The Last Pitch
Luna the Faithful
As Demon of Pride, Shantar thought quite highly of his talents of persuasion and deception, talents he planned to use that night in the breaking of Princess Luna.
Originally, he hadn’t been part of the invasion force. It was only after the ascension of Twilight Sparkle that the need for a fourth demon had become apparent. Shantar had been chosen, and given Luna as his target.
The others had mocked him, saying that he was getting the easy duty. In their minds, trying to break a princess that had already fallen once would not pose a challenge.
Shantar suspected otherwise. Unlike his fellow demons, he respected the opponent he had been sent to defeat. That Luna had previously fallen would make her more wary of being influenced by outside emotions, which meant new tactics would have to be tried. And in his mind, he was just the demon for the job.
Sitting on a grassy hilltop near Fillydelphia, he was reviewing his final arguments when the faint tingle of electricity running across his form caused him to open his eyes, turning his gaze to the sky. With appropriate awe, he watched as the Princess of the Night descended from the sky, her eyes intent and her face set. The moon revealed the impressive span of her wings, and glinted off her regalia, serving to further highlight her power and majesty.
Standing, he waited until she had reached the ground before offering a gentle bow.
“Your Majesty,” he said, his voice cool and respectful. He knew that if he were to have any chance at succeeding, he would need to keep her off-balance.
“Planning to be reasonable?” she asked, narrowing her eyes. “Unexpected from one such as you.”
“I see no reason to engage in idle bluster,” he replied, raising one hoof upward in a conciliatory gesture. “I am a demon, you are a princess, we each have our roles to play. Personally, I’m quite honored to meet you.”
“Honored?”
“Of course,” he said, smiling. Shantar knew that a key point of selling any lie was to nestle truth within it, and he was honored to face her. “When we were selected for this assignment, I was pleased to receive you as the pony I would be working with. Compared to the others, you’re so much more…interesting.”
“To be sure,” he quickly continued, “the others have their respective talents, but you? You’re the one pony that I feel can truly understand my position…and appreciate my offer.”
“I have no interest in making any deals with demons,” she replied, eyes flashing. “You can return to the portal, or you can be destroyed. Those are your options.”
“Please, Princess,” he said, inclining his head again as he laced his voice with a pleading note. “Must you be so blunt? Will you not at least allow me to share what I have to tell you? What harm could there be in mere words?”
The look on her face was difficult to read. She stared at him, as though weighing his offer, before giving a single nod.
“I will allow you to speak your piece,” she said, taking a seat on the ground. “Do not waste my time.”
Shantar wasn’t surprised by her sudden change of heart. After all, he knew how persuasive he was. “Of course, Your Majesty. Your time is precious.”
He approached her, careful to make no untoward movements. Regardless of his precaution, she began to raise her wings, though she didn’t step backward. As he closed within striking distance, she stomped one hoof, causing a brief, blinding flash of light to dazzle his eyes, while at the same time his ears were blasted with the Royal Canterlot Voice.
“That is close enough, demon!” she cried, her nostrils flaring as her mane whipped in the sudden stir of wind that she summoned. “Do not approach Us further!”
As his eyes cleared, he took care to look hurt.
“Why, Princess, whatever justified such a reaction? Have I done anything to harm you or any other pony?”
“…no” she admitted through clenched teeth, before adding, “Not yet.”
“I would have thought that you, of all ponies, would know better than to judge somepony simply because of what they are, or by their outward appearance. Were you not judged unfairly when trying to reintegrate into modern Equestria? Have you not been treated unfairly because of your own past?”
Luna shook her head, seemingly annoyed. “Proceed,” she replied.
He bowed his head again. “Thank you, kind Princess. Now, what I wish to show you will require me to re-create memories using illusions. I tell you this so that you are aware, and so that you do not suspect I am trying to trick you.”
As his horn lit, the sky darkened, and the show began.
Luna hadn’t expected the illusion to feel so real. As a highly experienced dreamwalker, she was used to memories having their own power, but this illusion even got the smells right.
In this case, the rank stench of the battle that had taken place nearby. The scent made her want to gag, but she squared her shoulders and focused on what the illusion was showing, even if she’d lived it once before. Perhaps some new insight could be gleaned.
