Nightglow
art by Snow Quill
Did you know that the light from the moon and stars are not the reason we can see outside? A pony I knew once told me this. Their light is not bright enough to cast a shadow, like the light from a lamp or a sunfruit does. Yet it is never quite as dark outside as it is inside of a house or down in a mineshaft with the lights off. That is because the air itself glows, with just enough light to see ahead on a path, or to recognize the face of a pony that is close enough to talk to. The nightglow is what they called it, back when there was such a thing as night.
No, the moon and stars are only bright enough for us to see their eternal place in the heavens, fixed and unchanging. They are always there for us to contemplate, and to reflect on our own place in the order of things. That is what I am doing now, as I sit on this cliff and look out to the horizon.
Yet still, I cannot get her out of my mind. That tourist, that interloper who dared to enter the castle while the Princess was in residence, then accost me as if I would know who she was.
As if I would associate with a pony like her! The wings and horn… Well, they made me uneasy, but I am less disturbed now by such a sight than I once would have been. I know now that the ideas of provincial ponies grow strange, living as they do so far from the Princess and proper pony society. She was hardly the first pilgrim I’d seen brazenly burst through those castle doors in full costume, clearly ignorant of the fact that it comes across more like blasphemy than homage. Granted, the craftsmareship on her false horn (surely those wings were real!) was a cut above the rest, but her ramblings were as incoherent as any of the others had been.
And the odd little creature that accompanied her just completed the picture. I did call him a dragon (absurd to imagine an actual relation with those hulking, frightening beasts), but in truth I did not know what he was and nor did I care to learn. There were just so many of them these days, crowding the border cities, each with an unpronounceable name for their species and homeland. So common for them to indenture one of their own children to a pony for scraps of food from our granaries. Too common for said pony to think that it meant anything special about them beyond their privilege of having been born in Equestria.
Yes, I could imagine her now, getting wrapped up further and further in her delusions in that far-off, provincial town. I could imagine her convincing herself how special and important her ridiculous fantasies were, so much so that they were worthy of nothing less than the attention of the Princess Herself. Well, she certainly did get that attention. I can only imagine what had happened after that. I removed myself from the main hall as the Lunar Guard surrounded her. It was not my place to witness such things.
But something does not sit right with me. Like a pebble in my shoe, slowly gnawing away at the frog of my hoof.
The way that she ignored every signal I gave, with my iciest of demeanors, that she was out of place, and not where she should be. The way her panicked gaze darted between the symbols and motifs of the Lunar Throne, as if seeing them for the very first time. The way that she simply did not move quite like anypony I had seen before, not even from the furthest, strangest reaches of the Princess’s realm. It was as if…
I could not help but overhear what I did as I exited the main hall (more slowly than I should have been). It was hardly the first time I had heard Celestia declared the rightful ruler of Equestria within those walls, but it was the first time I had heard those words in any other form than a shout of defiance. Instead, a confused assertion, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to expect. From the mouth of a child, no less.
I stare at the disk of alabaster that forever dominates the sky, and the Mare on the Moon dappled across its surface. A place in the heavens for the Princess’s sister, no less worthy of her name for her defeat. And it is a fitting place for her, among the constellations of stars. After all, each one bears the name and story of a foe that had to be vanquished for the sake of our Equestria becoming what it is today. The history of a nation, written in the heavens themselves.
Is it any wonder that no matter how many hours I spend hunched over a loom, my tapestries never come close to capturing their full majesty? It is not my place to be able to. Only our rightful Princess holds their true reflection, in her very mane and tail.
As I look up at Celestia in her rightful place, I imagine what it would be like if she had won, and the light of her sun were no longer banished to the lands beyond the horizon. The moon and stars would be buried by her light, so deep that it would be easy to forget they were ever there in the first place. They would still be there, but they would no longer remind us of our history. They would no longer comfort us with the fact that some stars shine more brightly and strongly than others, but they all have their place in the tableau, contributing their light to the beauty of the whole.
But I do not think that is the worst thing it would do.
The nightglow gives us all the light that we need, but spares us what we do not. At this distance, I can make out the edge of the Everfree Forest below me, and the browns and greens of the individual trees, just barely. But beyond them is a murky expanse of shadow that melds together to form a ribbon of a horizon in the distance, separated from the dark blue of the sky.
I know what I would see in that murky expanse, if the sun shone down on it like a lamp does over a map on a table. A sea of treetops, broken up by the occasional clearing, stretching out all the way to the horizon. How awful would such a false understanding be! To feel as if I see the totality of an image, when all I have done is reduce an entire forest full of life and wonders to a single vision in my mind.
Better to keep to the murky dark what is truly too much for a pony mind to fully comprehend. Better to keep our eyes on what we can reach out and touch.
Yes, that’s it. The tourist, she did remind me of somepony. A unicorn and not a pegasus, but the coat colors. The voice. That desperation was familiar.
It sounded better when it wasn’t rattling off incoherent delusions, but rather ideas that were much too coherent. Facts that were dangerous, because they gave a false understanding.
The fact that Equestria and ponies were far from alone on this continent, and that there were many other species and lands beyond its borders.
That pony magic could make crops grow even without the light of a sun.
That ponies were the only species with this power.
What better proof was there that such thoughts were not for her place than what those thoughts did to her? Curled up on the ground, crying out in sorrow for what was said by some quill marks on parchment that she could do nothing about, and neither could any of us.
Why drive herself to madness over it? To let her despair fester in her heart, then curdle into blasphemy and treason?
I tried to stop her. Desperately, I did. (why didn’t she listen?) But it wasn’t enough. She stepped into the grand hall wearing the tattered remnants of the dress that I had made for her as wings. And that time, I did see what happened.
That is why I do not have to imagine what happened to those tourists after the Princess and the Lunar Guard marched them out into the Everfree. I know that they returned without them. I know that it is not my place to know anything more than that. I do not wish to know.
The stars are in their place in the heavens. I am in mine below them. And that is enough.