The Monster in the Twilight

by Georg


Ch. 18 - Dawn

The Monster in the Twilight
Dawn


The faintest pinking of dawn on the horizon only made the inky darkness coiling and slinking about the small town seem darker. Inside the brightly lit town hall, the inhabitants of Ponyville and their unexpected guests drew together in noisy celebration of the unprecedented honor that was about to be visited upon them. No city had ever hosted the Summer Sun Celebration more than two years in a row, and in only an hour, Ponyville would be the first.

Still, there was an undertone of doubt that clung to the walls of the building, echoed by their changeling guests who clung to their new friends with an unnatural intensity, as if they feared losing their friendship as quickly as they had gained it. Certainly, the chilling nervousness that propelled the partygoers to extravagant heights of activity was only due to the darkness. When Princess Celestia arrived, it would quickly vanish as shadows before the sun. Until then, there was cake to eat and punch to be drunk, and much partying to be done, for tomorrow was to happen in just a few minutes.

* * *

“Come on, Trixie. It’s almost time for dawn. Princess Celestia will be here any minute.” The disguised changeling scratched on the side of the dumpster outside the candy shop, finally giving a sigh. “Spike even agreed not to collect the fifty bits you owe on that bet.”

“No.” Trixie’s voice continued to be quite firm, despite coming from inside the trash dumpster while a faint sniffing like suppressed tears underlaid her words. She had been just as obstinate ever since Tallgrass had tracked her emotionally-torn grief into the dark alley, and for most of an hour now it had not mattered if it was the disguised changeling or the lizard trying to talk her out of the bin and back to the party. Still, he had to try.

“Well, if you’re not coming out…” Tallgrass paused before lifting the lid of the dumpster, regretting that the sugar that both ponies and changelings loved so much was also greatly desired by odiferous microorganisms. From the sound of Trixie’s voice, he expected to have to look down into the bottom of the bin. The last thing he expected was to be almost nose-to-nose with a sticky, angry unicorn once the lid was out of the way.

“What do you want?” snapped Trixie in a voice pitched low as not to disturb the dragon, who had decided to sit the end of the alleyway to look for reinforcements, or perhaps some fresh air.

“For starters, a hose and some soap,” said Tallgrass, startled at her sudden sticky appearance with candy wrappers and unmentionable candy debris in her mane. “Look, I can’t tell you why you need to go back to the party. Can you just trust me? Please?”

Trixie’s eyes narrowed, bringing her violet glare to a sharp focus about an inch inside Tallgrass’ head. “Why?”

Being around the mopey unicorn for this long had stretched the emotionally sensitive changeling’s patience to the breaking point. In a blaze of green fire that flickered around the alley, Tallgrass switched forms to his amber-maned earth pony disguise before snarling, “Now you have something on me. Blackmail material, some leverage, a dirty little secret you can use against me. Isn’t that what you want? If you can’t believe anypony would trust you without something to gain, then fine! Here you go. Are you satisfied?”

“You’re a bug.” Trixie blinked, looking perplexed.

“Changeling,” corrected Tallgrass. “And for the next few hours, I’m yours. Your changeling guards passed Princess Cadence’s orders to me before they collapsed for the night. You can have them back at the party, and you never have to see me again. Cross my hea—”

Trixie’s sticky hoof moved lightning-fast to cover Tallgrass’ mouth before he could finish. “Just change back.” This time Trixie watched the transformation intently before taking a deep shuddering breath.

“I had bug hooves on my back at the spa. I had bug. Hooves. On. My. Back. Ick!”

After a momentary hesitation and a second measured glare, Trixie tossed her hat and cape outside the dumpster with a sticky splat before starting to climb out. “Trust, ha! That’s a laugh. Celestia doesn’t trust me. Everypony in Equestria trusts her, but me? I get trusted by a bug.”

