Post by virgadesoleil on Mar 19, 2014 22:49:45 GMT -5
Location: Luna's Chambers.
Time: Unspecified, likely Night.
Cast: Princess Luna, Virga.
-----
LUNA
As usual, the doors in and around Luna's chambers are open. Technically, very little has changed. The differences that mark this period of mourning are subtle. Celestia built her palace of gold and marble, but nothing shines in Luna's chambers now. A faint tarnish has spread to every surface, visible only in how flat the colors are, reflecting no light. Lights in general have been reduced to a minimum. Luna's fireplace is lit, but with only a single log. A couple of candles are left in each room. Luna waits in her bedchamber itself, with the other change in decoration. A bulky stone sarcophagus takes up the middle of the room now, rose quartz with blue marble edgings, and blue lightning bolts along the side. Luna waits on top of the sarcophagus, lying with her legs tucked under and watching with blank, staring eyes. "She is here, Heart of Ice."
VIRGA
In the single day since he saw the reactions of those around him, and learned of Firefly's passing, Virga had changed a drastic kind. He was not the well-groomed pegasus others knew him to be, haggard, sleepless, his mane unkempt and stringy, and closed wings not so tight as if a part of him had died entirely. That did not, however, mean he was incapable of things. He still walked with a vitality, albeit one more likened to the end of warfare than peace. Virga breathed, gazed about the room, to Luna, then the sarcophagus. What was he to say? Actually standing before Luna, he found himself speechless.
LUNA
Luna stares. And stares. And then admits to the same problem. "Until this moment, Heart of Ice, I believed I knew what to say." Her haunches stir, and she slides down off of the sarcophagus in front of it. Where she sat on the top is an engraved crescent moon, but unlike the lightning bolts it isn't colored. Her face and voice remain flat, solemn but detached, but as her hooves touch the carpet the pupils of her eyes collapse into snakelike slits. They remain that way as she watches Virga, explaining, "Now I can only confess. I have taken the center of thy life from thee, slain her by my hoof and my wing and my horn as surely as if I had crushed her or sliced her or gored her. Ask. I shall hide nothing from thee now."
VIRGA
Alicorns were mysterious beings, though not without the peculiarities of mortals. That was the first thing that came to his mind, those words by the alicorn Orbello when he was small, and mostly harmless. He listened to Luna's every word, shifting ear on nuance and brunt. There was a life inside him, something that often failed to burn in ponies when confronted with detachment and death. He stepped forward, looming in a nigh serpentine manner near the Princess of the Moon, face to face, eye to eye, nose to nose. "Your works have done unto me what they did to her, Princess," he answered, his tone neither condemning nor praising. "The night when yourself and Sister made me what I am. And with her passing your admission has likewise slain a part of me, crushed my wings, lanced me through like the executioners just before my arrival in this palace. A normal pony would hate you, would rather see you begone of this place, dispatched. But I do not; do you know why?"
LUNA
Luna is all chilly Winter evening tonight, clear but also blank and passionless. Other than the slit pupils, she looks serenely and regally detached, and that expression does not change throughout your speech. Her aquamarine eyes watch, her dark pointed ears listen, but that is all she shows. "I know thee not that well, Heart of Ice." she answers.
VIRGA
"You are the reason," he whispered, daring to lower his head and lightly press his brow to her shoulder. "I see more about you than one might consider. Of course, she and I were a pair. Of course, she and I were the last Storm Pegasi in this known world, but my loss is far, far less than yours. This is not an end you would have inflicted on her if she didn't wish it. Danger, power, serving you made her feel more alive than anything or any pony else. Do not blame yourself for granting her wish on what she wanted to be."
