The Child of Sun and Moon

by Darkest Night

The Gray Mare Comes

This was the day.

Starjumper sat at the upstairs writing desk and finished up a report he had to write for the Princess, glancing at the clock. Twenty minutes, and he’d be teleporting Summer Dawn in so she could start this most important lesson. Today, they were going to start on teleportation. He wanted to start yesterday, but Summer Dawn had to leave early to go to that party, and he supposed that he’d talk to her about that before they got down to the business of learning magic. No doubt she’d seen something or learned something last night, and she was his only real source of news of the outside world.

To say that he was a prisoner in the apartment was an understatement. He wasn’t allowed out, and there was magic set up around the apartment to ensure that they couldn’t detect him inside, since the warding spell that the Princess put up was more or less useless if they were wearing those spell dampeners. There were charged illusions that he had to maintain placed over every window that showed a static image of the inside of the apartment, making it look like the apartment was empty. And because he was dealing with thestrals here, he knew how to create the illusions to fool thestral eyes, to add those details that pony eyes couldn’t see that would convince them that the illusions were real. The illusions were one way, covering over the windows like blankets to prevent a pony from seeing through them in either direction, which also blocked any light coming from the inside after dark. He had to keep strips of cloth against the bottoms of the doors so light didn’t bleed out from under the crack, which would create an incongruency that an observant flyer may notice…and thestrals were observant. Starjumper cast a spell twice a day, just after sunrise and before sunset, that prevented any pony’s scent from crossing the thresholds of the doors or window sills, which kept a thestral from sniffing around the apartment and catching fresh scents, yet left the scents that had already left behind as a lingering trace to trick them into thinking he wasn’t inside. Nopony was allowed to come and go from the apartment, which really only applied to Summer Dawn and himself, so Starjumper would be getting his food and supplies via magic. The Princess herself would be delivering his groceries by teleporting them in with her when he needed them.

His father had designed that spell, one of the arsenal of spells that he’d taught Starjumper to help protect him from the thestrals. And it showed just how good at magic his father was, that he could design a spell based on something he couldn’t sense himself.

The spell dampeners had changed the playing field in one way, and that was that Starjumper understood that he needed a contingency plan for dealing with the possibility that the thestrals would invade the apartment. They would allow the thestrals to get into the apartment, so if the spells that were hiding him failed, he’d have little in the way of hard protection. That had caused him to prepare an escape route that had nothing to do with him needing magic to use it, in the form of a hidden door in the floor into the void space at the base of the tower under the apartment, which led to a tunnel that he’d made with the stoneshaping spell that led under the fence of the Royal Palace and ended just on the other side of a wall in the cellars under the building. The wall was thin enough that even as a thestral, he’d be able to break through it just with a few well placed kicks of his back hooves. He hadn’t told the Princess about the tunnel, and he wasn’t going to, because she couldn’t make plans for something she didn’t know was there, and those were plans that the thestrals couldn’t see. If he was the only pony that knew about the tunnel, then nopony was going to be able to plan for it, friend or foe.

He didn’t tell the Princess about the spell dampeners for the same reason he didn’t tell her about the tunnel. If she knew, it would change her plans, and since the thestrals were already here, they’d see that change. They couldn’t know that he knew about the spell dampeners, it would rob him of a critical advantage if he ended up having to fight them. The magic hiding him from the thestrals wouldn’t be countered by the spell dampeners because it wasn’t active magic being used against them, one of the ways a spell dampener could be outfoxed, and even if they knew where he was staying, the fact that the apartment was under constant and very obvious surveillance by the EUP on the balcony across from it would keep them from poking around. And since those guards weren’t stationed at the apartment, it further reinforced the deception that Starjumper was being hidden somewhere else.

Sometimes, the best place to hide something was in the first place that somepony would look for it. It was almost childishly obvious that the Princess wouldn’t be stupid enough to hide Starjumper in his own apartment, which made it the best possible place for him to be hidden. It was the most obvious place, the first place a pony would look, but the last place they would ever expect him to be.

As prison cells went, it wasn’t all that bad. The Princess was going to supply him with any food he wanted while he was stuck in here, so he didn’t have to pay for anything. She’d also sent him over a ton of books holding some really advanced magic spells, so he’d have plenty to keep him busy, given that some of the spells were both advanced and cool. He’d never even heard of a lot of those spells, and some of them were really darn useful. The Princess had delved deep into her library, he’d noticed, because they were her personal books. Some of them had notes in the margins in her hornwriting.

The other good news was that his family would be on the way to Canterlot tomorrow morning, and were scheduled to arrive around noon. There were pegasi from the EUP in Baltimare to serve as guards for them until they left, as Princess Twilight honored her promise to keep his family safe while the thestrals were in Equestria. It was going to be good to see his family, he’d really missed them while he’d been in Canterlot, even though these weren’t the greatest of circumstances.

He finished up the report and sent it off to the Princess using the mailbox, then he more or less just paced around the apartment waiting for the appointed time. That was when Summer Dawn knew to be in her room and the mirror in place, and he wasn’t going to be a creepy peeper and cast the spell to look into her room any time but when he told her that he would. Luckily he didn’t have to wait that long, so when the clock chimed with its pony-set alarm to tell him it was time, he was already sitting at the downstairs writing desk and casting the spell on the mirror to look through it and to the one in Summer Dawn’s room. When the image formed, he saw her standing in front of her bed, her usual spot, and that made it very easy for him. He charged the scrying spell to hold long enough for him to get her over here, then focused all his attention on the image and got a lock on Summer Dawn using his magic.

In a circular burst of golden magic, she disappeared from the image of her room, and she reappeared standing right beside him by the writing desk.

“How was the dinner?” he asked immediately.

“It was not fun,” she replied in a serious voice, lifting her saddlebags off her back with her magic. “And it was weird. Really weird.”

“How so?”

That thestral stared at me all night,” she answered. “I swear, Star, any time I looked in her direction, she was looking right at me. It was really creeping me out by the time we sat down to dinner. I kept thinking that she knew that you’re my tutor, but I don’t see how she could.”

“That is a bit strange,” he agreed, standing up. “Did she talk to you?”

“She didn’t talk to anypony,” she answered. “That was by far the most awkward dinner I’ve ever attended. But that also means that I didn’t see or hear anything that you might want to know. She just stood to the side and glared at anypony that got anywhere near her.”

“I’m not surprised,” he said darkly. “Thestrals have a particular disdain for unicorns. It’s why it’s even more surprising that Mom married one,” he added with a grim chuckle. “Then again, Dad was born and raised in an earth pony town, so he’s more like an earth pony with a horn than anything else.”

“What’s wrong with unicorns?”

“Canterlot society perfectly sums up why thestrals don’t like unicorns,” he said with a direct look at her.

“I think we’d better get started on our lessons,” she said tartly, which made him smile at her.

He sat her down on her cushion, then sat down in front of her. “Alright, then, Summer. Teleportation,” he said, which made her grin eagerly and clap her front hooves together. “I’ve already explained the basics of how the spell works, now to explain the basics of the spell’s mechanics. This is a snap spell, Summer. This has to be cast very fast, so you have to have everything organized in your mind before you even start building the matrix. Once you start it, you have about half a second to finish and release the spell. If you go over that time, then the energy it takes to cast the spell goes up exponentially, as does the risk of it going wrong,” he warned. “So that means that this is a snap spell, you build it and release it as quickly as possible. Understand?”

She nodded vigorously.

“This spell is fairly complex, Summer, so it’s going to be a real test of your spellcasting skills. That’s why you’ve studied the other spells and learned the tricks I’ve taught you, to prepare you for this. Not only is this a very complex spell, you have to cast it as fast as you possibly can. So,” he said, looking up. Over their heads and between them, a staging field formed. “Watch closely.”

He built the spell slowly, allowing her to see the shape of it, and he heard her give a bit of a nervous gasp when he just kept adding more, and more, and more. “Whoa, this is the most complicated spell I’ve ever seen,” she admitted.

“Welcome to the big leagues, Summer Dawn,” he told her evenly. “This is real magic. High order magic. Do you think you have what it takes to learn it?”

“You bet I do,” she replied immediately. “Build it again. It’s hard to see the core of it like this.”

She was determined, and determined to impress…and impress she did. After about four hours of him constantly building the spell from scratch so she could see the matrix, she started working on it, and she did amazingly well for the very first day. She came nowhere near to building it correctly all day, but each attempt got closer and closer. By the time the clock gave three bells, she had managed to correctly build about three quarters of the spell, and was ironing out the parts of it that changed depending on how it was being used. But the core matrix of the spell, the part that never changed, that she was very close to mastering.

In just one day.

He had to give her a long, impressed look as she got up from her cushion. He knew she was a prodigy, he knew she was gifted, but holy Celestia. He was again intimidated and humbled by both her immense power and her instinctive understanding of the magic he was teaching her. At the rate she was learning, she may be ready for her first attempt to cast the spell next week.

It took his father nearly three moons to get to where she got in a little under four hours.

Incredible. Just…incredible.

“I’m tempted to make you let me stay until seven bells,” she grumbled a bit, then gave him the most outrageously insincere smile. “Soooo, tomorrow’s Saturday, and I have all day, and I know you have lots of free time,” she urged. “How about you bring me over right after sunrise and I’ll just leave my parents a note? I’ll tell them I went out with Crystal and Berry.”

“I…I guess I could,” he said, which made her literally jump up and down in place and give a happy little sound. Really, she was like a little foal sometimes, but that just made her charming. “But my family’s going to be here tomorrow around noon, so it won’t be an all day tutoring session.”

“Oh, awesome! I really want to talk to your Mom again! And can I meet your Dad and siblings?” she asked eagerly.

“I suppose, but you’re going to be disappointed.”

“What a thing to say!” she accused.

“They’re shopkeepers from an earth pony town, Summer. Silver Moon is preparing to take over the shop when Mom and Dad retire, and my sisters are still foals. I’m sure they’ll be quite boring to a pony like you.”

