The Monster of Canterlot Castle
Ditzy Hooves was not having a good night. It was bad enough that the grey mare was running errands in the small hours. It wouldn’t be long until she had to get up for her mail round, and she had additional duties for the Summer Sun festival after that. That same festival meant torrential rain had been scheduled by the weather patrol for the days before. The extra water might tide over the farmers, who needed their crops to thrive through a few days of blistering summer heat, but knowing that didn’t make her any happier in the moment.
Her head and legs were soaked. She’d had the presence of mind to change into her postal garb, a blue waterproof windbreaker which covered her torso, but it did nothing for her drenched mane and muddy fetlocks. She was cold; even near the height of summer rain and darkness ensured that she shivered like it was the depths of winter instead. She wished the mayor had invested in some proper cobblestone roads instead of these dirt paths that dissolved into mud when water fell on them. She wanted nothing more than to run home and curl up in her bed. It lay just a room away from where her youngest daughter was sleeping peacefully.
She couldn’t yet. Dinky might have been able to sleep, but she had a sister now, and she couldn’t. That was why Ditzy stood in the town square of Ponyville, in the middle of the night, with rain beating down so hard she could feel it smash against her wings. She sought a fragment of rainbow. It was the one thing she knew might put her eldest daughter’s troubled mind to rest, a memory from home that wasn’t horrifying. She turned her one good eye to the sky, dragged her scraggly blonde mane out of her face, and moved into a trot. Great grey wings, each easily the length of her body, unfolded from her back. She began to canter, ready to propel herself upwards through the rain so fast that even the refracted light couldn’t escape her grasp.
The town square was a good enough runway. Admittedly, it was more of a town circle than a square, but the town hall was the same shape, and it was a bit more open than the grassy paths that ran through the rest of the village. Even moving at an angle her canter became a gallop, and her gallop a charge. Many pegasi couldn’t fly at all in these conditions. Her feathers might have been waterproof, but the sheer weight of the water beat them downwards, and the cold sapped her endurance and made it hard to gather enough air under her wings. Ditzy, however, was the strongest flier in Ponyville, and she did this for a living every day. She felt the exhilarating sensation of her hooves becoming weightless, and her wings began to lift her up into the air. She was ready to soar…
A wail brought her down to earth again in an instant.
“WAIT!”
Ditzy’s blood ran chill with a cold that had nothing to do with the rain.
“PLEASE!”
She floated to the ground, her eyes and hooves momentarily frozen to the path. The terror she'd just heard in that young mare's cry of anguish would have filled the strongest heart with dread… and yet, it carried an earnest desperation that could have compelled the most jaded soul into action.
“YOU HAVE TO HELP ME… please…”
Suddenly, the voice was on top of her. Ditzy’s head twisted on its own. She couldn’t direct it, and what she then saw was the most frightening thing she had seen in her life.
The pony that stared back was a filly, but only just. She was the right height to be an adult mare, but her face carried the shape and proportions of someone who hadn’t quite seen that crucial eighteenth milestone. It was contorted by terror and pain, and yet in her purple eyes, Ditzy saw not blind panic, but a ferocious, unwavering focus, an indescribable sort of manic determination that belonged either to an indomitable will or fanaticism. No teenager should have been able to muster that sort of intensity with their eyes alone. The sight unnerved her.
“You have to get this book to the Princess.”
Ditzy stared, her daughter’s rainbow forced back into the recesses of her mind. The filly’s words had been quiet and humble, respectful even through her fear, and yet there was a deep conviction in them that rendered Ditzy speechless.
It didn’t help that she was struggling to process the visual bombardment that played out in front of her. The filly was a unicorn, as evidenced by the short, squat horn on her head, too short to stab with and yet an indescribably dangerous weapon. Her fur was a garish pink which clashed violently with the regal colour of her eyes. That combination just seemed wrong. It was as if the two colours belonged to entirely different paintings that were ruined the moment they mixed together. Her mane was even stranger; an obnoxious candyfloss colour redeemed only by a soft magenta streak that was the only part that seemed natural.
It was matted against her head by the rain. She was drenched from head to tail, and she had been for far too long. She shivered violently. Her legs trembled as her frozen, depleted muscles fought valiantly to remain upright. Her breaths came in ragged gasps. Before Ditzy’s brain could finish processing the magnitude of what had just been asked of her, the filly shoved a tome directly into her open mouth. The bright violet light that encircled it poured out of her jaws, and the grey mare stumbled back. Her clumsiness betrayed her as she fell back onto her rump, but she held onto the volume.
Suddenly, she saw figures in pursuit behind the filly. Ditzy stood up. She was ready to drop the book, to scream at this exhausted foal to run and get help while she had the strength, but the filly was already turning around. For just a moment, Ditzy could see a fell look form across her face. Nothing could have removed that much fear, but the anger mixing into it was creating a volatile, potent cauldron of contained emotion as flight turned to fight in an instant. Her jet black tail fell flat, her hooves planted firmly in the muddy ground. She was going to fight, and it was only now that Ditzy could make out the two figures that were chasing her.