LUNA
Luna does not relax, but then, she did not seem tense. A wing curls up to lay across the back of Virga's neck, but it is a light gesture, the kind of touch given to comfort rather than out of need. "The morality of this issue is far more complex. I have sent many off to die, and shall send many more. It is true that Firefly craved the power that slew her, but she craved it as an addict craves auroral ice. I promise thee, I let her die because I lacked the will to push her away, not because I did not know what was needful. And yet there is no less truth to thy words - she knew with no illusions what would happen to her. As her husband, here and now, I owe thee the truth." Her other wing reaches out, lifting up the lid of the sarcophagus, sliding it off until it hits the floor with a thunderous BOOM - and that's still tilted up on edge against the box. Firefly's body is curled on its side on blue velvet inside, in such perfect condition that she might be asleep. A blue silk sheet wraps her below the neck and Luna's wing peels it down. The body is, indeed, perfect, except for the cutie mark. Firefly's blue lightning bolts are gone, replaced by a massive inky splotch lit with a white crescent moon.
VIRGA
Virga did not tense or relax when he felt Luna's wing; being an addict did not surprise him. His wife's penchant for many things were signs. During a few of their quiet dinners she mentioned hints here and there. His ears drew back as the sarcophagus lid crashed onto the floor. Did he want to see Firefly? Yes. Was it something that he felt was a definitive must? Yes. It was a need. Virga slowly hoofed around the vessel's length and gazed at the preserved deceased. "You've sent many to death, and He watched many," he whispered. His eyes stopped at the cutie mark. It had changed; while not the same as his, they shared the fact their marks had changed. "I owe you many truths, Luna," he then said, deciding it best to call her by name than title. "Is it right of me to believe her mark changed due to your overwhelming aura with which she was joined?" He did know, at least, that much. The portion of him that contained a fragment of Celestia was small, but very potent as it was.
LUNA
Luna turns, standing next to Virga, just as quiet and chilly and calm as she regards the stone casket and its contents. "Yea, and neigh, Heart of Ice. Celestia gives thee and Scope a candleflame of her sun, greater strength for the powers closest to thine. I began that way with Firefly, but we found one excuse after another to deepen that link. She would need healing, or be in threat, or we needed to see through each other's eyes. Her wings flamed with my pegasus winds, my earth pony vigor gave her strength and closed her wounds, and my unicorn magic shielded her from others, and kept us bound. As my squire, she was by law and practice but an extension of myself, as if she were truly my wing. By magic, this became no fiction. I filled her with myself, and eventually she became me." For the first time she shows any significant emotion, just a faint deepening of her voice as she goes on, "If I wished, now, I could make her body draw breath and fly around the room, because that is my body now, and not hers I chose to let it die, rather than defile her so."
VIRGA
The mark. It was intoxicating to see upon Firefly. Normal ponies couldn't handle the deep magics and attributes of alicorns. They were a higher plane of existence. The increasing link between them slowly obliterated the who and what his dear Firefly was and somehow he was calmed by this. He leaned down and lightly touched his nose to his beloved's cheek and slowly spread his wings. "A time ago," he said as he turned his attention upon his own feathers, "she and I discussed some truths regarding you." He went silent and thoughtlessly ripped his outermost feathers, one by one, and carefully smoothed them out on the floor before he collected them together in a bunch. A subtle whisper and spark of Sunfire and they fused together at the calamus for him to place under Firefly's wing. "She asked of me a swear."
LUNA
Luna nods. "Yea. I knew that with thee she would share many secrets, and have secrets unconnected to me. What did the Wings of the Storm require of the Heart of Ice?" Luna watches you lay the bundle of feathers against Firefly. Lowering her head, Luna pulls Firefly's wing out to wrap around the bundle, holding it against her pink chest like a bouquet. Then Luna plucks up the sheet with the tip of her horn, raising it back up and covering Firefly's corrupted cutie mark again, tucking the sheet in just low enough that the edge of Firefly's wing and Virga's feathers clasped in her embrace remain visible.
VIRGA
Virga watched, the thing that he had to say being something difficult. "First, she asked that I live content having been hers," he answered, his eyes halting on the edge of Firefly's wing. "It is the same thing my first wife said to me before her death." Did Firefly tell the Princess about that? Maybe, may be not. Firefly was his second wife, but that didn't make the pain any less. It was, factually, more due to certain complications. "The second, that being I am of the old world, is that should she pass I find you by yourself like she did." He breathed once and turned to face Luna fully this time. "It was shortly after we became a pair, after you gave your blessing, that she asked of me the most important: that if she passed and I still lived, I submit a request of transfer from the Day Court to the Night Court. And even if she didn't ask, I would still do so. That night you two met the first time, Luna. I may not have been linked together with her like you, but a place has a pair of wings missing. The Night Court needs vigor in her absence."
