Dark begginings
You would think that when life gives you lemons you make lemonade, but when it gives you lemons at the age of four, honestly how do you make lemonade. Having your father the only person you know, die at the age of four, and your mother being a princess doesn’t really bode well. I was born in Manehatten and was raised by my father, I never saw my mother she was always so busy, thankfully since my father was a unicorn I was born as an alicorn making me a rightful prince, the only thing is I was still young and had to try to fend for myself. Being small and already able to levitate many objects getting food was a breeze I could slip in and slip out unnoticed and not have to worry about anything, almost… being the son of prince you think would be a great perk, yea… no it makes life much harder.
Having your mother the princess of night, you tend to gain more enemies than if Celestia was your mother. I know everypony says that they trust her, but a lot of ponies still don’t agree with her reign. As a result if somepony finds out whose son I really am it threatens my life quite often. When I was seven I saw someone playing a guitar and at the sound of the metallic strings strumming to an amazing and wonderful clash, I decided I wanted to learn. Having to be a quick learner on the street to survive, the first time I picked up the guitar it felt so natural I was able to play and move with music easily, but sadly it was short lived, that same fateful day someone wished to get rid of the princesses’ son.
I hate when ponies do this they think they’re enough to take a child and lose some of their defense, makes my part easier. The stallion was very loose, but determined, he wanted me dead for some unknown reason. Sadly I can say I’m not proud of what happened next, he wasn’t the smartest assassin, thinking back he was probably the stupidest one know to pony kind. Anyways as he charged at me I felt threaten, sadly since my only weapon was a guitar to my side, I didn’t want to break it, but seeing my only chance, I grabbed it and using the blunt end was able to crack his skull inwards, causing him to stop all movement of any kind. You could say I was sad, but after seeing my flank shine, I was the happiest pony alive (probably not but oh well). Although when I saw my cutie mark it was strange it had a guitar but it looked nothing like the one I was holding; it had spikes on the neck and was very jagged, but it also had three symbols on it.
Now seeing the symbols had me a little worried usually when you get your cutie mark it has maybe two to three different objects, but having different symbols was unheard of. As I looked at them each one looked more troublesome than the last, the first I saw was a crimson and violet lightning bolt, knowing my mother was Luna I kind of guessed it had to do with the sky, but that’s all. The next was a skull that was cracked, but the weirdest thing was it was oozing something from its mouth; it wasn’t quite red it had a tinge of red but had sparkles in it and seemed to flow almost. The last was the most bothersome, it was a wing, but the wing was bare, no skin and no feathers, the wings bones had cracks in each one. On the top it had the word broken and underneath the wing it said clipped with a silver feather under the word. This made me worried why would it say broken and clipped? My wings were in perfect shape.
I decided to ignore this, my cutie mark looked boss, and I didn’t care.
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Well it’s been two years since I got my cutie mark, I still live on the streets and sadly still can’t work. I have to steal for food still; the good news is using status at some places. It’s quite easy to prove you’re the son of Luna when you pretty much look like her and is the only alicorn in manehatten. Thankfully most of the places that are musical or produce weapons are loyal to Luna. Thanks to this I was able to go to a guitar shop and a blacksmith to rebuild my guitar to match my cutie mark. Even though mother was sent to the moon people still hope one day she’ll return, the only reason I’m not up there with her is that I was born a star and sent to my ‘Father’ as a shooting star.
I’m glad people are still loyal to mother she deserves some servitude. I wish nightmare night wasn’t such a big deal everyone gets all hyped up about it, it’s just a day that’s made up to terrorize young fillies and colts, That’s the only reason. Kids get hyper or just run rampant in the streets because of fear or just having fun. I can never have fun on this night, I miss mother so much, and I only knew her for a small fraction of time before she sent me away, consequently the same day as nightmare night.
Well it’s my birthday as you guessed; I don’t have anyone to celebrate it with because of father’s death, so I celebrate by myself. I always get the best gift from myself, inflicting fear into others. It makes sense nightmare night; son of Luna, fear is right up my alley. Causing a dark cloud to start floating above my head and strike at precise places near me (magic). I had the best costume I was one of Luna’s guards and that just made it way to easy to frighten so many younger colts and fillies, I was also able to get some of the adults walking down the road. “I guess my birthday isn’t all that bad” managing to get a lot of candy from another house.
After I was done getting all the candy I could I went to a cloud and made myself a small home for the night. I wasn’t tired yet though; I haven’t eaten any candy so I wasn’t bound for a sugar crash soon, so I decided to go for a walk around. Manehatten isn’t a bad place you get your ruffians sometimes but it’s rare for them to attack young kids, so I was, for the most part safe, but for some reason fate is funny.
I was walking along occasionally pulling some pranks or nabbing a snack, when I heard a sound behind me. The sound was gently pretty much undetectable, but living in a harsh environment makes it easy for you to point even the slightest sound out. I decided to have fun with this potential assassin or mugger, I just kept walking as usually keeping my ears straight but still able to hear if my potential murderer would follow, to my luck they did.
