The lanterns were lit in the Ponyville Tea Room, as the last remnants of the sun fell over the valley. Directly opposite, the moon began its nightly journey, huge and full, as it cast pale light against the long shadows of Ponyville. Lero sat across from Twilight Sparkle, who fiddled with her teacup, the spoon, a bowl of cream, her mane, and pretty much anything within her sight. Two sugar cubes floated in the air in front of her, her magic manipulating them into different shapes; mostly platonic solids.

“You’re certainly nervous,” Lero said, stirring his tea.

“Yes!” Twilight said, standing up and slapping her forehooves on the table, the two sugar cubes (both dodecahedrons) rolling on the table. “Oh gosh, yes! I mean, it’s so different than any play ponies have ever seen, and I don’t know if they’ll respect it, or if the scenery we have is going to fit, and then Thunderlane hitting on every pony-”

“You know what, I regret asking that now,” Lero said. He scooted around the table to sit next to Twilight, taking her hoof in his hand. “This play will be a smashing success. I’m sure every pony will love it, and you’ll be hailed as the greatest producer of your generation.”

“Oh please, Lero,” Twilight said with a giggle. “I’m just venting. I have trust in all of the theatre crew.”

She launched into Lero with a hug, letting the tips of her wings trail across the back of her neck. Rainbow Dash wasn’t there to get on to her for public displays of affection, so she did this without fear. Let them watch, Twilight thought. I love my stallion, and he loves me.

“Lero, I’m heading on. I’ll see you after the play.”

“Good luck,” Lero said. He wasn’t sure if ‘break a leg’ was a common idiom in Equestria, and he didn’t want to go into a long explanation, or, even worse, put bad images in Twilight’s mind.

She gave him a peck on the lips, and trotted out of the tearoom. The waitress nodded, while the barista waved goodbye.

Lero drank the dregs of his tea, made a noise of satisfaction, and left the tearoom.

It was at the mid-point on the road back to the castle (where his family and friends were meeting—they were all going to Ponyville theatre together) when Lero found himself lost to the darkness of a draconequus.

“Welly welly welly welly well,” Discord said, complete with bowler hat and cane. “To what do I owe this surprise visit?”

“I’ll never get used to you using pop culture references from my world,” Lero said, shaking his head. “It’s strange to hear them here.”

“I think you mean our world, friendo,” Discord said, snaking around to plant a paw on Lero’s shoulder. Lero remained stone faced. Discord was always talkative and friendly when they were alone, but the instant another one of their shared friends were around, he’d suddenly treat Lero as if he were a stranger (”Oh, the biped wants to come along too.” “Hmm, it looks like... Leroy? Leero is listening in.”), if not just outright ignoring him altogether. He was grateful that Twilight called Discord out on it, though Discord predictably denied it.

“I don’t remember any draconequuses back home.”

“Perhaps, but I’m sure you knew of me. Don’t worry yourself about it; you wouldn’t understand the answer.”

Lero tried to keep his face blank, not letting his act of searching his memory to show as a furrowed brow or raised eyes. “Know you personally?” he asked.

“Of course not personally,” Discord said. “But, if you must, have a riddle!”

Great, Lero thought.

Discord cleared his throat, and said:

“I await your inevitable disappointment when you decipher the riddle,” Discord said, tapping his heels.

“That’s an odd self-disparaging remark,” Lero said. “Not what I’d expect from you.”

Discord shrugged. “I am vast, I contain multitudes.”

“Hmm,” Lero said. “Well, be seeing you.”

He started his walk to the castle again, and was painfully aware that Discord was tagging along.

“You won’t get rid of me that easily, number 6,” Discord said. “I’m meeting Fluttershy and assorted at the castle as well.”

Wonderful, Lero thought. “I didn’t know you were interested in seeing the play.”

“Why wouldn’t I? Me and ‘ol froggy-eyes go way back. I’d love to see how Twilight ruins Huis Clos.”

“I’m sure Twilight will do just fine,” Lero said, irritated at himself for rising to the bait.

“Oh sure, sure,” Discord said, as he floated past Lero, an inflatable blue raft carrying him on whatever invisible pool he traveled on. He dipped his claw off of the side, the sound of splashing water clear and ringing.

“Dear, lovely, bookish, Princess Twilight Sparkle. Twily, Twily, Twily. Hmm.”

