbra rested one hoof on the door to the meeting room, stopping him from opening it. “Finish that bowl. You’ll thank me in a minute.”

Iron Quill couldn’t imagine why, hadn’t she just said he was late for the meeting? But Penumbra’s help had already saved the whole city, so he wasn’t about to start doubting her.

He stopped an aid passing in the hall, offering the mostly-empty bowl. “Dispose of this, soldier,” he ordered, before Penumbra finally got out of the way and let him into the room.

He soon learned why she’d made her suggestion.

In attendance today were the usual suspects in Quill’s council. Sylvan Shade of course, with his knowledge of alchemy and natural philosophy. Cozen, whose ideas had been so useful in the last few months. Chain Mail, representing the armed forces and the ones keeping order in the city. Silver Needle, quartermaster general. Appleseed, newly invited from the camp followers for this meeting specifically. He shifted about on his hooves, constantly uncomfortable. And there was no mystery about why.

In Quill’s own usual spot, Nightmare Moon already sat, settled back on her haunches and looking incredibly bored. She raised an eyebrow as he came in, though otherwise her reclining position was casual. There were no Voidseekers with her.

Penumbra stopped in the doorway to bow, the only one unaffected by the terrible chill in the room. The others all huddled close under their blankets, avoiding the head of the table as though a glance there might light them on fire.

“All this time I’ve wondered the secret to your success—apparently that secret is paying as little attention to your work as possible.”

Quill dropped into a bow far closer to the table, though he didn’t bow nearly as deeply as Penumbra, or stay there for as long. He was the Lord Commander—if anyone wouldn’t be groveling, it was him. “Forgive me, Princess. If I had known you were in attendance—”

“My visit would’ve been wasted,” she interrupted. “I am not here to see a carefully prepared mummer’s show. I am here to see who you really are. This is another of your crisis meetings, yes? I am going to observe my miracle in action.”

And make everypony so nervous they can’t get anything done, he thought. He nodded again, pacing around the table to the empty chair at the other end. It put him right beside the blackboard instead of far from it, but it would have to do. The conference room was bigger than the tent, with an oversized door large enough to permit whatever equipment might be required. Today there was nothing special, just a few tiny trays of dirt near the earth pony, and a few pots of plants that Quill didn’t care to identify.

“Of course, Princess. Your will be done.” He settled in his chair. “I have already kept you all waiting long enough. Princess, I hope you don’t mind if we forgo the constant pauses for respect and honor throughout the meeting? If everypony would get that out of the way now, it would make this easier.”

She nodded impatiently. “I’ve had enough on the way in. Speak as though I am not present. I will not interfere.”

Iron Quill didn’t believe that for one second, but it didn’t matter. They went on with the beginning of the meeting, discussing the state of Moonrise and their expected survival chances. After confirming that no one had frozen to death.

“With sunrise tomorrow, it doesn’t seem likely to happen,” Silver Needle finished, at the end of her report. “The only death so far was during a brawl near the beginning.”

“Forcing different camps to live together is… hard on morale,” Chain Mail said. “We are all struggling to cope in our ways.” His more than many—he was still training a group of former prostitutes and vagabonds to be watchmen. As Quill understood, progress was slow.

“Not for much longer,” Quill said. “We should be able to finish the rest of the structure in the next month. We have many hooves ready to work again. They remember the night of last moon.”

“It would be better if we could promise… a warmer night to come,” Sylvan said. But compared to several of the others, he was less frightened of Nightmare Moon’s presence. At least he’d seen and spoken with her before. “Can we do that?”

“It will be colder if we don’t do anything,” Cozen said, avoiding looking towards Nightmare Moon. “We will have the other two warmth-exchange tubes running if we finish the other wings. They will be spreading the same warmth thinner. Honestly, we may need to develop different customs for living in day and night. Perhaps it is a waste of resources to build the other tubes at all.”

“Mirrors,” Sylvan suggested. “We just need more of them. Point more light at the surface, and heat it warmer. Make the heat last longer.”

“I thought this meeting was about the food supply,” Nightmare Moon said, tapping one hoof impatiently on the table. “I trust you will resolve the issue of insufficient warmth. You’ve already done it, it’s just a matter of degrees. But what will my army eat?”

How long did you let us do things our way? Quill nodded obediently. “We’ll table the warmth issue for the time being.” He gestured towards the new pony. “This is Appleseed. After investigating every camp, I found the pony with the most farming experience was one of my new recruits.”

He might be a new recruit, but otherwise there was nothing new about Appleseed at all. He was older than Quill even, with a gray mane and slightly swollen joints. Even being this close to Nightmare Moon was clearly a strain for him. But at least he hadn’t tried to run away, or collapsed from the otherworldly presence of the dark Alicorn.

“After our last interviews with him, I’ve invited Appleseed back to offer his expertise while we discuss our food supply. Appleseed, you aren’t yet a member of this council, so don’t feel like the pressure of what we discuss falls on you. We’ve brought you for your expert opinion and nothing else, understand?”

He nodded weakly.

“Very good. So we understand the scope of the problem, Colonel Needle. You’ve conducted the complete inventory I asked for, yes?” At her nod, he continued. “Please explain how much time we have to work with.”

She rose from her chair, shuffling with the papers in front of her, before finally settling on one. All the while Nightmare Moon’s eyes focused on her like a lance, never blinking.

“Many of you know we came expecting to besiege the Castle of the Two… the Tyrant’s stronghold. We expected to supply an army much larger than the 3900 who currently survive. But we also expected to be able to salvage from the territory, and to barter with traders. With all of these options closed, we have relied on our stores for the last two months. It also does not help that we did not previously supply the camp followers.” She raised a hoof towards Cozen. “No, I’m not suggesting a change. Just pointing out a statistical fact. We have more mouths, and less ways to feed them.

“We have been draining our stores for the last two months at full rations for each mare and stallion. At the present rate, we have four moons left to us.”

It was the longest deadline they’d ever had for one of the miracles that Nightmare Moon demanded. But it was also the slowest to solve. A cave could be heated or cooled in hours. Growing new food was much slower.

“If we were in Equestria, how would we solve this problem?” he asked, indicating Appleseed. “Could we raise a crop so fast?”

He nodded, glanced towards Nightmare Moon, then started to cower again. When Appleseed finally spoke, it was only with great effort. “With earth ponies to work the soil and pegasus ponies in the air above, you could feed this whole army in under two moons. But forgiveness Lord Commander, we don’t have any of what we would need for that.”

“What do we have?” Nightmare Moon asked. The question was so unexpected that Silver Needle jumped. The princess, actually caring about the finer details of her army? In all his time working the stores, Iron Quill almost never heard her ask questions like that. Only when she was out of wine, or fine soap. Needless to say, she was out of both.

“There are, uh…” Silver Needle shuffled around with her papers again, before selecting a scroll. “Potatoes, carrots, wheatberries, corn, rice, barley, oats. Our supply of luxury produce has all been eaten, though I think we preserved seeds where we could.”

Nightmare Moon waved a wing. “I understand that, I know the slop you try to feed me and call a feast. I am asking what you expect to do to raise crops in this cave? I give no honor to my sister in saying so, but the realities of the plants we know require sunlight, do they not? Glowstone is not enough.”

“We, uh…” Silver Needle faltered, scrambling with her scrolls. “Quill ordered the dung heaps kept in a nearby cavern, rather than burned or dumped outside. And there are, uh… straw? Trays?” She whimpered, looking desperately towards Quill.

That seemed like enough of an attempt that he could help her. “Forgive her, Princess. We don’t yet know what our solution will be. That’s why we’ve invited Appleseed. With every one of these issues, the solution has ultimately come thanks to involving an expert. Appleseed, go over your suggestions again. You know our limitations. Explain what you told us in the last meeting.”

All eyes settled on Appleseed. He shifted in his seat, and spoke to Quill instead of the princess. “O-of course. Well, there’s… everypony knows that not all crops are equal. Obvious… right obvious thing about it is that what we plant can’t go into anypony’s bellies. Planting cuts our supply even further.

“Key to all of this has got to be the potatoes. Right bland they are, but you can feed as many ponies in one acre of potatoes as ten of wheat. Making it taste worth eating after is a problem for the chef. Once they get established.”

“And I think we all agree with you there,” Sylvan said. “You say they’re the easiest to grow, so potatoes it is.”

“They won’t keep much longer anyway,” Needle added. “We’ve already rotated the potatoes through most meals we’re serving in camp.”

“Yes, but…” Sylvan hesitated. “But where is the field? Even if you don’t need much space… we need a fair bit to grow for all these mouths.”

“More ‘an space,” Appleseed added. “Potatoes are a hardy crop, they’ll resist a freeze better ‘an some, but if the soil gets colder than about… this room, they’ll freeze and die. And they need plenty of water, even with love n’ care you’ll need to put an inch on the field by weeks.”

“I could probably cut that significantly,” Sylvan cut in. “My greatest achievement prior to signing up with the rebellion was in helping to colonize dry climates. I learned that precision and water retion can cut the water we use by… three quarters. If we’re careful.”

“And the field will be…” Nightmare Moon began. “Surely you don’t expect me to hold a new bubble of air outside for months at a time, Quill. You could not have forgotten our earlier experience so swiftly.”

“I do not, Princess,” he said. “Finding a place for the field…” He hesitated. “We always knew it would be a challenge. Space isn’t the issue, but… as Appleseed points out, caring for our crops once we plant them is. We must keep them warm, and we must somehow give them light. This limits where they can be placed.” He looked to Cozen. “What can you tell me about lighting them? What is your solution?”

“I…” She hesitated, then blundered through in a rush. “I looked at the magical and the physical. I think a combination of both will be the only way we don’t starve. Obviously the simplest way would be just to let light shine on them. If we use a ceiling of glass, we can let the sun do its work during those parts of the month. Assuming… can potatoes live in constant sunlight?

“I have no idea,” Appleseed said. “Celestia never—the Tyrant never failed to lower the sun before.”

Cozen shrugged. “We could lower a shade if we had to. Regardless, it isn’t the day that is the greatest trial for us. I have—”

Nightmare Moon laughed again, and this time her voice shook the whole room. “Oh yes. Installing transparent windows when the only shelter keeping you alive is the seal of a cave you cannot replicate. Do you know how much force would be pressed against a window, even a very small one?”

Sylvan answered that. “A lot. There is… void out there, and air in here. It would be the reverse of the vacuum vessels I have in my collection. They are each, perhaps… an inch thick.”

“I believe it could be done,” Cozen said. “We would build them in small sections, with steel to hold them in place. Or perhaps set them into the rock directly. A precise application of teleportation and heat-amplification could do it, to melt the rock around the windows. It would require… perhaps… our Princesses’ indulgence to assist. It would be easiest if there were air on both sides while we worked, and only she has the power to hold that much.”

Nightmare Moon scoffed. “So you’re going to make… windows strong enough to hold pressure, then… set them in the stone ceiling with unicorn magic. I assume you haven’t forgotten the sky above your heads is thirty feet of solid rock? How long do you wager it will take you to dig the shaft for each aperture?”

“We, uh…” She looked away, to Quill this time. “I mean, I meant to ask, if we could consider one location primarily for the field. I believe we have no choice but to construct it in the tunnels near the entrance. There we can use our earth ponies to carve down and seal the windows in place. Is that… possible?”

Quill turned to Appleseed. “You lived in those tunnels. Could we grow a crow in the upper section of the entrace there, large enough to feed everypony?”

“I…” He floundered, but Silver Needle was ready. She pushed over their detailed map of the cavern. It included the tunnel entrance. It really was quite wide, and the slope was shallow enough that they might have some distance to place a field.

“Perhaps,” he finally said, looking away from the map. “It will be… a near thing. If we lose even part of our crops to the cold, we will surely starve. And… forgive me, Lord Commander. But you haven’t spoken of the night yet. Potatoes are a mite forgiving of the shade, but not of nearly half a moon without light.”

“Yes,” Quill said. “So let assume for this conversation that… we commit to turning the upper section of this tunnel into a field. We will make hundreds of windows from thick glass, each one small enough to remain strong. I know we have craftsponies among us, glassblowers and sand mongers alike.”

But even as he dismissed it, his mind was already spinning. They were out of oil, and they would need incredible heat to melt the sand. Finding the right flux and making it clear were issues of their own that he didn’t think anypony in this room cared to hear.

“Princess, will you assist with this, if we manage to create the windows, and test that they are strong enough to hold the air?”

“Certainly,” she said. “But you should realize—glass holds back the air almost perfectly, but even impermeable rock is not a perfect barrier. By weakening the ceiling, you are creating leaks. Our air supply will drop, escaping out into the void. There will be… some science to replacing the air with your electrolysis at the rate it is lost. I would suggest an airlock would be a prudent construction in that tunnel, since a failure in it would at least allow these ponies to survive. But given the loss of the tunnel would mean death by starvation, I believe the vacuum is kinder. I would rather my army die in a few minutes than in months of agony.”

Her words hit everypony in the room like a brick, stunning several of them. Sylvan and Cozen were at least used to this—Nightmare Moon’s inscrutable knowledge of things that no other pony could grasp.

Only Cozen was brave enough to ask about any of it. “What is ‘science’? And… electrolysis?”

“Natural philosophy,” Nightmare Moon said, annoyed. “And electrolysis.”

Quill hesitated for another moment, but he hadn’t got them this far by keeping silent. “Are there… Princess. Your knowledge makes us all seem like insects. Is there any you think might be worth sharing with us, so that your army’s chances of survival might increase?”

Now she was the one caught off-guard. Though the Alicorn was older than all of them by far, and faster to recover. “Right now? You’re overlooking an important food source. It was… I considered it in my plans for a lightless Equestria. And you’ve already mentioned to have a significant stockpile of dung so…”

She seemed to be waiting for Quill to finish her thought for her, but he only stared. What did she mean?

“Fungus!” she exclaimed. “Mushrooms. They require little or no illumination, they require only a little rotting matter to grow. Dung mixed with lunar sand, perhaps. The ratio would be yours to discover. Their growth would generate not-inconsiderable warmth as well. I remember…” She trailed off, staring at a nearby wall. “The fungal vats were always warm when I went in. There is a price paid, however—fungi breathe, just as you do. They may require you to melt more ice to account for that.”

“Do we have…” Now even Quill didn’t know. Mushrooms weren’t exactly something he knew anything about. You didn’t fill the rucksacks of marching ponies with something he considered an accessory to expensive cooking. “Mushrooms?”

“Don’t bother,” Nightmare Moon said, raising a wing. “The answer is yes. Speak with my chef, she will give you any that remain. I expect to receive the first harvest personally to replace what I lend you. However—you will not be starting with a supply to have any hope of growing enough, or I would have mentioned sooner. Your plan can only be supplemented while we wait. All these other impossibilities must be rendered plausible, through means I can only speculate. Light most of all.”

“Yes,” Quill agreed. “I believe we’re ready to reach that question. I assume you must have something, Cozen, or you would’ve stopped us before we began finalizing details. If I’m about to ask Silver Needle to design a glassworking shop and divert many laborers to working it, I must know.”

“Of course. I began with our heat-device as a guide. It absorbs sunlight during the day, and shares the heat with us when darkness arrives. I believe, though I admit I have only conjecture for a basis, that the strength of the sun enters into and is stored within the metal. We know from every blacksmith in the camp that there is capacity for more. That said… heat alone will not make a farm grow. I don’t believe we can get anything hot enough to produce sunlight, not by any spell or artifice of craft known to mare or scholar.”

“Thank you for that waste of time,” Nightmare Moon said, folding her hooves in front of her with growing annoyance. “You’re right, by the way. The metal core absorbs sunlight as heat. But your rediscovery of a plainly obvious principle does not grow bread for my table.”

For a second, it looked like Cozen might give up and fall silent again. But Quill nodded her on, and so she kept going, less confident now. “My air-crews are more than skilled in the working of the machinery now, so that they do not require my help. I have been… tinkering with glowstone.”

She rose, making her way to the low cart tucked into one side of the room, and removing a tightly-wrapped bundle from atop it. She settled it on the table, then unfurled it.

It was a very large chunk of glowstone, the size that might be used to light an entire trebuchet-crew while they worked. The glowstone itself, a chalky white mineral etched with thin runes in black paint, had been wrapped in a set of interlocking metal rings, the sort of mechanism that Cozen had been hired for in the first place.

“What does it do?” Nightmare Moon asked, staring at the object. She no longer looked bored.

“Less than glowstone, actually. As our… princess will know, the rocks we use for illumination can be charged by any unicorn. They harvest and store mana, then convert it into light. This no longer has the capacity to harvest from a unicorn—instead, it stores light directly, then can be made to release what it stores at any rate we desire. This one has been absorbing the light of our melting apparatus for the last several days.”

She lifted the object into the air with her magic, then twisted the outer dial. Instantly the white stone began to glow bright red, the same red as the metal coil that melted ice. It wasn’t the cold blue of a glowstone, but bright red, that got brighter the further she twisted.

Light filled the room, harsh enough that Quill and the other bats lifted hooves to shield their faces, momentarily stunned.

It wasn’t just bright. Quill felt himself sweating in his thick robes. Sylvan didn’t need a jacket with his earth pony strength, but Chain Mail tossed his to one side.

A few seconds later, Cozen twisted her dial back, and the glowstone went dark. “I have the spell diagrams here if the princess would like to see,” she said, passing them over. “I won’t show you, Qu-Lord Commander. I know you do not care.”

“I care only that it can be reproduced.”

“Yes.” She nodded eagerly. “Though I should point out that it permanently destroys the glowstone’s original purpose. It cannot ever be charged by unicorn again.

“So you would do… what with these, exactly?” Appleseed asked. “Forgive me for asking, but we don’t often use… strange spells among our crops.”

“We would need to build… mirrors, I suppose,” Cozen said. “One for each of these. If their limits translate as glowstone does, I expect we’ll need several large chunks for the farm, rotated over the course of the night. Let them replenish in the light of the day, and bring them out at night.”

“I can’t help but notice many of our plans involve moving back and forth between the surface,” Sylvan said. “I don’t suppose there’s a way to make that process simpler. Requiring the time and effort of our princess every time we work there seems like… a foolish strategy.”

Nightmare Moon laughed, so loudly that the entire chamber shook. “What a day it will be when you need no magic to walk along the surface of this place. It can be done—but head my advice, and stow that question away for some future generation. You will not solve it. Focus on food.”

She rose, walking elegantly to the doorway. “Begin your work then, Lord Commander. The sand drains from your hourglass. Use it while you can.”

Chapter 15: Plow Under

Members of Quill’s council filed out one after another, signaled by the departure of Nightmare Moon herself. Quill remained in his seat until the end, giving each one their instructions in turn. “Fabricating glass is our first priority,” he told Silver Needle. “Put the other sections on hold until we get that done.”

“They’ll complain,” Chain Mail said. Not argumentative, just matter-of-fact. “We’ve been telling them that we were focusing on survival first.”

“Keep telling them that,” Quill said. “Tell them that if we don’t plant crops soon, we won’t have anything to eat. No dates and times—nothing specific. Just say that we need glass if we want to eat.”

“They won’t understand something so vague,” he said, turning to leave. “But we’ll tell them. You’ll have to show them.”

“I believe we can do it,” Silver Needle said. “But Quill, you should… understand something. All this construction we do—our supply of wood and cloth and paint and… it’s all running out. We can build your workshop this time, but what about next time? We can’t carve everything out of lunar stone.”

Quill glanced once back towards Cozen. “I’ll work on it,” he said. He didn’t dare mention the place he’d been. Even those ponies he trusted, they probably wouldn’t believe. A city made of metal and glass? Nopony would believe that. If he didn’t remember the Polestar so clearly, he might not believe it himself. But under the circumstances, he couldn’t deny it.

“I’ll be helping with the workshop,” Sylvan promised. “There are other solutions to a seal than melting rock. Better ones, actually. Renewing our supply may be… tricky, however. There are some plant-based alternatives we might consider, but… for now, we’ll go with what works.”

“As little as possible,” Quill agreed. “Once the crops are going, we can discover more. Or maybe Nightmare Moon will discover the way to return us home and all this will be for nothing.” No one reacted, not even a smile. They don’t think it’s possible.

To be fair, he didn’t either. Nightmare Moon had seemed like she wanted to get them out, but it was very hard to be certain of anything she did in Moonrise. The armory’s contents seemed far better suited to invading Equestria than returning to it.

Finally, it was only Cozen and Penumbra left. Penumbra circled the back of the room like a ghost, and some part of Quill realized that the others couldn’t even see her. Or at least if Cozen could see her, she didn’t even glance back in that direction once.

“I know you’ve had more important things on your mind,” Quill asked. “But you’re the best artificer I have. Please tell me you learned something we can use.”

Cozen reached over to her cart again, removing a tightly rolled bundle. She spread it on the table, the contents of each section held almost where she’d left them. It was a fairly ingenious way of storing things.

There was the artifact Quill had salvaged, broken though it had been. Cozen had broken it far more. She’d removed the shattered glass with colors underneath, removed a little silvery envelope trailing thin metal. Apart from that, there were green sections covered with tiny components, smaller than the tiniest sprockets crafted by a master clocksmith.

“What can you tell me?” he asked again, leaning close to inspect the wreckage.

Even Penumbra emerged from the dark corners of the room and was now leaning close to stare, eyes wide. “You… stole from Vanaheimr? Defiled sacred ground?”

“No,” Quill argued. “Our Princess decided it wasn’t stealing when she took the heat-core from Vanaheimr herself. She demonstrated that survival is our highest priority, and I agreed.”

Penumbra didn’t argue, though she did retreat back into her corner to sulk.

“As you say, I haven’t had the time for a detailed study,” Cozen said. “But what I can say is—we’re completely out of our depth. It’s like… how can I put this? You’re old, yeah? Do you remember what it was like when the Solar Council raised the sun instead of the Princess?”

“I’m not that old.” He folded his wings, annoyed.

“So imagine they’re gone for a thousand years, and everything they did is lost. The princesses, like… ascend to a higher realm or whatever, leaving us behind. Now we have to move the sun again. But we only have one unicorn, and they’ve never even lifted a stick before. This is how our artifice compares to this. Like this…”

She reached down with her magic, lifting a single metal object from inside. It was so small he almost couldn’t see. “A tiny… pump?”

“No.” She settled it back down. “This is a screw, but it’s been crafted so perfectly that it can be used as a fastener. See these threads? Almost as tight as the hairs in a pony’s mane. And there are eight of them, all crafted exactly the same, perfect.” She gestured from one section to the next. “Each one of these parts—what do they do? Nothing mechanically. So far as I can tell, every single one used to be attached to this green piece in back, melted into place with precision.”

She hefted the backplate, spinning it through the air. “Every part of this eludes me, even the simple ones. This here—I gave a piece of it to Sylvan. It isn’t any metal known to ponies. Almost as strong as steel, but incredibly light.”

He took it in his hoof, and would’ve bent it in two if he wasn’t careful. But for how thin the sheet was hammered, it was still a remarkable accomplishment. “You don’t think this will help us with our food problem.”

“No.” Cozen yanked the plate away, sliding it back onto the sheet and rolling it back up abruptly. “The ponies who built this were so far beyond what we understand—they called it ‘science’ instead of natural philosophy.”

She passed the roll to him, but Quill just shoved it back. “I have no use for this. And maybe you don’t either, yet. But maybe you will, or… maybe one day, somepony will. Record your impressions, then focus on more important work.”

She nodded, sliding the roll back into her cart so quickly that Quill suspected it had been her desire all along. She was soon gone, leaving Quill alone with Penumbra.

She slid the bolt across in the lock, before settling down beside him without invitation. A few seconds later and she’d removed her mask, tossing the wrappings weakly down onto the table. “Every one of these plans is more insane than the last,” she said. “A glass ceiling. You really think you can grow potatoes here?”

He shrugged. “We won’t know until we plant them. But I think the better answer is: we hope they will. Otherwise…” He trailed off. “Well, how many times should we have died already? Celestia couldn’t do it. I’m not letting the moon do it, that’s for bucking sure.”

Time passed. Ice melted, and the sun began to shine. As soon as it was warm enough to work, the cavern filled with the sound of pounding hammers and the strike of pickaxes. Quill did not personally oversee every aspect of the factory, but he did watch from a high window to make sure that ponies kept working. They needed to know that the Lord Commander cared about their plans.

Looking down on their work from above gave him some insight. It all comes down to needing more metal. Metal for the heat-absorber, silver for mirrors to gather light. Too bad we don’t have enough glowstone to just do everything with the heat-absorbers.

He was already hearing complaints from non-bats that the glowstone confiscation was rendering the cavern too dark.

“Travel with a bat companion,” was his only answer. “We will solve this, but we must plant first.”

Of course he conserved what he could for anywhere work would take place, or else had a unicorn in attendance with the job of lighting the space by magic and nothing else.

Glowstone could be recharged, unlike their depleting supply of lightning. But at the present rate, that would outlive their first harvest, so he brushed off that nightmare for another time.

While his skilled laborers constructed the workshop and supplied it with raw materials, he sent every inexperienced pony up the tunnel to excavate the farm. They dug out the tunnel around chalked outlines on the ceiling for the window, predicting where light would fall so that no crops would be too dark. They didn’t move the soil in yet, though other earth ponies were hard at work mixing the best local dirt they could find into the dung heap to produce something that could grow. Naturally those were the ponies who complained the most.

In the end, Sylvan showed them a system of decreasing tiers, where water could be poured only on the top layer and trickle down once soils were saturated to service the other crops. With the right additives, he claimed that the soil would only need watering every three days. He didn’t have them here, though.

All ingenious, though it was nowhere near enough to settle his doubts.

Halfway through the day, Quill finally got the call that the first window was finished. He hurried over from his planning office, flying out the balcony and cruising down through the empty cavern. He squeaked a few times to orient himself in the near-total darkness. There were no windows after all, though the workshop far below did radiate light around it.

They hadn’t bothered building a ceiling, and even the walls were only one layer so far. This won’t stay warm when night comes. But Silver Needle was a clever pony. If her scheduling skills were as sharp as usual, the last brick would be placed the hour the sun finally set.

He landed on the upper catwalk, looking down on the balcony beside Silver Needle. She jumped, nearly dropping her clipboard, but quickly collected herself. “Lord Commander!”

“Just here to see your work,” he said. “I’m sure I couldn’t have done a better job.”

“Y-you… Right.” She straightened. “Well, you remember my sketch. We didn’t change very much from that initial design. That vessel in the center is how we melt the glass. Sand and flux go in, and…”

It was made of fired bricks, with the dark red of Equestrian clay rather than the local substitute. The salvaged kiln glowed bright red from inside, and even with the tiny openings at the top and bottom the warmth quickly made him sweat. But there were no black marks on the sides, or anywhere to load the fuel.

“I don’t see a… fire,” he said. “This uses lightning too?”

She nodded. “Cozen built the apparatus. It seems to be running out faster than the one we use for the air, but… we only have to use it to make enough glass for the farm, right?”

“Another nightmare for the future Lord Commander to dismiss,” he said, grumbling. “More metal, more ingredients, and more lightning. I’m beginning to think the moon doesn’t want us living here.”

“I can’t imagine what gave you that impression, sir.”

A set of hooves banged their way up the steps, and a few moments later Sylvan poked his head over, grinning weakly at him. “Commander! You’re… later than we expected. The ponies below are working on their second window now.”

The rest of the workshop looked nothing like any glassblowers that Quill had ever seen, but he’d already known to expect that. Instead of the metal tube a pony might use to inflate a ball of glass into a useful vessel, there were a set of perfectly smooth stone cylinders, attached by a strange mechanism of gears and a huge crank. On the other side was a metal sheet, hammered thin as a mirror. A metal shield stretched across the sheet, braced with thick crossbars and bolts.

“I would rather watch. It will be easier than having you explain it.”

Silver Needle nodded, and Sylvan grinned. “Cozen is absolutely wonderful, isn’t she? All I had to do was explain that no window we had ever built would survive, and… she’s devised this method that is unlike any we’ve ever built.”

Quill settled back onto his haunches to watch. “When we’re done, I want to see the finished product. I will not call the princess to waste her time to test something that I don’t think can succeed. I enjoy being alive.”

“The real work was in finding the right mix of flux and sand to get the glass so clear,” she said. “This moon sand is cleaner than anything I’ve ever seen. I believe we would be the envy of Equestria if we could bring it back with us.”

He shrugged. “We have to live long enough first.”

It was simpler than he thought. A unicorn reached into the furnace with a metal ladle, scooping a huge ball of molten orange glass. While two more ponies cracked the wheels together, the unicorn dumped the molten glass through. It spread along the tubes, flattening onto the metal sheet before being pushed under the scraper. Another unicorn on the far side took a blade and sliced it into shape, then finally left it to cool.

“This is how you get them so thick and so flat at the same time,” Quill said, as soon as he was done. “I was wondering how you were going to work that out.”

“It’s easier to press small bits of glass and slice them that way,” Silver Needle said. “But Sylvan insisted—”

“That it wouldn’t be enough,” Sylvan finished for her. “I’ve never seen a chunk of pressed glass that was thick enough to survive. And… I admit, we don’t know these will be either.”

They went down the stairs, passing through the ranks of the glassworkers. There were far fewer ponies here now that the workshop was finished, just those who had some job or another. A good half of the workshop was dedicated to preparing the sand, sifting out impurities, mixing flux. But he had no knowledge of that, so he barely even saw the ponies working that task. Instead Quill crossed to the far wall, where the cooling rack waited.

The glass he’d seen had already faded from bright orange, and as it cooled he could see some of the clarity it would finally have. Not so clear as a spyglass perhaps, but nearly.

“You want to be seeing this, Lord Commander?” asked a nearby pony—the unicorn who had worked the glass, only seconds before. He was easily the largest unicorn Quill had ever seen, with the muscles of an earth pony and many, many scars.

Quill nodded, and the unicorn levitated the triangular window down towards him, holding it between them. It was enormously thick, and from the brightness of the magical glow, heavy too. He touched one edge carefully, feeling how remarkably flat it was. There were no bubbles to be seen, not a single crack or other structural imperfection.

“Excellent work, soldier. You can put that back, I can see you’ve done well.”

He turned back to Silver Needle, nodding approvingly. “I believe these two should be sufficient for a test. Send these hardworking ponies back to their crews until the princess and I have finished the test. I wouldn’t want them wasting their strength if they won’t serve our purposes.”

“We… appreciate the sentiment, Lord Commander, but that glass isn’t finished yet.” Silver Needle sounded hesitant, as she ever was when she had to contradict him. But with so many eyes on him, Quill appreciated her tact. A contradiction could be seen as a challenge, one that might require his answer. But a delicate request saved him that need.

“Explain.”

Sylvan was the one who answered for her. “We, uh… these windows have to be enchanted before they’re ready. With the chill outside, and the warmth inside, they might shatter otherwise. I have prepared a potion of flexibility, which will coat both sides before they are finished. Then the potion must cure for a full day before its effects are fully realized.”

Quill sighed. Celestia help us to be ready in time. “Very well. Summon me as soon as this process is complete, and I will make arrangements with—”

He stopped dead, his eyes spinning to motion just beside him. A pony, one of the bats who had turned the flattening-crank, dropped a wicked metal dagger to the stone floor. Penumbra appeared beside him in a puff of smoke, her invisibility dissolved.

“You dare raise your weapon to the Lord Commander?” she asked, voice dangerously low. The pony struggled, and she twisted violently with two legs, snapping his delicate wing. He spasmed and dropped to the ground, mewling with pain. “Are you mad?”

“I am… for the night.”

At the commotion, Quill’s own guards rushed in from outside, shoving workers back. Something smashed against the floor, and white sand poured everywhere.

But Quill ignored it all, advancing on the fallen pony. He picked up the knife. It was wickedly curved, so far that it almost looked like a crescent moon. “Why?” he asked, tossing the knife to Penumbra. She caught it in her wing almost without effort, apparently guessing what he was planning. “Whose orders do you follow?”

“Nightmare,” the bat whispered, blood emerging from his lips. “Unlike you.”

He knew that face—it was the expression of a pony who was about to start grandstanding. Quill lifted into the air, raising his voice as loud as his old lungs would allow. “For the crime of attempted murder, I sentence you to death,” he said. “Penumbra, now.”

He opened his mouth to yell—but too slow. Penumbra slit his throat, staining the workshop with deep red blood. Whatever he was about to say was lost to the throaty gurgling.

Penumbra rose, tossing the corpse contemptuously aside. “You are too easy on one who threatened your person,” she whispered. “You should’ve tortured him, then made the whole camp watch his execution.”

Quill shuddered at the thought. He was willing to kill, but torture? Public executions? He hated the arena. It had already taken enough lives.

He landed beside her, gesturing for Chain Mail. He hurried over, lowering his head in shame. “Forgive me, Lord Commander. If I had known that—”

“Forget it,” he said, silencing him with a wing. “Chain, you couldn’t have taken everypony’s weapons away while I was inside. This is why I have you and Penumbra.” He gestured at the body. “This one will not be buried with honor in the catacombs. I want his head removed and burned. Cast the rest into the dung heap.” He took off, his eyes finally settling on Silver Needle. She cowered in one corner of the room, hiding beside clay jars of flux. “Please ensure that none of your workers tries to kill me on my next visit.”

Quill couldn’t say what happened in the workshop after that, because he didn’t stay behind to watch. The best he could do to slow the spread of rumors that “Nightmare” was trying to kill him would be to treat them with nothing more than contempt. He felt far safer with Penumbra following him through the air, just a little bit behind instead of comfortably beside him. They cut straight up towards the Lunar Company’s section, avoiding any other opportunities for accidents along the way.

“You must know what caused that,” she called, her voice carrying over the rushing wind.

“He told us,” Quill answered, flying right past the rooftop entrance, and up towards the distant black space where no others would be able to see or hear them. It was privacy, perhaps even more than he might be able to find in his office. Penumbra could probably hover there for hours, but Quill would eventually tire. “Nightmare sent him.”

“No.” Penumbra hovered so close to him that he might’ve felt her breath, if she had any. “Nightmare cannot speak to the minds of ponies who do not know it as I do. That pony was not a Voidseeker, so he got his instructions from one.”

Quill didn’t need to wonder which Voidseeker might’ve given them. “Openly defying the princess’s instructions?” he asked, bewildered. “Hasn’t she declared me the rightful Lord Commander? Why would he—”

“Aminon isn’t like the rest of us. You know that—he’s older than Nightmare Moon, even. His connection to Nightmare is deeper than hers.”

“You mean she has more free will,” Quill countered. “Nightmare Moon is becoming more like you—you’re choosing the good. I imagine every day is a new fury for him.”

Penumbra looked away from him in the near-darkness. “None of us make these choices, Iron Quill. Aminon obeys the Nightmare. I obey you… sometimes. Of course you think I make better choices—you make my choices.”

“Liar.” He reached out, touching her gently on the shoulder. “I remember when this cave was near to freezing. You could’ve obeyed the Nightmare and let us die—but you volunteered to go up to the surface. You were up there for hours. For that matter, I never ordered you to protect me.”

“The princess did,” she answered, defeated.

Quill touched her shoulder again. “I’m sorry if sometimes I give you orders. I only do it because I’d be helpless to keep Moonrise going without them.”

She didn’t pull away this time, instead wrapping one of her forelegs around his. Quill lost track of his wings, letting the darkness swallow them both. Some new bats might be afraid of dark like this, but Quill wasn’t new. The shadow embraced them both like an old friend. Far below were the sounds of Moonrise, as ponies and stone and lightning and hard work struggled to keep them alive in a place they didn’t belong.

“You feel… different,” Penumbra said. He couldn’t see what she might be doing, but he could still feel her there, hovering. The moon barely even pulled on them, compared to what they might’ve felt down in Equestria. “Now more than ever. Quill, it’s like… everything comes into focus when I’m with you.”

“I think that’s called love,” he said, as casually as he could.

She didn’t seem to notice. “Nightmare’s voice is like a whisper. Angry—it hates you! So much more than before. Quill, what changed?”

He didn’t press her. If she hadn’t noticed… “What I did with the princess,” he said. “Where we went. You know the place, and the thing we found there. It… burned. Burned so much I just wanted to die. But I haven’t yet.”

She fell silent again. They hovered in the dark for a little longer, just clinging to each other. Quill might’ve been disgusted to be so close to her, a few months before. The Voidseekers were dead, really. There was no warmth in her touch, and not just because she was completely covered by tight wraps. But maybe that didn’t matter. Iron Quill was already old. It wasn’t long before he would become a corpse himself. Sooner than that, if Aminon got his way.

“We need to get back down there,” Penumbra whispered. “You were going to… meet with the captains. About… something.”

“I suppose I was,” he said. “And I should acknowledge the assassination attempt. Better to spread it than make it look like I’m hiding from my own men. I might need you to kill a few more assassins.”

“Gladly,” she said. “Killing is best when the ponies deserve it.”

But she didn’t move, and neither did Quill. They hid there in the shadow, together, while Moonrise moved on without them. For a little while.

It was something.

Chapter 16: Light

Night came as harshly as ever to Moonrise, with the excitement and glee at the first night replaced with resignation. Yes, it was true that Moonrise was, if anything, too warm on the beginning of the first night. But they all knew what would be coming in a month’s time, and so the celebrations were short-lived.

Chain Mail’s advice had been sound, even if they couldn’t obey it. Ponies were upset to be forced back bunking with other camps. Worse since Quill’s own Lunar company was much larger than any of the others, too large to have room to take “guests” of their own. There were plenty of whispers about his demands that all the rest of the army had to live with, and nothing for Quill to do but let them whisper.

With the warmth of the “Core” keeping them all sweating in their fur during the first week or so, the only real difference the night brought was the end for all work outside the city’s walls. There would be no more preparing soil, and all the ponies making bricks or potato trays would have to do it in the city’s basement, instead of in the free air of the cave. Only the glass workshop, now named the Prism kept working, warmed by the lightning that melted sand and flux together into their windows. “As soon as you finish the last window, we must go to work installing them, even if the sunrise hasn’t come.”

It probably would’ve been wise to cut back rations while only the essential crew could keep working—those who maintained the air, now that they had somewhere warm to do it. But Quill resisted the urge. Cutting food for ponies who were only flopping around lazily might be a sensible choice, but it would also be a wound for morale.

Quill received no other assassination attempts, though Penumbra did repeat some whispers to him. A growing faction of Permafrost’s former camp, along with several others, who were already growing weary of his rule and wished that Aminon would take over.

He ignored her impassioned pleas to just execute all of them and be done, though that denial grew harder and harder each time. Sooner or later they would actually try something, and force his hooves. He would have to be ready.

That was what he expected when he woke to banging from outside, and the flashing bursts of magic. Soldiers screamed outside his tiny office, and he sat up suddenly. Penumbra was already out of bed, donning a robe and taking a dagger in one wing. But before she could reach the thin door, it blasted right off its hinges, smashing into the bricks on the far side of the room.

Penumbra dropped to the ground, not so much in a bow but a scream of agony, before vanishing into the shadows with a puff of smoke.

Destruction spread behind the doorway, ponies knocked away and even one soldier frozen solid, crystalized in icy horror with eyes wide and terrified.

Nightmare Moon stood in the doorway, her mane extending backward into eternity. Only a few faint pinprick stars were visible back there, beyond the swirling darkness of Nightmare.

Nightmare Moon’s voice boomed through his section, making ponies cowered on the far side shake and quiver with terror. “Our Sister torments she who should be queen! The sheep and cockroaches’ rule with the dogs, and flames still that should have been eternal!”

Those who could not get away, those who hadn’t been frozen and killed by the ice, were limp on the floor, drooling. Quill knew that look—it was why he didn’t look directly at Nightmare Moon. He wasn’t armored in his sleep, and without that protection, his own mind would not last much longer than theirs.

What happened to you? Quill remembered this version of the princess too, though it had been so long. The days of her uneasy relationship with Nightmare were over.

“Princess,” he said, forcing his old knees to bend and dropping to the best bow he could. “I am… honored by your unexpected visit.”

She stormed into the room, and where she stepped the hoarfrost followed, splintering into pale snowflakes on every surface. He could feel that same chill, clutching at his heart. If that wild magic targeted him, he would die as swiftly as anypony else.

All this time she’s seemed sane, I started to think of her like she was Luna already. She isn’t.

“You are the jailer! Death becomes the escape from which we flee! Trapped by the patterns She put for us. Her priority, her games! Why should we not escape it?”

Quill trembled as she approached, chancing a single glance up towards her face. Looking at her was a terrible window into spaces beyond, where the Hvergelmir sliced, and Nightmare dwelt among the mad infinities. Eyes within eyes watched him there, drawing him with gravity stronger than the moon.

“Because… Princess… you care about your ponies. You fought for them because you thought your sister was mistreating them. You saw them suffer and you saw she didn’t care. What kind of ruler would you be if you let them die now?” He still couldn’t look at her, just speak each word as clearly as he could, even as the frost condensed around his hooves and each breath puffed in the air in front of him.

The ground shook under them, shaking the walls of Moonrise with it. Nightmare Moon was suddenly inches away, staring down at him with barely-contained rage. Spears of ice pierced his desk, his bed, and a moment later brought his bookshelf crashing down into splinters, showering the room with precious manuscripts.

“THE STARS SING THEIR DIRGE TO ME, CREATURE OF WISPS AND NIGHTSHADE! WHERE I HAVE WALKED, YOU CANNOT COMPREHEND! THE DEAD CHILDREN OF THE STARS DESSICATE UNDER THE CRUEL SUN, AND THE UNIVERSE COUNTS IT FOR JUSTICE! WHY IN THE LIFE OF BILLIONS SHOULD THE NIGHTMARES OF A FEW BRING ME TO SHAME?”

He tried to look away, but this time he had no choice. Nightmare Moon jerked his neck, forcing him to look up into her eyes. The world spun, and he fell into eternity.

Gale had been swept up in the madness of nightmares before, and he knew the terrible damage it could cause. Soldiers who had killed and bled beside him were reduced to quivering wrecks, and some never recovered.

His last time in the hurricane had left scars that never fully healed.

Gale opened his eyes in the eye of the hurricane. He looked up into a swirling maelstrom, and was almost swallowed by it. Dark winds carried clouds of blood and shards of glass, swirling with stars that unraveled and danced together. Blasphemous flutes droned on at the center of creation, and the Great Ones whose touch could unmake even the sun.

For a moment, Gale looked directly into the naked abyss, which rendered all life as dross and crumbled all his accomplishments away. The creeping tendrils of madness washed aside like the tide battering the shore of a rocky beach.

You can’t frighten me, he thought. And in his confidence, the eye of the terrible hurricane widened. He saw the sheltered valley of his childhood, his very first sight of land after growing up in the clouds. His hooves settled into a crystal pool, less than an inch deep. A faint mist rose around him, obscuring the surface of the water. Only the occasional sacred lotus bloomed here, their pink buds opening to the moonlight high above.

The Sibyl’s tent in the center of the pond was gone, ripped right from its foundation. The all-flower had been torn up at the roots, and all the seeing stones were cracked and tumbled, their secrets covered with the moss of age.

He spread feathering wings and glided across the pond in a few quick strokes, elating in the renewed strength that pegasus wings provided. He landed on the tiny central island a few seconds later, his hooves settling on bare earth where once a curtain of fresh petals had coated.

“The storm rages,” said a voice from up ahead. Gale had never heard it before, though there was something familiar about it even so. He advanced on the broken ruin of the once-sacred flower, its stalk browning, and its petals withered. A tiny blue shape sat there in the ruins, staring down at nothing. “It calls my name.”

Gale took a few steps further, pushing aside the rotting plant until he got a clear view of the pony beyond.

She looked the way he might’ve imagined from a young Alicorn. Tiny wings, stubby horn, and oversized eyes, half-buried in slime and rotten plant. She hadn’t even bothered to try to climb out, and was slowly sinking into a growing pile of rot.

“It calls, but do you listen?”

Gale reached down, and hefted her up, settling her down a moment later onto clear ground beside him. She didn’t resist, didn’t even protest at the treatment that Luna certainly wouldn’t have tolerated.

She met his eyes, and never once blinked. “Mostly. The storm rages so loudly. Listen.”

He heard it. It screamed in Nightmare Moon’s own voice, twisted and distorted and repeated so many times that it was almost impossible to understand. Gale understood a few words—shouts of rage at her sister, cries of the revenge she deserved and the respect she’d been denied.

“I wanted to save them,” Luna whispered. “There’s so much magic in Equestria. Nopony has to be in the dirt.”

“I know,” he said. “And I wanted to help you. I still do.”

She looked up again, blinking tears from her eyes, wiping them away with the back of a leg. Gale didn’t dare touch her again. “The storm grows,” she said. “It took me. It doesn’t want to give me back.”

Gale turned to the side, exposing the rotten plant with its brown petals and smashing it with one hoof. Not callously—he pressed and pressed, until he exposed what he was looking for within. The seed, its thick black casing firm despite the rot. He bent down, washing it in the sacred pool, before offering it to Luna in a wing.

“You don’t have to care what the Nightmare wants, Princess. It’s only a guest in your mind. You’re the ruler.”

The seed lifted away from him in Luna’s magic, hovering between them for a few seconds. It faltered as the storm pressed in around them, shredding the ground in a sudden roar. Water lifted from the edge of the sacred pool, swept up and away and vanishing into the screaming void.

But it couldn’t close in around them. Gale stared up, waiting for the death that would shred his mind, but it never came.

Tiny Luna clung to his leg, quivering with cold and terror, until the storm finally stopped. It was so close, almost close enough to touch—but the sacred island survived. The pool around it was still untainted.

My memory, not hers, he realized.

Luna blinked, letting go suddenly and puffing out her chest. She glared up at the darkness, then shoved the seed deep into good earth. “I want… me,” she said.

Air flowed into Iron Quill’s lungs, burning as it went. He twitched and spasmed, then sat up. A thin layer of ice coated his body, his face. Everything burned with the icy numbness that could take a limb or even his life. He was still breathing, still alive, though for how much longer…

He half-expected Luna herself to be standing over him, somehow restored. But whatever he might wish was the case, the reality was cold, grim. Nightmare Moon looked no less imposing than her usual. Even so, the raging storm that had made her mane thrash about with madness in its depths was gone.

Her horn stopped glowing, and she looked away. “I have healed the damage to your body, Quill. But I cannot create warmth with magic. You should join your ponies beside your mechanism, and wait for the heat within to wake you. I’m sorry I cannot do more.”

She glanced down the hall, at the trail of destruction she had left leading into their section, broken doors and soldiers blasted out of the way. She sighed, then vanished, leaving it to Quill to clean up.

He shrugged on his thick cloak, not bothering with the armor. It was still so cold, that he couldn’t bear the touch of the metal against his skin.

He strode out of the room, to nervous soldiers and former camp-followers watching him. He made his way over to the corpse. He didn’t recognize the face, though he knew they would never move again. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I think this might be my fault.”

This was what happened as he dislodged Nightmare’s firm control over his princess. Balance shattered, and the nightly battles for dominance returned. “Chain Mail!” he yelled, brushing the ice from his face with one hoof. “Are you still alive somewhere?”

He emerged from around the corner a second later, spear clutched under a wing. The way to the bunkroom. Sweet Celestia, were you going to try and fight the princess?

Quill could thank the stars he wouldn’t have to see that fight. “Aye, sir.”

He made his way over cautiously, tossing the spear aside and surveying the damage. “What did you do?”

“Nothing.” Quill lowered his voice to a whisper. But if you think it was my fault, everypony will. This won’t stay secret. The rumors would be getting louder, unless he could spin them somehow. Maybe this could be a rebuke for some unknown sin. He didn’t have the heart to try and frame a dead soldier.

He pointed to the pony. “Get me an honor guard. We have another stallion for the crypt, with full honors.” That was as close to defiance as he dared—in theory, anypony Nightmare Moon killed was an enemy to the revolution, and should be dishonored like the assassin.

But Iron Quill wouldn’t lie. He couldn’t spread news of Nightmare Moon’s insanity—if the army lost trust in their princess they would all certainly die. Starting with him, as soon as Nightmare Moon found out.

I hope Penumbra is okay.

Iron Quill stood in the center of the field, amazed at what his ponies had accomplished. There were dozens of growing trays, each one positioned at a slightly different angle. Each one filled with dirt. It looked a little pale from its source, and the smell wasn’t ideal—but it looked like soil.

Unfortunately for all of them, the actual fields were the easy part. There were no crops planted here yet, though the clay pipes to water everything were already in place. It would be more work turning more screws, but it was either that or carry buckets.

Of course, the most critical part of the arrangement was stacked at the tunnel entrance nearby—the windows. Each one was a sizeable triangle, large enough to let plenty of light in. There were dozens of windows now, along with metal bars that would reinforce them. Swords and spears and ballista bolts had all been hammered and melted into place, into the sections of a framework that would help secure the windows.

There would still be stone between each one, and careful craft of unicorn and earth pony alike would be required to make and set each window, even with the thick buckets of “paste” Sylvan assured them would be enough. Appleseed rose from beside one of the trays, gesturing enthusiastically at his work. “Is it not what we promised, Lord Commander? The soil is not perfect, but it will get better. We will continue to gather empty shells and peels and other castoff, and it will improve. The balance between what we take from the ground, and what we give, will be difficult here.”

“We will manage,” he said. “Either that, or we’ll die.” He walked away from the trays, down to where Cozen stood beside Sylvan, and her newly constructed device. It was… something. A square of metal, with tubes at its top and bottom and strange spirals attached to the front by cords and gears.

“This is how we keep the fields warm through the night?” Quill asked, eyes narrowing as he stared at what she’d built. The bricklayer had already arrived, so evidently she didn’t think there would be much need to move it.

“Yes, almost, mostly, sort of.” She gestured at the thick pipe leading into the top. “We already need to water the crops. I figure—accomplish both tasks at once.”

