The Last Nightguard
Circles
“Who in the world am I? Ah, that’s the great puzzle.”
— Carol
Stubborn went right down into Ebon Tide’s bones, a trait that his wife had often compared to an alicorn without a horn. Likewise, the most difficult thing in the world was to trust Princess Luna, who had betrayed all of Equestria, her sister, and Ebon Tide all at the same time. The metaphorical immobile object would seem like a feather to the way Eb felt right now, standing outside of the Royal Breakfast Nook with the frail box in his saddlebag and trying to think of words.
Eventually, he just walked in to where the Royal Sisters were sitting, placed the box upon the table, and said, “Here.”
Both alicorns looked puzzled, but when Celestia lit up her horn to pick up the box, Eb startled himself by saying, “No.”
“No?” echoed Celestia, who appeared to be quite unused to the word being used on her instead of by her.
“It is thy sister’s conundrum.” Eb gave the box a nudge in Luna’s direction and remained silent while she opened it and looked inside. After a time, Luna closed the lid and gave the wooden box a good, long examination.
“A betrothal box,” she said flatly with the distracted expression of somepony with several heads worth of thought.
Celestia gasped and turned on Eb so quickly it seemed as if she had merely blinked. “Warmaster!”
“It’s not for her!” blurted out Eb as the obvious miscommunication spread out across his mind in terrifying detail. “That is my wife’s, given unto Dragonlord Torch a thousand years ago with instructions to pass it on to me after your sister was freed and the first Nightmare Night festivities after that occasion were concluded.”
“That was several weeks ago,” said Celestia as she showed no signs of returning to her comfortable seated position.
“I spent the last week with White Lightning and the researchers of her historical society, trying to make sense of it,” admitted Eb. “And my sparring group. Crimson claims Dragonlord Torch gave it to her with instructions to pass it along to me but nothing else. And no, I haven’t a clue why.”
“Luna?” asked Princess Celestia, giving her sister a sideways look.
“It is indeed a betrothal box of our era,” she admitted, holding it in her magic and examining the golden sheet inside. There was something obviously disconcerting to the younger alicorn, and she closed the lid ever so carefully as if she were dealing with an eggshell. “We have been called upon to bless several during our reign, mostly from young Guards who are concerned about what they are getting into. I do not recall this one, though.”
“We did not need your blessing,” said Eb rapidly. “There was no doubt in our minds that needed to be assuaged.”
“Only fools and alicorns ignore their doubts,” said Luna thoughtfully. “Sometimes both. Go spend your day with the children. We have research to do.”
She stood without another word and walked from the room, the frail wooden box bobbing along in her wake.
* * *
House Honor was busy this morning, both with nocturnal ponies getting ready for bed and diurnal ponies in the family awakening to begin their day. He had missed actually eating breakfast at the Royal Table, so Eb made no complaints when Flutter slipped a full plate of pancakes onto the table for him as well as a full pitcher of syrup.
All he really needed was some butter and a brief drizzle of the sugary topping, unlike any of the children at the table who were rather indulgent with their portions. Manners had changed since his day, and he had gotten quite familiar with forks and spoons even though all he wanted to do was drop muzzle-first into the pancakes and lick the plate afterward.
The table was more occupied than normal with Peanut’s younger brother Riptide in attendance, trying his best to impress table manners on his older sister while Pea Gravel tried to keep the two siblings apart.
“Guys!” protested Gravel. “We have a guest!”
“Where?” asked Pineapple Squares, turning around in his chair to the point where his flaxen mane nearly dropped into the lake of syrup on his plate. “Oh! Sorry, Mister Tide.”
“It is good to be considered one of the family instead of an interloper,” admitted Eb. “It makes my remaining time far more pleasant.” He took a few moments to just breathe in the relatively thick air of Canterlot and asked, “What of the child which I rescued several weeks past?”
“Oh, she—”
Gravel put a hoof over Peanut’s sticky mouth just an instant before her brother Riptide managed the feat.
“We’re not supposed to talk about it,” Gravel said quietly. “She’s recovering, but has to stay indoors with all the windows covered. She’s afraid of the sky now.”
A wave of shudders passed through all the young pegasus children at the table, both the feathered and batwinged types. Being afraid to fly was one of the unspoken terrors of their kind, much like a unicorn with a broken horn or an earth pony who could not feel the ebb and flow of growing magic beneath their hooves.
