Once Upon a Time...
Princess Celestia
How dare he. That had been my first thought.
How dare he.
I turned around, leaving the heart for the fool; he could have it if he so desperately needed it.
Oh, what I would have given to kill Nightmare Moon, to rid the world of her blight forever. But I was not like her. The Children of the Night thought that killing innocents was an acceptable sacrifice for a brighter future. I would not prove them right by doing the same.
I called upon the power of the Sun to banish the spirit of Nightmare Moon. New Page's body writhed in agony, every last muscle contorted and all of her being burned from the inside with the might of sunlight. I burned a path through the space beyond spaces, and the Elements of Harmony reclaimed Nightmare Moon's wretched soul, sealing her back into her heavenly tomb.
In her last moment under the skies, Nightmare Moon swore she'd return. She would return, and she would kill me.
I would be waiting.
An enormous cloud of black smoke poured from New Page's mouth, swirling and swelling in the air. The light drove it out of the Archives and up into the sky through the clouds and the space that divided Equestria from the heavens above. There her prison awaited the rogue spirit. As the Mare in the Moon reappeared on the Moon's surface, I wished she'd never return.
The Mare in the Moon never disappeared on that night, not for a second. It did not because I declared it did not. The EBSS was quick to quell rumours to the contrary spread by foolish ponies. I would strike that hateful night from my mind – or if I could not, I'd strike it from the pages of history.
For such is the way of the heart: so impulsive and spiteful one moment, and longing and regretful the next.
Oh, what I would have given to see my beloved sister, to dance again with her across the heavens. As I looked into the eye of the Mare in the Moon, my immortal mind failed to find the words with which to express my love for her.
I sent the body of New Page to the laboratories beneath Canterlot, and had our most brilliant unicorns tend to her. With the help of an eldritch tome the EBSS had earlier confiscated, they were able to place her heart back in her deformed body.
But she did not wake up.
Years passed; they fly by so quickly. The ponies in the labs begged me to get rid of New Page. She would never wake, they told me; she merely took up valuable space and magical resources that could've been far better used for other purposes. I rejected their pleas time and time again. In all the time I'd kept her unconscious body alive, I'd allowed her mother to see New Page exactly once.
She never asked to see her again. She could not bear to look at her baby child, not alive yet not quite dead; a travesty, a husk, a puppet of the daughter Veiled Quill loved.
Swift Sweep, I sent to the mines.
I enjoyed the thought of his suffering; anypony who dared speak in such a tone to the one great Princess of Equestria deserved as much. I'd often visit him and watch with perverted glee as he toiled away with a blunt pickaxe at the thick crystals in the dank, torch-lit depths.
He did not deserve sunlight. He did not deserve anything. For those unfit for anything else, physical labour was their redemption. The crystals they unearthed would help Equestria rise from the ashes.
I hated myself for his torture; I knew deep in my heart he did not deserve it, yet I refused to admit it. He was the only reason I ever ventured into the mines, the sole reason that I ever saw all these ponies deemed undeserving of my presence. Their bones were plain to see under the thin skin that hung loosely from their bodies, and their limbs trembled under the weight of even the smallest tools.
At least the overseers found it in themselves to hide the whips and spiked chains when I arrived. That was good, I thought; I didn't want to see them anyway.
Three years, four months, and sixteen days: that much time passed before New Page first awoke. Although her body had regressed much from the monstrous shape the Nightmare had left it in, she was by no means in good condition.
Her thinned bones had become frail over the years of inactivity, and her atrophied muscles barely carried their own weight. Her bat wing had shrivelled and fallen off, and it would take another year for New Page to walk on her own.
Twelve years, seven months, and three days: that is how long it took for me to finally break. I had Swift Sweep released from the mines – the first of many over the coming decades. I called him to see me in the Palace.
I still remember the way he looked at me. The hateful arrogance in his eyes that he'd shown me on that fateful night was long gone. He was old, and looked older still; the mines had been unkind. He looked at me with the eyes of a broken stallion, with nothing but emptiness behind his glazed, blank stare.
I remember his first words.
“To the EBSS?” he asked.
I shook my head. “In your absence, you have been... dishonourably discharged.”
His brows furrowed deeply, making the wrinkles in his wizened face run even deeper. “The gallows?”
