Princess Celestia
Princess Luna bent the powers of the Element of Magic to astounding ends.
She could not only peer into the very souls of other ponies, but she could also read – even alter – their minds and memories as though they were open books and she had the quill. She could turn and fold the proverbial pages of their minds, undo them at the seams to stitch them together again, or even tear them up altogether. As Luna tapped ever deeper into the arcane and refined her powers over the dominion of the mind, our little ponies grew wary. Her magic cast terror into many a young heart.
Although her powers peaked by manipulating the minds of others, in the most exotic of cases her magic extended into physical reality. By sacrificing a piece of her own soul, she could bind that fragment to another pony, intertwining her soul with theirs. But the feeble body of a mortal creature could not contain even a fraction of her powers – and so their bodies changed in accordance with their souls.
So were made the Night Guards, from the ponies rejected by the rest of our kind: all of them petty criminals, thieves, hooligans, and children lost in the night. The Senate attacked Luna mercilessly for shielding these ponies from the punishment they rightfully deserved.
But Luna knew better. She knew all they needed was direction. In the Night Guard they could find meaning in their lives, and through honourable service their wretched souls would be mended.
Every Night Guard carried a piece of Luna within themselves, and through her they were connected to each other: a bond deeper than friendship, family, or any fleeting mortal love. They were all part of Luna, and Luna was part of them.
Yet for all her might, even my sister's magic could not create knowledge where there was none.
When Luna approved a pony's application to the Night Guard, they would be sent to train – mentally as well as physically – for six months. At the end of their training, Luna would see them again – and they would emerge from the night altered by her magic, with the strength of a dozen and the experience of a hundred.
It was during our young stallion's first week of training that he met a young mare. Her name doesn't matter.
They gathered all the new volunteers in an open field at midday, just outside the Old City, with Night Guards watching over them. It was rare to see Night Guards during the day, and even rarer to see so many at once. The ponies that lived nearby knew to leave well enough alone.
Around them, the grass had long since been trampled away through years and decades of use: nothing but dust and earth to crumble beneath their hooves.
Silhouette stuck the spiked tip of his wing into the dirt and walked around the two trainees, drawing a circle at a few steps' radius.
“This will be your playing field,” he said. “When I say go, all you need do is throw your partner out of the ring. Simple. Impress me.”
The two inside the circle turned to face one another. As they backed to opposite ends, they sized each other up.
The mare was older than the stallion, but not by much; his body sculpted by a life on the streets, hers by an application to the Royal Guard that was never accepted. He had taught himself to fight, whilst she learned from masters of the craft.
She was everything he hated, although he did not know it: a goodie-two-horseshoes from a military family, the kind of pony who kept the likes of him down. He was everything she hated, although she did not know it: a good-for-nothing who let his life waste away after his family threw him out, rather than making something of himself like she did when her family disowned her.
Right now, all they were to each other were opponents to be beaten, beaten to show Silhouette they were better, beaten out of pride to show to themselves they were not useless.
He carved the earth with the edge of his hoof. “Ready to dance, big girl?”
She ground her teeth and spat onto the dirt. “I'm always ready, small boy.”
Silhouette hid a smirk behind his hoof. “Go!”
They threw themselves at each other with the desperation of ponies who had something to prove. They kicked, they bit, they trampled, and dust swelled in the air; within seconds she shoved him out of the ring and triumphantly planted a hoof on his neck. Even when she took her hoof off, the stallion remained on the ground, burning in the shameful flames of his own inadequacy.
Silhouette raised a brow at him. The stallion looked away, huffing at the slowly settling dust.
“You're not going to let a girl beat you, are you, son?”
He scoffed, getting to his hooves and locking eyes with the mare. She, in turn, took to her fighting stance that the stallion had no doubt she'd been spoonfed in some fancy academy or another. He'd bested Royal Guards before. He wasn't going to let this girl beat him.
Three rounds later, he finally triumphed. By that time, both of them could barely stand on their hooves. Bruises, scratches, and even bites littered their skin; their joints burned, their bones ached, and their lungs felt ready to rip with each excruciating breath. They dropped to the ground opposite to one another, eyes set on those of their partner, waiting for the moment the other jumped.
The mare looked away first, turning to Silhouette. “A girl?”
He shrugged. “It was one way to get the kid motivated.”
The stallion turned to Silhouette now. “The kid?”
The mare clambered to her hooves, chuckling weakly. “You sure I'm fighting the right guy?”
She extended a hoof to the young stallion. He hesitated a moment before taking it and standing up as well. “You wanted to motivate me?” he asked. He dug at the earth again, grinning at Silhouette. “You know, I still haven't paid you back for last time.”
Silhouette looked them over, his expression blank. He then walked past them and took his place at the centre of the circle. When he turned to them again, he grinned as well, cracking his neck. “Well then. Impress me.”
And so the two fought him, giving their all until their bodies gave out. The trainees had already been too weak to overpower a Night Guard before training started, but they felt all the more proud for trying. Silhouette would go on to write a shining report on the two.
Six months passed, and the stallion and the mare finished their training. When they admitted Luna's soul into their own, they did not merely find a new life; they received new names as well. Crescent Strike and Nightsong were inseparable, their mental link stronger than that of any of their peers'. With the elder Silhouette to guide them, they would change the world, they thought.
In a way, perhaps, they really have – but not 'til decades past.
Swift Sweep
Twilit Grotto slammed his hoof onto the table, making our bowls of soup bounce and clatter. “Can you believe this?”
