Chap. 2 - She Walks In Beauty
To Sleep, Perchance to Dream Chapter 2
--Georg (Editing by AlicornPriest)
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
She Walks in Beauty by George Gordon Byron
There was a look of benign contemplation on the face of the light-rose colored earth pony mare with the ruby-red mane who trotted through the halls of the Canterlot Castle, but beneath the calm expression there was a rolling turmoil of frantic panic. The news she was carrying was just awfully terrible horrible, some of the worst news she had ever had to deliver. The Princess was going to be so upset. And when the Princess was upset, everpony in the castle was upset. And if everypony in the castle was upset, ‘Things’ would not get done. Critical things, important things, it might even mean the Grand Galloping Gala just a few days away might...fail. A shudder rippled down her pristine pink flanks at the thought, making the bouquet of flowers on her flank seem to wave in an earthquake.
Briefly she stopped by a window and looked outside, hoping for the possibility of a chocolate-milk cloud in the distance that would signify the escape of Discord, or a giant flaming dragon descending from the sky to destroy the world. Anything that would possibly distract her from informing the Princess of the news. But the morning had dawned bright and clear, the sun shining in the sky unaccompanied by any strange clouds or flaming dragons, to her great disappointment. She quietly paused at the two guards outside the door to the private dining area the sisters used for their breakfasts, took a deep breath to calm herself, and went inside to meet her fate.
“Ah, Rosalie. How did you find my sister this morning? Overslept again, perhaps? Or not,” Princess Celestia continued, looking at the rose-colored mare’s downcast face with disappointment.
“I’m sorry to say Your Highness, your sister was...indisposed when I visited to pass along your invitation to breakfast.”
Celestia sighed. It always seemed like pulling bad news out of the staff was a task worthy of a hero of ancient days. She felt as if she were holding the poor thing down and torturing them for secret conspiracy plans or some silly spy fiction like that, when all she wanted was the full story. She took a drink of her morning coffee, mixed with a few drops from a bottle that was labeled ‘Honey’ on the table, but contained a slightly different liquid product best kept away from open flames.
“Did my sister sleep poorly last night?”
Rosalie nodded, but before she could begin speaking, the Princess continued.
“More nightmares?” Nod
“Did it sound like she got any sleep last night?” Shake
“Like last night?” Nod
“And the same as the last few nights?” She nodded, and spoke quickly.
“There is still one of her Night Guard on duty in front of her door. He refuses to make way for the regular guard.”
Celestia finished her coffee while thinking, then sat the cup down with a quiet click. “We will see.”
The Night Guard Pumpernickel was having the worst night of his relatively short career. First the Princess of the Night had that...episode while he was on duty, had yelled at him, and then he had managed to get his already-short tail caught in the door when she closed it. And what was worse, the three cups of coffee he had to ready himself for duty had returned to plague him with a torture far worse than anything he had experienced before, one part physical, and two parts psychological. He had almost thrown himself at the mercy of that rose-colored servant and begged her to get him a knife, although he was not sure if it would be more appropriate to open a vein or chop off his tail, depending on whether it would be more embarrassing to his family to have urinated or bled all over the Princess’ doorstep, or maybe just simply cut his throat right here and die.
The faint metallic ring of hoofsteps drawing nearer made him grow weak in the knees. An overwhelming urge to grab a spear and chop his tail clean off and flee flared up, only to be stopped cold by the total paralysis of seeing Her Royal Highness, Princess Celestia, Regent of Equestria and Princess of the Sun walk around the corner and begin to head straight for him. Right up to him. And stop in front of him. And give him The Look. The Royal Guard did not bow in the presence of Her Royal Highness, but his front knees trembled to the point where he was about to collapse when she commanded, “Leave us for a moment. We wish to speak to our sister. Alone.”
The other two Day Guardsponies saluted, and promptly trotted off to just out of hearing range while the Princess of the Sun glared down at him. “Your loyalty to your Princess is commendable, but I gave you an order.”
“I a-a-apologize, Your Royal Highness,” he stuttered, wishing frantically that he was one of those lizards who could shed their tail in order to flee predators. “B-b-but I am unable to comply.”
At one time in his youth, Pumpernickel had been outside during the day when a thunderstorm had gotten away from some inexperienced weather pegasi. He had been deeply awed and more than a little concerned as the billowing black stormclouds swept together, lifting higher and growing larger until they had blotted out the overbright sun. And then had come the terrible lightning. Now he was sorely tempted to close his eyes and surrender to his well-deserved fate if not for some small part of his mind that wondered just what exactly being stricken dead by the Princess would look like.