Lero mentally braced himself for whatever jackassery Discord had planned.

“I wonder if she’s thought of the full implications of her transformation,” Discord said, as he rubbed a bottle of moontan lotion on his furry chest. “Living on while her friends and loved ones die.”

“I hope to have a talk with her about it,” Lero said.

“Could you imagine how upset she would be, seeing the aging and death going on around her while she doesn’t change? Why, I bet she’d be so distraught, she might even instrumentality an entire ponykind!”

Lero sighed, despite himself. “Discord, let me handle it. I’m going to talk to Lyra and Dash on how, or even if, we should approach the subject.” I’m probably the only one worried about this, Lero thought. Maybe Twilight’s thought through all this already, and dealt with it.

“So you say,” Discord said, putting on an oversized pair of sunglasses and holding a tanning reflector to his face. He floated on, keeping pace with Lero, as he walked to the castle.

There was no fanfare when Celestia and Luna flew into Beavertron. Many spells had been cast to make their arrival as stealthy as possible. They cast no shadows despite being in the soft light of the full moon. Their hooves beat against the grassy park without indention and made no sound, and anypony who happened to be there that night wouldn’t even notice a shimmer as the two passed, though they may have felt a gentle warmth if they walked through them.

“My word,” Luna said, her words in Celestia’s mind instead of her ears, “do you feel the wrongness of this town? It literally shouldn’t exist.”

“This is a mimic city,” Celestia said, unfolding her wings, beating against air that didn’t even move the grass beneath their hooves. “Can you see its feeding?”

Luna cast her spells and probed at the city she was in. The ley lines did not shine gold with good health, but were green and diseased as they were twisted by the town, which cast them into neighboring towns to siphon psychic energy.

A false, parasite city sprung into being from the congruence of negative thoughts, astral instability, and a blasted clerical error, Luna thought. Now a predator, feeding on other cities—

“Some of these ponies aren’t real,” Luna whispered. “They’re avatars of the city mimic.”

Celestia followed Luna’s example and cast a divining spell. Two ponies at what was apparently the orphanage, pony in appearance, were a mass of astral sickness, with long slimy tendrils, like puppet strings, pushing and pulling them along. Celestia traced them to the mimic; they were bait for ponies, like the fishing rod of the anglerfish.

“I sense the archon,” Luna said. She looked toward Aether forest and glared.

“As do I,” Celestia said. “I understand why she escaped our notice for so long. She’s using this parasite as camouflage.”

“Would casting our fortress spells cause this city to attack us?”

“I doubt it,” Celestia said. “If we don’t threaten the city, it won’t defend itself. Be cautious, however.”

The two nodded. They closed their eyes and cast the fortress spell, sisters’ magic folding over each other like hands clasping fingers, familiar and loving. The wall shimmered like an aurora. No archon had ever tried to escape from them, but there was no need to take chances.

Both felt a stirring in the Aether forest

“Now is the time,” Luna said.

Luna trotted out into the moonlight, spreading her wings, taking in the light and letting it mingle with her magic. A deep, happy moan escaped her throat as she closed her eyes and lifted her head.

Slowly, her horn faded, turning translucent, like a canopy over a bed, before fading into nothing. From her temples sharp, silver points sprung, parting her blue coat smoothly, growing into horns, curling around; ram horns of pure silver, and on the only head that could not be bowed by their weight.

From the base of her wings sprouted four more wings, feathers turning silver in the moonlight. A pair of wings folded over her face to protect any being, and the land, from seeing the shining glory radiating from her—they would be instantly destroyed. Her other wings covered each hoof. Each step she took did not touch the ground; violets, tulips, and daisies sprouted, withered, and died underneath her hooves.

“Sister,” Luna said, not needing to see to know where Celestia was standing; the life force of all beings, from her sister standing with her to a worm burrowing in a garden on the other side of the planet, were apparent to her. “Will this be another training exercise for Cadance and Twilight? Perhaps fake your defeat, as with Chrysalis?”

Celestia bristled. “Absolutely not,” she said. “I’d never send them against an archon.”

“They why are you in your diminished aspect? Break your locks.”

A pause. Luna had all the power they needed, but caution and perception would be a good trump to have.

A chime like a bell, augmented seventh; a reverberating gong; a baritone devil’s chord played in coastal sand.

Celestia’s wings were in display, like heraldry.