She gave him an accusing look. “You’re making fun of me,” she said, more a statement than a question.

“Am I?” he asked in a level tone.

“Yes, you are,” she declared primly.

“If you say so,” he said flippantly, then wheezed a bit when she poked her hoof into his side. “You’d better rethink that attitude before you end up reappearing a thousand feet over your house instead of in your bedroom,” he threatened, which made her grin at him impudently. “Ready?”

“Yeah, I’m ready. So, sunrise tomorrow?”

“Alright. Be ready to work.”

“I will,” she promised as his horn blazed with golden magic. She disappeared in a circular burst of golden magic as he sent her back to her room, then he blew out his breath and picked up her cushion and set it on the couch set against the low wall that was the base of the second floor bedroom.

And now that she was gone, the apartment seemed…empty.

He settled at the writing table to get in as much of the essay he was writing as he could before sunset, and he had to write with the quill between his teeth. It had taken years to master the art of matching his hornwriting with his manual writing as a thestral, so there was no disparity in his schoolwork that the teacher might notice. But, given this was for Princess Twilight, he supposed it wouldn’t matter all that much.

He finished about an hour after sunset, sitting at the desk with his wings partially open and the quill between his teeth, then let the ink dry as he attended to dinner. He felt…enclosed despite how large the apartment was, standing in the kitchen and making a plain sandwich. He had to, since if he cooked, the smell might escape the apartment and alert a thestral that a supposedly empty apartment had hot food being cooked in it. He couldn’t see through the windows due to the illusions, and that had more of an effect on him than he expected, since it made him feel completely cut off from the rest of the world. The only way he knew if it was daytime or nighttime was if he had a horn or wings, and his clock was the only indication to him that time was moving. The apartment was sealed away from the rest of the world, it was quiet, and it was…a little foreboding.

And without Summer Dawn here, it felt empty.

Luna’s grace, that mare had really gotten into his head.

At least tomorrow he’d have his family in to visit, so this place wouldn’t seem so much like a prison cell. It would be filled with laughter and warmth, of the beautiful voices of his mother and sister as they sang, the unintentional mischief Dancer would cause as she got into everything, as her curiosity got the best of her, and the new spells she would show off that their father taught her. And she’d also proudly show off her new fang, which would look a bit silly since she only had one of them. It would make her look like she had a snaggletooth.

It would be a nice diversion from the serious business going on around here the last couple of days.

It was a crystal clear, cold night, the air still and not a cloud in the sky, and despite the icy chill, being out there would be far preferable to Moonblade than being in this ridiculously garish room. Other ponies had terrible taste in themes, since they didn’t seem to understand that an object that they thought was one color was actually a different color, so their furniture sets and carpets and curtains often clashed horribly with each other if they were made from different materials. Ponies could only see a limited number of colors, and that made their aesthetics…well, a lack of them really.

The furniture in this completely overblown bedroom was the perfect example of that. The furniture was very well made, quite beautiful in its construction actually, but they didn’t match. The two chairs matched the divan, but those three pieces didn’t match the two couches or the ottoman. The fabric used to upholster them was different, and while they thought that they were all dyed the same color, the fact was that they weren’t. And the furniture didn’t match the curtains around the four poster bed, which didn’t match the curtains flanking the windows. And the color of those curtains on the walls…ick. That was the worst shade of maju she’d ever seen.

It was a good thing she wasn’t here to appreciate the décor, however. She was sitting at a writing desk at the back of the room with a book sitting on it, and she wasn’t alone in the room. One of the Luna’s guards was standing beside her, a stallion that Moonblade knew from before taking over the leadership of the Night Blades. Longblade had been an officer in the thestral army before being selected to come to Equestria to serve a tour in Luna’s Royal Guard, and had been one of her instructors when she learned how to use wingblades. And it was that personal connection that brought him to her room in the middle of the night, when the Princesses and most of the palace was asleep, but the height of activity for a thestral.

“She didn’t seem like all that much,” Moonblade mused as she looked over at her former instructor. “And by the moon, did she ever glare at me every time our eyes met,” she added with an amused little chuckle. “She’s the daughter of one of their high society?”

“The most prominent members of society, Fancy Pants and Fleur de Lis,” he answered. “I would suggest in the strongest possible terms that whatever you do, you do not make those two angry.”

“I’m not worried about offending some dandelion sniffer, Longblade.”

“That dandelion sniffer is in a position to almost personally talk the Princess into declaring war if you outrage him,” Longblade warned. “And regardless of what you or your mother may think, Moonblade, the Nightlands is in no way prepared to take on Equestria. They can put our chins on the ground without so much as sending a single soldier across the eastern sea.”

“I find that a bit hard to believe,” she snorted. “Our thestral forces are the bravest and most skilled warriors in the world!”

“You truly have not even spent a single night considering the political situation, have you?” he asked bluntly, which made her eyes flash. “Where do we get most of our food from, Moonblade?”

“From the griffons and hippogryphs.”

“Where do they get that food from?”

“They grow it,” she replied.

“Where? Their territory is the same as ours, high mountains with few fertile valleys for agriculture. They trade for that food, the same as we do, and we prefer trading with them because they’re not ponies. And who do you think trades them that food?”

She was silent a long moment.

“That’s right. They get it from Equestria. This realm is the bread basket of the entire world,” he told her. “Equestria produces more food than every other realm in the world combined. Every ship you saw coming across the eastern sea on your journey here was loaded with food, bound for the eastern kingdoms. So, Moonblade, if you anger the Princess, she can cut off those supply lines with a single command, and force us to devote significant forces to invading Maretonia or Unicornia to secure their food supplies, getting us into yet another war. That will leave the Nightlands virtually undefended, which causes the problem I don’t think you or your mother has considered. Cutting off the food supplies to the eastern kingdoms will make the griffons and hippogryphs starve. And what do you think they will do when they find out that their food supplies were cut off because of us, then find our territory all but undefended?”

She looked away from him.

“So you see, my young student, Equestria can put us into a war on three fronts without sending a single soldier across the eastern sea. I told you yesterday that this was a poorly thought out plan. Now I see that the Night Queen didn’t think about this at all. Yes, the Lykan is a threat to our race, but you are going about this all wrong. What your mother should be doing is sending you here to pile on additional restrictions and assurances that keeps the Lykan within the borders of Equestria, keep him away from the Night Stone and ensure that our race is protected, not sending you here with this harebrained scheme to void the treaty and kill him before the Princess can respond.”

“What would you have us do, Longblade?” she demanded hotly. “So long as he lives, our entire race is in danger! Do you want to wake up some evening and find yourself on the floor of your room without your wings, never to fly again?”

“And there, Moonblade, is where you’ve made your biggest mistake,” he told her flatly.

“How?”

“By assuming that that’s what he wants to do,” he said intently. “Did it ever occur to you that if he shatters the Night Stone, he loses his own wings? He’d be nothing but a unicorn after that.”

“Well….why wouldn’t he? It’s the only way he can end his curse!”

“What is the first rule of war, Moonblade?” he challenged in reply.

“Know your enemy,” she replied automatically.

“Do you know the Lykan? Do you know his intentions, or are you making an assumption?” he answered. “I don’t know what his motivations are, but neither do you, and you’re the one that’s about to put our kingdom on the brink of war and jeopardize our entire race,” he said sternly. “But I will tell you this, Moonblade, and mark me well. If he has no intention to shatter the Night Stone now, if you try to kill him and fail, then he will. He will do exactly what you fear most, because of you. He’ll see it as the only way he can ever be free of the threat we pose to him, because he will never trust our word again. Not after we intentionally broke the treaty so we could kill him, and do it like cowards with a cheap shot sneak attack at that. And if that happens, if we are changed into earth ponies because of your blind loyalty and your mother’s short-sightedness, you may not live long enough to get out of the Nightlands to begin your life of exile. Everypony will blame you for that disaster.”

She gave him a surprised look filled with both offense and anger.

“I am loyal to the Nightlands, and that loyalty is the only reason I’m going to walk out of this room and pretend this conversation never happened, Moonblade,” he told her bluntly. “I believe that you will make the right choice, if you take the time to think this through objectively. I taught you to always analyze the battle before you so you can apply the correct tactics and achieve victory, my former student. I think you’d better do that now, before you make a terrible mistake.”

And with that, Longblade strode briskly to the door, and then out of the room.

Moonblade glared at the closed door for a long moment, then blew out her breath and turned to look back at the book on the desk. As much as she wanted to rip his wings off in that moment…he was right about one thing. Given the dark reality of what would be facing the Nightlands if they incited a war with Equestria, it did seem a bit…reckless for her mother to pursue this. She would be the first thestral to agree that the Lykan was a threat to their very existence, and that it was better to fight a war as thestrals than have that Lykan shatter the Night Stone and strip of them of everything…but maybe they should have thought this through a little more.

No. She trusted her mother, and trusted that the Night Queen knew more about what was going on than she did. She was a soldier, she was the one carrying out the plan, a plan her mother had carefully considered and then put into action with far more information available to her than Moonblade could see. She didn’t need to know the reasoning behind that plan, she only had to do her duty. And it was her orders to kill the Lykan, through whatever means necessary, even if she had to plunge the Nightlands into war with Equestria.

Know her enemy. Now that was good advice, she could admit. She knew nothing about this Lykan. She only knew what her mother told her, that he was a unicorn magician not to be taken lightly during the day, enough of a threat for her mother to send the Night Blades with precious spell dampeners, and at night, he would no doubt be a powerful and agile flyer due to his Longwing bloodline. The Longwings were famous in the Nightlands for their aerial prowess, thanks to those abnormally large wings that gave them superior speed and maneuverability. That bloodline was why she brought an entire squad of Night Blades, so they could use their numerical superiority to counter his advantage. Being able to outrun and out-turn the thestrals did him no good if there were enough of them to box him in. And since he knew that the thestrals were after him, he would be prepared for a confrontation. He would have training as a thestral in how to fight back against them, and as a unicorn, he would know magic like that shield he put up, magic that he would believe would give him the advantage against them.