His own condition was no secret to the young ponies, no matter if they were dark and batwinged or various colors and races. A secret in a batpony’s home was a secret only as long as it took to blink, and there were times Eb thought their effective rumor mill was able to go back in time and retrieve an observation before the event had even occurred.
“You’re awfully gloomy this morning,” said Pineapple. “I mean compared to your normal gloom. Can we help?”
Instinct drove Eb to an instant negative response, but experience made him nod instead and begin to tell the children about his unexpected gift from the past. They all followed along with fascinated eyes and a lack of awkward questions until he reached the end where Luna walked away with the betrothal box.
“I bet it’s a key to a secret potion that will cure you,” said Riptide.
“Potions don’t last a thousand years,” scoffed Gravel.
“It could be a recipe for a potion,” said Peanut. “We could find all the ingredients and cook it up in the kitchen.”
“It just said trust Luna, not a whole bunch of ingredients,” said Riptide. “Besides, Mama says you’re not allowed in the kitchen until next moon.”
“Maybe it just means Mister Tide should trust Luna,” said Pineapple thoughtfully. “I mean if whoever it was sent a message a thousand years into the future, it would have to be as simple as possible so it could not be misinterpreted.”
“That’s dumb,” said Riptide. “If I was going to send a letter to the future, it would tell all about what I wanted to say. It’d have to be three pages at least. Double-spaced,” he added.
“They should have signed it at least,” said Gravel.
“Unless it’s Starswirl the Bearded,” said Pineapple in a rush. “We’ve read some of his earlier spells. They’re as twisted as a peppermint stick. He’s got a whole wing in the library that’s been sealed off because students kept sneaking in there and getting turned inside-out or speaking only in iambic pentameter for a year. Princess Celestia didn’t even let her own student in there, ever.”
“Princess Celestia said that Starswirl is still missing from before Nightmare Moon’s time,” said Eb, trying his best not to squash the young pony’s enthusiasm. “He scarcely could have stolen my family’s heirloom before, because I would have noticed. I kept it on my bedroom table ever since she passed,” he added, feeling a wave of remorse sweep over him, tempered by the actual presence of his memories from their time together. “It is so difficult for me to trust again.”
“You trust us, don’t you, Mister Tide?” Peanut’s golden eyes calmed the dark turmoil in his gut and left a ray of moonlight into his soul nearly as much as the untempered sense of trust he got from the faces of the rest of his youthful breakfast companions.
“I could do none other,” admitted Eb. “Now, I shall retire to your House library to review the documents of that era which we have gathered. Perhaps I shall gainsay some nugget of truth which has avoided us to this time.”
“Luna will find an answer,” said Peanut. “You have to trust her as much as we do.”
“Answer or not, our fate is clear,” said Eb just as plainly as he could. “We all die. It may be tonight, or sometime tomorrow, but no matter how much effort you put forth, our fate is certain. Trusting in you has taught me a far greater lesson. What matters is how we live.”
Several hours later as Eb slipped into slumber in one of the obscenely comfortable library chairs, he could still hear her voice just as plain as moonlight. The most difficult thing in the world was to trust where there was no understanding. The entire civilized world had come together after Celestia’s incapacitation, nations defeated by force of arms and scattered hill tribes gathered together in fear of attack, all combining into a unified nation in a way that his ancient mind still could not fully fathom. Where had the thoughts come from for the revised laws that bound together dissimilar races instead of tearing them apart? What source of inspiration had brought forth the mechanical marvels which flooded this world? Who could possibly have brought warring factions to the negotiation table, made agreements that stood up against the test of time, and not have been recognized for the achievement?
And far more important, who had used the Dragonlord to send him a cryptic letter from the past?
* * *
Several days passed like treacle flowing in winter. It gave Ebon Tide time to explore places he had been avoiding, even to the point of visiting Starswirl the Bearded’s archives on the back side of Canterlot, drilled into the living rock of the Canterhorn and generally ignored by the ages since. Two very uncommunicative Guards stood watch over the only known entrance, unwilling to allow him entry even if Eb would be foolish enough to walk into the old coot’s laboratories uninvited. There were worse things than dying of an overabundance of dark magic, after all.
During the long Nights, Eb glided over the ruins of the Castle of the Two Sisters in the middle of the Everfree forest, looking to see if there were some trick of nature or hidden memory that would free him from his curse without endangering others. Every time he visited, Pansy flew above and behind him, as expected. Occasionally, Eb considered diving into the dark forest to fight one of the lumbering monsters, but knowing his escort’s good nature, Eb did not want to get anypony else killed during an attempt to die honorably in combat instead of his current dishonorable fate.
