I was weak, confused and in pain. The air in the cabin was stale, soaked in the unmistakable stench of decay that reminded me of the field hospitals built after the bloody battle for Saddle Arabia. Half of my flank and my right hindleg were bandaged, and although the bandages were white as snow, the burning radiating from below them made it painfully obvious that I won’t quickly forget about the wound.
Still, I was alive and back from the strangest dream I ever had. I could still see faint remnants of runes everywhere I looked, growing less and less visible with every passing second. Waking up didn’t make them understandable but perhaps Midnight could decipher their meaning.
Luckily I was able to find a quill and some unsigned documents on a table next to my bed. ‘Last Will of the first officer Long Vigil’ and other similar nonsense, all prewritten and eagerly waiting for my signature. I chuckled, though the action released a new wave of pain pulsing from my wound. “You’ll have to try harder than that to get rid of me,” I said to myself.
Copying the runes proved to be more of a challenge than I expected. The patterns were exceedingly intricate and – after Luna-knows-how-long spent on a bed – my mouth and my wings struggled to keep the quill sufficiently steady during the process. I couldn’t rush it, either. If this was anything like the ancient symbolic language of the unicorns that it resebmled, one wrong stroke could change or invert the meaning of the entire sentence. In the end, I only managed to copy three symbols. With nothing better to do, I drifted off to a calm and dreamless sleep.
“…don’t think it’s a good idea. He’s been grievously wounded in that fight. Frankly, it’s a miracle that he survived. When I got to him he looked like a tomato that someone squeezed all the juice out of.”
“If he survived that, a brief conversation won’t kill him.” A dark blue glow enveloped the doors to my cabin, opening them with a creak. “Oh my, what a rich aroma! I have to admit I only did a short course on modern medical practices, but I’ve never heard about the restorative benefits of pickling the wounded,” Midnight’s sarcastic tone put the other voice on the defensive.
“You don’t know the sea!” the other pony, an old stallion who couldn’t be anypony else but the ship’s surgeon, protested. “Invisible fumes of salt water seep through the cuts and into the flesh, driving ponies sea-mad! Everypony knows that!”
“Then maybe you should wear a hat –“ Midnight’s telekinetic field opened the porthole in my cabin “– because it seems that the same fumes seeped through your skull and into your brain, Sawbones.”
“Fine, fine! You’re too stubborn to listen to reason. Just don’t blame me if he suddenly decides that drowning seems like a good way to spend the afternoon.” He muttered some swears under his breath before leaving.
Midnight sat down on a bench opposite of my bed. She adjusted her hat, revealing a pair of viciously red irides. I wondered how many ponies had seen her eyes. Red was a very exotic color but it fit her rather well despite not having anything in common with her white cutie mark – crescent Moon and a bottle. I couldn't help but wonder if they were natural.
“No, and less than a dozen. Or maybe the other way around.” A smug smile crept across Midnight’s face upon seeing me almost jump in shock. “Don’t worry, I can’t read anypony’s thoughts, I just always get asked the same two questions. For the record, it was a gift from our beloved Princess. She decided that crimson fits me better than a boring blue-green.” She sniffed and scrunched her muzzle. “I’m sure you have many questions – so do I, trust me – but it’d be best if we first let the room air out a bit.”
We waited in silence for a few more minutes. Midnight levitated in a tome called “Ancient unicorn language and its dialects; an illustrated lexicon for use in summoning, study and secret rituals” and began comparing some of the illustrations in the book to the drawings that could be found on a crumbled page in front of her. After a while she closed the book and inhaled deeply.
“Much better,” she said. “That’s one of the first tricks you learn when opening fresh graves; don’t try reciting necromantic formulas until the dearly departed stops spoiling the surrounding air, ha ha.”
The rumors reached far and wide and she must’ve known that everypony on the ship has heard them at least once. She was probably only joking. Probably.
“In any case, consider yourself lucky.” She grinned. “Even though you probably feel like a corpse and this room smelled like a flooded graveyard, you get to ask questions. Reanimated dead don’t get such privileges.”
I tried to focus my thoughts. “How long…”
“Two weeks.” Midnight’s expression became more serious. “Many were already writing you off. At least the documents they brought with them were of some use,” she said, pointing at the paper she was studying earlier. It was one of the three runes I copied.
Two weeks! I shook my head with disbelief. “What happened to the trai–?”
