//------------------------------// // Let There Be Night // Story: Myths and Birthrights: Anthologiae // by Tundara //------------------------------// Let There Be Night By Tundara Luna moved slowly about the darkened chambers. Royal blue curtains were pulled tight, keeping out most the offending morning light so only a thin blade cut across the center of the room. She avoided the golden line, upper lip curled in a silent snarl. Every few steps her eyes darted back to it, brow furrowed into deep canyons, a storm raging in the tension of her jaw that occasionally worked its way down her neck and out through her wings.   Invariably her gaze was drawn away, to the corner of her chambers, where it sat. Empty. Untouched. Shimmering veils drawn around an oaken frame. The softest bedding lain with the greatest of care unrumpled. A monument to everything wrong and terrible. Almost afraid of the thing, Luna approached it. She had yet to get closer than a few steps. Her heart latched in her throat. Her heart pounded against her chest. A cold, clammy current worked its way from her hooves to her shoulders. Tension flared, and she turned away again with a snarl. ‘This is her fault. This is all her fault,’ seethed a voice in the deepest parts of Luna’s mind. It was the voice of a filly, high pitched and nasally, and it acted like a filly. The voice had been there for years, for centuries, but never so strong. So insistent. So right. Usually, it just whined and bemoaned everything, chipping away at Luna day by day, year by year, until Luna could no longer hear anything else.   “Be silent. We neither need nor desire thy nefarious council,” Luna growled. The words felt good. Gave her a target, a place to vent the seething fury trying to tear through her chest. ‘There is no need to be so cold, dear Luna. You know we only speak the truth. We never lie. We did not steal Cadence away like a coward. We did not seal her true nature. Sheer her of her true nature. Hide her heritage. Keep her from you.’ “We said be silent!” Spinning, Luna lashed out with a wing, catching the edge of her opulent bed and sending it crashing into the far wall in a shower of mahogany splinters, goose down, and linens. Luna glared in annoyance at her destroyed bed. Fixing it was easy, but she didn’t have the desire. Turning her tail to the pile of wood and curtains, and instead approached the sacred object in the corner. Her wing trembled as she reached up and touched the simple white painted frame of a crib. Closing her eyes, Luna took a long, trembling breath. Little Cadence should have been in the crib, swaddled and wrapped so only her round, cherubic face was visible. Sleeping, or giving off those sweet little newborn mewlings, or perhaps even crying. Without her a gaping void was left in the crib, and in Luna. ‘She has so much already: the love of your ponies, poets ink ballads to her beauty, the Sisters sing hymns of her deeds, and the nobles scrape after the merest glance in their direction. With all her fame, power, and prestige, the one thing denied her she stole from you. She could not let you keep Cadence. Not when her own womb is as barren as the sun-scorched Badlands.’ Eyes pressed tight, Luna shoved the offending voice even deeper into her mind. It would be back. It always came back, louder and meaner than before. The words continued to rattle in her head, resisting all attempts at being pushed aside like the voice that had given them utterance. Her attempts only made them stronger, louder, more insistent. A long growl issuing through her teeth, Luna abandoned the crib. She needed to get out of the room. Out of the palace. Away from the tumultuous pain they caused. With a flash of magic Luna abandoned the Castle of the Sisters. Absolute cold surrounded her as the disc was replaced by unobservable currents of aether. It was only a second she plunged through the total black of the leylines before reappearing on the edge of a plateau half-way up Mount Winter. The sweeping expanse of Equestria’s Free Lands lay beneath the mountain to the west, grasslands and rolling hills, and little more than a sparkling speck in the distance, the palace from which Luna had just come. Across a narrow valley to south rose the sharp towering edifice of the Canterhorn, a single switch-back trail leading up Notre-dame de la Chanson, the temple built half on a ledge, and half into the holy mountain. Luna snorted at the temple and quickly turned her back on it. She focused on the squat castle that was her destination. Unlike the Castle of the Sisters, Moonstone Castle was purpose built for defense and the taming of a wild land. Before Celestia and Luna took their thrones, Equestria had been pressed on all sides by hostile lands filled with all manner of beasts. The Free Lands that were now dotted by farming villages and towns had been home to manticores, chimeras, and hordes Diamond Dogs, and Moonstone Castle had been the bastion to hold them at bay and keep the ponies to towns to the north and east safe. Where before Equestria depended on legions of soldiers and knightly unicorn orders to keep itself safe, now it clung to the protection Luna granted. Her, and the Nightguard she trained. ‘All while spurning you. While turning their noses up at your night.’ “We have discussed this many times,” Luna said under her breath. “I keep the night safe so they may rest and labour under sister’s day.” ‘Lie to yourself all you want, but we both know to whom they sing praises, and whom they glare in suspicion. They never see the monsters you drive away, and instead blame you and you alone whenever one manages to slip through the cracks. Such as with the Doshaa.’ “Diamond Downs is outside Equestria’s purview,” Luna countered as she trotted towards the square gatehouse with its black banded iron doors. “It is not our fault Smart Cookie’s wards faltered.” ‘No, but they would have suffered less if they’d prayed to you and not her for salvation.’         Clicking her tongue, Luna shoved both the door open, and the voice back into silence. Briskly, she swept through the cold, narrow hallways of Moonstone Castle. The former main hall of the keep, once a place where the Counts of Moonstone presided over the lands beneath the castle, had been refurbished into a training hall. New recruits to the Nightguard sparred under the watchful eyes of veterans members of the order, receiving instructions on how to fight the monsters that plagued ponykind. And, occasionally, from Luna herself. Comprised entirely of the batlike Zbori splinter-race of pagasi, the Nightguard were even more ostracized than their mistress. Superstition created an impenetrable barrier between the zbori and the rest of ponykind. Maligned as vampires, the zbori were held at hooflength lest their ‘taint’ be infectious. Luna promises that the zbori were no different than anypony else fell on deaf ears, and Celestia maintained a silence on the issue even after more than a century.   ‘Of course she stays silent. They are loyal to only you, and not her.’ “Your Highness!” cried a dozen zbori as they dropped into deep bows at her arrival. Only the commandant broke out of his bow while Luna surveyed the gathered knights. He was a grizzled, grey maned veteran of sixty years. Any other pony would have long retired to enjoy the comforts of their hearth in the waning years of life. He staunchly refused, dedicating himself to ensuring the next generation of Nightguard were capable of at least not embarrassing their mistress. “To what honour do thee grace us with thy presence?” He asked as he took a place at her side. “Sir Glimmer,” Luna inflicted her voice with just a touch of magic to make it project across the entire hall. As she spoke, she summoned her oldest friend, Tamashi. The odachi rippling into existence at her side then dropping into her waiting aura. “We have come to ascertain thy novitiates’ progress.” “Do thy mean to test them?” A look of sharp anticipation lit his old eyes. Keeping her own expression stony, lest it reveal her turmoil, Luna nodded ascent. One by one she tested the novices. If there was one thing that Luna was regaled beyond her sister, it was her skill with the sword. The martial arts came as naturally to Luna as raising the moon and waking the stars. From the time she’d been a filly, she’d lived a life of adventure and conflict, of flashing steel, burning blood, and wild conflict. The titles piled on her withers were too numerous to recount, from pirate queen to reaver, barbarian to paladin, gained from every civilized, or uncivilized, land. None of the novices survived more than a few moments against her. They could only provide fleeting moments of distraction. In near desperation, Luna beckoned for all the students to come at her as one. Tamashi left midnight arcs of curved anti-light with each stroke, her ancient odachi turning aside with ease the attempts of the group to press her from all sides. The first novice she twisted into a flip over her withers. Continuing Tamashi’s motion she hooked the blade’s inner curve through a loose strap in the next novice’s padded barding, hurling him into the next two novices. Wings unfurled and teeth bared, the fifth novice was flung backwards by a strike of the pommel to her face. The remainder fell in equally brutal measures, Luna not having even shifted a hoof. “Again!” She commanded to the groaning ponies around her. To their credit, they quickly retook their positions without complaints. For the next few hours Luna immersed herself in the simple pleasure of fighting. Sometimes she gave herself handicaps such as using no weapon or binding her wings. Other times she mixed spells with her swordsmanship. The first group of novices rotated out to a fresh group just coming down for their turn at training, and Luna continued unabated. Her legendary, alicorn stamina was enough to give even the heartiest Earth pony envy. Slowly at first, and then in a rush once her presence was spread, other members of the Nightguard filtered into the training hall. Training felt good. The weight on her remained, but for a time she could focus on the moment. There was only her, Tamashi, and her opponents. She only wished they could give her more of a work-out. Short of finding a loose