Other days he spent basking in the sun in the Gardens, lurking near the tombs of Eclipse and his wives. Of course there was no response from the dead, although he did frighten several young lovers making pilgrimages to the stones in search of answers to their own problems of love and fertility.
There was one task which he was resisting, but eventually gave in to the need. It took few questions to discover the House of the child he had plucked from the sky, and fewer steps to find their residence, since it was within the same large block of pegasus apartments.
Thankfully, he did not have to explain himself when he showed up at their door unannounced. This House was far more homogeneous and crowded than House Glory and House Honor, with a practical sea of membranous wings and golden eyes inside when the door was opened.
They all looked at him for a brief instant, then started to move until a clear pathway opened up leading further into the maze of rooms. Their reaction was more than a little unexpected, making Eb feel like Princess Luna had somehow taken over his body, and he reacted by trying to comport himself in the same fashion, moving forward slowly with acknowledgment of the elderly retired stallions and multiple mares of all ages surrounding him.
“This way,” said a rather older batpony mare whose coat had begun to turn silver with age. She led him into a corridor and walked alongside before she added, “I am the child’s grandmother Agapanthus. We have been expecting you.”
Eb was unsure how to respond since he had not really been expecting to visit, so he settled for a quiet nod of his head.
“My sisters and I told her this was a bad idea,” continued Agapanthus in a low voice. “A young mare like her in the Royal Guard. It’s ridiculous.”
It was a rather odd concept for Warmaster Ebon Tide, but with the amount of new things Eb had been exposed to and the knowledge of just how dangerous an angry mare was, the concept of having them in the Royal Guard was not such an impossibility to him. Once the armor went on, it was rather difficult to pick out the differences anyway.
Taking his silence as encouragement, Agapanthus continued with growing sincerity. “Her mother would not listen. Letting a young filly like that train in combat of all things with the family Guards at all hours of the night and day, coming back with bruises and cuts, and even a pretend set of their armor for the disgraceful activity. Then taking her out to fly! With wings that large, she could never control them. That’s why we ordered her to be kept in the house, but her mother just had to flaunt our rules. Ridiculous!”
Eb was getting rather tired of that word, but he grunted anyway while walking.
“Of course we tried to put a stop to it,” continued the old mare. “She’s old enough to be wed to another House even if she’s smaller than average. After a husband and a few foals, she’ll forget all about this insane idea. You don’t see Princess Celestia out roughhousing with the stallions, do you?”
Caught mentally adjusting his age expectations for the small filly upwards from ‘child’ to ‘prospective mother’ by a few years, Eb was unable to properly respond with his personal experience of getting his flank handed to him in personal combat by the Princesses of the Sun and Moon. Repeatedly. The size difference was comparable, and if the smallish filly had the courage to face off against experienced Guards several times her size repeatedly as well, she had more courage than most of his era’s compatriots who viewed Eb’s repeated dirt-eating experiences as a special form of insanity.
“Thought so,” said Agapanthus smugly. “Do not temper your words, Warmaster. It will take a large hammer to get through her thick skull. She’s as stubborn as her mother.”
Eb could certainly tell that characteristic also came from one more branch up the family tree. If he was guessing correctly, the whole House was clinging to the past, or at least what they considered the good parts of the past. Undoubtedly they all had been properly vaccinated against the whole spectrum of diseases Eb was grateful to see become extinct, and their foalbirth was attended by physicians and fascinating equipment like the side-trip that Princess Cadenza had taken them on to the hospital maternity wing. Likewise, they lived in a modern building with hot showers and windows to close against the rain rather than stomping out a fresh cloud every week for shelter as the old one decayed.
As they walked down the hallway, they had to duck under a series of blankets that had been pinned up to block the light and sound from the rest of the House’s rooms, then came to a sturdy door which looked as if it once concealed a storage room of some sort. Agapanthus did not make any of the traditional requests for entry by knocking or calling out, but simply opened the door and stepped inside.
“Child,” she said to a middle-aged mare who appeared to be lying next to an unoccupied cot in the gloom of the unlit room. “Warmaster Tide is here to talk some sense into you and your daughter, as we requested.”
Eb had not been requested, but he could easily see how a mare with this much arrogance would send one of her relatives to him with a message and naturally assume it had been delivered. The dark magic in his belly had made Eb into a mobile frightening experience such that he had actually startled drill instructors at the Royal Academy, and had been invited to lead several batches of their new recruits in various strenuous educational activities. If indeed there was some traumatized batpony Guard out there with a message for him, the least he could do was carry out the unrequested request the best he could.
