Holier than Thou
Some Equestrian demons choose their paths willingly. Some become that way through ambition, greed, or similar vices. By those standards, the Watchers are a whole other breed of beasts.
That’s not to say that we aren’t monsters in our own way, however. I’ve spent enough time among my kind to know that even we know corruption. However, throughout the millennia, the one thing that remains constant is that the one recorded instance of ponies ever seeing us made us go down in history as one of the most feared species out there, and it seems that not even the distance of time can change that.
So we encased one planet in ice, and almost did the same to another. We could have destroyed all life on Equestria and beyond if we’d wanted to. But clearly, seeing as the danger of freezing is past, then clearly we wouldn’t want to, right?
The ponies interpret that sign to mean that we have completely disappeared from their realms, or worse, that we were nothing but the stuff of myths in the first place. What it really means, however, is that we now assist them in secret. The look of fear on their faces as they see our true forms is enough to paralyze any of us. The single time we lifted that rule? Well, you likely know that story in a much different form than the one I shall be telling you.
As I move at one with the wind, as my kin have done for years before, I take care not to separate from it, as doing so will reveal the camouflage that I must constantly keep. This day, more than any other, would be the worst time to break it. At first glimpse, the bright and shining city before us doesn’t appear to be any sort of threat. Decorations are everywhere, ranging in numerous colors, sizes, and styles. For once, everypony seems pleased and peaceful. This is the day of harmony’s reign.
But it came at a terrible price for the Watchers. Unlike most well-known Equestrian species, the ponies have never called us by that, our true name, the one we have always called ourselves. Not by any fault of their own, however: we have chosen a life so enigmatic and secluded from all else that they would hardly have gotten the chance to learn about us even if they’d wanted to. The one time we made our presence known, they recorded our appearances, powers, and qualities and gave us the name they felt was the most suiting: the Windigos. It is a name that no actual Watcher uses for themselves, a word used only in reference to how our fellow Equestrians see us. It brings back too many harsh memories for us to adopt as our own.
The ponies have never openly oppressed us as they have done to some, but their misunderstanding stings us more than that would have. We won’t pretend that we were driven away from our lands or that they were the ones who doomed us to lives of seclusion; we were who we were far before then, and it’s simply in our blood by now. But none of us can deny the fear and dread we carry when we go out to the cities and towns to perform our duties, even the older Watchers who have been going at this for centuries.
No one really knows how long we’re meant to live or if we’re even immortals in the first place, but for the most part, none of us really care. We carry ourselves as if we never die regardless. A good half of the Watcher population, if not more, believes in a fact that I personally find to be rather strange: that we are direct emissaries of the Equestrian gods and, as gods have a tendency to hide themselves from their subjects, that we are therefore the manifestation of their will. It seems like a bit of a stretch to many, and it left me confused the first few times I heard it, but there are always those who will prescribe to theories like that. That’s the sort of thing some of my smug brethren like to hear, after all. All the oppression, all the heartache is somehow worth it to them if they possess divine power.
And as ‘gods,’ we use our ability to feed off hatred not to spread it, but to contain it. Though our methods may come off as extreme sometimes, we find it better to go to those lengths than to allow even the tiniest amount of discord to spread throughout Equestria. Our belief is that, once peace is restored to a region, all the harsh times, all of the famines that our winters cause will be forgotten, as historical hardships often are. At times we resent the ponies for their lack of understanding, but in the end, we only wish to protect them by any means necessary, even if it means exerting power over them.
My kind is an ambitious race, and with those beliefs being preached to them, it’s little wonder they’re like that. It’s something that’s taught to basically all the children in my culture, but my mother, Brisa, would have none of that. She never was the type to conform to social pressures, something that always seemed to put her in the lowest tier of society. However, she, unlike the rest, maintained her integrity.
“No creature ever born in Equestria could have that power,” she would tell me. “A god is something that cannot be seen with the naked eye, and to call yourself one is to doom the ones you love to a terrible fate. Remember this above all, Orli: we are not gods, but nor are we demons. We just are.”
Every time she would mention something along these lines, she would always return to the normal, caring mother others expected her to be. But even when I was young, I could tell that she had a deeper story to tell. Most female Watchers knew nothing of war other than what they saw as they hovered over Equestria, having lived in a peaceful existence for so long. Naturally, my curiosity got the better of me, and naturally, those around me refused to cater to it. One day, though, I overheard someone refer to my mother as a “half-Watcher,” as if she hadn’t accomplished enough to truly be one. When I went home and told her about it, she felt she could deny it no longer: long ago, she had once lived in the Changeling Kingdom.
“Never call me that in my presence,” she warned before telling her whole story.
“Call you what?” I questioned. “A changeling?”
“Yes. I take more offence to that than if I were called a Windigo. I let go of their ways far before you were born, and although I don’t agree with the way things are run here, I will never go back. I only use my old powers if disguising myself as a pony is the only way I can get close enough to finish a job. I am not a changeling, and never have been.”
Contrary to what one might expect, changelings and Watchers have a surprisingly solid alliance. It’s symbiotic, really: we spread love throughout the land, granting them their vital power source, and they’ve even returned the favor on occasion. Both races understand what it means to be demonized by their neighboring cultures, but despite this bond, there will always be scenarios that drive us apart from them. Though they are our closest partners, the crowning of a new changeling leader has always been met with hesitation.
