//------------------------------// // I.7 - Night is Unforgiving // Story: Night // by Revenant Wings //------------------------------// I received no information from anyone for over a week. Luna didn’t teach me, Celestia didn’t speak with me, Shining Armor continued his silence towards me and Cadence became more difficult to reach. Some of the guards realized that I holed myself up in my room and started to bring me food during breakfast and dinner; Revenant Wings brought me breakfast and return to pick up the dishes afterwards, and Thomas Scott from the night guard brought me dinner an hour after the usual time, likely so as not to upset anyone. Thankfully, it appeared that few others knew about the events that had transpired during my lesson with Princess Luna and few came to speak with me about it so I was left in silence. The only problem was I had begun to experience frightening nightmares. Things included becoming possessed and going up to the highest tower of Canterlot Castle and throwing myself off, taking a log from the fire in the hall and lighting myself on fire, and finding the lances that the Royal Guard used and stabbing myself with it. Some of the worst, however, were reliving the experiences that had transpired that night in the observatory and I would wake up in the morning feeling even guiltier than I ever had. Knowing that Luna was the ruler of dreams and night, I had more than just a feeling that Luna was the culprit behind the dreams I was experiencing. It wasn’t until Thursday the week after the incident that I finally received a communication from Revenant Wings soon after I had returned the breakfast plates; I was to meet with Princess Celestia in a private wing of the castle. He didn’t explain the reasons behind it, though I knew very well what she would be talking with me about. Not wanting to prolong my misery, I followed Revenant out of the room and down the halls to a small passageway off the main hall. The passage led across a bridge to a tower in the back of the palace overlooking the gardens. We soon came to a door with a motif of the sun on it in a similar style to Princess Celestia’s cutie mark when Revenant stopped. “I know not what the issue is,” Revenant said to me, “but I can’t go in there and have been told I cannot listen in. I leave you here, but wish you luck. A word of warning: the Princess is on edge today.” That didn’t sound good. Revenant saluted me with a hoof and bade me farewell, leaving and walking to the edge of the passageway and stopping there, well out of hearing range. I opened the heavy door and walked inside to see Princess Celestia sitting on a large pillow next to a glowing hearth. Luna was standing in the corner where the light of the hearth did not reach and was nearly eclipsed by the shadow with the exception of the glowing moon on her crown and cutie mark and the whites of her eyes. Celestia motioned for me to approach and I walked slowly forward, wondering what sort of punishment I was to receive. “Good morning, Nemo,” Princess Celestia said. “I heard about the incident during Princess Luna’s teaching session when you hit her. Luna has told me her version of the story, but I would like for you to tell me yours.” I could plead my case… “Luna has been giving me absurd amounts of homework. I work night and day to complete it by the time she wants it to be done, but I could not finish it due to the fact that I was exhausted from staying up all night attempting to complete it. This past Wednesday when I went to class I didn’t have my homework finished and Luna was disapproving of me. So, we got into an argument with Luna talking about how I wasn’t doing my homework and me talking about how I didn’t want to be here in the first place. I started comparing my time here to Luna being banished as Nightmare Moon” [Luna growled here and Celestia started to look panicked] “to which Luna used the Royal Canterlot Voice and blew me out of my chair. When I told her I didn’t remember any of my past life, she used a memory spell on me but the shock was too much and I started flailing. I hit her by accident.” Celestia nodded and fell silent in thought for a while. “I have come to a decision about what I am to do with you.” “I deserve whatever punishment I receive,” I told Celestia, kneeling in front of her with my head to the floor. “I dare say your dreams have been punishment enough,” Princess Celestia said in such a gentle tone I was shocked into standing upright. “Luna tells me how you constantly dream about the incident over the past week and never in a positive light; your guilt over the incident, combined with the fact that it was an accident caused by flailing and that Luna shouldn’t have used the spell in the first place is quite enough.” “So… no prison, no banishment, no hard labor?” Celestia laughed. “No. I may have made some mistakes in the past, but I need to correct them. Some mistakes cannot be corrected, but at the moment I can try to fix what is still here and things I hope I can still fix.” “Which means…?” “I do not blame you either for your guilt or your anger with me. I have done wrong. For now, continue your sessions with Luna and I will continue storing energy for the spell to send you back.” I knelt on the floor and hung my head again, this time in gratitude that I was still alive and okay. “Thank you, Princess.” Luna scowled and walked out of the room without a word. “I have one more