One night a year Dusk Shine met with his friends.
One night a year Celestia's eye was not on her shadow's movements.
It was a calculated ploy; Dusk Shine was sent to spend time with his friends so that he wouldn't run into his counterpart. No one knew what would happen if any of them ever met their counterparts, but no one was eager to find out. So Dusk Shine and his friends, save Vestige, had all been employed by Celestia. Dusk Shine was normally forced to spend all of his time in Celestia's presence, where she could keep an eye on him and he relished the opportunity to be free from her. As a token of good will, and insurance to guarantee their loyalty, Vestige had volunteered to be imprisoned. It was a sham imprisonment, as Vestige was allowed visitors, to work, he was given any accoutrement he required, but the pretense was enough to satisfy all parties.
On this particular night, Dusk Shine headed down to the prison wing alone. Normally he met with the others before going to see Vestige, but this year they were away.
"Kingston and Prism joined the guard last year." He said, on seeing Vestige's questioning look. "They are away from Canterlot on assignment. Timide is still at the Crystal Empire studying the local fauna. Oddly enough, King Sombra has proven to have had an interest in zoology. A rather substantial collections of notes and studies he collected were recently discovered. It's just you and me tonight, Vestige."
"Oh be still my heart." Vestige deadpanned.
Never one to beat around the bush, he went straight for the throat and said, "If you think I'll forgive you after all you've done, you're sadly mistaken."
Dusk Shine met his gaze with minor annoyance. "I don't remember asking for your forgiveness. I've betrayed no moral standard I adhere to, and feel no remorse for any action I have taken."
"This above all: to thine own self be true." Vestige said with as much venom as he could muster.
Dusk Shine sniffed. "A quote that holds more valid wisdom than it does criticism. Am I to look after the interests of others to the exclusion of my own? If I do not look after myself, I will not be in a position to render aid to others. It is only natural to want to put yourself above others, and I can see no reason to avoid doing so. It has served me well, and as the occasion arose, the knowledge I collect has been put to great use. What the concerns of a few ponies compared to the infinite quest for knowledge? Princess Celestia finds value in the knowledge I have collected and considers what crimes I have committed - ones I might add, not committed under her sovereignty - to be insufficient to render my intellectual abilities moot."
"Prince Apollo would never have." Vestige winced at his own choice of words as he saw the look that entered Dusk Shine's eyes. He was gearing up for another of his long-winded speeches. Knowing that Dusk couldn't be dissuaded, Vestige settled down for a long wait. It really wasn't all that bad - Vestige had learned more than a few things from Dusk's speeches over the years - but it did tend to eat up alot of time.
"The first mistake you make is assuming that just because Celestia bears a superficial resemblance to Prince Apollo that they must for some reason have the same personalities. This is erroneous. Celestia's experiences have been far different from Prince Apollo's. The...I suppose Celestial Diarchy was shattered one thousand years ago when one royal turned on another, compelled by some as yet unknown force. In our world Prince Apollo, under the influence of an alternate personality called Tyrant Helios, turned on Princess Artemis was defeated, at a great cost: the Elements of Harmony no longer answered to the Princess' call. He was sealed away within the sun itself, not to return for a millennium.
"In this world it was the moon that turned on the sun; Princess Luna, Nightmare Moon, turned on Celestia and was bound to the moon for a thousand years. Where Apollo slept and Tyrant Helios stewed and schemed for those thousand years, Celestia took on the duties of her sister and ruled both day and night, and she learned that there was far more to ruling the world than she previously bargained for when she and her sister decided to oppose Discord, known to us as Tumult.
"She became intimately familiar with the inherent drawbacks in wielding the power of life and death over the entire world. With no one to turn to, she was forced to bend or break. So she bent; she became more cunning, more...ruthless, more ready to do what needed to be done.
"I do not believe that Apollo would have done the same. There are different dynamics at play here. Ponies of different sexes react differently to certain stimuli. We can observe this very thing in Prism and Kingston and their counterparts. Where Applejack and Rainbow Dash nurture a friendly rivalry devoid of, if any, overt sexual tension, Prism Blitz and Kingston Black were the bitterest of enemies, a fact which only served to inflame their obvious lust for one another until Romy became involved in their lives and convinced them that there were better things to do with their lives than argue with eachother. In truth, I do not believe that Romy meant they should start a sexual relationship, but regardless.
"For these different dynamics to extend all the way back to before Equestria's founding, before the time of the three tribes even, the world we know today would have to be necessarily different from the one we came from. That it is so alike, save for the things that are different is an incredible enigma; one that I have been attempting to unravel since we first came here, with little success.
