But hope shined brightest in the dark, and Mothra’s light was enough to elicit a spark of hope within the Pegasus. Her eyes fluttered upward, seeing the Queen of the Monsters locked in a heated battle with Amhuluk. Her flight pattern was torn asunder, the moth’s cries sounding off as Amhuluk tried desperately to rip as much from her body as possible.

Instead, Mothra kicked him off, watched as the beast descended and crashed through the roof of the nearest building. Swooping past him, Mothra saw Amhuluk thrash in the rubble. He spun toward her, screeching at her with flailing tendrils surrounding his infected glare. Then, he leaped for her, claws extended, arms stretched to their ends, fangs poised for the kill.

It was the last act of defiance from his end, moments before Mothra dive-bombed and knocked Amhuluk back into the earth.

She pinned him down, Amhuluk biting and clawing and thrashing to no avail. He screamed directly into Mothra’s face, but the queen was unfazed. She merely held him tighter, waited until the arrival of three Alicorns before she finally loosened herself. Tilting her gaze to them, Mothra watched as Celestia, Luna, and Cadance all fired a shared sedative spell into the Titan’s forehead.

Amhuluk opened his jaws as wide as he could manage, but not a sound escaped him. He slumped back onto the ground, motionless and lost in the realm of dreamless sleep. Mothra breathed, gave a chittering cry of exhaustion as she finally stepped off from the creature’s body. Her legs trembled as she moved away. Her wings, once glorious in their ethereal glow, were singed and torn. Her body fared no better, but she remained standing.

She needed to.

There was a moment, a fracture in time when nothing more mattered. When her eyes settled to the earth and she saw the yellow Pegasus standing in the midst of such death and devastation. Fluttershy saw her, too. Nothing but the snow separated them, the falling petals like ghosts in the midst of a black sea. Their gazes locked and they saw one another for who they truly were.

When faced with that reality, with life and death, and seeing the true nature of a wrathful species engaging in ferocious warfare, one could hide nothing. And no matter how brave she believed herself to be, Fluttershy still appeared so very lost. She was lost, deep inside herself not knowing where to turn or what hope to believe in, for her hope stood trembling before her.

But Mothra knew herself. Though the pain was immense, though it did hurt so very much, her purpose and her destiny would not be contained by such trivial matters such as fear. She only wished Fluttershy could come to believe that as well, for the time was near.