The darkest part of the night had passed. The worst of the deaths, destruction, treachery, and cruelty had passed. But the night was not over yet, and in its waining it retained a sinister potency.
Yes, the Eternal Night was not over yet.
Especially in that place where the sun had not reached in many thousands of years, under the Mountain.
“Seems like somepony has no appreciation for fine art.” Prosser regarded the strewn about fragments of dozens of statues. He brought the firefly lamp closer to one of the chunks. It was half of a sculpted face, teeth and claw marks defacing its twisted expression. "Me-oh-my. Lady Aurthora, I am going to lose my stomach for this adventure at this rate. I didn't agree to venture deeper into this place with the expectation of actually finding anything."
"Your sense of peril is askew. You think nothing of massacres and living sacrifices, but scattered stones makes you pale." Aurthora said humorlessly. "But I will concede, in strict confidences, that it was perhaps not the wisest idea to charge after unsettling sounds in the depths of this uncharted place."
"Thirty years ago, Equestrian explorers were mapping the coast of Chitin and Horsestralia. Ten years ago they were delving into the mountains of the Griffin Far-East. One year ago they sought the source of the great Sahellan rivers." Prosser rattled off. "This is the frontier of Pony exploration."
Aurthora noticed a discolored puddle near one of the shattered statues. She rubbed her hoof over it, and finding it wet, sniffed it. "We may yet find ourselves like those unfortunate explorers who Sahellan pigmies turned into shrunken heads. This is saliva, and it is still wet. Sir that sound we heard was a beast, and a large one at that.
"Grand. I'm going to have to go through my books to find a creature that drools." Prosser rubbed his chin.
Aurthora swept her lantern over the ground. Something glimmered from the darkness. She trotted over and picked the shiny thing up, and found it to be a twisted and gouged fragment of metal. "Platinum?" She turned it this way and that, trying to make out the words etched into it, but they had been rendered illegible by the damage.
"Platinum is conductive to a very particular kind of magic that makes it the perfect binding for master necromancy." Prosser took it from her to look for himself. "Allegedly you can resurrect the living soul right into the metal itself. They don't even have to be dead! What a sinister prison it would be, to steal somepony's soul in something like this and stack it away."
"Dreadfully morbid. These were clearly pony statues." Aurthora said. "It defies belief. Was this some manner of... immortal sanatorium for trapped souls? No longer, clearly. This was a deliberate and targeted destruction.”
“Just when you’d think that a place can’t get any more welcoming.” Prosser looked out past the edge of the meagre light of his lantern. The naive little earth pony who had fallen through the dragonfire cage had gone out into that voluminous void of darkness. He was probably dead. "For your consideration, I present that we take a page from Sel's book and book it."
"Leave?" Aurthora asked.
"Yes, right now." Prosser nodded eagerly.
Aurthora lowered her lantern. "This is a fearful situation, but I could not conscience fleeing before this threat and leaving Canterlot undefended."
"What about US being undefended? Do you think we can fight an animal that can bite through stone?" Prosser kicked at the statue rubble. "
That elicited a moment of silent thought from the viscountess. "Are we worthy of lordship over this city if we can't?"
"That is a question of political theory that I am not equipped to answer. I'm a civil servant dogsbody and occasional wit, not a philosopher." Prosser mused. "At the core of your question, we confront the question of relationships. Do the nobles live for the sake of the commoners, or the commoners for the sake of the nobles? With Celestia gone, I think the answer to that question is radically different from the answer of yesterday."
Aurthra squinted at him. "You are circling my question so much I wonder if you miss my point. Lady Velvet and all who swore to obey her have declared themselves Canterlot's protectors. That is the salient point."
"Oh, yes, now I see." Prosser chuckled.
Once again Aurthora was regretting her choice of company. “The gods did not bless you with much courage, did they Lord Prosser. This long night has made us weary. I'm sure you are having trouble sustaining that cheerful, sarcastic exterior."She tapped her sword. "I will search for the beast that did this. You can stay behind if you wish, to 'raise the alarm' should I fail to return."
"I may do that. Although..." Prosser looked into the void again. "Curiosity grips me."
"Do as you wish. It will not be hard to find each other." Aurthora hefted her firefly lantern and started trotting in a random direction.
Prosser began wandering as well. After a while he saw another glimmer by the light of his lantern. He took a step towards it, but a foul stench hit his nose. It was like a mix of rot, clams, and urine.
The glimmer was the reflection off the light off a huge puddle of blood. Some of it was black and some of it was red, and where the black and red met the puddle steamed as if boiling.
“Fascinating.” Prosser muttered, kneeling by the puddle. He was struck with an impulse to taste the retched liquid. "This was not a natural beast, as if that needed confirming." Besides the puddle there were also dried streaks of the red blood that went farther into the darkness. “Lady Aurthora!” He called out towards the other point of light in the dark. "I've found something!"
“On my way.” Aurthora called back. She trotted over hastily. “Oh gods… This could not have come from just one pony.”
“That black stuff didn’t come from a pony at all.” Prosser pointed out. "This is... something else."
Aurthora didn't like the way he'd said that. Her brow furrowed. "Do you mean Phyte, or one of her monstrous creations?"
"No, no, this is related, not exactly. Black blood is the stuff of Dark alicorns. Deava. Anima Astral Nacre and her children.” Prosser trudged forward, lifting the lantern high. He stepped around the puddle and began following the scrapes and dried red streaks. "Either one of the things from deeper in Clover and Starswirl's Arcanum wandered up here, or somepony conducted a ritual to create a border guard of sorts to prevent the first case from happening."
"Wander up here? Oh dear." Aurthora sighed.
By lantern’s light Prosser followed the red trail to it’s terminus, a massive rock column pockmarked with small holes. At the base of the column were dozens of shriveled black vines and another large splatter of black blood. He ran a hoof over one of the vines. It was more muscle than vegetation, and oozed blue-black ichor. “I don't know which case this confirms, but this is Deava malarky for certain.”
Aurthora followed behind him, looking around wearily and tapping her sword nervously. “What a whimsical word for something so upsetting."
They circled the pillar several times, inspecting it from all angles. Prosser was deep in thought, slowly putting the clues together. Aurthora, however, was more and more jumpy by the moment. This was well outside her expertise; Was it even possible to overpower an alicorn by brawn?
"I think... these vines were one entity, while that black blood came from another." Prosser said. "Which leaves two creatures unaccounted for."
Aurthora stopped circling. Her eyes were drawn out into the dark. Like most ponies, the word 'alicorn' drew association with the regal bearing of Princess Celestia. But after Twilight Velvet created Astral Nacre, that association withered. What could an alicorn be? Her mind imagined all kinds of strange things filling the empty void past light's edge. Strange and curling things that comported to none of the rules of biology and evolution...
And then, something that was not imagined! Another little glimmer in the dark- no, two glimmers. As she watched the glimmers rapidly disappeared and reappeared. She was about to point it out to Prosser, when they disappeared again.
“Eyes!” She hissed. “Sir, we're not alone!”
Prosser stopped in place. "That's not good."
Aurthora wordlessly drew her sword out of its sheath, and cautiously approach where she’d been looking.
Prosser considered running away. If it really was an alicorn, or a monster that could hurt an alicorn, a sword had no hope of stopping it. But as he was considering this a third possibility crossed his mind- that the 'beast' that had destroyed the statues and bled so much was a pony or several. That perhaps frightened him most of all: If they got into Canterlot it would be difficult to track them in the general population. Was there more to that clueless knight that had wandered this way>
Aurthora moved her lantern across the empty cavern floor. She began a wide circle of the area around the column, and found another of the fragmented statues. This one was more intact, and dipicted a crying pony, with eyes turned upwards as if appealing a higher power. The sculptor must have been half out of his wits to create such tortured works of art.
She was about to turned back when she noticed a pinkish glob by the statue. "What is this?" She poked it with her sword, and it yielded and bled. “Flesh, not pony. Too porous.” Aurthora speared the glob and lifted up to inspect. On close observation, the pin flesh was still making minute contractions, animated by an unknown force. "Good gods. It is like the stuff Astral Nacre is made of."
The horror heightened.
Out of the darkness past the edge of the light came a squelching crunch, followed by a long scrape.
"Shoot." Aurthora hissed, quickly closing the shutters on her lantern. The grotesque sounds continued. It sounded like... Aurthora dare not imagine.
Against her better judgement, she crept forward silently in the absolute darkness. She honed in on the crunches and squelches, and they became steadily louder. Yes, something biting and chewing.
Her hoof bumped into another fragment of a statue, and it went clattering across the ground. The sounds stopped.
There was absolute silence. Aurthora stifled her breathing.
Then, an unexpected whisper. “Is somepony there?” A stallions soft voice sounded out.
Aurthora could see nothing. She didn't dare to move or open the lantern shutter.
But after several long minutes, she began taking small, slow steps toward where the voice had been.
“Oh, so is nopony there?” The stallion voice came again, tinged with disappointed. The direction of his voice changed slightly, now sounding as though it came from above. Aurthora didn’t hear wingbeats however, which ruled out a pegasus. “If there was somepony out there, not that I’m accusing anypony of being there, they really should tell me. Then we could avoid any drama. We could be friends.”
Something was very wrong. The faux-innocence of the stallion's tone and his confusing words filled Aurthora with a dread she could not describe.
In her nervous shaking, she accidentally bumped the lever on the lantern, cracking open the shutters and releasing narrow slivers of light in every direction.
Right in front of her was a massive carcass splayed out on its back. Truly it was, or had been, larger than any creature she’d seen before. It’s barrel was as wide as she was tall. It’s torso and flanks had been eaten into by monstrous fangs in some places and pony-sized teeth in others, exposing meat and ribs. The thing’s head was nowhere to be seen, though iridescent feathers lay in a pile nearby, thoroughly plucked. There was black blood everywhere, dried and coagulated or pooled thickly.
“Aha! I’m so glad, for us!” Standing on top of the half-eaten alicorn carcass, knee deep in guts, was a grey earth pony with a short pink mane and wild red eyes. His smile was positively manic. “If there’s anything better than indulging in heinous sin, it’s doing it with friends!”
No pony, however hungry, would have been able to eat the amount of flesh missing from the alicorn body. Aurthora backed away slowly, keeping her eyes fixed on the earth pony. "What in the gods' name..." She muttered.
“You’re a Canterlot Noblelady, I’d guess. Well met! This is, or was, Agana. Say hello.” The blood covered stallion prattled on. “Did Astral send you? Oh, I feel so alive! I can’t wait to get back into the night air. Did my lady send you? I want to see the moon so badly I’m fit to scream!”
“Stay there!” Aurthora ordered hoarsely, retreating until her light barely illuminated the lunatic colt. The grotesqueness of the gore and the earth pony’s rambling was making her doubt her own sanity. Her stout heart was beating so fast she was afraid she might pass out.
“Hmm, yes, I can understand this looks bad. Let me explain. It was play gone wrong, you see." The stallion cooed. "I'll be more careful next time! Just come a little closer. I want to talk to you. Please I need to... to talk!" His face was contorted by extreme worry. “Goodness my head is swimming. Is this how her ladyship felt when she created me?"
This was the beast! This... dainty little earth pony with girlish hair! "You are acting suspiciously!" Aurthora croaked. She didn't want to provoke him, but she couldn't let him get away. The only think that came to mind is trying to arrest him. "Step back from the body and submit to an inspection." She brandished her sword.
The stallion seemed to ignore her in favor of talking to himself. "Oh... but if there is to be a party, and I'm quite sure there will be..." His voice dipped into a growl. "I'm not dressed for it." He lowered his head into the body cavity and ripped out hunk of a lung with his teeth. He turned toward Aurthora, face dripping with black blood. “I'm being SO RUDE! Want some?”
Visions of being eaten alive flashed through Aurthora’s imagination. Panic overwhelmed her and all she could think of was getting away. She lost her grip on the lantern and it clattered to the stone floor, the glass shattering. The fireflies dispersed into the shadows.
“No. Don’t go. Don’t go. don’t go…” Wreath and the carcass were swallowed by shadow as the circle of light shrunk. With the dying of the light, his voice also dwindled to silence.
