Tales of Midnight: The Colony

by NA_SolarEclipse

Epilogue: The Accepting

After the burning of the Colony, life went on. In scale few lives were changed, but those that were changed couldn’t ever return to the way things were.

The Colony was left a pile of spent ashes with nothing but the burnt corpses of its deceased inhabitants buried amongst the destruction. While it was occasionally picked over by local zebra tribes, it was widely considered to be a cursed place to walk. Life, as if in fear of another blaze, simply didn’t return to the ashes.

While the ponies who died in the Colony were never remembered, they were never really forgotten. The ashes of the Colony remained an ever present reminder that when turned against her own kind, the Shadow-Walker would not hesitate to spread her ruin.

Princess Platinum was hardly even notified of the fate of the Colony. Its fate was left, as it always had been, out of the hooves of those that didn’t care. While it had initially been successful in its mission to remove criminals without killing them, no pony else was ever sentenced to the desolate settlement of criminals that only promised to kill whoever found its shores.

It hardly mattered to Princess Platinum though. She was far too caught up in her own agenda.

Clover the Clever, feeling much remorse after tricking Midnight Star into being brought to justice, always swayed a hearing’s verdict away from the Colony. She didn’t want to feel anymore guilt sending ponies to die by nature rather than by execution. She had bigger problems to deal with.

She had to find out why the weather was getting colder and colder each passing month, even though it was scheduled to be getting warmer. While she suspected the Pegasus, she never spoke up when she attended meetings between Princess Platinum, Commander Hurricane, and Canceler Puddinghead.

Eventually the cold weather came to a freezing point, but that is another story entirely.

The Gold family, with its last hope of achieving the throne presumed dead, fell into obscurity. As the months went on, less and less ponies of its bloodline claimed to so proudly have Gold in their blood. As a last ditch attempt at the throne, several of the final members of the family attempted to murder the Princess in clear daylight. They were promptly executed on the spot, not even given trial for their crime.

Sunset Gale, the wrongly condemned painter, ran from the Colony and Midnight star. With time, he eventually found himself facing the Caesar of the zebras. He had begged for safe haven among the striped ones, he was given a much different fate entirely.

The Caesar found much humor in the yellow winged pony, and put him in the coliseum to see how long he would amuse the crowd and himself. He was sorrowfully disappointed.

Graham, savior of ponies and zebra alike, continued his journey throughout the zebra lands. While the tribes and factions that he helped always held the upmost respect for the traveling earth pony, it was not his teachings that they remembered.

While Graham regretted their false reverence, he never stopped his journey. If he had to trek across the entire continent spreading his teachings and spirituality to find a tribe willing to accept a higher power other than their own, he would.

Days after the burning of the Colony, Warner finally closed his eyes for the last time. After years of scouring the world for purpose, he finally was allowed the peace that comes with death. While he always regretted being unable to save his love, he knew that there was nothing that he could do to bring her back. Nothing that he could do.

The empty shell found himself…satisfied with whom he had left to take his place. While she was still young and naïve, he knew she would become wise of her ways with the years. Years have a tendency to do that, he knew better than most.

In his last moments, Warner thought of Carlotta….regretting as he always had.

Sharpe continued to watch over Midnight, keeping true to his promise to keep her safe; even from herself. While he knew that his promise was more than just a simple vow he kept, he never accepted it. Eventually he learned to accept his affection for the young, cursed mare, but always kept it quiet.

Sharpe made it common practice to remember the days before his assignment to keep Midnight alive, if only to give him something to escape from. Those memories stayed with him, even when fending off wild animals and rogue zebras with his retrieved armor and spear, pushing him towards a brighter future.

He always questioned his choice to defend the mare who both condemned and saved him, but never acted on his questioning.

Midnight Star closed the books that Warner had once given her for good. Using the very black magic she learned from them, she burned the empty tomes to protect those she may hurt from their misuse. While it was an empty gesture, she felt justified to watch the long yellowed parchment of the cursed books curl up into wasted ashes.

Rather than run away from her actions, and simply let life move on without her, Midnight Star made it her purpose to seek out other black books and destroy them. If that meant that she would have to become more corrupted and twisted to keep other ponies from suffering an eternity without a soul, she would.

While she always urged that Sharpe not follow her in her journey, he always stayed with her. Eventually, the two met up again with Graham. Unfortunately Graham wouldn’t accept the holy tome of which he sealed the cursed spirits in, so Midnight simply joined him in his crusade. She knew he needed his holy book to make a better example of scripture, and if her story of how the earth pony literally saved her soul would turn the beliefs of a misguided zebra tribe, then it was all the more reason she justified her traveling with him. Graham was skeptical at first, but found that the powerful unicorn and her guards pony were a welcome addition when things turned sour.

Midnight Star looked back on her choices and actions, and smiled. While she didn’t always make the best decisions, she knew there was always the next day to make better ones.