What Remains II: After the Fall

by Bateman66

Cold Insight

Alistair sat cross-legged along the edge of the meager bed supplied to him in his even more meager personal quarters, the blue-black spell tome sprawled open across his lap as he continued his in-depth reading of the book and its secrets.

In just the few days (or had it been weeks?) since his arrival among the Children of the Night, he’d already far surpassed the simple teachings that his former friend and teacher Twilight Sparkle had supplemented to him over the nearly two years she mentored him.

With the mere thought of the mare slipping into his conscious, he briskly slammed the book shut and felt the usual seeping of negative anger into his body. He relished and recognized the feelings, feeling his inner power swell whenever he felt such a strong burst of the negative emotions.

True, the occasional instance of loneliness or regret had sometime substituted the usual anger, actually giving him the complete opposite effect, and instead weakening him greatly, with the worst instances actually shutting him down for a few minutes as the painful memories and thoughts of self-doubt clouded his concentration.

But this time, as he always preferred, the familiar sense of cold hatred once again greeted him, its accompanying strength leaving a slight smile across his face.

However, this was quickly dissipated as a hoof lightly knocked against his chamber door, followed by its opening by a familiar grey furred mare.

“Alistair,” greeted Shale Press as she stepped into the room, leaving the door wide open instead of her normal practice of shutting it abruptly. “Nice that I caught you with your reading finished. You’ve been requested.”

“Requested?” he repeated. “For what?”

“Dinner,” she answered simply, seeming to leave it just at that.

Catching her reluctance for detail, Alistair silently rose and placed the tome atop his neatly pressed bed. Grinning slightly, he gestured toward the door. “Lead on.’

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The dinning area contrasted greatly from the shadowy crypt he’d first met the Night Lord in. The carpet was comprised of crimson linen with golden frilly designs looping across the edges. Warm golden lamps set along the walls, filling the room with honey tipped light that was somewhere between a dusk glow and a shimmer of dawn.

A large mahogany table had been placed grandly in the center of the room, its size further by the absolute absence of any other chairs or ponies, with an exception of the shrouded stallion seated at the far other end of the table. Smiling warmly behind his swirling black cloak that covered nearly his entire body, save for a ghostly white snout, the aged stallion spoke.

“Thank you for accepting my invitation, Alistair,” called his voice smoothly from the opposite end of the table.

Bowing formally and taking his seat, Alistair responded. “It’s very nice seeing you once again, Master Eclipse. It seems to have been a little while since we last met.”

A faint gleam seemed to flicker across the stallion’s face at the word master, subdued look of satisfaction seen for just a moment. Chuckling, he shook his head. “Only just a couple of weeks my dear boy. As you’ll come to realize, just about everypony in our Order is busy.”

“I haven’t seen much of anypony else around here,” said Alistair studiously. “Of course, with the exception of you and Shale.”

“My point exactly. Most other Night Lords and agents don’t have the liberty to be dawdling about in the corridors. There are many last minute preparations to be made.”

Alistair raised a chestnut eyebrow. “Such as?”

“Intelligence reports, battle meditations, that sort of thing, but please!” he said clasping both his hooves together. “Enough of all this talk about business, help yourself to some supper.”

Through their short exchange between one another, Alistair had apparently missed the wide assortment of food placed before both his end of the table and Silver Eclipse. Scanning over the assortment of wheat, fruit, vegetable, and deserts scattered among the banquet before him, he mentally smiled at the culinary forest in front of him, until his eyes rested upon something very quite unusual in an Equestrian dinner.

“I was worried you’d react in such a way,” the stallion noted cheerfully with a buttered roll in his hoof. “I already was aware of the specifics you enjoy the most.”

And did Alistair enjoy it ever so much, at least, when no pony else was watching him. Because lying right before him, steaming in a brownish sauce across a clear white plate, was a hulking slab of grilled beef, a fork and knife placed symmetrically to his right.

“T-Thank you,” Alistair stammered out, slowly but surely digging into the very immodest helping. “I never would have imagined a pony serving this willingly, especially in their own home.”

“I have no particular taste for it, even if I could digest the stuff. But the smell does not bother me like other denizens of Equestria and unlike other denizens; I understand when to offer the proper amount of respect toward a guest.”

