//------------------------------// // Chapter 22: Colonize // Story: Luna is a Harsh Mistress // by Starscribe //------------------------------// Moonrise limped along for a while, just like Quill. There was little the old stallion could do for the city himself—it was all about keeping ponies’ spirits up, and organizing the right talent for the right job. Occasionally he stepped in to make suggestions when ponies were stuck, or to mitigate a disaster before it got worse. They encountered their first of those a month or so from the Day of Power, when a pony blundered into the “lightning traces” connecting the generator to the forge, and was instantly killed. Moonrise got a new law that day, as well as a new tomb in the crypt cavern.  That certainly wasn’t the only death he had to officiate over. There was occasional violence between what had been the camps, even with Chain Mail’s troops to keep the peace. A devastating flu took almost two dozen another month later, though Quill himself was spared its wrath by either the mercy of nature or Nightmare Moon’s powerful magic, he wasn’t sure which. Electricity was now “unlimited” while the sun shone, though it also flowed slower than any lightning charge. When night came, all work had to cease, so that the energy they stored could be used only for needed water and air. But as the months passed, Quill found himself longing for the pony that had begun as his bodyguard, had become his friend, and then… something else. Some faint part of him wondered if her absence might’ve been her tolerance for a dried-up corpse of a stallion like himself finally running out, expressed in the kindest way she could.  He banished that thought whenever it surfaced. Just as Quill himself served as a symbol of stubborn hope and endurance for Moonrise, Penumbra was her own kind of symbol for him. He wasn’t ready to give up on her just yet. Three months after the Day of Power, and Quill found himself in the princess’s throne room, celebrating the occasion with tea and an offering for the princess. “Sylvan’s craftsponies thought you should be the first to see it,” Quill said, depositing the case on the low table before the throne. Despite Nightmare Moon’s apparent desire for company, Quill never actually saw anypony here who wasn’t one of her personal servants. She had butlers and cooks and maids—she even had a tutor of some kind. But no friends, other than himself. The Alicorn leaned forward to inspect the object. A glass jar, attached by clear resin to the metal plate. Inside was a thin wire coil, wrapped tighter than anything they used to run Moonrise. “What is it?” The princess sipped at her tea, though she’d mostly lost interest in it now. She twisted the object slowly around in her magic, inspecting the controls. There was only one switch. “Sylvan calls it ‘artificial glowstone.’ I think the name may need some work. Apparently it’s a refinement on the electrical coils we already use for heat. Different metals produce different amounts of heat and light. By containing the coil in a vacuum as you see…” Quill reached over and flipped the switch. Bright orange light radiated out from inside, overpowering the princess’s own array of ceremonial glowstones and briefly equaling her own mane before the light began to fade.  “This is a lightbulb,” she said flatly. “A lightbulb with a…” She leaned down, horn glowing. The metal casing came free, exposing the thaumaturgical inner-workings. “A crystal battery. Notoriously low-capacity, these spells.” “Yes.” Quill flipped the switch again, preserving whatever glow might be left in the magic. “It was only for the demonstration. But as we make more of these, the ponies of Moonrise won’t have to live in darkness any longer. We can light the city when work shifts begin, and darken it again when it is time to rest. And all the glowstone we salvage will expand our farms.” The princess nodded. “A common-sense discovery based on what you already knew. Overdue, perhaps. But… a useful achievement.” “I’ll tell the craftsponies you approve. Perfecting this prototype was difficult for them, but Sylvan is enthusiastic about producing more.” “No doubt.” Nightmare Moon returned to her seat, draining the rest of her glass. “I’m glad you were right about the endurance of this army, Lord Commander. Because it seems the Tyrant’s magic is… equally sturdy. Even here at the seat of my power, I cannot undo the spell banishing us. It may require… significant investment of thaumaturgical resources. The wisdom of unicorn scholars, and the magic of many thousands acting together. My own contributions are… insufficient.” You’ve given up, he realized, eyes going wide. Even after almost a year up here, a part of him still hoped. Nightmare Moon would make this right. He could see the sky again, feel rain on his face that wasn’t the drippings of stale breath and piss. But that wasn’t going to happen. Maybe Moonrise would become a great city one day, with thousands of ponies and a great university of wise unicorns who could undo Celestia’s magic. Penumbra might “live” to see that