Luna swirled her mineral water around in her bottle, absently levitating it for almost a full minute.
I asked, “Do you hate yourself because of Nightmare Moon?”
"No. Emphatically. Twilight and the element bearers cured me of that particular guilt. I hate myself... because I enjoy killing. Not even Nightmare Moon killed wontonly—she was most pragmatic in her evil and parsimonious in her effort. She wished subjects, not victims."
I looked at Luna, then at Rosie, then back.
Rosie said, "I don’t think so. You didn’t kill those dumb colts, even though they had weapons out."
"Well, not idiot foals, of course! Even if they were older than me.... but there are certain ponies I actively thrill at killing. And the next day, in the mirror, I see the monster still caged within me."
Wow. I recognized somepony else I knew in her words. "Whom," I asked, "do you like to kill?"
"Necromancers. Rapists. Drug dealers. Their ilk."
I said, "Those seem reasonable, really."
"Would you stand as executioner, Proofie? If a necromancer wended his way through the court system? There was a case in Tröttingen last year—I took his leg and horn and arrested him. He was convicted in open court by a jury of his peers and condemned. Did you put your name in the pool when volunteers were recruited?"
I shook my head no.
"Imagine you were conscripted to pull the gallows’ lever. Do you strut happily afterward? Or vomit?"
I nodded. "Probably throw up."
"I do not."
"Don’t anymore?" Rosie asked. "Or never?"
"My first time... the first time I killed... I have no recollection. Perhaps I vomited. I suffered a simultaneous blow to the head and other injuries. I was unconscious nearly a full day. The second time I killed, outside of open battle, that is, I was enraptured and joyous. That is why I hate myself. What kind of monster kills happily? My victims earned their fate, they were guilty of rape and foal rape, but death’s application should be solemn, not rapturous. It would have been better if somepony else had killed... those particular rapists. I might not have learned to savor revenge.”
I pointed with my horn. "One of your friends is coming." It was the muscular buttercream-yellow pegasus with the short mane.
Luna looked behind. "Ah. Blizzard Walker. How are you?"
She said, "Madam Merlot, you are needed at the family compound."
"My friends here have defeated my disguise with deduction and observation."
"Princess, I told you it’s not a very good disguise. Her Highness Celestia commands your presence and that you explain why you ditched us, again. And I’m hearing rumors of swordplay in Griffontown. Princess Celestia is threatening to have your chambers lined with anti-teleport spells.”
Luna looked at Rosie and I. "Until my eighteenth birthday last year, Celestia held my legal guardianship. I am recently a legal adult, and equally diarch under the law, but I defer to her as I once did to mother. I shall make an exception, here, however, and refuse her command. Blizzard Walker, sit."
"That would be inappropriate, highness."
"Blizzard Walker, sit."
Blizzard Walker sat.
Rosie said, "My name’s—"
"We keep dossiers on everypony who spends time near the Princess, Ms. Bayes. Dr. Pudding."
I shivered slightly. I’d been hooded only ten weeks before, and still I didn’t know how to cope with being 'Doctor.'
"I asked you to sit," Luna said, "because you have sworn to trade your life for mine."
"It’s my honor, ma’am. The Royal house has spent a thousand years—"
"Shush. I am an unworthy scion of the Royal house. Hear the story of how I learned to love killing, and then you may decide if I am worthy of a dedicated public servant like yourself."
“You saved my life in Tröttingen,” Blizzard Walker said.
“Piffle. I can wear much heavier armor, is all. My armor outweighs your entire body by a factor of two. ‘Twas only fair that I take the trebuchet shot. I was without heartbeat less than a minute, thanks to your epinephrine injection, and my bones healed. Listen to the story of my foalhood.”
And then Rosie, Blizzard Walker, and I became the first ponies in a thousand years to hear how Luna had become an Alicorn Princess.
And, by the heavens and the seas and the lands, the tale was dark.