[Nightglow] Printed Anthology Version · 1:26am Oct 20th, 2022
whoops! i accidentally published the version of the story that appeared in the anthology, but between submitting that version and publishing this story i did go back to do another draft. it's not too big of a difference (1307 vs 1492 wordcount) , so if you've already read it i'm not going to push you to read the intended version, but there are some new bits here and there that i quite enjoyed putting in.
but if you haven't read it, well, who would i be as a writer if i didn't want you to? it's a short little piece just touching on some ideas i had about the Nightmare Moon timeline and how our Twilight's actions there would be perceived. if that interests you please have a read!
the printed anthology version appears below the break:
art by Snow Quill
The light from the moon and stars are not bright enough to cast a shadow, like the light from a lamp or a sunfruit does. Yet it is never quite as dark outside as it is inside of a house or down in a mineshaft with the lights off. That is because the air itself glows, with just enough light to not stumble on a path, or to recognize the face of a pony that is close enough to talk to. The nightglow is what they called it, back when there was such a thing as a night.
No, the light of the moon and stars are only bright enough for us to see their eternal place in the heavens, and to remind us in turn of our own place in the order of things. As I sit on this cliff and look out over the horizon, that is what I am meditating on now.
Yet still, I cannot get her out of my mind.
Not for the wings and horn, I do know that. Once, I would have been intrigued, or even disturbed by such a sight. But I know now that the ideas of provincial ponies grow strange, living as they do so far from the source of our light. She was hardly the first pilgrim to brazenly burst through those castle doors in full costume, clearly ignorant of the fact that it comes across more like blasphemy than homage. Granted, the craftsmareship on her false horn (surely those wings were real!) was a cut above the rest, but her ramblings were as incoherent as any of theirs had been.
And the odd little creature that accompanied her just completed the picture. I did call him a dragon (absurd to imagine an actual relation with those hulking, frightening beasts), but in truth I did not know what he was and nor did I care to learn. There were just so many of them these days, crowding the border cities, each with an unpronounceable name for their species and homeland. So common for them to indenture one of their own children to a pony for scraps of food from our granaries. Too common for said pony to think that it meant anything special about them beyond their privilege of having been born in Equestria.
Knowing my name—yes, that was strange, but hardly inexplicable. I do give it out on every tour of the castle, after all. Yes, I could imagine her wrapped up in her delusions in that far-off, provincial town, reading and learning all she could of the Castle of the Two Sisters. I could imagine her gullibly convinced by whatever desperate story of destiny and magic was concocted by the creature’s parents. I could imagine her foolishly determined that her ridiculous fantasies were something worthy of nothing less than the attention of the Princess Herself, and that invading her home while She was in residence was the right thing to do.
I can only imagine what it was like for her to find out just how right she was. I removed myself from the main hall as the Lunar Guard accosted her. It was not my place to witness such things.
But something gnaws at me, like a pebble in my shoe would slowly gnaw away at the frog of my hoof.
The way that she ignored every signal I gave, with my iciest of demeanors, that she was out of place, and not where she should be. The way that she simply did not move quite like anypony I had seen before. Not even from the furthest, strangest reaches of the Princess’s realm. It was as if…
As if the Castle were not her final destination. As if the Princess were not the center of her world.
I could not help but overhear what I did as I exited the main hall. It was hardly the first time I had heard Celestia declared the rightful ruler of Equestria within those walls, but it was the first time I had heard those words in any other form than a shout of defiance. From the mouth of a child, no less.
I stare at the disk of alabaster that forever dominates the sky, and the Mare on the Moon dappled across its surface. A place in the heavens for the Princess’s sister, no less worthy of her name for her defeat. And it is a fitting place for her, among the constellations of the sky which each bear the name and story of a foe that had to be vanquished for the sake of our Equestria. The history of a nation, written in the heavens themselves.
Is it any wonder that no matter how many hours I spend hunched over a loom, my tapestries never come close to capturing their full majesty? It is not my place to be able to.
I imagine what it would be like if Celestia had won, and the light of Her sun was no longer banished to the lands beyond the horizon. The stars would still be there, but they would be buried by its light, so deep that it would be easy to forget they were ever there in the first place. It would be easy to forget that some stars shine more brightly and strongly than others, but they all have their place in the tableau, contributing their light to the beauty of the whole.
But I do not think that is the worst thing it would do.
The nightglow gives us all the light that we need, but spares us what we do not. At this distance, I can make out the edge of the Everfree Forest below me, and the browns and greens of the individual trees. But beyond them is a murky expanse of shadow that melds together to form a ribbon of a horizon in the distance, separated from the dark blue of the sky.
An entire city could fit in that expanse. A million ponies, each with their lives and dreams and hopes and fears, reduced to the size of a postage stamp in my field of vision. How awful would it be to see them that way, under the light of a sun that dares illuminate more than a pony can comprehend? Better to keep our eyes on what we can reach out and touch.
Yes, that’s it. She did remind me of somepony. A unicorn and not a pegasus, but the coat colors. The voice. That desperation was familiar.
It sounded better when it wasn’t rattling off incoherent delusions, but rather ideas that were much too coherent.
That without the sun, Equestria could still grow its crops with pony magic, but that wasn’t the case for other creatures.
That the dragon raids of the last decade were not because they hated our way of life, but because they had nothing else.
But what good did that knowledge do her? Curled up on the ground, crying out in sorrow for what was said by some quill marks on parchment. There was nothing she could do for them, nor could any of us. So why despair?
Why drive herself to madness? To let her despair fester in her heart, then curdle into blasphemy and treason?
I tried to stop her. Desperately, I did. But it wasn’t enough. And that time, I did see what happened.
I know that the Princess and the Lunar Guard marched out into the Everfree with the tourists in tow. I know that they returned without them. I know that it is not my place to know anything more than that. I do not wish to know. It would not do me any good.
The stars are in their place in the heavens. I am in mine below them. And that is enough.
