Transistance

Vigil

Luna ran.

Beams of pale moonlight glanced through gaps in trees and bushes that lined a well-trodden dirt path. Luna’s hooves beat against the hard-packed soil, sending plumes of dust rushing up around her. The only sound in the entire forest was her running, the rest was silent as death.

Leaves brushed her flanks, and limbs rushed out in front of her to lash at the mare’s exposed sides. She could see . . . something . . . flitting through the trees, moving as silently as a shadow across still water. It reached for her, and Luna ran harder.

She ran until all she could hear was the pound of her heart in ears. Her breath came in shallow gasps and her lungs burned, but she pressed herself onwards. She could feel the darkness closing in, could feel it rushing towards her like a wave upon the beach.

For a moment, Luna thought she could get away. Then, the dirt path ended in a wall of oak and poplar and mesquite, a prison of forest laced with vines and shrubs. The mare skidded to a stop and beat her hooves against it. She tried to raise her magic to clear it, but found she had no horn. A look back confirmed her fears, that her wings were gone and replaced with smooth fur.

The mare pressed herself against the wall as the darkness approached. It gathered together and coalesced itself into the shape of a pony that rose high above Luna. Violet eyes stared down at her, stared right through her skin and down into her soul.

The alicorn made of darkness smiled, a golden crown on its forehead. “We’re more alike than you think.”

 ---

Luna’s eyes snapped open. She forced herself to take deep breaths to stop her heart from hammering. Sweat ran in rivulets down her forehead, and her back felt clammy against the leather-padded seat she had chosen at the spaceport hours before.

She sat near the back of the spacecraft, strapped into a leather couch while a silver tube rocketed away from the world below a hundred times faster than any pegasus ever could. A single mare with silver boots that stuck to the faux-carpet aisle was serving drinks near the front of the lounge.

Most ponies around her had fallen asleep like she had, most with plugs in their ears to handle the pressure and drown at the sound of the engines far behind them. Luna could hear their gentle hum behind her, and knew they would reach the moon soon.

Luna reached over and pressed a button on the smooth, curved wall to her right. The beige wall flickered and was replaced with a hologram representation of what was outside the spacecraft. She could see the lunar surface start to fly by, packed with craters and flurries of dust left in the rocket’s wake. She had once known every inch of the moon by name, but those memories had died with Nightmare Moon. They were only hazy memories now, like a dream within a dream.

A light flashed on the console of her seat and a voice came from speakers around the cabin: “Attention passengers, Flight 9732 has begun its descent to the Deckard Corporation Headquarters Spaceport, and will arrive in approximately five minutes. All luggage will be unloaded into baggage trams that will meet you in the terminal. Have a nice day, and thank you for flying with White Unicorn.”

Passengers around the cabin snorted and blinked their way out of sleep. Chatter rose into a loud hum as business ponies around Luna greeted one another and talked shop while the spacecraft braked toward the spaceport.

Luna looked out the holographic window again. The spaceport was in view now, a sprawling complex of squat, gray buildings clustered around a massive tower of steel and blinking lights that rose far above the lunar surface. Metal rockets that looked as small as sewing needles stuck out from the docking tower, held in place by massive clamps in the low gravity of the moon’s upper atmosphere.