There is a sumptuous set of apartments in the western wing of Canterlot Castle, rival to Princess Celestia's own in the eastern wing. They have never been occupied.
In the Royal Audience Hall, there is a subtly concealed door to Celestia's marble-floored offices, where matters of state are given discussion and decided, for good or ill. Few are aware of a similar door opposite it, and fewer still know of the offices beyond, their floors of black onyx scarcely touched by the passage of pony hooves.
The grounds of the Royal Guard of the Sun, popularly known as the Day Guard, are a common stop for tourists. One can often see the guardsponies training in the yard, or practicing aerial maneuvers around the mass of their barracks tower. That there is a matching tower and grounds on the opposite flank of the palace is seldom remarked by tourists, for one is not likely to meet its occupants on any given day regardless.
There are historians of architecture who hold that these places exist because an aesthetic of symmetry was in the ascendant during the second expansion of the castle, over eight hundred years ago. They are wrong. There are biographers of Canterlot who hold that the great urban designer Master Plan was too deep in his cups when he copied over the castle plans and simply mirrored whole sections of them. They are wrong.
These places exist because of a sister who is all but forgotten. These places exist because of Celestia's burdened heart. These places exist because of sorrow. These places exist because of hope.
“Did somepony kick your ever-loving head up your own rear end, or did you manage that feat on your own? Did somepony grab you by the ears and squeeze all three spoonfuls of your brains out your nose-holes?”
Sky Diamond stood at attention in the office of the Captain of the Night Guard. He did his best to keep a straight face as Captain Nebula paced around him and expressed the various anatomical contortions that might have explained his idiocy. She was good at tirades.
“Are you, or have you ever been, fond of being dropped on your head for sport? Because I cannot think of any other reasons to explain disregarding your duties and getting soused on moonshine over some idiot Canterlot mare dumping you!”
“Ma'am, Twinklehooves and Windshadow were also—”
In an instant, Nebula was in front of him, shoving her forehead against his own, the vertical pupils of her yellow eyes glaring into him. The scattered grey hairs in her coat only added an iron harshness to her appearance. Her wings flared out aggressively, the dark webbing drawing taut between the bony spines. “Don't even try to bring up those sorry excuses for batponies!”
Sky winced at the crude word.
“They're the shame of the vesperquine race,” Nebula continued. She settled her wings and resumed her circuit around him. “But I'll do you the favor of explaining one little detail that puts them head and neck over you. Would you like that, Private?”
Sky Diamond did his best to stare straight ahead. Nebula's desk stood a few paces before him, piled with neat stacks of papers. Beyond it was a tall glass window, through which the rising moon was visible across the domed roofs of Canterlot. On either side of the window were stained glass panels depicting the Night Guard's princess—to the left, she was shown with a stern visage, and to the right, with a shy, tentative smile. A set of smaller panels depicting her were set around the large pieces. The moonlight made them glow in a rich ultramarine shade, though the effect was muted by the light cast from the few lamps stationed throughout the room as a courtesy to any day ponies that might have business with the Night Guard.
“I asked you a question, Private!”
Sky tensed his shoulders and stood even more stiffly. “Yes ma'am! Please explain the relative merits of certain ponies of the Night Guard, ma'am!”
“It should be a very simple concept, even for a bag of moldy dragon dung who somehow poses as a guardspony such as yourself! You might recall that during your little excursion into alcoholic excess, your oh-so-brilliant compatriots were off-duty, unlike your flea-bitten self!”
“Ma'am,” Sky answered, “I do recall something of the sort.”
Nebula snarled at him, her fangs gleaming in the soft light. “Are you pretending to have the capacity to be clever? Are you pretending to have more brain cells than you have hooves?” She let her voice drop to a malicious growl. “Are you really a pony of such monstrous vanity?”
“Ma'am, in all honesty, I would not put it past me,” Sky said.
Nebula's eyebrows shot up. Now I've done it, Sky thought with a certain satisfaction. But a moment later he heard a stifled giggle from behind. Nebula wasn't looking at him, he realized, but past him; and then he felt the light currents of air as the doors of her office swung quietly shut.
