The sky is falling.
Fire and ice dance through the air as my dark grey shield deflects a broken section of some great tree that has fallen victim to the conflict.
My mane whips about regardless of how many shields I create, blinding me as I struggle to progress towards the eye of this deadly storm.
My name is Fleeting Shadow.
I am a runner for our princess and goddess Celestia.
I am the first cog in the chain of command, and the thinnest string, but one that must hold against every attempt to be severed.
A boulder the size of my ruler breaks itself upon my protection, shooting shards of pain across my mind, but I do not stop.
The wind suddenly ceases and I stand in an oddly calm meadow with a circular wall of fire and ice surrounding it, Celestia hovers near my side, surrounded in blinding light as Nightmare Moon hides in the shadows on the opposite side of the field.
Nightmare cannot see me; it is my curse, my talent, and my Mark all in one. I am unseen by anypony that I do not come in contact with.
An accident while learning to use magic, and a surge of lunar energy that left me spiteful of the moon and trapped in a nightmare all at once.
But special talents are always useful for something.
I wait until she subtly commands me to approach, and my hidden scroll is taken in her magic. After being shielded by her spells, this secret scroll is replaced in my grip with another and I turn away.
Outside these walls of magical battle, a war is raging.
Orders must be made, commands delivered.
Once more into the breech dear Fleet, once more onto victory.
After the battle has faded into the night, I sit atop a crate in the middle of camp, watching the others move from tent to tent.
They laugh and eat and talk of victory in the name of the sun, while I sit in the cold.
One trots past my perch and I reach out a hoof towards them, for a moment I want to simply touch their mane, and beg to be acknowledged.
“I exist.” I whisper.
“Excuse me?” The passer by turns, looking through me and scanning the surroundings.
“Is somepony there?”
I do not speak, and soon they leave.
Long ago, I stopped hiding my tears, they are as invisible as I am.
Celestia returns to camp and with her comes the great defensive barrier overhead.
I make my way, unseen and mostly unheard, to her tent.
I enter a moment before she arrives, and sit next to her table.
She and her generals enter. Celestia and one other can see me, and they nod towards me with the slightest motion, but it warms my heart to know that they can see me, they know I exist.
My spot is left empty as they fill in the large circular table, and I take it up a moment later, knocking on the wooden surface once.
The two that cannot see me jump but quickly bow towards me.
“This meeting is called to order.” Celestia says as her magic seals the tent against all but the most powerful but most blatant forms of penetration.
“Report.” she demands.
The lowest ranking general, Flamebreak Hooves, starts off. He is an earth pony who has a golden coat with darker points and brown eyes, and he seems very nervous.
“As instructed, we have kept casualties to a minimum by mostly holding our line and only making pushes forward when critical or in relative safety. We lost three soldiers today and one of our healers.” He bows his head and the rest of us join the motion.
Every life is sacred, Celestia teaches us. Even the lives of our enemies should be cherished and taken only in extreme situations or when no other alternative is available.
“However. The enemy did not expect our use of the poison joke plant en masse, and by concentrating it, we were able to render most of the northern area safe for passage of equipment and troops until the enemy has regrouped.”
I smile, although it goes unnoticed. After a particularly cruel incident with poison joke, during which I was not only visible but everypony within eyesight would stop and stare at me, I recommended its use as a biological weapon.
Apparently, most ponies trained and raised in war are affected by it in the same manner. They either run and hide in fear or forget how to use their weapons until cured.
Of course Celestia had taken the credit for it since I was literally seen as a spirit of warriors past by all but ten or so souls in this camp.
“Very good Flame. Thank you for your report.” Celestia turned then to her second general, Silver Tongue.
A pegasus with a grey and blue coloration, she was the least colorful of the generals by far.
I had never figured out if that was actually her name or if she was simply playing a joke on the entire world, but it fit her.
“Well Princess, as you know, the gryphons are not eager to lose their homes and thus have sealed the border. I managed to have a chat with the emperor anyway. Despite being a bit surprised by my insistence and gifts, he did agree that eternal darkness was, by and large, a bad thing.”
“So they are willing to stop any supply chains to the lunar army?”
Silver nodded. “Providing, of course, that he receives more of the chocolate that I may or may not have laced with something a bit more addictive than coco has any right to be.”
Her smile made me shiver. Silver was ruthless when she wanted something, and she wanted to please Celestia more than anything else.
Celestia chuckled. “Start weaning him off it, we don't want a drug fueled dictator to deal with after this is all over.”
A dark silence fell over the table for a moment at the mention of the hopeful end of the war. We all knew what this would mean to Celestia. She only had two options available to her, to kill her sister, or to attempt to use a nearly unknown magical artifact on her in hopes that it would not do worse.
I knocked on the table again, shaking them out of the contemplation.
“Ah, yes.” General Dread Dawn sat up a bit straighter. He was an earth pony as well, but with a bright red coat and shimmering, golden mane that was cropped short.
He had a lean, calculating look in his eye and preferred to convince an enemy they had already lost than actually fight.
A stallion of few words, he passed out scrolls to the others, and laid one in front of me, open.
It outlined the current battlefield layout and troop movements as well as supply lines, medic positions, and a large circle in the center where the sisters raged at eachother each day.
“Tomorrow, the battle must move southeast to gain the advantage.” he said simply, gesturing to markings showing terrain changes and cloud cover would be much easier to take advantage of there.
“Princess, if you move your fight gradually the rest will follow.”
“If the Shadow wishes it,” he looked to me, and I smiled a little as he met my gaze, asking my permission as though I had a choice, how quaint. “Scouting that land would give us a great advantage as we may use traps or wildlife to fight for us.”
That was the entirety of his presentation. I knocked twice to show my agreement and Celestia nodded.
“Very well. In celebration, let us drink.”
As was customary, goblets of fine wine were poured and I left mine until the three generals had left, then I grabbed it and downed it quickly with a grimace on my face.
Celestia poured me another and it vanished just as quickly.
“I am sorry for your pain, Fleeting.” she says gently.
I cannot hold back the tears as I collapse and the princess pulls me into an embrace. I am a wreck, as pathetic as they come. I could have anything in Equestria simply by asking for it and yet all I want is to abandon my very talent.
After several minutes I am released and I get up to go.
“Fleeting... would you like to sleep in the spare cot tonight? It will be cold outside, with my sister’s magic bombarding us.”
I hesitate but nod, laying down and immediately embracing the dreamless sleep that awaits me.