“no no no no.” Aurthora clenched her eyes shut and tried to focus on her magic. Her telekinetic grip on her sword became too weak, and the blade clattered to the ground. “I'm done for.”
An odd vibration tingled up her spine and between her ears. She likened the sensation to hearing Astral Nacre’s inaudible telepathic voice, but without any words, just the sensation of being spoken to by something abhorrent.
She opened her eyes. A mouth full of teeth the size of a pony’s hoof was inches from her face, twisting in soundless mimicry of speech. Above them were Wreath’s red eyes, blown up to monstrous proportion and slitted like a predator’s.
Aurthora spun around and galloped as fast as she could.
A paw swatted to her the ground. Before she could move, the beast grabbed her tail and dragging her backwards into the great dark emptiness.
Back at the great hollow column, Prosser heard the echoing shouts and screams. “Aurthora?" He whispered. "Whelp, nothing for it now." It was time to surrender to the new authority threatening his life, again. "Come on then, hurry it up." He called into the darkness.
The scene was delightfully eclectic. The statues, the plundering creeper, the beast, the alicorn… Something very curious must have happened to have brought all of them together. Perhaps, something deeper inside the Arcanum. The legends all told of Starswirl’s sprawling complex of laboratories and lecture halls, but all anypony had seen yet was empty cavern and rough hewn rock.
There was something down there, undoubtably, calling out. It would remain hidden for a while longer, but not that much longer. The seekers of those secrets were beginning to break through.
"So then, what has found Aurthora? The alicorn or the beast?" He wondered aloud. "Or the hypothetical pony?"
A sound from the dark. An airy, whimsical whistle. “fwee fwuu fwee phwEE fwee, phwUU, phwuuu, phwee phwee, phwuu phwuu”
Prosser frowned. He had heard Sel Lech humming that exact tune. “Movement three of Buckerini’s string quartet number five in E major. The Celebrated Minuet.”
Something very large moved at the edge of the light, then retreated back into the darkness.
“Yes… I’m certain that’s what it is.” Prosser retreated to the column, keeping his back to it Through the visceral silence of the Arcanum, he heard deep, rumbling breaths. “A bit overdone in my opinion. There was a few months were you’d hear it at every function and garden party. Positively nauseating.”
The head of a ginormous wolf pushed it’s way into the sphere of the firefly lamp’s modest light. It stared down at Prosser with massive red eyes.
“It's quite an earworm.” It said in a deep and rumbling voice. Blood seeped from the corners of its mouth as it mumbled. “Troubadours prance up and down the riverpony lands playing it, despite have no idea what its called. Just another cheerful tune, I thought. Imagine my shock to hear it here in Canterlot, center of high class.”
“How very ironic, he he...” Prosser’s nervous laugh caught in his throat. He began hyperventilating. “D- d- don’t forget to s- slur the eighth notes. He hee.” He fainted.
Ripple Wreath chortled. So much for those two ponies interrupting him. He would finish his work in the Arcanum and find a way back to the surface. He could feel a tingling in his spine that told him the night would be coming to a close soon. It would be better to get back to Canterlot before then.
The waining moments of Applejack's time on the moon were like flipping pages to her, flat seuqnces of images. Her grasp on events after Luna's murder deteriorated until she was set adrift from the lunar dreamscape.
On reflection, Ancepanox probably cast her off the moon on purpose. Whatever was going to happen next, to Twilight Sparkle and the bodies of the dead alicorn sisters, was not for the eyes of the nightmare ponies.
So Applejack drifted backwards throught that strange and nausiating space of light and color, though mercifully without the added horror of seeing Ancepanox's changed manifestation, until sensation began to return to her body. Bit by bit the visions of things betwixt faded out, until all was black, while at the same pace the cold, damp Everfree Castle reimposed itself on her sense.
Applejack opened her eyes. Things were not how they'd been left. "Goodness." She groaned, rousing herself and looking around. It seemed somepony, probably Fluttershy, had dragged the sleeping ponies (save for Dash’s, still tied up in the forest) into decaying stone chairs around a broken library reading table, as if they were having a demonic staff meeting. Mostly though, they'd flopped out of the chairs back onto the floor.
“It’s like bein in Manehattan again.” Applejack murmured, rolling onto her stomach then sitting up. She felt aweful, nauseated, and in pain all over her body. "Ghh, wish I coulda stayed in the dream a little longer."
Across from her, a sharp intake of breath as Rarity roused. “Oh dear..."
“Yeah? Think life sucks now, just wait.” Applejack rubbed her eyes. "You've got a due date with an ass-whopin', heh heh."
Their eyes were drawn to Ancepanox, draped over the third chair at the reading table. The nightmare alicorn was snoring softly.
"It is very tempting to imagine I could win through dishonest means." Rarity regarded the sleeping princess. "Asking myself what attack or strategy could I ever adopt that could hurt her in a meaningful way, I come up short. It is... disconcerting to think that this pony dozing beside us is an immortal, impervious god."
"A bit, yeah. Applejack admitted.
"You will die, molder, and be forgotten. Some time later, I will deteriorate too as the necromancy that binds me unwinds, until I am dust. But this pitiful, foolish child once named Twilight Sparkle has bumbled her way into infinity by a confluence of coincidence, luck, and genuine skill." Rarity continued. She slumped over the table, fighting back her emotions. "Everything about this world we know and understand will fade from existance and memory, and this wonk will remain. When I consider this, I feel a deep anguish of helplessness."
"Don't pretend like that's the only reason you're gunna fight her." Applejack chided.
Rarity laughed softly, sinisterly. "Well no. I fight Ancepanox because I hate her. I will not succumb to helplessness. I will retain my optimism for victory, even in the face of these odds."
"It's not odds if its a sure thing, Rarity." Applejack quipped.
"You are being to witty for your own good, Applejack. You know I could tear you apart before she wakes up.” Rarity stood up and stretched, making her fur and muscles shudder. It amused Applejack that the strikingly beautiful nightmare unicorn would pose herself so ungracefully. "How far can I push it before I invite retribution not only on myself, but the things and ponies I love? Wringing you is probably in the range of 'safe' activities."
"Very funny." Applejack deadpanned, but Rarity wasn't wrong.
Rarity kicked away her chair and began pacing the dilapidated library. "I had the word in my hooves, Applejack. That is how I felt at least, for a few hours of ecstasy. I had you and Rainbow Dash at my mercy, and I had every confidence in myself, that I would be able to destroy Twilight when she got back from her soul searching."
"Unluckily for you she weren't Twilight anymore."
"That's not the point. I had everything." Rarity shook her head. "Now, it is not that I have nothing... but I have much less than everything."
"You goat, you've got your family and friends! That isn't everything?!" Applejack exclaimed.
Rarity's eyes were drawn to Ancepanox again. "Look at her. What do you imagine she is doing up there, on the moon?" They both looked up to that pale satellite peering through the gaps in the library roof. "Things too horrid to imagine! Her prerogative is to devour and claim for herself everything that Celestia and Luna had. THAT COULD HAVE BEEN ME."
"I'm right thankful it wasn't." Applejack said dismissively. Still she whispered a silent prayer asking the dead sun princess for forgiveness. Old habits died hard.
Maybe Rarity detected Applejack's little whisper, but she didn't mention it either way. "Humph. Her excellency is awakening now. Time for night to come to an end then, at long last."
"At long last." Applejack echoed.
Ancepanox twitched. Her purple eyes slid open and she sat up. "You stayed." She noted, looking first to Applejack in the seat beside her, then to Rarity. "I thought you both would have run for your different reasons."
"Nuh uh. You owe me a cure for this curse." Applejack said.
Rarity snorted disdainfully.
"Fair enough. It's better this way." Ancepanox uncurled, pushing the table and chair away as she stood up. There was a hint of anger in her voice. "My sisters are dead. Time to stride past this chaos and transition."
"If you say so." Applejack stood up too. "So, how do we do that?"
Ancepanox gestured to one of the exits. "Find Twilight Sparkle, first of all."
Rarity stepped in their way. "Being what you are now, Applejack are much more akin to Twilight than you are."
That earned a piercing glare from Ancepanox. "In the same way two children of different species are more similar than their respective parents."
"Hmph. Twilight has had her agency and self-determination stolen from her at every turn." Rarity said. "We demand to know your intentions for her!"
"Uh, we?" Applejack stuttered.
"Don't think I can't see through your obvious faux-concern, Rarity. Maybe you're wondering if Twilight and I orchestrated that double homicide against the sisters. Are you relieved or not to hear me say no?" Ancepanox narrowed her gaze. "I have to set Twilight up with everything she will need to live normally after this. Her psyche was been partially deconstructed and her memories had been scattered. Waking up and going on with things after this is going to require dedicated engineering of her soul."
"I have to admit, that doesn't sound great." Applejack pawed the ground.
"Celestia deprived Twilight of her self-determination. Of course its a paradoxical process fraught with little perils about how to restore it. I won't bother you with the details." Ancepanox shrugged. "The first question is whether or not Twilight even wants to be repaired of Celestia's tampering. That is the only place I can start, and it is only after deep reflection on our few interactions that I conclude that yes, I should strive to turn back the clock on Twilight Sparkle."
"And the Tower?" Rarity demanded.
Ancepanox shook her head. "That's not for you to know."
"And the Sun?" Applejack asked.
"You'll find out soon. You won't even have to be here." Ancepanox stepped around Rarity and strode towards the hall. "If you would please, ease my worries. Rainbow Dash and the fillies are about a kilometer northwest of here. Rendezvous with her and together take Spike and the fillies to Ponyville."
"Ponyville?" Applejack whispered.
"Fluttershy's house should be isolated enough. You can wait there until we arrive." Ancepanox nodded. "Stay away from town and ponies in general. One of the unicorn lords, Sharphoof Lightdowser was camped northwest of the outskirts when I was there."
"I think I can do that." Applejack agreed.
Rarity followed them a short distance, sulking.
"in that case, the sooner you leave the better. If It's light out by the time you reach the edge of the Everfree, the chance of being spotted will rise steeply. It would be preferable to remain unknown to Ponyville and ponykind at large, I think." Ancepanox continued. "Do what you have to to keep the fillies calm. Spike should remain in his enchanted sleep until I get there, so you won't have to worry for him."
"I think that covers most everything. I should get going." Applejack said. "See you at Fluttershy's."
Anceapnox waved her off, as Applejack doubled back and trotted to the nearest castle exit.
"Do want to be ordered around too, Rarity?" Ancepanox said once Applejack was out of sight.
"Not especially. I am just enjoying seeing you work." Rarity said coldly.
"I am a sight to behold, aren't I. That's not lost on me." Ancepanox chuckled. "And I'm sure its not lost on you what I want out of this relationship. I'm afraid that the spirit of cooperation and friendship is not going to be sustainable under our circumstances."
"You want me to be your slave." Rarity accused.
"If that's what you want to think of it, fine. I did not think of myself as a slave of Princess Celestia when I was her retainer, but realistically, there was no way I could have escaped her if she didn't want to let go of me."
"Servility does not suit me." Rarity shook her head. "Do you want to duel here, now? Or when it fits your schedule!?"
“Give it a rest. You won't have to wait long, though. We will commiserate when the air is clear.” Ancepanox said.
"However you want it. Truthfully, I don't know if I am controlled by mare or nightmare right now. It doesn't matter. I would feel the same either way. You deserve to be opposed by me." Rarity replied. "Twilight Sparkle used narcissistic overconfidence to hide her doubt and fear, for what good it did her. You though, you genuinely think you're superior." She sighed. "You are superior. What now, princess? Is this whole world going to be servile to you?"
Ancepanox stopped trotting.
They were near the throne room. The hall they were in connected to one of the adjacent courtyards.
"Well?" Rarity asked.
"I don't have an answer for you Rarity. I have been treated to several different interpretations of alicorn rule this night. But it was always alicorn rule, reign, and supremacy." Ancepanox leaned herself against the hallway wall, staring off into the distance. "Am I even an alicorn? If I am, when did it happen? I don't think it was during that retched ritual that killed you. Somewhere between here, Canterlot, and a hole in a marsh, I grasped the nature of an alicorn. Somewhere between here, the Tower, and the Moon, I filled in this retched body and became a lord of creation."