Thoughtlessly impolite, he chirped. Nebula's gaze shifted to glare at him for a fraction of a second in warning. But he scarcely noticed as the sound echoed through the room, beyond the range of most ponies' hearing, and formed an image in his ears. Behind him stood a pony, statuesque and classically beautiful, possessed of both horn and wing.
Princess Celestia.
His legs went watery. This was decidedly not part of the plan. Even more shocking, Nebula gave a casual nod to the alicorn and acknowledged her with a simple “Princess.”
“I do hope I am not intruding,” Celestia said. Her voice was a warm purr in the air. “You seem busy. I was merely killing an hour before I must depart for the Summer Sun Celebration, and had no special purpose in visiting, so if you would prefer I take my leave—”
“Oh don't be stupid,” Nebula said. “Come in, Cee.”
Cee?!
Nebula continued, “I was just giving this pus-brained idiot a much-needed kick in the head. At ease, Private!”
Sky slumped and released his breath. He turned and bowed deeply to the Princess of the Sun.
Nebula snorted. “If you abase yourself that much for the Solar Princess, I fear what you would do if you ever met our own.”
At a loss, Sky straightened up and glanced from Celestia's bemused gaze to Nebula's inscrutable features. After a moment Celestia interceded for him.
“Now, now,” she said, “don't be too harsh on your charge, Captain.”
Nebula rolled her eyes. “Bubblebrains here got dumped by his marefriend, and decided he'd try and get thrown in the brig to have a nice long mope without interruption.” She looked at Sky with a wicked grin. “Too bad, kid! You're my personal assistant for the next week instead. Hope you enjoy spit-polishing ceremonial shoes.”
Sky gawped, his intentions laid bare and shattered in an instant; and with Princess Celestia as witness, no less. She stepped toward him, her brow knitting in concern. “I'm so sorry to hear that, err... Bubblebrains.”
Nebula coughed out a series of barking laughs, and Celestia shot her a reproachful glance. She turned her attention back to Sky. “Your name... isn't Bubblebrains, is it,” she said.
He shook his head. “It's Sky Diamond, Princess.”
“Oh dear,” she said contritely. “Please forgive me, Sky Diamond. Would you like to talk about it?”
He looked away and murmured something noncommittal, intending not to trouble the Princess with his personal issues; but from the corner of his eye he saw her look of concern, as if even he, an anonymous member of the Night Guard, were as important to her as a minister or visiting dignitary.
In fact, there was something to her that made him actually believe it.
“There's... not that much to talk about,” he found himself saying. “She's a Canterlot unicorn named Belle Dancer. We'd been going out for over a year. I... thought we were getting serious. I was getting serious. But she... she didn't see it that way. She told me it wasn't working out... of course she said it wasn't me, it was her, but....”
“Oh Sky Diamond,” Celestia said. Her eyes glimmered. “I'm so sorry.”
A queer expression crossed Nebula's face. “It's the Blessing, isn't it,” she said darkly. “She got spooked over the Blessing, didn't she?”
Sky shook his head, but Nebula forged on, her voice growing strident. “Day ponies get such a thrill going out with our kind, but the moment they find out vesperquines always breed true, they flip out.”
“Belle isn't like that!” Sky insisted.
Celestia stretched forth a wing, and gave a comforting stroke down the length of his back, her feathers swiping across the smooth skin that webbed his own wings. She bit at her lip a moment, before speaking. “I... you know, my offer to you, to all of the vesperquines, is always open.”
Nebula narrowed her eyes and gave Celestia a hard stare.
Sky grimaced. “I'm not a pegasus pony,” he muttered. He shook his head, staring at the floor. “Whatever we were... we're not anymore. I wouldn't even know how to be a pegasus.”
Celestia gave a small nod. “Of course. It wasn't my intent to pressure you, Sky Diamond.”
“We're not broken, Celestia,” Nebula said. “We don't need to be fixed.”
Celestia met her gaze. “You all have the right to make your own decisions. And to have them respected. This is sacrosanct. But you know very well this—” her lips curled in distaste at the word “—'Blessing' was nothing but an act of wanton malice that... that my sister perpetrated on you in the depths of her madness.”