Trixie levitated her cloak and hat up to begin running a cleaning spell over them while ignoring the ‘Royal Guard’ standing in the alley, just as if he was a piece of furniture or a dog. “Golden Orb followed every single direction I gave her for this outfit, every stitch, every pocket, every star. And when she was done, she said never to give her credit. At first, I thought she was just being modest.”

She tossed the now-clean clothes across the changeling’s disguised back before Trixie turned her cleaning spell on her own sticky blue hide. “All of the little ponies cheer at my shows and applaud, but afterwards when they come around the dressing room, they don’t see me. They only see a step on the stairs to get to Princess Celestia. All I am is leverage, and a rug to wipe their hooves on.”

The last of the candy wrappers and sticky sludge taken care of, Trixie plucked the cloak off the back of the changeling and slung it across her back, adding the slightly faded hat only once everything was in place. “Trust me? You think just because you flash me some bug skin, I’m supposed to trust you? I’ve been seduced by some of the greatest, I’ll have you know—”

Blushing enough under her skin to turn pink around the cheeks, Trixie turned away and scowled. “Not like that. At least I don’t have to worry about you respecting me in the morning. There probably isn’t going to be a morning.”

With a muttered, “C’est vraiment des conneries!” Trixie stalked out of the alley and back towards the town hall, pausing at the sight of a small purple dragon sleeping curled up next to a bush.

“You get to carry Sleeping Beauty.”

* * *

In the vast caverns beneath Canterlot Castle, the families of the nocturne huddled together for warmth while they waited out the long night. The glow of nervous golden eyes refracted through the darkened crystalline walls like fireflies, reflecting a tension raised to extremes by their natural fear of underground spaces. The hard surfaces of the crystals surrounding the cavern reflected the rustle of leathery wings and faint whispers in echoes that seemed entirely too much like the faint whispers of long-dead ancestors, seduced away to their destruction so many centuries past.

True to their word, steel bars blocked their way to the surface with several sworn-to-secrecy unicorn and earth pony Royal Guards in the Night Guard divisions outside, taking the voluntary confinement of their fellow guards with no minor trepidation. The last few years had seen changes in Princess Celestia far beyond living memory or guard tradition, and a feeling of tension between the diurnal and nocturnal ponies stretched tightly across both inside and outside the bars.

Gathered together in family groups and clans, the nocturne distracted themselves by quietly reading from their Books of Tradition, histories of each clan kept all the way back to the original Night of Creation. Many of the stories and records of their ancient ancestors had not seen the light in centuries, and the families drew together as they were read, only rarely yielding a tense chortle at some of the more outlandish events.

Certain groups of the nocturne inside their voluntary prison were less voluntary than the families of the Night Guard. On rare occasion, one of the clannish pegasi would leave the family, either to start a family of their own outside the clan structure, or because of behavior shunned by the traditionalists. Then there were the others, who never were spoken about inside the family. Criminals. The insane. And the exceedingly rare individual for whom the ancient spell which gave the nocturne their forms had broken down in some fashion.

One of these unfortunate ponies curled up on the cold stone floor by herself, far away from each family group as if she loathed their very presence. Laminia had fled the protection of her clan at a young age to become apprenticed to the Royal Seamstress, a job for which she had quite some talent. Where this night the rest of the nocturne had eventually, if somewhat reluctantly, joined with the clans in their self-imposed imprisonment, the young mare had to be dragged screaming away from her earth pony foster parents. The cause for her separation from the clans was not obvious in the dim lighting of the prison, despite the mare’s half-webbed, half-feathered wing which dragged on the ground beside her. The birth defect was one which her home clan had been willing to overlook, but her outlandish behavior was not. One look in her shining golden eyes tonight showed the knowledge of Luna’s return that all the nocturnal pegasi had accepted, but there was also something else there. A glint of madness fed by fear and loneliness, which could only be sated by sacrifice.

