Crunch.
A single footstep echoed out across the silent night.
Crunch.
A single figure moved through the stillness.
Crunch.
The sheet of brittle ice and snow let out another crunch, spider-webs of cracks shooting forth with each armoured footfall. The figure pressed forward, listening and looking carefully at the world around her…
“Nothing.” She murmured, the petrified trees offered no response. In truth she did not know whether this isolation relived or feared her. After so many days alone she yearned for the company of another, of any other. But to meet the inhabitants of this cursed world?
The figure shook such thoughts aside and concentrated on putting one foot before the other. She had travelled far to complete her task. And no matter what she would succeed, nothing could stop her forever.
Crunch.
Crunch.
Crunch.
Thump.
With a grin the figure peered though her misting breath. Before her rising up from the landscape came stone seemingly untouched by time or weather. Pulling back her hood Ember’Toh looked up at the statue that dominated the plinth, antenna twitching in awe. Her eyes drinking in the alien being it depicted; a body of obsidian armoured in shining diamonds, legs frozen rearing into the sky, wings stretched wide to swallow the world, and a knife of night piercing from its head.
Just to be sure Ember took a few more steps forward, steeling herself against the visage of a god. A single three-fingered hand crept forward and brushed snow from the base of the statue. For a few seconds she examined the etchings before stepping back satisfied.
“Nightmare Moon.” Ember’toh whispered in the language of the old ones, “Look upon what thou have wrought.”
Nightmare Moon looked down upon the Outsider, her mind finely balanced on a razors edge between curiosity and distain.
Moving as a shadow the Empress of Equestria flitted between the tops of the petrified trees. She did not remember the last time someone had disturbed the sacred borders of her kingdom. The crunching of the footsteps ringing in her ears like a thunderstorm. This… thing… was lucky not to have been smote from the heavens for its audacity.
However for the time-being curiosity was winning out. Forming the barest of physical forms Nightmare carefully observed the Outsider from the shadows. It was an odd looking creature, Nightmare had seen beings who walked on two legs before and she had seen insect beings before, but this strange creature struck a striking contrast to the land about it.
What little of its skin and carapace Nightmare could see beneath heavy wrappings of fur was a burnished orange. Strong limbs carrying it forward with an indomitable purpose. The heavy backpack upon it carried was marked with incomprehensible runes, and the sword hilt nested in the folds looked to have been hewn from bone.
For half a moment Nightmare left a long forgotten light bloom in her chest. As the Creature stopped and looked to the stars a beam of moonlight fell past its antenna and onto its great iridescent eyes. Eyes that lit up in a sparkling spectrum of colour, twinkling with a thousand points of light, looking for all the world like Nightmares stars above hand gathered into this one being.
For half a moment Nightmare marvelled at this creature as bold as to invade her realm.
Then the moment passed.
“You are brave to have come here little bug.”
Ember’toh froze in place, the terrible sibilant voice sounding right in her ear as the terrible presence of Nightmare Moon began to engulf her. The air grinding with sound of teeth and blades.
Ember felt her muscles lock up, freezing her in place as blackness began to nip at the edges of her vision.
It was no longer cold.
The presence of the Nightmare did not freeze like the desolate landscape around her. It was… nothingness. The void itself come to life.
“… Very brave… or of course… very… very foolish.”
“Well…” Ember managed to breathe out. “Probably both.”
Lesser beings…
Always so endlessly persistent…
Resisting her until the end…
Always the end…
Ember dove.
She hurled herself towards the closest patch of clear ground, hoping to the Great Spirits it would provide some decent traction.
The Nightmare had begun to laugh. The enveloping void turning sharp. Something hooked bit into Embers back, punching through her armour like butter. And worse tearing the straps on her backpack, sending it sailing away from her tumbling form.
The world slowed as Ember focused, the familiar surge of adrenaline kicking in. She had to remain calm, if she lost her pack she lost her sword, if she lost her sword she was dead.
“Good thing about being this far north,” She thought to herself as the ground rushed up to meet her, “All the old tricks are new again.”
Ember hit the ground and rolled. And as she did so her tightly packed secondary arms unfurled. She just had time to see the quirk of surprise on the Nightmares face before the runic knives she’d been holding shot straight into her neck.
Nightmare whinnied in surprise, recoiling back as the knives sparked electric blue, spitting like lightning bugs. Ember spun scanning for her pack; two seconds to see it. Another one and a half seconds to reach it. A fraction of one to draw it, an extension of her own arm, a flare through the darkness.
Ember spun, bringing the blade up in time to clash against a scythe of starlight
Nightmare spat in disgust, and stepped away from this… interesting new enemy… and its weapon that resisted her own divine power.
It was a savage looking great-sword, deceptively primitive looking at a first glance. A two-meter length of bone edged on both sides with a set of serrated amber like crystals. It was these burning orange spikes, glowing like coals that resisted her so. There was a magic about them, magic that seemed to flow fluidly between the blade and its owner, letting it dance like a flame in her whirling hands.
“A most brutal yet elegant weapon.” Nightmare hissed, the two now edging around each other.
“Much like its owner.” She grinned. “I am Ember’toh of the Karn Hive, wielder of Sorrows Edge.” Ember flicked the point of her blade upwards to clip against Nightmares scythe.
“HA!” A cruel bark devoid of humour, “Dost thou think you can intimidate with thine pitiful title? I am Nightmare Moon! She of the Eternal Night! The Breaker of Discord!”
