Cepheus mind was lit with agony, yet he still charged forth. His second degree burns screamed for him to stop galloping, but this village’s fate could depend on his haste.
Candle and he were following cobblestone paths in the dark of the night, having only their lantern lights to guide them. The glass lantern swung precariously from his muzzle, the illumination burning away the veil of darkness in an arc before them. The ominous projection of the light revealed the winding, weed stricken cobblestone path they tread on.
All Cepheus could hear was the pounding of his hooves on the path, his gasps for breath, and the sound of his frenzied heartbeat. They were going from hovel to hovel, pounding their hooves on the doors, waking the residents and warning them of the impending Night Guard raid. Some ponies rushed to warn family and friends, most began to hurriedly pack their things.
If all these ponies hadn’t known Cepheus and Candle as honest ponies, he doubted that any of them would have listened.
Cepheus and Candle galloped through the darkness to the next hovel, having only their memories of the village and the spot of light before them for guidance.
There were about fifty ponies in this village, and Cepehus had told each pony he had visited to meet at Candle’s hovel in the heart of the village once they were ready to travel. Cepheus looked up at the horizon. Once first light came, they would leave whether everyone was accounted for or not.
After pounding on the doors of a dozen more hovels, they could hear voices in the night. The villagers were moving about, checking on friends and family, and Cepheus could see their lanterns as tiny, moving flecks of light in the inky void.
Cepheus grunted in satisfaction. It was finally time to go to Candle’s house and help her collect her family and belongings.
This would be the first time visiting his mare-friend’s residence. He wondered how her living conditions were. Cepheus also wondered what her family would be like.
They arrived at the heart of the village, the densest cluster of hovels. This was the ideal place for a meeting. Even the farthest hut was relatively equidistant to all the other outlying hovels on the outer fringes of the village. Cepheus felt a spark of satisfaction, finding the logistics of their plan to be firm.
Rushing through, they found all the hovels lit up already. The lanterns which hung from the trees cast their flickering light as they swayed in the breeze. Soon, Candle led him to a particularly shabby looking shanty.
The windows were all roughly patched up with tattered cloth, there was no chimney which meant no heating during the winter, and it was only big enough to fit two or three adult ponies at the most. The candlemaker’s profession was not a very profitable one.
Candle knocked on the door gently, and called out to her family inside. “Dusty, open the door. It’s me.”
There was a sleepy groan from within, and the door opened. Cepheus stared at the empty doorway for a moment, before the little foal spoke up. “Candle, who is this?”
Cepheus looked down at the sandy-maned colt, and gestured to him. “Candle, is this your brother?”
She nodded, and nuzzled Cepheus as she looked down at her brother. “Dusty, this is my stallion-friend.” The colt didn’t budge, seemingly shocked. “Cepheus, this is my little brother,” she added, gesturing to Dusty. Introductions aside, she stepped over Dusty and went inside. “You two stay out here, I’ll get our things.”
The two just stared at each other. In the lantern’s light, it showed that Dusty was an earth pony just like his sister, and had the beige pelt and brown eyes as well. Cepheus smiled for the colt, but he continued staring, examining him like a foal does when he encounters something strange. Dusty scrunched his nose and asked him in awe, “What happened to your face?”
“I got burned,” Cepheus said. The white pegasus cocked his head, looking down at the dumbstruck colt. “How come I have never seen you before?” Cepheus asked. He knew all the foals of his village, but he had never seen this one. “How old are you?”
Cepheus gasped, the pains of his injuries returning. Dusty shook his head, noticing his suffering. “I am eight years old, and I don’t like to go outside. Maybe that's why.”
What kind of colt his age doesn’t like to go outside?
Candle returned, but this time she had a saddle with two brown sacks strapped to the sides. “Come on, Dusty. Let’s go.”
Dusty nodded, closed the hovel door, and followed her sister. Wait, Cepheus thought. Candle is an orphan?
Cepheus followed at a distant behind them, watching brother and sister interact. The little colt latched onto the sacks on her saddle and had climbed onto her back. He curled up and closed his eyes, falling asleep.