I shook my head again. “You are free to go, Swift Sweep.”
“Free?” He looked at me like he'd forgotten the meaning of the word. “But I am guilty.”
“You have served your sentence.”
“No,” he said. “No!” he burst. Ah, and there it was – the pride again, resurging even after all these years. “Old dogs don't walk free. We have to serve to make up for our sins. To atone.”
I nodded. “You have, Swift Sweep. You are free to go.”
He fell silent.
It took much effort to convince him of his own freedom. When he walked out the door into the sunlight, he swayed slackly side to side as though he'd found himself on a rocking ship. He sat down outside the gates of the Palace. It had long been finished in Swift Sweep's absence; this had been the first time he'd seen it in all its glory. For a while, he simply stared at the sky and the pristine spires of Canterlot. I let him have his peace.
I had great plans for the ages that followed. In time – when I no longer required their services – the EBSS would be dismantled. In the wake of generations, some secrets would be revealed, and many more would be forever erased in flames. For I was Equestria: its rising Sun and its watchful Moon, and the dawn of a new day atop the ashes.
Swift Sweep told me he no longer wanted to be a monster. I came to realise how close I was to slipping on the razor's edge and becoming one myself. Such is the power of a single sentence.
Centuries hence, Equestria would be paradise again – for I was not a monster.
As for New Page... she would play her part as well.
New Page
Most of that fateful night was a blur. Celestia had removed a part of my very soul. She shattered my mind, and when I picked up the pieces, I found memories I'd never had before. Tiny pieces, scraps, half-thoughts appeared and faded every time I closed my eyes.
I was cold. Always, perpetually cold; ever since the fragment of Nightmare Moon's soul left my body, somehow I could never feel whole again. I'd grown too used to it, I suppose. Over the decades, however, I adjusted to the emptiness. I never dreamed of the mare in chains again.
Yet even in Nightmare Moon's absence, her thoughts and feelings ate themselves into my mind. The fires of her anger had burnt out, and in the embers remained only loneliness. I no longer feared her, neither did I hate her. If anything, I pitied her.
I found my little rat hole in the mountainside untouched after being released from the labs; Celestia had seen to it that it was not disturbed. The first thing I did, I remember, was fish out 'Memoirs in the Night' from under my bed.
I recognised these names now, every Night Guard. Nightsong and Crimson Cascade and Silhouette and Dusken Caverns and Crescent Strike and all the rest – I saw their faces before me when I closed my eyes.
When I pictured Crescent Strike in my head, he stared right back. Something about him made my heart flutter. For a long time, I could not tell what it was.
Mama visited me, of course. She would have cried all day on my shoulder, but I told her it hurt. She cried clutching the pillow instead. And it was then, when we were having dinner, that I looked into her eyes and realised why the name of Crescent Strike resonated with me so.
My spoon fell from my hoof, splashing the soup and clattering against the bowl. Mama asked what was wrong.
But there was nothing wrong. In hindsight, it had been obvious.
Ah, but I was busy. I had many lost years of studies to catch up on. I even got a job in the Canterlot Archives – and over the years I rose in the ranks. Eventually, I could peek into scraps of confidential information that confirmed my old suspicions. The logs of Project Bookworm were most eye-opening.
Apparently the scrying crystals had never been removed from my apartment, not even after I'd moved out. Their signals slowly waned through the years until, one by one, they gave out. They'll give somepony a proper fright, I figured, when the obfuscating enchantment fades and the gems become visible.
I don't think I was supposed to get my hooves on the files of Project Heartbreak, but Celestia thoughtfully looked the other way.
I never sought him out, however. Not for a very long time.
I can't remember exactly how many years I let pass. Twenty-nine, or thirty, maybe?
A letter arrived that bore the seal of Princess Celestia. At first, I thought it was a joke. I soon realised how foolish that was, of course. The letter had in it a request: a private assignment of the highest order directly from the Princess herself.
It was late in the afternoon that I climbed to the peak of Canterlot Mountain. Even the beautiful spires of the Palace did not reach so high. I cursed that my lone wing was unable to carry me. But luckily, I'd managed to train my legs enough to make the trip.
Atop a rocky outcrop that overlooked the world, there sat an old, grey pegasus. I don't think he heard me come. His attention was focused solely on the canvas that stood before him, and the brush that stuck out from his mouth.
