You’d never suspect what a little gaffe by an overworked clerk can do. It might, through a chain of events, cause the reemergence of old scrolls and books that were meant to be disposed of. That was the reason I was here, trying to focus as I crept quietly through the narrow stone stairwell. My friends and I are guerillas who want to fight for an old, almost forgotten, but better Equestria (or maybe to steal some extra rations; it’s hard to tell some days). And this is what we needed—the fruit of the forbidden knowledge of how best to do so. (And maybe they’d finally stop giving me guff for spending all my free time going through old scrolls.) The knowledge would come from some aged pony… a guru venerable enough to have known the sun’s light with her own eyes, and its warmth with her own coat.
I heard a strange and quiet scraping sound as I approached the doorway I had searched for. I raised a hoof to slide open the window into the cell. An old unicorn mare with a graying mane (of a color barely discernible in the moonlight) and a white coat turned and locked eyes with me. The moonlight lit the cell from a tiny window, strangely beautifully on its own, but revealing a dizzying array of intricate etchings upon every surface. My mouth hung agape, a bit stunned at the detail of the carvings, while, more pressingly, not knowing how to begin with… her.
“You aren’t—” she started—
“I’m not… one of them,” I said, interrupting and finishing her thought. A gleam of recognition lit up her eyes… not the recognition of a friend, since we’d never met, but a recognition of a certain hope. It was accompanied by a weary smile.
“Honestly, I knew as soon as you started staring awkwardly. The guards don’t stop to chitchat or admire my work very often…” I felt a note of relief upon realizing that she’d be doing most of the talking. Her smile changed from weary to wry. “Such a strange instruction on your message… that I should eat it?”
“No precaution is too great. Your cell might be searched,” I replied. A search that would take barely a minute (assuming the likely subversive content of the drawings was ignored), as there was only a straw-filled mattress atop a stone frame and a chamber pot.
“I understand… I suppose it went down well enough. You’re not here to… break me out, are you?”
“Too risky. Not this time, at least. Stealing a guard uniform and blending in was dangerous enough.” I left unsaid the thought that I didn't know what an old mare could do for our cause.
“Phooey. There’s nothing out there for me anyway,” she said, resigned. “I’m ready, though. Ask away.”
“How long has it been? Since… since anypony has seen the sun?”
“Perhaps two generations… enough for me to have aged quite well.” Was that a wink, from an old mare?? Agh! “Not that I’ve been counting the years, owing to the… Starving Time and all…”
“So how did this happen? I have my sources, but you’ve been there since it started…”
“Hmm… yes. Even from the very beginning." She paused for a preparatory breath. "The town of Ponyville had been given the honor of hosting the Summer Sun Celebration. It was a yearly event to commemorate the sun and its avatar—” She instinctively leaned close before uttering the forbidden name. "—Princess Celestia."
Wow… to hear another living pony say it gave me chills! It was the name blotted with tar from every old scroll before the Lunarists had given up and simply burned them all en masse—all but the overlooked cache I had laid my hooves on.
Her voice broke me out of my momentary reverie. “I was there, being responsible for the decorations and all. We were expecting her to appear on the balcony, when Nightmare Moon appeared instead. She proclaimed that her Lunar Kingdom had come according to a prophecy nopony had heard of before, and that Princess Celestia had been banished forever. After the mayor told her the new capitol was in Canterlot, she rushed off in a cloud of smoke. Everypony was shaken and didn’t quite believe it, but then… the sun never rose again… and news came from Canterlot that Nightmare Moon was queen.”
It was fortunate that I was well-read, for the concept of a celestial body, not to mention the entire moon, changing position in the sky was utterly alien to anypony still alive today. Anypony but the one whom I had the privilege of speaking to.
After a pause to convey severity, the prisoner continued. “Nightmare Moon tried to set up a new administration to rule her kingdom, and it worked for a time. I managed to find employment in her castle as a maintainer of the palace fineries. That’s why I’m here actually, royal disfavor and all… some ponies can’t seem to appreciate good style, even if you hoof-deliver it to them. Either it was for that or for… knowing things. They never did say why I—”
“No, it was for knowing things.”
”Oh hay…” It was apparent from her expression that she was greatly disappointed to be a kind of real martyr rather than a fashion martyr. Some ponies! Mostly to herself, she muttered, "well if she blabbed to me then…" before sighing and clearing her throat. “I suppose that doesn't change much…. As I was saying, despite the continuity of government being preserved, with one royal alicorn replacing another, ponies hadn’t appreciated the loss of their beloved sun, with perhaps the greatest motivator being their stomachs. The loss of the sun had meant the loss of its bountiful harvest. Oh, what I would give for an apple from Sweet Apple Acres now, instead of moss, or one of those mangy ‘fruits’ that batponies eat." I was hearing nostalgia combined with a twinge of bitterness at being robbed of the good things ponies had enjoyed for generations.