"I am analogous to Twilight Sparkle, but we differ in several key aspects. She does not value knowledge and magic to the extent I do. She places personal connections above such things. I react to threats to my collection of knowledge with anger and, with very little provocation, violence. Twilight only uses violence as a last resort, and then only if the target of that violence is a threat to the ponies she cares about. We both study the so-called "magic of friendship", but we go about it in different ways. Twilight embraces the endeavor, throwing herself into each adventure, while I have attempted to maintain an outsider's perspective, proceeding with caution and immersing myself only under repeatable and measurable conditions, save in situations where there was no other choice than to forge ahead.
"When Nightmare Moon attacked, Twilight Sparkle was the first pony to go after her, and it was against her objections that her friends went along. When Tyrant Helios attacked, I had to be coerced into going after him, as you and the others were determined to do anything you could to prevent Tyrant Helios from harming our beloved Princess Artemis."
"We should have let you stay." Vestige said. "Then I wouldn't be here in this cell."
"No, you would be as dead as Romy is. Tyrant Helios was arrogant, but you can not deny that he would have killed us had we not discovered the Elements of Harmony when we did."
Dusk Shine sighed as his friend just glared at him, not saying anything.
"Never forget, Vestige, that this was your decision. You're a very generous pony, and that generosity led to you sacrificing your freedom in exchange for that of your friends. Even though you won't admit it, I am numbered among those."
"You're the one that needs to be locked up. You're not my friend. You used to be, but that changed when you-"
Dusk interrupted him. "Can we not do this? Can we please go one night without rehashing every detail that led us here?"
Vestige was silent for several minutes, brooding. When he began to stir again, Dusk Shine mentally counted down the second to when he would ask what he asked every year. Three...two...
"Why would Princess Artemis send us with you?"
Dusk sighed again. "Why would she send a criminal to another world without someone to mind him? I am imprisoned as surely as you are. Princess Celestia keeps me close. I am her shadow, forced to stand behind her at all times unless commanded otherwise. I may not speak or move without her permission. This is the only night of the year I am allowed to leave her side, and rather than spend it in my lab, or the library, many hours spent not dreading an interruption when the princess again calls for me, I spend it here, listening to you and the others call me a monster, a demon or whatever other colorful name you can come up with. And why? Why allow myself to be subjected to your accusations, when they are so wrong from my perspective? It is because I love you."
Vestige scoffed. "You doubt my sincerity without cause." Dusk Shine said. "I have never lied to any of you, as Kingston, the bearer of the Element of Honesty, can attest at any point. You may find this hard to believe, Vestige, but I do love you. The same as I love Timide, Kingston and Prism. The same as I loved Romy. You are my friends and though I did not originally, I have learned to value that, in my own way."
They were both silent for a long time after that, stewing over Dusk Shine's words.
It was Dusk Shine who finally broke the silence by changing the subject. "Have you debuted any new fashion lines this year?" he asked with, if fake, sincere-sounding interest. He knew very little about fashion, but he did know that Vestige had taken Canterlot's fashion world by storm. The mysterious pony who was locked up in the castle dungeons that designed clothes worthy of the creme de la creme. Rumors flew everywhere for who he was. The most popular theories were that he was either Celestia's former lover who had spurned her or a long-lost son who had tried to steal the throne. Though he had not set hoof outside of the cell he was in for three years Vestige was one of the richest ponies in all of Equestria, his earnings held in trust by the crown. Though Celestia would have allowed him to decorate the cell with the most gaudily luxurious of decorations if he but asked, Vestige kept it spartan. He had always been a very neat pony, only given to frivolity when his ego got the better of him and life in prison tended to be a rather humbling condition.
The rest of the evening passed without incident. They both carefully avoided any talk that would lead to another argument and for a few moments here and there were able to forget about everything that had happened and live in the moment.
And, for another year at least, that was enough for both of them.
Author's Note
Well, here it is. Extremely short (write a buttload of words and come to find out it doesn't even crack 2000 what bullshit is this?!?!?!?) and probably not very good (to be charitable), but it's the best I could come up with. You may now kill me.
For reference:
Dusk Shine: Twilight Sparkle (DUH!!!)
Vestige: Rarity
Prism Blitz: Rainbow Dash
Kingston Black: Applejack
Timide: Fluttershy
Romy: Pinkie
Apollo: Celestia
Tyrant Helios: Nightmare Moon
Artemis: Luna
Just need to figure out how to post it in the groups section as well.
