The Night's Mare
Sky could not get the hang of seeing the world through two sets of eyes. The bridge and the blue pegasus before him swayed in wrenching dissonance, and it was all he could do to keep the two pegasus bodies he controlled holding position evenly on either side of the one his princess commanded. His senses were dulled in these artificial bodies, which was a mercy because in normal circumstances he would surely be puking his guts out. He was not certain what would happen if he actually tried to speak.
The blue pegasus frowned. “Thank you,” she said, and leaned in suddenly close, grinning. “For the offer, I mean. But... I'm afraid I have to say no.”
With but a moment's effort, she tied off the remaining bridge support, and whisked back to her friends in the mist. Sky thought to chase after her, if he could manage his twin sets of wings that well, but before he could act, his thoughts skewed into confusion and the two phantom Shadowbolts his mind occupied collapsed back into the stuff of his princess's mane. They raced through the ruined castle grounds accompanied by a third wisp that carried the consciousness of his princess. Blocks of stone and buckled pathway tiles tumbled past him in a confusing rush, until he reached the entryway of a grand hall where stood a slack-jawed vesperquine: himself.
The twin pieces of mane arrowed for his skull, and passed through him without effort. He was suddenly back in his own body, his hide clammy with a chilling sense of dislocation. He reeled, his hooves clattering on the stone floor as a wave of nausea passed through him. “Let's not do that again,” he wheezed.
His princess ignored him and stalked through the gaping entranceway into the roofless remains of the castle's entry hall. Sky followed her into the space, dodging aside as she aimed a sharp kick back to swing the ancient door shut. Some residual bit of magic lingered, preserving the hinges so that the door swung smoothly closed.
She said nothing, but her lips were tight with compressed fury, a black rage over this latest failure. But as Sky struggled to find something to say to defuse her anger, she herself gave pause and stared at the large sculpture at the center of the hall's bleached and buckled stone floor.
It was like an enormous orrery. Various arms emerged from the central pillar and held stone spheres, each of which bore its own obscure design. Their surfaces were weathered with the passage of centuries, the stone pitted and streaked.
She walked slowly up to the array, and then a dark chuckle escaped her throat. “Do you see, Sky Diamond? The Elements of Harmony.”
His eyes widened. He hadn't imagined an ancient magical weapon would take the form of a crumbling sculpture. Truth be told, he would have expected something flashier.
“Is it dangerous?” he asked. “What do we do now?”
She gave a snort and strode onward, leaving the Elements behind. He followed in confusion as she left the hall and ventured deeper into the ruined castle's corridors. “Dangerous?” she said, an evil relish in her voice. “Dangerous? They have ossified, Sky Diamond. Time has faded their virtue to mere embers. One of them has gone missing entirely.”
Sky grappled with the implications as she led him up a wide spiral stair and into a large chamber, her hooves clacking against the stone floor. Once it had been a great hall, but now the tall windows that lined its length were gaping holes, still bearing fragments of old glass, and the moonlight spilled in to illuminate the crumbling columns that held up the high arched roof. At the far end rested an old throne, from the back of which stood matching moon and sun decorations. The air was faintly musty with age.
“If the Elements won't work, there's no need for this.” Sky continued cautiously, trying to judge the effect of his words on the Princess. “We can just leave Twilight and her friends to bungle around here, wasting their time. Think how—”
Her lips quivered, writhing back from her teeth as she interrupted him. “I have indulged your foalish timidity far too long,” she muttered venomously. “Every milk-blooded stratagem gives them fodder to mock me.”
“No one is mocking you, Princess,” Sky interjected. Her mood had taken sour turns before, but now it was different. Her wrath quivered in her, tightly reined and searching for an outlet. She was galloping along a precipice, and the slightest misstep would send her tumbling beyond rescue.
“My patience is at an end,” she snarled. “They wish to confront me? On their heads be the consequences!” Her magic gripped the sun decoration of the antique throne and gave a savage twist. It broke off with a loud snap, and she dropped it to the floor, chuckling mirthlessly.
“Princess Luna, please calm down,” Sky said. His heart raced in his chest.