"Then your logic has progressed along the same lines as mine." Rarity agreed. "I worshiped the nightmare gods my entire life, but faced with one, I can't help but be disgusted with your existance."
"Harsh. And true. I felt the same way when I drilled down to the truths about Princess Celestia. The years I spent as a pony will be rapidly overshadowed by my years as an alicorn. How long before I completely forget not only this moment, but my mortal heritage? Will I then be capable of the things Celestia, Agana, and Myriadess were?" Ancepanox sighed, cupping a hoof over her nose and tracing the seam where her helmet met warped flesh. "The Nightmare of the Moon was designed, in body and mind, for war. See how the flesh and metal are one and the same. My mind was hot cast in fear and hate, tempered in fear and hate, cooled in fear and hate. The designer is dead, but the weapon remains."
"You mix metaphors, but I understand you." Rarity said. "It isn't going to be less humiliating if I'm beaten by a mare with conflicted feelings."
"Am I mare?" Ancepanox asked earnestly.
Rarity rolled her eyes. "I'm not going to check. Let us get on with your chores, my lady."
'My lady'. Ancepanox felt a swell of disgust at the phrase. It reminded her of life in Canterlot. She knew it was her emotions speaking, but she wished to never hear it again. Impossible, obviously. The phrase served a purpose. What would ponies call her instead? By her name, causally and familiarly?
“I feel like a schoolfilly struggling to define herself." She pushed off the wall and continued her trot towards the throne room.
Rarity followed behind. "Yes we have spent the last minutes going over how self-conscious you are. Honestly, its unbefitting of a divine entity to act like this."
She was mostly ignored. "Do you think I was wrong to adopt a new name? Perhaps I should have gone nameless." Ancepanox muttered to herself.
"What made you decide on 'Ancepanox'?"
“Alicorns use names with meaning. Ancepanox, the duel twilights, the twin treacheries, is a very nightmare-esk name. Myriadess liked it. I liked it. I...” Ancepanox hesitated. “I like it. Other entities called me other things: Agana called me me Mooneater, and Anima Astral Nacre called me Celestiaan."
Rarity, yet ignorant of the cosmic aspect of the battle on the moon, was sure she'd misheard. "Anima Astral Nacre?"
"Called me Celestiaan, yes. It irked me. I call them my sisters, half joking half serious, but I could never put myself on the sacrosanct level of Celestia and Luna. They..." Ancepanox fell deathly silent.
They emerged into one of the small courtyards connecting to the side of the throne room. Since the devils on the moon had been excised, its bloody pallor and chilling glare had abated. The greatly overgrown courtyard looked like it was carved out of stone under the moon's pale light.
“Darling, you are giving this too much thought. Why, would you propose that I should I have a special nightmare name? Shadow Diamond perhaps? Ah, but there is only one of me!” Rarity said, a mocking tone hiding her tentative sincerity. “Ponies don’t change their name on whims and feelings. A name is the encapsulation of what that pony is.”
Ancepanox shook her head. “Names are just language. Language is the fine tool by which ponies spread ideas. With language, ponies pass on concepts with such detail that they survive past the death of their progenitor. I am a firm believer in language, written or spoken.” She spread a wing a ruffled the grass and brush, disproving its petrification. "When Luna rebelled against her sister, her new name Nightmare Moon exploded into history so ferociously the old was erased and lost. When the first Celestia returned to her sun, replaced by another alicorn, it was still known as Celestia. Yes, names have power and meaning that can sometimes surpass their circumstance.”
"Close, but you're wrong on one small account. The Nightmare of the Moon was her title, not her name." Rarity corrected.
"Don't presume to know better than me. She told me her name was Nightmare Moon. That only reinforced my point about the power of names and words." Ancepanox counter-corrected. "A title so powerful and accurate replaced itself even within the mind of its holder."
"When you phrase it like that, the name 'Ancepanox' can hardly even compare, can it." Rarity said snidely.
They reashed the threshold of the throne room. Ancepanox stopped again, thinking on Rarity's words. Of course Rarity had just been needling her again, but there was truth there. "Yes, in confusing times perhaps it's better to stand by well-trod words with established power. They are fitting for me, aren't they?"
"Eh?" Rarity was confused.
"I mean, to be known by my title, the same as Celestia was always on her subject's lips as 'princess', or 'empress'. And is it not fitting for me? I think it has already been used once or twice anyway.” Ancepanox said, drawing her lips back in a fanged smile. “Yours truely, the Nightmare of the Moon.”
Fluttershy was sweating, but continued in her toil. It was hard work moving dirt without a shovel, but slowly she had dug a hole big enough for the dead changeling queen. The solemn tombs in the crowded graveyard around her intimidated Fluttershy with their beauty and stature, and she was almost ashamed she could only make a hole for the latest of the eternally resting. Life was fleeting, and death was supposed to be forever. Was it fair that ponies give so much attention to the living and provided the dead with only the smallest memorials?
“Sorry about this.” She cringed, as she pushed the insectoid pony into the hole. The green and black cadaver did not have far to fall, so landed relatively unjumbled at the bottom. Hauntingly, her green eyes had come open while Fluttershy was dragging her, and now she stared up blankly as dirt was tossed back over her.
“You’d defile the ancient dirt for her?” A ragged voice said. “I’d have tossed her in the gulch.”
Fluttershy squeaked, paralyzed by icy fear. The nightmares had woken up. She didn't dare turn around
“I just want to talk.” The rough voice said in exasperation. “Maybe a bit more than talk but still. Come on, do me the dignity of facing me!”
Fluttershy was grabbed by telekinetic magic and spun around. Looming over her was Rarity, still tall and dark yet unmistacably her friend, but beside her was the ghastly nightmare alicorn from before. It looked exactly like Nightmare Moon as depicted in statuary, yet couldn’t be!
“I surrender” Fluttershy whimpered.
“I’ll be merciful you if you beg.” Nightmare Moon laughed. “Oh, I’m just kidding. Kidding about the mercy. Ha Ha Ha Ha!”
“Lay off it!” Rarity said scornfully. “It won’t be so funny if you scare her to death.”
Moon abruptly stopped laughing. She turned cautious, looking Fluttershy up and down. “I didn't plan on bringing her into this. At this point it can hardly be helped. Do you think I can trust her?”
“That depends on what you plan, darling.” Rarity said. She wished more than anything that Fluttershy hadn’t gotten involved, but it was too late for that now. “Be gentle with her.”
Fluttershy felt a quiver of annoyance at Rarity's attitude. Her friend had apparently ingratiated herself to the alicorn she had been denouncing not two hours previous. "I'm not as fragile as you think I am, Rarity." Still, she couldn't quite meet Nightmare Moon's glowing stare.
Moon mulled for a moment , then stepped forward. She grabbed Fluttershy’s head in her hoof and forced her to look into her eyes. “Fluttershy, there's a memory I have to show you. It will be quicker than explaining.”
"Let me go." Fluttershy protested weakly, and squeezed her eyes closed.
Unwilling to accept that, Moon peeled her eyelids back with magic. “Come on, Fluttershy, look at me. That’s what eyes are for...”
Abruptly, her surroundings fell away. She was in another place. The past? Nightmare Moon had said it was a memory. Could the alicorn manipulate with ponies' minds so easily?
The world around her came into sharper focus. Fluttershy saw herself in her home. She was eating dinner on her fireside chair. Her plate was unusually sparse, with only vegetables from the her garden and her customary cup of tea. Whatever time Fluttershy was seeing must have been a day she didn’t go to the market in Ponyville.
There was a knock at the door. It was the decisive, two-beat knock of somepony in a hurry. Fluttershy saw herself stand up and put her plate down before rushing to the door.
“Hello?”
“Good evening Fluttershy. Mind if I come in?” The voice of Twilight Sparkle said from behind the door.
Fluttershy the observer’s heart filled with fear. She remembered the night she was seeing.
It was the eve before the eternal night. She hadn’t gone to the market because of rumors of a plague putting ponies in comas. When Rarity and Applejack had been stricken, Fluttershy had decided to lock herself up at home until it passed.
And that meant Twilight was there for her. Yes, she knew what this memory entailed. She almost couldn't bare to watch, knowing what was in store.
“I- I- I guess so.” The Fluttershy of the vision said. “It’s rather late.”
“All the more reason to let me in, right?” Twilight laughed unnaturally.
‘don’t do it!’ Fluttershy the observer wanted to scream.
“Um…” Fluttershy’s cheek reddened as she realized how rude she was being. She quickly unlatched the door and opened it for Twilight. “Please come in.”
Twilight didn’t waste any time. As soon as she had line of sight with Fluttershy she cast her spell, surrounding Fluttershy in a translucent bubble of lavender magic. “Don’t mind if I do.” She chuckled, slamming the door behind her. “Getting enough oxygen? Let’s fix that.”
With a sadistic grin, Twilight shrunk the bubble, forcing Fluttershy to contort herself to fit. As the situation dawned on her, Fluttershy began to scream and squirm, shear panic overwhelming her.
“Who is Solemn?” Twilight demanded. Her eyes were tinged with murky black, telltale of the nightmare influence.
Fluttershy was crying too hard to formulate a response.
“Hey, do you understand me? Who is Solemn?” Twilight shrunk the bubble again, almost forcing Fluttershy’s joints out of position. “Tell me who Solemn is!”
“I- I- I- I don’t know!” Fluttershy said between breathless sobs.
“Then why does her map have your house? Where does it fit in?” Twilight said, but then as she realized that line of questioning was getting her nowhere, she shifted gears. “Allow me to rephrase. What do you know about Dneighper Crypt?”
Utterly relieved to be able to answer one of the questions, Fluttershy replied quickly, tripping over her own words. “M- Most of them left a h- hundred years ago! The only things they left are here and at Rari-”
“Where here?!” Twilight interrupted. “What is it that you have? Another map?!”
“Yes yes! A map! In my bedside table, top drawer!” Fluttershy squeaked. “Please, Twilight! don't do this!”
“I don't care about your shameful secrets enough to reveal them to the world. This about me, and what I need.” Twilight hummed, letting the magic bubble pop. She immediately cast another spell that hit Fluttershy in the head as she hit the floor.
The spell paralyzed Fluttershy on the floor. Her breathing situation had barely improved, and now she couldn't even push or scream.
She could only look up in terror as Twilight’s shadow fell over her.
“Ahh… The tense part is over. We can relax now." Twilight whistled. "Luckily both of us, I think we'll be undisturbed for quite a while."
Lacksidapially, Twilight sat in Fluttershy's chair, eyeing her sparse dinner plate. "I don't want to prolong this, not that you'll remember anyway. Well, actually I don't know how much you will remember. Most ponyvillians don't seem to recall any of it, besides their vague feelings of terror. Rarity might have cought on, just because it was so obvious when I hunted her."
Fluttershy the observer remember the turmoil and panic she'd felt in that moment, hearing what Twilight was about to do to her, the mixed relief and horror. Twilight wasn't going to kill or dishonor her, but that euphemistic 'hunt' was causing its own fear.
But it was not even the pain of the experience that had scarred Fluttershy's memories, or why seeing it again she was filled with revulsion or shame. It was the helplessness, coupled with Twilight's meandering claim she would never be able to identify or revenge against the pony who had tortured her that way.
"You know I hate to do this. You don’t understand how awful it feels when I’m hungry in that way.” Twilight stood back up and trotted back to Fluttershy, kneeling beside her. “You understand, right Fluttershy?”
Fluttershy, incapable of acceding her understanding or otherwise, was powerless to keep Twilight from nudging her with her horn.
Fluttershy the observer watched her past self’s color drain away as Twilight devoured her waking energy. She knew what had come next, vaguely: She remembered a tower, an infinite miasmatic abyss, and horribly bloated creatures with a dozen faces.
The vision faded away. The nightmare alicorn’s purple eyes filled her vision, watching for her reaction.
Fluttershy stared at the ground for a while, before slowly meeting Moon's unblinking gaze. "Twilight..." She said. "I saw you, sleeping, against Celestia."
"The pony in the throne room is also Twilight Sparkle." The black alicorn released Fluttershy and gave her space. "But I am too.I have Twilight's memories, her life’s knowledge, her hopes and dreams, and her soul. Or rather her soul, and more.”
