Canterlot, Present Day
Princess Luna´s room looked like something out of time and out of place.
It was as dark as her own night, and yet at the same time illuminated enough as if her own moon was within the room itself.
Its furnishing even seemed as dark and flowing as the night. Her bed was large and round with deep blue sheets, which presided just beside a door that lead to the balcony, so that she could raise and lower her night as she wanted.
Even now with the sun hanging high, the room was dark.
It was just tranquil.
But the universe, having something against tranquillity could always come up with a suitable excuse for breaking it. Either through the annoying buzzing of a bee, a message, an official occasion, Or in this case, a grumpy vampire agent who proceeded to promptly smack open the door with an audible crash. Had the doors not been as sturdy as they were, they would possibly have popped off their hinges.
Princess Luna turned to face the door.
“You know the door was unlocked?” she asked stoically.
She was sitting in the middle of her room on a large soft pillow to replace the traditional chair, a scroll levitating in front of her as she looked upon the intruder.
Cheerilee looked like she was ready to pounce the Princess at any moment, but the alicorn had enough self discipline to stay still.
“You have a few things to answer for, Luna,” Cheerilee said in a small growl as she walked inside, keeping a glaring eye contact with the ruler of the night.
“Whatever do you mean, Cheerilee?” she replied calmly, letting the document float off to give Cheerilee her full attention.
“I remember when you sent me out on this assignment in Manehatten, that you told me not to worry if your suspicions were correct… Well I would very much like to know what those suspicions were, because I met something more than worrisome. Its a damn problem,” she growled at the diarch, causing the alicorn to raise an eyebrow.
“What have you found?”
“Something called a Kaynite…” Cheerilee added. “And it told me specifically to speak with you… Now, I have never heard of anything called a Kaynite, and I doubt many others have either. So would you perchance know something about this?” she asked, her tone almost accusatory, while keeping a sort of sarcastic snark.
The Princess gave a calm glaze over at Cheerilee, adjusting herself slightly on her pillow.
“A Kaynite is an old variation of the blooddrinkers like yourself. They are barely a few stragglers alive, and an experienced vampire should easily be able to do the rest of them in, Which is why I sent you-”
“So you KNEW It was going to be a Kaynite?” Cheerilee asked, her accusing voice cut through the room like a hot knife through butter. Had this not been Princess Luna, the mistress of the Pokerface, she would have flinched.
“We knew the possibility, thus why we decided to send our best agent.” she spoke calmly. “We presume you´ve dealt with the situation, thus why you are here in our face, angry at our decision?” she asked calmly. Cheerilee gritted her teeth.
“Well no, Your Majesty! I have in fact returned to report that both Emerald Song and your Agent Pen, have been captured by a Kaynite known as either ‘Angel’, or ‘Fiend’, and that he seems to have quite the grudge against you, since he made it VERY clear that you were a traitor…
So no, I haven't come here for a congratulatory pat on the shoulder, I have come here for honesty…”
The princess of the night froze for just a second, staring in disbelief upon her most trusted agent.
“Are… Are thou certain? Perchance you have misheard? That, it was not Angel or Fiend he named himself?” she asked, hoping utterly that she was right. Though Cheerilee just replied with a deadpanned look.
“Did you just ask if a vampire with heightened senses heard correctly, in a one on one conversation?”
The princess winced almost at that question before shaking her head.
“Of course you heard correctly, apologies Cheerilee its just…” She averted her gaze. “It should not be. We are certain that… Said Kaynite is long dead…” She tried to reason.
“Well so am I, but I still pack a mean punch…” Cheerilee commented, only gaining a slight look from Princess Luna, however Cheerilee made sure to press that moments advantage. “And this only confirms what has been said. You do know who it is.”
“We only have a suspicion, Agent Cheerilee.” Luna stated. “After all, tis could just be another with a similar name.” she postulated. She was rather happy with that possibility and for a moment, found herself content in the belief that it was all a coincidence. Untill Cheerilee spoke again.
“ ‘An Amour Does not take Kindly To Breaking an Oath’” she repeated, finally seemingly cracking the Princess´s poker face completely as she seemed to wince slightly. “That is what he asked me to say… Now will you please, just tell me what is going on?”
Luna looked down in thought before finally responding.
“It… would seem that an old… Acquaintance of ours… has survived.” she admitted with much reluctance. She then let a small sigh escape her, looking up at Cheerilee. “Please, Take a Seat, we have a feeling that answering your questions might take a while…”
Cheerilee was hesitant for just a moment, keeping up her angry stare at Princess Luna for just a few seconds further, before finally complying and taking a seat in the soft, almost bean bag like, cushion just opposite to the princess.
The Princess observed Cheerilee as she sat down with a solemn expression, as she calmly braced herself for the parade of questions.
“Now, One Question at the time, What would you like to know?”
“Well firstly… How do you know this, Fiend or Angel, guy? He seems clearly to bear a grudge against you…” Cheerilee deduced. “And he stated that its been almost a thousand years since his kind was seen. So I will presume you have known him for a long time. Why is he only a problem now then?” she inquired.
Luna lowered her head slightly at the questions, and gave a small sigh again.
“Tis be a long Story…”
“I have the Time, Though his victims might not. But you are the best lead I have, so I am going to sit here until I have understood every, single, detail about this monster…” Cheerilee asserted.
Luna rose her head to look Cheerilee in the eyes for a few brief moments.
“Very well then… It was A long time ago… Before… Before the time of Nightmares…”
The Castle of the Ancient Pony Sisters, 1020 years ago.