Her coat shimmered with gold, like sunlight shining from a golden age years ago. The vanes of her feathers split and opened like eyelids; golden eyes searched around, both on the front and back of each feather, as a single teardrop of gold fell and met with the eyes below it until they formed a lattice of golden tears. Two golden teardrops fell from the eyes in her face and flowed down her cheek and underneath her jaw until they met in a perfect line, with no feathering or bleeding, as if she always had those markings. Her hooves elongated and split like a deer, each step a whisper on the grass. She could run now, and nothing physical would impede her.

Her eyes saw everything.

What they saw now was the dark barren wasteland that was the planet Gaia; dirt and rocks, the true form now that the veil of magic had been lifted from Celestia’s eyes. Magic was a shared hallucination that created consensus reality. Of the natural inhabitants here, the dragon scientist Lysergia Dives had come closest to piercing the latent reality behind the apparent reality. Celestia dreaded the day when any of this land’s native inhabitants saw Gaia for what it truly was. She only hoped that they would realize it didn’t matter—reality is what you make it.

She saw her ponies. They were invaders like her, not evolving from the awfulness like the goats, or from magic like the griffons, or appearing ex nihilo like the dragons. It was in her childhood when Celestia looked down on this realm, and saw the shadows her people cast; shadows cast into three dimensional space-time, shadows that were living, thinking, and self-aware beings.

Celestia loved them. Her own people paid them no mind; ponies were too low, too dimensionally limited, to be worth anything. They lived such short lives of desperate survival that it seemed pointless to care that their shadows had produced these beings.

Them being the offspring of her people’s shadows didn’t matter. He heart overflowed in empathy with the pain of existence these ponies felt, and she endeavored to help them lead fulfilling lives. It’s why she left the upper realms to be here; because she loved the ponies. Luna followed because she loved Celestia.

“Four, five, and seven,” Luna said, naming the locks Celestia broke. “Only those?”

“You have all the power we need,” Celestia said. She would never break all seven locks in this realm, anyway. It would be the last song this planet ever heard.

Celestia could see through the forest, where the archon was waiting, sadness apparent in her large almond eyes, but sadness with pride, like the runner up who knows she did her best.

Celestia let her gaze move toward Ponyville, where she saw the ponies, descendants of the original shadows, milling about in the evening, waiting in line for the play she hoped she could see in time. There was a line now, and Pinkie Pie, talking to Applejack, turned, smiled, said “Hi, Celestia!”, and waved.

Celestia was stunned, but she managed to smile and wave back.

“Pinkie Pie can see me,” Celestia said.

Though covered by her wings, Celestia knew Luna had pursed her lips. “I can’t say I’m surprised. She has the deepest well of magic I have ever seen. It even casts outside of this realm.”

“To where?”

Luna shifted. “I can’t see the root of it,” Luna said, softly, almost reverently. “Even in this form. You know, she used to hop into dreams I was visiting, interfering with my work. I had to put her in charge of the complaint office at the Ministry of Dreams, just to keep her occupied at night.”

Celestia pushed back contemplations, saving them for later. “Well, no more dallying.” She sighed. “Let’s go.”

“Where irritation awaits,” Luna said.

Luna and Celestia headed into the forest, the dark pines parting for Luna as she trod upon the air, leaving life and death in her wake. Celestia simply passed through the woods, as nothing could restrain her now.

The bull-roarers were silent. There were no ecstatic partiers. Only the Runner in the Woods, at her full height, her antlers seeming to catch the moonlight. Most of her phalli hung flaccid, the exceptions being The Sword and The Cathedral, both of which were fully erect. She did not avert her gaze, and showed no fear.

“Well,” Luna said, not waiting for the Runner to make her opening salvo, “I see you decided not to rape our ponies tonight. Odd that an archon would show sense.”

“I give them what they want,” the Runner said. “What they don’t even know they want. You aeons are not invited into my forest.”

“I hope we can keep verbal jesting to a minimum,” Celestia said, taking a dainty step forward. “Archon, we are here to stop your crimes against the ponies.”

“I am Vala,” she said. “And there are no crimes here. If you want to attack, do so and stop wasting my time.”

“I’d prefer discussion and negotiation,” Celestia said. “However, I’m not so naive as to hope this ends any differently than past encounters with your brethren. Perhaps you could surprise me.”