“I will speak to the child alone,” said Eb before he could stop himself. It warranted some further explanation so he added, “Whatever decision she makes after our discussion is hers, and none other. Leave.”
“But—” managed Agapanthus before Eb turned slightly and looked at her. Behind the grandmother, the mother seemed to be having some sort of fit that Eb did not recognize at first, but eventually managed to realize she was smothering a laugh that brought a ray of moonlight to the ordeal she had been through. Undoubtedly, the mother had clashed with her mother far more than this once, and to see the old mare brought up cold like this was a pleasure she would secretly treasure for many years.
“She will hear me. Whether she listens is up to her,” said Eb. “Go.”
They went.
Ebon Tide had some experience with frightened young mares hiding under their beds. His own daughters never had anything happen quite to this scale, of course, and none who had expressed any interest in becoming Royal Guards. Even if the experience was terribly dated in this modern age, it was still useful, and Eb lowered himself to the floor with the faint clunk of armor.
In this kind of gloom with only one small bedroom light to banish the shadows, the old Ebon Tide would have been completely blind. As it was, Eb could barely see the young mare curled up nearly into a ball with those magnificent huge wings wrapped all the way around her like some sort of pony burrito.
Ignoring the faint growl of his insatiable appetite for the fare offered by various Canterlot street vendors, Eb concentrated on his words, or more correctly, a lack of words. Saying the wrong thing to a traumatized soldier could send them off into bad places, and to do such to a young mare would be far more damaging. Eventually the silence stretched on to long for him and he decided establishing his authority would be the best first step.
“I am Warmaster Ebon Tide, and I speak for the Princess of the Moon in matters military. Her voice is my voice, and my words hers.”
That was all he had. He had addressed battered veterans with mortal wounds and mourning widows, as well as his own daughters when they experienced various disasters of teenaged years, but he had never considered any kind of discussion that merged the two and he was plunging rapidly into unexplored territory.
“Your grandmother expects me to utter wise words that will discourage you from the same path I walked,” continued Eb without really thinking. “You probably expect that I will resist her entreaty and allow you to pursue your heart’s desire of becoming a Guard.” He lowered his voice due to the faint scuffling of eavesdropping mares on the other side of the bedroom door. “I’m afraid both of you will be terribly disappointed.”
That got a slow reshuffling of the child’s huge wings so one yellow eye could peer out from behind her barrier against the world. The eye blinked once, darted back and forth as if to survey the room for quiet observers, then vanished behind the encompassing wings again.
“I’ve given this speech before,” admitted Eb still very quiet so he would not be overheard by nosy relatives. “Young colts not even out of pinfeathers and daring young stallions out to impress mares. They see the glory and honor of the position without everything that goes with it. They don’t realize that taking the Iuramentum e sangui is a pledge for life. Well, it used to be.” A cold chill went up Eb’s back as he thought of his era. “So many young stallions paid that oath with their own blood. We live so they live. We die so they live. I can’t feed another young life into that monster. Give it up.”
The child’s head remained stuck out from under her enormous wings just far enough for him to see her red-tinged lilac mane, cropped nearly flat against her head and something that her relatives had probably fussed over to no end. All of those mares had longer violet manes, done up in specific curls or waves that would be demolished by a few hours in armor. There was a faint negative shake of the concealed head that Eb would not normally have been able to see in the gloomy room except he was watching very closely.
“I mean it,” repeated Eb quietly.
The brief and muffled head-shake repeated.
“Stubborn as Luna,” muttered Eb.
This time the young mare nodded.
The anger in his gut bubbled and fumed in frustration, making him hold back his words until they leaked out under pressure, spat as quietly as he could manage. “Sometimes the past needs to die. Let the present build their own myths around it. They don’t want to see the blood and the mud, the backstabbing and cheating and lying. They want to see the statues, the days of honor, the speeches. Banners and trumpets. Hacking your lungs out from a disease or having your leg chopped off because of gangrene is the reality of my service. We were at war with… Oh, four or five different races at the time, some of whom I’ve seen strolling around the city, so at least the war is over now. Let it stay over. Keep the bodies buried where they belong. Put down your shovel, young one. You do not know what you are going to dig up.”
The bundle of wings shuddered, and Eb was half-tempted to walk out of the House right now except for one small thing.
Her.