LUNA
Luna walks around to the other side of the coffin, hooks a hoof under the lid, and with a horrible scraping noise slides it up and into place to close the sarcophagus. Her expression remains passive, and only when she finishes do those slit-pupiled eyes turn to Virga again. "We met under an ill star, Heart of Ice, but the truth became clear soon enough. Thou belong not with my sister. It will likely be longer than thy life ere I take another pony in so close as my squire again, but I would have thee as my champion."
VIRGA
As Luna closed the sarcophagus, Virga watched as the shadows overtook Firefly's face for the last time. This loss, despite the talk, would be with him for awhile. And when she finished he gazed at her, eye to eye. "I would not become Squire unless you explicitly wished so," he answered, tightening his wings. "And if that came to be, I'd do so in moderation as per your comfort after this loss." He bowed, such an odd gesture for this pegasus as he rarely ever displayed it; wings out.
LUNA
Luna fits the lid back perfectly in place, where it settles with a distinct 'thunk'. She climbs back up onto it with a swift, smooth motion, and lies down over the crescent engraving where she was when you arrived. Now, however, her mane is tense, head raised high, mane and tail billowing. Her pupils have rounded out again, and Luna is all Princess again, all imperial power. Her voice is certainly louder. "I take thee as my champion, then, Heart of Ice. It is necessary out of respect that thou tell Celestia of thy change of allegiance thyself. I shall grant thee no power, Virga. Thou lack the genius of the filly we both loved, but thou lack her callow youth as well. I believe thine is the wisdom to accept the deepest lessons of pegasus combat, and wield them with discipline. I shall expect thee to wield thy strength in the exact amount I require, whether it be breaking a wing, destroying a town, or capturing a foal unharmed, and expect thee to learn to do this with thy magic as the last resort. If the
moon smiles upon us, I shall teach thee strength and skill and precision such that thy powers shall seem a silly bauble."
VIRGA
Such a display of imperial might had Virga's own mane aloft, straight, and perhaps a little brighter. The pegasus This was nothing new for him, it was old hat. A contract, a specific contract that far outweighed any he had ever taken. "I accept position as your champion, and it shall be that I inform The Princess of the Sun of my allegiance. I shall be granted no power for I am ill fit, and engage in advantage apprenticeship. The expectations are clear and defined as the Crystal from which I was born, to be once again the Storm Pegasus that would fly with broken wings and gallop on broken legs for the ideals of the Moon."
LUNA
Luna uncurls a wing, and waves it towards the door. The royal haughture fails, replaced by a sudden, listlessly glum expression and posture. "Thou are mine now, champion, but I have no spirit for grandeur or glory right now. See to the formalities of thy change of allegiance, and make what arrangements thou desire for thy beloved's final resting place. When I am ready to rule, and the night needs muscle and wing and hoof, I shall call thee to my bidding."
VIRGA
The pegasus stood and closed his wings. This was not a transfer he took lightly, not like the transfers in the past between flying groups. "I will see to them, Princess," he answered, once more bowing his head. "It is this one's desires to speak, that our Firefly be placed where it is believed she would have been happiest: The Palace of the Moon, if am not mistaken."
LUNA
Luna nods curtly, looking away from Virga and into the fireplace instead. "I shall hide her there with my other treasures, as she belongs. Now, be off. They new mistress is not so warm as thy last. I oft desire to be alone, and thou must not merely comply, but enforce this wish."
VIRGA
"Understood, Princess," Virga answered. He said nothing more and hoofed backwards, keeping his front towards her until the door, a tradition for royalty not of the Empire or Equestria. As he headed into the main portion of the palace he had a renewed energy. Serve the Night, Address the Sun, and also, seek a particular ruin to further gain closure.
