The Monster in the Twilight
Nocturne
Dawn approached. The time had come. There was no more delaying.
Princess Celestia got up from her desk, with the habits of a lifetime making her cap the inkwell to prevent it from drying out despite the ultimate futility of the action. Likewise, she slid the white dress off her thin shoulders like a snake shedding its skin, gently folding in her magic and placing it across the bedstand for a morning that would not happen.
Only for a moment did she pause with the thought of likewise shedding her crown and the rest of her regalia onto the floor. Naked she had come into this world, but naked she would not leave as long as there was breath in her body. There was meaning in everything she was to carry to her end.
Her golden shoes, the most comfortable she had in centuries, had been fitted to each hoof individually and enchanted to remain firmly in place no matter her physical condition. Since her first shoes, those gentle hooves had worn out uncounted pairs of the finest steel ever to pass an earth pony farrier’s hammer, but Celestia always remembered the reverence each of them had treated the humble task, and their insistence that the job be done as perfectly as possible.
The golden crown resting like lead on her brow was supposedly made from the gold Unicornia had salvaged during their ancient flight to Equestria, forged by Princess Platinum herself, or at least by unicorns in her employ, and reforged by the most talented unicorns every few centuries since. The weight varied by the reforging, and with the amount of gold poured into the task, she doubted more than a few bits of the original remained, although the pageantry with which the unicorns treated the task was a constant reminder of how they intermingled appearances and reality.
Only her peytral of office was still the original, made by the warriors of the pegasi from a single piece of metal taken from each clan leader’s helm to signify their obedience and presented by the famous Commander Hurricane. He had bent the knee before her where none of their kind had done before, and refused to make even the smallest of concessions to her authority. Although there was a slight edge to one of the pieces that scratched at her neck during more tense moments in diplomatic negotiations, she had left it unaltered and abrasive, much like the ponies he represented.
The weight of all of them dragged at her thin shoulders, weighing down her head and hooves with far more than simple gold and steel. It would be a burden she would gladly carry on this one last and final trip. Cadence would be better off making her own symbols of office without the shame and disgrace these carried.
As she turned to leave, Celestia hesitated before blowing out the light at her desk. It was a simple lamp, gifted to her by Trixie after one of her more spectacular failures had claimed its predecessor, but it filled the room with an intense light and banished the shadows while it burned. Ultimately, it was much like Trixie, and would soon exhaust the meager amount of fuel it would hold, allowing the darkness to return, as it always did. In defiance, she turned the flame down to conserve its fuel, but decided to let the lamp burn after she departed.
Let it die like a princess, one solitary light, burning to banish the darkness until it consumes itself and allows the world to go dark. Or until another comes to bring the light again.
“Princess of the Sun,” said a relatively quiet, familiar voice behind her. “Your subjects hereby request an audience with you about issues of the greatest importance.”
A cold chill went up her flanks at the sound of those formal words, delivered in a way she had not heard in centuries. Turning towards the shadowed window, she looked down at a charcoal-grey nocturne pegasus in the armor of the Night Guard within her room. His dragon-like wings were flattened to either side, and his golden eyes closed while lying prostrate before her. Only the slow movements of his sides showed he was alive.
“Begone,” she managed to say. “I command it.”
“By ties of blood and bone we are your subjects. The magic of your sister created us, and we live to serve her will. You are bone of her bone, flesh of her flesh, you speak with her voice, and we do as you command. A second time we call out to you, hear our plea.”
Behind the Night Guard, the darkness of the night swelled ever so slightly to reveal a host of nocturne laying upon their faces in the same exact posture as the first. There was no need to count them; she knew exactly how many there were. Forty-three. Male and female. The exact number of surviving nocturne foals who had been spared from Nightmare Moon’s spell almost exactly a thousand years ago.
Plus one.
On that dreadful night, there had been a single newly-created nocturne colt who had resisted the siren call of his creator. Instead, he had gathered the youngest and most vulnerable in order to flee the charnel pit that Celestia’s fight with Nightmare Moon had become. He succeeded, but at the cost of his own life. In respect for his sacrifice, over the centuries the nocturne had only granted three of their members the honor of bearing his name.