“I don’t even know your name,” he murmured. “It doesn’t matter, I suppose, even if you are a relative. Oh, yes,” Eb added as the small mare’s shuddering stopped for a moment. “I had two little fillies probably close around your age, if your grandmother’s plotting to get you mated is correct. I never even thought about picking out a stallion for either of them, but they were quite busy picking out their own, I suppose. With a thousand years passing and all the mixing of the blood that seems to have become so common, you may be a distant relative. Half the city is probably a distant relative.”
That did not seem to help. Quite probably she was not too keen on being married off to produce foals either. At her size, she was probably safer in the Guard than trying to carry a foal to term.
“Do you know what a Lifeguard is?” he asked out of impulse. “Not the dashing youngsters we saw around the Canterlot waterpark. The origin of the word from my era. Close companions of Their Highnesses who were the last line of defense, willing to give their lives to stop an unexpected attack. Not just Guards, either. The Royal Factotum were twin sisters who… well, they had an indomitable will. Apprentices to Starswirl, although briefly. They terrified any stallion who tried to get close. They’re all dead and gone now. I’m all that’s left, and when I am gone in a moon or two…”
The young mare’s nose emerged from behind her tented wings, then after a time her eyes peered out, all huge and terrified but still looking at him with the beginnings of tears welling up in those dark recesses.
“I knew what I was getting into when I swore the oath,” said Eb. “Generally. Not this, of course. Others came after me and others will come after me again. It is the way of mortals in service to them.”
“She needs you,” said a very small muffled voice.
“I look like this because she needed me to kill her,” admitted Eb just as quietly and calmly as he could manage. “Otherwise I would have died in the hospital, plugged into machines and filled with drugs. I swore an oath to protect her and I broke that oath. I swore another oath to kill her and I broke that one too. Oathbreaker twice over, so when I am gone her life will be entrusted to far more worthy stallions.”
“Me,” said the voice again in a near-squeak.
Eb opened his mouth to snap a response and paused. There had been so many things in this new world that turned his head upside-down with change that a reversal of roles might be warranted. “She hath been guarded by stallions for ages,” he mused under his breath. “Our advice doth bounce off her noggin like pebbles on a mountain, and yet she listened to her Factotum, although slightly. No,” he growled to himself. “I will not see a mare put into the destructive shackles of duty. We protect, and the best protection I can offer you is to deny—”
The sight of the young mare’s marked flank made an entire world of failure open up before Ebon Tide, and he teetered upon the brink of said abyss. Three peaked ‘V’ marks of geese in high flight, signifying her ability to soar to extreme heights, a mark that clashed dramatically with her exhibited terror of the outside sky. To have such a gift and be blocked from its use out of fear was a terrible injustice which he had seen before. Stratiform had been a promising young initiate thrown into a battle with griffon raiders far too early in his training. The last Eb had seen of the young stallion was in a dismal darkstone mine where he was willingly spending the rest of his life in a dirty hole without Sun or Moon. The memory gave Eb a good, long look at the mistakes he had made and the mistake he nearly fell into again, like some drunk fool out in the night falling into a well.
“I decided to turn down Nightmare Moon’s tempting offer,” he started, still deathly quiet so the faint creaking of eavesdropping mares outside the bedroom door would remain ignorant of his words. “That decision was mine and none other. In my insanity, I swore to slay the Princess I had sworn to protect. That decision I have taken as mine own also. The Sisters made all my decisions after that, and it burned far more than the fel magic that I carry in my belly. My old armor is dust now, but I am chained to the old nags by an oath far stronger than steel. Were I restored to my full health and vigor, I would remain at their side regardless of their actions until age and infirmity takes me away. You have your whole life ahead of you. Do not chain yourself to her in my place. Grow and live. Fall in love. Grasp life by the neck and tear—”
Eb grimaced and took a deep, pained breath. “Nay, that is the fel magic within my belly speaking. Soon it will overcome me and I will be killed before I can become a threat. But this is about you, not me. Your grandmother states that you desire to join the Sacred Band… that was the name in my era, mostly discarded,” he added. “She claims this is your heart’s desire. That you have been training with your relatives within the Guard regardless of the danger, practicing that which she disdains. She does not wish you to follow that path, and sent me to discourage you. Know that no matter your desire, you will not cross the threshold of the Academy and attain your goal without my blessing.”
Ever so slowly, those huge wings began to encompass the young mare’s head again. Eb reached out, placed one hoof on the edge of the warm membrane, and held it down so he could look her in at least one eye.
