Princess Celestia
I have seen but one monster in my life, and her name is Nightmare Moon. It is she who haunts the weak in their loneliest hour. She sews the dreams of the brave into chilling horror. She is the engine of fear and the devourer of hope. The thunder of her hooves grinds dreams into nightmares and her laughter crushes the spirit of even the greatest warrior.
Throughout the Longest Night, Nightmare Moon revelled in the end of her world. For two weeks, I watched and pleaded. For two weeks, I stood idly as my own sister ravaged Equestria. I thought I could convince Luna to return to me.
A thousand years hence, sometimes when the Sun is gone and the Moon is high, I still hear the screams: the echoes of my greatest failure.
Nightmare Moon created many fiends to do her bidding: ponies-turned-fiends by perversions of the soul, and demons that drank the blood of the body and tortured the minds of the innocent. Born of her star-mane, indescribable, amorphous mountains of tangible hate and hunger raked the most distant lands with loathsome mouths and pseudopods. Common folk turned on one another, driven mad either by the Nightmare or the destruction of the world around them.
Nightmare Moon's goal was not merely to kill. She wanted all of us to suffer. She did not merely bring about eternal night; she ushered in an era of fear.
Yet for all the beings to which her magic gave shape, none were as cruel as Luna's oldest and most beloved creations.
When the Nightmare seized the heart of my sister and plunged her into madness, the bitterness in her heart overflowed. The ethereal threads that joined her to the Night Guards conducted her sorrow and hatred, awakening in their minds the same desire to tear down the world. The Nightmare preyed on the darkest, suppressed fancies that reside in all minds, and her foul magicks unleashed them upon the world.
For the Night Guards, notions of perceived injustice came boiling to the surface. Petty grievance intensified into murderous rampage, and long-repressed fantasies of elaborate vengeance over minor offence now came to be played out in all of their sick, twisted glory.
The Nightmare gave no orders. The Nightmare did not force their hooves. She merely laughed as they performed acts that bore no names, all of their own volition.
The Night Guards had protected the heart of Equestria. They were stationed in the Old City and oversaw the nearest settlements and lordships of the nobles houses. While the many demons of Nightmare Moon laid waste to the outer lands, the Night Guards destroyed that which we treasured the most.
First, the Night Guards swarmed into the city; that's where it all started. The Royal Guards who protected the Castle were the first to fall: stabbed in the back or murdered in their sleep.
By the time I realised what was happening, it was already too late. When I flew to the Castle, I was greeted by the head of a Royal Guard impaled upon the tallest flagpole.
By the time an alarm was raised, the Library was in flames.
By the time we began evacuating the city, the bridge had fallen.
We lost the Old City in a matter of minutes. Nightmare Moon laughed, her voice resonating across the land.
For a while, the Night Guards were content with desecrating the Old City. Only in later days of the Longest Night did they spread to the lands outside. When they did, the meagre blockade around the city cracked in hours. Smoke blocked out the stars, and corpses and ash covered the fields.
The nobles vied for whatever protection the Royal Guards could give. They stuffed pitchforks and torches into the hooves of every last serf and servant to protect their skin.
The manor of an old noble held its ground the longest, not by virtue of strength but by being the farthest from the Old City. That night, a very special mare sat in the darkest corner of that manor's smallest bedroom, cradling her newborn and begging the Sun for the nightmare to end.
It was Nightsong that tore up the boards covering a window of the attic. Crescent Strike followed her inside as the rest of their group distracted the Royal Guards. They stomped hard at each of their steps; they wanted those hiding underneath to hear their approach. The added fear sweetened their inevitable demise.
Crescent Strike bucked open the barricaded door of the attic, and the pair made their way down the dusty, cobweb-covered stairwell. On the lower floors, they looked through every hallway, checking door after door in search of cattle to slaughter.
They found a pair of maids in one room, and threw them through the boarded windows to signal to their friends outside. When they got to the room of the old noble's daughter, they saw that another pair of Night Guards had already broken in. As one of them tore her portrait from the wall, the other reared above the crumpled mare, his hooves shining red with her blood. Crescent Strike looked with perverted glee at the daughter's precious, Sun-loving face: deformed beyond recognition by a hail of hooves.
