The Sorrow and the Temptation

by Hustlin Tom

Chapter 9

Darkness enveloped Princess Luna again. The major difference between this most recent turn of events and her previous plunge into this darkness was that now she was aware that it was a dream. Once again, from a distance she could see the outline of the pitch black alicorn. The mysterious mare galloped at a steady pace, regality emanating from her every stride as she moved through the murkiness of the Princess’ mind. Rather than allow the dream to overtake her and wake up as she had before, the Guardian of all Dreams decided to find out a little more about the strange obsidian spectre. She moved her mental projection to run alongside the interloper, and their hoof falls synchronized instantly. The black mare chanced a single glance at her, and then turned her eyes to where her hooves were leading them; where it was she was going the Princess didn’t know, but this was her mind and she was going to interrogate this elusive intruder.

“Who art thou? Identify yourself,” she commanded.

The mare didn’t reply, but instead transmuted into a thick cloud of dark purple gas that flew upward.

“You will not be rid of me that easily, insidious ghoul!” the Princess yelled up to the dark cloud, and she quickly took flight to pursue it.

Through her mind she heard a chuckle that carried a dark allure to it, “Oh please, Princess. Once you know me, you wouldn't be able to part from me even if you tried.”

Ignoring the cryptic statement, the Princess continued her chase of the strange cloud, each of them tumbling, twirling, and trapezing through the near-impenetrable umbra of her mind. Without warning, the dark mare materialized in front of the Princess, her luminous serpentine eyes piercing the darkness. Princess Luna easily forced her mental projection to instantly stop. The dark mare continued to stare into her eyes. The Princess stared right back at the black stranger.

The black alicorn scoffed, “You always did like a staring contest. Shame your sister always won. Then again, she knew how to let her mind wander while keeping her eyes still, while you didn’t.”

“How do you know such things about my youth,” Princess Luna asked as the dark mare began to circle her.

“I know everything about you, little Luna. I’ve been following your exploits for as long as I can remember. You could say I’ve been an admirer from afar.”

“Who are you?”

The dark spectre chuckled and cupped the Princess’ face with her tendrils of smoke-like hair, drawing her face to look into her own eyes, “Don’t you already know?”

The Princess’ face was as hard and unreadable as granite, and she was silent.

Sighing in exasperation, the unsettling apparition walked a few steps away from the Princess before conjuring an iron throne with plush crimson pillows for herself, “I’d forgotten that you don’t like puzzles.”

“I have no quarrel with puzzles, but arrogant mares who patronize me do test my limits.”

“My character is irrelevant in this matter,” the obsidian spectre flashed Princess Luna a fanged smile as she sat back into the throne, “The truly important matter at hoof is this; what are you going to do about your sister and her herd?”

The Princess was silent for a while, until she at last replied, “They are my herd as well.”

“You don’t sound so convinced of that,” the apparition said, “And why should they be your herd? They despise you, they spit on your name and your work. When you took in those Antrozi as your own subjects, what did they do? They questioned your right to rule them and they murdered them. What sort of herd would you call them now, hmm?”

Silence was all that Princess Luna’s response was. The obsidian mare continued, “And your sister, she’s known of both the herd’s lack of moral judgment and of the Antrozi herd’s suffering. She has done little to act on her ‘proposals for social reform’; she said so herself!”

“She’s been trying to change the herd through education about the vam-pony myths and their falsities over a span of time,” the Princess replied, but it was obvious even to her that her doubts were starting to creep into her mind and voice.

“But it would seem that the evidence you yourself have seen with your own two eyes refutes that idea. Children will not willingly teach themselves their own lessons, and I believe that both you and I know that what children need most of all in their lives is discipline. But who is truly to blame for children’s bad behavior; the children themselves, or their parents as well? You’ve been doing your part by defending them from the things that would cause them physical harm, but while you’ve been away your sister has been shirking her duties, allowing the nobility to spread their greedy hooves into the powers of the crowns while keeping both you and the masses ignorant! Celestia has been all too willing to allow such events to unfold because it allows her more time to sit on her fat flank and eat cake! She is an accomplice to the nobility’s crimes.”

“I don’t believe you,” the Princess finally interrupted the obsidian alicorn, “It has been several years since I and my sister have seen eye to eye, but I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that my sister would never consciously allow such things to happen. She would never allow any innocent life to come to harm without justice being served on the perpetrator of the crime.”

“We’ll see,” the black alicorn said.

The environment began to blur as the dream began to slowly seep away, and with the last of the blackness to dissolve into the mists of Princess Luna’s mind, she awoke.