* * *

The cool night air between Canterlot and Ponyville slid through Princess Celestia’s wings in broad, smooth strokes. At this altitude, it was almost possible to think of her entire life as a dream, where the only reality was air against her face and stars above her. They were a flighty lot, even more prone to flights of panic than her own beloved ponies. Luna had loved them individually, and could tell when even a single one had wandered from his or her appointed place in the sky. Holding back fate for two years had made them grumpy and irritable like cranky nobleponies in a hot committee room without coffee. Now they seemed to whisper to each other behind her back, terrified of what was to come and unwilling to accept her guidance. They knew what she had done to her own sister. After all, they had watched the event in such unspeaking horror that it had taken her centuries to get them to calm down.

The monster who wore her sister’s body like some obscene puppet was returning, and they fairly trembled in the sky with terror at what was to come.

If circumstances had been reversed so long ago, Luna most certainly would have found another way to contain her sister. She would not have locked Celestia away in the sun for millennia. She would have been able to destroy the Nightmare. She would have been able to save Celestia, unlike Celestia’s bungled attempt to save Luna with the Elements.

Even if the worst happened, even if Luna were truly alive when Celestia dragged them all into her beloved sun to be locked away forever, at least they would be together at long last.

The brightly lit town hall drew near too quickly for her tangled thoughts, so Celestia dropped silently into the darkened back plaza. She had only selected Ponyville for her final encounter with Nightmare a few years ago on a whim, after seeing something special about this small town when she had flown in on a routine visit. The town had lifted her spirits in the times she needed it most. Here the apples tasted crisper, the birds sung louder, the sky was brighter, and there was a sense of friendship like nowhere else that filled her heart with joy and shed light into even the worst of her days. Plus the baker made the most amazing cakes.

When she had sent Trixie here on that first Summer Sun Celebration, Celestia had hoped in her heart that perhaps, despite her repeated failures, maybe her student could finally make friends in this place where friendship was so plentiful. There was no need to even use magic to look for her student tonight. From the happy sounds filtering out of the party going on inside town hall, Trixie was far away. The muffled music and the singing of the townsponies seemed to clash so horribly with Celestia’s memories of that terrible night, but they held back the ghosts—

Until she felt the Nightmare leap free from the moon and begin her long descent into Equestria.

Despair and anguish crushed in on all sides of the alicorn princess as a voice as clear as crystal whispered into her ear.

I’m coming for you, Celestia.

There would only be a few minutes until she arrived. All of the pain and agony inside her immortal breast seemed to swell to a breaking point, a thousand years of pain brought to a single moment. She had not sung a word since Luna had fallen, but now the pressure was too great, and she gently lifted her voice to the frightened stars in memory of her lost sister.

Ask not the sun why she sets⁽*⁾
Why she shrouds her light away

* * *

The five small ponies and their pink ‘alicorn’ guardian paused in their stealthy progress around the back of town hall, frozen in fascination at the ethereal voice lifting softly over the moonlit plaza. It took them only a few quick steps to find who was singing so beautifully in the shadows, and the young ponies froze into immobility upon seeing a painfully thin Princess Celestia with her head thrown back, tears streaming unrestrained from closed eyes as she poured out her heart to the sky in mournful song.

“Is she a ghost?” whispered Scootaloo.

“She is no spirit of the dead, my little friend. She sings in sorrow of her end.” Matching tears dripped from the end of the disguised zebra’s nose as she lowered her head in respect, only to twitch slightly when a trembling purple hoof from inside the blanket-wrapped bundle in the wagon poked her gently in one leg, then pointed to the mournful monarch.

Or why she hides her glowing gaze
When night turns crimson gold to grey

* * *

Trixie stumbled on the path when the faint song rose into the air, her stumble matched almost exactly by her ‘Royal Guard’ tagging along in her wake with a sleeping dragon on his back. The voice stung her to the core. It was impossible to study at the side of the immortal Princess Celestia for twelve years without learning just how little you could really know about the ancient alicorn. Every time Trixie had thought she understood how the princess’ mind worked, it was like going around a corner and seeing an entirely new world.

