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// Chapter 17: The Truth 
// Story: Blood Moon 
// by The_Darker_Fonts 
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Moon 9027 rendition

	It has hardly been a day since I last added to you, yet it has felt as if the hours were days with how long these past twenty nine hours have heralded.  I might say that in my hundreds of years, I truly never expected to have my life change so abruptly in both direction and attitude.  I feel alive!  Sure, the range of emotions in this past day has included deepest sorrow and painful consideration, but it has also held in my favor the  matchless emotions of falling in love.  Aye, it is true that at long last, I believe I have found myself “the one”, as Ailade tends to refer to them (in regards to the one a nocturnal marries, that is).
	The mare is truly the most beautiful pony to ever grace my eyes, a sparkling young mare who has the heart and will of steel, and the body of an alicorn.  Her mane is the most vivid green, a forest shade that gives her the visage of a young oak tree.  Her eyes share that color, emerald-evergreen that I can’t pull myself away from.  Her chocolate coat is smooth and soft, a warmth emanates from her, in spite of everything she told me of her past.  I feel myself drawn to her even as I sit here, though it isn’t too surprising as she is merely a few spans behind me, reading over some of the pages from thousands of moons ago.  
	You see, I may have revealed to her the truth about this castle and our coven, that we aren’t merely some unspoken, unnamed group of ponies inhabiting this area.  Somehow, she was able to draw out a secret I’ve never confessed to any outsider before in a matter of hours.  Honestly, I’m glad I didn’t wait though, because one way or another, I believe she would’ve somehow sniffed out the truth eventually.  Besides, it feels much simpler to have the truth out and known than to try and hide half of myself away from her.  
	I haven’t mentioned her name yet, and perhaps I won’t for her privacy, or at least until she doesn't feel as threatened and angry at my true self.  Currently, she’s searching the archives of my past records, from around three thousand moons back, looking for when the last time I consumed a pony was.  She’s been at it for about two hours, shuffling the papers around restlessly while keeping her daughter tightly against her.  I also haven’t mentioned the little one yet, but the young foal, only a month or two old, has inherited her mother’s beauty.  She not only represents the grim past of her mother, but also the fated future of the two.
	I feel almost guilty, knowing the mare’s story and recording it, but I feel as if it is justified as a record of further misdeeds and sins of the Bastard King Sombra.  This tale is neither joyous or enjoyable, and justice has yet to have been dealt to the core characters that mistreated our new guest, but it shall be recounted anyways.
	From what I've collected, (and I’ll come back to add any details I may miss) the mare was in the Princesses’ armies when she decided to assassinate Sombra.  She told us that she had managed to shoot him through the heart, however, the stallion didn’t take any damage from the wound and proceeded to capture her.  For about three years (by her account) she was a slave to the stallion, and as she said, “both physically and carnally”.  Thus, she became impregnated with his child, the first, I believe, of his direct lineage.  I know that there would be many in this land to quickly dispatch her tale, but I could tell, or I at least hope I could tell, that she was telling the truth.  Regardless, she came forward with some evidence of herself, a robe that Sombra wears.  
	From there we took her in, gave her a room for her and her child on the opposite end of the castle, just as a precaution, and now I believe that both parties are happier to be separated by several walls.  Nobody else but Argon has knowledge that she knows the truth about the coven, but breaking the news to the others is sure to be… interesting.  The others rarely have to interact with the normal ponies; Argon and I usually deal with them because we have the most experience.  They certainly have never dealt with another pony knowing that they kill and eat the flesh of prey, that has the knowledge that once, long ago, they did eat a pony.  Ah, but I digress.
	Ailade showed her off to the bathing house so she could tidy up, as their escape had left her and her child rather mussed up.  I didn’t know that she would be in that room exactly, and I too headed over for a bath, as the one in our left wing was occupied by yet another matter I have yet to discuss.  When we happened upon each other in the hall, she was still slightly damp from her bath, we had a short conversation that led to what may have well been an endless minute.  Yes, as it may have been presumed from that statement, we indeed ended up embracing each other in a spur-of-the-moment kiss.  
	It was all initiated by her of course, as I’m well-mannered and educated enough to remember what happens to those nocturnals that force themselves on another, normal pony.  In fact, she caught me quite by surprise, a quick action, and if I may be so cheeky as to say, a quicker tongue, physically and linguistically!  I found myself unable to control myself in the presence of this mare, my heart controlling every move of mine and twisting every word out and off my tongue, my brain a simple afterthought in all matters concerning her.  
