Story Overview:

This Review may contain some spoilers. As always, I’d recommend reading the story first, then coming back to read this. You’ve been warned.

ENight Skies and Butterflies

• MLP: FiM
• Adventure

Fluttershy knows it is her honor to have born into the Lunar Guard. She knows it with all her heart. But sometimes, there is something that doesn't feel right. Sometimes she feels like Equestria is missing a little kindness.

• Alt. Universe
• Fluttershy
• Nightmare Moon
• Main 6

Daemon of Decay · 38k words  ·  315  9 · 4.1k views

“Night Skies and Butterflies” by Daemon of Decay is a story of an alternate universe where Fluttershy is born as a thestral in Nightmare Moon’s underground Lunar Guard, rather than the adorable little pegasus we all know and love. The story begins by following Fluttershy through a morning ritual of feeding animals and donning her armor for the day. Unfortunately, she’s late to the morning meeting and accidentally causes a pile-up that gets a few ponies hurt. Here, we also meet her aunt, General Nightshy, the current military leader of the Lunar Guard.

After her interruption, Fluttershy is put to work doing busy work while the council determines her fate. From here, we get a glimpse at the inner workings of underground life among the Lunar Guard. This is also where the first twist of the plot is brought in. I won’t say what happens here, so you still have an incentive to read the story just in case you ignore the spoiler warning. Sufficed to say, Fluttershy is caught in the middle of a coup attempt on her family, and as the only heir, is dealt with promptly.

This situation leads to her joining a group called the Rangers. These Rangers are a group that spends their time spying on Celestia’s ponies to prepare for the day when they wage war on the surface. Fluttershy is forced to join these Rangers on a mission to spy on Ponyville. During this mission, she is betrayed and left for dead by her companions.

She is rescued by Twilight Sparkle, and here we see another little twist. This story actually takes place during the first episode of the show, when Twilight first arrives in Ponyville and when Nightmare Moon makes her first appearance. When Twilight and her new friends find Fluttershy and notice her locket in the shape of Nightmare Moon’s cutie mark, they capture her, believing her to have something to do with Celestia’s disappearance.

Unfortunately, here’s where the story ends. For now, at least. This is the first big issue with this story. It was started back in 2016. The first six chapters all came out within a relatively short time. Chapter 7 was posted in 2019. For the moment, this story is incomplete, though the author still seems to be thinking of it, as they added it to the review list only a week or two ago.

Grammar/Spelling (10/10):

There isn’t really anything to say here. The most I saw here was maybe a single issue with a missing quotation mark. That’s it. So, the grammar is practically flawless. There really isn’t much more to say here.

Plot (9/10):

The plot is relatively complex for as few chapters as it has so far. In seven chapters, we’ve seen political espionage, betrayal, attempted murder, possibly actual murder, and all sorts of fun stuff like that. That may seem like a lot crammed in to such a small place, but the chapters are fairly long, so it feels pretty well paced overall. The plot also flows incredibly well. The author does a fantastic job of weaving together all these smaller plot threads into an overall beautiful picture, even if they haven’t been resolved just yet.

We get to see this impressively designed world of the Lunar Guard and the militaristic world that they’ve built while in hiding. I suppose I should go into the Lunar Guard a bit here. The Lunar Guard are a bunch of thestrals that were exiled centuries ago for supporting Nightmare Moon in her conflict with Celestia, who they refer to as the Sun Tyrant. Each pony born into this world is trained from birth to fight and serve. Even Fluttershy, as docile and shy as she is, is not exempt from this, which leads to some interesting moments when her fight or flight instinct kicks in. We also do get a bit of time to spend with the Twilight and the other girls, too. Their role in the story is just getting started, so I’m sure there will be more of them to come.

Honestly, the only issue that I have with the story is that some parts do feel a little . . . odd.

Let me explain. I have some trouble with how easily Fluttershy is blamed for defending herself from her attackers. The author does make it clear that the system is sort of rigged and one of the other councilors is trying to overthrow Fluttershy’s family as the leaders of the Lunar Guard. The strange part is that many of the other leaders fully believe the Fluttershy is responsible. At the same time, though, it’s also pointed out that almost everyone in the Lunar Guard believes Fluttershy to be a coward or a weakling. It doesn’t break the story by any means, but it did strike me as odd as I was reading through it.

Another surprising thing that struck me about this story is the author’s ability to portray a strained family relationship between Fluttershy and Nightshy. While Nightshy does her best to protect her niece, she also knows that she can’t show favoritism in front of the other leaders of the Guard. Because of this, she struggles between her loyalty to her family and her loyalty to her duty. But this will be covered more in Characters. Speaking of which:

Characterization (10/10):

As usual, I’ll cover these characters one at a time . . .

Fluttershy (10/10):

Though this Fluttershy is different from her cannon counterpart in many ways, she still bears a striking resemblance to her pegasus self. She’s still timid and has issues being the center of attention. Even when raised in a militaristic lifestyle, she still cares for her little animals and tries to be as kind as she can to everyone she meets. But there’s a catch, too. She has her own killer instincts. When she panics, instead of simply breaking down, she now tends to react offensively to protect herself. This can be seen in one of the first chapters, where she takes down two other soldiers who attack her. Once she is finally taken in by Twilight, she begins to question the life she’s lived so far, and if everything she’s been taught is really the truth. All in all, this combines into a loveable character who you can’t help but to root for.

General Nightshy (10/10):

A career mare and Fluttershy’s aunt, General Nightshy sets a stellar example of a strict, yet likeable character. She’s a soldier above all else, to the point where she’s climbed through the ranks to become leader of the Lunar Guard. She’s well respected for her strategy and military leadership. At the same time, though, she’s also infamous for her niece being the biggest joke in the army. She balances these two traits well, trying her best to turn Fluttershy into the best soldier she can be, while simultaneously protecting her from the worst elements of the military life.

Twilight, Rarity, Pinky, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Spike (10/10):

It might seem like a bit of a cop-out to include all of these characters in one section. As of this review, though, they haven’t had much to do though. That said, the small scenes they do have are well written and the they all feel like themselves, while still carrying a bit of the more mature style that the author has put in their world.

I would have also put Nightmare Moon in this category, but despite her tag showing up on the story, she hasn’t been in the story yet.

Total Score:
Grammar/Spelling: 10 / 10
Plot: 9 / 10
Characterization: 10 / 10

Final Score: 29/30 (9.6/10)
<For archive purposes: 9.6/10>

Well done, author. I look forward to more chapters. Don't leave me hanging.