day, but Quill certainly wouldn’t. “I don’t doubt that the princess is… doing everything she can,” he said. “Moonrise understands that. We all want to go back to Equestria, but nopony wants to go back more than you.” She shrugged. “Some of my subjects are so eager to endure lunar conditions that they’re even forming families up here.” Her eyes settled meaningfully on Quill, though he could only glance over his shoulder with confusion. Was there somepony behind him he hadn’t noticed? “This is wise. Better to realize we are trapped than to struggle against forces we cannot overcome. If the army will not serve Nightmare, then I will need a second generation to one day retake Equestria.” “I… suppose it’s a good thing that most of your army was evenly-mixed bats, instead of the mostly-stallion earth pony shock troops the Sun Tyrant favored. Whatever imbalance does exist is mostly corrected by the camp fo— Princess, why are you looking at me that way?” “I just find it amusing that you sound so… detached about the whole affair. You’re more personally involved than you ever were in the creation of some useful invention for the city. Yet you speak about the camp followers and pairing off soldiers.” He backed away a step, his one good wing flaring in his confusion. “Forgive me, Princess. I’m afraid I do not understand. I’m too old for any of that. Perhaps there are mares who would be convinced to tolerate a gnarled old… creature like myself. But they would only be doing it for the chance of granting an inheritance to their child. I’m certain you’ll find a proper replacement for me when I die, without the need for a hollow dynasty.” The princess wasn’t smiling anymore. She learned forward on the throne, eyes unblinking. “You’re… not lying to me. Of course you wouldn’t keep secrets from your princess. Particularly since the secret you’d be keeping has dwelt with me for months. Which means…” Her eyes widened. “Iron Quill, where is your bodyguard? Is it possible that you… don’t know?” So much for keeping you secret. The command to protect him had been Penumbra’s to obey, he hadn’t done anything wrong. But he hadn’t been jumping to report her departure, either. He had no desire to make life harder for the bat. But he wasn’t stupid, either. He wasn’t going to bucking lie. “I have no idea,” he admitted. “The last time I saw her, we parted on… confusing terms. She seemed distressed about something, but would not say what. I cannot explain where she went, or why.” Nightmare Moon laughed, her voice booming through her throne-room. The magical energy within her made the glowstones along the walls flicker briefly, growing brighter with her emotions, then fading again. Finally she rose from the throne, spreading her wings. “You defy all rational understanding, causing me to question all I thought I knew about the magic of Nightmare, and yet you do not even know.”  She turned her back on Quill, heading not for the wide double-doors that led to the royal quarters, but the single door barely big enough for her that the servants used. Quill opened his mouth to ask what she was doing, but then she gestured for him to follow, and there was nothing for him to do but obey.  “You solved many insolvable problems for me, Quill. Now I will resolve a mystery that tormented you. Consider it your… reward for loyal service.” Nightmare Moon’s throne room and quarters were really just a section like any other, though they were divided to give the princess as much luxury as they could afford. But down this hallway led to the usual facilities—a kitchen, privy, and bathing area for the servants, along with a few bunkrooms. Their attachment to the princess meant more luxury than the barracks that most ponies slept in. Pestle stopped in the hall, backing slowly away from the two of them with a slight bow for the princess. Her own servants were past the “terrified scraping” stage of obedience. Finally they reached a shut servant’s door, made of a thin sheet of lunarium like most unimportant things. Just enough to give privacy, without the strength to resist even modest pressure from a determined pony. “When we were banished here, I believed survival would be impossible. You showed me I was mistaken. Your actions have shown me more I thought was impossible.” The princess didn’t knock—what reason did she have to care for the space of her subjects? She shoved the door open with her magic, letting the faint glow of the hallway’s single glowstone shine in. More than enough for Quill’s bat eye. He wouldn’t have needed sight to recognize the pony inside. Penumbra’s quarters were spartan in the extreme, with only an armor stand on one side, and her cot on the other. Not everything about Penumbra was familiar, as much as Quill now knew her in every intimate detail. Her belly was slightly swollen, stretched just a little from the early stages of a foal growing there.  