The moon hung high in the sky, and loomed over Equestria in its beautiful shine, that only seemed even more majestic in those days. Almost a thousand years before any of the future bearers of harmony had even seen the light of day, there was still a strong and united Equestria. A beautiful realm of joy, happiness, and Harmony.
Or at least, it was seen as such.
The land was still filled with the creatures of Magic and Myth, like Manticores, Dragons, Hydras and many a monster alike, and thus so many ponies saw the land outside Equestria as dangerous. And especially at night.
That was the detail that hurt her highness the most.
Princess Luna was standing on her balcony in The Sisters Castle, staring up upon her beautiful moon, doing her best not to let rich and warm tears roll down her beautiful star-kissed cheeks.
‘Why?’ she mentally questioned, her wings tightening slight around herself as she wished she could wrap herself in sheets and just cry her beautiful night away.
Nopony was enjoying it.
Nopony was out in her beautiful night and frolicking in the fields, or seeing the paths her starlight had now revealed to those who would look for them. Her effort, and her beautiful moon had done so much, yet nopony was noticing her effort. It made her feel… Useless.
And… Angry.
‘Why me?... Why will nopony love our night? Our beautiful creations of night, our compassionate moon and wonderful constellations of stars? Not even when we had spent almost all of our energy to bring a rain of shooting stars, had nopony told us it was beautiful… Nopony had stared in awe upon the sky. Everypony had simply stayed inside. And shunned our beautiful night’.
Princess Luna´s reverie was interrupted by the knock on her door and the slightly muffled voice of one of her guards spoke.
“Requesting an audience, Your Highness.” The voice was sharp, and respectful, just as demanded of the guard.
Luna reached up a wing to quickly wipe off any tears there might have formed in her eyes before she called back in her (soon to be known as) Royal Canterlot voice. “Yes, what does thou want!?” she asked, perhaps a bit snappishly, but to be fair to her, she was depressed.
The door squeaked slightly as it just opened enough for her guard to just poke his head inside, being careful not to scratch the metal armour against the precious wood.
“Your sister is requesting that you get out of your chambers, and join her at the party.” The guard reported calmly yet firmly, doing his duty perfectly.
Princess Luna huffed a moment as she walked back into her room, the room rather large and filled with all her personal items, her dresser, her large circular double bed with veils to cover up when she was sleeping and lots and lots of soft pillows.
“Tell our sister, that we have duties to attend, we must take care of the Moon and its beauty while Our Little Ponies are sleeping and sheltering from the horrors of the night.” She added the last part with much of a sarcastic, yet snarky and dismissive tone.
The guard lowered his head a moment in acknowledgement of his Princess's orders, however he slowly lifted up his head again and cleared his throat.
“Uhm, your sister knew you would say that, so she ordered me to tell you, ‘To stop being so antisocial, you will never get any friends if you keep hiding in your room and being moping. Come down Luna, it will be fun’. ” The guard slowly reported, and quoted the Sun Princess´s message perfectly.
Luna sort of glared at the guard, but it was not really directed to her faithful guardspony. It was more to the sender of the message. Oh sweet heavens, her sister could be obnoxious. Luna sighed audibly and raised her hoof arrogantly.
“Tsk, so be it then… If our sister truly wishes for us to join such a useless and boring social event, we shall indulge her.” Luna said with much annoyance. “Tell our sister we will be right there.” Luna spoke calmly, the guard immediately carrying out the order and closing the door behind him, giving the princess of the night time to freshen herself up slightly.
The Sisters Castle, Down at the party.
If a certain future pink party pony would have seen how this party was, she would have instantly deflated and screamed in terror at the sheer dullness of it all. Luna didn’t even need to indulge everypony in the room with a glance before she could see that it was not going to be something she would enjoy. Everypony that was around were some kind of noble, or rich upper class pony, all of them talking about their things and how their oh so hard lives were getting just a tad bit worse.
The Princess of the night had dressed herself up in her usual royal outfit, her light blue shoes, which almost matched with her crown and her necklace, which symbolized her position of power in Equestria. Marking her as the one, true princess of the night. However she still found just about everypony in the audience to be overdressed. So many nice jewels and fine fabrics on display that Luna felt as if this was getting a visit from the royal tailor, twice, a second, without delay. It was almost nauseating.
Maybe it was just her earlier bitterness that was still getting to her, but she didn’t like the ponies in the gathering. Not a single one.
“Luna! You came!” a voice sounded, which Luna quickly recognized as her sister´s. She turned her head and saw the Sun Princess Celestia standing at a snack table on the far side of the room, waving lightly at her with a bright smile. Her shiny flowing mane carefully combed to both be beautiful and practical, seeing as there was a cake table. Oh, Luna wanted to just slap her with her wings. Yes, definitely bitterness.
Slowly, Luna made her way over to her sister who was also dressed in her royal duds like herself.
“Yes, we did, dear sister, however you will have to forgive us, if we withhold our enthusiasm about this event. We have yet in all our years of controlling the moon found any of such social events to be of an entertaining nature.” She spoke, while still using the Royal We because there were still ponies nearby who could hear. She didn’t want them to get any idea that she had gotten soft or something of the like. However, Celestia had another idea.
She grinned. “Oh hush Little sister. These gatherings are lovely, there are always some interesting ponies amongst those who come to our castle. Some of whom have come from very far away.” She said, before her eyes scanning over the crowd before pointing out a certain pony. “Look, there is Charlemane of Prance!” she said with a bit of excitement, as she looked upon the tall pale white coated earth pony. While he had a bit of a larger snout than his peers at the party, his tall and powerful stature made him look rather attractive to those around him. However Luna didn’t even give the Prench Monarch the benefit of indulging a single thought. Luna only glanced and then looked back at Celestia.