He dipped the brush in paint, then drew another line across the canvas. Somehow, his painting of Equestria seemed even more beautiful than the real thing.
“It is lovely,” I said.
His ears fluttered, and he turned to face me. The moment our eyes met, he quickly turned away and hung his head.
Gently, I placed a hoof on his shoulder. His wings fluttered in fright.
“I know, Swift,” I whispered. “I know.”
He didn't turn. “I'm sorry,” he muttered around the brush between his teeth. He pretended to work on the painting, but I saw that the tip of the brush did not touch the canvas at all.
“I was wondering if you could help me.”
Meekly, he looked at me. “W-what could I do for you?” His gaze fluttered, looking here and there, never able to look me in the eye for more than a second or two.
“I have been given a task by Celestia,” I said. “I am to write a history book.” I snorted, unable to keep a straight face. My mane fluttered in a gust of wind, and I had to throw it over my shoulder. “Well, not a real history book. A simplified account, if you will. Something for the children of generations to come.” And something that underplays the horrors of true history while shining Celestia's image – but I could not say that out loud.
He turned back to his canvas, dipping the brush in paint. “I'm afraid that I... I don't study history.”
I chuckled. “It's not like that. Like I said, this is for children. It's going to need illustrations, and, well, I've heard your paintings are among the most beautiful Equestria has to offer. I am certain you could help me.”
He didn't answer, instead pressing his brush into the canvas, circling it around inside the Sun. He added orange, yellow, a touch of red, and subtle shades I did not know the name of – I enjoyed watching him work.
When he was done, he leaned back a little to look at the whole picture. His eyes scanned the great Equestrian vista below us, and he nodded to himself.
“You really think...” he mumbled without turning. “You honestly say that I could help you?”
“Yes, Swift.”
Slowly, he turned to me. He sniffled. A tear rolled down his cheek – and then another. The old, wizened stallion broke down crying in front of me, and his wavering lips formed a smile as he nodded and kept nodding, on and on.
“It would be my honour,” he said.
Princess Celestia
“Once upon a time, in the magical land of Equestria, there were two regal sisters who ruled together and created harmony for all the land. To do this, the eldest used her unicorn powers to raise the Sun at dawn. The younger brought out the Moon to begin the night. Thus, the two sisters maintained balance for their kingdom and their subjects: all the different types of ponies.
“But as time went on, the younger sister became resentful. The ponies relished and played in the day her elder sister brought forth, but shunned and slept through her beautiful night! One fateful day, the younger unicorn refused to lower the Moon to make way for the dawn.
“The elder sister tried to reason with her, but the bitterness in the young one's heart had transformed her into a wicked mare of darkness: Nightmare Moon!
“She vowed that she would shroud the land in eternal night. Reluctantly, the elder sister harnessed the most powerful magic known to ponydom: the Elements of Harmony.
“Using the magic of the Elements of Harmony, she defeated her younger sister and banished her permanently in the Moon. The elder sister took on responsibility of both the Sun and the Moon, and harmony has been maintained in Equestria for generations since.”
A young unicorn lay on the lush green grass. Her name doesn't matter. She scanned the book opened in front of her, her eyes going over every line and illustration time and time again, trying to discern the little histories so many had forgotten. She cared nothing for the ponies of the bustling city around her. Lost in thought, she poked a hoof into the book.
“Hmm,” she pondered, “the Elements of Harmony... I know I've heard of those before.”
She looked up to the sky and the pristine spires of Canterlot, hoping to find her answers there.
“But where?”
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i.imgur.com/SH9QiSa.jpg?1
And I dream of goodbye,
Sinking sea, falling sky.
And I dream of goodbye,
No more tears
Well's run dry...
That's my final fanfic done. It feels... so odd. All these years. Well, here's to you, bronies, you God-damn beautiful disasters.
Wow.
Just wow.
No words can describe what I'm feeling right now.
The two previous chapters were among the darkest and goriest in the entire story, and then this happened.
Is... is this... the end?
Wow.
This story was whirlwind of events that were hard to stay on top of while reading, and you managed to circle it back to the cannon with a bright(er) ending without losing the tone of the story.
Wow.
As you can see. I am simply awestruck.