“Calm down?” She slashed her horn toward him. “Calm down? Who are you to command me, Sky Diamond?” Her voice grew ugly. “Did I not make your kind to serve?”
Her words bit cruelly, and Sky felt his jaw clench. Words, unwise words, shot from his mouth before he could think. “You abandoned us. We didn't know what we were. We had to decide how to make ourselves!”
“Abandoned you?” Her nostrils flared. “Celestia sealed me in the moon!”
“What choice did you leave her?” Sky shot back. “Do you think she wanted to do that?”
“Yes, Sky Diamond! Of course she did! She was jealous of my night. She has always been jealous of my night.”
Sky shook his head vehemently. “Even now, she torments herself that she couldn't think of a better way. We all know it.”
“I'm sure you do,” she said darkly. “I'm sure you're all very happy with your princess of the sun.”
Sky felt sweat forming on his forehead. No matter what he said, it always seemed to be the wrong thing. Speaking with her was like riding the edge of a tornado. The slightest miscalculation sent him tumbling into the vortex.
Yet there were things he needed to say.
“Princess Luna—”
“Don't call me that name,” she growled.
“—my kind are of the night. That was what we chose. Celestia would undo what you made of us, but we reject her. Celestia is not our princess. Our princess stands before me.”
She stared at him, her features hard and unforgiving.
“And yet, for all that, Celestia welcomes us. We are the only ponies she can speak with about you, the only ponies who will understand. She counts us among her friends. So believe me when I tell you she wants to be your friend as well.”
She gave him a withering look. “Of course you are among her intimates, to know such things?”
He wasn't. Of course he wasn't; his acquaintance with Celestia was only as old as this night. Yet he knew he was not wrong. Stories of Princess Luna were part of the background of every vesperquine's life, and all those stories had been told to them by Celestia. Her feelings were woven into everything he knew of Luna.
“It's true,” Sky insisted. “Bring her forth, and I swear even now, she will ask you to accept her friendship.”
She barked a laugh. “No, I do not think so, Sky Diamond. I do not think that will be happening at all. I'll not release her; and her rebels... I'll make them pay for their temerity too.”
Sky grimaced. A dark hunger emanated from her, and he shuddered before it.
He tried to placate her. “Of course, but... it's been a very long night, don't you agree? For both of us. Come away for now, and let's both rest and think about it in—”
“Rest?” Her voice cracked harshly. “These ponies dare to rebel against me, and you tell me to rest? There will be no rest until I have made examples of them! There will be no rest until I crush what remains of the Elements before their very eyes, and then I shall crush them as well!” Her eyes shone with a dire fury.
“Princess Luna, no,” Sky cried out. “You don't have to do this!”
She rounded on him furiously. “How many times must I tell you that isn't my name? I grow sick of your games!” Bitterly, she added, “You named me well enough when first we met!”
Sky forged on, ignoring her outburst. “You've proven yourself already; you don't need to make an example of anyone! Your place is assured, your rule unassailable. You don't have make them hate you, you don't have to be feared.”
She gazed at him with a pitiless expression. “But I want to be feared,” she said coldly.
Sky felt a chill of icy sweat soaking into his muscles. He was losing her. Nebula had entrusted their princess to him, but nothing he said drew her from her madness. Rather, he only seemed to lash her onward. Desperate thoughts whirled through his mind, none of them offering a way forward. She wanted to be feared, wanted it! How could she wish that for herself? It was the saddest thing he could imagine. “Princess Luna, no,” he gasped in misery.
She smacked her hoof down on the floor, opening a deep crack in the stone. She trembled in fury. “Again you refuse my real name! I won't have it! I am Nightmare Moon! Utter it! Name me! Say who I am!”
The power of her Command filled her voice. Sky felt it crash through him, seizing him with inexorable force and bending him to her will. He fought against it, clamping his jaws shut to hold back his voice. He knew if he named her Nightmare Moon now, all would be lost. She would fall beyond redemption, and his kind would be doomed to existence not as the friends they'd sworn they would be, but as her puppets. He strained against it, but the words rose in his throat, hard as stones. Panic and despair and sorrow united within him into an amalgam of force to push back against her Command, and for a moment, the strength of his will held against her. But for all his struggle, it was not enough. He could feel the shape of the words forcing themselves toward utterance.
