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// Red Skies at Night 
// Story: The Rising Night 
// by Sixes_And_Sevens 
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It was late, now. The trio had endured much that day. The councilors had come again and again. Some of them were polite. Most were not. Most were not violent. Some were. The shouts and jeers of the adults— and foals, as well? Surely not, surely there could not be that much hatred in their hearts— hurt as badly as did any of Luna’s injuries. She had come out the best of the three, but that didn’t mean much. 
There had been a few bright spots— the Doctor seemed to be doing their best to cheer them both up. They had played the spoons for a little while, then did some card tricks. Celestia actually smiled in delight when they turned the entire deck around to reveal her face or cutie mark on each of the cards. Once that had run out, they began to tell stories. Places they had been, ponies they had met, planets they had saved. 
Celestia wasn’t quite sure whether to believe them or not, but Luna was enchanted. She loved the tales about the reckless adventurer Daring Do, the brave warrior Leela, the clever tale-teller Apple Core, and the intellectual Time Lady Romanadvortatrelunda… she gasped in all the right places, and cried every time somepony died. Even Celestia was drawn in somewhat by the stories about the dreadful Daleks and the ferocious Satyrs of Bacchus. Eventually, however, the day wore on into evening, and as the sky darkened, so too did the Doctor’s countenance. They took nervous glances out the window and toward the door, sometimes even fluttering their feathers as though about to take flight, before catching sight of Celestia’s injured leg or Luna’s crumpled wing and sitting back down with a sigh.
The sky had darkened into twilight, the sunset only barely still shimmering on the horizon. The Doctor had abandoned storytelling and had taken instead to nervously pacing across the floor. “Where is he?” they murmured. “I was quite sure we would have been let go by now. Surely they can’t mean to keep us in here all night?”
“I fear they do,” said a dolorous voice from outside the cell.
The Doctor perked up and ran over to the barred window. “Chancellor Puddinghead!” they said, delighted. “How good of you to come by. I don’t suppose you’re here to let us out, are you?”
The elderly stallion shook his head. “No, Doctor. We have come to converse with ye.”
“...We?” the Doctor asked, jaw slackening.
“We.” confirmed a voice from behind the Chancellor. Barley Corn stepped forth, his eyes gleaming with satisfaction. The Doctor peered into the room beyond their cell, only to see several other councilors staring back with various degrees of hatred and fear. Smart Cookie stood there as well, staring at the ground.
“Ah. Well, I suppose there’s nothing objectionable about a little light conversation,” the Doctor said cautiously. “What would you like to talk about? The weather perhaps? Unseasonably cold for this time of year. Dark, too.”
“No, Doctor," Barley said, shark teeth flashing in his smile. "We be here to talk about— murder…”
“Yes, I rrrather thought you would be,” the Doctor replied, brows lowering. “Well, we didn’t do it, I can tell you that much. If you’d be quite so good as to let us out, I can go back to trying to find out who did—”
“Thou cannae, Doctor,” Smart Cookie said, eyes lowered to the floor. “Should others die tonight, ye shall be proved innocent. If ye be released, today shall be for naught.”
Luna snorted. “And if the true killer happens not to strike tonight?”
Nopony spoke. Silence stuck in the throat like a lozenge. One councilor let out an a-hem of phlegm. “Ye have struck twice in two nights,” he began, but Celestia cut him off.
“Us? We did? The killer did, you mean,” she said, venom in her tone. “Even should somepony die while we be in here, ye shall pin it on our tails, regardless!”
“Justice will be done!” another councilor piped, but she shrunk back under the combined glowers of the prisoners.
“And more to the point,” the Doctor said, “what if somepony does die while we’re in here? What if we could have stopped it?” There was no malice in the Doctor’s voice, only sorrow. Only disappointment. 
"As you stopped the last three, you mean," Barley said, goading. 
The Doctor gazed at him, having apparently not heard. “But no. No, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” 
The Doctor’s eyes were sharp and piercing as they swept the room. Everypony in his gaze felt that they weren’t just being stared at. They were being read. Nothing, no secret, no thought, no emotion was safe from those eyes.