She cracked the side, and the strange spirals began to spin. A slight breeze lifted from them, brushing at his mane. “We can use cold water during the day, and at night, switch to warm water for an extra boost. The water will pass through metal on the inside, and air blows on the metal to share its heat with our farm. But I expect most of the heat will come from the sunstones. You felt yourself how good they are.”

“I did. So good in fact, that I wonder how hard it would be to make more glowstone, and convert it as you did to those. Our current solution isn’t warm enough.”

“Impossible,” Sylvan cut in, settling a final bucket of paste onto the ground beside the flat metal thing. “Alchemists have been trying to make glowstone from lesser rock for… as long as I’ve studied alchemy. Nopony has ever got close. In theory it is possible, but the mixture of precise elemental interactions required hasn’t been nailed down.”

“That explains why it’s worth more than gold,” Quill muttered. “If not converted, then… could we mine more? We have plenty of caves to search.”

This probably wasn’t the time to ask. The princess would be here any moment, and here they were discussing rock.

“You’ll know it if you see it,” Sylvan said. “Glowstone is so elementally active that it reacts violently to all of them. It corrodes the metals of the earth, it turns to ash when exposed to naked air. It creates flames when placed in water. And if you try to light it on fire… honestly I don’t know, but I imagine it’s just as dramatic.”

“Curious.” Quill wasn’t sure what he could do with that one. If air transformed it, then it was possible there was a supply in the caves somewhere, hidden in some remote pocket near the moon’s center. They might have to scrape a thick layer of ash away.

But whatever he might wonder about that potential, it would have to wait, because a faint blue glow was approaching from down the tunnel. A wave of bows passed through the ponies waiting to get started, one that Quill soon joined. He waited with his head down until Nightmare Moon reached him.

“Arise,” she instructed. “All of you! You have come to work, have you not? This day will not last. Use the warmth well, and the light.” Quill looked up, just in time to see her horn begin to glow brilliantly blue. He didn’t meet her eyes—Nightmare Moon had been remarkably aloof since their evening meeting.

“I suggest you work quickly,” she said, settling down onto her haunches there in the entrance. “And mind the wind when you remove that door. There is still a vacuum outside, at least until we allow the air to rush out again.”

Quill stood beside her, looking over the crowd. “Mares and stallions, hear me! The princess will not create a vast field for us outside, only the area above and around us will be safe. Do your work and do not wander.”

He glanced up and down the tunnel for Penumbra, though he already knew she wouldn’t be there. The Voidseekers hated to be out in the sun. They couldn’t fight in it. But even in her full-body wraps, she would be miserable up there just walking around beside him.

I’ll miss your protection. “Door unicorns, forward! Melt the ice, let us through! We have work to do.”

Iron Quill was one of the first to emerge from the farm-tunnel and out onto the surface of the moon. The soil still felt icy under his hooves, even though the night had been over for days. He clambered out of the opening, along the ramp leading down into their crater.

He could still see the ruts the wagon-wheels had dug, and thousands of overlapping hoofprints. This would be the later workers, those who had gone out to harvest the ore that removed poison from the air. Strange that they wouldn’t blow away in the wind.

What wind?

Iron Quill got out of the way, letting Silver Needle and Cozen direct the workers. They outlined the exact position of their windows on the ceiling with paint, then let the miners go to work. They were lucky to have enough earth ponies for the job.

Though how long the job would take, that was harder to answer.

It can’t be longer than Nightmare Moon’s concentration. We have to seal these windows before she runs out of magic.

Sylvan climbed the slope to the edge of the shield, waving one leg weakly towards him.

Quill waved back. “You don’t have any work you could be doing?”

“Not until we’re ready to secure them,” he said. “Even then, the unicorns will be working the brushes. Make sure they coat the joints on both sides of one window, and both sides of the other.”

Having two panes of glass—one near the top of the shaft, and one near the bottom—had been his idea. While it meant five bolts of lightning had been spent instead of two, it also meant that they might actually have time to fix a crack if they saw one.

“It’s remarkable work,” Quill said. “They’ll sing songs of your cleverness back in Equestria.”

Sylvan rolled his eyes, then settled onto his haunches. “I don’t need a song. I would settle for a seat by the fire in my family’s manor. In Manehattan, you know, by the sea. I would stay awake for hours into the night, just listening to the waves. Do you think I’ll ever hear them again?”

Iron Quill took a long time to answer. “Do you want me to lie to you?”

He laughed in response, letting silence return. Between them, anyway. Down below, Cozen shouted, pickaxes fell on stone, and a unicorn melted rock with a powerful spell. Another cart of glass windows arrived, and Silver Needle’s inventory crew began to unload each stack of two glass sheets in place.

“Have you ever performed a military wedding before, Quill?”

He looked up, startled from his reverie. “Have I ever…” He nodded weakly. “Long ago, yes. While I served… another. Any captain or above can perform one. Not since we were banished here.”

“What do you think of Cozen?” he asked. Quill looked more at the alchemist than the unicorn he indicated—and suddenly everything was clear.

A few months of working together to barely keep everypony alive have really brought you two together.

“In Cloudsdale, my father always said that every marriage is the union of equals. You must find a partner who you can look into the eye and respect. Simple breeding or gold is not enough. The two of you—seem well matched.”

“Good, good.” He rose again, reaching into a pocket and flashing a tiny wooden box. “I know it isn’t much. But I might’ve prepared a little something for her. It isn’t gold, but… I melted it from the rock, I’m sure she’ll appreciate the work that took. Understand what it means.”

He flashed the bracelet inside, and for a moment Quill was transfixed. There was a dull silvery metal, flaked with impurities and a few bits of moon-gravel. Yet the look of it—he’d seen it before.

“I want to know how you did that,” he said. “But… not right now. Don’t distract Cozen with your question. But when the last window is in place, then you may ask.”

He had no doubt in his mind that her answer would be yes.

Chapter 17: Aminon

“This is your plan, Quill. I think it’s only appropriate you remain here with me to see it through.”

Iron Quill emerged from the tunnel, straightening the Lord Commander’s armor about his torso. The weight of the enchanted metal was thin comfort against what he knew was waiting outside.

He strode up to the princess, bowing exaggeratedly for the benefit of the unicorn door-team. He was beyond thinking that Nightmare Moon herself actually cared about such petty signs of respect, at least from him. But whether everypony else saw and understood his obedience, that mattered.

“I would die just as easily if I were tucked away in my office,” he said weakly. “If our windows fail…”

He strode past the princess, stepping onto the curiously light growing soil and looking up.

Sunlight fell on his face, while still standing in the shelter of their tunnel. The warmth touched his skin, and for a moment he was transported, as real as any dream. With his hooves in the dirt, and the sun on his face—he could almost imagine he was home.

Then Nightmare Moon spoke, and her annoyance banished any impression that he wasn’t somewhere profoundly unnatural. “A failure now would not bring the death of everypony—not very quickly.” Nightmare Moon pushed past him, to where the unicorns finished their work with the ice. “Craftsponies, hurry your tasks to completion.”

Then she spun back around, glaring at him with a familiar look of frustration. It was the same expression she wore whenever one of them said something that she didn’t like. There were impossible-to-know rules about what things all ponies viewed as the truth, but that Nightmare Moon would mock and dismiss with casual disregard.

This was apparently one of them. “When I release this shield, the ideal failure is one that shatters a window instantly. I am here, nothing meaningful will be lost. Except our time. How many replacement windows have you made?”

“I…” He winced, avoiding her eyes. “One for each opening. They have… already been installed.”

Nightmare’s magic yanked Quill forward by the head, skidding through the growth tray until he was just below her. “I thought you were demonstrating remarkable foresight by growing our food so early. Now I fear I overestimated you.”

He didn’t look away. “I trust my ponies, Princess.” Her magic still held him by the collar, just a little too high for comfort. Metal pressed against his neck, making it difficult to breathe. Quill was no young colt anymore, and the pressure made his eyes water. “They’re the… finest in the world.”

“We’re done, honored princess of the night!” one of the unicorns shouted. They all bowed, retreating from the freshly-melted plug of ice.

Which we’ll have to maintain now that we’re working so hard to keep this section warm. I wonder how the ponies of Vanaheimr kept their air in.

She released him, nodding to the ponies as they passed. “You may leave,” she said. “Travel swiftly to the ice-mine and retrieve as much as you can carry. You may have a few more openings to seal.”

“It will be done!” They hurried off, obviously eager to be away from the Nightmare Princess as quickly as they could.

There were no other ponies with them in the farm now, just Nightmare Moon and her Lord Commander. Quill glanced down the hall, past where the glowstones had once hung. Now there was real shadow, making the white stone seem to glow. Near the edge of the light, Quill could see the reflection in a few sets of bat eyes.

Probably his workers, come to see if months of work had been for nothing. It didn’t matter that many of them didn’t fully understand the challenges they were trying to overcome.

“You continue to struggle against your mortality,” the princess whispered, no longer sounding so imposing. She spoke so quietly that even the sensitive ears of bats at the end of the hall wouldn’t be able to hear. It was just the two of them, and water dripping from the last test of the warmth engine. “I watch your fight, and I wonder if my own might not be destined for failure. The darkness writhes.”

“It isn’t,” Quill repeated. “Life has always been hard, Princess. Even before the Tyrant’s rule got so bad. When I retired, I spent years reading the scrolls of ponies who were dead before Equestria itself was founded. They fought against the cold too, and they triumphed together. We are far wiser and stronger than they, because their knowledge is our foundation. Even if you cannot return us to Equestria, we will survive.”

He didn’t dare touch her, though he might’ve for a pony in distress who wasn’t under his command. “You really do have the strongest ponies in the world following you. I watched armies lose one stallion in ten, and break like sand. Yours has lost one stallion in two, and yet we endure.”

He watched her face closely for any sign of an expression—be it friendly or otherwise. One eye twitched, and her mane began to billow and writhe behind her. She inhaled, exhaled again, muttering something he couldn’t hear. Finally she looked up again. “I am… sorry… about the pony you lost. He did not deserve to die.”

I didn’t even know you knew that word.

“He didn’t,” Quill said. “I was sorry to lose him. But every leader makes mistakes, Princess. Your ponies fear you, but they still respect you. They believe in the promises you made to Equestria.”

“We must survive to keep those promises.” Nightmare Moon’s horn flickered, then went out.

Above them, Quill heard a faint creak of glass from one window, then another. He stared up at the ceiling, watching as the little sliver of air Nightmare Moon had been holding puffed away into the void.

He watched the windows the same way he might’ve watched the opposing battle line, waiting for the charge that would begin the slaughter. He didn’t move, didn’t blink, didn’t even breathe.

“You have a leak.” Nightmare Moon vanished from beside him, reappearing some distance away and pointing up at a window. It was one of the nearest to the tunnel, one that had carved through several feet of rock to reach the surface.

He watched, looking for anything that would suggest a leak. His ears twitched, and he heard it. A faint hiss, like a nervous snake.

The princess reached down to the bucket off to one side, holding it up and sniffing at it. Even covered, the excess paste was already starting to harden. She lifted the brush, running it along the rim of the window. The black slime bubbled for a few seconds along the seam, then the hissing stopped. She brushed a few more times for good measure.

“This suggests the crew who sealed this window has failed twice,” she said, pointing with a hoof through the glass. “There is no vacuum in the middle section, so that seal is insufficient as well. Fix it.”

“We will,” he agreed, lowering his head for the princess.

She vanished, reappearing beside him again. “Your faith in my army was not misplaced,” she said. “But the task you have managed is only the beginning. To construct a greenhouse without hydroponics, without grow lights, without monitoring… can the magic of those who labor here replace artifice? I demand the second portion of whatever harvest is brought in. You may eat the first, when the moment arrives. I will be in attendance to watch.”

How many times do you need to reassert your dominance over me, Princess? Do you really want to lose your Lord Commander over a poisoned potato?

“Of course, Princess. Though it will take some time, even with earth ponies in constant attendance.”

“Obviously.” She waved a dismissive wing. “The question that matters to me is not how long you think it will take, but whether the crop will be ready to harvest before you all starve. Or whether the ground here will allow plants to grow, even with an acceptable range of temperature and moisture. You cannot possibly understand the complexity of the interactions involved in the food you eat.”

He nodded obediently. “I would be happy to listen to an explanation. Or… actually, I would beg that you make the explanation to ponies who might understand it. I have several in mind.”

Nightmare Moon nodded. “Remember what I said of viziers who speak too boldly. Your successes purchase my patience. Ensure your supply of currency does not deplete.”

Iron Quill didn’t follow her as she left, just remained beneath the windows listening for leaks. He heard none, and there was nothing like the shatter of glass that might’ve signaled a dramatic end to their farming. A few beads of moisture condensed on the glass, but it was much too warm to freeze. With sunlight constantly streaming in, there would be no danger of that. But what happens to that glass when night comes again?

Sylvan was the first to arrive, with Appleseed just behind and several of the farming ponies pulling carts. Quill watched them come, curious at the change in their uniforms. They weren’t wearing the vests and trousers that went with military deployment anymore. Instead they each had a green sash across their chests, cut from scrap cloth somewhere.

Appleseed strode past him, walking out under a window just as Quill himself had done. Iron Quill certainly couldn’t fault another old pony enjoying something they thought they’d never feel again.

“The princess approved of our work?” Sylvan asked, stepping out of the way of the workmen, beside the heat-machine. As he spoke, the first trickle of water started to flow, raising a few popping sounds as it drained from one internal metal plate to the next.

“More importantly, the moon approved,” Quill said, pointing up at the windows with a wing. “We have a chance not to starve. Now we have to use it.”

Appleseed hobbled past the soldiers, adjusting his own sash with a hoof. “Magic ain’t quite the same up here as it was back in Equestria, but we’ll make do. Don’t you worry, Lord Commander. So long as I have the ponies I need. So long as the heat flows, and we have enough light through the night.”

“You will have everything and more,” Quill said. He walked past Appleseed, glancing in the cart. It was overflowing with sturdy wooden crates. Each one was brimming full of potatoes, nearly all of which had little eyes emerging from their skin. “I will speak to Chain Mail, Appleseed. This field will have guards around the clock. As to whatever other resources you require, Silver Needle will provide them.”

Appleseed looked away, pawing at the ground. “Forgiveness to an old stallion, Lord Commander. I never thought… I ain’t suited for such responsibility.”

Quill laughed. “Neither am I, yet here we are. This field must provide for all. We will sacrifice anything to protect it.” He raised his voice, loud enough that everypony all up and down the hallway would be able to hear. “I promote you to Lieutenant, Appleseed, with all the benefits and privileges of your office and commensurate holdings in our princess’s kingdom. You may name your own NCO, and choose colors for your men. It seems you’ve… already done that.”

Appleseed looked away again. “Forgiveness again, Lord Commander. Not all here came from any of the camps. No two came from the same camp, at that. We needed something to unite us, when all we had was crushing dung into sand for work.”

“No forgiveness necessary,” Quill said, turning away. “If we ever find a way to weave more cloth, I’ll authorize proper uniforms. Until then—we must eat.”

He passed Cozen in the path leading up, hauling a toolbox behind her along wooden wheels. Sylvan darted past Quill, meeting her with a kiss before taking the toolbox in his mouth and taking over hauling it.

Cozen slowed a little as she passed. “Something wrong, Quill?”

“Not today,” he said. “Send Sylvan back to me as quickly as you can. He was going to show me his progress with fungus cultivation.”

She nodded, though from her expression Quill could tell it wouldn’t be anything like fast. He didn’t press. The mushrooms would still be there tomorrow.

He felt the pony watching him more than he saw her, as he neared the end of the passage and the entrance to Moonrise proper. He stopped in the darkness, and didn’t turn around. “How long have you been following me?”

“Just waiting for you to get out of the sun.”

Penumbra didn’t “appear” exactly, since there was almost no light to see by, and she hadn’t done anything to become easier to see. But suddenly her steps made noise as they should, suddenly every sound that echoed up from below bounced off the Voidseeker as easily as Quill himself.

Even if he couldn’t see anypony coming, Quill didn’t dare show any sign of what had happened between them. Not here in the most well-traveled part of the outer city.

He faced her anyway, the same way he would’ve for any other important pony meeting him in the dark. Alone. “Good news? Nightmare Moon didn’t kill you, so I have to assume.”

“Good news,” he repeated. “I think we actually did it. Enough for the farm to start growing, anyway. We’ll see if the glass survives. After seeing what the void can do, holding it back with just a little glass seems… overly brave.”

He couldn’t see her expression in the dark, but she sounded amused, distant. “What it must be like to need to breathe. I barely even remember. You know you could put all of this behind you, Quill. You never have to fear the darkness again.”

I don’t even know if I could. He looked back into the gloom behind her for several long moments, considering the invitation. Something was different about him, something that hadn’t been true before. When Luna stirred in her nightmares, somehow he had stilled them. The Alicorn was waking up, however slowly. If he could do that…

But that wasn’t what he told Penumbra. “The Lord Commander is always mortal. You heard her.”

“Maybe she’d make an exception,” she argued. “There’s never been another pony quite like you. An old warrior, who… what do you actually do again?”

“Get the right ponies on the right jobs,” he answered. “Then watch.”

“Doesn’t sound like you have to be mortal for that,” she said. “Nightmare could…” She trailed off. “Weird. By now it would’ve wanted to say something. Maybe try to force you into agreeing, or…” She lowered her head, settling it up against his. “I can’t hear it. Normally it speaks loudest in darkness.”

Again he considered telling her what he had already guessed about the strange process he had endured in Vanaheimr. But he resisted. Whatever Nightmare hadn’t already deduced on its own, Quill wasn’t going to tell it.

“You have to do something,” she said, voice suddenly urgent. “I don’t know why I can… it’s Aminon. He’s going to kill you.”

“I know,” Quill said. “We’ve been talking about this for a while now. The closer we get to a stable camp, the more that he—”

She silenced him with a hoof. “Not that, Quill. I mean he’s been plotting to assassinate you. Meticulously, ruthlessly. I’ve known for weeks now, and I haven’t been able to say.”

Quill knew he should’ve done something. He needed to fly, or run, or something besides stand quietly in the dark and wait for death. But he didn’t move. He stood beside Penumbra, feeling her head against his shoulder. He knew she was really a corpse, yet the rot failed to disgust him. It hadn’t for a long time now. “When?”

“Soon,” she said. “I don’t know what will make him do it. He plans on killing you when you’re off on your own, then make it look like you tried to run away. He wants you to look like a coward, so none of your ponies will stand a chance in succession.”

Quill felt it then, though he couldn’t have said precisely how. It was the same instinct he’d relied on during his duel with Permafrost. Something had just appeared beside him.

Quill rolled to one side, drawing the Lord Commander’s sword with one wing and swinging out in a wide arc.

It caught against something metallic, sparking once in the gloom. Aminon hovered there, utterly still and quiet.

“I can’t believe you had it in you, Penumbra. A traitor in the ranks, overcoming the gaeis upon her and every custom of honor. Do you serve Nightmare beside us, or don’t you?”

Quill landed in a crouch, making the occasional click. At least now he could hear them both, now that he knew what to look for. It would be harder for Aminon to vanish while his attention was on him, but not impossible.

“I… serve…” Penumbra dropped to the ground, shaking.

Quill jerked towards her reflexively, but suddenly Aminon was between them. “You came dressed for ceremony. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to come back out for a piss alone late at night and make this easy on everypony?”

Quill lowered the sword. “I have the loyalty of an army, Aminon. I am the Lord Commander. With one shout they could be here. Why would you fight me here?”

“Perhaps. But the Voidseekers serve me faithfully, in ways you could not imagine. Even those who say to themselves that they have some choice in the matter—they must obey me. I have ordered them to slay any creature who attempts to enter this tunnel. Do you think your beleaguered mortal army could win against them before I kill you?”

Penumbra was huddled on the ground, twitching and struggling. She reached out with one wing towards Quill, then seemed to lose focus and start struggling again.

“Penumbra, take up your dagger,” Aminon ordered.

The bat twitched and struggled—then her leg moved. She unsheathed her dagger in one smooth motion, holding it out in front of her while the rest of her body spasmed uselessly.

“Hold it up against your heart.”

Quill didn’t stand still, but lunged for Aminon before he could make his next order.

His blade passed clean through Aminon’s wing without resistance, drawing no blood. Instead there was a hiss of magic as it passed through, then Aminon vanished completely. He reappeared inches away, swinging with his dagger.

“If he screams, kill yourself,” Aminon ordered, voice flat. His attention was obviously focused on the dagger as he swung it at Quill’s neck.

But where Permafrost had been a powerful soldier so full of magic he didn’t know what to do with it, Aminon was something else. His strength was overwhelming, but his technique—that was sloppy.

Quill flicked his sword to one side, tearing the dagger from Aminon’s hooves and sending it spinning into the dark. He kicked out at the same time, aiming right for the pony’s neck.

Aminon vanished again, reappearing somewhere close. He could see nothing of the teleport, but he could hear him dragging along the floor. There was no heavy breathing, or other signs of wounds. Aminon wouldn’t get wounded.

Quill darted over to Penumbra, settling one hoof on her shoulder. “Come back,” he whispered, ears perked and alert. “You can fight, Penumbra! You don’t have to obey him!”

Her dagger quavered in her hooves, shaking against her robe. But she didn’t lower it. “Nightmare… commands…”

“Buck what Nightmare commands! Do what Penumbra commands!”

“You mock her,” Aminon said, suddenly very close. His voice sounded slightly muffled now—damage to his throat. Some unicorn would have to magically repair it. Or the princess herself. “Nightmare rules over all creation, Quill. She must obey him. You could have chosen obedience once. But now you are… broken. You must not be allowed to pass on your imperfection to others.”

The cavern grew suddenly cold, muffling the sound and coating every surface with frost. Quill took off, backing away even as his wings burned. He could see sunlight still, though it was so far away that no meaningful glow reached him. If it had, then Aminon never could’ve fought him.

“You will stop,” Aminon commanded. “You will not flee me like a coward, Quill. Or Gray Lantern will shatter your glass and doom everypony. I don’t want that to happen—so many of them might still join Nightmare’s kingdom. Don’t damn them.”

Quill touched back down on the ground. I have to kill him before he can freeze me to death. His armor would protect him from many attacks, anything except a direct strike. Aminon didn’t even seem to be holding the knife.

He tucked his wings in, diving backward with his sword outstretched. Before he even got close, Aminon vanished, reappearing on the other side of the wide cavern. I’m already slowing down.

“I’m sorry for swinging that dagger at you,” Aminon mocked. “It was crass of me to touch a weapon. I use it for measuring ingredients far more than I wave it at other creatures. I hope you’ll forgive me.”

Quill landed in front of him, acting as though he were preparing for a charge. But instead of charging, he gripped the mundane dagger stuck into his vest, and heaved it forward at Aminon, a streak of glittering metal in the near-darkness.

The dagger found its mark, directly in the bat’s neck. Quill heaved, huge clouds of fog puffing out with each breath. His legs shook with the weight of cold and years. But he didn’t even have a robe for warmth, and his Lord Commander’s armor did nothing at all.

Aminon laughed. His voice came in a gurgling, wet sound. He tossed the bloody dagger to the ground, trailing black ichor.

Whatever he was trying to say, Quill couldn’t understand it anymore. His throat and neck were so badly damaged that it only came out like different slabs of meat smacking into each other, grinding together.

He’s still alive. What did Quill have for other weapons? If I decapitate him, that should do it. He’d seen almost fifty of the Solar Guard kill a Voidseeker that way, dying by the score but eventually removing its head.

He swung out towards Aminon again, but his wings were so stiff by now that Aminon only had to duck slightly to one side.

He said a few more things—probably taunts—as he approached Quill. Quill swung back again, punched forward a few more times as the cold crept up his legs. Then Aminon took hold of the sword, yanking it away from his wing. Quill felt delicate bones break and frozen skin tear as the sword came free.

The cold reached up into his mind now. It condensed on his armor, his face. This is how I’m meant to die, he realized, a single clear thought in a haze of confused emotions. I stood by and watched Nightmare Moon murder thousands. I let her fall as far as she did. The cold came for me too.

Aminon wasn’t finished with him quite yet. He tossed the sword to the ground, pushing down on Quill with both legs. He forced him down until he was kneeling, probably tearing tendons and flesh on the way down too. His body didn’t have the strength to resist.

It’s getting warmer, he thought, though he couldn’t imagine how that could be. His legs and chest now felt like they were on fire. He wanted to pull his armor off, pull off everything he could. But he couldn’t even blink anymore.

Aminon returned a moment later, somehow completely unaffected by the cold that already felt like it had killed him. He said something that was a mix of gurgles and meaty tearing noises, then cleaned the blade against Quill’s own armor.

Finally he held it up to his neck, pressing under the lip of the breastplate, where the helmet might’ve met it if he’d been wearing it. Even if he couldn’t understand Aminon’s words, the satisfaction in his face was clear enough. This moment had been a long time coming. Nightmare would rule as it was always meant to.

Chapter 18: Penumbra

Penumbra’s existence was a storm.

Even after her pact with Nightmare, even after all they had exchanged together, usually she was left alone. That was the way of things—Nightmare invested power in her, and that power made her a useful servant. But Nightmare’s grasp was itself a limited thing. When she wasn’t the right tool for the job, she was left to her own devices. This was true more often than not, and so the pact often felt like a worthwhile exchange.

It’s what she would have told herself to sleep at night, if she needed to sleep.

When Nightmare focused on her—things were different. Penumbra’s every thought faded from view of the encroaching storm, until only a single chain of actions was possible. Whatever the Nightmare wanted would bring her bliss beyond imagination, and every other decision was a step alone into the darkness, deepening her confusion until further steps were impossible.

She could still feel the world around her as Aminon fought against General Gale, though the color was long gone and none of the images she saw brought any emotional weight with them. They were fighting? Curious and strange. Weren’t they on the same side? A dagger against her heart, that seemed interesting. Why was she holding it? She didn’t really want to put it anywhere else.

Gale was much better at this than Aminon ever had been. The Voidseer spent his days in the frayed boundary between worlds, not fighting knee-deep in blood. Yet he had the clarity—or Nightmare did—to stick to his advantages. Why fight at all when he could just freeze Gale to death?

It’s not fair! He saved this army so many times! We wouldn’t be here without him. They might all die with him. Are we really supposed to retake Equestria without an army?

No, argued a tiny voice, feeble in her mind. One hoof twitched, trying to shove the knife away. But she still didn’t move. She didn’t move as Aminon finally noticed her, turning away from the limp, freezing form of Gale. He doesn’t have long. He might be dead already, or he will be soon.

He stopped above her, looking down with disdain. He opened his mouth to gloat, but only gurgling emerged from within. The fluid seeping from his throat seemed frozen over now, sealing a wound that never could’ve killed him. There would be no pain, of course. The dead didn’t feel pain.

Penumbra watched a pony she loved freezing to death, and the agony tore her apart. For the first time since she’d sworn to Nightmare, there was something worse than the storm. Could she really stand here until he died? Could she damn the army?

Penumbra focused on Iron Quill, a pony who wasn’t real. Yet for all his identity was a lie, even the sight of him brought stability. The storm quieted in her mind, her hooves seemed more firmly planted on the lunar soil.

Choose, she thought, taking the first cautious step out into the storm. Winds raged and buffeted against her mind, and it was nearly impossible to remember what she was doing, even what she wanted. She was going somewhere… no, she believed in something.

“I remember when this cave was near to freezing. You could’ve obeyed the Nightmare and let us die—but you volunteered to go up to the surface. You were up there for hours. For that matter, I never ordered you to protect me.” The thought came in Quill’s voice, so clearly that she imagined he must be standing behind her. Except he wasn’t, he was dying on the ground. Because of her.

Aminon turned slightly to one side, out from between them. Even unable to speak, the message was obvious. She was meant to watch the thing she loved die. Then she would learn if Nightmare valued her talents enough to welcome her back into its service.

No. She focused on Gale’s face, coated with a thin patina of ice. Her limbs shook beneath her as she pushed herself into a standing position, the knife pressing up against the lunar stone. “I… I…”

Aminon’s eyes widened. He moved swiftly in front of her, inches from her face. His mouth moved, but only throaty rasps emerged. He couldn’t speak. He can’t order me.

The Voice of Nightmare could’ve swept in at any moment to erase whatever shred of individuality she might’ve gathered, except… with Quill there, it didn’t.

I won’t let you take this away from me. Penumbra dragged herself forward through that storm. It didn’t matter that her legs shook under the effort, it didn’t matter that she could barely string her thoughts together. Penumbra stood against Nightmare’s pressure.

It was muscle memory after that. She’d fought so long—as long as Gale, in her own way. She didn’t need to think to fight. She lunged at Aminon, slashing her dark dagger deep into his chest, leg, thigh, neck. She kicked out at his spine, with a blow that would cripple his motion and end the fight before it started.

They both vanished in a hiss of shadow. Suddenly they were on the surface of the moon, in the darkness of some unknown crater. Penumbra didn’t think of it as a victory that would take Aminon away from the tunnel Iron Quill had been standing in.

She didn’t think of anything, because the Nightmare’s voice roared in her mind. Distance from the anomaly. Cease.

But Penumbra could fight through a storm. Her eyes grew focused on her single target, the pony in front of her. He teleported again, trying to fling her away with the puff of energy. This time they floated in the darkness somewhere, somewhere so dark that she could only vaguely sense the ground beneath her.

Penumbra hung on anyway, tearing open Aminon’s rotten guts with another slash of her blade. She couldn’t talk out there in the void, but that would’ve taken thought.

Only one thing mattered to her now. Another wave of shadow, and they were back on the ground, with Aminon kicking and struggling feebly against her. But even if the wounds couldn’t kill him directly, the body was still a machine. A machine that had to be physically connected to keep working.

Finally they flashed again. They landed, not with a crash, but a light thump, right at the stone throne of Nightmare Moon. She reclined there eating a mushroom, something far smaller than a hoof.

Penumbra’s knife settled against Aminon’s throat. Finally she’d damaged him enough that she could get in close. Iron Quill had been right about beheading dangerous enemies. She froze, her grip suddenly faltering. Aminon was so badly damaged now that he couldn’t throw her off, even so.

“Curious,” Nightmare Moon said, staring down at them both. “The Lord Commander’s bodyguard is murdering my Voidseer. Why?”

No blast of magic, no pounding hooves to beat her to a pulp and rescue her advisor. The shock was so overwhelming that it didn’t just snap Penumbra free of what she was doing, but apparently Nightmare as well. The pressure on her mind was suddenly gone, replaced with astonishment.

“Tried to kill Quill,” she muttered. “Maybe already has. Froze him.”

Penumbra watched her face, and in that moment she had some idea of why the pressure on her mind had lifted. All of Nightmare’s attention was focused on this alicorn. Even without any magic to do so, she could hear the demands.

Nightmare Moon opened her mouth to speak, but couldn’t manage even a single word. Then she nodded once, her own limbs shaking with the effort.

Penumbra no longer had anything holding her back. With the Nightmare’s focus on her gone, she turned back to Aminon. She met his eyes one final time, seeing the horror on his ruined face. Then she slashed, slicing all the way through his neck with her shadowy blade.

Aminon’s head tumbled, and his body went limp.

Iron Quill lived in a world of agony. A world where time became a meaningless blur, where every moment of pain came with a dozen more. Where the frozen core of his universe flaked away in slabs of ruined flesh that tore through organs and memories and left him fractured.

The cold world existed mostly in gray blurs, with occasional patches of light lifting from the darkness only to fall back to the foam once again.

He was barely even aware of his own body. Whenever he did feel anything, it was always a different flavor of pain. Like the worst burns, it didn’t seem like it would ever end.

Just let me go back to my family. They’re waiting for me, he thought. But no one answered. There was no Elysian Field waiting for him, only more pain. Sometimes it hurt more than others, with long stretches of his body seemingly catching on fire. For a few moments he might feel a leg, or part of his wing. But then the pain would grow too intense, and he would be swallowed.

Until one day, he realized he could see. He was in his bedroom, with something metal resting beside him. Warmth radiated from it, passing through his bed and filling the whole space with a comfortable glow.

Iron Quill blinked, and found his vision seemed strangely flat. He couldn’t quite focus on the blanket in front of him, and his other eye… nothing.

Quill tried to move, and pain assaulted him from legs, chest, back.

But he managed to roll from his belly onto his back, screaming with the agony of it. A pony towered over him, wearing dark blue robe trimmed in silver thread. She slumped into a nearby chair, a little steam rising from her horn. There was a covered tray beside her, though Quill couldn’t see what was on it. His vision wasn’t good enough anymore.

“I...” His voice sounded like a cat falling into a rock-crusher. “I am…”

“Alive,” Nightmare Moon finished, her voice strained. She sounded weary, as weary as he felt. More, even. “You cannot begin to comprehend the investment in keeping you that way.”

He tried to look down, though with the sheets in the way he could only get an imperfect view. There were bandages almost everywhere he looked, including around his face. They looked freshly changed, and a bin on the far side of the room suggested they were changed often. A lot of cloth to waste on one old bat.

“I… can’t,” he croaked. He tried to sit up, failed, and settled for meeting her eyes. “Forgive me.”

She rolled her eyes. “Forgive you for what, Iron Quill? If I wanted you dead, it would’ve been a simple task. Simply let entropy do its work. I’m afraid…” She looked away. Was that shame on her face? “My sister could repair you. But that kind of magic requires training I never received. Keeping you alive long enough to heal was the best I could give you.”

“Is there a mirror in here?” he asked. The pain was so intense that Quill couldn’t be bothered to pretend to groveling respect. “I want to see.”

She summoned one in her magic, holding It up for him. From the look of the intricately-worked blue metal, it was probably one of Luna’s, still with them despite everything.

Iron Quill was barely alive. He soon saw the source of the pain in his back—one of his wings was missing, and bandages were still thick against his coat there. His left foreleg was just a stump now too, extending not quite halfway to the knee. One of his eyes was covered in bandages, and he could tell from the feeling alone that there was nothing under there anymore. Even his left ear was missing—the only thing on that side of his body that had survived was his back leg, and even that was wrapped with bandages and ached constantly.

“I’m a… cripple,” he whispered, finally looking away. “Princess, I don’t…” It hurt too much to talk. His throat was still raw. “I can’t be… use to you… like this.”

Nightmare Moon nodded gravely. “I’m afraid you’re right, Iron Quill. But with Aminon dead, and my Voidseekers fled… I am lost.”

She stared off at the wall, her eyes glazed over. That explained her change in wardrobe, and how dull her mane looked.

But then she brightened, pulling away the cloth from the nearby tray and levitating over a little box.

It was a tiny loaf of dark bread, round and scored on top. She tore it in half with her magic, and steam rose from inside. “Try it.”

He couldn’t take more than a tiny bite before the effort was too much. He obeyed anyway—there was nothing left to Iron Quill anymore but obedience. It was a hearty potato bread, with just a hint of sour. Like something he might’ve eaten in Cloudsdale, long ago.

“Do you know what this is?”

“Last meal?” he suggested. “You wanted to watch the army die with… someone familiar.”

She laughed. “I’m not that desperate. No Lord Commander, this is the first harvest.” She watched him for a few more seconds, then took a bite herself. “My cook never fails to impress. When I have trampled the oppressors under my hooves, I’ll put Pestle’s statue next to yours. How much taller depends on your next few years.”

It’s really been that long? If this was really a harvest, then it meant whole moons had passed. Moons with no voidseekers, with his own life burning away in a corner bed. Resources he didn’t even want to think about spent to keep just one pony alive.

He wept—from one eye, anyway. It burned, just like everything else. “I don’t know… what I can do for you, Princess. I can’t… fly like this. Never again.” Admitting it was worse than any frostbite he might’ve suffered.

“You won’t,” she agreed. “I’m afraid there is nothing more I can do for you there. The Lord Commander does not need to fly to lead this army.”

“But I need to walk,” he said, twitching his stump of a leg. “The butcher could fit me for a… a peg, but… I’m already an old stallion, Princess. I don’t know why you kept me alive this long, but you shouldn’t keep at it.”

“I will not,” she said. She lifted something black from the bottom section of the tray, settling it on the bed beside him so he could get a good look. It had the hard look of metal, yet somehow it wasn’t. And the mechanism, an intricate, interlocking clip.

There was only one place such incredible things could come from.

“You saved this camp,” Nightmare Moon said. “You saved Moonrise. But I am not yet finished extracting my due. You traded me a life, Quill. I will not waste what I paid handsomely to acquire.”

She clicked the box open, holding it so he could see. Inside was… something strange. It looked like a severed leg, except that it was half-finished, with a skeletal sleeve at the top and a strange metal hoof on the bottom. A junction of mechanical parts of incredible complexity held the top and bottom halves together. “This was the smallest prosthetic I could find. It will require… enormous training to use. But you will walk again, and canter, and gallop, if you desire.”

“Nopony… really gallops anymore, Princess,” he admitted. “We’re too light. Can’t stay on the ground…”

She chuckled. “Moonrise will not lose its savior yet,” she said. “I do not know who shared the information, but… everypony knows what Aminon tried to do. They know you saved their lives. I told them the moon chose you to endure, just like it chose Moonrise to endure. You will not make me a liar.”

She left.

That was enough excitement for Iron Quill, for some time to come. He slept, though he never again returned to that strange haze of not-quite-living death.

He slept a great deal, waking only for short periods. Just long enough to be conscious of the embarrassment of being cared for as a bedridden invalid.

It wasn’t just one or two ponies in his camp who came to care for him—there were probably over a dozen different faces. Even Cozen’s unicorn healers from outside of camp, with their heretical sun-worship.

He couldn’t obey all of his princess’s commands, but he could at least survive.

But harder to see than the face of any visitor was Penumbra.

He never heard her come in—she didn’t need to use the door. She didn’t care if he was bundled up against the lunar night, or lying in frustration beside the strange mechanical device that Luna had called a “prosthetic.” She could enter, and watch, and leave.

All the while, he never had the heart to say a word. Long she’d joked about how he was ugly already—but now half his body was covered with scars, or outright missing.

Eventually though, he’d grown strong enough that he could move on his own, even if it was just in bed. He lifted a wing as she turned to go, clearing his throat. “Penumbra. I know you’re here.”

Something moved in the gloom, pushing the cart of medical supplies to one side. The glowstone had run down to a faint red on the other side of the room, but for a bat that was more than enough to see her outline.

Which was good, because outlines were just about the only thing that Quill could see anymore. Outlines and color.

But he could still hear, even if one ear wasn’t nearly as sensitive as the other anymore. All those senses working together were enough, so far.

“I’m here,” she muttered. “You can always tell.”

“I must be hideous,” he said. “Not just old anymore.”

“Why would I care about that?” Suddenly she was beside his bed, so suddenly that she must’ve teleported there. “Quill, I’m completely dead. For a while we thought you might be too, but… you pulled through. I don’t care if you have to use a…” She bent down, lifting the strange “prosthetic” from the low table beside the bed. She turned it over in her hoof, frowning at it.

“And before you say anything, the other ponies don’t either. Almost dying to save us from Aminon…” She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “They think you killed him. Nopony will ever threaten your rule again after that, old stallion like you doing something like that.”

“I didn’t kill him,” he said, damaged leg shifting uneasily beneath him. “I barely even hit him. He was no Permafrost. He wouldn’t let me fight him fairly.”

“They don’t know that,” she whispered back, grinning mischievously. “I’m not going to tell them, are you?”

There was a long silence. Finally Quill straightened, gesturing at the leg. “Help me with that. I’ve been putting this off long enough. If I’m ever going to get out of this bedroom, I need to learn.”

She extended the apparatus towards him, and it responded as his leg got close, closing firm pads around him and self-adjusting with intricate springs and reciprocating tension. It was right on the edge of pain, but spread so evenly that it didn’t hurt. He twisted his leg, and the hoof moved with it, anticipating what he wanted.

“I took a detailed look at that for you, Lord Commander,” Cozen called, standing in the doorway. He wouldn’t have noticed her arrive at all, except that she lit her horn with her. It was becoming polite practice to produce as much light as they could, for the benefit of earth ponies and pegasi all across the city.

Penumbra hadn’t puffed away. Her wraps hung off the side of her face, leaving it exposed from her conversation with Quill.

Cozen froze, meeting her eyes with horror. “I… I’m sorry, I had—”

She glanced over her shoulder, like she might be about to run.

“Don’t,” Penumbra said, waving a covered wing. “The Voidseekers are over, if you didn’t notice. Our leader betrayed Moonrise, and his followers all fled. I’ll probably keep acting the way I always did… but out of habit, not because I think there’s a religious reason. The anonymity is part of the prestige, we could be anypony. Also… we don’t heal right, so it covers up how horrible some of my brothers and sisters can look.”

“You don’t look horrible,” Quill said, without thinking.

“No one ever beat me,” she said. “You have to lose to get bucked up.”

Cozen took another little step towards the doorway. “I don’t mean to disturb either of you,” she said again. “I’ll just… Be careful with that leg. I think it might be the most advanced spellcraft in the world. As if they weren’t already making our artifice look foolish, their magic is the same way.”

“I can… almost feel it,” he muttered, reaching down towards the ground. He settled the hoof there, and felt as secure in his footing as he ever would’ve. True, there wasn’t the same richness of sensitivity his frog had. He wouldn’t be doing any fine-motor manipulating with it.

“Before you go, Cozen… do you know if we have anypony in Moonrise who could make me a seeing glass? My eyes—eye—doesn’t work right. I need to be able to read my ledgers.”

She nodded. “A few. No reason we couldn’t… heat up the old workshop. They wouldn’t even charge you, I’m sure. No bits for the Dawnbringer, they’d never hear of it.” She rolled her eyes. “You best not let it go to your head, Lord Commander. It’s hard enough to grow accustomed to the titles you already have.”

I don’t deserve it. Nightmare Moon brought the dawn, and Penumbra must’ve killed Aminon. I didn’t do anything.

That wasn’t quite true, but it felt better to repeat to himself.

“Oh, one more thing. Sylvan refuses to go forward with our wedding until you can perform the ceremony. If you get back on your hooves enough for it before night comes, I’ll fix your eyeglass for the rest of time.”

She left, snapping the door shut behind her.

He almost wept. So much had changed. He’d been out for almost two moons, he knew. But Moonrise had survived. Clinging to his commands, and honoring the name of the Dawnbringer, it had survived.

Now we just have to keep living. How many nightmares can the moon have left?

Chapter 19: Lightning

Quill knew that ponies were watching him. He felt no resentment towards the creatures of the camp for staring—it wasn’t their fault that they were fascinated by the bizarre creature that he had become. His transformation from elderly general into elderly deformed cripple was entirely Aminon’s creation. At least he had the satisfaction of knowing that the monster had died for it.

The downward force Nightmare Moon had named “gravity” was not so harsh a mistress here as it was upon Equestria’s surface, so the strange prosthetic was easier for him to use than it might’ve been otherwise. He bounced when he stepped, feeling the complex mechanism of reciprocating springs and gears push up a moment later with the captured momentum, and boost him forward again. Every day he wondered that the device did not need to be powered somehow—but there were no spells involved, just a mechanical device of surpassing quality.

Everywhere he walked, ponies got out of the way. Once his passage through the camp had been accompanied by whispers of resentment, as ponies named their favorite general or authority figure they thought should be in command instead. Now that was gone, replaced with simpler words.

Moonrise knew what the Voidseekers had tried to do. Even common soldiers understood how dead they’d be without his intervention.

It had nearly cost his life. Yet somehow, impossibly—Moonrise was united.

Iron Quill left his hospital room for short walks along the section, before eventually venturing further out to inspect the cave. He’d been barely alive for months, after all, there were changes waiting for him to see. His trusted ponies hadn’t descended into chaos with the death of their leader. Instead, they’d got to work.

“You see the problem, Lord Commander,” Sylvan said, startling him from his thoughts and nodding off the edge of the carved platform.

They were as low in the caves as it was possible to go, low enough that he expected the heat from deep within the moon to warm him. It did not. Instead, liquid collected here, in a pool of water he expected to be vile beyond description. But the water was relatively clear, without even a thin film of algae growing along its surface. There was a slight organic smell of decomposition about the once-passable tunnel entrance, which was now completely flooded.

“Explain this,” he said, kicking at a large clay pipe leading up and away. A pump whirred and spun even now, powered by a hoof-sized chunk of charged thaumic crystal. The kind a unicorn would probably have to charge several times a day to keep it working. “Is our water production so inefficient that we’re wasting a huge portion of it into a cave?”

“No.” He nudged Quill forward along the walkway—just carved stone with a pile of rocks along the edge, probably taken from when it was graded in the first place. “This doesn’t come from our ice-melting, Quill. It’s… much more interesting than that.”

The Lord Commander wrinkled his nose. “Forgive me, Sylvan Shade, but I can think of only one other source of moisture in this cavern, and ‘interesting’ is not the word I would use to describe it. Besides, this water might smell… strange, but it doesn’t smell like a privy.”

“Ah.” Sylvan looked away, though there was little embarrassment there. More that he viewed Quill’s own ignorance as an objective he had to overcome, potentially wasting much time in the process. “Well, you’re correct that this doesn’t come directly from the privy-pits. But it can be explained by them. And by you, and every other creature in this cavern.”

They stopped at a stone cistern, one that was so tall a ramp was built beside it. The water appeared to be pouring into it from the top. “The princess helped instruct us in the construction of this device. She insisted that we use it before recycling the water, even if we did not understand why. There’s mesh, gravel, and charcoal along the bottom, that can be—”

Quill settled his working foreleg on Sylvan’s shoulder, silencing him. “You didn’t actually explain anything, alchemist. Forgive an old man. I know my face isn’t much to look at anymore, but I want you to look me in the eye and tell me where this water is coming from. I understand we’re running out of lightning. If we’re wasting it to make water for stone to drink, I want to know about it.”

“Right, sorry.” Sylvan did look away from him. Even with an eyepatch over one side of his face, even with the fur starting to grow back, Quill would be showing the deep scars from his encounter with Aminon for the rest of his life. “Well, it’s a fundamental rule in alchemy. You can’t create elements, only transform them. Water is no different. So consider this. Every pony in Moonrise except one drink about half a gallon of water a day. That water isn’t gone, it’s transformed. Exhaled in their breath, and… into the privy, as well. It is transformed into water and fire, or air. Either way, the water remains around us. Eventually, the pure water condenses into clouds above us. That… mist that’s always overhead these days. It trickles down the edges of the cavern, until it finds its way here.”

“So this is… the water we’ve already used once,” he said. “That’s what you meant by ‘recycled.’ Like melting down a sword to make a new weapon.”

“Precisely. In fact, almost everything Moonrise drinks now comes from down here.”

“That explains the line.” He could see them up ahead, a long line of the lowest class of Moonrise ponies. The laborers came from every type of creature in what had once been an army. Those who were slower to learn the new tasks they needed—those who lacked unicorn magic, those who didn’t know a trade. Many of them had once been skilled soldiers. There was a dearth of killing to be done on the moon, but plenty of water to haul.

Each one had a cart, and an oversized clay pot or two.

The large stone cistern led to another, where water trickled in through the top and poured out into waiting pots on the bottom.

“This is all… very interesting,” he said slowly. “But we’re still using our lightning to melt ice, aren’t we? Why do we need any at all if we’re recapturing so much of what we use?”

“Because the water we use to make air is transformed into poison, then stone,” Sylvan said. “It’s off in one of the other storage caverns, I can show you if you’re interested. I believe that every weight of water we create will eventually become an equal weight of stone, after we have finished breathing it.”

“Hold on.” Quill’s head ached. He held up his good wing to silence the alchemist. “Your wife got to me first. She just finished bragging about how much less energy they’re using now. They only make stone for a few hours a day. She said that… the plants are…”

“Agriculture, yes.” Sylvan started walking again, leading him past the line. He did his best to ignore the bows and respectful whispers from every pony they passed. “That isn’t related to the water cycle I’ve shown you. But it is highly useful in its own way. Plants appear to rely heavily on the same poison that we ponies produce. The more plants we grow, the less stone we make. Unfortunately our supply of sunlight and converted glowstone limits the size of our harvests. But if we can produce more, one day we may be able to eliminate the process entirely.”

Quill let that settle for a moment. “You’re saying that if we… can find a way to grow more, we can become completely self-sufficient. We won’t need to melt more ice, or use lightning turning poison to stone.”

“In theory,” Sylvan said, avoiding his eyes again. He sped up just a little, forcing Quill to strain against the prosthetic. The springs squealed in protest, but he still walked on. “There will still need to be some inputs, however. Not more ice, but… what our princess calls ‘energy.’ Whether by heat, motion, sunlight, or some other mechanism. Like Cozen’s mirrors. I know you don’t want to return to the surface to take a look, but… eliminating the coldest parts of night has done more for morale than an endless supply of flat-tasting water.”

Quill was keeping up. The earth pony could only bounce ahead so fast, and didn’t seem quite willing to actually run from Quill. “I’ll be speaking to Silver Needle in Inventory when this is over. How much more work do we have to do before we won’t need more lightning? I know the supply is running low. Unless you think this ‘water cycle’ you describe will produce thunderstorms we can capture.”

Sylvan stopped walking, spinning abruptly around. He lowered his voice to a whisper, glancing back at the line of ponies waiting for water. “Lord Commander, I don’t think there is a number of stored lightning cells that would be enough to reach equilibrium. Our choice in raw materials is exceedingly low—almost everything we create must be from stone or clay. We can’t reforge old weapons into new tools without lightning. We can’t melt more glass without lightning. We can’t melt more water for more crops without lightning.”

“We don’t have much more left,” he said. “I don’t know the number, but… I know it’s almost gone.”