Ember clicked her mandibles and lowered her sword slightly. The strange warrior seeming to relish the trading of titles, and her imminent doom. “The Paladin of the Western Planes! The Slayer of the Rusted-King!”
Nightmare smiled bearing her ragged fangs, “The ever rising Moon! Empress of the many Faces! The Eternal defender of Equestria!”
“Leader of the Red Hand! Last Toh'kar Standing! Liberator of the Stripeskins!” Ember brought her sword back to ready. Ember twitched her antenna. Nightmare couldn’t read her alien expressions.
“Amusing... but no matter.” Nightmare said, voice once again cold and cruel. “Your titles are small and pitiful. These places and people you speak of… they mean nothing to me…”
“How odd.” Ember replied. “Your titles mean nothing to me. What prey tell is a Discord?” Nightmare began to laugh again. “And come to think of it,” Ember continued, “What is exactly is Equestria?”
Nightmare growled.
“Actually there is one more title, only recently bestowed upon me.” Ember continued, “The Luna Knight…”
“NO!!!” The scream ripped through the air like a bomb. “NO! NO! NO! YOU! YOU DO NOT GET TO USE THAT NAME. THAT NAME IS DEAD! SHE IS DEAD! I SHOULD MAKE YOU SUFFER FOR A THOUSAND YEARS JUST FOR DARING TO UTTER THOSE WORDS!”
The world went silent. Ember stared back at her. The only noise the steady panting of Nightmare Moon. Accompanied in time with the drip of blood from Embers back wound.
“Why have you come here?” Nightmare asked.
“The world is dying. All the vitality drained away. They say that the Ancient Lich of the Far North is the one who has stopped the heart of the world. And when that Lich is slain life shall flow once more.”
“So you are to be my executioner?”
“That’s the idea.”
“Oh… little Ember’toh,” Nightmare Moon said as her horn lit up a frozen azure. “I do not doubt your prowess…” Nightmare howled in delight as Ember’toh suddenly convulsed in agony. The wound she had landed earlier on this infernal bug had been but a flesh wound, but the Nightmare knew a little something about corruption from within. And now the residue in the wound burned the little bug, lighting up every nerve in the body. “But next to me… you… are… nothing…”
Stepping up to crush Ember like the insect she was, Nightmare summoned her scythe. It had been so long since she had killed another being by her own hand. Maybe that why she watched the brave little warrior squirm for a few moments.
“Less than nothing.” Then the scythe swung.
“EMBER!!!”
Nightmare reeled as a small tree sailed past her head. She looked up to see six more outsiders charging through the frozen forest.
Like Ember she did not know their kinds, though two looked vaguely like creatures she had seen before.
But all carried weapons that glowed as Embers had done.
The closest two were already upon her. Moving in perfect tandem they whirled their glaives as one, throwing themselves between herself and Ember.
Nightmare stepped through the shadows. For a moment she paused at the edge of the clearing. Then stepped again and disappeared into stardust.
Ember sat staring at the fire and the long shadows it cast against the cave wall. She winced as Brighteyes poked and prodded at Embers wound.
“Nearly done?” Ember asked, twisting to look back at the Stripeskin shaman as another black shard was extracted and placed into a purifying bath.
“Almost…” She replied, heavy accent echoing around the confined space. “You’re lucky you’re not dead… running of by yourself like that…”
“I know I know.” Ember replied, “That martyr complex is going to kill me some day.”
“Yes and we love you for it.” Brighteyes smiled pushing some moss, maybe slightly to forcefully into the break in Embers carapace. “Don’t do it again.”
“It’s not entirely her fault.” Sobek grunted, hardened nails fiddling with one of his crossbows. “Those… ‘dreams’ had us all kinds of messed up.”
“Nightmares… of the…” Rana said, dorsal vanes turning blue and gripping the haft of his Glaive tighter.
“… Mare in the Moon.” Raka continued, her spines also turning blue to match her brothers.. “A first defence against outsiders…”
“Or a warning...” Rana finished, “Stay away.”
“Huh… well you two should be glad you didn’t have my dream.” Sobek cut it, punching Rana in the arm. “Your gross mugs were everywhere! Absolutely terrifying.”
The Angler twins laughed, vanes returning to their normal shades, and went back to what they had been doing before. Namely fussing over their beloved leader and getting in Brighteyes's way.
Ember craned her head and called over the campfire at the large mass blocking the entrance. “You alright over there Ceto?”
“S’fine.” The massive Golem rumbled. They had considered blocking the entrance of with rocks or branches while they rested but Ceto insisted this was safer. His massive rocky frame blending in perfectly with the cave walls. “Don’t mind cold.”
Brighteyes had just finished sealing the wound and Sobek had finished cooking… something… over the fire when the last member of the team returned. The ceiling momentarily cracked and fissured as Zante was disgorged before sealing back over. Ember looked up at her fellow Mantis and the wisps of magic dispelled themselves from her gossamer wings.
“Wards in place up to a 100m radius. Nothing moves out there without knowing.” Zante said, sitting herself down. “Real question is; even if we see her coming is there anything we can do about it?”
Ember chewed the question over, her friends looking at her expectedly. “I think so. It won’t be easy…”
“Is it ever?” Sobek snorted with a smile.
“We can take her.” Ember continued nodding her head. “But we’ll need every advantage we can get to cancel out hers. We need to know our enemy.” Ember sat back and turned to Bright-Eyes. “I know there’s a lot of junk and fiction to sift through… it took us long enough to narrow down where to find the Nightmare… but do your peoples ancient writing speak of the name ‘Luna’?”