There is a reason why this keep returning to the featured page.
Well done, JawJoe. Well done.
You're gifted.
This is one of the best things I've ever read, published works included.
Oh, this came out...
Guess its time to withdraw from social life and start reading.
I enjoyed this.
As the echoes of those spirits fade, lost to memory and time.
The barbs left pull taut, their bleeding reminders of a rose long past bloom.
Never forgotten, never remembered.
The mind may lie, the soul may fade.
But always shall the immortal heart bleed.
Cruel, and capricious, its passion burns.
Bright, and harsh, it scalds and kills.
Deep, and dark, does its shadow reach.
Light, and laughter, false and forced.
But forever shall the immortal heart bleed.
They sing eternal, their fates your whim.
They sing damnation, their lives, your whim.
And forever shall your soul remember.
When it hides from the dark.
But never will your heart.
But never will your heart.
Oh, hell. Now I have to find something else to read and it's not gonna be as good.
Ugh, I might go on another hiatus from reading and commenting on fanfics like I did after Night Shift. Everything sorta feels like a let down.
Like Night Shift the ending here is bitter sweet, New Page survived by she is twisted and missing a piece of her soul; even if it was originally part of Nightmare Moon. Swift is a broken old stallion but at least he got to do what he really wanted and doesn't need to be a monster anymore. Though unlike Night Shift I feel this story doesn't have a singular hero that overcomes a challenge, these characters just managed to survive.
All Page wanted to do was learn stuff that was considered secret and would probably never be declassified. I can't condemn someone who just wants to learn something. It becomes a bit more iffy when that information can expose someone who is deep undercover. But knowing something to know something I feel is harmless. Unless your friends are part of a cult, then shit gets complicated. New Page is "good" and cares about others but gets swept up in something against her will and is used to the point of being just about destroyed.
All these little events came together to fuck her over hard. Hell, if Flora was able to just find refuge from her parents and grow up with Page; Page could have lived just fine and no one would have been the wiser. Then again, if these events never happened, Swift Sweep probably would have never felt like he could redeem himself.
Ugh, now I know I am just going to think about this story for the rest of the day.
6549268
That is unless you somehow fall into another fandom. Wouldn't THAT suck? I know you are interested in writing your own stuff, where could I
stalk youfind any of your non-pony works? Don't be a stranger.i.imgur.com/kKI6xVL.png
6549494
He is not, has do to with the show seeming to have lost some of what made it fun. I can see that viewpoint as well, it lost some of its magic. I blame stockholders.
Reading through the comments, it is nice to see some names I have come to associate with good reviewers praising this story. I can feel less like an idiot about trying to glue people's eyes to their screen to read this.
I also learned that people can't read with glue on their eyes, who knew?
A very satisfying story!
An excellent story, it actually moved me, and I consider myself a hard hearted bastard. It was truly wonderful.
WOH! That was very intense for those last few chapters there.
So what are your planes for future righting at the moment? Whatever they are I guess I have to read Night Watch now ; )
Pretty Amazing/10
6549494
I don't think I'll write any more, no. I've been planning out my novel for about a month now, and I'll be devoting my writing energies to it in the future.
6550006
Honestly, I've never been into a show as much as I was into MLP. I don't see myself writing fanfiction for anything ever. But then, who knows? I certainly never saw MLP coming...
I'll make a blog post regarding my future works sometime in the foreseeable future. If you're watching me (hint hint), you'll be notified. Eventually.
6552174
Oddly enough, I know how you feel. I marathoned the first season in two nights and I have never done that with any other show. Friends of mine have tried to get me to watch animes; but unless I can actively ask someone questions about it, I get bored. I want to watch the fourth and fifth seasons to see what others are chatting about, but I can't bring myself to do it. So instead I have gone back to reading Wikipedia pages and watching war documentaries or aircraft documentaries.
"Notified"? You mean that number at the top of the page I click on when it hits 4 digits just so it isn't 4 digits? I never check my notifications. Maybe I would if there was a way to filter things, but I am super lazy.
6552335
ಠ_ಠ
Don't notifications get deleted after, like, a week? You get thousands of notifications in a week? Sounds to me you're following waaaay too many groups or whatever. You know you can turn off story/thread notifications right? In any case, well, I guess you'll just have to obsessively keep checking my page for new blog posts if your notifications really are that overwhelming.