thing to say.” I looked at Princess Celestia, confused. “What is it?” “Shining Armor has been worried about you. He says you’ve been hiding in your room for the past week and refused to come out even to eat. He’ll be glad to see that you’re out and walking again. He’s currently training the guard in the barracks if you want to see him.” “I certainly shall,” I responded. I leapt up off the floor and dashed out of the room and out of the passageway. I followed the hallways to the dining hall, then retraced my steps from my first week from the dining hall to the barracks. Shining Armor was finishing up training his recruits and was sending them to the showers, though he himself was sitting in the stands around the training field. As soon as I caught sight of him, I sprinted towards him. “Shining Armor!” I called. “Shining Armor!” Shining’s ears perked up as I approached him and turned around to face me. He was surprised for a second, but as soon as he realized it was me approaching him he charged and leapt at me, tackling me hard in my ribs and laughing as he collapsed on my chest. “Nemo!” he exclaimed. “Oh, thank Celestia you’re okay!” “Literally,” I quipped, finding it a little hard to breathe. Shining Armor seemingly didn’t hear me. “I was so worried once I heard about your session with Luna, even more so when I heard you holed yourself up in your room. Thank Celestia you’re okay!” “Yes, yes, it’s all well and good. Could you at least stop nuzzling me and get off me so I can breathe?” Shining went red in the face and immediately got up. “Sorry. Got a little over–enthusiastic there. But I really am glad you’re okay. Cadence was worried about you, too, especially after that conversation you had with her.” “Yeah…” Shining Armor pawed at the ground absentmindedly with his hoof. “Look, I’m sorry about going along with Celestia’s plan. I wouldn’t have done it if I realized how much I’d hurt you. But now, I really do want to be your friend and hope you can be my friend in return.” I smiled at Shining Armor and held out a hand in a fist. Shining Armor smiled back and touched my fist with his hoof and he shook it. That night, to celebrate, Shining Armor took me to the pub from my first week and got us plastered. I woke up the next morning from a dreamless sleep with a headache, nausea, and a glass of water and two aspirin on my bedside table. * * * My schooling sessions with Princess Luna resumed as normal the following Sunday evening. She begrudgingly accepted the late homework for the second chapter and moved onwards to chapter three, which had fewer assignments than chapter two for reasons I at first could not define considering she was angrier with me and had a shorter temper with me than ever before. Yet she did not lash out at me as often as she had done before and I questioned why that was even though there was no one else in the room. However, the sun was staying up longer in the sky and it took longer for night to fall on those nights I had to attend the sessions, and every time Princess Luna had to look up at me she would see the sun setting in the distance and almost immediately hold back whatever criticism she had of me at that moment. Not a word was passed between Princess Celestia and Princess Luna at the table for breakfast and dinner, but many accusatory glances came from Princess Luna, while Celestia would just sit there and smile like nothing was wrong, which only made Luna more infuriated. Chapter three passed without much incident and the homework for it was turned in on time. When I came back to my room on Thursday after the evening session, I found a stack of papers outside my door; they turned out to be the homework assignments for both chapters that were heavily graded in a dark blue ink and a bright gold. The dark blue ink was more rigid and criticizing than the gold ink, which comprised of flowing letters that often were praising or constructive criticism. It didn’t take me long to figure out that Celestia had taken the papers Luna would have originally given back to me with little more than an average score and made her own corrections, changing it to above average. Not bad considering the memories Luna had shown me. On Friday evening I once again went out with Shining Armor and the guard to the pub, though there was a surprise this time: Cadence ended up going out along with us. Once again Shining ordered a tankard of honey cider for the table, while Cadence ended up ordering a petite glass of what she deemed an ‘ice wine’, a golden liquid much like the cider but with a more bitter taste. She wasn’t too shabby at darts either; she beat Shining Armor and Revenant Wings by herself. Another game was in progress with me and Revenant Wings on one team and Shining Armor and Cadence on another when Shining brought up the question of how my sessions with Princess Luna were coming along. “They’re coming along,” I responded, finishing my first tankard of cider. “She hasn’t exploded at me again, but I can tell she hates how I got off the hook for hitting her.” “It was an accident,” Shining Armor reassured me. “And besides, Celestia’s right; Luna didn’t have the right to use the memory spell that forcefully on you.” “It’s good to hear Luna hasn’t gotten too much worse, though,” Cadence remarked. “I’ve heard Celestia was going to try and sit in on some of the sessions to make sure Luna didn’t do something so rash again.” “It must be working,” Shining