“Why how interesting, sister…” she said in cynical sarcasm. “As if we do not visit Prance often enough to know Charlemane. We played Chess with him last month.” She simply said dismissively and tried to walk along the snack table, and away from the patrons, but Celestia just put a foreleg around her sister´s neck and smiled, gesturing out into the crowd again.
“Just look around you Luna, you should socialize… Perhaps you could find some friends!” she said with much enthusiasm, which was in no way shared by Luna, who looked dead-panned out upon the gathering. Her bitterness still strong and lingering in her heart.
“If thou keep on repeating the same pestering sentence about Friendship, dear sister, we will proceed to take away all thine cake.” She said a bit dead-panned, before trying to sort of wrestle out of her sister´s foreleg. It was not as hard as Celestia removed it herself and gasped dramatically at her sister´s threat.
“Cruel Luna, how could you take away my cake? That, that’s just too evil!” she said jokingly, but frowned slightly as she saw Luna simply continue to walk. The Princess of the night didn’t even bother with answering, and it just left a disheartened Celestia behind. She quickly took upon her kind smile again, as another guest required her attention, though she kept one lingering look upon her sister, who seemed to disappear into the gathering.
Luna used just about all her grace and elegance to NOT speak with anypony at the party, at all. She walked through the crowd in order to escape from her pestering sister, but that only caused new problems as suddenly so many ponies wanted to talk to her. From Prance to Manehatten, Even an emissary from the Griffon Kingdom, all tried to get into pleasant conversation with the Princess of the night, however she ignored them and tried to head for a place of solitude. Or relative solitude at least.
She found herself a corner of the party where no ponies had placed themselves yet, and had made sure her pursuers were more distracted with each other, before she sat down upon her royal haunches in the corner and sighed.
‘Tia, why art thou doing this to us? Thou know we hate parties…’ she thought to herself, lowering her head in melancholic reverie.
Luna didn’t have any feeling of how the party was going on around her, she didn’t want to either. She just wanted the night to be finished so she could retreat to her bed sheets and curl up in her own little ball of misery. At least her own dreams were much more beautiful than reality.
“Excuse me, Your Royal highness.” A voice interrupted Luna´s reverie, which almost made her want to yell with the full form of her Royal Canterlot voice into whoever was interrupting her. It took a great deal of restraint not to, but even more as she raised her head, and heard the next comment. “But might I ask why your beautiful muzzle is plagued by such a sad frown?”
Luna finally got a look of who was speaking to her. It was a white unicorn stallion, perhaps only just beginning to qualify as such, his fur white with a great deep red mane, which was actually relatively long and hanging much freer than the usual nobility, who prided themselves with very clean and very flowing manes. However this stallion´s mane seemed a bit unruly, but in a sort of orderly way, which wasn’t as paradoxically as it sounded. He had a pair of soft blue eyes and a warm smile upon his muzzle that under normal circumstances perhaps would have spread a bit of warmth to Luna herself. However she was in no way in a mood to accept it. The pony was also dapperly dressed, wearing a shirt about as red as his hair, which had quite a few ruffles around forehooves, and just below the neck, which also happened to have a small red rose in it. Coincidentally, that was also the pony´s cutie mark. A sweet red rose standing proudly with its thorns not even seeming the least bit sharp.
Grumpily, Luna glared at the stallion.
“That is none of thine business! Would thou be as kind as to leave thine Princess alone to her thoughts!?” she asked with a tone that would make her guards cringe, and her servants run for the cupboard to hide, shivering in fear. The stallion however, seemed unaffected, as he just kept his soft smile.
“But your majesty, thou art the ruler of the night. The most beautiful pallet in all of Equestria. I cannot leave ye alone” he said in almost a solemn tone, inching his head closer as to inquire further. “And I cannot bear to see our beautiful princess sad.” He spoke, his tone sounding slightly sincere, but Luna had heard that kind of tone before. It might very well be sincere, but there was also another underlying subject.
“Be off with you, paramour! We will have none of what thou would offer!” She growled at him, trying to just avert her eyes and face as to get a sort of peace for herself. However, what she did not expect was that the stallion began to giggle a bit.
“Paramour? Have ye perhaps by coincidence met my father?” he asked, actually curious but smiling, as Luna returned his head to him, raising a small eyebrow.
“Art thou the son of Pa Amour?” she asked, remembering a stallion from a party like this, a few decades ago. A stallion named Pa Amour had openly tried to woo Princess Luna, however she was not the least bit interested in him. So many other mares were, but Luna had no care for dating or courtship. She expected said stallion to be an old charmer now, somepony who lived on their own, always having travelled around trying to get their next meeting, like Casanova. Which seemingly now was being proved as untrue as the stallion in front of her now nodded.
“The first-born son of the Amour, yes, that Is I, Your highness. Oh dear, is this the moment where I have to hear some story about my father´s attempted conquests? I will presume he failed miserably.” The young stallion asked with a small grin, which actually began to knock a bit against Luna´s shell. She kept herself from growling at him this time, as it seemingly was a fair question.
“Thine presumption is correct,” she simply said, rising up from her Haunches, still wanting to find a place where she could be alone. “Now thou must excuse us-“
“Your highness, I have a request.” The young stallion said in a purely sincere tone as he looked almost pleadingly upon the Princess of the night. This look made Luna inwardly sigh and wanted to just brush him off, however her conscience got the better of her.
“Speak, young Amour.” She said, perhaps a bit snappishly, but she at least heard him out.
“Could thou follow me out into the castle garden? I have something to show thee.”
