Only years of practice playing many a role, assuming entire identities in the dream realm, had allowed Luna to play her role. The role was a simple one, and all she had needed to do was perfectly play the part of herself before she knew the truth.
Celestia might be a master at detecting lies. She had centuries of experience reading every slight motion, picking up and interpreting even tiny imperfections in tone of voice no mortal could even hear. Still, all that would not aid her if there was no deception.
Luna was no mere method actor. No, when she truly wished to take on a character, she became them. Since her return, she had no choice but to make use of that talent countless times.
Without the ability to create fragments, it fell to her to be whoever her ponies needed most in their dreams. She could simply close her eyes as Luna and open them as somepony else.
Every word, every motion, every little thought that was there for her sister to see behind her eyes was utterly sincere despite being, at least in part, a fabrication.
Her mind drifted back to the embrace. The raw-power constrained in those white wings that had enveloped her, the scent of summer flowers and ash that filled her nose. A warmth settled in her chest. There had been nothing insincere about it, no Mask controlling things. That had been her sister's true heart. That had been Tia the sister, and not Celestia the ruler of the most powerful nation in the world.
The truth was even she was unsure how much of the act was a falsehood. The craven longing that sat next to her heart insisted how wonderful things would be to simply have let the act become the truth. To cradle that warmth her sister had inspired and breath more life upon it until it became a flame.
How could mine sister love me so and yet the Princess do such terrible things to me? A part of her wanted to deny what the former Nightmare had told her. It insisted that it had to have only been a plan to place a seed of doubt, a machination to cause strife between the two royal Alicorns.
Unfortunately, the pact Night swore ensured everything she had said was the truth. There was no other possibility that would have left Twilight Sparkle still alive.
A part of her hated deceiving her sister, but it was necessary. There was no other choice. Currently, Equestria needed its Princess of the Sun and needed her to be at her best. Was this what drove her sister too, simple necessity?
Another part, a part much nearer the truth, bared her fangs and snarled out every grievance she had. It was only a flight of fancy. It was no fragment. Only a private dreamscape, a chance to vent where nopony could ever hear.
Her hooves loyally carried her to her bed chambers, past the lone sentry. Mentally her attention was elsewhere, focused much more on the expanse of her bastion and its beautiful depictions of glittering lights above. The light that thrashed violently called to her, sought to draw her in. Faint notes of her own cackles and vile words thrown as weapons towards her sister. Taunts far more suitable for the arena and not the sort of words a Proper Princess should ever utter.
She pulled back and focused upon the entire sky of her Bastion. It was still early enough that her own dream orb had plenty of company as it floated in the void above. An orb winked out. Fortunately, this time it only signified a return for the dreamer to the waking world.
Wistfully she lightly touched one. In a simple moment, a little colt's train set, made huge, wound around all their friend's homes. It was most definitely not their normal conveyance to their place of learning. Nor would any train line be allowed to take a shortcut through the throne room.
A dull ache rose in her chest. A whimsy to join the intrepid crew as the train slowly morphed into an airship most grand. Oh, it would be most fun to be the Dread Pirate Luna for a time.
The presence was immediately noticeable. The bastion itself seemed heavier, but not as much as the violation of an invader.
Luna looked back over her shoulder, and a small smile found its way onto her lips. The Tantabus sat there on her haunches with her prized blue ball held in her mouth. She looked for all the stars like an over-eager puppy with her wagging tail.
It was not long before a living piece of the night made manifest was haring around in dogged pursuit of an enchanted orb.
"This is not how I planned on unwinding…" Luna thought aloud as her aura removed the tricorn hat from her head.
A nagging doubt gnawed at her, like a toothache or the itching of a miss-aligned feather. The sensation refused to be ignored.
She looked up and allowed herself to take in the full vastness of her bastion. The whole of her endless citadel was empty, bereft of all but the portraits that were the phantoms of her past.
Her sister had left her mark here in two places. The first was the one she saw each time she gained or lost a Nightguard, the second she avoided.
For the first time in a long time, she made herself see. She pressed her will against the slippery membrane. The Faust forsaken 'gift' her sister dearest entrenched in this most personal of spaces.
The sounds of her rattling feathers almost defended her, and every muscle in her body tried to drag her gaze away.
