Despite the fire in her body, despite the unimaginable disappointment, Faith still had the presence of mind to try and bow. She wanted to survive this meeting with the princess, after all.
We knew this would happen eventually. The princess was going to figure out where we’d gone. Now we have to justify it. “Everything we did was my responsibility,” she said, before Arclight could do something stupid like trying to defend her. “Arclight tried to stop me. I forced him to bring me here.”
Even moving hurt, let alone speaking to her. But she had to try. If they didn’t try to defend themselves, they’d face the princess’s punishment untempered.
Nightmare Moon loomed over them, wings spread wide. Even if they hadn’t been in such a sacred place, Faith would’ve been able to see her. But by the light of the Polestar, every feather on her wings was outlined. “Not here,” she said, voice still furious.
Then came the flash of a teleport. It was the same magic she’d felt with Arclight, but vastly more powerful. It didn’t leave her in that endless void of staring eyes, but took her swiftly back to reality. There was a bang, and when her perception returned, her hooves were on cold sand again. The surface, by her guess. The place of lunar judgement.
“You two have committed as foals a crime beyond anything the ponies of Moonrise have ever done. You have trespassed upon the Sacred City. And… robbed it, at a guess.” Poor Arclight made a sound of petrified fear, lowering his head, but the princess wasn’t watching him. Her eyes were only for Faith. “When this conversation is over, I will return to Moonrise. Whether you accompany me depends on your answers.”
They waited. The princess hadn’t invited them to stand, but Faith had already been burned inside and out. So she stood up, looking towards the princess. Waiting for her questions.
“The city’s security should have vaporized you,” Nightmare Moon said. “A generation ago, half of my Voidseekers were destroyed attempting to enter it. I remember… ponies who rebelled would just disappear. How did you walk all the way to the city’s heart without being destroyed?”
She raised a wing. “I see that lie forming in your mind, unicorn foal. Do not tell me that your shield could’ve done it. I know otherwise. Remain silent with such words, lest I grow angry.” She turned back towards Faith. “Answer.”
She shuddered, searching for anything that might satisfy the princess. Of all the ponies of Moonrise, few ponies had spent as much time with the city’s sovereign as they had, by virtue of their parents. She knew better than to say she didn’t know—Nightmare Moon never took that well.
She had only one secret big enough for this. Arclight already knew, so the princess might as well learn it too. She would find out soon enough regardless. “I think it… I think it’s probably to do with the things I can see. I can see you, Princess… and Penumbra. I’ve never seen anything else in my whole life, until… until I got to Vanaheimr. The Polestar called me to it. I dragged Arclight all the way there so I could touch it.”
Whatever the princess was expecting, it wasn’t that. Her mouth hung open, and she stared down at Faith, stupefied. After a few seconds, she opened just one wing. “Which wing did I move?”
“Left,” Faith answered.
The Alicorn no longer sounded angry, but shocked. “And which limb did I just lift?”
“Left again.”
The princess settled back on her haunches, looking up at the sky. For almost a minute, she didn’t say anything, leaving their fear to settle in around them. Particularly poor Arclight, who sounded like he might be moments from collapsing.
“It called you,” she eventually said. “Brought you across the moon’s surface. Through Vanaheimr. Why?”
I have no idea. But the princess didn’t seem angry anymore. Insane as it was, it seemed like her suggestion had actually worked. “It said… Evaluate. Reconstitute. And it showed me things. It was like being able to see for real, but… they were so terrible.”
Nightmare Moon continued to stare. She wondered briefly if it would be enough, if maybe this was the moment when the princess would finally see through everything she’d been trying to do and punish her. But then the Alicorn began to pace back and forth on the sand, looking thoughtful. “It is watching us. It has been waiting all this time for survivors to return… but I am ‘compromised’ and so can’t take possession of the Armory…”
She was mostly talking to herself now, and barely seemed to even see the two of them there. “Has it grown so desperate that even the derivative slaves are worth consideration? It watches Moonrise. What is it waiting for?”
“Slaves?” Arclight asked. “What do you mean, Princess? I thought… Wasn’t our rebellion opposed to serfdom? We learned it in…”
Faith winced as he said it, jabbing him with a wing to quiet down. But of course she was too slow to stop him from attracting the princess’s attention again. Exactly where they didn’t want to be.
