//------------------------------// // 302 - Religious Education // Story: Lateral Movement // by Alzrius //------------------------------// “…and that was what happened, Goddess. In your name, I swear it.” Luna was silent for a long moment as she mulled over what Silhouette had told her. She had no doubt that he was telling the truth; his devotion to her was far too great for him to ever be anything less than totally honest with her. Rather, her hesitation came from how she knew that he filtered everything through the lens of that devotion, to the point of potentially coloring his perceptions. Even now he’d returned to his prostrate position, his eyes closed as he touched his nose to the ground. Luna knew from experience that he’d stay like that all night if she let him, patiently waiting for her to declare whether he’d been right or wrong. Or rather, whether his actions had pleased or displeased her. “Silhouette,” she said gently, letting only the barest hint of reproach creep into her voice. “When I accepted your offer to bring Lex Legis before my sister and me, I did so with the understanding that you wouldn’t bring harm to anypony.” He flinched at the words, as though she’d delivered them in an angry shout rather than a soft rebuke. “Goddess, I beg your forgiveness! I thought that if I used the least amount of force possible to accomplish my task, it would still please you!” “And yet you were told that if Lex Legis’s spell was interrupted, it could cause disaster.” He let out a shuddering breath then. “…yes, I was.” Luna arched a brow at his answer. “And you didn’t see fit to alter your course of action once you knew that?” She half-expected him to try and come up with some excuse, to say that he’d thought Sonata had been lying or that he’d be able to use the magic she’d given him to fend off whatever catastrophe Lex’s disrupted spell would have caused. But his answer surprised her. “Goddess, I made certain to move everypony away from Lex Legis before I attempted to interfere with his spellcasting.” “That is not what I asked you, Silhouette.” Again the admonition in her voice was softer than a feather, but still made him tense up. “Why did you not stop what you were doing once you learned the consequences of interrupting Lex’s spell?” She paused, and when several seconds of silence went by, she gently reached down with one wing, placing it under his chin and lifting his eyes to hers. She heard him gasp softly at the contact, his face rapturous as he looked up at her. “Was it because you couldn’t bear the thought of not being able to fulfill your pledge to bring him to me?” A stricken expression passed across Silhouette’s face then, only to be replaced with a look of shame a moment later. “No…” he whispered, his eyes falling from hers. But before she could say anything else, he swallowed and resumed eye contact with her, resolve – or perhaps resignation – filling his voice. “Forgive me, Goddess. I did wish to please you, but that was not why I persisted with my efforts to ruin Lex Legis’s spell.” “Then why?” Luna prodded softly. Silhouette closed his eyes then, and through her wing under his chin she felt him clench his jaw, his features darkening. “Because I wanted him to pay.” Luna pulled her wing back then, frowning. “Pay? For what?” “For treating you with such disrespect!” His entire body quivered with repressed rage then, his teeth grinding so heavily that it was almost audible. “That so few ponies pay homage to you for all that you do is outrageous, but for him to dare to blaspheme your name…to stand in your own throne room and say that you’re unfit to rule…!” He had to stop then, trembling with fury, and it took several seconds before he was able to continue. “I wanted his spell to fail at my hooves, so that it would be your righteousness laying him low.” He let out a slow breath then, returning his nose to the ground. “Knowing what would happen didn’t dissuade me from interrupting his spell, Goddess. It encouraged me.” Luna knew she should have been angry at what he said. Furious even; he’d deliberately sought out a confrontation where none needed to occur, and he’d done it in her name. But the emotion refused to come. Instead, all she could do was stand there and revel in the feeling of just how deeply Silhouette worshiped her. His faith in her, his belief in her divinity, radiated off of him like heat from a fire, flaring higher in reaction to the perceived slight against her. The feeling of knowing that he thought so much of her, that she was the most important thing in his world and that any insult to her was unbearable for him, was a pleasure that defied description. It was more delectable than the finest cuisine, more potent than the most skilled lover. It pierced straight through a lifetime of knowing that, compared to her sister, she was always second among equals, affirming her in a way she’d never felt before. It soothed the bittersweet knowledge of how everypony had always appreciated the bright warmth of Celestia's daytime more than the gentle darkness of her own night. Although she’d put those feelings aside since Twilight Sparkle and her friends had redeemed her, Luna still couldn’t deny how the balm of another pony’s reverence eased the pain of those memories. If I’d been worshiped like this a millennium ago, she’d thought to herself repeatedly over the last few months, I never would have become Nightmare Moon. Nor, she knew, was the effect of Silhouette’s worship limited to her own psychic satisfaction. There was a genuine energy to it, a power that bolstered and uplifted her, filling her with a sense of strength and vitality as soothing as it was exhilarating. She’d never felt anything like it before in her life; even becoming an alicorn