R-E-S-O-L-U-T-I-O-N
The moon’s light filtered through the stained glass windows, going from pale and eerie blue to a panoply of colours that danced on the white stone walls like a kaleidoscope of shapeless forms. Within those motions was a tall, shadowy creature, moving from one spectacle of light to another with detached and steady steps that rang across the empty corridor. It was a practiced step, one honed through decades of use to signal both the creature’s stature and its presence: dainty yet powerful.
The guards at the hall’s end snapped a salute as she passed, eyes narrowing as they made themselves rigid; failure was not an option on that night, not after the preceding day’s disastrous events.
She smiled at them, a tiny, wispy line on her hard features, which did more to agitate than to comfort, then it was gone and so was she, marching on and into her castle home. The corridor with its frescos and glass images of long-past executions was abandoned in favour of a bend in the road.
Her study loomed ahead, the heavy oak door flanked by two bat-winged soldiers, and marked with runes and etched symbols of the moon was closed against the evasive torchlight that splashed orange hues about the route. She ignored them and took a straight path to the doorway, opening its cumbersome frame with but an inkling of her magic.
“Good night,” the guards whispered as one, both serious and with a hint of playfulness disguised beneath their tone.
“Yes, it will be,” she concurred before being swallowed up by the study’s darkness.
The moon stood above her, shining like a beacon in the dark sea of unmoving stars. Pointing right at Equestria’s precious satellite was a massive telescope, one that took up the great majority of the observatory carved out of the study’s side. A dusty sign dangled over the device’s side, proclaiming that it was out of use. Between herself and the telescope was a large mahogany desk, one inlaid with bountiful scroll-work across it large surface.
Luna trotted over to her desk and glanced across the heaps and piles of paper with a discerning eye. More work. Papers to keep the bureaucracy of their country rolling along, to make sure that power was being abused by the right people in the right places. She hated every second of it.
Why would she need to do this? Why were some ponies so pompous that they thought it possible to go against the rule of the twin sisters? A thousand years ago, in a land oh so familiar, there were noble ponies as well, but they were concerned with matters of chivalry and devotion, not filling their own pockets.
Blowing a stray strand of her mane away from her eyes, the Lunar Princess glared at some of the sheets. Some were notes detailing anti-corruption plans that were sure to fail, others requests for bits where they had been sent before.
Her sister had ruled not with the iron hoof but with a tender one, and this is what she reaped. Technology had advanced, Luna conceded. Ponies had changed and the society as a whole had grown more powerful. But the utter lack of respect to their leaders was galling. The gaping wounds in the spirits of many would not be healed so easily, and the ideals that had spread were not going to be tamed any longer.
Luna had already lost any chance at reclaiming the way Equestria had been. As she sat on the creaky old chair, older than most of the ponies in the estate, save for two, she considered once again that it might not be a bad thing, necessarily.
Still, some warnings had to go out, and many ponies had to be put back into place. If the gentle, kind hoof of her sister would not do, then another, stronger one would have to cull the batch.
There was still the issue of morality and the fairness of taking such drastic measures, but when one had lived for countless millennia, it was easy to see how a bit of pain now could greatly affect the future.
Papers flew about, pushed along by an infinitesimally small portion of her magic. A pen weaved and waved through them, signing here and making notes there, all in an old script that would give many secretaries a headache. Time slid on, unbidden and silent until a knocking proceeded to emanate from the door.
Luna lifted her head towards the entrance, a dozen invisible shields strengthening themselves around her with nary a thought. “Come in,” she ordered.
As the door slid open, a long, narrow leg stepped out, pearly white against the stark darkness of her study. “Luna, it’s me,” Celestia said as she trotted into the room. Her tone was as subdued as her eyes, hardly reaching the younger sibling.
“Ah, how are you faring tonight, my dear sister?”
The white monarch shared a smile with her sibling. “I’m well,” she lied. For a moment, they fixed one another, gauging and reading the body of the other, as only two sisters could do. “Oh, all right, fine. I feel terrible,” Celestia recanted, finally letting her shoulders and ears sag.