“And we came to our peace with that forty generations ago,” Nebula shot back, “while we and what was left of Equestria struggled to hold the land together with one princess banished and the other of no use to anypony.”
Celestia flinched at that. Nebula forged on. “You look at us and see Luna's pegasus guard twisted up by cruel magics. You look at us and see a scar to be healed. You look at us and see your own failure with your sister. Canterlot thinks we're 'exotic,' and the rest of Equestria finds us creepy, but you're the worst of the lot, Cee. Do you ever wonder why so few of us ever take you up on your offer to undo the Blessing? We are proud to guard Equestria's night. We're proud of what we are and the talents we've been given. And we're proud to remember what the rest of Equestria has forgotten: that there were once two princesses, and that we have vowed to keep faith with the one who rules the night.”
By this point in Nebula's tirade, Sky was crouched on the floor, looking in terror between his captain and Princess Celestia.
“Not to mention,” Nebula continued, strutting now in front of Celestia, “we look pretty damn good.” She stretched out one leathery wing and looked back at it admiringly. “My wings are so pretty,” she said, but her tone held a sharp edge.
Sky knew very well what Nebula was alluding to. And Celestia... how could she not? He feared even to glance Celestia's way. “Please stop fighting with the Sun Princess,” he whimpered.
Nebula paused and looked at him. “What are you doing down there?” she asked in a mild tone. “You think this is fighting? Trust me, you've never seen Cee and me fighting.” She grinned at Celestia. “Hey Cee, remember the time I threw a sword at you?”
Celestia did not return Nebula's grin. “I do indeed. I am also certain I apologized to you before the sword throwing.”
“Yes, that was rude of you,” Nebula said.
Celestia turned to Sky and extended one hoof to help him back to his feet. “Please don't be concerned,” she said. “Nebula has a long history of telling me off. I value the Night Guard for its tradition of being... forthright with me.” She paused. “Although,” she said, eyeing Nebula, “some members of the Guard take to it with notable enthusiasm.”
“It keeps you grounded,” Nebula said. She turned toward him. “Sky Diamond, my miserable adjunct, make the Princess some tea.”
He hurried to a small alcove where the sundry necessities for tea were stored, along with a heating stone and a small sink. Also, he noted, Nebula's rather well-stocked liquor cabinet.
He paused, staring at the row of bottles. “Ma'am, do you like to have a snort on duty?” he called out to Nebula.
“Only when I hear what you've been up to,” she said. “Are you still aiming for the brig? You're up to two weeks as my personal slave now.”
Sky grimaced. He was so obvious. He needed to work on that. He drew off a measure of water into the teapot and cocked one ear back to listen to his boss and the Princess.
Celestia spoke apologetically. “I'm sorry, Nebula, I didn't come here to spar with you. I just hoped to visit an old friend.”
“You're calling me old? Cee, I've got another decade before retirement, and I'm sure I can kick your sorry flank around the town.”
Celestia laughed. “I believe I made a credible accounting for myself at Eagle Crag.”
“That was thirty years ago," Nebula scoffed. "Too many cakes since then. You've gotten slow and rotund.”
“I most certainly am not rotund! Name your contest! I'll leave you weeping.”
Nebula grinned. “Oh, weeping is it? I think your ego's fattened up a bit as well.”
Sky listened in astonishment to the banter between his disrespectful captain and Princess Celestia. He would have half-expected her to fry Nebula with a bolt of concentrated sunlight, but from the tenor of her voice she was more amused than offended.
At length, the tea was ready, and Sky arranged two teacups and the pot upon a salver, and brought it out to the others. He laid it upon a low table to one side of the room. Celestia gave it one glance and said, “But where is my cup?”
He gestured. “It's right there, Princess.”
“Well, then where is Captain Nebula's?”
He glanced between the two cups and haltingly pointed to the other.
“You don't like tea?” she asked.
“What...?”
Nebula interrupted. “Princess Celestia expects you to join us, Sky.”
What was this? He was no general or famous idol to sit down to tea with the Princess! He balked, but nonetheless she levitated another cup to the table for him and patted a space just beside her. He gave Nebula a panicky look, but she just cocked an eyebrow and grinned at him.