But not enough for Nightmare Moon to really notice, it seemed. “Vanaheimr used ‘bioservice agents.’ Not like ponies as you know them today. They were effectively lobotomized at birth, most of the time. But that was chemical conditioning that didn’t hold with any of their children, and…” The princess waved a wing. “You have no idea what that means, nor do you need to. I am not explaining myself to foals.”
She settled on Faith again. “For reasons that escape my imagination, Polestar appears to be using you to monitor Moonrise. Why it would want its agent to be sightless eludes me… but it is fortunate for you in any case. You were not rebellious after all, but serving a greater purpose.” She glanced between them, tapping one hoof on the ground in thought. “I will speak plainly to you, and hope that for your sake you are mature enough to understand.”
She lifted off the ground, sending clouds of dust around her with each beat of her powerful wings. “You were instructed to travel here, on a mission from me. You will not speak of what you saw there outside of my presence. Not to your parents, or lovers, or other family. If I discover you disobey my injunction… I consider loyalty of greater value than any mission the Polestar might’ve given you. It can choose another messenger, if you force me to kill you.”
“I w-won’t,” she squeaked. “I won’t force you, I mean. I’m a loyal citizen of Moonrise, Princess. Arclight is too.”
“Perhaps.” The princess landed again, apparently satisfied with her cowering. “We will see, in time. Certainly the two of you were resourceful to make such a difficult journey by spell. Killing you would be a waste.”
Faith wasn’t sure what made her say it. By all accounts, the smartest thing she could possibly do was not open her mouth. The princess had already decided not to kill them, how much better could she expect? But for some reason, she couldn’t. There are metal eyes in that city somewhere, and I couldn’t find any.
“Princess, we… I know it isn’t my place… but shouldn’t Moonrise take advantage of everything in Vanaheimr? It’s such a wondrous city, but its secrets are unlearned. Your city can’t take its deserved revenge on the Sun Tyrant if we leave all of Vanaheimr’s wonders behind.”
She smelled the princess’s anger before she saw it. Even then, she could only make out her general features. Facial expressions were too fine for her to be able to see using her impossible sight.
But there was no mistaking her fury now. “I just granted you mercy, criminal. In honor of the Polestar’s mission, and all the service your father ever rendered me. You are making me regret my decision dearly. You question the rule of your princess. A foal, with no idea of the agonies she speaks of. You cannot imagine what sleeps in Vanaheimr. My decisions are made with purpose—beyond your comprehension, just as all that the Alicorns achieved there is beyond your comprehension.”
She could feel the princess’s terrible power all around her, just as she’d felt in Vanaheimr. Her magic was strong enough to melt lunar sand into glass. But after the touch of the Polestar, somehow she just wasn’t afraid anymore. Nightmare Moon could kill her easily, but… if she didn’t stand up for Moonrise, the city might suffer a slow death anyway.
She knew better than most just how much danger they were in. She’d heard from Appleseed during her father’s meetings, worried over the way that the crops just weren’t growing the way they used to. Not to mention that their glowstone couldn’t be replaced, and their sunstone was running out all the time. How would they grow crops through the lunar night when it was gone?
“I did see, Princess. The Polestar showed me. I didn’t understand it very well, but I know one thing. If the things that happened to Vanaheimr happen to us, and we’re still hiding in a cave, then the ones trying to kill us won’t have to try very hard. We’ll probably be dead before they find us.”
It was too bold—she knew as she tried every word that she was pushing Nightmare Moon’s mercy much too far. But she knew she was right. She was so loyal to the city, that sometimes she had to take a few risks to keep it safe.
Nightmare Moon sighed. “Pity. For your father’s sake, I’m sorry.” Darkness descended on her, magic the princess had used to draw the life from disloyal ponies in the past. Her magic was so powerful, it had killed by accident.
Faith froze in place, curious in that final moment what death would feel like, and if the princess would change her mind in the weeks to come.
But nothing happened. Terrible cold roiled around her, the darkness of space itself. The hatred that lurked behind the eyes of those who watched whenever she teleported.
And it didn’t hurt. The soil itself cried out, little ice crystals forming and shattering around her. But Faith didn’t feel it. The cold went right up to her coat, and stopped short.
Somewhere far away, far enough that she couldn’t see it until now, the light of the Polestar shone through the lunar surface. It flared as Nightmare Moon’s magic rose, a reminder in the dark of what real power was.
