//------------------------------// // 25 - The Gathering Darkness // Story: Black Angel // by Zobeid //------------------------------// Summer days were long working days for Princess Celestia. It was not onerous work, of course. Long experience had taught Celestia the art of delegation, and made her a fine judge of character as well. Even so, she lived at the apex of the Equestrian social pyramid. There was always guidance for her to give and disputes for her to resolve. Everyone wanted her ear, or to be seen with her. As her work day neared its end, who could blame her if she didn’t lift her feet quite as high, or if she climbed one of Canterlot Castle’s many stairwells more slowly? If she felt a bit tired, it was an honest tiredness leavened with satisfaction of a job well done. And in a few moments she would see her sister again, as she did now at the end of every day. For a thousand years she’d been denied that simple wish, and she intended to never take it for granted. She emerged onto a balcony looking out over the city of Canterlot, spread out on a shelf below the castle, halfway down the side of the mountain (or halfway up, depending on your viewpoint). What a view! She never tired of it. The plateau’s origin was natural, but it had been heavily re-sculpted to claim every possible meter of flat space. Some buildings even hung over the cliff’s edges where the rocky slopes plunged to the valley floor. Celestia found her familiar cushion and sat to await her sister. Aside from a few special occasions, such as the Summer Sun Celebration, raising and lowering the sun was a semi-private ceremony. Anybody in the city could look up toward the castle and see the balcony, and see Celestia upon it, but details were obscured by distance, conversations unheard. For a thousand years she’d been in the habit of inviting a few other ponies to join her during this daily task. It might be an attendant, or a minister, or a diplomat, or even, in recent years, her favorite student. Since Luna had returned, she rarely invited others. Celestia looked down at one of the clock towers in the city. Contrary to what some ponies believed, she did not have a perfect inner sense of time. Even magic spells were notoriously poor at measuring the passage of time. The invention of accurate mechanical clocks had been both a boon and an annoyance to Celestia. They helped her keep the cycle of day and night regular, which she had always aspired to do, but she sometimes felt like a slave to the clock. She supposed she wasn’t the only pony to have that feeling, at least. She ruffled her wings uneasily. It was almost time for sunset, but Luna was not here. A tiny seed of worry began to grow. A sound of hooves clip-clopping up the stairs made her smile — but only for a moment. The cadence didn’t sound right. The pony that emerged onto the balcony was most certainly not Luna. A unicorn emerged — one of the castle staff — and bowed, and said, “Your royal highness, I regret to inform you that your sister is, apparently, sleeping in late.” Celestia concealed her disappointment, and she concealed the seedling of worry that sprouted a few more leaves when watered with this news. “If only I could sleep in late some morning, eh?” she joked, prompting a polite chuckle from the servant. “When my sister wakes, inform her that I have once again performed her duty.” “Very good, Ma’am!” said the servant, and he retreated. Celestia sighed and cast her spell, but the ritual brought her no comfort. A short while later, as Celestia walked the castle halls, a dark cloud hovered over her head — at least in her imagination, though no other pony could see it. Lowering the sun had been no problem, but the full moon was uncooperative, perhaps as discomforted as herself by Luna’s absence. Her path led to the royal suites and brought her to the entrance of Princess Luna’s chambers. The small crowd of ponies milling outside the doors sent a pang through Celestia’s heart, and her worry began to bloom. Nonetheless, she maintained an even strain as she inquired, “Is something amiss?” The servants bowed, and it was a unicorn Celestia recognized as Luna’s staff captain who answered, “Ma’am, we have been unable to rouse Princess Luna from her slumber.” Celestia narrowed her eyes slightly and asked, “Have any of you actually tried to wake her?” The other ponies shuffled their hooves and glanced at one another. Celestia sighed. “I see. Well, step aside! I’m not afraid to wake up my sister.” With that she magically swung open the double doors, and she entered into Luna’s private quarters. Making her way to the bedchamber, she found Luna curled up in her large, round bed, under the covers, clutching a pillow. Celestia paused, just for a moment, gazing at what should have been a peaceful and adorable scene. Yet, Luna was clutching that pillow a bit too hard. Her face was troubled. Her eyes… They were closed, but behind her eyelids they twitched anxiously. Celestia stretched out her neck, moved her muzzle close by Luna’s ear, and spoke, “Luna? Luna, it’s time to get up!” When that got no response, Celestia nudged Luna’s shoulder, but again there was no response. Celestia’s ears drooped. Her voice was strained as she said, more loudly, “Luna, please