hadn’t prepared her for how it felt to be empowered by genuine religious veneration. It was that power that she called upon when she returned some of that strength to her small stable of worshipers, granting them spells that they otherwise never would have been able to attain. And when she used that new power for her own benefit, flexing it for her own sake rather than granting it to others, she could- “I beg your indulgence, Goddess,” came Silhouette’s voice, snapping Luna out of her unintended reverie. “I did not mean to raise my voice in your presence.” Pushing away a feeling of mild embarrassment that she’d gotten so caught up in her servant’s adulation, Luna forced herself to return to the matter at hoof. No matter how wonderful it felt to be worshiped, she needed to deal with what had almost happened. “Lex Legis would not have been the only pony who suffered if you had confounded his spell. The mare he was casting it on, Sonata’s sister, would have been affected as well. As would that colt who defied you.” “…yes.” “And that was acceptable to you? Or rather, you felt that such a thing would be acceptable to me?” Now the excuses came. “Goddess, that boy chose to be there of his own will, after I’d repeatedly told him to stand clear!” Luna sighed. “Silhouette…” “Worse, he denied your status as Mother of the Night, according that honor to some other goddess he called ‘the Night Mare’!” Luna frowned. When Silhouette had mentioned that during his report, she’d presumed that the colt had said “Nightmare Moon” in order to be provocative; now she wasn’t so sure. But it was something she’d need to deal with later. “Even so…” “And he alluded to having an entire troupe that held such blasphemous beliefs! Such heresy needed to be struck down before-” He had just gone too far. “I have no wish to strike down another pony, least of all a foal!” Flaring her wings, Luna smacked one hoof against the ground, the impact heavy despite the soft grass under her hoof, the last vestiges of the euphoria she’d felt from his worship falling away as she focused on what needed to be done now. “Silhouette, while your actions might have been borne of righteous intent, they were not in accordance with my wishes!” She let that sink in, watching the blood drain from his face before she spoke next. “For this, you will need to be punished.” To anypony else, the way Silhouette was shaking would have looked like fear. But Luna knew better. His tremors were the result of recrimination rather than terror, no doubt already castigating himself far more harshly than she ever would have. “Stand, Silhouette, and face me directly.” “Yes, Goddess.” Trembling, he rose to his hooves, almost collapsing as his shuddering almost caused his bad leg to go out from under him. The sight took the edge off of Luna’s disapproval, remembering that she was the one who had inadvertently withered his limb. It had been her first experiment with transferring some of her worship-gained power to another pony, and she had passed too much to Silhouette, the power overflowing and causing his leg to atrophy. Despite the fact that he’d worn the wound with pride, claiming that it was a gift to wear “the mark of the Mother of the Night’s touch” openly, Luna had nevertheless felt guilty about it. She’d been planning on demoting him, but as he rose onto all fours, she quickly changed her mind. Instead, she decided to go with a different idea, one that she’d been considering for some time now. “Hold still,” she commanded. He didn’t answer verbally, instead stiffening into near-total immobility at her command. Luna’s horn glowed a moment later, wrapping around his purple armor and slowly removing it, until a moment later it was piled on the ground at his side. “As of this moment, you are no longer a member of the Canterlot Royal Guard.” The horrified look on his face told her exactly what he thought she meant, and she held up a hoof to forestall any outbursts on his part. “You are not being expelled from my service, nor do I plan on sending you away,” she stated, knowing from how he almost collapsed in relief that she’d been right. “Instead, you will assist me in founding a new organization, one which will be the formal body devoted to my worship. It will establish guidelines and protocols for how I wish the ponies dedicated to me to conduct themselves, so that a situation like this will never happen again.” Surprise passed across Silhouette’s face, then understanding, and finally awe. “Yes, I understand, Goddess! I’m honored that my foolishness could be the root of such a grand design!” His eyes were wide, and Luna could see him already imagining what her new religious institution would be like. “I will devote myself wholeheartedly to this effort, so that every aspect of it will properly reflect your glory throughout Equestria-, no, throughout the world!” Luna nodded, pleased that he seemed to have forgotten that this was technically a punishment. This will be a school like my sister’s, except instead of teaching gifted unicorns it will teach ponies the proper way to honor me. Of course, it wouldn’t be a literal school; the Equestria Education Association would never approve of that. But it could borrow at least a few of the structural elements without stepping on any hooves. All of that would come later, though. Right now, there were more immediate things to attend to. “I’m glad for your enthusiasm,” smiled Luna. “But in the meantime, I’d like you to do something for me. Think of it as a demonstration to prove that you’ve learned your lesson.” “Yes, Goddess! Anything!” Luna pointed back toward the other side of the train station. “I want you to bring that mare, Nosey, to me. And I want you to do it in a manner that I would approve of.”