He could feel the shape of the words...
Her name.
Buoyed with wonder, Sky surrendered to the power that possessed him. He let the words come, his voice singing out clarion-like into the night.
“You are the Star-Cloaked One, you are She who Walks the Secret Paths of the Sky, you are the Mistress of the Darkness, the Queen of the Moon, the Navigator of the Nighttide, and the Lady of Sleep.”
Her eyes widened, transfixed as the words burst from him. He let them flow now, joy surging in his breast as he heard himself speak, his voice proudly filling the chamber.
“You are the Starry-Maned One, the Wings of the Galaxy, the Horn of the Infinite Cosmos.”
Her ears were focused rigidly forward, capturing every syllable of his voice.
“You are the Solace of Silent Hours, the Warm Heart of the Shadows. You are the Guardian of Dreams. You are Her Royal Highness, Princess Luna Nox Praesis, Defender of the Night!”
For a moment, she stood before him in splendor, as he had seen her images in stained glass, her coat the infinite blue of the sky at the edge of night, her eyes wide with amazement.
His breath caught in his throat before her majesty.
Then her face crumpled into rage. Her coat mottled to blackness, and she shrieked a shriek of inarticulate fury.
He had lost her. He had come so close, and lost her.
Her horn flared with magic, and he was shoved back and upward, high into the chamber. He slammed into the top of a column, the magic plastering him tight to the surface, and the back of his head cracked against the stone. Darkness swept through his mind and pulled him down.
He fought it, though his thoughts were sluggish and disjointed. The darkness clung to him, holding him back from wakefulness. It was like trying to swim up through a lake of tarry oil. When he tried to pierce the blackness with a chirp so he could hear the space around him, he found his throat locked in a sort of dream paralysis.
Still, he struggled to cast off the cloying stupor and open his eyes. He had a sense of the chamber around him, the hint of something happening, magic flaring and dimly touching his perception. But he could not pull himself from the murkiness of his thoughts, and what coherency he retained was swiftly fraying into the darkness of sleep.
But then he felt a warm glow by his side, its presence drawing the threads of his thoughts back together. Yet at the same time, his sense of the chamber and the waking world faded.
“Sky... Diamond, was it not?” a voice said beside him.
He found himself hovering in a twilit grove, a babbling stream running beneath him, and thick boles of trees standing in a neat geometric pattern which matched the columns of the chamber in the waking world. So it was that he understood he was dreaming.
And also, because Princess Celestia floated by his side.
“Princess,” his voice cracked in shock. “You were sealed away!”
She gave him a rueful smile. “And so I remain. At first I thought I had been banished to my sun. The power to do so would be extravagant, but perhaps not beyond Luna. But I did not feel my connection to the sun, and so I realized she had instead trapped me within the illusions of her dream realms. Once I understood that, I began to comprehend how I could wander through these territories.”
Celestia looked around the grove. A wind whipped through the leaves, yet it did not touch her or Sky. She gracefully drifted down to the stream, where a large oval boulder parted the waters. They furled around it, energetically splashing and glowing with a silver-whiteness no natural waters conveyed.
Sky followed and hesitantly alit beside her in the shallow stream. The water fizzed coolly around his hocks, invigorating him.
Celestia regarded the boulder with a sad expression in her eyes. Why? He looked at it himself, brows furrowing as he tried to read some significance in the smooth rock surface.
Then, in the manner of a dream, the world realigned itself with a lurch. This was no boulder at all, but rather a smoke-colored orb of magic that lay before him. Cautiously he touched it, but the surface was hard and unyielding—it might as well have been the solid rock he had taken it for.
Sparks of light streaked along the streambed, like different colored fishes.
He peered into the translucent depths of the magic orb. Gradually he made out the figure of a pony, curled up at its center. The longer he looked, the clearer it became, until he saw her plainly, an alicorn with the color and cutie mark of Princess Luna. Yet she was small, but a youth, and nothing like the stately creature depicted throughout centuries of vesperqune art. Her mane was not even full-grown. Her hooves twitched and she shivered, as if caught in the grip of an evil dream.