“Shh.” Midnight looked left and right before casting a spell that enveloped the room in a dark blue aura. “A bubble of silence. What did you want to ask?”
“Where are we headed, how were we not imprisoned and, –” I scratched my head “– how did we avoid a mutiny?”
She nodded with a veiled smile. “Sea Worthy proved to be a wiser pony than her age would suggest. Immediately after you left to escort the Nocturne’s representatives, she ordered me to – just in case, she said – teleport onto their ship and hide on the path leading to the crew’s quarters. A bit later, their officer was walking in the same direction.” The smile on her face grew. “Unfortunately for her, she slipped. Head first into the wall, might I add. On a dry, even flooring. But what do you know, I just so happened to be nearby! I helped the terribly unlucky, unconscious pony. Who knows what could’ve happened if I wasn’t there! The situation might’ve been a lot more dangerous,” she finished with an exaggerated concern in her voice.
“I see where the rumors come from, Midnight. You’re quite a pony.”
“I’m pleased to hear that,” she said before mockingly bowing her head.
“And Nocturne’s first officer? Surely you didn’t, you know…” Instead of finishing the sentence, I made a cutting gesture near my neck.
She gasped, theatrically raising one hoof to her mouth in a way that didn’t not cover the exposed fangs. “Why, I’d never! Do you think I’m a monster?”
“So, what happened? Did he have a sudden change of heart?” At the bottom of the sea, I wanted to add.
“Actually, he turned out to be a very practical stallion,” she said. “We wanted to keep what happened that night a secret, he wanted an easy way for anypony to abandon the mission without being labeled a traitor. So we traded. The crew of both ships was told about the letter. The next day any sailors who no longer wanted to sail with us left on the Nocturne. It’s not ideal but I’d say we did our best given the situation.”
I closed my eyes preparing for the worst. “How many?”
“About two thirds. You’ll have to ask Sea Worthy for the names of those who remained, I don’t tend to waste my attention on the mundane details.” Her voice suggested that she was quickly losing interest in discussing the topic further.
“So we’re left on our own, but at least we can continue our journey.” I exhaled. “You’re right, it could’ve been a lot worse than that.”
A piece of paper with a familiar rune levitated close to my face.
“Do you remember this?” Midnight asked, carefully observing my response.
I nodded. “It’s written in the ancient unicorn language, isn’t it? Maybe this–“
Suddenly, all the light around us was extinguished. The veil of darkness was so thick that I couldn’t see my own hooves in front of my face. The room wasn’t just dark, the blackness devoured all sunlight in it. I screamed as loud as my pained lungs let me but the shadow’s silence devoured the sound before it could reach my ears.
Then, a lone and slowly growing blue spark lit up the darkness. With it, I could feel the oppressive veil of silence evaporate from the room, whispered words taking its place. As the spark revealed more of the cabin, I saw Midnight panting heavily – her horn ablaze in a dark, lightless flame.
“Dear Luna!” she sputtered, her breath slowly becoming more regular “It may be easy to keep up but I completely forgot how exhausting this is to cast.”
“What did you do?!” I shouted.
Instead of responding, the Bat Witch slowly exhaled and conjured up a small mirror. She began slowly straightening her mane, making sure that the ridiculous hat was still resting firmly on her head. I could finally relax somewhat. Her putting on an act meant that at least we were not in any imminent danger. Once everything was in order, she lazily pointed at the ceiling. I looked up and saw many stars glimmering where the wooden roof should be.
“Time travel?” I dared to hazard a guess.
She shook her head and said, “No, just the little thing known as the Eternal Night. A very localized and ephemeral version of it, but the core principles are the same.”
I blinked a few times in disbelief of what I heard.
“What?” she responded, genuinely surprised by my reaction. “It’s harmless and exactly what we need now. Or did you forget that I worked with Her Highness to create this spell in the first place?”
Midnight stood up and gave me the remaining two pages containing the strange runes. “This isn’t the usual ancient unicornish. It’s written in a dialect that no ordinary batpony, pegasus, unicorn or earth pony could know. This doorstopper –“ she kicked the ’Ancient unicorn language and its dialects’ “– doesn’t mention it anywhere.”
“From your victorious tone I’m assuming that you happen to be the exception.”
“You’re assuming correctly,” she nodded, “Princess Luna has shown me how to read it. Her journal was written in the same script.”