The human looked up from his food and said with a light grin: “I take it you were mistreated at your last gala outing?”

The hooded stallion shook his head. “Nothing of the sort, in fact, it wasn’t until my later years that I even attended such an event before in my life.”

“That’s odd,” exclaimed Alistair with a furrowed brow, “I would assume that the leading Night Lord of the Order would be quite active in social galas, with the other members I mean.”

The stallion finished munching on another roll before he responded. “If you could believe it, I wasn’t always in charge. At that, I wasn’t always in the Order to begin with.”

“You weren’t?”

Eclipse shook his head. “My parents weren’t fortunate enough to be in the Order themselves, before or after I was born.” He shook his head once more as if to confirm what he’d just said. “No, I had to find the Night Lords myself, and by the time I did, age was beginning to creep up on me. Not that it mattered much, the Order couldn’t really be too choosy over who it accepted at the time.”

“Things were different back then,” he continued. “A bit less hectic, a bit more comfort to go around for everypony. And we of course didn’t have all these demons from Tartarus escaping, or rulers of Chaos running amok, or even Griffon pirates causing all that much trouble along the coast. Things were peaceful—as close as it could, anyway—and thus, there was less of a reason to be against Celestia and her rule.”

The stallion learned forward, his shrouded eyes more than likely looking skeptically towards Alistair. “You still believe in our cause against her, correct? Your views have not changed since your encounter with Shale in the Griffon Kingdom?”

Alistair laughed briefly. “She asked me the same thing just a few days ago. I assumed she was just getting over excited, I see now I was mistaken.” He dabbed his mouth with a napkin. “I can assure you Master Eclipse, that not once have I ever even doubted what your organization stands for. I fully recognize the inadequacies Equestria stands for, and I am more than eager to do whatever it takes to fix them. There, does this prove myself?”

“Good,” remarked the ghostly stallion with a quick nod, “that’s very good to confirm. Well then,” he said while putting his utensils down at his plate, “I believe we can cut straight to business then.”

“What we require of you,” Eclipse began, “is your magical expertise in regards to manipulation of realms, specifically travel between them. We understand that this was how you originally were able to arrive here in Equestria, and thus I hope you have at least a rudimentary understanding of it?”

Alistair nodded.

“Excellent, because what we require is for you to perform a spell very quite similar to your original teleportation tome, however, instead of transferring you to another realm, we wish for you to transport somepony else to our current realm. From there the other Night Lords can sort the rest out but we still require your skills to begin the process.”

Alistair smirked, a touch of bitterness creeping into the friendly gesture. “Is that the entire reason I’m here, to simply perform a quick spell that it appears the other ‘experts’ in magic can’t do? I’m not actually part of your organization, just a tool for you to use?”

“Yes,” regarded the stallion flatly, not at all off put by the boy’s emerging hostility and simply meeting it in stride. “You hold within your mind a spell that has all but been lost to us in Equestria. Make no mistake; nearly all of our members were recruited over what talents they could bring to the Order.”

“Shale Press: her skillfulness with stealth and hoof-to-hoof combat. Myself: mastery with dark magic and my personal connections with Canterlot. Our chief treasurer: his amassed wealth and cover among Equestria’s elite. Our head healer: skillfulness with combat wounds and alchemical abilities. You: mastery of ancient spells and knowledge of our enemies.”

“This isn’t a social circle of friendship—at least—that’s not our founding principle. Of course we all become fond of one another, but what determines who does and does not enter into our ranks is determined by what they can bring to the table.”

“Fine then,” Alistair answered shortly, “I understand what you mean. But even if I did perform the realm jump I would need a pin-pointer of sorts, a destination marker to know precisely where to funnel my magic to. Without it, you’d just been syncing in at absolute random, with an almost infinite amount of possibilities. The world could be an uninhabited rock, or a twisted planet full of conquering demons. It’s very quite risky business.”

“I am well aware of the risks,” Eclipse responded patiently, “for now, simply focus on the task at hoof. That is all I request of you.”

Alistair bowed his head graciously. “It shall be done, Master Eclipse.”

“Excellent, my dear boy. That is exactly what I wanted to hear.”