//------------------------------// // Remembering the Past // Story: A Star Reborn // by burner181 //------------------------------// Darkness wakes up, feeling a slight pressure on his side. His eyes open to a messy light blue mane. He smiles and wraps his hooves around his fiance. He pulls her close, getting a content sigh from her, and smiles, closing his eyes again. Darkness opens his eyes after a few more minutes. He replaces himself with his pillow getting free of Luna’s grip and puts on a more formal uniform, “Today is the first noble meeting I will be in.” He straightens his cloak clasp with his coat of arms on it and heads to the meeting room. As Darkness makes his way down the hallway he notices two ponies other than the guards standing at attention walking towards him. He notes that one looks to be wearing the uniform of the captain of the royal guard. “He must be Shining Armor,” he thinks to himself then looks at the pony next to him and blinks, “Since when was there another alicorn?” As he gets close to the two of them and their escort a jolt of electricity courses through his brain as his magic triggers, making him drop to the ground holding his head as he starts hearing voices. “It can‘t be.” “How is he here?” “Quick, inform the queen.” When Darkness is able to open his eyes he notices the guards and another alicorn encircling him. He starts to slowly get up a guard coming over to help, “That was something I haven’t experienced in awhile.” He takes a deep breath to calm his magic as the guards turn to look at him, “Don’t bother with a doctor, they’re not going to be able to find out what happened, a friend and I made sure the spell that did that could never be replicated.” The captain steps forward staring at Darkness concerned, “What spell would that be?” All the guards can feel the sorrow in Darkness’s voice and start to look worried. “A spell that was created and used only once during the changeling wars a thousand years ago.” He shakes his head to clear his thoughts, “I hope none of you have to experience times like that.” Darkness starts walking away and the guards start talking. “Who was that?” Shining pipes in, “I don’t know who that pony was.” A one eyed pegasus mare starts backing away from Darkness, “Oh Celestia, I thought he was only a legend told to intimidate troops into working hard, I didn’t know he was real.” The other guards and alicorn stop talking and look at her and one of them asks, “Wind Strike, who was that?” The mare slowly turns to see Darkness go around a corner, “He was Darkness Shield, a Guardian, and the infamous Black Death.” All the other guards make this realization as well and start backing away from Shining who just gulps as he realizes he may have sounded accusing towards a living legend. Seeing no guards around, Darkness lets out a sigh as his last memory of the past leaves him for now. “I honestly hope they never have to experience that level of violence.” He composes himself before entering the meeting room and sees only Raven and Celestia, “Good morning, Your Highness,” Darkness bows. Celestia looks up from her papers and smiles, “Good morning Lord Darkness.” Celestia smirks and gestures to the seat to her left, “Come have a seat.” Darkness comes over to the gestured seat and sits down, “So what should I know about the noble that is going to throw a hissy fit for me being in their seat?” Celestia nods as Raven brings Darkness over a folder containing information on the nobles that will be present, “He’s as bad as they come, pompous, arrogant, you name it. We suspect him of having back-alley deals with certain underhooved organizations, and he inherited his title of noble instead of earning it.” Darkness pulls a file out of the folder, “This one?” Celestia nods and he sighs, “Looks like the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” He looks over at Celestia, “Do you remember the Darkborne family?” Celestia nods, then takes the file and looks over it. Darkness continues, “Well the patriarch’s two sons went down two different paths, one keeping the Darkborne name and the other taking on Lightborne.” Darkness rolls his eyes, “The Darkborne side has followed the old patriarch’s ways which is anything underhooved, while the Lightborne have actually been productive members of society.” Raven chimes in, “How do you know all this?” Darkness looks over at her, “Three guesses to guess which Moon Shadow got assigned to look into it, and the first two don’t count.” Raven nods as Celestia speaks up, “I see, I’ll have the intelligence division look into both families just in case.” Darkness casts a spell to make him unnoticeable and closes the file on nobles he was reading as nobles start coming in for the meeting. As he notices the noble they were just talking about he drops his spell and has a mischievous smile on his face. Celestia notices the smile and has to contain a smirk herself knowing full well what he is planning. ===================================================================== Wind Strike is still deep in thought from her groups previous interaction with Darkness. She looks over at her Captain, "Sir, permission to ask a question." Shining snaps out of his daze and looks back at her, "Go ahead soldier." Wind Strike nodes, "Sir, what exactly are Guardians, I know they did something big, but that's all I was informed of." Shining nods, "That's as much as we expect ponies to know." He turns his head forward as they continue walking, "Guardians are those ponies that gave their lives either in a big way or after they did something big." Shining looks back as if expecting Darkness to be there, "Whether he knows it or not, Darkness Shield was involved in two big events." Wind