Mare in Black
They were known by many names. “Wampyr”, “Children of the Night Mother”, “Thestral”, and even the most mundane term of all, “Bat Pony”. They were almost never referred to by their true name, the name their Goddess had given them, Noctral.
Since even before the time of the corruption of the Immaculate Moon, theirs had been a solitary and isolated race choosing to live in the high, cold Tramplevanian Alps. A place chosen for its natural defences. A place where they could be themselves, away from the prying eyes and questions of the Ekwestriya soleerani. An isolation broken only by the rare trading caravan.
After the Eclipse and the Solaree Cruziriate even those few contacts had come to an end as the Artlunee, the time of Luna’s absence, laid its weight upon her children as their self-imposed isolation became total.
Except for one terrible period of insanity, Celestia’s children had been content to leave their nocturnal cousins in their mountain strongholds and things had continued quietly until the return of Princess Luna. With Luna’s return Noctraliya had sent a detachment of their most elite warriors, the Nocferrat, to Canterlot in order to offer their service to their Goddess once more.
Despite the frowns of the Judging Sun, Luna had accepted the service of the Nocferratan and through them, the service of their nation. All of Noctraliya had rejoiced. Their Bogine, their Goddess had returned, giving purpose once again to their nation.
A few years passed and slowly, with great care, contact was made again with the solaree, the sun ponies. With contact, came trade, and with trade came questions. Questions the conclave of the noble families had been unwilling to answer just yet. Celestia, the Judging Sun, took the path of patience and waited until finally, she asked Noctraliya if they would accept a single representative of hers.
A soleeran, a mage, and the personal protegee of Sewira Solee herself would come to them, alone and unarmed. Twilight Sparkle would come to ask the questions that needed asking and to hear the grievances of the Conclave. This was not to the liking of everypony among the noctrali. Many were distinctly unhappy to hear that any sun pony would be walking in the sacred mountains of Noctraliya.
“We should take her now,” Dark Fang said, over his drink in the crowded tavern. “Take her, and make her pay for all the crimes the soleerani have committed against noctrali everywhere.”
Candles and lanterns filled the tavern imperfectly with their golden light, leaving a few corner tables in a deep shadow that even the incredible night vision of a noctral had trouble penetrating. For the most part though, the place was well lit and filled to capacity with noctrali having a well earned drink after a hard night’s work.
“Kill her, you mean,” Shadowed Wing said, answering his frequent verbal sparring partner. “You want to murder the chosen representative of the Judging Sun in cold blood.” More than one dark furred face around the table clenched their jaw or sipped at their own drink to hide their reaction.
“No, we put her on trial,” Dark Fang said, his fellows nodding in agreement. “We try her for the crimes of the Cruziriate and imprison her after the trial is over.”
“You assume the trial will only have one outcome,” Shadowed Wing said, ignoring the musicians who were tuning up on the stage. “Some would call that sort of trial a sham, and not a true trial at all.”
“The guilt of all soleerani is beyond dispute,” Dark Fang insisted. “No pony who has heard the Testimony can doubt that. Why else would the Lords of the Families be planning to take back the lands that were lost to us?”
“It is not for us to decide what the Haspardi are or aren’t going to do, and some might say that the crimes of a thousand years ago should rest with those that committed them,” Shadowed Wing shot back. “Much as the crimes of the Bogine were forgiven by the Judging Sun.”
“Forgiven? Was not our beloved Neskaza Lunee forced to pay for her crimes?” Dark Fang demanded, outrage colouring his words. “Did not the Judging Sun try and sentence our Bogine? Should not the same standard be applied to the followers of Sewira Solee?”
“If we did this, it would mean war!” Shadowed Wing shouted, equally outraged.
“Then let it be war!” Dark Fang flung back. “The sun lovers are weak and lazy. We can beat them easily.”
General arguing broke out around the table at that point, and spread around the tavern. Some ponies thought as Dark Fang did, others thought Shadowed Wing had the right of it. A good number just wanted to drink in peace and not worry about politics, Goddesses or the threat of a conflict with the ponies of Equestria. So few noticed a tall, hooded pony enter the tavern.
The stranger grabbed themselves a drink from a passing waitress who expertly balanced filled mugs along her folded wings. Sitting back in a darker than usual corner of the tavern the stranger sat back and studied the room, listening to the argument flowing back and forth from table to table. Noctral were a passionate breed, using custom and tradition to keep that passion in check, but sometimes it was a near thing, and more than one argument was coming close to blows.
Only the shadowed lines of the stranger’s face were visible under the hood of their cloak as they got up from their dark table, and made their way over to where the musicians who usually played in the tavern, were putting away their instruments with evident unhappiness on their muzzles.
“Are you not performing tonight?” the stranger asked, with the voice of a mare who had long been away from her home. “You might be what the ponies here need to relax and turn their thoughts away from conflict.”
“Not tonight, klaze,” the singer of the group, a young and lovely mare said. “They’re so wrapped up in what they want to do with this soleeran, this Twilight Sparkle, that any song we give them will be a waste. We may as well try to gain the attention of the Bogine than get them to listen to us.”
“Would you be willing to try,” the strange mare asked, “for me?” She pressed a small pouch of coins to the singer, who opened the bag and looked at them. Only her band mates were close enough to see the blood drain from her face and her knees start to give out on her.
“Nesk—” the singer began to say as she sunk to the floor, before the hooded mare pressed her hoof against the singer’s mouth and shook her head as she raised the singer back up to her hooves
“I only ask that you try,” the hooded mare said. “I would ask that you play the song called ‘Mare in Black.’ For me.” The cloaked mare pulled a silver shod hoof away from the singer’s mouth as her band mates began to protest. Wordlessly, the singer showed them the jingling contents of the bag and they sank to their knees, their eyes wide and shining.