Nightsong sent him a look. They would have to hurry, lest somepony got to their mark before they did. Crescent Strike would have hated to place second in this race. So he pushed on, following the scent of the mare he hated the most.
In a small, untouched bedroom on the second floor, they finally found the source of the stench. When they broke down the door, however, they were greeted by a lone stallion with a white coat under a suit of golden armour. He spread his wings and flourished his spear.
“Stand away, monsters!” he warned. “I don't care what you do to the others. But if you dare set hoof in here—” He tensed, jamming his spear forward. “—I'll hack you from your groin to your neck.”
Crescent Strike turned to Nightsong with a smile. She smiled back, and took the first step inside. “Put that down,” she said. “That's no toy, boy. You could hurt yourself. You're not even holding it right.”
The stallion took a step back and stabbed into the air. The spear shook in his grasp. “Get away!”
Crescent Strike walked inside, and took a step further than Nightsong. “You're not supposed to harm Princess Luna, Royal. Celestia's orders, haven't you heard?”
Nightsong walked forward, overtaking Crescent Strike and backing the Royal Guard into the wall. “Hurting us is hurting Luna, you know. We're one and the same, she and we.”
The stallion swallowed, forcing a brave expression and trying to hold the spear steady. “Not another step. I'm warning you.”
Crescent Strike took another step. “Or wha—”
The Royal Guard lunged forward with the roar of a cornered beast, thrusting his spear at Crescent Strike. He dodged, but not soon enough: the spearhead entered his mouth and pierced a hole through his right cheek. As he reared back with a terrible shriek, he brought up his bat wing to snap the spear in half – leaving the guard with only the broken handle.
Nightsong charged the stallion, and he raised the handle to block her. Nightsong rammed at him full force into the wall.
The stallion resisted in vain. His feeble pegasus strength proved no match for the Night Guard. She grunted as she pummelled him to the floor, stomping and trampling the helpless stallion. His bones snapped and broke under the pressure as though they were nothing more than rotten old wood.
Crescent Strike pulled the spearhead from his cheek with a spurt of blood. He spat and gurgled, lumbering over to Nightsong to push her off the stallion. He reared and slammed his hooves onto the Royal Guard's neck and listened for the satisfying crunch of his throat. To finish the job, he picked up the spearhead. With one swift strike he planted it in the guard's mouth and drove it through the tissue, pinning the thrashing stallion to the floor by the back of his head.
He wiped his cheek and licked the blood from his hoof. The laughter of Nightmare Moon resounded in his mind to congratulate him. He sat onto his defeated foe and straightened his back. Puffing his chest, he closed his eyes and breathed in; the torn flaps of the skin of his cheek smouldered as his hot blood welded the flesh back together.
The laughter in his ears slowly faded, and he tuned out the dying whimpers and sputters of the Royal Guard.
His ears rotated.
At the back of the room stood a tall wardrobe. Inside, a mare whispered, barely audible even to herself. “Please,” she begged, “don't cry now. Hush now, quiet now... it's alright... please, not now...”
As Crescent Strike's eyes opened, his lips parted into a grin. Nightsong sensed his satisfaction – she'd heard too. She walked silently, with the poise of a cat, to the wardrobe and placed a hoof on the handle.
She tore the door from its hinges, throwing it across the room. The mare facing her clutched her baby and screamed in terror.
Crescent Strike walked over. “Hello, Veiled Quill.” He winked. “Still love that bracelet, by the way.”
With eyes shifting between the Night Guards and the brutalised corpse of her husband, Veiled Quill crawled away and pressed against the back of the wardrobe as though she meant to seep through the very wall. She shook her head violently, pleading, screaming. “No! Please, no, I'm sorry!” In her lap, the baby began to cry.
Nightsong leaned closer. “What is that sweet filly's name?”
Veiled Quill tried to shrink away, but there was nowhere to hide. “Don't hurt her, I beg you. You want me, not her!”
Crescent Strike lunged forth, putting his front hooves inside the wardrobe and pressing his forehead against Veiled Quill's. “She asked you a question, you tactless wench.”