She needed to learn more about this Lykan, and with him hidden away by the Princess, the only pony that could tell her more was the little filly that had been tutoring under him.

She wondered if that unicorn had any idea just what was teaching her. And for that matter, she wondered just what the ponies of Canterlot would do if they found out his secret. Ponies had their own legends about the Lykans, legends that the thestrals themselves had carefully cultivated and spread to make Lykans hated pariahs and rob them of potential sanctuaries, and if the ponies of Canterlot were anything like that bethkla North Star, it might be quite easy to turn the city against him.

She and the Night Blades were proscribed by the treaty from revealing what they knew of him…but a vindictive little brath like North Star would gleefully do their dirty work for them. All she had to do was figure out a way for him to find out the truth without triggering the magic of the treaty.

The treaty.

He’d said it himself, all he had to do was read the treaty. And while she was absolutely sure that the copy of the treaty held by Equestria was locked in some vault somewhere, she didn’t need the original. The treaty never referred to the Lykan as a Lykan, but there was more than enough there for a pony to figure things out based on the wording. And since the treaty didn’t outright name him as a Lykan, it wouldn’t trigger the treaty if she sent a copy of it to the unicorn. The treaty was drawn up to protect the secret of his identity, to prevent the thestrals from coming over and ruining his life in Equestria by spreading the truth, and it was going to be the treaty itself that exposed him to the ponies that were unwittingly protecting him.

Irony was sometimes a delicious thing.

She could reproduce that treaty, word for word, by memory. After all, she studied it quite carefully before coming here so she would know exactly what she could and could not do in order to obey its provisions.

She put the book aside and set a clean piece of parchment in front of her, then took up a writing quill and started writing, and she couldn’t help but smile maliciously around the quill between her teeth. But that malicious smile dissolved into a shocked gasp as she recoiled violently when the parchment before her burst into flame the instant she wrote the first word of the treaty!

Damn those unicorns and their magic! There had to be some kind of spell in place that prevented the treaty from being copied while on Equestrian soil!

She smothered the flames with her hoof, cursing sulfurously as she put out the flames, then glared savagely at the black burn mark left behind on the polished wooden desk. Well, that told her that these unicorns were far more clever than she expected. And it also gave her a stark warning that the magic bound into the treaty was very much in effect, and she’d better tread very carefully.

Her plan ruined, she paced the room with an ugly expression, trying to think of some other way she could expose the Lykan without getting herself barbecued or her mother hammered by the retribution spell. There had to be some books that had the Lykan tales in them in their library, she supposed. She could check one out and leave it for that arrogant unicorn, but she wouldn’t be able to bookmark the page. That would violate the treaty. She’d have to trust that he would read the book and figure it out on his own…and given how dumb he seemed, that may not be a given. Arrogance breeds ignorance, her teachers would always say, since the arrogant thestral thought she was right all the time, and thus didn’t bother to learn how wrong she was.

Or, she could go back to her original idea. The delicate-looking little mare knew him, and as North Star suggested, she may be the key to finding out where they were hiding the Lykan. And something told her that she knew more about what was going on than anypony else in this city, given how nasty those stares were she was giving her when they looked at each other at the dinner yesterday. Little Summer Dawn did not like Moonblade, not one bit, so that meant that she had to know why the Lykan was afraid of them.

She returned to the writing desk and pulled out a fresh sheet of parchment, then quickly wrote out a series of orders. The Princess was keeping her and the Night Blades in the palace and under surveillance, but what she was not watching was the detachment of thestrals here to serve Princess Starlight. And those thestrals were loyal to the Nightlands, so they would obey an order given by the Moonblade. She outranked them in thestral military hierarchy. If she ordered them to keep eyes on that little slip of a unicorn, they would do so. And she would lead them to the Lykan.

And…perhaps, she should listen to her former instructor. She did not know this Lykan. She did not know her enemy. And that may lead her into making a critical mistake. So perhaps she needed to learn more about him…and there was only pony in Canterlot that could answer her questions.

The unicorn.

Until morning, until that little slip of a unicorn woke up and started her day, she really didn’t have anything to do. So, she flitted up to the ceiling, quite deftly twisted her legs up and got her back hooves on a heavy beam, then dangled down from that grip and settled in, wrapping her wings around herself. She didn’t often sleep this time of night, but the need to be up all day to deal with the day dwellers meant that she’d need a nap tonight. Besides, napping was a great way to pass the time, and as a soldier, she had learned to get her sleep whenever and wherever she could. After all, there was no telling when she might have the next chance to grab a nap..

She closed her eyes, and with practiced discipline, she drifted off to sleep.

She was awake well before dawn, and was going the moment her clock went off.

It was going to be an exciting day, between trying to learn the teleportation spell and meeting Starjumper’s family, and that excitement had made it hard for her to sleep last night. She woke up several times over the night hoping that it was close to dawn, and felt almost disappointed when she found out how wrong she was. She did finally manage to calm down enough to get some good sleep in, enough to need the alarm clock to wake her up, and now she had to get everything ready for her long day.

The first thing she did was rush down to the kitchen and have a quick breakfast, wolfing down some bagels and milk, then she wrote a note to her parents telling them that she went out early to go hang out with her friends and would be back that afternoon. She left it on the kitchen table where they were sure to see it, then she rushed back up to her room to wait for Starjumper to chime the mirror. That wouldn’t be until after sunrise, but that wouldn’t be very long. She could practice her shield spells while she waited. She rushed back up to her room and slowed down when she came in, since her balcony doors were open and a cold wind was blowing into the room, sending flakes of snow swirling around the room and billowing the curtains on the windows of the doors. She advanced up to her balcony and looked out, but saw nothing. She must not have closed them very well, and given how windy it had gotten, the prelude to another scheduled snow shower, the wind must have gotten to them.

“You’re much smaller out of that dress than I expected.”

Summer Dawn nearly jumped, whirling around to see that thestral! She was crouched on the outside wall over the doors, her body oriented down towards the floor and her head arched to look at her. She “stood” up on the side of the wall and dropped down to the balcony, physically cutting her off from getting back inside.

“You! What do you want?” she demanded, her horn limning over with pink magic as she brought forth her magic from her core and held it ready, a trick Starjumper taught her that would let her cast spells much faster. The thestral moved out from the doorway, slowly and steadily walking towards the rail.

“To talk,” she answered. “Which I think would benefit both of us.”

“And how do you figure that?” Summer Dawn flared. “I know who you are. I know what you think.”

“And what exactly do I think, unicorn?” she asked pointedly.

“That Star is some terrible monster that’s going to ruin your people,” she answered.

“That’s what he is, unicorn. It’s part of the very essence of who and what he is,” she replied simply. “Since you already know the truth, I can be frank with you. He is a Lykan,” she stated strongly. She then looked around, as if expecting something to happen, and when it didn’t, she gave a victorious little smile. “Given that the magic bound into the treaty didn’t just activate, that means you already knew that,” she said in satisfaction. “Did he tell you what a Lykan is?”

“He told me about the legend,” she answered. “So, the thestrals want to kill him over an old fable?”

“It’s no fable,” she replied directly. “I’ve seen the Night Stone, unicorn. I’ve stood in the room where we keep it, and I’ve felt the magic that radiates from it. I’ve heard its song, I’ve felt its magic reverberate in my very soul, so I have no doubt that who and what we are as thestrals is because of the Night Stone. And if the Night Stone is real, then I have no doubt that the rest of that legend is also real.” Summer Dawn narrowed her eyes, and when the thestral stopped and turned towards her quickly, she reacted almost out of instinct. A spherical shield of pink magic formed around her, surges of bright pink shimmering along its surface. “My, we’re a jumpy little thing, aren’t we?” the thestral asked, almost mockingly.

“I think I have a good reason to be jumpy when you’re standing on my balcony without being invited,” she answered. “And after what I saw you and your bullies do a couple of days ago, I don’t have any reason to be nice to you, or believe that you’re going to be civil. Are your bully friends going to drop out of the sky and surround me, too? Are you going to threaten me the way you did him, threaten to hurt me if I don’t tell you where he is?”

“You have me at the disadvantage, unicorn. I don’t have my wingblades. I have no doubt that you could use your magic on me before I could get anywhere near you,” she said, sitting down on the snowy balcony floor. “So, it’s abundantly clear that I’m only here to talk. That being established, I ask again. Do you know what a Lykan is?”

“I’ve seen it with my own eyes,” she retorted. “And I’m not afraid of him.”

“Well then, I suppose this is your chance to prove I don’t have a reason to be afraid of him either. The reason I’m here in Canterlot is so my mother can be assured that the Lykan will uphold his side of the bargain and stay away from the Nightlands. So, if you know him so well, then convince me, unicorn. Convince me that I should leave Canterlot without demanding his head on a platter.”

“I don’t think there’s anything I can say that would change your mind,” Summer Dawn replied evenly, taking a couple of steps back, towards the balcony doors. “If you’re so convinced that the legend is real, then you don’t care about anything other than the fear that drives you to be awful to him.”

Her eyes flashed a little, but when she spoke, her voice was still calm and composed. “Well, has he ever talked of going to the Nightlands?”

“No. He doesn’t want to start a war between the Nightlands and Equestria. Besides, his whole life is here in Equestria. His family is here, he can’t pursue his magical studies anywhere but here, so his career and his life’s work is here. All he wants is to live a normal life like every other pony, but ponies like you make that impossible for him,” she said accusingly.

“And he’s never talked about the Night Stone, and the legend?”

“He told me about the legend once, when he told me who he is. That’s the first and last time I’ve ever heard of it,” she answered.

“And where do you fit into his perfect little normal life, unicorn?”

“Starjumper is a professional tutor. He teaches magic for a living,” she replied tightly. “I’m his student.”

“You’re more than a student,” she said dryly, looking her up and down in a way that made Summer Dawn feel uncomfortable.