“This is not the time for genuflection, my children,” the tall mare said, in a voice with equal parts urgency and amusement. “Nor is it time yet for me to walk openly among you again. Rise, and do as I ask before somepony notices you.”
“It would be our honor, Mate,” the group’s flute player said, standing and re-opening the case where his flute lay. His band mates followed his example, and they began to take their places drawing their own beloved instruments from their resting places.
For her part, the cloaked mare retreated back to her table in the darkened corner, looking to see if anypony had noticed the exchange at the dais. The arguments flowing back and forth in the tavern were continuing unabated, and the mare sipped at her mug of juice in satisfaction that the exchange had remained private. To the musicians, her eyes seemed to shine with a light of their own as she refocused her attention on them.
Resolving to do her best and terribly aware of that lambent regard, the singer of the group stepped forward on the raised platform set aside for their performances. Nervous fire ran up and down her limbs as she opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. It was as if some beast had grabbed hold of her throat, preventing any noise from coming out.
Helplessly she looked toward her patron, gesturing toward her throat. The cloaked mare said nothing, merely inclining her head to the singer, who somehow saw the ghost of an encouraging smile from her patron. That smile spread warmth into the singer’s heart, banishing the fear and apprehension she had been feeling. She stood up again before the crowd, who still only had eyes and ears for their arguments.
“I know that many of you would like to keep talking,” the singer said, drawing out the word and noticing that her voice was cutting through the arguments in the tavern like a knife, and that the room was falling silent with unusual speed. “But we’ve been asked to play a song for you all and I hope you will listen.” Pulling in a breath, she threw back her head and began to sing.
She came to me one evening
One lonely bloody evening
Her long mane flowing in the midwinter wind
I know not how she found me
For in darkness I was walking
And destruction lay around me
From the fight I could not win
She asked me name my foe then
I said the need within a stallion
To fight and kill his brothers
Without thought of love or Sun
And I begged her give me ponies
To trample down my enemies
So eager was my passion
To devour my wasted life
But she would not think of battle that
Reduces all to animals
So easy to begin
And yet impossible to end
She's the mother of all Noctrali
Who counselled me so wisely then
I feared to walk alone again
And asked if she would stay
Oh Lady, lend your hoof outright
And let me rest here at your side
Have faith and trust in Me, she said
And she filled my heart with life.
There is no strength in numbers
I’ve no such misconception
But when you have need me
Know the Moon won't be far away
Thus having spoke she turned away
And though I found no words to say
I stood and watched until I saw
Her black mane disappear
My labour is no easier
But now I know I'm not alone
I find new heart
Each time I think upon that windy night
And if one night she comes to you
Drink deeply from her words so wise
Take courage from her as your prize
And say hello for me.
Three heartbeats after the last notes of the song faded into the ceiling of the tavern, the door blew inwards from a sudden gust of wind that extinguished every candle in the room. The only light in the tavern was the blaze of silver moonlight, that poured in through the now open door to which every eye turned.
Standing there, silhouetted, was the outline of the tall cloaked mare who had paid for the song the musicians had just played. Nopony spoke, nopony moved, few dared to breathe, and even that stopped as a pair of blazing white eyes appeared in the depths of the cloak’s hood.
“Remember, My children,” said a voice, that seemed to vibrate in the bones of all present. “Remember the terrible cost of the waste that is war.”
The voice trailed off, the wind rose again and the cloak blew away from a body that was no longer there. Three score noctrali remembered to breathe again in a sudden, convulsive gasp that echoed throughout the room. The tavern became a sea of motion as every mare and stallion present realized they had all knelt in automatic reflex to the vision they had witnessed. Somepony closed the door against the cold wind as candles were relit and both Shadowed Wing and Dark Fang went up to the singer.
“Who was that pony?” they both asked, knowing the answer but unwilling to admit it. In silent answer, the singer turned and upended the contents of the pouch she'd been given into the open case of her band mates flute showing them its contents.
Silver coins glinted back up at the ponies. All coinage in Equestria and beyond consisted of the golden bits that bore the image of Princess Celestia, Sewira Solee to the noctrali. Silver coins, lunes, had not been minted since before the time when the pony whose image they bore had been banished for a thousand years. The image of Princess Luna stared back up at her children.
“Count the coins,” Dark Fang told the singer. “How many are there?”
“Seventy-one,” the singer said, a few moments later. “How many ponies are there here?”
“Seventy-one, counting myself,” the tavern owner said, speaking from behind the bar.
“She does not want there to be a war,” Dark Fang said, and he took a coin from the case. “The Night Mother does not wish her children to go to war. I take this coin so that I may use it to tell others of this night.”
“But what about the Conclave, what about the Testimony?” Shadowed Wing asked. “What will happen then?”
“It will be as the Goddess wills it,” Dusk Fang said, bowing his head in reverence. “I do not know what is going to happen, but I do know that it will not be war. Not if we tell others what has happened here this night.”
“As the Goddess wills it,” Shadowed Wing said, picking up a coin.
“As the Goddess wills it,” said a third, also taking up a coin. One by one each of them took up a coin as to serve as a token and vowing to obey the will of Neskaza Lunee. A vow that would push them to tell the story of this night to their friends, their families and in time, to the Lords of the Families themselves.
They are the Noctrali, the Night Dwellers. Long ago, they lost their Goddess to the Artlunee, the Eclipse. Not long after they suffered another terrible loss at the hooves of the Soleera Cruziate, the Solar Crusade, and they fled into the comforting darkness of the mountains of Noctraliya. After a thousand years Naskaza Lunee, the Immaculate Moon has returned and the Children of the Night Mother are taking their first steps back into the light. Where a pony named Twilight Sparkle waits to greet them in peace and Friendship.