//------------------------------// // Chapter 2 // Story: In the Name of the Moon // by Cavemonkynick //------------------------------// Finally the morning was here and I was pumped. The week passed much faster than most which I found a bit odd. Generally anticipation slows time to a crawl, not that I’m complaining. As I flew to the station to meet up with the others I couldn’t help but grin with excitement, although it felt a bit odd at the same time. Flying in the mid-morning calm, wide awake and free of my armor, it was different. I felt free. I chalked it up to me being a slave to my routine, but to be honest, the exhilaration I felt was a bit jarring. I lived for my job in the guard, my flank proved that. So why was I so happy to be rid of it for the time being? I cut my thoughts short as I closed in on the station. “Good morning everypony!” I said a bit louder than necessary, shaking myself out of my meditation as I landed before the small group that was gathered on the platform. Luna and Flourish were there of course, as well as Princess Celestia, Shining Armor, and even Princess Cadence had made it out to see us off. “You’re in a good mood,” Shining Armor said. “Indeed I am.” I replied grinning “You’re also late,” Flourish deadpanned. “Kill joy,” I pouted and turned away to promptly ignore any comeback she may have had ready. “Princess Cadence, it’s a pleasure to see you again.” “Good to see you too Captain,” she replied with a smile. “Now that you’re all here I think it’s time you started your vacation,” Celestia said. “Art thou truly so eager to be rid of us sister?” Luna asked. “Oh stop pouting,” Celesta sounded almost motherly, “This trip will do you some good, get you out of Canterlot for a while.” “We’d like to think we‘ve been absent long enough.” “Luna,” Celestia scolded, “Enough with the royal “We.” It doesn’t suit you.” Luna sighed. “Fine, you win.” Luna resigned. “Good,” Celestia smiled and stepped forward to nuzzle her sister. “Do try and have fun, hmm?” “I will,” Luna replied, returning her sisters affection. “Flourish,” Shining Armor said, “Keep ‘em out of trouble.” “I’ll do my best sir,” she replied, laughing. “Very funny Captain,” I said dryly although I couldn’t keep from smiling. With a last round of goodbyes, Luna, Flourish, and I stepped onto the train and made our way to our seats, a private car up front. Luna and Flourish stowed their saddle bags but I kept mine on. A life without magic is one of minor inconveniences and not removing my bags until I’m good and done with them for the day is one I’m accustomed to. “So,” I started, “First stop, Ponyville, shouldn’t be a long ride.” “Fifteen minutes tops,” Flourish responded. “We stay there tonight and tomorrow, and then the following day is our trip to Cloudsdale. I can’t wait to see it.” I gave a short laugh at her enthusiasm. “You’ll love it.” I replied. “Right, so we stay the night there then it’s back to Ponyville in the morning to catch our train to Manehatten. We stay there four nights and then head back home. All in all, a good trip I’d say. I haven’t had a whole week off since I was promoted.” “Only because you never ask,” Luna added. “That is beside the point” I shot back. She rolled her eyes. “So, Twilight Sparkle will be meeting us at the station right?” Flourish asked “Yep,” I said, “She’ll show us where we’re staying tonight and then we just relax the rest of the day.” A small tremor rocked the cabin as the train finally pulled away from the station. “So Flourish,” Luna started, “I take it you know Twilight Sparkle as well?” “Not as well as Night Wing but yeah.” She responded, “Pretty much the whole guard at least knows of her.” “Pretty much all of Equestria knows of her.” I added. “Well yeah,” Flourish said, “but what I meant was she spent a lot of time in the castle over the years. Being a bit bookish myself I helped her with her studies from time to time when she pulled all-nighters in the royal library.” “And I always had to carry her home in the morning when she finally passed out face-first into a book.” I said with a laugh. “Goodness,” Luna said, “I take it this happened often?” “At least once a week,” I said. “We’d try to get her to turn in at a decent hour but she’d always refuse declaring ‘Sleep is for the weak!’” Flourish shouted the last part, raising one of her front hooves for emphasis. “Then one day she stayed up two nights in a row and fell asleep during some dignitary meeting she’d been allowed to sit in on and Celestia put her hoof down. She gave her a midnight curfew and made me enforce