Chiaroscuro : The Pattern of Light and Shadow
Prologue: The Prisoner
It had been years since he’d seen the sunlight. The only light within the caverns was the meager glow of a single torch, several cells away.
A plate clattered at the cell’s entrance, indicating that they were bothering to feed him that day. He dragged himself over and ate from the plate like a dog. He’d stopped caring years before.
The food was the same as it ever was. Disgusting, grimy, and not enough. He finished up quickly, knowing the plate would likely be taken away soon.
And it was. He watched jealously as the glow of a unicorn’s magic enveloped the plate and brought it out of the cell. He scratched at his own horn, a stump now since it had been shaved off.
His hindquarters itched as well, so he bit at those. The last prisoner who’d used his straw had had fleas, and he gained them as a result.
Other prisoners had used everything inside the cell many times before it trickled down to the most hated prisoner.
Most hated, perhaps, or most forgotten. He had no idea if anyone outside of the prison knew he existed.
He hated this pathetic existence. He was a prince once, set to inherit an entire kingdom by his king’s right of conquest.
But then the one pony he had trusted betrayed him, and he ended up in the crystal cell.
He needed to relieve himself, and he went to the front corner, on the opposite side from the entrance. It smelled horrible, but this was the one corner where the smell would stay in place.
He hadn’t thought of that pony in quite a while. A few months, perhaps a year, by his reckoning. He didn’t have any sense of time anymore, however, so it could have been a few days.
He thought of her marble-blue hair and bright blue eyes, setting her apart despite her fairly drab coat. Her intellect and attitude only further served to keep her hold on his mind, a hold that hadn’t faded with time.
He growled, one of the few sounds he still bothered to make. He didn’t want to think of her, of his mistakes with her.
He feebly attempted to produce light with his stump of a horn, but it was no use, of course. He’d been trying for years to do something.
‘Wasn’t that a sign of madness?’ he thought. ‘To do the same thing repeatedly expecting a different result?’
He shook his head, trying to clear his mind.
Feel frustrated with his situation, as always, he went back to his flea-ridden hay pile and tried to sleep.
His thoughts, however, had different ideas, as they kept returning to that pony. The stone blue mare with a war horn cutie mark. How strange, when his own had once been a red war horn.
He sat up to scratch at the burn scars on his flanks. His war horns were gone, as was his army and his own identity.
He sighed and flopped down on the hay again. Once more, he tried to create a spark of light, of anything, with his horn.
A tiny spark of green light burned his eyes and disappeared.
Perhaps he wasn’t mad after all.
Chiaroscuro : The Pattern of Light and Shadow
Alabaster
The stone grey unicorn woke up screaming in a cold sweat. His eyes darted about, and his breaths were heavy and quick. His wife stirred beside him.
“Calm down, ‘Baster,” she murmured. “Jus’ a dream.”
The unicorn turned towards his beloved earth pony. Her curly red mane was as tangled as a lion’s from sleep, but it framed her dainty cream face with her jade green eyes. Her cutie mark, a jade flower with golden edges, was half obscured by the bed covers.
Alabaster leaned down to nuzzle her. “Sorry, love. It was that dream again.”
“I know,” Jade Flower spoke with her sleepy voice. “You don’ scream from any others.”
The unicorn noticed the golden light streaming under the covered west windows. “I overslept.”
He gave his wife one last nuzzle before getting out of bed. He grabbed his sword belt and midnight blue cloak with telekinesis and fastened them on. He brushed his dark blue mane out of his eyes. The blue cloak covered his cutie mark, a white sword.
“How do I look?” he asked Jade.
“Handsome as always, Commander,” she said, smiling. “Now go, before the Princess wonders where you’ve been.”
“She’ll know,” Alabaster said, giving his wife a grin.
He left their bedroom and walked down the stairs of their modest city house.
As he swung by the kitchens to grab an apple for his breakfast, he ran into two of his children.
“We heard you scream, Dad. Anything wrong?” his bastard, Slate, asked. The young unicorn had inherited the grey-blue mane and the slate coat color of House Stone. He had appaloosa spotting as well, a reminder of Alabaster’s failings. His cutie mark was his twin dirks rather than a sword like his father’s. The physical dirks hung at his side off a belt, within easy telekinetic grasp.
Alabaster shook his head. “I’m fine. It was just a bad dream. I didn’t mean to worry you two.”
His earth pony daughter, Quartz, shook her head, smiling. She was Alabaster’s only child with Jade, and she was his favorite. Her curly mane was purple, and her body cream. She was still too young for a cutie mark, but that didn’t prevent her from acting twice her age. “Get to the castle, Dad. It’s almost nightfall.” She walked into the common room of the family’s city residence. Shaking his head, her brother followed.
Alabaster allowed himself a small smile, one filled with regret and happiness both, but then he dashed out the door. The Princess would tolerate a little lateness. A lot? Not so much.
“You’re late, Lord Commander,” the Princess of the Night said as her captain of the guard walked into the throne room.
“Forgive me, Princess. You’ve seen my nightmares,” Alabaster replied as he gave a quick bow before taking his place at her side, his sword within easy telekinetic grasp.
“I know,” Luna said, but her name still billowed in annoyance.
A few ponies walked into the throne room to ask for the Princess’ help, but few ponies of note showed up. Alabaster spent much of his time sparring with one of his guards behind the throne. A pair of battered practice swords were kept behind the tall dais for just that purpose.