The weight of heroic expectations had been too much for two of them, who had both perished in tragic attempts to follow their ancestor’s honored hoofsteps. This last one was her youngest Night Guard, and his unswerving commitment to her service regardless of the consequences reminded her constantly of his long-dead namesake.
“Pumpernickel, please,” she whispered, unable to take her eyes off them. Unwelcome memories of that cursed night thought long buried danced in front of her eyes in ghoulish clarity. The nocturne revered their ancestors, naming each of their kind after a follower of Luna who had been slain in that terrible night when Nightmare Moon came into her power. Over the long years, she had never been able to speak with any of them without seeing their long-dead ancestor in her memory. The innocent pony who Celestia had killed by her hesitation.
Celestia backed up a step. “Don’t do this. I can’t do this. Please.”
The bulky nocturnal pegasus took a deep breath before speaking again. She could see the dry tracks of tears on his muzzle, although they did not affect his resonating tenor voice in the slightest. “Our lives are yours to command. We live or die at your word. A third time we call out to you, hear our plea.”
Absolute silence filled the room, holding Celestia and the guard in a frozen tableau until the clouds parted outside the window. The resulting shimmering beams of moonlight made shadows dance across the floor as if they were alive, the restless ghosts of uncounted generations of the nocturnal pegasi and all others consumed in the darkness of that terrible night.
“Rise, faithful servants.” Celestia lifted her head high with a strength she did not know she still possessed as the nocturne guards and servants silently rose to their hooves and stood with eyes downcast. “Speak.”
Although he rose to his hooves with the rest, the Night Guard in front of her remained with head downcast, scarcely moving a muscle except for his mouth. “As your faithful servants, we offer our lives to you, in this darkest of nights, as you go forth to set our Princess of the Night free. We beg of you, accept our service.”
“No. The Nightmare will consume you, as she did your ancestors. I cannot accept your offer. You must remain behind.” Memory of that night danced in the shadows behind Celestia, deaths beyond number doomed to happen again.
“We know.” The absolute certainty of his voice made Celestia tighten with nervous tension, only to relax when he continued. “When you battle our ancient foe, every nocturne in Equestria shall be locked away behind bars of steel, unable to respond to her summons. Our strength must not be used against you, who saved us all.”
“So you would offer me assistance you knew I would not accept.” Celestia’s eyes glittered in the dim lamplight and the ghost of a smile played on her aged face. “I would commend your loyalty.”
“There is yet one more service we would give unto you. Know that your sister still lives.”
All of the warmth Celestia had felt drained away into despair. “Luna is dead. I know that now.”
“As long as we live, we bear witness to her power,” Pumpernickel recited as if repeating a well-memorized text. “Our flesh and blood were shaped by Luna, we but reflect her glory as the moon doth reflect the sun. None would dare call you mother to our race, but it was by her actions we were born, and it was for her sins we shall serve the Crown in the hope of redemption until the last star goes out and the sun gutters into darkness.”
Still with head bowed, the Night Guard refused to meet her eyes. “Your sister made us, the three races of the Night, before the Nightmare consumed our brethren. We say this in memory of their loss too. You are only her sister, but we are more than her children. On the Night of Creation, Nightmare Moon’s power transformed our bodies, but Luna passed on a tiny spark of her soul to each of our ancestors. If she were dead, we would know it in our hearts. She lives.”
Words failed Celestia for the longest time. When she finally could speak, it was only with a raspy voice within a hairsbreadth of breaking into tears.
“You meant to bring peace to my soul, with the knowledge that my sister still lives. Instead you bring me ashes, as now I must kill Luna in order to save all of my beloved ponies. You meant well, as I did then, but please. Pray for my success, and mourn for the both of us. That is all I will ask of you. Do not hate me. Forgive me.”
Pumpernickel finally looked up to meet her immortal gaze. “No, My Princess. We shall not forgive you, for there is nothing to forgive. We know within our hearts that you will be victorious, and bring our Princess of the Night back to us once more.”
There was nothing she could say in return. The nocturne slid away from her path when she stepped to the balcony. Across Canterlot, in every shadow of every tower and building, she could see the glow of trusting golden eyes. Waiting. Watching. Believing.
Princess Celestia spread her wings and slowly flew off into the darkness to kill her sister.