Demon Heart

by SoulboundAlchemist

Stranger in the Night

1
A Stranger in the Night

Rain fell that night, a fine, whispering rain. Many years later, Nyx had only to close her eyes and she could still hear it, like tiny foals running across the window pane. A bolt of lightning illuminated the darkness, and however often she tossed and turned Nyx couldn’t get to sleep

The book she had been reading was under her pillow, pressing its cover against the alicorn’s ear as if to lure her back into its printed pages. “I’m sure it must be comfortable sleeping with a large, hard, rectangular ting like that under your head,” her brother had teased the first time he found a book under her pillow. “Go on, admit it, the book imparts its knowledge to you as you sleep.”

“Sometimes, yes,” Nyx had said. “But it only works when you’re not trying to learn.” Which made Spike collapse in a heap, laughing his draconic voice hoarse until Twilight had to come see what all the fuss was about. Twilight and Spike. Nyx had never called them anything other than ‘mother’ and ‘brother’.

That night – when so much began and so many things changed forever – Nyx had one of her favorite books under her pillow, and since the rain wouldn’t let her sleep she sat up, rubbed the drowsiness from her eyes, and took it out. Its pages rustled promisingly when she opened it. Nyx thought this first whisper sounded a little different from one book to another, depending on whether or not she already knew the story it was going to tell her. But she needed light. Her cat-like eyes only worked so well in the dark. It was times like these that made being an alicorn convenient, needing only to focus a bit of magic into her horn to illuminate the dark. Nyx loved to read books by horn-light, though Twilight had forbidden her from doing it. “Horn-light ruins your eyesight,” she always said, but Nyx was a ten year old filly, surely she could be trusted to keep the light dim enough to preserve her eyesight. She was just adjusting the light when she heard hoofsteps outside. She extinguished her light in alarm – oh, how she remembered it, even many years later – and knelt to look out the window, which was wet with rain. Then she saw him.

The rain cast a kind of pallor on the darkness, and the stranger was little more than a shadow. Only his face gleamed white as he looked up at the library. His mane clung to his body. The rain was falling on him, but he ignored it. And he kept on staring at the library.

‘I need to go tell mom’ thought Nyx. But she stayed put, her heart thudding, and went on gazing out into the night as if the stranger’s stillness had infected her. Suddenly, he turned his head, and Nyx felt as if he were looking straight into her eyes. She shot off the bed so fast the open book fell to the floor, and she ran as fast as her little hooves would carry her out into the dark corridor. This was the end of May, but it was chilly in the organic library.

There was still a light on in Twilight’s room. She often stayed up reading late into the night. Nyx had inherited her love of books from her the night she was born, through a spell that combined the remnants of Nightmare Moon, and the blood of her mother, Twilight Sparkle. When memories of the dark times that followed that spell haunted her, and she was taking refuge with Twilight, nothing could lull her to sleep better than Twilight’s calm breathing beside her and the sound of the pages turning. Nothing chased nightmares away faster than the rustle of printed paper.

But the figure outside the library was no dream.

The book Twilight was reading that night was bound in pale blue linen. Later, Nyx remembered that, too. What unimportant little details stick in the memory.

“Mom, there’s someone watching the library!”

Her mother raised her head and looked at Nyx with the usual absent expression she wore whenever she was interrupted like this. It always took her a few moments to find her way out of that other world, that labyrinth of printed letters.

“Someone out watching the library? Really?”

“Yes. He’s staring at the library.”

Spike yawned from his basket next to Twilight’s bed. “And what were you reading before you went to bed? Sea Breeze and the Lightning Thief?”

Nyx frowned. “Please, just come and look.”

They didn’t believe her, but they went any way. Nyx tugged them along the corridor with her magic so impatiently that they managed to trip on multiple piles of books, which was hardly surprising. There were always stacks of books after Twilight’s extended study periods. Stacks that Spike had to return to designated spots in the morning.

“He’s just standing there!” whispered Nyx, leading Twilight and Spike into her room.

“Has he got a hairy face?” asked Spike. “He could be a werewolf.”

