Diary of the Night

by CalebH

War of Shadows - Chapter 153

I watched your parade. From the city gates to the castle entrance your victorious army stretched. Side by side our guards marched under your victorious banner and in the center of it all you were there. To your right was our nation’s new prince and to your left the grisly trophy that was once Queen Chrysalis. You cleaned her up no doubt, wiped away the blood and put the corpse in a time bubble so that it wouldn’t decay. After all trophies are best seen and not smelled. Those that look close can still see the splintered spear coming out of her chest.

Despite what you may think of me I am not ashamed of how our subjects cheered at the proof of her death, I am not ashamed of you. Yet I must wonder if it were any other city but Canterlot, so eager for vengeance for the sake of their bruised pride, would you have been greeted by anything but a stunned silence.

As distasteful as I find it, war is necessary. You have done well.

When your chariot finally reaches the castle you leap off to me. I cannot honestly recall the last time I have been on the receiving end of an embrace. From the shocked expressions around the courtyard I glean that our subjects cannot either.

“Our subjects are safe, may peace see them to prosperity,” you whisper in my ear.

The soldiers, as they are now, wait patiently at the banquet hall for you to lead them in. I did not skimp. The finest feast Equestria has seen in centuries is laid out for the victors to enjoy.

I hope you will excuse me for not joining you, I know how much you want to see my moderation overcome by drink, but the parade is not finished. The supply train rolls carefully in and the soft moans of the wounded fill the courtyard.

A former guard of mine, Morning Star I believe, stands wide-eyed and helpless to the side as the infirmary staff bears the wounded inside. I follow. Again and again he braves the wrath of the nurses to hover fretfully over a stretcher. An hour passes and still they do not see to the small still form that fills it.

I do not know why I hid when you entered. The nurses find somewhere else to be and Morning Star falls into a fitful sleep where he sits beside the cot. You walk amongst the wounded and the tragic dead. Believing yourself unseen you pause to bless each with a kiss on the forehead.

Morning Star stirs when you when you approach the cot he watches over. You pull back the sheet revealing one of the few night ponies. She stretches and tries to rise. Before you stop her I see a bandaged leg come out from under the sheets. She will be lucky to walk again.

Outside we hear the bumps and rumble of furniture being carried through the castle. A green Unicorn I do not recognize looks in. I can see the realization on his face, perhaps this was not the best place to ask directions. Before he can return to the hallway he catches your eye.

It is a sister’s place to laugh as you try to summon one you so obviously know without advertising that you do not know his name. Do not whip your head around so quickly, you may injure yourself.

“Come, subject,” I call to him. “What is your name?”

“Cross Circuit, Princess Celestia,” he says bowing low.

“Cross Circuit this is my sister, Luna.” Ah, I see he does not know your name either. “Luna this is Cross Circuit.”

The night pony cannot help but laugh either it seems. “Moon Shadow,” she says as she leans up to bump hooves with the unicorn. A grimace of pain halts the gesture and Morning Star comes awake with a start.

Unasked and unmindful of anypony else in the room he helps her settle back into the cot.

“This is Morning Star,” She says, the pain still driving an edge in her voice. He looks up in a daze, seeing everypony else for the first time. “Morning Star, that’s Cross Circuit.”

“Heh, so that’s your name.”

For a few moments silence falls over the room.

“I guess I should give my resignation now,” Moon Shadow says breaking it, “I won’t be much use in a fight anymore.”

“I’m afraid that won’t be acceptable. Your training is far too precious to be wasted upon a mere injury.” For the briefest of moments I think you cruel. “To a pony your comrades simply let me win and my new arcade will not be a place of unearned victories.”

Your laughter is the first to break the tension. I take my leave as the rest join in. For a moment I feel a taste of the jealousy that brought you so low. I am a stranger among my subjects who know me only by my crown. The same subjects who laugh and share the warmth of friendship with you.

You will go with them and enjoy your new toy. You will laugh and play far past the time you should have been abed. Tomorrow you will be overtired and grumpy like the child you have earned the right to pretend you are.

I love you sister, and seeing you among friends I come to realize that I have never been more proud of you.

Please, please know that.

The Crystal Empire has returned. I have already sent Shining and Cadence to defeat the slaver king. You are not to follow, I will not lose you to his darkness again.

C

Author's Note:

This, this is where it all began. Almost a year and a half ago I watched the opener to season three and saw that Celestia did not trust Luna. Even after three years Celestia didn’t trust her own sister and so I set out writing a version of Luna that would make that fact not only understandable but expected.

The story changed and evolved as I wrote it and I am glad it did. It is very much better than the story I originally intended (reunion would have lasted beyond this point with increasingly petty bickering with war of shadows being nothing more than a few side stories). Now something that would have struggled to make it 40 chapters before floundering and dying is past 150 chapters and 4000 views. (Arguably they don’t count as full chapters as they are tiny but the point still stands)

Now for some less general notes.