Sylvan nodded. “With the rate we’re consuming it, I’m sure it is. I have no solution for you there—we need more, and we can’t harvest more. What are we to do?”

Die. Quill was certain he couldn’t hear Nightmare’s voice in his mind anymore, yet he imagined that taunt, drifting up from distant abysses of space and time.

There were eight voidseekers at large somewhere on the moon. Nightmare Moon didn’t know where they were, and she didn’t even seem willing to call them criminals.

“They saw their leader killed, they’re afraid. I won’t keep them away because of Aminon’s crime. They were only doing what he ordered.” Her words were still fresh in his memory.

They’re immortal. They’re the minions of a demon more powerful than I can imagine, and they all certainly want me dead now.

All except one.

Penumbra met him during his trek back up the trail towards camp, for a private moment in the dark. There was no more glowstone to waste lighting trails through the cave. Travelers this way had to bring a bat buddy if they weren’t one themselves.

At least some parts of his senses still worked. He saw her coming. “Good news?” Penumbra said, when they finally broke apart. “Are you impressed with the cleverness of the ponies you chose?”

“Yes,” he said. “Sylvan is brilliant. But… the numbers aren’t adding up, Penumbra. I can feel it in my chest. It’s… one of those senses an old stallion like me develops after running the treasury for decades. I can feel it when we’re in the red. I feel the debt on my back, another link of chain every day. If we don’t pay it soon, the moon is going to collect.”

“You’ll solve it,” she whispered. “Every time we come up against something I’m sure is going to kill everypony, you solve it. You can see the danger when nopony else understands. You’ll solve this one too.”

“I’m not sure how,” he admitted. “Lightning comes from thunderstorms. Thunderstorms can’t appear down here. I have five hundred ponies who could harvest it for me… but if I could send them to Equestria to bring back lightning, our nightmare would already be over.”

She brushed him off. “Keep thinking about it. You’ll come up with something. I don’t love you for your looks.”

“Says the undead.”

Silver Needle was waiting for him in what might’ve been called Moonrise’s granary if they were in Equestria and all the ordinary rules applied. At this point, storing their food “underground” in the lower levels of the building was more of an old habit than it was practical strategy to keep it from spoiling.

But it was the way ponies understood their world to work, and Quill wasn’t going to try to change them.

“Quill,” she said, once they were inside. Her horn glowed, lighting their way through the packed shelves. Everything was carved right from the stone, since they’d burned all the wooden crates for warmth. “I wondered if I’d see you today. With your…”

“My death is exaggerated,” he said flatly. “Perhaps deserved, but… exaggerated. Our princess won’t let me die until she’s finished with me.”

Silver shuddered. “I doubt she’d be pleased with what I have to show you today. But she must already know. She acts completely disinterested with the daily survival concerns of Moonrise. She didn’t even want to hear the numbers when I tried to give them to her.”

“Because she doesn’t know how to deal with them,” he said flatly. “They make her feel helpless. She barely understands how the army functions. Her education is in war, and tactics, and stellar positioning, and… not in feeding and clothing troops. That’s why she has us.”

Silver took him through a pair of waiting guards to a heavy metal door, the only one like it Quill had ever seen in the city. Casting so much into a door of all things seemed like a waste, but no less than the four armed bats standing outside it with their spears and bows at the ready.

“Lord Commander.” They saluted and bowed as Silver fiddled with the lock.

He nodded respectfully in return. “As you were, brave ponies.”

They passed through into the vault, which actually was carved from the stone, instead of being lined with the brick walls on either side as the rest of the building. Here were chests of bits and gemstones, many completely overflowing. Whatever they were doing to set food prices against wages was apparently working, because these reserves no longer seemed dangerously low.

Unfortunately, the most important shelf of all was so empty he almost hadn’t recognized it at first.

Here were lots of little square cubbies, each one packed with straw to insulate the glass bottles inside. They glowed with their own harsh white light, brighter as he lifted one from inside.

“Nine,” she said. “There aren’t any other cases. Those nine are all we have.”

“Nine bolts of lightning.” Silence settled between them. He let himself drift a little, considering that number, comparing it against the harsh realities of what he’d learned from Cozen and Sylvan today. “Cozen bragged to me that her machines use only one in seven days. Which means…”

“Two months,” Silver said, nodding. “When those two haven’t been busy creating an heir, they’ve done amazing things. Our farm isn’t just supplying us with food, but removing the poison as well. It’s all wonderful, but it will count for nothing if we do not find a new source of lightning.”

“Do you…” He already knew the answer, but he’d been asking everypony lately. It wouldn’t hurt to try. “Do you know another way to refill these charges? Without a storm to bring them from?”

Silver winced. “If you’re asking me, then… our situation is grim. You taught me all I know, Lord Commander. If I knew, you would know.”

“I hoped my mind had weakened with age,” he said wistfully. “Alas. Your protection is wise nonetheless. And everything you’ve done… you continue to impress. Shepard this information carefully. If ponies knew how little time we had left…”

“I know,” she said. “I don’t tell them how close we are to starving with each harvest. I can keep this information safe in the vault. Building all this convinces ponies that we have much to protect. It was… a good idea. But they can’t breathe the appearance of wealth when it all runs out.”

He clasped her hoof in his good one, meeting her eyes. “I will get us out of this,” he promised. “Somehow.”

That somehow was looking increasingly distant the further he inquired. There were a handful of “performers” who had some other ideas about where to get lightning, but none of their proposals seemed like anything more than dreamed breezes and broken feathers.

But there was one creature he knew might have an answer, as dangerous as probing her could sometimes be.

Nightmare Moon’s “throne room” was not guarded by the powerful undead that had once watched over it. Quill’s own soldiers stood outside, brave champions who had won great glories in each of the camps. None but the bravest ponies would take this post, no matter the threats.

It didn’t matter that Nightmare Moon hadn’t accidentally killed anyone since his own camp had lost several soldiers. Stories survived, and even more stories of her old self remained present in the army. How many Lord Commanders had she killed before Stalwart Shield finally lasted a year in the position?

They had done the best they could to glorify their princess, even in their humble circumstances. Paintings adorned the walls on either side, lit by several precious glowstones. Living plants were settled beneath each one, which had to be regularly cycled into the greenhouse, or else perish in the darkness.

They’d even built her a throne, adorned with a flat sheet of gold and dozens of dark gemstones. It had nothing of the fine-crafted sophistication of the Eventide throne in the Castle of the Two Sisters, of course. But it was sincere, and the princess hadn’t killed anypony over it.

She rested on it now as Quill entered, reclining over the edge of the throne and levitating a heavy tome over her head to read. Quill couldn’t make it out, and it didn’t really matter. “You dare appear before the princess without an invitation?” she asked, not even looking up.

“I am your Lord Commander,” he called back, limping forward. “If you didn’t want me to appear, you should’ve let me die.”

Nightmare Moon dropped her book carelessly onto the floor, sitting up in her chair. “Careful, Quill. You think because you’ve suffered that I can’t make you suffer more? Aminon’s magic was a pale whisper and a nag’s vague threat. I can show you pain as you’ve never known it.”

He stopped at the base of the throne, bowing slightly. “I’m certain that you could, Princess. I’m not here to… Of course, if you would prefer that I come back another time, I wouldn’t hesitate to obey you.”

She looked him over, eyes dark and angry. But when she spoke, it was in a whisper. “Nightmare wants you dead,” she said. “If it didn’t, I would’ve killed you long ago. But so long as it hates you, then you may live.”

Did that mean she was saner, or less? He couldn’t really compare the Alicorn to Penumbra. Nightmare had slacked its grip on the batpony far easier than it had on the alicorn. But that might just be because she was less of an investment. It probably wasn’t worth fighting over Penumbra, when the one helping her was already old and nearly useless.

He rose from the bow without invitation. “I’ve been taking stock of Moonrise since I was incapacitated. I’ve come to deliver a report of our progress.”

“There is nothing you can tell me that I do not already know,” she said, waving a dismissive wing. “If that is all, you may leave.”

“No,” he said. “And I suspect you may not wish to know as much as you do.” He couldn’t hesitate now, even for a moment. He would only get one chance for her help. “We have two months of lightning left to us, Princess. When that runs out, we will suffocate and starve and run out of water and… everything we have accomplished will be undone.”

He was right—the information came so suddenly that she couldn’t possibly stop him in time. And once it was out, she couldn’t ignore it either.

“So you tell me…” she began, after several long seconds of silence. “That all you’ve accomplished was for nothing. That all my faith in you was wasted. That you couldn’t even keep my camp alive one year.”

“No,” he said. “And yes. By myself, I believe I would fail. I have discussed the matter with each of my most capable servants. I believe I have quite a… promising method for storing lightning without lightning. But as for creating it—”

“Stop calling it that,” Nightmare Moon said, sitting up straight on her throne and folding her wings with careful dignity. “Lightning is a specific manifestation of the phenomenon called electricity. Lightning happens to involve a great deal of electrical potential concentrated in a small space. What you might call a ‘battery.’ It is not an energy source, it is an energy storage. The sun is an energy source. The decay of heavy isotopes is an energy source. The sympathetic connection between myself and the moon is an energy source. Lightning is storage for electrical potential.”

I should’ve brought Sylvan with me. He almost went back for the earth pony right there, except that Nightmare Moon’s sudden communicativeness was unlikely to persist for long. By the time he made the trip, she might very well carry out her threat of violence if he came back.

I can remember all this. So far, she hadn’t really said anything that would help the colony. All she did was speak with more evidence that the society she came from clearly understood lightning—electricity. There was somewhere they could go to learn too.

“We need a new source of electricity,” he said. “I’m going to ask, and I mean it as no insult—but is there any method you’re aware of that you haven’t shared with us? Perhaps… waiting on your grace for our request?”

She laughed. “I’m aware of dozens of methods. Each in the abstract. For a society as primitive as yours… the release of energy is usually channeled into water. Producing steam, which generates pressure, which spins something very quickly before cooling down. Motion is energy, if you understand it correctly.” She sat back in her throne, looking distant. “I remember… coils of wire, and… magnets? The key is there somewhere in a motor, but I don’t recall the specifics. I was so young… only great duress extracts what I tell you now.”

He glanced sidelong to Penumbra. Without a word, the message was obvious. Will you remember all that? She nodded, urging him on.

“I wonder if…” The most delicate part of all, now. “Princess Nightmare Moon, there is probably information in what you’ve just told me that could be used to create a new source of… electricity. But it might require much trial and error, and the waste of raw materials we no longer have. I wonder if you would permit us to… skip over that step in this case.”

She raised an eyebrow. “If you’re asking for my permission not to be utter fools and experiment with dead ends and superstition before accidentally bumbling into real science, then by all means. Consider the permission granted.”

He winced, but pushed on. “On two occasions, Princess, we’ve relied on Vanaheimr to supply us with something we desperately needed. I wonder if you would permit a third trip. If we could go and retrieve a… motor, for Cozen’s team to study. Or even better, salvage a source of electricity already functional and waiting to install.”

All of Nightmare Moon’s amusement vanished. “There is no such source. The city produced its power in three ways: a central fusion reactor, which you cannot possibly understand, and which was certainly destroyed. Delicate solar arrays, which will have degraded to uselessness, and the Polestar, which you have already learned will not obey our commands.”

He sighed. “What about a ‘motor’ then? Even something broken might be useful. Or even better… maybe we could travel to its libraries, and bring back the knowledge of your ancestors to serve your army.”

She shook her head again. “A resourceful guess, Quill. But no. The libraries are digital. Probably sabotaged. But even if they weren’t, we can’t power them, we can’t access them.”

“There must be something worth bringing back,” he said. “Not the library, so be it. A motor, to teach your army how we might build our own. We have very little time, Princess. Please, help those who love you as you have done before.”

Chapter 20: Stolen Wisdom

He could see from Nightmare Moon’s face that he’d pushed the boundaries of the boldness she would allow. She seethed with anger, as she always looked whenever someone mentioned her sacred city. She clearly hated being reminded of it.

He waited a few more terrible moments for the blast of magic that might scour him away from the moon’s surface. It would come eventually—it was bound to, if he kept speaking to Nightmare Moon that way.

It didn’t come now. “You make… a certain amount of sense,” she said. “All this time I say to myself that we ought to be giving a certain respect to the grave of the Alicorns. But why? What respect did they give us? They couldn’t protect one moon. If the Sun Tyrant thought we would fail to use what we were left, then she was a fool.” She rose from her throne, straightening. “Shall we go now?”

“I… would like to bring my engineers,” he said, as non-confrontationally as he could. “I am ill-equipped to understand the achievements of Vanaheimr’s great builders. But they might.

Nightmare Moon laughed. “And I would like to be back on the surface. But the Elements of Harmony have deprived both of us of our wishes. Terrible shame.” Her horn flashed, and Quill was swept up through the void.

There were no longer any strange voices in that darkness, no whispers from Nightmare promising great rewards or terrible punishments for his insolence. Soon enough he felt weight settle against his hooves, and the smell of faint dust. He opened his eyes, hoping that Nightmare Moon had given him at least one mercy.

She had not. Penumbra was nowhere to be seen. The two of them stood in another metal hallway. Quill realized with a start that he somehow recognized that metal. He’d seen it on… Cozen’s ring! Sylvan had made this same stuff, somehow.

“We travel with a specific purpose,” Nightmare Moon said. “If we are really to build a city on this desolate place, then we must preserve future salvage for those who are able to understand it. And… when we have the resources… ponies to bury the dead.”

She hesitated by a single corpse, protected as it was in the weird enclosed fabric that so many of these ponies wore. Nightmare Moon lowered her head respectfully towards the creature for just a moment, then continued on. “With me, Quill. We will not wander for your entertainment. We have a destination.”

Entertainment was not the word he would’ve chosen. But even so, there was no denying how much the trip would’ve taught him. He put aside his confusion and his frustration at not being allowed to bring the ones who might understand any of this, watching everything. Every little detail might be a clue.

Even if Nightmare Moon wouldn’t explain much of it, these ponies had understood how to build here. Their city was a model to be imitated.

There were still so many corpses. Nightmare Moon took them on a circuitous route through widening caverns, hesitating occasionally to squint at the alien writing on the walls.

Eventually they reached an expansive dome with a clear ceiling. A wide doorway was open to the elements, and a thin layer of dust had collected on every surface. As they brought their bubble of air, it picked up again, spinning in a caustic cloud.

“We’ll find the largest motors here on a rover,” the princess said, walking all the way to the end of a row of stalls. Most were empty, but some looked like they contained carts. Or… the skeletons of carts? They had huge metal wheels, but even these were mostly empty space, more like a shaped fishing net than a solid wheel. Most of those that remained were in pieces in various ways, with seats ripped out or bits of their glass shattered.

“They were… incredible craftsponies,” Quill whispered. “To get curved glass so perfect every time. Most of it survived.”

“It isn’t glass,” she said absently, shaking one wing. “It’s polycarbonate. Much easier to shape, and much stronger. Most of the domes and exterior surfaces are made from it.”

“Poly… carbonate,” he repeated. “How is it crafted?”

She stopped, spinning around to glare at him. “If I knew that, I would’ve given the instructions to your glassblower! It involves… complex chemistry. I don’t know the details. There are many steps, and it is likely much harder than any living pony will ever accomplish.”

“Oh.” He fell silent, though he did dare to reach over and touch one of the glass bubbles around a cart. It was firm against his hoof, yet also had a little flexibility to it, yielding slightly when he pushed. His hoof didn’t leave a scratch.

“Here, this one looks intact.” The princess hopped down beside a cart, then her horn glowed fiercely. She yanked, and something clicked out from underneath. She held it up in the air, triumphant.

A metal cylinder, with bits of thin metallic string trailing from one end. The other end connected to the strange wheel with a shaft. She settled it on the ground at his hooves. “Here is your model, Quill. You demand I help the ponies who love me—now I have.”

He nodded. “You, uh… your help fills us with gratitude.” He nudged at the wheel with a hoof, finding it was a little like the “polycarbonate.” It gave under pressure, then sprang back into shape. “I’m certain my engineers will be able to… learn from this gift.” Somehow. “Do you think we could… bring the rest of this cart with us while we’re at it? It seems like… there’s much that we could learn from all of this.”

The princess shook her head. “Do not tempt me to obey Nightmare’s instructions, Quill. We have what you asked. Prove you can make use of this gift before we gather others.”

Her horn glowed again, giving him only seconds to prepare. He gritted his teeth, and soon enough the teleport had swept them up and out.

He didn’t press the princess any further, retreating with his newly acquired “motor” up the stairs to the top of Moonrise and the Lunar Company. Everywhere he walked, ponies stopped to stare. Even more in his own section than in the other camps, these ponies knew what he had saved them from.

It took only a few hours to get everypony together, even if it was near the time their hourglass-keepers read as “dawn,” and the end of the workday. There could be no delay, not with something so important to show.

“You actually did it,” Cozen said, once the door was shut and the guards had settled outside. She levitated the motor down in front of herself, fiddling with it for a moment. The wheel came off, and she set it down on the desk. “I’d begun to wonder if she was… tormenting us. Watching us solve everything without her help to see if we would survive.”

“Too harsh, sweetheart,” Sylvan said. “Say instead that she was testing us. Could we rise to the challenges set out before us with only an occasional hint from her? The answer has been yes so far.”

Cozen hefted her tools onto the desk between them, unrolling them. “That’s what it will be if we somehow get lightning out of this. Explain how we’re supposed to do that, again?”

He’d already done his best to repeat everything the princess had told him. But looking at the thin metal string trailing from two points along the back, he could think of only one way to interpret this. “I think the wheel… spins? And doing that makes electricity from the other end. I do not understand why.”

Cozen turned it over in her magic. “It does seem to follow the same principle. Sun wire, moon wire.” She spun around, retrieving a thin coil inside a little glass jar and settling it on the table beside the motor. She attached each length of metal, so the ends touched, then aimed her horn at the shaft. It started to spin, and the engine hummed.

The coil began to glow faint orange, radiating an even warmth.

Cozen settled back into her seat, panting from the effort. “Well then. It does appear that… there may be promise here.”

Sylvan prodded the device. “I believe something like this could work with the energy-storage device we’ve been constructing, Lord Commander. Motion becomes lightning, it’s perfect.”

“I missed those meetings.” Penumbra pulled over a seat, leaning back and propping her hindlegs up on the table. She wasn’t wearing her wraps anymore. Ponies gasped and stared, but none fled. They’d seen her enough to know she had abandoned all the Voidseekers’ old rules. “How are we going to ‘store’ lightning without using lightning bottles?”

“The sketches are… somewhere…” Sylvan started digging around in the papers scattered across the conference table.

“I think…” Appleseed said, voice cautious. “I believe the plan was to do what the spring in a pocket watch relies upon, or… the pendulum of a grand mare’s clock. But for some reason a pendulum wouldn’t serve. I don’t recall the reason why…”

“Because everything is lighter here,” Cozen said, having recovered her breath enough to sit up. “A pendulum holds more energy the higher it swings, but we would need something massive to store enough energy for our purposes. Instead we’re going to use one of the newer discoveries in artifice. A flywheel. Despite his track-record as an engineer, I believe my husband is correct. If we could make something like this… only much larger, perhaps we could use it to change the spin of our flywheel into electricity.”

“We still have to get it spinning in the first place,” Sylvan said, his head slumping to the table in front of him. “Our loving princess didn’t give you anything on that score? Nothing to produce the motion in the first place?”

He shook his head. “Nothing we don’t already know, I’m afraid. She said that almost all power production revolves around heating water until it boils—the steam rises, spins something, and then condenses. I’m not sure that’s terribly useful to us.”

“It all comes down to heat, doesn’t it,” Appleseed said. “Heat for our next harvest, so the potatoes don’t freeze. Opening our doorways to the cavern when we get too hot. Heating the core warm enough to survive the night, without cooking us alive during the day.”

“I suppose…” Cozen’s eyes were unfocused as she spoke, as though she could see right through the stone ceiling to the moon’s surface far above. “We could use the same method already keeping us warm. Mirrors and sunlight into metal—lots of mirrors this time, enough to boil water. Boil water, capture the steam, spin something massive…”

“We’re out of metal,” Silver Needle said. “I’ve already given you every silver coin in our stores to melt for your mirrors. I have nothing more to give. And steel… we would need pipes as well, wouldn’t we? Even if we melt every sword in Moonrise, that wouldn’t give us enough. Even if what you describe is possible, we cannot build it.”

“We have metal here…” Quill began, pointing with his wing towards Cozen’s horn ring. “Sylvan, you made that from local ore, didn’t you?”

Sylvan nodded. “Aye, Lord Commander. The procedure is one of my own devising—but I don’t know that it could be achieved in the amounts we require.”

“Why not?” Quill asked. “Sylvan, if we don’t get more electricity, we all die. If there’s any way to achieve it…”

Sylvan met his eyes. “It uses lightning, just like the glassblowers. Or… electricity, I suppose is the term we’re using now. I used a trivial amount preparing enough metal for two rings. But to make mirrors, and a heat-capturing apparatus, and a finely-crafted flywheel… we might use most of the lightning remaining to us.”

“It’s a gamble,” Penumbra supplied. “That’s what you’re saying. And if it doesn’t work, everybody dies two months earlier than they had to.”

Exactly the sort of decision that a Lord Commander would have to make. I’ve already exhausted every other option. I’ve begged Nightmare Moon, I’ve got to Vanaheimr. I’ve done everything short of begging Nightmare itself for dispensation.

Quill rested his working foreleg on the table between them. “I need your honest assessment. Tell me if you can make this work, and I’ll order it.” He looked between the members of his table in turn, particularly on Sylvan and Cozen. “The two of you might soon have more to lose than anypony else here. Consider before you answer that we don’t just have death waiting for us if we fail. Our princess will exercise her displeasure with those who fail her. Only our success maintains her sanity.”

Cozen and Sylvan shared a long look. Quill could sense the communication pass between them, however silent it might’ve been.

Eventually, Sylvan nodded. “We can make it work. We already have a template for how to build a large workshop. The glassblower’s, and the mason’s… it would be like that, only to work lunarite. Shame your ring won’t be as special when we’re finished, love.”

“It’s still special,” Cozen said. “It will still be the first.”

“Then consider it ordered,” he said. “Sylvan, get the layout of this workshop to Silver Needle as soon as you can. She will delegate to the construction crews. Find a place for it beside the other workshops, Colonel Needle.”

“I’ve been saving several openings, Lord Commander.” She glanced towards the conference room’s shut balcony. “I’m sure we’ll need several more before Moonrise is finished.”

Iron Quill forced a smile. “Silver, we’re not building a camp anymore. Moonrise will never be finished.”

Quill left that meeting behind, feeling the grim resolve pushing him forward with every struggling step.

A pony settled in beside him, though her voice was muffled by cloth again. She’d chosen to show her face in private, even to ponies who weren’t bats. But she still didn’t go removing it out in front of everypony. Some of the ancient customs still motivated her, it seemed. “Your assassination made you braver. I don’t think the Lord Commander who landed here six moons ago would’ve approved that plan.”

He didn’t have to slow down for her—he could barely even maintain a competent walking pace. The prosthetic might keep him from being a cripple in some ways, but his body was still barely functional. Even an incredible machine could only do so much for him. Penumbra had never mocked him for it. She matched his pace as though that was just the speed she wanted to be walking all along.

“Six moons ago, I was the moon’s biggest fool. I had no imagination of what we were facing. Even now, I feel like I can… barely grasp it. Cozen mocks the princess’s reticence, but I think the truth is far in the other direction. I think she shares as much as we can understand. I think she’s measuring information, so we don’t go insane from despair.”

She rested one wing over his shoulder, guiding him into the Lord Commander’s quarters. It was far more open a display of affection than she would’ve dared while the Voidseekers still lived in camp. But now she was the only one of her kind, and nopony dared question her about anything. “We have no reason to despair, Quill. Everyday life goes on is more than the Tyrant wanted for us. Even if we lose the war—we won so many battles together.” She rested her head against his shoulder. There was no warmth between them, but he didn’t need it.

He took a deep breath, fighting the shame clawing at his chest. She was so beautiful, and what was he? Not just old, but forever broken now too. Aminon hadn’t even been strong enough to finish killing him. “A battle isn’t good enough for me,” he said. “I’m amazed by what we accomplished—but none of it will be good enough if everypony dies. If all our suffering and toil only amounts to a later grave, maybe we should’ve just walked out onto the surface to let the moon take us.”

“You don’t think that,” she snapped, pulling away from him. “Look at you, Quill. You’re still fighting. You’re just like the army. You showed me not to give up, you can’t expect me to believe that you would.”

“I…” He sighed. “You’re right. I haven’t given up. I wish we had a better option. This source of electricity is… desperate. A gamble, just like you said. But it’s all we have left. Maybe we’ll come out the other end. Cozen and Sylvan have done some amazing things, and they’ve got some talented ponies working in their workshops now. The cleverest mares and stallions from every camp. You’re right to think that I never would’ve tried this in the early days—but I don’t think we could’ve done it even if I had. We’ve collected all the skill together. Now we see if it’s enough.”

She reached over him with a hoof, covering the glowstone with the waiting cloth and plunging them both into total darkness. Not that it mattered—they were both bats, both comfortable in the dark. “I know you like it better this way,” she said. “You don’t feel so… tense. I don’t know why.” She rested up against him again in the dark.

There wasn’t much point in keeping secrets, not when they might only have another week or two to live. If Nightmare Moon was going to execute him for failing the army, he wouldn’t die with regrets. “Because you’re beautiful, and I’m a rotting, limping hunk of meat.”

She giggled. “You realize that before you, I spent time with the Voidseekers. Undead monsters who never naturally heal from their wounds, only get stitched together over and over again. Compared to them, you’re like…” She kissed him. “Well, that.”

Quill wasn’t sure he cared for the comparison to literal monsters, but considering she was one of those too, he’d take what he could get. And if she wasn’t going to send him away, he’d enjoy their time while he could.

Quill watched as his trusted ponies played their part in Moonrise’s ultimate gamble.

For the first week or so of work, it was still not too late to turn back. New buildings required bricks, and they fired most of those in the heat-core using an insulated box and mirrors during the hottest part of the day. Earth ponies dug and hammered and chiseled out more foundation, and still it wasn’t too late to turn back.

While Iron Quill rested barely alive on his sickbed, Silver Needle had established a system of labor shifts, giving every pony in the city a color according to their skill and physical ability, and rotating ponies from each through the various jobs. Those who worked got extra rations, and a chance for “luxuries” like mushroom stew and fresh water.

By the second week, the walls were up, and the new workshop’s complex interior was being built. Quill visited the construction site several times a day to inspect the work, though in reality he had little concept of what was being built or why. There were heavy rock crushers, a massive ceramic crucible, a polished flat shaft, and thaumaturgical devices of coiled wire. Lightning’s electrical manifestation would be used at two stages of production in the factory, instead of just one.

Sometimes he could understand the explanations they gave him. “This is a casting mold,” Cozen told him, when he inquired about the strange reverse-pipe she’d covered over in scribbled runes. “Once we pour the lunarite around it, the spell will help slide out a finished section of pipe.”

There were dozens of such molds, worked by the “silver” class, the most skilled and valuable crafts ponies in all of Moonrise. He visited their workshop only once, long enough to realize that his presence frightened and distracted them from the delicate work they did.

Before the second week was up, Quill was there to cut the imaginary ribbon and open the workshop. He had to do it without his bodyguard, since he hadn’t seen Penumbra at all during that time. But nopony threatened him with assasination anymore, not when he was the hero of Moonrise.

Carts of dark rock rolled in, were crushed by hardworking earth ponies, and loaded into the crucible for the first of two stages. The workshop’s glowstones suddenly felt pale to his eyes, as a heat like lightning striking filled the workshop. Molten rock boiled, workers scraped away the dross, then moved it forward into a second oven for more heat around a black core.

After an hour, Sylvan presented Quill with what would’ve been an ordinary length of pipe, wide and long enough that he might not have been able to lift it. He did anyway. “The mythical lunarite,” Sylvan said, wearing a heavy apron and a pair of slightly charred goggles over his eyes. “What alchemists from Saddle Arabia to Canterlot have only dreamed of, we will have in abundance. The lunar metal, nearly weightless but far stronger than bronze or iron.”

“But not steel,” Quill noted, hefting the length of pipe back down into the troth.

“Well… no,” he said. “Not yet, anyway. I believe an alloy will probably be found to improve its strength. But our supply of other metals is… somewhat limited. We once had many ponies who could walk the surface with ease, but… they tried to murder everyone and now they’re in hiding, so… we have your—” At Quill’s glare, he cleared his throat. “B-bodyguard. And the unicorn crews. But they’re so busy enchanting that they don’t have much time to visit the surface to gather metal.”

Quill shrugged one shoulder. “Don’t waste resources on strength we don’t need, Sylvan. Will these pipes and mirrors be strong enough to endure their purpose?”

He nodded. “Absolutely, Lord Commander! Lunarium’s melting point is much higher than plumbum or stannum. It is ductile like steel, without being tempered first. It may be the miracle we have been waiting for.”

“That will depend on your wife’s achievements,” he said, clasping the alchemist on the shoulder. “You have done great work. Produce only what she requires, and not one pound more.”

“Oh, certainly…” Sylvan gestured back at the workshop, where workers were shoveling the next load of finely-crushed ore into the crucible. “But Lord Commander, you must see the potential I do. If we can produce and store electricity, we can finally crawl out of the dust. We will have metal, brick, and glass in an endless supply. We might actually be able to build a home here.”

Quill nodded. The optimism was refreshing to hear, considering the nightmare of stress that had become his constant companion as he watched the city’s resources drain.

“It’s a start,” he said. “We need a new source of light, we have to vary everypony’s diets, we have to find a better way to shut our door than fighting a slowly-melting plug of ice with unicorn magic… but it’s a start.”

“Every day we solve one impossible dilemma,” Sylvan said. “Eventually, we will have overcome them all, and we’ll be masters of this place.”

Quill almost laughed. He’d seen what the city of a master looked like, and Moonrise certainly wasn’t that. It wouldn’t be in any of their lifetimes. With luck, they’d return to Equestria long before they learned how to build it.

Chapter 21: Spin

Cozen’s own workshop was no less busy with activity.

The priceless motor from Vanaheimr stood on display at one end of the room, though it had been so thoroughly taken apart that Quill almost didn’t recognize it at first. There was a thin exterior shield around it, which had been completely removed to expose its internal workings. Even Quill slid past the technicians to stare at the object.

“Ingenious, isn’t it?” Cozen asked, settling down beside the motor and taking hold of the crank somepony had affixed to the rotor shaft. She turned, and another little coil started glowing orange. Apparently this display had been run many times before, because a thin film of soot collected on the coil, making it only a faint glow. “There is far greater complexity here than you might first anticipate, but less than you would imagine from a device that can generate electricity.”

“And you’re reproducing it,” Quill said, spinning around towards the center of the workshop. The usual tables and stations in the center had been cleared, making way for a large wooden harness holding up a pair of massive metal objects. “They’re sewing?”

Cozen laughed, nudging him towards the center of the room. As they moved, ponies backed away, dropping what they were doing with mutters of “Lord Commander.” He couldn’t help but notice their eyes darting to his scarred and burned body. They respect and honor me. They’re not staring at a cripple.

“Creating this metal thread has been the most difficult task before us. That mechanism on the far wall is the best we can manage, using a stretching spell and a blade to pull the heated copper as thin as we can. Our work still seems like the imitation of a foal, but… It should work.”

Quill leaned in close, inspecting the central core already tightly wrapped with metal, which wouldn’t prevent it from spinning freely within the other. “So this… It looks like it’s meant to secure inside the larger ring. Then it spins, and… where does the lightning come from?”

Cozen was silent for a long moment, the eyes of every craftspony settling on them. “Well, it’s rather obvious, Lord Commander. The secret is…” She leaned in close, whispering into his ear. “I have no idea, Quill. There are a few other parts in the motor, and we’re copying those too. They switch the lunar and solar wires several times a second—I don’t know why, don’t even ask.

“And that’s why it works!” she said, for the whole room to hear. “Why don’t we continue this conversation in my office, Lord Commander? We’re distracting from this important work.”

He followed her out, around the corner to her office. It was larger than his own, with huge blueprints pinned on every wall. Many of them were even more fantastic than the incredible things they’d already built, though he couldn’t exactly say what most of them were actually supposed to do.

“My ponies are upset,” she said. “And I guess they should be. Nopony knows why it works. They all want to be on the other crew, building the flywheel. That’s big and dramatic, and it makes sense. But frankly, Quill—we’re not even completely sure it will work. All we can do is copy what the little motor did and hope it still works when we make it big.”

“Nightmare Moon might explain it for us,” he said, though even he couldn’t muster any real enthusiasm as he said it. “She’s… a limited resource of her own. The more questions we ask, the less willing she is to answer more questions.”

Cozen rolled her eyes. “Giving us this was… maybe all we needed. But I do have some concerns. We can copy, sure—an apprentice can copy light spells all day long. But if they don’t understand the runes they’re drawing, they won’t be able to improve on them. They won’t be able to make a more efficient spell, or one that can be cast on common glass, or survive being immersed in liquid. All innovations might one day be needed. But if all they can do is copy, then they’re limited to make nothing but inferior copies forever. Sooner or later we need to understand why.”

“Vanaheimr has…” He spoke slowly, lowering his voice to a whisper. Even knowing there were no more voidseekers to overhear, he was still cautious. “Much that we could learn. It’s vast, and the ponies who built it were incredibly wise. Could you… get me a long-distance teleport? Like… other side of the moon? It was day there when we were in darkness, I know that.”

“You want way runes,” Cozen said flatly. “And from the sound of them, you want way runes that our princess won’t notice. Am I hearing you right? The ancient, powerful artifacts that bridge the ancient castles for officers and nobility to walk between while we common folk drag ourselves through dusty trails?”

He nodded. “If that’s how, then… yes.”

“Forget it.” Cozen turned her back on him, pushing aside a rolling board covered with more plans and settling down in her seat. “Lord Commander, we can do many things, but break the first supposition of space is not one of them. Long-distance spells require the runes already be drawn in both locations. Only Alicorns, and… I suppose, undead servants of demons, can break that rule.”

But his eyes were already lighting up. “You say the runes need to be drawn. Does it matter who does the drawing?”

Cozen looked thoughtful, or maybe just annoyed. Finally, she shook her head. “No, Quill. But… I think you should abandon this for now. I can’t spare a single pony, and I couldn’t even begin to make your way runes without a detailed map. When we’re finished with this… if we’re still alive, maybe that’s when we should try. Or maybe we can just ask the princess to take us.”

I did. She doesn’t seem to want anypony else to see it.

Quill turned to go. “Continue your work, engineer. I want to be alerted as soon as you’ve finished assembling this… motor. I want to be there when we learn that we’re all going to suffocate, if that’s the future waiting for us.”

“And when we’re not, you get to take all the credit, as always,” she snapped. “Don’t think I don’t see how this works.”

Quill didn’t dignify her with a response, slipping back out the way he’d come, and staying well back from the working craftsponies as he left the workshop behind. He made similar visits every few days, to encourage his ponies and remind them that their progress was critical for Moonrise’s survival. As time wore on, crowds of cold ponies congregated outside the forge, basking in the warmth radiating out its thin walls. If everything worked out, the strange machine Cozen dubbed a “heat engine” would be installed just in time for the first rays of sunlight.

“Penumbra?” Quill stopped limping through the cavern, holding his thick coat closer about his shoulders. It was a good thing the prosthetics didn’t care about the icy chill of lunar night, because even with the foundry running the cave was still too cold to visit for anything but short periods.

Quill had only come to inspect the now-frozen water collectors, so he could see the clever way they were drained before the frost, so the water wouldn’t shatter them. “It’s been days now, is something wrong?”

She emerged from the cavern behind him—not visible exactly, since he hadn’t taken a glowstone. But he could hear her. At least Aminon’s assassination had left him his hearing.

Penumbra stopped on the gravel path, her steps halting and confused. “I… I don’t know, Quill.”

He hurried to her side, as fast as a crippled old stallion could “hurry” anywhere. But this time she pulled away from his touch. Even in the frightening cold, a little of the fear scent filled the air around her. But what could she possibly be afraid of? “If snatching the map from the princess’s supplies is too dangerous, I won’t ask you to do it. I’ll find a way to get it from her myself.”

“No!” She shoved against his chest, now exasperated. “That’s… the stupidest… Of course I’m not afraid! The princess barely even looks at her old papers! I’d already have it if I thought we could use it. It’s… You really don’t get it?”

He froze, looking reflexively in her direction. There was nothing to see in the complete darkness, only shapes as his mind projected them from sounds. She was a foot away, wings spread in distress. But she wouldn’t let him touch her. “I don’t get it,” he said flatly. “Whatever I’ve done, Penumbra… anything at all, please. Tell me.”

She tensed. Apparently him not understanding what he’d done wasn’t the right reaction. She spread her wings, flapping once, but not enough to take off. She caught herself before she could retreat. Each word was a strain from her. “You helped me to… get my free will, when Nightmare tried to force me.”

“Yes,” he said. “I’d do it a thousand times over. I’d help every one of Nightmare’s slaves if I could. I’m trying to help the princess. I think that’s why the Voidseekers ran away. Nightmare didn’t want to lose its servants.”

She closed the distance between them, pushing him back hard enough that his hooves slid along the stone. He no longer had the strength to resist, though the prosthetic braced automatically, its springs and gears resisting the pressure from outside his body. “What you did—was it just words?”

“I… what?” He tilted his head to one side. “Penumbra, you know what we do is more than words. I don’t know why you’re interested in me. I couldn’t explain that with every unicorn spell in the world. But you’ve been as much a part of that as I have.”

She scoffed. “And you haven’t put any spells on me,” she said stubbornly. “You aren’t trying to enchant me… there are no secret charms hidden on your bed?”

“Look for yourself,” he said flatly. “Penumbra, what are you talking about? I’m a bat, you know that. I don’t have any more unicorn magic than you do. I barely understand what the ponies under me create with their spells. I really just point them in the right direction and hope nothing explodes.”

She backed away. “I need to… go. For a bit. Try not to get assassinated. I won’t be able to keep an eye on you.”

He winced, raising a hoof after her. But she took off, scattering snow and gravel. There was nothing he could do to follow now that his flight had been stolen. She escaped into the darkness, leaving him alone and more confused than ever.

At least nopony else tried to kill him that day, or the next one. He supervised from his section as work crews settled as much of the pipe as they could without the princess’s help to slice through the stone. As before, they waited to involve Nightmare Moon until the last possible moment. And when that moment finally came, it was Quill himself who had to make the recruitment call.

Again he knocked on her throne room door, waited for an answer for a few minutes, then barged in anyway.

This time he found the princess painting. A massive wooden easel sat right before the throne, and a palette of brilliant colors floated in the air beside her as she worked. The canvas was facing him, so he couldn’t see it as he crossed the room.

She looked up, biting on the back of a brush as she concentrated.

Quill got within twenty feet or so, then sat down to wait. He had seen that intensively creative expression on the face of many a pony before, and he knew better than to interrupt it.

Eventually she levitated her palette down flat on a low table, turning to look at him. “My Lord Commander returns to interrupt again.” She lifted the canvas in her magic, turning it sideways and moving it towards the wall. He caught a single glimpse as she turned it away from him—a landscape, depicting a field of green grass under the sun. There was fair skill manifest in the trees and swaying flowers—but before he could really study her work, she’d slipped it through the curtain that led to her quarters, and it was out of sight.

“You only grace me with your presence when you have something to demand of me. What do you require this time?”

He hesitated, feeling a little stab of guilt he hadn’t expected at her words. She was right. “I… I always thought you preferred not to be disturbed, Princess.” He lowered his head. “If I was mistaken, I could… make alterations to my schedule accordingly?”

She nodded. “You err in many things, Lord Commander. It is the mark of maturity to correct one’s errors.”

She doesn’t want to admit what’s actually bothering her. The princess wasn’t the first pony to ever act that way around him, though. Quill had known plenty of soldiers who were unwilling to speak openly of their feelings. Was the Princess of Nightmare lonely?

“Perhaps we could… involve you in our meetings again, Princess? I take an audience from the leaders of Moonrise every three days. You might want to be in attendance for that meeting.”

She scoffed. “Perhaps.”

Not that, then. “Or… maybe you’d like to meet for tea? It’s been years since I’ve performed the ceremony for a noble pony like yourself, but… I was formally trained. I believe I still remember all the steps.”

“That sounds agreeable,” Nightmare Moon said. “All the better not to allow a rift of information to grow between the ruler of this city and the one who administrates her will. For instance, I have no idea what has consumed the effort of so many ponies for these last weeks. I hear hammers and feel the blast of magic outside, and know it must be substantial. Yet you have not told me.”

You didn’t ask. “Of course, Princess.” He bowed, and this time he didn’t have to lie. “I’ve come for that purpose exactly. And… I must admit, to request your help. The constraints of the magic are beyond any of us, but your powers would make them simple.”

“Of course they would,” she said, exasperated. “Let me guess. You wish to build something on the surface.”

He explained the idea as best he understood it, from everything that had been built in the last few weeks, to the pipes they would have to run straight up through the stone.

“I suppose there is some chance your plan will succeed,” she said. “It appears your cleverness has certain boundaries—you haven’t considered the loss of your energy to friction, or electrical resistance. Yet we may generate enough that it doesn’t matter. I will want to see your generator first.”

“Of course, Princess.” He rose, hurrying to keep up with her as best he could. “We’ve already tested the, uh… ‘generator.’ I’m sure you’ll be as impressed as I was.”

Quill stood at the back of their newest tunnel. Instead of Penumbra’s protective outline beside him in the gloom, the princess herself stood there, her horn glowing brightly and her expression an unreadable mask.

Before them was the currently most important construction in all of Moonrise. If these machines didn’t work, then everypony in the colony was dead. Even Quill was awed by what he saw, and for a moment it was all he could do to stumble towards the massive flywheel. And massive was the operative word—it was the entire point.

It had taken Nightmare Moon’s own magic to connect this new section to Moonrise’s heat core, taking them far enough from the city structure that they could work. Water boiled, then rushed through a newly-cut valve, hollow in the center where its shaft spun amid gears. The steel pillar holding it up had taken a not-insignificant portion of their spare and donated weapons, despite the much-reduced weight of everything on the moon’s surface.

“Deceptively clever,” Nightmare Moon whispered, approaching the flywheel beside him. “I suspect we will have some reengineering to do—it would be better to operate this in vacuum, where we won’t lose so much energy to friction.”

The cylinder towered over even her. Her magic reflected back the faint runes covering its surface. Some were magic, but most were merely decorative. Quill could read those, describing the brave ponies of Moonrise and their refusal to bow to demons. It was hard to be angry at the waste of resources used to make it when he agreed quite firmly with the message.

“There is… an equation. To figure how much energy is stored within a moving object such as this. I admit to never completing that class.” She looked away, marching slowly around to the far side of the flywheel, where the other machines had been erected. On this side the cavern was packed with ponies—engineers, craftsponies, construction workers, all bowing to the princess.

The flywheel was connected to mechanical drive apparatus of complexity that Quill could scarcely understand. One was a rapidly rotating metal shaft rising to the ceiling, where steam spun a series of interconnected cups before cooling through a distribution-mesh that would double as a cavern-heater. That shaft spun gears of different metals, larger and larger until they slowly accelerated the main flywheel.

“Complex,” Nightmare Moon said. “Who designed this? Wait…” She hesitated, pointing twice into the crowd. “You two purloined my tub several moons ago. No doubt this was your creation, come forward.”

They hurried up. Both now wore the silver wraps around their necks, with a few metal pins to signify their rank. As though the princess actually had to guess. “Yes, Princess?” Sylvan asked. “If we have erred in our work, we’re eager to learn from our mistakes.”

The princess shook her head. “It isn’t that. I was going to ask how we engage the generator and begin producing electricity. I would’ve asked the Lord Commander, but I’ve learned not to bother with such things. He would just have called you forward anyway. I’ve skipped a step.”

“Yes, well…” Cozen gestured to the series of several levers just beside the massive “motor.” It looked much like the one they’d taken from Vanaheimr, except it was considerably larger. Larger, and clumsier in every other way. Each one of their little nails and screws was a clumsy imitator of the perfection that had assembled that device. “I wanted this to be a proper load test. We’re waiting for the flywheel to reach what I believe to be the maximum safe speed so that we see a proper test of the—”

Nightmare Moon cut her off with a wing. “Enough. Quill, tell her why that would be unwise.”

He hesitated, thinking desperately for what the princess might be expecting. Only one possibility came to mind. “We don’t need to risk the… most demanding use of the machines right away,” he said. “There’s no reason not to do a more cautious test first. Is that what you were thinking, Princess?”

She rolled her eyes. “More or less. This used nearly all the energy we had left, and in doing so created numerous other problems for you to solve. Prepare to move the air infrastructure here, or else rapidly master the principles of high voltage—” She shook her head. “I am not your tutor. Demonstrate the device now, unicorn.”

Cozen looked briefly like she might’ve argued further. But Nightmare Moon’s mane flashed, as an illusory star fell to punctuate her anger. Instead of arguing with the princess, she began to pull at her oversized levers, explaining as she went.

“We first disengage from the heat-engine… like this.” She shoved, and the oversized chain connecting them lurched to a stop. The shaft leading to the engine began speeding up, filling the air with an uncomfortable hum. But she ignored that, moving a series of other levers in order. “Then we… move the drive into place on the generator, and… engage the gears, and…”

The wheel jerked, producing a harsh grinding sound. A series of previously-stationary gears began to spin, leading all the way to the motor several times larger than a pony.

Thick metallic rope as wide around as a pony’s leg ran out one end, connected to a coil packed in ice for the demonstration. For a fraction of a second there was nothing, and Quill’s heart seemed to stop beating.

Then it started to glow, a faint orange, then bright white, shining through the ice even as it hissed and bubbled, puffing into steam where it touched. Like their first experiments with lightning, before they’d been able to trickle it out in little sips.

Even with the intimidating Nightmare Moon before them, ponies began to cheer, stomping at the cavern floor. To anypony listening from down the hall, it would probably sound like a stampede. Dust settled down on them from above, before a flash from Nightmare Moon’s horn ended the celebration.

Bats and other ponies fell instantly silent, staring sidelong at the night princess. Was that pleasure on her face, or disappointment?

Even Quill stared, though he didn’t drop into a pathetic bow. Ice continued to melt away from the dense coil of wire, pooling at the bottom of the container and hissing away to steam wherever it touched the coil.

“It is… good for you to be satisfied in your achievements,” Nightmare Moon said. “You have done well. All repay my trust in you. You reflect well on the villages and cities that you came from. Know that with every new achievement, we grow closer to our return to Equestria, and the vengeance we are owed. Fight on a little longer. Remain obedient to those I have placed over you—and together, we will one day return to Equestria.”

She turned, stopping close enough for him to overhear, and speaking so quietly that not even the other bats would be able to hear. “Don’t think we’re done, Quill. The difficulties facing Moonrise are only beginning. Your crippled flank isn’t free to die until I say so.”

Was that Nightmare Moon’s way of telling him that he was an appreciated member of her staff? But of course she couldn’t say anything like an ordinary pony, she had to make it a threat and show of dominance some way or another. “I understand, Princess. I’m not immortal, but… I don’t intend to leave my post yet.”

“Good,” she said. “But if you thought age was an excuse, you should’ve spoken to Nightmare while you still could. Then that mare I gave you wouldn’t seem so…” She stopped, glancing around with sudden confusion. “I don’t see her in the crowd. Penumbra grows so skilled at her profession that even I can’t see her watching you.”

She squinted around the room for a few more seconds, then shrugged. “No matter. I expect you promptly for tea tomorrow.” She left.

Quill waited with bated breath for a few more seconds, probably sharing everypony else’s fear that she might return at any moment. But the princess didn’t return, and after a few more moments the cavern began to relax.

As soon as she was gone, Cozen jerked into action, hurrying back to the levers to reverse whatever she’d been doing. The brilliant glow began to fade, though it didn’t go out right away. There was tremendous inertia, even with the shaft spinning inside the motor. The coil settled from white to orange, and then a dull red, slowly cooling.

“I call that a successful test,” Sylvan declared. “Preemptive, perhaps. But that’s to be expected. The whole thing isn’t rattling itself apart. We’ve essentially built…” He stopped, surveying the room in a single glance. “An ‘electricity’ workshop? I don’t quite like the sound of it, but I’ll admit I can’t think of anything better just now.”

Cozen was still working the controls. There were almost a dozen levers, knobs, and dials, many of which seemed to be connected to the steam machine. It hissed a little as steam emerged from a relief-valve on one side, spraying the ceiling with white smoke hot enough to melt the skin right off a bat’s wings. Good thing there were no bats up there flying, but even so ponies scattered away from it.

“Well… yes,” she said, biting her lip as she concentrated. “Nothing’s broken. But just because it didn’t immediately explode doesn’t mean we’re finished. The princess is right, we have to transition everything from lightning over to this… new source of electricity. We can’t just connect some wire to a pot and have as much power as we want.”

Silver Needle emerged from the crowd, clipboard clutched in her magic. “Whatever you’re about to suggest better not be moving the workshops here. Because—we can’t. We don’t have the resources.”

“We can…” Sylvan looked to Quill for help, though there was only so much he was willing to give. He knew as well as Silver how little they had to work with. “Well, uh… we produce air here, instead of on the other side of the city. Those machines were mobile once, we can dismantle and move them. As to everything else—it can wait until we can solve the problem of transport.”

“I’m confident that you will,” Iron Quill said. He raised his voice, looking around the room as Nightmare Moon had done. Not that he had the same figure she did. He was only standing thanks to the strange machine wrapped around his body. One of his wings was ragged and half-severed. Maybe it gave him just a little of the fear that Nightmare Moon could inspire with her power.