Time: Unspecified, likely Night.
Cast: Princess Luna, Virga.
-----
LUNA
As usual, the doors in and around Luna's chambers are open. Technically, very little has changed. The differences that mark this period of mourning are subtle. Celestia built her palace of gold and marble, but nothing shines in Luna's chambers now. A faint tarnish has spread to every surface, visible only in how flat the colors are, reflecting no light. Lights in general have been reduced to a minimum. Luna's fireplace is lit, but with only a single log. A couple of candles are left in each room. Luna waits in her bedchamber itself, with the other change in decoration. A bulky stone sarcophagus takes up the middle of the room now, rose quartz with blue marble edgings, and blue lightning bolts along the side. Luna waits on top of the sarcophagus, lying with her legs tucked under and watching with blank, staring eyes. "She is here, Heart of Ice."
VIRGA
In the single day since he saw the reactions of those around him, and learned of Firefly's passing, Virga had changed a drastic kind. He was not the well-groomed pegasus others knew him to be, haggard, sleepless, his mane unkempt and stringy, and closed wings not so tight as if a part of him had died entirely. That did not, however, mean he was incapable of things. He still walked with a vitality, albeit one more likened to the end of warfare than peace. Virga breathed, gazed about the room, to Luna, then the sarcophagus. What was he to say? Actually standing before Luna, he found himself speechless.
LUNA
Luna stares. And stares. And then admits to the same problem. "Until this moment, Heart of Ice, I believed I knew what to say." Her haunches stir, and she slides down off of the sarcophagus in front of it. Where she sat on the top is an engraved crescent moon, but unlike the lightning bolts it isn't colored. Her face and voice remain flat, solemn but detached, but as her hooves touch the carpet the pupils of her eyes collapse into snakelike slits. They remain that way as she watches Virga, explaining, "Now I can only confess. I have taken the center of thy life from thee, slain her by my hoof and my wing and my horn as surely as if I had crushed her or sliced her or gored her. Ask. I shall hide nothing from thee now."
VIRGA
Alicorns were mysterious beings, though not without the peculiarities of mortals. That was the first thing that came to his mind, those words by the alicorn Orbello when he was small, and mostly harmless. He listened to Luna's every word, shifting ear on nuance and brunt. There was a life inside him, something that often failed to burn in ponies when confronted with detachment and death. He stepped forward, looming in a nigh serpentine manner near the Princess of the Moon, face to face, eye to eye, nose to nose. "Your works have done unto me what they did to her, Princess," he answered, his tone neither condemning nor praising. "The night when yourself and Sister made me what I am. And with her passing your admission has likewise slain a part of me, crushed my wings, lanced me through like the executioners just before my arrival in this palace. A normal pony would hate you, would rather see you begone of this place, dispatched. But I do not; do you know why?"
LUNA
Luna is all chilly Winter evening tonight, clear but also blank and passionless. Other than the slit pupils, she looks serenely and regally detached, and that expression does not change throughout your speech. Her aquamarine eyes watch, her dark pointed ears listen, but that is all she shows. "I know thee not that well, Heart of Ice." she answers.
VIRGA
"You are the reason," he whispered, daring to lower his head and lightly press his brow to her shoulder. "I see more about you than one might consider. Of course, she and I were a pair. Of course, she and I were the last Storm Pegasi in this known world, but my loss is far, far less than yours. This is not an end you would have inflicted on her if she didn't wish it. Danger, power, serving you made her feel more alive than anything or any pony else. Do not blame yourself for granting her wish on what she wanted to be."