This request made the Princess of the night take a small step backwards in surprise. He wanted to show her something in her own garden? What kind of mockery was this? Was she assuming that she did not even know her own castle? Was he trying to use cheap tricks to woo her, like his father? All these sorts of accusatory questions flashed through her mind, but slowly the paranoia was subsiding. Perhaps it was a bit unfair to immediately suspect a young stallion who otherwise had been rather polite. Then the thought struck Luna that she could easily slip away back to her chambers if she was out in the castle gardens. And after all, dear sister said that she should mingle with the guests. A small smirk crept upon Luna´s face before she returned to her hard face, looking down upon the white stallion.
“Very well… Lead the way, young Amour.” She commanded, her voice lowered, yet still with a thick air of authority, as the alicorn royalty should have.
A grin flashed itself upon The young Amour´s face, as he bowed his head.
“As you wish Your Majesty,” he said before leading them both through the party. Despite Luna´s size and innate ability to draw eyes to her, they were able to make it out of the great party hall, and slowly made it into the gardens.
The castle gardens were huge, filled with almost every piece of beautiful fauna and flora that one could imagine. And the dark of the night only made the normally ominously large garden seem even more ominous, but also beautiful. Its shadows were slicked around in beautiful curves and the stars hanging above Equestria was giving the garden its perfect canvas to be upon, with blinking lights and shimmering shiny skies. All of this was only topped off by Luna´s own beautiful moon as it was hanging just above the castle at this time of the night, Illuminating the entirety of the garden, showing so many things that the sunlight would only have erased.
All of this made Luna´s heart sting a bit again. She had put so much effort into this… all this beauty… and all those ponies inside the party hall was just indulging themselves with games, conversation and frolicking in the light her sister gave from within
.
Luna just wanted to tear out that muscle in her chest and throw it to the ground so at least it would stop hurting, but she comforted herself with the fact that once she had indulged this little stallion in whatever he wished to show his Princess, she could sneak back into her own room, and at least appreciate her own night.
The stallion lead Luna out through the garden, walking for actually a few minutes with Luna before they reached the great Labyrinth. He began to walk inside, though the Princess stopped up a moment, raising an eyebrow.
“What in Equestria would thou want inside of the labyrinth?” she asked, with perhaps a bit of an accusatory tone.
The red maned stallion looked back and just smiled softly at the Princess. “Trust me, Your Majesty! It is something thou would very much like to see.” He replied, his tone at least sounding sincere, so Luna could not do much other than mentally shrug and continue. If anything suspicious happened, she could after all simply fly out, and the stallion would be stuck. The cruel thought of leaving the stallion alone in the labyrinth, lost, actually made her giggle slightly, but she dismissed the thought for now. She could have pranks later.
The two continued through the labyrinth for a few more minutes, seemingly not getting anywhere, just taking turn, upon turn, upon turn, upon turn. Luna became slowly more and more infuriated, but finally the stallion stopped, just before a larger opening, giving a small smile.
“It’s just inside, Your highness.” He gestured into the opening.
A final suspicious thought struck Luna, but she walked inside, seeing how the labyrinth opened itself to a large open area, with a few benches and a few more statues placed around, almost as a sort of centre for it all, but Luna knew it was not directly the centre, as that looked much different.
Standing inside the area, Luna felt a twinge of annoyance come over her.
“What are we supposed to see?” she asked with a rather demanding tone.
The Princess of the night wanted to have an answer promptly, if not immediately, but confusion came over her mind as she heard no answer. She then turned her head around to find that there was no stallion around. He was gone.
Anger bubbled and flared within the Princess of the night.
“Young Amour, show yourself! Your Princess commands it!!” she called out in great frustration, using the fullness of the Royal Canterlot voice, her eyes even lighting up in anger as she called out, the amount air being pushed away from the sound waves, shook the hedges down to their very roots. She demanded an answer!
But none came.
Not any from the stallion at least.
“P-P-Princess Luna!?” a mare´s voice said in a mixture of fear and surprise.
The Princess turned her head to the source of the voice to find something that perplexed her. A mare was standing there, however she looked almost like an inverted image of the Stallion from before. She was instead of red maned and white coated, completely white maned, and with a deep red coat. Her white mane was flowing freely, even as she was dressed up in a deep blue dress with small freckles along the edges. Luna noted how the dress was the same colour as her blue night sky and even there were small stars sewn beautifully into the fabric, some of it looking like a pair of her constellations.
The mare stared in amazement with her blue eyes that looked almost identical to the stallion´s and stammered.
“Y-Y-Your highness! I didn’t mean to sneak away from thine wonderful party, I just… Just…” She tried a moment to defend her position before something struck her and she bowed her head a moment. “Apologies your highness, but how come thou are out here in the gardens and not in the great hall?” she asked with great respect.
Luna stared a moment at the mare, the uncanny resemblance to the stallion from earlier, made her raise a small eyebrow.
“We were brought out here by a stallion who wished to show us something inside our gardens… Though we believe we might have been deceived,” Luna replied, with a much dark and authoritative voice. She was about to question why the mare was out here, but the mare ended up cutting ahead of her with a small gasp.
“A stallion? Did he look like me, but just with inverted colours?” she asked, looking pre-emptively embarrassed. As Luna replied with a nod, the mare flushed so that her cheeks suddenly looked more pink than deep red. “Oh sweet Moon, I am so sorry for his behaviour.” She skittishly tried to say, covering up her face with her hooves, looking as if she had done something wrong, and not the stallion. This made The princess of the night give the mare a quizzical look.