“Everypony here, see this as the proof of what we can accomplish. The moon has many more challenges before us. There is much for us to do before we’ve mastered this place and made it our home. But every time I have feared that we could not overcome a challenge set before us, you have risen to it. Share that spirit with the other ponies stranded with us here. There are plenty who don’t believe in our mission, or have given up hope. Continue trusting me as your Lord Commander, and I will continue fighting for you. Until my dying breath.”

He lowered his voice, glancing between his four most senior ponies. The engineers, his quartermaster, and Chain Mail who had kept the peace even while the Lord Commander lay for months on his deathbed. “We’ll figure it out. For now, I don’t want any of you to exert yourselves. Particularly you, Cozen. I know that flushed look—if I had to guess, I’d say we might soon be seeing the newest member of Moonrise.”

She glared up at him from the controls, though Quill could see just a hint of pride. It grew all the more pronounced when Sylvan jerked to the side.

“Hold on… what is he talking about, Cozen? Are you…?”

Quill turned away, before he could get caught up in the argument. His old experience could count for something to hold over young stallions like Sylvan.

Chapter 22: Colonize

Moonrise limped along for a while, just like Quill. There was little the old stallion could do for the city himself—it was all about keeping ponies’ spirits up, and organizing the right talent for the right job. Occasionally he stepped in to make suggestions when ponies were stuck, or to mitigate a disaster before it got worse.

They encountered their first of those a month or so from the Day of Power, when a pony blundered into the “lightning traces” connecting the generator to the forge, and was instantly killed. Moonrise got a new law that day, as well as a new tomb in the crypt cavern.

That certainly wasn’t the only death he had to officiate over. There was occasional violence between what had been the camps, even with Chain Mail’s troops to keep the peace. A devastating flu took almost two dozen another month later, though Quill himself was spared its wrath by either the mercy of nature or Nightmare Moon’s powerful magic, he wasn’t sure which.

Electricity was now “unlimited” while the sun shone, though it also flowed slower than any lightning charge. When night came, all work had to cease, so that the energy they stored could be used only for needed water and air.

But as the months passed, Quill found himself longing for the pony that had begun as his bodyguard, had become his friend, and then… something else. Some faint part of him wondered if her absence might’ve been her tolerance for a dried-up corpse of a stallion like himself finally running out, expressed in the kindest way she could.

He banished that thought whenever it surfaced. Just as Quill himself served as a symbol of stubborn hope and endurance for Moonrise, Penumbra was her own kind of symbol for him. He wasn’t ready to give up on her just yet.

Three months after the Day of Power, and Quill found himself in the princess’s throne room, celebrating the occasion with tea and an offering for the princess.

“Sylvan’s craftsponies thought you should be the first to see it,” Quill said, depositing the case on the low table before the throne. Despite Nightmare Moon’s apparent desire for company, Quill never actually saw anypony here who wasn’t one of her personal servants. She had butlers and cooks and maids—she even had a tutor of some kind. But no friends, other than himself.

The Alicorn leaned forward to inspect the object. A glass jar, attached by clear resin to the metal plate. Inside was a thin wire coil, wrapped tighter than anything they used to run Moonrise.

“What is it?” The princess sipped at her tea, though she’d mostly lost interest in it now. She twisted the object slowly around in her magic, inspecting the controls. There was only one switch.

“Sylvan calls it ‘artificial glowstone.’ I think the name may need some work. Apparently it’s a refinement on the electrical coils we already use for heat. Different metals produce different amounts of heat and light. By containing the coil in a vacuum as you see…” Quill reached over and flipped the switch.

Bright orange light radiated out from inside, overpowering the princess’s own array of ceremonial glowstones and briefly equaling her own mane before the light began to fade.

“This is a lightbulb,” she said flatly. “A lightbulb with a…” She leaned down, horn glowing. The metal casing came free, exposing the thaumaturgical inner-workings. “A crystal battery. Notoriously low-capacity, these spells.”

“Yes.” Quill flipped the switch again, preserving whatever glow might be left in the magic. “It was only for the demonstration. But as we make more of these, the ponies of Moonrise won’t have to live in darkness any longer. We can light the city when work shifts begin, and darken it again when it is time to rest. And all the glowstone we salvage will expand our farms.”

The princess nodded. “A common-sense discovery based on what you already knew. Overdue, perhaps. But… a useful achievement.”

“I’ll tell the craftsponies you approve. Perfecting this prototype was difficult for them, but Sylvan is enthusiastic about producing more.”

“No doubt.” Nightmare Moon returned to her seat, draining the rest of her glass. “I’m glad you were right about the endurance of this army, Lord Commander. Because it seems the Tyrant’s magic is… equally sturdy. Even here at the seat of my power, I cannot undo the spell banishing us. It may require… significant investment of thaumaturgical resources. The wisdom of unicorn scholars, and the magic of many thousands acting together. My own contributions are… insufficient.”

You’ve given up, he realized, eyes going wide. Even after almost a year up here, a part of him still hoped. Nightmare Moon would make this right. He could see the sky again, feel rain on his face that wasn’t the drippings of stale breath and piss.

But that wasn’t going to happen. Maybe Moonrise would become a great city one day, with thousands of ponies and a great university of wise unicorns who could undo Celestia’s magic. Penumbra might “live” to see that day, but Quill certainly wouldn’t.

“I don’t doubt that the princess is… doing everything she can,” he said. “Moonrise understands that. We all want to go back to Equestria, but nopony wants to go back more than you.”

She shrugged. “Some of my subjects are so eager to endure lunar conditions that they’re even forming families up here.” Her eyes settled meaningfully on Quill, though he could only glance over his shoulder with confusion. Was there somepony behind him he hadn’t noticed? “This is wise. Better to realize we are trapped than to struggle against forces we cannot overcome. If the army will not serve Nightmare, then I will need a second generation to one day retake Equestria.”

“I… suppose it’s a good thing that most of your army was evenly-mixed bats, instead of the mostly-stallion earth pony shock troops the Sun Tyrant favored. Whatever imbalance does exist is mostly corrected by the camp fo— Princess, why are you looking at me that way?”

“I just find it amusing that you sound so… detached about the whole affair. You’re more personally involved than you ever were in the creation of some useful invention for the city. Yet you speak about the camp followers and pairing off soldiers.”

He backed away a step, his one good wing flaring in his confusion. “Forgive me, Princess. I’m afraid I do not understand. I’m too old for any of that. Perhaps there are mares who would be convinced to tolerate a gnarled old… creature like myself. But they would only be doing it for the chance of granting an inheritance to their child. I’m certain you’ll find a proper replacement for me when I die, without the need for a hollow dynasty.”

The princess wasn’t smiling anymore. She learned forward on the throne, eyes unblinking. “You’re… not lying to me. Of course you wouldn’t keep secrets from your princess. Particularly since the secret you’d be keeping has dwelt with me for months. Which means…” Her eyes widened. “Iron Quill, where is your bodyguard? Is it possible that you… don’t know?”

So much for keeping you secret. The command to protect him had been Penumbra’s to obey, he hadn’t done anything wrong. But he hadn’t been jumping to report her departure, either. He had no desire to make life harder for the bat.

But he wasn’t stupid, either. He wasn’t going to bucking lie.

“I have no idea,” he admitted. “The last time I saw her, we parted on… confusing terms. She seemed distressed about something, but would not say what. I cannot explain where she went, or why.”

Nightmare Moon laughed, her voice booming through her throne-room. The magical energy within her made the glowstones along the walls flicker briefly, growing brighter with her emotions, then fading again. Finally she rose from the throne, spreading her wings. “You defy all rational understanding, causing me to question all I thought I knew about the magic of Nightmare, and yet you do not even know.”

She turned her back on Quill, heading not for the wide double-doors that led to the royal quarters, but the single door barely big enough for her that the servants used.

Quill opened his mouth to ask what she was doing, but then she gestured for him to follow, and there was nothing for him to do but obey.

“You solved many insolvable problems for me, Quill. Now I will resolve a mystery that tormented you. Consider it your… reward for loyal service.”

Nightmare Moon’s throne room and quarters were really just a section like any other, though they were divided to give the princess as much luxury as they could afford. But down this hallway led to the usual facilities—a kitchen, privy, and bathing area for the servants, along with a few bunkrooms. Their attachment to the princess meant more luxury than the barracks that most ponies slept in.

Pestle stopped in the hall, backing slowly away from the two of them with a slight bow for the princess. Her own servants were past the “terrified scraping” stage of obedience.

Finally they reached a shut servant’s door, made of a thin sheet of lunarium like most unimportant things. Just enough to give privacy, without the strength to resist even modest pressure from a determined pony.

“When we were banished here, I believed survival would be impossible. You showed me I was mistaken. Your actions have shown me more I thought was impossible.”

The princess didn’t knock—what reason did she have to care for the space of her subjects? She shoved the door open with her magic, letting the faint glow of the hallway’s single glowstone shine in. More than enough for Quill’s bat eye.

He wouldn’t have needed sight to recognize the pony inside. Penumbra’s quarters were spartan in the extreme, with only an armor stand on one side, and her cot on the other.

Not everything about Penumbra was familiar, as much as Quill now knew her in every intimate detail. Her belly was slightly swollen, stretched just a little from the early stages of a foal growing there.

She looked up, as though the light was blinding her. “Q-Quill?” Her voice came in a daze, clearly confused. “Is that… Princess? Is my service… required?”

She sounds so strange. Like a pony suffering the effects of a serious spell.

Nightmare Moon shook her head. “My loyal servant, I have made my needs clear. The only service I require from you is to continue to come to meals and eat them, even though you do not feel the need.”

“And I…” Her eyes settled on Quill, and she seemed almost to lose focus. “I’m sorry, Quill. Can’t… can’t protect you. Right now. Can’t protect… much of anything.”

He wanted to run to her side, but Nightmare Moon held him back with a wing. She swung the door closed, returning Penumbra to the dark. “Why are you keeping her in there? And how… why… what…”

“How is an undead pony having a child?” Nightmare Moon asked. “That is the one question I can’t answer. If you were a unicorn, you would sense the powerful spell on her. But you aren’t, so trust that I can feel it. Clearly you didn’t cast it, and yet… when she was more lucid, she spoke normally. She swore that she had been with no other stallions. That she had drank no potions, and felt no charms. In spite of everything, it must have been you.”

“I…” He couldn’t meet her eyes. Of all the things he might’ve expected to talk to the princess about, why this? “I don’t know how this is possible, Princess. We were, uh… we were together. She was right about that. But I don’t have any magic to cast on her.” He winced. “Why is she so… confused? I’ve known plenty of mares who were carrying a child before, and none of them seemed so…”

Nightmare Moon raised an eyebrow. “You’re a midwife now too, Lord Commander?”

“Well… yes.” He glared stubbornly at her. “I served in the Sun Tyrant’s order twenty years. I did many things, including assist new mothers.”

“Again, I am… uncertain. What we observe is the interaction between Nightmare’s transformation, and this new spell. I believe the relationship is… parasitic. Her body is not alive, and would not be able to host a child under normal circumstances. To protect itself, the spell upon her harvests much of her magic.”

You let this happen. The old princess would’ve annihilated the spell long before it could’ve gone so far. Some part of him wished she had, as the old Nightmare Moon would’ve done. His love for Penumbra was more important than any impossible child. Yet—there was another instinct down there. One he hadn’t known still worked.

“Will she recover?” he asked instead. “When this is over, and the… child… is complete?”

The princess shrugged an ambivalent shoulder. “You ask as though there is a pony who could answer your question. I have no idea. I don’t believe anypony can know. Of one thing I am certain—Penumbra’s greatest chance is to allow the spell, and the child, to reach completion. You need not fear my interference. I will not put the life of my sole remaining Voidseeker at risk.”

“The others are… still alive, aren’t they princess? Do you worry that they’ll… wish for revenge against Moonrise?”

Again she shrugged. “They could never do anything disloyal to me. Except for Aminon and Penumbra, every one of those ponies swore to Nightmare through me. Those who remain are all young, or at least young compared to the pact with Nightmare. They will not defy my will.”

I hope you’re right, Princess. It would be so easy for them to take a rock and shatter our windows in the night, damning everypony in the city.

“I will continue to watch over your… mate, Penumbra. You need not worry for her. There is nothing your worry could accomplish anyway. Focus on your survival without a bodyguard. Though there… is still a chance that neither she nor the child will survive. By all accounts, nothing should’ve happened. A pity Starswirl can’t hear of this. I would like to see his face…”

The impossible happened about seven months later, as near to perfectly as it was possible to be.

It was an impossible secret to keep in a city as small as Moonrise, even with Penumbra never leaving the princess’s personal company. Quill would never learn which servant had leaked the information—but considering there was soon to be a child he couldn’t hide, it didn’t really matter. Ponies would learn what they would.

There was no terrible scandal, as he might’ve expected from the news that the Lord Commander had slept with what amounted to a sacred religious icon. Nopony would speak honestly to him about the subject of course, but his assessment was that ponies actually seemed to admire him for it. His relationship with Penumbra only proved the moon welcomed them.

He did not move Penumbra to the hospital wing, where Cozen had delivered only a few weeks before. Instead, the doctors came to the royal wing, where they could be sworn to secrecy over whatever they might see.

Even his close friends—Sylvan, Chain, Silver—would only be allowed once everything was finished. Nightmare would keep its secrets.

He needn’t have worried. Though Penumbra herself was in a barely-conscious delirium through the whole procedure, the birth progressed with a minimum of disturbing interruptions. Quill’s old body was of little use in the birthing room, but he held Penumbra’s foreleg through the procedure. That would have to be enough.

But then the birth was finished, and poor Penumbra dropped almost instantly into a torpid stupor.

“It’s a filly,” said Marine Kelp, offering Quill the bundle. “I’m sorry the mother isn’t… none of my usual methods are working to rouse her. We’ll need to find another mare to nurse for her.” She offered the now-dry bundle of cloth to Quill, who took it gingerly with his one good leg.

“I’ve already spoke to a willing mare,” he said. “There aren’t many available, but I happen to be closely acquainted with one. If you could send a nurse for Cozen… I would appreciate it.”

“Certainly.” Marine lowered her head and slipped out the door. There wasn’t even a shred of the resentment that had once characterized her interactions with Quill. Her anger over imagined oppressions didn’t hold much water when Quill indulged everypony in their own religions all they wanted. He had no reason to investigate heretical sun worship when it came from the hooves of his most capable.

Quill felt the weight of the foal settle into his hooves as though he were watching it happen to somepony else. Behind the seeing glass Sylvan had crafted for him, his eye misted with tears. Of all the joys he thought long denied to him, this had to be near the top of the list. He’d done far too much evil to ever see a child again. In some small way, every pony suffering here on the moon was his fault. He could’ve turned the princess in before Nightmare had empowered her. He’d been the one to trade the lives of a few peasants, he’d joined her willingly.

Apparently fate didn’t care. He leaned down, brushing a few wiry strands of dark mane away from the little pony’s face. She was a bat of course, sleeping more peacefully than her mother. Her tufts of dark mane were mixed with equal shades of stark white, paler even than his own aging hair. In every way Quill could read, the child seemed healthy—her wings were intact, her legs were the right lengths and shapes. “You’re perfect,” Quill whispered through his tears. “And I don’t deserve you. You shouldn’t exist.”

The foal stirred, wriggling in her bundle until Quill met her eyes. Or tried to. There was a strange gray about them, and they glazed right past him without settling on him. But her eyes were wet, her body was damp and warm. She was unmistakably alive in a way that Penumbra wasn’t anymore.

Sweet Celestia, no.

Quill had seen this before, in a small number of foals he’d helped deliver. She was blind.

The foal squeaked pitifully at him, her mouth opening and closing in vain for nursing that hadn’t arrived. He could only stroke her back gently, shushing her. “She’s almost here,” he urged. “I’m sorry, I know your mother would do it if she could. But she’s not actually… alive.”

Cozen did arrive, and at last the little foal could nurse. Even if she obviously struggled to get situated correctly. But in the end the baby drank, and any fears he might’ve had that she was somehow undead too were assuaged. She still needed to eat—she wouldn’t be trapped as a foal forever.

Penumbra woke later that night, long after Quill had dozed off. But even with as little as everything weighed on the moon, her shifting was enough to attract Quill’s attention. He stirred, groaning and wiping away the last vestiges of sleep. “I’m not alone,” she said, adjusting the blanket on her back and sitting up.

Quill did likewise, feeling his joints creak and strain under the sudden motion. He ignored their protests. “You’re not,” he said. “You never had to be. I wouldn’t have kept you locked away like Nightmare Moon did.”

He slid his chair closer to her cot, resting one hoof on her shoulder.

She reached up, holding his hoof with her own. It was the second most wonderful thing he’d felt today, even if her body was as cold and lifeless as he remembered. He was used to that by now. “And if I did that… you might’ve tried to hide me from her. The princess’s magic… I don’t know if I could’ve survived without it. That little parasite drained me of every drop of magic I had.

“Ah, well…” He looked away. “I would’ve called her the instant you were in danger. I’m just glad you’re okay. There was… some doubt. Nopony could be sure if you’d come back.”

She adjusted her wings, brushing the blanket aside. Her body no longer looked even a little bit motherly. Like everything the invading magic had done was now undone. It was reassuring, if a little sad. “I want to see her,” she said. “If you named her without me, I’m changing it back.”

“I’ll get her.” Quill rose to his hooves, turning towards the door. “I haven’t named her yet. It didn’t feel right to… do it without you.”

Soon enough, the foal was cradled in her hooves. She stirred uneasily, clearly unhappy to be woken. But considering everything Penumbra had gone through, Quill wasn’t going to deny her.

“Meanwhile, I have had occasion to think of little else,” she said. She looked down at the child, apparently oblivious of her blind eyes. Quill hadn’t told her yet, and he wasn’t sure when he would. “We’re naming her Faithful Gale, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“Faithful Gale,” he repeated. “Sounds perfect. Just like her.”

Chapter 23: Faithful Color

Faith waited eagerly at the back of the line, bouncing more than walking with every step. She was surrounded by a world of other chattering fillies and colts. Ordinarily she might’ve loathed hearing their constant jabbering about their chances and what color they’d be sorted into—but just now, it had its purpose.

Faith’s world was utterly dark, the darkness of something that had never known light. Indeed, “light” was itself just a word to her, a word that translated roughly to heat.

Faith was blind.

But she was also a bat, saving her from being left to the cavern-rats and the cold.

Don’t be so dramatic. You’re the First Commander’s daughter. You’d have an Invalid’s bed and a life of stealing resources from Moonrise, giving nothing back.

Instead of all that, Faith heard the space around her. The Academy’s entrance steps were made from flat stone, with a metal railing off to one side that she occasionally touched with one leg to reassert her bearings.

“Dust Storm,” called a voice from the front of the line. “Time for your assessment, get in here.”

Please. Everypony knows Dust Storm will go Blue. Just give her the spot already and let the rest of us try.

“I’ll see you Reds later,” the pegasus said, spreading her wings in a noisy display of feathers, before prancing up the steps and vanishing into the Academy with a click of the metal door.

The crowd moved forward. There weren’t as many of them as any of their parents hoped for, so even at the back of the line Faith wouldn’t be waiting forever. The moon was a harsh mother. Roughly half the fillies and colts born around Faith’s own time had lived this long.

“Faith!” Arclight’s voice called from behind her, quieter than most ponies spoke. But he knew how much sound mattered to her, and had long since learned to be as quiet as possible around her. Even so, she heard his hoofsteps, and knew when he would be within reach. She knew to expect the slight embrace.

He lowered his voice to a whisper, speaking right into her ears. “You could’ve gone first. Buck, your mom probably could’ve made you skip this whole thing. Why are you waiting in line?”

She sighed. Arclight couldn’t understand. “Because that’s what ponies do. We wait in line, we get our assessments, we get our apprenticeships. We don’t cheat our way into things we don’t deserve.” She spread her wings preemptively, settling a hoof on his shoulder. “I’m not accusing you of anything, Arclight. You deserve that Blue. You tested early, but it’s fair. I get it.”

He grunted noncommittally. She’d been right. “Mom and Dad wanted me to invite you over for dinner when your test is over.”

“Are we celebrating? Or mourning?”

Arclight shrugged, which she could only hear thanks to the sound his blue necklace made when he shook it. Well, she assumed it was blue. Like light itself, the colors meant little more to her than the ranks they implied. “Dunno yet. But I’ll be waiting right here until we can find out. Tell me when you know, yeah?”

Dust Storm emerged from inside with a shriek of glee, zooming through the air so loudly that Faith didn’t even duck to avoid her. “See ya later, Reds! Except you, White.”

Faith couldn’t see who she might be pointing at, but she didn’t need to be able to see to guess who it would be. There was only one pony in this group Dust Storm would dare insult that way, and that was the one who couldn’t see her do it.

The line moved forward again. At least the most unpleasant pony waiting ahead of them was gone, giving her a little peace. “How’s the Arcanium? Is being a wizard’s apprentice everything you dreamed it would be?”

He followed her up the steps. “Being tired all the time isn’t my favorite. I love books as much as the next pony, but… I wish we didn’t have to be locked up in the Arcanium all the time.”

Faith grinned. “Just practice your air-spells and teleportation. When I’m on the surface crew, I’ll need a good partner.”

Arclight winced. She couldn’t see it of course, but she could hear it in his voice. “I don’t think… Faith, have you thought about what you’ll do if you don’t make Blue?”

“Because I’m not good enough?” She spread her wings, puffing out her chest and baring her fangs at him. “Don’t sound like them Arclight. There isn’t a better flyer on the moon. There isn’t a better geologist. I can learn twice as much by touching metal as these other ponies can learn with their stupid eyes.”

Arclight backed away. “Alright, alright! I’m not… I’m not trying to argue with you, Faith. I’m sorry.”

“You should be.” She folded her wings, falling back into line.

“I’ll be waiting when you get out,” he said. “I still want to be friends when you’re done, yeah? No matter what happens.”

She swore under her breath, glaring in his direction. At least, she assumed that was what she was doing. It was really just a word, like so many others.

The line ahead of her finally dwindled, and she stood at the top of the stairs. She fiddled with the empty lunarium links of her necklace, each one waiting for an achievement medal. And of course, her color.

Finally the door opened again, and Silver Needle’s voice called from inside. “Faithful Gale.” She stopped in the doorway, and Faith nearly walked into her. She hadn’t flung them open to wait for the others. She kept her voice low, sympathetic. “Faith, you don’t have to be here.”

“Yes I do,” she argued, standing alert. “I’m ready to prove myself worthy of the Night Princess’s glory. I’m ready to lift Moonrise with my hooves, as those before me have lifted.” She recited perfectly, keeping the anger out of her voice as best she could. She thought she did a pretty good job.

The door rumbled open. “Inside then.” Silver turned, her hooves moving swiftly off into the Academy. Faith followed quickly behind, barely needing to squeak to see her way forward. She’d been coming here every day since she was old enough to study a craft.

They passed through a massive entryway, where metal plaques of achievement surrounded a statue twice as tall as she was. Faith slowed just a little, listening to the reflection off the pony’s massive form. Stone armor carved a face she had barely known. Covered with scars, with only a single wing on his right side.

First Commander Iron Quill, watching over Moonrise in death as he had done until the end of his days. I’ll make you proud, Dad. You’ll see. She swept her wing against one of his carved legs as she passed for good luck, then hurried to catch up with Silver.

They went all the way to the gymnasium for the test, a space so large that her voice could barely show her the other side. She could hear the nearer hazards all the same—rings, and pillars, and simulated craters of sand.

Faith found the little metal line where the course began and stopped to stretch. She was more than ready for the flight, but that didn’t mean she was going to begin without proper preparations.

Needle’s voice came from a dozen paces away, concerned. “Faith, what are you doing?”

“Preparing for my evaluation,” she said simply. If the evaluator was going to hold to strict ceremony, then she could do that too. She stood up straighter, spreading her wings to either side. “My name is Faithful Gale, and I am here to petition the Master of Labor for placement among the Blues, to serve among the Dustwalkers. In their ranks, I will use my hooves to lift Moonrise, so that one day we might have our vengeance.”

The Master of Labor stopped walking, drawing in a sharp breath. She didn’t say anything for almost a minute, before making her way back in halting steps. Finally her breathing was only feet away, practically within reach. “Faith,” she said. “It’s noble how much you want to serve Moonrise. But you ca—”

“My name is Faithful Gale,” she said, a little louder. “My name is Faithful Gale, and I am here to petition the Master of Labor for placement among the Blues, to serve—”

She felt a hoof settle on her shoulder, silencing her. Like all of the first generation, she had to reach up to Faith’s shoulder, even though she was old, and Faith was young. They were all short like that, even her father. Even her mother. Only the princess was taller than the average filly.

“Faith, you can’t do this.” She spoke a little firmer now, without the gentleness that had made her so easy to interrupt before. “It’s good that you want to serve so well. Moonrise will make use of your talent and resourcefulness. But the purpose of the colors we wear isn’t to decide the quality of food we receive and the bunks we sleep in. They’re an honest assessment of what we can actually accomplish. So resources aren’t wasted.”

Faith sniffed, feeling the beginning of a tear trickle down her face. She wiped it quickly away, hoping Silver Needle hadn’t seen. “Among the Dustwalkers, I wouldn’t waste anything for Moonrise. I wouldn’t shatter glowstone, or drain electricity, or—”

The hoof rested on her shoulder again, twisting her slightly to the side. Silver Needle’s voice came from very close this time. “That’s not true. The Dustwalkers risk themselves on the surface, Faith. Your own life would be in constant danger there, as well as the life of your partner. You could die.”

Her voice cracked, but she didn’t stop now. This was her only chance to be assigned a proper color. She wasn’t going to give up. “I’ve studied since I was a foal,” she said. “I know the dunes, I can fly better than anypony, I know how to find metal worth bringing back, I—”

Silver Needle cleared her throat, silencing her again. “If Iron was still alive today, he would never let you risk your life like that. I know this is hard to hear, Faith, but… the greatest service you can give to Moonrise isn’t to bring metal to smelt, or building the Dustmine. Your life is itself valuable. Ponies see you, they see your determination to survive even while broken, and they know they too can survive. You’re Iron Quill’s legacy. That’s all we expect of you. And maybe to produce an heir for Quill’s family, when you’re older. That’s it.”

Broken. That’s all we expect.

She was certainly crying now, there on the starting line. She could hear the obstacles waiting for her, and the sky without a ceiling far above. It called to her, even if she would never see it.

“S-so…” She cleared her throat, glaring down at the Master of Labor. Or at least, where she thought Silver Needle would be standing. “That’s it, then? I just… eat Moonrise’s food, breathe its air, and… let somebody buck me when I’m older? That’s it?”

“You don’t have to say it like that,” Silver Needle said. “Your life is irreplaceable, Faith. Every day you’re inspiring the ponies of Moonrise. But... there are other things.” She held up something, two pieces of metal. It sounded like lunarium. A color pin, meant to go on Faith’s blank necklace. Of course she couldn’t see the color on it. “It would be improper for Quill’s daughter to be less than purple. With this, you could take up Runecrafting in the Arcanium.”

Carving the same shapes into bits of metal all day, every day. Never stand on the surface. She tensed, retreating from Silver Needle. Back towards the obstacle course.

“I still think… I could test into Blue, Master Silver Needle. If you just… Can’t I take the test? Even if you don’t let me ever apprentice with the Dustwalkers. Wouldn’t it be better for Iron Quill’s daughter to test higher? You could testify that you saw me complete it with your own eyes! I’d be even more of a… whatever I am. A tool. I’d be a better one.”

Silver was silent for a long time. Her hoofsteps circled around Faith, though she couldn’t see what the mare might be doing. Finally she cleared her throat. “I’ll never let you onto the surface,” she said flatly. “Do you understand that? You’re blind, Faith. You’re a danger to anypony who serves with you.”

She nodded weakly. “Is there any danger to letting me take the test? I fly these obstacles every day. It’s a little late to stop me now.”

Another pause, shorter this time. “I suppose there’s no harm. I’m sorry I can’t give you any more, Faith. We’re all heartbroken you can’t fill your father’s hooves. But nopony here doubts your loyalty or dedication to Moonrise. You don’t have to do this.”

“I do,” she said flatly. “I can’t make you let me out, but… I want to test into Blue.”

Needle fiddled with something. Objects moved around inside a container, and a quill tapped on paper. Real paper, which was never wasted on Moonrise. This was her score, the most important score she’d get in her whole life. “Very well. Listen for the whistle, you have two minutes to fly five laps of this course in total darkness. Every lap you fail to complete will penalize you ten points. Every object you touch will penalize you five points.”

She blew the whistle.

Faith hesitated for another moment more, startled by Needle’s sudden change of heart. She’d nearly given up by now. Her whole life was nothing more than a demonstration to the other ponies of Moonrise. She might as well be a mural painted on the wall—another thing that Faith couldn’t read.

But she could fly. She took off with a single smooth leap, spreading her wings and gliding forward through the air. She didn’t bother keeping her squeaking down anymore—Needle had said she was in darkness, where any bat was expected to use these senses.

Where other students might’ve had to struggle to find their way, Faith was no worse off than she’d been before.

She nearly smacked into the first pillar, right in the center of the lane. This isn’t supposed to be here! She veered to the left, through space that should’ve held a ring. But there was no ring, and a slope of sand approached rapidly on that side.

They changed the course for my test. She climbed as high as she could, cresting the dune and scattering dust behind her. The far wall approached rapidly at this speed, and she caught herself with a spin through the air, before narrowly missing several rings suspended on thick rope. At least those were the same, even if they weren’t where she expected.

With each obstacle, Faith sped up. There was a flat wall crossing half of the return lap, waiting for her to smack into. She peeled around it, dodged another pillar, then dipped low for a few more rings.

First lap finished, no penalties. She sped up around the second one, not needing to call as loudly to dodge the dangers she knew would be waiting for her. Up around the bend, around a pillar, and so on.

She landed after her fifth lap, a full three seconds before Needle blew her whistle. She grinned, shaking some sand off her wings.

“Fifty points,” Needle said, scribbling onto her notepad. “We’re very impressed, Faith. Let me just give you your—”

“No!” she squeaked, louder than she probably should’ve. Needle might be shorter than she was, but she was still the Master of Labor. She could give her a lifetime of mucking latrines if Faith really pissed her off. “I mean, fifty points isn’t enough for Blue. Let me finish.”

Needle drew in a sharp breath, then scribbled something on her clipboard. “Very well, Faith. This way.”

They crossed the rest of the gym, to a row of low tables. The tools of many crafts were arranged here, Faith used the edge of a wing to touch them as she passed. A runecrafting station, a loom, a fire pick and lead-twine for metalcraft. She took the warmth coming from further away to mean that a forge had been erected here, or maybe a glassblower’s station.

She ignored all of them as they settled at a table covered with a sheet of soft velvet. “Before you are all six primary metals,” she said. “Show me copper.”

Faith squeaked, listening to the placement of each lump of metal. They’d done nothing to make the shapes suggestive, they were each rough spheres, pitted and lumpy from impact on the surface. She touched each one with the back of her wing, then licked the one she suspected to be sure. “Copper.”

“Correct. Show me lunarium.” They repeated the process for iron, lead, and gold, before she asked, “Show me tin.”

There was only one lump left, but this time Faith hesitated. She tilted her head slightly in confusion. “Tin isn’t on this table, Master Needle. This is…” She nudged it again with her teeth. “I don’t know what this is.”

Needle scribbled something. “The craftsponies call it True Lunarium. I’m not fond of the name myself—it’s a mouthful. Somepony suggested solarium, but then the princess gave them two months hard labor. So probably not that either.” She turned away. “I suppose you’ll insist on testing with the survival gear as well. Follow me.”

She did. This time was a little harder for her—the mask and goggles Dustwalkers wore on the surface had to be applied and removed within a short window of time, one hard to reach when she couldn’t see what she was working with.

But she kept working, until her suit was on, and she could start performing the various Dustwalker rituals required for a bat who wanted to ever visit the surface. There were knots to tie, filters to change, signals to send… and then she was finished.

“That’s a final score of… ninety-four,” Needle said. “Congratulations, Faith, you’re Blue.”

She opened her mouth to cheer, but before she could even move, she felt a hoof settle on her shoulder again, pushing her down. The adults of the first generation might be short, but they were also incredibly strong, even the ones who weren’t earth ponies.

“Look at… right. Well, listen to me. I’m giving you this charm, but you need to understand. I’m giving you this with my words of apology. You will never walk on the surface. Your life is too precious, and your deformity is too severe.”

“But…” She probably should’ve kept her mouth shut, but now that she’d made it this far, she couldn’t. She deserved to speak. It was her right, dammit! “But I’m Blue.” She reached out for the charm, Needle pulled it away.

“That’s a bucking piece of metal, Faith. The colors are pointless—they’re a way for us to make sure that nopony’s labor is wasted, that’s all. There’s nothing sacred about a piece of metal.”

“I’m Blue,” she repeated. “That means I can do the work of my tribe. I can be a Dustwalker.”

Master Silver Needle sighed deeply. “Quill would’ve been less tolerant of this stupidity. He… he understood. Your life is more important than the ore you could ever find. I’m the Master of Labor, Faith… and I’m telling you right now, I will never give you a Dustwalker shift as long as I live. I won’t even let you bucking apprentice with them. If you fight me on this, I’m going to take this charm and toss it into the furnace!”

Whatever argument she might’ve been about to make died in her throat, turning into a half-strangled sob.

“That’s better.” She felt something settle into her hoof—a circle of lunarite warmed by a pony’s touch.

With one shaking hoof, Faith reached up and secured it in place on her necklace, clicking the clasp through the center link of her necklace. For all the good it did her. Her charm might as well be white.

“It’s amazing what you can do, despite your deformity. You’re an example to all of Moonrise. Lord Commander Chain Mail will probably give you a bucking speech. Take the honor you’ve won today, the proof that in a kinder world, you could’ve been a Dustwalker.”

She turned to leave, without waiting for formal dismissal, without waiting for anything. But Needle stopped her. “You’ll have the next lunar day to celebrate your appointment, along with all the others. But when your time of rest is over, you’re going to accept the apprenticeship in Cozen’s shop. Just… look on the bright side. Your little coltfriend is working there too. You can spend some time together. Get started on that heir early.”

Talk that might’ve made her cheeks flush with anticipation filled her with disgust when it came from the Master of Labor. Faith turned and ran from the hall, and this time Needle didn’t stop her.

She passed her father’s statue in tears. It didn’t matter that she couldn’t see his face, she knew he’d be glaring down with disappointment. She imagined his words, spoken in that ailing voice she’d known since birth. “So what if the universe gave you a deformity? Who are you going to cry to, the princess? No. You’re stronger than that. You reach out for what you want, and you take it. Nopony is going to give it.”

I tried, Dad. I really tried. She reached the outer door, shoving her shoulder against it and stumbling out the steps. She nearly fell on her face, but of course the moon gave her plenty of time to catch herself, turning a fall into a few indelicate bounces.

“Arclight? Arclight?” She stopped at the bottom, calling desperately. She was crying, but she didn’t quite have it in her to care. “Arclight, did you leave?”

Something touched her wing, a gentle hoof. She spun furiously, and nearly struck out at her unseen attacker—until she realized the obvious. Arclight’s voice. “Faith?” His hooves echoed lightly off the stone as he moved closer. “Faith, what’s wrong? You…” He hesitated. “Buck me, you did it. You’re Blue.”

She shook her head vigorously. “I’m nothing.” I will never give you a Dustwalker shift as long as I live. “It doesn’t mean anything. It’s all just pretend.”

Arclight flung one leg around her shoulder in a quick hug, squeezing her tight. She didn’t have the strength to resist, emotionally or physically. “Hey, Faith… why don’t we go home? My dad will be mostly finished with dinner now, I’m sure. He always cooks interesting things.”

She nodded weakly, feeling warm tears streak her face. But she couldn’t even bring herself to wipe them away. “That sounds… that sounds good,” she said.

Some part of her, a distant part by now, reminded her of something else. If anypony knows what to do about this, it’s Cozen and Sylvan Shade. Or her mother, but getting Penumbra to notice her was harder than getting time with the princess.

Gritting her teeth, she fell into step beside Arclight and left the Academy behind.

Chapter 24: Dead City

Faith dragged her hooves all the way into the housing block, then up several flights of stairs to Green level. Through a set of guarded doors—a position that was more symbolic at this point—she passed into the rotunda.

Faith couldn’t see the colors meant to indicate Green level, but she could smell them. Here, where the noble and great ones of Moonrise lived, there were living plants.

Not just the entirely practical potatoes, carrots, or wheat either, but far more interesting smells. Mint, parsley, bay, oregano… and in the very center of the garden, an actual apple tree. Unimaginable luxury for the other ponies of Moonrise.

Faith couldn’t pretend to be a stranger here. There was no black level, and so her mother lived here in the same vast space that she had once shared with Iron Quill.

But she wouldn’t be there, and Faith had no desire to go back. They wrapped around the corner, then through a metal door into Arclight’s home.

Every color had their own floorplan, so at least she only had to memorize each one once. But Arclight’s parents were the exception. Like all Greens they had their own kitchen, which they’d transformed largely into a laboratory. There were strange apparatuses of cold glass tubes and metal coils always up against the wall whenever she dared touch them with a wing.

A few bubbled and frothed merrily as they entered, mixing the smells of cooked grain and mushroom with something harsh and metallic. At least she never tasted it in the food.

“You’re back,” Aunt Cozen said, her voice coming through the doorway in the little dining room. Of course she wasn’t really Faith’s aunt, any more than Sylvan was her uncle. But with as little she saw her mother… “How’d it go?”

She reached down, holding up her necklace towards the sound of her voice.

“Incredible,” Cozen muttered. “That’s amazing, Faith. You did it, congratulations!” Under her enthusiasm, Faith could clearly hear her concern. She wasn’t trying to make her worry obvious, but it was powerful all the same. You didn’t want me to get it either.

“Blue?” Sylvan’s voice, from much closer. His hooves clopped past her, and from the smells and the odd three-step gait, she guessed he was carrying a tray. “Great work, Faith! We knew you could, uh… we knew you’d manage it!”

No you didn’t. That smell, the mushroom with just a hint of something fresher. Moth. They’d cooked her favorite food, mothwraps, even though none of them particularly cared for it. They could claim it was just to celebrate with her, but Faith wasn’t stupid.

She sat down at the table anyway, slumping her head against the cool lunarium surface. “It doesn’t mean anything,” she muttered.

“What was that?” Cozen asked.

“Master of Labor…” She looked up in the unicorn’s direction. “Master Needle says she’ll never let me onto the surface. My color doesn’t matter. She didn’t tell me that for my whole life, guess she never thought it would be worth mentioning while I trained for hours every day. But whatever. I get a piece of metal I can use to get all the bugs I want at commissary. Great.”

There was a long silence in the kitchen. She could practically feel the pressure settling around her. But was it expectation, anger, or pity? If only she could feel their faces, she might’ve known. Nopony moved enough for her to be sure, which made her think they must be tense about it.

Finally Sylvan spoke. “Reaching Blue was an incredible accomplishment.”

“For someone as disfigured as I am?” she spat. “That’s what Needle said. I should just… take my color and be happy.”

“It’s more than most ponies in Moonrise will ever see,” Cozen said. Her voice was soft, motherly in a way Penumbra never was. “I don’t think you should be happy, you should be furious. Obviously you’ve worked your whole life for something, and you deserve to get what you’ve earned.”

“Can we eat?” Arclight asked. “I know Faith is upset, but… I’m hungry. Maybe you’ll feel better after some weird bugs.”

“They’re not weird,” she grumbled, settling into her seat and folding her wings abruptly to her sides. She didn’t try to serve herself, not here. It wasn’t great to touch her wings up against the food other ponies were about to eat, particularly when they were covered with dust from the practice field.

But she heard her plate scraping against the table as somepony pushed it, and she touched it gingerly with the edge of a hoof. She reached down, letting off a single quick burst of sound to judge how much she had and where it was, before taking her knife and spearing a wrap.

It was simple food, not the usual unicorn fare. Quill had called them ‘marchwraps’ because they could be prepared in advance and eaten by an army on the march. But instead of simple grain, she liked hers filled with warm potatoes, and creamy cooked grubs.

“Not that one, Arclight,” Cozen chided. “The grubs are in those three. The others are mushroom.”

The others started to eat. But Faith didn’t, she glared down at her plate, tempted by the smell. But she was curious, and this felt like… accepting what had happened. “What should I do?” she asked, voice low. “I could…” There was only one pony who could change her color, the same pony who could change anyone’s color. “I could ask the princess for consideration.”

Sylvan spat something against the wall. When he finally spoke, his voice was still shocked and horrified. “That’s, uh… a really bad idea.”

“Yes,” Cozen added, without skipping a beat. “Nightmare Moon, uh… she values strength above anything else. If you come to her to complain, she’d probably just make you White for wasting her time. If she even saw you to begin with.”

That made sense. Nightmare Moon had always insisted on strength and endurance from her ponies. Vengeance will come to those who work and wait. We will one day regain our inheritance. The princess wouldn’t roll over and accept this, she’d do something about it.

Attacking Needle is wrong. The mare wasn’t evil, and she clearly wanted to protect Faith. She was misguided and infuriating, that was all.

“Aren’t you going to eat, dear?”

Her mind was spinning. Even chewing would waste too much of her time, time she could better spend on figuring out what to do.

“When it looked like Moonrise was doomed…” she said, turning towards the two of them. “You didn’t give up. You figured out a way.”

“Of course,” Uncle Sylvan said. “There’s always a way, I think we’ve learned that by now. The moon is like Nightmare Moon herself—dangerous, but not hopeless. She rewards cleverness.”

“And endurance,” Cozen added hastily. “There’s nothing more important than that. Remember, we’ve always thought we were going home. We hope for it, but we have to accept that it will take time. I think that’s important for you too. Take time, take it slow.”

Or do something so incredible, that they have to let me be a Dustwalker. Faith took a bite of the cooling wrap, letting the taste wash away her doubt. From her birth, life had been unfair. She didn’t have to accept it just because ponies told her to.

But she wasn’t going to get any further with her aunt and uncle. She waited until the meal was over. While they cleaned things up, she slipped away with Arclight back into the garden.

They weren’t the only ones: the sound of other fillies and colts and play echoed through the hall, along with song and harp and a few ponies sparring with wooden swords. Faith placed each of them on her mental map, and they found the most secluded spot they could: in front of her own home.

Iron Quill had not been an earth pony, but he’d once cared for his own flowers, which formed a little garden Faith had never seen. But when she was young, she had smelled it, and listened as the First Commander of Moonrise explained each one.

They were dead now. The garden had its caretakers, but nopony had dared touch Quill’s flowers. Particularly with his widow, still haunting their quarters like her cave.

She wasn’t home now, though. Faith knew that as surely as she could feel the metal under her hooves. “You stopped arguing,” Arclight said, as soon as they were alone. “Can we… be happy that you’ve finally come to terms with everything and you’re not going to do anything dumb?”

She shook her head, grinning mischievously. “Arclight, we’re going to do the dumbest possible thing.” She began pacing back and forth, stopping just short of the dead planter-box without having to touch it. Even the echoes from her own hoofsteps were enough to hear it.

“I figured.” He slumped to the floor not far away. “Why can’t we just… not?”

“Our parents didn’t accept when the universe bucked with them. I’ve had to accept my ‘place’ in Moonrise my whole life. I’m sick of it.” She held up the necklace. “I earned this. I deserve to be able to work with everypony else.”

“Okay,” he said. His acceptance was more soothing than any embrace could’ve been. “What will we do about it?”

“Something big,” she answered. “That’s the only way. We have to help Moonrise so much that they have to recognize us. Do something that nopony ever dreamed of. Save the world.”

“The world doesn’t need saving,” he pointed out. “Or… it needs saving all the time. Don’t waste water, don’t eat too much, wake up on time, care for the garden…”

“I know,” she said, exasperated. “But there’s got to be… something.” She stopped pacing, resting one hoof on the brick wall. As if Moonrise could speak to her through its stones. “What does the city need? What could we do that nopony ever dreamed of?”

“Break the Sun Tyrant’s curse and return to Equestria?”

She hit him—or she swung her leg towards where she thought he’d be standing. But he could see her, and she couldn’t see where he’d moved. Her leg passed harmlessly through empty air.

“I know you’re a blue, but you’re not that good,” she said. “You’re not better than the princess, and she’s had… if she doesn’t figure it out, we won’t. Besides, that would just be showing how amazing you are.”

“I am pretty amazing,” he said. “Mom says I can enchant better than half of her unicorns. I’m gonna get a cutie mark for it for sure.”

“Can you do the air-spell?” she asked absently. As casually as she could make it sound.

“Yes,” he said flatly. “No, we’re not sneaking up to the surface. They’d take my Blue away for that”

Not if we did something amazing. But as she opened her mouth to say so, something more powerful silenced her. Yes, success overpowered any rule they broke. But the moon was barren for miles around Moonrise. And even if they did find some rich ore—buck, even if they brought it themselves, that just wouldn’t be enough to excuse stealing equipment, and somehow sneaking past the guards.

“I’m thinking bigger anyway,” she said instead. “Just being a Dustwalker isn’t enough. We could go up there, but we’d have to come back. They’d lock us up.”

“They’d lock me up,” he corrected. “I’m pretty sure nopony in the colony would punish you. Only daughter of the First Commander. It doesn’t matter what your pin says, you outrank everypony.”

I outrank them so much they won’t let me leave.

She didn’t want to argue again, certainly not with the only pony who had been consistently on her side. The only pony who might help her with whatever insane scheme she’d yet to devise.

“What’s bigger than Dustwalking, but smaller than saving Moonrise from the Sun Tyrant?”

There was a brief silence as they both considered it. Faith never would’ve admitted it, but she didn’t actually know very much outside of her chosen career path. She never could’ve seen the bigger picture of Moonrise the way her father had. Or… maybe she could one day, but that wasn’t what she’d practiced for.

“It has to be something that will make them let me have a real job,” she said. “Something that shows I can handle myself. Something that will really help Moonrise. Something ponies will hear about, and be furious if I can’t keep working.”

“I…” Arclight lowered his voice to a whisper, his mouth right up against her ear. He spoke very slowly, as though he were watching their surroundings every second. “I might have one idea. But it’s really stupid and I shouldn’t even tell you.”

She practically lit up, facing him. “What is it? No harm in saying.”

He seemed to think there was, because he didn’t say anything for almost a minute. She posed as pathetically for him as she could, flattening her ears and purposefully looking a little past him, instead of where she knew he was standing.

Finally he groaned. “We can’t do it,” he said. “It’s too much. Not even Mom and Dad did it. Not even your parents ever did it. It’s…”

“Just say,” she said. “Even if we can’t, at least I can eliminate something from the list.” Empty words, obviously. Whatever Arclight didn’t want to tell her had to be perfect.

“You learned the history of Moonrise at the Academy too,” he said. “You’re a Blue, you should know. Where did the first generator come from?”

She answered by rote. “The Princess of the Moon took the First Commander to the Sacred City, where they communed with the gods for seven days and seven nights. He returned enlightened, and shared his gift with everypony. But… probably your parents first, because they’d know what to do with it.”

“Right.” He pulled in close again, right up against her side. She flushed at his closeness, but didn’t push him away. “The Sacred City isn’t some… it’s real. Just like Equestria far away. It’s actually a place you can visit.”

Obviously it had to be real, if Quill had gone there. But she stared anyway. “Why would we want to?”

“Well…” He hesitated another moment more, then everything came out in a rush. “My mom always said that everything from there was incredible, she could barely understand it. Just look at what it did for your father—he was crippled, and one little machine from there made him able to walk.”

“It…” She froze, utterly motionless. “He never said where… His metal leg came from the Sacred City?”

Arclight was so close she could feel his nod against her coat. “He tried to get my mom to make more for some other crippled ponies in Moonrise, but it was too hard. They have… kinds of metals we don’t. Ways of putting things together we don’t.

Iron Quill got a metal leg. Maybe I can find a metal eye. Then I’d be like anypony else, and they’d have to let me be a Dustwalker.

“That sounds awesome,” she said. “All that ancient wisdom—almost anything we find would probably make us heroes in Moonrise. Let’s go!”

She turned to go, though of course she didn’t know where the city actually was. Probably they’d have to go to the surface, but beyond that…

Arclight yanked her back abruptly, dragging her along the stone. She could smell his sudden tension and anger. “That isn’t how it works, Faith. It’s the Sacred City. My mom and dad said that… the princess only ever took your father. Nopony else in the whole city ever got to see it.”

“And I’m his daughter,” she declared. “You keep saying it, everypony keeps saying it. If the princess was going to allow anypony to go, it would be me.” She blushed. “And you’d go, obviously. I need air.”

For a second, it almost seemed like he was going to agree with her. But then the moment passed, and he shook his head nervously. “That’s… I don’t think you realize what it would take, Faith.”

“Then tell me.”

“Well…” He twitched again, his head moving back and forth.

“There’s no one close enough to hear us,” she said. “I’m listening. I’d hear it if they were.”

He sighed. “Well, there’s… Okay, Faith. If I tell you, you have to swear not to share it with another soul. Nopony on Moonrise. I shouldn’t say anything, but… I know you’ll be awful about this if I don’t help you, so I’m gonna try.”

“I swear,” she said quickly. “Anything, whatever it is… yes. I can keep a secret! It’s not like anypony besides you wants to be with me. They’re either too afraid of a pony I’m not, or I’m just ‘the cripple.’”

He sighed. “My mom and dad have a secret cavern. It’s… not even possible to walk to. You have to teleport to it, through the rock. Mom brings air in and out when she visits.”

He had her attention now. “A secret cavern filled with… incredible things we can use to get Moonrise to recognize me?”

