The sobs are muffled, quiet, but they still break through the silence of the cave, bouncing off the walls and morphing into a murmuring, discordant babble. Great, heaving breaths disrupt them intermittently as their source struggles for air.

She lies in the middle of one of the cave’s many cavities: a hollow sphere glistening with needle-like offshoots of dangling ice. Six stone balls roll in random motions round the floor, a slight, fading glow trailing after them in the air. They clink and clunk off of each other in their travels, the collisions never chipping or marring their surfaces.

A light-gold cloud envelops them, fixing them in place; an answering, conical blur of colour rises out of her forehead. White wings stretch out as she rises up, the balls floating into the air around her. She sniffs.

“It doesn’t have to be like this, you know.”

She takes a step back, eyes wide and roaming around as the balls fall heavily to the floor. Her wings flare up and out.

“It can all go back to how it was before right now. No need for any of this... waiting around nonsense.”

Her breathing’s faster now, and the whirling of her eyes is more erratic. The voice is orphaned – sourceless – and has an almost unnatural quality to it. Or perhaps it is the opposite: it sounds almost like the noise the waves and wind and thunder make. Like the sounds you think you hear inside of an empty silence.

“It’s a simple price to pay. I won’t ask for much, but in return you’ll get your sister back. Oh, and you’ll get her back before she became such a drag to deal with. Lovely Luna, all happy and untroubled.”

She’s staring at the farthest wall from her, the wall from which the voice now comes. There’s a knocking sound ringing off it, as if something is scrabbling behind the surface of a solid chunk of rock.

“That’s what you want, isn’t it? That’s the dream? The great wish? The mightiest power in the world at your hooves, and all you want is the one thing they can’t give you. Well... Why not ask someone who can?”

The sniffling’s stopped, though her eyes are still wet. She takes a single step towards the wall, not noticing that the balls have vanished from the floor.

“I can give you what you want, Celestia, because I don’t have to abide by stupid, pointless rules. And all I want in return is a small favour. I’m not going to ask you to do anything you’re uncomfortable with. In fact, I’m not asking you to do anything at all. That's – heh – that's actually the point.”

The cave’s wall peels off into a streaming rainbow of butterflies; a shadow is left behind in the gap carved out of reality. It smirks impossibly.

“All you have to do is step aside.”