Night's Deceit

by RegalBrony

Tears of the Sun

Celestia. Ruler of all Equestria, the immortal alicorn of the sun. She wielded power beyond the dreams of mortal imagination. She was strong, kind, and unconquerable, and her very presence exuded an aura of confidence and regality.

And she wept. Her tears sizzled with golden fire as they hit the marble floor. She had thought that she had lost the ability to feel such exquisite pain centuries ago. Celestia had made many friends. They had all gone on, and she had always shed a tear at their passing. But never like this. Only once before had Celestia bawled on the floor like a newborn filly, with wild abandon. Then, Luna had been gone, sent to the moon for a thousand years. The knowledge that she had hurt her sister so much, to cause her to take up a mantle of evil, only to be forced to hurt Luna even more in order to protect her subjects, had broken her once. Now, she was more than broken. She was shattered. And only one pony could have done this to her.

Twilight Sparkle.

A dark skyship floated through the night, high above the highways of the air. It was invisible to those below, hidden by what seemed nothing more than a wisp of cloud. It was sleek and polished, with gold words studding its dark prow.
The Night's Deceit. It was a rather small skyship compared to most, but it was of the highest quality. It had a long, narrow, hull, and was rather like a falcon, designed to hit hard and fast, and be gone before it's unsuspecting prey knew what hit it. But this falcon was black as night, and an even blacker flag hung tattered from the mast.

"Hey, Twilight, we gonna do anything with this hunk of wood tonight, or can I actually get a good night's sleep for once?" Rainbow Dash called out from the rigging. Twilight rolled her eyes and answered,

"I was planning on taking out a barge tonight, but she's got a broken mast, so I suppose we can delay until tomorrow. And it's not a hunk of wood, it is formally known as a xebec, and is the ship of choice for corsairs such as ourselves, due to the fact that it retains speed and maneuverability while still having significant firepower, although I suppose that possibly we wouldn't want to face a foe of equal armament in a head-on battle, which is why we..." A loud snore interrupted her. Rainbow Dash had fallen asleep under the onslaught of information that she was quite prepared to do without. Twilght groaned, and slapped herself with her hoof.

"I did it again, didn't I, Fluttershy?" Fluttershy paused from her duties, stopping her incessant scrubbing of Night's Deceit, and started to answer, turning her head aside and biting her bottom lip softly as the words left her muzzle.

"Well, um, if you mean that thing you do when you start giving everypony lectures on some-"

"On something TOTALLY boring and not fun at all and Rainbow always does that noise when you do it and she's doing it now which means you did it again and you've REALLY got to stop doing that because it's REALLY REALLY REALLY not interesting. Well, except for that one time you talked about cupcakes. That was so much FUN!" Pinkie's barrage of noise assaulted Twilight and Fluttershy as Pinkie jumped up and down. Over and over. Pinkie looked up at Twilights annoyed expression, her eyes half lidded, and she smiled, nodded and stuck her hoof in her mouth. Twilight turned back to
Fluttershy, unperturbed and said flatly, "You were saying?" Fluttershy started to answer again.

"Well, I think that it's awfully nice of you to try and teach us so many things that we would never learn otherwise, and I-"

"Yah mean when she won't shut her gob for twenty minutes or so while she goes and explains all that stuff we wouldn't learn otherwise down to a T, sugarcube? Ah think that it's downright annoying sometimes." Applejack said.

"Geez, Applejack, way to tell your captain what she's doing wrong all the time. Thanks a lot." Twilight said.

"Element of Honesty, sugarcube. Can't help it."

"Yet you never tell me what I'm doing right, do you?" Twilight answered, sounding slightly snobby.

"Element of Honesty, Twilight. Can't help it." Applejack answered slyly.

"Wait, but you just said that about-Hey! You little....Grrrrr...UMMMMMMMFF...That's not even fair!" Applejack and Pinkie Pie collapsed together laughing as Twilight stomped off into her cabin. Pinkie Pie, of course, was laughing through her hoof, which was still firmly stuck in her mouth. Applejack wiped away her tears, put on a more serious face and turned to Pinkie, a look of slight befuddlement on her face."Hey, sugarcube, where'd Rarity run 'erself off too? I ain't seen her all day."

"Ble blen goo blash shilf!" Pinkie Pie answered, still eating pink hoof. Applejack smacked herself and removed Pinkie's hoof from the general area of her mouth.

"Pardon, but could you repeat that?" Applejack said.

"Of course!!! She went to that ship! That big ole barge with the busted mast, she went there, and she said she was gonna 'help' the captain realize that not giving us treasure was a bad idea because otherwise we have to take it and you know what that means!"

"Well, okay, Pinkie, but how exactly was Rarity planning to make that there captain understand the error of his ways?"

"Nudge, nudge, wink wink!" Pinkie answered, still bouncing in place, as she had been doing for the past five minutes.

"Pinkie, y'all are supposed to nudge and wink, not SAY nudge and wink."

"Nope!" Pinkie answered, not put off in the least.

"Yes, you are."

"Nope!"

"Yes, you ARE."

"Nope!" The argument continued like this as Pinkie Pie and Applejack found their way to their sleeping quarters. Meanwhile, Rarity found herself some sleeping quarters of her own...

Author's Note:

First fanfic, I don't have an editor yet and I know this chapter is rather short. However, I hope it does a good job of setting up Celestia as a character and her overall motivations as I move forward. Tell me what you think, and how I could perhaps improve my writing and such. Also note that most of my chapters are going to be longer than this, but likely still short due to a lack of having long periods of time to write.

Comments

[Viking Hoof]

Too SHORT! Combine chapters before publishing you dumbkof!

[Sinful Pickle]

2930907 Yeah, what he said. But more polite.

[Silent Wars of Minds]

An inspiring story. Great for your first time. I understand the shortage because I also have that problem! Well done!!

[Viking Hoof]

2931201>>2931134 wooo! Someone actually listened to me! I feel so special!!

[sevenofeleven]

This is good stuff.

Why do you care about chapter length?
No attack just wondering.

If this chapter says what you want to say and it fits in your plans
for your story, you are doing well.