Instead she simply leaned forward and whispered in his ear. “Stuck?”
Unable to speak, he nodded.
She smiled, and the Night Guard felt as if the sun had come out from behind the thunderstorm (although there was still a considerable chance of misplaced rain). “Your great-great... I think great-grandfather had exactly the same thing happen to him. Hold on, let me see what I can do.”
The Princess knocked gently on the door with one hoof. “Luna? Could I get you to open the door for me? Please?”
“NO!” The volume of the Canterlot Royal Voice nearly made Pumpernickel lose his concentration. “GO AWAY TIA!”
“I am but concerned about you, my beloved sister. Can we speak?”
“No! We are not well, and do not wish to speak to anyone.” There was a pause, as if to wipe away a tear. “Particularly you! Leave us alone!”
“Very well, my sister. I shall do as you ask. But just one thing before I go. Could you open the door a crack, just for a moment? You seem to have caught one of your guard’s...posterior.”
There was a noise that could have been a brief snort of laughter, and after a moment the door shifted open slightly, the Night Guard departed like a ebon streak, and the door closed again.
“Thank you, my beloved sister.” Celestia paused to lay a hoof on the door. She wished with all her heart that she could somehow just rip the door open and hold her sister, if only that would heal her instead of driving her farther away. It seemed anything she tried did naught but harm.
“I shall always be there for you, my sister. I love you.” She stood and waited for a response before quietly walking away, the gentle ringing of her shoes on the stone the only sound in the corridor.
Pumpernickel only thought the worst event of his career was over as he left the restroom with an intense sense of relief. (And some feeling actually coming back into his abused tail.) All he wanted to do was return to the small bedroom he shared with his adopted family and sleep until moonbreak. But as he left by the door marked ‘Stallions’ and stepped into the corridor, his heart almost stopped for the second time this morning.
“Good Morning, Guard Pumpernickel,” said the Princess Celestia, looking down at where the Night Guard had landed flat on his face. “You know you do not have to bow.”
“I’m off duty,” came the muffled reply as the guard remained in exactly the same position, face down, fully flattened to the cold stone. With any luck, the Princess would just stomp his head flat so he would never have to face his fellow guards again.
“Get up,” she said instead. “Walk with me down to the garden. I would speak with you of my sister.”
The Royal Gardens were a high-pitched flurry of activity. With only a few days to go before the Grand Galloping Gala, there were decorations to be hung, stands to be set up, and in general a great number of things that needed put into awkward places they did not want to fit. All of this faded away as Celestia walked the nervous Night Guard across the cobblestone courtyard, through the gardens, and into the private garden, where the hustle and bustle of the Gala setup was almost absent.
All around the gardens, the sounds of small woodland creatures could be heard as they fluttered from branch to branch and called out their anger at the noises intruding on their home. In short, he realized with a cold shock, it was the perfect spot for the Princess to have a conversation without being overheard.
She turned away from Pumpernickel and looked up, far up at the balcony of Princess Luna. “Tell me all of what has been happening with my sister.”
He started slowly, back when he had joined the Night Guard shortly before Luna had been freed from the grip of Nightmare Moon. It had been a chaotic and tense time of many new experiences, and his main memory of the royal sister had been a depressed pony who slept a lot. She was a great contrast to the Queen of the Night stories on which he had been raised at home and told late in the morning before bedtime.
Over the last few months, Princess Luna had been improving at a fairly constant rate. The first night she helped raise the moon was when her mane and tail had once again regained their royal ethereal qualities, and up until a few weeks ago, the Guard had been actually laying bets on when she would once again return to her Royal Duties full-time.
And then had come the first nightmare. At first the Night Guard had tried to ignore them. Broken furniture was replaced the next night, char marks were cleaned from the walls. Then she had taken to banning everyone from her room while she was not present, including the cleaning staff. And as of late, she had only been coerced into taking a meal tray into her room by the steady and persistent pressure of the Night Guard.
Celestia never took her eyes off her sister’s balcony while he talked. “Do you believe Nightmare Moon is returning?”
Legions of past Night Guards seemed to whisper in his ear, all of them saying “Shut up!” He struggled for a moment, then said, “No.”
“No?” Princess Celestia spared him a glance before returning her gaze skyward. “Good. You show wisdom beyond your brief tenure here, to believe the truth instead of bedtime stories. Nightmare Moon was destroyed by the Elements of Harmony, and my beloved sister returned to me. But even the Elements cannot bring back the relationship we had.”
