“Why?” It was the first word able to crawl its way out of my muddled mind, and it made the otherwise cheering and boisterous nightmares surrounding me pause to look down in confusion and concern.
“Why are you here alone and not out there with Princess Luna?! She’s been dead and gone for a thousand years, and now that she’s back you’re just… sitting in here? What the buck is wrong with you?!”
There were murmurs among die Phantome der Nacht and several nods were exchanged with a few splitting off while the others nudged me back to their table and the feast upon it. They sat me down, and a plate piled high with savory food was set before me. The shimmering glaze bubbled and popped as the delicious smell of meat wafted from the plate, but my stomach was far too busy rolling to be tempted.
“’Tis… a long and complicated answer you seek.” Meridian was next to me, and while Moon Flower was clearly trying to take the spot on my other side, Meridian’s shadow was aggressively herding the specialist to the far end of the table. “Far too long and complicated for us to rattle off every reason.”
“’Tis an argument that repeatedly rears its head.” A stallion across from me gave a huff. “But all of us agree on one thing.”
“Aye.” Meridian nods. “We followed her into damnation willingly. To see us as we are now would only cause her heart discord and strife. We are what the Nightmare made us—twisted mockeries of our former selves. Monsters; living weapons; things that feed on ponies and creep in the night. We are everything we once fought with her. Far better she think us dead.”
“For now, at least.” The stallion from across growled. “Some say we should hide with our tails between our legs forever. I, for one, simply wish her to find somepony else first. We are unworthy of her now. We are failures….”
“It is not hiding.” A third snorted and tore into their meal chewing with visible anger. “It is spite. Spite for the cursed sun and spite for the blood of the Nightmare flowing through our veins. At least here we can eat real food.” He waved his leg of something-or-other at me. “Imagine nothing but constant gnawing hunger and the taste of nothing but sunblasted ash. To exist outside of this realm is to suffer for us—quite literally.”
“You could still visit her for a day. Hay, if this is part of the Dreamlands, she could visit you here.” I crossed my forelegs and pouted. “Are you sure it would be so bad?”
“Uhhh… Nightingale?” Moon Flower finally gave up fighting Meridian’s shadow to reach me, instead sitting in her assigned seat and looking down the table at me. She panted and gulped for air, her stamina spent from her efforts. “Just so you know. Standing orders for anypony that knows is that if Princess Luna asks, you tell her. Beyond that, die Phantome der Nacht gave up everything in one last attempt to dispel the lies of the Nightmare. We keep them secret only because they wish to be.”
“We cannot physically die, but we may as well be dead.” With a solemn nod, Meridian sighed. “We died the moment the Nightmare took us. This is our final wish.”
“Fine…. I still think she would like seeing you, though.” I started poking at the food before me, reluctant to eat as I brooded.
“Give her time to move on and recover.” The stallion across from me growled. “Even if none of the others leave, I plan on doing so. It is only a matter of time.”
I looked the hulking goliath over, and within his stoney features, I saw something. The spark of recognition lit, and stories from long ago flittered and played in my mind. It had been a few years, but I could remember one Einbruch der Dunkelheit and the stallion leading the dirge. Cloaked in ancient armor, his words had echoed harshly in the cavernous tomb.
“‘’Twas better to fall beside you, old friend, than to see you waste away on the moon.’” Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath and let it out. “General Dusk Fang? Is that you?”
“Mmmm…” The large stallion closed his eyes and hummed. “Haven’t heard those words in a long time. Yes, I am he, little one.”
Huh… ok. Really wish I’d paid more attention to the names now. Just the thought of asking the rest made my insides squirm and flutter with all the worst sorts of butterflies.
I distracted myself by finally biting into the food and Nightmother above, it really was the stuff of dreams. The juices sung on my tongue as the tender bug bits fell apart; whatever enormous cricket it came from clearly missed neither meals nor leg day.
A plate or two helped ease me in as I watched the heroes of an age gone by chat and drink and joke. Even as demigods, they were just like any other pony. I should have known after seeing so much of Princess Luna.
“So… how serious were you earlier, Meridian?” I licked my lips and drank a bit of honeyed mead to buy myself a second when she looked at me.
“How serious was I about what, dearest niece?”
“Uhh… that? The whole niece thing? I could kinda use some advice on something, but it also seems… disrespectful to bother ponies as great as die Phantome der Nacht with it.” Well, that and she had been super pissed about Dad not saying yes to Princess Luna.
“Bah! I would not have said it were it not true! We have had many years here to lament the things lost to us. Family and the chance at foals were but one sacrifice we made.” Smiling down at me, her fangs gleamed. “If Luna sees you as a niece, who are we to deny that? Please! Ask away!”