News spread fast in the EBSS. To be reassigned was the ultimate insult one could suffer, and by dinner time, everypony knew about us. Grotto's outburst didn't elicit much of a response from the rest of the mess hall; the clattering of spoons continued, nopony turning our way. It was only us old dogs inside, from the first generation, and everypony knew better than to rub salt into the wound by staring.
I lifted my spoon to my mouth in an attempt to keep cool and continue with my meal. I ground my teeth for a moment in preparation of opening my mouth – and ended up throwing the spoon back into the bowl, splashing soup everywhere. “After everything we've done!” I pressed my hooves against my eyes with a sigh. “This is what we get.”
Grotto hadn't touched his soup. “I'm appalled. I... I, really, I've lost my appetite. Reassign us... reassign her big fat rump.”
Opposite to me, Lullaby ate her meal without a word.
“We'll probably get stuck with some boring desk job,” I muttered.
“Steam-opening letters in a shack,” Grotto grumbled.
“This isn't what she promised us at the Breaking of Dawn.”
“We were supposed to help Equestria rise from the ashes.”
“Make up for the Longest Night.”
“And she wipes us off like manure from a boot.” Grotto looked to Lullaby. “Don't you have anything to say?”
Lullaby lifted her bowl to her mouth, drinking the last drops of soup. She licked her lips clean, then reached for a napkin before returning Grotto's gaze. “You boys are so dramatic.”
I gawked at how she seemed perfectly content. “Don't you care at all?” I asked.
Lullaby raised a brow, and waited a second before responding. “Since Silhouette isn't here to reel you two in, it appears I'll have to. Consider the following.” She fluttered the one wing she still had, stretching the broken stub of the other. “I, for one, am quite happy to not chase down cultists for a while. Fact is, we're getting old. Good on Celestia for recognising that. Let the young 'uns handle it, I say.”
“Those damn kids?” The words themselves put a bad taste into my mouth. “They don't know anything. They have no idea about us. About what the EBSS is.”
“You're forgetting that the EBSS isn't about us,” Lullaby replied. “That seems to go for you too, Grotto, and I thought you were the smart one. This has never been about us, both of you know that. You should know that.”
She cast a stare that made me wish I was back in the throne room with Celestia.
“This is all about the Princess,” she continued. “Damage control. She had an awful lot of trash to get rid of: the Senate and us Night Guards. That's what the EBSS was for. Remove the Night Guards, get a cleaning crew in their place, neuter the Senate. Everything else is secondary. We are secondary.”
Grotto scoffed and crossed his hooves. “This is about basic dignity and respect. We served Luna for however long, then we've served her for twenty years, and this is how she repays us.”
Lullaby shook her head, like a mother does at her obtuse son. “She doesn't care. She made the EBSS to get rid of the Night Guards because she knew none of us would refuse. Now that the Night Guards are the scapegoats of history, she just wants the EBSS to do its job. We old dogs are a liability. The only reason we're even still around is her conscience preventing her from getting rid of us for good. The unfortunate reality, and I hate to break this to you boys, is that we need her more than she needs us.”
She leaned back in her seat, throwing a foreleg over the backrest. “Do I feel insulted? A little. But I'm pushing fifty, and quite frankly, I don't mind a little break. Look at you two, bickering like a pair of spoilt brats. Silhouette would be ashamed.”
Grotto cast his gaze down at his soup, muttering under his breath. “Thanks, Mum.”
I took a spoonful of soup and spent a moment chewing the spoon – mulling over Lullaby's words. She was right, as always, though I didn't feel like saying that out loud. I put the spoon down and turned back to Grotto. “Any word on our new assignments?”
“Nothing yet.” He looked up, craning his neck and suddenly fixed his gaze on something behind me. “Or...”
River Flow entered the mess hall and headed straight for us, a pair of envelopes in his mouth. When he got here, we greeted him with a collective “Evening.”
He spat the envelopes onto the table and slid one to Lullaby, clearing his throat. “Evening. Been called by Celestia, said to give you this. I assume you know what it is.” He cast me a glance. “Congratulations. You two get to be on the same project.”
He moved to slide the other envelope to Grotto, but Grotto snatched it up before River could reach it and quickly tore it open with his teeth.
I leaned back and eyed Lullaby. “So?”
She carefully opened the envelope with the handle of her spoon and began reading the contents. “Surveillance job. Regarding the break-in at the Archives the other day. Have to head to the Archives first for more info and to review the recording of the event. And... oh.” She lowered the letter, smirking at me. “Looks like I'm going to be your boss, being your senior.”
“I suspected as much. Good thing I like being around older mares.” I picked up my spoon. “Permission to finish dinner first, big girl.”
“Granted, small boy.” She sent me a smile, then ran her gaze over the letter again. “You're being quiet, TG.”
Twilight Grotto had his eyes fixed on the letter in his hooves, his expression frozen; his eyes held an understated horror while his lips trembled in a half-smile. After a moment of silence, even Lullaby looked up from our letter.
I leaned to peek at Grotto's letter. “What is it?”
He placed the letter onto the table upside down, pinning it with a hoof, and glared forward with a blank expression. “Project White Wolf,” he whispered. “It would appear they need a new project lead.”
I sat up. Lullaby put her letter down. River Flow was not fazed easily, yet even he seemed to pale at the name. Such was the effect of Project White Wolf. Grotto didn't have to say anything else.
It was a demon of Nightmare Moon's creation, one of many to be unleashed upon the world during the Longest Night. Yet this one had a special place of notoriety, a place that made even the hardliners of the EBSS quaver.