For silent falls the guilty sun
As day to dark does turn

Still, she had at least thought there were a few things Trixie understood about the princess, one of which was her voice. During all her years of training, Princess Celestia had never raised that voice in song even once, be it a birthday party, or at Hearth’s Warming. Instead, while everypony else sang, she had just sat with that frustratingly calm expression across her entire face like a perfect mask. Part of the art of the stage was being able to ‘read’ ponies, and while Trixie was fully fluent, against Celestia she was illiterate as a newborn.

“Take Spike into the party,” ordered Trixie, only half-looking at Tallgrass or she would have seen his look of fear while he stared up into the sky at the stars. “I need to go take care of something. I promise I’ll be right back.”

Without even a glance back at her guard, Trixie began to trot with hesitant steps towards the shadows behind the town hall, before vanishing into the darkness without a trace.

One simple truth she dare not speak:
Her light can only blind and burn

* * *

The low murmur of conversations between the nocturne in their prison ceased almost simultaneously, with the small family groupings clustering even tighter together for warmth against the sudden chill that gripped the cavern.

Slowly, one after another, they began to hum a long, low note while the individual family groups gathered. Charcoal-grey bodies pressed against each other with their dragon-like wings, drawing together even the most standoffish of the clans, until every nocturne lumped together in one large grey mass for mutual support. All except for one mare, who stubbornly remained huddled by herself away from the rest, shivering with the cold until she tilted her head back and began to softly croon.

No mercy for the guilty
Bring down their lying sun

Suddenly bursting into a shriek of rage, the crippled nocturne mare galloped to the locked gate, flinging herself against the bars with reckless abandon and a horrible crunching noise that shook loose small flecks of dust from the ceilings. Several of the Night Guard dashed after her, unable to catch the frenzied mare before she crashed into the bars yet again with an unearthly scream. Two of the guards launched themselves into flying tackles, only to be flung away as the mare twisted with hysterical strength, bringing both steel-shod rear hooves crashing into one armored chest while catching the other a crushing blow across the face with her bloodied deformed wing.

Dropping on top of her and wrapping the frantic mare with all four limbs and his wings, Pumpernickel hung on for his life. She twisted underneath him in rage, clawing at the unwanted embrace and making him wince when Laminia flung herself backwards and smashed him into the blood-smeared bars. “She’ll kill you!” he shouted before being smashed into the unyielding bars, holding on for his life even while a medical pony holding a syringe in his mouth dashed forward. “She’ll drain you dry just like she did our ancestors!”

“I don’t care!” The mare thrashed in white-eyed fury, pinning the clinging guard against the bars of their prison as the medical pony darted in. “I want to die for her!”

“Got her!” shouted the medical pony before the mare lashed out one iron-shod hoof, nearly catching him on the helmet.

“That’s my ass, you ass!” bellowed Pumpernickel, heaving his uncooperative captive to one side and holding her with grim determination. “I’m not going to let you do this! I won’t let you kill yourself!”

Laminia gave a shriek as the medical pony jammed a needle in her rump. With a vengeful kick that was fractionally too late, she caught the medic a glancing blow on his helmet that sent him skidding away across the stone floor. “Let me go to her! Let me go!”

“No!” The bulky guard began to cry while he held the struggling mare, not relenting one iota in his grip even after the sedative began to affect them both. “I won’t lose you.”

The surrounding nocturne remained at a distance while the two ponies slowly began to slip into drugged slumber, clutching each other almost as secret lovers while tears trickled down their cheeks. Laminia’s voice rose in a whisper as the darkness closed in around her:

Blood so silver, black by night
Upon their faces pale white

* * *

In absolute silence, a series of grass blades bent and straightened in the shadows behind the Ponyville town hall. Each blade popped back up as the unseen pony that trod it down departed, with the tiny flicker of pale pink that straightened it the only sign Trixie had ever passed by. As the invisible hoofsteps rounded the building, Princess Celestia came into view first, her head raised to the sky with her dull pink mane lying lifelessly along her painfully slender neck. A gasp almost escaped Trixie at seeing her teacher so wasted and exhausted without the concealing garments she had hidden beneath for so many months. Tears were streaming down Celestia’s sunken cheeks and brought little splashes of color to her dull mane while she sang, lost in the music of the spheres.