He poured the tea and sat down at the small table, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible. With a jittery motion, he leaned over his own cup and took a sip, the warm fragrance filling his nostrils and calming him. Beside him, Celestia levitated her own cup and took a delicate sip.
“Very nice, Sky,” she murmured.
He stammered a thank-you while Nebula watched him from across the table, taking obvious enjoyment in his discomfort. But she turned her attention back to Celestia before long.
“What's going on, Cee? Something's not right with you.”
Celestia gave a melancholy smile. “Am I so transparent?” she asked.
“Nah,” said Nebula. “I just know how to read you.”
Celestia raised an eyebrow as she glanced at Nebula for a moment before returning her gaze to the depths of her teacup. “It's nothing, really. It's just....” She paused and bit at her lower lip. “Yesterday, my Faithful Student came to me with a... troubling matter she had uncovered. Instead of hearing her out, I told her to make some friends and dismissed her to Ponyville, with make-work orders to oversee the Summer Sun Celebration. I'm... feeling a little low over treating her that way, I suppose.”
Nebula cocked her ears forward. “Faithful Student?”
“My nickname for a promising unicorn pupil of mine.”
Sky perked up. “Is it that purple unicorn? The one who sneaks into the library at night?”
“That would be Twilight Sparkle, yes," Celestia said with a fond smile. "And she has ventured into the library when she should be sleeping a time or two, now that you mention it.”
“A time or two? More like every week!” Sky snorted.
Celestia blinked. “Really? Every week?”
“We have betting pools on whether she'll show up any given night,” Sky said. Abruptly, he realized he might have said too much, given the intensity of the stares both Celestia and Nebula brought to bear on him.
Nebula addressed him icily. “Where in your training did you learn to regard security risks as opportunities for gambling?”
“Oh! No, no, no,” Sky stumbled over his words in haste. “No, no, we checked, we talked to the unicorns, the library patrol, the unicorn library patrol. They said she was okay. No threat. Not a threat. Not.”
Nebula arched an eyebrow in her keep talking and show me how deep you can dig your grave expression. But Celestia shattered the incipient storm with a chuckle.
“Thank you for not arresting my student,” Celestia said. “Although I shall have to have a word with her about when it is and isn't appropriate to advance her studies.”
Nebula snorted. “Let her sleep through the day.” She paused, and added, “Did you seriously tell her to make friends?”
“Well, she needs to! Twilight is a very devoted student, but she leaves herself no room for other ponies.”
“And that's the sort of command that's going to rectify the situation?”
Celestia dipped her head away from Nebula's gaze. “Well, it just came out. I'm not even sure what prompted me to say it, but as soon as I did it seemed right.”
Nebula shook her head with a wry smile. “You're being cagey again, Cee.” She took a sip of her tea, and for a time a companionable silence fell across the table.
Sky found himself fidgeting. It was all well and good to have tea with the Princess of the Sun, but wasn't there reason for concern in what she had been saying?
He cleared his throat. “Um, Princess,” he said, and paused. Both Celestia and Nebula looked at him. Celestia's gaze was neutral, but Nebula's arch stare held equal parts dry amusement and sharp irritation. He gave it no heed, though—she should have been asking what he was about to ask long ago.
“Princess,” he continued, “just what was your student worried about? We are the Night Guard, after all. If some criminal enterprise is endangering the peace of Equestria, we stand ready to defend the realm.”
Nebula gave a snort. “Why, how unexpectedly dutiful of you, Sky Diamond.”
Celestia didn't laugh. She looked at Sky for a long moment, then turned away. “It's... nothing for you to worry about. Twilight dug up some old texts and let her imagination run wild.” She closed her eyes. “I... I see nothing to be gained in troubling the Night Guard over such... shadow worries.”
She stood abruptly, her tea left unfinished. Sky froze, and watched her make her way to the stained glass windows. There was a distracted air to her as she stood, gazing into the cobalt patterns.
“Cee, you don't have to protect us, or whatever you think you're doing,” Nebula said, irritation cracking in her voice. “I think we've weathered a crisis or twenty defending Equestria.”