	By the blood of the innocents and by the gleam of the moon, I know that without her I would find myself becoming a wretched creature, thoughtless, careless, save for the loneliness of missing her.  Even with knowledge of this damning fear, for some reason I gave my true identity away anyways.  I know the reason, and by now I’m sure I’ve hammered it well into you as well, but it still feels so… serenely unbelievable to say that, after eons and many, many moons, I am in love.  Truth is, I was preparing full-heartedly to die in but a few hundred moons, to age away to dust like my mentor before me.  The writing earlier on, not a few moons back, I believe in the 8800s, is my complete preparation for the coven when I’m gone, a draft of my will, and a short eulogy I wanted Ailade to read on the day they mourn me.  Now, it seems as if those words are obsolete, never to be read audibly by my loved ones, for I have found the one!  
Oh, dear Luna, I’ve forgotten the other, prior matter that came to my attention before the coming of the mare to our castle.  It may indeed be the more important matter, as it’s less personal and more broad in the realm I’ve been given control over by the Princesses.  This, however, isn’t an almanac or pages of true history, but an autobiography, of sorts, so perhaps it doesn’t matter that it comes later on.
Well, actually, it seems I must wait to record it another time, as the mare is urgently beckoning me to her.  
Until I 

Hemorrhage yelped slightly as he was abruptly pulled away from his desk and parchment of writing by Joint.  “You seem deaf to the world when your mind’s on something else, you know,” the chocolate mare furiously told him, dragging him into a sitting position beside her.  
“So Ailade tells me,” the mordigan responded, slightly shocked by the sudden contact and how much trust the mare was putting in him by jerking him around.  She seemed to be quite the hypocrite, failing to notice Hemorrhage’s bewildered stare as she rustled through several sheets of paper before finding the sheet she was looking for, very much deaf to the world in her own focus.  Setting the sheet beside another that was already on the top of the pile, she pointed at the headings of each sheet, which read “Moon 576” and “Moon 3706”.
“This one is the first one I could find,” she said, pointing at the former.  “Is that one the first one that wrote in, or are there prior pages, ‘cause it seems like it’s leading out from another previous addition.”
“Oh, yes,” Hemorrhage softly exclaimed, remembering the pages that had been lost to time.  “You see, I’ve moved from place to place several times in my life, as I’m sure you’ve read, and in the most recent move, we happened through a bout of bad water that set a crate of papers, including the hundreds of pages that preceded that one, into the ocean.  It was an unfortunate loss, but there has been a lack of time to rewrite and remember the words I had written.”
“Wait, you can remember all the way back to that time,” Joint asked, sounding genuinely amazed by the statement.
“Well, yes, I can,” he responded, feeling a creeping pride for some reason.  With a slight smile, both for the way the mare stared curiously at him and the memories that surged from the past, he said, “Well, I guess it’s much like how most ponies can remember past their childhood, I can remember past mine almost perfectly, like other nocturnals.  Our memory covers the same aging as you normal ponies’, but the amount of time it covers is much longer.”
“Fascinating,” the mare muttered, though her eyes were less focused on the sheets now as they shared a soft gaze, their eyes meeting.  Joint suddenly jerked her head away, rocking the young baby in her hooves as she coughed awkwardly, a hard set to her jaw taking shape.  “Anyway, the second page comes after a two ‘moon’ break in the writing.  I would’ve thought that it was just some more lost pages, but the writing afterwards was completely illegible, scrawled almost… violently on the pages.”
“Oh,” Hemorrhage softly mumbled, remembering painfully what she was talking about.  “Yes, well, you seem to have found the thing you were looking for.  The last time I… consumed a pony.”
“Oh…” Joint murmured, looking down to her child.  Hemorrhage gave the filly a short glance, and a guilty sting surged straight through his heart.  For the first time in centuries, he remembered the event, or at least, the bits that seeped through the frenzy, and he felt the shame of it all.  Clenching his eyes closed, he stood abruptly and left the room, practically flying down the stair steps, not really sure why, only knowing he had to escape the pressure he felt building in the room.  The shame of his past was burning in him now, as well as the shame of running from the beautiful mare in such a state.
“Wait,” he heard her yell as he continued to descend down the stairs, bidding him to stop.  Closing his eyes in a deep sigh, he weighed the situation in his head, the shame he felt and guilt of leaving, along with the woeful past that only now seemed to haunt him.  He couldn’t decide whether or not to return to the mare or not, but before he knew it, he heard her hoofsteps close in and a hoof gently touch his back.  “Thanks for waiting.”