A hesitant movement drew Trixie’s attention, and caused her to draw in a breath with a sharp, angry hiss. The tiny terrorists who had caused her life such pain were creeping up to Princess Celestia’s moment of private agony, both pushing and pulling on that deadly wagon they used to carom through the streets on their missions of destruction. Something sizeable was loaded inside and covered by a blanket, most probably explosive, poisonous, or odoriferous. Bringing up the rear of the parade was a larger pink pony, most probably their accomplice, Pinkie Pie—

Trixie blinked and sharpened her observation spell. There was no way Cadence could be out there. The Princess of Lovey Smooches had flown south with Prince Iron Flank for their vacation home of — oh, obviously another changeling.

It had picked a darned peculiar disguise, though. Princess Cadence had not worn her mane in a ponytail for over a decade, or been seen in Ponyville without her armor, both the metal and stallion variety. So how did the bug copy her image from ten years ago?

Had she been closer, Trixie would have hustled the little pests and their pet bug away from the distraught princess. The dread in her heart at the nearness of the hour combined with her distance to stop the student in her tracks, simply to watch. Perhaps their presence would bring some peace to the old alicorn on the eve of her battle with the Nightmare.

The unearthly song finally ended, strangely incomplete when Celestia lowered her head with eyes still closed. In the deadly silence that followed, not even a single insect could be heard in the darkened courtyard, only the gentle blowing of an unusually cool breeze and the faint dripping of her tears. Without looking at her young audience, Princess Celestia rasped, “Children. It is not safe for you. Go back inside. Now!”

Trixie moved forward, dropping the invisibility spell in preparation for moving the little ungrateful twerps out of the line of upcoming fire. Five shrill voices all speaking at once made for a terrible din, causing Celestia to turn even farther away from the pesky little ponies until a deep, vibrant voice cut through the chatter like a sword.

“Oh Wise One of the Sky, I implore. My daughter is wise in ways of lore. Your path from here is critical to her, so the worst of dooms does not occur.”

Both distant student and nearby teacher looked at the pink ‘alicorn’: one with interest and the other in open-jawed amazement. Stumbling slightly, Princess Celestia got to her hooves and bowed her head incrementally at ‘Cadence,’ only to be met by a much deeper bow.

Celestia took a deep breath and while turning her head fractionally to look the five little ponies surrounding the wagon, managed to stammer, “Y-you are not Cadence. Who are you?”

“A stinking bug,” muttered Trixie, picking up her pace.

“I am not a Wise One of the Sky’s kin,” stated the pink alicorn. “This is but an illusion across my skin.” One pink hoof touched gently upon the blanket heaped on the wagon, pausing for a moment before pulling it back.

Trixie skidded to a halt a few paces away, with the words she had planned on saying frozen in her dry throat. There was no mistaking that face or those eyes, even with the purple fuzz covering her body, or the snow-white pointed horn protruding from her head.

Twilight Sparkle.

The last time she had seen the destructive little fiend was over a decade ago, while Trixie had been hiding in a doorway to watch Twilight’s entrance exam. The not so Great and Powerful Trixie had failed so badly at hatching the dragon, humiliated beyond words after having boasted to all the other little colts and fillies so much in the waiting room.

The only way to assuage her wounded childish pride was to see another humbled as thoroughly as she had been humbled, standing before the smoking wagon, the unhatched dragon’s egg mocking her despite all the fireworks she had thrown at it. Twilight Sparkle had ignored her in the waiting room, preferring the company of a book to her fellow students. She was to be the one to pay for Trixie’s failure.

Her words of scorn and derision had been all prepared when the burst of rainbow light had turned her dream of vengeance into a nightmare of falling stone blocks and screaming. She could still feel the warm scales of the baby dragon as she pulled them both into the concealment of a niche between two giant stones, trying to ignore the screaming outside and the sharp smell of fire while huge stones fell all around them. Even now, she felt the irrational urge to hug the little scaled menace for reassurement while curling up in a ball.