She looked up, as though the light was blinding her. “Q-Quill?” Her voice came in a daze, clearly confused. “Is that… Princess? Is my service… required?” She sounds so strange. Like a pony suffering the effects of a serious spell. Nightmare Moon shook her head. “My loyal servant, I have made my needs clear. The only service I require from you is to continue to come to meals and eat them, even though you do not feel the need.” “And I…” Her eyes settled on Quill, and she seemed almost to lose focus. “I’m sorry, Quill. Can’t… can’t protect you. Right now. Can’t protect… much of anything.” He wanted to run to her side, but Nightmare Moon held him back with a wing. She swung the door closed, returning Penumbra to the dark. “Why are you keeping her in there? And how… why… what…” “How is an undead pony having a child?” Nightmare Moon asked. “That is the one question I can’t answer. If you were a unicorn, you would sense the powerful spell on her. But you aren’t, so trust that I can feel it. Clearly you didn’t cast it, and yet… when she was more lucid, she spoke normally. She swore that she had been with no other stallions. That she had drank no potions, and felt no charms. In spite of everything, it must have been you.” “I…” He couldn’t meet her eyes. Of all the things he might’ve expected to talk to the princess about, why this? “I don’t know how this is possible, Princess. We were, uh… we were together. She was right about that. But I don’t have any magic to cast on her.” He winced. “Why is she so… confused? I’ve known plenty of mares who were carrying a child before, and none of them seemed so…” Nightmare Moon raised an eyebrow. “You’re a midwife now too, Lord Commander?” “Well… yes.” He glared stubbornly at her. “I served in the Sun Tyrant’s order twenty years. I did many things, including assist new mothers.” “Again, I am… uncertain. What we observe is the interaction between Nightmare’s transformation, and this new spell. I believe the relationship is… parasitic. Her body is not alive, and would not be able to host a child under normal circumstances. To protect itself, the spell upon her harvests much of her magic.” You let this happen. The old princess would’ve annihilated the spell long before it could’ve gone so far. Some part of him wished she had, as the old Nightmare Moon would’ve done. His love for Penumbra was more important than any impossible child. Yet—there was another instinct down there. One he hadn’t known still worked. “Will she recover?” he asked instead. “When this is over, and the… child… is complete?” The princess shrugged an ambivalent shoulder. “You ask as though there is a pony who could answer your question. I have no idea. I don’t believe anypony can know. Of one thing I am certain—Penumbra’s greatest chance is to allow the spell, and the child, to reach completion. You need not fear my interference. I will not put the life of my sole remaining Voidseeker at risk.” “The others are… still alive, aren’t they princess? Do you worry that they’ll… wish for revenge against Moonrise?” Again she shrugged. “They could never do anything disloyal to me. Except for Aminon and Penumbra, every one of those ponies swore to Nightmare through me. Those who remain are all young, or at least young compared to the pact with Nightmare. They will not defy my will.” I hope you’re right, Princess. It would be so easy for them to take a rock and shatter our windows in the night, damning everypony in the city. “I will continue to watch over your… mate, Penumbra. You need not worry for her. There is nothing your worry could accomplish anyway. Focus on your survival without a bodyguard. Though there… is still a chance that neither she nor the child will survive. By all accounts, nothing should’ve happened. A pity Starswirl can’t hear of this. I would like to see his face…” The impossible happened about seven months later, as near to perfectly as it was possible to be. It was an impossible secret to keep in a city as small as Moonrise, even with Penumbra never leaving the princess’s personal company. Quill would never learn which servant had leaked the information—but considering there was soon to be a child he couldn’t hide, it didn’t really matter. Ponies would learn what they would. There was no terrible scandal, as he might’ve expected from the news that the Lord Commander had slept with what amounted to a sacred religious icon. Nopony would speak honestly to him about the subject of course, but his assessment was that ponies actually seemed to admire him for it. His relationship with Penumbra only proved the moon welcomed them. He did not move Penumbra to the hospital wing, where Cozen had delivered only a few weeks before. Instead, the doctors came to the royal wing, where they could be sworn to secrecy over whatever they might see. Even his close friends—Sylvan, Chain, Silver—would only be allowed once everything was finished. Nightmare would keep its secrets. He needn’t have worried. Though Penumbra herself was in a barely-conscious delirium through the whole procedure, the birth progressed with a minimum of disturbing interruptions. Quill’s old body was of little use in the birthing room, but he held Penumbra’s foreleg through the procedure. That would have to be enough. But then the birth was