“New Page!” she wailed. “Her name is New Page. She's never done you any harm. Please, leave her.”
He reached for the baby, but Veiled Quill bit his leg. He groaned and slammed the hoof into the mare's nose; the wardrobe's wall gave her the next blow. Before the mare came to, he tore the baby from her grasp. As Veiled Quill jumped at him, Nightsong tackled her to the floor.
“She's innocent!” Veiled Quill cried, reaching a hoof in vain towards Crescent Strike.
He scoffed. “Aren't they all?” He began making his way to the boarded window. “All night, that's what everypony's saying. They're always innocent. They've always loved us. The only thing they love more than us is Princess Luna and her beautiful starry nights. Funny how that works.”
Cradling the baby with a wing, he reared on his front legs and crushed the boards on the window with a single kick of his hind hooves.
“What are you doing?” Veiled Quill wailed. She tried to move, but Nightsong put her down with a swift hoof to her stomach. “Please, oh stars, please don't!”
“Let's see how this little pegasus flies,” Crescent Strike said.
“Please!” Veiled Quill screamed, her face screwing up with desperation and terror. “I'll do anything!”
Crescent Strike looked her over, savouring – almost enjoying – the sheer disgust he felt for Veiled Quill's revolting visage: the drool on her lips from her screams and her runny nose from all the crying. He had to laugh. “You don't seem to understand where you are.”
On cue, Nightsong sent another hoof into her face, silencing her wails. She sniffled back the blood that dripped from her nose. Nightmare Moon laughed in Crescent Strike's ear and her hoof stroked his mane.
“Make sure she's looking, Nightsong,” called Crescent Strike.
He took one last look at the baby and gave her a peck on the forehead. For just a moment, either out of fear or confusion, the child stopped crying.
“Good bye, little New Page.”
He cast the baby out the window and followed her arc with his eyes. Veiled Quill extended a hoof towards the window – and screamed for the last time in her life.
The baby hit the earth – and oh, the sweet crunch of her tiny body crumpling and snapping at the collision! Inside Crescent Strike's head, the thunder of Nightmare Moon's cackling drowned out the world.
Veiled Quill's scream died, and she stared. She stared, her mouth still open but breath seeping only in a silent whimper.
She stopped struggling. She almost forgot to breathe. Her hoof went limp.
Nightsong stomped on her groin. Veiled Quill barely made a sound, and didn't even look at her. Her eyes were set still on the window.
“I think we're done,” Nightsong said with a satisfied smile, stepping off her.
Crescent Strike looked at Veiled Quill, and she looked at him. For him, he would never forget the face of the mare from whom he had taken everything. For her, the depraved glee in the monster's eyes would forever be etched into her mind.
There was one more thing he could do, Crescent Strike realised. One more thing to absolutely break the mare. He grinned in anticipation, and licked blood and drool from his lips.
“You go ahead,” he said, biting onto the scruff of Veiled Quill's neck. He pulled the mare to her hooves, though she could barely stand. Her weakness excited him; he could feel the heat rising below.
Nightsong took one look at him – and giggled cheekily. As she left, she left the door open so that the others might watch. Crescent Strike threw the limp mare onto the bed. She did not resist.
And so it began: the crowning act to the Nightmare's theatre of horrors.
The Longest Night came to an end in three days' time. A search party found Veiled Quill curled up under the same bed, discarded like a wet tissue and clutching a bauble bracelet in her hoof. She was conscious but catatonic: a broken, gibbering husk of a mare.
Swift Sweep
Without an assigned scribe, I was forced to crudely carve every letter by mouth and hoof. I wasn't good at that, writing. It took a few minutes for all the characters to come back to me. I jotted down the current date at the top of the page, and began surveillance for the first night of Project Bookworm.
Our orders were to watch New Page's apartment and find out why she was stealing books from the Archives – whether she worked alone for her own amusement, or perhaps if she was part of a greater, clandestine operation. She spent most of the day out of the apartment, at the University or the Archives where Lullaby and I couldn't reliably follow her. We had more than enough eyes in both places, however, so we didn't have to – and evidently, the Princess wanted this job done with as few ponies as possible.
