Lumina Nightglow's Arc

Chapter 18 of 34

Lumina stood in her new body and felt the whole forest hum inside her without pain. The wand still glowed in her hand with the last thread she had pulled from Celestia Starveil. One thread was not enough. Beyond the dark wall, the forest's true heart still slept, and its glow grew thinner each night. She turned the wand over. A cold truth settled in her chest. The sleeping heart still held a piece of old, dark power, and while that darkness lingered, the heart could never fully wake. Heart Solia rose from within her. "You mean to take it," she said. "All of it." "If I leave the last dark power in the heart, it stays asleep," Lumina answered. "I will pull it into myself. My body was made to hold it now. Nothing else can." A light bloomed above the trees. Luminara Starweaver came down through it, her starlight hair streaming, her firefly wings quick and bright. She had drawn power from Lumina before, at the elders' mansion, to keep her from breaking. Now the elder's face was drawn with worry. "Child, that is the oldest darkness in the forest. Even split among all of us, it could not be held. It will hunt you forever." "Then let it stay inside me, where it can hunt nothing else," Lumina said. "You gave my power away once. I will not risk that again." Starweaver's wings stilled. She saw the new body, built to bear the whole forest, and she stepped back. "You are past our teaching now," she said quietly. Lumina knelt and pressed the wand to the earth. She reached through the roots, past the dark wall, into the sleeping heart. The last dark power waited there like black water. She did not fight it. She drew it up through the soil and into her chest. Cold poured into her. Her wings snapped wide. The starlit host howled across the forest and pressed close, their star-blooded bodies glowing, ready to shield her. Lumina held. The radiant emblem of her merged heart flared gold and pink against the black, and slowly the dark power folded into her, tamed inside a body strong enough to cage it. When it was done, she opened her eyes. The cold sat quiet in her now, hers to command. The forest's heart no longer held any shadow. It was clean, and it was hers to wake. Starweaver bowed her starlit head. "No elder can pull this from you," she said. "No one can. You will never age, and nothing can end you now." "Good," Lumina said. She rose. The wall of dark trees stood ahead, and beyond it the heart waited, free of darkness at last. "Now no one tells me how to guard this forest. And no one takes my power again." She turned toward the wall. The host fell into place behind her. The heart still slept, but now nothing dark stood between her and waking it.