“He’s my friend,” she replied, almost primly. “I hired him to help me pass my finals, and we became friends during my tutoring sessions. It took him a while to trust me, but he eventually did enough to tell me the truth. He makes enough as a tutor to pursue his magical studies when he’s not teaching.”

“My, that sounds so…pedestrian,” she drawled.

“What do you expect? You think he spends his days scheming to bring down the thestrals in some dark lair like a cheesy comic book villain?” Summer Dawn demanded. “He has a life, a life that has nothing to do with him being a Lykan! You seem convinced that all he ever thinks about is his teeeerrrrribllllle cuuuuuurse,” she said in a mockingly spooky voice, “when the truth is, he’s just like every other pony in Canterlot. He does his best to live as normal a life as he can despite being a Lykan, not letting what he is dictate who he is. The only difference between him and other ponies is that he trades in his horn for wings when the moon rises, and because of all the old stories about were-ponies, he has to keep that a secret. It doesn’t change who he is, it only changes what he looks like. Celestia’s grace, you really are clueless!”

“Given what he can do to me and my race, we are fully justified in being a little melodramatic,” she replied evenly. “If we misjudge him, it can destroy my entire race, everything we are, all of our history and tradition. Our entire civilization is at risk. So excuse me if I approach him from any direction other than extreme skepticism. The consequences if I make a mistake would be absolutely ghastly.”

“Then I see that this conversation is pointless,” she declared. “You said I had to convince you that he’s no danger to the thestrals, but you’ve already convinced yourself that he can’t be anything but a danger to the thestrals. Your mind is already made up,” she declared. “So I’m done talking to you. I can see now that you’re just trying to get me to talk so you can try to find out where he is.” She backed partially through the balcony doors. “But keep this in mind, thestral. If you hurt him, if you try to kill him, I will do everything in my power to make sure you regret it,” she promised in an ugly voice.

She laughed scornfully. “And what can you do, little unicorn?”

“I don’t live in this big mansion because I’m the maid,” she replied, suddenly turning nearly as haughty and arrogant as many of the other society ponies in the city, her voice vibrating with both confidence and superiority.

“And just who do you think you’re talking to, little girl? My mother is the Night Queen.”

“And I’m sure you were so proud of her when she took that throne away from your grandfather,” she said icily.

“Don’t you speak about my mother that way, you little nothing!” she shouted suddenly.

“So, is it true? Did your grandfather lay down and let your mother win just so she could succeed him?” she asked cuttingly. “Which are you more proud of, Moonblade, that your mother is a cheater and a fraud, or that your grandfather is a liar and a scoundrel?”

“Why you witch!” she screamed, her eyes turning flat and her fangs bared. She lunged at Summer Dawn with absolute rage in her eyes, but Summer Dawn stood her ground confidently in the doorway of her bedroom. The thestral rebounded off her shield, which flared with pink energy when she made contact with it, and she tumbled backwards across the balcony and slid into the stone railing on the far side. She got her hooves under her but didn’t stand up, shaking her head woozily.

“Did I hit a nerve?” Summer Dawn mocked. “You knew, didn’t you? You knew what your grandfather and mother did, and you didn’t say anything.” She gasped reflexively as an epiphany hit her, taking a step back in surprise, as if she startled herself with her own revelation. “That’s why you’re here,” she realized with a surprised look at her. “That’s the real reason you’re here! You need a boogey pony to distract the other thestrals from your mother’s scheme, so you’re going after Star to conceal the fact that your mother and grandfather conspired to pass down the throne. You need a villain to unite the thestrals behind your mother, and there’s no bigger villain in thestral folklore than a Lykan. You want to parade Star’s head all over the kingdom to show the thestrals how your mother saved the Nightlands from the evil Lykan, so they don’t think too much about how she came to sit on the throne. And if you fail, then you’ll have a war with Equestria to serve as a backup, uniting the thestrals against a common enemy. Us. Either way, it lets your mother tighten her grip on the throne, either with the adulation of the thestrals for saving them from the biggest villain in your legends or with their patriotism.”

“Shut up!” she snapped from the floor, unsteadily getting back onto her hooves.

“So, that’s what this is all about?” she asked, almost disbelievingly. “You’re here to kill Starjumper, and you’re doing it to keep your mother from losing her throne. Admit it. Your mother gave you orders to kill Starjumper, no matter what it took, even if it started a war with Equestria. Didn’t she?” When the thestral said nothing, just glared murderously at her, Summer Dawn raised her head and took on a calm expression. “She did. Did she tell you her whole plan, too? Did you come here to kill Star in cold blood, knowing it was all about your mother keeping her throne? Were you going to kill an innocent pony just to keep your title, Moonblade?” she asked in a powerful voice.

Princess Twilight suddenly landed heavily on the balcony, her descent and landing so strong that a gust of wind pushed the snow away from her hooves when they hit the stone. “Is this how you honor your word, Moonblade?” she snapped. “Sneaking off the moment I’m busy preparing the raise the sun? I guess from here out, I’ll have a full detachment of the Royal Guard escort you everywhere you go!” She looked over at Summer Dawn, her eyes narrowing slightly when she saw the shield. “Did you attack one of my subjects, Moonblade?” she asked in a dangerous voice.

“It wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle, your Highness,” Summer Dawn said confidently. “I got a little too close to the truth for her to accept. I know why she’s here in Equestria. I know what she’s doing.”

“Shut up!” Moonblade snapped, jerking her wings out. “You’re wrong!”

“Summer, come to the palace. Wait for me in the throne room while I take Moonblade here back to her room. And lock her inside,” Princess Twilight said hotly. “We’ll talk about what happened here after I raise the sun.”

“No! You won’t get away with your insults, unicorn!” Moonblade said in a vicious voice, her lips snarled back to expose her fangs, some kind of primal threat display. “You insulted my mother, my family, my kingdom, and my entire race!”

“I told the truth,” Summer Dawn shot back. “And only a pony of weak character can be insulted by the truth! That’s why it makes you so mad, because you know I know! Admit it!”

Moonblade hissed at her, a sound that sounded almost un-pony.

“What is going on, Summer Dawn?” the Princess asked.

She looked up at the alicorn unblinkingly. “Move Starjumper, Princess. Get him completely out of Canterlot, then put him someplace that a thestral can’t possibly hope to get to him, and keep him there until you’re absolutely sure that Moonblade and her guards are completely out of Equestria. If you don’t keep your eyes on them, they’ll just turn around and come back,” she said. “Moonblade was sent here to kill him. It’s the only reason she’s here. The only reason she didn’t do it that first day was because she honestly wasn’t expecting to catch him out in the open like that, and she knew what would happen to her mother if she broke the treaty. She didn’t have a chance to void the treaty before you got there. Now she’s trying to find Star, and she won’t make that mistake again. The instant she knows where he is, she’ll void the treaty on the spot and try to kill him before you can stop her.”

Moonblade looked almost ready to lunge across the balcony again, her legs trembling and her eyes almost glowing with pure rage.

“And how do you know this, Summer Dawn?”

“The way she reacted when I brought up how her mother took the throne from her father,” she answered. “The thestrals suspect that her grandfather and mother cheated the system, I overheard Starjumper’s mother tell him that when she came to visit him. She heard about it in a letter she got from somepony in the Nightlands. The thestrals openly suspect that the Night Queen took the throne by cheating, and her mother sees that as a direct threat to her rule. But she can’t respond to it by throwing ponies in the dungeon or anything, it would just make her look like a tyrant and steel the thestrals against her that much more. So, she sent Moonblade to kill Starjumper so the thestrals back in the Nightlands would heap praise on her mother for saving them from the Lykan, making them forget how she took the throne by making her look like she deserves to sit on it. And if the plot to kill Star fails, then the war it would spark between the Nightlands and Equestria would serve the same purpose. The thestrals would be too busy fighting against Equestria to question the validity of the Night Queen’s rule. Either way, it distracts the thestrals from the truth and consolidates her mother’s grip on the throne.”

Princess Twilight gave her a long look, then her eyes just seemed to light up, and she gave her a look of, of pride. “Summer Dawn, you are an absolute treasure,” she said. “I suspected Moonblade was here to kill Starjumper, but I could not figure out what her motive was. I couldn’t see why she would be here to do it, given what kind of a precarious position it would put the Nightlands in. It just didn’t make sense. But I didn’t know about how the thestrals suspected that the Night Queen cheated to take the throne. That puts everything together! You’re as smart as you are talented!”

She blushed modestly. “It was nothing,” she said demurely.

“You’re lying! My mother would never do such a thing!” Moonblade screamed, almost hysterically.

“You didn’t know,” Summer Dawn gasped, giving her a surprised look. “You didn’t know that your mother is using you!”

“My mother is the Night Queen!” she absolutely thundered “And I am her loyal Moonblade!” She turned and lunged over the rail, her wings unfurling, and she flew towards the palace, her body melting into the late night.

“Moonblade! Stop!” Princess Twilight shouted, then glanced at Summer Dawn. “Come to the palace. I need to stop that thestral before she does something crazy.”

“I’ll be there after I warn Star,” she said quickly. “I’m going to tell him to go somewhere, Princess, somewhere not Canterlot.”

“Spike,” she said quickly. “Send him to Spike! Do you know where I’m talking about?”

“I know,” she nodded.

“Tell him to go there, and don’t tell anypony else!”

“I will! Thank you, your Highness!” she said as she closed the balcony doors with her magic, then rose up off the floor by her magic. “I’ll make sure Star leaves as soon as you raise the sun. And I’ll be at the palace as soon as I can!”

“Be careful!” she warned, then her horn surged and she vanished in a circular burst of purple magic.

She so needed to learn that spell!