The day shift consisted mostly of watching over an empty apartment and reporting the nothing that happened. As such, Lullaby had been kind enough to volunteer me for the night shift. Not that it was much more exciting: New Page reportedly came home rather late every day, and there had been few reports of her ever leaving the apartment at night time.
Then again, it took a while for the Archives to notice the missing books, and even when they were expecting the thief they failed to catch New Page. There was more to this young mare than she let on; I couldn't allow my attention to waver.
Following my... episode back in the apartment, Lullaby and I made an agreement not to mention it. I only needed some air and a moment to collect myself – and then I was ready to work as I'd ever been.
Well, that was not true. I knew it, and Lullaby knew it; ever the good friend, however, she did not bring it up. Yet I could not shake the feeling that Lullaby was testing me. I'd have to make it through my shift without another breakdown.
The rules were simple: keep the candles low and your eyes sharp. Strictly surveillance only; if anything happened, we'd report it to Celestia. I supposed this was the only thing she dared trust us with after Project Heartbreak.
Although the unfurnished apartment above New Page's provided a reasonably good vista of the city by day, by night darkness blanketed most streets. In the distance, the Palace and the Archives were lit up by lights both magical and conventional, and the most travelled streets were lined by the occasional gas lamps. For the longest time, I saw no sign of New Page.
One thing concerned me – or one pony, to be more precise. I could not tell if it was a stallion or a mare, though from its small stature and long mane I guessed female, and quite young at that. She sat motionlessly at the door of a closed shop, just around the bend of the street, her white coat and mane practically glowing in the light of the lantern above the door.
There was no curfew at the time, so there was nothing outright wrong about somepony sitting there in the middle of the night, yet I couldn't help but wonder. What was she doing? Or rather, why wasn't she doing anything? If I hadn't known better, I might have taken her for a statue. I wondered if I should write anything down, but ended up not doing so. It wasn't my job, not now.
It was about ten, maybe fifteen minutes after the Archives closed for the night that I first noticed New Page from the window. Her gaze was buried inside a book she held, hobbling forward on three legs on her way up the cliffs.
A second before she came around the corner, the white mare stood up and took one step forward. In the next moment, New Page bumped straight into her, recoiling and dropping her book. The mare picked it up, New Page quickly took it back, and hurried on with her head low and ears drooped. I could see the embarrassment from all the way up here.
The mare said something to make New Page pause. She turned back, and the two exchanged a few words. Whoever the other mare was, New Page didn't seem to recognise her, neither was she took keen on whatever she said. She stepped away, only for the other mare to point a hoof towards the nearby tavern. New Page took a reluctant step towards the mare, and nodded after a moment of deliberation, brushing her mane back.
How strange. Although New Page was reportedly friendly, she wasn't known for actively participating in meaningless social rituals, not unless pressed. Always in a hurry, that girl.
As New Page and the other mare walked for the tavern, I began writing. I didn't get the impression that she recognised the white mare, but the other one definitely recognised her. Sat alone in the middle of the night, moved exactly when New Page came along to bump into her – she had to have been expecting her. I could have learned far more, of course – had Celestia in her wisdom not forbade me from leaving my post. Oh well. I guess I'll just stay up here...
The two spent half an hour, maybe a while longer, in the tavern before New Page emerged alone. She walked more slowly now, awestruck perhaps – or intoxicated – and carried her book by its spine between her teeth. She stopped halfway up the cliff, looking at the sky – the Moon, perhaps – before finally entering her apartment. As she walked through the door, I moved my chair from the window to the enchanted mirror.
She threw off her bag and collapsed into bed, spitting the book out. For a while she lay still and breathed heavy, tired sighs. Eventually, she raised her head and dragged herself out of bed, practically oozing off the side before standing up properly. She fumbled through the dark room towards her desk – stubbing her hoof at the edge and cursing a little – and rummaged around in a drawer before pulling out a tinderbox.
She laid out the kit onto her desk: flint and steel, a charcloth, and a bundle of sulphur sticks. Snapping the flint against the steel, it took her a few clumsy hits to produce a spark great enough to ignite the slow-burning cloth. After a few minutes of trial and error, she'd managed to get a few embers going, and she blew on them to get them hot enough for use with a sulphur stick. She put the tip of a stick against the cloth to light it.