“Speak the truth,” he said slowly. “Can you do it? Can you rise to the ranks of the Sacred Band, defeat stallions twice your size and strength, lay down your life so the Sisters can live? Are you willing to spend your life’s blood in their defense, to sacrifice yourself so they may live. Because you shall not even be considered for that dubious honor if you remain beneath a mattress in a dark room.”
The reply was muffled by wings, but plain enough to Eb’s ears. “I’m… afraid.”
Eb snorted. “Every initiate claims to be brave, but on their first battle, the ground beneath them becomes damp with yellow rain. Only a fool is without fear. It keeps you from doing foolish things… like flinging yourself against Nightmare Moon from the rear, I suppose.”
Fear had blinded his mind, fear of what would happen, fear of the world’s destruction from the one he had sworn to obey and frustration at being unable to do anything sane to help. Insanity had been his only option, but he was not about to admit that to a child other than obliquely.
“You must face your fears and defeat them every hour of Day and Night. You must not turn away from them and pretend they do not exist, for in that kind of darkness they will grow until they consume you. That is the danger facing both Luna and yourself. You both fear being consumed by your magic and taken away by it to die alone. You both must face this fear with the support of others. She has her sister. You—”
Lowering his voice to a bare whisper, Eb moved close enough that his own short-cropped mane brushed against hers. “Family always means well. Particularly the family you acquire when joining the Guard. Remember, sometimes they are wrong. My companions were wrong when they gave in to Luna’s power. Make your own decision in this regard, no matter how difficult, and own it. If you are to ascend to our ranks despite my advice, become the finest Royal Guard in history. Be an example for generations yet unborn. Your destiny lies not in the Sisters’ will, but yours. Soar among the stars with Luna or fight terrible foes with Celestia if that is your desire, or turn your attention to other goals. It does not matter what others want you to do with your life, only that you live it the best way you can, to the full width and breadth possible.”
At least the young mare had quit trembling. It gave Eb a tiny bit of hope that he was not mucking this up too much.
“I saw you amidst the observers when I fought Princess Luna,” he said out of impulse. “Could you hope to defeat any of the beings who sparred with me.”
“I can beat Uncle Pansy two falls out of three,” she murmured with a spark of pride. “He’s slow.”
“And most probably holding back,” added Eb. “What would you do when your opponents have no compassion, when you face certain death?”
“We live so they live,” continued the young mare hesitantly. “We die so they live. If they die, the world dies.”
“Mere words,” managed Eb.
“She sent you,” said the mare again, slowly and through chattering teeth. “Flying so high. Dangerous. Could have hurt her. She sent you. Send me.”
* * *
The air of the hallway was thick with the scent of mares, packed in close in their futile attempt at eavesdropping. When Eb allowed the door to swing open, several stumbled forward, then backed up through the hallways as he strode forward as an unstoppable force until they reached the larger gathering room.
All Ebon Tide could see were eyes. This was a much smaller House than Peanut Brittle’s friendly bunch of clans, but packed into the room in dense array with wings and shoulders pressed together in an unbroken wave of darkness that occasionally blinked.
Since he was not making any progress just standing there and looking back, Eb decided to start off with a statement of fact.
“I am Warmaster Ebon Tide, and I speak for the Princess of the Moon in matters military. Her voice is my voice, and my words hers. Do any of you doubt my authority in this matter?”
There was an uncomfortable shuffling, generally directed at a small group of elderly mares clustered around the child’s grandmother. Since silence was working so well, Eb let it soak in for a time before asking, “I said…”
“No.” The child’s grandmother had the expression of somepony who was not happy about the situation and was willing to spread that unhappiness around liberally, but she did bite off the word like a bitter persimmon. “You speak for the Princess. Now speak.”
“The child is deeply hurt,” he continued almost immediately. “She will need the love of family to recover. All of her family.”
The grandmother seemed to take his declaration as a reassurance that the child would not tread the path of the Royal Guard, and she relaxed slightly with thoughts of matrimonial planning and pairing most probably on her mind. It did not last for long, because Eb continued.
“Once she has recovered sufficiently, she will be given the opportunity to attend the Academy. There she will bond with her fellow Guards as additional family in their own right. She will train with them, study with them, and fight with them. And if I am any judge of character, she will eventually become the finest Royal Guard of all time, taking her place at the Sisters’ side as an example to all of us.”
“But she’s a mare!” exclaimed the grandmother. “She cannot take up the armor of the Royal Guard. She’s a mare half the size of any of the incoming cadets!”
