Moonlight Raven's room was a sanctuary of darkness, the only light that ever touched this sacred place was the flickering rays of her black candles. The outside was cruel and bright and hot, but this place was quiet and still – a sanctuary to things ponies shunned.
Black roses, plastic skulls with a candle and melted wax on top, posters, and novels about vamponies and werewolves, spell-books filled with ineffectual occult rituals, these were the things Moonlight Raven surrounded herself with. And just as other ponies shunned these dark things, so too did Moonlight shun the other ponies and their foolish ways. She spent as little time with those sheep-ponies as possible in favor of her dark, lonely silence.
The darkness was peaceful. It was sacred. It was good.
Even still she did allow a few ponies to trample about her life. One of them was Maud, her old pen pal whom she had met years ago in school. The two still kept in touch, exchanging poetry. Maud was not particularly refined in her poems but enjoyed Moonlight's musings on tombstones, the moon, and old, decrepit castles. Those were the things they had originally bonded over.
“Those are technically rocks,” Maud had explained it.
Moonlight, in turn, occasionally found diamonds in the rough in Maud's minimalistic style. The latest, for example, had captivated her.
A rock sits on my lawn, resting asleep.
The wind blows hard against it.
The sharp rains fall upon it.
The sunlight warms it.
The snow freezes it.
The roots hold it.
And even now
still it is
a rock.
Brilliant! Moonlight thought this brilliant! Each line shorter than the last, depicting in words the erosion of rocks. It painted rocks, a permanent fixture in the eyes of mortal ponies, wasting away. Yes, all things wasted away. Life, all things, were meaningless and only illusions gave the impression that this wasn't so. There was no hope, not even for rocks, not even for delusions!
She wrote as much back to Maud and now received her reply. Moonlight tore open the letter and read it in the dim light.
“Actually,” Maud had written, “it was about rocks.”
Moonlight sighed. As low as her opinion of ponies was, sometimes she thought it far too high. She needed to write about this miserable turn of events.
Death
That was always the best way to start any piece of literature, be it poetry, prose, or letter.
Death is the only eternal construct a pony will ever encounter. What is the fleeting fancy of life when compared to the everlasting-
Even this fragile endeavor was slain, in its transience, by a flood of light. The door swung open and her room became just as bright as the rest of the house causing Moonlight, with her darkness-adjusted eyes, to shrink away, covering her eyes. Moonlight Raven knew exactly what this light meant, it meant the presence of her sister, Sunshine Smiles.
Sunshine Smiles came prancing into the room. Like her sister, she was a unicorn but there the similarities ended. She oozed with color, bright pink fur, and a bright yellow atop an even brighter yellow was her hair. Her mane was not smooth and regal like Moonlight's, but spiky like the style you would expect from a pegasus.
And their personalities were even more different than their looks.
“Moony!” Sunshine sang out as she spun about and then grasped her sister in a strong hug. Moonlight remained as motionless as possible, resisting the hug with all her willpower, as Smiles chuckled. “How is my absolute favorite of all my favorite little sisters doing?”
Moonlight sighed. She often sighed.
“Sister,” Moonlight said with all the rage she could muster which, admittedly, was more or a less a raspy monotone, “have I not told you that light must never reach my lair?”
That was her ideal, anyway – to make as little contact with the light as possible. It was no easy feat in this house, as her sister had installed an array of ultra-bright light bulbs in every room and tended to keep them on at all times.
“Oh, you and your games!” Sunshine let out another chuckle. “I figured you were going to be wrapped up in your letters so I packed lunch for you. It's almost time for you to go to work, silly.”
Oh, that was right. The world demanded that Moonlight sacrifice the few fleeting moments of life she had to the social-economic superstructure if she wanted the right to exist.
“You leave me no choice but to thank you, sister,” Moonlight said, “so I thank you, albeit reluctantly.”
“Don't thank you till you see the cupcake I made you,” said Sunshine. “It has a smiley face made of sprinkles on it!”
Sunshine offered the lunch she had prepared for Moonlight. Most of it was acceptable, save for that incredibly bright cupcake, practically shining with the light of the accursed sun itself.
“I require no smiley faces,” said Moonlight, “of sprinkles or otherwise.”
“Oh come on, Moony,” Sunshine begged. “You gotta be more positive, you know! Maybe try smiling or singing or at least eating more cupcakes.”