Project White Wolf was our longest-running project, having started right after the establishment of the EBSS twenty years ago. Few field agents could claim to have been on it longer than one or two years, however. As for those who did, well, they had long got their affairs in order.
We'd all heard the stories of the ways the beast got rid of his pursuers. Impaled and burned; hanged by her own entrails; posed by strings among mannequins; even one with his spine broken and mouth shoved in his own backside. The White Wolf appeared to take great pride in his own sadistic ingenuity.
And now Twilit Grotto, the failed leader of Project Heartbreak, would be next. Celestia could not have found a better way to communicate her disappointment.
Lullaby reached out, placing a hoof on his. “I'm sorry.”
His hoof jerked back, curling up at his chest. “About what?” he chortled. “That I get to be the one to catch the bastard? I mean, he's been sighted near Canterlot.” He picked the letter up in one hoof and whipped the tip of the other at it, piercing the paper. “Says so right here. This'll be a walk in Canterlot Park.”
River remained quiet all throughout. He took a deep breath, straightened his back, and slowly raised a hoof to his forehead: he saluted.
I stood up to follow his lead. Lullaby did too.
As Grotto looked us over, it seemed like he wanted to say something, but swallowed the word. His hoof went slack and let the letter fall. He buried his face in his hooves, and spent the better part of a minute like that, slouching over the table, rubbing his forehead. When he looked up again, his eyes were wet but there were no marks of tears on his cheeks.
“Did I...” he whispered, “did I ever tell you why I joined the Night Guard?”
I remembered asking, but never receiving an answer.
“I was... young and stupid. As far from nobility as I could be. Didn't stop me from pretending. Sneaked into these posh parties and galas, talking to the fillies. Let's say I got around. Lots of impressionable young mares out there. Lots of little flings.” He laughed briefly before choking on his breath. “Never stayed for the morning, of course. I just wanted to have fun.”
He sighed deeply. “Then one of them found me. She actually found me. She was one of the finer catches, too, a Germane noble on her father's side. And pregnant, apparently.” He clapped his hooves on his chest. “I realised her daddy was going to make an example out of this little scoundrel. Probably her, too. She asked us to run away together. I ran away alone. And... you can guess the rest.”
He leaned back in his chair to stare at the ceiling.
“I remember seeing her with a brat during the Longest Night, and I remember...” He massaged his temples. “She didn't recognise me. I remember letting them run away 'cause it was more fun. I think they survived. So that's lucky.” He rubbed his eyes, then looked at us. “I've always been lucky.”
“You'll pull through,” said Lullaby.
I nodded. “If there's anypony who can catch that monster, it's you.”
River Flow coughed, swallowed, then spoke. “I hope it'll be quick.”
Grotto chuckled. “Yeah.” He pushed his chair out, throwing it aside as he stood up. He didn't look at us after that; he just walked for the exit with short, dragged steps. “So do I.”
There was no time to mourn for Grotto. We had a job of our own – and I thanked whatever powers that existed for getting the boring one.
It was late evening by the time Lullaby and I got to the Lunar Wing of the Canterlot Archives, accompanied by a squad of Royal Guards. Chilling night air flowed in through the enormous hole that gaped where the intricate window used to be in the ceiling. Thick iron bars covered the hole, so as to prevent unwanted ponies from flowing in too. One of the bars was of a slightly different colour than the rest, and perhaps just a bit thicker, too – a replacement for the broken one, no doubt.
Guards swarmed all around us, flying this way and running that way, methodically examining every shelf and cataloguing what they found. As a guard rushed by, I noticed a small black patch on the parquet nearby, as though the wood had been burnt.
A guard came up to us and saluted. I could not properly gauge his age – but younger than me. He seemed a spindly, thin sort; his armour rattled something awful as he walked, its pieces barely meeting where they should. A single Sun-gold stripe painted across his right pauldron told me he'd traded fitness for rank. Inherited, in all likelihood.
“This is where it happened,” he began. His voice was surprisingly deep for his frame. “The thief, or thieves, have stolen multiple books over an indeterminate period of time. It was only last week that one of Celestia's scribes realised a number of books were missing from the Archives.”
Lullaby raised a brow. “How could they have pulled that off, breaking into the Archives on multiple occasions?” The guard shifted uncomfortably, but didn't avert his gaze. Lullaby turned to me. “How are curfew laws again? They're being changed so often, I lose track.”
“I don't think we have curfew right now,” I replied. “Princess Celestia is honouring her sister's memory.” Until she decides to change her mind again, I mentally added.
“With all due respect,” the guard interjected, “what's done is done. We should look at the task ahead of us.”
“Go on, then,” urged Lullaby.
The guard waved a hoof high, and two other guards walked up to the centre of the room, their horns lighting up. Their auras descended like fog onto the parquet directly under the barred opening and crept between the minute cracks between the floorboards.
Two of the boards lit up, rising and floating a step's distance in opposing directions before placing themselves on the floor. They revealed a large blue gemstone hidden beneath the parquet, at least the size of my head, chiselled into an eyeball.
Lullaby bent down to have a closer look. “That's when you installed an Eye Crystal, I take it.”
The guard nodded. “Princess Celestia wished that we catch the culprit in action. We did not know when the thefts took place, or even if it had been a one-time deed. Regardless, we spent several nights on alert, and our efforts paid off a few nights ago.”
“Did they?” I asked. “Had you caught the culprit, we wouldn't be here.”