She floated over the buildings of Canterlot in the icy pre-dawn, her mind racing. She couldn’t believe that she figured all that out, but it made sense! Everything fit together perfectly, it explained why Moonblade was here, explained why they did what they did, it explained everything. She was absolutely sure she was right, so sure that she was breaking Starjumper’s orders to warn him. He had to get out of Canterlot, and he had to do it right now. He wasn’t safe anywhere in this city so long as Moonblade was here, because she was here for the sole purpose of killing him. The Princess had ordered her to tell him to go to Ponyville, to her palace there, where Spike was taking care of it while Princess Twilight was standing in for Princess Celestia. She’d met the little dragon on their trip there, he’d conducted the tour of the Castle of Friendship, and she thought he was very nice.

In the distance, she heard a horn blow, then several bright magical lights began to glow along the tops of the towers of the Royal Palace, lighting up that whole side of the city. Princess Twilight must have gotten back and warned the Royal Guard and Princess Starlight, so they were no doubt locking the Night Blades in their rooms and hunting down Moonblade. There was no doubt in Summer Dawn’s mind she went back to get her armor, to get that spell dampener, the only defense she’d have against the Princesses if they tried to stop her with magic. If Princess Twilight was lucky, she intercepted Moonblade after she returned to the palace but before she got back to her room. She floated above the Promenade and saw townsponies looking out of their doors and windows in the pre-dawn, looking towards the palace and no doubt wondering what was going on.

It happened so quickly she had no idea what was going on. One second she was hurrying towards the apartment as fast as her magic would safely carry her, the next she was laying on a rooftop, her mind swimming in a haze of pain and confusion as a dark shape loomed over her. She couldn’t think, she couldn’t focus, could only feel icy pain on her back and side, then a cold flash and all the breath blasted out of her lungs. “Where is he!” she heard a voice scream, a voice that some part of her swimming brain told her she should recognize. “Tell me! Tell me now!”

Her eyes started working enough for her to focus on a dark shape looming over her, a mare with a dark blue coat and leathery wings. Baleful yellow eyes glared down at her, and bared fangs flashed in the last of the moonlight. It was…somepony? Was she supposed to know who she was? She was. This pony was known to her…but who? Why was this pony standing over her? And why did she hurt? She gasped and struggled feebly when her hoof pressed down on her neck, cutting off her air. She tried to wrest the hoof away, but her front hooves didn’t seem to want to work right, all they did was jerk spasmodically. “Phaugh, I hit you too hard!” she head the mare snap, the hoof pulling away. She took in a ragged, deep breath, tried to roll onto her hooves, but her body didn’t seem to want to do what her brain told it to do. Her back leg was twitching violently, and her tail thrashed like a dying snake. There was a strange sound, like a horn, loud enough to shake through the wool clouding her awareness.

The mare vanished in a dark blur. There was a strange sound, she didn’t know what it was, then another face took her place in her swimming vision. It was another face with yellow eyes, another face she knew but couldn’t recognize, but…but this face calmed her. The face leaned down, and then everything around her began to rush by, and she could feel cold air biting against her back. Who was it? Why was the world moving? Why was her back cold?

She blinked as the cold lanced some awareness back into her. She was…she was in the air. She was flying. How was she flying? She turned her head weakly and saw the neck and underside of the chin of a stallion, a stallion with a dark gray coat and nearly black mane cropped short. A hint of a yellow eye peeked around his cheek as he glanced towards her.

It was…it was Starjumper!

Flying…he was a thestral! She lolled her head back and saw the thestral mare chasing them, a look of rage twisted across her face. The city of Canterlot raced by under them as Starjumper’s large, leathery wings worked against the biting air, the rooosh rooosh roosh sound of them beating against the cold winter air vibrating in her ears as they kept them aloft. The mare…she was gaining on them. Starjumper was carrying her, he was weighed down and she wasn’t.

“St-Star,” she said woozily. “What happened?”

“You’ll have to tell me,” he answered, his voice tight and controlled. She felt her body whip to the side as they turned hard, felt pain where his front legs were gripping her, and another thestral shot by her vision. This one was wearing that black armor, and the glint of the moonlight off one of the blades over his wings made her realize what just happened.

That thestral…he tried to kill them!

“They’ve cut me off from the palace,” he said in a focused voice, and she felt herself being whipped to the side again when he turned hard. She heard the sound of hooves hitting metal, and there was a cry of pain. Something hot hit her face, making her flinch, and the movement of her head showed her another of those armored thestrals tumbling towards the city below, out of control. He hit the roof of a rowhouse and smashed through the tiles, vanishing into the darkness below as if the rowhouse ate him. “I can’t put you down gently,” he warned as her stomach rose into her throat. They were falling towards the ground! “Get ready!”

He pulled up just before he hit the ground, and she found the ground and sky trading places wildly. He’d let her go as he pulled up, and she was tumbling across the cobblestones of the street! She slid to a stop in a snow bank, plowing deeply into it, and the sudden wet cold all around her snapped her out of her daze. She staggered to her hooves and jerked forward, getting out of the snow, shaking her head violently. She felt several aches and pains, scrapes and bruises from him sliding her across the street like a bowling ball, but it was of no moment. She looked up quickly to see five thestrals chasing him, four of them wearing armor and the fifth Moonblade, while three more flew parallel to them, keeping themselves between him and the Royal Palace. That was the only safe place he could go, and they were doing everything they could to keep him from reaching it.

Why was he outside? Did they find him? Did they force him out of his apartment? She gasped when one of the armored thestrals turned away and then swerved towards him, and Starjumper twisted just enough to avoid the extended blade attached to his wing…but not completely. Even from there, she could see a line of blood fly away from the blade as the tip of it slashed across his side and left flank, cutting through his cutie mark.

They were hurting him!

A sudden fury roared up into her, and it seemed to stop time. Everything seemed to slow down as her fury focused her mind like a razor’s edge, as she saw the six thestrals weaving through the air above her like they were in slow motion, like paper puppets hanging from strings stretching into the sky. She had to do something…she could do something! She knew what to do! Her horn blazed with magic, and the snow bank behind her was enshrouded by her magic and lifted up, packed, condensed into a huge ball of heavy snow. She remembered what Starjumper said. She remembered! She watched the figures above move, weave, shift and turn, and found her opening. She rose up off her front hooves, then slammed them down to the street with a cry of effort, and the giant snowball rocketed up towards the thestrals. It seemingly thundered straight at Starjumper, his head turned away so he didn’t see it coming, but he turned out of its path just as she predicted, and three of the thestrals chasing him turned right into it.

The massive snowball slashed through the six thestrals, and when it hurtled away, two of the thestrals chasing Starjumper went with it. The third had seen it coming at the last second and managed to dive out of the way, but the move made him fall back away from Starjumper, made him lose speed and lose position, forcing him to turn and try to catch up as the others surged ahead. Her magic surrounded her and lifted her up, then she looked down and pulled up a table from a nearby sidewalk café with her, rising up towards them. She used her magic to go as fast as she could, but she was nowhere near fast as the thestrals she chased. She winced and gave a cry of compassion when she saw Starjumper get hurt again, a thestral’s blade slashing across his front leg. The thestral paid for it when Starjumper got a hoof on him and yanked, clinging to him and pulling him out of his path, then he swerved upwards, turned and flipped over, and then planted both his back hooves in the back of the thestral’s helmeted head with a devastating kick, knocking him down towards the ground with his helmet flying off his head. The thestral spun towards the ground, clearly out cold, then hit the roof of a boutique, bounced off and out over the street, then crashed through the second story window of the building opposite.

Summer Dawn didn’t give the last two a chance to press as Star banked away, blood flowing from several wounds, She brought the table around, then launched it at the last armored thestral. He saw it coming and swerved out of its path, but it made him lose speed as Starjumper pulled away with Moonblade right on his tail. The armored thestral looked in her direction, then he turned towards her, his face twisted up in a fang-baring snarl.

All she could see was the edges of those blades on his wings as they came right for her throat. Her eyes widened and she lost her focus, but then Starjumper came out of nowhere and crashed into the thestral, driving him to the side, and the two of them flashed by her. She saw Moonblade coming right at her, but she had the presence of mind to realize that she didn’t have her armor, and that meant she had no spell dampener. A spherical shield shimmered into existence around her, but Moonblade ignored her, went right by her as she chased after Starjumper.

Where were the guards? Where were the Princesses? Why weren’t they helping? Starjumper was outnumbered and he was injured!

Starjumper banked back around, but the two thestrals she’d hit with the snowball came up over a building, and she screamed when both of them crashed into him with their wingblades leading. Star tumbled out of the air, blood flying from a wound in his shoulder and one of his wings fluttering like a flag on a windy day, clearly badly broken. He crashed into the Promenade and tumbled across the snow-covered stones, then slid to a stop in an intersection. He wasn’t moving.

He wasn’t moving!

The thestrals dove at him, but Summer Dawn was closer. She landed literally standing over him, his body between her front and back hooves, and she channeled all her magic, all her strength, and formed a shimmering globe of magical energy around them.

The four remaining thestrals landed in each direction, blocking any path of retreat, with Moonblade right in front of her. “Stand aside,” she ordered.

“No!” Summer Dawn shouted.

“Foolish filly, stand aside or you’ll share his fate! That shield won’t stop us!”

“This isn’t a shield!” she screamed, then she closed her eyes tightly against what was coming and unleashed her spell. The energy around her wasn’t as shield, it was a light spell formed into a shield’s spell matrix, the practice spell that Starjumper taught her so she could create mathematically correct arcs. And since she charged so much energy into the spell and then released it all at once, the shield suddenly blazed brighter than a hundred suns, searing away the dark pre-dawn, shattering the shadows, and that incandescent light burned into the eyes of the night-sighted thestrals like the hottest fire ever. The four thestrals cried out in pain as they flinched violently against that nova of overwhelming light, and when Summer Dawn opened her eyes, brilliant spots dancing in her vision from the effects of her own spell, she saw Moonblade staggering around, a hoof over her eyes.

She remembered what Starjumper said about spell dampeners, that they only stopped active magic that made direct contact with them. They did nothing to stop the effects of magic!