Moonlight sighed yet again. Things were only going to get worse the longer this conversation dragged on.
“If I take your cupcake will you vanquish yourself from my presence?” Moonlight asked.
Sunshine nodded and the deal was struck. Sunshine's personality and mannerism were abrasive to Moonlight, probably just as abrasive as her own personality was to others. She had little choice but to live with her sister, though.
Moonlight did owe a lot to her sister. She didn't make very much money and probably wouldn't be able to cover the rent on even a rundown apartment in Canterlot. She could pay for her upkeep, food and utilities, but little else.
And pay her upkeep Moonlight must. So she took her lunch and trotted off to work.
It was a bright, sunny day out, so Moonlight grabbed her umbrella and thick cloak. Ponies often found this, like everything else about Moonlight, strange. They'd say using an umbrella on sunny days and none when during rain was the opposite of what you were supposed to do, apparently feeling no discomfort from the scorching heat of the sun against their skin and the blinding light stinging their eyes.
Those ponies were just as strange to Moonlight as she was to them. She walked quickly, guarding herself against the light with her umbrella, avoiding all eye contact with other ponies. As per usual, this strategy worked and she managed to avoid social contact for another day, getting to work without uttering a single word.
Working without compromising her values was hard for Moonlight. She despised the corporations and refused to play a part in their power structure. She also disliked talking to other ponies, being out in the sun, and lots of other things. You could imagine how few jobs these proclivities left.
She did manage to find such a job in the end. It didn't pay too well, but it was enough to keep herself from being a mooch to her sister – another thing Moonlight would never accept. It was a job with a non-profit charity organization dedicated to environmental preservation, protection, and restoration. The boss of this organization was somewhat tolerable, if only because she held similar views about corporations to that of Moonlight.
Her boss, a green pony with red hair and a permanent half-daze on her face, met her just outside the building where she typically worked.
“Ah! Hey there,” said Treehugger, “what are you doing here, mare?”
Treehugger wasn't as enthusiastic as her sister, which was nice. She was very laid back, sometimes to the point of semi-consciousness, which was the sort of pony Moonlight was okay with.
“I work here,” said Moonlight. “I've been coming here every day at 3 PM for the past four years.”
“Oh! That's right,” said Treehugger. “You're here to watch my little buddies tonight. Right on.”
That was Moonlight's main job – watching these 'little buddies'. They were not little, nor were they anypony's buddies in truth, but that was part of why this job appealed to Moonlight.
“Oh. And later I'm gonna need your help putting up these fliers around town,” said Treehugger, taking out a stack of papers. “See, I was thinking- ponies always talk about saving the rain forest, but last night I was like 'wait, what about all the other forests?' so now I'm like 'let's have a save all the other forests fund raiser'!”
Treehugger handed her the stack of fliers. In reality, it talked about a fundraiser for buying chakra necklaces for forest animals.
“Didn't we already have this fundraiser?” Moonlight asked.
If she recalled, this endeavor had inexplicably raised almost a million bits for 'balancing' the 'negative energy' of said forest animals. It was the sort of thing that was the reason Moonlight never talked to other ponies.
“Oh, sorry,” said Treehugger. She turned it over to reveal the correct flier - a save the rainforest flier with 'rain' crossed out and 'all the other' written in. “These are like, recycled from our old fliers which were also recycled from our older fliers. I like, don't want to kill trees to save trees, you know?”
“Actually, very little deforestation occurs due to lumber and paper,” said Moonlight. “The vast majority of desertification occurs due to agricultural industries in locations with few earth ponies. The short-sighted slash and burn tactics of the corporation lead to the mass desertification of Saddle Arabia and Zebracania, which will eventually lead to global sand-demon disruption, which will eventually destroy all life on the planet.”
“Whoa. Harsh,” said Treehugger. “Yeah, those corporations are no good, you know. Like, I heard they put chemicals in the water and stuff.”
“Water is a chemical.”
“I meant like, toxic chemicals.”
“All chemicals are toxic,” said Moonlight. “All things can kill you. That is the nature of our world – death ever present.”
“I'm sensing some negative vibrations coming from you, little buddy,” said Treehugger. She thought to herself for a moment then, in a moment of inspiration, put a stone necklace around Moonlight's neck. “This will, like, absorb some of that negative energy. But I gotta get going for now. I'll see you in the dreamscape.”
Treehugger left. Moonlight looked down at the necklace and decided to take it off.