“You have no right to speak of them,” Vala said, her booming voice full of brassy fury. “You murderers, you couldn’t stay away from our realm. Imagine how I feel, every day, every night, when I look up and see the corpses of my oldest brother and sister as you drag them across the sky.”

“They have been more useful in death than they ever have been in life,” Luna said. Luna had little desire to talk to Vala. It would be a simple matter to destroy her; simply flick open her wings and assault Vala with her terrible beauty. But Celestia always had to negotiate. Luna wished Celestia’s pragmatic sense was a touch stronger.

“Useful,” Vala said. She spotted a dead tree, black from lightning, and touched it with her hand. Curls of pine leaves unfolded, and it burst with life. “Useful to ponies? Let me tell you about ponies.”

“Please, don’t,” Luna said, with a flat tone. “Anything but that.”

“We don’t need to have concepts of ‘useful’, unless it’s useful to us,” she said, as she paced like a caged tiger, not once looking away from her two captors. “We saw your shadows cast down here, and the forms they took. We saw you aeons neglect your progeny. They are invaders too, though it isn’t their fault. Do you know why griffons are so antagonistic toward ponies? Because griffons actually evolved here. They struggled, and fought, and survived. Ponies were made, and then cast onto this realm. Even worse, they are given protections and coddling the griffons never had.”

“I endeavor to treat all living beings-”

“Don’t waste your time explaining yourself to her,” Luna said. “Archons have always treated the living beings here cruelly.”

“I cared,” Vala said, “I cared about these ponies, and helped them while your kind were looking the other way.”

“I don’t follow.” Celestia said. Luna smiled at the coldness now entering her voice.

“Do you understand my aim here?” the Runner said. “You call it rape, but it is an awakening. I took these ponies and gave them strong, powerful experiences, powerful urges that set them on that royal road of self-awareness. My rites and rituals lifted ponies from beasts to beings. I was doing this before any of you ever appeared. I had to hide for a long time, but this town provided great protection.”

“Perhaps I need to make myself clear,” Luna said, as the silver feathers of her wings bristled and waved. “I don’t want to hear your defense. We aren’t going to get into an argument about morality. What you must understand is that Gaia is our property, and we dictate morality. We made ourselves known to your ilk when we first arrived, and we made it clear we didn’t want the beings on this planet to be harmed in any way. We set the rules quite strictly on proper behavior, which was, namely; leave them alone.”

Luna circled around the perimeter of the grove, not bothering to pretend she was watching the Runner. Luna could feel her pulsating power, as powerful and gross as an anaconda in a swamp. “Your elder brother and sister confronted us, and of course, you know how that turned out. The rest were dragged to Tartarus, through no power of our own. Imagine, not even our brother in his sad half-life approves of you lot.”

“I am prepared to meet my fate,” the Runner sniffed. “I scorn it. Demiurge will avenge us when he comes and sees what you’ve done with his creation.”

“You will not fight?” Celestia said. She and her sister traded a confused awareness, an astral version of a physical glance. No archon had ever surrendered before.

“I am Vala,” she said. “The Runner in the Woods. I do not fight.”

“Even with the knowledge that we will kill you,” Luna said.

“I told you. I scorn my fate.”

Crunching and smacking came from the air above them. Celestia didn’t have to look to know it was Discord, sitting on a ratty chair and tossing popcorn into his fanged maw.

“Discord, please leave,” Celestia said.

“Why is the outer devil here?” Vala said.

“Oh, but Celestia,” Discord said, “I’ve never seen you and Luna actually deal with one of these critters before. Surely you wouldn’t-” his words flashed into a puff of smoke as Luna teleported him away. Far away.

“That should keep him occupied for a while,” Luna said.

“Vala, I apologize for the interruption,” Celestia said. She could feel Luna’s irritation at her apologizing to such a creature, but no matter. "As far as your fate is concerned, we have no interest in killing you, or torturing you, or sending you to Tartarus.”

Speak for yourself, Luna thought. Celestia thought back the response of a resigned smirk.

“At least, we are actively working against Tartarus taking you.”

“And what should this mean to me?” Vala said.

“Our aim, for giving you this simple courtesy, is to answer a simple question. Who is Demiurge?”

“The creator. Our creator. Your creator.”

“No being created me,” Luna spat. “Our first ancestors evolved in the wash of the big bang.”

