The Vigil

by Visiden Visidane

The Era of Night Queens (845 V)

Onyx Heart crashed through the crystalline windows of her Royal Palace, wincing as several shards embedded themselves in her forelegs and wings. The floor of the audience hall met her without pity. Both her right wing and right foreleg snapped on impact, her ribs cracked, and her breath all but exploded out of lungs. She wheezed and gasped, fighting the pained spasms of her diaphragm just to get a breath in. Pain slithered up and down her limbs while vision blurred and spun. Still, she struggled for consciousness, dragging herself along the floor with her good limbs.

She had lost. Even with the power she amassed, even with the rightness of her cause, she had lost against Princess Celestia. She couldn’t be blamed for it. That accursed day guard, the one called Captain Flame Soul, he had intervened. He had hurled himself at her with reckless abandon, then exploded in such a furious blast of sunlight that he cut through her defenses. That was enough for Princess Celestia to strike her down. Just the recollection of that final blow, of the beam of radiance from Princess Celestia’s horn driving her from the sky, was enough to bring a surge of anger flooding through Onyx’s veins. She grit her teeth and dragged herself even farther across the audience hall, making her way to her throne and the chamber behind it. She wasn’t done. Oh, she was far from done. She could still recover. Princess Celestia must be exhausted as well, and her precious Flame Soul was gone. If Onyx, the mighty Queen Onyx Heart III, Night Queen of the Thestrals and absolute ruler of Mount Nocturnal, could gain her second wind, this fight would be won.

The pain worsened with each inch of progress. Her wing dragged uselessly across the floor, trailing blood along the way. The audience hall was empty. Indeed, the whole palace was. Her army was likely still out there, retreating in shame after her fall. That included even the Night Guard that held the Royal Palace.

It wasn’t fair. This struggle shouldn’t even be. The rightness of her cause was undeniable. The power over the night should not belong to the Princess of the Sun. It should belong to the one who had succeeded Princess Luna. It belonged to the Night Queen of the Thestrals. Yes, it belonged to her, as it should have belonged to her mother, and her grandmother before that.

The prophecy is a lie. It is a comforting story spun by Princess Celestia to keep us complacent and hopeful while she maintains control of the night. Princess Luna is dead. She is never coming back. We thestrals have waited for her for too long. We have witnessed too many charlatans pretending to be her rescuer. It is time we took our destiny as thestrals into our own hooves.

It was with those words that her grandmother, the first Onyx Heart, Last Captain of the Royal Shadows, stirred both the thestral lords and the commoners. She appealed to their growing impatience with both the absence of Princess Luna, who was all but a myth in recent times, and with all the frauds claiming to be the ones to set her free all the way back to Star Favor the Fraud. The vote was cast. The rule of the Three Captains came to an end, and the first Night Queen took her throne.

As it should be. The thestrals of Mount Nocturnal had risen from the rubble of exile and built a glorious nation of beauty worthy of the Princess of the Night. Gone was the network of tunnels and caverns, the symbol of the disjointed rule of the three captains. Instead, they lived in a gigantic, unified cavern. Glittering temples and shrines adorned the city as the finest jewellery might adorn a pony awaiting a lover. They were ready for a princess, even if it wasn’t the princess they had been waiting so vainly for all this time. If Princess Luna would not sit upon such a lovingly crafted throne, then the Night Queen will.

Onyx finally made it to the door behind the throne. She fiddled with the secret latch, which was carefully hidden by both magic and clever construction. Only her touch could even approach the thing without being burned to ashes. All these protections were necessary for the that which allowed the Night Queens to achieve and maintain power lay within. The first Onyx Heart could not have swayed all of Mount Nocturnal with words alone. No, it was power that ultimately moved nations, and it was power that lay within this secret chamber. With it, Onyx Heart I unleashed magical power unlike anything that the thestrals ever saw before. To the gullible masses, it was as if Princess Luna had returned at last, only in a different body.

The passageway leading to the secret chamber has always been cold, a strange side effect of the thing’s presence. Onyx shivered. It felt as if her life itself was ebbing away, sucked into the thing’s greedy presence. Still, she pushed on. Even if she has guards with her, they would not be able to move past the secret door. This place was reserved only for the Night Queen.

With her goal so clearly in sight, Onyx Heart made for the final push. Her muscles strained and beads of sweat dripped from her face despite the cold. This pain was nothing, nothing compared to the glory of regaining the power over the night from Princess Celestia. At last, she stood inside the secret chamber and before the secret that brought the Night Queens to power.

At the center of the chamber, floating over a stone altar, was a glob of unfathomably deep blackness, a sphere of darkness that was more a hole into the world’s essence than a thing of itself. It was this thing that granted the Night Queens magical power to unite the thestrals beneath them and to challenge even Princess Celestia.

This is the Remnant of Night, the power that your grandmother found in the deepest reaches of Mount Nocturnal. We cannot be sure how it came to be, but your grandmother and I have communed with it enough to know that it is the manifestation of thestral longing for the Princess of the Night.

“But you said the Princess of the Night was dead, mother.”

“No, my dear. Princess Luna is dead, but there will always be one who will rule the night. With this, we can take that power from Princess Celestia one day. The one who will do it will be you.”

“Why me? Can’t you be Princess of the Night?”

“I have bonded with the Remnant much more so than your grandmother, but not enough. With each generation, our family becomes stronger with its power. With you, we can finally challenge the Princess of the Sun, and avenge our humiliation all those centuries ago!”

Onyx believed every word. She had bonded with the Remnant. She had demonstrated magical power to surpass any unicorn and even Princess Celestia. She only made a single slip up. That can be corrected. It was the Night Queen’s destiny to rule over the night! She just needed a little more power...

Trembling, she raised herself up before the Remnant of Night and spread her forelegs apart as best she could, willing the power to suffuse her some more.

The Remnant of Night pulsed, then spasmed, like an uncontrollably panicking heart. Magical power burst forth as pitch black tongues of flame, blazing past Onyx and leaving hoarfrost in their wake. She raised her forelegs, as if she could contain the increasingly violent bursts...

“Wait—“

The Remnant spasmed violently, then all Onyx knew was numbing blackness.