Fluttershy slid into a sitting position, cradeling her head a bit. Her heart was still throbbing from the traumatic memory. She wished she didn't have to deal with this monster bothering her too.
"I am now Ancepanox, the Nightmare of the Moon. In briefest summary, both the good and evil halves of Twilight Sparkle apotheosized, but the good returned to pony form." The nightmare alicorn continued quietly. "Celestia and Luna are dead. I remain."
“You understand, right Fluttershy?” Rarity asked. Those words, right out of the memory she’d just seen, stuck in Fluttershy’s head!
Fluttershy understood perfectly, and she felt her fear melt away. It wasn’t a god in front of her, just a cruel and evil pony. She was a pony, and ponies were fungible. She could fear no pony any more than she could fear herself.
And without fear, she only felt anger for the nightmares.
Fluttershy stood back up. She sneered disdainfully. “Of course I understand. I’m not an idiot!”
Rarity was flabberghast. “I- I never meant to imply-”
“Yes you did. You always did! What, just because I found some comfort in your fool’s religion, I must be stupid? That has to be how you always saw me: A fool!”
“F- Fluttershy!” Rarity stammered. “I really believed, with all my heart! I’d never lead you astray on purpose!”
“Yes, yes, tell me it all again. It’s just the kind of thing that appeals to weak ponies like me. Tease me with promises of power and superiority. Tell me how much better I am than everypony else and how much I’ll make them suffer when the anointed time comes!” Fluttershy continued mercilessly. She felt more anger than she ever thought possible. “Was being your friend not enough for you? I had to be your dog, begging at your heels for the latest word of the Dark Lady? You’re disgusting Rarity, rotten on the inside. It must be why you care so much about your appearance.”
Nightmare Moon spoke up. “If it’s any consolation to your ego, the Dark Lady is real.”
“I don’t want you damn consolidation! Do you know how long I stayed in bed after what you did to me? I didn’t even know the sun was gone until a few hours ago, and then I came straight here to pray.” Fluttershy raged. “When I saw ittle wittle Twilight Sparkle, sleeping so peacefully, I understood a little of what you did to me, even if I couldn't remember exactly. And you know what, I almost forgave you."
Ancepanox bowed her head, ready for the next blow.
"But come to learn, you’re actually an alicorn now. You get to pass off all the terrible things you did on another pony, while you frolic as a bucking god! I mean, Nightmare Moon? What gives you the right to have that name? That name means something good and decent to somepony! ... But not to me anymore. How can I put faith in another pony after this, let alone a fantasy from the stars.” Fluttershy turned away from them, trembling in anger, and went back to filling in Chrysalis’s grave. “Go to hell, both of you.”
Rarity looked to be on the verge of tears.
Ancepanox felt tired. In truth, connecting with her pony emotions were becoming exhausting. She wished she didn't have to think emotionally or feel anymore if it was going to be so draining. Twilight had always been able to be aloof to how most ponies thought of her. When had she lost that?
She felt a throb in her heart. She needed to get in a fight again. Going mad and drunk in the frenzy of battle was a euphoric escape from the burden of worry.
"What is wrong with me?" She muttered her herself. "Why do I care for these little creatures?"
"Maybe you're not fit for that skin you're in." Fluttershy quipped, continuing to push dirt.
Ancepanox sighed. "I've genuinely come to hate alicorns. But every alicorn I came across tonight loved the alicorn nature and rejoiced that they had it to lord over the lesser creatures. So, no, I'm not fit for it. Is it self-loathing that has placed such a heavy weight around every breath I take, and every action I commit?"
Fluttershy paused for a second, glancing back at Ancepanox. The alicorn looked sincere, unsure of herself, perhaps even verging on tears.
"It's not my fault you've gone down a path you loath. I can't do anything for you." Fluttershy turned back to her work.
The night was still cold. It did not know what dawn could come.
"I understand. I'm sorry for presuming to burden you with my inner turmoil." Ancepanox averted her eyes. "In desperation, we need you compassion for the cursed, if not for me personally, then for others. Applejack and four children are going to take shelter in your house where they won't be spied on. Please help them. They’ve suffered this night worse than anypony. What pain it is to experience this tumultuous night without having the strength to divert its stream.” She said, hoping Fluttershy was at least listening a little bit. “A nightmare named Dash might be there too. Just so you know.” She nudged Rarity. “Let’s go. It’s about time this night wrapped up already.”
Fluttershy ignored them.
Their voices, Rarity’s warbling pleas for reassurance and Moon’s sighs, trailed off in the direction of the other side of the graveyard, where Twilight was.
But a key word tingled in Fluttershy’s mind as she pushed dirt. Dash.
Had she heard correctly? And could it somehow be that for all the cosmic possibilities and permutations of ponies with the name Dash, that it could be Rainbow Dash of Cloudsdale?
Blueblood was tense, looking over his options with deepening dread. He was trapped, unable to escape the onslaught. His men were out of play or in full retreat, and he alone would face the ridicule for such an overwhelming defeat.
Night Light moved a pawn up on the flank. “Don’t feel too bad. I had to practice for years to be anywhere near competent.”
“Don’t patronize me.” Blueblood mewled.
“I am only trying to help.” Night Light shrugged.
The Opera House was quiet without the constant shuffle of Astral’s zombies. They had all been herded into the orchestra pit, where they stayed and stared listlessly at anypony passing by. The piles of gore had been shoveled into the alley behind the building and magically, so as not to attract attention with clouds of smoke.
It was shadowy and grave in the Opera House. There would be no performances for quite a while.
Having the chess game on the empty stage was making Blueblood feel even worse about his loss. He felt like he was on display, though since all his militiaponies had gone home once the zombies were corralled, for whom was a question best left to the imagination.
“I didn’t start playing until my daughter Twilight got interested.” Night Light had been a constant source of anecdotes over the course of the game. “She came to it like all her phases. She was obsessed for about a month, thinking about nothing else. She played the family to exhaustion and then started on the Canterlot Castle staff between lessons with Celestia. But she could never get Celestia to play with her, so she lost interest. That was getting close to the time she she left Celestia, but was still struggling to engage with her.”
“Cool story.” Blueblood muttered, maneuvering his last rook to hem in a bishop.
“Yes well, it is not quite a doctoral thesis quality assertion, but in a way Celestia’s unwillingness to play chess led to her sad demise.” Night Light laughed, but his very word sounded forced. The stallion had cut short his rest beside Twilight Velvet to venture back into Canterlot to review the city's security. Finding it silent, he'd commandeered the chess board. “Insofar as Twilie was the only pony who could have saved Celestia from herself.”
“Things did go into a downward spiral after Lady Twilight left for Ponyhill.” Blueblood watched Night Light exploit the gap left by the rook’s move to maneuver a knight behind his defense. It put the king in check and, to Blueblood’s shock, the bishop he thought he’d trapped completed the mate.
“Ponyville.” Night Light corrected. He took mercy and went for the kill. “Good game. It is usually considered good manners to concede when the game is clearly lost, but for the purposes of learning I believe we should play to completion. So how about we review where you first went wrong.”
“Or how about you don’t try to use me as a surrogate child.” Blueblood snapped, then instantly regretted it. “I- uh…” He wasn’t sure how he could apologize with pigheaded pride intact.
Night Light rubbed his eyes and leaned on the chess board with a foreleg. "Blueblood, there are other reasons ponies help each other than family. Friends help friends. Superiors help subordinates and visa-versa. Do you actually think I would want you of all ponies-" He stopped himself, seeing Blueblood evert his eyes. "Hmm, it would seem we both should think more before speaking."
"The fault lies with me, my lord." Blueblood said through his teeth. Night Light would probably let him off the hoof, but he'd better hope word of the insult didn't get back to Velvet.
"How ironic, more than a hundred hours of Endless Night, and I manage to be sleep deprived.” Sighing, he lay back on the stage and folded his hooves behind his head. “We shall yet see how the course of this night continues, and if I will continue to be as useless as I feel.”
Down below them, in the dark underbelly of the Mountain, something was drawing nearer. Fortunately, this time it was just Sel Lech Sabonord.
To Sel's great relief, his arbitrary wandering through the catacombs (including though side passages he could have sworn weren't there the first times) brought him back to the slowly curving tunnel that connected to the Opera House. Each of the four times (so far) he’d walked the damp corridor, they went on just a little longer than he expected.
Being alone with his own thoughts was starting to become unbearable, and the worry drew out every moment even longer in his head. His every thought turned to anxiety and dread, especially considering Sunset Shimmer. He didn't know what he should or shouldn't tell Velvet, and how it would get him or Sunset in trouble. If only he'd gotten an opportunity to talk to her! He could either forget the whole deal and pretend he'd never seen her, or tell Velvet everything.
Thankfully the tunnel came to its terminus before the questions became too existential.
The ropes and harness to pull oneself out of the tunnel were still dangling where he’d left them, swaying in the cold draft whistling down from the Opera House far above. Sel went about attaching himself to the harness and started hoisting himself.
When the pulleys of the prop hoist began spinning, both Blueblood and Night Light looked to it
"Huh?" Blueblood stood up. We was thankful for something to distract from the awkward moment. "Is that supposed to happen?"
"It goes down into the catacombs. I have not seen Sel Lech, Aurthora, or Prosser for some hours, but I doubt they went down there." Night Light said, disinterested. "Unlike us, they have learned their lesson that this night means trouble, and have decided to sit it out."
Blueblood trotted over to the hoist, holding onto it as he leaned over the hole in the stage. "Who dug this?"
"Phyte, most likely. The Musician's Guild had several arrangements with the Theater's and Actor's Guilds." Night Light said from his reclined pose.
"Most likely..." Blueblood rubbed his chin. "Hello?!" He called down into the dark hole.
Sel heard a voice from the light above, and stopped hoisting himself. With the echo it was impossible to tell who it was.
“It’s me, Sel!” He hollered. “Could you give me a hoof, if it’s not too much to ask?”
“Somepony’s down there!” Blueblood exclaimed.
Night Light, apparently finding inertness more tiresome than action, rolled into to his hooves and went to investigate. “Sel Lech said it was empty.”
"Sel says a lot of things." Blueblood grunted. "What are we going to do if there's an army of cave creatures clawing their way up from the darkness? I'd need to go get my militia!"
“Militia guards been stationed here for hours. Did none of them report anything to you when you came on?” Night Light inquired. “Did any of Astral's little zombies fall in, or anything like that?
“Somepony might have said something. I wasn’t really listening.” Blueblood said dismissively.
Night Light’s ears flicked. He heard the voice Blueblood had spoken of, but also a coarse yelling, almost like a distant roar. “What was that?
“What was what?” Blueblood arched a brow. “That’s the pony we were just talking about. My lord, are you hearing correctly?”
“Be silent for one moment you addlepated bufoon.” Night Light heard the sound again. It was a mixture of a bear’s roar and a wolf’s howl, distorted by the reverberation. “There it is. A howl. Can you not hear that?”
“Sir? The beasts are all around us, not slinking around in holes.” Blueblood snickered. “My lord, listen clearer, not closer. There is silence. I will say it again if you misheard, if that is a problem for you.”
Night Light frowned ever so slightly. “Something is wrong with you Blueblood. Your indiscretions are pilling up."
“There you go, cast in your father-figure role. I’ll have none of it.” Blueblood turned his nose up. “And it’s Prince, for you information.”
Night Light, to his credit, let Blueblood finish speaking, and even held his peace several seconds after that. Then with violent quickness he seized Blueblood by the throat with a spell around his hoof, and pushed him to the edge of the chasmic hole.
“What is a prince, my friend?”
Blueblood squirmed violently in the magical hand, unable to speak or breath. It apparently didn’t bother him, as perilously close to the edge as he was, that only the choking grasp was keeping him from falling.
“Who gives a pony the title of prince, and more importantly in this situation, who takes it away.” Night Light continued, his self-directed anger battling to break through his calm exterior. “Blueblood, you have gotten far, far too comfortable with your paradoxical state of affairs. You want to keep one hoof in your old world and the others in Lady Velvet's world. However, a system like this is destined to be violently unwound when its contradictions become to great."
Night Light took a deep breath. How undignified, to shamelessly threaten death on a vassal like he was. It was further proof of his frayed nerves. He again admonished himself for not staying in bed with Velvet. But that didn't necessarily mean chucking Blueblood down the hole was a bad decision. "So tell me prince. Is this the moment the contradictions become too great?"