This is one of those times I am tempted to hide behind the dark tag as a shield against criticism but let’s try not to do that, shall we? Luna’s already stated that she doubts she’ll get all of the changelings. Even in the final battle some stragglers could easily have slipped off into the forest. Luna never knew if this was all of the changelings or an excursion sent into Equestria to get food.

That being said even if every changeling in history was on that battlefield Luna would have killed them all. Anything that counts itself as Equestria’s enemy she kills. Genocide may not have been what she accomplished, but it is what she meant.

This may seem a bit contrary but I don’t want to write Luna as a one dimensional killer. Being someone who was merciless and very proud of that and then being subject to another’s mercy has affected her and in the next few chapters we will begin to see how much.

Before I post the next chapter I will post a spoilerific blog post for those of you who are on the fence about whether you want to keep reading or not. I don’t actually have any written plans for what comes next so I’ll just list the next few ideas I had and you can decide whether or not you want to keep reading.

Comments

[Glazius]

Chrysalis is a grisly trophy.

She's only a grizzly trophy if she turned into a bear to fight Shining. Which, y'know, possible but not likely.

[jqnexx]

It's not so much that I was annoyed about Luna being merciless. That's what I thought this AU was at least in part about. It's that Shining Armor goes along with it to the extent that he does.

[mlc894]

This is just as satisfying an end to the arc as I was hoping for! Completely worth the wait. Rest assured, you have a reader who will continue reading this until you've decided that you're done!

[defunct321]

I can't wait for the Sombra arc, I hope you explore it deeply. Fan fictions have really made me enjoy Sombra as a villain a lot.

[BenRG]

Our subjects are safe, may peace see them to prosperity.

I get the feeling that's the traditional 'hand off' phrase Luna says to Celestia when she's confirming that she's renouncing her emergency powers and allowing Celestia to take over peacetime rule again.

Yeah, this war did a good job to show why Celestia didn't let Luna go after Sombra. She wouldn't have stood a chance against his anger-magic and there's no telling what the consequences could have been. However, I do think that Celestia might not understand just to what degree this was only a job for Luna - one to do, do well and then get out of the way. There were several parts of this that indicated that she didn't find any joy in this and is starting to wonder if there is another way.

So, we're in early Season 3. The next thing Luna is likely to write about is her anger at Celestia refusing her to go to the Crystal City and some sulking over the insult of sending a student barely in her 20s instead! This will likely be followed by her concern at the 'Lesson Zero' incident and her fears that maybe Twilight was corrupted by Sombra's magic.

[Kittamaru]

I really liked this - it makes sense to me, that Luna would be the "warrior princess" while Celestia rules the nation behind. How can one who has the power to bring forth the very SUN be expected to fight... the collateral damage and casualties would be enormous were Celestia to bring her full might to bear. Luna... Luna is far more subtle; perhaps less powerful, but so much more skilled in using that power.

I like it!

[WickedlyTragic]

Yes! I'm so excited that you're keeping the story going past this point. I started to get a little worried when Tia's letter began to sound like an ending. And now on that note.... YesYesYesYes!!! I loved reading Celestia's letter thing! It is very cool!! I'm so excited to see/read the next chapter.

[Wroth]

5045552

That doesn't really apply to what i said, did you mean to respond to someone else?

Considering what I stated was: When we saw Celestia even she called herself incompetent, that Luna is not only better then her but is in fact a "True Alicorn".

And that Luna has nothing but practical scorn for everything Celestia has and or does, the only time we see her actually complimenting something of hers is her statecraft and even then it is rather begrudgingly.

At this point while I know the story was biased because of Luna's views in her diary, the segment with Celestia seems to help hype her up as overall the "Better Mare", aside from the tidbits where Luna doubts herself as a leader.

[RandomBlank]

Goddammit, mr. author:
afterwords: texts about the stories written after these stories; like the "chapter notes" at the bottom of the last chapter, how the writting was like, what difficulties you faced etc. Unlike the epilogue, it's not a part of the story itself, but a word from the author about the writing, similarly how preface compares to prologue.

afterwards: later, after specific action.

You finish writing the story, and afterwards you write the afterword.

[defunct321]

5122622 Fine, fine, but I would like to have surrender mentioned. It would have been better if Chrysalis said "I will never suffer the indignity of surrender". She does not even consider it as an option, which I feel is bad.

[the dobermans]

Not that I want you to stop writing, but this would be a fantastic ending.

[RealityCheck]

If you do not want Luna to be a one dimensional killer, then you should not have written her as one.
Quit making excuses. Genocide is not exactly in the spirit of Love, Tolerance and Harmony. But you like your night princess dipped in gore....

[PaulAsaran]

Now this was nice. It's good to be reminded, as we were before, that Celestia understands the value of war and Luna's ability to be loved by her subjects as something other than a leader.

And here is where I stop. I shall place this story back in my 'incompleted' bookshelf and wait for the next part to be finished before I continue on. I look forward to the next phase of Luna's existence.

[Beware The Carpenter]

Morning Star stirs when you when you approach

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