The guard cast his gaze aside for a brief moment. “Regrettably, we could not apprehend the thief. The Princess said this might be to our advantage, however. By all accounts, she is not aware we've seen her face.”
“Well then,” Lullaby said, “let us see.”
“Yes, ma'am.” The guard cleared his throat, turning away from us. “Listen up, fillies!”
No guard had paid us any mind up to this point – they weren't supposed to stop working, not even for the EBSS – but now they all turned our way. Runners stopped dead in their tracks, pegasi that were in the air slowly descended, and the ones with books in in their hooves quietly slipped them back onto the shelves.
“We are showing the recording,” the guard continued, voice booming across the entire wing. “Sit on your hooves!” A round of nods and muttered 'yes-sir's later, the room fell completely silent. Seeing his effect on the other guards, I thought maybe this guy had earned his rank after all.
The guard turned back to us, setting his hooves and thrusting his horn forward. As he closed his eyes, I saw his lips part to reveal clenched teeth, brows furrowed with concentration. First, a pale blue spark crackled at the tip of his horn; then, the entire horn burst with light. My ear started to ring, and a moment later a thin beam of deep blue light shot from the guard's horn into the sapphire eye buried in the floor.
The magical lights that illuminated the Lunar Wing extinguished themselves one by one, surrendering the room to the darkness of night. Above, stars winked out in the sky and the Moon itself grew dim before disappearing entirely. Then, from the pitch darkness, the eye in the floor came alive with an eerie glow.
A burst of magic surged from the crystal, spreading out across the floor and every surface inside the room. It washed over the pillars that held the ceiling, the many shelves and every book they held – all the while ignoring us ponies. Whatever the magic touched took on an ethereal glow somewhere between blue and green. Magical lights relit themselves in the same strangely tinted colour. In the ceiling the window reappeared, and blue-green moonlight began pouring through the stained glass.
A tiny point of light appeared not far before me. It took me a second to recognise it as the glowing horn of the guard.
“This is when she entered,” he said.
Behind me, the ghostly image of the gate opened up, and a spectral pony sneaked in. It was a large form – when I first saw, I could have mistaken her for a stallion.
She skipped to the middle of the room, passing right through me with a childlike joy in her steps. Every step of the way, she pulled smudged, inky shadows through the air that took a second to disperse. The clopping of her hooves sounded strange and distorted, distant even – almost like I was listening to them underwater.
She stopped for a moment under the window to flick her long, thick mane back behind her ears.
As she began turning in place, her ghastly visage creased first into a slight smile, then a full-blown grin. Arching her back, she spread her wings wide and took off. The guard, Lullaby and I followed the spectre through the room. For the time being, she stayed on the ground floor.
From her bag she took out a piece of parchment, the contents of which were far too smudged to make out. After a quick look through it, she seemed to know exactly where to go. From the way she scanned the paper, I guessed it contained her instructions.
“She takes a book here,” the guard explained. “Then she flies upstairs to get another one. It's safe to assume she would have taken more, had we not disturbed her.”
The spectre did as the guard said; though I could easily follow her through the air as she went upstairs for the second book, one-winged Lullaby and the poor wingless unicorn had to scramble up the stairs to keep up.
The spectral mare slipped a book into her bag, then a replacement onto the shelf. She hopped to perch on the rails overlooking the lower level, spreading her wings for balance.
That's when the gate began glowing brighter, sparks of magic crackling through the keyhole.
The ghost's expression changed in an instant from playful excitement to dead seriousness. She kicked herself off the balcony with burst of speed, leaving behind wisps of vapour. She slammed into a shelf to tip it right at the gate. As I followed the action in the air, the guard tugged Lullaby to the lower level.
“There's the enchanted gem,” the guard said as the spectre pulled out a red, glowing crystal from her bag.
She put it against one of the bars that covered the window, and the bar took on a red hue as well. A sudden bang on the gate made the mare's wings skip a beat, the gem falling out of her hoof in turn. She dove and reached for it, but not fast enough; the gem eluded her grasp. It split against the floor where I'd seen the burnt patch, red heat spewing from the crack like water from a burst pipe.
A blast of magic knocked the tipped shelf away from the gate. The spectre rocketed through the air to kick it right back, and then she flew up to the window again. She wrapped her hooves around the damaged bar, and I saw her face screw up with pain as she began pulling. Her wings spread wide, beating fast and hard to add every last bit she had.
The bar first bent, then broke with a snap where she'd held the gem to it. Without a moment's rest, the spectre joined her hooves together and began banging on the point of the break, with all the desperate strength of a trapped animal. Every hit against the cold metal bent it more, and every hit elicited from behind the spectre's clenched teeth a scream that was a little louder than the one before. The ghost's voice reverberated oddly from the walls, seemingly from different directions every second.
When there was just enough room to barely fit her frame, the spectre kicked out the window and fled through the gap formed by the broken bar. When the army of ghostly Royal Guards finally broke into the Lunar Wing, mere seconds later, they were already too late.
In a flash of light, the spectres disappeared, but the room remained dark.
“That's it?” I asked as I descended.
The guard led Lullaby to the centre under the window to join with me, a tiny spark at the tip of his horn lighting the way.
“It is,” he said. “It is also more than enough.”
His horn flared with light, shooting a thin beam at the Eye Crystal. Colours began swirling all around us, blurry images of ponies whizzing by amidst broken, distantly echoing sounds. The surge of magic died off, and the image of the spectral mare reappeared, standing still as a statue at the centre under the intact window, her grin shining in the moonlight.
“We're going back to the start,” the guard explained. “This is the culprit as she entered. I ask you both to take a good look at her.”