Sky looked up at Celestia. “Is this really...?”
She nodded gravely. “My sister. Or rather, that part of herself she seeks to throw away.”
He turned back to the figure encased in the magic barrier. “This isn't what I imagined.”
“It is how she sees herself,” Celestia said sadly. “She accounts herself weak, a powerless child. Her virtues she regards as juvenile naivete. She is mistaken, of course, but... she cannot bring herself to believe she is mistaken.”
The stream jumped and sizzled in its banks. In the water, the streaks of light were coming faster now, flashing around Sky's hooves while the intangible wind whipped furiously at the branches above.
Celestia glanced upward at the swaying trees. “Tell me, what passes in the waking world?”
Sky's throat thickened as he spoke. “I failed, Princess Celestia. I tried... we both tried so hard to bring her back, but nothing we did... she just wouldn't hear us.” He hung his head, his vision blurring with tears.
“Oh Sky Diamond,” she said gently, “do not be so certain in your dismay. Luna can seem most stubborn when she stands on the brink of making a change.”
Sky shook his head. Celestia's consolation was kind, but meaningless in the face of his defeat. The change she spoke of had come... but it had not succeeded. The Nightmare was too strong.
Celestia stroked his shoulder softly with one wing. “It is still too soon to give up, my little pony. I have not stopped believing in her, and do you know why? Long ago, the steadfast faith of your kind sparked hope in me that my sister was not beyond redemption. Do not imagine that she has been wholly unmoved by you either.”
Though it still did not touch him, the wind was howling through the grove now, the strong trunks shuddering in its grip. The stream had become a racing torrent, its waters flashing in strange rainbow shades.
“Look around you. The dream worlds reflect the state of her mind,” Celestia said. “She is in turmoil. Perhaps it is cause for fear, but I have trust that there is hope in this.”
“I couldn't help her,” Sky said, voice cracking. He rested a hoof on the adamantine magic barrier that encapsulated Luna. “She's still locked herself away in here. I couldn't do anything.”
But Celestia merely raised one eyebrow. “Is that so? Look again, Sky Diamond, and take heart.”
Confused, he looked once more at the orb of magic beneath his hoof. It was no longer the smooth and featureless surface he expected to see.
Cracks riddled its surface.
They spread from beneath his hoof, spidering out across the orb in jagged paths that criss-crossed one another like a mad labyrinth. Luna's image within was shattered into hundreds of broken facets.
I did this?
The stream was roaring now, pouring around his hocks and glowing brightly with all the colors of the rainbow.
He looked back up at Celestia, to ask her what it meant. But she was no longer there. He swung his head around, searching for her.
Then the intangible wind took form. It tore at his wings, caught him up and hurled him high into the air. He struggled to stabilize himself. Below him the stream rose up, like a great rainbow arch that poured down upon Luna's bubble of magic. The sound of rushing water filled his hearing.
He struggled to make his way back down to her, but the wind was like a wall, and his wings felt leaden. Slowly he was pushed away until his back pressed into the trunk of a tree.
The brilliant rainbow filled his vision, while the grove faded away. He was waking up. The world shredded into a mist of insubstantiality, but the rainbow remained, arching before him blindingly. He blinked his eyes against the glare, and understood that this was truth: his eyes were open now. A flood of sensations swept through him, from the hardness of the stone column against his back and the bone-creaking ache of his wings pressed tight to it by the magic of his princess, to the electric sting of inconceivably powerful magic thrumming through the air.
Below him, the rainbow of magic terminated in a whirlwind of searing bright color. Within that maelstrom a figure thrashed, and his heart jumped to his throat. He knew who was there.
Twilight Sparkle and her friends hung in the air, glowing with the power that seared through the chamber. What was it? The Elements of Harmony had faded into uselessness, right? Then had Twilight found some other magic? Sky's mind whirled. Had their whole race out here been a meaningless diversion? But if Twilight hadn't sought the Elements, why had she come here? Nothing made sense.
The brilliant light faded, the echoes of power dissipating. The magic that held him frayed and dispersed, and he had to flap his aching wings to hover at the ceiling. He had not yet been spotted, but could he even put that to advantage now? He was deeply tired, and even with a momentary advantage of surprise the prospect of trying to combat six ponies on his own struck him as profoundly foolhardy.