“Which Demiurge designed and executed,” Vala said. “You aeons chose to forget, out of pride and vanity.”

Luna snorted. “I’ve heard about Demiurge from every single archon. What’s taking him so long to appear? Does he have diarrhea? Does he need someone to bring him some toilet paper before he can make his glorious return?”

Luna could feel Celestia’s irritation. Why do your insults always turn to bathroom matters? Celestia thought. Luna thought back the feeling of a tongue sticking out in merriment.

“You all will remember soon, when he returns. He will remind you, and no amount of pleading will allow you to escape your destruction. So crawl on your knees, begging like a pathetic child, your face covered in snot and tears. We will laugh at you.”

A lion’s paw wrapped around Celestia’s middle, while a claw did the same for Luna. “Well, this is quite a pickle you two are in,” Discord said, as a salty brine swirled around them, tinting the world green. “I bet I could convince ‘ol Demi-wimmy to spare you two, if he actually exists. Frankly this sounds like a whole lot of garbage.” His voice sent bubbles to the surface of the pickle jar, breaking the brine with splashes.

Luna cast her teleportation spell again. It dissipated as Discord countered it. He swam out from between them, arms cutting into waves as he executed a perfect breaststroke.

“Trying to cast me into the sea of eternity again? Don’t even b-”

Discord thudded into the grass, a solid statue now, his mouth open in a grotesque brag. The pickle jar had also disappeared.

Thank you, Celestia, Luna thought.

“Now we but need your brother and the biped,” Vala said. “And then all the outsiders will be in my forest.”

“Vala, we thank you for your cooperation.” Celestia said. “Let’s not drag this out any further.”

Celestia cast a spell, and a flash enveloped Vala. There was nothing drawn out, nothing requiring time. The Runner in the Woods was once there, and now, in her place, was an earth pony mare.

Vala’s mouth hung open, but she clanged it shut. Despite how hard she struggled, her legs shook.

“You are a pony now,” Celestia said. “You are under the laws of the land of Equestria, and will submit to them. Failure to do so will introduce you to our court system, which is stern but fair.”

“How could you,” Vala said, and she finally looked away.

“You will need to eat and sleep, and perform all the functions of a biological being for survival—if you chose survival,” Celestia said. “You also have no cutie mark. Life will be difficult in pony society for one without this mark, but you are free to find your own destiny as a pony.”

Luna, seeing no reason to wait any longer, cast the spell that destroyed the mimic city. A scream broke across the astral plane, shrill and beastly, before dying with a sharpness. Most of the buildings, and half of the ‘ponies’ in Bearvertron, were no more. They were parts of the mimic, and had died along with it.

Vala felt its destruction, and collapsed to the ground.

“It’s wrong that you have such power,” she said, looking up fiercely, gritting her teeth through her fresh tears.

“Vala, I have no compunction against making life worse for you,” Luna said. “Stay here and rot; I don’t care.”

Vala jumped to her hooves and ran into the woods, away from the city.

Celestia sighed.

“I’d sigh too, but from disgust,” Luna said. “I can’t believe I let you talk me into letting her live.”

“Thank you for keeping your word, Luna.”

“Hmm,” Luna said, as she turned to study Discord’s statue. The statue had somehow propped itself upright, and was now wearing dark sunglasses and a top hat of the same gray color as his granite prison. On the grass next to him was a brown ceramic pot, with “Donations Accepted” engraved on its side.

“I will say, however, that I’m glad you didn’t even consider sending her to Twilight for friendship lessons,” Luna said. “I would have vetoed that with great rigor.”

“Friendship lessons with Twilight?” Discord said, as he stepped from behind his statue. “Oh, she would have killed herself for sure.”

Celestia stopped herself from pouting. “We have an outline on telling Twilight and Cadance about Vala,” Celestia said. Not to mention a letter to Ms. Berry Punch. “I’m still not certain on how much we should share.”

“I’d say all of it, just to watch the fallout,” Luna said, in a flippant and light tone.

“Now that’s more like it,” Discord said, materializing a tub of popcorn again. It was quickly zapped from his paw by Luna.

“Must you engage in that tiresome cliché, Discord? Do something original, ‘outer devil’.”

“Yes, she probably became aware of me during my little coup d’état all those centuries ago,” Discord said, as he materialized a steaming hot mug of pickle juice. He laughed to himself. “I will never stop being amused about you two falling into my trap. Power doesn’t presuppose wisdom, does it?”

