754 Ab Equestria Conditae
Behind a curtain of night darkened autumn trees, as the Mare in the Moon loomed overhead, in the old royal city, one candle remained lit in the window of the palace, traveling down the spiral staircase to the castle grounds, showing itself once every revolution. A hooded figure stepped out from the oaken doorway, toward the house of the palace steward on the wall. From outside all that could be heard were the three muted knocks, and the opening and shutting of a wooden door. The candle set itself in the lower front window of the house. Inside, a pair of hushed voices began to argue, indecipherable to any but themselves, or a very nearby listener, just as planned.
“Nox, your ancestors, and your family today, have served ours faithfully even before we made ourselves known to the ponies. You loved her, so you must tell your daughter…”
“If she has already refused, even with all your cajoling and pleading, she will not agree to it.”
Tucked behind the stairwell, an older filly listened intently, dark, dusky ears perked up to catch all the sound, and legs tucked discreetly beneath her, out of the way of the candle light flooding from the next room. She watched the shadows of light as the heated whispers caused them to fluctuate as the feminine voice rose (pleadingly or angrily) and fell. It wasn’t difficult to tell that they were talking about her, and the lady had every right to be angry. She just couldn’t hoard the anger, or the sadness.
“Just talk to her. She has to understand.”
“I will. I can’t promise it will help.”
Gathering her courage, Dike stretched her little neck as far as she could, and peered around the corner. Nox, her father, immediately saw her, met her mustard-gold eyes, and nodded her over. Dike did not hesitate. Her father was the only thing she had left at this point; she rose and went to his side.
A pink, undulating aether filled the space where the tall white mare’s mane should have been, other colors flashing in periodically, signaling her growth to her full power. A long and elegant horn spiraled from her forelock, and the cloak hid the wings and sun Dike knew so well. Her majestic grace seemed tarnished by sadness and the brown of the cloak and the dark circles under her soft lavender eyes. Even before the stallion she had implored to speak to this filly could open his mouth, she had begun to plead with the child.
“Dike, you must…”
“Please, your highness,” Dike spoke as if she were as ancient as the alicorn before her, “I cannot lie about this. It goes against my nature.”
“My sister is a princess, the orient and occident of the moon. She cannot be associated with the name Nightmare Moon, or else they will never see her as their princess when she returns in one thousand years”
“You and I both know that she will not return to us whole or sane.”
“No, we do not. We have read the propechy and promises of our siblings, time and time again. Our siblings will come to her aid, free her from her darkness, and bring her home to us.” Sunfire and tears whipped from the princess’s eyes, a sight that would send a normal filly into fits, and give her nightmares of her ‘benevolent’ princess for months. But Dike would not; she had seen worse.
Finally, in sorrow and shame, the princess bowed her head and allowed herself to cry softly. Dike went to her, treading lightly, trying to comfort her with a hoof on her shoulder.
“In body and soul, Nightmare Moon will return. Luna can only be set free by the elements, none of which either of you can wield, perhaps never again.”
Nox watched the mares, quietly, most especially his daughter. Dike had always been mature for her age, and her small size. She was tiny compared to an average filly, and yet her mane contrasting with her coat, and those ever seeing golden eyes… she looked both ancient and innocent at the same time (It was fitting hat she resembled her mother, slightly.). As he thought, the princess sighed.
“You are right, Dike. You are always right.” She whispered, struggling to maintain her voice, to not upset the neighbors. “But why not save your own mother’s reputation?”
The filly darkened. “It is not just. She rejected love from three and more ponies who cared for her more than anything in the world, that she knew still needed her, in favor of her own selfish desires and jealousy. Physically assaulting two of them, one of which her only child, I might add. No, Celestia, I will write history as it happened.”
“Whether or not it is just can matter later! You have to make a different story for the Nightmare.”