“Of course, Nebula,” she said. “Forgive me. The Night Guard's service to Equestria is unimpeachable. But I won't have you chasing phantoms alongside my student.”
Celestia stared into the glass depths. The pane before her depicted her sister in a stylized image, one wing curled about the moon. Celestia looked at it for a long time, her expression unreadable.
How many day ponies would understand what that glass depicted? Sky wondered. Few, he answered himself. Very few.
As the silence dragged on, Sky looked across the table to Nebula, seeking direction. But Nebula herself seemed uncertain, perplexed by Celestia's strange mood. She glanced at Sky, then back to the Princess, and finally spoke.
“That window has been restored a number of times, but it goes back seven hundred years. Although you probably already know that,” Nebula said.
Celestia made a negative noise, and shook her head slightly, still staring into the image. She spoke softly, as if she feared to be heard. “Tell me, Nebula, how would you react if my sister ever did return?”
Sky couldn't tell if Celestia meant Nebula herself, or the Night Guard as a whole. Nebula answered as if it were the latter.
“We would celebrate, of course.”
Celestia turned her head from the glass to look at Nebula. “Even if... the one who came back was... the Other?”
“Then we would remind her who she really is,” Nebula answered without hesitation.
A gentle smile touched Celestia's lips. “I wish she could know she has such friends waiting for her.”
Nebula dipped her head slightly.
Sky shifted uneasily. The conversation had turned strange, and he didn't know how to react to a princess who seemed now vulnerable and uncertain. In his mind, Celestia was the bedrock Equestria rested upon. Even though she was not his princess, the Night Guard's princess, there was still a part of him that relied on her to be the pony who led them all with unquestionable assurance.
“How long?” Nebula whispered, her words slipping free of her like spilled wine.
Celestia's faint smile trembled. “You know I banished her eternally,” she said quietly.
Sky felt himself silently mouth, “No spell is without flaw.” It was a thing Celestia had said long ago, words to which every vesperquine staked their hope. Even a spell of eternal banishment must have weaknesses, points of opportunity to be worried at and exploited.
Nebula turned her face aside. “I know... it's just... there's an empty space in us. And maybe it's just the Blessing, but a part of us needs her all the same. And sometimes I fear we will always wait in vain....”
Celestia came to her side then, and bowed her head down to press it along Nebula's neck, a startlingly intimate gesture. Sky looked away self-consciously.
“I... have faith you don't wait in vain, Nebula,” Celestia said. She drew up her head and took a step back. “I miss Luna too.”
Nebula shared a long look with her, and then nodded with a soft smile. “Thank you,” she said. “Even if you are holding back on me.”
Celestia sighed and looked heavenward. “Really, I'm just being moody. I don't know what's gotten into me.” She gave an artless shrug. “I fear it's time I were heading to Ponyville now. My honor guard will be getting worried, and it wouldn't do to be late starting the Summer Sun Celebration.” She reached out and laid a hoof along Nebula's shoulder. “It's good to see you again,” she said. Then she looked over to where Sky sat, still crouched over a cooling cup of tea. “And it was good to meet you too, Private Bubblebrains,” she said with a playful wink. “I hope you can still work things out with your marefriend.”
And with that, she strode from the chambers. Sky gawped after her, and then at Nebula, whose casual manner with her still astounded him. He had questions... so many questions—but Nebula glanced his way with a frown, and then gestured at the tea set on the table.
“Clean that up,” she said. “And be quick about it, I've got paperwork for you to file.”
At a certain point, as Sky wrestled with the haphazard organizational principles Nebula employed for her office files, he concluded that paperwork made time pass more slowly. Of course there were interruptions, moments of interest, as when a member of the Guard stepped into the office and quietly said something to Nebula about the moon. Sky couldn't make out anything else he said, but the effect on Nebula was pronounced. As soon as she dismissed him, she began pacing her office, and he distinctly heard her mutter “Dammit, Cee, you were holding out on me.”
But when he questioned her, she merely glared at him and sent him back to his task. Time trudged onward in a wearisome morass of filing and categorizing. It did not help that Nebula had taken to penning letters at her desk as if possessed. Ultimately he felt sure they were doomed to work their way back to him, to be filed with all these other documents. Categorize, file, receipt of filing, indexing of receipt... it felt endless. How was it the Night Guard's shift had not yet concluded on this, the shortest night of the year?