Lullaby and I exchanged a look before stepping forward. Although details were smudged, from the greenly glowing picture one could still make out the general outlines of the thief's features.
Long mane and tail, as luscious as they were thick, with individual hairs sticking out all over like from the coat of a wirehaired dog.
Lullaby stepped next to the spectre, head to head, and sized her up. She then took a step to the side – stepping inside the spectral form, and coming up smaller in every dimension. “She's humongous. What are they feeding the kids these days?”
“She doesn't look that young, does she?” I leaned into the spectre's face with a hoof on my chin as Lullaby stepped out. “Mid-twenties, maybe? Although... that's an awfully round face for an adult. Definitely a kid.”
“That saddlebag doesn't look too light either. Must have been filled with books.” She turned to the guard. “Blanks, you said?”
“Yes,” he replied. “She replaced the books she took with blanks to make the thefts less apparent.”
“What's with the bracelet?” Lullaby pointed to the front right leg of the spectre; a chain of tiny baubles hung there, strapped tightly around her fetlock.
“We don't believe it to be magical in nature,” the guard said. “It would be glowing if it were. Now, do you believe you've taken a good enough look?”
I eyed the spectre up and down. “I don't recognise her, if that's what you're asking. It's especially difficult without seeing true colour.”
“It is not what I'm asking.”
Although the darkness made it difficult to make out the guard's face, I could've sworn from the way he formed his words that he was smirking. Presumptuous little fiend.
The light dancing at the tip of his horn followed the sway of his head as he turned the other way. “Prof, you're up.”
Hoofsteps. A small bump, and a muffled “Excuse me.” From the darkness emerged an older-looking fellow; his monocle shone in the magical light.
The guard raised a hoof as he approached. “This is—”
“Golden Monocle,” Lullaby said, extending a hoof to the professor.
“Ah, so you do remember,” Monocle said through a forced smile as he Lullaby's hoof.
I extended a hoof as well. “But of course. You are an exemplary citizen of Equestria.”
I've been told about my uncomfortably firm hoofshakes. The hoof of the prof felt as cold and limp as a dead fish, and he was quick to pull it back. “Why t-thank you. I must apologise, as do not seem to remember your names.”
“Ma'am will do,” Lullaby said.
“Sir,” I added.
The professor gulped. “Yes, I see.”
Being a professor at Canterlot University, to the students he was king of life and death. Our presence, however, reduced him to but a stuttering little colt. I always found that curious. As a long time informant of the EBSS, he of all ponies had nothing to fear from us.
I mean, we knew for fact he didn't.
The guard levitated a sheet of paper before us and shone a magical light on it. From the sheet, the picture of a young mare looked back at us. “This is a sketch based on the recording inside the Eye Crystal. Please compare the sketch to the crystal's projection.”
“They seem very much alike to me,” I said.
“As they do to me,” Lullaby confirmed.
At the flash of the guard's horn, the sheet rolled itself up. “Thank you. We brought the professor in to help us identify the culprit. He claims to recognise her.”
Golden Monocle cleared his throat and adjusted his emblematic eyepiece before speaking. “Yes, indeed. It would be quite hard to forget. Miss New Page has made quite an impression on me. She was especially interested and, might I add, knowledgeable in the topic of the Longest Night.”
“New Page?” I tingly feeling at the back of my mind told me I'd heard that name before.
“Oh, that New Page?” Lullaby asked. “Yes, the name's crossed my desk. She's been on our list of potentially disruptive individuals for years now.” She leaned closer to me, muttering under her breath. “Right under Storming Falls, remember?”
I slapped a hoof on my face. “Oh, don't even mention that guy.”
Lullaby shook her head slowly. “It's always the promising young ones. Talk about falling from grace. Such a shame.”
“A shame indeed,” Monocle said with a sigh. “I was very much looking forward to teaching her. Now...” He looked to the guard, then back to us. “Will that be all? I have important business of my own, a-and it is getting late. I've already given my full account, I believe the Royal Guard should have the transcription.”
The guard answered by turning to us.
Lullaby shot me a look, and I returned her gaze. Lullaby looked back at the guard. “I believe this is what we came for.”
“Very well, ma'am.” The guard threw up a hoof and whistled, and another guard swiftly trotted over, throwing himself to attention as he stopped. “Escort our guests out. Make sure that sir and ma'am receive all the necessary files.”
Then he set his hooves again and fired his magic at the Eye Crystal. The spectre's image dissolved like a puff of smoke, as did the ethereal glow that enveloped everything. After a moment of pitch blackness, the stars came aflame in the sky, and the Moon reappeared from darkness' veil. Flash by flash, the magical lights that shone inside the Lunar Wing all burst to life as well.
“The EBSS thanks you for your help,” said Lullaby. “I don't believe I need to tell you that as far as the Royal Guard should be concerned, this case is closed. You've never heard of it.”
The guard smirked, this time fully visibly in the light. “Heard of what, ma'am?” He saluted.
Lullaby saluted him. I was never one to respect Royal Guards, not in my time in the EBSS or ever before, but now I felt pressured to salute as well. I followed Lullaby's example, then we turned to our escorts. I could almost feel Silhouette pat my shoulder.
It was good that Lullaby was still around. She really did keep me in check.
Tiny apartments dotted the southern mountainside like cells in a beehive. They were temporary places of residence for the workers, students, and other ponies from the lower castes; quite disruptive, I found, to Canterlot's projected image of being a hub for only the richest and most powerful.