“Would ye kindly explain thyself?” She asked, a small hint of annoyance in her royal voice. The mare just kept blushing a bit as she looked around, almost as if searching for somepony.
“Angel, I swear if I find you I will tie you to the front door and force you to wear my clothes into town!” the mare called out into the darkness with embarrassed anger. Luna raised an eyebrow in confusion, but then the mare was answered by only a small giggle in the darkness, that Luna could not completely pinpoint where actually came from.
The mare only got more frustrated and groaned, as she tip tapped on her hooves a moment. “Angeeelllllllll!” She called out in embarrassment and frustration, calling out, but inevitably failing in what she was trying. This was a rather crushing blow to her as she sort of collapsed in shame in front of Luna and hid her face in her hooves. “This is my entire fault, Your Majesty.” The mare´s muffled voice escaped her hooves.
The Princess of the night had been looking upon the display of the skittish mare and part of her had found It rather amusing.
“We presume thou know of this stallion who brought us here.” Luna said with a calm look over the mare, while still finding it amusing. Especially how quickly the mare was to respond with a nod.
“Yes your majesty. I know him. Tis dear brother of mine. Angel Amour. I am Fond Amour, his sister. And it doth seem like that we have been tricked to the same location,” she said, a moment glaring out into the darkness again. “And if I get my hooves on dear brother of mine, I will ridicule him in front of Ma and Pa Amour as vengeance!” she hissed, but only got the same kind of giggle from the darkness, which made her growl in frustration and stamp on her hooves again. “And if dear brother of mine will not cease this incipient laughter, then I swear to Luna I will twist his ears into a fancy hat he can show around!” she growled out, again, though the threat was rather, childish.
This time… Luna could not hold it back. She actually let out a tiny giggle. It was sort of a fun little banter Fond seemed to have with her brother, who still was out of her grasp. The princess of the night slowly walked over besides Fond and looked at her a moment.
“Let us, help thee with that.” She said, before her horn lit up in her powerful magic. Before Fond was even able to question why her majesty´s horn was glowing, she got her answer in the form of a floating Angel Amour who was struggling to get himself out of the levitation magic. He looked a bit miffed as he was being floated out of the bush and over towards the two.
“Oh come now! That isn’t fair, Your Highness! How would thee like it if I were to carry thee around!?” he asked a bit childishly, crossing his forehooves as he was being levitated in front of his sister and his night´s monarch. Upside down, to top it off.
Fond´s face scrunched up slightly and she poked Angel in his chest.
“You have got a lot of nerve Angel! You have not only tricked me, but you also had the audacity to pull her Majesty out of an event for one of your STUPID pranks!” she chastised him.
Princess Luna glared at the white unicorn in her grip as to add to the pressure, however he suddenly seemed slightly offended.
“Stupid prank? Well excuse me for letting Dear Sister of Mine meet with the Princess of the Night. Was it not you who said-” he was cut off by having a hoof shoved into his mouth for a moment by a glaring Fond.
“Don’t say it!” she hissed at her brother. This however gained Luna´s curiosity, making her send a small look over at Fond.
“Say what?” she asked, causing Fond to instantly blush and lose her focus, stammeringly trying to come up with some excuse. But Angel was quicker to get the hoof out of his mouth and grin up at the Princess.
“Oh how I would love to meet the Princess of the Night. She is an artist beyond compare, a Goddess of all that his beautiful and mystical. Oh if only I could-” Angel mimicked in a mocking replica of his sister´s tone of voice, before once again getting a hoof from a now completely red flushed Fond shoved into his face again.
“Dear Brother of Mine, I swear to everything magical and gracious that I will shove your mane down your throat if you utter as much as one more word!”
Luna just stood there while the exchange of words and hooves took place, contemplating upon the words that was actually being spoken.
“You… love my night?” she asked carefully, making the already completely red faced (Which was hard to see considering her already red coat) Fond, to stare nervously up at Princess Luna.
“Uhm… I… I… I…” she stammered, only to once again have her sentence finished by Angel.
“Love it? She is obsessed with it, I Swear your Majesty, If she could do with only three hours of sleep, she would fall the moment the sun rises, and only wake up when required by Ma and Pa.” he said with a great grin, still hanging upside down in Luna´s Levitation. “I say that Dear sister of mine is quite a fan of yours, your Majesty!” He said, gesturing as if nudging at the princess.
“Angeeeeeeeeeeelll!!!” Fond squirmed and stamped her hooves on the ground in embarrassment. Angel just giggled.
“Oh you look so cute when you´re embarrassed, dear sister of mine.” he said through his giggles. “It really is the height of my day, or night, to see that embarrassed face of yours.”
“Why are you doing this!?” Fond snapped back at Angel. “I don't go around embarrassing you when you fool around with the neighbours!” she tried to reason.
“Why thats because I love you, Sweet Sister of Mine. And there is no way you´d be able to embarrass me, I am an open book, and everypony at home knows who I am, but no one knows us here~” he rolled on his tongue, feeling rather superior in the situation, despite being hung upside down by the diarch of the night. He had a thoughtful expression for a moment. “You know you really should be thanking me about now,” he said with a slight tone of arrogance.
“How very un-gentlecoltly of you.”
Angel and Fond both turned their heads to look directly at Luna, who seemed to have, relaxed a bit, yet still keeping her regal air. She just seemed to have what, to Angel´s huge surprise, could only be described as an amused smirk.
“She is thine sister, and you should be aiding her, and acting like a gentlecolt around her, and about her. Thine pranks are in ill taste and poor manners. You may have had good intentions, however they are no excuse to treat a Lady as such. And especially not breaking into Thine highness´s business.” she calmly chastised him. Fond nodded in agreement.