it.” This got a laugh out of Luna. "Celestia always picks such interesting students," She said. “On the surface it seems she's just looking for magical talent, but there's always so much more to them." For some reason this statement struck me as odd but I wasn’t sure why. It was innocent enough, so why would it stand out? I could feel myself zoning out but was helpless to stop it. In times like this it always felt like my consciousness was splitting into my mind and my body. In this case, my body was vaguely aware of the conversation continuing without me and settled for watching the countryside pass by as we made our way to Ponyville. My mind, on the other hoof, was analyzing what Luna had said. Interesting students... so much more to them... why would that be important? Of course Celestia wasn't so shallow as to just look for raw talent. There’s so much more to a pony than just their special talent, and from what I understand of unicorns there isn't anything cut and dry about magic. There are plenty of factors at play, power is one but emotion is another huge deal. There are countless tales of unicorns achieving feats way beyond their normal capabilities when the right emotion is driving them. Shining Armor even told me about Twilight's mane and tail literally bursting into flame out of frustration on occasion. Ok, drifting into left field a bit, focus on Twilight. Why did Celestia take her on as a personal student? There was Twilight's incident at her entrance exams, but that was a raw power thing. Over my years of patrolling the castle halls I've heard almost every conspiracy out there. Some ponies think that Celestia was worried Twilight would lose control again one day, which is honestly a valid concern but I think if anything Twilight would have been too afraid to use magic ever again if left alone. So if Celestia took her in just because of the accident then it would have been so the talent wasn't wasted. That leads to the second most popular theory that Celestia was grooming Twilight to be the element of magic. Personally, this one makes more sense, but I'm not sure if I buy it. The ponies that do believe it make it seem cruel, as if Celestia wanted a weapon, but The Elements of Harmony can’t be weaponized like that. They can't kill, and they can't change a pony's personality, that’s been proven on multiple occasions. When Celestia and Luna used The Elements on Discord for the first time, it trapped him in stone. The same happened when he went nuts last year as well. When Luna was first eclipsed by Nightmare Moon, The Elements imprisoned her in the moon. That one bothers me though, because when Twilight and her friends used The Elements on Nightmare Moon it stripped her away from Luna instead. Based on what Luna has told me, Nightmare Moon was a physical manifestation of her jealousy and sorrow. When she was at her lowest, her emotions drew power from her magic and split off into Nightmare Moon. She said that while Nightmare Moon was in control, she felt trapped inside her own mind. She could see and hear everything that Nightmare Moon was doing, but was powerless to stop it. Wait, hang on... the first go around, The Elements of Harmony were wielded by Celestia and Luna, so maybe... maybe that had something to do with the different effects, because the second time, the elements were wielded by a third party, so to speak. Buck, I can't focus on anything, back to Twilight and Celestia. If Celestia was grooming the next element of magic, she'd need to be grooming the other elements as well. She knows better than anypony that all the elements need to be present for it to work. No, it's something deeper than that... What did Celestia see in Twilight...? Suddenly my body tapped my brain on the shoulder. Luna was calling me. "Sorry," I said. "I completely zoned out. What did I miss?" "We're here," Flourish responded. “Oh wow.” “Are you ok Night Wing?” Luna asked. “Yeah, I just got lost in thought, you know me.” I said, waving her off with my hoof and making for the exit. “What was it this time?” “Just something random my brain latched onto for some reason, nothing important.” Luna made to respond but as we stepped onto the platform she was cut off by a familiar voice. “Princess Luna!” Twilight Sparkle rushed up to meet us. “It’s so good to see you again!” “It’s a pleasure to see you as well Twilight.” Luna replied. “How was the ride over here?” “It was nice actually. The change of pace was refreshing.” “I’m glad to hear it,” Twilight beamed. Flourish made to say something but it died in her