My name is Silver Herald and I am the Chronicler of the Equestrian Royal Night Guard.
I record these stories so that the generations of ponykind that follow may remember us. So that our brave deeds and sacrifices will not be lost to the passage of centuries. So that the knowledge we have paid for with our blood and our lives may be used to shield Equestria from those that would do our kingdom harm.
We battle against the dark things that lurk where the light of day cannot reach.
We are the Night Guard.
We guard the night.
Chapters (2)
Neon Knights - Black Sabbath
I feel like the Night Guard would have something more badass than that as a creed. If I may hazard something:
"Far beyond the sun down,
far beyond the moonlight,
On the blackest wings in hell's domain,
We watch the night,
So Dawn may come free."
Free cookie if you can figure which song I appropriated that from.
Post-read Edit: So they are essentially The Night's Watch? I can dig that.
oh snap
I love seeing the mythmaking about Luna's guards. In the show they get one ambiguous scene pulling her doom chariot and nothing else to explain their appearance, origins, anything.
I have my own interpretation in my fanfic-verse but I love your idea of an army of redemption. It fits Luna's story so well (and I may need to steal some of it for myself
)
Your archaic narrative style also suits the story well. Will keep a watch
The concept in chapter 1 is excellent. I love a redemption story. The creature in chapter 2 is creative, though there already being a demon insect in everypony's head makes no sense. The archaic style is well-done, but a little wordy at times, maybe more 19th-century than medieval.
What do they do at a pony monastery? It's hard to devote yourself to a lifetime of prayer to Celestia if you can just swing by the castle and say hi every now and then instead.
1201759
I apologize for any confusing parts to the story. I didn't have a pre-reader or editor besides myself because I wanted to just write something for the heck of it, hence the rather unpolished state of the story.
To clarify, the idea behind the Echoing Death which I tried to get across with the last passage of Ch. 2 is that the scream is not only its weapon but its means of reproducing. Anyone who hears the scream is killed and the scream somehow implants a larval form of the Echoing Death into their heads, which "hatches" as the tiny insect-like creatures. The concept was inspired by Lovecraftian monsters that can drive you insane just by looking at them or make your head explode with a sound and other crazy nonsense that doesn't make sense in scientific terms.
I also forgot to clarify what the time period for this story is in my personal canon. I'll be certain to elaborate on that later but to address the earthpony monk and his monastery, that incident occurred prior to Celestia and Luna's arrival in Equestria, so the religion at the time was more directed toward alicorns in general. Then when Celestia and Luna emerged, everyone who followed this religion saw they were alicorns and began to worship them as real goddesses.
I did try to make the wording archaic, but I didn't trust myself to go full medieval-speak so I decided it would be best to stick with what I know, so we're left with, as you noted, 19th century English.
Again, all these problems largely came about because I didn't have a pre-reader to give me an outside perspective. I made the major mistake of forgetting to include enough context so that a reader can understand what the heck's going on. I actually really want to continue this story so I will seek out a pre-reader for future updates so similar confusion doesn't happen.
My thanks to Bad Horse and everyone else for commenting. Your feedback and support is greatly appreciated!
-AF
Amazing concept.
The dirty dozen meet the A team.
This is really good, lovecraftian, horror. And the Night Guard as dark protectors are much more awesome than a simple army. Love it !
It somehow reminds me of The Charge of the Light Brigade!
if you've heard of that poem..
Will throwing money at my computer make this update?