It’s always so fun to have someone follow you thinking they have you trapped and in their sights, it just makes my chase easier. As I said before most blacksmiths and musicians are still loyal to mother, because of this I got a great discount on an electric guitar and was able to get it spiked and jagged like what my cutie mark showed, the decals I did myself. I never leave the ‘house’ without it, I’d be defenseless then. Keeping an ear on my pursuer I kept doing what I always do on nightmare night, pranks.
Its weird most adults even ones bent on killing you would get after a foal for doing pranks, but instead of the pursuer scolding or scoffing… I heard laughter. Usually at that point I would turn, but I wanted to see how far the follower would continue. Got to admit if someone laughs at your pranks you start to wonder about the person you can’t see. ‘Ok let’s see how about a prank on this wise crack’ my thoughts ran rapidly to figure the best prank I can pull, then I remembered something crucial.
When I was in the library once I ran across a very odd spell book, granted I had sneaked into the back of the library to see if they had anything of value, that’s when I saw the spell book. It had interesting and strange markings on the cover and it had something appealing about it. When I grabbed the cover of the book it had the name, star swirl and had images of strong magic. Of course this would make anyone curious so I decided to take it and read it later. After making myself a small home in a cloud I read through the night and didn’t put the book down till I finished, I learned so much magic that I could almost rival mother if I wanted. I wasn’t sure if I could perform the magic but there’s no harm in trying it. The first spell the book contained was a simple alteration spell; it allowed the user to modified minor appearances on themselves.
As I tried the magic through the book I got better and better, I was able to strengthen my wings giving better flight, I was also able to change the colour of my skin with the alteration spell, and the most useful spell I learnt was teleportation I could travel a small distance in a flash the best I’ve done so far is to a cloud near the fifth floor of a building.
Now back to where I was, ah yes a perfect prank, well since I can teleport and alter colour let’s see if the person will have a fun time with this. I decided to cast the colour change spell a couple times to confuse the person, for some weird reason all I heard was “ooh” behind me. After a couple alterations I decided to see who my follower was. In an instant I flashed behind the pony, and to my surprise find not an adult or a pony a little older, but what I saw was a very confuzzleded filly.
I gave the filly a couple seconds and then chimed in, the face she made was priceless it was one of fear, but also it had intrigue in it. I swear that filly jumped at least twenty feet when she saw me, I made my coat at least thirty colours and to her surprise I was right behind her instead of in front. This made me express a small amount of amusement to her reaction, but instead of her fleeing in terror, she had the strangest grin and I swear her eyes shrunk a bit. I’ve seen that look way too many times to know that most people like her are insane and can’t be helped, but she wasn’t like that five minutes ago I swear.
“Well hello there” the filly said in a strange yet none concerning voice. “Your quiet interesting who and what are you?” the filly asked
“Pardon?” I said, no pony has ever approached me friendly unless they are followers of Luna. “Well you can change your coat at anytime and you were in front of me not, but three minutes ago.” She said. ‘I guess I have to reply somewhat’ “My names Nyxen Dead Body and I’m the heir to Princess Luna, as for the colours I learned magic very quickly.” As I said this I noticed her expression change and her pupils grow to a normal-ish size “I’m Alyssa Sylum, but most ponies call me Asylum for some reason, anyways I noticed your quite skilled on the street and was wondering if you could teach me magic my parents kind of dropped me off at a strange place where I didn’t want to stay so I escaped through force” her crazy eyes returned and she had a sinister smile on her face ‘great another psycho on the street and just my luck I’m stuck with her, mother if you can hear me I will pay you back for this’ “they tried to re-contain me but honestly whey had no chance what so ever” she started laughing manically which Is quite concerning, considering we were in a secluded area. “They didn’t know what was coming” her eyes shrunk more and she started biting her lower lip, I noticed a trickle of blood, which she noticed too making her sinister laugh continue, but it had a gleeful edge to it.
“the faces, the blood, everyone dead , that was an amazing place, sadly I had to leave” her eyes started to dart and twitch, but when she noticed she was speaking out loud she stopped, her expression calming, and her eyes growing. “Im sorry I don’t know what came over me, but can you please help me on the streets I’ve been struggling ever since I left that place” her eyes shrinking again, but that’s it. ‘why, why me of all people mother I hope your happy up there’ “ok Asylum ill teach you but no going crazy on me, otherwise, Luna so help me I will kill you” apparently at the mention of ‘kill’ she perked up “understood Nyxen, Why did you say ‘Luna’ most people say ‘Celestia’?” innocent question ‘I’m surprised she didn’t get that sooner, must not be too bright’ “I follow Luna I don’t follow Celestia although sadly I’m required to”
“okie-dokie-lokie” she said as we left for the only hideout I could think of.
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Authors notes: this is based in an alternate universe, but a lot of events are the same the only difference is when, how and who.