“We followed your rules and defeated you,” Luna said, striding toward Discord, her silver wings glistening in the moonlight.

“Oh, I could have easily broken the rules I set, but it was all japery anyway.” He opened Luna’s wings as light brighter than any magnesium flare blasted through the woods. Luna’s glory petrified the pines and grass in its wake, and ripped away even the veils of magic. Magic would never touch this area ever again.

“Peek-a-boo,” Discord said, as he shut the wings. “Well, that was an overproduction. Really, you should learn the meaning of restraint.”

“Irony has a dull taste, coming from you,” Luna said.

Discord held his closed paw to his mouth, and coughed. He turned away, frowning. “I probably shouldn’t have done that,” he said. His voice was dark and strained. A shock of worry entered Celestia at the sound of it.

“Discord,” Celestia said, floating toward him. “Are you okay?”

Discord, still frowning, quaffed his pickle juice in one gulp. He flicked the mug over his shoulder, where it exploded against a petrified pine, sending shards in every direction. “I’m... not okay at all,” he said. He turned and glared at Luna.

“I did not invite you to open my wings,” Luna said, an errant tone of compassion entering her voice. “I can help you, if-”

Discord belched, his entire body contorting at the unimaginable force of it. A green cloud floated above him, noxious and choking, as it headed for the upper atmosphere.

“Ah, just a bit of gas!” Discord said, in his familiar cheery and mocking tone. “Well, that’s that. You ladies plan on making it to Twilight’s little production? Introducing Sartre to ponies, imagine! I always knew that Lero had a sick mind.”

“We have clean up duties to perform and citizens to reassure,” Celestia said. She cast a spell message to the civil guard headquarters in Canterlot, requesting an immediate disaster report on Beavertron (with star map and ground map included). With that done, she reconstructed her locks and reverted to her regular biological form. Luna did the same, not bothering to hide her irritation at Discord.

“We’ll arrive shortly,” Luna said. “We don’t plan on missing it.”

“Very well, au revoir! And good luck with the whole explaining to Twilight and Cadance that everything thing they know is a lie.” He held up his paw to hide his face in an imitation of secrecy, and gave a theatrical wink. “You’ll need it.” He disappeared, warping away to Ponyville to catch the opening acts.

Luna and Celestia made their way through the forest, toward Beavertron.

“I have a feeling your glory hurt Discord more than he let on,” Celestia said, as she crunched through the undergrowth of the forest.

“It would do my pride well to believe that,” Luna said, regret in her voice, “but I’m afraid all it really did was give him indigestion.”

They were silent up to the border of Beavertron, where the first thing they noticed were the crying children.

Many spells had been constructed by Celestia and Luna in the early days of their arrival on this world; strong spells conducted in secret, to help the beings of Gaia to live and survive. These spells even had intelligence of sorts, and were designed to flow through the land, performing their duties. These special spells were called daemons.

Once such daemon, The Hopeless Pursuit of Remission (a mnemonic for Luna and Celestia, in case they ever had to unravel or repair it; all daemons were given mnemonics as names), had the function of collecting simulacra, psychic images created by all living beings, and spiriting them into the magicae mundi, which converted these images into mana, the basic fuel of magic. Every creature that came from this planet, from the smallest microbe to the largest dragon, gave off simulacra; images from dreams, and from unconscious desires.
Without this daemon, simulacra would stalk the land, causing fear, emotional and mental instabilities, and even insanity.

So, The Hopeless Pursuit of Remission, during its constant and continual background duties, noted that all living beings in designation Ponyville weren’t there anymore.

It had no opinion on this. It reported the discrepancy to the controller daemon (Your Face when I Finally), and continued on its duties.

In Ponyville, as the moon was wide in the sky, and the curtains in Ponyville Theatre opened for the first of the comedic opening acts to precede No Exit; when, in the remains of Beavertron, Luna and Celestia met with the civil guards to figure out how to help the orphans, the pigs on the Apple’s farm stopped eating.

Each one squealed and screamed, running around their sty, tearing up mud, splattering the fences. Their squeals were full of terror. They were calling out to Princess Luna, trying to alert her. They had found the being she was looking for.

Luna couldn’t hear them. As far as the world was concerned, Ponyville might as well have never existed.