New Page left home at the break of dawn, right at the start of the great morning rush. Pegasi swarmed in the air as the earth ponies and the occasional unicorn scrambled past one another, making their way down the steep slopes into the streets.
The two of us had spent the night in the vacant apartment directly above New Page's, spying from the window for our target to leave. Once she was gone, we got dressed in uniforms of common construction workers; I attached a toolbox to my belt whilst Lullaby threw a bag over her shoulders and got a paint bucket's handle between her teeth. With our ragged, blotched overalls, we were rendered entirely invisible to the eyes of the rushing crowd.
Our younger contacts at the university described Page as a meticulous young filly, attending as many classes as she could, spending any downtime in the public wings of the Archives. Today, she wouldn't be home until early evening.
Lullaby looked into the mirror on the wall, adjusting her hard hat and tightening her saddlebag. “Ready?”
I saluted – a formality, really, since she was the leader of the two-pony Project Bookworm – and Lullaby nodded back, then went for the door. I locked up behind us, and we quickly made our way down the sloped path to New Page's apartment. Lullaby picked out a tiny red gem from her pocket, bouncing it in her hoof once before pressing it against the keyhole.
Tendrils of magic extended from the gem and crawled into the hole. After a few clicks and metallic clatters, the lock clacked, opening the way for us.
Once inside, Lullaby pocketed the gem and threw her bag down. She fished out a sizeable scroll, unrolling it to pin it against the wall: a house plan for the apartment. Not much to be seen, really, as New Page's home consisted of but three rooms: the bathroom – whose door stood directly opposite to the entrance – a living room on the right, and a narrow corridor that connected them.
“Alright.” Lullaby poked a hoof at the parchment, onto the bathroom. “I'll do this one and the anteroom. You, the bedroom, and you'll set the Eye Crystal. Ten minutes.”
“Yes, ma'am.” No use wasting words; we'd both done this a dozen times before and knew exactly what our job was. I wagered we'd be done in five. Our more magically inclined friends back at the labs of HQ have already done most of the work for us.
I liked taking a quick look around before I got to work; not that we were here for a thorough search, but one could always find something interesting. The smallest little details often revealed the most about the lives of other ponies.
I turned into the bedroom, stepping over the old, cracked parquet onto the rug thrown in the middle. In its better days, that rug may have been quite pleasing to the eye; under layers of dust and pieces of paper with half-done notes and scrawls, I recognised what seemed to be embroidered shapes of ponies and stars. I didn't know Canterlot to provide much in the way of furnishing for these apartments; a memory brought from home, perhaps?
To call this place a 'bedroom', I found, was a misnomer: 'living room' would have been far more apt, inasmuch that New Page indeed had to live in this tiny space. The bed was short and narrow, barely big enough for a pony, nevertheless one of her size; a careless turn in midnight hours could easily send her rolling over the side. The plain mattress showed signs of considerable wear and discolouration from years of sweat, with the rough shape of a pony sunken into its material.
A single window let the morning light flood in. I quickly closed the curtains. Under the window was a desk packed with books and parchments; a quick scan revealed titles ranging from history through geography to astronomy and beyond. By the titles and short notes I glanced at, Page appeared keenly – and unhealthily – interested in the stars and the Mare in the Moon. A laundry list of skipped payments and a hastily scrawled note revealed she was saving up to buy a telescope.
A bookshelf took up most of the wall opposite the bed, wide and packed to near-collapse, with many more books thrown into a pile at its base. The cramped room appeared even smaller than the house plan had let on. No wonder Page preferred to spend her time away from home.
I took a peek under the bed – and pulled out a book. Evidently Page had not anticipated any unexpected guests, else she'd have hidden it better. It seemed much thinner – and far less battered from extensive use – than the rest of Page's reading; one of the stolen books, no doubt. I blew off some dust to read the title.
'Memoirs in the Night', by Silhouette. I felt a cold shower on my back. My hoof tensed its grip on the tome. I'd never have thought I'd see this book again.
It was a short account of Silhouette's memories from his service in the Night Guard, finished but a month or so before the Longest Night. He could never afford to have it printed, and now that Celestia wished to bury anything relating to the Night Guards of old, it would truly never see the light of day. This was the only copy out there, as far as I knew, written through gruelling effort by mouth and hoof by Silhouette.
And if it weren't for Page, it'd be rotting in the Archives, unread and forgotten.
I scoffed. As if gathering dust under a bed was any better. And who knew where all the other stolen books went...
I wanted to put the book back, but I couldn't do it. I just couldn't let go. The more I tried to release it, the harder my hooves gripped the covers. It was a flimsy binding, and even flimsier paper; all that Silhouette could afford. The payment for a Night Guard's service, after all, was service itself. A bigger sneeze would've ruined the whole thing.
He'd always bugged me to read it – he had a chapter about the ne'er-do-well he caught and turned into a stallion from little colt – but I never managed to get myself to it. I certainly had no time now.
I closed my eyes and pictured Silhouette before me. He'd have been proud of me, I think, for carrying on. Rest well, old friend.
I put the book back where it was. No need to arouse suspicion.
Undoing the latch that bound my toolbox, I let it fall onto the floor. The top opened up and exposed the dozens of tiny blue gems that glittered inside. I picked one out. Now then, where do I put you?
The large bookshelf seemed a good bet. We'd always need places with good vision, and seeing whatever Page was reading at any given time would be most useful.
In the tiny room, one could almost reach the ceiling just by rearing on their hind legs – but just almost. I had to flap my wings and carefully hover to comfortably work on the ceiling. Books opened and their pages fluttered in the wind my wings created, papers and notes flying about everywhere.