LUNA
Luna does not relax, but then, she did not seem tense. A wing curls up to lay across the back of Virga's neck, but it is a light gesture, the kind of touch given to comfort rather than out of need. "The morality of this issue is far more complex. I have sent many off to die, and shall send many more. It is true that Firefly craved the power that slew her, but she craved it as an addict craves auroral ice. I promise thee, I let her die because I lacked the will to push her away, not because I did not know what was needful. And yet there is no less truth to thy words - she knew with no illusions what would happen to her. As her husband, here and now, I owe thee the truth." Her other wing reaches out, lifting up the lid of the sarcophagus, sliding it off until it hits the floor with a thunderous BOOM - and that's still tilted up on edge against the box. Firefly's body is curled on its side on blue velvet inside, in such perfect condition that she might be asleep. A blue silk sheet wraps her below the neck and Luna's wing peels it down. The body is, indeed, perfect, except for the cutie mark. Firefly's blue lightning bolts are gone, replaced by a massive inky splotch lit with a white crescent moon.
VIRGA
Virga did not tense or relax when he felt Luna's wing; being an addict did not surprise him. His wife's penchant for many things were signs. During a few of their quiet dinners she mentioned hints here and there. His ears drew back as the sarcophagus lid crashed onto the floor. Did he want to see Firefly? Yes. Was it something that he felt was a definitive must? Yes. It was a need. Virga slowly hoofed around the vessel's length and gazed at the preserved deceased. "You've sent many to death, and He watched many," he whispered. His eyes stopped at the cutie mark. It had changed; while not the same as his, they shared the fact their marks had changed. "I owe you many truths, Luna," he then said, deciding it best to call her by name than title. "Is it right of me to believe her mark changed due to your overwhelming aura with which she was joined?" He did know, at least, that much. The portion of him that contained a fragment of Celestia was small, but very potent as it was.
LUNA
Luna turns, standing next to Virga, just as quiet and chilly and calm as she regards the stone casket and its contents. "Yea, and neigh, Heart of Ice. Celestia gives thee and Scope a candleflame of her sun, greater strength for the powers closest to thine. I began that way with Firefly, but we found one excuse after another to deepen that link. She would need healing, or be in threat, or we needed to see through each other's eyes. Her wings flamed with my pegasus winds, my earth pony vigor gave her strength and closed her wounds, and my unicorn magic shielded her from others, and kept us bound. As my squire, she was by law and practice but an extension of myself, as if she were truly my wing. By magic, this became no fiction. I filled her with myself, and eventually she became me." For the first time she shows any significant emotion, just a faint deepening of her voice as she goes on, "If I wished, now, I could make her body draw breath and fly around the room, because that is my body now, and not hers I chose to let it die, rather than defile her so."
VIRGA
The mark. It was intoxicating to see upon Firefly. Normal ponies couldn't handle the deep magics and attributes of alicorns. They were a higher plane of existence. The increasing link between them slowly obliterated the who and what his dear Firefly was and somehow he was calmed by this. He leaned down and lightly touched his nose to his beloved's cheek and slowly spread his wings. "A time ago," he said as he turned his attention upon his own feathers, "she and I discussed some truths regarding you." He went silent and thoughtlessly ripped his outermost feathers, one by one, and carefully smoothed them out on the floor before he collected them together in a bunch. A subtle whisper and spark of Sunfire and they fused together at the calamus for him to place under Firefly's wing. "She asked of me a swear."
LUNA
Luna nods. "Yea. I knew that with thee she would share many secrets, and have secrets unconnected to me. What did the Wings of the Storm require of the Heart of Ice?" Luna watches you lay the bundle of feathers against Firefly. Lowering her head, Luna pulls Firefly's wing out to wrap around the bundle, holding it against her pink chest like a bouquet. Then Luna plucks up the sheet with the tip of her horn, raising it back up and covering Firefly's corrupted cutie mark again, tucking the sheet in just low enough that the edge of Firefly's wing and Virga's feathers clasped in her embrace remain visible.
VIRGA
Virga watched, the thing that he had to say being something difficult. "First, she asked that I live content having been hers," he answered, his eyes halting on the edge of Firefly's wing. "It is the same thing my first wife said to me before her death." Did Firefly tell the Princess about that? Maybe, may be not. Firefly was his second wife, but that didn't make the pain any less. It was, factually, more due to certain complications. "The second, that being I am of the old world, is that should she pass I find you by yourself like she did." He breathed once and turned to face Luna fully this time. "It was shortly after we became a pair, after you gave your blessing, that she asked of me the most important: that if she passed and I still lived, I submit a request of transfer from the Day Court to the Night Court. And even if she didn't ask, I would still do so. That night you two met the first time, Luna. I may not have been linked together with her like you, but a place has a pair of wings missing. The Night Court needs vigor in her absence."