Deciding to be merciful for the second time in as many minutes, Night Light pulled his hoof back and hurled Blueblood into the chess table. The white stallion tumbled over the edge of the stage into the orchestra pit.
Night Light sighed, before trotting to the edge of the stage after him. A zombie had cushioned Blueblood’s fall, and the others were now milling around him in mute but harmless agitation. "Sir, do not joke around with me again. I am not your friend, I am you liege lord. What amuses you should stay in your head around us."
“Aach! Aach Aach!” Blueblood coughed, easing his throat of Night Lights throttling. He took a deep breath to calm his trembling. “M- My lord Night Light, it is never pleasing to be on the receiving end of your admonishments. Is it so wrong to try to relieve the tension in these perilous hours?"
Night Light sighed and stepped back from the orchestra pit.
Sel resumed hoisting himself up, shrugging away the voice he had heard as a curious guard. It was a shame no pony was going to help him though.
That expectation was reversed as somepony up above began hastily reeling him in. Sel could hardly cope for how fast the rope was spinning through the harness.
That speed carried on all the way to the top. He was pulled clear of the hole and he harness bumped against the pulley.
“Sel?” Said a familiar voice.
It took Sel’s eyes a moment to adjust to the brightness in the opera house. “Lord Night Light! Thanks for the help. I was getting kinda tired.”
“Kinda… tired?” Night Light’s face contorted in confusion. He pushed the swinging arm of the prop hoisted away from the hole and lowered Sel to his hooves. “Aren't we all, Captain Sabonord." He said roughtly. "But what was that sound?"
"What sound?" It was Sel’s turn to be confused.
To Night Light, something only he could apparently hear was not a sign of bad hearing like Blueblood had suggested, but impending crisis. "The distant howling. It would have to have been right behind you!”
Sel grew more confused. He had to admit, he had been too absorbed in his inner thought to pay much attention to the monotonous catacombs, but he didn't believe he could have missed something like Night Light was claim. "My lord, I plead ignorance! Lady Aurthora and Sir Prosser were in the cavern, but that is at such a distance you would never have heard them.
“Aurthora and Prosser are still down there?!” Night Light uttered hoarsely. They were at tremendous risk! “Quickly unstrap yourself! I must go down and save them.”
“Save them from what?” Sel bit his lip. He had the swelling fear that this was his fault.
Since Sel Lech was too engrossed in his worries to obey the order, Night Light began roughly detaching the harness. “There is no time! There is some manner of magic beast down there nopony can hear except-” His words died in his throat.
The flooring of the opera house began shaking, and a shrill scrape rolled out of the hole. It was like dozens of claws being perpetually drawn across a chalkboard, which may not have been too far from the truth.
Blueblood, having mostly extricated himself from the orchestra pit, peered worriedly over the stage. “I’m hearing it now, my lord.”
Night Light looked for his sword. The Blackhorn sword was lying against the wall where he had left it. "Sel, make your escape, NOW!" The sword was encased in the translucent sheen of Night Light's magic as he levitated it up. WIth a deft slash he severed the ropes of the hoist. The disconnected rope and pulleys dropped into the hole.
The scraping sounds and shaking got stronger.
Sel was still frozen by confusion and indecision. He prayed for another slap like Night Light had given him before, to discipline him to action. "M- My lord it's too dangerous." He croaked.
“Get going!” Night Light shoved Sel off the stage, then turned to face the oncoming threat. He heard two sets of hooves clop down the rows of seats to the concert hall’s front exit, Sel and Blueblood making a hasty retreat.
“I wonder what it will be today.” Night Light took deep, meditative breaths as he waiting for the newest adversary to show itself. “A dragon, long slumbering beneath the mountain? An alicorn come to challenge our creation? Whatever it is, I will prove my worth. Naught else I can do.”
Two shaggy paws protruded from the chasmic hole and clamped onto either side, splintering the wood floor with their enormous claws. They provided leverage for the rest of the creature to pull itself up. Candles began to snuff out, so that for the first few moments of its emergence the beast was obscured. But then its eyes began to glow, illuminating just enough of the the enshadowed opera stage.
It was a gargantuan wolf, its fur a panoply of glistening colors, it’s eyes a sinister red. It held two ponies in it’s mouth, like a duck retriever bore its prey.
“No, you are something different.” Night Light crouched low.
The wolf opened it’s mouth, and the ponies tumbled out onto the stage. It was Prosser and Aurthora, unharmed but absolutely covered in the enormous beast’s drool. They seemed to be trapped in a fitful sleep but unable to wake up.
With it’s mouth unoccupied, the wolf began to speak. “Which way to outside?” It asked, moving its mouth in ways unnatural for any kind of dumb animal. “I need to see Moon.”
“Usually in literature, the transformation comes after the werewolf sees the moon.” Night Light pointed out. “Did Celestia create you? Or Astral?”
“I am a simple hunter my lord. I am gregarious and larger that life, but playful and gentle with my friends." The wolf-beast muttered in a rush, as it shifted from paw to paw. It didn’t seem comfortable. “Will I get no peace from you? This is unnecessarily. I just want to go outside to satisfy this urge I feel. Formality can come later I promise. I'm buzzing with unfamiliar thoughts! I need to see the Moon!”
This was not a lunatic's rambling. Night Light knew exactly what this thing was. “You are a nightmare.” He sucked in a fearful breath. Suddenly the wolf’s coloration and baleful voice made sense. Just as some ponies were transformed into dark mockeries of themselves, those disproportioned nightmare ponies of myth, some ponies were cursed to become the varg, whose nightmarish power twisted their bodies into whole new and heinous things. "I'll ask more the open ended question this time. Who created you, nightmare?"
The wolf beast gnashed its teeth anxiously. "I will not answer that! Step out of my way. I've brought you these two interlopers, so obviously I don't want trouble!"
"That's not so obvious to me." Night Light uttered. "Return to your pit until my vassals regain consciousness and explain their side of the story. You are not welcome in Canterlot whilst- WHOAH." A heavy paw smashed into the stage beside him, forcing Night Light to throw himself to the side. He repositioned himself, Blackhorn Sword held forward to intercept any more attacks. "Is this the kind of trouble you didn't want, nightmare?!"
"Yes, so get out of my way! I NEED TO SEE THE MOON." The nightmare wolf hung back, but its movements were getting even more jittery, like a pony possessed. Which it was. "Alas, this has become a bad first impression either way. You are forcing me to do things I don't wish to." The wolf's expression contorted into something akin to a pained smile, its lips pulled back to a teeth grin. "I'm am going to have to hunt you sir, and pluck away this bad impression."
It watched, analyzing Night Light’s stance, planning it’s reaction on a move by move basis. They were warrior’s eyes in the face of that beast. “Good sir, I prey on fear. All who I have hunted have succumbed to fear, and you shall to. It starts out small, just a little doubt or uncertainty, but grows pestilently. Then you will surrender to it, and I will have won.”
How unfortunate that I revel in my own fears, Night Light thought to himself. He pulled back the Blackhorn sword, preparing to charge in.
It was approximately ten minutes before Blueblood and Sel Lech independently found militiaponies in the area and galloped back to the Opera House. Sel Lech took it upon himself to calm their neighbors, offering excuses and explanations that were even more hollow than the ones when Astral Nacre had claimed the hall. Meanwhile Blueblood and his militia had gone inside the Opera House, ostensibly to help Night Light. But when Sel Lech returned to the Opera House's extravagant entrance, he instead found that it had been torn apart to build barricades between it and the main hall. Blueblood had sealed Night Light in with the unknown beast.
"Blueblood... What the hell!" Sel Lech exclaimed, aghast.
The satin and velvet of the plush furnishings had been ripped out and gold fixtures had been yanked from the walls, jammed together with benches and desks to stuff the passage into the hall.
“Ah, the commoner classes destroy everything beautiful they touch.” Blueblood lamented, eyeing the handiwork his militias had wrought. “It’s why you can never trust an egalitarian.”
"What?" Sel didn't understand. "Blueblood have your ponies pull one of those down! We need to save his lordship!"
Blueblood pretended to think about it for a moment. He turned to the militiaponies. "Lads, some of you were here and saw what was on the stage last time. Without slipping up your vows of secrecy, ket us know if you would care to go in and face a creature of similar magnitude."
The militiaponies who didn't know what he was talking about stared in confusion, while those that did fiddled with their weapons uncomfortably.
"Blueblood this isn't a question of magnitude! We have an obligation to save Lord Night Light." Sel pleaded.
"Prince Blueblood, thank you. His lordship chose to sacrifice himself. He told us to escape." Blueblood shook his head. "Self-sacrifice only goes one way." Then remembering the conflagration at the Skydock gate, Blueblood wondered if it was possible Night Light would survive another attempt to martyr himself. "Sel Lech, are you genuinely looking to save your boss? That is the wrong attitude to have as an up-and-comer. Humph, maybe you're just a go-along lump."
In that moment, Sel Lech was reminded of why he loathed Blueblood. He was so secure in his shamelessness he was willing to flaunt it in front of Sel just to prove a point, heedless to the possibility of consequences once Velvet found out.
"I might be an up-and-comer, or I might be a lump, but more than either, I am a CAPTAIN of our city." Sel said with a sudden ferocity. "And I order you ponies to clear away that barricade! You liege is behind it!"
But nopony obeyed. Blueblood stood smug to his own, while the militiaponies were still gripped by confusion or fearful reluctance.
So Sel Lech did it himself. He galloped to the nearest heap of furniture and began pulling things away, hoping to make any gap he could get through to get back into the grand hall.
"You are going to get yourself killed, you fool. For what? Some one-sided bathos that will never be rewarded?" Blueblood clucked his tongue reproachfully. “Survivors control history, Sel. Don't you want to stay behind and tell your side of the story to Lady Velvet too?"
"You're making the fatal mistake of assuming you'll survive this, as if whatever is in there can be contained by a pile of benches even I can tear down." Sel said, panting from exertion. "And I won't need to tell my side! It will be obvious from my actions, I went back to save my friend!"
Having made the smallest gap at the top of the barricade he could get though, Sel Lech climbed into the main hall.
"Learn to pace yourself Sel, to learn your surroundings." Blueblood chuckled to himself. "He could have checked things out by going up to the second floor and peering from the box seats."
One of the militiaponies spoke up. "My lord... what if the creature in there can fly?! Couldn't it get out here from the same way?"
Blueblood paled. "Y- Yes I suppose so. Uhh... Look for more furniture and block the stairs! Hurry!" But what if that wasn't enough, he thought. "And then withdraw! We need reinforcements!"
In the grand concert hall of the opera house, things had become dark and still. Sel was reminded of a temple after an evening service with how the trailing wisps of smoke off the recently extinguished candles wafted into the air.
The opera stage was concealed by particularly thick shadows, as if blanketed by an obscuring haze.
“Lord Light!” Sel yelled, running up the aisle. “Lord Light are you okay?!”
He hesitated at edge of the orchestra pit, staring into the haze for any sign of a pony. “Night Light!” He screamed again. He had no idea what could be causing this. It was not, as he had fleetingly imagined, Sunset Shimmer or any other known threat. No this was not something any pony could do. The fear he felt was otherworldly, exquisite, impossible to shove away.
"Night Light!" He called again, quieter. He circumnavigated the orchestra pit and climbed onto the stage, into that obscuring shadow.
Canterlot, with a population fluctuating around nearly one-hundred-fifty, required a thousand city guardsponies for its day-today security. Added to that were the one-hundred Imperial Household Guard, and another thousand private guards, sworn knights, and vigilante town watch.
But since the fall of the Eternal Night, that conventional system had turned belly-up. The City Guard had had hundreds of its number killed or imprisoned, the rest suspended until further notice. The IHG had fled the city and taken their families with them. The private guards, the knights, and the vigilantes had either chosen to stand their own guard or huddle in their homes, and while the latter were as silent as the rest of the city, there were scattered reports of the private guards and miltias being attacked and murdered, some of the few crimes during that Eternal Night.