Tossing her pen and papers onto the desk, Luna trotted around to Celestia. “What chagrins you so?” They hugged, wrapping long wings around the body of one another and trading warmth and love.
She sighed. “Last night. Blueblood. That little wonderbolt filly. All these... bloodthirsty ponies.” A shudder ran through the Princess and Luna let go.
“Is it truly that bad, sister?”
“Luna, ponies died. I know they did some bad things, but they certainly didn’t deserve to die for it. There’s no crime that deserves so big a punishment. And it’s all my fault.” She sat down hard. “They were my ponies, my charges, and I failed to protect them. There’s so much I could have done. The worse thing is that it could happen again!”
The darker alicorn stood and circled around, gently coasting up to the massive, ceiling-high bookshelves that dominated the far end of her study. “Celestia, we of all ponies know that some die. Those ponies that were attacked, I studied them. They were bad examples, horrible leaders. Mayhaps it is best that they are no longer amongst us?”
Celestia perked up, a tiny scrowl forcing its way across her otherwise serene features. “What are you saying, Luna?”
“Just think about the harm that some ponies bring to others. As rulers, we can’t let it continue. We must intercede to protect those below us, Noblesse Oblige. What these... villains have done may have been wrong, but we can still use this as an opportunity to protect the weak.” She swept her wing towards the cluttered surface of her desk. “Look at all that. This work stems from a lack of organization. The political machine of Equestria has been bogged down by the rust of corruption and the plague of infidelity.”
Standing tall with a bent back and her hackles threatening to rise, the solar Princess navigated her way around the desk, keeping its large wooden frame between them. "Luna, I, I trust you, with everything: my life, the ponies we rule. You're my sister and confidant and as such I believe in you to do the right things when the time comes. Please, please tell me that you have nothing to do with this massacre."
Luna sighed and tore her attention away from the books and scrolls. They locked eyes, magenta and cyan swimming into one another as the continuous ticking of the clock wore on. “I have nothing to say regarding this, Celestia. I was not the pony to kill these villains, although I do not fully disapprove of their goals.”
It was Celestia’s turn to sigh. Then, she groaned as her entire frame seemed to sag. “I’m going to sleep... if I can get any,” she said before turning and heading to the exit. “Good night, Luna. Enjoy your time. Make the best of it, and please think of the little ones first.”
The door shuddered shut, rattling in its frame. It glowed a deep blue, with threads of magic that snaked across the air and touched Luna’s horn. It was locked.
She made her way to the telescope, abandoning the shelves and the night’s worth of work in favour of trotting around the steel tube. Her breath left her along with pangs of remorse, almost physical blows to her gut. Yes, she was going to hurt her sister. But it was for her own good. Doubt would do nothing at that point.
Walking along the tube of burnished steel, she waited until she found a specific place, one where a tiny etch had been cut along the shiny surface. Pressing on it revealed a hidden compartment, filled with stacks of paper and a single long scroll on a wooden rod.
Back at her desk, she pushed aside the disorderly mess of hated paperwork, keeping only her quill as she placed instead the sheets she had secreted within the telescope. It began to be separated the moment it touched the surface. Sheets with the images and names and descriptions of ponies flew about, staring eyes focused upwards and to the ceiling from within a hundred faces.
Three stood out, placed in the middle of the rest, each with a tiny stack of their own. The Dreamer. The Planner. The Executor. Nestled in the ranks of their soon-to-be peers. Luna surveyed the recruits, calling to mind their deeds, the things that made them who they were. The kindling of hatred locked within their hearts that was threatening to burn its way out.
She was going to give them a purpose. She was going to let those flames burn, not to hurt ponykind, but to cull out the vile from within Equestria.
From a drawer, she pulled out new pages and began marking, in excruciating detail, the events that had transpired those nights before. Her precious defenders were good, yes. But they could not be left unchecked, unaccounted for.
They had witnessed first hoof the weakness and mortality of others; that in and of itself was a danger. They could not be allowed to seek their own justice unguided.
The tip of her quill scratched the last letter onto the page before lifting off, victorious of the deed well done. She huffed and smiled at the pages, content. There was only one thing left for that night’s morbid duty.
A pulse of magical power escaped her and grabbed ahold of the scroll, twisting it about in mid-air and unfurling it above the desk.
