It was the second time she had been emotionally charged enough to simply break down crying on his shoulder. When the fear, anger, pain, and stress had finally purged from her system, Diamond weakly whispered, “What happened?”
Midnight sighed, “A psychiatrist would tell you that you had a Post-Traumatic Stress induced Psychotic Break. They wouldn’t be entirely wrong, but there’s more to it than that. You already know parts of this, but I’ll go over everything anyway, so you know how it all fits together.
“The first time you killed… Diamond, you need to understand that you did nothing wrong. To be honest, you got it more right than I have any right to ask. It was after that that things started… changing.
“I told you that the Darkness would never let you just walk away. It was there, waiting, when the shock hit your system. That shock wasn’t really your fault either.”
“Then whose fault was it?”
“Celestia’s.” The filly’s eyes widened and her ears flattened against her skull. Midnight laughed, “Yes, shocking, I know, but she can in fact make mistakes. Although I never expected her of all ponies to make that one. If Sunbeam could have seen what she’s done…” The stallion shook himself. “That’s beside the point.
“The point is that for a thousand years, Equestria has had nonviolence steadily programmed into its culture. Taking a life, especially when it wasn’t wrong, broke something deep within you. You couldn’t process it right, you didn’t know how to handle it.
“It blew a hole in the wall that the Darkness used as a door. It waltzed into your home and started rearranging the furniture. Among other things a nightmare bound itself to you, which is another thing you’ll have for the rest of your life.”
“Princess Luna said that if you saw me you’d have to let me fall.”
“She was right. That’s why I stayed away until you got to where you did.”
“She mentioned some other stuff too… I didn’t really get a lot of it.”
“Let’s hold off on that until the next time we meet. I’ll try and be waiting tomorrow night, but… I’ve got some explaining to do. And I still have my other responsibilities.”
“Responsibilities?”
“As a wishing star.”
She leaned back. “You’re a wishing star?”
“Yes, one of four.” The sky above them shifted into what Diamond realized was an accurate depiction of the night sky. She wasn’t sure how she knew, she just… knew. “Take a guess, which star am I?”
The filly had learned by this point that objecting to the stallion’s little games always ended with her getting maneuvered into them anyway, so she simply stuck out a hoof. “That one.”
He quirked an eyebrow. “That would be the moon. Actually try.”
She sighed. He could be really irritating when he wanted. She waited for a moment, picked a random star that seemed as good as any other, and lifted her hoof to poi–
Wait.
She switched stars, not entirely sure why. The new star was low, fairly close to the horizon. She wasn’t sure what it was, she just felt like she needed to pick this particular star. She shrugged inwardly, it was as good as any other. “That one.”
Midnight smiled. “Yes. Do you know how you know?” she shook her head and he continued, “That star is bound to me, just like Celestia and the sun or Luna and the moon. You are bound to me as well, which means you are connected to my star. Shadow Rangers actually navigate using my star instead of Polaris, because you can always find it, from anywhere in the world. Even in the middle of the day, you can sense it if you try.”
“Do you really grant wishes?”
“Yes, but not for you. You serve a wishing star now, the magic won’t work.”
“There are other wishing stars then?”
“Yes, three others. There is Asteralda, the Star of Prophecy. Also there is the Winter Star.”
“Who’s the fourth?”
“The fourth does not yet have a name. It does not yet have a partner or purpose, so we split its load between us. And no more questions on this, don't think I can't recognize a diversion after a thousand years. I will answer all your questions when this is over, I promise. But for now, we need to deal with your problem.”
“I thought I was out of the darkness?”
“You are. And aside from your personal nightmare, it is out of you as well. But there’s still a rather large hole that it got in through.”
“Oh. So how do we fix it then?”
“We don’t. You’re about to wake up, which will place you beyond my aid. The other filly you met however plays a crucial role in this plan.”
“Okay. What do I do?”
“This plan hinges on the difference between what the doctors call PTS and PTSD. The first is easily curable, although like all medicine, the taste of the cure will not be pleasant at first. It also might not make sense until you’re done.
“You need to talk. Tell that new friend of yours everything. From the night you first saw these cliffs to the present, share it all with her.”
“Seriously? Talk about it and it magically goes away?”
“No. But it will start to heal. And it must begin before it can complete.”
Black Diamond and Featherdown were sitting at the small kitchen table. They had awakened over an hour ago, and Diamond had spent that time bringing the other filly up to speed. The month of nightmares, Midnight Star, the shadow armor, Nyx’s journals, Zap Apple, Demon Blood, the dreamwalking last night… everything came out in the open. Even the killing.