“Oh, stop it!” Nyx looked at the dragon sternly, although his jokes made her feel less scared. Already, she hardly believed anymore in the figure standing in the rain – until she knelt down again at the window. “There! Do you see him?” she whispered.

Twilight and Spike gazed out through the raindrops running down the pane. They glanced at each other, a silent conversation going on between the two, before retuning their gaze to the figure.

“Didn’t you promise burglars would never break into a library because there’s nothing to steal?” whispered Nyx.

“He’s no burglar Nyx,” replied Twilight, but as she stepped back from the window her face was so grave that Nyx’s heart thudded faster than ever. “Go back to bed Nyx,” she said. “Make sure she stays there Spike. This visitor has come to see me.”

She left the room before Nyx could ask what kind of visitor, for Celestia’s sake, turned up in the middle of the night? Spike left the room soon after, planting himself just outside the room to make sure she wouldn’t sneak out. Nyx was ready for this though. After the Nightmare Moon fiasco, Nyx’s magic had been drained, but since then, she had recovered enough to regain some of the Nightmare’s tricks. In particular, her mist disguise. Nyx dissolved into a turquoise mist and stealthily made her way past the great wall of Spike. She reformed a little ways past him, and continued to follow her mother anxiously. As she crept down the stairs leading to the library, and more importantly, the door, she heard Twilight taking the chain off the door, and when she reached the library she saw her standing in the open doorway. The night came in, dark and damp, and the rushing of rain sounded loud and threatening.

“Dusk?” called Twilight into the darkness. “Dusk Shine! Is that you?”

‘Dusk Shine? Who would want a name similar to mom’s?’ Nyx couldn’t remember ever hearing it before, yet it sounded familiar, like a distant memory that wouldn’t take shape properly.

At first, all seemed still outside except for the rain falling, murmuring as if the night had found its voice. But then hoofsteps approached the library, and the stallion emerged from the darkness of the square, his black cloak so wet with rain that it clung to his legs. For a split second, as the stranger stepped into the light spilling out of the library, Nyx thought she saw a small furry head by his flank, snuffling as it looked out of his saddlebag and then quickly disappearing into it.

Dusk wiped his wet face with his sleeve before offering Twilight his hoof.

“How are you, Silvertongue?” he asked. “It’s been a long time.”

Hesitantly, Twilight took the outstretched hoof. “A very long time,” she said, looking past the visitor as if he expected to see another figure emerge from the night. “Come in, you’ll catch your death. Nyx says you’ve been standing out there for some time.”

“Nyx? Ah yes, of course.” Dusk let Twilight lead him into the library. He scrutinized Nyx so thoroughly she felt quite embarrassed and didn’t know where to look. In the end she just stared back.

“She’s grown.”

“You remember her?”

“Of course.”

Nyx noticed that Twilight double-locked the door.

“How old is she now?” Dusk smiled at her. It was a strange smile. Nyx couldn’t decide whether it was mocking, supercilious, or just awkward. She didn’t smile back.

“Ten,” said Twilight.

“Ten? My word!” Dusk pushed his dripping mane out of his eyes. Nyx wondered what color it was dry. While wet it looked almost black with streaks of color going through the middle, like the fur of the stray cat Nyx sometimes fed with a saucer of milk outside the door.

“Ten,” he repeated. “Of course. She was…let’s see, she was three then, wasn’t she?”

Twilight nodded. “Come on, I’ll get a fire going.” Impatiently, as if she were suddenly in a hurry to hide the stallion from Nyx, she led her visitor to her private library. “And, Nyx,” she said over her shoulder, “you go back to bed.” Then, without another word, she closed the door to the library.

Nyx stood there rubbing her cold hooves together. Go back to bed. Sometimes, when they’d stayed up late yet again, Twilight would tickle her into exhaustion. Sometimes she chased her around the library after supper, creating quite the mess for a certain teenaged dragon to clean up, until Nyx escaped to her room, breathless with laughter. And sometimes Twilight was so tired she lay down on the sofa and Nyx made her a cup of tea before she went to bed. But Twilight had never ever sent her off to her room so brusquely.