“Nothing can absorb the infinite darkness inside my soul,” Moonlight muttered, “or quell the blackness of my heart.”
She stood there alone for another second, then turned and walked inside.
Immediately, a julajimus, a flesh-eating ape-like creature, jumped out at roared at Moonlight, teeth bared, ready to tear her apart!
As always it ran straight into the glass wall and fell backward.
“Hush,” Moonlight said to it.
She walked passed the cage that the julajimus was kept in and a few other cages for other monsters, many of them hissing or growling at her from behind their glass. Well, Treehugger preferred to call them 'habitats', and to be fair they were fairly nice, reminiscent of what their natural habitats would be like.
This place was 'The Incredible Endangered, Incredible Rare Animal Preserve', which was exactly what it sounded like. Moonlight's job was to watch over the place during the night and feed the monsters daily. There were other ponies for the more complicated and dangerous tasks.
Her job itself was surprisingly tolerable, given that life was mostly pain and misery. Treehugger watched the most dangerous creatures in Equestria in this place. Well, the ones that happened to be endangered anyway.
Some ponies objected to the idea that creatures like the terror beast and nightmare snake should be kept from extinction, let alone in the city right next to a residential area. Moonlight didn't understand their fears or disgust as these were the most amazing creatures on the planet.
The terror beast could rip out a pony's spine in one fluid motion, for example, and the nightmare snake's venom trapped you in your own worst nightmare while the snake fed off your fear. Each creature was more terrifying than the last and between them represented the full gambit of horrible ways a pony could die. To top it off they were nearly all nocturnal.
But Moonlight's favorite was the bone-eating spider. It was a spider about the size of a pony's head, but what stuck out the most in its form was those two incredibly long fangs that jutted out of its mouth. These fangs could pierce most creatures straight to the center of their bones.
If you thought they sucked the marrow out of the bones or something, then you'd be far too optimistic. The reality was far more gruesome, the sort of thing you couldn't say in front of a filly, the most painful way to die, said many. To spare you the details is to save you from many sleepless nights.
Moonlight brought them their daily bucket of bones to eat and threw the bones into the habitat. They ate, but again the details were far too terrible to mention.
Watching them eat, Moonlight smiled slightly.
“That's so goth,” she said.
It was hard to believe that Treehugger had somehow captured and brought them all here. Maybe she was secretly a badass when she wasn't completely out of it. Though she was always out of it, so Moonlight would probably never know.
Another one of the perks of this job, other than watching these monsters devour their food, was that there was a lot of downtime, and plenty of opportunities to read vampony romance novels.
Needless to say, these were Moonlight's all-time favorite books. How she longed to meet a vampony who could vanquish her from the world of light and bring her into ever-lasting darkness. All the other ponies didn't understand the beauty of the darkness, the stillness of the night, the fury of storms, and the grace of creatures that belonged to the shadows. They were too busy staring into the sun and worshiping their mass-produced corporate merchandise.
A vampony, she always imagined, would. They would understand the call of the night, the truth of sorrow, and the joy of gloom. She would be able to find companionship in such creatures unlike that which she could get from her own kind. And also they were sexy.
During a particularly interesting part of the story she was reading tonight, there was a tap on a window nearby her. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Moonlight hoped it would be a vampony, but looking up revealed it was only a chupacabra. Moonlight sighed and shooed it away.
“Why can't anything interesting ever happen?” Moonlight asked the darkness.
And that was pretty much the biggest event of the night. When she finished her shift it was just past midnight and a storm had rolled in. The pitch black streets were devoid of life and light, save the efforts of a few streetlamps.
Perfect weather. Moonlight smiled, put her umbrella away, and began to walk home slowly to savor the rain. It was all so perfect. The loneliness, the darkness, the entire mood spoke to her soul! If only the moon could be out at the same time as these dark, thick clouds.
No pony understood the gloom like she did, how wonderful and welcoming it was.
By the time she was home again, Moonlight's soul had been lifted to something similar to joy. Moonlight couldn't wait to get inside and listen to the rain against her window as she continued her poem about the frivolity of life and the stupidity of ponies. She walked up to the door and -
Locked.
It was only then that Moonlight remembered that she had left her key in her room. She searched her saddlebag three times to make sure it wasn't there before concluding the obvious, that she had been locked out of her own home.