Once it caught, she quickly brought it over to a candlestick hoisted above her bed. With the candle lit, she shook the sulphur stick to extinguish its flame, then stomped on the charcloth a few times to extinguish that too. She didn't bother with putting the kit back together.
Throwing herself into the bed again, she picked up the book she'd been reading all the way home. She flipped onto her back and wiggled about, finally releasing a satisfied sigh with the book standing on her chest, the light of the candle falling on it at just the right angle.
This was the first time I saw her – when I really saw her. The spectral projection I'd seen at the Archives stayed true to basic shape and silhouette, but distorted colour and eschewed fine details. From the files we'd collected, I already knew about New Page, though I did not know her.
Now in the dim candlelight, I had an opportunity to take a close look at this enigma of a mare. The memories of the Longest Night would haunt me until the day I expired; I could never forget the atrocities I'd committed, and I might never wash the blood from my hooves. Her blood.
She'd changed. I remembered her coat in a different, brighter colour, and on her neck there used to be a little dark spot. And she'd grown so much – when I took her into my hooves on that fateful night, I could barely feel the weight.
She was a dark brown all over, no spots to be seen. Her dark grey mane was as thick and luscious as I'd seen in the Archives, but oddly crude, almost wire-like in texture.
Her cutie mark: a half-filled parchment before a waxing Moon.
Hello again, New Page. How have you been?
I kept a small, circular metal plate on the desk beside me. In the middle of it was a red gem encircled by an etching of the Sun; tapping the centre lightly, the plate flashed and quickly began heating up. Beside the plate stood a kettle and a cup. I didn't bring tea; Lullaby had suggested I try this new 'coffee' they'd recently began importing. I poured a cupful and left it to warm up on the sunplate.
Around the time that the cup became comfortably hot, the book slipped from New Page's hooves. Her head fell to the side, mouth open and chest expanding with slow, sleeping breaths. One of her hind hooves twitched and clopped against the wall. She didn't wake.
Like a big baby.
I took a sip of coffee – and nearly dropped the cup as the astounding bitterness flooded my mouth. It burned my throat and stung my nostrils; I could barely put the cup down without shattering it. Come to think of it, Lullaby mentioned I should buy sugar. As the taste slowly faded, I wiped the tears from my eyes.
New Page was still asleep. I prided myself on being able to read other ponies. To me, she seemed innocent.
I knew for a fact this was untrue; I'd seen the recording of her breaking into the Lunar Wing, and I'd found the very book she stole in her apartment. My history with her had to be clouding my judgement. But no matter how long I looked, I couldn't imagine her harming a soul. If it was knowledge alone she desired, I'd have felt deeply sorry to lock her away.
A cold rush of realisation ran down my spine. I should not have felt sorry for an enemy of Celestia. And before, I never had.
Lullaby came to take over just before the crack of dawn. Having lost a wing, she couldn't fly; I took shameful pleasure in watching her walk all the way up the steep slopes. Must have been my old insecurities regarding her acting up.
“So,” she began as I let her in, “how was the night?”
“About as eventful as you'd think.”
She put her saddlebag into the corner, then walked for the mirror and took a long look at New Page. She turned towards the desk to pick up the night's report. “And the coffee?” she asked as she read, pacing the other way.
I shrugged. “I can't see it catching on.”
“Uh-huh.” She waved the report. “What do you make of this white mare?”
“An employer, or at least potential one, if I had to guess. I wonder if she'll show up again.” Sighing, I went for the door, cracking my joints with every slow step. “All I know for sure is that I've got a nasty cramp in my neck from looking in that mirror all night.”
“Oh?” Lullaby lowered the scroll, batting her eyebrows at me. “Like what you see?”
I yanked the door open. “No.”
“Why the hurry?” she chortled. “Come on, she isn't that ugly.”
It took all my willpower to gently close the door instead of slamming it. I turned back towards Lullaby. “You know who New Page is.”
“'Course I do.”
“You watched me.”
I stepped forward with a stomp. In the mirror, New Page's leg twitched and clopped against the wall again. One of her front hooves slipped and fell beside the bed with another clop. Her eyes remained closed.
