Golyat
Dear Princess Celestia,
Praise the Eternal Sun.
Forgive me for this
protocol breach,
but in light of
Myinnkyun…
I feel I must
inform you
directly of
what I
found
and…
who.
A Nightmare’s job is to
sift through dreams,
ignoring the chaff,
in search of the
pure grain:
the one
whole
truth.
The truth I found within
Myinnkyun’s dreamers
is one, I fear, belongs
in your hooves more
than those of my
superiors who
still bear the
scars of the
Nocturne
uprising.
My humble
apologies
on behalf
of my
tribe.
Sincerely, Golyat,
thirty-third level
Nightmare and
your faithful
servant:
Death came for Myinnkyun
for the second time as it
did the first: all for
want of love.
What hope had they for love
when friendship was beyond their grasp?
Ponies, Minotaurs, Sirens
All drowning in their
self-proclaimed
superiority.
Save the one
Predator
Locust
Parasite.
Who existed before them all.
Who, I fear, outlived them all.
Once, a minotaur village sated her.
Peace and love in abundance
ruined by poppy-draughts.
Drugged beings being
emotionless husks.
Worthless.
Then the ponies were charmed
into their watery graves.
And the poppies
destroyed. All
by her.
We ponies should have stayed away.
Or kept better track of who
arrived on our boats,
and who didn’t.
Palei Hantu. Littlemoth.
One being bearing names
and faces without number.
One being who, I fear, still
haunts distant shores
undetected
unknown
unnamed
until
now.
As for the villagers…
too concerned with taxes, tribes, and Nocturnes,
too busy building themselves a nicer cage,
to notice the parasite on their backs
who, because of their bickering,
was growing hungry and
fearful that her natural
enemy was on the
horizon:
minstrel of distrust
antitheses of love
sower of hate
siren.
The banishment of Princess Luna
surely heralded the inevitable;
the sea change from
tension to all out
conflict.
Not two weeks later, as night fell,
not even lust over her dancing
not even her own infatuated
and infuriatingly chaste
Dawn Patrol could
quell her hunger
anymore. None
had room in
their hearts
for love.
And then minotaurs U Low Kene
severed her double life, her
alternate food source:
her old home with
the minotaurs.
And then Peridot saw her change back into Littlemoth.
After unknown centuries of secretive feeding,
after barely escaping a raging minotaur,
and the spear of a lame drunkard,
an old pony on a midnight walk
found her out.
A pony named for a gemstone
with an appetite for money.
A parasite named for a bug
with an appetite for hearts.
Why did she not drain Peridot
of the love she craved?
Was the old pony truly as unfeeling
as the dreams of others suggest?
Press as I might, particularly
on one Shooting Star…
I know not.
No matter.
Peridot escaped a loveless death
in favor of a peaceful one by
way of the parasite’s magic,
a hypnosis trick shared
with her siren foes.
But what to do with a body
In a time when trade ships
and dock workers
make the sea
too shallow
a grave?
What to do two days after
stashing the body in its
former residence?
What to do when
panic subsides
just enough
for hunger
to take
over?
Leave Peridot’s door open
and return her to the sea,
Feast on Moonstruck
for want of what
Dawn Patrol
won’t give,
And blame the siren
that Sailcloth
conveniently
provided.
She meant to turn pony
against siren and kill
the mounting fear
she assumed was
a siren’s doing
alone.
In all her years, had she never
encountered a race such as
ours? A race that needs no
help breeding fear
and distrust?
How the sirens
and buzzards
must have
feasted
on the
war.
And yet she did not
perish! Her dreams
haunt me still, and
make me fear for
the safety of
Equestria.
Death came for Myinnkyun
for lack of friendship
and want of love.
Palei Hantu is dead.
Littlemoth is dead.
Peridot is dead.
But,
I fear,
the parasite,
Chrysalis, lives.
And she is hungry.