Letters From a Little Princess Monster
Synergy
It was difficult to keep her royal demeanor as Luna shifted uncomfortably under the intense scrutiny of Twilight Sparkle’s parents. She was used to petitioners approaching the throne with selfish requests or demands, looking for just one more wedge to use against their fellow ponies, but it was rare for her to be faced with a request so close to her heart, and she could not say no. Just the same, it was extremely difficult to say yes, but after a moment of contemplation, it had to be said.
“We are sorry for the two of you, but we are only a ruler of Equestria, not the ruler of Twilight Sparkle’s mind. We shall write her a letter advocating your position, but we fear it will not be very effective. Fear can be a powerful controller of the mind, and in particular the fear of having to face somepony she loves and confess to a horrible crime. There is always the thought that forgiveness will not be granted, for our insecurities grow heavy in times of stress.”
“She is loved so very much, which is why it hurts us so much.” Twilight Velvet paused, but before she could go on, Princess Luna interrupted.
“Yes, we all know how much we are loved by others, but that love is distant and her supposed crimes are right under her nose. I have no idea how she is able to tolerate a changeling in her house as her mother’s paramour, when I’m afraid to have one of my own Night Guards outside my own door!”
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“Stop it.” The dark stallion moved up beside Laminia and held a hoof on her shoulder. “You’re frightening her. It’s no wonder Princess Luna doesn’t want to see us, if all we are good for is frightening foals.”
“Not afraid of you,” whimpered Monster from inside the bush she had backed into, still shivering under her cloak. “Don’t want to hurt you.” They remained in place, looking at each other while the music started again and drifted through the night.
“Not afraid of them,” said Monster in slow, deliberate words. “Afraid of what they think.”
“Who?” Laminia’s eyes seemed to glow in the darkness, a warm fire that spoke of a desire to help.
“Mom. Real mom. And dad. And Shiny. And C-c-cad…”
“Princess Mi Amore Cadenza,” muttered Laminia with a fierce scowl that extinguished all the warmth she had been displaying. “The cheerful one.”
“Who?”
“Cadence,” said Laminia after a brief pause.
“Oh.” Monster shifted uncomfortably under the bush, trying not to whimper at the thorns digging into her thin hide. “What should I write to Luna?”
The stallion opened his mouth to respond, paused at a look from Laminia, and returned to a stoic guard position. “The truth,” said Laminia, pointedly ignoring Lumpy. “Tell her that her subjects love her and only want to be able to serve her. Don’t put anything in about how long we’ve waited or how they’re so angsted up with worry that they sent Lumpy, of all ponies. Or me. Don’t mention me at all.”
I have killed far too many with my hate.
“What did she do to you?” asked Monster, twitching in reaction as Laminia cringed back.
“Me? Nothing! I’m perfectly fine.” The dark mare lashed her tail back and forth, catching Lumpy across the face as he opened his mouth to say something.
“No you’re not. You hurt inside.” Monster stepped out of the bush with tiny steps, approaching the dark mare with her head held low until she reached up with one hoof and placed it carefully on her charcoal-grey chest. “You hurt, and you’re mad at everything. I can feel it inside you, burning like fire. It’s not good for you.”
“Well, it’s not good for you either,” snapped Laminia. “You’re scared of your own birth parents just because of what they might think. They’ll probably kiss your hooves, while my birth father can kiss my sweet—” The mare winced, and deliberately continued. “Flank. I was going to say flank, Lumpy. Remember you’re wearing shoes the next time you kick me in the leg.”
“Sorry.”
The little unicorn stepped forward and placed a hoof on the stallion’s chest too, Laminia rotating in place with her as she moved. “You’re afraid. Like me. You’re mad, and you’re afraid of being mad. Like me. You’re afraid of killing, because it feels good, and you don’t think you could stop. Like me. Are all of you pegasuses like this?”
“No,” interrupted Laminia before Lumpy could speak. “Only us.”
“Yes, in some small regard,” said the dark stallion, his golden eyes closed as he seemed to lean into the little hoof on his chest. “All of the Nocturne bear the touch of Luna on our souls. It was by her actions we were born, made to reflect her immortal glory as the Moon doth reflect the Sun.”
“Then why is she afraid of you?” The moonlight seemed to shine down more intently on the three ponies standing by the house, the dusky red of Monster’s cloak taking on a shimmering aura, as if it were a flowing mane filled with stars. Both dark pegasi shifted uncomfortably in the light, looking between themselves as if they were afraid to say the words.
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“Nighty,” said Twilight’s mother, her eyes never leaving Princess Luna startled face. There was a particular timbre to her voice that Night Light seemed to catch at once. The unicorn stallion stood up and bowed formally to Luna before turning and leaving for the hallway, the quiet thump of the closing door sounding like a falling anvil in the silent room.
“Princess, I recognize that look on your face, and before I go any further, I have to ask you something. Have you talked about your time as Nightmare Moon to anypony? Other than your sister,” added Twilight Velvet with a caring nod.