Strike takes a moment to process all before asking, “What were those two big events?” Shining leads the group towards a picture of Celestia shaking hooves with what appears to be a Changeling Queen, “Darkness’s, assaults, for lack of a better word, was paramount to the signing of the Darkness Concordant, the peace treaty that brought an end to the changeling wars. Though it’s said he was not happy about the name.” Shining moved over to a window that pointed in the direction of the crater but can’t see it, “The other event was what is recorded as making him MIA instead of KIA, apparently.” He leads the squad towards the meeting room as the meeting should be wrapping up soon, “Celestia had called for all forces to take down an evil dark magic user, and like the cliche villain they were, they decided if they couldn’t win they would take everypony with them.” Shining smiles, “Hearing of Darkness’s tale, of what happened that day was what inspired me to become a shield specialist.” As the guards get into position around the door a fuming noble comes storming out the door and down the hallway. The rest of the nobles leave and go their own ways then Darkness comes out followed by Celestia and Raven, the latter heading off to file some papers away. Darkness chuckles, “I forgot how much fun it was to mess with stuck up nobles.” He sighs and rubs the bridge of his nose a slight red glow to his eyes, “The fact that some of them thought they could have passed bills to decrease the funding towards the military, big mistake.” Celestia smiles and nods, “I’m glad to have you back Darkness.” Celestia begins to lead the guards and Darkness towards the throne room, “Do you still have your place at the bottom of the mountain?” Darkness blinks and nods, “Yes I do, and no it has not changed...oh, talk to Raven and then we can see if you and Luna can get some sisterly bonding time.” Celestia smiles and chuckles, “Do you think you could help out with the intelligence department?” Darkness motions over his shoulder, “You mean the group that has been following me for the past while thinking they were sneaky?” Darkness turns around, “First lesson, don’t use any bathing supplies that have a smell.” Celestia blinks and looks back to see an intelligence agent grumble and walk off, “I forgot how well-trained Luna made your forces.” Darkness chuckles prompting Celestia to look at him, “I just realized Raven may agree to it, as long as she can join.” He sees Raven up ahead waiting by the throne room, “If she has been working for you for so long, she deserves the break.” Celestia chuckles and nods as they meet Raven at the door then go their separate ways as Darkness heads towards the library to catch up on present day events and laws. After awhile Darkness closes the book he was reading and leans back stretching. "Seven, eight, nine, ten," He makes a mental note of the intelligence agents who tried to spy on him then looks at the clock, "I should go meet up with the princesses, but first." He casts a spell and teleports all ten of the agents to himself, some landing on the floor, others in chairs, and on the desk, and binds them, "We were also trained in counterespionage, have fun getting out of those bindings." He leaves the agents in the middle of the library and heads for the throne room coming across a tired Luna in the process and smirks. Darkness walks up to Luna and she bumps into him as she tries to walk straight while tired. Luna blushes and goes to apologize to whoever she bumped then sees it's Darkness and leans into him more, cuddling him. As they continue to walk like that they see Raven and Celestia explaining paperwork to Philomena and Darkness speaks up, "You realize she’s going to burn anything stupid, right?" Raven looks over at them and smiles, "That's what I'm hoping for," earning a chuckle out of everypony. Darkness smiles, “By the fact you are teaching Philomena how to do paperwork, I presume Raven agreed to it?” Both Celestia and Raven nodded, “For the sake of appearance, let's take a chariot down then.” Everypony nods and Raven leads the way as Darkness is still being used as a support for a sleepy Night Princess. They soon arrive at the chariot, Raven climbing on first followed by Celestia. Darkness notices Luna has no intention of leaving his side and levitates her into the chariot before climbing on himself. Luna finally wakes up completely as they take off but still insists on leaning on Darkness. Darkness looks out at the city as the sisters start talking. Darkness’s head snaps up and in the direction of his house startling everypony in the chariot. Before anyone can say anything Darkness speaks up, "Celestia please send a message to have guards bring a prison carriage to my house." Celestia nods and does so, everypony including the guards pulling the chariot hearing the urgency in his voice. As the chariot begins to land, Darkness lets out a sigh of relief. Everypony looks at him and he speaks up, "I forgot about the guard cat." Confused, everypony follows him around a corner to see a pile of groaning ponies with a cat sitting on top of it. Darkness looks at the cat, “I take it the leader is in this pile somewhere Tux?" Tux meows then dives into the pile and drags out a pony. Darkness sighs, "I see the apple didn't fall far from the tree." Everypony can see the pony is Lord Darkborne. The air takes on a chill as Darkness walks towards Darkborne, “I’ve seen you met my familiar, I can tell you this, he’s one HELL of a cat.” Tux gives off a demonic sounding meow startling everypony. Darkness smirks, "Now when you wake up in your cell, you are going to confess to everything, or so help me, nightmares will be the least of your worries." As