“Yea! You should be ashamed of yourself Angel!” she quickly jabbed at Angel.
Angel, who was beginning to feel more and more surrounded, tried to hold up his hooves in defence. “W-wait just a second here-”
“And a prank of ill taste, deserves a punishment of equally, if not even further ill taste, don’t you agree Miss Amour?” Luna asked with a small knowing glance at the mare, as an underlying meaning came through her words, which Fond could only grin and agree with.
“Oh yes, your Majesty.” Fond added, giving a small almost predatory gaze back at her brother, who suddenly had gotten a cold sweat down his face.
“W-Wait! Y-You, what are you planning to do!?”
Princess Luna calmly floated the white unicorn up to face her and stare straight into his eyes, before she replied with a smirk.
“Oh whatever we want~”
~Interlude of darkness for effect~
Not so Long after, something completely broke the tone of the royal banquet, putting a stop to every conversation inside the great hall and bringing all eyes to the centre of the room.
What had caused such a shift in tone?
Well in part, one thing had been that out of nowhere, in the middle of the feast, a white unicorn seemed to have been teleported into the middle of great banquet, falling comically onto the Banquet table, straight through one of the much larger pastry creations, known as Princess Celestia´s favourite cake, (which was about as large as herself), getting him stuck halfway through a sugary pastry.
In other part, it was also that said stallion unicorn was wearing a rather tiny part of a mare´s dress, which seemed more to be the preparative corset. Beyond that his mane and tail was made into a rather unorthodox fashion, in the sense that it was completely filled with small pink bows.
The final thing to put the cherry on the top of this bizarre and rather fun image making itself before the gathering, was the fact that as the stallion was half stuck through her majesty´s favourite pastry, his eyes rolled around in its sockets in a rather derpy fashion, as he, out loud, spoke the words.
“Why thank you for the banquet Your Majesty, but lay off the cake, five more bites and I would have been a rather decorative part of the upholstery about now.”
Even if the room itself was only getting filled with a few obscure giggles in the background amongst the shocked gathering of ponies, There was two ponies who was rolling around on the ground in laughter. Those two, were Princess Luna, and Fond Amour, who had witnessed the success of their little punishment prank from a window.
“Oh sweheheheheeheheheeeeet moons, That was hilarious!” Fond was able to get out in between laughing.
Princess Luna wiped a bit of water from her eye as she had been laughing too hard from the entire display. “W-We must admit, that was quite amusing!” she spoke aloud.
The night diarch and the Amour daughter let their joy spill into the night and slowly began to gather their breaths, until they were just calmly looking up at the skies that Luna had created.
“I must apologize for his behaviour again…” Fond spoke up first, gaining her a slightly surprised look from Luna. “I am sort of… in the end, responsible for you being brought out… He just tried to make me happy… always does that…” she mumbled the last, crossing her hooves and looking away. “He keeps saying I’m half his world…”
“And that is bad?” Luna asked curiously, having dropped most of her Royal persona, just for the moment.
Fond sighed.
“No… It’s just… I feel bad for receiving everything from him… He'd do anything for me… I’m pretty sure he´d have dodged the punishment somehow if I wasn’t also one to agree on it…” she considered aloud with a small sad and forced laugh at the end.
Luna was silent. She turned to look back inside the window, to see Angel Amour being once again floated about, but this time by her sister, Celestia, who seemed to be giggling quite a bit at the display of the cake smeared white stallion.
It burned a bit inside of Luna´s chest, staring upon Celestia. She was still the centre of attention, and handling everything perfectly… She and her Sun.
“I-I’m sorry… I took too much of your time, Your Majesty… Maybe… We will see each other again?” Fond asked sort of nervously.
Luna didn’t look. She was staring at Celestia. Trying to figure out what she was feeling.
“Maybe we will…” Luna just conceded, not turning nor moving.
Fond right behind her frowned slightly, seeing where she was staring at, and slowly stepped back.
“Well then… Uhm… Goodbye… Your Majesty…”
Today, Canterlot Castle:
“That… was the first time I met him… and his sister Fond.”
For about a minute or so after Luna had finished speaking, Cheerilee was still trying to knit things together in her mind.
“So, you met him, or, them, when they were normal ponies?” she asked for clarification.
Luna nodded.
“Yes, I did… I met them a few times more, only at social events like the one I first met them at, but I only got to know… a little… It wasn't until they were…” Luna hesitated a moment.
“Turned?” Cheerilee asked. Again, Luna nodded.
“Yes, It was only after they were turned… And a long time after that, that I saw them again… Twenty Years to be exact… on my worst of nights.” Luna said, her eyes turning up towards her moon. “Upon the night that I turned to Nightmare moon… Angel and Fond came back… But as Kaynites.” she slowly reminisced.
“And what have you then done to make the Fiend so angry? And what happened to Fond?” Cheerilee asked.
“I believe… Failing my ambition to make eternal night… And for betraying the Amour´s and their army…. And...” Luna was hesitating to continue, and actually didn’t say anything further before Cheerilee had to interrupt.
“Their army?”
Luna turned to face Cheerilee, who was more looking with much greater confusion.
She replied with a small nod.
“Yes, The Amour´s had taken control of the Kaynites and swore allegiance to Nightmare Moon. For they wanted the same as… I…”
“Wait just a second…”
Cheerilee could not help but stop up Luna´s explanation, something was just not adding up for her.