Diamond felt a little lighter. Not much, just enough to notice. She guessed that was what Midnight meant when he said it was a start.
For her part, Featherdown seemed to take it well. She wasn’t afraid of Diamond anymore, and she had remembered to ask about Applebloom and Diamond Tiara. She about fainted though when Diamond took off the shadow armor. Seeing your friend’s skin peel off to reveal another pony underneath can be quite traumatizing apparently.
There was a moment of silence after Diamond answered Featherdown’s final question before the younger filly spoke. “So how about you. You said your name was Featherdown, but what’s your story?”
The unicorn grunted. “I…”
Remembering something Cheerilee had once told her, Diamond inserted into the pause, “You only have to tell me what you’re comfortable with me knowing.”
Featherdown nodded. “Fair enough… My mother was a pegasus, from Cloudsdale. She was travelling, actually on her way home. She was in a hurry because I was supposed to come soon, so she took a risk, flying straight through this intense storm. She got sick after, really sick.
“Very pregnant, she was carted to a hospital after she crashed here in Manehatten. After I was born, she heard I was a filly and told them to name me Featherdown. She passed out before they could explain I was a unicorn… She never woke up, died a few hours later.
“Her husband was a pegasus too… which made things awkward. Between his life in Cloudsdale and his suspicions about my paternity… Point is, I grew up in an orphanage. Ten years later, the orphanage got a new patron, Duke Deed Holder. He took me in as his ward, and I’ve lived with him ever since.”
Diamond nodded slowly. “And the stallion in your dream last night?”
Featherdown shook her head. “Don’t worry about him. Let’s just focus on saving Page.”
“Page?”
“My friend. Page Turner. The one the cultists took.”
“Fine. Blood’s Eye first, then we take care of your nightmare stallion.” It occurred to Diamond that she was being told not to worry about nightmare stallions a lot recently. She shrugged the thought off. “Do you have anything belonging to Page? We might be able to use it to track him.”
The older filly shook her head again. “Sorry. I sort of… ran away. I didn’t have time to grab anything before I left.”
Diamond smirked. “Let me guess, Duke Holder wouldn’t exactly want you out here running around the city’s underbelly chasing cultists.”
Featherdown looked away. “No, he definitely wouldn’t want me out here.”
Something in her tone struck Diamond as off, but she couldn’t quite place it. She wanted to ask, but… something told her not to push it. She knew about buried pain, it would only come out in its own time. She’d let it go.
For now.
Black Diamond and Featherdown left the bar later than the former usually did that night. An informant had shown up to warn them about an attack and give them the contact information for a pony that might be able to help. Supposedly, Game Trail could find anything with a pulse.
He also apparently had a friend whose foal may have been taken by the cult.
The pair of fillies were walking through back alleys and side streets, avoiding the light and guards that major roads brought.
“So why are they after foals anyway?”
“Nyx said something about ‘life energy.’ I guess foals have more than adults?”
“Maybe, but still, wouldn’t you think that… what’s that light?”
There was a light in the distance, just a few blocks away. It had been growing steadily brighter the closer they got to their target address. As if on cue, sirens began wailing.
They exchanged the briefest of glances before racing off.
The building was engulfed in flames. Naturally, it was also the one they were heading towards. Featherdown gasped as she realized what the source of many of the screams was. “There are ponies trapped inside.” She turned to ask Diamond for advice, only to find the earth pony had vanished, the only trace of her a shadow flitting across the ground towards the burning tenement building.
As one scream after another went silent, Featherdown found herself verbally pleading that it was Diamond getting them and not the fire.
Her whispered begging was answered when the shadows vomited – almost violently – just over a dozen ponies. Diamond rematerialized next to her. “I… found him… he was… unconscious… barely alive… fire… meant for him… cult… got here… first.”
The shadow ranger was panting heavily, and would have tipped over if Featherdown hadn’t caught her. “Diamond! …Are you alright?”
The filly in question waved the question off. “Just… took a lot… out of me… is all.”
“Okay then… we’d better get out of here before the guard shows up.”
Diamond nodded and limped away from the building, Featherdown half carrying her. They almost got away clean, but just as they vanished into an alley, a young guardspony noticed movement in some distant shadows.
He slipped away quietly, not wanting to raise a false alarm, and caught up to them quickly. “Freeze!”
Diamond rolled her eyes. Her life was so cliché lately. “Frozen. Do you want my hooves in the air too, or should I just turn around slowly?”
The guard winced as the jab struck its point. He leveled his spear, just in case this went where the movies did from here. “Neither. I want you to walk out of this alley and into guard custody, you’re wanted as a suspect in at least three murders.”