Candle was raising a colt all by herself. Cepheus knew their father had died from an overdose, but what had happened to the mother?
Cepheus’ ears pricked up as he heard the worried voices of many ponies talking, and they saw a crowd standing before Chicken Noodle’s house. Everypony had made it, and had their luggage in tow behind them. They all looked sleepy, but anxiety kept them from nodding off. Candle, Dusty, and Cepheus joined them.
They had made good time. It had been perhaps two hours since Persei and Ultra Violet had gone into the forest. Soon, all these ponies would join them in the forest. Hopefully they had enough supplies to last until they reached Violet’s camp across the mountains.
The villagers all fell silent when they saw Cepheus. They stared at him, looking at his burns in grim fascination. After Cepheus found a rock to stand on, he could address all the ponies here. He stood up, and looked around at everypony.
They were all looking up at him, wanting to know what was going on. He swallowed. “My fellow villagers,” he said. “I had a visitor tonight. She appeared before me, after descending from the heavens in a ball of fire.” The crowd gasped, drinking his every word. “Even from a distance, I could tell she was the most powerful unicorn I have ever seen. She told me that she was fleeing, trying to stay ahead of the Night Guard. She also told me that they were looking for somepony, and were killing and burning everything in their path.” Cepheus paused, looking them all in the eyes. “Now it’s our turn. We are next on their path of destruction.”
Everypony gasped, and began to whisper in fear. He heard cries of disbelief, shock, and terror. “Why are the Night Guard doing this?” a mare said from somewhere. “What have we done to deserve this?”
All the ponies began to murmur, and Chicken Noodle piped up. “What are we going to do? Where are you taking us, Cepheus?”
Everypony looked at him, and Cepheus realized that it was up to him to be the leader here. He flapped his wings, ascending above the trees so all could see him clearly. The brief exertion was terribly painful, and tears came to his eyes. He looked up, not wanting them to see how hurt he was. The first sliver of the moon had appeared on the horizon, and Cepheus saw it in the distance.
In the distance, hidden behind a ridge, he knew there was a village. The moonlight revealed billowing columns of black smoke rising into the sky from there. A massive fire was underway.
He knew he had fallen silent and everypony was waiting for him to speak, but he was held transfixed. There was gust of wind, and he could taste the smoke. The rustling of the leaves ceased for a moment, and all fell silent. He could hear it then, the sound carried by the wind. Not so far away, ponies were screaming.
Terror filled his heart, and he looked down at all the ponies on the ground below. “We must head west!” he announced, keeping the tremor out of his voice. “To the mountains, beyond Nightmare Moon’s realm and out of her reach!”
Cepheus descended, pointing his hoof westward. “We must get across the mountains if we are to survive!”
There were murmurs of uncertainty from below. “No one has ever seen these mountains you speak of.” An elder stallion said. “Nopony has ever explored the territory beyond this village, nopony knows what’s out there.”
“Then we will make the unknown known, and venture into the wilderness!” Cepheus declared. “We have nowhere else to go, into the wilderness we must tread!”
Cepheus swallowed, seeing his words taking effect in their body language. They were right though. Nopony from Nightmare Moon’s realm had ever dared to venture out beyond the fringe villages. What if there was a reason why Nightmare Moon hadn’t expanded her territory in a thousand years? Cepheus looked out towards the forest that stretched out as far as the eyes could see. What could be hiding in the brush?
The ponies below had come to a consensus, and were beginning to pick up their luggage and gather their families. Cepheus flew down and landed besides Candle. She pulled him close and kissed him. Their heads leaned in, and she whispered to him. “Everypony is looking up to you, Cepheus.”
“I know,” he whispered. “I promise I will take good care of them,” he nuzzled her, feeling her warmth against his snoot. “Especially you two.”
Candle drew away from him, seeing all the ponies heading towards the western boundary of the village. She winked at him as she turned away. “I always get a feeling of security when you take charge like this….” He heard another mutter from her as she trotted away. “You would make a great father.”