Season 4 was horrible IMO. I dunno about season 5. I haven't watched it, but from what I hear, the things I disliked in S4 are still there, so... meh.
6552360
Ok, hold on, I think I see what is going on here. You are talking Notifications while I am talking the Feed. Only responses to comments go into Notifications while blog posts, story updates, and group additions go into the Feed. Notifications to comment responses are deleted in a week if not checked or deleted in two days if checked on. I always check people's responses to my comments.
The Feed... eh, I am sitting at about 570 items right now. My bet they are mostly silly story additions. But since it is also the place notifications of authors I am following are placed, I don't see those either.
I have had friends tell me they liked S4 but I see a lot of pandering to fans in it. I recently watched the Pinkie Pie - Applejack family thing. It was cute, but had lost the feeling I had gotten from the show earlier. I want to see Cadance and the tatzlwyrm; but then again, I feel as if it will be a let down. If what you didn't like is in the blog you wrote on MMC, then the show would need to be retconned to fix the issues. I don't see Hasbro pulling a Marvel anytime soon.
6552335
Ooh, fun stuff! I do that kind of silly stuff all the time.
6553689
Yeah, I like reading all that math and technology stuff. Gotta keep learning cause I never know when it might be useful!
This has been a very interesting ride, and I thank you for it.
Yup that was pretty darn good, though the last segment seems sort of, ominous even though this seems to be the last story in the "Nightshiftverse" or whatever you'd call it. Good luck in your future endeavors, hope to see more fiction in the off chance this is not your final fic.
This has exactly the same fatal flaw as every single grimdark, murderous NMM story...
The NMM of this story would have slaughtered the Mane 6.
They never would have made it to the ruins in the Everfree.
And Celestia, the one in this story, would not have been stupid enough to let 6 untrained mares fight her psychotic serial killer sister all by their lonesome. She had 1,000 years to prepare. She KNEW it was coming... she'd have had LEGIONS of mages standing ready and made all efforts to find new Bearers BEFORE NMM returned.
To anything less would be tantamount to suicide and surrender.
It makes no sense to tie it into FiM's story, because common sense alone dictates there's no way in hell it would happen.
That ending was kind of lame. Also the foulness of Celestia is too great for words. She couldn't even just dispense the mercy of a painless death, a just one at that.
I really loved this story. You, sir, are an amazing writer, and I hope that you will continue writing even if it's not in the MLP continuum. I do have one sore spot with the story. You could have done a lot to explore Princess Celestia's personality and her descent into despotism, how her mercy towards the members of the EBSS translated into their wishing to keep her at first ignorant of their methods to protect her deteriorating emotional state, which turned to tacit approval as her desperation grew, as well as her epiphany when confronted with being a monster at the end of the narrative. Having a brief peek into her mind at the end was quite dissastisfactory, and I think somewhat unessesary.
Overall, however, I truly admire how you unflinchingly explored the consequences of the Lunar Rebellion on the pony psyche, and on the lives of those most closely involved with it. Well done.
7.8/10, too much water.
6564770
WELL.
This one I'm saving to read over and over again because it is FUCKING AWESOME!!
In a way, I'm glad I was able to find it when it was finished, because good god the emotional rollercoaster...
Six hours, I read this over the last six hours. I couldn't stop reading it. It was that good.
6579187
Is... is that a good thing?
Holy. Cow. Bravo, JawJoe.
And what a note to end on.
This was a wonderful piece, and an excellent follow up to Night Shift.
That was awesome, I'm glad I got around to reading this. Thank you for such an amazing piece!
6607457
6605608
And thank both of you for the kind words.
6591292
So I see that last comment was on the second to last chapter. Given how short the last one is (it's really just an epilogue), have you had time to finish it yet?
10/10 hooked from the very beggining. Plot is thickening right now. Can't wait to see what happens next.
Seems to be a lot of unnessicary saluting but still U.S Marine Approved.
6608738 I did tell JawJoe there was some weird saluting practices. I think his reply was somewhere among the lines of "no one'll notice".