throat when a pink pony emerged from Twilight's mane. “Hi, I’m Pinkie Pie, but you already know that! Or do you? Well if you didn’t you do now! I’m here to invite you to a huge party tomorrow!” Pinkie produced three invitations from seemingly nowhere and gave them to us. “I can’t wait to see you there!” she added then turned and hopped away without waiting for a reply. “How did-” Flourish started, but Twilight cut her off. “Don’t, you’ll only hurt yourself.” “Sounds like experience talking,” I chided, earning a glare in response. “Anyways, about this party, what’s the occasion?” “You three,” Twilight responded, “not that Pinkie needs an occasion mind you. One time she tried to throw her pet alligator a birthday party two days in a row.” “She has a pet alligator?” Flourish asked. “That’s nothing,” Luna said, “I had a manticore as a foal.” “Seriously?” Flourish, Twilight, and I asked in unison. “Indeed. They are extremely loyal when raised from a young age.” “I’ve read about that,” Twilight said, “but in recent years, nopony has been brave enough to try. Anyways, we should probably clear the platform.” We nodded in agreement and followed her as she trotted off. “So,” I said, falling in line beside her, “where have you got us bunking down?” “The library if that’s alright,” she replied. “Ponyville doesn’t really have any hotels. Princess I-” “Please Twilight,” Luna cut her off, “just Luna will do.” “Of course Luna. I set you up a bed in the observatory.” “That sounds perfect.” “Flourish, you’ll be in the loft with me.” “Works for me,” Flourish replied. “Sorry Night Wing, that leaves you with the couch.” “Score,” I said with a little hoof pump. “Really? You don’t mind?” “Not at all, I spent nearly two months on your brother’s couch. Best couch ever.” “But Shining said he set you up in his spare room.” “He did, the couch slept better.” “If you say so, but just let me know if you’re not comfortable. I can turn it into a bed.” “I’ll keep that in mind.” By this time we had made our way to the library and Twilight showed us inside. We ditched our saddle bags and after a short discussion we decided to wander around town since Flourish had never been here before. Twilight lit up at the chance to play tour guide and she wasn’t bad at it. She started us off with the must see locations such as City Hall, Sugarcube Corner, and the Carousel Boutique. We even made it out to Sweet Apple Acres. On the way back to town we had quite the interesting encounter. Out of nowhere a sheep with a rope around its neck charged onto the path ahead of us dragging a white unicorn filly behind it. An orange pegasus and a yellow earth pony were riding a scooter in hot pursuit. Flourish acted first. Using her magic she cut the rope running from the sheep’s neck to the filly’s hind leg and lifted the sheep to prevent it from escaping. “The cutie mark crusaders,” Twilight sighed. “Oh, howdy Twilight!” The young earth pony exclaimed. Definitely an apple. “Whoa, is that Princess Luna?” The pegasus asked. “Indeed I am,” Luna said, “and these are my friends Night Wing and Flourish.” “I remember these three being at the wedding.” I said. “They were,” Twilight replied. “This is Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle.” “So what’s with the sheep?” Flourish asked setting it down. “We were tryin’ ta get our sheep wranglin’ cutie marks.” Apple Bloom said. “And how’s that working out?” I asked. “Not good,” Sweetie Belle responded. “Hey, how’d you get your cutie mark?” “I got it when I joined the Lunar Guard.” “Apple Bloom!” We turned to find Applejack charging up behind us. “What have I told yall about messin’ around with the livestock? One of these days somepony is gonna get hurt.” “Sorry sis,” Apple Bloom said. “I hope they weren’t no trouble.” “Not at all,” Luna replied. “Good,” Applejack said, “I’ll take ‘em off your hooves then. See yall at Pinkies party tomorrow!” After that little event we headed back to Twilight’s place, just in time for Luna to set the night sky. Standing outside the Library, she closed her eyes and went to work. As the last rays of the sun disappeared beyond the horizon the moon began to rise. Mist-like tendrils wafted around Luna’s horn as the stars blinked into existence and danced across the sky. As she finished, I noticed that she had drawn a bit of a crowd. She smiled as she noticed them herself. A few approached her and commented on how beautiful the night was while others simply basked in her presence. When they had all gone their separate ways the four of us headed inside to turn in for the night.