And just as he paused, that thought starting to shift from annoyed observation to alarming sense of wrongness, one of Nebula's lieutenants burst into her office without so much as a knock on the door. Sky recognized him as Star Dreamer, an officer Sky liked for being easily distracted with wild flights of fancy. Sky had once kept him going half the night theorizing about a nation of zombie ponies in the Everfree. Right now he was wild-eyed, his wings ceaselessly twitching and trying to spread open in agitation.
Before Nebula even had time to look up from her desk, he spoke.
“The sun is late! And there's a disturbance in the city!”
For a moment, Nebula simply stared at him. Then she glanced over to the wall clock. It showed twenty minutes past the hour of dawn. The next instant, she leaped from behind her desk with a curse and rushed to her office's balcony, throwing open the wide doors. Sky followed her out onto the platform. Sure enough, the night sky still spanned the heavens, the brilliant points of stars and whorls of galaxies soaring high above with unusual brilliance. The moon remained in the sky, somewhere behind the castle so that its sharp-edged shadow lay across Canterlot Square and the terminus of Sun Street and Moon Street before him, while the rest of the city reposed beneath a curtain of gentle silver.
On a normal morning, the streets would be full of the sounds of commerce as the day got its start. On a normal morning of the Summer Sun Celebration, the streets would be full of revelers, many inebriated from staying up at all-night at parties to greet the sun.
But this time, even the drunken refugees of the parties were deserting the avenues, sudden influxes of sobriety assaulting their nerves as they sensed something awry in the length of the evening, and an atmosphere of dread slowly blanketed the city.
And also, Sky realized, the crash of a building collapsing somewhere along Sun Street.
Nebula heard it too, her head snapping toward the disturbance. A fog of dust billowed up, obscuring the stars from somewhere along Sun Street—mentally, Sky placed it near the intersection of Sun and Waterstone.
Awfully close to where Belle Dancer lived above her shop.
He was in the air, hovering over the balcony before he realized he'd even spread his wings. Nebula glanced at him, then stared out toward Sun Street.
“Sky Diamond,” she snapped, “scout out whatever is happening there. Stay in the air. Do not try to engage with anything down there. Report back to me ASAP. I shall assemble the Night Guard. Now go!”
Sky caught at the air and surged forward, straining his wings to move faster. He soared over Canterlot, the streets opening beneath him like canyons; but his attention was focused forward, to Sun Street.
To where Belle Dancer lived and worked.
She broke up with me, he told himself. I'm not obliged to come running like this.
Immediately the thought disgusted him. It wouldn't say much for our relationship to begin with if I could stop caring about her with just a flick of the tail now. He grabbed for more air with his wings, and sailed out above Sun Street, through the film of dust in the atmosphere.
Devastation met his gaze. Whatever had come had arrived fast and low, slicing down Sun Street with such violent speed that windows were shattered for a dozen blocks. Where it had reached the ground, the surface of the street was buckled up into a jagged-toothed crater. And beyond that, the destruction truly began. Facades had been smashed into rubble, and here and there whole buildings had been broken wide open, their ravaged profiles sagging toward the ground. Some had collapsed entirely, and in a few places Sky saw a frightening orange flicker as flames began to lick hungrily at the wreckage.
He heard laughter, as bright and cold as crystal, soaring up from below.
A yawning chasm opened in his gut as he realized exactly where he was, and exactly where the laughter came from. Sun and Waterstone. The intersection by Belle Dancer's shop.
He darted forward a few lengths, his vision fixed upon the scene, the details sharply outlined to his vesperquine eyes where other ponies would only see dim shadows cast by the soft glow of the streetlights. The front window of the jeweler's shop beside Belle Dancer's salon had been smashed, and the myriad baubles from its display case lay strewn across the street. A figure, tall and almost unearthly slender, stood above the galaxy of glittering jewelry, head thrown back in laughter.