A foreboding, clammy and fearful, came into her heart as if, with the visitor whose name was so strange yet somehow familiar, some menace had slipped into her life. And she wished – so hard it frightened her – that she had never gone to get Twilight and Dusk Shine had stayed outside until the rain washed him away.

When the door to the library opened again she jumped.

“Still there, I see,” said Twilight. “Go to bed Nyx. Please.” Her mane was sticking up in random spots, the way it did when something was really bothering her, and she seemed to look straight through Nyx as if her thoughts were somewhere else entirely. The foreboding in Nyx’s heart grew, extending black talons.

“Send him away, mom!” she said as Twilight gently propelled her towards the stairs. “Please! Send him away. I don’t like him.”

Twilight leaned in the doorway between the library and residence. “He’ll be gone when you get up in the morning. Word of honor.”

“Word of honor – no crossed hooves?” Nyx looked at her straight in the eye. She could always tell when Twilight was lying, however hard she tried to hide it from her.

“No crossed hooves,” she said, moving herself to a spot where Nyx could easily see the rest of her.

The Twilight turned around and went back to her private library. Nyx stood stock still, listening. She could here the clink of china. So the strange stallion was getting a nice cup of tea to warm him up. ‘I hope he catches pneumonia,’ thought Nyx ‘…though he needn’t necessarily die of it.’ Nyx heard the kettle whistling in the kitchen and Twilight carrying a tray of clattering crockery back to her library. When the door closed she forced herself to wait a few seconds, just to be on the safe side. Then she silently crept her way back to the library.

There was a sign hanging on the door of Twilight’s private library, a small metal plaque. Nyx knew the words on it by heart. When she was still settling into the library, before the Nightmare Moon fiasco, she had often practiced reading the old-fashioned, spindly lettering:

Some books should be tasted
Some devoured
But only a few
Should be chewed and digested thoroughly.

Back then she had thought the chewing and digesting were meant literally and wondered, horrified, why Twilight had hung on the library door the words of somepony who vandalized books. Spike had eventually explained to her what the plaque really meant, but tonight, she wasn’t interested in written words. Spoken words were what she wanted to hear, the words being exchanged by the mare and the stallion on the other side of the door.

“Don’t underestimate her!” she heard Dusk say. His voice was so different from Twilight’s. No one else in the world had a voice like her mother’s. Twilight could paint pictures in the empty air with her voice alone.

“She’d do anything to get hold of it.” That was Dusk again. “And when I say ‘anything’, I can assure you I mean anything.”

“I’ll never let her have it.” That was Twilight.

“She’ll still get her hooves on it, one way or another! I tell you, they’re on your trail.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time. I’ve always managed to leave a false trail before.”

“Oh yes? And for how much longer, do you think? What about your daughter? Are you telling me she hasn’t gotten suspicious when you go and disappear for large chunks of time? Believe me, I know what I’m talking about.”

It was so quiet behind the door that Nyx scarcely dared breathe in case the two unicorns heard her.

Finally, her mother spoke again, hesitantly, as if her tongue found it difficult to form the words. “Then what do you think I ought to do?”

“Come with me. I’ll take you to them.” A cup clinked. The sound of a spoon against china. How loud small noises sound in a silence. “You know how much Blackfire thinks of your talents. She’d be glad if you took it to her of your own free well, I’m sure she would. The mare she found to replace you is useless.”

Blackfire. Another peculiar name. Dusk had uttered it as if the mere sound might scorch his tongue. Nyx shifted her chilly hooves and wrinkled her cold muzzle. She didn’t understand much of what the two unicorns were saying, but she tried to memorized every single word of it.

It was quiet again in the workshop.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Twilight at last. She sounded so weary it tore at Nyx’s heart. “I’ll have to think about it. When do you think her stallions will get here?”

“Soon!”

The word dropped like a stone into the silence.

“Soon,” repeated Twilight. “Very well. I’ll have made up my mind by tomorrow. Do you have somewhere to sleep?”

“Oh, I can always find a place,” replied Dusk. “I’m managing quite well these days, although it’s still all much too fast for me.” His laugh was not a happy one. “But I’d like to know what you decide. May I come back tomorrow? About midday?”