Instead of fear, the Princess of the Sun seemed to waken from a long sleep. A wave of ripples swept through her dull pink mane, flowing from head to tail in a cascade of pastel magenta and violets that softly lit the darkness while a warm smile crept onto her face in small steps, as if the muscles had fallen out of practice. “Twilight Sparkle. Thank the stars. And you have friends.”

The fuzzy purple unicorn did not respond, simply remaining frozen in place on the wagon with two stubs of what looked like licorice sticking out of her mouth. The trembling that had made the wagon seem to be jittering before intensified, even after all five of her friends and the alicorn rested a hoof or two on her for reassurance.

“Please, my Flower. Control your fears. This one is wise beyond our years.” The pink alicorn remained standing with head bowed, one hoof on her ‘Flower’s’ back until, unable to swallow the licorice, Twilight let the unchewed parts fall from her dry lips.

“Run,” she finally managed to croak.

Celestia swallowed, with a short glance at Trixie that held nothing but love and compassion. “I’m sorry, Twilight. I can not leave my little ponies to face this… creature of my own creation.”

“Thou. Shouldst. Run.” The purple unicorn gasped each word out individually as if they were agonizing, and Princess Celestia recoiled back, her face gone suddenly pale.

Almost as if she feared the answer, Princess Celestia lowered her head and whispered, “Where did you hear that, my child?”

“Dream. Yesterday.”

“Oh, Luna.” A ripple traveled through Princess Celestia’s mane, leaving it flowing behind her in a cascade of vibrant pastels that Trixie had not seen in years. Ages fell from her immortal face when she spread her broad wings, even while a wave of cold air burst from the sky.

“Children. Go with Trixie. She knows where to take you. Hurry.” There was a strident note of command in the princess’ voice that had the little ponies and their pink guardian moving in Trixie’s direction before she realized what was happening. As they passed, Celestia looked at the frightened unicorn in the wagon. “Bring back my sister, Twilight Sparkle. I know you can.”

Before Trixie could open her mouth to ask just what exactly she was supposed to be doing with the little menaces, the wind picked up into a strong roar and dark clouds began to swirl in the sky.

Trixie decided to get a little more distance.

The swirling darkness in the sky began to coalesce into a smoky form, first with two turquoise glows from the creature’s eyes, impossibly cold and distant in oval shapes like a cat, or dragon. An ebon horn fully as long as Celestia’s crowned its cruel face, wrapped in cerulean armor as the rest of the alicorn emerged into the moonlight. A wave of arctic air spilled down, rolling over the moist grass in little crystalline sparkles that matched the specks of starlight captured in the creature’s roiling mane of shadows.

In one smooth motion, Princess Celestia rose to interpose her body in front of the creature Trixie immediately assumed to be Nightmare Moon. Even as thin and wasted as Celestia had become, there was still a power and majesty in her motions that froze Trixie and her young charges before they got around the edge of the town hall.

“Hello, Celestia,” purred Nightmare Moon with a leer. “Miss me?”

“Hello, sister.” The voice of Princess Celestia was as soft as a lover, without a hint of tears.

“Sing for us, Celestia.” The gaze of the ebon alicorn traveled to the small cluster of frightened ponies. “Sing for your pitiful little subjects. You have not completed our song. After all, they should know how this ends.”

Seeing no response to her taunt, Nightmare Moon glided to a landing in the plaza, gave a toothy smile, and lifted her voice.

Cruel moon, bring the end
The dawn will never rise again

Celestia rose into the sky, a golden force of pure power and light as the sun rose behind her.

“You are already defeated. Goodbye, Luna. You shall be free soon.”

The sun flared behind the Princess of the Sun, and Celestia was gone.


(*) Daylight’s End, written by RiotRunaan , music by Praeco


Credit Russiankolz at Deviantart