Then the princess fell still. Beneath her hooves, Faith felt a ground frozen so solid that it smoked under her. Yet the cold didn’t touch her. She reached up, wiping frosty crystals away from her mane.
Then she started to move. Everything the princess thought about their mission to Vanaheimr might’ve been a lie before—but now she felt it. Her body turned, and in a moment darkness was replaced with vision.
That’s why I can’t see! All this time, you stole my sight so you could watch Moonrise!
There was the princess, resplendent in dark armor that she’d never seen herself, but heard ponies describe. The princess’s eyes still burned with smoky green light. Ice had condensed around her horn, just as it did around Faith.
And cowering behind her, poor Arclight. Seeing him for the first time might’ve made her blush, if she wasn’t otherwise overwhelmed. He was as gangly as she’d imagined, though the bright brown of his coat seemed to work together with the shapes she’d always felt.
Somehow she knew that it would be the only time she would ever see him.
And overhead, far above—Equus, surrounded by a sea of stars. There was no hatred here, no calculation and anger. They were each a slightly different shade and brightness, each one inviting her. And the planet itself, a blue and green giant in the sky. Their home, denied by the hatred of the Sun Tyrant.
She’d been so distracted by the Polestar’s own vision that she didn’t realize it was speaking through her. She turned her focus back to it, and had to fight the pressure it put on her head to even do that much. The message wasn’t for her, and it didn’t seem to care that it was using her.
So it was like the princess in other ways, too. “Refusal. Purify,” it said from her mouth, in her voice.
“You have no right to interfere!” Nightmare Moon raged, hovering in the air on angry wings. Yet she seemed winded—she’d used a terrible amount of magic on Faith, trying to get through the Polestar’s defense. It hadn’t been enough. “You’re a machine! Do the will of your creator and give me the Armory!”
“Survivor compromised. Alternates nominated.”
“Children of laborers and slaves!” Nightmare Moon yelled. “I am the only will that matters here! Submit to me!”
“Evaluating,” she was forced to say. “Determination postponed. Interference refused.”
As swiftly as it came, the presence in her mind began to fade. The vision it had shown her, of the furious princess, and Arclight behind her, and the beautiful stars overhead—faded too. Within seconds, it was all gone, replaced with shapes and outlines. Only the princess’s body remained, a single point of concentrated darkness.
A second later she landed with a thump, fuming with rage. Faith expected another blast to come, or maybe a stab from her dagger. Maybe the Polestar could protect her from magic, but that didn’t mean she was invincible. She’d been hurt plenty of times, and it had never stopped any of that.
But Nightmare Moon didn’t attack. After a few angry breaths, the cloud of hatred around her began to fade as well. Hating somepony took energy, and she’d used an awful lot of that trying to kill her.
“It seems the Polestar is not merely watching anymore,” Nightmare Moon said, defeated. “It’s determined to steal sovereignty from me as well.”
She approached slowly, knowing that at any moment her daring could go too far all over again. All the princess had to do was leave her here on the surface, and she would die. “Maybe it wants you to succeed. Moonrise is still a pony city up here in its home, right? With the Alicorns gone, we’re all it has left.”
Nightmare Moon seemed so… small. Though part of that might just be not being able to see her armor anymore. It echoed of course, but without being close enough to touch, finer details were hard to hear. “Still you torment me. Just like your father. In his time, every lunar day brought a new crisis. He pushed… harder than he ought to.”
She isn’t leaving. It’s working. “And Moonrise is here,” she finished. “Your city. Ponies who love you, and want to make it back to Equestria one day. We want our inheritance.”
“Well you won’t get it,” she said, staggering Faith more than any of her magic had done. “The Elements of Harmony sealed the sympathetic threads that bind space between this sphere and that. Nothing can teleport to Equus from here. The effect is permanent. I will never go home.”
Arclight made some indeterminate squeaking sound. “Our revenge…” he whispered. “You were going to free us. Everypony said so.”
“Nopony knows,” she said. “Except you, now. But why should I care? If Polestar wants to rule so badly, let it rule. Let it worry about the effect on morale. Let it stop the ponies from revolting. Let it keep the farmers on their fields and the muckrakers at their posts.”
Even she was staggered by the news. She was supposed to return there one day, to grass and fields and wind and rain that came from clouds instead of the constant haze of the Great Cavern.