She recognized the tent she was standing in; it was the command tent that she and Celestia had used during their war with Discord. If her memory was correct – and it almost always was – then this was where her first real fight with her sister had taken place, the first fight that had led to her eventual downfall.
As if it had been waiting for her to finish recalling that fact, the illusion began to move, and she heard Celestia’s voice outside the tent. “Thank you, Lord Whitehoof. I will send a messenger to your tent later, when I am free.”
“Of course,” Lord Whitehoof replied, sounding very pleased. “I await our next meeting, Princess.”
The flaps of the tent parted as Celestia held them open with magic…and Luna watched herself walk in, still scuffed and dirty from the battle.
This Luna was tired, but not in the same ways that she would later be. The real Luna, the one tempered by experience, couldn’t help but realize how young she looked.
Too young, she thought. We were both too young.
Celestia entered next, her tranquil face taking on the appearance of a pony considerably more annoyed. She used her magic to cast a silencing spell over the tent, so nopony could eavesdrop, before beginning her lecture.
“Luna, would you mind telling me just what you were doing out there?”
The memory Luna looked surprised at the outburst. She cocked her head to one side. “I believe I was winning, sister.”
“You slaughtered that entire group of ponies that was surrendering.”
“Surrendering?” Memory Luna scoffed. “May I remind you, my perfect sister, that it was you who issued the order of no quarter to those who followed Discord? Am I to blame for following your orders?”
“Discord is gone, Luna,” Celestia replied, tossing her head. “In his place, we are going to form a new, united Equestria. We can’t do that if you’re going around acting like a butcher.”
“If I am a…butcher,” Memory Luna spat that last word as though it were something vile she had bitten into, “then it is by your hoof, sister. You had no issue with the butcher when she led the Southern Campaign to victory. There was no complaining about the butcher when she saved your fledging noble class from the attack last month, though the Moon knows that was a bloody night.”
Celestia sighed. “Luna, we’ve been over this. Nopony denies that you have sacrificed, but the past is past. It’s time for you to get on board with the future – a future where those who surrender are offered quarter, a future where the rule of law is upheld.”
“So it’s sit down, shut up, and get in the corner, is it?” Memory Luna’s voice was rising, even as tears began to well in her eyes. “You may think me a butcher, sister, but it is I who have to live with the memories! You think I enjoy what I do? That I like the pony you made me into? Night after night, my nightmares torment me. When I close my eyes, I see all the ponies I was forced to slaughter at your command.”
A faint gasp interrupted the memory Luna’s rant, her face pulling tight as she tried to bite back the urge to openly cry. “I see and feel them trying to pull me down, insisting that it is I who belongs in the fetid pit, not they. And with every night that passes, it grows harder for me to disagree.”
She kicked out with a hoof in frustration, knocking over a map table and sending the papers on its surface flying.
“Luna, again, nopony denies your willingness to serve – “
“Then show me the slightest bit of kindness, Tia!” she shouted. “Don’t drag me in here to lecture me on a change you didn’t see fit to share with me!” Luna brought one leg up to wipe at her eyes with a dirty fetlock. “Or was that your plan? Let your sister, the one that our armies already whisper about, make herself out to be a bloodthirsty monster in front of everypony, so that there will be no challenge to your ascension to the throne?!”
Now it was Celestia’s turn to look hurt. “Luna, how dare you accuse me of such things! We spoke of this change only last week, when I had the commanders in for the summit after we turned Discord to stone.”
“A meeting I missed,” Luna shouted, “because I was busy helping with the refugees pouring into the camp!”
“A likely excuse, Luna, but I saw you in the summit!” Celestia shouted back, having finally lost her composure. “You may think of me whatever you will, but do not make me out to be the villain when it is you who has done wrong!”
“No, of course not, my perfect sister,” Memory Luna spat. “You needn’t worry about getting your hooves dirty. I’ll take the blame, as I always do. What’s one more smudge on a pony already as black as the night, right?”
The memory Luna stormed from the tent, leaving only the memory of Celestia and the real Luna standing there in silence. Time had blunted the harshness of that day, but now that she had seen it afresh, Luna felt the old hurt once again pricking at her heart.