I continued towards Lullaby, now with silent steps but no less frustration. “You helped me. And you treat it like a joke.”
She pushed a hoof against my chest, keeping distance. “Easy there, small boy.”
I slapped her hoof away. “Don't.” I fought to contain the tremors of anger rising inside me. “You're as guilty as I am, don't act like you're innocent. None of us are innocent.”
I took a step back, looking around the empty apartment. “What are we doing here, Lullaby? Celestia gave us this chance to atone for our crimes. I'm here so I can make up for what I did.” I stuck a hoof towards the mirror. “What I did to her.”
Lullaby scoffed. “We make up for our crimes against Equestria by doing what Celestia wishes. What you feel – what I feel – is not relevant. I'm sorry, but that's the truth. We've had this conversation before.”
I stepped to the mirror. “Look at her. I don't know how she's alive. But I've already destroyed her once, and...” I choked on that last word. I shook with anger, not at Lullaby but at myself. I wasn't supposed to be like this. Icy blood and an iron will – that's what I'd always had. I've never felt like this, I wasn't supposed to feel like this, I never thought I'd ever—
Pain struck my lower jaw as my teeth crunched. I stopped grinding them.
I hung my head. “I've ended her life once. I'm supposed to do it again.”
I felt a hoof grab my shoulder, giving it a firm grasp and a shake. “She chose her path. It's not your fault.”
I turned to her. “Isn't it? If she survived when I...” I swallowed. “If she survived that fall, I don't know what happened to her. It's no wonder she'd turn out wrong.”
“Look.” She retracted her hoof. “We don't know why she's doing what she's doing. It might be nothing serious.”
“Please, you've seen the list of missing books. Tomes on Night Guards, vampires, madness, soul magic, blood magic... what do you reckon a history student – a pegasus, no less – does with such material? She's working for somepony, it's obvious. Or she's a freelancer, selling to the highest bidder.”
“So you agree she deserves whatever she gets.”
“She does.” I looked for reassurance in Lullaby's eyes. “She really does. But...” I turned back to New Page, at her peaceful, dreaming half-smile and twitchy leg. “Look at her. I know she's guilty. She has to be. But I can't believe it.” Again, I turned to Lullaby. This time, I paused for a breath before speaking. “I'm slipping, big girl.”
“I could have you be reassigned.”
That made me tense up.
“No, calm down,” Lullaby quickly added. “That is an offer, not a threat. For you own good, only if you want it. Clearly this project is hitting you hard. ” She extended her hoof and wrapped a leg around my shoulder, pulling me in. “I understand, I really do. I joke to cope.”
I turned the thought over in my head. Yes, reassignment would be for the best. Assuming Lullaby got to choose where, anyway. It would have been much easier to get away from New Page – away from the one pony that has ever made me question my conviction to Celestia's service.
To question my role in the EBSS was to question Celestia herself. To question Celestia was to doubt Equestria, and to doubt Equestria was to harm us all. I knew that.
“Look at me, small boy. Look at me.” She grabbed one of my hooves and clutched hers tightly around it. I had to look in her eyes – and as I did, I squeezed right back. “I know how much our job means to you,” she said. “That's why I agreed not to bring this up in the first place. But as the leader of this project, I can't allow your conscience to jeopardise it.”
She let go and stayed quiet for a moment, eyes staring into me. Her hoof moved to brush my cheek. Lullaby had never been the touchy-feely type; she quickly put her hoof down. I could still feel the warmth of her touch on my face.
“More importantly,” she said, “I don't want you to be hurt.”
“You really want me to give this up.”
“Because I care about you, you buffoon.” She snorted, a crooked grin creeping up her face. She shook her head. “Since Silhouette died, you've been my little baby boy.”
To question Celestia was to doubt Equestria, and to doubt Equestria was to harm us all.
I found myself grinding my teeth again, and my hooves dug nervously into the stone floor. Indoctrination, all of it. It had not been Celestia's doing; we old dogs did it ourselves. It was the only way to cope. Icy blood and an iron will with which to focus on the task at hand.