Luna’s hackles rose as she looked away from the smaller mare, trying to maintain her composure. “Of course I’ve talked to Celly about — I mean other ponies. There was the Royal Historian. The Chirurgeon, who didst give me a number of quite painful shots. And…”
The silence stretched tightly as Twilight Velvet waited far longer than protocol required before continuing her end of the conversation. “How long has it been since your mother — passed?”
“What matter is this?” snapped Luna, turning back to Twilight Velvet and pausing at the look in her eyes, those blue eyes seeming so much like the ones that looked back at her from the mirror every day, only without a trace of her shame or guilt, only compassion. It took a long dry swallow of a suddenly closed throat to respond after a few more moments had gone by.
“Far too long. I can scarce remember her anymore.” Luna was not aware of Twilight Velvet approaching any closer, but there was a warm hoof resting on her own, and her eyes seemed so much larger.
“Mothers can forgive anything from their children. Whenever I had done something wrong, I always knew, whatever it was, my mother was always there for me.” Twilight Velvet paused to wipe away a tear and accepted the tissue Luna passed to her with a sniff.
“When I told my mother about Twilight’s entrance exam and the destruction she caused, I was absolutely positive it was all my fault. I had pushed her too hard, I had not put my hoof down when she tried to stay up all night studying, we had never pried her away from her books to get out in the sunshine so she could have friends of her own. All the excuses that had rattled around in my head until they had worn ruts in the carpet just piled up until I talked to her, and then they all spilled out in one huge confession about how I had k-killed her granddaughter. And do you know what she did?”
Luna shook her head, as Twilight Velvet continued. “She listened to it all before she pulled me up close to her chest and patted me on the head until I quit crying. Didn’t say a word, just sat there and held me for what seemed like hours. Then she said, ‘Don’t worry, dear. It will be all right.’ And you know what? It was. That’s what I see when I look at you now, Princess Luna. I see myself, with no mother to listen to your heart break and tell you everything will be all right.”
“It won’t be all right,” said Luna weakly. “I’ve done horrible, horrible things. They plague my dreams and waking hours with memories.”
“I know,” said Twilight Velvet in a whisper. “It makes your gut feel like it’s full of broken glass. If I can’t be there for my daughter, let me at least be here for you.”
The silent stars twinkled outside the open window, bringing a warm glow to the coldness in Luna’s heart. They had shone down upon her when she was just a little filly, still weak and terrified of the world as she had nuzzled up to her warm mother as a source of comfort and love. Now she could feel their touch as a welcome friend as she placed her cheek tentatively against Twilight Velvet’s warm neck and began to speak.
“It all began after the defeat of Discord, just after my sister and I entombed him in stone forever. Our ponies celebrated the entire day…”
---~^~^~^~^~---
As she rested with one hoof on each of the dark pegasi, Monster could feel their thudding heartbeats beneath swirling miasmas of fear and anger. It was wrong to think about just fixing them, as mom had spent many long hours teaching her that kind of restraint. To forcefully change their symptoms without touching the source would only twist them more, and possibly interfere with the harmony they both shared. Spells touched her senses as she ran her hooves across their coats and the heavily-enchanted armor of the stallion. The armor’s powerful protective wards were complex and enticing, but a faint, almost wispy touch of a blindingly complex spell lurked beneath both of their bodies, written deeply in their flesh and blood in such a way that to remove it, even if she could, would undo them totally. She ran her hooves over the membranous wings of the stallion, gently tugging at his firm grip that kept them both tightly clamped against his sides, but when she reached for the mare’s cloak-concealed wings, Laminia crabbed sideways to remain out of her reach.
“Don’t touch, little one. My wings are injured.” The words fell off Laminia’s lips so easily that Monster almost believed her, but there was a subtle shift under her cloak that gave the lie to her words. The motion was unnatural, and Monster reached out without thinking to touch the misshapen lump under the cloak that should not have been there, only to have the dark mare jerk away and bare her teeth in a snarl. “I said don’t touch me!”
“Sorry.” Monster shuffled backwards towards the safe darkness of the bush, only for the dark pegasus to stop her with a compassionate hoof, and look deeply into her eyes.
“No, don’t go. I’m the one who should apologize. You don’t know the ostracism and pain I’ve had to endure for as long as I can remember. Behold,” she added softly, drawing her wings out from under her elegant cloak and spreading them wide in the starlit night. The unblemished membranes of one wing glistened in the dim light, but it was not matched on the other side. The other wing only bore the dark membranes of their ancient legacy out to the elbow joint, but from there it was a twisted and distorted parody of her other wing, bearing a mix of feathers and membranes that could never have borne her weight in flight.
“This is my legacy from our true Princess of the Night,” hissed Laminia, in obvious pain from the way her warped wing trembled and the beginnings of tears in her eyes. “When She once again returns, I shall be made whole again. She will bless me as no other pony has been blessed for remaining true to her memory. The scorn and resentment of the ponies of the Day shall be returned to them a thousand fold as she takes her rightful place, and rules over all of Equestria.”
“With her sister,” added Monster after a moment of silence.
“By herself!” snarled Laminia in a low voice that barely echoed from the narrow alleys of the silent dark homes around them, although after enduring Monster’s intense gaze in the darkness, she added, “Or with her sister, if she wants.”