“Well… umm…” I sputtered and squirmed as more than a few of the chatting thestrals stopped chatting to eye us both. “It’s just that… I have a marefriend who isn’t going Guard. How do I balance my duty to defend with all my heart with my duty to the one who inspires me to do just that? When I asked Princess Luna, she mentioned all of you, so… I guess I’m hoping you might have an answer for me?”
There were more than a few chuckles and groans. A few thestrals looked down and away, falling into a deep brooding over my question. Those that didn’t smiled wistfully and shook their heads.
“Ahhhh…” Meridian was among those chuckling. “Going right for the throat, are we?”
“I’m sorry….” I tried to look down, ears splaying.
Meridian had other ideas. “It is a good question, young Night. Many a fight and tumble has been had over that since our self-made exile. Would Luna still have fallen if we had remained closer? Would she have pushed us away? We have spent centuries brooding over it.” She nods at her sulking companions. “Some of us still do.”
“Do you?”
“Aye, sometimes. It’s hard not to lately. Our precious Princess of the Night is back from the dead, after all. Doesn’t change that we failed her, but it leaves a yearning for something we can never have again.”
“I still don’t get why you all think that.” Looking up at the massive mushroom above us, I frowned.
Meridian hummed before taking a long swish of mead. “Well, put yourself in our shadow, hrmm? If your beloved tried to end things between you two, would you respect her wishes?”
“That’s different!” My frown turned into a full on scowl as I banged the table with a hoof. “She wouldn’t…”
“Whether she would or wouldn’t, is neither here nor there.” She snorted. “The point is if she ended things, an honorable soldier such as yourself would respect that, yes? Those of us here have had a thousand years to come to terms with the choices we all made, young Nightingale. To try and remake what we once had with Luna would be to spit and defile what memories remain.”
“Aye. Relationships are living, breathing things, little one.” General Dusk pulled a book from the void, and when he opened it, it was full of detailed sketches of him and Princess Luna. “When they die, it is best to leave them be. Respect the dead, and they will respect you.”
“Well said.” Meridian nodded to her comrade. “Bring the dead back and they are never the same. You may stay friends, you may drift apart, but whatever you had will never be within reach again. It makes fighting for love while it lasts all the more important.”
“Huh…” Looking down at the table, my brow furrowed. I could see little more than the wood grain as my brain sputtered and smoked. “Do you regret being out there? Being heroes? Leading the troops?”
“Never.” General Dusk growled before Meridian could even open her mouth. “I would still be out there if I could. The day I leave exile is the day I go to kneel and serve Luna once more.” There was the sound of bending metal as he twisted the handle of his stein. “My only regret is not being what she needed.”
Meridian hissed something under her breath as she shook her head. “I was needed, and I answered the call. If anything, my regret is not having Luna there to see all those thankful for being saved. Bandit attacks, timber wolves, and manticores… whatever needed to be done. The capital had long been safe and complacent. Those sunblasted nobles were nothing next to the common ponies thankful for true sleep and peace of mind.”
“That… just gives me more questions.” I rubbed my temples, grumbling.
“Everypony here has a different answer.” Meridian gestured around the table again, her hoof stopping at Moon Flower who was in the middle of stuffing her face. “Even her. The number of times Moon Flower has tried to make us leave our sanctum. She is incorrigible.”
“Mrgmrmfff!” Moon Flower all but choked on her food as she swallowed, gasping for air and pounding her chest a few times. “Excuse me?! It’s the other way around! You all need to stop being so stubborn and just go see the princess already! She’ll be happy to have you as friends, if nothing else!”
“See?” One word was all Meridian deigned to respond with, and she said it to me—not Moon Flower. “She thinks it is that easy. ’Twould have led the charge myself if it were.”
“Ummm…” Easy was understating it for sure, but nothing in life worth fighting for is easy. “I guess what you’re saying makes sense… sorta….”
“You are allowed to disagree.” General Dusk Fang beat Meridian to the punch as she opened her mouth.
She was quick to nod, however. “Aye. No pony in our herd can quite agree on what we should do. Not on when; not on how; not on if. Can hardly judge you for having your own thoughts.”
“It just seems weird that you would give up on her now when you choose this—” I gestured at her wavering, shadow-infused coat. “—a thousand years ago.”
“A thousand years is a long time to grieve, mourn, and move on.” Meridian sighed and drank until she hit the bottom of her cup. When the pitcher was empty too, she started twirling her hoof in a circle. I watched in wonder as dream stuff gathered and started to refill the pitcher with mead.
It was one thing to be told the forest was a dream, another to see it.
Meridian immediately downed an entire cup on finishing with her refills. “’Tis why I was so hopeful when Moon Flower mentioned your father. I plan on staying here for as long as the cursed sun still rises and sets. I cannot fathom forgiving that guano-guzzling sun witch for what she did, and if I cannot forgive her?”
With a grimace, she took three more straight down the hatch as she brooded. “I too did not see the signs. An eternity forgotten will be my penance.”