Ever so slowly, Eb turned his head to look at the old batpony. “That matters not. In my time, I trained with some of the finest mares ever to wear armor. I trained with them, I fought with them, and if needed, I would have died with them.”
We’re just going to ignore that these mares were in fact the Royal Sisters.
Eb returned to a long look around the room, trying to project an authority he did not really feel. “This is her decision, not mine. I am fully aware of the difficulties she will face with other Guards twice her size.” He paused. “I assure you she will try her best not to hurt them too severely. That being said, I support her decision, and so does Princess Luna. Any who impede her chosen path will answer to me.”
He did not wait for confirmation or to defend his statement, but merely stepped forward and headed for the apartment complex door with the intention of returning to his rooms and taking a very long and hot shower. The last thing he expected was seeing one of Peanut Brittle’s many small friends step forward to block his path, although it was a very small block that he could have just stepped over if he wanted.
“Mister Tide,” the small colt asked plaintively, “I thought you were going to die soon?”
He looked down, seeing the short-cropped mane and the adoring look of hero worship in the colt’s eyes, absolutely certain that he was talking to a future cadet. “I am,” said Eb softly. “That does not change my statement in the slightest.”
With that, Warmaster Ebon Tide, last of the Nightguards, walked out of the House with his head held high.
Time passed regardless of his activity, and so it was that Ebon Tide was at the House Honor clan, enjoying a simple dinner with the children and his rather oblique family, when the answer he least expected arrived in the form of the Alicorn of the Sun.
“Arise,” said Celestia as she strolled right into the House dining area, quite nearly causing one of the elderly retired Guards in the family to have a heart attack and making Eb very glad that Grandpa Waffles was wearing his shorts.
“Your Highness,” said Eb, who had stood up from the table instead of kneeling down like the rest of the family. “Enter this home and be at peace, for none shall oppose you within these walls.”
“I am not here to dine,” said Celestia, although her gaze slipped slightly sideways to hesitate over a cake being saved for dessert. “I have come to retrieve you. My sister says she has a cure for your condition, and that it would be best applied at once.”
Something deep inside Eb snarled and spat, wanting nothing more than to spring on the mare who would have seen him die rather than discomfort her sister. The desire had grown overpowering during the last few days, and sorely tried his will to keep in check, although the presence of the children helped.
“You children are invited to attend,” said Celestia before Peanut Brittle could move her mouth from behind her brother’s preemptively placed hoof.
“Are you sure?” asked Gravel in his role as the youngest and more assertive of authority in the group. “I mean this sounds like a big pony thing and Eb can explain it to us when—”
“I insist,” said Celestia with such finality it gave Eb the mental image of a giant hoof stomping the objection flat as parchment, and stopped any of the older ponies in the family from raising their own.
“Can we help?” blurted out Peanut Brittle as she managed to get a few words past her brother’s blocking hoof.
“You have helped,” said Celestia with a quiet smile, “and you are helping, as much as you will help as you continue to learn and grow. But for now, we simply need your presence. Come, children. And Warmaster,” she added as Celestia turned to leave.
* * *
It was very much like the last time he had visited the Royal Garden’s broad lawn, only without the presence of the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony looking rather nervous out in the grass. He was even told to stand in the same section of vitrified soil that had been left over since his failed ‘Harmonization’ and obviously untreated by the groundkeepers since. Most probably there had been some sort of alicorn-decision in that regard because most of the groundskeepers were fussy old ponies who did not remember this section of ground as a fort’s defensive bulwark with earthworks and trenches against attack.
The children gathered to one side, herded together by Private Pansy like a number of chicks around a large mother hen. They were far enough back to keep them out of any immediate danger, but not far enough from Eb that he really felt comfortable with their presence. He much would have rather kept the children in their Houses while Princess Luna did whatever she was planning. If it was fatal to him or otherwise traumatizing, they would at least have one more layer of padding around their sensitive souls. Why in the world his four sparring partners were situated next to the children, he had not a clue, but he suspected—
Luna made her appearance, coming out of the shadows like she had planned every step of this production for maximum drama. She strode across the short grass and up to Eb with a brisk trot, stopping just out of immediate reach to give a superior smirk.
“The armor will have to go,” she stated quite certainly. “The competing enchantments could affect the spell I’ve prepared.”
Eb looked down at the dark metal wrapped around him like a second skin, plain steel that did nothing to quell the burning rage that clawed at his heart. He did not want to reveal the weakness that he had intentionally placed upon himself in preparation for his final end, but he could not disobey his liege. “There are no enchantments on this, Your Highness. I’ve grown enough and bent enough suits that the armory has been fitting me with plain metal for several weeks now, and my shoes likewise.”