“You were saying that they had somehow, wrestled power over these… Kaynites in twenty years?! And all of them swore allegiance to you as Nightmare Moon?!” She asked in surprise, it almost sort of blowing part of her mind, as she remember having taught the old mare's tale of Nightmare Moon to numerous foals in school, but she had never imagined that behind the story was an army of vampire like creatures.
Luna just floated a cup of tea up to her muzzle, which had grown cold over the long time of explanation.
“That is what I am saying, yes… Circumstances was quite extraordinary back then…” she clarified, calmly floating her teacup down to the tray again. “The Kaynites themselves had been in quite a rough position prior to the death of the Amours.”
“How bad a situation?” Cheerilee asked.
“Well, I am not certain, but as much as I have been able to gather since then, Fond´s elder had used her and her brother to usurp a power position during some kind of crisis, that lead to many thousands of Kaynites killing each other over arguments of bloodlines and such. Beyond that… I never had a chance to ask…” Luna lowered her head by the end.
“Because you were banished to the moon…” Cheerilee asked for confirmation. Luna cringed slightly at hearing those words, though she nodded.
“Yes… They had trusted me to defeat Celestia, and thus allow them to wreak havoc on the castle as they´d like themselves… Eternal night would be a new order for the night dwellers…”
“But wait… one thing I don’t get, if there was this large group of Kaynites at your disposal, all out and ready to fight everyone in the castle, what happened to them?” Cheerilee asked in confusion. “Couldn't they just have fought their way out and then stayed covert?”
Luna shook her head with a small frown.
“Most of them didn’t even get the chance to fight… They were doomed the moment I was defeated, and Celestia raised the Sun…” she recalled calmly, with a heavy voice. This however caused Cheerilee to tilt her head in confusion.
“Why´s that?” Cheerilee inquired.
“Because Kaynites cannot stand the sun. They burn if Celestia´s sunlight touches their skin.” Luna explained like it was nothing.
Cheerilee´s jaw just dropped a moment.
“What?”
“I said Kaynite-”
“I heard what you said, Your Majesty but… I Just… How? Why? I know the sun is annoying, frustrating, even slightly detrimental for me, but… Do they actually burn?” Cheerilee asked in actual confusion and almost morbid curiosity. Could the Fiend be killed that easily?
Luna waved her hoof slightly back and forth.
“Sort of. It’s a slow, as I have been told, agonizingly painful process, as if you have been thrown into a fire, and you cannot die from the smoke. They'll only really die once they've burnt enough, but once the Sun touches them, it paralyses them in pain, and it takes a lot out of them to do much of anything,” she explained in a rather, morbid mental image. “Even the burns themselves are hard to treat for a Kaynite, compared to any other injury.”
Cheerilee stared at Luna while she got this weakness described. It was perfect, all she had to do was to get the Fiend out in the open and…
Then a thought struck her. “Princess… If the sun killed many of the Kaynites during the uprising, then how did the Fiend survive?”
“As far as we know,” Luna started. “Angel and Fond was deep within the castle at the time of my defeat, so the two hid away in the deepest reaches of the castle. As it became abandoned, they, or I believe Fond, decided that they would have to wait for Nightmare Moon´s return…” she slowly explained, with an aire of guilt hanging in her voice. “So they slept. For a thousand years.”
“They slept?” Cheerilee asked in curious confusion.
“Yes, Kaynites have been known for hiding away and sleeping in coffins, or similar pony sized boxes for ages. Its a skill they have had since the First Kaynite, Sugar Kayne, was cursed by Faust-”
“Keep the history lessons a bit… Short for now, please Your Majesty.” Cheerilee tried to be polite in her request. “I´d much rather just get the details about you and the Fiend down. The more time we waste, the more time Pen, Emerald, and all the other ponies that the Fiend has captured stay in his clutches.”
The mention of the victims of the Fiend made Luna turn her face away from Cheerilee, and into the darkness of her room. Despite it being still mid afternoon, Luna´s room was dark.
“Forgive me Cheerilee, I guess its hard to keep focus…”
“I´ll consider it, If you would back up a moment here.” Cheerilee said, making Luna look back at her slightly confused. “You were saying some reasons that the Fiend might hate you, and you omitted adding anything after ‘and’... What is the last reason?”
Luna´s mane, for a moment seemed to shift its flowing direction, almost as to cover up the Princess´s face.
“That connects to your second question… What happened to Fond…” she slowly began to explain, which really piqued Cheerilee´s interest, making her lean forwards inquisitively and eyeing Luna.
“Yes?”
“She… and Angel… Woke up around the same time I escaped from the moon, but, they did not meet up with me before the Nightmare… was no longer.” Luna explained with a tint of guilt in her voice. “And they had no idea… So they… They felt that the Princess they had sworn to serve… had betrayed them… Fond did anyhoof…” she slowly explained. “She was furious… She… attacked me. And I didn’t want to just kill her. So I…” she hesitated for just a second. “I sealed her away in stone.”
At that moment, Cheerilee blinked once, before getting a face of realization, that almost looked like she had found the meaning of life right there.
“You sealed her in stone? You sealed the Fiend´s sister in Stone?” she asked for confirmation.
“Yes.” Luna nodded. “It’s...not a spell I enjoy using. But it was the only solution I saw… The two were twisted. Many Kaynites are much more twisted images of their living lives, and I knew that if Fond was free to go, she would shift her energy onto rebuilding the Kaynites… and I could not let that happen.”
“What of the Fiend then?” Cheerilee asked, almost sounding excited, as everything seemed to be coming together in her mind.
“Well… He went into an equal fit of rage, demanding that I released his sister, but that’s when the sun came up… He tried to flee, but the last I saw of him, was him curling up in a screaming mess of… burnt kaynite.” Luna said, trying not to sound too morbid.