"I've heard this sentiment expressed quite often in the writings of your contemporaries… it makes me wonder what my generation has been missing…"
Her eyes told me she was in her own reverie, no doubt remembering the taste of some forgotten fruit, before settling into a renewed sadness. "There's simply no way to describe it… and I don't believe that knowledge will help you. The long and short of it is that Nightmare Moon’s frustration only grew more apparent to those of us who worked in the castle, as the promotion of her beautiful night through heavy-hoofed means only inspired greater fear, greater disgust, and greater hatred. Open revolt was, perhaps, inevitable.”
“What happened then?” I said, itching to hear of some past success that might be replicated in the present. And while I had pieced together the general outlines, hearing a narrative of how things tied together (again, from a living pony and not dusty old books) was something else.
“As for reconciling with her lost sister, Nightmare Moon must have lacked either the means, or the desire. Or both. She simply allowed the rebelling regions to starve and fall into ruin. With the populations of the earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns all decimated, the batponies, Epona’s forgotten foal, were finally ascendant. They naturally adore the night, much as the other races once adored the sun, and no longer need to hide in caves during the day.” She broke off her gaze, her expression inscrutable. “I suppose I’m leaving out quite a bit, but suffice it to say, after a certain point, all of the ‘grand gestures’ of the sun-loving races were exhausted, leaving us with our present slow and quiet suffering.”
Depressing. But it was true. “How do we stop her?”
The prisoner's expression changed to a smile (or a half-smile?). “Something strange happened when I was still working at Nightmare Moon’s castle. Nightmare Moon had expressed, yet again, some distaste for my artistic interpretation of her requests. I was making my rounds around the castle to note all the tapestries that needed changing, when I encountered an alicorn and a dragon whelp! I had no idea why two such strange creatures were here, but I assumed they were more uninvited foreigners here to beg for the sun’s return, or some illusion conjured by the Nightmare’s magic to test my loyalty. They seemed to know who I was, or at least, my name, which was a point in favor of the illusion theory, not that it changed my dismissive reaction. It might have ended there, with me turning them away from the castle, had they not had the misfortune of talking within earshot of Nightmare Moon herself, who realized the significance of their words—that they were time travelers!”
“Wait… time… travelers?”
“You know, time travel? Alternate timelines, slash realities? Oh, nopony reads science fiction these days.”
“Actually, I’m perhaps the only pony I know who’d know what alternate timelines are… I’m more shocked that they might be real enough for somepony to travel from hers to ours.”
”Whether her story was real or not, I did see this alicorn and dragon with my own eyes. After Nightmare Moon interrogated them further, it became clear that they were from a ‘timeline’ where Princess Celestia yet reigned!” As if I weren’t already listening with rapt attention, the image of Princess Celestia, somehow still ruler when she had been forever exiled in our world, caused my eyes to widen. “She demanded to be taken to the source of their magic, and told everypony afterwards that she had destroyed both them and their strange magic. However, I wiled some information out of one of the guards… it seems they escaped, back to their own timeline no less! This alicorn claimed to have used the ‘Elements of Harmony’ to defeat Nightmare Moon in her timeline. I believe that is what you are looking for.”
Breathlessly, I asked, “Elements of Harmony? What are they?”
Her face fell. “I… don’t know… the alicorn never explained what they were, and asking Nightmare Moon was out of the question. I’m sorry…”
“Still, in all my research I’ve never heard of a way to out-and-out defeat the Nightmare… you’ve helped more than you know. I’d like to stay and ask you more questions, but I must be on my way soon….” Namely to avoid a very awkward conversation when the next shift started.
“Actually…” she levitated something out to me. It was a tiny slab, just small enough to fit diagonally through the viewing slot in the door, seemingly cut to size. “I’ve always wished for my artistry to be known all over Equestria before I… was forced to switch mediums. Should your cause succeed, you wouldn’t mind giving this slab a place of honor in a museum or somesuch, would you? Make sure the work is attributed to… 'Rarity.'” Her hopeful expression turned wistful as she said her own name.
I chuckled… such a strange concern… but the mind does wander when a pony has three reliable, if meager, meals a day. It was then that I made the connection with her cutie mark, a trifecta of diamonds. No doubt she was a skilled gemcutter in her time, now reduced to working with common stones. I studied the carving a moment before accepting it. The subject was just the events she’d described, and despite the material being scavenged from the stonework in her cell, it somehow managed a subtle luster. While I lacked any skill in appraisal, to me it certainly seemed to be a masterpiece.
“Very well.” With renewed passion, I said, ”And I promise you I’ll do everything in my power to find out what these ‘Elements of Harmony’ are. And once I know, my friends and I will fight whatever foe awaits us to get them and banish the Nightmare forever!”
“Ah, I remember the vigor of youth… of feeling like you can take on the world with your friends. Maybe you’re further along than you know…”
With that, I bid her goodbye and slipped away into the cold night. It seems my journey is not over yet.