While our society is made up of several councilors to ensure the utmost standards of unity in the land are met, the changelings do not have the same checks and balances that we do. As members of a newer country, their leadership tends to be much shakier, and policy and relations can shift from ruler to ruler. Normally, the alliance between the two would continue until any controversial events would occur. That came as all the more shocking when it was the Changeling Kingdom announced an absolute embargo on anything having to do with our kind, even prohibiting Watchers themselves from entering. My father, who hadn’t even left the peace talks at one hive when the decision was made, chose to stay behind regardless of the ruling. It was a risky decision and one that would force him into hiding for an unknown amount of time, but he’d already fallen in love with my mother, one of the political rebels who had revolted against their current queen’s regime. When Watcher forces found out about his disappearance and tried to remove him from the now-forbidden territory, he refused. While I rarely see him due to his role in the government, I know that he would’ve quit his position and relinquished his citizenship to run away with my mother. The two of them were ultimate proof that even completely opposite beings could harmonize with one another.
However, Brisa yearned to leave the increasingly war-torn land that had once been her home. Through many Watchers channeling their strongest magic, they had been able to allow her to use her own to transform into one of our kind, and she hasn’t once changed into anything else, changeling or pony, since. After the Canterlot invasion left her homeland in the greatest destitution it had ever faced, many changelings migrated to our land to do the same, and it’s now estimated that at least twenty percent of Watchers were either originally changelings or hybrids of a changeling-Watcher relationship, as I am. While my mother often complains about the problems our own culture faces, especially when it comes to our mythology, she could never return to the life she once led.
I learned soon after I discovered her secret that there’s only one thing she hates more than our more egotistical ways, and that is the queen that reigned while she lived there, the one that lead her birth species into political and moral corruption.
“We could’ve lived a sheltered life back then, and nothing was stopping us from doing so,” she once lamented. “For all their faults, the Watchers represent what we could’ve been. All the species of Equestria have their own separate lands for a reason, I believe. We can try to coexist with them, but haven’t you ever wondered why no one has ever actually succeeded in taking another of these territories? It’s because the gods, the true gods, never wanted one of us to have more power than the others in the first place. Anyone who tries ends up becoming the new demons for the other inhabitants to fear, even for decades after any war. Be glad that, no matter how much the ponies may fear us, Orli, that at least they now fear the changelings even more.”
When she thought I had left the room that time, I remember her muttering under her breath, “And it’s all thanks to that bitch Chrysalis—“
“I thought we weren’t supposed to say that word,” I answered, shocking her much more than I thought I would have.
“Oh, no, you can’t use that word for anyone except that tyrant of a queen,” she corrected. She curled herself up to sleep as she added, “She’s the only one in Equestria it’s strong enough for.”
As I think of all these experiences and all I have to really be thankful for, I fail to realize that I have separated from the wind, revealing my true form to all who can see. At the speed I’m going, I appear to be nothing more than a black, misty cloud, and when I see where I am, I instantly regret my more conspicuous hybrid coloring, my wisps of fur resembling ash rather than the bluish-gray of fellow Watchers.
Out of all the places a looming black mass could appear, why on Equestria did it have to be the Crystal Empire? If the citizens didn’t recognize me as a “Windigo,” they’d swear Sombra returned to enslave them. I try to clear any camouflage mist that still remains on my body to make sure the kingdom won’t suffer a collective aneurysm upon seeing me, but then again, that still leaves no guarantees. No matter what form I take, it still seems I can’t enter this city without being feared.
When I consider why I’ve broken the magic that keeps me from being seen, I realize for the first time that perhaps I never wanted to be invisible in the first place. I’d always been resigned to assuming that ponies and Watchers could never coexist, so much so that I’d never expected anything positive to result from our interaction. Revealing my true form to those who hated me more than anything would be nothing more than suicide. But something within me somehow told me that perhaps things didn’t have to be that way anymore, that perhaps today’s ponies were more accepting.
As the crystal ponies stared in shock, the previously cold winds surrounding me began to cool. Was it because I was now within the seemingly impossible magic that kept the Crystal Empire from freezing over as the bordering lands once did during Sombra’s reign? Or was it because something about this place motivated me to break free from my seclusion?
The ponies around me stand still for several moments, waiting to see the inevitable frost that could wipe out everything in a matter of seconds. When that frost never comes, they continue to stare in confusion, wondering just how this was possible, how a being they saw as a demon could appear without malice.
In reply, I simply gesture towards the Crystal Heart, now realizing that a land ruled solely by the power of love can never be in danger of succumbing to hatred. I tell them that I understand what it is like to be enslaved for thousands of years, not so much in the literal sense as in the metaphorical, and somehow, they all understand. After the skepticism fades, they invite me further into their city and their doubt changes to fascination. They goad me not with threats, but with questions, with an undeniable thirst to learn of a foreign land. For the most part, I prove them with answers, but when they ask me what I truly consider myself to be, I give a single response.
“I am neither a demon nor a goddess,” I reply. “As for where the true Equestrian gods are, the only hint I can provide is the one my mother would always tell me.
"To love one another in spite of the borders that might divide us is to see the face of a god.”