if on cue Darkborne passes out from the magical pressure directed at him. With a quick nod to Tux the air returns to normal and Tux tosses the pony back on the pile and goes back to his spot on top of it. Darkness turns back to his companions after calming himself down, “I believe the guards should stay here with Tux until their comrades arrive to help handle this lot.” The guards, too stunned by the cat to object, go over and stand to either side of the pile. Darkness sighs then leads the Princesses and Raven inside and down a set of stairs to a door that he opens for them to reveal a hot spring inside. He chuckles at Raven and Luna's faces, “I found a natural hot spring while I was setting up my house here.” The mares enter and Darkness goes to leave, letting them enjoy their time. They look back at him and Luna speaks, almost sadly, “Aren’t you going to join us?” Darkness blinks and looks at them, “I figured you all would want some time to yourselves just to relax.” He suddenly finds himself being levitated by the sisters and taken into the room as well, “I’ll take that as a no then.” As they get closer to the spring Darkness turns into an inky black mist and floats over to the edge startling everyone. He reforms and holds his head, “Okay, mental note, never do that in a fight.” Raven floats a scroll over to Darkness, "This is your family tree, thought you would be interested to see if you had any living relatives." Luna goes over to him as well and pokes him, making sure he is real, and receiving a kiss on the forehead, before getting in. Darkness smiles and nods taking the scroll, "Thank you." He unrolls the scroll and starts reading it as the mares start talking amongst themselves as they relax. He blinks as he notices a name and follows it back down the line, "Huh, they're part of the main house, interesting." Luna looks over at Darkness, "What did you find?" Darkness looks up noticing all of them staring at him, "I found that Twilight is a direct descendent of my brother." He rubs his chin, "Meaning I'm her great times ten Uncle, and I need to go see how well my nephew trains the Royal Guard." He rolls up the scroll, sets it aside along with his swords, and decides to climb in next to Luna and nuzzle his fiancée. Celestia smiles at the two, repressing the knowledge Darkness may not be around forever but he will make her sister happy while he is. She then takes on a thoughtful expression, “Darkness?” Getting a response from him, she continues with her question, “What happened to you for those thousand years?”     Darkness leans his head back as Luna looks at him, concerned, “I don’t know where it was exactly other then a different dimension.” Feeling all them looking at him, he continues, “It was solid grey and the only feature that was there was a solitary tower.” He blinks and looks at his swords, “Then there was those two.”     Luna pouts at him, “Let me guess it was a pair of mares and that’s where that mare that called you father came from.”     Darkness looks at her, “No, they were a pair of souls. Two arch-mage stallions, they were always bickering and were of no help to me.”     Celestia looks slightly concerned from her sisters reaction and hoping to move the conversation to something else, “Did you ever see what was inside that tower?”     Darkness kisses Luna on the nose then looks over at Celestia, “It was the history of this planet from what I learned.” He raises his hand before a particular question was asked, “No I did not read anything but spellbooks looking for a way to get out of there.” Darkness hears the voice in his head again, “Oh you learned about more than just how to get out of there.”     Darkness’s closes his eyes as if trying to remember more but is actually responding to the voice, “I already know you enjoy messing with me, so do you have anything to add to the conversation that you want me to convey?”     Darkness hears a distorted laughter, “Nope, just thought I would throw my two bits in and bug you.”     Darkness feels a prodding at his side and he opens his eyes to a concerned Luna, “Sorry about that, had to organize my thoughts.” He hears the distorted chuckle again, “As for that mare you saw, her name is Fizzypop, I believe there are some guard reports of a filly summoning some sort of spirit.” He glares at Celestia who slowly sinks into the hotspring out of embarrassment, “You really need to teach those guards the difference between a ghost and a guardian spirit.” Luna chuckles seeing her sister getting knocked off her pedestal, “Still doesn’t explain where she came from.”     Darkness boops Luna causing her nose to scrunch up and getting a giggle from everyone in the spring,”All I ever got from her and cared to get was, she ran away from an orphanage when she was six, and Tux and I decided to take her in.”     Raven gives Darkness an Aww, “He does have a heart.” She promptly yelps as Darkness splashes her.     Darkness shakes his head, “You know I do Raven.” He returns his attention to the sisters, “I did eventually find a way to use Nightmare Moon’s return as a way for me to make a portal out of that dimension.” He hugs Luna, “And here we are now.”     Celestia looks perks up at an idea, “Do you think you can make a portal to that dimension again?”     Darkness shakes his head, “Yes I can, but no I won’t.” He notices Celestia giving him a stupefied look, “That dimension almost drove me insane, and I had training to keep myself sane.”     Darkness gets up and out of the spring, “We spent enough time here, it’s time we headed back to the castle. You have to work on restructuring the governmental system and I have to find someone to marry us and schedule a day to meet my descendants.”