Armor remarked. “Every night Nemo’s gone lately, the sun has been up for an hour longer than usual. Usually it’s dark before the session is over.” “What do you mean by that?” I asked. “Celestia’s version of sitting in on one of your sessions is to position the sun so that it points through the observatory window,” Cadence said. “That way, she can watch Luna using the sun as a sort of seeing device. Luna has the same power with the moon.” “What about you?” “None of the sort; I don’t exactly have a celestial body my cutie mark matches up with.” I threw a dart at the board and missed my intended target by a significant margin. “Do you think Luna is mad because I’m getting special privileges?” “Maybe,” Revenant replied. “It’s like you don’t have any real business there to her when Celestia has specifically stated that your time being spent mostly in the castle is to assure ponies that you’re okay in addition to keeping an eye on you. She doesn’t pay much attention to us guards when we walk about the castle and only talks to us when she needs us to fetch something or someone she doesn’t immediately have time for, but she doesn’t mind us in the castle because we’re on duty. Even small excursions inside the castle when off duty and she can go berserk.” “She needs to learn things aren’t the same as they were a thousand years ago,” Shining Armor said. “Princess Celestia was able to bring Equestria to a state of stability and peace that has been maintained for nearly a thousand years until a few years ago when Twilight Sparkle was sent to Ponyville.” “Wouldn’t it be considered treason to talk like that?” I asked, a little nervous about where the conversation had gone. “Not when you have someone here who sympathizes,” Cadence replied, pointing a hoof at herself. “Not to mention Celestia agrees with these ideas. Ever since the Changeling attack two years ago, she’s been finding ways for Luna to get more involved in domestic matters. Of course, no one can tell whether or not it’s working.” I eyed Cadence suspiciously and threw my last dart. It landed right on target. “What do you think Luna would have happened if I didn’t hit her?” “It wouldn’t be so much a matter of Luna doing anything to you than it would be you going mad from so much information coming back at one time,” Cadence said. Shining Armor nodded his agreement. “Think of it. All those memories coming back to you at once and your head might not be able to handle the sudden influx of information. For now, it’s probably a good idea to let the events of what happened back then come back naturally.” I nodded outwardly, but inside I felt the information was coming back slower than it had been before. “Have you discovered anything else?” Cadence asked. I didn’t want to speak about it, so I shook my head. “No. I… haven’t remembered anything.” Cadence and Shining Armor looked at me like they knew I was hiding something. They didn’t pry into the issue any further, with Shining Armor in particular deciding to leave the issue alone if I didn’t want to. Cadence, however, remained curious but didn’t ask me anymore. It wasn’t until later that night, when we had returned to the castle and the other guards had separated from our company, did Cadence pull me aside from Shining Armor and took me to a small parlor area near the entrance. Shining Armor went back to his and Cadence’s quarters by the pink alicorn’s request and left us alone in the parlor room, where Cadence invited me to sit down with her in front of a small fire. “I know about the memory that Luna revealed to you from Celestia,” Cadence said. “Why didn’t you tell Shining Armor or myself about it?” “Because I was afraid to. Everything else so far has been somewhat happy about back then, but that was something I might have tried to block out even back home. I’ve been doing well enough with Luna’s sessions and thought I was doing okay, but then that showed up and I’m kind of afraid of it happening again.” Cadence wrapped her hooves around me in a hug and I just sort of sat in one place and didn’t fight it, but I didn't hug her back. “It’s okay. It’s not that big of a deal. While the past is something we need to remember and embrace as a part of ourselves, we can also work towards making the future better. Perhaps the time you’re taking for Luna’s work proves you are ready to try and move on from that.” Cadence released me from the hug but put a hoof on my chest. “You’ve got a good heart in you, Nemo. You just need the time to let it come out and be willing to open up again.” “I just feel so conflicted,” Nemo said. “This place isn’t home, but I’ve found people… um, ponies here who are willing to help me out and make it kind of feel like home. It’s just… it still doesn’t feel right.” Cadence gave a small, sad smile. “Just remember this: ultimately, it isn’t me, or Shining Armor, or Luna, or even Princess Celestia who decides where you belong. If you don’t think here is where you belong, you’ll be free to go back home when Celestia gathers the magic to take you back home.” I was able to give a small smile back in return. Cadence got up and started walking out of the room. “I should go rejoin Shining Armor. It was fun heading out on the town tonight. I think I might head with you guys more often… Anyways, good night, Nemo.” Then she walked out of the room and left me alone. I left for my own room a few minutes later. I was too tired to take my clothes off from