On it, a thousand faces looked her way, each one plastered in its own tile with a name carved below. Some, a dozen or more, a tiny number amongst the multitude, had a black cross over their features, and that was her goal.
Lifting the pen again, Luna scratched off half a dozen more, removing them from the list of those needing punishment.
But there were so many left.
Edited by:
Also LikedSimilarAuthor
- RavensDagger · 28k words · 116 13 · 1.7k views
- LimeAttack · 4.5k words · 140 3 · 2.9k views
- shortskirtsandexplosions · 71k words · 322 13 · 5.6k views
- _Medicshy · 42k words · 99 3 · 2.8k views
- EdwardJ · 152k words · 77 4 · 2k views
Stats
Page generated in 0.145 seconds
Total duration
1,046 users online
2,522,572 hits today, 2,814,898 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Well. I can't say I didn't suspect Luna ever since she gave the signal a few chapters ago, but this was a nice way to end the story. Is there going to be a sequel by any chance?
2727358
Wait, is the story over? It has an "incomplete" tag.
2727439
Fixed! Thanks for pointing it out!
So Luna is going to 'dispose' of her current militants and replace them with new ones?
And here we have, at long last, proof that Luna is in fact the true tyrant, a cold-blooded calculating murderer and must be executed at once.
By order of the Solar Empire.
Luna has gone too far. She and her band of maniacal assassins must be tried and convicted for multiple counts of first-degree aggravated murder, assassination, treason, and various other charges.
This type of vigilante 'justice' (to use the term very loosely) has no place in ANY civilized society!
I, as the Deux Ex Insert, have the power to execute gods. And so I shall be the one to lop off Luna's head. (Much to the delight of Discord, who really hates her in this universe. Because she's a sanctimonious bitch).
Ah... For a second I thought Of Steam Gears and Wings had updated... I'm glad to see that it's this instead though!
And now I feel inspired to write a spin-off with an ending like that...
So basically, we have an organization of sociopaths who are balanced against each other in case one goes rogue...led by the biggest sociopath of all, who already went so crazy once that she had to be banished to the Moon for a thousand years. And the organization has no check on its leader.
I put the over/under on Luna having to be put down again at 15 years.
Quote of a president detected in the description.
All in all, this was an interesting story but the pay-off wasn't the best. I can't help but be rather disappointed by this ending. It was too obvious, and it paints Luna in, frankly, a rather evil and tyrannical light - something she explicitly was trying to avoid in the show canon itself. It felt like everything was set up so this ending could be the only one there was, if that makes sense. Luna's reasoning was justified by the existence of the bad ponies who existed to justify Luna's reasoning. It feels very circular and therefore rather blah.
Not that I'm not innocent of messing with show canon, we all are, but I just think there could have been much more to all this than a grand conspiracy.
On the other hoof, the former parts of the story were quite gripping, enough that I was firmly determined to see where it might go. You get a solid thumbs up, sir.
2734159
A president who was quoting another man.
2735404
Another man who was obviously being inspired by aliens!
2735453
you mad original person who said the quote
2743048
Oh, quite right.
I'm not a city-dweller.
2734491 I agree with a lot of what you said. I good deal of it comes down to personal taste, but I feel that after all this, it undermines the show's canon too much to paint Luna as an over-the-top, ends-justify-the-means tyrant. And I'm not a fan of that. At the beginning, it seemed like a group of cold, but justified vigilantes who were cleaning Equestria of corruption. Now at this point, it's just gone to far, and the story leaves me rather saddened.
Like I said, a good percentage of it does come down to opinion, but I still feel that the ending was lacking. A shame, really. :(
I enjoyed the story overall, but it felt like it was waffling. Since we already have an interesting Out Of Canon alternate Equestria, my biggest complaint is that the story did not go whole hog and incorporate more of fannon's sacred cows (if I may mix my barnyard animal idioms). The story slightly touched this by casting Spitfire and Fancy as antagonists, but I feel it missed an opportunity to turn the idea up to 11 and run with it.