Cheerilee took just a few seconds to put everything together, before rising up upon all of her hooves.
“His sister, Fond Amour, is she sealed nearby?”
“Yes, she is, why do you ask?” she inquired.
“Can I see her?”
Luna looked upon Cheerilee with confusion.
“I, guess you could. Though I do not understand why…” The princess said, slowly rising up upon her hooves as well. “We have to go out into the dungeons of the castle.”
“The dungeons?”
“The sealing spell does not completely isolate the prisoner from the world, they are semi awake, and can get affected by the elements. If I were to place her out in the sun she´d…” She bit her lower lip a moment. “I'd just rather not do that to her.” she finished, gaining an understanding nod from Cheerilee.
“Alright then, shall we go?” She asked.
“Yes, of course…”
With that, the two headed out of the princess's room, and descended down into the darker parts of Canterlot castle.
There werent that many ponies outside of those that worked in the castle who actually KNEW there was a dungeon. Many a paranoid pony had suspected that there must have been dungeons that reached into the deepest reaches of Equestrian soil. But in reality it was not really that large, and there wasn't seemingly any prisoners. Not to the outside eye at least.
The only way you could reach into the dungeons was via a long descent of circular stairs, leading into what looked much more like storage rooms.
Cheerilee walked right beside Luna, who had simply gotten immediate access from her guards, without as much as blinking.
The vampire teacher was rather intrigued by the new view of Canterlot Castle. It was like stepping into a little sub-dimension, where everything was darkened, only lit by magical lanterns and every room seemed to be filled with boxes labelled; “Do not open”.
Luna had been silent during most of the walk. She was staring ahead, not looking forwards to being down into the Canterlot dungeons. The less she saw of this, the better. And knowing who they were supposed to see, it was even more eating at her nerves. Everything was supposed to be sorted. She thought she had everything fixed… But now, apparently, her former servants came to bite her in the flank.
Which only made her feel more awful over the situation with Cheerilee. She had after all lied to her. Even if she was just an agent, she did deserve to know everything about the situation. She thought she could just have her kill off any of the remaining Kaynites, and then everything would be much simpler. But in the process, she had ended up forgetting how much Cheerilee had done for her. Maybe Cheerilee saw it just as a job, but for Luna it was a duty that needed done, and Cheerilee was the most reliable agent she ever had.
A pang of guilt striking her royal heart again told her what to do. She at least deserved honesty.
“Cheerilee… I… Wish to apologize… It was careless of me to send you on an assignment without giving you all the information…” Luna slowly said, her eyes falling to the floor in guilt. “I just want you to know I am really, really sorry.”
After a minute of ominous silence between the two, Cheerilee finally replied.
“I forgive you… I know you mean it.” she conceded, with slight reluctance in her voice.
“You know?” Luna asked in confusion. Cheerilee turned her head to face her.
“You usually only speak in the ‘Royal We’, so whenever it breaks, I know something is up…” she said with a small whirly smile, her almost teacher like face returned for just a moment. It warmed Luna´s heart slightly, and lifted a bunch of weight off of her shoulders.
“I… Thank you Cheerilee.” She said, before begrudgingly turning her face forwards, seeing a large door, locked with what seemed to be a royal seal. “We are here…”
Cheerilee looked over the door a moment, guessing the seal was magic, her theory being almost immediately confirmed as Luna´s horn lit up along with the seal, and the doors slowly opening inwards.
The large heavy doors creaked, and revealed an ominously dark room, filled with statues of different ponies and creatures arranged perfectly up in lines.
Slowly walking inside, Cheerilee was seeing that there wasn't actually that many statues around in there, at least not if you´d consider this was prisoners sealed in stone over the last thousand years. There were less than a hundred, that she could count, and most of them either seemed to actually be reluctantly accepting of their stone fates, at least in their expression.
There was one that stuck out though, and Cheerilee´s sneaky suspicion was yet again confirmed, as the princess and the teacher stopped in front of the statue.
It was of a mare, that much was clear, exactly as Luna had described, and she looked curiously similar to the Fiend, though clearly with a more female build.
It was the expression that stood out though. She was glaring daggers forwards, and her mouth was open, revealing a hissing and aggressive set of teeth with sharp fangs.
Cheerilee ran her tongue over her own fangs in a little reflexive reaction, while her eyes looked over the statue in front of her. She was barely a few centimetres taller than her, and yet she could see this pony always tried to be bigger, fiercer, and more powerful than anypony else. Even in stone.
“She has been down here for very long, both Celestia and I have made sure that the gates are magically locked and only to open to our magical essences, much like the stone sealing spells themselves. It assures that if we want to release anyone, its only us who can do it.” Luna explained while Cheerilee examined the statue.
“I think I have it…” Cheerilee said with a small smile of realization. She turned to Luna with an air of confidence. “I think this was part of his plan… And we could be expecting a message-”
“Your Majesty!” A voice resounded down the long corridor.
“Speaking of Chaos.” Cheerilee commented, as both she and Luna turned to look out of the room and into the hallway, seeing one of Luna´s faithful guard, looking around for his ruler.
“We are down here, soldier, What do ye wish of us?” Luna asked, her Royal demeanour and bellowing voice returning.
The guard stood at the outside of the room as he bowed before the Princess.
“There is a Message for you, Your Majesty! It seems… Rather important.” he said, with a slight reluctance, as he picked the piece of paper from beneath his armour and offered it to the Princess. It was completely red, and smelt of dried blood.
Cheerilee and the Princess exchanged glances.
“I believe we can safely assume who it is from…”