Her sister was home, of course, Moonlight could tell by the light window in her room, Sunshine always slept with the lights on. But her sister was also a light sleeper and had trouble getting to bed. Moonlight didn't want to wake her and ruin her rest.
Thankfully, there was another way into the house. If Moonlight went to the bathroom window and undid the latches with her magic, she could take off the screen and climb inside through there. So Moonlight went up the back stairs to the deck, up onto the deck's railing, and from there climbed onto the first story's roof where the window was.
She began shimming the lock loose and was almost done when she heard a voice behind her.
“Excuse me,” said the male voice, “but I'm with the lunar guard. What are you doing? Can have your name?”
Moonlight turned around a froze at what she saw.
A pair of glowing, yellow eyes greeted her. The belonged to a stallion of gray fur and dark blue hair. He was flying just above Moonlight, but he was not a pegasus.
No, he was exactly like on her posters, bat wings, tufted ears, cat-like eyes, fangs! Even better was the purple armor, the chest plate resembling a flaming eye, so Gothic in its design. There was no mistaking it. He was a vampony. He was an awesome vampony!
This was the moment Moonlight had been waiting her whole life for.
“Bite me,” Moonlight said breathlessly.
The vampony gave her a very stern look.
“You do realize that refusing to tell me your name and speaking to me like that counts as resisting an officer, yes?” he asked.
Moonlight blinked and ran the conversation over again in her head.
“No. No,” said Moonlight. “I mean like bite me and turn me into a vampony. Vanquish me from the world of light! I will pay any price for that.”
“Vampony?” The stallion asked before groaning and rolling his eyes. “You know, that's pretty racist. We've been in Canterlot for years now and-”
The stallion kept talking, but Moonlight was just captivated by the sight in front of her. The rain had slowed to a dull drizzle and tiny droplets bounced off his wet mane and helmet, glistening in the moonlight as they did. Indeed, the clouds had parted slightly and the moon now shined upon him, the light, when reflected off his purple armor, gave him an unearthly glow.
He was everything Moonlight's vampire romance novels had promised her. He was masculine, yet sleek and slim, his colors dark and dulled to perfection. Those eyes, with their glow, were the most beautiful eyes to have ever blessed a stallion. Those glistening fangs, the tiny claws at the end of his digits, and the leathery, alien form of his wings gave him an exotic flare on top of it all, the kind Moonlight had only ever dreamed of before.
Moonlight felt a wave of heat flash across her face and her heart begin to race as she stared at him, mouth slightly agape.
“-and it's just very suspicious is all,” the stallion finished.
Moonlight snapped back to attention.
“Um. What?” She asked.
The stallion let out an exasperated sigh.
“Look, the bottom line is this,” he said, “if you don't tell me your name or why you're trying to sneak into this house at 3 AM then I'm placing you under arrest.”
“You can do that?” Moonlight asked.
“I am a member of the lunar guard. So yes.”
“There is a lunar guard made of vamponies?”
When did the world suddenly become awesome?
“Your name?” The stallion's patience was clearly running thin.
“Oh. My name is, um,” Moonlight said, but suddenly choked. He wanted her name! She felt her heart racing faster. The heat that burned through her neck and head was enough to force her to avert her gaze, shying away from his eyes. “Moonset Glisten. Erm, I mean Moonlight Raven. I live here and, um, my sister will tell you.”
Why was she getting like this? After a lifetime of preparation, she was just being this shy little thing.
She wasn't able to say anything more to him, but did lead him to the front door and knocked on it. Sunshine awoke immediately, announced by every light in the house turning on, and opened the door a moment later.
“Moony!” she said with her huge smile and hugged her sister. “Did you lock yourself out again?”
“Yes,” Moonlight muttered.
“Oh, is that all,” said the stallion. “I apologize. It just looked a bit suspicious is all and she wasn't giving me much explanation”
Sunshine gave a hearty laugh.
“Was she trying to climb in through the window again, wasn't she?” Sunshine asked. “I can understand that, officer. Thanks a lot!”
“Well you two ladies have a nice night,” said the vampony.
Moonlight muttered something unintelligible to him in reply, but he didn't hear and just flew off. She felt like a trembling pile of mush and doubted she could have stayed standing without her sister's hug to prop her up. Her face was just burning up and her heart pounding.
“Sister,” said Moonlight with all the urgency she could muster, on par with that of a bored librarian. “I think I might be having a heart attack. My heart is pounding and my legs feel weak.”