She snorted. This was just one more challenge. One more foe that she would crush. If she was weak enough to be dissuaded by a mere aversion charm, she would not be worthy of being alive today.
Even though she knew the physical act was merely turning her eyes to look, it felt like she smashed her way through a glacier. Each of its fragments begged, pleaded or threatened. They used multitudes of methods to convince her to turn back. Not one of them succeeded.
It was in the center of a field of ash that once was a grand courtyard. The most noticeable thing that demanded attention was a golden obelisk. Its surface razor-edged and barbed. The thing fought back. A shimmering miraged tried fruitlessly to obscure the truth from her sight.
With the sound of shattering glass, the perception filter died.
For a few long seconds, Luna's potent mind refused to accept what she saw. Then it insisted it must be a conjuration of her own imagination, but try as it might, it failed at keeping the horrid truth from her.
What had once been smooth and glittering gold was tarnished and blackened, scattered around like so much detritus where dozens of charred alicorn skeletons lay. Their forms twisted in a vain attempt to escape their demise.
Her legs trembled and then gave out. "… She did not stop me making fragments…"
How many paid for mine experiments? For a moment, shock, rage, grief, and many other emotions warred in her before frigid ice smothered them.
She smoothly rose to her hooves, a cold purpose burned in her luminous eyes.
“Sister dearest. We will have an accounting.”
Oh... Oh no... Celestia what have you done.
great chapters
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… I think the obolisk Kills any figment she makes
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The very thing that we all feared she would but knew that she did.
The virus has been revield, the infected areas known. It is only a matter of time before it is understood and eradicated.
What the Fuck...wow
11255001
Now is there a limit to how many fragments it can kill? Can you overwhelm it with NUMBERS?!
Remember, Twilight overwhelmed ANOTHER Spell of Celestia with Numbers , so COULD IT BE as fucked up as it is, that if you just keep making Fragments , that eventually it can't keep up with the Amount and One gets out ( it SEEMS to be a radius thing?) they seem to be alive for a while soo...
11255038
Ok my brain is just GOING NOW! Where does it get the POWER from ? Because you would think that this is a foreign object in Lunas Bastion , so the Magic isn't coming from Luna herself? We learned that Celestial and Lunar Magic don't like each other soo ... Or is it not working with Magic because its in her bastion?
Is Luna effectively killing her own Fragments?
I am semi confused in that ending. I get those jer fragments but not much more.
But honestly Celestia. You KNOW Luna needs fragments for mental health so what was your long term goal?
11255038
Wouldn't the issue be that you can't make too many fragments at once? They are parts of one's soul after all, and if this kills them whenever spawned, that's bound to do some damage.
So if I’m reading that ending right, Celestia’s “measure” to stop Luna from fragmenting was to place a inescapable Obelisk mouse trap that horribly annihilated them. Man Celestia your Karma must be huge, any time you show a positive character moment, someone finds your quite Literal closet Skeletons.
.... This is stunning.. well written and gave me shudders.. truly Tia is a chilling monster in this universe..
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Warmind or Daybreaker is likely the best part of Celestia right now. She knows what Celestia needs bit Celestia will not heed it
11255098
Ive been waiting for the mask to do something since 2 years ....your not alone here thinking she will do something
And it continues:
breathe
hurrying i guess? x.x
probably meant defeated here. and rustling instead of rattling
now imagine if you will, that one of the "figments" that was destroyed in the trap room, was the original Luna from Celestia's youth, while the current one is the only figment that survived, only because it hadn't found the room till now?
There is no way that this doesn't end with Celestia either dead or caged in Tartarus.
Hmm, what's the point in doing this anyway?
My question is does Celestia have any clue that Twilight and Luna basically want Celestial head on a (maybe metaforical) pike?
Great chapter like always 🤣 but I have to ask I know this is an alternate take on Celestia but why does the fandom of MLP think she secretly evil🤔 oh and I'm not talking about the celestia in this story
These Celestia bits are my favorite part of the story so far. Seeing how hard down the rabbit hole she can go.
Well damn, all caught up after being recced this fic. And like always when I find a new big fic it either updates right after I catch-up or as I'm catching up.