While the thestrals were blinded and stunned, she picked up Starjumper’s body with her magic, then turned and galloped down the Promenade. She could run faster than she could float, and right now getting as far away from those thestrals as possible before they recovered was what mattered. It was hard to see her destination through the spots swimming in her vision, but she could make out the spires of the Royal Palace enough to run towards them, going as fast as she could go while carrying her friend’s wounded, bleeding body, keeping the indistinct, shadowy shapes of the buildings to the sides of her spotty vision. The stones of the street. Listen to the stones under her hooves. The sidewalks had a different sound, if she heard a change in the sound of her hooves on the stone, she was drifting too far from the middle of the Promenade.

A shadowy shape streaked through her light-blinded vision, and—

Nothing.

The impact with the ground tore him out of unthinking darkness.

He had no idea where he was. He had no idea what happened. He became aware again when he hit the ground heavily, as a white-hot lance of pain ripped through his left side as he rolled over his broken wing. That shocked him back to consciousness, and he was only dimly aware that he was rolling across the snow-dappled street when he slid to a stop.

He opened his eyes, his vision blurry but quickly focusing. He was laying on the Promenade not far from the grand plaza, and a movement to his right pulled his attention. He saw Summer Dawn in the air, her body flipping violently from something, then she went over the low fence of the Corner Café and crashed into one of the tables, snapping the umbrella off and then crashing through the window behind it. The sound of shattering glass masked the sound of her hitting the floor inside, and he saw her slide through two tables and come to a stop, unmoving.

Her blood was on the cobblestones in front of him.

Struggling to his hooves, he became aware of what happened to her. The three thestrals that had been blocking him from the palace were landing around him, surrounding him, and a fourth, the one that had hit Summer Dawn, was circling around to land as well.

He was in much worse shape. His front left and back right legs were injured, his front leg couldn’t support his weight at all, his left wing was hanging by his side and he couldn’t feel anything from it, and he could feel the deceptive warmth of blood flowing from several wounds. But was most concerning was the fact that every exhale also expelled blood in addition to air, a thin but steady stream that flowed out of his mouth and flowed down his neck, dripped from his chin to the snowy street below. It was also getting harder and harder to breathe, as if something was wrapped around his chest and was tightening with every breath. He was badly injured inside, probably from whatever had broken his wing, and he didn’t have much time before the bleeding inside compressed his lungs and suffocated him, or he drowned in his own blood. Neither was very appealing.

He knew he was already dead. The wounds he’d suffered were fatal, his body just hadn’t accepted it yet.

So, this was it, he reasoned to himself as he staggered to the side, keeping an eye on the thestral behind him. He was outnumbered, he was mortally wounded, and he was surrounded. This was it. This was the honor of the thestrals, voiding the treaty and attacking Summer Dawn to draw him out, then attacking him eight against one. They had no interest in a fight. All they wanted was a slaughter.

Cowards.

At least there was one thestral on that street. Baring his bloodstained fangs, narrowing his eyes, he squared off against the pony in front of him, one of Starlight’s Royal Guard no less, still wearing his EUP armor. Starjumper knew that he was going to die. That was a fact, and he could accept it. What mattered now was taking the one that caused all this with him beyond the gray veil before it happened.

Moonblade.

His only regret that was Summer Dawn had paid in the worst way because of him. She may be dying in that café, she may already be dead, and there was nothing he could do about it. He had brought terrible pain and harm to the only friend he had, and all because of what he was.

It had been a mistake. He should have never told her the truth. His childish need for a friend may have gotten her killed.

And it had also killed him.

The four of them held their positions for a short moment, long enough for Moonblade to land on the street behind the Royal Guard. Her eyes were flat, her expression almost zealous in its determination. “It’s over, Lykan,” she stated, advancing up in front of the Royal Guard.

“Then come and get me, coward,” he answered. He coughed violently, and that made him stagger, but he recovered himself, spitting out more blood. He looked past Moonblade, past the traitor guard, and saw the moon set.

He’d lost track of time. If the moon was setting, then—

He gave a low, nearly uncaring laugh, dark with irony and wet with blood as it dribbled from his mouth and to the street below. “This is where it ends, Moonblade,” he said, standing fully erect and spreading out his right wing, preparing. “The Gray Mare comes for both of us.”

The thestral gave him a strange look, then turned and looked behind herself. He heard her gasp, whipping her head around. “Kill him now!” she screamed, almost in a frenzy, then she lunged forward.

It was too late. Behind the mountain, the sun crested the horizon, and the instant it did, Starjumper felt its light burn through all, burn into his soul. His wings, both broken and unbroken, shuddered and turned black, smoke hissing from them, and then they crumbled into ash. The tufts on his ears burned away as a bulge rose in his forehead, above and between his eyes, then his blood-smeared horn tore through skin and flesh, twisting as it grew to form that distinctive spiral, growing out to its full length in the flutter of a heartbeat.

And before it had even fully finished growing, Starjumper connected with the core of his unicorn heritage, calling forth the magic. And it responded. His shivering horn blazed with golden light as blood slid down his muzzle to join the line coming from the corner of his mouth, coming out of his mouth in a steady stream, then the magic around his horn turned into fire. Snapping his head up to its full erect position, holding his lamed front leg off the street, the fire burning on his horn exploded outward in a rapidly expanding ring of intense flame. Moonblade screamed and snapped her wings, vaulting her up into the air, but the expanding ring of flame struck the bound tip of her long tail and set fire to it. The Royal Guard, however, didn’t react in time, and he screamed in terror and turned away to shield his face as the ring of fire enveloped him, then he collapsed to the ground, writhing in agony as smoke and steam wafted up from his flash-heated armor as the snow on the street cooled the metal, melting and evaporating the snow. The umbrellas and wooden segments of the buildings abutting the intersection burst into flames as the ring of fire splashed against them.

The other guards, protected by their dampeners, charged towards him with their wingblades ready to plunge into him, their wings pulled forward, but he ignored them as they galloped at him. He turned his head to track Moonblade, his horn still blazing with magic, and then a bolt of pure magical energy raged from it, blasted across the distance separating them, then struck her fully in the chest. She was slammed backwards by that massive force, was driven across the street, then was bashed into the side of the building, where she rebounded off of it with glazed eyes and collapsed to the street. He started hobbling towards her slowly, implacably, as the thestrals behind and to the sides of him charged closer and closer. All three lunged at him almost in unison, each of them so intent on him that they didn’t realize that the others were coming.

A split second before the first tip of a wingblade touched him, Starjumper disappeared in a circular burst of shimmering golden energy.

The three thestrals collided with each other, one screamed as a wingblade drove into his shoulder, and they crashed to the street in a tumble of kicking legs and thrashing wings. One of them, looking up, screamed in sudden fear when there was a large burst of golden light over their heads, then a stone park bench appeared in the air over them, gravity asserted itself, and it smashed all three of them as it impacted, the bench cracking into pieces from the force of the impact. The three thestrals laid in that heap, groaning and feebly trying to get free of each other through the pain of broken bones.

Four more thestrals, two Night Blades and two Royal Guards, landed in front of him, cutting him off from his quarry. The two Royal Guards vanished in simultaneous circular bursts of golden magic as he teleported them onto the grounds of the Royal Palace, then he unleashed another pure blast of magic at the cobblestones in front of the two Night Blades. Shards of stone blew out from the impact, flying right into the faces of the two, causing them to cry out and stagger back as they flinched to protect their eyes and faces from the shower of cutting, piercing shrapnel. That kept them motionless and distracted long enough for him to deal with them. He teleported a large volume of water around their legs, and before the water could even splash out to the ground, his magic captured it and twisted it into a shape, pulling it up around the thestrals to form a solid dome of water nearly half a foot thick. A pale blue beam lanced from his horn and struck it as he held it in place, and it froze the entire volume of water solid almost instantly, trapping them inside. The two of them hammered their armored hooves against the ice wall of their frozen cell as Starjumper vanished from in front of them and reappeared standing over Moonblade. She looked up at him owlishly, then her eyes seemed to focus.

“I’m already dead,” he said, blood dripping from his mouth as it bubbled out of him with every exhale, feeling the icy cold starting to spread through him as the injuries nopony could see began to take their toll “But I have enough time to make sure you go with me. Let’s see what’s beyond the gray veil together,” he said in a savage hiss, his horn flaring with golden light and yanking her up off the ground, then pushing her up against the wall behind her. He reared up on his back legs, nearly falling to the side when his injured leg almost buckled under him, but he managed to get his good foreleg hoof on the wall by her and lean in, pressing his broken chest against hers and getting almost nose to nose with her. “The Gray Mare comes,” he said in Thestralla, his voice a gurgling hiss as gray haze started to dim his vision. But he had enough presence of mind to reach back behind him with his magic, pulling one of the wingblades free of the unconscious thestral laying amid the ruins of the shattered bench, then he turned it and launched it right at his own unprotected back.

There was no pain. He barely registered it when the blade struck him, impaled him. It was nearly a relief as the blood building up inside him, compressing his lungs, suddenly had somewhere to go, and that let him take a final unimpeded breath. But the sudden widening of Moonblade’s eyes and the opening of her mouth, a single barely audible sound coming from her, told him that it had gone completely through him and driven into her chest. She felt the same icy cold he did, heard the hoofsteps of the Gray Mare as she came for both of them.

The gray haze took his vision. It drained all sound from the world, all sensation leaving him, and then it took his consciousness.

Slumping to the side, the bloodstained wingblade rasping as it scraped against bone as it pulled out of Moonblade’s chest, Starjumper collapsed to the street, falling into snow stained with blood. Moonblade stayed up on her back hooves, leaning against the wall behind her as her lifeblood poured from the hole in her chest, then her legs gave and she slumped down to her rump. She gave a single sigh, almost a sigh of relief, and then she slumped to the side and fell to the snow-covered stone.