demon, there was little chance of there being even a modest challenge. By the time the bells tolled for dinner, everypony but Luna was covered in a thick lather, their bodies sagging with happy weariness. There were smiles, ribald jokes, and conversation as they pointed out mistakes or flaws in each others stances. Even Luna felt a little lighter, her heart if not at ease, than at least calmer for the moment. It would end. Hiding at Moonstone Castle for the next twenty and one years was a rather poor option. One she did consider, however. The relief was only temporary. Her troubles were patient and could wait for years before resurfacing. The Voice rarely gave her such time. And then there was Celestia. Just thinking about her sister made Luna tighten her grip on Tamashi. Worse was to come, as the edges of her alicorn senses prickled at the sudden approach of Celestia. Grimacing, muscles tightening along her back so as to make her wings rigid, Luna marched out to the castle’s steps to meet her sister. “Lulu! We have been most concerned for you all day. Thy sudden departure has been a heavy weight on our heart all this day,” Celestia called as she gently descended from a perfect blue sky. Her landing was equally beauteous, hardly a grain of dirt disturbed as she lightly touched down only a few steps from Luna.       Throat tightening, Luna swallowed the bitter retort she so desperately wanted to give. Instead, she said, “Tis nothing of which to be concerned. We have merely been sparring with our Nightguard. It is most calming.” “Calming? You continue to amaze, dear Lulu, to claim that fighting can be a balm for the soul.” Luna shrugged in response, her own feelings, and those of Celestia, well worn on the subject. “At least it was the training field rather than the bottle to which thee retreated,” Celestia hummed. It was meant to be a joke, a teasing prode, but it pierced already raw skin. Face flushing, entire body going stiff to keep her anger in check, Luna coldly responded, “These ponies have been here for us, at least, unlike those whom claim kinship.” “Lulu…” Celestia’s voice trailed off, her gaze downcast, unable to meet Luna’s own stony stare. Into the gap came the voice. ‘Of course she refuses to meet your eye. What gall it would take to attempt to be your moral equal after the injustices she has perpetuated.’      “Why has thou come here in truth, Celestia?” Celestia raised her chin a little, the question seeming to remind her of something. She put on her benevolent smile, the one used against the nobles of the court that hid her condescension for the snivelling sycophants. A small flash of magic summoned a letter to her side. An old letter bound in aged silk ties and dried wax that had long since cracked due to time alone. “This was left in our care by Orange Delight,” Celestia said, an odd note to her voice, almost as if she were reluctant to pass it along. “With instructions on when to give it to thee.” Luna took the letter with a skeptical frown. The ancient parchment crinkled in her aura, threatening to distigrate from age alone. Hundreds of years it had waited to be open. To be read. The words that greeted Luna were both comforting in their familiarity, and grating in the oddity of their phrasing. Luna had never met any pony who wrote in such a manner as the great prophetess Orange Delight, nor speak for that manner. If it weren’t for their long acquaintance, the letter would have been as if written in code, almost indecipherable in its odd turns of phrase and strange conjunctions. My dear friend, If you are reading this, then the Night’s ascension is here at last. Celestia has done something truly terrible, and you will do worse. It breaks my heart to know that the two of you have come to such divergent roads. I’ve been seeing this confrontation coming for years. Since before we even met back in that Thulesian swamp. Seen it so many times it has made me sick to my stomach. Yet, I kept it from you all these years. Could there have been other options? If I warned you sooner of the events leading to this point would it have made any difference? A few words early enough to change the paths taken so that the road you reached would be one unrecognisable to the one you currently tred. No, we have both been simply actors moving through a play written by somepony else. I tried so many times to nudge you off destiny’s course, and each time it only solidified its hold over us both. There will be no warnings I can give you that will alter your destiny. All I can say is that I believe that the true you, the Luna buried behind all the pain and loss, will shine through again. That is the Luna that Cadence and all the disc deserves to see, and will see. Telling you when is pointless, only that the time will come. Goodbye, dear Luna, Till we meet again in another life. Orange Delight PS, Orenda says chitter-chitter yip mrr. That means ‘good luck.’ Upper lip curling, Luna folded the letter, then slid it beneath her royal peytral. “She knew of Cadence this whole time,” Luna said, her voice oddly flat and lifeless. Luna heart fluttered with discordant emotions. Anger, shock, horror, and deep, deep betrayal melded together.   ‘Or course she knew, and hid it from you behind honeyed words. Just like Celestia. Orange Delight was no friend. Celestia no sister. They were co-conspirators. It was always to her Orange prayed.’ “I will have silence in my own mind, monster,” Luna growled, clutching her head. ‘It has always been Celestia’s fault. Because of her I died. Because of her mother vanished. Because of her—’ “Luna?” Ice cold fear splashed over Luna, her body going rigid at the first gentle tone of Celestia’s warm voice. She trembled like a shorn sheep on a wintery peak. Breath came in sharp, ragged gasps that hissed between clenched teeth. “Dear Lulu… Please, do not be angry. The pact with Ioka—” Ice turned to fire in the heavy thud of a heartbeat, burning through vein and sinnew with consuming purpose. Or, perhaps the flames had merely always been cold, and grew colder still. A devouring chilly flame that burned with hateful desire. She couldn't breath. She couldn’t think. Her body was numb and on fire at the same time.   ‘Here come the honey soaked lies and platitudes. The justifications for stealing away the greatest joy from your life. The deflections from her own envy.’ While the voice sneered Celestia continued to speak, but Luna heard only a general warbling noise come from her sister as the disc bled together. There was only the voice, and her pain. ‘You need not feel this loss, you know,’ the voice continued. ‘You are a goddess, and you can reclaim what Celestia stole and has tried to hide away. She may have mutilated your daughter, bound her to a false fate, and given her to fake parents. But, you can find her. You know you can. You can reclaim what is your due. Have everything your ever wanted. Be a true queen. A proper mother.’ Clarity slammed down on Luna with all the weight of the Canterhorn. “It comes to this at last,” Luna whispered, head lowered. When she next looked at Celestia she saw not the sister who’d comforted her when she’d lost her first family to the predation of the griffons. The only pony to greet when she returned home after years of wandering the eastern realms. Whom she’d nursed back to health after Celestia nearly died fighting a demon lord. The sister she’d stood shoulder to shoulder with against the madness exuded by Discord. And the sister she’d meant to rule beside. Her sister was gone, if she’d ever been there at all. A tear trickled Luna’s face, and fell with a solemn crystal ring to the floor. “Luna—” Celestia took a step closer, a wing extended in the offering of a hug. In a single, swift motion, Luna brought Tamashi down on Celestia’s head with enough force to crater the heavy basalt stone steps used in Moonstone Castle’s construction, and drove a knee into Celestia’s stomach. Air rushed from her former sister, shock more from the nature of the attack than the blows themselves widening Celestia’s pink eyes. She followed up with a sharp buck that sent Celestia careening across the valley towards their mother’s temple on the adjacent mountain. Luna stood for only a heartbeat in Moonstone Castle’s courtyard. She was committed now. And it felt so good. So liberating. Finding her Cadence was easy. Even through the curse meant to keep her daughter safely hidden, Luna could sense the alicorn spark in the newborn across the many miles. Were Cadence fostered somewhere distant from the Free Lands, the stars had kept a watchful eye on the mistress’ daughter. The village selected to be Cadence’s home would not be remembered. No history books held its name. Luna focused on her daughter, on the pulse of divine essence that flowed through the narrow, muddy streets with each beat of her young heart. This was no place for a princess goddess to be raised. Around her ponies fell silent and bowed. At least they had that much respect for her. No doubt they wondered what brought the Goddess of the Night to their tiny, insignificant little backwoods village. She needed to move quickly. Celestia would already have recovered and be on her way. Locking onto the precise home with Cadence, Luna performed a short teleport, appearing before the small, squat hovel. It was as far removed as possible as the palaces that were Cadence’s birthright. Two, perhaps three rooms, with only a single window and a bent door beneath a sagging thatched roof. Nose curling at the further insult, Luna made her way inside. The herd that called the place home all looked up as the door was thrust open, protests at the intrusion dying in garbled lumps in their throats. She ignored the peasants, all her focus on the simple bassinet around which they huddled. Nasally protest sprang up, the First Wife recovering from her shock and making to intercept Luna. A flash of magic sent the mare tumbling into a dreamy sleep. The rest of the herd followed. Without worry of any pointless interruptions, Luna pulled her daughter from the bassinet. Wonderful, brilliant blue eyes stared up at Luna with innocent purity in a round, pink face. A few stray cream and lavender curls fell from the swaddling around her head.   “Our love,” Lune hummed softly, bringing Cadence up against the side of her face while her daughter let out a sputtering giggle that made her heart soar. “Luna!” Celestia’s voice rang behind her. “You need to put her back.” Not turning around, Luna said over her withers, “And why wouldst we deign to listen to thee, dear sister?” “It is not thy role to raise her—” “If not ours, than whose?” Luna shouted, rounding on her sister. With a jab of her wing, Luna pointed at the sleeping ponies. “Is thy naivete so great as to believe mortal ponies can raise our daughter than we ourselves?” Framed in the doorway, cloaked in Sol’s golden rays so as to appear only a shadowy figure, it was hard to make out Celestia’s expression. Shaking her head, but not advancing, Celestia said, “The bargain with Ioka—” “Was made by mother, and not either of us. We need not bind ourselves with pacts made by dead gods. Mother is gone, and so too is her pact.” Bringing Cadence closer, Luna took comfort from the small bundle. “We are done Celestia. No longer will we allow thee to steal what is ours by right. The Age of Night beckons. All will know the beauty of our stars and Selene!”            “Sister—” “Do not call us that,” Luna shouted, her breaths coming quicker and quicker as if she were in the midst of battle. Her face flushed, and her heart hammered against her breast. ‘Yes,’ purred the voice. ‘Tell her the truth. Release all the anger, dismay, and pain she has caused.’ Cadence gave out a frightened whimper and shrank deeper into her swaddling. If not for that moment, Luna may have been able to overcome the Voice, as she’d managed every other time for five hundred years. Eyes locked onto her sister, with the one thing she loved more than anything else so close, and reacting with fear, Luna surrendered herself to the lurking envy. It was so clear. The voice had been so right. Celestia was a thief. All the glories she claimed stolen from those around her. From Luna. Now she meant to take Cadence away. Again. Luna refused to allow it.   Throwing back her head, Luna let out a long sigh. She both shrank and grew, her shoulders slumping in defeat as her legs lengthened. Her starfield mane elongated, curling around her like a sparkling shawl. The feathers of her wings sharpened until their edges were as blades. Fangs parted her full lips, and though she would only see it later, her eyes become slitted like those of a dragon.    ‘Let there be night! The psalms of darkness quicken! Let there be night! Now, and forever! Night unending! Night Eternal! And we shall have all their love!’ “And now the sun sets for the final time,” Luna said, a sharp, manic edge in her throat. With a great heave she forced Selene to raise. Unseen aetherial gears forged in ages past to keep the heavens in order clanked in cloudless thunder as the sun was made to set early. Velvetine darkness swathed the sky as Selene took her rightful place above. The stars burst awake, surprised at the unscheduled arrival of their lunar cousin. She felt so free! So utterly, completely at liberty. Tamashi appeared again by her side, the ancient blade hungrily touching her mind as it sensed its mistress transformation. The sword felt lighter than it had ever before, eagerness to match her own resonating through it. Any further words were pointless. With a howl that scattered the remainder of the village, Luna threw herself at Celestia. To her credit, Celestia was not caught off her guard a second time. A raging ruby-gold shell lept around her the moment Luna summoned Tamashi. Ringing with the tones of a long clarion, blade met spell. “Luna, please, we can still resolve this peacefully!” “Luna is gone,” Luna roared, and the words rang true in her head. She abandoned the name, sloughing it off like a ragged cloak torn over long years. Breathing deep the air of freedom, past shackles cast aside, she took up a new name, one far more fitting. “We are what we were meant to be; the Mare of the Night. Yes, that is now our name. We are Nightmare Moon.” She laughed, no, cackled, and it felt good. And the voice for once purred with contentment. ‘Yes. And all will know us! All will praise US!’ Drawing Cadence in her soft white swaddling closer, Nightmare Moon paced in a slow circle. Celestia mirrored the action, but had yet to bring her own weapon to bear. “In remembrance of what we once held dear we will grant you a tiny mercy, Celestia,” Nightmare Moon said, her tongue flickering between her teeth to wet her lips in anticipation. “Gather your sycophantic ponies close, oh mighty sun, for the night has only just begun. Gather them so we may crush them before you.” Celestia made to respond, but the Nightmare took her daughter and returned to Moonstone Castle. She had her own armies to marshal. If the clamour and raised voices had failed to wake Cadence, than the biting cold of the aetherial currents tore her from sleep. The sound of her screams were so beautiful to Nightmare as they appeared in Moonstone Castle’s courtyard. Her daughter. Her ponies. Her nation. Hers, and hers alone       “And now the hour has come at last,” the Nightmare hummed softly as she strode up the steps.