finished, and poor Penumbra dropped almost instantly into a torpid stupor. “It’s a filly,” said Marine Kelp, offering Quill the bundle. “I’m sorry the mother isn’t… none of my usual methods are working to rouse her. We’ll need to find another mare to nurse for her.” She offered the now-dry bundle of cloth to Quill, who took it gingerly with his one good leg. “I’ve already spoke to a willing mare,” he said. “There aren’t many available, but I happen to be closely acquainted with one. If you could send a nurse for Cozen… I would appreciate it.” “Certainly.” Marine lowered her head and slipped out the door. There wasn’t even a shred of the resentment that had once characterized her interactions with Quill. Her anger over imagined oppressions didn’t hold much water when Quill indulged everypony in their own religions all they wanted. He had no reason to investigate heretical sun worship when it came from the hooves of his most capable.  Quill felt the weight of the foal settle into his hooves as though he were watching it happen to somepony else. Behind the seeing glass Sylvan had crafted for him, his eye misted with tears. Of all the joys he thought long denied to him, this had to be near the top of the list. He’d done far too much evil to ever see a child again. In some small way, every pony suffering here on the moon was his fault. He could’ve turned the princess in before Nightmare had empowered her. He’d been the one to trade the lives of a few peasants, he’d joined her willingly. Apparently fate didn’t care. He leaned down, brushing a few wiry strands of dark mane away from the little pony’s face. She was a bat of course, sleeping more peacefully than her mother. Her tufts of dark mane were mixed with equal shades of stark white, paler even than his own aging hair. In every way Quill could read, the child seemed healthy—her wings were intact, her legs were the right lengths and shapes. “You’re perfect,” Quill whispered through his tears. “And I don’t deserve you. You shouldn’t exist.” The foal stirred, wriggling in her bundle until Quill met her eyes. Or tried to. There was a strange gray about them, and they glazed right past him without settling on him. But her eyes were wet, her body was damp and warm. She was unmistakably alive in a way that Penumbra wasn’t anymore. Sweet Celestia, no. Quill had seen this before, in a small number of foals he’d helped deliver. She was blind. The foal squeaked pitifully at him, her mouth opening and closing in vain for nursing that hadn’t arrived. He could only stroke her back gently, shushing her. “She’s almost here,” he urged. “I’m sorry, I know your mother would do it if she could. But she’s not actually… alive.” Cozen did arrive, and at last the little foal could nurse. Even if she obviously struggled to get situated correctly. But in the end the baby drank, and any fears he might’ve had that she was somehow undead too were assuaged. She still needed to eat—she wouldn’t be trapped as a foal forever. Penumbra woke later that night, long after Quill had dozed off. But even with as little as everything weighed on the moon, her shifting was enough to attract Quill’s attention. He stirred, groaning and wiping away the last vestiges of sleep. “I’m not alone,” she said, adjusting the blanket on her back and sitting up.  Quill did likewise, feeling his joints creak and strain under the sudden motion. He ignored their protests. “You’re not,” he said. “You never had to be. I wouldn’t have kept you locked away like Nightmare Moon did.” He slid his chair closer to her cot, resting one hoof on her shoulder. She reached up, holding his hoof with her own. It was the second most wonderful thing he’d felt today, even if her body was as cold and lifeless as he remembered. He was used to that by now. “And if I did that… you might’ve tried to hide me from her. The princess’s magic… I don’t know if I could’ve survived without it. That little parasite drained me of every drop of magic I had. “Ah, well…” He looked away. “I would’ve called her the instant you were in danger. I’m just glad you’re okay. There was… some doubt. Nopony could be sure if you’d come back.”  She adjusted her wings, brushing the blanket aside. Her body no longer looked even a little bit motherly. Like everything the invading magic had done was now undone. It was reassuring, if a little sad. “I want to see her,” she said. “If you named her without me, I’m changing it back.” “I’ll get her.” Quill rose to his hooves, turning towards the door. “I haven’t named her yet. It didn’t feel right to… do it without you.” Soon enough, the foal was cradled in her hooves. She stirred uneasily, clearly unhappy to be woken. But considering everything Penumbra had gone through, Quill wasn’t going to deny her. “Meanwhile, I have had occasion to think of little else,” she said. She looked down at the child, apparently oblivious of her blind eyes. Quill hadn’t told her yet, and he wasn’t sure when he would. “We’re naming her Faithful Gale, and there’s nothing you can do about it.” “Faithful Gale,” he repeated. “Sounds perfect. Just like her.”