And was there any point in fighting on?
His heart quailed, but he forced himself to look down, to where his princess lay at the foot of the throne, her shattered armor strewn about her.
She was Luna. There was no hint of the Nightmare about her. The deep and gorgeous blue of her coat shone in his eyes like a promise.
But she was not the Luna of vesperquine art, tall and lovely. She was the creature of the dream realm. And oh, she was diminished. Only now could he sense how extravagantly she had spent herself in her return. A deep-seated exhaustion limned her frame. Her very mane was wan and lusterless, and her eyes were sunken. Her limbs trembled with weakness.
He ached to go to her side, but somehow he knew he must not do so yet. Celestia had said she believed in her sister—but implicit in that belief was the necessity of freedom, the importance of allowing Luna her own choices. And Sky knew that although Princess Luna had been defeated, the matter was not yet at an end.
So he hovered, watching over her as the sun rose, scarcely noting the harsh brilliance that poured in the widows. Nor did he pay more than scant attention to Celestia's own arrival, or her words with the six triumphant ponies. Only Luna, only his princess held his attention, and he poised himself to go to her at her first need.
At last, Celestia approached and knelt beside her. Sky's heart broke to see Luna flinch back; but in her face there was something more than fear and shame.
There was hope.
Sky had promised her the first thing Celestia would ask of her would be for her friendship. He had spoken in desperation as he feared she was slipping away from him. He had spoken in hopes his words would make it past the armor of Nightmare Moon to the soul that was Princess Luna. He had spoken in despair of any of his words touching her. He had spoken knowing he was not speaking truth, but only giving voice to his prayers.
And yet he had spoken truth nonetheless. “Will you accept my friendship?” Celestia asked, and the words thundered through his mind like an avalanche.
He held his breath. Every soul in the chamber held their breath, waiting for Luna. A storm of emotions passed over her face, from sorrow to anger to fear to longing. Her defenses were gone; all that remained to her was her own self, raw and exposed for all to see. He wanted to rush down, to stand with her, but this choice she could only make on her own. Whether she would hold to the past, all that she had become, the rage and the strength, the evils done to her, and yes, the evils she had done; or whether she would put that aside, and start over, seeking forgiveness, seeking to make herself anew.
For a long moment, she hung in the balance, her nose to her chest, her body trembling as if straining to push through a wall only she could perceive. We would be your friends, Sky thought, silently urging her. We have waited a thousand years to be your friends.
Something in her broke then, and she hurled herself into Celestia's embrace. “I'm so sorry! I missed you so much,” she cried out, and Sky let his breath out as an immense, almost debilitating flood of relief passed through him.
As yet unnoticed, he let himself drift to the floor. A thick feeling of lassitude took hold of him as his own exhaustion caught up with him, and he simply stood there, smiling at the joyous reunion, the glad embrace of two sisters reunited. His own vision rippled with happy tears. He looked forward to a good day's sleep... but then he recalled the things that still needed tending to. Captain Nebula's rescue, and of course freeing the Wonderbolts; the flight back from here; the post-action report, much of which he would be responsible for, being the sole member of the Night Guard involved after Nebula's injury—
But a moment later these fresh worries were scattered away as the crazy pink earth pony grabbed him up by the hoof and started dancing with him.
Beneath the moonlight, the Captain of the Night Guard calls her soldiers to attention. Her wing is mending nicely enough that she has foregone her sling, at least for this hour. To one side, a young member of the Guard now newly raised in rank is given the honor of announcing the arrival of Princess Luna. His voice rings out, clarion-clear, touched with pride.
Their princess strides before them for her very first inspection of the Night Guard. She is recovering from her own ordeal, her figure more nearly resembling the stately alicorn they have known only in stylized portraits and stained glass panels.
Quite in breach of proper discipline, the guards have smiles on their faces. They grin and nod, and some even have tears in their eyes. Their captain berates them without rancor, in phrases so colorful the alicorn princess herself finds a smile touching her lips.