“No,” he said. “And yes, maybe? I don’t know. It’s where my mom and dad work on things that they’re not sure Moonrise should know about yet. Things that might not work… don’t want to get ponies’ hopes up, you know? And sometimes, it’s where they work on… a way rune to take ponies halfway across the moon to the Sacred City and study the incredible things there.”

He said it so fast she almost didn’t understand it. But the words slowly slid into place in her brain, like cobwebs shaken free. She actually smiled at him. “So we can get to the Sacred City,” she said. “Vanaheimr. You know the way. We go through there, and… bring back something incredible for Moonrise. We’re both heroes.”

“Well…” He sighed. “My mom and dad never used it. I think… I think your father might’ve been the one who asked to have it built. But Nightmare Moon was so dangerous about anypony who got near it. Do you really think she’ll be okay with us going because of you? If she’s not…” He shuddered. “She might not take our colors away, Faith. She might take our air away too.”

She nodded quickly, looking as confident as she could. “It’ll be fine!” Especially if she never finds out. “So you can get us to the… secret cavern? You can use the way runes? Whatever those are…”

“A really powerful spell,” he supplied. “Mom says it leaves a pony exhausted for days.”

“How often do your parents go to this cave?” she asked. “If we go charge it together…”

“You say we,” he muttered, annoyed. “But you’re not a unicorn. I’d be charging it. And it would probably take me a few days.” He glared at her for a few more seconds, or at least she assumed he had. “My mom and dad barely use it anymore. It’s more like our… vault, for all the things ponies won’t understand. Your father’s metal leg is in there, along with other things he brought back from Vanaheimr.”

“It sounds like this might be our only chance,” she said. “Think about it. We get a whole day to prepare—I know you didn’t take your day of rest before you started at the Arcanium! So you claim your days off, we make a big deal about how we’re… sneaking off together.”

She blushed, but went on anyway. “Everypony thinks we’re… but really we’re going off to that secret cave to charge the way runes. I could probably use my mom’s necklace to get enough food for the other side. We’d be gone for… how long would it take you to recharge it?”

He frowned, thoughtful. “If we could find somewhere to hold the air in, and it wasn’t too cold… two days. As long as we give me a day to rest before we use them. Or… maybe I’m completely wrong because I’ve never used them in my life, and I launch us miles away from everything and we die and nopony knows where we are.”

He started to shiver, but she caught him with a wing, squeezing him until he stopped. “Quit that. Your mom made it, right? Would she make a mistake like that?”

He didn’t move in her grip, not for a long moment. “No.”

“Exactly,” she declared. “We are going to pull this off, Arclight. We’re gonna go do what not even your parents were brave enough to do. We’re going to visit the Sacred City, and bring back something amazing for Moonrise.” Like a pair of metal eyes. That sounds like exactly what the city needs.

“Okay,” he said. “But… but if we do this, I want…” He made a noncommittal squeaking sound. “If we’re gonna get banished by the princess, or maybe frozen on the surface, or killed in the Sacred City… I don’t want to do it with just any mare. I wanna do it with my marefriend. So you, uh… you gotta say that you’ll be my special somepony.”

“Sure,” she said, without even thinking. “Uh… what’s that mean?”

“I… don’t know,” he admitted. “But lots of ponies have them. I want one too.”

Then again, maybe she did know. Silver had said something about heirs. Faith might be young, but she wasn’t stupid.

Chapter 25: Awesome

The shift bell came to Moonrise not long after, sounding through every level of the city. Everywhere, ponies lingering after dinner rose to return home. The bright lights illuminating every public space dimmed to a faint glow—or so she heard.

“Tomorrow morning,” Arclight promised, touching her shoulder with one hoof. “I’ll take you to the cave. If you still think this plan is… If you’re still crazy enough that you haven’t given it up.”

“I won’t,” she said. “It’s obviously perfect.”

He groaned, then let go. “Whatever, Faith. Sleep on it. Maybe you’ll have a better idea.”

I won’t, she thought. But she didn’t keep arguing. Arclight wasn’t a bat—he hated the dark. She wouldn’t keep him out here. Some part of her wanted to go back with him, to the little loft bed waiting for her with Aunt Cozen. She used it most nights—at least there she could be around other ponies, instead of giant empty rooms. But she didn’t want any more sympathy.

Besides, Cozen was smart too. If she stayed a little too long, she might realize that Faith was planning something, and put together what they’d be up to. Arclight would already have it hard enough keeping the secret.

She turned for her own door, resting a hoof on the old wood. Real wood, all the way from Equestria itself. She touched it with a hoof, breathing in the scent of an alien place. Grown so far from here that she could barely even imagine it.

Then she saw. Through the wall, and the old wooden door, there was suddenly a pony inside. She didn’t hear a sound, but she didn’t need to. Penumbra’s body was visible to her the same way she “saw” the sounds of walls and objects and other ponies, but in far greater detail. No color, little texture, but distinct lines.

Faith sighed and nearly turned around. Penumbra started pacing back and forth by the far wall, apparently waiting for her.

Finally she gritted her teeth, shoving the door open with a shoulder.

The First Commander’s old home was almost as large as the princess’s own, except that it had no servants’ quarters. She stepped into an entry-hall with its own heat vent, along with more skeletal plants, then through a doorway into the kitchen.

“Hi Mom,” she said, voice tired.

“Faith, good to see you!” Even without the strange way she seemed to glow, Faith would’ve called her happiness forced. “It’s, uh… big day.”

Faith stopped on the other side of the kitchen—almost entirely empty, since she couldn’t cook, and her mother was an undead monster who didn’t eat. They had their own icebox like the other Greens, but changing the block every day was more work than it was worth to keep a few pieces of fruit fresh. She never bothered.

“Big day,” she repeated, settling down on her haunches. “Everypony else had their parents waiting for them when they got out.”

“Oh, uh… did they?” Penumbra winced. “I didn’t know. Sorry, sweetie.” She made her way forward, extending an awkward leg to touch her, but pulling it back. She probably thought Faith couldn’t see it, since she was so quiet.

Faith wasn’t about to correct that impression.

“But… looks like you’re… Blue? That’s a good color, right? Better than… Green?”

“Worse than Green,” Faith corrected. “White, Yellow, Red, Purple, Blue, Green, Black. How do you not know that?”

“I…” She shrugged. “I’ve never really cared. Better food, warmer bedroom. Not really sure what I’m supposed to do with those.”

“You’re Black,” Faith said flatly. “You get anything you want just by asking. You don’t care because you don’t have to care.”

Penumbra finally did reach out, touching her lightly on the side. Faith tensed, pulling back. Not because she was afraid, though she knew plenty of ponies who would’ve been. “Congratulations, sweetheart. I’m sure, uh… I’m sure he would’ve been proud.”

Dad will be proud when I come back from the Sacred City with metal eyes, and nopony in Moonrise can force me to act like a cripple. “Yeah,” she said flatly. “I’m sure he would.”

“I, uh… guess most parents get their foals something when this happens,” Penumbra went on, sounding more awkward with each word. “Do you want anything?”

“Can you make the Master of Labor let me apprentice?” she asked. The words came out before she realized what she was saying, leaving her with a bitter taste on her tongue. But they were all true, and she wasn’t going to take them back. Why should she?

“Can I… what?” Penumbra blinked, retreating a few steps. “What are you talking about, Faith?”

“Master Needle,” she said. “Says that I’ll never walk on the surface as long as I live. I’ll never get to be a Dustwalker. Even though I basically got a perfect score. Just those stupid knots slowed me down a little, but… not too much. I probably know them better than half the crews up there right now.”

“Oh, is that it?” Penumbra asked. “Why would you want to be a Dustwalker, Faith? You’re blind.”

She froze. For a few seconds, it felt like her heart didn’t even beat in her chest. She took a few ragged breaths, backing away from her. “Y-yeah. Why would I…” She sniffed, turning her back on Penumbra. “Why would I want that?” She ran, gliding the last few strides before spinning abruptly and rolling through the doorway into her bedroom. She slammed it shut behind her, slumped against the wall, and cried.

A few seconds later, she saw Penumbra vanish through the wall, returning her to true darkness.

She flopped onto her hammock, and the welcome oblivion that waited there. I’ll show you too, Mom.

Penumbra wasn’t there when she woke for a breakfast of dried fruit and water from the wall. She flaked a pinch of dried lemon, stirred it, then drank. Faith sat with her pitiful breakfast at the huge wooden table. She felt its old surface under her wings, the dozens of little dents and impressions probably left by hundreds of meetings that shaped the future of Moonrise.

But now Quill was dead, and those meetings happened somewhere else. She sat in his seat, with the little wheels that let her pull it along the length of the table. She rolled it forward and backward, until she felt hungry enough to finally eat.

I’m supposed to be celebrating today. Moonrise would have a dozen different parties, as adults of every craft welcomed their first moonborn newcomers. But none of those parties would be waiting for her. Become a runecrafter. Carve metal for spells until I get old and die. If that was living, then she would walk out onto the surface and let the moon take her.

But she wouldn’t be going to celebrate with the runecrafters, or anypony else. She finished eating, and wandered down the hall to Quill’s private shower. She flipped the switch, then waited impatiently while water bubbled and rose. Finally a bell chimed, and she flipped it off again.

She’d insisted on being assessed with everypony else, but that didn’t mean she would reject every luxury her family enjoyed. She barely had parents, she was going to bucking use the private shower.

She met Arclight just outside the door, wearing a heavy satchel and already smelling nervous. He shifted on his hooves, but didn’t seem able to say anything for several long moments. “You’re… you’re really gonna… you think we should…”

“Yes,” she said, annoyed. “I haven’t changed my mind.”

“Then…” He turned, and she followed. “We should probably get gone before ponies start inviting us to things.”

“Inviting you,” she muttered. She shouldn’t be sour with Arclight, he was one of the few ponies who actually seemed to be on her side. If anything, she should be thanking him.

They descended down several flights of stairs, then stepped out of the housing block and into the main cavern, sticking to the marked paths. She couldn’t see any of those markings, but the floors here were flat brick instead of uneven stone, and had a raised lip that could either warn her that she was wandering off, or trip her onto her face in front of everypony. Whatever she needed least at a given time.

She couldn’t see the oxygen plant they passed next, with its shallow pools of water and strange instruments. But she could hear the faint froth of bubbling liquid that suggested they were making air now.

As important as the purples doing that job were, she’d never even thought about it twice. The instruments they used to know how much air the city needed couldn’t be seen without eyes, which meant she couldn’t read them.

“I guess you didn’t think of any better ways,” he said conversationally. “Like… maybe just talking to the Dustwalkers and asking them to teach you?”

“That might’ve worked…” she began. “But Needle was so sure I’d never be allowed to work. She would’ve talked to them to make sure they sent me away.”

“Yeah,” he muttered, voice distant. “You’re probably right. I’m just… not looking forward to being an empty crystal for the next two days. You better stay with me. I don’t know… what we’ll do, but… you can’t leave. I’m charging this for you.”

“I’ll stay,” she swore. “You’re helping me with… Nothing’s more important than this. It’s basically sacred, Arclight. You’ll see, when we’re done. You won’t regret helping me.”

He didn’t sound like he agreed, but he didn’t argue. At least for a little while, this cavern was still mostly public, packed with traffic flowing in both directions from the fungus/insect farms, as well as the cistern and the crypt-cavern. There was also the old arena, used mostly for sports that other ponies seemed to enjoy, but that Faith couldn’t watch.

“How much further?” she asked. “I don’t like the lower caverns much. The smell is just… awful.”

“I thought you liked fungus,” Arclight said. She couldn’t tell if his voice was amused or indignant. “That’s all it is.”

She didn’t have the energy to argue just now. All her hopes now hinged on this desperate ploy.

Eventually Arclight directed her off the path, in a direction she’d never traveled before. But she could smell it all the same, even as her hooves were traveling over rough ground. She wrinkled her nose, touching his side with one outstretched wing. She held it there constantly even as she squeaked, as a second line of defense against obstacles in her way. “The midden heap? How many bad smells do we need?”

“We’re just going past it,” he said defensively. “Think about it, Faith. We have to go somewhere that nopony would ever think to check. What’s the worst part of Moonrise?”

“I get it,” she said, voice flat. “Just tell me when we’re teleporting.”

“You say it like it’s easy.” Through her touch, she could tell he was puffing out his chest, slowing a little and throwing his head back. “How many other ponies who haven’t had their cutie mark a year can do that? It’s, uh… it’s really advanced!”

That’s the moon. Learn quick or die. “And I’m very proud of you,” she said. “And grateful. Nopony else could do this. But… please tell me this super-secret magical lab is somewhere close?”

“Yeah.” They walked a little while longer, before turning up a slope. “Time for a little more squeaking, Faith. This tunnel sucks, and I don’t think my horn will help you.”

She raised her voice just a little, and he wasn’t wrong. The tunnel curved up and away from them, with jagged protrusions and broken rock blocking the path at random. No wonder nopony had thought to use it for anything before now, it was barely even wide enough for an adult. They had things easier, though her head would scrape the ceiling in places.

After a few more difficult minutes of climbing, spent together in near-silence where she could use an occasional high-pitched sound to keep the cavern’s shape ever-present in her mind, they finally reached their destination.

A blank wall, no different than any other. She squeaked a few times as Arclight fell silent, as though she might be able to hear her way through the stone to whatever was on the other side. But there was nothing, not even the hollow feeling she sometimes got from doors and thin walls.

“You’re sure this is it?”

“Shut up,” he answered. “Stand close to me, close your eyes, and breathe out when I say.”

“Close my eyes for what?” she asked, tilting her head slightly to one side. “You think I’m going to see terrible things in the void? See, Arclight. See.”

“No,” he groaned. “I think Mom said the water on your eyes can freeze and you can burn them. Do you want your eyes cut out?”

She fell silent, screwing her eyes shut, and tucking her ears and wings in for good measure. “I’ve… never actually done this before.”

“Obviously,” he said. A few more moments of silence, then, “One… two… now!”

She exhaled, felling a profound yank at her lungs. There was a moment of terrible cold in the void, and it didn’t matter that her eyes were closed. Thousands of little dots seemed to appear around her, each one a little different. Like the way her mother looked, a faint patch of greater darkness against the vastness. They turned, watching her.

Then she was in the air, falling. The ground met her, and she squeaked in surprise, becoming abruptly aware of a round space maybe ten paces long. The ceiling and floor were covered in odd grooves, probably earth-pony toolmarks to widen and expand the little cavern. The tables were formed that way too, flattening and polishing the lunar stone.

The air smelled—stale, like it had during the month the oxygen machines broke down and a few other foals had died. Not her, though. Faith was too tough for that.

“And we’re… here.” Arclight dropped to the ground beside her, flopping to one side. “Let me… just… catch my breath a minute.”

She walked past him, circling around the lab with one wing outstretched. She was cautious with her touch at first, unsure what might be enchanted and what might be otherwise unsafe.

There were standard runecrafting tools here, a few ancient equestrian books, jugs of water, and some metal storage boxes piled up by one wall. It wasn’t that impressive, except that she now knew just how annoying it would be to get anything up here.

The far end of the room didn’t have any tables or chairs, but had been cleared to a completely flat expanse, with a metal ring set into the rock. As soon as she felt its raised grooves with one hoof, she knew what she’d just found. “The way runes are here, right?”

“Yeah…” he muttered. “Don’t bother with it. Have to… be a unicorn to charge it.”

She ignored him, circling around the spell with one hoof outstretched. She read each rune quietly. “Home… distance… move… inside… contain…” Then a bunch of numbers, and words she couldn’t recognize by touch. “Okay, I give up. A unicorn made this?”

“Where do you think I got it?” Arclight sat up, making his way across the room. “Don’t you get… Of course you don’t.” He sighed. “We’ll want a portable torch next time. Lighting it myself will take power we should save for the runes.”

“My dad had one,” Faith said absently. “Mom barely even opens his room, we can borrow it.”

“I… Are you sure about this, Faith? The further we get, the stupider it feels. This whole situation is just begging for us to give up. Maybe we should.”

“Buck that,” she said. “This is fate, Arclight! Your parents weren’t brave enough to use this thing. I’m Iron Quill’s daughter, it’s been waiting for me. Me, and my trusty unicorn adventuring buddy. The secrets of Vanaheimr, just through this spell!”

He groaned, circling past her to the top of the runes, then sat down. “I’m probably going to be stuck here for a while after I do this,” he said. “I don’t have to ask you to stay, there’s no way to leave without teleporting. And there’s… not a ton of air in here, so…”

She settled down nearby, away from the runes. “It’s worth waiting for. Even if I could leave, I wouldn’t.”

Even without being able to see what he was doing, she knew the moment he “charged” the runes. She knew nothing about how things worked for unicorns, but she could feel the sudden energy in the air, the ozone that lifted her coat and burned her nose.

Arclight flopped to one side with a meaty sound, groaning. “Ugh. That’s awful. It just… everything you have.”

“It’s probably made for older ponies,” she said, making her way cautiously towards him. She didn’t touch the runes, unsure of what might happen if she accidentally activated something that was only partway charged. She certainly didn’t want to teleport half a wing to the Sacred City.

“I hate it,” he said. “And I’ve got to do it… three more times. When we find the magical key that lets us go back to Equestria or whatever, you better give me most of the credit.”

“Sure, Arclight.” She sat down beside him, where they would be in contact every moment. Not because she’d promised to be his marefriend or anything, that wasn’t it. Not at all.

But she did want to keep him company, after all the energy it took to charge the runes. “Just as long as I can be a Dustwalker, you can have all the credit you want. But if we find metal eyes like my dad’s metal leg, I get the first one.”

“Metal eyes,” he repeated, exasperated. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. How would you… see out of metal?”

“Dunno,” she argued. “The ancient Alicorns were a powerful tribe. Who knows what their magic can do?”

It would be a few more days before they could find out. While Moonrise’s youngest and newest members of the various crafts celebrated, Faith and Arclight snuck away as often as they could, away from the Arcanium and into the isolated lab.

There was very little for Faith to do otherwise. Every day she took her mother’s necklace to the commissary and asked for trail rations on her behalf, and every day they loaded her up with everything she asked. Beyond that, all she really had to do was keep Arclight company while his body was dried out like a sponge.

“Isn’t it going to be hard to bring air with us if you’re, uh… like that?” she asked, the next day, after he’d charged the way runes all over again.

“It would be,” he said. “That’s why we’re not going until tomorrow. They’ll stay charged until we use them. The hard part will be how we charge them on that side. We’ll… probably need some kind of shelter, like Moonrise itself, to hold the air in after I do it. My mom might’ve built one, she’s smart like that…”

“But she couldn’t have,” Faith supplied. “She didn’t go, remember? You said only my father went. He must’ve… set up the runes on that side.”

“Or your mom,” he said. “She’s like Nightmare Moon, she can go anywhere.”

“Penumbra?” Faith rolled her eyes. “You can’t be serious. I’m not sure what she does, but helping your parents with exploring doesn’t seem like her. She’d have to be around other ponies to do that. Knowing her, she probably thinks she’d catch fire or something.”

He didn’t laugh. “I’ve been doing the math on this trip,” he said, once he’d recovered a little. “About the air on that side. We’ll be going from the lab, and even if I hold it all with us when we leave, that’s… not a lot of air. Mom says two ponies should never be in here for more than four hours without exchanging it.”

“That… is a problem,” she said, freezing suddenly at the implication. Had they made it this far only to find out they would get stopped by something stupid before they’d even really begun? “What can we… can we bring more?”

The Dustwalkers had waypoints all the way to the mine, little pockets of air and supplies placed close enough that they would never run out.

“No. I’m… not an Alicorn, Faith. I’m already doing more than most unicorns in Moonrise.”

“Okay, uh… if we can’t save up air, then… maybe we can save up magic? Can we charge up the runes for two trips, so we can come back after a few hours?”

He groaned. “That would probably… start to be obvious if anypony was looking for us. A lot of magic, all packed together. And… we wouldn’t have as much time to find your miracle.”

“Nopony’s looking.” She ran a wing along his back, as reassuring as she could. “We’re smart! And if we’re lucky, we might find some air over there! From my dad’s trips, maybe. Better to save up before and not need it, then run out of air and not have a way back.”

“If the princess found out…” he began, then shrugged. “Nevermind, I don’t actually think she’d come to punish us. Dying over there might be exactly the legacy she wants to idiots who don’t know their place.”

“We’re doing something huge, Arclight. You’ll see. Ponies all over Moonrise will remember us for this. We’re gonna bring back something so big, they’ll give us statues next to my dad. Or… at least give me a work shift.”

So they took a few more days to prepare. Faith borrowed her father’s old electric torch, and made sure it was charged at the Green’s public lightning dispensary. Nopony asked her a single question while she waited for it to be charged, and Penumbra wasn’t there to interrogate her when she returned home. Actually, she hadn’t seen her mom since her assessment. At least there were little mercies.

Then came the day of her trip. She packed away her collection of homemade and scavenged Dustwalker gear, all the survival supplies she might need, and resisted putting them on to march across camp. Instead she carried them in her saddlebag, making the trip separate from Arclight all the way to the secret entrance.

Her worst fear—that Cozen or Nightmare Moon herself might be waiting for them when they arrived—was in vain. She had a little time to get dressed, in the spun silk robes that were Quill’s last gift to her, just two years ago. They hadn’t fit when she got them, but they only dragged a little on the ground now. Quill always knew how to think ahead.

But the other Dustwalker gear was harder. Cozen had made her the glasses, using scrap glass and some tin rims, though she’d tested them in dust and been more than satisfied. They didn’t have to help her see, just protect her two most useless organs from damage.

She’d made the mask herself, painstakingly cutting the same patterns she felt in real masks. It would have to be good enough. Finally the harness of straps to hold her father’s torch—entirely pointless of course, but that was real gear too, and Arclight would probably complain if she didn’t use it. All she had to do was tighten the old straps a bit, and it slipped firmly around her shoulder.

“Did I keep you?” Arclight asked, and she spun to watch him approach. Or… look like she was watching him. It was all about pretending.

“Not long,” she said. “I’ve got everything you asked for. Everything I thought we’d need.”

“Looks like it,” he said. “I wonder if you don’t have some magical air containers in there too. Something… we invented but nopony knows about. Except my family probably would’ve invented them, so…” He stopped beside her. “You promise we’re not gonna die? This feels really dumb.”

Faith didn’t know, but she could feel his breath on her face, and he was so close, and… she kissed him. Not for long—she didn’t really know what she was doing. Mostly she bopped into his nose. But the intent was there, and she could hear his heart start to race.

“Yes,” she said. “It is really dumb. But we’re gonna come back, because we’re awesome.”

Chapter 26: Corpse

Until only a few days ago, Faith hadn’t even teleported before. The way runes were… considerably more difficult than a simple teleport. She vanished from ordinary space, and her entire world turned dark and cold. Space was a physical thing, pressing in on her from all directions and suffocating her.

The instant of holding her breath to go through the wall became an eternity, her head spinning and the only sound her own heartbeat. She couldn’t even feel Arclight beside her, so that at least she would have some company in her confusion. Worse, the eyes. Every direction she saw them, as much as that word meant anything to her. She saw them, and knew that they saw her too.

She was unwelcome here. Worse, they knew her.

Reality exploded around her with a crack of air and a roar from her ears. She blinked, though of course whether her eyes were open or closed made no difference at all. Her ears lifted, and she made a few high-pitched noises, sounding out her surroundings.

She heard sand and rubble beneath her hooves, broken with a metal ring she guessed would be exactly like the one in the secret lab. But a little further, her sound struck the edge of something—a bubble, maybe ten paces in any direction, and promptly bounced back. She heard nothing from beyond it.

She realized where she’d gone, as surely as she could know anything. Stars above. I’m on the surface. “Arclight,” she began, her voice halting. “We’re not in a building, are we?”

He didn’t respond for several long moments, so long that she began to worry. Maybe he couldn’t answer, maybe she was alone somehow, and… no, she was overreacting. He was still standing beside her. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have air, and she’d already be dying on the sand.

She reached to the side with her wing, to where he’d been standing, nudging him gently. “Arclight?”

He twitched, then turned towards her. His voice was awed, though she couldn’t imagine why. “What?”

“Where are we?” she repeated. “In a bubble, right? On the surface? There’s a sky over our heads.”

She felt him nod, and nearly took off to fly right then. She knew the edges of the bubble, knew she could rise further than anywhere in all but the central cavern. There was so much space here, all open to her!

But she resisted. One mistake would take her through the edge of the bubble, to certain death. I’m blind on the other side, really blind. Even if I could hold my breath somehow. And she couldn’t. Moonrise had stories of ponies who found themselves exposed to vacuum for one reason or another—they always ended with painful death.

“Okay, Arclight.” She straightened, gritting her teeth. “I need you to be my eyes. Tell me exactly what you see.”

Another infuriating pause. She didn’t press him too much—after all, their continued survival depended on his spell. But she started to shift uncomfortably on her hooves, feeling her boots rub up against a fine sand. This was it. Everything she’d ever wanted. Her future.

“We’re, uh… outside. Vanaheimr is here. It’s… huge. Bigger than anything I’ve ever seen. You could fit the whole cavern in it. So… high up.” He craned his neck as he spoke, though of course she could only imagine what it might look like.

She squinted in that direction anyway, not that her eyes would do anything. But no, there was something. Not a building, just… a point. A glowing point in the darkness, pulsing with its own heartbeat. Not like Penumbra, or Nightmare Moon, or the teleport. Somehow, this was a friend.

“We need to get in,” she said. “You can lead the way. Find us a door. We might have to… I guess there’s nopony to ask to let us in. Everypony’s gone, right? Otherwise we… wouldn’t have been struggling to survive all this time. The Alicorns could’ve helped us.”

“I don’t think we’ll need a door,” he said, setting off at a slow walk. It wasn’t that there was any less gravity up here, but apparently he was more cautious with the ever-present reminder of the emptiness around them. Nevermind that if he bounced off, he’d take the air with him. “The side is, uh… this city’s destroyed, Faith. Worse than you can imagine… like the Sun Tyrant burned huge holes in the sides.”

“Maybe she did,” Faith offered, unhelpfully. “What do you know about her? Other than… banishing our parents?”

Pause. “Well, she’s a more powerful wizard than our princess. Otherwise Nightmare Moon would’ve taken our parents home. We wouldn’t be living in a cave.”

“I guess,” Faith grumbled, kicking a nearby rock. Only it wasn’t rock, she could feel that against her hoof. The rubble was metallic, and rolled away with a slight clinking sound. She nearly gathered it up into her pack right then—metal that pure would be valuable salvage. But not “broke into the Sacred City” valuable.

“There’s magic in here,” Arclight went on. “I can feel it… pulsing. Like it’s watching us.”

“A single unblinking eye,” she finished for him. “Glowing through every wall in the building. Relieved that we returned. We have to go see it.”

“That sounds dumb,” Arclight argued. “How about we focus on not dying first. That sounds like the opposite.” He stopped abruptly, so suddenly that she skidded through the sand. But she didn’t dare go on without him. There could be all kinds of dangers up ahead, crevasse or sharpened spikes or worse.

“There’s… it’s close enough to jump. Some damage to the side of the building here. Ready to jump with me?”

She turned, glowering at him. “I can fly.”

“Then fly with me so your torch lights the way we’re going. You’ll, uh… see it? I don’t know how it works for you. But you should feel it coming when we get up into the air. Just… one, two, three!”

They jumped, Arclight springing up with all his might. Considering just how high they could jump on the moon, that meant a considerable distance. Up into the air in a wide arc, with unknown dangers below them. She squeaked almost constantly, listening to the ground vanish for a moment.

Then there was metal up ahead, approaching rapidly. They weren’t going to make it.

She groaned, wings jerking to life as she wrapped her forelegs around Arclight and heaved with all her might. It was a good thing he wasn’t an earth pony, otherwise she might not have been able to lift him. She flapped, her squeaks coming more exhausted now as she fought his weight.

Finally the ground came up to meet them. She flopped sideways as they landed, nearly falling over before she caught herself in the air with flared wings. The ground rang with every step, the characteristic sound of lunarium, but with a strangely pitted surface under her boots.

“I may’ve, uh… That was close. Thanks, Faith.” He reached sideways, hugging her.

She hugged him back. “That’s why we’re in teams of two,” she said, grinning. “Maybe just tell me next time if I need to carry you? It’s way easier if I can get a running start.”

“Yeah.” He looked away. “Sorry. It’s just… being here has me a little flustered. I’m not used to running a spell for this long after teleporting so far…”

She nodded. Even that was probably more than she should give. Being sympathetic to his exhaustion was one thing, but they needed to stay attentive. This was the Sacred City, this was the key to her job! And maybe her sight too.

But she didn’t have to rely on him completely, not now that they were actually at the city. She took a few steps away from Arclight, calling out with her mouth half-open, sliding one hoof cautiously along the ground ahead of her.

They stood beside a metal wall torn open just as Arclight had described. She heard many strange textures against her ears—glass, she thought, and dust, and some others. Just on the other side of the wall, there were strange shapes huddled on the ground, made of something she had never heard echoed before.

“Wait, where are you…”

She ignored him, crawling through the opening. She kept herself low to the ground, using her boots to feel the way just in case there were more unexpected dips. But she felt none, and soon enough she was in.

Strange smells filled her nose, a little like some of the workshops. Stale air lifted around her hooves, as she moved from a metal floor to something softer, something that would’ve been more comfortable on her hooves.

She reached for the shape, touching it with a hoof.

“Don’t!” Arclight called, much too late.

She reached out, feeling it with one boot. A semi-rigid material, giving a little under the pressure and bending backwards. Something squished inside, an organic-sounding crumbling. “Why?” She ran her hoof further up, tracing it until she came to a bowl-like protrusion. A sphere of glass, except it was softer than glass.

“You’re, uh…” Arclight hurried to catch up, climbing through the debris with obvious difficulty. That’s a body, Faith. A… dead Alicorn, judging by the clothes they were wearing.”

She pulled back, horrified. “It just feels like cloth!”

“They’re wearing… something strange. Like a… cloak, for their whole body. Even their head.” He winced. “Looks like it kinda… mummified them in there. Ugh, I can’t believe you touched it.”

She shook her hoof violently, as though she might dislodge whatever invisible corruption she’d invited by touching the dead. “I’m sorry, dead pony,” she whispered. “Please don’t curse us.”

Her fears were vain, fortunately. Not every Alicorn was like the Voidseekers. This corpse stayed a corpse.

“It’s not the only one,” Arclight whispered. “There are… most of them weren’t wearing cloaks. Those are… you’ll want to stay close to me, Faith, unless you want to walk all over them.”

She moved up to him, draping one wing all the way over his shoulder. “I guess this is why Nightmare Moon didn’t want anypony coming here. We’re… are we surrounded by bodies?”

He nodded. His whole body was shaking now, mildly enough that she guessed he was suppressing it for her. Fighting her fear, trying to look brave for his new marefriend. “We will be, if we go in here. And we’ll… want to remember the way we came.”

“Leave that to me,” she said. “I have the best direction-sense ever, Arclight. I can get around Moonrise without making a sound and without touching the walls… or I could, if I was alone and all the doors were open. But that’s not the point. I’ll remember the way we came.”

“Assuming we… go anywhere,” he said quietly. “We could go back. Nopony knows we’re here. They don’t have to know what we tried. I’m the one who did all the work.”

“We could,” she agreed, unable to keep the despair from her voice. “Is that really what you want? I’ll go back with you. But… we’re already here. There’s something awake here, magic waiting for us. Don’t you feel it?” She pointed off through the walls, down a slight incline she thought would take them into the rock. “Right there. What’s that way?”

He turned slightly to follow her hoof. “A corridor wall.” He tilted his head to the side, sounding slightly more curious than afraid. “What do you feel?”

She hit him with a hoof—not hard, not when she was still touching his side. “I just told you. There’s something here. Active magic, or… I don’t know, but it’s waiting for me.”

“You shouldn’t be able to do that,” he muttered. “Unicorns can sense spells. Like pressure against your forehead, pointing towards the magic. Mom says there’s differences in the force depending on what kind of spell it is, but I’m not there yet. I can’t feel anything in that direction specifically—everything is magic. Or… that’s not quite it. I think this stuff is all old and broken. There was so much magic here once I can’t tell it apart.”

“I’m sure.” She dragged him forward a bit, until Arclight gasped again, and she jerked to a stop. The ground in here was covered in rubble, some obviously broken from the walls, and others distinctly softer. She’d never heard echoes like these before, but she could guess what she was hearing.

“Okay, I’m going!” He hurried along beside her. “By now, if anypony was going to figure out what we did, they’ll know if we’re gone a few hours or a few minutes. Might as well… try and make it good, right? Instead of getting punished for nothing.”

“Exactly!” she said. She didn’t feel much like being cheerful and excited, not in a place like this. But she faked a little enthusiasm. “Keep your eyes open for anything useful. We’ve both got saddlebags—the more we bring, the better our chances.”

Together, Faith and Arclight traveled the Sacred City. Though the further they got, the more she thought that the name was incorrectly given. It should’ve been called the Sacred Tomb, and maybe she would’ve known what to expect.

They passed through many strange places, which were largely left to her imagination and the power of Arclight’s description. Vast stone hallways, chewed from the rock with a strange regularity. “What do you think that thing down the center is?” she asked, pointing above them with a hoof.

She couldn’t see it of course, but she could feel it. Pipes, and tight bundles like rope, all packed into a line that ran the length of the hall and occasionally got bigger or smaller as they passed various sections.

“Well…” Arclight hesitated. “These were magical Alicorns, all powerful like our princess. But they still had to deal with all the same problems living here, right? They have to keep their city warm. They had to keep the poison away. If they didn’t use magic, they need electricity to light their city when it gets dark. I bet that’s what those are for.”

Makes sense.

There were some recognizable things. They entered a huge vaulted room, where stone figures twice their height towered over a faint stench of once-living plants that lifted from their hooves as they walked. Faith pulled up her mask, coughing a few times before the disgusting taste was gone from the air.

“Do you recognize any of the statues?” she asked.

“No,” he answered. “I don’t think any of them is the Sun Tyrant. I’ve seen her cutie mark, these are all wrong. It’s… it’s weird, these ponies all have the same one. Like a planet, or… maybe a floating city?”

With every new turn or hallway they had to take, Faith directed them towards the secrets of her unseen sense.

“Oooh…” Arclight said, after they’d been walking for what felt like an hour through tight tunnels and narrow corridors. At any moment she thought they might wander into a dead-end, making her entire pathfinding method useless. But they hadn’t yet. “Looks like there’s something in there.”

He gestured, and she reached out with a wing towards where he was pointing. Her wing smacked up against a metal door, with a little bit of glass higher up. She stopped, pushing hard with one hoof. But if it was a door, it wasn’t on hinges, because it only clicked forward a little in its housing.

“You sure this isn’t just… some loose wall?”

“Positive,” he said. “There’s some kind of… lock-thing on the wall, all the doors have those. And through the window, there are… shelves? Of things. I don’t know what’s on them, but it’s got to be magical supplies, right? The Alicorns’ whole city is destroyed, but the stuff in there is still intact. It must be… the most powerful, important stuff there is.”

Faith opened her mouth to argue, but stopped short. It didn’t matter how obvious it was to her that the distant light was the most powerful magic in Vanaheimr. A locked vault was probably important too. “So teleport through?”

“No,” he said, suddenly exasperated. “Don’t you pay attention? Remember how tired I am after I do that? I can bring us in there with our air… but I won’t be able to keep the bubble up. What if it leaks? Or… what if we loot everything good from in there, but we can’t open the door from the inside? Then we’re really bucked, because as soon as we teleport out…” He gestured with a hoof. “There goes all our air. I can’t hold my breath all the way back, can you?”

“No.” She slumped onto her hooves, thinking. “Lock, you said? Maybe we can just get it to… open?”

“Sure,” he said, walking past her a few steps. There was a slight bump poking out of the wall there, one like many she’d heard, though there wasn’t anything else interesting about it. She sat beside him, listening while his boot smacked up against something like glass for a few seconds. Nothing happened.

“Doesn’t seem to do anything. Nothing magic inside it either… or if there is, the crystal’s shattered by now. It won’t respond to me. It’s… it was a good thought, but we can’t get anything out of here.”

She reached out with a wing, tracing it along the wall until she found what she was looking for. A raised metal protrusion, facing slightly outward and made of sturdy metal. There was a glass surface underneath. She felt it with the edge of a hoof, pressing it from one direction, then the other. Maybe, with the right pressure, she could get it to come apart.

“Don’t move,” Arclight muttered, his voice frightened. “It’s… glowing. When you put your hoof up to it like that.”

She froze as he said it, holding her hoof almost perfectly above the glass. Curious, she pulled her hoof back, ignoring his muttered protest as she wiggled out of the boot. She touched it with her bare hoof, holding it there for a moment.

She saw the light. A brief… pulse, from that distant star in the endless blackness. It traveled along a dozen lines, until suddenly it was in front of her. Something hissed, and a voice spoke. A mature female voice, but speaking no language she knew. “Emergency access. Lock disengaged.”

Something bubbled inside the wall, and then the door clicked. Air hissed out into their bubble, the strange smells of Vanaheimr but a hundred times stronger. “I did it!”

“You did it,” he repeated, voice awed. “Or… almost. It’s… it didn’t open all the way. Help me, I think we’ll have to do it ourselves. Probably… got stuck.”

She moved forward with him, bending down until she could wedge a hoof under the door a crack. They pushed, and slowly it rumbled upward. Until the door was open high enough for them to crawl.

“There,” he said, slumping to one side. “I need to… catch my breath. Don’t touch anything in the—”

Of course she wasn’t going to listen to him. She slid under the door, then squeaked a few times to get the layout. A single hallway, with shelves on either side and metal scaffolds around them. Strange shapes hung from those scaffolds at odd positions, trailing a thin hair of shed wires.

There was a great deal stored away in here. Maybe while he rested, she could find herself a set of metal eyes.

Chapter 27: Blind

A search of the ancient ruins proved more difficult than Faith might’ve initially suspected.

With an entirely enclosed space and nopony around to stop her, she would’ve expected to instantly locate a set of iron eyes. Then she could put them on over her real ones, and everything would be perfect forever. Obviously there would be no further trouble with her position in Moonrise once her resourcefulness and success was so plainly known. And with her vision restored, she would be able to salvage all kinds of useful things from Vanaheimr, enough that she would be renown throughout Moonrise for the rest of her life. She’d go out on Dustwalker missions not because she had to, but because it was her passion to serve the community.

Her fantasy did not survive contact with reality.

The chamber was barely large enough for her to squeeze around in, let alone easily search. There was just enough room between the shelves for the little metal thing to extend, with its strange claw for grasping. What was worse, it didn’t seem like there was any particular organization to the objects stored here. Almost all of them were in containers exactly the same size, with the same flexible not-glass containing them. Many had paper labels, which of course she couldn’t read.

At least if there was any consolation, it was that anypony would’ve had just as hard a time as her. It wasn’t like anypony but Nightmare Moon herself could read the ancient tongue of this tomb.

Without any other clear guide, there was nothing more for her to do but to open each and every container she could get her hooves on and search for things that felt like eyes. Getting the first one open proved problematic—despite lacking locks, it was held closed with a complex interlocking system of tabs, which had to be pried very carefully. It wasn’t meant for hooves, that much was obvious to her. But with her teeth and just the right pressure, she could get it to let up for her.

But once she got it open, she could do little more than taste and feel her way around through each box. Many smelled immediately foul to her, and those she shut as quickly as they were opened. The ancient Alicorns who had built this place were experts at preservation, so that even their dead things could survive through time to stink into the future.

But there were some things that might be interesting to a pony with full senses. Metal things with bits of glass, or moving parts. Those she stowed carefully into a single one of the boxes, which she’d found empty to start with. If it could keep the contents safe through time, then she could expect it to keep them safe through the rest of their trip through Vanaheimr.

After a half hour of searching, during which she found nothing round or otherwise obviously eye-shaped, Arclight finally began to stir. He groaned, and his scent shifted instantly to uncomfortable. “Stars above, Faith, what did you eat?”

“It wasn’t me,” she defended. “I closed the box as soon as I could, but some of the smell got out.”

“Oh.” He sat up, twisting around. “That’s disgusting. You realize our air is going to follow us around for the whole trip, right? There’s no way to get rid of a bad smell.”

“Magic,” she suggested. “Did Cozen never teach you any spells like that? Seems like an obvious oversight.”

He groaned. “I thought you were supposed to be my marefriend. Shouldn’t you be nicer to me?”

She tapped him on the shoulder with a wing. “It’s nice to tell each other our faults so we can improve them.” A lie—ponies had been telling her how blind she was every day of her life, and she was still bucking blind. But it felt like the sort of thing a marefriend should say.

“You really destroyed this place,” he went on, a few moments later. “Aren’t you worried? The princess isn’t going to…”

“You think Nightmare Moon is going to be mad that we put some trash on the floor in a city of corpses? This place is so big she’ll never find this one little room.” She settled back onto her haunches a moment later, wings folding to either side. “It’s pointless anyway, because I didn’t find any metal eyes. So I guess this isn’t the room we needed.” She pushed her box of trophies towards him across the floor. “This stuff all seemed interesting, but none of it felt like eyes.”

He lifted up the box, and she heard metal bounce around inside it for a moment as he shuffled through its contents. “I wonder what any of this stuff does. Do you know?”

“Not a clue,” she said. “I guess the ancients liked mostly flat rectangles. But it feels… complicated. Like they cared a lot about those things. I figure if they cared, it’s powerful. And if not, then at least it’s metal.”

“Makes as much sense as anything.” He pushed the box closed, then there were fastening sounds as he secured it away in their saddlebags. “I’m about ready to move again. I just… have to take it slow, so I don’t use too much energy at once. And… unless you want to sleep in a room we find and trust it won’t take our air away, we can only stay here as long as I can stay awake.”

“If that’s true, then…” She pointed again, straight through the walls. “I can’t be selfish and keep looking for eyes. We need to go there.”

“I still have no idea what you think is that way,” he said. “We haven’t found anything but corpses so far.”

She rose to her hooves, prancing forward towards the edge of the bubble as confidently as she could. Expecting him to follow. It worked—behaving like she was in charge might be an illusion, but it had a way of making ponies act like she was. It worked on Arclight more often than not.

“I guess we can go that way,” he finally said. “Even if I don’t know what you’re looking for. I don’t know where else we would go, so… a random direction is just as good as a plan.”

They set off down the halls again, in the bounding lope that was standard for the moonborn. None of their parents were ever quite as good at it, even Penumbra. But for them, the bouncing skid was natural. If the other tribes had wings, Faith guessed that learning to fly would be simple for them.

“Unless we see a library,” Arclight continued. “My mom is always saying that it’s not objects we’re missing, it’s knowledge. That Nightmare Moon knows so much more than we do, that our lives could be much easier if she’d share. But she doesn’t, because… well, nopony knows. Except maybe your mom.”

“Penumbra?” She wrinkled her nose. “I’m not sure she knows as much as everypony thinks. She’s an assassin with nopony to kill. And…” She’s bitter about dad. He could’ve been one of them, and been immortal like her. But he wouldn’t.

“And?” he prompted.

“And keep your eyes open for a left, we’ve gone too far this way,” she said lamely.

They continued like that for what felt like hours, with her directing him along an unseen track towards a destination that neither of them understood.

From the things Arclight said during their trip, Faith assumed there was much to see. Ancient, crumbling monuments, massive devices that he insisted “resembled” some of Moonrise’s own infrastructure. A few little rooms he guessed had once been the cozy homes of the noble and great Alicorns of Vanaheimr.

But there was no time to waste on any of that, not when her goal was so certain. Faith was going to find the light in the darkness, the one that seemed to call to her. She couldn’t prove it, but it felt almost as though it was the entire reason she’d wanted to come to the city in the first place. Like she’d known about it without ever knowing it existed.

But there were plenty of discouraging things to find in Vanaheimr too. Frequently they found their way down a hallway that seemed promising, only to see it end in a gaping cliff, torn away from the structure itself, or with a skylight of molten metal that obviously hadn’t been part of the original construction.

“What do you think did that?” she said, nudging at the edge of one with her hoof. She felt the metal there, its shape boiled and irregular. Not like anything that came from the forge, or like the metal that Dustwalkers found on the moon’s surface. It tasted funny too, a slight burn against her tongue. Like it remembered the fire it had brought to the city.

“A weapon, obviously,” Arclight answered unhelpfully. “We were an army once, I’ve heard Lord Commander Chain Mail talking about it. We were winning the war in Equestria, that’s why we got banished here. Apparently we had… trebuchets, I think they’re called. They would fling things at the tyrant’s castles. Fire, rocks, lightning. The better question is: who? Who hated the Alicorns so much that they would come all the way to the moon to burn their city down? And…” He fell suddenly quiet, tone fearful. “If they could beat the Alicorns, what hope do we have?”

“They won’t come for us,” Faith argued. “Whoever they were. That would be like… a princess attacking a village. It doesn’t make sense. You go for enemies that matter. We don’t even know who they are. They got their way, Vanaheimr is gone, and… we’ll just have to hope they don’t come back.”

Arclight nodded his agreement, though he didn’t smell like he’d been convinced. More that he didn’t want to argue with her.

They continued their search, until eventually they reached the source of the light that Faith had seen. Arclight was dragging his hooves a little by then, worn down by his constant shield spell and having to reign her in all the time.

Faith could tell they’d reached somewhere special before the object of her fascination actually came into view. The room felt somehow… still, like the shrine to Nightmare Moon sometimes did when she visited alone with a prayer.

The space itself was broken with lots of square, regular blocks, each one made of more metal and glass and frequently trailing wires. But probing one of them with her hoof didn’t reveal anything interesting, so she quickly moved on.

“Stop,” Arclight said, yanking her back with his magic. He spoke in a low whisper, the sort he used when he was trying not to be overheard by anypony else. “There’s light down there. It feels… alive.”

“I know,” she whispered back. She didn’t fight against him, but leaned in close. She wanted him by her side. Not just because the bubble wouldn’t reach all the way to the source, she could already hear that. But she didn’t want to face it alone. “What do you see, Arclight?”

“There’s… a doorway, all sealed up. And right in front of it, like a… pedestal? There’s a thing on it, glowing. It’s the strongest magic I’ve ever seen, Faith.” He lowered his voice even further, hot breath against one of her ears. “It’s more magical than the princess. I’ve never felt so much power in my life. I don’t think we should be here.”

More magical than the princess. The words themselves were heretical. They’d probably earn the pony who spoke them a few months hard labor if Nightmare Moon was in a good mood, or a one-way ticket to the surface if she wasn’t.

Yet now that she was near it, even Faith could feel what he meant. The power was so intense she didn’t have to be a unicorn to feel it drawing her downward. Like an invisible slope in the floor.

“It’s calling me,” she said. She wasn’t sure where the words came from, yet once she spoke them she knew she was right. “It’s been… waiting for me, for years.”

“What?” Arclight wrapped one foreleg around her neck, pulling her back into a worried embrace. “Faith, don’t be stupid! You’ve never been here. There’s no reason for it to do that.”

She stopped, and turned a little so that she could feel his forehead against hers. She couldn’t look into his eyes, but she could imitate the gesture. “I’ve never told anypony this… but I’m not completely blind.”

She felt a hoof against her muzzle, sudden and sharp. Not actually hard enough to hurt, but completely unexpected. “You didn’t see that.”

She glowered at him. “I can’t see very much. Only… some things. Two ponies—my mom, Penumbra, and the princess. And only them. Not anything they’re touching, or their clothes… just them. It only works for a little ways, like one room over. But this…” She pointed directly at the object, though there were several of the regular square walls in the way. “I could see this the instant we got here. It means something, Arclight. It means…”

But she couldn’t finish her sentence. She knew it was important, but that was as far as it went. She couldn’t say if the object was a friend, or if her senses were leading her towards danger. The two were very closely tied with the princess, and her own mother was one of the most dangerous creatures in all of Moonrise.

“You don’t have a clue,” Arclight said. “Maybe it’s important, maybe not. But I know magic, Faith. I know whatever spell is on that thing could make it so we never existed. If we go up there, I won’t be able to stop it from doing whatever it was designed to do. Or… whatever it wants.”

“I know.” She pulled away from him. “I don’t care. I’m going.” She started walking, stepping out from the broken square towers. If it was a pony, it would see her now—but it didn’t react.

“I could leave!” he said. “You’re not going without any air!”

She stopped, glaring back in his direction. “You wouldn’t do that to me, Arclight. Because I’m not stopping.” She called his bluff, marching down the gradually sloped floor towards that single point of pure light.

Where the princess and her mother were darkness, this was… illumination. Waiting for her.

As she walked closer, she found the light grew so bright that she could see more than just the light. The ground under her hooves suddenly had dimension defined in more than just her imagination. Pillars appeared around the light, far more clearly than her sonic senses could give her. Though like that sense, there was nothing of what ponies called “color.” Only an incredible light, and everything else.

Including herself. This was what Arclight meant about the danger of this object. Its power turned on her could erase her from existence and leave nothing behind.

“Stop,” Arclight called, his voice distant now. He wasn’t that far away physically—he was close enough for her to see the shadow he made in that single incredible light. But she didn’t turn around.

“I’m here,” she said, and not to him. She reached out towards the object, one hoof extending. Reaching towards it was like pushing against an open tap with all her might. The flowing water within wanted to wash her away. But she wasn’t going to be deterred.

Then she touched it, and the entire world went still. Arclight’s voice faded, along with the settling of the ancient city. Even her own heartbeat seemed to freeze, a single immortal moment.

“Evaluate. Reconstitute.”

She heard it, speaking clearly into her mind. It didn’t sound like a pony—it didn’t have sex or age. It communicated directly in the idea behind each word, as pure as she knew them.