I will never go home.
There was no reason to question the princess’s wisdom in this. Nightmare Moon’s powers were considerable, and her knowledge was vast. If she said it, it was true. “Were you at home in Vanaheimr, Princess?”
Nightmare Moon made a sound that was almost a sob—quickly strangled. “Long ago.”
“Then let us make Moonrise a city as great as Vanaheimr was! Let us go there, learn their secrets… and honor the dead. Nopony deserves to lie there on the sand, unmoored.”
That did it. The princess stiffened, and seemed to be staring down at her. But if she was searching for some truth just by looking into Faith’s face, she was going to have a hard time finding it.
“Cinereous Gale wanted the same thing. You really are his daughter. It’s a… cruel thing that Polestar has done to you. But life is cruel, and you will not have my pity.”
“I don’t want pity,” she argued. “I only want to serve Moonrise. That’s all I ever wanted. When Silver Needle told me I couldn’t be a Dustwalker because I was blind… I tried to find another way to serve. This was it. The way to help Moonrise that nopony else could figure out.”
“The city may not be so kind to the other ponies of Moonrise. The Polestar spared you, and your friend. It will not always spare intruders. You may have to attend every expedition yourself. You may not see Moonrise for months at a time.”
I can’t see anyway.
She shrugged. “I’d pay that price, Princess. If we can learn the lessons of Vanaheimr ourselves, then… it’s worth it to do some hard things. I’d help charge the teleports myself if I could. But I can help explore, help dig the graves. Help…”
“You have said enough.” Princess Nightmare Moon extended a wing, silencing her. “A pity you are deformed, Faith. You would have made exactly the sort of Lord Commander that Moonrise requires to succeed. But I will find some other use for you.” She took off again, spinning through the air. “I alter my command. You will speak no word of our exchange, or else I will kill you. Do not think a machine will turn me in my course if you defy me, Faith.”
“I won’t,” she promised, and she meant it. Faith was crazy, but repeating that the princess’s attacks didn’t work on her was much too far. She was no rebel. “I just want to serve the city, Princess.”
“Then rejoice,” Nightmare Moon said. “For you have just begun a lifetime of service to me.”
You've done a really good job of making Nightmare Moon a layered and tragic enough character here. Do wish she was a tad less murdery by now and more...protective in a warped sense of those ponies she had left. But maybe that will come as she develops more. Anyway very compelling story still. Thanks very much for sharing it.
Huh, that didn't turn out as badly as it could have. Neat.
I would hate to be in anyone’s situation on that cursed moon.
Maybe what Faith really needs to do is find a drone over there, give some power, and then tell the AI to use that as its eyes in the city so she can have hers back.
To be fair, the space radiation blasting at you and other foals 24/7 during development probably would've caused problems anyways.
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I want a bat pony shaped autonomous drone now.
Start investing in rocket science, let's go!
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Rocket science... That's what I was thinking. If teleporting is impossible then make rockets or form a large dome of glass get in and push off with magic.
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The roof of the cave would actually stop as much if not more radiation than the atmosphere and magnetosphere of Equestria would. Scientist have been talking about how rock and ice could be used to keep colonist alive on Mars and how the plates wouldn't even need to be a foot thick to drop radiation to earth normal.
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While I completely agree, it does make me question whether the farming class may experience radiation-based deformities due to spending so much time exposed to radiation protected by only glass... but then again, they were shifting from Solar light based to magical crystal light, right? Did they do that entirely or just as a supplement?
This seems like new information. I thought the Voidseekers were destroyed trying to access the Vault guarded by the Polestar?
Is this a memory from before Vanaheimr was destroyed? Were rebellions that common?
As we see later, it does seem to be the case, but how did Nightmare Moon know this at this point? Was it something the Polestar had done earlier?
So regular ponies are descended from the slaves of Vanaheimr? The "bioservice agents" seem to be ideal candidates for the Polestar to use if they were effectively chemically lobotomized, but then why does it seem that it using "derivative slaves" is unusual?
So Nightmare Moon seems to think this was intentional, but last chapter made it seem that it may have been unintentional ("Rectify. Damaged. Iterate"). Was the Polestar seen as infalliable back then?
How much of this does Nightmare Moon know? It sounds pretty important, although to be fair telling the Princess this probably isn't good for the average life expectancy unless you are Quill.