She wore a silver-blue war-helm and armor, and her horn was a shaft of darkness even to his eyes. A unicorn then, and powerful in magic to have caused such destruction along the street. He tried to recall the case records of the Night Guard, to remember if there had ever been an encounter with such a unicorn before. Something about the war-helm tickled at his memory with maddeningly elusive familiarity.
Then he saw what he cursed himself for not noticing immediately; a shifting along her back of great black wings.
An alicorn.
He chirped, hearing her shape in the echo, confirming she was an alicorn indeed. The chasm in his gut turned to ice. A few years ago there had been a great ruckus when Mi Amore Cadenza had Exalted and become an alicorn, the first such in over a century. He was not alone among the Guard to wonder what they would do if some pony less benevolent should achieve the same.
Now they would have to find out.
Stay in the air, Nebula had said. Don't engage. Report back ASAP.
The alicorn looked up toward him. His breath caught—could she have heard his chirp? Most ponies were completely oblivious to the sound, but he did not know how sharp the senses of an alicorn might be.
Flutter lightly, he thought. She wasn't looking directly at him, so perhaps he would escape unnoticed. If she didn't hear him. If she didn't pick his shape out against the background of stars. If she didn't sense the downdraft of his wings.
Though he meant to flee, he could not tear himself away. He told himself Belle Dancer was not there, that she was sure to be at some Summer Sun party, out all night safe from what was happening. But his gaze strayed relentlessly to the door of her shop, silently willing it to remain motionless.
Instead it slammed open, and a very angry Belle Dancer stormed out. Her pink bangs fell across the sharp green of her eyes in disarray, and her beige coat caught up the glow of the streetlights with a reddish tinge. Sky almost dropped from the air in surprise as she stalked toward the dark alicorn and began yelling at her.
“What do you think you're doing, you big bully?”
The alicorn's eyebrows shot up and she gave a little hop with her forehooves, nearly rearing back. She stared down at Belle, and then chuckled. “So, a little champion comes to challenge me?”
“You should be ashamed!” Belle continued. “Look at what you've done to Fifty Carat's shop! You hooligan!”
The alicorn pawed at the baubles spilled across the ground. “What a misfortune he picked the wrong street for his business,” she said. She levitated a matched set of jewelry, and floated it into the eerie glow of her mane. The jewels suddenly began to glow, brilliant pinpoints of white light among the scattered sparkles glittering in her mane. She tilted her head and stretched out her neck, showing off the glowing jewelry. “My star-barrettes are fabulous,” she announced. Then they suddenly flared into a blinding sheet of white light that sent Belle stumbling back with a gasp. Just as quickly, they faded into dull embers that disappeared into her mane.
The alicorn laughed. Belle blinked, half-blinded, and set her lips into a hard line.
“Eighty bits,” Belle said. “You owe him eighty bits for those. Plus the damages to his business!” She stalked forward a pace in determination.
Oh Belle, Sky thought. You wonderful, brave, foolhardy mare, what do you think you're doing? Run, dammit!
The alicorn snorted, eyebrows quirking up at Belle's temerity. “And will you be collecting for him?” Her gaze drifted to the side, to Belle's shop. Her voice took a nasty turn. “Will you be adding your own damages to the bill, too?”
“Don't you dare!” said Belle, with an emphatic stamp of her hoof.
Undeterred, the alicorn took a closer look at the establishment. “'The Mane Thing—Fresh Coiffures for a New You. (We Also Do Tails!)'” she read from the shop's sign. “Are you serious? 'The Mane Thing'?”
“What's wrong with it?” Belle said indignantly.
The alicorn looked at her scornfully. Then she grinned and took a menacing step forward. She snaked her head toward Belle, and in a voice of consummate mockery she said, “I would love it if you styled my hair!”
Stay in the air. Don't engage. Report back ASAP. Funny how the words of his orders echoed through his mind even as he was shooting toward the ground. He came down between the two ponies, his hooves clacking against the smooth paving stones before Belle's shop with a loud crack. The force of the landing settled him into a crouch, and he spread his wings to shield Belle. “Back off!” he snarled at the alicorn.
Then, and only then, did he start to think of the consequences of his actions. He could almost hear Nebula's sarcastic voice berating him. Oh very clever, Sky Diamond. Taking on an alicorn. How much time do you expect to buy the city while she plays with your corpse? Twenty, thirty seconds?
