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// A story of hatred and gifts... 
// Story: The Legend of the Bat Ponies 
// by _The_Watcher_ 
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Year 901, day 84


I feel as if I have written in here the secrets of my kind far to many times. And yet, I feel as if it must be written for me to feel as if the Shadowmother is watching over us with a caring eye. It's been a slowly changing pace for us. Every day of every month of every year, something can always happen. I fear for my people, for I am their elder in this time of isolation from the other breeds....

*sighs*

I can't truly find the last time when my father or grandfather last talked about our history throughout the tomes the sun ruler gave us. I know her true name, as do the rest of us. It is Celestia, Ruler of the sun and sister of the Shadowmother. We know of her kind gift, for I tell them to never forget our origins.

My father told me when I had turned fifty-five. It was thirty years since the Shadowmother had to leave the earth because of her banishment. We feel bad for the Shadowmother, for she was saddened of the other breeds opinion on the night. We love the night, for it is our sanctuary. Some of the Unicorns tried to develop night based soldiers and scouts for the royal guard in case of attack. Instead of using the strong and reliable earth ponies or their own fragile frames, they chose the nimble and agile Pegasi for this task of construction. Ten Mares were chosen to be impregnated with our Ancestor's seed in order to create the desire of their sick games.

They created creatures mixed of pony and bat. They were horrifying and disfigured. Instead of hooves, they had fragile claws. Instead of a tail, they had but a disgusting stubble. They had the wings and ears as we have now, but they were not really allowed to be called ponies. They were to be called abominations...monsters...

...vermin.

It sickens me that ponies who once fought each other because they in turn were different could act so coldly to creatures they had created. It's like calling your newborn foal a hideous beast that must be hanged for its appearance. It was torture for our Ancestors.

They were able to mate, primarily because they still behaved like ponies, but I believe it was from the Unicorns forcing Mares to do this sick act against nature. That was what my Grandfather told my Father. A sick act against nature. It disgusts me that they would say such things about us.

Over the next forty years, my Grandfather and the rest of our kind were born. They looked like we do now, though we have better overall abilities thanks to the moonflowers. The crimes against us were still being committed, though in more grusome ways. My father told me a story that made me think differently of us and the other breeds truly becoming whole again.

He was a bat pony, like myself and the others that live within this cave. He was starving, tired, and beaten. He lived in a town who had a kind and caring farmer. He would give food away to all that needed it. The bat pony, starving from the inability to earn food, asked the farmer nicely for something to eat. The farmer looked at him and spat, continuing on with his life. The bat pony asked once again, and the farmer bucked him across the face. A tooth had fallen outside the mouth from the force. The bat pony tried once more, begging on his back hooves for something to eat, even if it was a rotten piece of fruit that had been infested with worms. The farmer had grabbed him by the neck, and said thrown him to the ground, then proceeding to stomp on the broken bones until the wife had finally gotten the courage to ask her husband about the...vermin. She ended up taking his place while he had gotten his neighbors to "join in on the fun." A few minutes more, and the bat pony was dead. They dragged the carcass off to a pile of shrubs, and left him to rot. My father told me my grandfather, Nocturnus, had found out about the carcass from two young bat pony foals who were playing not five yards away and saw the whole thing.

...Every time I try to remember that story, it always ends up being harder to remove from my thoughts entirely.

Celestia had finally had enough after hearing about things like this. She had asked that all the bat ponies in the kingdom to follow her. Nocturnus and 21 other bat ponies did so, hoping for a home away from the hatred and torture. It took a day or so, but she gave us our cave. It wasn't a welcoming cave, but it was nonetheless a home for all of them. My Grandfather thanked her, as did the others. She herself departed, leaving behind several large tomes that could add pages to their bindings and a set of quills that never ran out of ink. They were alone at that point. No ruler to guide them. No hatred from the other breeds. But..

...they had a home.

The next several years were difficult at first. One reason was because of population. There were twenty two bat ponies, my grandfather inlcuded, that had to keep us alive for the rest of our lives. A second one was food. We do not eat meat like the other breeds always thought we did, but fruit. We loved fruit of all kinds. We couldn't stand leaves or oats, but we would digest them all the same. Food was food after all. Luckily for them, they found the moonflowers.

Moonflowers were what we thought were a gift from the Shadowmother. They looked of lillies but glowed a soft white aura that made them appear to be of the moon itself. They were treated, like they are now, as we treat our foals: Love, care, and proper growth. They hated the sunlight and required no water. They grew within the moonlight of the moon. This is why we call them Moonflowers. They are the essence of the Shadowmother herself. What they didn't know was that they had magical properties.

Moonflowers would prolong life. For how long, we did not know, like we do now. Nocturnus saw that we would destroy our gifts from the Shadowmother and her sister, so he brought order to all of us.

He called himself our leader at the time. And like my father and myself, he focused on maintaining tranquility and peace within our culture. Some bat ponies were told to nuture the moonflowers. Others were told to take care of the fruit trees we had found throughout the landscape around the cave. He used the tomes to keep track of all records and events, such as our entries and exits within the world.

Mating was difficult for us. My father did not wish to mate, but he longed for somepony to take his place. He decided on a gentle bat pony mare, and was the only one she would mate with. When he was 307 years of age, my father, Starshroud, was born under the light of a full moon. The Shadowmother had blessed us with hopes for the futures on that fateful day.

The Shadowmother is the pony they call Princess Luna. We do not call her by her true name or her darker form, Nightmare Moon. We always believed we were being watched, as the case is now, by somepony in the shadows. It was her watching us that showed us the Moonflowers. It was her watching that gave us our home after forty years of suffering. It was her that gave us new hopes. I always look at her at night, wondering if she truly is there or down here with us. We all do, for she is our true goddess.

We felt, however, that the Shadowmother was angry with us. When my father had turned twenty, Nocturnus was killed by an unknown creature. We do not know how he died, but we do believe it was the Shadowmother being angry at us. Was it possible that the birth of my father caused this anger? Is it because my grandfather thought about himself than the rest of us when he wished for a son? I can truly never know, for I am not the Shadowmother, but her humble Servant.

When my father took command, he was always putting himself last in everything we did. We were but thirty at the time, not much in the several hundred years that we had been alive. It was his leadership, however, that our food supplies and Moonflowers became far larger then before. We always had ample supply of them both. Yet at the same time, he had achieved a gift somehow.

He was able to become invisible somehow. None of them knew how he was able to do so, nor did her. Pretty soon, other bat ponies were capable of doing the same, though only the descendants of the ones who had eaten the moonflowers several times. We believed, like we still do, that this was a gift from the Shadowmother. We had the abilities of the shadows themselves. Invisibility and silencing our hooves were the only two really, but all the same they are powerful gifts.

"Night Shade! We you need to see this!"

"What is it?"

"It's the newborn. She's..."

"Hang on, I'll be there in a second."

I must stop my tale here. The others need me.

But, Shadowmother, I will leave on this note:

My name is Nightshade, and I am your loyal bat pony.