After getting to this point and seeing comments/reviews till now I'm still highly amused by the amount of times I see people saying that Daybreaker should be the one in charge of Celestia's body. Y'all do realize she's the most hyper paranoid character bar none by design. Sure her first few acts of freedom would likely be immolating the hilariously corrupted Nobles, then following that performance up with either dropping a Solar Smite on Luna, Twilight and Cadence or going out and glassing other countries who "are a threat to Equestria," order may vary. She would eliminate one enemy and start looking for another, whether there are any or not. What Celestia probably needs the most is a good ol fashioned Harmony blast, understandably difficult with the timeline of course, to see if it resets her Mana pool safely and hopefully be enough to give her a mental kick in the teeth to realize her failings. Either way, eventual end game confrontation is going to need to be in the middle nowhere hundreds of miles from any civilization.
Definitely excited for more.
Edit:
One thing I'm definitely curious about is why none of Luna, Twilight, Night or Dreams have tried to undo the various seals in Twilight's or, with this chapter's revelation, Luna's minds. Pretty sure by this point it has been well established that in terms of raw spellcasting ability Twilight outstrips everyone. Celestia is actually unable to manage the super delicate and intricately woven magic and has to use brute force methods. And honestly, unless the various mental seals are tied directly to Celestia's magic by some kind of higher dimensional ties Twilight should have the raw skill and ability to work around and through anything not backed immediately by obscenely monolithic power.
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Perhaps, her tragedy is that she IS the proverbial rabbit hole.
Sooner or later they will have to address the bits of Celestia's magic in their heads. Some need it removed, but Twi will apparently fall apart without it? Even if she can't destroy them without alerting Celestia, why hasn't Twi reinforced herself so she won't blow apart at the seams if Celestia pulls the string?
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For all the crazy plans she uses Twilight for, she is either a mastermind or an idiot.
To trust a young unicorn she supposedly cares for, with the fate of the world many times over, is a bit cruel and at best wreckless.
Rather than accept that she is stupidly making theses decisions, most evil Celestia writers view her as cold and calculating and intentionally putting Twilight in mortal danger.
Even in the context of cannon, Celestia either has too much faith in Twilight, or has a greater magical understanding of what is happening in Equestria.
True I can't deny that Celestia does put Twilight in danger a lot and she definitely knows more than what she's letting on and can definitely come off as a manipulator and a mastermind but I just can't see her as evil or too cold because if she was she would have thought of a plan to kill or in prison Luna again when she returned she had a thousand years to plan she could have done it or shatter Discord when he was trapped in the statue he was vulnerable at the time and you also have to consider when Luna change into nightmare Moon Celestia didn't fight back she tried to talk Luna down and was just dodging her attacks until she realized she couldn't and try to use the elements of harmony and when they worked and banished Luna to the Moon 🌙 Celestia look shocked as if she didn't attend for that to happen and again I'm not saying that Celestia is a saint but she's far from evil because if she was why would the elements allow her to use them and the elements have shown to have sentience so shouldn't we consider the possibility that the elements chose to balance lunar and the part of Celestia putting Twilight in danger you'll have to consider the fact that Twilight is an element of Harmony so it is practically also her job to deal with issues and maybe the reason Celestia sends Twilight on missions because she knows Twilight and her friends bring up the best outcomes because in the contents of the show we see that Celestia can receive visions from the future unclear visions But visions nonetheless so maybe that's the reason she just wants the best outcome for everyone and Twilight and a friends provide the best outcome I'm not saying she's perfect or a saint but if you consider all the facts and the worst thing she could have done I feel like solicit is just trying to make the best decisions she can at the time and also even though I do love this story I sometimes feel like this story goes out of its way to vindicate nightmare Moon and demonize Celestia I could be wrong and they're definitely other stories that demonize her worse either way this is just my opinion and still a good story
And again I'm not saying Celestia is perfect I'm just saying maybe the fan base treats her a little bit too harshly
Wait, so is this the real reason that Luna can't bring anyone else into her mindscape? (Or was it the other way around?)
I need to reread this fic.
Well, there goes the bulk of the 'Celestia is being framed' theory.
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Depends on version this version needs a reckoning.
Down with the solar tyrant. Long Live the lunar empress