LUNA
Luna walks around to the other side of the coffin, hooks a hoof under the lid, and with a horrible scraping noise slides it up and into place to close the sarcophagus. Her expression remains passive, and only when she finishes do those slit-pupiled eyes turn to Virga again. "We met under an ill star, Heart of Ice, but the truth became clear soon enough. Thou belong not with my sister. It will likely be longer than thy life ere I take another pony in so close as my squire again, but I would have thee as my champion."
VIRGA
As Luna closed the sarcophagus, Virga watched as the shadows overtook Firefly's face for the last time. This loss, despite the talk, would be with him for awhile. And when she finished he gazed at her, eye to eye. "I would not become Squire unless you explicitly wished so," he answered, tightening his wings. "And if that came to be, I'd do so in moderation as per your comfort after this loss." He bowed, such an odd gesture for this pegasus as he rarely ever displayed it; wings out.
LUNA
Luna fits the lid back perfectly in place, where it settles with a distinct 'thunk'. She climbs back up onto it with a swift, smooth motion, and lies down over the crescent engraving where she was when you arrived. Now, however, her mane is tense, head raised high, mane and tail billowing. Her pupils have rounded out again, and Luna is all Princess again, all imperial power. Her voice is certainly louder. "I take thee as my champion, then, Heart of Ice. It is necessary out of respect that thou tell Celestia of thy change of allegiance thyself. I shall grant thee no power, Virga. Thou lack the genius of the filly we both loved, but thou lack her callow youth as well. I believe thine is the wisdom to accept the deepest lessons of pegasus combat, and wield them with discipline. I shall expect thee to wield thy strength in the exact amount I require, whether it be breaking a wing, destroying a town, or capturing a foal unharmed, and expect thee to learn to do this with thy magic as the last resort. If the
moon smiles upon us, I shall teach thee strength and skill and precision such that thy powers shall seem a silly bauble."
VIRGA
Such a display of imperial might had Virga's own mane aloft, straight, and perhaps a little brighter. The pegasus This was nothing new for him, it was old hat. A contract, a specific contract that far outweighed any he had ever taken. "I accept position as your champion, and it shall be that I inform The Princess of the Sun of my allegiance. I shall be granted no power for I am ill fit, and engage in advantage apprenticeship. The expectations are clear and defined as the Crystal from which I was born, to be once again the Storm Pegasus that would fly with broken wings and gallop on broken legs for the ideals of the Moon."
LUNA
Luna uncurls a wing, and waves it towards the door. The royal haughture fails, replaced by a sudden, listlessly glum expression and posture. "Thou are mine now, champion, but I have no spirit for grandeur or glory right now. See to the formalities of thy change of allegiance, and make what arrangements thou desire for thy beloved's final resting place. When I am ready to rule, and the night needs muscle and wing and hoof, I shall call thee to my bidding."
VIRGA
The pegasus stood and closed his wings. This was not a transfer he took lightly, not like the transfers in the past between flying groups. "I will see to them, Princess," he answered, once more bowing his head. "It is this one's desires to speak, that our Firefly be placed where it is believed she would have been happiest: The Palace of the Moon, if am not mistaken."
LUNA
Luna nods curtly, looking away from Virga and into the fireplace instead. "I shall hide her there with my other treasures, as she belongs. Now, be off. They new mistress is not so warm as thy last. I oft desire to be alone, and thou must not merely comply, but enforce this wish."
VIRGA
"Understood, Princess," Virga answered. He said nothing more and hoofed backwards, keeping his front towards her until the door, a tradition for royalty not of the Empire or Equestria. As he headed into the main portion of the palace he had a renewed energy. Serve the Night, Address the Sun, and also, seek a particular ruin to further gain closure.