“Dear Celestia!” Princess Twilight gasped as she landed in the intersection, looking in a bit of horror at the blade completely through Starjumper’s body. She’d seen what he did, seen him use his magic to drive the blade into his own back. Why? Why would he do such a thing? Why would he kill himself that way? She galloped up to them and slid to a stop, saw that both Starjumper and Moonblade were still breathing, but even she could tell that they had moments only, maybe even mere seconds, before it was over.

This was not how this was supposed to happen! Celestia told her to hold back long enough for Starjumper and Moonblade to connect, for her to fulfill her destiny as the Dusk Violet and join with him to form the Trinity, but not this! Not like this! Starjumper hadn’t joined with her as the prophecy predicted, he’d very nearly killed her! And in so doing, he’d killed himself!

Could they have been wrong? Could Starjumper not be the Child of Sun and Moon? Could Summer Dawn not be the Morning Rose? And if that was true, then weren’t the two lives ending before her eyes her responsibility?

The shame was almost crushing, but there would be time for blaming herself later. Right now, Starjumper and Moonblade were dying, they only had heartbeats left, if she did not act swiftly. She took a single step back and her horn erupted with intense, brilliant magic, a shimmering purple globe over the tip that expanded, then she lowered her head and released her spell. A dome of magical energy formed over the two of them, and within that dome of magic, time stopped. Both of them were trapped between the ticks of the clock, suspended in a single instant in time in which they were both still alive.

“Starlight!” she called, her voice tight and emotional. Her friend advanced up and gave the dome a single look.

“Did you get it up in time?”

“Yes,” she said. “Can you get everything ready? When the spell comes down, they may not have more than a few seconds.”

“That’s more than enough,” she said confidently. “I’ll bring both the potions. We may need them.”

She nodded, silently praying that Zecora’s potion brewing skills were still unmatched in Equestria. The two potions in the palace vault were the most rare and most powerful she had ever produced, potions that would cause rapid magical healing when applied to a wounded pony. They wouldn’t heal the two ponies before her completely, but they would heal them enough to save their lives.

“Your Highness, over here!” one of her guards called as Starlight vanished in a circular burst of blue magic. Twilight trotted over to the guard, then saw two other guards tending a pony inside a diner. A glimpse of a white coat and pink hair made her gasp, then she teleported directly into the diner and beside the two pegasi.

It was Summer Dawn!

She was unconscious, one of her forelegs was twisted at an unnatural angle, and she was bleeding from a deep cut in her temple, staining her long pink mane. How did she get tangled up in this? She’d told the mare to report to the palace!

“Ohhhh, no,” she said in both fear and dismay. The thestrals had attacked and injured an Equestrian citizen in their attempt to kill Starjumper. That meant that this wasn’t just about the treaty anymore.

As the current ruler of Equestria, she had no choice. She couldn’t allow this to go unanswered.

“Get her to the hospital,” she ordered her guard. “Make sure to use a stretcher, we don’t know how badly she’s hurt.”

“At once, your Highness,” the guard answered.

She supervised as the pegasus guards carefully and gently loaded Summer Dawn onto a stretcher, then they flew off with her, heading for the hospital on the other side of town. She then went back to the dome of stopped time and looked through it, taking in the brutal scene, then sighed and looked to the side when the captain of the guard, Flash Sentry, landed beside her. “Did you arrest the thestral detachment?” she asked.

“Yes, your Highness,” he answered, his voice almost vibrating with outrage. “A couple of them are going to be in the hospital for a while, though.”

She blew out her breath. “The ones that didn’t take part in the attack are banished from Equestria, Flash,” she ordered. “I want you to make sure they’re on the next boat to the eastern kingdoms that leaves from Manehattan.”

“And the ones that did?”

“They’ll stand trial for attempted murder,” she answered, looking at the blade impaled through Starjumper’s body, which he had done to himself in some insane attempt to kill Moonblade. She couldn’t fathom any scenario where he’d have to do that, not with the kind of magic he was capable of using. If he wanted to kill Moonblade, he could have done it with a single spell. He could have killed them all for that matter, and done it easily, which showed that he’d shown tremendous restraint and mercy in sparing the other thestrals. All it would have taken was teleporting a giant boulder on top of them instead of what looked like a bench from the Overlook Park, something that would have crushed them flat instead of merely breaking a few bones.

That meant that he did it on purpose, he impaled that blade through his back with the full intent of dying along with her.

But…why?

She blinked. Was this what the prophecy foresaw? Was Starjumper’s suicidal act the catalyst that would somehow bring Moonblade over to his side? After all, she was a thestral. She was from a very different culture than Equestria, a much more martial society were bravery and courage were honored and revered. To a thestral, Starjumper’s willingness to kill himself to take his enemy with him would be seen as…heroic.

It made her shiver. Would she ever have the courage to do something like that to herself? Would she be willing to make that kind of a sacrifice? Or was it a simple act of complete madness?

Then there was Moonblade herself. Twilight had no doubt that this attack was spurred on by Summer Dawn’s accusation. She’d heard it in Moonblade’s voice just before she flew off, she was certain that it had struck Moonblade to the core, had threatened to shake her entire world down. Summer Dawn’s logic was powerful, and something in it had resonated within Moonblade even as she raged against it. Somewhere, deep inside, Twilight suspected, Moonblade knew that Summer Dawn was right. She knew that her grandfather and mother had conspired to circumvent thestral law and tradition, the other thestrals saw through it as the flimsy charade it was, and her mission here was to kill Starjumper to consolidate her mother’s hold on the throne by giving the thestrals of the Nightlands something to rally around, a great victory for the new Night Queen to prove to her subjects that she was legitimate. And while Moonblade was a patriot to her kingdom, she was also loyal to her mother, and those two duties had torn her apart when they came into direct conflict with each other.

Summer Dawn…she must have attacked Summer Dawn to lure Starjumper out, and it had worked. She was the only thing in Canterlot he would fight to protect. Moonblade must have realized that, and used the young unicorn to draw Starjumper out of hiding.

Still, to see it locked in time that way, to see two ponies on death’s door, to see death frozen in time…it was no doubt going to give her nightmares. She was certain that Luna was going to be visiting her dreams tonight to bring quiet and peace to her troubled mind.

“Twilight?” Flash asked in concern.

“I’m fine,” she replied, shaking her head a little bit. “I’m just…I’m fine.”

He raised a foreleg and patted her on the shoulder gently. “I know how you feel,” he said with compassion. “You realize that the townsponies saw what happened here. It’s going to get out.” He looked up and to the side, and she followed his gaze to see several unicorns looking down from the upstairs windows over the diner, where the proprietor and her family lived. No doubt, they had seen everything. And Canterlot being Canterlot, no doubt everypony in town would know everything by lunchtime.

“I’ll think of something,” she said, not very confidently.

Starlight appeared in a circular burst of blue magic, with two narrow, tall crystal vials floating in her magic behind and to the left of her head. “I have both of them, Twi,” she called as she stepped over. “Do you want to apply them?”

“You’re better with time magic than me, Starlight, you apply the potions.”

“Alright. I’ll deal with the blade first.”

“No, we have to leave it where it is,” Twilight warned. “The potion isn’t instant, Starlight. The blade’s the only thing that will keep him from bleeding to death before the potion can take effect.”

“Alright,” she said, advancing up. She took one of the potions and slowly lowered it into the dome of stopped time, using her magic to allow the vial to move within the field. She then poured the thick, viscous clear liquid within the vial on Starjumper’s visible wounds, using her magic to spread it out over them. The liquid was locked in time like the rest of him, unable to take effect, but Starlight showed her mastery of time magic by allowing the liquid to be moved, not frozen in time, even while the liquid’s magical effect was. She smeared the liquid over several wounds, then used her magic to funnel the liquid into the ghastly wound around the blade sticking out of his back, coating the blade itself with the powerful healing potion. She ended up emptying the entire vial on Starjumper, which represented a staggering cost of both materials and time—it had taken Zecora six months to make that potion!—then she opened the second vial and carefully lowered it into the dome of stopped time. She applied only a small amount to Moonblade’s chest, the wound caused by the wingblade impaled through Starjumper’s body, making sure to inject the thick liquid into the deep wound, not merely to cover over the surface.

“Alright, it’s done,” Starlight announced as she removed the vial from the dome. “Are you ready?”

She nodded. “Starlight, hold Starjumper down with your magic, he’s going to convulse. When we see the wounds start to heal, that’s when I’ll pull out the blade.”

“Got it,” she nodded, her horn limning over with blue energy. Inside the dome, the stallion’s body was surrounded by an soft blue aura, the color of Starlight’s magic. “Ready.”

“In one. Two. Three!”

The dome shimmered and vanished, and time was restored. Starjumper shuddered within Starlight’s magic as the potion started to take effect, and Moonblade took a deep, gasping breath and tried to sit up with almost shocking speed, her eyes as wide open as they could possibly go and her lips pulling back tightly, baring her fangs, as she grimaced. Twilight wasn’t paying as much attention to her as to Starjumper, and when she saw the ugly wound on his left shoulder start to close, she wrapped her magic around the end of the blade stuck out of his back, took a deep bracing breath, then yanked it out. She pulled it straight back quickly and steadily, and his body shuddered again when the blade was pulled free of him. Blood spurted from both wounds when the blade was removed, then the wounds in his skin and coat began to seal over as the potion did its work. His shuddering and jerking within her magic eased, then he gave a sigh and relaxed, soothed by the healing effect of the potion that was doing its work. Moonblade too flopped back onto the snow and seemed to give a long sigh, her body relaxing, but her eyes were open and she was looking up at the two Princesses with confusion in her eyes.

“Are you proud of yourself, Moonblade?” Twilight asked strongly, looking down at her. “Do you have any idea what you’ve just done? Do you have any idea how much damage you’ve done to both Equestria and the Nightlands?”

“My name…is Moonshade,” was all she said, barely a whisper, then she closed her eyes as tears spread across her closed eyelids.

It was known as the Cathedral of Eternal Night.