So who did it fall to, to keep the peace? Twilight Velvet's roving militias were on their surface an unprofessional, inadequate lot. This surface look was in fact completely true: The ponies patrolling the street were the same Blackhorn Council street gangs that Velvet had used to leverage Seacrest Blackhorn into the viziership, but now with guns and a charter to uphold the 'law'. It was a temporary solution that obviously could not last forever.
When Twilight Velvet woke up and realized her husband had already left, she felt a tinge of annoyance, and wondered if his pleading that she rest was some underhanded effort to appear more proactive and diligent. After she stretched she dismissed that worry for the paranoia that it was and got herself ready for another 'day' of activity.
The left the guest room she was staying in into Castle Magoria's dining hall. Her maid was waiting with a simple breakfast.
"When did Night Light leave?" Velvet asked, pushing away her empty plate.
"Two hours ago." The maid reported.
"Perhaps he is just more restless than me. The messy incident with Sunset Shimmer must weigh on him." Velvet said. "Is Astral still at the University Hospital with that pegasus?"
"Yes my lady." The maid confirmed.
As she got dressed and left Castle Magoria, Velvet was contemplating the security question. The militias were unreliable. There had to be better solutions than ponies obeying out of free will. "Phyte was making loyal assassins for years. There has to be a magical solution..."
One of Aurthora's knights and two militiaponies were posed at Castle Magoria's gate, joking and laughing until Velvet trotted past.
"Do you need an escort my lady?" The knight asked.
Velvet shrugged and allowed the knight to follow her.
Her destination was the Black Horn Council's old hall, in the Old Town. The streets were remarkably calm. Sometimes that boded poorly, for empty streets opened opportunity for all kinds of conniving. Yet even villains were staying indoors where they could.
Except for us, Velvet thought with amusement.
"My lady, is it true what they say about the city guard?" The knight spoke up.
"You will have to be more specific." Velvet said. There were quite a few rumors going around to why the City Guard had been suspended.
"About the revolutionaries. Ponies say it was republican conspiracy among the guards who killed the Speakers of the Estates. They were about to get caught and launched their plan early." The knight whispered, her tone fearful. "But to think, of they'd gone a few days longer undiscovered, they would be ruling Canterlot right now!"
"Yes, Princess Celestia's sudden departure pushed forward everypony's plans, sometimes faster than they could handle." Velvet agreed. "As for the City Guard, the investigation is still ongoing. Just between you and me though, your version of events look like the correct one."
"Who knew such devious schemers hid among us. Now our noble Speakers have paid the ultimate price." The knight muttered. "Was it hard to defeat those scum?"
The answer was the same for the guards or the speakers. "It was hard, yes, but no difficult." Velvet said with a little gesture. Maybe some day the truth could come out, when the lives of a few hundred ponies sacrificed for the greater project would seem like no big thing.
They arrived at the Black Horn Council hall in short order. Velvet bad the knight return to Castle Magoria, and went inside.
Since the ranks of the politically active nobility had been brutally culled by the massacre of the Estates, the Black Horn Council had lost most of its membership. Almost everypony that remained were those middle-class commoners in the militias, shopkeepers and craftsponies who had most favored Blackhorn-style Canterlot unicorn rule.
So, the council hall had nopony among its normal membership to use it. Velvet had seen fit to order Blueblood to turn the building into a staging ground of sorts, where Velvet and her inner circle could receive news and send orders close to the city center, instead of it being routed out to Castle Magoria or Chateau la Garde.
The main meeting hall was still the same, with a long table running from one side of the room to the other. A few ponies were sorting through papers on various corners of that table. Velvet recognized some of them as imperial tax or law agents, part of the thin bureaucracy that controlled Canterlot.
"I was expecting Blueblood to select his loyalists." Velvet mused.
One of the former bureaucrats looked up from her sorting, staring at Velvet through her broad-rimmed glasses. "We sought him out, you ladyship. The status of the imperial government in Canterlot is..."
"Uncertain." Another bureaucrat picked up where the other left off. "For those of us with expenses, we need the work."
"I'll have to check what Blueblood promised you, but I think we can at least match the imperial salaries. This is going to be the nerve center for administering Canterlot for the foreseeable future." Velvet confirmed. It was better to have these durable-state civil servants than whatever sycophants Blueblood could have dug up. It remained to be seen if they could adapt to changes Velvet had planned for the system. "We can dole out specific duties later. Right now we have a volume problem, so minimize what you're sending to my desk. That means use your own initiative, and don't be afraid to be inventive with solutions."
But by the blank stares she was receiving from the paper-pushers, Velvet wasn't confident they knew what inventive meant.
"I will see if I can pull in some dogsbodies and messengers. We can tame this city." Velvet grinned.
She trotted to the end of the long room, where one of the side rooms, formerly Blueblood's office, had been converted into her office. There was even a small desk set up outside for a secretary.
"Blueblood has shown some rare competence in this whole affair." Velvet laughed to herself.
She entered the office and crossed to behind the new desk. It seemed so long ago that she had smashed the old desk in two in anger at Blueblood's failure to keep Duke Sharphoof Lightdowser in Canterlot, when it had happened barely a hundred hours previous, just before Eternal Night fell.
"Blueblood can have a broom closet or some such. Next time he messes up I'll show my displeasure by breaking brooms, mops, or buckets he shares the space with. Much cheeper to replace than a desk, not that I paid for this one." Velvet laughed to herself.
She had no sooner sat down than there was a commotion out in the main hall. Somepony was very loudly and demandingly asking to see Twilight Velvet. A few seconds later, Upper Crust peeked around the doorframe of the office.
"Just the mare I was looking for." Velvet joked. "Come in."
Upper Crust stepped into the office. The yellowish mare was dressed in black, with a sheer black shawl covering her wavy light purple mane. "Thank you for giving me the time, Lady Velvet.” She said quietly.
It was unlike the mare, usually a political dynamo, to be so reserved. Velvet decided to rub it in. “First of all, allow me to be most sincerely regretful for the tragic death of Lord Jet Set.” Velvet said, letting some sadness seep into her voice tone.
“Yes... We have all had a good cry about this tragedy.” Upper Crust said, taking a seat. Maybe she was suspicious of Velvet's feelings, because she glanced over her shoulders to make sure there was nopony sulking in the corners of the room. "Canterlot has been struck by a succession of violence that would be inconceivable a month ago. First, those pegasi brutes sacking the Musician's Guild. Then, our friends and peers serving as Speakers of the Estates being murdered by their own city guard! Then the pegasi returning to humiliate us more. Each time, you are there to save us, Lady Twilight Velvet."
"Let us not forget Sir Fancy Pants's murder. That was the event that spurred me to vigilance, and alerted me to the peril looming over Canterlot." Velvet leaned back in her chair.
"And you have been nothing but trouble for the powers-that-be since." Upper Crust scowled. "You chose subverting instead of supporting Captain Hauseway and his allies!"
"You seem to be accusing me of killing the Speakers. Well well, you should be glad there are no witnesses here to corroborate this slander." Velvet said, her gaze sharpening. "My lady, you have been listening to the advice of ponies with bad information. I subverted nothing and nopony. I supported a pony I knew in my heart could reform Canterlot for the better, Seacrest Blackhorn. I was not resentful when Hauseway poached Lord Blackhorn away from me. Indeed I was overjoyed that he was elevated to vizier, with or without my having been rewarded personally."
"You were in the loop, Lady Velvet. That dog of yours, Sel Sabonord, was made Guard Captain." Upper Crust said, but she did not seem so sure of herself.
"Sel Lech is my friend, but he is not my dog. It would not offend him to be called such, but it offends me! He is my peer and my collaborator out of mutual respect and trust!" Velvet hissed. "He follows my advice since the tragedy of the Estates for his own reasons. You have no evidence he was my 'dog' while serving as Guard Captain in Hauseway's regime, because there is none."
"That's not how it looks to us." Upper Crust shook her head.
"Us? Right now, I only see one pony." Velvet waved her hoof dismissively. "You can think I was trouble for the powers-that-be. Well Lady Crust, I am that power right now, not for scheming, and not through dishonor, but because I have been there to fight Canterlot's enemies when nopony else was."
Upper Crust sighed, slouching in her seat. She fussed with her veil for a while. "You are in charge. That is something I can not dispute."
Velvet decided to shift gears. Upper Crust's offensive capacity was exhausted. It was time to go on the offensive. "You know, I hope, that you have nothing to be anxious about. The worst has passed, and I will work as hard as possible to make sure nothing too traumatic changes."
"Your promise is reassuring. I will be trying to puzzle what it means for a while, I suspect." Upper Curst mused. "You have kept your clique very small, with just a few trust agents close to you."
"No all of them are trusted either." Velvet chuckled.
"I only mean to say that the nobility will be looking for an active roll in things going forward, such as they enjoyed with the Estates. They will be suspicious if you deny them for too long."
"You speak as though you are not part of this group of demanding nobles." Velvet grinned.
Upper Crust gave a slight shrug. "I am too hollow to be thinking of such things right now. I will wait and see."
"With your connections, I can only hope you remain friendly to me going forward. I will have enough difficulties as is." Velvet said. "Unless, as you fear, the death of your ally Jet Set hurts your credibility?"
"My credibility?" Upper Crust sounded more confused than angry by the insinuation.
"Sorry, I should have used a better word. Your... validity? I mean to say that you will no longer to be a close confidant of a pony close to power, as you were with the exalted late Jet Set." Velvet equivocated. "But, naturally, if I hope to establish something, it will need some way to reach out to Canterlot's nobles in a meaningful way. That could be institutional or..." She shrugged. "Personal."
Upper Crust saw what Velvet was offering, but true to her word she was going to wait and see. "Yes, I see your dilemma. In time I may be able to help with it." Upper Crust said. "You say the worst is over. I hope so. My friends and I have had little time for much other than mourning so far, but that is becoming anxiety again. I am concerned, most concerned in fact, about the possibility of future attacks against us. We the honorable noblesse don't want any more of our blood spilled!"
Velvet hid her head behind her crossed hooves, feigning contemplation, but really she was trying to stifle a laugh. "The nobles will bleed no more tonight. I swear it to you, my lady, that I will do everything I can." There was a time and place for the next round of sacrifices.
"If indeed you and your new guard can ensure that, we would be most welcome."
Velvet had no doubts that Upper Crust’s deference was a hoof-in to a future power play. The mare obviously suspected something, although if she knew what had actually happened to the Estates, or was merely guessing, she clearly knew better than to say it without a bigger base of support. The nobles would have to get inventive with their strategy, with so many of their most influential members culled with the rest of the Speakers.
"Before you go, I have some advice to ask of you, Lady Crust."
Upper Crust rose from her chair. "Many ponies know me for my advice."
"Many ponies believe our empress has died, and will never return to us. Some other ponies believe this chaos is temporary, which of course it is, but that Princess Celestia's return will restore order and light. I myself have been planning as though the first state of affairs is true, not out of disloyalty for our princess, but because it is always wiser to plan for the worst case scenario, and be received when reality is kinder." Velvet explained. “When I reached out to the urban nobility explaining how I would help in this time of crisis, when our empress is gone and terrorists prey at our most lofty institutions, I attributed to myself only one title: Lady Regent. I am not anypony's empress."
"This is self evident but I appreciate hearing it from you." Upper Crust said. "Exactly for whom you are regent has been a question of some speculation. It seems to some ponies that you want uncontested control of Canterlot."
"With everything we have discussed that should be clear for both of us. This want is not coming from greed, but necessity! Can Canterlot survive if it is divided between warring parties?" Velvet posed.
"Well, one would assume the parties dividing Canterlot would be at peace and come to a political arrangement." Upper Crust said. “Some naturally assume you will oversee the establishment of a new Estates, who will find a righteous leader among the landed nobles of Equestria.”
“But you are too smart to believe any such silliness, aren’t you?” Velvet leaned back in her seat.
Upper Crust's scowl returned. "Is that your question, my lady?"
"No, no, nothing rhetorical like that." Velvet chuckled. "I wanted to ask if you would be willing to come around again after the sun has risen and the dew has dried from my guardianship of Canterlot, to pose your questions again. At that time both your questions and the answers will have matured, and we will be more satisfied."
Upper Crust rubbed her chin, trying to guess at Velvet's game. "Yes one would hope. I see no reason not to." She recalled Velvet's circuitous insult, of lack of 'validity'. "I will be a reliable channel back and froth between your circle and my friends, if necessary."