Joint wrapped her hoof around the back of his neck, pulling his face towards her as she apologized.  “I’m sorry, I… I guess I forgot that while you might not be a regular pony, you are still a pony, if a very strange and scary one.  Really, I didn’t mean to expose you or anything.  It was rude and thoughtless of me.  Besides… I know I’m guilty of murder as well…” 
Without any warning, she brought her forehead to his, their noses brushing as her hold on the back of his neck tightened slightly, pulling him into the embrace.  Her eyes closed as she shook her head ever so slightly, the entire world silent in the tower stairwell as the two shared the softest embrace.  Slowly, Joint brought her lips to his, this kiss short, but in a mysterious way, the most enjoyable one they had shared yet.  When their lips parted, they didn’t, their foreheads reconnecting as Hemorrhage closed his eyes and breathed out a sigh of relief.
“Thank you for trusting me,” Hemorrhage whispered, barely believing the mare’s sudden and unpredictable change of attitude. 
“Thank you for forgiving me,” she returned, pressing a kiss against his forehead before taking a step back up the stairs to give them a little distance.  A smile spread across her face, one that was almost like the one she gave her foal when she cared for her.  It was uncompromisingly loving, the kind that filled him completely with both love and warmth, a calmness that spread completely through his body, easing the last of his worries away.
“I don’t even really find you terrifying or scary in any way,” the mare continued, her voice becoming more at ease as she shrugged slightly.  “I mean, I’ve made out with you already, alone in a dim hallway, which I guess would be the perfect setting to eat me, and I left Amethyst alone with Ailade for a while, which would have also been the time for her to… you know.  I guess that I was too shocked to really think clearly about what you had told me versus how you had treated me, and I went into my defensive mode.”
“With a past like yours, I’m not shocked,” Hemorrhage emphasized, lifting a hoof to her shoulder.  “Besides, all I needed to hear was that you weren’t afraid of me, but thank you for the admission.”  
“Of course,” Joint replied, smiling bashfully, ducking her head in a rare show of shyness to her otherwise resilient demeanor.  Hemorrhage was wistfully smiling at the mare before he even knew it, the dopey, almost foalish grin spreading across his face.  The two stayed like that for a while, smiling dumbfoundedly at each other, until Amethyst snuffled ever so slightly.  Both adults looked down at the child, who, while still resting peacefully in her mother’s hold, unbeknownst smiling at the exact time at the little baby.  
Though they didn’t see the shared expression directly, a pulse within them caused their eyes to once again meet.  The smiles faded as both entered a deep, unbroken line of thought, invoked by their shared emotions and fate.  They stared at each other, thinking deeply and judging each other’s emotions and their own in precise weight, knowing that in the next moments, their life would be changed and chosen by whatever the other said.
As always, however, it was Joint that made the first move, her eyes searching his as she stated softly, yet firmly, “I love you.”
There was no shock, no sudden terror, only the soft sound of their breathing, their heartbeats in perfect sync with one another’s, and it was then that Hemorrhage knew, doubt’s forever dead, that he would marry this mare.  Smiling, he didn’t need to think of his response, the four words coming not from his head but from his heart.  She may not have needed to hear it, but he needed to say them anyway.
“I love you too,” he replied. Leaning forward, he gave her a kiss on the cheek, then bent over and gave Amethyst a small peck on the cheek, careful not to disrupt the foal’s gentle sleep.
Grinning at the mordigan, Joint asked, “So what next?”
“Um, marriage, I guess,” Hemorrhage stated simply.  Realizing what he said, he felt himself flush and stammer to make an excuse for what he had been saying, explaining, “Well, I mean, a nocturnal can only… uh progress our relationship if we were married… but don’t… Don’t feel rushed.  We don’t have- I mean, you don’t have to… Oh! and marriage is a whole other…”
Hemorrhage trailed off as he realized that Joint had been staring at him with a slight smirk.  As soon as he stopped talking, she leaned in and gave him a short kiss on the lips, a slight giggle escaping her as she explained, lips still touching, “I meant what are we gonna do today.”  Still leaning in close, she allowed her eyes to wander him briefly before adding, “But yes, marriage doesn’t sound like a bad idea.”
Hemorrhage couldn’t add anything, the mare was off down the stairs, child in her motherly grasp.  For a few seconds Hemorrhage couldn’t breathe, couldn’t believe the conversation that he’d had with this incredible, beautiful mare, and thinking of the last words, still echoing through his head, he felt a weight leave his chest, the pressure relieving into sheer joy.  Before he knew it, he was following her down the stairs, a wide, lovestruck grin smattered across his face.
That was until he reached the bottom and saw a wall of fur, growling menacingly as it loomed over Joint.