“Yes, it all becomes clear, now," the Doctor continued, returning his gaze to meet Barley's with a level stare. "Kill off a few ponies here and there, nopony important, nopony good, nopony who fits into your worldview. Kill off the odd ones. The drunkard. The gay couple. What entertainment have you tonight, I wonder? The mare who jilted you? The stallion that talks with his mouth full? Perhaps the little foal down the block whose ball went into your yard one time too many? Or maybe a councilor who disagreed with you on an important vote?” Ice-blue eyes flickered once more over the suddenly shaken ponies in the room.
Barley met their gaze levelly, but his hoof scraped at the floor. “What proof hast thou?”
“Prrroof?” the Doctor snapped. “Who needs proof when you already have a witch hunt already teetering at the edge of stability, a town that only needed an excuse to go over the prrrecipice? Blame the odd ones, that’s always been your modus operrrandi anyway. And then, why stop with us? Why not go on to war, warrr with the pegasi, the unicorns? Wars that you, with your strange, deadly power, would be certain to win?”
The councilor was growing angrier now. The shadows of the room seemed to flicker under the candlelight. “And who be thee to tell me otherwise?” he demanded. “Far too long we’ve suffered from ponies like ye. Pegasi an’ uni-corns an’ layabouts! No! No longer! I shall see to that!”
Chancellor Puddinghead spun around to look at Barley, shock etched into his features. "What are you saying?" he demanded. "Do you mean that you are responsible for this madness? I knew you were a vengeful fool, Barley--"
"A fool?" Barley snapped, rounding on the Chancellor. "Says the pot to the kettle, you old windbag! We are starved and extorted, and you seek no battle? Politics is the negotiations of the weak and blithering. I call for a new era. One with earth ponies first, last, and only."
“Oh, yes,” the Doctor said, sneering, “That’s always the way with you lot. Morrre strength! Morrre power! If somepony can’t keep to your standards, make an example of them! Make them better, make them stronger, make them rrright, isn’t that it?”
“Aye!”
“And then, once you’ve done that, strrrike them out! You can’t have anypony around that’s better than you, no! You have all the power! All the strength! All the cake you can eat, and all that you can have as well!”
“AYE!”
The shadows were dancing now, frantically flickering. The erratic lighting illuminated Barley’s face, full of mad lust for power for but an instant. The Doctor nodded, as the warmth returned to their eyes. “Well. Now I’m certain you’re insane. I just wanted to check.”
Barley’s face contorted into a scowl, made all the more terrifying by the unpredictable play of light and shadow over him. The Doctor wondered for a moment if perhaps they had overegged things a bit. 
Then, Barley turned and ran from the room, pushing ponies out of the way as he broke for the door. “Grab him!” the Doctor cried. Some tried, but most were too stunned to move. Only the Chancellor pushed through the crowd and raced into the night, shouting at Barley's retreating tail. The sun set over the horizon.
The shadows seemed to heave and writhe in their corners, spilling over the light. There was a scream from one corner of the village, quickly echoed from everywhere the darkness fell. In his cell, the Doctor let out a wail of despair. They turned to the councilors standing outside, eyes like comets in their blazing cold fury. “You wouldn’t listen! You pompous bureaucratic fools! Too blind to see anything but your own warped values and twisted truths! How ironic it is that it took the darkness to get you to see at last. How pitiful.”
The assembled ran from the room, fleeing in a blind panic. All save for one. Smart Cookie looked solemnly at the Doctor. Then, raising a hoof, he broke the lock. “Run.” he said calmly. “Save yerselves.”
The Doctor blinked. “And as for you?”
“This town has always been my home,” he stated. “I will defend it.”
The Doctor smiled faintly. “Well done. Well done indeed, Smart Cookie. The stallion that could say more in two sentences than any other politician could in a week’s worth of speeches. Now, listen closely, because I have a plan. Yes, you too, Luna, Celestia. We’ve not much time, so listen carefully…”