We never strayed from the course, for all other paths were far too perilous; we never looked back for the past was far too horrifying. Never look back at the past, lest you spoil Equestria's future. It was easy, wearing the workhorse's blinders.
Just let this project go, I told myself. Continue serving Equestria. Simple. Clean.
The coward's way out.
“So, what do you say?” asked Lullaby.
“No.” I straightened my back and breathed in deep, exhaling a sigh of relief. “I'm staying.” Better face my past than let it control me.
Lullaby turned to the mirror. “Are you sure you're up to this?”
I wanted so badly to do the right thing. “If she's guilty, I need to be the one to prove it.” For Equestria.
“If?”
I glanced at New Page. “Is there anypony we couldn't prove guilty, really? You, me – even the majestic flanks of Celestia can become the enemies of Equestria if we want them to.”
Lullaby cast me a suspicious glance. “Are you implying Celestia would send an innocent into the dungeons? Have we ever done that?”
As I shook my head, I couldn't suppress a smile. “Of course we haven't.” I walked for the door. “See, this is exactly why I can't be reassigned. If – when – we prove New Page guilty, I need to be the one to do it. This way I can make sure.”
She raised a brow. “Sure that we don't destroy the lives of innocent ponies?”
“We pride ourselves on catching monsters, big girl.” I put a hoof on the doorknob. “I merely want to make sure we've stopped being monsters ourselves.”
When I was a Night Guard, I'd regularly spend a week or more without a wink of sleep. After Celestia purged Luna's magic from our bodies, that became an impossible task. Even a single night spent awake severely impacted my capabilities. My age didn't help either. But I didn't go to sleep – not yet.
I took a quick detour to the Archives. From the royal clerks there, I asked to find all records regarding New Page. Her birth, her death, her life that had apparently been unimpacted by the Longest Night. I wanted everything, down to the tiniest morsel of information.
Because she had been born before the EBSS was established and because it took near-on a decade for the organisation to reach peak strength, reports of her early life were far more scarce than information of later years.
Apparently, the body of a baby filly fitting my recollection of New Page was found after the Longest Night, although her identity had never been confirmed. And while her mother Veiled Quill had been found alive, she never came forth to report the death of her ostensible only child.
As far as the records showed, New Page had never died at all.
That was all they could give me on a preliminary look, but they assured me they'd conduct a more thorough investigation. When the EBSS asked for information, a servant of Celestia would descend into the very depths of Tartarus to scrounge the smallest scraps rather than return empty-hoofed.
Stepping out of the Archives, I took a deep breath of the mountain air, still cool from the night. I wondered where I was needed next. I had to realise I wasn't needed anywhere. That was a cold shower in itself, and as it washed over me, it left behind a feeling of emptiness I hadn't felt since I was but a useless delinquent so many decades ago.
Pestering the clerks at the Archives wouldn't make them work faster. As for New Page, I could not follow her into the University, nor was I supposed to. Lullaby was on shift watching the apartment all day. I'd been given no other task, no project to work on, no investigation to continue, no elusive criminal to track down.
I simply wasn't needed. The one stallion standing still among all the ponies rushing by.
So this was Celestia's insult – the punishment for 'my' failure at the mansion. I couldn't even be angry at her. I had to remain thankful for her not putting me on White Wolf.
I believed in Celestia. I really did. But sometimes... sometimes I hated her, and I hated her brave new Equestria. Perhaps the Nightmare never completely left me after all.
Impotent, undirected anger frothed inside me – until it broke free and I slammed a hoof at the pavement. Pain whipped my bones, and I felt a piece of my hoof chip off. I kicked it away and gave a hiss of pain. Nopony even looked my way.
In the end, I decided to pay an old friend a visit.
I didn't like visiting Silhouette. Even in his death I felt like I was wasting his time.
Although he came into my life late – by stomping right into it, and indeed, almost into my skull – over the few years I got to spend under his guidance, he had become like a father to me. What a disgrace it was that his headstone didn't even bear his real name.
I placed a hoof onto the name of Black Spot. While the rest of Equestria thought the Night Guards were banished along with Nightmare Moon, we old dogs knew the truth. I'm not going to forget you, Silhouette. I let my hoof slide down, leaving a scratch. “I'm sorry.”