The ceiling was the mountain itself, really; the architects of these apartments didn't bother to cover the stone in any way after they bored this hole that some begrudgingly called an apartment. Its surface was rough and uneven, with many minute angles and depressions all over. I picked a spot where I could angle the crystal at the shelf.
The gem itself was barely bigger than a tooth: hardly noticeable even without the myriad obfuscating enchantments the unicorns had wrapped around it. Touching it to the stone, I pressed hard to signal activation. The crystal flashed with a dim blue light. When I pulled my hoof back, the gem stuck to the ceiling. I blinked once, and it disappeared from my vision completely.
I confirmed that it was in the right place with a tiny poke with the tip of a hoof; the crystal pulsed into my vision before fading into nothingness again. One down.
The trick was to planting scrying crystals was that they had to create, all together, one cohesive image of the apartment. Lullaby got done with the bathroom before I finished here.
“Are you quite done yet?” she asked, leaning against the bedroom's door frame.
“Yeah, yeah,” I grumbled as I reared on Page's cluttered desk, trying not to knock anything off while fiddling on the ceiling. “Can't seem to get this one to stick.”
Lullaby tapped her hoof. “I'm fairly certain our ten minutes are up.”
“And I'm not. Fight me, big girl.”
“I beat your sorry rump all the way to the Old City last time, small boy.”
I didn't hear her say that, of course; I was too busy with the crystal to pay attention.
With a flash and a blink, the last blue crystal disappeared. I clapped my hooves and hopped from the desk. “Is it weird if I kind of like doing this? Makes you feel powerful, bugging somepony's home, doesn't it?”
Lullaby smacked my head. “They're not 'bugs', they're advanced scrying crystals. And we're not here to live out your dirty power fantasies, but to serve Celestia.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, I'm sure it's in Celestia's best interests that we watch this little filly while ponies like Nichts and Nie are out there.”
A sly smirk appeared on her lips. “Do I detect some faint resentment towards our glorious leader?”
I chuckled. “Of course not, who do you think I am? No, all I'm saying is I think it'd be wiser to send a squad of Royal Guards to the university and arrest her on the spot. I'm sure she'd love to tell us everything she knows.”
“And the second we do that, whoever she's working for will disappear.” She shook her head. “I know you're not being serious, but come now.”
I dropped onto the dirty carpet and crossed my hooves. Not even ten minutes in this place, and it was already depressing; the thought of having to watch it for days on end made me feel incredibly uncomfortable. “I just hate sitting on my hooves.”
Lullaby sat down beside me and clapped a hoof on my back. “Look. I'd like to bust in and grab her as much as you, believe me. In fact, I'm fairly certain Celestia knows this.”
I rolled my eyes. “Doesn't she always know best.”
“Yeah. And that's exactly why she ordered us to sit and do nothing. She's not entirely pleased with us, in case you've missed it. She gave us a pity assignment while the puppies do the real work. Now, if Nightmare Moon herself comes through that door, all we do is write it down, report it, and leave it for them to figure out. That's our job, nothing else.” She craned her head to look directly in my eyes. “You got that? I'm asking as your boss now, have you got that?”
I saluted the wall in front of me. “I'm good at following orders.”
Lullaby sighed and stood up. From the corner of my eyes, I saw her shake her head. “Just get the Eye Crystal and let's get out of here.”
We'd left the paint bucket in the anteroom. Unlike what the label said, however, this one contained not 'Skyshine's Sky Blue: the prettiest there is' but a single blue crystal cut into the shape of an eyeball, much like the one we'd seen at the Archives. The difference was merely one of size: Page's apartment was smaller than the Lunar Wing, and so its fitting Eye Crystal was no wider than my hoof.
Lullaby detached a saw from her harness and clenched her teeth on the handle. “The rug,” she mumbled.
I pulled the worn rug away, slowly and gently, exposing the dust-free centre of the parquet. Lullaby quickly got to work with her saw: she slid the blade between the planks and cut carefully along the line. She quickly sawed around a plank, then stuck the saw underneath to force it up from the floor, exposing the hard stone underneath.
She nodded her head to the hole.
I nodded back. Careful not to touch the bottom of the eye, I angled its pupil directly upwards and touched the gem to the exposed stone. Though I'd done this many times, I still felt somewhat anxious; you could easily lose a hoof with this thing.
Standing up, I put my front hooves onto the crystal's pupil, pressing down hard with all my weight. The crystal flashed under the pressure and began sending tremors down into the stone. The tremors intensified, and the layer of stone directly under it crumbled to pieces.
The Eye Crystal's magic ground the mountain's stone into fine dust, digging deeper and deeper. I heard the books patter lightly on the shelf at the back, and the parquet vibrated under my hind hooves. The crystal itself, though, made no sound as it pummelled its way into the stone.
When the pupil of the eye came level with the stone, I took my hooves off – and the tremors stopped. I knocked on the eye once, making it light up with a flash. At the same moment, every scrying crystal inside the apartment flashed as well.
I slid the removed plank back into its place. “And that's that.”
Lullaby clapped her hooves. “Finally. I'll put the rug back. You go upstairs and check the mirror.”
“Yes, ma'am.”
I left the apartment, exiting onto the hillside; Lullaby quickly closed the door behind me. I quickly walked up the slope into our vacant apartment above New Page's.