The Princess seemed to be looking back through thousands of years instead of just up into the air, and it made the hackles of the Night Guard rise despite his mostly-numb tail. Her voice was a soft whisper, “You only have stories to go by, from ponies dead and gone to dust. I lived that time, and relived it over and over in my mind. Could I have done anything to change events, could I have talked her out of her actions somehow, what could cause my beloved sister to turn into such a monster? Was it me? Do you know how it felt to...imprison her? My own sister. Do you have a sister?”
“In my adoptive family I have two brothers. I’m not sure what my home family had for children. I was given up by them at birth.” He extended a leathery wing and gave it a soft flap. “The birth of one of our kind among the Day Pegasi is not an occasion of joy, but a sign of some secret sin of ancestry. There are so few of us left, it is by far easier for the ‘cursed’ child to be brought here, and raised by his own kind.” Sudden realization of just who he was talking to stopped his voice in his throat, and he fought back the temptation to kneel again..
The Princess turned and looked at him without a shred of pity or fear in her sad eyes, a light magenta gaze that seemed to pass straight through him and all the way back to his first ancestors created by Nightmare Moon a thousand years ago. “It is as you said, your kind are not loved among my ponies. They fear you for reasons no longer true. Which is why I brought your kind here, to Canterlot, in the hopes that by your service the common ponies will recognize your true worth.”
“It’s worked so well this far,” he said sarcastically, looking out at the spires and towers of the city ponies who just barely tolerated his presence by day. Then he froze with realization at what he had just said. And to Whom.
No bolt of solar power came down from the sun to incinerate him, but a tense giggle emerged from Princess Celestia instead. “Give it time. It has only been a thousand years.” She patted him on the shoulder and turned back to the castle. “I must return to my work now. There is much that must be done in the next few days if this Gala is to be a success. It is a great responsibility placed upon me by my subjects, but I would throw it away in a heartbeat if it could somehow bring my sister back to me.”
Princess Celestia gave one last pleading look at her sister’s balcony and whispered, “Please, watch over her well. Tell your fellow Guards if they need anything for her, anything at all, I will be at their call.”
Pumpernickel almost did not notice the walk back to the castle as the Princess returned to her regular schedule and the custody of the Day Guards. Night was over, and all he wanted to do was go back home and surrender to dreamless sleep.
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Interesting mythos.
Oh those first few paragraphs were hilarious, I lol'd so hard. I like how the bat-like pegasi are a different breed, not just the product of som enchantment. I'm really liking where this is going, but longer chapters would definitely not go unappreciated.
No! You have to be able to get rid of the prejudice in a thousand years! It has been done in our world over the course of a hundred or so.
The paragraph with the pristine pink flanks made my stoumache turn. That's a bad author. Bad! *whap* Show, don't tell. Show the reader why the flanks are pristine by describing them, rather than just telling the reader that they are pristine.
My stars. Are you for real? 
2413608 .......
Lemme guess. Because his tail is stuck?
Unfortunately, one does not exclude the other. Bladder control goes away pretty fast when one dies
Heehee. What makes Celestia so awesome is her attention to detail
I'm fairly sure just saying "tail" would sound a lot less embarassing, Celestia
...then again, she made Luna laugh. I guess that might've been the intention
Sooo... I guess it was more than just hair, then
A guard who speaks his mind? Ohh. Celestia is going to get along so well with him
Um. You may be a tad too optimistic there, Celestia. A thousand years, without an immortal ruler, is more or less the rise and fall of a dozen civilizations
Remarks and corrections:
> Briefly she stopped by a window
Either needs a comma behind "briefly", or the word should be between "she stopped" and "by a window"
> You seem to have caught one of your guard’s...posterior.”
should be [guards'].
(And, once again, the space-after-ellipsis thing)
I'm loving this so far!
That first scene made me crack-up. Celestia's concern for my sister is heartwarming.
Reminds me of a story I heard about W C Fields (old time movie actor).
Fields was a high functioning alcoholic. Back then, stars were expected to be highly moral types so he couldn't drink openly on the set. So, there was a flask of "orange juice" kept for the star's exclusive use. One day, Fields drank from it & exploded "Some scoundrel has put ORANGE JUICE in my orange juice!".
11447400 Ye gads. I wrote this over *ten* years ago. Erratic POV characters, failed punctuation, emotion whiplash... It's just staggering to realize that The Last Nightguard is so much better. By the time I hit a hundred years old, I may be ready to actually publish something.