Sunshine studied Moonlight's face, now burning red with blush, and the most absolute giddy smile appeared on her face.
“I don't think it's a heart attack, sis,” said Sunshine. “I think somepony has a crush on somepony!”
“What does that mean?”
“Hey!” Sunshine shouted after the vampony. “My sister thinks you're cute!”
Moonlight's heart stopped.
“Silence you fool!” Moonlight hissed at her sister. She put a hoof over Sunshine's mouth and turned nervously to the fleeing vampony. Fortunately, he was too far away to hear.
“Ah. You don't want to sing a song about love?”
“I vowed never to sing again, sister. You know this.”
“It's okay to have a little crush on somepony, you know,” Sunshine said, sticking her tongue out and giggling at her sister.
“I am not in love with that pony,” said Moonlight. “I don't experience love in general.”
“Of course you're not in love with him, you only saw him two seconds ago,” said Sunshine. “But your blush says you do feel a little crush. Hee! And I'm pretty sure you love me, Moony. Don't you?”
Moonlight grumbled and blushed as she trudged inside. If anypony else asked her that question she'd say no but refused to answer it for her sister.
“You took the fact that a blood-sucking undead monster was at our door well, though,” said Moonlight. “Since when does Celestia employ vamponies to such a scale that nopony blinks at them?”
“They're called bat ponies, silly. They aren't undead,” said Sunshine. “When Princess Luna came back she freed them and now a bunch of them live in Canterlot with her. Those are the lunar guard.”
“Princess Luna?” Moonlight asked. “There is now a second, night-themed princess?”
“You seriously never heard?” Sunshine asked.
Moonlight shook her head. She was rather disconnected from the happenings of the world. She never read the news (that was just the media trying to brainwash you) and rarely spoke to anypony about anything, save maybe work and poetry. There could have been four princesses now and Moonlight would have no idea, for all the news she got.
“But weren't you at that parade they threw?” Sunshine thought to herself for a moment. “Oh, that's right. You were busy with your poems I think.”
Princess Luna, the lunar guard, bat ponies – these all seemed too good to be true. Moonlight had been waiting her entire life to run into vamponies, but this was probably the next best thing. Ponies who could appreciate the night,who could appreciate darkness, and, perhaps most importantly, had fangs. Moonlight looked into the mirror, at her dripping wet hair. Her colors were actually pretty similar to that bat ponies. She wondered if she could pull it off.
“Sister,” said Moonlight, “I believe I have found a new goal in life.”
“Really? What is it?”
“I don't know. But it probably involves Princess Luna and this lunar guard. I feel in my soul that this is my destiny.”
Of course, joining the lunar guard would be a harrowing task that would take a great deal of training and determination. Surely they needed a mage, though. Maybe she could work on her magic? Or maybe find something else. But this was probably her destiny.
Sunshine giggled.
“I thought your destiny was a heart with four squiggly lines,” she teased. “I think you just have a thing for bat ponies.”
“Silence.”
“Well you know,” said Sunshine, leaning right up to Moonlight's face, “I could get you a date with a bat pony if you want. I know a pony who knows a pony who's a bat pony bachelor. You might like him!”
“I do not like ponies,” said Moonlight. “As I've said, I am incapable of love.”
“Oh come on. It's just one date, sis!” Sunshine pushed up against her yet again. “Please?”
Moonlight blushed and looked to the side. She thought of that stallion again and wondered. There was no joy, of course, but perhaps varying levels of misery. One could obtain a more tolerable level of sorrow, perhaps.
“Maybe,” said Moonlight.
Sunshine squeed and bounced around the room in joy.
“This is the first time you showed any interest in love! I'm so happy for you, little sis!” Sunshine half-sang as she bounced. “Oh! We should get you a fancy new dress tomorrow for your little date! This is going to be so much fun!”
“I don't have a lot of money to be spending on fancy dresses,” said Moonlight.
“No worries,” said Sunshine. “There's a boutique that's going out of business tomorrow and everything is going to be 80% off. I was gonna go there myself already, but couldn't think of an excuse to drag you there too! For you, I'm thinking something bright and sunny!”
“How long have you known me, sister?” Moonlight asked.
And yet her sister just continued to bounce and squee over this turn of events. Moonlight sighed again, but not quite as wearily as before. Maybe tomorrow, or rather later today, wouldn't be completely terrible.
And for Moonlight Raven, that was more than enough.