“When did she find out you had been telling the truth?” Shantar asked, appearing at Luna’s side.
“A few days later,” Luna replied. “I was there for the start of the summit, but I ducked out to go and help the refugees, as I’d said. Celestia made the change to our policy then.”
“And her apology?”
Luna snorted. “Tia has improved a lot on that front, but even today she isn’t the best at apologies. Back then? Well, it was my fault for not reviewing the after-summit report to see if I’d missed anything. My squad would have stopped me had they known, but they likewise weren’t aware of the change because they had been guarding me at the time.”
Shantar’s next statement was sympathetic. “It’s never a good feeling, to be used in such a fashion, to sacrifice everything, only to not be trusted. But it wasn’t the only time such a thing happened, was it?”
“No,” Luna replied, suspecting – and dreading – what was next.
The scene changed to a time roughly five years later, this time in the Castle of the Two Sisters.
A weary looking Luna entered the hallway, dressed in a black robe. Using her magic, she put out most of the lamps before secreting herself in a notch in the stone, the shadows making her invisible to anypony who didn’t know to look for her. From her hiding place, she lay ready, and waited.
Several minutes passed before the door to the hallway opened and another pony entered, trotting down the corridor while muttering about the lack of light.
“Princess of the Sun my plot,” he grumbled. “You’d think she could at least make my job easier and have this place properly lit!”
As the figure passed the notch where the memory Luna was hiding, Luna watched herself slowly slide out, raising her sword in her magic. She slunk behind the other pony, who remained oblivious to her presence.
“At least I can be done with this charade after this evening,” the stallion grumbled, raising one hoof to pat at a pocket in his robe, as if to confirm something was still there.
As the other pony made it to the end of the corridor, where he stopped to take in a breath, the memory Luna struck. There was a faint rustle from her cloak, which caused her target to shift at the last minute. As such, her first hit missed the mark, slicing into his wing and making him scream loudly enough to wake the whole castle.
Her second blow struck true, and he fell, his head cleanly severed from his neck, the faint groan of the dead the last sound he would ever make.
“Impressive,” Shantar said, surprised. “It takes considerable strength to do that.”
“My magic was always strong,” Luna replied, her eyes closed in distaste, “as was my swordplay. Talents honed by butchery and intrigue.”
The door he had been preparing to enter flew open, and Celestia rushed out, her magic immediately re-lighting all the lamps in the corridor. She took in the scene with growing horror on her face, made worse when Luna cast off her cloak, leaving her standing over the dead pony, her blade still dripping with his blood.
“Luna! What is the meaning of this?! You…you have murdered Lord Whitehoof!” Celestia’s voice had started loud and only grown louder, echoing off the narrow corridor walls.
“I did,” Memory Luna replied, her tone uncaring and aloof. “He was a traitor, and deserved as such.”
Celestia stomped in anger, flaring her wings. “Luna, that’s preposterous! What is your proof for such charges?!”
“You mean besides the vial of poison in his cloak?” the memory Luna asked, her magic pulling it from Whitehoof’s pocket, the one he’d been patting only moments before. She held it up in the light. “There’s also the matter that one of his accomplices attempted to sneak into my bedchamber not half-an-hour ago to do the same thing. After considerable persuasion, I convinced the would-be assassin to give up his employer.”
As if to irritate her sister further, Luna wiped her sword on Whitehoof’s body, leaving a reddish smear on his gray coat.
“Even if that were true, you trusted the word of an assassin that Lord Whitehoof, my consort, was trying to kill me?!” Celestia’s eyes flashed. “Sister, I do not believe you. You have done this out of…out of jealousy!”
“And you are acting in this fashion because your emotions are blinding you, Tia!” Luna shouted back, long since having grown tired of not being trusted. “You accuse me, diarch of the realm, of murdering your ponytoy because of jealousy?! If it was jealousy, I could just as easily have let him kill you, giving me good reason to kill him, and allowing me to usurp the realm for myself. Or do you intend to claim that I planted this poison on him?”
The Royal Guard had arrived during the argument, and Celestia turned to the leader. “Captain, go and investigate my sister’s chambers to see if her story is true,” she ordered. “My sister and I will remain here to await your findings.”