“They weren’t murders.” For the first time, the guard registered the other filly as more than Diamond’s crutch.
“Most ponies don’t run from self-defense cases.”
“It wasn’t self-defense.”
“Ma’am, I should warn you that anything you say–”
Diamond slowly turned to face the guard. “My name is Black Diamond. I am a Shadow Ranger, answering to General Midnight Star of Equestria. I am in Manehatten on assignment. A combat authorized mission against the cult known as Blood’s Eye. These cultists are behind the recent foal disappearances, as well as the foalnapping of Princess Nyx Sparkle. Their ultimate goal is to release one of the denizens of Tartarus, and my job is to stop them.
“Keep taking that up your chain of command until you reach somepony who locks their office door at the second sentence.” The shadows rose up around the fillies, and before the guard could react, they were swallowed by them.
They only made it a few yards. Just barely around the corner really. Had the guard realized exactly how drained Diamond was, he could have brought them into custody.
As it was, Diamond’s bluff worked one last time, and the poor guard was left standing there gaping at an empty alley. After a while, he turned and stumbled back to the fire.
When they got back to the apartment that night, Diamond collapsed wordlessly onto the couch, sinking instantly into the oblivion of (for once) dreamless sleep. The strain she had put on herself over the past twenty four hours finally caught up with her, so Featherdown let her sleep through noon. Whether or not she had ulterior motives to avoid certain topics of conversation, we leave up to the reader to decide.
Ironically, had she not hypothetically have attempted her equally hypothetical subterfuge, it probably would have worked. As it stood, an accident preparing lunch left the unicorn coated with powdered sugar. The noise of the shower she then took covered the sounds of Diamond waking, and Diamond’s sleep induced grogginess prevented her from registering the sound of running water as she stumbled her way to the bathroom.
There was a brief awkward moment, but they were both fillies, and most ponies went around naked anyway, so there was no real embarrassment. There was however something that Diamond noted a few minutes later, and confronted Featherdown about when she came out with a towel wrapped tightly around her flanks.
“Featherdown, why do you hide your cutie mark?”
The unicorn stopped cold, the slight tilt of her ears the only other visible sign she felt uncomfortable. “I’m… trying to stay incognito… You know, like you with the whole shadow armor thing.”
“No. It’s more than that. You’re even hiding it from me. Tartarus, in your dream, you didn’t even have a cutie mark. Why are you keeping all these secrets?”
“Geeze Diamond, we haven’t even known each other for two full days.”
“You know what I mean. What are you so afraid of?”
“…Don’t worry about it. It’s not important, not compared to the cult.”
Somethingfelt off to Diamond, but again she decided to let it go until the immediate threat was dealt with.
Diamond and Featherdown were standing around the coffee table, a map of Manehatten spread across it. Hoofwritten notes covered it, tracking the cult’s movements. “Game Trail had one of these too, though I’m guessing he noticed different stuff. Most of his notes were gone, but I remember the sections of the city he thought they might be in.” She drew an outline on the map, enclosing over two dozen city blocks as she did.
Featherdown gasped, “They overlap.”
Diamond nodded with a smile. In two weeks, the search had been narrowed down from the entire city to six blocks.
“M’Lord, the tracker survived.”
“No matter, he can no longer hinder our progress anyway.”
“Yes. And the fillies?”
“Ignore them. They are obviously mercenaries, simply look at how they operate. None of Celestia’s agents would act this way. After my release, we will either gain their loyalty… or eliminate them. Until then, they are but a nuisance.”
“A nuisance that has killed six of our own sir.”
“A fair point. Elimination it is then. Still, I do not want this becoming a priority. If she delays my escape, then somepony who matters might take notice, and we cannot afford that at this delicate juncture.”
“I understand.”
“How close are we?”
“As it stands? The energy we are farming should be enough in less than a day.”
“That… is good to hear.”
“Yes… Sir, there is one more piece of news.”
“What is it Cunning?”
“Vengeance. We have lost contact with him… We fear he may have been discovered.”
“I see… Will he talk?”
“No. Never.”
“Then we have nothing to worry about. Also, Ponyville. Are we ready to strike?”
“The plan there is going perfectly.”
Twilight opened her front door to find both Celestia and Cadence standing there. “Twilight,” the solar diarch’s voice was deliberately level, “We are now down to three princesses. Also, it would seem that we have had several miscommunications, as well as certain… other issues.” She cast a glance at a chain wrapped stallion behind her.
“May we come in? We need to talk.”