"That would be most helpful." Velvet smirked.
To punctuate the end of the conversation, a messenger filly burst into the room, scamping into the office and jumping on top of the desk.
“Message for you sah!” She squeaked to Velvet. “Most tremendous of emergency at the old city Opera House! Come A.Q.A.P. As quick as possible! Signed Prince Blueblood!”
Velvet scowled, giving the floor a look so contemptful that one would have thought it murdered her family. When she looked up, her expression was neutral. “Inform Blueblood that I will be on scene shortly.”
As the messenger galloped away, she stood up, and Upper Crust rose with her. “Lady Velvet, I don't envy you. You have endless fires to put out, literal and figurative.”
“Indeed, not everypony can do my job. But none of my circle of allies are horny-handed sons of toil. We discovered for ourselves the meaning of exhaustion." Velvet said with a slim and devious smile. "Next time you come forward with the nobility's thoughts and concerns, perhaps give me some impression the noblesse with do anything other than sit impotently if their demands are not met.” Velvet brushed bast Upper Crust and stalked out of the room, off to douse another fire.
The longer the idle time in the Everfree Castle's graveyard wore on, the more unbearable it was for Rarity. It reminded her of her own mortality, now traded for a profane state of undeath. She would never share the same fate was that changeling bug Fluttershy had rolled into a grave, as enviable as that was: There would be no friends or contemporaries to mourn her as she withered away, hollowing and slowly turning to dust as the necromancy binding her slowly unwound.
She glanced to the tapestry, still serving as Ancepanox's cape. She felt a compulsion to run up and grab it, to rub her face on it while she wept. Rarity would be one of the few creatures that would see even a fraction of that dark alicorn's infinite life, and that rankled her even more.
That was all assuming she was not destroyed in the duel. Ancepanox was being wishy-washy, preferring to wander around the graveyard in a melancholy rather than get on with it, and fight.
"If you are going to let a little mare like Fluttershy cripple you emotionally, perhaps you are not as big a threat to the world as Celestia and Luna thought." Rarity teased.
"Said is if you aren't the pony that was not set weeping by her renouncement of friendship." Ancepanox mumbled. She walked from tombstone to tombstone, admiring those overgrown and illegible grave markers. "Rarity, it's not my place to tell you how to live your life... but for your own sake do everything you can to restore than bond of trust between yourself and Fluttershy. It's the only way you're going to survive the aftermath of this wretched night."
Rarity bared her teeth, feeling both the sting of mocked and patronized by Ancepanox's words. "Is that your game then, my lady? You're going to spend the rest of my life playing matchmaker?"
However Ancepanox did not follow up the mockery, for she hadn't meant it that way in the first place. "I am going to be sorely lacking for company. Somehow, I already feel alone and needy. It's not just you though, I promise. Even with Applejack or Fluttershy there, I felt... nothing." She sighed, moving on to the next grave, pushing aside a vine to read the worn runes. "Rarity, did I kill my only hope for companionship with Celestia and Luna? A looming dread hangs over me, that I fear I will only be able to fight through the most bitter kind of self-discipline."
"Get bent, my lady." Rarity hissed.
"You should get used to calling me Lady Moon." Ancepanox said.
it was not too long before they arrived at the center of the graveyard, where that great stone tomb with the broken statuary stood. It was here that Ancepanox, after being denounced by Rarity, had run out into the marsh and relinquished her old name.
"We called this Luna's grave."
"Celestia's sister's grave." Rarity corrected reluctantly. "We had still forgotten her name."
Ancepanox stood in silence for a while, looking into the air where the statue would have been if it had not been snapped off at the base. "Is it better that way? Luna's name feels to private, so personal. I think it is something everypony should discover themselves, rather than being told." She looked to the moon. "Then they can share this feeling too."
"Connected to a dead mare." Rarity sighed and shook her head.
"Yes." Ancepanox agreed softly.
The alicorn's horn cam alight with magic. In a shimmer of light, Twilight Sparkle and Celetia's resting forms were teleported onto the grass beside the tomb. "We are all connected to everypony else, thought history, magic, society, and uncountable other ways. That's why its so ludicrous that I should feel this way. I hope I am just feeling an undiagnosed special kind of grief."
"A kind of grief that only comes about it very particular cases." Rarity added. "Humph. I won't deny you have suffered in very peculiar ways."
Ancepanox wondered if there was any trace of Anima Astral Nacre influence in Celestia's body, or if the moon had served its purpose and kept that cosmic entity away from the earth. It did not matter so much really, for she was sure that the Dark Lady was watching from the dark skies.
"Rarity, how does your cult conduct its funerals?"
Rarity quirked a brow. "Are you forgetting I led a Nightmare worshiping cult? Is that really suitable for the princess of Equestria?"
Twilight shrugged and gave a little laugh. "I know the last rights of a few ancient cultures I studied, but nothing suitable for a princess. Some of those ancient and decided faiths celebrated death with new life, if you know what I mean."
Rarity sighed. "Are you don't want to send her off with nothing at all?"
That question was more poignant. "Her soul has had its sendoff, in a grand and violent ceremony on the moon. But her body deserves something of its own." Ancepanox said. "For most of my years as her protege, I don't think I knew her soul. Maybe I never knew her soul until she sacrificed herself, and I met her in the dream. So for those years of delusion, I only knew something superficial... her body. In its way, her body was its own kind of acquaintance to me, distinct to her soul."
"You are out of your mind, my lady." Rarity said, somewhat disgusted. "Anyway, the Nightmare Faithful don't really have funeral rituals that I know of. If we do, I was never taught them."
"Then this farewell be a personal one."
She kneeled down to look over Celestia. The sun princess’s body had rested undisturbed by the horror and abuse her soul suffered. It looked like she had fallen asleep and had yet to wake up. But there was no heat to her, none of the radiant warmth that had drawn Twilight closer on cold winter morning lessons.
“Was this Luna’s tomb? Perhaps Celestia, the original Celestia, intended it for herself. If so, succession squandered that plan.” Ancepanox said. “It's not labeled. With the statue broken, we can never know which sister stood atop it.”
“Is it… empty?” Rarity asked. Luna wasn’t in the stone sarcophagus obviously, but it did mean that nopony was.
Ancepanox couldn’t sense anything unusual, but then again millennia old bones didn’t have much of a magical presence. “There’s an easy way to find out.” Her purplish magic encased the heavy stone lid, and with a groan of protest it come loose of the base.
Rarity leaned over and peered inside. The sarcophagus was filled with small metallic orbs, painted with unfamiliar symbols. “How odd.” She picked one up and took a closer look.
“Platinum? This is disconcerting.” Ancepanox blinked.
Myriadess had been trapped in such an orb, though it had been painted with an eye.
“Metal eyes like these are what the ancient alicorns used to preserve their souls after death. It’s just… weird. Platinum has no especially remarkable magical properties.”
“It’s very pretty.” Rarity put the sphere back. “Although being trapped in such a small space for eternity doesn’t sound like a pleasant way to spent eternity.”
“These eyes are empty. I don’t think they ever had a soul inside. Celestia, for whatever reason, made a tomb full of unoccupied receptacles.” Ancepanox said. Something was amiss. “What could it mean? The Celestia that did this was not my Celestia. As horrid as it is to say, it was a grander, more powerful version of the alicorn I knew. Everything since have been... shadows.”
"Do you think the same will happen to you, by some contrivance of fate?" Rarity asked.
Ancepanox stared into the filled tomb, thinking of much and of little at the same time. "Rarity, if you could go back and begin this night again, what would you do differently?"
Rarity was tempted to dismiss the question with a joke, but she considered it. "Maybe I should have been more clever, or more vicious, or more secretive. I don't feel either of the shining dreams I have been chasing, that of Rarity, and that of the Nightmare of Rarity. Instead I feel like a ship adrift, misled by your blinding light. In that frame of mind, I would have run away, as far and as fast as I could."
Ancepanox bowed her head. "If only our past selves were wiser, we wouldn't have sacrificed as much to survive." She cleared her throat, pushing back sentimentality. "I speak of the whole world with that. We have survived this dark and wretched night..." She looked to Celestia. "Save those of us who didn't. This didn't need to happen. If we become wise, it never will again."
"Useless interlocution." Rarity said quietly, laughing to herself. "You conducted a ceremony after all."
Ancepanox laughed too, pained. "Yes... Yes I did."
She gingerly lifted Celestia with her magic and laid her down in the sarcofagus, head tilted back, hooves folded over chest. She was a bit uneven, having been laid out on the platinum orbs. Whatever Celestia had planned, Ancepanox was going to let it play out. That was her final gift to her friend.
“In the castle, out of sight, we place away the object of a million ponies' aspirations, their hopes, their needs. She was a political and spiritual leader. She did not rise to the occasion. She did not chose to exist as a leader. She was born to reign and control over mortalkind. In the end... her thoughts were of simpler things." Ancepanox back up into the star-flecked sky. Were Celestia and Luna out there somewhere, in that cosmic expanse some ponies called heaven? What riveting mystery, terrible and magical, lied just beyond the ability of pony minds to grasp? What must I she to gain that missing sight? To see Celestia again?
With a stifled, sigh, Ancepanox's attention returned to the princess lying in repose on the earth. “I keep thinking she’s just alseep or holding her breath, and any moment she’ll wake up. She may never decay. How many centuries from now will adventurers pry open this tomb and find her, as placid as she is now."
She could bare it no longer, and turned her back. “Rarity, will you do the honors, please.”
Rarity took the lid in her magic and, with some difficulty, hefted it back up. Suddenly, the painted symbols on the platinum spheres began to glow red. A tendril of magic jumped out and grabbed the lid of the sarcophagus from Rarity’s telekinesis. With a startling clatter, it slammed shut.
“Rarity!” Ancepanox whirled around. “That was unnecessary.”
“I-” Rarity blinked. “There was an, ah, a thing. They glowed.”
“What glowed?”
“The spheres. The… eyes.”
“What?” Ancepanox gave the lid a few experimental tugs. “Sealed shut! I dare not break it.” She nibbled her lip. “How could something with magic like that hide from detection? That devious princess. This was your last trick... To never let me look on your form ever again.” She slouched. "I..." She knelt by the tomb, laying her head against the cold stone. "Rarity... She's gone." She covered her eyes with a hoof to shield her eyes from judging stares. "How many times do I have to relive this. Once, twice, now thrice I have to experience losing my princess in a new way."
"I'm just glad I was there to experience it with you, every time." Rarity said.
Ancepanox rested there for a while, her head on the tomb. Her little movements with her breathing made her steel helmet scrape against the stone, so she just stopped breathing.
Rarity sat in the grass. Why did she have to bear witness to the highs and lows of that mare she hated so much? It was as though she were becoming an inadvertent chronicler.
"It's time then." Ancepanox roused, standing up strait. "The future has begun."
"Doesn't it always." Rarity quipped.
"And here we come to the second sleeper. She rests, but not eternally." Ancepanox refocussed on Twilight Sparkle, laying in the grass. "If she didn't exist, and if I cast away my name all the same, would Twilight Sparkle be dead?"
"It's better not to dwell on those things. Raise the sun already." Rarity nettled.
It was a provocation, but it was very true. Ancepanox closed her eyes, picking up Twilight and leaning her against Celestia's tomb. "No. There is something we must do first."
Rarity understood instantly. "I see."
The night could not end while there was one conflict remaining.
Ancepanox backed away from Rarity, creating a space between them. Rarity stood up and also backed away, putting fifteen or so meters between the two mares.
"If I thought there was some way to compromise between our beliefs, I would. I never wanted this to come to violence between us." Ancepanox said. "I have no reason to fight you."
Rarity laughed contemptuously. "And I have nothing to lose by fighting you, because I have nothing to fear from your victory. You want to compromise right away! That is not the sign of a mare with strong convictions."
"I have no convictions."
"Then there is nothing to compromise to begin with. This is not an ideological contest." Rarity agreed. "I wish it were, not for my sake, but yours. More than anypony else on this planet, you are in a position to make your vision of the world real! You say you have no convictions... Humph, it shows."