“Was there an apology that time?” Shantar asked.
“A begrudging one,” Luna replied. “Once the evidence proved I was telling the truth. In the end, it didn’t matter. Tia hadn’t trusted me before, and she didn’t trust me after. Nothing had changed.”
Confronted with the memories, Luna couldn’t help but remember how she had felt in those years before her fall. Overshadowed, ignored, left out of the loop with increasing frequency. She might have been diarch in title, but in practice she had been little more than window dressing, something for Celestia to use for entertainment, or to solve the occasional ‘sticky’ issue where a blade was required.
A tool, not a sister, nor an equal.
The resentment such treatment had built had festered in her soul, sapping her will and leaving her looking for a way out…any way out, no matter how horrible the outcome.
“And yet you remained loyal to her, all while receiving nothing in return,” he said, planting another seed of doubt. He thought he could sense her resolve weakening.
“The cracks were already forming well before then,” Luna admitted. “That night certainly hastened things along, but I was still hopeful that one day, I would have her trust.”
“But you never truly did, did you?” he asked, changing the scene again. “Your actions the night of your banishment made certain that she would never trust you.”
Luna shook her head. “I don’t need to relive that night,” she replied. “I was there.”
“You were there for the main event, certainly,” he replied, hiding his grin, “but you missed the aftermath.”
The scene before her kept changing, showing Celestia over the course of Luna’s thousand-year absence. How her sister had nearly sunk into her own darkness. How she had trusted less and less over the years, sharing nothing of her inner thoughts or plans. Even her students were only given the barest details needed, something Celestia still had troubles with.
Was that really my fault? Or was she already on that path before my fall? I have often wondered…
“She was so ashamed of you that she let you slip into legend, a myth that ponies used for a celebration,” he said, not quite keeping the sneer out of his voice. “And then you returned…and went back to being in her shadow.”
“I went back to being diarch,” Luna shot back, annoyed. “Only this time, I make decisions of consequence. I matter.”
“Do you?” he asked, his voice soft as he began to circle around her. “How often has your sister taken your input into consideration? Did she listen to you when the Crystal Empire returned?”
“That was different. She knew the Bearers better than I did.”
“But you knew the Empire as well as she did,” he pointed out. “If she trusted you, then why not listen to your suggestion to send at least a few squads of soldiers there? They wouldn’t have hurt, surely?”
No, they wouldn’t have…but they wouldn’t have necessarily helped either, Luna thought.
“It seems to me, Princess, that you’re right back where you started, having learned nothing despite all your experiences.” He shook his head. “Fortunately, I’m here to help.”
Took you long enough to get to the point. I tire of this.
“And so we come to my offer.” He appeared in front of her once again, letting his illusion drop and returning them to the hilltop they had left. “Princess Luna, I watch your history and I weep. Always playing second-best, always standing in the shadow of your sister. Never trusted nor treated as an equal. I offer you a different path.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I’m listening.”
“We demons intend to rule Equestria, but you and I both know such an action would be so…messy. I believe you to be a reasonable pony, and I wish to help you. It would be better for all parties involved if the actual running of the land was left to a pony they know. I want that pony to be you.”
"You want me to betray the others...to join you."
He gazed into her eyes. “My offer is sincere, Princess. Join with us, and you shall have power you could only dream of. You shall be respected and feared, as you have always deserved to be.”
“You sound terribly confident that you will defeat my fellow princesses,” Luna pointed out. “Have you met Twilight Sparkle?”
“I have not had the pleasure,” he admitted, resuming his circling of her. “But I assure you, my fellows are very good at what they do, as am I. My orders were to kill you…but I do not wish to do so. That is why we met here, and that is why I have dealt honestly with you.” Well, mostly. But what were a few lies between allies?
He saw doubt on her face, and held his tongue. While he couldn't feel her emotions - an oddity, but one he dismissed - he knew it was likely that she was teetering on the edge of a knife, and one wrong word could spell disaster.
As quickly as it had come, the doubt vanished.
“How, exactly, would you ever trust me?”
He blinked. “Trust you?”