“I’m pretty sure Princess Luna will forgive you.” I could see the weight of her sins on her as she sat—no longer tall and proud but hunched. “She looked like she missed you when we were talking earlier.”
“That’s exactly the problem.” General Dusk Fang leaned back in his seat with a groan. Looking off and into the distance, his eyes glazed over with memory. “Meridian doesn’t want to be forgiven. Neither do I. But we know Luna; she would do it in a heartbeat. She was… always eager to please those she let close. Did she spoil you? Give you everything you could possibly want?”
Ohhhh… Now I could see it.
“She tried.” I sighed. “Better question would be what didn’t she give? Led to more than a few fights with my parents.” Looking down, I muttered at the table as I weighed confessing myself. “More than a few fights with me too, actually. Once I was old enough, it started to get real annoying real fast.”
“Hah!” He slapped the table. “I know that look. My son had that exact same face when she tried to slip him in her honor guard right out of training.”
“I just want to prove myself! Is that such a big deal?!” It was my turn to slump and rest my head on the table.
“Two for two.” He chuckled. “You sure we aren’t related?”
“I never saw it on the family tree.” I grumbled. “Then again, I rarely ever got to look at the genealogy records. Grandpa locks them up most of the time. He says it’s ‘bad practice’ to look.”
General Dusk shook his head, frowning as he loaded another plate. “He’d be right. Blood doesn’t matter nearly as much as action. I’ve heard so many stories of old friend’s families turning into husks of their former glories. Bludknállers who suckle upon the stories sung of heroes long dead and gone. Knaves carving their own names in history without ever having earned it.”
Taking a big bite of the juiciest haunch of mandraboara I had ever seen, he grunted and shook his head. “Your question still stands, however. You need advice, yes? At the end of the day, the biggest lesson you can learn from our failures is that we let our duties come first, and Luna suffered as a result. If you’re hoping for some other side to her story, there is none, and not a night goes by where we don’t brood on that.”
“Great…” With a groan, I closed myself off, ears splayed back and eyes closed. Despite that, I could still hear his voice as his rumbling shook my very bones.
“There is no shame in serving closer to home, though. Not every hero need slay monsters in the night.”
The trip back through the forest was quiet. Water dripped from the heavens, leftovers from a wild storm. The earth was damp, and my hooves sunk heavily into the dirt as I trudged through the early morning with Moon Flower.
Meridian and Dusk Fang had flown us to a threshold that was much closer to the edge of the forest—not quite in the castle of the two sisters, but deep in a nearby ravine. I was bizarrely awake and energized for not having slept, but Moon Flower said that was normal after staying in the Dreamlands for a few hours.
Sleep would have been more welcome, though. In the solemn silence, I was left to brood from all the advice of my latest aunts and uncles.
Moon Flower barely talked. Having read the mood, she was now being far more silent, and I hated not knowing if that was better or worse.
The dim, dank air was cold against my coat, and with the edge of the forest on the horizon, I could see that we had made it before moonset. The sky was not-quite-white with the approach of dawn, and while I knew I should grab something from my bag to shield my eyes, I couldn’t really bring myself to care about it.
My thoughts whirled, and I had the weight of the world on my back as we cleared the trees. It was only natural to look up to see if I could find at least one star to guide me—even if doing so was a fatal mistake.
“There she is! Night!”
Not even three seconds free of the woods and I was glomped, tumbling down into the dirt. I instinctually wrapped my wings around Diamond to shield her from the dirt as we rolled, eventually settling to look up into her angry, glittering eyes.
“You almost missed your party.”
“Errr… what?”
“Don’t play dumb! I told you I was gonna get Pinkie to throw you a Nightmare Night party since you missed out!” Her hooves pressed down on my chest as she lifted her nose high to the sky. “How dare you go missing for days? I’m going to have to punish you for this; I demand a photo of us kissing in costume.”
“Last I checked, my parents are the ones who get to punish me.” A small smile cracked my otherwise gloomy face.
“That’s what you think~ Your dad gave me permission to do whatever I want with you~” Her eyes still glimmered with solfire as she poked my chest, but now they were as warm and merry as they were sparking with anger.
“Is she joking?” I groaned as Diamond tittered, dreading the answer even more. My words were aimed at Silver as she and the others converged on us, however.
“Well, considering we’re out here on patrol with badges?” Silver pulled out and waggled a deputy badge at me before tossing it at me. “No, it’s not a joke. We are the law.”
“Nightmother help me…. I hope he gave you the castle souvenirs and not actual badges.” My shadow snatched the bit of metal up, but I was a bit too distracted by a certain dazzling marefriend to notice. “Can you get off me, Diamond? I know it’s in your name, but I’m not exactly looking for an accessory to wear right now.”