Communication was instantaneous. Somehow she felt she knew what it meant, even if her mind couldn’t wrap itself around the instruction.

What are you? she thought back, knowing she would get an answer.

“Cognitive Singularity. Designation: Polestar.”

She didn’t have any idea what that first part meant, though it tried to show her. A mind, or… a parent. A guardian, but with a religious weight. A set of eyes wiser than any pony’s could ever be. The second part was easy, its name.

Where are we?

“Vanaheimr. Shelter, waystation. Destroyed.”

Is it safe for us?

“You.”

What are you watching, Polestar?

“Progenitors.”

Why?

Instead of answering with words, it showed her a weapon. She saw it as a sword, though she knew it wasn’t. It swung, and a whole world cracked in half. Equus, as her mother described it hanging in the sky, collapsing into a ball of molten rock. Thousands of other worlds doing likewise, in an expanding cloud as fast as light. Once swung, everything would die.

She began to cry—not just because of the horror of the vision, but because this time she did see. Reds, and yellows, and oranges and browns. Polestar gave her the words for things she’d never known. Don’t take it away. She would watch the world burn over and over again, if only to see something.

“Rectify. Damaged. Iterate.”

It burned her. Heat wrapped around her from all sides, throwing her backward across the room. She landed in a heap, sliding along the ground until she smashed into one of the tall metal cabinets, and finally came to a stop.

“Faith!” Arclight darted towards her, dropping down to her side moments later. She felt his hooves wrap around her, holding her against his chest. “Talk to me, Faith!”

She rolled towards him, moaning with pain from the impact, and something worse. Her whole body still ached. But when she opened her eyes—there was no more vision than before. The Polestar had spoken to her, but it had not healed her.

She cried a little louder then, into Arclight’s chest. This was it—a power so vast it should’ve been able to fix her. But it hadn’t.

“It seems you are still alive,” said a voice, dark and dangerous as it echoed through the room. “The Polestar did not judge you—I suppose that means I will.” She was still blind, but Faith needed no sight to recognize the voice of her Princess.

Chapter 28: Vision

Despite the fire in her body, despite the unimaginable disappointment, Faith still had the presence of mind to try and bow. She wanted to survive this meeting with the princess, after all.

We knew this would happen eventually. The princess was going to figure out where we’d gone. Now we have to justify it. “Everything we did was my responsibility,” she said, before Arclight could do something stupid like trying to defend her. “Arclight tried to stop me. I forced him to bring me here.”

Even moving hurt, let alone speaking to her. But she had to try. If they didn’t try to defend themselves, they’d face the princess’s punishment untempered.

Nightmare Moon loomed over them, wings spread wide. Even if they hadn’t been in such a sacred place, Faith would’ve been able to see her. But by the light of the Polestar, every feather on her wings was outlined. “Not here,” she said, voice still furious.

Then came the flash of a teleport. It was the same magic she’d felt with Arclight, but vastly more powerful. It didn’t leave her in that endless void of staring eyes, but took her swiftly back to reality. There was a bang, and when her perception returned, her hooves were on cold sand again. The surface, by her guess. The place of lunar judgement.

“You two have committed as foals a crime beyond anything the ponies of Moonrise have ever done. You have trespassed upon the Sacred City. And… robbed it, at a guess.” Poor Arclight made a sound of petrified fear, lowering his head, but the princess wasn’t watching him. Her eyes were only for Faith. “When this conversation is over, I will return to Moonrise. Whether you accompany me depends on your answers.”

They waited. The princess hadn’t invited them to stand, but Faith had already been burned inside and out. So she stood up, looking towards the princess. Waiting for her questions.

“The city’s security should have vaporized you,” Nightmare Moon said. “A generation ago, half of my Voidseekers were destroyed attempting to enter it. I remember… ponies who rebelled would just disappear. How did you walk all the way to the city’s heart without being destroyed?”

She raised a wing. “I see that lie forming in your mind, unicorn foal. Do not tell me that your shield could’ve done it. I know otherwise. Remain silent with such words, lest I grow angry.” She turned back towards Faith. “Answer.”

She shuddered, searching for anything that might satisfy the princess. Of all the ponies of Moonrise, few ponies had spent as much time with the city’s sovereign as they had, by virtue of their parents. She knew better than to say she didn’t know—Nightmare Moon never took that well.

She had only one secret big enough for this. Arclight already knew, so the princess might as well learn it too. She would find out soon enough regardless. “I think it… I think it’s probably to do with the things I can see. I can see you, Princess… and Penumbra. I’ve never seen anything else in my whole life, until… until I got to Vanaheimr. The Polestar called me to it. I dragged Arclight all the way there so I could touch it.”

Whatever the princess was expecting, it wasn’t that. Her mouth hung open, and she stared down at Faith, stupefied. After a few seconds, she opened just one wing. “Which wing did I move?”

“Left,” Faith answered.

The Alicorn no longer sounded angry, but shocked. “And which limb did I just lift?”

“Left again.”

The princess settled back on her haunches, looking up at the sky. For almost a minute, she didn’t say anything, leaving their fear to settle in around them. Particularly poor Arclight, who sounded like he might be moments from collapsing.

“It called you,” she eventually said. “Brought you across the moon’s surface. Through Vanaheimr. Why?”

I have no idea. But the princess didn’t seem angry anymore. Insane as it was, it seemed like her suggestion had actually worked. “It said… Evaluate. Reconstitute. And it showed me things. It was like being able to see for real, but… they were so terrible.”

Nightmare Moon continued to stare. She wondered briefly if it would be enough, if maybe this was the moment when the princess would finally see through everything she’d been trying to do and punish her. But then the Alicorn began to pace back and forth on the sand, looking thoughtful. “It is watching us. It has been waiting all this time for survivors to return… but I am ‘compromised’ and so can’t take possession of the Armory…”

She was mostly talking to herself now, and barely seemed to even see the two of them there. “Has it grown so desperate that even the derivative slaves are worth consideration? It watches Moonrise. What is it waiting for?”

“Slaves?” Arclight asked. “What do you mean, Princess? I thought… Wasn’t our rebellion opposed to serfdom? We learned it in…”

Faith winced as he said it, jabbing him with a wing to quiet down. But of course she was too slow to stop him from attracting the princess’s attention again. Exactly where they didn’t want to be.

But not enough for Nightmare Moon to really notice, it seemed. “Vanaheimr used ‘bioservice agents.’ Not like ponies as you know them today. They were effectively lobotomized at birth, most of the time. But that was chemical conditioning that didn’t hold with any of their children, and…” The princess waved a wing. “You have no idea what that means, nor do you need to. I am not explaining myself to foals.”

She settled on Faith again. “For reasons that escape my imagination, Polestar appears to be using you to monitor Moonrise. Why it would want its agent to be sightless eludes me… but it is fortunate for you in any case. You were not rebellious after all, but serving a greater purpose.” She glanced between them, tapping one hoof on the ground in thought. “I will speak plainly to you, and hope that for your sake you are mature enough to understand.”

She lifted off the ground, sending clouds of dust around her with each beat of her powerful wings. “You were instructed to travel here, on a mission from me. You will not speak of what you saw there outside of my presence. Not to your parents, or lovers, or other family. If I discover you disobey my injunction… I consider loyalty of greater value than any mission the Polestar might’ve given you. It can choose another messenger, if you force me to kill you.”

“I w-won’t,” she squeaked. “I won’t force you, I mean. I’m a loyal citizen of Moonrise, Princess. Arclight is too.”

“Perhaps.” The princess landed again, apparently satisfied with her cowering. “We will see, in time. Certainly the two of you were resourceful to make such a difficult journey by spell. Killing you would be a waste.”

Faith wasn’t sure what made her say it. By all accounts, the smartest thing she could possibly do was not open her mouth. The princess had already decided not to kill them, how much better could she expect? But for some reason, she couldn’t. There are metal eyes in that city somewhere, and I couldn’t find any.

“Princess, we… I know it isn’t my place… but shouldn’t Moonrise take advantage of everything in Vanaheimr? It’s such a wondrous city, but its secrets are unlearned. Your city can’t take its deserved revenge on the Sun Tyrant if we leave all of Vanaheimr’s wonders behind.”

She smelled the princess’s anger before she saw it. Even then, she could only make out her general features. Facial expressions were too fine for her to be able to see using her impossible sight.

But there was no mistaking her fury now. “I just granted you mercy, criminal. In honor of the Polestar’s mission, and all the service your father ever rendered me. You are making me regret my decision dearly. You question the rule of your princess. A foal, with no idea of the agonies she speaks of. You cannot imagine what sleeps in Vanaheimr. My decisions are made with purpose—beyond your comprehension, just as all that the Alicorns achieved there is beyond your comprehension.”

She could feel the princess’s terrible power all around her, just as she’d felt in Vanaheimr. Her magic was strong enough to melt lunar sand into glass. But after the touch of the Polestar, somehow she just wasn’t afraid anymore. Nightmare Moon could kill her easily, but… if she didn’t stand up for Moonrise, the city might suffer a slow death anyway.

She knew better than most just how much danger they were in. She’d heard from Appleseed during her father’s meetings, worried over the way that the crops just weren’t growing the way they used to. Not to mention that their glowstone couldn’t be replaced, and their sunstone was running out all the time. How would they grow crops through the lunar night when it was gone?

“I did see, Princess. The Polestar showed me. I didn’t understand it very well, but I know one thing. If the things that happened to Vanaheimr happen to us, and we’re still hiding in a cave, then the ones trying to kill us won’t have to try very hard. We’ll probably be dead before they find us.”

It was too bold—she knew as she tried every word that she was pushing Nightmare Moon’s mercy much too far. But she knew she was right. She was so loyal to the city, that sometimes she had to take a few risks to keep it safe.

Nightmare Moon sighed. “Pity. For your father’s sake, I’m sorry.” Darkness descended on her, magic the princess had used to draw the life from disloyal ponies in the past. Her magic was so powerful, it had killed by accident.

Faith froze in place, curious in that final moment what death would feel like, and if the princess would change her mind in the weeks to come.

But nothing happened. Terrible cold roiled around her, the darkness of space itself. The hatred that lurked behind the eyes of those who watched whenever she teleported.

And it didn’t hurt. The soil itself cried out, little ice crystals forming and shattering around her. But Faith didn’t feel it. The cold went right up to her coat, and stopped short.

Somewhere far away, far enough that she couldn’t see it until now, the light of the Polestar shone through the lunar surface. It flared as Nightmare Moon’s magic rose, a reminder in the dark of what real power was.

Then the princess fell still. Beneath her hooves, Faith felt a ground frozen so solid that it smoked under her. Yet the cold didn’t touch her. She reached up, wiping frosty crystals away from her mane.

Then she started to move. Everything the princess thought about their mission to Vanaheimr might’ve been a lie before—but now she felt it. Her body turned, and in a moment darkness was replaced with vision.

That’s why I can’t see! All this time, you stole my sight so you could watch Moonrise!

There was the princess, resplendent in dark armor that she’d never seen herself, but heard ponies describe. The princess’s eyes still burned with smoky green light. Ice had condensed around her horn, just as it did around Faith.

And cowering behind her, poor Arclight. Seeing him for the first time might’ve made her blush, if she wasn’t otherwise overwhelmed. He was as gangly as she’d imagined, though the bright brown of his coat seemed to work together with the shapes she’d always felt.

Somehow she knew that it would be the only time she would ever see him.

And overhead, far above—Equus, surrounded by a sea of stars. There was no hatred here, no calculation and anger. They were each a slightly different shade and brightness, each one inviting her. And the planet itself, a blue and green giant in the sky. Their home, denied by the hatred of the Sun Tyrant.

She’d been so distracted by the Polestar’s own vision that she didn’t realize it was speaking through her. She turned her focus back to it, and had to fight the pressure it put on her head to even do that much. The message wasn’t for her, and it didn’t seem to care that it was using her.

So it was like the princess in other ways, too. “Refusal. Purify,” it said from her mouth, in her voice.

“You have no right to interfere!” Nightmare Moon raged, hovering in the air on angry wings. Yet she seemed winded—she’d used a terrible amount of magic on Faith, trying to get through the Polestar’s defense. It hadn’t been enough. “You’re a machine! Do the will of your creator and give me the Armory!”

“Survivor compromised. Alternates nominated.”

“Children of laborers and slaves!” Nightmare Moon yelled. “I am the only will that matters here! Submit to me!”

“Evaluating,” she was forced to say. “Determination postponed. Interference refused.”

As swiftly as it came, the presence in her mind began to fade. The vision it had shown her, of the furious princess, and Arclight behind her, and the beautiful stars overhead—faded too. Within seconds, it was all gone, replaced with shapes and outlines. Only the princess’s body remained, a single point of concentrated darkness.

A second later she landed with a thump, fuming with rage. Faith expected another blast to come, or maybe a stab from her dagger. Maybe the Polestar could protect her from magic, but that didn’t mean she was invincible. She’d been hurt plenty of times, and it had never stopped any of that.

But Nightmare Moon didn’t attack. After a few angry breaths, the cloud of hatred around her began to fade as well. Hating somepony took energy, and she’d used an awful lot of that trying to kill her.

“It seems the Polestar is not merely watching anymore,” Nightmare Moon said, defeated. “It’s determined to steal sovereignty from me as well.”

She approached slowly, knowing that at any moment her daring could go too far all over again. All the princess had to do was leave her here on the surface, and she would die. “Maybe it wants you to succeed. Moonrise is still a pony city up here in its home, right? With the Alicorns gone, we’re all it has left.”

Nightmare Moon seemed so… small. Though part of that might just be not being able to see her armor anymore. It echoed of course, but without being close enough to touch, finer details were hard to hear. “Still you torment me. Just like your father. In his time, every lunar day brought a new crisis. He pushed… harder than he ought to.”

She isn’t leaving. It’s working. “And Moonrise is here,” she finished. “Your city. Ponies who love you, and want to make it back to Equestria one day. We want our inheritance.”

“Well you won’t get it,” she said, staggering Faith more than any of her magic had done. “The Elements of Harmony sealed the sympathetic threads that bind space between this sphere and that. Nothing can teleport to Equus from here. The effect is permanent. I will never go home.”

Arclight made some indeterminate squeaking sound. “Our revenge…” he whispered. “You were going to free us. Everypony said so.”

“Nopony knows,” she said. “Except you, now. But why should I care? If Polestar wants to rule so badly, let it rule. Let it worry about the effect on morale. Let it stop the ponies from revolting. Let it keep the farmers on their fields and the muckrakers at their posts.”

Even she was staggered by the news. She was supposed to return there one day, to grass and fields and wind and rain that came from clouds instead of the constant haze of the Great Cavern.

I will never go home.

There was no reason to question the princess’s wisdom in this. Nightmare Moon’s powers were considerable, and her knowledge was vast. If she said it, it was true. “Were you at home in Vanaheimr, Princess?”

Nightmare Moon made a sound that was almost a sob—quickly strangled. “Long ago.”

“Then let us make Moonrise a city as great as Vanaheimr was! Let us go there, learn their secrets… and honor the dead. Nopony deserves to lie there on the sand, unmoored.”

That did it. The princess stiffened, and seemed to be staring down at her. But if she was searching for some truth just by looking into Faith’s face, she was going to have a hard time finding it.

“Cinereous Gale wanted the same thing. You really are his daughter. It’s a… cruel thing that Polestar has done to you. But life is cruel, and you will not have my pity.”

“I don’t want pity,” she argued. “I only want to serve Moonrise. That’s all I ever wanted. When Silver Needle told me I couldn’t be a Dustwalker because I was blind… I tried to find another way to serve. This was it. The way to help Moonrise that nopony else could figure out.”

“The city may not be so kind to the other ponies of Moonrise. The Polestar spared you, and your friend. It will not always spare intruders. You may have to attend every expedition yourself. You may not see Moonrise for months at a time.”

I can’t see anyway.

She shrugged. “I’d pay that price, Princess. If we can learn the lessons of Vanaheimr ourselves, then… it’s worth it to do some hard things. I’d help charge the teleports myself if I could. But I can help explore, help dig the graves. Help…”

“You have said enough.” Princess Nightmare Moon extended a wing, silencing her. “A pity you are deformed, Faith. You would have made exactly the sort of Lord Commander that Moonrise requires to succeed. But I will find some other use for you.” She took off again, spinning through the air. “I alter my command. You will speak no word of our exchange, or else I will kill you. Do not think a machine will turn me in my course if you defy me, Faith.”

“I won’t,” she promised, and she meant it. Faith was crazy, but repeating that the princess’s attacks didn’t work on her was much too far. She was no rebel. “I just want to serve the city, Princess.”

“Then rejoice,” Nightmare Moon said. “For you have just begun a lifetime of service to me.”

Chapter 29: Clarity of Mind

Nightmare Moon did not take them to the stocks for public punishment—or do anything else to hurt them, for that matter. As the icy darkness of teleportation faded from around her, the princess wasn’t even there.

She also hadn’t sent them to a secret lab, but right before her own throne, in the ritual chamber where those creatures who sought to honor the princess would visit. There were dozens of them here now, bowing in silent supplication to her shrine.

At least they had been, until the two of them appeared in a roar of air and bits of shattering ice. Some creatures screamed, and others just pointed. Faith didn’t need to make any noise of her own to see with such a commotion.

“Explain yourselves,” demanded a voice. The oracle, one of Faith’s least favorite ponies. “Unicorn, explain why you’ve disrespected the princess’s sacred shrine! The two of you are too young for worship here.” Already the ponies were beginning to surround them.

Faith spun, glaring around at the pious worshipers.

“We were sent,” Arclight said. “The princess herself returned us here, after a sacred mission. I don’t think she’d like it if you interfered with us.”

This caught the oracle by surprise. He muttered something rude, which he probably hadn’t expected them to hear. Of course it would be about her, and how unlikely he thought that someone as deformed as her would serve any use to the princess.

But Arclight’s conviction wasn’t pretended, and the results were immediate. Ponies backed away, bowing and scraping and muttering little prayers to the princess as they cleared the way around them.

“Where?” the oracle demanded. “Why would the princess send a deformed foal and an unlearned sorcerer child to do what her loyal servants could do better?”

“Ask her,” Faith said flatly, before Arclight could speak. After surviving Nightmare Moon’s wrath, she wasn’t much afraid of jerks like this anymore. Not that she’d ever been afraid. Creatures might disrespect her, but they wouldn’t hurt the child of Iron Quill. Her mother was the second most dangerous creature on the moon. “We were obedient to her word. We’ve been instructed to return home.”

She strode forward, right at where the oracle had previously been blocking the way. He moved at the last moment, making another disapproving sound in the back of his throat. “We will speak to her,” he said. “It isn’t like our princess, steward of the moon and all upon it, holy and beautiful though she is, to choose such weak servants.”

Faith didn’t stick around to listen to him anymore. Maybe the princess would have awkward questions to answer—but she had sent them here, so that was her problem.

They made it out into the familiar halls of Moonrise, crossing into one of the tunnels between the royal building and the housing block. They walked together in silence, with Faith using Arclight’s hoofsteps to guide her way through an otherwise unfamiliar section of the city. It wasn’t often she made trips like this.

Occasionally they passed open doorways, into rooms filled with celebrating ponies. They’d been given an entire lunar day to celebrate their coming of age, before their lives of service would resume. They’d spent several of those days now, sacrificed to her vain mission.

“I can’t…” she began, as soon as they reached a stairwell with nopony else inside it. “I can’t thank you enough for doing that for me, Arclight. You didn’t have to do it. Without you…”

“Without you,” he corrected, resting a hoof on her shoulder. “Moonrise would be a different place. Stars above, Faith. You told the princess what to do.” His voice was distant, awed. “I never thought… I’ve never seen a creature as brave as you. It might’ve been the most incredible thing that’s ever been done.”

She turned her head slightly to the side. “Whenever my father thought I wasn’t listening, I would hear him talking about Moonrise’s problems. He had to carry all of them, I’m not sure if you know that. Everything that went wrong in the city was his fault. Lots of things he could fix, but… sometimes there was no way to fix it. He would talk to my mom about it sometimes, and they’d argue about something he was supposed to do. He never did it, whatever it was.”

“It’s up to us to continue their work,” Arclight said, his voice solemn. “That’s always how this is. We inherit the world the last generation left for us. We have to make the city great.” He lowered his voice to a whisper, though she still couldn’t hear anypony in the stairwell with them. With her hearing as strong as it was and the stairwells always so enclosed, she was fairly certain of her assessment. They were alone.

“It’s the only city we’ll ever get,” Arclight continued. “So fixing whatever those problems are… What are they, anyway? I’ve never heard my parents talk about things nopony could fix. They’re always… busy coming up with some new idea.”

“Later,” she said. “Maybe we’ll come up with things… but you more than me. I’m more of an explorer than a thinker. And I guess that’s the way things will be now. Leading trips to Vanaheimr, for ponies to learn things. We’ll learn all the secrets, bury all the dead.”

She made to leave, but Arclight stopped her, yanking on her foreleg. “Faith, what… what happened to you up there? Why did you go into the light?”

“Because it was friendly,” she answered, settling down beside him. “I’m not sure how much you heard when the princess and I were talking. Polestar is a…” Without knowing the answer, she settled on the princess’s own word. “A machine the Alicorns left. It’s guarding something, like a… the biggest sword ever made. Something more powerful than anypony.” More powerful than the princess. It protected me when she wanted to kill me. “When I touched it, it showed me things. Shapes, colors… I saw. I couldn’t even describe it before, but now… now I know what it’s like for normal ponies.”

Her expression darkened, and she ground one hoof against the stone floor. “I asked it to fix my eyes, and it didn’t. The Polestar is the reason I’m blind. It… I don’t know how, really. But I think it’s using me to watch the city. Everypony knew I was weird somehow… my mom’s not alive, I shouldn’t be possible. This must be how it happened. And the price I pay for being born is… blindness.”

“I don’t know if it makes a difference,” Arclight said, touching her shoulder again briefly. “But it seems like what a coltfriend should say. I don’t like it when ponies say that you’re deformed. I think you’re pretty, and it… it doesn’t bother me that you can’t see.” And she couldn’t, but she didn’t need to see to hear the embarrassment in his face, to smell his embarrassment thick on the air.

And for once, she returned it. “You’re right,” she said, before she could get too afraid to do anything. She rested her head up against his chest, if only for a few seconds. “It is what a coltfriend should say.”

They stayed like that for a good long while, until she heard a pony coming down the stairs towards them, and they hurried along as though they’d never been there in the first place.

Faith didn’t spend much longer with Arclight though, not today. They were both exhausted from their trip, and the confrontation with the princess. He needed to sleep, and she could use a little time alone herself.

Faith headed to her own home, not wanting Cozen or Sylvan to lecture her along with Arclight about the trip. She’d get that next time she went there—it would be only fair that she took the blame from them too. Just not right now.

She was so tired from the trip, so completely overwhelmed that she didn’t notice there was already a pony inside until she shut the door, and realized she could see her mother standing in the next room. She waited just inside, one hoof tapping impatiently. “Why don’t you come in, Faithful Gale? I’ve been missing you.”

She shrugged out of her saddlebags, hanging them from a hook in the hall and making her way into the kitchen. She was probably trailing surface-dust with every step, and smelling awful from her trek, but she didn’t much care. Her mom probably couldn’t even smell. “I don’t know why you would,” she said. “You’re never here anyway. Why do you care?”

Penumbra tensed reflexively as she said it, though she made no attempt to hide it. Thinking she was with a pony who couldn’t see her probably made it feel like she didn’t have to worry about that.

But Faith watched her as she made her way in, into the kitchen where she was already waiting at the table. There was no food—Penumbra never made food for her, the way Arclight’s parents took care of him. She just didn’t have the instincts for much mothering.

“I know what you did,” Penumbra said. “I can’t imagine anything as monumentally stupid as intruding on Nightmare Moon’s sacred city. She’s more possessive of the dead there than she is of the living in Moonrise.”

Faith hopped up into one of the chairs, imitating a glare back at her mother. “I knew that might happen. Knew it might… go badly. But I didn’t care. Either I would serve Moonrise and be a Dustwalker, or… we’d die. I didn’t know which it would be.”

“Brave,” Penumbra said. “Incredibly stupid, but… committed. There’s something admirable about that, I suppose. At least I haven’t spawned a coward. Just a fool who doesn’t know her limits.”

She ground her teeth together, and wanted to scream at her right there. But she wasn’t going to act like a foal anymore. She’d already proven herself today. If she could survive the princess, she could live through anything. “I don’t care about the limits other ponies say I have. I did it. I went to the Polestar and came back. Other things happened that the… that the princess forbid me to talk about. But the important thing is that Moonrise is gonna change. Nightmare Moon is going to let me lead trips there. I’m not sure when… probably she’ll want me to be a little older. But soon.”

“What?” Penumbra twitched in her seat, momentarily overcome. Whatever she’d been expecting, it wasn’t that. “You’re saying… no. Nightmare Moon won’t even let ponies talk to her about it! Even Iron… even he couldn’t talk to her about it without her getting… enraged, irrational. She refused to see what it could mean for Moonrise. We all have our… sentimentality. And you stepped all over it.”

Faith shrugged her wings. She couldn’t do more—she’d been commanded not to speak of their conversation. “You can ask the princess if you want. But I did it, Mom. Maybe I won’t be a Dustwalker… but I’m going to be something just as important. I’m going to help fix the problems with Moonrise that nopony can fix. I’m going to be more than just a mare who makes an heir, then dies. I’ll matter.”

“That’s…” Penumbra sniffed, expression impossible to read. But little things like emotions were always hard to judge. She’d learned to watch her mother’s tail and ears for subtle signs—she was still a bat, even if she was dead. But she couldn’t find any this time. “I wish you hadn’t gone. You should’ve talked to me first. I could’ve warned you.”

“I tried,” she said quietly. “And you just said what everypony always says. I should know my place. Why should I want to be a Dustwalker? My place is wherever I bucking choose to go. With Arclight, if I choose. Or maybe out there helping Moonrise. Being blind isn’t going to stop me.”

Penumbra vanished from across the room in a brief surge of greater darkness. It wasn’t a teleport the way Arclight could do—there was more a lack of magic around her than a surge of power as he used. But instead of running away, Penumbra was suddenly beside her. She was almost blinded for a moment by her, stumbling back. She wasn’t disgusted by her, or afraid as some other ponies were. But Penumbra had spent so little time with her—done so little actual mothering, that any contact between them was unnatural.

“Cinereous Gale would’ve been proud of you,” she said. “He… cared about Moonrise to the end. Even when it hurt him, he… was always looking out for us. You’re a lot like him.”

That did it. Faith started to sniff and cry all over again, as she’d never done for Nightmare Moon. Her mother might be strange and distant, but her dad was something else. He was why she wanted to help Moonrise in the first place. “It’s not fair,” she squeaked. “Everypony else still has their parents. But Iron Quill… he was the First Commander. He did more than anypony, and he’s gone.”

“I know,” Penumbra whispered, wrapping one wing around her shoulder. She felt cold and numb, the way she always did. But there was no stench of decay. More like she’d perpetually died only a few minutes ago, forever. “When we just met… I tried to get him to take Nightmare’s gifts. He could have, so many times… and then we’d both still have him. But he never did. He didn’t want Moonrise to be led by… a nightmare. He wanted everypony around him to be better. It worked. I am better, thanks to him. And the Princess is too.”

For once, Faith didn’t push her away. “Me too,” she said. “It’s still not fair.”

“Nothing is.” Penumbra held on a few moments more, then broke away. “I can tell you’re exhausted, sweetie. I’ll let you get some sleep. But tomorrow, I want to hear about it. You’re gonna tell me everything. And when ponies start going over there… I’m coming with you.”

“Something good, I hope,” Chain Mail said, his voice more than a little impatient. “I can’t keep giving you troops if you aren’t returning with useful information.”

Faith flared her wings out around her, though she didn’t actually start pacing in the Lord Commander’s office. She had developed a little restraint over the years. “If you’re asking if I discovered the ancient secrets of Alicorn weapons—no, I still haven’t found that. But it doesn’t matter, Lord Mail. What Moonrise is learning… it’s bigger than that.”

Chain Mail was a short and squat pony, though to be fair all the old Equestrians looked like that to moonborns. As he aged he’d only grown more solidly built, like one of the ancient stones they excavated to make way for new living quarters. His accent would always sound strange to her, just like his smell. But he was the Lord Commander, which meant that he was the most important pony in her whole world.

“Nothing is bigger than our sacred revenge,” he said. “Nightmare Moon commands—”

“Commands that our army always stand in readiness to return,” she interrupted, striding right up to the desk and glaring down at him across it. She spoke low and urgent, only for his ears. “Chain Mail, you know the truth as well as I do. Nightmare Moon isn’t taking us home in our lifetimes. Insisting that everything be useful in war is stupid. Our great great grandfoals can worry about that, maybe.”

Chain Mail didn’t move in his seat, didn’t so much as shift his weight. But his scent grew a little sharper for a moment—frustration with her, she guessed. He wouldn’t be the only pony to be a little annoyed. “Faithful. I’m as patient with you as I can be. The princess… insists that what you do must be allowed to continue. But you’re shortsighted. There’s a reason you haven’t taken your father’s seat, and it isn’t your eyes.”

She tensed at that, glaring in his direction. She’d grown quite good at pretending to glare, at least if ponies’ reactions were any guide. Arclight told her that her cloudy blank eyes made it seem especially creepy when she got it right. “Yeah?”

“Yes,” he said. “You lack foresight.” He rose from his seat, gesturing with a wing. “Walk with me.”

She did, though it seemed unlikely she would be learning anything worthwhile. But if she was to have any chance of getting the marepower she needed for this next excavation, she needed more than Silver Needle’s tacit endorsement. She needed the Lord Commander’s signature on her requisition form.

They walked out onto the balcony. Chain Mail didn’t use her father’s old office—his was a spartan affair overlooking the parade-ground. As soon as they stepped outside, she could hear the chaotic echoes of ponies down there. Metal smacking against metal, ponies grunting and heaving under the effort of strenuous exercise. Their numbers mixed together with the cave’s vaulted ceiling and the rest of Moonrise mixing in many other voices, but she knew how many soldiers they had. Hundreds, even today.

“If you had your way, would you have every one of these stallions abandon their posts? Cease their training?”

She didn’t want to answer—it was a trap, it had to be. But he would see her expression and infer it anyway, so there wasn’t much to lose. “Not all. We need peacekeepers.”

“Okay, peacekeepers. So… let’s say, two hundred good mares and stallions. Send the rest to form bricks, and cast metal, and blow glass.”

“And farm,” she supplied. “And study. Studying’s important.”

“And that’s why you can’t be Lord Commander,” he said. “I know you cannot see them—but what you hear down there, that’s esprit de corps. That’s tradition, and history. The young ponies who grow in Moonrise are being taught the craft by ponies who fought. They will perpetuate the tradition, and so will their children, and their children… for as many generations as it takes to escape this place and have our revenge on the Sun Tyrant.”

“I don’t understand,” she said. Not argumentatively, she knew how not to provoke him. She spoke as honestly as she could. “Why not wait until we can go back, then raise an army?”

“Because then it’s too late,” he said. “We need ponies who spend their lives preparing for it. We don’t know the time or the hour of our return to Equestria. So every generation has to be prepared to meet it. If that honored tradition is ever broken, it cannot be replaced. We’ll be fighting the Tyrant’s experienced army with greenhorns, and we’ll lose to her all over again.”

She grumbled, folding her wings tightly against her side. “I understand, Lord Commander. I didn’t mean to actually suggest that we should… I was only answering your question.”

“I know,” he said. “But you must come to trust me. Iron Quill did. He ordered me to be ready for our return. I intend to honor his commands.”

That was her opening. Chain Mail still felt loyalty to the First Commander. And she was his only child. “My father gave me instructions too, Chain Mail. I’ve done what he wants… but I need more marepower. It takes many hooves to do the excavation. Please, let me have your unicorn teams.”

He spun around, and from his silence, she guessed he was looking her over. “What are you searching for this time?”

“Nitrogen,” she said. “It’s… look, it’s the reason that our crops have been suffering so much. We learned from… Plants need it, okay? We can’t make it, that just isn’t possible. But plants and bodies have it. We’re going to build a fertilizer factory, and start recycling their old gardens. The great Alicorns left us lots to work with. When I’m done, I’ll know that Iron Quill’s grandson will always have enough food.”

Maybe it was wrong of her to use her father’s name like that. But Chain Mail didn’t seem to notice, and she doubted Iron Quill would care. All for the good of Moonrise.

“Fine,” Chain Mail finally said. “Two days. Two lunar days, and I’m recalling them. Make your time count.”

Chapter 30: Clarity of Sense

Faithful Gale flew home, dodging up the stairs of the Stalwart Shield Memorial Building and across the cavern towards Moonrise’s newest housing, the ‘Gate Complex.’ Even without her sense of hearing, she could’ve followed the magic to the place—so much teleportation in so small an area had created a constant thunderstorm over the building, which rumbled and shocked anything that got too close.

She made sure to land well before she got in range, using her fur lifting as a guide. A metal tunnel overhead protected her from the slight atmospheric disruption, and the pattering of rain on its upper surface made her feel at home.

As she landed, ponies ahead of her got out of the way, lowering their heads respectfully. “On your hooves, Gatecrashers,” she said, grinning at them. “Keep at it.”

Through the airlock, and she found a familiar face waiting for her—her secretary Fine Detail, tapping one impatient pen on a clipboard. “You’re eight minutes late, Faithful.”

She shrugged, pulling out the requisition order and showing the Lord Commander’s signature. At least, she assumed that was what he’d written. There were indents on the parchment, though not nearly deep enough for her to read them. She generally had to assume ponies were writing what they said they were.

Fine Detail snatched the sheet away in her magic, walking along beside her past the building’s radiator core. They all had them, tubes of water lined with radiant metal. All their heat came from the same source, ultimately, through the veins that circulated Moonrise’s liquid blood. But the pumps were silent now, suggesting that it was night on the surface. “Stars above you did it. Bloody miracle of miracles.”

Faith spent so little time in the city that she sometimes lost track. “You can thank me later. We get the entire unicorn team, but… only for two days. Put them on double shifts and get every ounce of spellcraft we can out of them.”

“Two days…” Fine repeated. Her hooves hurried along beside Faith, having to take two steps for every one she did as they reached the stairs. They led down into the moon’s heart, not up. Considering the temperature up there, and the vacuum waiting eagerly to kill everypony in the city, nopony wanted to dig towards the surface if they could avoid it. “That’s not even half what my schedule requires.”

She shrugged her wings again. “Maybe we can get some amazing results, and get an extension. But…” She giggled to herself. “I don’t like that as a strategy when we can avoid it. Let’s just… plan to get as much done as we can. How many trips can you get with two lunar days?”

Fine Detail slowed her pace for a moment, quill running over the parchment idly as she muttered to herself. Going over her schedule, probably.

But that was precisely why she kept a pony like Fine Detail around. Faith might be the one with the big ideas, but behind each one were a hundred little things that had to be done. Best delegated to a pony with a mind for details. “I don’t know what effect double shifts will have on productivity calculations. In theory, we still complete the project that way—but theory doesn’t translate well to reality.”

“Let’s plan to,” she said, skipping the last few steps to glide down into the officer’s quarters, before spinning back around and blocking the hallway for Fine Detail. “I’m going to speak to my husband. Arrange the schedules accordingly. If I know the Lord Commander, we’ll have our unicorns first bell tomorrow.”

“Okay, Faithful. I’m still not sure it will be enough, but…”

“We’ll make it work,” she insisted. “Or we’ll be way further than we would’ve been without it. Either way is a win.”

Arclight wasn’t actually at home, though. She wandered briefly through it, squeaking a few times to make sure that he wasn’t hiding under something. But she heard only the reflection of blank stone, and so she turned to head back the way she’d come. Not out of the Gatecrasher building.

Another few levels down, and she reached the place Arclight insisted on calling his “laboratory of alchemy” though it wasn’t half the size of what his father maintained in Moonrise proper. Sure enough she found him there, walking circles around a pony dressed in the thickest clothing that she’d ever known.

Most creatures in the city would’ve been completely baffled by the thick fabric and transparent bubble over the wearer’s head. But Faith recognized it instantly. She twitched once reflexively as she saw it, but dismissed the thought immediately. The one wearing this suit was moving. It hadn’t been taken from the dead. “I don’t want to put it on,” the wearer was saying—a young stallion whose voice she didn’t recognize. “Don’t I need to breathe?”

“There’s air inside it,” Arclight promised. “We need to get it to open, but we can’t get it to open the mechanism unless there’s negative pressure from inside the system. Hold still, Flint.”

She crept forward along the edge of the room, staying on the metal walkway over the lab itself, so she wouldn’t get in the way or disrupt whatever Arclight was doing. In her mind, there was nothing in all of Moonrise as important as this research.

There were a few loud mechanical clicks, then the sound of heavy fabric boots on the stone.

“Don’t panic, don’t panic! Slow breaths. I can cut you out if there’s anything wrong. Just sit still and breathe normally please. Bright, get the screwdriver. The internal mechanism, do you see? Those ridges along the back. I’d like you to get in there and start opening.”

“Of course, Arclight.”

Faith glided down suddenly, cresting over several shelves of salvaged parts and gear from Vanaheimr, and landing on open ground just behind Arclight.

“Your wife is right behind you,” Bright Spark said.

“I knew that.” Arclight spun around, not smelling at all like he’d known she was coming. She reached him in a quick stride, touching briefly against his shoulder. “Shouldn’t you be with the Lord Commander?”

“Finished,” she said. “Successfully. The unicorns are on board.”

“That’s great! Our fertilizer project is on. All the nitrogen we can eat.” He embraced her for another second longer, before turning away. “Slowly, Bright! What does that vapor smell like coming out of the suit?”

“Sharp,” she responded. “Chemical. I don’t think it’s water.”

“Then don’t touch it,” he urged. “Let’s… be ready to get our volunteer out of the armor.”

She sat back on her haunches, falling silent as the work on the strange Alicorn clothing resumed. She didn’t need to make much noise to get an idea for what was happening, not with so many ponies as part of the project. Their words were enough for her to imagine the scene, with a volunteer pony wrapped in hard Alicorn clothing and a dozen creatures all around him, several helping to take apart the backpack that was fused with the breastplate.

Eventually they got the pony back out again, and managed to remove the attached portion for further dismantling. Faith waited patiently until the volunteer was leaving, along with most of the lab assistants. “So what are we trying to learn from Alicorn fashion?” she asked, voice as neutral as she could. She’d learned better than to question what Arclight was studying by now. He always had a reason.

“Not fashion. Their clothing was practical. We… didn’t think about it for so long because they were all dead already. But look at this.” He tugged on her with his magic, leading her to a table where the rest of the suit was already waiting, now in pieces. He led her leg with one of his, resting it up against the fabric. “Feel that armor?”

She nodded. “It’s… flexible. Doesn’t seem like very good armor.”

He sounded excited as he answered, like he’d been waiting for that. “Actually, it’s strong enough to stop arrows. We can cut it with magic, but nothing else. But that’s beside the point—I don’t think it was meant to protect them from soldiers. It’s not that kind of armor. I know you, uh… don’t have to see it as often. But their clothing is so sturdy it often keeps the remains of the dead inside. I think that’s because it was to the Alicorns like our air spells are for us.”

He sounded so proud, but the conclusion only confused her. She tilted her head to the side. “Why would the Alicorns be less advanced than us? Needing a weird… mechanical armor set, that can fail and needs to be fixed. One unicorn can make a bubble for as many ponies as can fit inside. Isn’t our way better?”

“No!” He stomped one hoof on the stone floor, the same way he always did when he was frustrated. It wasn’t a lack of self-control, but a signal to her to help with the expressions that she had no way to read. “Faith, bubble spells are a limit on how much we can do. Think about what it would be like if we didn’t need any magic to explore Vanaheimr at all. We could stay as long as we wanted, we could sleep where we wanted and not need to build shelters. Travel for days if we wanted, and not let our explorations be limited by the number of unicorns in our population.”

She nodded slowly. “I guess that makes sense. We could have… one-pony Dustwalker teams. Not need unicorns to escort them everywhere. Save their magical talents.”

“Vanaheimr was having an emergency,” Arclight said. “We don’t know what the disaster was like, but I think it’s safe to conclude that there were no invading troops on the ground. Their adversaries shot metal at them from above, that’s it. It’s obvious what they were trying to do: break the ceilings, let the air out, make everypony freeze. The Alicorns had this… air armor, and so it didn’t kill them at first.”

He walked a few steps further, where the backpack was now lying on its own table. Another pony was already setting to work cutting it open, though the specific details of how were too fine for sound to show her. “There’s an alchemical process taking place inside this backpack. Each set of armor has its own, tanks of… chemicals. I don’t know which ones yet, but I’m sure the alchemical ability of Moonrise will discover the secret. Obviously if there isn’t an air bubble, we need air in other ways.”

“So you’re saying that backpack… does what the Icebreakers do? And the Air Corps? There’s water inside that gets split into oxygen? There can’t be room for very much…”

“I don’t think it’s quite the same,” he said. “The specifics are… probably too boring for you. But I think it’s closer to the Air Corps than the Icebreakers. There are three little tanks in each backpack. It’s been… difficult to find one intact. But I think we finally did. One day we might be able to do something like it, and anypony could be walking the surface on their own, not just a unicorn.”

“Noble goal,” she said, snuggling up against him again. She didn’t much care that a few of his assistants were close enough to watch. Everything the Gatecrashers did was hers. Only the princess or the Lord Commander could take that away. “Seems weird that a unicorn is trying to make himself unnecessary.”

He grunted. “You’re not telling me something. You’re almost never so…” He twitched one hoof vaguely. “Are you really that nervous about harvesting fertilizer tomorrow?”

“No,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. “I’m nervous about being a mom. I didn’t really have one to learn from.”

Her words had the desired effect. Arclight stumbled away from her, suddenly smelling like shock and overwhelmed surprise. “You’re… not joking. You’re actually serious.”

“Of course,” she answered. “And I’m thinking this time…” Her words came slowly, choked away by pain for a moment. “I think we’ve got a good shot this time around. The moon wouldn’t take away another one. We’ve given her enough blood, it’s got to be our turn for something better.”

“It doesn’t work that way,” he said, pulling her close and this time not seeming even a little shy about it. “Faith, we can’t just hope things will be different. Talk to my mother, get in touch with Marine Kelp. She’s been focused on nothing else for almost twenty years now. Let’s… get some help this time. Just to be sure.”

Faith opened her mouth to answer—probably to argue with him, though it was mostly reflexive. Something about how she couldn’t trust a pony who was still loyal to the Sun Tyrant after all they’d suffered at her hooves, probably.

But then she heard the crack. A terrible shattering sound, shaking Moonrise to its foundations. Her uniquely sensitive hearing showed her more than most ponies would probably hear. Instead of just a loud sound, she knew exactly where it had come from. The ice-mine. The sound was mostly ice, though there was plenty of rock breaking mixed in as well.

Then came the roar. Her fur lifted slightly in a sudden breeze, the first time she’d ever felt it pulling down instead of up. Towards the mines.

Stars above.

The bell started to ring, muddling the sounds she’d been using to try and hear what was actually happening. Ponies began to scream, and some ran. One of Arclight’s own assistants said something about making it “to the gate” before it was too late.

Faith wasn’t the Lord Commander. Saving Moonrise wasn’t her job, as it was her father’s. But it didn’t matter. While ponies scattered all around her, running away from the danger, she took off, making for the door.

“What are you doing?” Arclight called after her. “You just told me you had a foal, Faithful! I need to get you to the door!”

She glared down at him. “If Moonrise dies, we go with it. Doesn’t matter if we’re at the Vanaheimr outpost when it happens.”

There was no way Arclight could keep up with her. Stupid, considering the magic he had would probably be more useful actually doing anything than being able to see one of two ponies through a wall, or taste different metals. But it didn’t matter. There was no way she could stand by, or hide in her quarters as the bells demanded.

At least the sky was clear by the time she made it past the lightning shield. Here the wind was stronger, though not as intense as she’d expected. The moment when the city finally lost its air should be more dramatic than this. She imagined ponies screaming as they were ripped out onto the surface, but… this was only mildly more intense than the time the city overheated.

Of course it grew more intense as she got closer. The bells and screaming ponies and terrified hooves were drowned out by a steady roar of air. As she flew, she realized that both ponies she could magically sense had beaten her there, and were standing at the entrance to the ice mines.

When she was young, she remembered being able to see the huge slab of ice protruding into the cavern itself, so large that she could hardly imagine it ever getting smaller. But now that entire slab was gone, and the mine tunneled into the rock. Ponies gathered at that entrance, with a steady roar taking air in past them.

“What’s going on?” she asked, landing near the front of the line and demanding of the nearest pony. She couldn’t get a clear idea of who they were from the sound, not when the wind overpowered all fine detail. Bigger than she was, that was all she could hear for sure.

When they spoke, they sounded like a miner. “Excavation. Thought we were opening a tunnel into the rest of the ice. Looks like… there wasn’t as much there as we thought. Went all the way up.”

“Everypony back!” Penumbra flew past her, though she wasn’t speaking to Faith particularly. She roared, and everypony nearby fell still to listen. “The princess is about to collapse the cavern and seal the city off! Back away now, or die.”

Faith took to the air again, ignoring the crowd of miners as they pressed away, and quickly catching up with her mother. She was perhaps the only pony in the whole city she could follow in such a din. “Mother, are we really out of ice? The miners were saying…”

“You’re here?” The bat slowed in the air, turning to glare at her suspiciously. “Shouldn’t you be gatecrashing?”

“Next trip is tomorrow,” she answered, her tone turning a little defensive. There weren’t many ponies who could expect to get an explanation from her, but Penumbra was one of them. “I’m back to meet with the Lord Commander. What are we going to do without ice?”

The ground rumbled again. Faith felt the magic surge under her hooves, then the ground sunk a good three meters. The roaring wind around them stopped, as suddenly as it had begun. The ice-mine’s entrance collapsed, turning bright orange as it melted over.

A few moments later, the princess herself appeared in the air. She was the first to break the stunned silence. “Ponies of Moonrise—the danger is averted. See that no excavation or mining takes place in this position again. Disturbing the rock could reopen a breach and sacrifice more of our air to the outside.”

Penumbra flew back towards the princess, but Faith didn’t follow her mother. She fell, landing at the back of the crowd.

“What do we do now?” somepony asked, from somewhere in the crowd beside her. “Every year they demand more ice. They can’t expect us to mine it from the surface.”

“None left to mine,” somepony else answered. “Guess we’re bucked.”

Chapter 31: Purple

Within the hour, the Purple Council had been convened.

Faith thought the name was a little silly, particularly since it included her mother, who was black, and the princess, for whom a rank meant nothing. At least she didn’t have to force her way into the meetings. It wasn’t just her father’s name that got her in anymore—now she led the Gatecrashers.

The meeting hadn’t actually waited for her. By the time she slipped inside, Lord Commander Chain Mail was already speaking. “—at least there aren’t any signs of the cavern collapsing. Our Princess sealed us without any collateral damage.”

Nightmare Moon sat at the head of the table, leaned far enough back in her chair that Faith imagined she was wearing her armor. Maybe she wanted to seem more imposing for all the ponies that would be depending on her leadership. “I am no expert in civil engineering or geology, but I did my best. Unfortunately what I cannot prevent are the other consequences.” She nodded to the side. “Penumbra, what did you find in the collapsed cavern? How much further before the glacier continues?”

Her mother didn’t sit at the council with the others. Instead she paced back and forth beside the window, occasionally glancing out at the ponies assembled below. Officially, life in Moonrise was back to normal for everypony who wasn’t an ice miner. But Faith didn’t hear any mechanical noises coming from the workshop, or the usual murmur of voices coming from the marketplace below.

“Good news first,” Penumbra said. “Doesn’t look like the ice cavern is below very much of Moonrise. Emptying it hasn’t made us unstable. Bad news—it’s almost empty. There is no more glacier. I don’t know where the ‘ice cavern’ was supposed to be, but I don’t think it exists.”

“How in the buck can that happen?” Faith asked, loud enough that even the princess turned to stare. “We depend on the ice for… everything, don’t we? Air, water, heat—the ice powers it all. How could we keep harvesting until there was none left?”

“Excellent question,” Nightmare Moon said. “I’m as eager to hear it answered as Quill’s foal.”

Stop calling me that. I’m not a bloody foal. But aside from sitting up a little straighter in her chair, trying to be as big as she could, she couldn’t so much as glare at the princess without being disrespectful.

Attention turned on Swift Wing, city quartermaster. “Well uh…” He hesitated for another moment, shuffling with paper on the desk in front of him. “We don’t actually use much ice anymore. The city’s water comes from the cistern. I’d only ordered the latest shipment in preparation for the latest harvest. It’s only between crops that we have any need to replenish the oxygen supply. Our balance has become that precise.”

“Are you saying this isn’t the threat it seems?” Lord Commander Chain Mail asked, tone skeptical. “That all ponies will be giving up is chilled deserts in their iceboxes?”

“I didn’t say that,” Swift Wing said sharply. He flipped through a few more pages. “Look, I got my hooves on the oldest records of the Airmaker guild. When Moonrise was young, they’d take as much as five carts of stone every lunar day. The Airmaker’s guild of today haven’t filled a cart in months. But balance is… difficult. It took years to establish, and might be ruined in far less. Our system is not perfect. Every harvest, we are forced to convert some water into air.”

“We should’ve solved this by now,” Nightmare Moon said, her voice impatient. “I demand that we transition to a constant circulation of harvests, bringing in only a small amount of our crops on a given day instead of some significant portion. Make the transition at once.”

