Ronin
Click click click click click...
Horseshoes on stonework.
There she is.
Click click click click click...
It's about time. Royal Court ends at 8 o'clock on the dot, and she's nothing if not punctual. Every evening she retires to her quarters immediately after Royal Court, then calls for her chamber mares to draw a bath thirty minutes later. Like clockwork.
In the courtroom she has three mareservants and two guards present at all times, along with two guarding each door. When she enters her quarters, she has two more guards stationed at her door. These guards rotate every twenty minutes to keep them alert. The entire process runs as the rest of the Palace does, or is supposed to: like clockwork. But there's a gap in the transition: for around a minute, walking at usual pace, she is out of sight of either pair of guards. Completely alone.
Except for me.
She'll never see me coming. This recessed corner in the ceiling is the perfect place for a pegasus to hide, then drop on his target. By the time she knows I'm there, I'll have sunk my knife deep into her flank, and the poison will start flowing in her blood. Then nothing will be able to save her. I can't imagine what she'll do to kill me, but her fate will be sealed. Oh, well.
Death would be a mercy compared to what she did to Her.
Prison is one thing, banishment another, but this was both taken to their cruelest extremes. Being imprisoned on a desolate, Faust-forsaken rock over a quarter-million miles from home, completely alone. Nothing but dust and craters for company. And Equestria just sitting there in the sky above you, like you could reach out and touch it. Beckoning you to return, to your friends, subjects, home. But you can't, at least not for another millennium.
It must be maddening.
...
I should've been there.
I could've helped Her. We could've beaten her sister, together, two on one.
I should've been there, not wasting my time with ordinary Guards, when She needed me more than ever.
I failed Her, and now She's trapped up there, suffering for next to an eternity, and it's all because of me.
It's... my fault.
My. Fault.
DAMMIT, IT'S MY FAULT!
I loved Her more than life itself, and this is how I show it? When She needed me the most, I just abandon her? Is that what a loyal Lunar Guard is supposed to do? I just...
Click click click click click
Her.
This is her fault! She's the tyrant, she's the enemy, she banished Her. She pulled the trigger, not me. She's the one who deserves my hatred, not myself.
And here she comes.
Click click click click...
Just a few more clicks, dear, and that will be it. In a single, swift blow, I'll avenge Her, redeem myself and free Equestria from your reign of tyranny. And...
...there you are! I can see exactly where the knife will go, right in your pasty-white flank. All that's left now is to...
"Do it."
What? She's stopped! She can't be talking to me, there's no way she knows I'm here!
"Please, do it. You'd be doing me a favor."
What is she talking about?
"After your army was defeated, I figured at least one of you would try something like this. Ready to die rather than give up the fight. I will say, your devotion is commendable. But you were defeated on the battlefield, so now you're here to kill me and take your vengeance for the Princess I banished."
She knows! How can she know?
"I can feel your hurt. You think me so cruel, so heartless that I would damn my own sister to such a fate. You think I've wounded you."
She's in my mind, Faust-dammit, she's in my mind!
"But you deserve to know that I wounded myself that night, deeper than you would believe. I loved my sister, no matter what had happened to her, what she had become. I wanted to protect Equestria, but not at the price of her!"
She's lying, she has to be!
"What happened that night was not what I wanted. Once she was not a threat, I would've run to her, helped her defeat the monster that had taken her over, gotten my sister back! But the Elements did what they did, and I hate myself for using them. If I had known what they would've done, I would never have touched them, found another way. But it is impossible to change the past, so now all I can do is live with my own grief at having forced such a fate upon my only sister."
No, she... but... how... what?
"So please, kill me now. It would be mercy to put me out of this immortal misery. But if what you want is vengeance, let me live. Let me continue to be tortured by my own guilt and self-loathing. The sleepless nights, the overpowering grief, the utter loneliness, for all eternity. That would be fitting revenge for what I did to your Princess. But the choice is yours."
Mine? A demi-goddess, and she places her fate in my hooves? Knowing I'm here, she'd just let me kill her?
So what do I choose?
She's given me a perfect opportunity: she won't resist, she won't flee, I can do what I came here to do without a problem. It'll be easy; she even wants it.
She wants it.
She told me how tortured she was for what she did to Her, the grief she has to live with every day. She suffers just by living; she said it would be a mercy to kill her. Would I give her that mercy?
No.
I drop from the ceiling, then set the knife gently on the ground. In a subdued burst of golden light, it vanishes.
"There is no trace you were ever here. Now go, before the guards see you. And tell others like you that my sister has already taken her revenge."
I was already gone.
After two days' flight, I reached the Everfree Forest. Far away from Guards and prying eyes, the only place in Equestria I'm probably welcome right now. Where to I go from here?
I can't go back. There's no ordinary life I can just disappear into. No family, no friends, nothing. My life would be spent on the run, always under threat of arrest and imprisonment.
There is no place for me in this world.
It's time for me to join my brothers and sisters, the ones who gave everything for Her.
I draw another knife from my belt, and bring it to my throat.
Do you think She's waiting for me, on the other side? Yes, yes, She must be. It's just a final dream, and She walks through dreams, so She must be there. That's my reward; I get to be with Her again. A good soldier, faithful to the end.
Quickly but forcefully, I draw the blade's tip across my neck.
I'm coming, Princess.