In my (very) humble and unsolicited opinion most of the antagonists felt little more than names. It would have been nice to see some of the main characters incorporated as the bad guys. You could have a familiar character that everybody knows about and it would clearly show how far the society has fallen.
e.g.:
- Have General Shining Armour take the place of Hooves, Strato, and Fetlock as a Crystal empire apparatchik who now sees his troops as pawns for his personal power plays.
- Corrupt Rainbow Dash, have her partner with Spitfire, and drop hints about atrocities they committed and covered up during special forces operations against the Changelings.
- Have Applejack become the head of the Pome Syndicate crime family involved with the migrant donkey worker trade in partnership with Derpy and her smuggling ring in the Equestrian Postal Service.
Just some silly suggestions. Overall though I enjoyed reading the story, my small complaint notwithstanding.
This is pretty twisted. If my memory still holds, one of the operatives said that they were doing this because the powerful were taking advantage of the small guy. However, Luna is probably only second to Celestia in power. I am not sure what was the point you wanted to advance here, but for me this underlines the hypocrisy of trying to punish others by committing even worse acts.
I liked the overall result, but I was expecting more of a bang to finish this story. The previous chapter didn't feel like a climax, but more like a setup, so I guess it left me feeling like the story was interrupted midway through.
I don't really feel Luna is being evil here..
Sure, she's killing ponies, but considering the shit that they've done, this could greatly make the future a better place free of corruption
When you live forever, it's easy to see this, being a mortal, it's really hard to see why it's necessary.
Quite late, but I feel like I should weigh in on this one - Luna and company don't really deserve the vitriol some of the comments have directed at them.
Everyone is subject to the law, and in exchange, everyone receives the protection of the law: this is the nature of the compact that allows people to cooperate and live together in relative peace. When this fails to happen, when the law serves the interests of the rich and powerful at the expense of others, what motivation do their victims have to follow a system of law that doesn't protect them? They don't receive the benefits, so why should they buy into a rigged game? Asking them to just roll over and take it is unreasonable.
The deeds that our heros have committed are vigilante justice, true, but they are just nonetheless - at least from the glimpses we've seen of their victims' crimes. That sort of corruption deserves a pretty stiff response, particularly since they are still actively engaging in it. Whether or not a death sentence is appropriate, it's the only punishment that the victims have the power to reliably enforce. The only way they can defend themselves from predators abusing the law.
Of course, the population at large must treat vigilante justice as necessarily criminal, because one cannot simply trust that a vigilante is not acting on emotion or bias, or for purely selfish reasons. To do so would allow 'law and order' to collapse into 'might makes right'. So the population, in turn, must defend itself from our protagonists.
That the two groups have to forcibly defend themselves from each other is a sign that the legal system is broken.
So we come to Luna. The way I read it, she wants to fix the legal system and stop the abuses, but Celestia opposes her out of a misguided sense of mercy. Both the story and the show imply that the rule of the princesses is more or less absolute, if they want it to be - Twilight was afraid that Celestia would personally banish Fluttershy for the Philomena incident. Not that she would be found guilty by a jury of her peers in a court of law and then banished. (It's true she's not always entirely rational where Princess Celestia is concerned, but it's harder to believe she would be afraid of something that Celestia couldn't do.)
If their authority is absolute, then it is their duty to see justice done for the good of the kingdom, and they answer to no higher power. (Whether such a government is a good one is left as an exercise for the reader.) But Celestia has been too soft-hearted to do her duty, and innocent ponies are suffering because of it. So the way I see it, Luna has not only the right, but the obligation to pass judgement and administer punishment. That she has to resort to secrecy and extreme measures is simply because Celestia actively opposes her. Let me say it again: Celestia is actively shielding the guilty from justice, allowing them to continue ruining lives.
Mercy should season justice, not replace it entirely.
3946858 I like you.
You quoted someone else for the description and didn't even credit them for it?
5253914
Quote given in full with name and all in the first line of the first chapter.
5264777 Even so... You need to credit it on the description if that's where it's used. From an outside angle it seems kind of like a cheap shot, where people like me could totally miss that first chapter and think you've written the quote yourself.
Here, have a picture https://www.fanficparadise.com/arielschnee/gallery/Signatures/Why.png .