“Even better. Remain where you are. This spell is deceptively simple, but requires your full cooperation.”
The fey spirit that seemed to elevate Luna’s mood faded away and an extremely serious Princess of the Night glowed silver in the moonlight, looking nothing like the timid coward that he had first encountered. She looked at him with a gaze that seemed to penetrate his soul and laid bare the corrupted magic that she had placed within him.
“Do you trust me?”
For an instant, Eb was tempted to tell the absolute truth. The memory of that simple wooden box with its golden note inside nailed his hooves to the ground and froze the words in his mouth. “Yes,” he managed after grinding his teeth.
“I don’t think I heard you,” breathed Luna, looking entirely too pleased at his discomfort.
“I swore the oath,” snapped Ebon Tide through the boiling of the dark magic in his belly. “To our last breath, to the last drop of blood in our bodies, to the end of our days we shall serve thee. Forsaking all other oaths and titles we shall serve thee. No harm shall we allow, no blight upon your honor shall besmirch the Crown while we stand, united in your defense as brothers through life and unto death. That is the degree of trust we have given you. I have bled for you, I have died for you in all ways but the last, and by your actions, I have lived for you. You have already taken everything from me! What more do you want? What more can you demand of me? Shall I walk into the fire and burn until I am naught but ash? Spill my blood until I am dry as dust?”
Luna’s features softened, revealing a far more of an ordinary pony standing in front of him than the Royal Sister of before. “I call upon you for one last task which we cannot reveal. Only know that it is of greatest importance, and I would entrust it to nopony but thyself.”
“Me?” Eb shook away the cloying fire of betrayal that threatened to blind his wits and unleash the animal inside his skin. “We are filled with thy dark magic to overflowing, and now you want to entrust me with a task?” He bit back any further words and lowered himself to a kneeling position, expecting to be struck down and slain before he could betray the princesses yet again. “Speak your command and I shall obey, one last time.”
“Stand.” Luna’s face was abjectly serious when he looked up in surprise, without a single hint of humor. Ever so slowly, Eb returned to his previous stance, somewhat shocked that he was only slightly shorter than Princess Luna now, and close enough that he could feel her breath across his face.
Then she stepped forward and kissed him, ever so briefly.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Peanut Brittle put a hoof over Riptide’s eyes, but the rest of the children and his sparring partners were frozen in astonishment. Celestia opened her mouth to object, but after a long look at her sister, sat back down on the soft green grass of the Royal Gardens and remained silent. If his last action was to provide entertainment for the Royal Sisters and their guests, Eb considered that would be appropriate in this era where even the enemies of Equestria had become entertainers.
“Long did we ponder over our decision, but there was wisdom in your words and those of the children, so we brought Celestia into our confidence.” Luna stepped back a short distance and floated a piece of parchment up in front of her. Without a sign of effort, she lit her horn with a dark shimmering light that seemed to vanish when looked at directly. “It was with her assistance that we uncovered one of Starswirl the Bearded’s peculiar unfinished spells, but it is my decision and mine alone to risk its use.”
The glow from her horn shifted and silver runes began to chase themselves up and down the page of parchment, spinning out onto the moonlit grass and swirling around the whole area like fireflies. In moments, there was nothing to be seen outside the giant swirl of stars, except for Luna and Eb inside and at opposite ends of the glowing sphere.
“It was my decision to become Nightmare Moon, which ultimately brought you here. It was my decision to imbue you with the dark magic which now threatens to kill you. And it is my decision on how to resolve the issue in a way that is best for Equestria and all who live within our world. I have spoken to Celestia about my decision, and she agrees. She needs you. Do you understand?”
“I… No,” said Eb as the dark magic within him churned and bubbled, reacting against the glitter of silver which began to surround him like a cage. “Where are you going to send me so I am not a danger to you both?”
“The answer is not where,” breathed Luna as the magic on her horn grew to a blinding light and the parchment she held began to scintillate with unspoken power. “There is a purpose for Celestia standing where she was, as I am, and you. As it once was, and now is again. The only magic that can purge my curse from you must come from an alicorn wielding the Elements of Harmony against another alicorn. And there is only one place and time where that occurred.”
“No,” managed Eb. He fought to raise his wings as the rage inside him rose to a fierce boil and the silver runes imprisoning him spun into a blinding blur. “NO!”
And he was gone.