The way Candle had said it, Cepheus was pretty sure she hadn't intended for him to hear that last bit. He blinked. A father…He had never known what it was like to have a father, so he thought he would be clueless when he became a father himself. But apparently, it was within him all along. Pegasi were especially known to be excellent fathers, they had a protective instinct ingrained within them.
Cepheus swallowed, and decided that he would think this over later. He had to lead these ponies to safety first. The Night Guard was less than a few hours away, he had to make haste.
He stood in front of the wall of foliage. Bushes, tall grass, and rocks lay on the forest floor, while deciduous trees towered forty feet into the sky. The thick canopy of the trees blocked out the moonlight, and Cepheus motioned for everypony to light their lanterns or activate their hornlights.
Cepheus took his the first step into the foliage, and Candle followed him. “Alright!” he called. “Everypony form a double-file line, so we can easily keep track of each other. Keep your foals and the elderly close to you. And whatever you do, don’t let your lights go out.”
They all ventured into the forest, led by the light of their lanterns. Here in the darkness of the mysterious forest, fleeing from his home, leading his village folk to safety, it made him wonder about some things. His future, his ability to protect these ponies, where he was going, and a question he had been contemplating for a long time resurfaced: Is there a God?
Cepheus wanted to believe. He wanted to feel like there was a higher power than all of this, and that if Mother didn’t wake up, she would at least be going to a better place.
Up until recently, he had been ignorant to the concept of a deity. Mother had never mentioned religion, or anything like that. She had simply suffered too much to believe in such things.
Cepheus knew many people believed in a higher power of some kind or another. Though there was no way he could be certain that any of these things could exist: the afterlife, God, or any of that.
But there was one thing he knew for certain. The definition of “God” was flexible. It simply meant a higher power that looks out for us. Cepheus believed in a “God,” but it was very different from what most ponies perceived as religion.
God, to Cepheus, was the collective amalgam of ponykind’s virtue. To say that Cepheus believed in God was equivalent to saying that he believed in ponykind’s capacity for good. He had faith in ponykind’s ability to be morale and just.
For now, that was his current understanding of any higher power. If there is any higher power that controls the fate of Equestria, it begins within every single one of us. We have the power to change the world, but for that, we must have faith in our ability to do so.
Cepheus looked into the darkness ahead, the lantern hanging from a metal ring in his mouth. Candle was beside him, with Dusty snoring on her back. Persei, Mother, and Ultra Violet were somewhere up ahead as well. Cepheus had every right to be optimistic. Without his choice to help Candle, all these ponies would have been dead by time the moon set.
The sliver of “higher power” within his heart had changed the fate of the ponies in his village. We were survivors, and his “higher power” would live on to galvanize the “higher power” of others through his example. The way wickedness and vice was infectious, so was morality and virtue.
When ponies see an act of kindness, or generosity, their hearts grow a little. They are encouraged to do good as well. Ponykind’s potential for both good and evil was staggering.
That was what Cepheus believed.
“Celestion,” he whispered to himself. Perhaps he could work on extending his personal definition of God to include this entity.
He looked over to Candle, wondering what she would think of his thoughts on religion. Would she think him naïve and foolish if he told her?
Cepheus continued staring down the path, contemplating. He looked back at all the ponies behind him. They were trudging through the undergrowth, fear in their eyes. He thought of the smoke, the flames, and the screams on the wind.
He thought of all the villages that had succumbed to the Night Guard. Had there been any survivors at all?
Cepheus, the white pegasus, leader, and the protector of these ponies had to preserve their lives and get them to safety. Cepheus looked all around, grasping for something within him that had lain dormant for a very long time.
How would he possibly be able to protect these people from the Night Guard? How?
His thoughts returned to the notion of a deity. There has to be a God, whether her name be Celestion or Nightmare Moon, it’s there. It has to be.
Cepheus, for the first time in his life, prayed. There has to be a God, because if there isn’t, there is no force in this universe powerful enough to save us from the evil which pursues us in the night.
There has to be something, anything…I have faith…I…I believe.
Please, to whoever may be listening, please help us. I know you’re out there….
As he delved further into the unknown, deep inside Cepheus’ heart, a small flicker of light was kindled.