6608972
6608738
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Just finished it. I must say, the ending was quite beautiful but I didn't like how it got there. Not one bit. I didn't want Lullaby to die and I wanted to see Swift confess what he did to his daughter's face instead of nightmare moon's so they could have some father daughter bonding time. But in the end, it ended with a touch of beauty and I guess they had some father daughter bonding after all. 10/10 I'd pay money for this book to be on my shelves. Bravo, you did a wonderful job.
You can has review!
Underwhelming final act, but still... one of the best stories I have seen on this site. I am looking forward to your novel, Joe.
6646266
Aww.
Aww!
I hope I won't disappoint.
6692221
Well it's taken me quite a bit of time, but I finally finished the final two chapters of this story.
The short of it is: I liked it. I liked it a lot. But I can't help feel that it doesn't quite stick the landing. Nie and Nichts had so much buildup through this entire story, as did the cast of the EBSS, and while the final confrontation is very climactic, it's also very anticlimactic. Swift Sweep and the gang, don't do anything. They can't do anything. They spend every chapter prior as these badass soldiers that everypony else is afraid of, and then become squishy pinatas at the grand finale. Likewise with the Nie and Nichts. Nie is essentially a vampire and Nichts has the Alicorn Amulet, and they've both been lauded as these very dangerous villains this whole time and again, just become squishy pinatas.
If your intention was to Show just how terrible Nightmare Moon actually was by Worf-Effecting the entire cast then you would have succeeded, if it weren't for Celestia Worf-Effecting Nightmare Moon in exactly the same way. Which also begs the question of: "If Nightmare Moon was so easy to stop, why did anything in the previous chapters matter?"
Throughout this story, Nightmare Moon hasn't been an actual character, she's been a Presence. A sinister force always being spoken about it hushed and trembling tones. In this story Nightmare Moon is the Bad End, the Worst Case Scenario. She is the living embodiment of the Apocalypse. She's never portrayed as character or a villain, but in the end, she's made into both.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that the ending I was expecting was not the one that I received. Reading this story, I thought Nightmare Moon's return was the event that could not be allowed to happen. The crux around which the climax of the story would take place, and what I got in place of that was underwhelming.
8/10. Damn near perfect throughout, but hits the mat hard at the end.
6729095
The idea with NMM was that she wasn't "done" yet. She was trapped in a mortal body that was already weak and damaged when she "moved in." Point being that even NMM at her weakest is stronger than any pony... any pony who isn't Celestia.
The story was never about NMM, really. It was about Swift and Page. Why did their actions matter? Because it's how Swift managed to redeem himself and how Page learned the true nature of her, well, existence. The whole situation could've been resolved very easily if Swift had just done his job right from the beginning: lock up Page, thwart Nie's whole plan. Life would've gone on and no-one would even have noticed. Except Swift would still be a monster. Most likely Celestia would've taken a different path if not for these events, too. That's where it mattered -- because even Nightmare Moon at her strongest is less important than the natural goodness of a pony.
That's what I thought, anyway.
It was one of the most beautiful works I read. Like a real tale.
The only thing that was halfway disapointing was that it was never openly confronted the subject of Swift beeing Page's true father. And a take on the eventual future of New Page. Kindda sad we didn't get to know her eventual end, last thoughts and maybe some luck with some stallion.
The story takes a very specyfied wiew on ...how to call it ...Monsterouscity? I hate describing stuff in english. I just can't end to wonder if the Witcher 3 was some inspiration for this...
My god, holy shit, jesus christ, that ending was the best i will ever read, i am fucking crying over here
6853407
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A great read!
I've read through this thing twice.
Ending really does feel a wee bit rushed / forced. Really nice buildup though.
Very very very good read. <3 your work.
...why can't I find good stories like this... I must not be looking hard enough...
7009164
You're on an MLP fanfiction website.
Loved it, this is up there with "Night Guards" on greatest stories about the origin of Luna's guard. 10/10 would read again. My only complaint is that the subject of Swift being Page's father is never broached by the characters; then again, maybe they don't need to... Maybe they just want to move on with their lives.
So the art for this one all seems to be broken, or it is for the first few chapters at least. It seems to be because of the silly imgur blacklisting, and I was able to get around it by opening the broken images in their own tab, but I don't seem to be able to do that on the iPad I use for reading. Do you have any plans on moving the image hosting to a different site? Even though I'm itching for the prequel to night shift, I felt that the art would be worth waiting for.