One outreached hoof from Monster touched the distorted wing gently, tracing both the physical deformity and the subtle twists of the underlying spell, a wrongness so faint that she could barely tell it was there, let alone the actual error. Highly complicated spells designed to last had deep self-correcting mathmagical formula to them, and although the defect was blatantly apparent in her wing, any future progeny would revert back to the original transformation. As if the thought had been triggered by some subconscious observation, her hoof drifted lower, feeling the matching sensation of a much smaller version of the spell, but growing.
“Are you two a mommy and daddy?” asked Monster, checking to see if perhaps there were two small spell signatures in the mare.
“Yes. How did you—”
“No!” snapped Laminia. “I was drunk. Besides, I don’t even think that Elvis Przewalski impersonator even had a license.”
“No, I mean a mommy mommy.”
Laminia seemed to grow abruptly pinker, a thin ribbon of metallic silvery blue in her mane sparkling in the silver moonlight as she shook her head violently. “Just because I miss one heat cycle, doesn’t mean anything. My next one will start soon, and just how is this related to you speaking with Luna about my husband’s — I mean Lumpy’s problem?”
“I want to know why do you need her so much,” said Monster flatly.
“She is our Princess of the Night,” intoned the stallion. “Our race was created by her a thousand years ago when she was possessed by Nightmare Moon, and our kind were nearly wiped out in the resulting war. Princess Celestia saved what few of us remained, and in return we promised to guard Equestria in service to the Crown forever. We serve the Princesses. We owe them our lives.”
“No. I didn’t mean Luna. I mean her.” One trembling purple hoof stroked across the indignant mare’s side, making her promptly quit tucking her wings back under her cloak and blink in momentary confusion.
“Make it good, Lumpy,” she growled, returning to her careful arrangement of her crippled wing.
“She fills a hole in my heart,” said Lumpy without a pause. “I was lost, afraid of losing control and drifting away from reality. She is my anchor, and won’t let me lie to myself. Your turn, dear.”
Lamina tucked away the last joint on her wing under her cloak and turned to face her little accuser. “He’s a giant lump of stupid who’s too dumb to see me as the cruel sadistic bastard that I really am. There’s this fuzzy picture of some worthwhile pony in his mind that he somehow associated with me, and as long as he’s around me—” She looked away from the both of them “—I can be that pony, just a little bit.”
Monster thought about it for a while before nodding slowly. “Mutual codependency(*). Are you afraid Luna will take him away from you?”
“No!” The dark mare twitched around her mouth as if she had inhaled a bad-tasting bug. “He’s mine,” she added in a much softer voice.
“How do you know Luna is not your Princess of the Night, then? Is it written in a book?”
Laminia nodded sharply. “Yes. Each of the clans of the Nocturne have a Book of Tradition where they keep their family history all the way back to the Night of Creation. I was raised on stories from that book that tell of her glory and majesty ever since I was old enough to walk.”
“Can I read it? I’ve got a library card.” Monster stroked Laminia’s side and tried to make the big-eyed mournful look that all of her friends were so experienced with, but only managed to make both of the strange pegasi chuckle.
“I’m sorry, little one,” rumbled the big stallion. “The families consider their Books of Tradition very private. It would take an order from Luna herself for you to look through one of them. There are over two hundred family groups now, and each of the families has a book of their own that is undoubtedly different from each of the others as the various generations have recorded their own histories.”
“Oh. If all the books are different, how can you know if your idea about a queen of the night is right?” As Laminia paused with her mouth open, Monster kept talking as if the words could not be stopped. “If a bunch are wrong and only one is right, shouldn’t we ask somepony who was there? Like — Celestia?”
“Princess Celestia has already made her opinion quite vocally known about the legitimacy of her sister both inside the court and to anypony who will listen, which includes—” Lumpy nodded at Laminia “—her. Twice.”
“Oh.” Monster fidgeted, looking back and forth between the two dark pegasi, trying to ignore the rising anger she saw in the mare’s face. “You know the princesses fought when you were made. There are… things still in the ground there. Rusty metal and bones scattered around the fallen stones. The sky still echos with their fight. Bad things happened. The dark pony — Nightmare Moon fed on hate and fear, just like yours. It can be used for magic, but it hurts. Or kills. She made them only to destroy them. I know Luna fought, but the dark pony was too strong. She killed your ancestors.”
Laminia bristled, turning around and facing Monster with a fierce glower and an upraised hoof. “Liar! Our Princess of the Night would not harm—”
A chill breeze swept across the grass, and a fourth presence appeared, pulling back the darkness like a curtain and stepping up directly beside Monster. Her star-speckled mane barely flickered in the moonlight, but her blue eyes flashed at Laminia, who stood like a statue, her hoof still raised to strike.
“Lower thy limb, or thou shalt find thyself in great pain, young mare,” said Princess Luna.
(*) The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders which was delivered to the Golden Oaks Library had gone mysteriously missing the night after it had arrived. The mystery would have been solved if Trixie had looked under Monster’s bed, or in the library checkout box where the card had been carefully filed under ‘D’ and signed, as well as cards from several other checked out books.