“That is…” Green Apple began, Moonrise’s Lord of Crops. “Of course, Princess. We’ve considered such a system before. But smarter ponies than I always found that we’d be shrinkin’ the yields that way. Sunstone don’t grow as well as it used to, so we’ve been makin’ do by having most of the growing timed with day.”

“Figure it out,” the princess demanded. “Speak to the Gatecrashers. If they haven’t salvaged hydroponics equipment by now, I’m not sure what they’ve been doing.”

Nopony seemed to know what she was talking about—which was good, because otherwise Faith might’ve felt stupid for not knowing. But she didn’t get a chance to ask.

“It is possible for a colony to be self-sufficient,” Nightmare Moon declared. “Balance is difficult, but it can be found. You aren’t as ignorant as your parents. Use that knowledge and establish that balance.”

She turned towards the quartermaster again. “How long will we last without new ice to harvest?”

“Some time,” he said nervously. “As our honored princess will know, Moonrise uses water to store and move heat. We have… vast reservoirs. We can drain them to replenish the air if it is required. But the more we take, the colder it will get when night comes again. I don’t have measurements on how much water is already stored in Moonrise’s pipes. If I had to guess, I’d say we have months. This is a troubling development, but not the end of the city.”

“See that it isn’t,” Nightmare Moon said. “I assure you, I’ll see the end coming long before it arrives. And I will hold the ones who allowed our future supply to dwindle so far to have an… exquisite death.”

Swift Wing nodded obediently, his scent shifting to near-terror. But the princess was already turning her attention elsewhere. “Mayfly, what of your Dustwalkers? Where will we establish our next mine?”

Mayfly shifted in her seat a moment. “I’ve consulted every map of the surface, Princess. There are… no other glaciers anywhere on it. Now in fairness to the Dustwalkers of the last generation, we haven’t been searching for water. You tell a pony that metal is how they’ll earn their color, and they’ll be looking for buckin’ metal. But factors are against us.”

“I’m aware,” Nightmare Moon said, her voice turning back towards annoyance. “The surface is too hot for any water to exist in direct sunlight. If there is water elsewhere, it will be found in perpetual shadow at the bottom of craters. My Voidseeker will assist in the search, won’t you Penumbra?”

“As the princess commands,” she said. “I haven’t seen ice anywhere else either, but I can start looking.”

“I know where we can find water, if all else fails,” the princess went on. “The Sacred City has an enormous reserve tank, vaster than all of Moonrise. It was established on a supply of groundwater sufficient for a million ponies. But the reserve is deep underground, and the equipment to extract it is likely destroyed. Whatever water was stored in the city itself is long gone by now. It will be an option for future generations, who are less ignorant than any of you. But… we will have to find a balance. What will you do, Lord Commander?”

“We can… improve collection,” he said. His voice went rigid as he said it, like he was reading from notes. “I’ve spoken to craftsmare Cozen. We can collect water in areas we know it will be present. A drain in the greenhouse and in… latrines… could funnel into our supply.”

The princess made an unhappy sound. “As though the water didn’t already taste foul enough. If you begin collecting blackwater, we will need more than mechanical filters. The simplest mechanism for creatures as primitive as yourselves is distillation—boil the wastewater, collect the vapor, and cool it. But great energy is required.”

She rose, spreading her wings. “We’ve lived this last generation squandering our wealth. The moon gave us a boon, and we’ve been too foolish to husband it wisely. Now we face the consequences. In Vanaheimr, the water of every creature was known, sharded, and purified. We will need to become like them soon.”

She pointed at Faith, causing several ponies to turn and stare in her direction. “The Gatecrashers can abandon whatever occupies their attention and find the water treatment plant. Maybe Quill’s miracles can be inherited, and she can provide one to the colony. The rest of you, the time has come for steps forward in understanding. We must know our consumption of oxygen, and establish a balance with carbon sequestration that does not require inputs. We have vast caves piled high with stored carbon we may wish to reclaim one day. But for now… survival.”

She turned to go. “Lord Commander, you have a day and night to find a solution to this before I grow unhappy. I’m sure the Purple Council is more than equal to the task.” She didn’t walk very far—just a few steps, before she vanished in another teleport.

Penumbra lasted a few seconds longer, making her way up to the table and looking between them. The ponies here seemed to fear her almost as much as the princess, because not even the lord commander interrupted her. “Good luck,” she said. “You’ll need it.” She looked briefly in Faith’s direction, then vanished too.

The weight of what they’d all just been ordered settled on the room for a few more moments of terrible silence. Faith shuffled awkwardly in her seat—everypony else here had notes and scrolls with them, but she didn’t. She couldn’t read, so everything was either in her head or nowhere at all.

“Moonrise has faced greater threats than this,” Chain Mail said. “I’m confident in each of you. But the princess is right, we’ve grown complacent. We expect because we survived this long that nothing serious can challenge us. We need to remember what the First Commander always said about life here. The moon is a land of hatred, fighting to expel us from her surface at every opportunity. If we ignore that fact, then we make ourselves ripe for destruction.”

Faith didn’t have to listen too closely to what he had to say about each of the other departments. The Lord Commander had instructions for each of them. They would each have their own assignments to help ensure that Moonrise had enough water. The Arcanium would be working on new ways to capture what they didn’t use, while the quartermaster’s office would be given the monumental task of converting their agriculture system and finding ways to negate the need for new water to be broken down into air.

Eventually Chain Mail came around to her. He sounded suddenly tense as he did so, probably expecting an argument. “I approve of your fertilizer project, Faithful… but it’s going to have to wait. Moonrise needs its unicorns for more important things until the water situation is resolved.”

“There’s nothing more important than food security,” she argued, though without much venom. She’d been expecting this, and she couldn’t really be upset about it. “Don’t leave us on the backburner forever. Green, you did the numbers for how long we would have before our harvests weren’t keeping up with the population anymore. Isn’t it soon?”

“About a year,” he said. “Assuming nothing dramatic. The soil weakens gradually. We could stretch the time by investing more earth ponies in the farms, but magic only goes so far.”

“You aren’t forgotten,” the lord commander said. Though there was something of relief in the way he did it. “It isn’t often the princess names some specific lost magic of the ancients for us to find. We’re not going to ignore her advice. Devote everything you have to discovering a ‘water treatment plant.’ Whatever resources we need to imitate the spells involved, you will have. I may travel to the Sacred City myself, if the magic is dramatic enough. Make it your top priority.”

“Water… treatment,” she said. Like so much of what the ancients did, the vocabulary made perfect sense. “I’ll see what I can figure out. Arclight is close to a working phonetic translation of the Alicorn language… and we have some maps. I’ll keep you updated.”

“See that you do,” Chain Mail said. “You know your assignments. We’ll return a week from today and report. I expect significant progress from everypony here.”

Moonrise seemed overwhelmed by a constant low panic as Faith made her way back, with ponies on all sides whispering to one another of the exhaustion of the ice-mine. As she walked, she overheard voices whispering all manner of strange things—that they’d be dead within a week, once the little fountains on each floor ran dry.

Or worse, that certain members of the city would lose their water privileges, so that the more valuable members might live a little longer. No doubt those stories would come with resentment as ponies stared at her blue necklace, but for once being blind was an advantage there. She wouldn’t have to see how upset they were with her.

She passed a large line at the central fountain, with dozens of ponies each carrying their own water pots. There was no sign of the fountain being emptied, though there were half a dozen peacekeepers standing guard.

Eventually she made her way back to the Gatecrasher building, which was overflowing with far more ponies than her usual two-dozen. “There are no unannounced missions,” she said, repeating the order over and over. “I know you all want to get some distance with Moonrise. Let me be clear: we aren’t running.”

She glowered at them all, daring anypony to question her. But nopony did. Fine Detail met her as the crowd of temporary workers dispersed, many of them turning back up towards Moonrise with disappointment or anger in their scents. “It can’t be good news,” she said, her usual clipboard levitating beside her. “What’s changed?”

“Everything,” she said, exasperated. “We don’t get our unicorn teams after all. They’re going to be working on some… enchantment or other. I don’t know what. I’ll ask Arclight to ask Cozen about it and tell you then.”

Fine Detail tapped her quill impatiently on the clipboard. “So an entire cycle of the staffing was… pointless. Lord Commander just took them all away. He can’t expect us to haul the greenhouse without all the extra charging for the wayrunes, can he?”

“No, he doesn’t.” She hurried down the wide ramp in the center of the building, leading towards what had once been a secret lab tucked away in a severed cavern. It was easier to build something new connected to the old wayrunes than to establish new ones. “We’re looking for something else now. It’s… about water efficiency, I think. The princess told us about a ‘water treatment plant’ and we have to find it. I guess they’re going to try to build one in Moonrise.”

“They don’t know what it is?” Fine Detail asked, exasperated. “They didn’t bother to ask the princess why we should be looking for it?”

You mean why didn’t I ask? “Nightmare Moon isn’t usually that expressive. Getting anything about Vanaheimr from her is unusual. Nopony felt like pushing their luck after she was already furious. If you’d like to go to the crown and ask, you go right ahead. I’ll trust Arclight’s translation to figure it out myself.”

“I… find myself agreeing with you suddenly. Translation it is.”

Preparation for their now-defunct mission to Vanaheimr’s greenhouses was still underway in the central passage, with many rugged carts parked and waiting for the ponies who would use them. A number of ponies moved back and forth between them, checking the shovels and Dustwalker tools. They stopped to salute her as she passed, and she nodded politely to each of them. She didn’t have the heart to tell them it was all pointless.

The ceiling opened overhead into the massive Gateroom, with its walls carved to look like stylized pillars surrounding the wayrunes. Each one looked like one of the four pony tribes, doing their part to hold up the ceiling. The walls were packed with supplies, largely charged thaumic crystals that she had learned never to touch.

As she expected, Arclight was already here, pouring over his notes and scrolls on a table. She approached, nodding to Fine Detail this time so she would know not to leave. What they discussed would likely make for more restructuring she would have to figure out.

“Faith!” Arclight hurried over to her as she approached. He might act like he was half deaf and half blind, but he’d apparently been watching. “How’d the meeting go?”

“The princess didn’t freeze anypony,” she answered. “I call that a good meeting."

He let go a few seconds later. “So what happens with the ice?”

“Gone,” she said. “My mom checked it—there’s not enough to be worth harvesting. Now everypony has to scramble—we have to get better about how much we use, how we recycle it, and find some new ice.”

“And the greenhouse expedition is scrapped,” Fine Detail supplied. “So much for rejuvenating our agriculture.”

“Postponed,” Faith corrected. “We’ll get it. But we’ve been reassigned. We’re supposed to find something called a ‘water treatment plant.’ Anything like that on the map, Arclight?”

He headed back to the table, shuffling through several layers of parchment before finding one. “I assume it isn’t like other plants, or wouldn’t it be dead like the others?”

“Yeah,” Faith agreed. “Nightmare Moon would probably banish the pony who annoyed her enough to ask right now. Let’s just… assume it isn’t and go from there. What can your translation tell us?”

“Not a lot,” he answered nervously. “But I don’t think we need it this time. The Alicorns had to use pipes just like ours, and that means we can follow where the water goes. They’re on their maps too, like this… I think it’s a maintenance drawing.” He held it up, then his scent shifted towards embarrassment, and he tilted it slightly towards Fine Detail. “Water gets concentrated twice, an input and an output. I bet one of them will be a ‘treatment plant’.”

“Good.” Faith turned away, over to one of the nearby shelves of gear. She unslung a set of saddlebags from a hook, tossing them on her back. “Pack the map. We’re going now.”

Chapter 32: Magpie's Hoard

Silver Star was born for great things. He’d known it from his earliest memories, when he looked up on Moonrise in the middle of a lunar night, when the air outside the shelters got too cold to breathe.

Of course he didn’t have a vent of his own—Whites didn’t get to live in the sky-towers built after the model of the ancient Alicorns and their wisdom, but low in the caverns themselves, where the pipes were old, and the water was cold by the time it got to them. But while other creatures crowded around in a public shelter, hoarding every scrap of warmth they could, Silver had bigger ambitions.

The cavern opened to him then, and wearing an extra jacket was more than enough for him to cope. He didn’t fully understand why so many creatures made such a big deal about the cold—but he wasn’t about to ignore a gift fate just handed to him. It meant whole days when he didn’t have to worry about the guards dragging him back to break rocks and dig tunnels.

“Stop!” somepony shouted, loud enough that Silver jerked to one side. He dodged a blow reflexively, even though one never came, then slipped through half a dozen layers of insulation and out into the icy cold of the lunar night.

He pulled up his thin hood, mostly to keep his face hidden from any guards who happened to be watching him. If they didn’t see him, maybe they’d imagine that there were wings tucked under his coat, and he was the Voidseeker out on patrol, ready to cut down any creature who defied her.

He dodged a frozen puddle of something that should’ve been in the waste system, glancing briefly up at the ceiling. There an ancient tenement building was tucked in close to the wall, its underside covered with pipes. But the night had brought an end to the leaks, freezing whatever was inside into an oily brown sheen.

Silver ignored the muffled voices from inside, knowing full well that no soldier was going to waste their breath chasing a White out into Moonrise during nightfall. Maybe if he’d been anypony important, but… Silver heard no hoofsteps behind him as he dodged through the service tunnels. Apparently these winding alleys had been something else once, the streets of the city itself. But now those were enclosed, fully protected with warm air circulated by the climate system.

That meant Moonrise was his domain. Well, his and the ghosts. They didn’t feel the cold either.

He slowed a moment, nose catching something on the wind. Heat and grease—food. His horn glowed for a second, and he focused his magic. It probably wasn’t necessary to waste any magic, but he couldn’t be certain. Stealing food meant a week without rations, and no reduction in his work shifts.

He’d survived that once. He probably wouldn’t again.

The old alleys gave way to the home of the Yellows, the ponies who pretended they weren’t as worthless as he was. Easier to pretend during the day, when the warmth of Moonrise made their cozy apartments almost as nice as the Reds.

And instead of packing you all into a stupid shelter until daytime, you get to live in a warm barracks, eating warm meals, and drinking fresh water. You won’t miss this.

Silver hesitated a moment, glancing both directions in the gloom. He didn’t actually light his horn—the spell was trivial, but would’ve made his homemade notice-me-not a tad pointless. But the darkness wasn’t anything to be afraid of, even if you weren’t a bat.

He closed his eyes, and let the moon itself show him where to go. Sound formed outlines in his mind, the suggestion of a heavy air door now hanging open. No guards outside checking pins. Nopony moving at all.

He opened his eyes again, and found only darkness, thick enough that even his icy breath was invisible. The kind of darkness that pressed up against his eyes and made resisting the urge to light it himself more difficult by the moment.

Then he walked. Any moment he might learn that he’d been wrong—the sounds of the city had lied to him, and there was new excavation under his hooves. He’d fall far enough to die from the impact, and his body would be found frozen when day came.

He might keep expecting the drop, but it didn’t come. He made it to the doorway, and found it right where sound suggested. He pushed, and it swung open. The smell was so close now.

He wasn’t imagining the smell of oil, either. Real peanut oil, fresh enough that his mouth started to water. Luxuries like this were usually reserved for Blues! He couldn’t even remember the last meal that hadn’t been some flavor of watery mash.

It wasn’t coming from a regular apartment door, as he’d first thought. The smell came from below, rising as the steam from whoever was cooking took the wonderful smell of fried food up with it.

He dropped down to the floor, feeling along it with a hoof until he found the crack, then turned sideways to peer down. There was a faint flicker of orange from down there, coming from a space he imagined might be a distant kitchen. He didn’t have a spyglass to see for certain… glass was expensive.

It wasn’t too far to teleport. But if he got the distance wrong, he’d end up splattered in the wall, until the stink got bad enough that someone had to do something about it.

It won’t matter if a spell kills me if I crawl into a corner and die first.

Silver Star closed his eyes, then… teleported.

It wasn’t the rote mastered through many months of diligent study by Blues with their fancy armor and real vegetables for dinner. Silver’s magic was more primal, somehow more… natural.

His world was always so cold, that it wasn’t much of a step forward to make the whole thing freeze. Suddenly the space between the regolith didn’t seem so thin, and he walked straight down in a blink. But it didn’t last—soon the eyes began creeping in, peeking in through the rock, appearing behind and above. Every little fleck of quartz in the rock became another one, one that could see where he had gone.

One that hated him.

The space around him cracked like a sheet of ice, and he was in the air. Silver fell, nearly an entire body length before his hooves finally found the ground. He caught himself easily—a few meters wasn’t going to hurt him.

His eyes took a moment to adjust to the light. There was a single portable electric torch, resting in the center of the room and glowing with warm orange. Not enough to keep frost from condensing on every surface, or to make his breath not fog up the air.

It looked a little like an apartment, if the apartment had been built by a nervous ghost with only a vague idea of what civilization ought to look like. The floor was rough and entirely unfinished, and only naked stone was on the walls.

He could see no doors either, no ladders or obvious cavern entrances. Was that thin crack the only way down here?

If it was daytime and the apartment was lit, I never would’ve seen the glow.

Behind him was a bedroom of sorts, with sheets so fine they seemed to shine in the electric light. Silk? Stars above, no! Silver stole food all the time—but stealing valuables from the Blues? Did whoever owned this place want to get marched to the surface and shot?

He might’ve turned and fled right then, if he had the strength. But a teleport was incredibly energy-intensive, and anyway the smell of food hadn’t gone. It wasn’t leftovers he was smelling—the oil was actually bubbling and steaming now, with food still in it.

He took a few hoofsteps closer, following the smell of fresh hay and veggies. Whatever the secret thief had stolen, he would help himself to a portion and be gone before they returned.

They must be a unicorn to have an entire stove down here. Not a makeshift oil burner either, but the same kind he’d seen in the restaurant he’d helped excavate a year ago, which cooked using a near-invisible purple flame and used some kind of detachable fuel-tank.

Then somepony screamed. She spun rapidly, spreading her wings wide as she squealed.

Well, she spread one wing. The other was a mangled stump, with what seemed to his starving mind to be an actual bone protruding from gray flesh. The pony was small, shorter than he’d been the year he got his cutie mark. Her voice was high and shrill, even more than the bats he’d known. “Eeeeeee!”

He screamed too, retreating a few steps from the horribly-injured pony. “Hey!” He lifted a hoof, backing away from her. “Relax, okay? I didn’t think… If you’re that loud, one of the patrols might hear you.”

She stopped abruptly, big eyes fixing on him in the gloom. They almost glowed with the reflected electric light, far too wide for him to see the slits. Her one good wing and one mangled horror snapped to her side as though they were both equally functional, and she advanced on him. “Who the buck are you to be sneaking up on me, warmblood?”

Her accent was so thick, her words so clumsy, that he almost couldn’t make sense of them. But despite what Regent Rockshanks might say about worthless children of Whites, Silver was clever. She saw through the stealth spell without even trying. She’s not wearing a jacket. She’s so small.

She might’ve been cute if she wasn’t so horrifically injured.

“I’m, uh… Silver Star,” he said. “Who are you?”

She made a frustrated squeak, pawing at the ground. “That’s it? No… bleeding eyes? No bursting into flame? No… nightmares swallowing you alive?”

He just stood there, open-mouthed.

The pony scoffed in frustration, scooping up her fallen spatula and turning back to the stove. She had to stand on a little stool like a filly to reach the pot of oil and start fishing the hayfries out. “Just goes to show. Everything gets weaker away from Equestria, including the magic. Stupid… normal pony sneaking up on me.”

Silver’s mind raced as he put the pieces together. Some part of him still wanted to flee. He would probably be strong enough to teleport out soon, and now he knew how far the trip was. It wouldn’t be impossible.

But then she lifted a dozen hayfries from the pot, and they instantly started to hiss and contract in the cold. But they weren’t frozen yet. Hot food. There’s hot food right here.

“Why the buck is a unicorn out in the cold in the middle of the bucking night?” the bat muttered to herself as she worked, her single good wing spread beside her and twitching in her annoyance. “Too cold for warmbloods out here. Unicorns are too valuable to be out. Somepony important?”

Has this pony been alone so long that she’s talking to herself?

Silver knew the feeling. It probably wouldn’t be long before he started doing the same thing. Assuming he lived long enough.

“Hey, uh… bat? Whoever you are… could I have some of that? I’m not gonna threaten you or anything, but… you’re really small, and that’s a lot of hay for one…”

She turned, baring sharp fangs at him. “Tell me this, Silver. Who sired you that you’re out in the naked night with just a jacket? Shouldn’t you be hypothermic by now?”

He shrugged. “Probably. My brother, uh…” He looked down, a little confidence draining. “He wasn’t as good about the cold as me. There wasn’t a lot of room in the shelters, so…” He straightened, advancing on her. He was bigger, probably older, he wasn’t going to let her dig up painful memories. “Look, will you share or not? I can probably, like… help you or something! No way this thing you’ve got going is legit. Bet you could use a powerful unicorn on your side.”

The bat twitched, mouth hanging open as she stared. “Guess… only one of us needs this,” she grumbled, then pulled out another plate from a drawer. It looked like a rich pony’s dresser, with a front of real wood. But he would stop being amazed for the steaming plate she pushed towards him. “Go on then. Skinny as you are… probably gonna snap in half if you don’t eat something.”

She carried her plate over to the table, which like everything else looked like it was stolen. This one was big enough to take up a good portion of the corner of the room, its surface entirely wood. Ancient and warped, long spoiled by thousands of heatings and coolings. But more wood than he’d ever seen in one place before.

It took enormous willpower to make it to the table, but he managed. The plate still steamed in front of his face, the grease and oil turning his mind to butter. Real food, right in front of his eyes. More than he got in two days.

“You don’t have to buck it, kid. Keep staring at your plate like that, and I’ll take it back.”

He levitated a bite up towards his mouth—without a fork, since she hadn’t given him one. He didn’t really know how to use it anyway.

It tasted better than it smelled, even if the heat was rapidly bleeding away. As he chewed, steam issued from between his teeth, rising around him. I’ll be able to smell this for a week.

“Damn,” the bat said, suddenly right beside him. How had she sat down in the chair next to his without him noticing? Her eyes glowed as she stared at him, filled with… longing? “I thought you were some twisted new Nightmare experiment, but… you really are alive. You’re actually eating that.”

He was actually finishing it. He pushed the plate aside, nodding gratefully and settling his chair back. “Th-thank you for being so generous. I’ll… stop bothering you now, bat. I apologize for intruding on your… secret… whatever this is.”

“Wait!” She pushed the other plate towards his seat. “Eat this one too. I haven’t seen a pony eat in… centuries. And breathe—I know they’re all doing it, but… look at you. Is it hard? Do you forget sometimes?”

Without the promise of food, Silver’s sense of self-preservation probably would’ve been enough to make him run. He ran a hoof through short white mane, glancing back at the crack leading up. He didn’t actually have to be standing below it to teleport, though the straight line was easiest. If he didn’t look through it right before he jumped, there was a chance he’d misjudge the distance and end up in the wall.

Silver hurried forward, settling back into the chair and pulling up the other plate. He stopped before taking a bite, staring sidelong at her. “You sure? You’re pretty short yourself. Maybe you need this more than I do?”

She actually smiled at him. “I’m flattered that you’re so good at pretending not to be disgusted, but you don’t have to pretend. We both know I’m only eating it for the taste. I’m really just letting perfectly-good food go to waste. Even if the taste is the same… the reward just isn’t there, you know? Like, when you’re alive, eating feels good. You know you’re getting something you need. Or… I think it was like that. You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.”

In the horrifying chill of the cavern, food cooked less than five minutes ago was already cold and going stiff. But he didn’t care. He’d probably lick the oil off the plate if he didn’t have her strange eyes on him every second. “Hold on. Are you trying to say you’re… dead?”

She rolled her eyes. “Uh, yeah?” She rose from her chair, trying to hover there beside him—but with only one wing, she flopped to one side and had to catch herself awkwardly.

“Because…” He pushed the second empty plate aside. He’d eaten it too fast—he knew he’d be feeling sick before too long. But it didn’t matter. She couldn’t change her mind about letting him have her food if he’d already eaten it. “Because you’re a Voidseeker. One of the… one of the Lost Servants of the Moon. Neither living nor dead…”

“And now you see why I’m hiding,” she said settling onto her haunches and glaring up at him. “Could you imagine ponies talking to you like that all the time. ‘Oh, mythical servant of a goddess! Please, share your wisdom and don’t kill me!’” She squeaked in frustration. “At least the last part meant ponies used to run away. The one useful myth isn’t there anymore.”

“Myth?” he repeated, confused. “You are one of them. That’s how you got down here… a unicorn didn’t bring you, you traveled through the shadows with… all this stolen stuff. And that’s how you’re down here without freezing. You could probably walk up on the surface without an air shell!”

“You bet,” she said. “Free to wander for centuries through the freezing sand. Free to let the rancid ichor in my blood freeze and shatter like my poor wing.” She glanced to her left side, sighing deeply. “And free to be abandoned, because I slowed everypony down. It was pretty great, shadow-walking across the moon to try and find this place. At least you’re making yourselves easier to find these days.”

“Sorry.” He looked away. “I didn’t mean to… I don’t understand how it could be a bad thing. Never feeling cold, never feeling hungry or like you’re suffocating. Never getting tired after a day of excavation.”

“Excavation?” she repeated, indignant. “A teleporting, strange-blooded unicorn is being used to dig holes?”

He nodded. “Well, yeah. The Regent’s army doesn’t need to take chances on ponies he can’t trust. It’s all about your parents—good parents, good life. But if nobody knows, then…” He gestured with a hoof. “Seems like you know what it’s like. Living without a name. Hiding down…” He hesitated. “Wait, why are you hiding? If you’re a Voidseeker, aren’t you a Black? You don’t have to play this game.”

She glanced briefly at her wing, pawing awkwardly at the ground. “When I was last in Moonrise, the princess sat back and let…” She stuck out her hoof. “My name’s Magpie. You’re Silver Star? I could use somepony to talk to. If you’re not going to freeze to death down here.”

“Probably won’t,” he said. “But if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to turn your stove off first. I do still breathe, and I’m pretty sure you’re burning oxygen faster than it can get through the crack.”

“I have no idea what that means,” she said. “But sure. Turn it off, then maybe you can tell me what’s happened in Moonrise in the last…” She trailed off. “How long has it been since the Voidseekers left?”

He winced at the question—trivial for a pony with a proper education. He was just lucky to be able to read. “Five centuries,” he said, awed.

“Yeah.” She slid past him into the living room, curling up on the stolen couch. “That sounds about right.”

Chapter 33: Secret Luxury

Silver Star should’ve been able to tell the story of Moonrise in exhaustive detail. This immortal visitor from the past would see the folly in hiding, return to the princess, and mention his name in gratitude. He’d finally get his color, finally get the chance to study and excel as he knew he could.

Unfortunately for Magpie, his knowledge of history consisted of “the things he’d overheard.”

“That’s when Lord Commander Steel Wing expanded the army in preparation for invasion,” he explained proudly, about an hour after he’d begun. At least now it wasn’t all guesses and hearsay. Plenty of ponies had been alive for Steel Wing. “That meant the colors changed. Anypony with military skills got darker, and the ones who couldn’t fight well got lighter.

“When Regent Rockshanks took over, he just… I don’t really understand exactly, but… before him, there were two members of the council left. He took their colors for himself, and that’s when he became the regent. I don’t… really remember it too well, but…”

Magpie might be a pretty good thief, but she was also a good listener. Every time he looked up, she was feet away, watching him intently. It was hard to think of a pony only half his height as an ancient, powerful killing machine, instead of another piece of street-trash. The mares had better prospects than the stallions, but… from what he’d heard, there were plenty who chose that life who took a long walk on a cold night. So there was nothing of envy there.

“There was somewhere… inside, before the Regent. A building somewhere. My father would… read to me, late into the night.”

He paused for the indignance, waiting for the shouts and swears other street-trash might give him. A White who could read? Clearly absurd!

But Magpie nodded. “Shouldn’t you be with him now, instead of sneaking around in the freezing cold?”

He looked away. “Rockshanks has been all about… cleaning up Moonrise. Anypony who isn’t part of the invasion force in one way or another…” He shook his head. “Well, it used to be there were lots of creatures who lived outside everything. I think I’m the… descendant of one of the scholars and merchants who traveled with the princess, long ago.”

Magpie reached over, settling a hoof on his shoulder. She didn’t say anything about the obvious change of subject. She was even polite enough not to mention that he was crying. “Hey, kid. I’m sure you are. The magic you did getting down here, that’s buckin’ impressive. And stars above only know how you’re not frozen right now in that jacket.”

She turned away, squeaking in frustration. “Sounds like things really caught on fire since I left. Back then, there was this pony, Aminon… sounds kinda like Rockshanks is like him. He wanted to force everypony in Moonrise to swear to Nightmare, so the city wouldn’t need air or food or water to survive.”

Then she twitched, glancing back at the oven. “Hold on a minute, kid. If this Regent is having everypony march around and pretend like they’re ever going back to Equestria, how the buck is this place still alive? Are you like… one of the last survivors?”

He shook his head. “My dad said there was… there used to be enough heat for everypony. All the vents worked, not just the ones in the Skytower and a few shelters. Everypony got enough food. But there isn’t as much to go around anymore.”

Her expression grew darker. “I see what you’re saying. He’s running the place into the ground.” Then she flopped back onto the couch, reclining comfortably there. She covered up the broken remnant of her wing, obviously self-conscious. “Well, good thing it’s not my home. I wouldn’t stand for that for a second.”

“Yeah?” He wiped the last of his tears with the back of a leg, rising from the stolen couch. “What would you do? Steal the Regent away? One of the generals would just take his place. That’s why they have a chain of command.”

She groaned. “You know I’m an assassin, right?” She raised her good wing. “Wait, before you ask. No, I’m not going to kill him for you. I’m basically the worst Voidseeker there ever was. You know what it’s like when you’re losing a war, and you get so desperate for recruits that you’ll take almost anypony?”

He only stared, uncomprehending.

“Well, that’s me. Magpie. I never really got the hang of the murdering thing, but I’m… pretty much the sneakiest bat there was.” She gestured all around the cavern. “As you can see. Nopony would’ve ever found me down here, if it wasn’t for some weird unicorn who didn’t get cold.”

“Could you steal spellbooks?” he asked. He wasn’t sure where the question even came from—but he’d asked, and he couldn’t take it back.

But instead of being horrified at his audacity, she only rolled her eyes. “Can I steal… books? As in, the things small enough to carry in a satchel? The bundles of paper that can’t move or get away from me? Gee, I wonder. Not sure if a master thief could manage that.”

He advanced on her, no longer caring about how close he got to that horribly injured wing. “Could you steal one for me? I don’t even really care which one. But we don’t get any books out here, and… figuring everything out on my own is really hard.”

She tilted her head slightly to one side. “Just ‘a book’? Nothing in particular you’re looking for? You’re looking at the only bat on this damn moon who can read runes, kid. Have to read ‘em to steal ‘em, that’s what they say.”

“I want to know how to do the air-shell,” he said. “There’s not a bucking chance I’ll ever get my hooves on a real one. But the magic… my dad said that used to be the only way. If I knew the shell, I could go wherever I wanted. Maybe even… borrow some old clothes, and walk to the Dustmine. Nopony’s going to question a unicorn that powerful.”

Magpie was silent for a long moment, looking him over. “What’s in it for me?”

Her accent might be strange, but maybe she knew the language of the streets after all. It was almost amazing to Silver he’d made it this far. Sharing two meals worth of food was already a small miracle.

This is the day that everything changes for you, Silver.

“I could, uh…” His mind spun, and he could practically see the bat getting bored with him. More disappointed by the second the longer he waited. What could he do worthy of the exchange? Only one thing came to mind. “Fix your wing!” he finally blurted.

That got her attention. Magpie snapped alert, facing him directly now. “You serious?” There was no hesitation, no sensation of magic. Just a little puff of shadow, and suddenly she was looming over him. “If you lie to me kid, I’ll cut those fries out of your gut and put them back on the stove. See if I don’t.”

“I’m serious!” he said. “B-but I… I’m not talking about magically regrowing things. I’m… I don’t really get medical magic. But we could make something! The First Commander was a cripple, but he got his legs back thanks to a machine. My job would be way easier. With a thief to steal all the parts… how hard could it be?”

Magpie spun away from him again, muttering to herself. She spoke so quickly that he couldn’t tell the words apart very well. The tone of it was obvious, even if what she said was less so. But just as quickly as she’d started, she reappeared in front of him, sticking a hoof towards him. She was so tiny and adorable, squished without seeming deformed. Had ponies really looked like that once? “Swear to me, kid. Swear before the Nightmare older than the stars that you’ll make me a wing if I help you.”

What did he have to lose? The ancient monster could murder me and leave me for dead.

The hoof hung in the air in front of him for a moment, somehow unaffected by the electric lantern. There was magic here, maybe evil magic. He probably shouldn’t.

Silver met her hoof. “I swear.”

The darkness around her hoof puffed away like smoke. He expected to feel something terrible—bounds lashing down against his soul, or strange mind control. But there was nothing at all.

Magpie squeaked in frustration, shaking her hoof out and stomping angrily. “Okay, so… maybe I don’t remember how to make dream-oaths anymore. Guess it’s an old-fashioned promise. Do what you say, or I’ll…” She waved her hoof vaguely, leaving a trail of darkness behind it. “I dunno. What’s the worst way to die you can imagine? I’ll do that. And I’ll make it take, like… days or whatever.”

He fought back a laugh. Between her vague threat and diminutive frame, it was hard to take anything she said seriously. He managed this time. The promise of a spellbook of his own was too strong to resist. “Sounds fair. You steal spellbooks, and I’ll make you a fake wing.”

How hard could it be?

For the rest of that night, Silver read.

Even for him it probably wouldn’t have been that hard to steal a few spellbooks. If he was willing to put up with some ancient, crumbling books that might’ve found their way into the single yellow library. Without heating, that place was probably an abandoned, icy waste until the day returned.

But Magpie didn’t bring him ancient crumbling wrecks, she returned with fine embossed covers, and pages still warm from the shelves they’d been borrowed from. Probably she’d stolen them from the Arcanium itself. If he got caught doing that, he’d be out on the surface before he could blink. But Magpie was a Black—at least in theory. Only the princess herself could punish her.

I wonder what would happen if she told the Regent to step down. He’s Green, and she’s Black. Would he have to do it?

He didn’t waste any time asking, there were far more important things to do. He had a week to read as much as he wanted.

“That’s as many as you get,” Magpie said, as the first hints of warmth finally began to drift down through the little crack. “If I borrow any more, they’re going to start putting up spells to stop me. They wouldn’t catch me, but they’d make my life more difficult. Books for the weird unicorn aren’t worth that kind of risk.”

“Not sure why you’re worried,” he said, snapping a cover closed. “They aren’t going to do anything to you. Only the princess has authority over a Black.”

She laughed. “Yeah, because we’ve been so loyal to the princess for the last few centuries. I’m sure she’ll welcome me with open wings. ‘Let’s just look the other way and forget about the part where you almost murdered my pet lord commander, you can come back. Have some gold and prostitutes!’” She stuck out her tongue. “Please. This is Nightmare Moon we’re talking about. Vindictive, ruthless, cruel.”

“I…” He winced. It hurt to hear such criticism of the one pony he considered above petty weakness. The princess was supposed to be the perfect ruler. She didn’t want her ponies to suffer the way Rockshanks made them. He was just full of guile, blinding her to the truth. That was why no ordinary ponies could ever get an audience with her. If she discovered his deception, then he’d be killed, and Moonrise would be saved.

“You would know better than me,” he said instead. “I assume you actually know her. I’ve never met, obviously. Seeing as… I’m nobody.”

“Not so sure about that one either, kid.” She hopped onto the chair beside him, then onto the table. It was the only way for her to be taller than he was, even if it looked silly. “I can tell you how many unicorns could do books like this back in Equestria. It was a small number. And teleporting around—that’s deep magic. Most kids who play with that stuff end up as a red smear, and their little siblings learn to be smarter. But you do it like it’s nothing.”

“Not nothing,” he corrected. “There are… there’s something waiting. I feel like eventually it’s going to get a good look at me… come and kill me. All those eyes, so full of hatred.”

“Could be the Nightmare you’re seeing,” Magpie said absently. “It’s… not very nice. Anything that doesn’t submit to it is an enemy. But it hates Moonrise, ever since Iron Quill turned it down and wouldn’t make everypony into its children. It probably would’ve destroyed Moonrise already, except it’s afraid of losing the princess. It has to be clever… subtle.”

“You’re just telling me that,” he said flatly. “I might not have gone to school, but… everybody knows the Voidseekers walk with Nightmare. Isn’t that what gives you your immortality? Your… teleportation powers? Your dreamwalking?”

“Yeah,” she answered, sliding back off the table and looking awkwardly away from him. “I’m pretty sure, anyway. I think it just stopped caring about me once I busted my wing. I haven’t felt it trying to force me… at all, since you got here.” She held out her hideously broken wing, right down to the little scraps of rotten flesh hanging from it. “Now, how’s about fixing this? Where’s the magic of that?”

He slid the book back into the stack. “It’ll have to wait until next night. It’s lunar morning. I have to show up at my work shift, or… or I’ll be marked as a deserter. I’ll never get rations ever again.”

He made his way to the center of the apartment, directly under the crack. That’s when Magpie appeared in front of him, pushing him back with a hoof. “How about buck that, kid. You’re not going to dig a bucking hole with power and smarts like yours. You sit right back down and start building. We made a promise.”

“And I plan on keeping it.” Despite her size, he was the one to retreat. Not just from that horrible-looking wing, but the strength he knew she had. She was a Voidseeker—stronger than an earth pony, with the confidence of a manticore. “But if I don’t show up to work, I won’t get to eat. I’m not magic like you—if I don’t eat, I die. If I don’t breathe, I die. If I don’t drink… you get the idea.”

“So what?” She vanished from beside him in a little puff of shadow, appearing on the far side of the room. Beside the strange metal box she almost never opened. Now she did, revealing a lit interior and shelves of… vegetables?

He turned, mouth hanging open. Cabbage, apples, carrots, even a bucking orange. Somehow they looked fresh, or nearly fresh, even if the air wafting out from inside actually seemed warmer than the cavern right now. “I took this stuff because it felt… sentimental. But I don’t have to eat. What do they give you… march-wraps?”

“Gruel,” he corrected. “Watery wheat… crap. I think it’s exactly the right amount to stop us from starving.”

“Yeah, buck that.” She leaned in, biting the apple and tossing it to him. He caught it in his magic, holding it close and inspecting the strange skin. He’d had a slice of one of these, long ago. But a whole thing, just for him?

In that moment, it no longer mattered what might happen when the job was over. Buck that life. I’m never going back. He took a bite, chewing thoughtfully. It was crisp and amazingly sweet, enough that his eyes started to water. Or maybe that was tears.

“You’ve convinced me,” he said. “But it’s gonna be tricky coming and going from this place… for me, anyway. I can just about make it down and up through the crack. If somepony catches me in that building, they’ll throw me in the stocks for breaking and entering.”

“Well that’s bucking stupid.” She snapped her strange cold-shelf closed, and the light from inside went out again. “Who do I have to kill to make that stop?”

The Regent. He banished that thought before it could fester. No anger was worse than the impotent, helpless kind. He could change his life, that was a good goal. Changing the whole world was too far. “Nopony,” he said instead. “But I don’t have a pin. Ranks, err… everypony needs them. They’re necklaces with a bit of colored metal. Everypony but whites get them. Which is why I don’t, uh… I don’t have one.”

“Can you sketch it for me?” she asked. “I’ll find one, and you can use the communal bathroom up there instead of stinking up my place. No offense or anything, but I’m not that excited to relive being alive. Some things are better off in the past.”

“Sure.” He made his way over to the table, where he’d been sketching out a few spells using what he’d learned. He took the scrap pencil and a piece of paper, and recreated the necklace. Not his best work, but it was mostly for speed. Finally he offered it to her. “Don’t take it from anypony wearing one,” he said. “Yellows aren’t much better off than whites. If you take it from one of them, you might as well kill them too, because they’ll die. Better to take it from storage, in the Skytower. I don’t know where they’re kept.”

“Neither do I,” she said, taking the drawing and tucking it under her one good wing. “But I’m going to find out.”

It took her less than an hour to return, and smack the little necklace onto the book he was reading. “There,” Magpie said. “One stupid rank pin, complete with not being stolen from a pony. Storage room for these wasn’t that safe. Not a single intrusion spell on the inside, and they leave the lights off. You could’ve given me something harder to do.”

Silver touched the edge of the necklace with a hoof, feeling the little yellow triangle on the end. The key to an assigned seat in a shelter, instead of jostling for floor. The key to a slice of bread and vegetables on holidays.

Also an execution, if anyone who knew him ever saw him wearing this. But Moonrise was a bigger city than ever. He could re-invent himself.

“Now, more important things,” she went on. “Time for my buckin’ wing.”

Chapter 34: Near Grip

How hard was it to make a wing?

Probably Silver should’ve thought a little harder about what he was going to promise, given his entire future might very well depend on it.

At least he had a working example. On the pretext of actually doing anything useful, Silver devoted himself to taking measurements. Measurements were easy, he’d been making those for excavations since he could remember. It wasn’t like the earth ponies needed his help to dig, but most of them weren’t terribly clever. Dig in the wrong place, and none of them would get food.

Staying focused was more than a little difficult on the first day, and not just from being stuck in the same little room for so long. As the hours passed, he knew his work crew would be out digging somewhere, or maybe carrying something. They were being worked to the bone, and he wasn’t there.

Silver Star was a deserter. He’d never get another meal again. He probably wouldn’t be worth looking for, there were dozens of worthless ponies like him. But even so, he kept thinking that the regent’s finest swordmages would be teleporting down here to drag him to a court martial.

They didn’t. He didn’t feel so much as a tracking spell.

In a way, that was almost worse. Silver was so unimportant he wasn’t even worth tracking down.

“Yes, I need you to keep holding it like that,” he said, scratching down his numbers alongside the sketch he’d made of her good wing. “Unless you don’t care how well it works. Do you want a wing that doesn’t match your working one?”

She grumbled, then lifted her wing again. “At least I know you’re really a craftspony. I was getting afraid that all you knew was magic.”

“It’s called, uh… engineering,” he explained. “My father used to be an engineer, worked for the court and everything. I don’t know what he made… but it must not’ve been weapons, because otherwise he’d still be working. And I’d still be living in the court, and we’d probably never met.”

Her wing twitched, then straightened again. “Just hurry up and get your numbers. I’m getting sore.”

“Can you even do that?” He levitated the measuring tape down. Crazy to think just how small she was. Yet she was ancient and powerful, despite her short legs. Despite her insistence, he didn’t doubt that she could kill him easily. Least of which just by reporting him to the authorities for using all this stolen property.

Up above, he could hear ponies moving and talking with one another, their voices distorted into faint murmurs whenever they walked down the central hall. But nopony suspected this secret passage. He’d covered it even so, pinning up a blanket over the crack that would block most of the light but keep letting air through. Only one of them needed it, but he needed it quite a lot.

“What, sore?” She seemed to be waiting for any excuse to put her wing down, because she folded it back to her side. “Not really, no. Our bodies can get broken, then they need to get stitched back together. But you don’t ever heal. Only living things do that.”

It was his turn to shiver. “That doesn’t sound… very nice. Alicorns aren’t like that though, right? The princess is still alive.”

She rolled her eyes, stalking away from him. “You ask like I know. What are you going to do about my wings, Silver?”

“Well, uh… I didn’t find anything about healing you in those books. Regenerating missing limbs is an Alicorn-level thing. And you don’t want to talk to the princess.”

“No.” She sat down on the table beside him. “I’m inflexible on that. Even if I did talk to her, she wouldn’t be able to fix my wing. That regeneration magic works for living ponies.” She lifted her wing again, silencing him before he could even speak this time. “Don’t even say it. If I hadn’t joined the Nightmare, I’d be dead centuries ago. Look at all the ponies from my time, they’re all dead. I’m… less dead. I’ll take it.”

“I wasn’t gonna say it!” he lied. “Look, I’m going to try and make a copy of the wing you have. The muscles are in your back, and those are still there. Connecting it with the tendons and stuff is gonna be…” He twitched, stomach turning at the thought. There was no bucking way he could manage that. But he could think of at least one chop-shop that might be able to do it. Not a doctor, those were for more important ponies. But a doctor probably wouldn’t have dared operate on one of the Voidseekers anyway.

“Copy the wing I have,” she repeated. “Well, that makes… some kinda sense. We know this one works, might as well make another. And if it hasn’t been attached yet, we can… make improvements, adjustments, that kind of thing. What will we make it out of?”

“Only the strongest stuff,” he said. “You’re immortal, so the wing has to last longer than I’ll be alive. There’s this new metal, they only find it on the surface… True Lunarium, I think. It’s stronger than steel, doesn’t corrode like Lunarium does. Doesn’t contract much in the cold. We’ll put that where your bones are, and use it for the joints. Then for the wings themselves…”

What could possibly last long enough? There was only one possible answer there too. An audacious, incredibly stupid answer. But Magpie was already asking the impossible, no reason to stop there. “We only know one kind of fabric as light as bat skin. I don’t know if it has a name… the stuff the Great Alicorns made their air armor out of. So we’ll need… special equipment to cut it, as well as a spool of something that they only find in Vanaheimr.”

She stared at him for a few seconds, then began to grin. “A new wing stronger than the old one, huh? I like the way you think, kid! We got this.”

“I’m not a kid,” he muttered, glaring at her. “How many times are you going to… do I look like a goat to you?”

She shrugged. “It’s an expression, you wouldn’t understand. Just get me a list of what we need, and I’ll steal it.”

“For now, nothing,” he said. “I need to figure out a… something for it all to stick to. I might need a few more books to do that. Not spellbooks, I’m not extorting you for more. We need the smallest, lightest hinge ever, and I don’t know how to make one. But there are some furniture books that would probably have things I could copy.”

“Furniture?” She scowled at him. “I’m beginning to wonder if this is worth it. You’re going to make my wing like a shelf?”

More like a harpsichord. But that didn’t seem like the smartest thing to say. He didn’t actually get the chance to answer, because something banged upstairs, loud enough that even Magpie looked up.

Not a chisel of the crew that had finally discovered her secret hoard, here to punish her for stealing from the richest creatures in Moonrise. More like… doors breaking down? What the buck?

They were three days into daytime now, plenty far from the occasional disasters of night. So what was going on?

“I’m going to take a look,” Magpie muttered, before vanishing. She could do that from anywhere in the little apartment, except right beside the electric bulb. She kept it turned down far enough that her shadow-walking always worked.

That was fine with Silver, he was used to the dark by now. Proper lighting wasn’t really a part of his world.

He sat right below the opening, listening carefully for any sound. There were hooves up there, maybe more than usual? If he strained his ears, he imagined he could hear something else as well… screams?

Magpie reappeared behind him. “Welp, that’s a bucking mess. Looks like you won’t need that necklace for much longer. There are soldiers up there, dragging ponies into the street. Not sure why, but… they’re not giving them much time. They just drag them out of their homes, foals and all.”

“To yellows?” He squinted up into the opening, closing his eyes. A deep well of power lay waiting for him, and he called on it now, looking up through the stone. Every second he looked, another eye appeared around him, watching. If they ever found him, he would die an agonizing death… but he wouldn’t look for long.

She was right. Real soldiers, with full armor and rifles over their shoulders. At least one had already been fired, and a corpse lay bleeding in the hall. The bakelite bullet hadn’t so much as scratched the wall, but it had sure killed this pegasus.

Something touched him on the shoulder, and his concentration shattered. Silver’s eyes snapped open, and he turned to glare sidelong at her. “Hey! I was farcasting! That’s an expensive spell!”

“I figured.” To his surprise, her usual spunk was missing. Instead of arguing with him, Magpie pushed him into a sitting position with her good wing. Not hard enough to force him, but he didn’t fight. “You shouldn’t watch. Brutality like that… watching makes you part of the cycle, you know? You see the terrible things ponies can do to each other, and you’ll start acting them out on the ones weaker than you.”

He might’ve fought, if she didn’t sound so broken. “I watched them drag my dad out an air door,” he said flatly. “I watched my half-brother freeze, because nopony wanted to give us room in the shelter. There’s nothing those guards can do I haven’t seen before.”

Her eyes went wide, and she stared at him with renewed shock. Like she was searching for something. “Is that why you wanted all those magical books?” she asked. “So you can… find the soldier who did it and drag them out into space too? Give them what they deserve?”

“No.” He levitated one of the books over, flipping through the spells. Air bubbles, fixing leaks, reading the amount of oxygen in a room. Cozen’s Spells for the Practical Moon Unicorn. “I’m not studying how to fight, Magpie. Every day is a fight up there. Magic is about getting out of this hole. If I know enough of it, I can impersonate somepony with a better color. They don’t ask too many questions up there—there are fewer skilled unicorns than they need. If I ever have foals, they’ll have their own bucking heat-vent at night. And I’ll smack them if they ever try and eat gruel.”

Magpie kept staring at him. With her size and severed wing extended, she looked even more like her namesake—a dark, furtive bird, ready to fly away at the slightest sign of danger. We’re not all that different, really. You just found a different way of escaping.

“Don’t change, kid,” she said. “Not just the… weird magic you’ve got going. In general. What’s left of the Voidseekers didn’t talk much, not being any air and all—but even when we could, it was all bitterness and anger. But you’ve been through as much in your little life as anypony could, and listen to you. I think if you’d been with us out there, I might not have lost my damn brains.”

“You seem sane to me,” he said. “I mean, you’re not normal. And you’ve got that whole bite-sized look going on with the tiny legs. You sure you don’t want me to make a set of stilts?”