He had changed my life that night; saved it, even. I wished he'd have come talk to me before deciding to end his own. I could've repaid the favour. I should've seen it in his eyes. I shouldn't have let him walk away. Why did I have to find River and not him?
I never learned what he did during the Longest Night, but perhaps that was for the best. Not like it mattered now. Did it ever?
A shadow above. A pegasus flew by – New Page. I turned the other way and set my gaze on the ground by reflex. It took my mind a moment to process there was no way she could have recognised me.
She seemed to be carrying something. A flower-adorned wreath, and perhaps more things in her bag. She settled a few rows underneath me. I adjusted myself to keep an eye on her without being obvious. I could still do that, though I wasn't as good as I had once been. Not without a magic mirror to help me.
New Page cleaned the grave, tearing weeds and even stuffing some in her mouth to chew. It looked like she was in a hurry, or just wanted to be done as quickly as possible. Once the soil was clear, she lit a few tealights and put up the wreath by the headstone. After a moment of contemplation, she turned her eyes to the sky. I cast my own gaze down.
Though I wasn't looking, I heard the minute vibrations of the wind as she spread her wings and flew closer. She must have thought she was being subtle. Did I give myself away? She landed, and I pretended I didn't notice. Even with my back turned I could feel her staring.
She cleared her throat. Don't you dare talk to me.
“Excuse me, sir.”
One of my ears perked, twisting in the direction of her voice. I didn't catch it in time. I tried to bring it back forward, slowly now, to make it seem I didn't care.
A lump collected in my throat, one I couldn't swallow. I never got like this. I breathed in deep to control my nerves. Silhouette's simple headstone grew more and more interesting and intricate every passing second – or that's what I told myself. It felt better to focus on its little cracks, that patch of moss in a mouldering corner, the fly rubbing its legs as it crept across Black Spot's name.
“My name is New Page.”
Her voice cut into my back like a knife, and every word was another twist on the blade. My hooves dug deeper into the dusty earth, stiff with barely contained tremors.
“I study history at the university.”
I know. Go away.
“Forgive me, I do not mean to intrude...”
You are. Go away.
“But I couldn't help but notice the date on this headstone.”
I ground my teeth again. Shut up, the words echoed in my mind. Shut up, shut up, shut up. I promised myself that I'd do this. I was not a coward. Yet I couldn't bear her presence, not like this. Without the mirror, without the veil of secrecy and lies, without the protection of the EBSS – I was just a wizened old stallion standing in a cemetery.
“I was wondering if... if you'd like to share your story.”
My story.
The memories washed over me, locking me in their suffocating embrace.
I heard your mother scream as you died, New Page. Smoke billowed high into the dark sky, the bodies littered the ground, and pillars of flame danced in between.
I could feel my mind slip, as it always did, slip back into the bottomless void, the endless sea of regret, the unforgiving visions of blood and ruptured flesh and desecrated bodies, and the laughter, oh, the cackling—
No.
I shut my eyes tight, blocking it out. Not now. A deep breath. Breathe out. Open your eyes.
I turned my head, finally, to look New Page in the eye, face to face for the first time in a long time. I fought the urge to turn and run.
She shrunk away at my stare. Am I that frightening? She scared me far more than I did her.
“Leave me alone, lady,” I forced from my throat before turning forward. That was enough of that.
She replied after a brief pause. “I meant no disrespect.” Another pause. “I apologise.”
Her wings unfurled again, and she took off within the second; a little filly running from the bad stallion. I watched her ascend. She didn't look back. When she disappeared in the sprawls of the city above, all the tension inside me snapped free.
I drove a hoof into the soil of Silhouette's grave, then another, then I pulled both up and stomped down again, and again and again, pummelling, digging, trampling, breathing in the swelling dust through clenched teeth and muffled screams.
Eventually, when my hooves throbbed with pain and muscles gave out in exhaustion, I let my legs go limp. I fell to the beaten soil, lying on the grave of the stallion who had saved me so long ago. I sneezed on the dust. My breaths gradually slowed.
I looked up at the city again, and the late morning Sun scorched my eyes.
What are you doing to me?