Ancepanox sighed. "We're talking at cross purposes. You're using me as a target for all the conflict you're feeling, whether or not it's true."
"Maybe I am. We will see how this turns out either way. I will be vindicated either way." Rarity said.
"Unless nothing changes."
"Yes, unless nothing changes." Rarity agreed. "My lady, for pride or otherwise... Prove your dedication and superiority through force. This is the choice I've made."
Ancepanox nodded. "I will, believe me." She cleared her throat and squared her stance. "Since you broke your promise, I'm not going to give you the one free hit. But I will let you initiate."
“I’ll have you, MOON! EEAAH!” Rarity charged forward.
“HAA HA!” Ancepnaox leapt to meet her.
Rarity swung a hoof, and Ancepanox threw up her own to block it. Keratin glanced off iron, and a shower of sparks and crackling power arced off in every direction. Rarity skipped back, only to spin around and buck out her back hooves. Ancepanox tried blocking but the impact overwhelmed her, and she was knocked backwards.
Rarity tried to exploit with a knee buck. Ancepanox somersaulted back, using her wings to right herself in mid air, then dove back in for a kick. One hoof caught Rarity on the cheek, forcing her to roll with it. Ancepanox tried to keep up the offensive, but Rarity reversed her momentum and leapt forward again.
The two nightmares crashed together. They growled and panted as they tried to overpower the other. Rarity had far better leverage and slowly she forced Ancepanox to her knees. The alicorn tried to use her wings but Rarity twisted sideways, throwing her on the outstretched wing.
Rarity threw her head back and laughed. “Hah, look at that. I tripped a god!”
“See Celestia’s tomb? This night is a night of degradation and destruction. As long as it lasts, nopony is safe from death, not even me.” Ancepanox rolled onto her stomach.
“Under the endless watch of caressing moonlight and the twinkle of the stars, a maddening whisper dances in our ears. Their false light brings degradation to soul and mind, and perverts most terribly our most closely held dreams. This night had brought great benefit to me, yes, but just as quickly it could turn against me and bring my doom."
"Hmph. Are you going this now to introduce some real risk to this duel?" Rarity asked saucily.
Ancepanox smiled thinly. “Some."
“Ooh, I must concede to you in the arena of callous words.” Rarity snickered. "A lady like moi does not like to dirty their hooves, but I will suffer it if I can have just one more memory of besting you in this contest of strength!"
“You certainly don’t make it easy for me.” Ancepanox got up and pulled her dislocated wing back into place. “The sun will be here soon! Quickly! We will finish this!”
Ancepanox darted forward, head low. Rarity braced herself and caught the tackle head on and tried to overpower her again, but this time Ancepanox had the leverage. Rarity lost her footing and was tossed backwards, colliding with a headstone. She shook it off in time to see Ancepanox coming in for another tackle, so she reared up, ready to bring her hooves down on the alicorn’s back.
At the last moment Ancepanox changed her momentum. She met Rarity hoof to hoof, and pushed her even farther up, until they were teetering at the edge of unbalanced. Rarity tried to push and Ancepanox responded with a headbutt. The spell-moulded steel of her helmet was unyielding, and Rarity staggered backward, nursing her head.
Ancepanox hopped back, letting Rarity hang in the air awkwardly. She held back until the moment the nightmare unicorn recovered, when she she flung herself forward and teleported in the same instant. Rarity felt the hit before she saw it, as Ancepanox’s iron-shod hoof smashed into her gut, sending shockwaves up and down her body. The rest of the alicorn smacked into her a moment later, sending her careening into the air. Rarity landed between a tangle of weeds behind one of the graves, where she lay unmoving.
"Urggh." Rarity gurgled, struggling to take in breaths. She didn't try to get up. That hit had hurt a lot.
“They don’t teach you that in magic kindergarden.” Ancepanox glided to the earth and brushed the dirt off her shoulder. “That’s why I’m Nightmare of the Moon, and you’re just the nightmare of Rarity.”
Rarity stared into the sky. The moon looked back down pityingly. “At least I tried.” She coughed, rolling onto her side. The grass was comfortable, but she would give anything to be in her bed again. If only the night could pass, so she could rest without fear. Night was the time of the usurpers, not those who wished to live in peace. "I return to my lot in life."
"We all do, sooner or later." Ancepanox nodded.
Twilight, laying on the sarcophagus, was sleeping uneasily with fluttering eyelids; She was dreaming a normal dream. And for a moment, Ancepanox was filled with hope that maybe this Twilight would be normal, and could live her life free from the temptations and terrors that haunted the standouts of ponykind.
But it was just a dream.
“Alright everypony, let’s find Fluttershy and get back to Ponyville.” Ancepanox grabbed the two unicorns in her magic and turned away from Celestia’s sarcophagus, beading back towards the castle. “It’ll be day soon, and it’d be a shame to miss the sunrise.”
The violence was over everywhere, even if some ponies didn't realize it yet.
Twilight Velvet felt the change in the air, and while she suspected the day was coming the new crisis at the Opera House was making her doubt her own senses.
“We don’t know what happened. The damage in the main hall is bad but nopony, not even those mindless zombies, are severely injured.” The militia sergeant was explaining. “It's the strangest thing... There's signs of some big monster, like Prince Blueblood was saying, but it has vanished without a trace, after doing little more than knocking a few ponies unconscious."
"It must have retreated back down that hole." Another militiapony said.
Twilight Velvet listened to the report in silence. Even though she was a stoic pony in a crisis, what she saw that disturbed her.
Five unconscious ponies were being treated by doctors pulled from nearby practices: Her husband Night Light, Aurthora Airy, Sel Lech Sabonord, Prosser, and an unknown grey earth pony stallion with a pink hair.
“I recognize this youth.” She murmured to herself, eyeing the earth pony. Somewhere in the thousands of dossiers she’d made while planning her web of rebellion, she had seen that earth pony’s effeminate face and short mane. “He is a riverpony noble’s son, or a lord’s close relative, something of that sort.”
“He was wearing that when we found him.” One of the guards pointed to a silver helmet stylized as a wolf’s head that had been set next to the earth pony. “There’s bruising around his hoof and mouth, so we think he might have had a weapon that was yanked away from him. Whatever the monster was, it was able to disarm without harming.”
“Spooky.” One of the junior guards shuddered.
Whoever the young stallion was, what he was going there, and his role in events, Velvet was not in the mood to speculate. Once Night Light or the others woke up, they could speak to it. Until then, she'd had enough of crisis. She had exploited it as much as she could, and now peace and quiet would suite her, at least for a little while. Time would tell if she would ever be able to step back and enjoy the fruits of her labor.
“As you can see, we waited for you to arrive before trying to wake them or moving them too far.” The guard sergeant continued. “What are your orders?”
Stop bothering be, she wanted to say. But considering every single member of her inner circle were unconscious on the stage, save Blueblood, there was nopony to delegate to.
"Was there anypony watching any of the other entrances, say, to the roof or the alleys behind the Opera House?"
"No my lady. There are no witnesses that we found."
There was not else much to be done. It was unwise to go chasing after monsters while night still reigned. "Then move everypony to the University Hospital. I have a few things to check on first, but I will join you there soon."
The guard sergeant was weary, but obeyed. “Yes, my lady.” He bowed, before snapping off orders to his underlings. The guards and doctors gently moved Night Light, Prosser, Aurthora and Sel onto stretchers.
Velvet picked up the wolf helm. It was a masterwork of craftsponyship, light but strong. She took a closer look at the dent in the visor. Barely visible was the imprint of a hoof, or perhaps a horseshoe, and the signs of warping where somepony had tried to fix the dent with magic.
“A good smith could have restored this to pristine condition. It must be a recent mark.” Velvet put the helmet back down.
Among so much crisis and worry, little observations still deserved their time. Such as that the earth pony on the ground, though showing every other sign of unconsciousness, had the too-even breathing of somepony taking very deliberate breaths.
“What an odd third-act twist this night had in store. At first it looked like it had become a classic tale of knights and monsters. Isn't it an interesting subversion, when the knights are the monsters.”
She picked the grey colt up and set him on her back.
"My lady?" The guards looked at her quizzically.
"He's rather light for a stallion." Velvet said, dismissing their concern with a shake of her head. "Follow me just in case."
The remaining guards escorted her out of the Opera House.
“Do you need help with him my lady?” One of the militiaponies asked her.
“Do I look so weak?” Velvet snapped back. Actually it was a bit tiring, but it hardly mattered. She could feel a stirring in the cold night air, a certain energy just out of sight. The world was turning. "It's time to gallop." She said to herself. She glanced back to the militiaponies. "Do either of you know the backstreets here?"
“My lady?” They looked at her quizzically.
The cold nip in the air was not as bad as it was earlier. Could it be, could it be, that the night was ending?
“Quickly! What’s the fastest way to the city wall!” Velvet demanded.
The militiapony snapped to attention. “Up Ohray avenue and through the castle gardens, ma’am!”
“Then let’s go!” Velvet grinned. She turned and galloped up the street, and her shocked knights chased after her.
She ran harder than she had in years, until she began to to feel the burn that a relatively sedentary life had deprived her of. Velvet soothed her muscles with her magic, driving them far past their normal endurance. She ran until she was nearly on the point of collapse, which left her in the middle of the castle gardens. on the north side of the plateau. In front of her were was the gentle curve of the city wall, and one of the solid watchtowers to climb atop it.
“M- My lady...” The militiaponies, weighed down by their equipment, were not faring well either. “My lady you must rest!”
“Yes, please rest.” The other choked out, collapsing on her knees.
“But we will miss it!” Velvet grunted.
Her limbs felt heavy and her body yearned to be free of the burden on her back, but she would not be deterred. Green and purple magic sprang to life at her horn, spreading to encase them all before turning into an inferno of crackling fire. Before they could even blink, the dragonfire spell had deposited them all atop the city wall. The militiaponies gagged and reeled from the unexpected teleportation.
“There it is!” Velvet shrugged the colt off and rushed to the edge of the wall. She fell on her haunches, dizzy and breathing hard, but she'd made it in time. "Look. Look..."
The northwestern sky, where the peaks of Unicornia and the Don hills met the sky, a subtle glow where light was gathering. At first it was only a streak of scarlet tickling the celestial underbelly, but soon it exploded into orange and yellow hues.
Velvet watched in utter glee as the sun peaked its head above the horizon. With languid but inevitable persistent, the great inferno rose. The moon hesitated, but with equal poise and gravitas she descended to her cradle in the east, conceding her spot for the time being.
The night was over.
Velvet slumped over the wall, physically and emotionally exhausted. The world had its light and warmth back, and it’s ponies had their guiding light.
"What a buisness, gentleponies." Velvet laughed quietly. "But we survived. We flourished. The night is a time for death and decay... and maybe that why we did so well..." She folded her hooves and lay her head down. "Soon we'll see if this land is do its rejuvenation... or it's destruction."
The sun rose high enough to peer into the city over the ramparts. Out of the streets a building murmur, as ponies opened their door and windows, to bask in the sunlight. They thought their harrowing experience was over. They thought normalcy and the status-quo would reassert itself.
Ripple Wreath rolled on his stomach from where Velvet had laid him, cracking one eye open. He'd been expecting to burst in to flame under the sunlight, so it was some relief that the nightmare curse didn't quite work that way. "I'll be." He groaned, stretching his back and limbs from his prone position. "The future is going to be interesting."
"Yes indeed sir, it will be." Velvet agreed sleepily. "Gentleponies, please escort this young knight to the University Hospital. He is expected. Carry him again if he is feeling weak."
Ripple Wreath eyed the mare. He didn't know what he was being led into, but if she had wanted to get revenge on him for hunting her subordinates, she could have done it while he was passed out. So far, the vaunted Twilight Velvet that Glori had ranted against was seeming more like a cheerful manager than an evil mastermind. Then again, Astral Nacre was living proof of her intention, so... "Thank you my lady." Sel stood up. "I did so enjoy the Canterlot moon while it lasted. Here's to hoping I enjoy the sun here as well."
The exhausted militiaponies traded glances, but they obeyed their orders, leading the young earth pony off the wall.
Velvet didn't want to worry about the future or repercussions or anything for a while. She just wanted to enjoy the knowledge the world would keep spinning and life would go on, with or without her.