For over a thousand years, the black stone fortress had set at the peak of Claw Mountain, the highest peak of the Nightlands, a peak so high the snow piled against the outer walls of the large fortress did not melt in the summer. It was a place of thin air and ever-present cold, but given it rested at the top of a nearly unclimbable mountain made it the most defensible place in the kingdom. It was a place where the sunlight did not reach, swallowed up by the powerful magic of the Night Stone that turned the fortress and the peak around it into a realm of dark shadows, too dark for non-thestrals to see easily. And there was no other place that the thestrals would keep their most treasured relic.

Over three hundred rulers had sat upon the Black Throne in the cavernous throne room of the Cathedral over the centuries the fortress had stood, a long and proud line of kings and queens that had taken the throne by strength and ruled with guile and cunning to keep it. And its current occupant sat upon it with an eager smile as she heard from her Keeper of Secrets, the master of spies and collector of information critical for any kingdom to know. Whisperwing ruffled her wings a bit to fan her back, given that the throne room was usually almost stuffily warm due to the four large fireplaces that had fires burning in them almost ceaselessly to ward off the chill of the thin air. “You’re sure of it, Keeper?” she asked.

“Certain, my Queen. The treaty has been voided,” he answered. “That means that Moonblade must have found and killed the Lykan. I’ll have confirmation of that in three or four days, depending on how quickly my messenger can get here. But there’s no doubt that the treaty has been voided. The copy of it we have burst into flame and burned to ash about an hour ago.”

“Excellent,” she said with a barely contained grin. Finally, that threat was taken off her head! “That means that the safety of the Night Stone is assured.” When the Keeper gave her a long, steady look, she chuckled. “Come now, Keeper, we must keep up appearances,” she said lightly.

“I prefer dealing in truths when we stand in this room, your Majesty,” he said calmly. “With the treaty voided, the Equestrian Princess has two options. Send a diplomat to negotiate a new treaty, or consider the voiding of the treaty an act of war and respond accordingly.”

“The Equestrians? That’s the last thing they’ll ever do,” she scoffed. “All they care about is peace and friendship. I’m sure the Princess will storm around her throne room and whine for a few days, but she’ll eventually get over it and decide that it’s more important to be friends with us than be at war with us. Trust me, Keeper, we’ll see a delegation of pegasus ponies at our borders in about two weeks who will moan and bluster and complain about what we did, then leave with a new treaty that proclaims the grand friendship between the Nightlands and Equestria,” she said with mocking scorn. “Equestrian ponies are so easily manipulated.”

One of the Keeper’s thestrals rushed into the room. “Keeper, your Majesty, a message by magic from Equestria!” he said breathlessly. He set down a gem on the floor, and a shimmering illusory image of a purple-coated unicorn appeared in the air over it. It was Princess Twilight Sparkle.

“Night Queen Whisperwing, your delegation attacked and nearly killed Canterlot citizens in their failed attempt to assassinate Starjumper Astra,” she nearly sneered, her point of view slightly off from the throne due to the way the Keeper’s assistant had set down the crystal. It was more or less displaying a message that the Princess had sent by magic, nopony could interact with it, only listen to it. “Your delegation has been arrested and will stand trial for their crimes, including your daughter. The thestral detachment of the Royal Guard has been stripped of their positions and banished from Equestria. And as of this moment, Night Queen Whisperwing, Equestria officially severs all diplomatic ties with the Nightlands and enacts an embargo against all trade with your kingdom, and also with any kingdom that trades with yours.

“Effective immediately, all trade between Equestria and the eastern kingdoms has been suspended, and I’ll be sending magical messages to King Galfor and Chief Iron Quill to explain to them that the reason I’m cutting off their food is because of you. I will take no risk that Equestrian food ends up in your hooves, and that means I will not trade with any kingdom that trades with you.

“When your starving subjects rebel against you and force you from your throne, I will be happy to negotiate with your successor. But so long as you or any member of your family sits upon that throne, Whisperwing, Equestria will not negotiate and will not relent, even if it means your thestrals fall out of the sky from hunger and die on the mountainsides. You took that throne by conspiring with your father, and that means that every member of your family is now tainted by that deception in the eyes of Equestria.

“And I will tell you this right now. If the Equestrian citizens your thestrals injured in their attack on Starjumper die from those injuries, then I will answer this act of cowardice with far more than a trade embargo,” she said, her eyes narrow and her voice seething.

And the image dissolved away, leaving silence.

“Leave us,” the Keeper told his aide, who nodded and flew back down the passage from which he came. “Those were not Moonblade’s orders,” he said with a deep frown. “She was told to do nothing to inflame the situation more than what was absolutely necessary.”

“Either way, she did her job,” Whisperwing said with a dismissive little shrug. “She was there to void the treaty so we could move forward with our plan, and in that, she succeeded. Killing the Lycan was the deception to hide our true intent. Had Moonblade gone there just to void the treaty, it would have raised suspicion. But voiding it to attack the Lycan, that makes perfect sense from the Equestrian point of view,” she smiled malevolently. “But, it would have been a nice bonus.”

“And what of Moonblade?” he asked.

“What about her?” she asked with steady eyes. “She has served her purpose.”

“You will leave her to face Equestrian justice?”

“She has served her purpose,” she repeated with steady eyes.

“Very well,” the Keeper said evenly. “What reply do you wish me to send by messenger?”

“Give no reply,” she answered. “That whining little Princess does not deserve a reply.” She stepped down from her throne. “That will be all, Keeper. I need to confer with the generals over the possibility that the griffons and hippogryphs might invade. You are dismissed.”

“What of Equestria’s threat to invade?”

“They’re too cowardly to ever take military action, Keeper,” she replied easily. “And I said you are dismissed.”

He gave her a long, steady look, then bowed from his front hooves and trotted towards the same passage used by his aide. Whisperwing waited for the sound of his hooves to disappear into the distance, then she turned and went through a door behind the throne, through an anteroom, and down a long, unlit passage. It took her down into the depths of the Cathedral of Eternal Night, down into dark, dank, cold passages that were rarely traveled. She navigated those twisting passages with complete confidence, arriving at her destination.

The Chamber of the Heart.

She had to look at it as she entered. The Night Stone, hovering in midair over a black stone pedestal, slowly rotating in the air as a shimmer of black magical energy pulsated around it, a magic that throbbed and resonated in her very soul. The relic itself looked quite unremarkable, an irregular, vaguely disc-shaped piece of black volcanic stone with a large piece of obsidian at its center, the obsidian shimmering with powerful magic. It was the heart of the thestral race, the source of the magic that made them what they were.

And she also couldn’t help but look at the small, tapered piece of red crystal sitting on the pedestal under it, a thin trail of shadowy magic emanating from the Night Stone and undulating down to enter the crystal at its very tip. Behind the Night Stone stood her father, a pony who by thestral law no longer had a name. He had lost it when he lost to Whisperwing in the Challenge, and the rest of the Nightlands thought that he had been banished from the castle to live the rest of his life as a shamed beggar. They didn’t know that he was still in the castle, and that he was still an integral part of the grand plans that the two of them had for the Nightlands and the thestrals.

Plans of glory and riches, plans to conquer and rule. The thestrals were too proud, too noble to be pushed into this remote corner of the Misty Mountains, a realm where they didn’t even have enough farmland to feed themselves, and were forced to all but beg their neighbors for food. It was a humiliation that the thestrals had endured for centuries, and Whisperwing had had enough of it. No kingdom she ruled would beg. They would take what they needed, they would take what they wanted, whenever and wherever they pleased. And now they had the means by which they could claim the glory of their thestral birthright.

“How goes it, Father?” she asked.

“It progresses, daughter,” he answered, his voice damaged by the jagged scar that went across his throat. He had earned that scar taking the throne when he was a younger thestral, before she was born. “The crystal is absorbing magic faster now. I think that soon, it will awaken.” He gave a dark, torn laugh. “Finally, daughter, we have an answer to those cursed alicorns and their magic,” he spat. “Do you bring news?”

“The treaty has been voided,” she answered, “though Moonblade got a little too zealous in her attack on the Lycan. It seems she injured several Canterlot citizens. Princess Twilight looked quite miffed. It was an amusing spectacle.”

“Did she declare war?”

“She threatened to if those injured ponies die.”

“Then let us hope they expire with all due haste,” he said with a chilling smile. “What was her threat in the meantime?”

“A trade embargo against us and all who trade with us. And it seems that she won’t lift it until our family is out of this castle.”

“She does our work for us, daughter,” he said with a satisfied nod. “When will Moonshade return?”

“She won’t. She was captured by the Equestrians and they’re going to put her on trial,” she replied.

“Excellent. I do hate killing my grandchildren,” he said casually. “She lacks vision. She would have opposed us when she finds out our true objective. Such a disappointment,” he sighed. “But at least she served as a competent disposable asset. Is Blackblade ready to assume the post of Moonblade?”

“He’s already on his way here from our southern holding,” she answered.

“Then things go according to plan, daughter,” he said with a nod, looking down at the tapered, slightly curved red crystal, broken at its base yet able to sit upright on the pedestal and tapering up a point. He gave a dark, chilling smile as the slightly curved crystal absorbed the magic of the Night Stone.

A piece of crystal shaped like a slightly curved unicorn’s horn.

Comments

[The spooks]

A piece of crystal shaped like a slightly curved unicorn’s horn.

Ooooohhhhhh noooooooo....

[Alicon Glactistar]

Aww buck, I can't believe you've done this.

Now Starjumper's going to have to touch the rock.

[Darkest Night]

8658490

Nothing is ever that straightforward, you know. ;)

[Alicon Glactistar]

8658549 You're right, he's going to have to firmly grasp it and beat the horn with it.

[FireheartThePone]

Well. Then.

Is Discord about? I don't remember. If so, Equestria has nothing to fear.

Also, Sombra?!

[Flod]

Awwwwwww... Frick.

Loving it m8 i just want more!!

[Flod]

8634270
I had thought that Moonblade was the night queen there for a bit. It has been resolved now. xD