wake up! You’re scaring our little ponies.” She used her magic to pull the sheets back, uncovering Luna. Celestia bit her lip, then her horn glowed again. “I didn’t want to do this.” The golden glow coalesced in the space above Luna, then a bucket popped into existence. It tipped splashing cold water onto the sleeping princess. Luna tensed and groaned, and rolled over, and her eyes opened, but only for a moment, and then she slumped comatose once more. The bucket fell aside, forgotten. Celestia gasped and stepped back, eyes locked onto Luna’s face. She’d only caught a glimpse, but there was no mistaking the luminous, reptilian eye of Nightmare Moon. Heart pounding, she turned and rushed out of her sister’s suite, to the doorway where her staff ponies were still waiting. To the staff captain she ordered, “Fetch the royal physicians!” He blinked. “Ma’am?” “All of them. NOW!” she snapped. In truth it didn’t take long, although every minute seemed like an eternity to Celestia. The physicians, when they arrived, examined Luna and conferred briefly. “I’ve never seen a clearer textbook case of paraneoplastic syndrome!” declared Dr. Caduceus. However, he was immediately shouted down by the other doctors. Dr. Caduceus was notorious for ascribing every infirmity to paraneoplastic syndrome. When they finished their deliberations, Dr. Healing Balm reported to Celestia, “Princess Luna doesn’t appear to be injured or ill. This is no medical condition. Some sort of occult force is holding her in sleep.” “Of course…” Celestia felt slightly foolish, but she’d been near panic when she called up the doctors. She turned to one of her attendants and ordered, “Send a message to the Royal Academy of Arcana! I require the services of Equestria’s top experts in sleep and dream magic.” The pony froze. “ummm… Ma’am?” “What is it, my little pony?” “Wouldn’t the top expert in magic be yourself, Princess?” Celestia sighed and said, “It’s flattering when ponies assume I’m expert in all schools of magic and that I know all spells by heart. But I’m not, and I don’t. Will you please deliver my missive?” “Of course! Sorry, Ma’am!” The pony scurried away. As the sun settled near the horizon to the west of Ponyville, Twilight Sparkle plodded home, happy but tired. With her library closed for the weekend, in the afternoon she’d gone to the park to do some light reading. (Reading outdoors in the sunlight was Twilight’s newest obsession. She’d seen an article in Scientific Equestrian speculating that nearsightedness was caused by too much reading in poor light. None of Twilight’s friends realized how nearly blind she was without her corrective enchantments, and she definitely didn’t want her eyes to get worse.) Her plan had been to read Sugar Water’s Record of the Cola Wars and lose herself in the history of an earlier, more bellicose era of public taste tests, brutal media campaigns, eroded market share and ill-conceived reformulations. She packed her saddlebags with the Geographic Guide to Equestria to help her sort out the sometimes confusing movements of troops and ships in the history book’s pages, plus a few other reference books Celestia had loaned her from the Royal Library. To her intense frustration, when she unpacked her saddlebags in the park, she discovered that she’d brought her reference material but forgotten the history book itself. She grumbled at herself all the way back to the library — where she found Pinkie Pie waiting in ambush. Pinkie needed her help to set up a birthday party for the spa ponies, Aloe and Lotus. A birthday party for twins, Pinkie insisted, had to be “double double the fun” of a regular birthday party, and decorating had taken all afternoon. After Pinkie Pie released her, Twilight barely had time to go home and freshen up, take Spike to a playdate with a couple of his friends, and return to the party. She was never a party girl. She’d changed a lot since coming to Ponyville, but Twilight Sparkle was still an introverted personality. She enjoyed herself, but if she was (along with Fluttershy) among the first to leave the party, no one held it against her. Not even Pinkie Pie. They understood her. Her mental review of the day’s events was interrupted by a strained voice calling her name. “Twilight Sparkle! Oh, Twilight Sparkle!” She looked up to see a gray pegasus pony waving a wing at her. For a moment she thought it was Derpy, but no… This pony had a pale blue mane and tail rather than yellow, and that wasn’t Derpy’s voice at all. Twilight stopped, and the pegasus trotted over. “I’m so glad I found you! If anypony can help, I know it’s you.” “Help with what? What’s the matter?” The pegasus sat on her haunches and rubbed her hooves together. “Oh, it’s awful! There’s a poor little blind text in that dark alleyway over there. It’s lost and injured, and I’m afraid to even try moving it.” Twilight quirked an eyebrow. “Injured?” The pegasus nodded. “It has a split infinitive, a mixed metaphor, and I think there could be some broken sentences!” Twilight gasped. “Oh no, that’s bad! Let me see what I can do!” Twilight trotted over to the dark alley, one of the few to be found in Ponyville, just between the the buildings of Quills & Sofas and the Toupee & Candle Works. Between the vine-covered stone walls of the alleyway, there was a manilla folder laying open and many sheets of paper bound together with a metal clip. She held down the pages with the edge of her hoof, as if to make sure they didn’t get away, and she squinted at the text and began to read. Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by their place and supplies it with the necessary regelialia. It is a paradisematic country, in which roasted parts of sentences fly into your mouth. Even the all-powerful Pointing has no control about the blind texts; it is an almost unorthographic life. One day, however, a small line of blind text by the name of Lorem Ipsum decided to leave for the far World of Grammar. The Big Oxmox advised her not to do so, because there were thousands of bad Commas, wild Question Marks and devious Semikoli, but the Little Blind Text didn’t listen. She packed her seven versalia, put her initial into the belt, and made herself on the way. When she reached the first hills of the Italic Mountains, she had a last view back on the skyline of her hometown Bookmarksgrove, the headline of Alphabet Village and the subline of her own road, the Line Lane. Pityful a rethoric question ran over her cheek, then she continued her way. On her way she met a copy. The copy warned the Little Blind Text, that where it came from it would have been rewritten a thousand times and everything that was left from its origin would be the word “and,” and the Little Blind Text should turn around and return to its own, safe country. But nothing the copy said could convince her, and so it didn’t take long until a few insidious Copy Writers ambushed her, made her drunk with Longe and Parole, and dragged her into their agency where they abused her for their projects again and again. And if she hasn’t been rewritten, then they are still using her. “uhh… Wait. This doesn’t even make any sense…” *BANG!* A blast of light and sound went off in her face, and she slumped to the ground. A unicorn stallion came out of his hiding place, and he approached Twilight along with the gray pegasus, who said, “Good work, Flash Bang! She’s out like a light. Quickly now, get her magic suppressed and tie her up! I’ll fetch the cart.” Equestria was a civilization built on order and control. The cycle of day and night, the seasons, the weather and even the lives of wild animals were methodically tamed, harnessed, regimented and scheduled for the security and prosperity of ponies. In the society of ponies, evil was personified by Discord, the avatar of chaos, and Mother Nature, red of tooth and claw. For ponies to thrive, chaos must give way order, and nature must be domesticated. Mother Nature gave ground grudgingly, though, and she had her ways of pushing back. The Everfree Forest was much feared by ponies, and not without good reason. It was one of the few surviving remnants of the ancient Big Thicket that had once covered vast regions of Equestria. As the forest was carved up and whittled away by advancing pony civilization, all the wild things of the world had retreated into smaller and smaller territories. Like fish in a drying lake, they’d been squeezed into this last remaining wild place. The smaller it became, the more difficult it became for ponies to encroach further, and eventually a sort of equilibrium had been established. Now ponies invaded once again. Pegasi had deposited carriages and carts in a forest clearing. More ponies had emerged from their conveyances. The wild things of Everfree kept their distance. They knew from hard experience that ponies were dangerous when they came in numbers. These invaders were ponies, yes, but most unusual. All of them wore black cloaks — although with incongruously colorful legs and tails poking out. Some of them had cold, cyan-blue, reptilian eyes glinting from within their dark hoods. They scurried about with purpose. They cleaned off a circular space in the clearing, moving the snow into piles around the circumference, and upon these they placed wooden bowls filled with oil-soaked powders. Upon the newly bared ground, paint was used to draw arcane lines of power. Above, pegasus ponies pushed unruly, wild clouds out of the way, letting moonlight spill unhindered into the clearing. Most of the wild things of Everfree kept their distance, but there was one who ventured close enough to observe. It was another pony-sized figure, this one wearing a cloak of brown from which protruded legs and a tail of mottle gray. From within the hood, sky blue eyes peered into the clearing, spying from a place of concealment, underneath ice-encrusted bushes. A black-cloaked unicorn levitated a large bundle from a cart and brought it closer to the circle. As it came into view, the spy gasped softly in recognition. The bundle was a pony, hog-tied, head covered with a burlap bag. There was no mistaking the lavender color or the starburst upon her hip, though. The brown-cloaked one muttered, “This wicked design I must thwart… but Twilight’s captors are too many to face.” She thought for a moment, then nodded to herself. “To Ponyville I must report -- and fetch her friends to rescue her from this place.” She retreated stealthily, keeping under cover and out of view from the pegasus ponies.