Dike’s face betrayed no pity. Her mind was filled with images of the nights only a year before, when her usually loving mother refused to hold her, yelling becoming irritable and cruel, slowly transforming until her inner demons consumed her, in one night becoming her. Dike had tried to show her mother, Luna, kindly princess of the Night, that no matter how the common ponies treated her or her night, she was still adored and needed and loved. The creature had grabbed her by the scruff of the neck, piercing her with fang and tooth, and tossed her over her shoulders, calling her worthless and selfish, a sentimental foal.
Yet, in the moments the elements were used against her, Luna seemed to break through for just a moment, turning the inky black alicorn blue, mouthing something that looked like “Dike? Sister? Oh, Mother no…” with panic and pain in her eyes as she dematerialized in a flash of iridescent light.
“She was weak, Dike. Can you not show some mercy?” celestia’s plea snapped dike out of her memories. Meeting her face, she deadpanned, “I was weak, too. The difference was that I was willing to admit it, even when she stopped showing any love, or pity, or mercy.” Dike quieted, with cold calculating fury that had weighed all options, outcomes, and oversights. “The scales must be balanced. I will not forge my history.”
“Dike…” Celestia began, only to be cut off by the resolute retreat of a pair of scales on a dark blue flank. Outraged, the sun princess stepped to follow her, but was stopped by a strong, cream colored foreleg.
“She needs some time. Even the way I love her still, it is hard to forget that she abused and left us” He sighed heavily, snorting out the air, slowly adding, “and harder to forgive. We all need time, you included.”
“It has been an entire year!”
“Celestia, your Mother may have left you and your sister here alone, but she did not abandon you. She entrusted you with the care and the keeping of this land, with all the love and trust in her heart. Dike was left wounded in body and heart. Those are the last memories she has of her mother. This could take years, if not decades. Don’t you have scores of other historians to write this?”
Under a heavy, heaving breath, Celestia cursed the weak-willed fairy tale writers, all too willing to make their sovereign Princess of the night into a monster. “Dike’s will be the only history of the night ever taken seriously. They know she tells only the truth, that is why she was chosen to bear Honesty. I had hoped that the Loyalty would be to more than Justice. I cannot, nay, will not stop trying to get her to see that mercy is the better option.”
Nox just shook his head. They both knew it would take too long to just wait it out, but what choice did they have?
Quietly the Princess excused herself from the apartments, returning to her chambers for the night, allowing herself one long, mournful gaze at the crescent moon, now adorned with the feminine silhouette of an alicorn, or was it a unicorn? Time would soon forget.
On the balcony above, Nox was also watching the moon, mourning the loss of his beloved, the wife kept secret to the entire empire. She was as good as dead. They would never grow old together (though, he realized in retrospect, that wouldn’t have happened anyways), he would never see her beautiful smile again, or the sparkle in her eyes when they were together. He would never wrap his hooves around her, try to tousle that strange mane, or watch their daughter grow. No mother of the graduate, no mother of the bride, eventually, no grandmother, no nothing. It pained him to think that she deemed it all worthless in her self pity.
Silently, Dike approached her father from behind. He almost looked like a marble statue he was so pale, and his face seemed to cover the moon entirely. It was as if the entire event had never happened, and Mommy would be coming up the stairs again soon, to make star pictures until it was time for little eyes to go to sleep. But that time was long past. Now there was only an off-white stallion with a pale yellow mane and golden eyes staring at the moon like a lunatic. She nuzzled his shoulder, usually so strong, now bent with fatigue and grief. Slowly, he looked down and nuzzled her back, tears in his eyes.
“You still love her?”
Nox tried to smile at his daughter as he replied “Yes. Forever.”
“Even with everything that happened?”
“Even with everything that happened.”
Silence.
“You know she doesn’t deserve that.”
“I know.” He acknowledged this too quickly for his daughter’s taste, and as she began to protest, he stopped her.
“What she did was wrong, hurtful, even evil. But tell me, little justice, don’t you want your mother?”
dike opened her mouth to speak, but then closed it, for once at a loss for words. The rest of the night, that lonely first anniversary of Nightmare Night, was spent in silence, by two moon-gazing lunatics.