“Yes, of course. I’ll be picking Nyx up from school at one-thirty. Come after that.”

Nyx heard a chair being pushed back and quickly dissolved into mist again. When the door of the library opened she was already back in her room. Pulling the covers up to her chin, she lay there listening as her mother bid Dusk goodnight.

“And thank you for the warning anyway,” she heard her add as Dusk’s hoofsteps moved away, slowly and uncertainly, as if he were reluctant to leave, as if he hadn’t said everything he’d wanted to say. But at least he was gone, and only the rain kept drumming its wet hooves on Nyx’s window.

When Twilight opened the door of her room she quickly closed her eyes and tried to breathe as slowly as you do in a deep, innocent sleep. But Twilight wasn’t stupid. In fact, she was sometimes terribly clever.

“Nyx, show me your tail,” she told her. Reluctantly, Nyx pulled the covers up till her purple tail was visible. It was now a magical cloud of stars.

“I knew it!” she said. You’ve been spying. Can’t you use your magic to do as I tell you, just for once?” sighing she pulled Nyx’s covers back down over the end of the bed. Then she sat down on her bed, passed her hooves over her tired face and looked out of the window. Her mane was as dark a purple as the pre-dawn twilight she was named for. Nyx had a light purple mane, like Princess Luna when she was younger. “You should be glad you’re so much like her,” Twilight had always said. “My face wouldn’t look good at all on your head.” But Nyx wished she did look more like her. There wasn’t a face in the world she loved more.

“I didn’t hear what you were saying anyway,” she murmured.

“Good.” Twilight stared out of the window as if Dusk were still standing in the square. Then she rose and went to the door. “Try to get some sleep,” she said.

But Nyx didn’t want to sleep. “Dusk Shine! What sort of name is that?” she asked. “And why does he call you Silvertongue?”

Twilight didn’t reply.

“And this pony who’s looking for you – I heard what Dusk called her. Blackfire. Who is she?”

“No one you want to meet.” Her mother didn’t turn around. “I thought you didn’t hear anything. Good night, Nyx.”

She left the door open. The light from the hallway fell on her bed, mingling with the darkness of the night that seeped in through the window, and Nyx lay there waiting for the dark to disappear and take her fear of some evil menace away with it. Only later did she understand that the evil had not appeared for the first time that night. It had just slunk back in.

Author's Note:

And here we are. This is going to be one of the BIGGEST undertakings I've ever attempted. As always, constructive criticism is welcome. Enjoy
-D

Comments

[Pegasus_Tech]

(she asked. “And why does he call you Silvertongue?” ; “How are you, Silvertongue?”)
As to the use of the words silver tongue, are you treating it as a one word name or a two word name?

Besides something like this you have with the amount of detail given hooked me into this story. I would love to see where it goes.

[SoulboundAlchemist]

3378966
I'm meaning to use the one word name Silvertongue, you'll find out why in a later chapter. Glad you liked it

[Pegasus_Tech]

your welcome also am starting up my own RP in Legends of Equestria if your interested.

It is called: MLP: Friendship is the Grid.
It is a tron based world for both movies. so far I have three races you can play as. am limiting the number of one of them to two though.

The three types are:
Program
User
Hacker

Races include:
Alicorn: GM and MOD only Characters (These charas are the ones in charge of the grid. and for me, GM of the R.P.)
The 3 pony types
BIO
ISO

Let me know on LoG if you are interested. A sign up will be up soon. I hope.

[onlyanorthernsong]

3380248 I noticed that and the crossover tag... is this a " His Dark Materials" crossover? because I have always played with the idea of writing an MLP:FIM / His Dark materials crossover.

[onlyanorthernsong]

You have an excellent command of Imagery. Some of your paragraph organization is confusing though. I will go through the uploaded chapters piece by piece later when I have the time.

If you still want a prereader/ editor I volunteer.... Mostly because I am in the process pf launching my own Nyx stories and would love to have yet another proofreader/editor come onboard ( I have two already but the more the better)