that night and soon fell into a dreamless sleep. * * * Luna seemed particularly angry the following week when I went in for classes. I had little idea why until I remembered what the subject of chapter four was: relations between Equestrians and the first humans to set foot on the land that led into the arrival and reign of Discord. Luna seemed to speak with a particular malice throughout the lessons for that week. The subject matter seemed fine – a few humans were let through initially due to large concentrations of magical energy outside Canterlot. The humans adapted fine and, after spending a small amount of time in Equestria, left. Magical anomalies appeared that caused more humans to appear, but some of these humans thrived on destruction. Those who liked being in Equestria stayed and helped capture and contain those who thrived on destruction, but the chaos they caused was too much; Discord was eventually summoned and began his reign of terror, killing most of the humans and a large amount of the ponies. At the end of the week, I turned in my homework and thought that our discussion of chapter four was finished, but Luna apparently hadn’t finished. “This book fails to explain some of the consequences humans had to the Equestrian state. The resulting imbalance of harmony didn’t just cause Discord to appear in Equestria, but led to the reappearance of the Windigos, increased crime rates, and many schisms that we will cover in later chapters.” “That’s a terrible consequence,” I said. Luna was angry with me, but didn’t shout at me again. “As the purpose of history is to use past events to understand what is going on in the present, let us apply the appearance of humans to some of the modern events of Equestrian history.” It wasn’t hard to tell where this was going. “But we haven’t gone over modern events of Equestrian history,” I commented. “We haven’t even gotten to the chapter involving Celestia’s and your defeat of King Sombra of the Crystal Empire. If the purpose of history is to understand the present, how can we explain it when the past hasn’t been completely covered yet?” “Fair point,” Luna said, and closed her book. I almost immediately knew it wasn’t going to be that easy. “Let me tell you something…” “I know where you’re going with this. You already saw that I felt guilty for accidentally hitting you when you invaded my mind. And I assure that was a complete accident. Why, then do you insist on continuing this conversation?” “Because you don’t seem to understand the implications of the event.” “It seems you don’t understand the circumstances.” “Let us review some of the material of chapter four, then,” Luna shouted in an attempt to drown me out, “since you don’t seem to be getting it. How did the first humans arrive?” “Through magic. Which isn’t present in the human world unless someone like Princess Celestia crosses the border.” Luna was taken aback. “What happened to the first humans to arrive here?” “Some were bad, but some were good and wanted to help you catch those that were bad and destructive. And, based on the fact that all of them were brought over by magical anomalies, I imagine a few of them didn’t want to come here in the first place.” Again, Luna seemed surprised, but the shock lasted for less time than before. “There’s a problem with your logic: more humans have been harmful to Equestrian life than they have been helpful to it. For every one of you that is brought here that helps us, another five have been harmful to us. Those five will wind up in jail in the first three months of their time in Equestria, either for thieving, murder, or harassment.” “You think that I don’t think that humans can be bastards?” “You certainly are trying hard to defend them.” “Look, I know some of us are bastards.” A memory flashed before me and I started speaking before I even realized its consequences. “As a matter of fact, I’ve seen people be bastards towards other people. My little sister was kidnapped right in front of me by some jerk and was held hostage for a few days. The man even tried to kidnap me, but some of my friends came and helped me and the man threatened that he would return for me.” Luna’s face registered with shock, and this time it didn’t leave. “I know that humans are bastards. I know that we can be stupid idiots. From the memories I have regained so far, I know that we can be jerks and stupid and harmful, but what I don’t understand is why you’re so against me being here when I didn’t want to come in the first place and don’t want to stay.” Luna shook her head as though in pity. “Nemo, Nemo, Nemo… you think that you, a mere mortal, can bear the sins of your predecessors. There’s a problem with this: you are mortal. You can’t understand the problems that we’ve faced, no matter how much time in a history class you take. You will not experience our problems. You will not experience our hurt. You will not experience our pain. But I… I have had generations of pain that have stretched for over a thousand years.” “I know. I’m not asking to bear the problems my predecessors gave you. I’m just asking you to try and push them aside and maybe help me to not become like them.” Luna scoffed and turned her head away. “You foal. You’re like a pegasus foal that wants to learn to fly before it can learn to walk. Our lesson tonight is over and we’ll begin chapter five on Sunday.” I picked up my books and left the observatory without a word.