But Belle had confronted her as well. He could not—would not—let her face the creature alone. He stood his ground, lips set in a thin slash of defiance across his face, his wings still spread.
Two things happened then. First, Belle recognized him. She gasped, and then softly called out his name in an uncertain tone.
Second, the alicorn froze, staring at him with widening eyes rather than moving to kill him outright. In that moment he got his first true look at her, lit in the flickering light of a streetlamp knocked halfway over yet somehow still functioning.
She was frightfully tall, and her coat was black as the void between stars. Her mane was an eerie glow of magic, and Sky thought he could see the patterns of constellations sparkling within it. Her eyes were ice-pale, empty of any sympathy or compassion.
The armor she wore was of an ancient style. Her harness was intricately detailed, and embossed on the chest piece Sky saw a crescent moon.
No, he thought. That can't be right.
Vesperquines preferred to think of Princess Luna when they remembered their princess. But the Other was always there, at the core of what they were, staring back when they looked in the mirror. Vesperquine artists seldom made that side of Luna the subject of their work; and yet traces of it would often appear in the margins, an inevitable reminder of their sad history. Even the lovely stained glass of Nebula's office had a small corner panel devoted to her. And so, Sky understood why the war-helm of the alicorn before him tugged at his memory. It had been right there in the windows of Nebula's office.
No. His mind recoiled from the thought. After ten centuries, for her to return on this night? No, some mad pony had Exalted into an alicorn and adopted her trappings; but it was scarcely possible that the real one should have chosen this night to return.
Sky realized a part of him had always believed Princess Luna would never walk this world again.
The alicorn drew her lips back from the jagged row of her teeth. With sickly gleeful wonder, she spoke. “She let you persist? She didn't erase you out of hoof? She suffers such abominations to walk among her precious little ponies?” The alicorn laughed in vicious delight. She strode from side to side before him, stretching her long neck to inspect him. “What madness! What could she possibly have been thinking?” She paused, brow furrowing. “Or was it mockery...? Does she keep you as trophies of her victory? Has she learned spite?” She snickered. “Well good for her.” She leaned in to Sky, her nose almost touching his own, her horn hanging over his head like a glaive. “To think she wouldn't fix you.”
Unbidden, Nebula's words came to Sky's lips. His voice barely audible, he murmured, “We're not broken. We don't need to be fixed.”
Her eyes widened, huge and moon-bright. An instant later she threw her head back and laughed, great peals of sound ricocheting down the ruins of the street. The echoes thundered in his ears, and he squeezed his eyes shut.
When her laughter faded, she dipped her muzzle to his ear and murmured. “Don't be stupid, little bat. After all, I'm the one who broke you!”
No, he thought. No, this isn't her. No, no, no. It wasn't supposed to be like this!
She drew back. “Shake your head all you like. It makes no difference.”
He was quivering. He felt the muscles of his shoulders shudder, his stomach a cold knot in his gut. But it wasn't fear, he realized. It was something more primal, a howl of betrayal struggling to climb his throat.
It was anger.
Anger for his parents, and their grandparents, and their great-grandparents, and forty generations of his kind who had lived for this day. Forty generations dreaming of Princess Luna, forty generations being faithful to a lie, forty generations refusing Princess Celestia's offer to undo the crime that had been perpetrated upon them.
Forty generations of pridefully imagining the “Blessing” was anything but an act of wanton and vicious cruelty.
“You're not her,” he rasped, his voice a jagged razor in his throat. “You're not what we've honored all these centuries. You're not Princess Luna.”
“Princess Luuuunnaaa,” she echoed in a sweet voice, drawing out the name in mockery. “A weak old name. A name for a mewling little pony desperate to be noticed. A name best forgotten.”
“Shut up!” he screamed at her.
“Oh, is your precious pony princess not what you expected?”
“You aren't her!”
She grinned. “So name me,” she purred. “Say who I am.”
There was a name. It rose in his throat, carried on a black tide of horror.
“You,” he choked out, “you're... Nightmare Moon!”
And her laughter rose to the stars.