“Is that why you went to all this trouble to make it night?” I asked. This topic, contrary to our crewponies’ fate, seemed to greatly interest Midnight. I couldn’t recall ever seeing her so invested in anything other than our journey west.
“No, it’s for our safety! See,” – she pointed to a part of a rune that resembled a squashed half-circle with rays coming out of it – “The script is the same but the contents… these are extraordinarily powerful Light invocations. When that fool Sawbones found it, he tried to translate it using a rudimentary knowledge of unicornish from his time in medical school. Luckily for us, he decided to test the spell after translating the first rune. If he waited, we’d end up at the bottom of the sea in a ship that got shredded to bits by a power we don’t understand!”
During her monologue, Midnight absent-mindedly kept walking towards me. By the time her speech had ended, I almost got one of my eyes gouged by her horn. She took three steps back and continued in a much calmer tone.
“Ah, let’s start from the top,” she said, grabbing one of the pages with her hoof. “Do you know what it says?”
I shook my head.
“Of course. Have you ever seen it before the recent accident?”
Another negative answer.
She nodded her head. “As I thought. Now for the open-ended question: Where did you see it long enough to make an exact copy?”
I sighed. Then again, in my current state anything was better than boredom.
By the end of my tale, Midnight stopped making new notes in her notepad. She simply sat on the ground nearby, and listened with eyes and a muzzle open in a barely disguised expression of wonder that didn’t suit her at all. I finished the story with her surprise visit.
“This changes everything!” the Witch euphorically exclaimed, “Here, take this.” A tiny bottle landed on the nearby desk. It looked like cough syrup, if cough syrup was glowing in an aggressively violet hue.
“Is this poison?” Knowing her, I wouldn’t have been surprised.
“No, I always make sure to keep poisons translucent and water-like.” Midnight rolled her eyes and laughed. “I mean, who’d drink a bottle of a mysterious violet liquid?”
“Yeah, that’s really reassuring,” I answered sarcastically. “What is it then, if not poison?”
“I don’t really know myself,” she said with a shrug. “Our Princess took a spoonful of it before every especially busy night in the dreamworld. It’s certainly a sleeping aid and – according to Her Highness’s notes – the sleep induced by these drops has paramount restorative properties. I gave you a teaspoon of it when the situation seemed hopeless.”
I knew that Princess Luna wouldn’t pick an evil pony as her apprentice. Midnight’s attitude and sense of humor was a little unsettling but you could count on her when it mattered most. “That means I have you to thank for my survival? Thank you! Though I can’t understand why you didn’t share this medicine with the rest of the world.”
“Right, I forgot to mention that there was a chance that it would have driven you insane on the spot.”
My admiration turned into shock and I hoped it was just another of her jokes.
“That’s why Her Highness refused to test it on ponies,” she added. “But you? You were looking pretty dead already so I figured it was worth a shot.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” This was my turn to roll my eyes. “But what is in that thing? How would you even make a mind-corrupting healing potion.”
“Herbs and flowers, with a special spell cast on a full moon…” Midnight’s voice trailed off. “I remember: fresh daffodil, myrtle, stinging nettle, pure ethanol, moonflower and earth pony blood.”
“You’re joking, right?”
“Ah, of course! Later on we discovered that one of the ingredients was unnecessary. Sadly, I’m not sure which one,” she said playfully.
“I really hope it’s–“
“Ethanol, I know!” Midnight interrupted me with a grin on her face. She licked one of her fangs. “Out of all of them, I can’t handle the taste of alcohol.”
It was probably a joke, I hoped.
“Why are you giving me this?” I asked.
“The Princess said that it will probably drive others to madness but if it doesn’t, they might learn something that remained hidden even from her. It seems to work well for you, so consider taking a sip when you need to.”
“No obligations, snarky comments? I can’t believe what I’m hearing. You can be nice when you want to. Thanks, Midnight!”
“You deserve it, after all you risked your life for the success of our mission. I just crashed some stallion into a wall.” She turned her head towards the door. With a quiet pop the darkness dissipated and the sunlight greedily barged into the room. “Just don’t forget to share the results if you do use it!” she added, storming off with pages of runes held in her telekinetic grasp.
I smiled. Sawbones was right for once; I really needed to rest. Still, it was a very productive afternoon. Not to mention that– No, I must’ve just imagined it.
For a moment I was sure that Midnight was blushing when she left.