“You just gave a very excellent presentation to showcase how I haven’t been trusted. You even took care to point out why my sister had valid reasons not to trust me. If I am to betray her yet again, would that not draw my trustworthiness into serious doubt? So, I ask: if I did this, how would you trust me?”
This wasn’t a question he’d anticipated, but he was always quick on his hooves. “As I recall, you demonstrated considerable loyalty in those memories, did you not?”
“So now I’m loyal, and I also can’t be trusted.” A tight little smile appeared on her face. “All that arrogance, and yet you make a surprisingly poor salespony.”
“I lay no claim to perfection,” he lied, stopping where he was, which put him behind her. “Are you rejecting my offer?”
“I believe that is what I have been trying to communicate.”
Considerable disappointment filled him. It seems my fellows were right after all, and I was wrong. He sighed internally. Only one thing left to do, I suppose.
“That is…unfortunate,” he admitted. “I think we could have worked well together.”
“I doubt that,” Luna replied, continuing to face away from him, seemingly unconcerned that her back was turned to an enemy.
How oddly foolish, he thought, summoning a dagger. Using his magic to lift himself off the ground just enough, he closed his eyes, took a deep breath…and flung himself forward, driving the dagger into Luna’s back.
Or rather, where Luna’s back had been. His eyes widened in shock as the dagger sunk through the blue alicorn, and in his surprise he continued moving, falling to the ground below.
Luna, or what had seemed to be Luna, turned to look at him then, a smile on her face.
“How terribly disappointing,” she said, before vanishing completely.
He whirled around, expecting an attack from the rear, but there was nopony behind him.
“Did you really think I would be so foolish as to turn my back to you?” Luna’s voice shook the ground beneath him, and lightning flashed in the skies.
“It…was rather odd,” he admitted, looking around to see if he could spot her. "But who am I to question royalty?"
"You thought you could break the Princess of the Night by reminding her of her inner darkness." He could hear the scowl in her tone. "I, who have sunk more deeply into darkness than any living pony, cannot be broken by such pathetic efforts. I tolerated your game in order to know your true intentions."
He gulped, smiling nervously. “I’m…still willing to make a deal,” he lied.
“Are you, now?” Her voice was silky. “And why would I be interested? What could you possibly offer me?”
Shantar was thinking quickly now, hoping his silver tongue could still give him an out. “I can save your sister,” he said. “Or the others. But I can’t do that if you kill me.”
Luna laughed then, a deep, rumbling laugh that shook Shantar to his core. “My fellow princesses will be fine," she replied. "If I, the weakest of all of them, have so readily defeated you, then I doubt my sisters in power will suffer a scratch. And even if one of them does fail, I will not compromise my integrity to deal with a liar and a murderer.”
The world flashed again, much as it had earlier when she’d stopped him from approaching her. As Shantar’s eyes cleared, Luna stood in front of him…in the exact spot she’d been upon first landing. Only this time, the sword that had been in her memories was now hovering next to her, blue-tinted blade glinting in the moonlight.
“You…it was an illusion all along?” he asked, stunned. "How?"
"My magic is as deep as it is mysterious," she replied. "I have forgotten or buried more spells than most ponies will learn in a lifetime. For one who claimed it was an honor to meet me, you seem to have done remarkably little research."
A fierce grin appeared on her face then, and Shantar knew the end had come. He could have fought, he could have resisted...but he wanted to make his exit with as much dignity as he could muster.
“Any last requests?” she asked.
“Does the policy of offering quarter no longer apply?” he asked, mentally berating himself for the way his voice quivered.
“Oh, it does,” Luna admitted, her face turning briefly solemn. “And I have gladly offered it many times. But, in this case, given that you just tried to kill me, I choose not to offer it.”
A grin again. “My sister will understand,” she said, as her eyes met his. “She trusts me, after all.”
Luna kicked off the ground, taking to the air with relief. While she was certain her fellow princesses were more than capable of handling such enemies, she still wanted to check on them…and doing so was preferable to sitting on a hill with a corpse.
“I trust you.”
Those were the final words that Celestia had said to Luna before she’d taken flight, chasing after the first demon that had shot out of the portal into Equestria.
Three simple words…and yet they meant the world to Luna.
Her faith had finally been rewarded.