Loyal to Moonrise, not necessarily Nightmare Moon? This could be a problem...
So the same way Aminon tried to kill Quill? Why this way, instead of something more direct (although the Polestar would probably intervene anyways)? More suffering?
Fun way of saying "Nah, maybe later".
This could be problematic for the Polestar, even if it didn't intend to make Faith blind. Wonder if she is angry enough to try to thwart the Polestar in some way, or to force it to give her some sort of compensation for her "service".
Now that's an interesting sentiment. Regret?
The ending is quite interesting. Seems Nightmare Moon is a bit more willing to listen if she can't just make other ponies shut up by force.
So ponies were just lobotomized engineered biodrones based on the Alicorns huh? That is a interesting development.
Nice to see a universe where ponies have roughly the same backstory as Shoggoths.
This is why you can't rule through fear alone. Not forever anyway.
Do you even want anyone else to understand? Or do you just want to hoard knowledge in some pathetic attempt at holding onto anything that can reinforce your own sense of superiority?
This Nightmare actually makes me physically angry. Grow the fuck up or implode your village already.
Well, this answers some questions and raises a whole lot more. It’s just like science!
The sad thing about all this, is that Faith's only view of Arclight, is of him, sobbing under fear and livid terror.
If she would like to see a smile on his face, she would have no other choice than to use her imagination.
Full disclosure is probably the only way to survive this.
It probably created her, too.
Okay, that's really questionable. I've been assuming the Alicorn City was a good place because it was opposed to Outsiders, but I suppose you don't have to be good to oppose something that's bad.
It would be! Don't nip the most industrious members of the first born generation in the bud.
Now that's not good, a slow steady decay of their presently successful life support system down into something that eventually won't be.
I wonder if this was a good time and place for that confrontation between Nightmare Moon and the Polestar through Faith as a medium. She may be immune to the Nightmare's power directly, but there are other ways for a pony to die. Being left on the surface when the princess leaves would be an easy one.
Unfair, but at least he'll always be young in your memory, Faith.
Good, probably?
Ehh, Faith and everyone else on the moon pretty much already were in that state, I'm not seeing a change.
Well, that's a lot to take in, especially the bioservitors. I do have to wonder how much of the queen's attitude is Luna and how much the Nightmare. Luna sought a more egalitarian society, yet Nightmare Moon balks at the idea of the Polestar cooperating more with the long-distant descendants of the ancient living tools and lords her incomplete understanding of precursor science and technology over her subjects. Similarly, there's the question of how much her hesitance to loot Vanaheimr is reverence for what was lost and how much is eldritch self-preservation. Having the prime host in constant proximity to the Polestar can't be good for the Nightmare, especially given what's happened to the others.
Still, once again she's getting dragged kicking and screaming to further success for the colony. Now to see what Faith does with this new purpose in life.
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This origin comes to full fruition in Pinkie Pie.
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Which makes it all the more tragic; even now, she's literally never seen a smile.
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Maybe it is less balking at the idea and more being surprised/confused.
Sooo... Faith is kind of Christine\Andromeda?
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I don’t think you understood. Faith is blind because the Polestar took her sight. Effectively, if someone else was using your eyes, they’d be intercepting the signals going to your brain. They’d see through your eyes, while you’d see nothing. That’s what’s happening here.
The only reason Faith got that brief moment of eyesight back was because the Polestar interfered to save her from Nightmare Moon, communicating at the same time. Either the act of taking direct action like that gave her eyesight back temporarily, or the Polestar can’t be using two things at once on her body.
Nightmare Moon: "You are asking a lot..."
Wow, that is creepy.
The ponies from today are the descendants of those ‘bioservice agents’?
I knew this story has lots of world building, but it feels like we are reaching new levels every chapter.
(Considering who the author is I shouldn't be sprprised at all... Good work, Starscribe.)
Hold on!
Does she mean Nightmare Moon made Faith blind on purpose to keep the colony for herself?
The City must Survive!
(I wonder who will get that reference. Or read this comment at all. Or bothers to reply in a way I get a notification. (The reply has to be in the same chapter as this comment, not just under the story itself.))
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Isn't Polestar who used Faiths sight to watch Moonrise?
It's a miracle this nightmare moon can reign this long with how brainless she is. No plan, no patient, no manipulation.