Fractured

“Again”

Dawn ducked under the sword’s sweep. She responded in kind with her twin daggers. Made of pure diamond they were her greatest weapon. She could hamstring most other fighters within a heartbeat. But not right now.

The bastard sword swung in again and left a fair sized divot in the stone behind her. She sent one of her daggers toward the dark blue unicorn in front of her. She followed it with an arrow made of energy. The blue pony ducked under the dagger and cleaved the arrow in two. He again led with the bastard sword and leapt forward with multiple strikes too fast for the eye to follow. With only one of her daggers she barely managed to dodge and block all of the attacks. She called her thrown dagger back and launched a spinning kick at the unicorn. He blocked the kick but she was now under his guard and at an advantage with her short daggers. One blade locked under the hilt of his sword and the other drew a thin line of blood from his throat.

They both stood tense and ready until he smiled and let his sword slide to the ground. He held his hooves in the air in surrender.

“Alright, you win. Let’s do that one again.”

Dawn kept her dagger at his throat. He looked at her in confusion.

“The round is over Dawn. You can get your knife from under my throat.”

Dawn shook her head fiercely.

“Not until you listen! You’ve been ignoring me when I try to talk about the plan we came up with, Night. Now listen or we can stand here all day!”

Night scowled and his eyes narrowed.

“When the hell did I teach you how to be so assertive?”

Dawn grinned and dropped her dagger into its sheathe.

“About the same time you remembered to stop cursing around me.”

Night opened his mouth to reply, but found he could say nothing. He shook his head.

“You’ve grown up too fast; it’s making me feel old! Next I’ll be checkin’ for white hairs.”

Dawn laughed as she dismissed her battle armor and her weapons. Training during the day and then at night had made her one of the best fighters in the lunar elite guard. She excelled in all of the training save destructive magic. Something just didn’t feel right about totally obliterating her targets.

The mindscape changed shape and color as Night manipulated it. Dawn always felt strange that Night was playing around in her mind. Someone moving things around in her head was unnatural. Night conjured a table with two chairs. On it he laid multiple maps of Equstria, several were marked with Royal troop emplacements.

Dawn took a seat and sorted through the maps until she found a detailed map of Canterlot. She set a few chess pieces on the map to outline their strategy. Night looked over her shoulder as she began to describe their plan. Dawn had thought of most of the plan herself and with the help of her friends had managed to refine it to perfection. Every step had a contingency and if anything went wrong they always had an escape plan. She just had to run it by one more pony…

Night poured over the plan pointing at any potential faults and adding a half dozen other problems Dawn hadn’t even thought of. He drew all over the map pointing out dozens of traps and secret guard posts. Finally he stepped back and nodded, feeling satisfied. Dawn cast a spell that would transfer the information on the map into the real world.

She turned back toward her mentor to find that he was smiling broadly at her. Dawn was slightly taken aback. Though Night smiled often around her when she did well in their training it was never like this. This smile was more similar to the smile of a proud parent then of a happy friend. Tears rimmed his eyes as her stared at her. She stepped closer and pulled him into a hug.

She had only seen him cry once. The practice had started as normal but slowly Night had let his emotions show until finally he broke down right in front of her. She had pulled him close and asked what was wrong and he spilled his story. She had known Pinkie had died in an attack but had had no idea that Night himself had led the attack. He had been unable to do anything to stop his soldiers as they slaughtered everyone.

She held him tight until he recovered himself. He stepped back,

“Sorry, its been a long day. I’m just so proud of you, not a few months ago you could barely fight. Now you plan fights and duel skillfully and that makes me happy as can be.”

Night cleared his throat and stared into the blank distance of the mindscape. His smile had dropped now and his face adopted its customary frown. Dawn sat beside him and stared into the empty plain in front of her.

“There is one thing about your plan I didn’t comb over.”

She faced him, her curiosity piqued.

“What? Did one of the back up plans look funny to you?”

He shook his head and took a deep breathe.

“The plan is perfect to the letter, but there is just one thing.”

Now he faced her in full.

“I hope you realize you’ll be fighting me and my own soldiers in your assault. Both will be trying to kill you. You can’t hold back, no matter what. You have to do more than cripple them, because if you don’t then they will keep coming until you’re dead.”

Dawn sighed; they had this argument almost constantly. Night would tell her that his soldiers would have zero mercy and then go on about how she should be killing her enemies, including Night himself. But she refused to do it. She felt that the soldiers were innocent because the Queen controlled them and that they were helpless, just like everyone else. She stood and walked towards the Door.

“Night we’ve both been over this before. I will not kill anypony. That’s final, let it go.”

She walked through the door and slammed it behind her leaving Night alone with his thoughts.

Ʊ

Night barely registered the door close behind him. His daughter was stubborn, just like her mother. But Night knew what would happen; he had seen it in his visions; nightmares that plagued him every single moment of his life.  He had seen the Queen, Dawn and himself in a large room. His blood spilled before him and he watched as Dawn beat the Queen single handed. He knew what would come to be.

A tear hit the ground before him. The visions always spoke true. Dawn had watched him die not knowing that he was her father. Another tear hit the ground. Night wept silently, alone.

The visions always came true.