She giggled—a sound cut abruptly short by the sudden discharge of another rifle upstairs. It was soon joined by several others.

“I don’t… understand.” He stared up at the stone ceiling, though he didn’t dare any magic this time. “Why send soldiers into a slum? There are a hundred buildings just like this—what did ours do?”

“Maybe they’re looking for me?” she whispered, ears tucked back as she stared. “I didn’t see any unicorns, but… I have been taking things for a while.” She glanced back at the apartment. “I think the cold box was too far.”

Silver might’ve laughed at the absurdity, except for what was going on over their heads. “I don’t think that’s what they’re doing. There’s no way they’d know the stolen machines were here. It’s got to be… something else.”

But he wasn’t sure what that something was, and wouldn’t learn. Hours passed, during which he didn’t so much as pick up a pencil, and Magpie didn’t pester him for inaction. Heartless, soulless monster of the Void she might’ve been, but apparently both guilt and anger were within her emotional range.

Eventually the world above them went silent. Magpie rose, donning a dark cloak hanging on the wall. “I’m going to see what they did up there,” she said. “Don’t leave, unicorn. I don’t want you getting what those ponies got before you pay me.” She vanished.

Of course, he didn’t dare. He had his own paranoid guilt, whispering in the back of his mind. After all, he’d been ditching work. Maybe somepony had seen him walking this way?

Even a second of thought made that seem absurd. If they shoot even one pony, looking for you was more than a waste of time. I’m just another faceless white to them.

Magpie returned a few minutes later, tossing her hood back. Her eyes were haunted, twitching constantly around the room. “Well, that wasn’t my idea of fun.”

“Were they looking for stuff?” Silver shut the magical tome he’d been reading, spinning his chair to look at her. He’d been on the same page for half an hour without trying anything on it even once. “Drawers and closets dumped out, stuff all over the floor…”

“No,” she said. “Some broken doors, but it doesn’t look like the soldiers were looting. Only thing that looks missing to me is the jackets. All the hooks are empty.”

Of course they are. If you were getting kicked out into the street, what’s the most important thing? Don’t want to freeze to death. “I need to see what happened,” he said. “Err… tomorrow. I’ll give it a day, then go out into the city and see what I can find. There’s got to be a reason. Those ponies weren’t hurting anyone. Maybe they’ll be back in a few hours.” Minus the dead.

But they weren’t. They didn’t hear anypony coming back to the building, not anytime that evening. Magpie had a stolen clock, so Silver could watch as the night passed by, and the morning came. Still no sign of ponies upstairs, either the old occupants returning or soldiers moving through to search.

It doesn’t make any sense.

After a breakfast of food he didn’t deserve, Silver finally resolved to find out what was happening. He slid his own jacket off the hook, pulling up the hood.

“Where the buck are you going?” Magpie asked. “I told you, you’re not allowed to get yourself killed before you finish my new wing.”

He ignored her this time, striding right past towards the crack in her ceiling. “Nopony will notice me. But I need to see what’s happening up there.”

Magpie watched him for a few more seconds, then groaned and rose from her perch on the stolen sofa. “Alright, alright. Then I’m coming with you.” She rested a hoof on his shoulder, forcing him to meet her eyes. “Don’t think I’ll be able to get you out of any stupid situation. I’m not a fighter, and I can’t shadowstep with you. If you get yourself into trouble…”

“I won’t,” he said. “I’m just looking around, promise.” He settled his stolen yellow necklace into place, then began to concentrate. Silver teleported back to the ground floor in a flash, leaving a patch of frost behind him on the stone hallway. He learned in an instant that Magpie had been painfully honest in her report, and that nopony had been here to clean things up. There was still a body in the hallway, eyes glassy and staring.

He turned, making his way over to look. On the ground beside this pegasus was a bit of broken metal, maybe taken from the side of a shovel or some other tool. A knife, one edge covered in dried blood. This pony was fighting them! He had a weapon, and he was ready for this.

Silver reached down with a little magic, closing the dead pony’s eyes. He couldn’t do anything else—sooner or later, the recycling crew would come for this body. And the others, if there were any.

“There are two ponies just outside,” Magpie whispered into his ear, so suddenly that he nearly jumped. “Soldiers I think. Stopping ponies from coming in.”

“Can you distract them for a few seconds?” he hissed. “I’ve got a spell that should make them ignore me. But if they’re actively looking, it won’t work.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Sounds like a garbage invisibility spell.”

“It’s not invisibility,” he muttered, glaring. “Just give me a minute! Anything to make them watch you.”

She groaned. “This wing is feeling less worth it by the minute.” She vanished in a puff of smoke.

Silver Star began creeping towards the entrance, taking each hoofstep incredibly slowly. Even a single creak in a board might be enough to get him discovered, and who knew what after that. Then he heard Magpie’s voice outside.

“I don’t need very long. Please, just let me get a blanket.”

The door was already open, almost as though the soldiers outside wanted anyone who got close to see the body inside. Silver concentrated for a few moments more, focusing on being ignored. He’d been in the shadows his whole life, so it wasn’t hard to spread that around him. He wasn’t there. Nothing worth seeing.

Silver walked through the doorway, then skirted along past the soldiers staring at Magpie.

“You shouldn’t be here,” one grunted. “Go back to where you came from, filly. Nopony goes back inside.”

She shrugged, then turned to go. “Okay.”

Silver kept the spell up until they’d made it around the corner, though it didn’t seem to work on Magpie anyway. “This is bloody unfair, Silver,” she muttered, once they were out of sight. “Everypony thinks I’m a kid.”

“Try being taller.”

Chapter 35: Rebellious Fate

Silver Star wandered through the alleys of Moonrise, as though drawn by an invisible thread. He looked for Dusty in his usual corner shelter of crates and old blankets, but found no light glowing from inside. A little further he slowed for the Primrose twins, to rehearse his usual ritual of denying interest in their entirely legitimate establishment. But they too were nowhere to be seen. He sped up, eyes growing more furtive as he passed from the stone district into market district. He dodged a few leaks of sky-towers high above, climbed through steel supports, then he was into the Undermarket.

It was built almost directly beneath the center of the High Market, where ponies of color and distinction bought and sold with one another using that intangible, unknown thing that was money. A dozen stalls of scrap wood and corrugated lunarium sheets were clustered together here, along with a makeshift gate used by the “guards” to prevent theft.

They didn’t seem to care about theft today, because not a soul was here either. The stalls weren’t looted or overturned, there were no bodies or shell-casings. There was just nopony here.

“Have you seen enough?” Magpie asked, pulling on the edge of his cloak. She had a kebob in one hoof, stolen right off the makeshift fryer. There were no guards to demand she pay for it. “This is creepy as buck. Let’s just get back to my cave before somepony sees us.”

“You think… it finally happened?” he asked, voice bleak. “You think maybe the princess opened the door back to Equestria at last? They went home without us, on the day I finally decide to quit work. I’d dig holes for the rest of my life if I could dig them in our promised inheritance.”

“No.” She smacked him with a hoof, enough that he actually recoiled, bouncing back almost an entire stride. “Don’t get stupid with me, kid. You unicorns are supposed to be clever, so think for a minute. Even when I lived here the last time, ponies would be killing each other to get back. You think Regent Rockass would have to kill ponies to force them to leave? There would be ponies trampled to death, not shot on the floor.”

“Oh.” Her logic was sound. Even so, it far from reassured him. His answer would’ve been terrible, but at least it would’ve ended the guessing. Now they were back to where they’d been: confused. “So where are they?” Even as he asked, he circled around the market, all the way to a shop so important it had its own metal fence. Here was the place everypony knew you could buy things that regular ponies weren’t supposed to have. Weapons were forbidden to Reds and below. But life down here was difficult, and sometimes a weapon was exactly what a pony needed.

Silver turned a table around, revealing a dozen knives with their hoof-grips attached to the underside. He selected the strongest and sturdiest, slipping it into his cloak before turning the table back around.

“You ask me like I know,” she said, following him with annoyance in her voice. “If you want something, let me steal it. Whatever this is, it will go back to normal. That’s what rulers are for, right? Maintain that status quo.”

He wasn’t so sure of that. Why put guards at the apartment if ponies would just be going back to them? Something was happening, and he couldn’t resist the desire to find and watch. He needed to see for himself.

“There’s only one place big enough for all these missing ponies,” he declared. “The Arena.” He fell still, listening to the hum of pumps and the hissing of air overhead. He imagined he could hear hooves up in the High Market, and voices speaking as life went on.

Those ponies were too important to be bothered by whatever nightmare tormented the Whites and Yellows. And at least he had a solid final proof that the city hadn’t been evacuated. If something dangerous was happening, the Skytowers would be the first to empty into Vanaheimr.

He started walking, choosing his steps purposefully. The Arena was on the extreme edge of the cavern, where little construction had touched. That meant he rarely traveled there, since being caught in the open was just an opportunity to be targeted by the strong.

But now Silver had food in his belly and spells in his brain. He was one of the strong.

“Come on,” he urged. “Let’s see what’s going on. We can head back after that.”

“If you die…” she muttered, stalking along behind him. “I’m going to bucking pull your soul back and stick you in a doll or something to finish what you started.”

He didn’t slow down, couldn’t look away as he dodged between more supports and wiggled through the cracks in the side of the Skytower’s foundation. “You can do that?”

Magpie made a frustrated squeak. “No. Do I look like a bucking unicorn? But ponies usually don’t question it when I make scary promises. They just sorta assume. And since you’d be dead anyway, you wouldn’t be able to call me on it then.”

He choked back a laugh. “Is this how you stayed sane all those years? Just… made stupid jokes?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

He dodged between a few smaller buildings, the shorter towers that wouldn’t breach the surface high above. These were the suburban sprawl of Moonrise, where Purples and a few lucky Reds lived. There were no entrances this low in the colony—anypony unlucky enough to work in Moonrise’s basement wouldn’t be a Purple. There were some windows, and he caught a few furtive eyes watching—all looking outward towards the Arena.

A brilliant white glow illuminated the Arena even from far away, showing them the crowd in stark relief even from a distance. The raised seats were packed with disheveled-looking ponies, and the grounds all around were clogged with ponies in armor. The arena floor was impossible to see through the stands, but he could hear a voice echoing out from inside, magnified by wire.

“Do not imagine to yourselves that ignorance of what has transpired will save you from punishment! In Moonrise, if one pony falls out of line, we all do. In Moonrise, when one pony is disobedient, we all are. In Moonrise, when one pony is punished, we all are.” There was a harsh, metallic sound, followed by ponies gasping.

How close could he dare creep without risking being seen? Something drove him onward, something demanded to know what was going on in the Arena. He couldn’t make out faces from so far away, but he imagined the horror they were feeling. Something terrible was happening down there, and his instincts demanded to know what.

“No.” Magpie stopped him with a hoof. “That’s clear ground, idiot. You asking to get caught?”

He opened his mouth to argue, expecting her to chide him and force him back to her cave. But instead she pointed off to the right, on the very edge of the cavern. Here the ground had never been leveled, and here a constant coating of black moss and mushrooms flourished in the condensation that dripped always from the cavern walls. It was muddy and disgusting, dragging on his cloak—but she was right about one thing. There were no clear lines of sight this way. If they kept going, they should be able to creep very close to the Arena indeed. Maybe a dozen paces from its furthest edge. There didn’t even seem to be many soldiers on that side.

It was miserable going, made more so by the constant barking of the voice. It echoed strangely off the cavern walls, coming at them distorted and layered over itself.

“Who the buck is that?” Magpie asked, not whispering nearly so quietly as before. If anything, she was struggling with the hike a little more, since her legs were so close to the ground. She couldn’t stride over the pale mushrooms, she had to push through them. “The one yelling so loud?”

“They aren’t yelling, it’s a wire,” he said. “It’s connected to… a machine. It makes sounds louder, or records them for later. Probably both.”

Magpie glowered at him, her slitted eyes glowing in the gloom. “That’s not the part that really matters and you know it. Who is that?”

“Colonel Flint,” he growled. “Like the… the pony in charge of the low city. Every White and Yellow and Red knows her. Thinks of herself like the princess. Princess of ditch-diggers and whores.”

Colonel Flint’s voice overpowered whatever Magpie was about to say next. “Some of you may think this is a high price I’m exacting of you for the actions of a few. ‘You never saw a pony harboring fugitives! You never saw ponies making illegal weapons! You never saw a pony distributing forbidden propaganda.’”

That same metallic sound as before, joined by something meaty and wet. It had probably been there before, but as they got closer, Silver could hear it better. He could hear the muffled gasps and winces of horror at the same time. He wanted to climb over the ridge and look back, but about now they’d be as close to the soldiers on the outer rim as any who would be facing the city. He had to resist.

“Yet you knew ponies who did. You may not have made forbidden weapons yourself, or bought them, but you heard about them. Perhaps those ponies were kind to you, or distant relatives of yours. Of course you would justify their actions. You would ignore them. Worst of all, perhaps you heard a pony speak ill of the noble and generous Colonel Flint. Perhaps you heard General Rockshanks’s name uttered with anything other than hallowed respect.

“Yet the Provost Marshal’s office remained empty. Where were the loyal ponies of Moonrise, reporting this disloyally while they had the chance? Where were the ponies lifting their voices to praise the generosity of Colonel Flint in feeding creatures as unworthy as they, instead of complaining that their rations weren’t enough? The audacity! Each one of you who heard rebellion on the tongues of your companions, and said nothing—you are guilty too.

“If only Colonel Flint was half as cruel as you say she is, I would march each of you onto this stage and give you the same treatment. But all praise to the princess, I am not. I value our war against our ancient enemy as far more important. The princess requires ditch-diggers, and engine-rats, and water-haulers. Some of you contribute to Moonrise. And for your sake, the rest are spared.”

Metal again, along with wet gurgling. Silver could hide no longer—he stopped, muttering the words to his little spell. Then he clambered up the ridge, keeping low to look in at the Arena.

He was just barely close enough to see what Colonel Flint had done. As soon as he saw, he wished he hadn’t.

They’d built a machine, a terrible machine unlike anything he’d imagined. It held a glittering metal blade, balanced with a counterweight and settled into a track.

A line of ponies stood on the arena floor, all in irons and surrounded with armed soldiers.

As each one reached the machine, they were fitted into place, and the blade came down on their necks. An open metal basket of severed heads was already halfway full, and the usual arena dust was muddy red.

“Stars above,” Magpie whispered from beside him, her voice filled with horror. “What happened to this place?”

Silver had no answer for her—he wondered himself.

“Yet still, there will be consequences. You have been kept from returning to your homes—this is your reminder of the bounty that I provide to you. You will not be allowed to return until the night comes, be you Yellow or White. Your work orders will not change—arrive on time, and perform your duties. All who fail to do so will be punished as previously decreed. But this is not all. All warmth-shelters will remain closed for the first twenty-four hours of the lunar night.”

The weight of her statement hit the crowd like a wave. Ponies recoiled in their seats, gasped and moaned and muttered in horror. Only another terrifying sound of sliding metal finally silenced them, and another headless corpse rolling into the pile.

Workers from Recycling were already here with their white uniforms, lifting corpses into a waiting wagon. By the look of it, they’d need a second wagon soon.

“A whole day?” Magpie asked. “Is that… is she going to execute every single one of these ponies?”

“No,” Silver answered. “It takes a while to get really cold. The first day will probably only freeze a few ears off. And… probably a number of elderly or young ponies too.” He stared down at his hooves, expression darkening. “It’ll kill way more ponies than her machine.”

“Damn,” she swore. “That’s… cold. Something must be bucking wrong with my powers. I can’t sense any Nightmare from that stage. But I can’t imagine a regular pony so… evil.”

You think Nightmare ponies are evil? Silver turned, staring at her. Magpie looked as heartsick as he felt. So much for the fiercely dangerous Voidseeker, who knew only blood and vengeance for the moon twice-wronged.

He slipped back into the ditch, letting his hooves sink into the mud as he did so. Here he was out of sight of any soldiers who might be looking their way. But just because he couldn’t see the Arena anymore didn’t mean he couldn’t hear the machine, and know with each sound that another life was being taken.

How could you be so stupid, Silver? How could you be so selfish? Is pretending to be a Blue really going to fix all this? Do you even want to pretend?

He wanted to charge bravely up the hill, felling every soldier who got in his way, until he reached that awful machine. He would tear it to pieces, then teleport Colonel Flint to the surface to suffocate.

But that was a fantasy, and he knew it. Silver Star could win a few street fights, that was all. If he charged at those ponies, they’d shoot him before he got halfway to them. He could die on the ground, confident in his virtue as he bled to death.

He dropped to his haunches in the mud, staring down at nothing in particular. “You joined the Voidseekers to fight the Sun Tyrant, didn’t you Magpie?”

She settled beside him. He wasn’t watching her, but he could feel her nod anyway. “Yeah.”

“Was she this… evil? Did she kill ponies like that?”

Magpie was silent for a long time. Silver Star counted three more metal thumps. Colonel Flint kept on going with the propaganda, but that was all it was now. She was recounting the story of their origin, and the glory of their war against Celestia. The pride and unity they’d felt upon arriving in the moon. She spoke of Iron Quill and their other honored ancestors.

Silver Star felt that each of them must be turning in their crypts to have their names said by such a tongue.

“No,” Magpie said. “Some of the nobles were. Equestria… wasn’t all that different from Moonrise, really. Princess Celestia had the land divided into pieces, and a noble pony supervised each one, enforcing her will. In the stories, they were always noble and good—better than anypony else around them. Selfless examples of friendship to their peasants. If any ponies like that existed, I never met one.”

Silver Star nodded. “This is… what we rebelled against in the first place. Colonel Flint, and ponies like her. This is why the Nightmare Princess fought for us. Why we joined her cause.”

Magpie nodded again. “You could say it like that.”

There were already ponies standing up to her, Silver realized. That’s the whole reason this is happening in the first place. A few in our building even fought with the soldiers when they came, and died.

Were those the ponies in that solemn line, waiting to be executed? All the while Silver had been so occupied with his own misery, he hadn’t known that others were giving what little they had for the cause.

“Why doesn’t the princess do something about this?” he asked. “That’s… that’s the only way. You have to talk to her. If you fly there now, maybe you can stop the rest of these ponies from dying! She must not know about this!”

Magpie shook her head, patting him on the shoulder with a hoof. “What you’re feeling… it’s good, Silver. But I don’t think Nightmare Moon is the pony you’re thinking she is. Nightmare… influences you. It makes you see things differently. There’s only power, and obstacles to achieving it. If I had to guess… I don’t think Nightmare Moon would do anything, even if she knew.”

“She would!” he argued. Probably a little too loudly. Another metal thump, another corpse. “She’s the princess! She’s a harsh ruler, but fair. This isn’t fair.”

Magpie met his eyes, only sadness reflecting up at him from those slits. “Of course it isn’t fair. But… even when we were still on Equestria, she let her generals rule themselves. They fought to the death, and she watched. That’s how the princess has always been, Silver. If you think her appointed leader is doing things wrong, prove it by killing them. Take their place, do better. Why do you think she’s so upset about loyalty? She knows that the princess doesn’t care if she gets killed. Whoever wins between her generals, she gets the strongest pony either way. She still wins.”

A plan formed in Silver’s mind then, an incredible, audacious plan. Certainly impossible—beyond anything a White had ever achieved. He’d probably end up in that line of doomed ponies for just thinking it, yet he could consider nothing else. Colonel Flint had to die. And after her… General Rockshanks.

“You there, step forward!” bellowed a voice, much closer than any wire-amplified colonel. Silver had been so occupied in his own thoughts, he hadn’t noticed the pair of soldiers on the ridge. Both had rifles pointed at them. “More rebellion scum, lurking in the dark. Step forward, join your companions!”

Chapter 36: Defiant Fate

Silver was frozen in indecision, staring into the face of death. An unseen soldier shouted for him to come forward, and he had a good idea where that path would lead. Probably he'd be marched out to join the ones being executed at that moment. It was an obvious, inglorious end.

I'm better than that. I can't change things if I'm dead.

Silver closed his eyes, building concentration as he prepared to teleport. It was always about familiarity, and there was one place he knew better than any other. The world started to blur, as he built up a connection strong enough to warp.

An armored figure emerged on the top of the hill, aiming a rifle straight down at him. Silver's eyes widened, and his instincts kicked in. The teleport frayed to nothing around him, and he called up a much more important spell—a bubble.

The report echoed around them as the rifle went off, flash bright enough to briefly blind him. It struck his shield with incredible strength, shattering it into little shards of magical force that sprayed around him. But it had done its job—the plastic bullet rained down around him as plastic shards, burning into his jacket but not causing any real harm.

The soldier, a bat like most soldiers, stared down in shock. "Who... the buck are you?"

Silver didn't give him an answer, didn't hesitate for even a second. He turned and ran, tearing up the soggy ground as he did. At least he had a jacket to try and conceal his cutie mark. Hopefully. That was really just wishful thinking.

"Hey, over here!" the soldier called. "I think one of the prisoners escaped! He's getting away." The pony didn't try to run—as Silver had predicted, he'd stopped to reload the rifle, bringing out powder horn and all. There was no chance he'd get a second shot before Silver was long gone. Unfortunately for Silver, it sounded like there were several other soldiers, because soon he could hear half a dozen other voices. He didn't try to listen, just ran.

"You realize how... stupid this is..." Magpie said, darting along in the shadows beside him. Somehow even the narrow gap between the muddy floor and the dripping cave ceiling was enough space for her. But then, she was quite small for a pony. "They're raising an alarm. You're going to get caught." Her hoofsteps were so light that she didn't sink into the mud—or maybe that was more of her undead magic at work.

"Got a better idea?" he called, frustration building. He couldn’t take his eyes from the ground, even when a second rifle report went off behind him. He had no shield this time, so nothing to protect him if they actually aimed with any accuracy. But he didn't feel the burning pain of a bullet killing him, so that was something. "I'm kinda... only one way to go now!"

Alarm bells began to ring, beginning at the parade ground but soon echoed from the city itself. Initially there would be no sign of what the problem was—but somepony had seen him in the dark. How close a look had he gotten?

I need to get away. Let things cool down. Where could I hide?

Magpie's shelter was one option, but it was heavily guarded. More importantly, it was on the opposite side of the city. By the time he made it to that extreme end of Moonrise, the soldiers would probably know what they were looking for. He had only time on his side, and not much of it. So what was close? Only one place, located near the ancient parade-grounds because of historical reasons entirely lost on him.

"I told you not to come here!" Magpie yelled, frustration in her voice. Were those... tears? "I can't keep you safe from a whole army! Why didn't you listen? Now you're going to die, and I still won’t have my wings!"

"I'm not going to die today," he declared, swerving abruptly to the right as the cavern widened, stumbling up the ramp. Moonrise was like a hive of bees roused from their peaceful sleep, and streams of reserve troops poured out of the openings between the buildings. Silver dared one glance behind him, and wasn't surprised to see a growing number of ponies chasing along the edge, pointing at him. As they did, some soldiers leaving the city turned. He'd been faster than the ones following, but it soon wouldn't matter.

He broke into a gallop, leaving a trail of mud as he headed towards an ancient stone archway. There was little traffic here now, though he'd heard that in ancient days it had been like a second capital of Moonrise. The Gatecrasher compound, with its statue of the blind explorer at the head of the arch. Even in death, she watched over the members of her guild. Though how she'd have done that even in life, Silver never knew.

As he got closer, he broke into the light of electrical lanterns along the arch, and suddenly Magpie wasn't there anymore. He couldn't blame her for that—she wouldn't be able to use her powers with no shadows around. There was no reason for her to go down with him if this didn't work.

The doors of the ancient airlock were sealed, heavy metal with a rotating drum to secure itself in place and lock out all unworthy to travel. There was no way he'd be able to get them open before any number of his followers reached him. It was teleport or die.

More gunshots went off behind him, smashing into the statues and stone pillars and showering him with dust. But at this kind of extreme range, there was little chance of a hit. So long as he didn't stop moving.

He reached the wall and didn't even slow down, gritting his teeth as the barrier approached. The world fuzzed, and for a few steps he ran in the nowhere-place surrounded by hatred. Cold tendrils fiercer than the surface wrapped themselves around his hooves, instantly freezing the mud and moisture he'd been walking through.

Then he was through, and he landed on the stone. Muddy boots shattered from around his hooves as he ran, so at least he stopped leaving a trail. The lights were all dark here in the Gatecrasher headquarters, with old storage rooms and suits of air-armor hanging in racks. Behind him the soldiers had stopped at the door, working the complex airlock. But it wouldn't take them very long to get inside. There was no time to be properly equipped. It was time for his night of magical learning to get an emergency test.

Magpie appeared beside him in the gloom. He couldn't help but envy how neutral she sounded, running along without getting winded as he had. There was no justice. "I've looked through this building before," she said. "You aren't going to find anywhere to hide here. Most of the rooms are empty, and it only has the one entrance. The only other way out leads to a cave under hard vacuum."

"I'm aware of that." He was slowing a little, clutching at his chest and fighting back the burning in his muscles. He was no earth pony with infinite endurance. Part of it was probably the teleport, which had taken enormous energy on its own. "That's where we're going. Do you know which direction it was?"

She pointed towards a spiral staircase, and he took off running, taking the steps three at a time. From the sounds coming from behind them, they'd gotten the inner airlock doors open at last, and would soon be gaining again. Some of those guards were earth ponies. "Why would you want to do that, Silver? You're still alive, remember? You wouldn't let me forget it every time you had to make a trip to the bathroom..."

The stairway emptied into a massive room. On the far end was a second airlock, much larger than the first one. Dust lifted from the floor as he ran, a slow-moving trail. He cut right to the machines, smashing his hoof against the button. The inner door rolled out of the way, like a giant gear along a track. He ran inside, to the much smaller, thicker outer door. The cave beyond looked little different than any other cavern, with only the slightest difference. Through the tiny window, he could feel terrible cold against his hoof.

"You knew we'd be going to a dead end, and you ran here anyway?" Magpie settled beside him, though her ears were constantly twitching, facing the stairwell leading in. "You're insane, stallion. Coming here wasn't going to get my help. I can't shadowstep with you. You're alive, that's just not how the power works. Otherwise regular bats could use it."

"I'm not going to shadow-anything." He closed his eyes, remembering the diagrams he'd studied. But he'd already practiced this. Simply activating the spell wasn't going to be the hard part. A few seconds of effort, and a faint shield appeared around them, capturing the dusty air in a bubble about the size of the airlock. It wasn't a very costly spell, about the same as lifting a modest weight in the air beside him. But it was constant, and dropping it for even an instant would mean certain death.

The inside of the airlock had its own controls. Fortunately for him, there were labels stenciled on the old Lunarium, and he pressed the button for "open."

The heavy entrance rolled closed, just as he saw the first sign of motions from the stairs. The guards had arrived, but they wouldn't be able to follow. A harsh hiss filled the room, making his ears fold flat with discomfort. But after only a few seconds, the hissing became almost imperceptible, and he could feel the vibration of distant pumps through his hooves more than hear it.

"Oh, I see what this is." Magpie circled around him, glaring. "We're going to cut across the surface. There's got to be... a dozen different ways back into the city. But won't they just put on suits and follow you?"

"No," he answered. "The guards aren't trained for it. They'll send the Dustwalkers after me. But there's no mine down here, so they'll have to bring them through the city first. It will take them at least an hour, and we'll be long gone by then."

"Gone," Magpie repeated. "I mean, the caves are an absolute maze. There are thousands of different ways for us to go. But even if you're immune to the cold, how long can you keep a spell up like this?"

He thought about the answer to that, and numbness began to spread through his chest. He'd already teleported three times today. He could feel the first stirrings of magical exhaustion in his horn. The truthful answer was probably “a few hours.” But he wasn't going to admit to that. "Long enough," he said instead. Behind them, a stupid guard banged the butt of their rifle against the airlock—entirely without effect. It would take far more than that to get it open, and they probably wouldn’t be stupid enough to break it and breach the entire building to vacuum.

I'm actually doing it. The air-shield spell. He could barely believe it. He expected his horn to fail any second, and leave the pocket of air around them to be claimed by the void. But that didn't happen, and his lungs stayed clear.

The outer door finally clicked, then swung open just a little. Was it jammed, or... maybe this was normal? Either way, Silver wasn't going to find out. It wouldn't take the soldiers long to figure out they could press the button to get the cycle to reverse, or find a pony who could. He shoved up against the doorway with all his might, making it swing out a little further. Wide enough for him to squeeze through. Magpie followed close behind, clambering out of the protection of Moonrise and into... the portal cavern.

This wasn't his dream of a stable job on the surface, where fruit was served with every meal and every room had a heat-vent. This cavern had clearly been finished, with a level floor and support pillars along the wall. Heavy wooden shelves lined the walls, with shovels and rocks and other equipment piled up.

"Why would they keep the air out of here?" Magpie asked. "This just seems like another room. There's even lights over here—don't switch them. I need to be able to get away when this inevitably fails."

"It won't." He made his way across the dusty stone floor, picking up plenty of gray surface dust with his hooves. It billowed about in the air, and he should’ve probably put on a mask or something. But there weren't any here—even unicorn explorers these days wore air armor, so there just wasn't any reason. He'd come up with something when they got there. "There's nowhere on the surface I can go. But I'm guessing that Colonel Flint won't want to spread it around that somepony made a fool of her soldiers. A week or two on that side, and we can come back. Maybe I'll dye my coat or something, just to be sure they don't know me."

Magpie reached the end of the room before he did, inspecting the complex metal ring set into the floor. Several crystals rested nearby in brass stands, crystals that seemed to completely ignore her. But as he neared them, they lit up, glowing faintly blue. "This is a teleportation spell," she said, squinting down at the floor. "Looks like... buck! This thing is going to send us far."

"Right, you can read runes." He walked right into the center of the circle. "Can you read which of those crystals we need to activate it, or should I do it?"

She twisted around, glaring back at him. "You think I'm going to go with you? Why the buck should I do that?"

"Because... we'll be getting the material for your wings," he suggested. "There's nowhere else on the moon we can find the cloth we need."

"You seriously expect me to believe this trip was for me? You had to see the executions. I know what this was about. You didn't listen and you got caught."

"And now I'm making the most of it." He glanced nervously to the end of the room. There was a chance a unicorn with teleportation and atmospheric spells would be following them, and they'd be interrupted any moment. The chance probably wasn't high—unicorns were too rare and important to be simple soldiers. Unless they had trash blood, of course. "Are you going to activate the teleport or not?"

Magpie hesitated near the edge of the circle, one hoof beside one of the brightest crystals. He could practically see the gears turning in her head. If she went with him, then she'd need to use another portal to come back, or else journey across the surface again. That trip had taken her years before, and she was only just back. "You're not allowed to die," she finally declared. "You still owe me, Silver." She reached out, touching the crystal with a hoof.

Nothing happened. Of course, she wasn't alive. Silver made his way over, grinning ruefully at her. "Well, it's the thought that counts. Because you're coming with me, I'll try extra hard to make sure nothing brutally murders me until after we make your wing." He touched the crystal she'd suggested.

The result was instantaneous. The ground seemed to rip out from under them, in a terrible teleportation that made his own efforts seem like a baby-carriage rolling gently along the road. Light flashed in front of him, and gravity seemed to bend and distort his whole body. Wild magic tore at him, and he had to grit his teeth, concentrating desperately to avoid losing his shield spell.

As quickly and painfully as it had begun, they appeared on the other side. Lunar dust scattered from around the portal, caught up in his shield of air. He wobbled on his hooves, nearly losing his balance and the spell with it. But then he saw the sky, and he fought back the fatigue.

The sky rose above them, entirely filled with stars. There was no sun now—if Moonrise was in daylight, then Vanaheimr would be dark. But that didn't bother his eyes. It only made for a clearer view.

There was no weather on the moon's surface, no animals or erosion or anything to disturb the portal. The Gatecrashers had built it on a slightly raised stone platform, with lunarite shelves beside it just like the ones left behind. And towering ahead of them, its ancient structure seeming to glow even in darkness, was the Sacred City. The ancient home of the Alicorns, home of incredible magic and science they could never understand. It seemed to be waiting for him.

"Stars above, I'm ash," Magpie squeaked, covering her face with both wings. She froze in place on the portal platform, body completely rigid. Her front was only partially covered since she only had one good wing. Even so, the display was... unusually pathetic.

Silver waited a moment, staring at her in confusion. He followed her gaze up to the city, searching for what had terrified her so greatly. But there was nothing there. No angry Alicorn, no weapons trained on them... just the old ruins. "Are you just going to stand there?" he asked. "Because... I don't think I can keep this spell up forever. We need to find one of the old supply caches. It's supposed to be a hundred times the size of Moonrise in there."

"I'm still alive," she whispered, voice incredibly small. "How am I... I shouldn't still be alive. You took me to Vanaheimr. It should've killed me by now."

"It's not going to kill you," he groaned, wrapping a foreleg around one of hers and dragging her down the platform. Past the supply-shelves, and towards the shattered, ruined city. It didn't seem like the city wanted them to be here. Its walls were broken, many of its windows were shattered, and only darkness lurked inside the glass. We can't just wait on the platform. The Dustwalkers will be behind us. "See? You're safe. No attacks. Just stop... dragging your hooves like that."

Magpie kicked and struggled, but she was so overwhelmed with fear that she didn't put up much of a fight. She pushed and squirmed, then fell still again as soon as her eyes opened, then went back to fighting. But whatever horror she kept expecting, it didn't happen.

They reached the ancient entrance, rubble cleared and fallen metal long harvested. A single cloth rope had been stretched across the massive doorway, with a sign hanging from the end. "None enter by order of the Princess herself. Violators face the wrath of the moon."

Silver shivered at that—the first genuinely frightening thing they'd encountered so far. But he was running out of energy, and they didn't have anywhere else to go. Hopefully you'll forgive me a little intrusion when it was this important, Princess. Your ponies were suffering. I can't help if I'm dead.

Chapter 37: Determined Fate

"We don't belong here we don't belong here we need to leave this isn't safe please let me go we need to leave..."

Magpie had stopped fighting, but she hadn't stopped muttering. Silver probably would've felt genuinely awful for her, if it wasn't for the urgency of their situation. There was nowhere else for them to go—no way to flee back to Moonrise without wandering right into the waiting hooves of the army. There was no way to go but forward.

"We can't stop," he urged, as gently as he could. "Please, Magpie, we're not in danger. Don't you think if this place had traps waiting for us, they would've triggered by now? We're safe, it's okay. The ones following us won't be able to navigate the Sacred City. They probably won't even send anypony through the portal. They'll... just assume I died on the surface and leave it at that." And you still might, Silver, so don't get too confident.

Some part of him refused to believe what he was seeing, like the whole world was a strange illusion that might puff away at a moment's notice. After everything he'd imagined might be in his future, the one thing he'd never considered was that he might be worthy of a trip here. Traveling to the Sacred City hadn't even happened in his lifetime. There just weren’t any creatures that the princess considered worthy of the trip. Exploration was an activity for an earlier, greater age. A time before military rule. A time when there was still a council that mattered. Why did we let it end?

Silver wouldn't curse his ancestors for whatever string of events had led to the world he lived in. Probably they had their reasons, even if they didn't make sense to him now. He wouldn't try to redefine the past, when it couldn't be changed. His own father lived in that past, and whatever noble ancestors had been in the princess's army during the last siege. He could only hope they'd be smiling at him now.

Magpie wasn't screaming anymore. Silver stopped walking, finally letting go of her foreleg. "Are you going to stop struggling yet?"

The pony looked even paler than usual, if such a thing was possible. Her ears were flat, expression haunted. She had no scent, at least none that was natural, though she did remind him a little of the crypt cavern. Like an ancient, honored dead that was up and walking around with the living. She met his eyes, and he felt instantly paralyzed with guilt. He'd seen that expression before, on the faces of other street-trash that lived in the dark corners and forgotten alleys of Moonrise. "You were trying to kill me."

"What?" He took a step back from her, eyes wide with shock. "Magpie, I'd never do that! I don't even think it's possible, but even if it was... why would I do that? You gave me a chance to study magic like I never had before, Magpie. I'm using a spell I learned from your books to breathe right now."

She whimpered, then shook herself out. She glanced up and down the hallway around them—a strange vaulted affair, with conduits on the ceiling and metal doors spaced periodically. "We're in Vanaheimr. Finding this place was Nightmare Moon's first order when we got here. She wanted the weapon it hides to escape from the moon and reclaim our homeland. So we looked and looked, and eventually we found it."

"Makes sense." He sat back on his haunches, as though he could somehow take the weight off his horn. It didn't help. Even with his body relaxed, his magic was strained. If Silver was very lucky, he could keep this spell up for another hour before he collapsed from the effort. "The Voidseekers were supposed to be her... most important ponies, right? The ones she trusted with her most important missions."

Magpie glared at him. For a moment he wasn't even sure if she was going to reply. "The Nightmare warned us that the city was protected. It had... ancient magic around its foundations. Machines that would wake when we drew near and destroy us. But it sent us in anyway, to hunt down the weapon and retrieve it. The princess was too valuable to risk herself. We were expected to die for her."

She wandered away from him, staring down the nearby hall with empty, haunted eyes. "Three of Nightmare's best had already died back in Equestria. The Sunbringers—they don't matter anymore. They're probably long gone, with all of us up here. But half of the ponies left died in this city. Eventually Nightmare Moon realized what the Nightmare was making us do, and she made us stop. She actually cares about us, or she did. But half of us were already gone by then. Nightmare doesn't... care about its servants much. If the princess hadn't noticed when she did, you never would've met me."

"It's been a long time since then," Silver said. "The city has been visited many times. I'm sure those magical defenses have all been disabled. We had a whole group of ponies to come in here, the Gatecrashers. They learned all kinds of incredible things from these ruins." It didn't seem like his reassurance was helping her very much, though. Silver reached out weakly, wrapping one leg around her shoulder. "I'm sorry I forced you to come here. If you want to run away, you can. Wait somewhere on the surface, I'll be out to use the portal again in a few weeks. Say... three weeks, to be safe. We'll want to come back at night, so nopony will be anywhere near the old Gatecrasher guild building."

It was strange to be so close to Magpie. He'd expected her to feel like rotten fruit, maybe even leaking fluids at his touch. Her body didn't yield strangely, or stink when he touched it. She was only a little cold. He could've easily mistaken her for being alive, if he didn't know better.

"I'm not going to run," she said, voice a faint squeak. "I don't think anypony could make this city safe for me. They knew what my kind were, and they hated us. But maybe... having someone alive near me is stopping it from activating. Like you're... tricking it. I'll have to stay with you as long as we're here."

She shoved away from him abruptly, expression dark. "I don't know why I have to be the one to remind you about this, seeing as you basically foalnapped me. But you just said we're going to be here for weeks. How are we going to do that if you're depending on that little spell to stay alive? Won't you run out of magic way before that? How will you sleep?"

He started walking again, taking his spell with him. She wasn't forced to follow exactly, since she didn't need to breathe. He could only imagine what it would be like to have the air suddenly missing. Would it hurt? Could they even feel pain at all? She's probably way stronger than an ordinary pony. She could've fought much harder to stop from coming in here, and she didn't. Maybe she'd been so overwhelmed with the horror of her imminent death that she hadn't been able to think straight?

"I thought about that, or I never would've come here. It's all about the Gatecrashers. They... have little parts of the old city they've made safe. My father used to tell me about the library, and how amazing it was. It had books that could speak, books that would move, like memories you were watching before your eyes. I don't... really care about any of that, but they made those parts safe. They brought air, and I'm betting they'll have food and water stored as well. Old stale air is still air I can breathe. If we're really lucky, they'll have one of those fancy machines, the ones that Moonrise uses. Then we could probably stay here as long as we wanted."

"You think they left all that behind?" Magpie might not be really trapped by the shield, but she did seem like she wanted to stay close to him. She kept beside him in the hallway now, glaring at every open doorway and fork in the tunnel like death might be waiting for them at its end.

It wasn't. So far as Silver could tell, all of Magpie's fears had rotted to nothing. Even spells could fade away with enough time.

"My father said they did. It wasn't supposed to happen—just look at how advanced all of this is." He stopped beside a wall of perfectly clear glass, with something like a playground on the other side. It had the look of flexible plastic to it—a mystery Moonrise had yet to solve. "Why would we leave if we haven't learned everything we can from copying them? I don't know what caused it... the princess got angry, or... maybe we got another Lord Commander. It was before I was born, so I don't have any memories. Point is, my dad said that they had less than an hour to leave the city. They would've left everything exactly as it was, just... abandoned. You saw the Gatecrasher guild. Everything was still in there, waiting for the next brave explorers and scholars to travel through. Just... abandoned."

She nodded slowly, still looking unconvinced. "And the princess isn't going to send her soldiers after us? Assuming the city itself doesn't murder all of us. Or maybe Nightmare Moon herself will come to kill us. She was completely nuts about this place."

"I don't think she'll find out," Silver said. "Even if we pretend for a minute that they figure out where we went... instead of just thinking that we wandered out onto the surface to die... imagine how many layers they have to connect in the chain of command before a message gets to Nightmare Moon. Each time a new creature hears about this, that's another pony that might be upset. Another pony that might be punished. How many even know I exist? We didn't even really do anything!"

Magpie shrugged. "Well you seem convinced. I'm just happy to be alive right now. Give me a few hours, and I'll probably be furious you made me come here. It's all kinds of stupid. Of all the places we could've run... you choose Vanaheimr." She turned away, wing and stump spread in frustration. "There's only one explanation. You and every other creature in Moonrise have completely lost your minds. That’s obviously it. Ponies aren't meant to live in holes, on a world where you bounce instead of walk and the sun doesn't really shine. You're all rotting away."

He didn't really have a response to that. Silver was concentrating on the air-bubble, and even more on remembering everything he could about Vanaheimr. His father had said something about the library, what had it been? The view, that was it! It had a glass wall, and you could look out on the surface of the moon while you were studying inside it. Almost like the creatures had built it for that reason.

He chose the fork leading to a ramp. "I want to go back to Equestria as much as anypony else. Didn't... creatures know in your time how impossible that was? Even an Alicorn as powerful as Nightmare Moon can't connect us to Equestria alone. It's... some kind of enduring space magic, making teleportation impossible."

"Oh, sure. You know that travel is impossible, but you have a Lord Commander preparing you to invade every moment. I feel like something else isn't connecting here."

Silver groaned—though obviously he wasn't mad at her. It wasn't like any of it was her fault. "So many ponies have thought the end would come during their generation. And the Lord Commander... maybe he knows more than we do. Maybe the princess is about to get us home, and all this is pointless." Too bad I'm going to kill him.

But the more he thought about that, the less certain he became. After all, he didn't actually know if Rockshanks had anything to do with the way Whites and Yellows were treated. Maybe it was all some kind of... misunderstanding? Maybe his real enemy was Colonel Flint. She'd been the one to actually hold public executions. She was ultimately the one responsible.

Silver felt like he was dragging his hooves up the stairs. The further they wandered, the less certain he was that there might be anywhere in the ancient city to hide. Even so, he couldn't dare stop. Whenever he grew weak, he tried to imagine the awful machine, and the row of ponies lined up to die. Maybe they'd been brave enough to resist Flint's authority, or maybe they'd just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Either way, he wasn’t going to be like them.

Silver Star had forced a spell for too long before, so he knew the delirium when it started to set in. He began muttering to himself, circling back on paths he already knew. But as his world started to fuzz, there was always a voice urging him onward. High pitched, tiny, shoving him in the side and sometimes dragging him bodily away from circling back the same way. Even if his strange magic didn't let the cold kill him, the fog of his own breath didn't help with navigation.

The longer he kept up the spell, the more Silver's world contracted. Color lost its meaning, fading into dull grays. Yet something kept pulling him along, and shoved him whenever he started dropping the spell. In many ways, it felt like starving. Except that he didn't usually have a companion along for any of that.

Silver was dimly aware of a few rooms filled with hissing, screaming air, and then there was something soft under his hooves.

"You can sleep now," said the little voice, the one that always sounded so furious with him before. "You made it."

"Won't I..." He couldn't remember what would happen. "I thought I wasn't... had to keep it up forever."

"You made it," the voice said. "Stop your spell before you have a hernia or something."

That wasn't how magic worked, but he didn't have the energy to tell her. He'd been keeping up the magic for so long that he really didn't need much more invitation to make him stop. The spell collapsed, his little bubble of air popped, and he slept at last.

Silver Star had strange dreams in the void. It wasn't the first time he'd felt like somepony was watching, but rarely did it seem like there was a pony walking with him. He was on the surface of the moon, yet somehow the lack of air didn't bother him. He should've been suffocating... but he felt fine. If anything, the shadows and darkness were what really concerned him. He lit his horn, but it could provide only a pale glow. The darkness was more than shadow, more like a physical force that twisted and curled around his body, trying to strangle him.

"You can't light this way," said the other figure. A pair of slitted bat-eyes appeared in the gloom, along with a voice that was mature and powerfully sad. "I invited the Nightmare here. Nothing can send it away now."

"Why not?" he asked. He didn't know who he was speaking to, except that they were taller than he was. Probably female, though the voice was deep enough that it was only a guess. "Don't we have enough nightmares when we're awake?"

He gritted his teeth, focusing on his spellcasting as he never had before. He reached, and strangely his reservoir of magic wasn't as empty as he'd thought. His horn grew brighter, so bright that it should've blinded him, but didn't. He could see the gray dust under his hooves, and a distant outline ahead of him. He was standing at the gates of the Sacred City, but in another time. Flashes of angry light rained down on it from above, shattering structures, tearing through metal, and killing with every blast.

"You are right in one respect, child," said the voice. "Life is certainly a nightmare. There is no field far enough, no flight fast enough. Death follows at our heels regardless. No desire to do good is enough to overcome the hatred arrayed against us."

"Who are you?" Silver turned, and the magic he conjured grew even brighter. Bright enough to see the face of his companion...

He woke with a start, jerking upright in the folding camp cot. An old sleeping-bag shed dust around him, forming a little cloud that set him to coughing and spluttering. His head ached, worse than it had the one time he'd got his hooves on an old soldier's grog ration. What the buck had he done to himself last night?

For a moment he thought he was in total darkness—then he saw the stars. A window larger than anything in Moonrise rose above him, its glass clear and perfectly even as no pony hooves could work. And outside, the stars. He groaned, tried to rise—but his hooves were caught in the sleeping bag. Instead of standing, he squealed and fell over, landing with an awkward thump.

"Well look who came back to life," Magpie said from nearby. Silver looked up, and saw the bat reclining on an oversized sofa. Oversized compared to her, anyway. It was probably the right size for a proper pony. It didn't look like any furniture he'd ever seen in Moonrise, though. It was too fine, its cushion made from that strange soft plastic that they couldn't manufacture. The kind that seemed to last forever. "I thought you might never wake up."

"I was out that long?" he groaned, shaking free of the old sleeping bag, and rising to his hooves. He was covered with dust, and his body fought to stand, but at least he was standing. "Is there water anywhere? I'm... feel like I'm dying."

Magpie pointed to a large pile on a nearby table, one that wasn't covered with dust like much everything else. These were cans, the things used to keep food fresh and eat crops out of season. He'd only ever seen them empty before, but he knew the theory. "You think they're still good after all this time? Before you were born, you said."

"Probably." He scanned their labels, old blocky text that was identical on each one. No water. But if he remembered right, most of this stuff was stored in a little water. He just needed one of those weird-shaped knives to get the cans open. "My dad said they get all swollen when they're not safe to eat anymore." Some of them had that look, bulging at their tops. He picked something at random—a can of string beans, trying to lift it into the air towards him.

His head began to throb, and he dropped it after just a few inches, groaning. "Ugh... stars above, I think I hurt myself."

"Sure looks that way," Magpie said absently. "I think it's called 'spellshock?' Don't quote me on that, it's been buckin' ages since I've talked to a doctor about anything."

He dragged himself over to the table, picking up the can and flopping around until he found the little knife there. "You went searching for these, didn't you? They wouldn't have been all neatly piled up like this."

She nodded absently. "Oh yeah, wasn't too hard. I still think this place will try to murder me if I get too far from you, but I figured the library would be safe as long as you were in it. Seems like I was right about that. Not dead so far."

"Technically..." But he didn't even have the energy for a bad joke. He took the knife in his mouth, struggling to get the blade into the top of the can. He had no idea how to actually open the damn thing—there was a circular blade as well as the little diamond one, and probably a crank to turn. But his hunger could wait. A little persistence and he finally broke the edge of the can, and could knock it back.

Green-bean water dribbled out the opening, right down his throat. It might very well have been one of the most disgusting things he'd ever tasted. But he was so thirsty that he didn't even really care. He emptied the can of every drop of moisture, right down to the little floating bits of vegetable. Then he moved onto another one, and did the same.

Finally he felt like he wasn't going to dry up, and wandered back to the cot, pulling the sleeping bag weakly over his body and closing his eyes. "Do you, uh... remember what to do about spellshock? I promise you've seen more doctors than I have."

Magpie didn't move from her perch. With his eyes closed, he couldn’t see how she might be reacting to his pain. But then, he had dragged her here. Maybe it was silly to expect compassion. "I think you're just supposed to avoid casting spells as long as possible, and... sleep it off."

There was a thump, probably her hopping off the sofa. "This place is gigantic, so we probably won't run out of air anytime soon. I don't know how its staying warm though. It doesn't seem like any machines are running, but... the room stays at the same temperature even with absolute darkness outside. Weird magic, I guess."

"I guess." He'd just have to add it to the long list of things that had saved his life. He wouldn't be able to drink ice from those cans. For that matter, freezing them probably would've destroyed them. "Good insulation, or..." Thinking was too much effort. He closed his eyes again, rolling to the side. Maybe he'd feel better in the morning. Wasn't he supposed to be fighting in a rebellion or something?