They looked like Celestia’s guards, unicorn soldiers armoured head to hoof in golden plate, their swords held aloft by magic and dreadful spells charged within their glowing horns. Yet they shouted no warnings, and Ditzy saw what these stallions truly were as they barrelled towards their prey. The book dropped from her mouth. She stumbled forward. Words that years of parenting had conditioned her to say fell from her mouth before she knew what she was saying.
“Get away from th-“
A bolt of deadly green light shot from one of the soldiers’ horns before she could finish. It raced up the street towards them. Ditzy came to a halt. Her words died in her mouth. Her pupils shrank to pinpricks as she shut her eyes.
I’m sorry Dash.
She found that she could open them again.
A great wall of regal violet light transposed itself across the entire street. It extended far above the buildings, and an eerie purple light played across the neighbourhood. The soldiers stopped in their tracks. Ditzy’s eyes shifted to the foal that stood between her and these false guards; no servant of Celestia would ever have behaved like that. She couldn’t see her eyes and frankly, Ditzy didn’t want to, but they glowed with a faint purple light. The filly was terrified and cold, and yet she carried herself in battle like the strongest knight in the land.
The light from her horn played such sinister games with the hue of her coat that it created a reddish tinge. It was almost the colour of blood. The assassins that had been so gung-ho moments earlier now hesitated, their cheers of triumph replaced by sombre, battle-ready faces.
The filly spoke.
“Listen to me,” she began, her voice cracked like broken ice, “I’m already dead. I don’t-“
Her words choked into a sob, yet only for a moment.
“…You have to get that book to Celestia.” she said, her tone grim as bone. No trace of her former hesitance remained.
Ditzy’s felt her heart drop in her chest. This wasn’t the voice of someone throwing their life away. There was a painful, suicidal undertone to her words, yet she intended to spend her remaining time, not reject it. She couldn’t pass away until that purpose had been achieved.
In that moment, Ditzy would have thrown herself into a dragon’s mouth for her sake.
“Please just-“
The unicorn cut her plea short as the soldiers charged. For a moment, Ditzy saw her body begin to glow, yet the grey mare was already turning, her body moving on its own. Colours danced behind her like a demented rave, only to be overwhelmed by the flash of a lightning bolt’s return stroke. She picked up the book and threw herself into a gallop as the world behind her exploded into a rumble of thunder. Ditzy hurled herself into the night sky with such force that she parted the clouds. She barely avoided a deadly rain of glass shards as the noise shattered windows into lethal confetti.
Somehow, she still had the presence of mind to pick up a few precious pieces of rainbow on the way up. It would have been so much easier at dawn, yet any light was enough. The light from the moon, the light from the lamps...
...the light from the life or death struggle that was occurring down on the streets below. Ditzy hoped her daughters would never know the origin of that dreadful light. She hoped that Rainbow would look after Dinky in her absence. She so wanted to fly home and protect them from whatever darkness had shown its hand in her town, yet the young mare’s voice echoed through her mind and drove her onwards.
You have to get that book to Celestia.
Whatever threat those soldiers posed to her daughters, it was nothing compared to the nightmare that the book she clutched in her jaws must have warned of. She pushed herself as hard as her stamina would allow.
Ditzy had enough experience flying at night to orient herself by the light of the moon. Castle Canterlot was a few hours away. As urgent as her errand seemed, she didn’t relish her chance to meet with royalty. Celestia’s seat of power, once glorious, now cast a long, grim shadow over the world. It might have been a necessary shadow, but Ditzy often thought thankfully of the fact that Ponyville was an autonomous and mostly self-reliant settlement on the edges of Equestria’s power, and she was far from alone in that. Children’s tales told that the Princess had once been a warm and welcoming figure, but even Ditzy’s grandparents hadn’t been around to see her grow aloof and distant, a silent figure of dread that emerged only when drastic and often unpopular action needed to be taken. It deterred troublemakers; no one who opposed Celestia’s mandate expected to live. If she didn’t get you, her many agents would.
Still, she almost never appeared in public, and it was impossible to feel at ease under a distant, unrelatable monarch with the power of a goddess. Celestia was someone who you prayed to and at the same time prayed that you would never have to meet. The legends that surrounded her were innumerable, and yet there was something in that castle that cast an even deeper shadow than her. A cold, clammy sweat broke across Ditzy’s brow that had nothing to do with her exertions.
A monster was said to live at the heart of Castle Canterlot. A filly of such enormous power that she could level a whole city district. A child who held a demon inside her that was capable of destroying the world. The citizens of Canterlot whispered about Celestia’s pet abomination with such vicious fear and loathing that the rumours had spread across the continent.
It was far too late to turn back. Celestia’s abode beckoned.
Unbeknownst to Ditzy, a small slip of paper, smaller than the smallest bookmark, fell from the book. She needn’t have panicked even if she’d realised; there was no urgent message there. Just two plaintive words and a title that were devoured by the rain in moments.
I’m sorry, Princess.