Princess Luna looks upon them in wonder. Of all the memorials to her quietly woven through the fabric of Equestria by Celestia, all the places built with a space for her in mind, none touches her so dearly as these creatures. Out of a love she could never justify having earned, they have held her precious to them for a thousand years. They are her soldiers, her Night Guard.
And more than that, they are her friends.
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Now that is a name.
This is glorious.
7448604
I'm so happy somebody noticed!
Bravo
I have left a comment on this video telling everyone how Hasbro now has a bloody and mentally damaged Celestia doll: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpfqOkr1dcE. Then I e-mailed the same message to the friend who introduced me to the story.
I love how you incorporated lines from the toys in this story.
"I would love it if you brushed my mane."
Great story on top of that, left me feeling all warm and fuzzy
That was really good. :)
7772529
Thank you!
7781363
Yeah, it's definitely a good bit more emotional than 'gag' quite covers.
PresentPerfect pointed me here, and I an deeply glad that he did. A masterful blending of canon and original work, with great action and some truly unexpected references. Thank you for it.
Darn. This is so beautiful.
Very, very good.
Wait, complete? As in the story is finished?
Nonononono, it can't be finished! We just got started! Luna has just reunited with her ponies of the night, we need stories of them having fun! Showing Luna how much has changed! Teaching her how to have fun in the night! Fun stuff! Happy stuff! Waffy stuff!
On a less rambling note, I really enjoyed this story. I'd been wondering just where batponies fit in the world of Equestria myself, given how they kind of mess with Luna's background of being alone in her nights, and this tale has certainly provided one of the more credible answers I've seen so far. I loved it.
But still... any plans for a sequel?
Beautiful!
7836009
It's more like she's just discovered she has them! But alas, no thoughts for a sequel so far. Sorry!
...it would probably go like:
7848795
Darn. Well, guess that means I have to put you on follow. You know, in case you're struck by inspiration. For this or any other stories.
Very enjoyable! Congrats on the RCL feature!
An excellent story! Putting in some self doubt actually really sells the Elements as triggers rather than just McGuffins.
Ok, this is amazing. Nice job.
I loved it too bad there isn't a sequel
I teared up, oh my goodness. The part where he spoke her titles gave me chills, it was so moving; I expected maybe for him to say Princess Luna, but you made it so much more powerful. This was so beautifully woven into the show, and the HOPE, the beautiful, unrelenting HOPE for her salvation... I tell you, for me as a Christian, that spoke to me in ways I don't know whether you intended.
I think the only critique I could give of the whole story was that the fight scene in the forest felt like it dragged on too long. I had to skim parts of that since much of it felt like repetitive descriptions of his dodging through the forest. And maybe that Nightmare Moon didnt use “thou” here like Luna does for the first few seasons. But thats it. Overall, by and large, in the most important ways, this was beautiful and moving and REALY SKILLFULLY WRITTEN. Im so glad someone on one of my Discord servers shared it, it is going in my Favorites folder. Excellent work and thank you again for this uplifting and excellent story!
10086001
Wow, what a great comment. Thank you! It's true I wasn't consciously writing from a Christian perspective, but I'm very happy the story was able to resonate with you so profoundly all the same. I see that steadfast hope and faith that Luna can be brought back to the goodness in herself as the moral core of the story.
Excellent story bud, I read the physical version in "Tales of the Moon."
Awesome story.
I'm glad I got the chance to read it in the physical copy of ''tales of the moon''. Your story blends so well with the event of the first two episode. That story deserve way more views.
10172946
10299694
Thank you! It's nice to know the story is still finding readers thanks to Tales of the Moon.
Great story!
10834653
Ahhh, but way back in chapter one I mentioned vesperquine echolocation chirps are outside the range of most ponies' hearing.
Soarin might have really good ears though...
Now that was a good story! This deserves far more likes than I can give. Good grammar, deep characters, tantalizing tension of "is she evil or not?" the whole way through... Definitely the best story I've binge read today. (And despite how petty that might sound, I have indeed read through several long stories today, and this is the best.) Thanks for the quality read!
There needs to be some sort of upvote feature where I can try and bring jewels like this to the top of relevant searches or something...
10840410
So is there a sequel perhaps?