This one was even smaller than hers: nothing but one room, almost entirely unfurnished. The only thing of note – the only thing, really – was the standing mirror at the back, taking up most of that wall, and the desk and chair facing it. A small blue gem was embedded into the top of the mirror's frame. One knock on it, and my reflection disappeared to give way to something entirely different.
In the mirror appeared a top-down picture of New Page's apartment: the vision of every scrying crystal composited into one cohesive whole. It was not like looking through a window, but more like looking into a dream; angles were skewed and colours blotched in places, and the surface of the mirror appeared to shift and ripple slightly like a pond in light wind.
That's the price we had to pay for not having a slave unicorn keep up a perpetual scrying spell, though. Celestia had to go and outlaw that in her infinite wisdom and kindness; I had vague memories of the old slave who'd read to my blind grandfather before illness took him.
In our case, I supposed, enchanted crystals were indeed cheaper.
Lullaby looked up directly into a crystal, and through it into my eyes. “You got it?” She put up a hoof, smirking. “How many legs am I holding up?”
I couldn't answer her, of course. But for the most part, it seemed to be working; we'd properly bugged – I'm sorry, crystalled – the most important spaces.
Though I couldn't help but notice that the crystal above the desk was out of focus. I couldn't quite make out the titles of the books lying on it, though by all account I should've been able to. We'd have to fix that.
I left the vacant apartment with that in mind. Down the slope, I knocked on New Page's door. Two knocks, then a pause, and then another three: the code that signalled it was safe to open up. Just as I was about to step inside, I heard a voice behind me.
“Excuse me?”
Turning, I saw an earth pony mare – older than I was – with a woven basket in her hoof that held many bouquets of flowers. The mare craned her head to look into the apartment, but I stepped up in front of her.
“I-isn't this New Page's apartment?” she asked, trying to look past me. “I'm sorry, I just picked some flowers down the way, and...”
Lullaby didn't skip a beat. She stepped outside, closing the door and walking up to the old mare. “Indeed. Miss Page hired us to do a little bit of renovation.” She adjusted her hard hat. “Nothing to get hung up on.”
The mare nodded, but furrowed her brows. “Oh, I see, dear. It's just that...” She tried looking through the window, but found it blocked by the drawn curtains. “She never mentioned it, is all. She's so nice, though, she always takes the time to talk. And I didn't realise her scholarship could cover something like this.”
Before Lullaby could respond, I cleared my throat. “Your name wouldn't happen to be Pinegreens, would it?”
She looked me up and down. “Y-yes, that's me. Who might you be?”
“Your husband's work up on the spire is quite noteworthy. Few shed as much sweat as Heavy Hammer, despite his age. He really doesn't spare himself. I assume it is because your daughter Inky Mane failed to secure a scholarship for her rhetoric studies.”
Pinegreens shrunk away – and the dawning horror behind her eyes told me she realised who I was, and who we were. Personally, I did not enjoy scaring old ladies, but sometimes, that was part of the job.
The thing about the secret service is that everypony knows it exists. It wasn't that the EBSS watched everything. It was that everypony had to know we watched everything.
I leaned closer to her. “Now tell me, if you would, and be honest. Would you be able to pay for your daughter's education if Heavy Hammer were to lose his job?”
She gulped, meekly shaking her head and chewing her lower lip.
“Not a word to anypony. Do we have an understanding?”
She opened her mouth but failed to speak, and resorted instead to a slow, measured nod. She quickly lifted a hoof to hide her wavering lips, like I couldn't see.
“Thank you. You will be compensated for your cooperation.” I turned for the door, placing a hoof on the knob before sending Lullaby a nod.
We left the stunned mare outside and locked up behind us. “Wow,” was all Lullaby could say. She knew as well as I that was necessary. Sometimes I felt like she was harder on the rest of us than on the potential criminals.
I climbed onto the desk, rearing up and feeling along the ceiling to find the hidden scrying crystal. “This crystal is a bit off, but apart from that we're good.” I quickly found the crystal, and moved it a bit back. I stuck it to the ceiling again and waited for it to disappear before getting off the desk.
I pulled out the top drawer. “I'm going to do one more check upstairs, see if I can make out everything.”
As I began to walk for the door, I shot a glance into the drawer – and froze. There was a bracelet inside: a chain of shiny little baubles, just like the one worn by the spectral mare at the Archives. Not that we needed any more confirmation that we'd come to the right place. No, I paused because of something else. Although I did not realise it back in the Archives, I could see it plainly now.
I picked the bracelet up, inspecting it. I knew whose bracelet this was. My breaths started coming up shallow.
Lullaby stepped over. “What is it? What's that?”
I spoke without taking my eyes off the bracelet. “D-do we have New Page's file here?”
She reached into her bag and fished around for a moment. Finally, she handed over a parchment.
I quickly scanned the file, looking for her mother's name, hoping desperately to be wrong. But I wasn't. New Page was born two weeks before the Longest Night, as the daughter of one Veiled Quill. I understood, now, why her name sounded so familiar.
But that's not possible, I thought.
My heart pounded quickly, and the parchment fell from my grasp. My shaking hoof could barely hold on to the bracelet. My legs gave way; Lullaby had to catch me.
“Hey, look at me, small boy!”
Memories I thought I'd locked away resurged like a flood before my mind's eye. I saw the Old City burn. I heard Nightmare Moon's laughter in my ears, Veiled Quill's last, soul-rending scream, the baby's cries...
I found myself clutching the bracelet. Lullaby was saying something, but I couldn't hear the words. All I could think about was New Page. This could not have been the same New Page.
For New Page was dead. I killed her.