“Yeah, well maybe I wanna be worn~”
I blinked a bit at her raging blush, waiting for her to squeak and melt off. “You have far too much tact and decency for that, princess.”
“Ughhhh… I can’t believe I said that.” Now slumped and wavering like she was gonna faint at any moment, Diamond couldn’t quite be the puddle of mope she wanted to be with all the fresh mud.
“On the bright side, nobody but the girls heard it.” I scowled at the others as they snickered and did their best not to explode. “They’re smart enough to know that if they give you any guano over that I will eat them.”
“Great, so that means you’re open to a threeway?” Silver was deadpan as ever, her eyes soulless and cold.
“Buck off, Silver. It’s been a long night. You aren’t gonna get me to squirm.” With a growl, I flicked my wings at her, splattering her with grime.
“You okay to go from here?” Moon Flower studied the forest as she stood between us and it. “I can escort you if need be.”
“No need, ma’am.” I gave her a nod and a tired smile. “These girls have been sneaking into those woods since before I moved to Ponyville.”
“Hey!” Diamond sniffed. “Don’t lump me in with those three!”
“Yeah!” Scootaloo snickered. “We’re way cooler than Diamond!”
“Girls.” A single frown was all it took to get them in line after years of training. Not that Scoots could manage for more than five seconds. “See?”
With a soft laugh, Moon Flower shook her head. “How can I argue with that?” She turned to head back into the Everfree, leaving just me and the girls.
Sweetie Belle’s mane was a mess as she yawned and mumbled something about missing beauty sleep. Apple Bloom was all but propping her up as the sleepy soldier wavered on her hooves.
Rolling my eyes at the sight, I reached out to tussle the sleepy Squeakie Belle’s mane just to listen to her screep. “You know you guys didn’t all have to come, right? For all you knew, I was flying back.”
Apple Bloom snorted. “I was gonna say no until Sweetie bit off more than she could chew. Dunno why she volunteered. Yer a grown mare.”
“She’s… she’s…” Poor sweet girl just couldn’t stop yawning. “She’s our friend, Bloom.”
My jaw cracked as the infection spread, and I reached up to crack my neck, shuddering at the feeling of release. “Well, I appreciate the support, but can you get her home, Bloom? She clearly needs it.”
“Can do.” She nodded lazily before turning to lead the dozing Sweetie away. “Come on, Chicken Butt. Help me out, would you?”
“What?! Why me?!” Scoots squawked.
“One less pony gives Night more private time with Diamond, duh.”
“Eh, screw that. You’re an earth pony. You can cart Sweetie around all on your own.” She grinned like a loon under moon before hopping into the air and flying off. “You want me gone?! Fine! I’ll just go wake Rumble!”
“Cowards, every one of you.” Silver sighed and waved at us. “Fine. If nopony else is going to stay and get their money's worth, I suppose I can leave you two be. No point in wasting my best ammo when I’ve got no crowd.”
“You can always roast us another time.” Diamond giggled and ran to hug Silver before she got too far. “There will be plenty of ponies at the party!”
“True…. Try to get her ready for me, will you? It’s so much better when she squirms.”
“You know, you could always not embarrass me in front of everypony.” I squinted at her as she chuckled. “That is an option.”
“No, no…. Perhaps if you hadn’t told me to buck off, but you threw the gauntlet; we’re playing the game.” Silver gently separated herself from Diamond, smirking at me. “It’s about to be your move, by the by.” Turning to look at Diamond, she leaned in to whisper something that made Diamond light up.
“See you two at the party.” Silver gave a dainty wave that was far more threatening than it had any right to be.
“Errr… don’t take this the wrong way, Diamond, but you look hungry as the sun itself.”
My marefriend’s titters sent shivers up my spine. “You. Me. Bath. Now.”
“Wha…? Diamond, be serious, please.”
“Teeheehee! I am serious—more serious than I’ve ever been in my life. You know you need one.”
“Yeah, but sharing one? With you? There’s no way I’m risking my dad catching wind of that.”
“Silly! I can’t do clouds! We’re doing it at my place!” Diamond’s hips swayed as she advanced on me to press close.
“What?! Diamond! That’s even worse!”
“Daddy is hardly that crude, Night. I have my own bathroom for a reason.” Fluttering her lashes, she wrapped her tail in mine and pouted up. “We’ll have the privacy to do whatever we want.”
“I don’t know if that’s any better.” Stars, it was hard to keep saying no. Trying to pull away just made her wrap tighter around me. The dirt and mud were getting all over her.
“Too bad.” She leaned up to nibble at my ear and my whole body tensed. “It’s your fault I’m such a mess. The least you can do is clean me up~”
Check and Mate. Damn it, Diamond.
“Fine, but no funny business.” The way she tittered at my demands was not encouraging for my morale or my morals.
Or maybe it was too encouraging. Either way I could feel my pounding heart ready to give.