As he practiced, he always kept an ear on Luna’s conversations. When he heard the spears of the door guards cross, he dropped his practice sword, ducked under the guard’s swing, and leapt onto the dais, pulling out his white alabaster sword.
“Please, Father, is this really necessary?” a voice called from the door, full of arrogance and assuredness. A blue-black unicorn with cropped snow-white hair stood at the door. His cutie mark, an inverted black sword, was barely visible against his flank. His sword rested across his back in its sheathe, readily available to wield with either teeth or magic.
Alabaster closed his eyes for a moment, mostly in annoyance. “Obsidian, what are you doing here?” he growled at his eldest son.
“I have business with the Princess of the Night,” he grinned, shoving past Alabaster’s guardsmen with ease. “Good evening to you, Your Grace,” he said as he bowed.
Luna’s eyebrow arched. “What dost thou want tonight, Captain Obsidian?”
“An audience with the Princess of the Night, if it pleases you,” he asked. He bowed low, his red cloak just touching the floor. Alabaster’s sword never left his grasp.
“It does not please us, but we will allow it,” Luna said. “What does our royal sister’s captain want of us?”
Obsidian smiled. He drew his sword, causing Alabaster to start. The black unicorn noticed and laughed. “Relax, Father. I’m not exactly a threat to the Princess, now am I?”
Alabaster grimaced. To acknowledge the danger Obsidian could be was to suggest that he was stronger than his father. To ignore it was to ignore the danger Obsidian could be. Alabaster had been in this sort of situation before.
Alabaster chose to sit in stony silence with his sword at the ready. The Lord Stone was not known as the Rock for nothing.
Obsidian gave a slight nod, his smile never leaving his face. “Your Grace, I wish to enter your service. I feel my talents are better suited to serving the night rather than the day.”
Luna stared at him, an expression of disdain on her face. “Captain Obsidian, do you know the words of our royal House?”
Confused, Obsidian responded, “Yes, Your Grace. Banish the darkness, right?”
“Exactly. We feel that you would not serve that purpose within our service. Out,” the Princess ordered.
“As you wish, Princess,” Obsidian said, a tone of anger creeping into his voice. He turned his back to the Moon Throne, showing off the golden sun on the back of his crimson cloak.
Luna sighed and then turned to her right hoof pony. “Walk with me, Alabaster.”
“Yes, Princess.”
“The Labyrinthian Garden, Your Grace?” Alabaster asked as he saw their destination. He turned to Luna.
The Princess of the Night looked absolutely stunning under moonlight, her purple and blue mane catching the light of the full moon just right. She allowed herself a smile. “The Gardens were our—my favorite spot to play as a child,” she said, dropping the royal ‘we’ now that she was in private.
As the pair passed the statue of Discord, Luna took on a sad expression when she stared at the statue. “He can hear everything we say.”
Alabaster looked to the statue. It was unremarkable and looked rather like an accident, until one heard the history behind it. “So the Lord of Chaos never died?”
Luna shook her head. “No. He was only turned to stone. The Elements refused to kill.” She turned away from the statue and continued on into the maze of the gardens. Alabaster followed on in his characteristic silence, waiting for the princess to speak.
“Remind me, Alabaster, what your House’s words are.”
“Loyalty is honor, betrayal is death,” the unicorn said automatically. House Stone’s word had been drilled into him since he was a child. Following them was almost an unconscious effort at this point.
“Has your son not learned these words?”
Alabaster sighed and let his head droop. “Not as well as I wish he had. Slate’s learned the words, and so has little Quartz, but I don’t understand why Obsidian hasn’t. Sometimes…”
“Go on. We came here because the gardens have no ears,” Luna said, “Besides Discord, who cannot affect anything anymore.”
“Sometimes I wish I could choose my heir.”
Luna cocked her head in curiousity. “House Stone cannot? House Lux can, but it nearly always goes to the firstborn, like it did to Celestia and to my father before her.”
“It always goes to the firstborn. The title of Lord went to me over my sister, as it went to my mother over her brothers. The firstborn might not always be the best option, however. But,” Alabaster said, “House Stone will endure.”
“As House Lux cannot be extinguished. We’re here.”
Alabaster lifted his head up and took in a glorious sight. In the center of the Labyrinthian Gardens was a field of moonlilies, white flowers that glowed in moonlight. The sight of them always brought tears to Alabaster’s eyes in the rare times he and the Princess walked there.
Luna stepped into the middle of the field. “I planted all of these lilies with my mother when I was just a filly. I wanted to make the night as bright as Father’s day, and I thought these lilies would help.” She smiled. “Mother indulged me, and even Father was proud that I was living up to our House’s words.”
A tear fell out of her eye, and her horn glowed a soft blue. One by one, the moonlilies closed, extinguishing their soft light. Soon, there was only one, the smallest flower that stood by Luna’s feet.
Alabaster picked his way through the flowers carefully, trying not to crush a single one.
“Banish the Darkness. Yet I was born in the darkness of a full eclipse. Try as I might, I cannot fully banish the darkness inside myself, so I hide it. I fear that, if I take your son into my service, that darkness will not let itself be hidden anymore. Your son has a darkness inside him, as dark as the stone he was named for.”
“I understand, Princess.”
“When the Rebellion was over, and Celestia and I brought back the sun and moon, I thought that…” The Princess trailed off into silence.
Alabaster waited for her to continue. It was what he had once done with his own sister, when the two of them were young and foolish. His sister had loved to talk, trail off, and pick up her train of thought moments later.
“I thought that I could banish my own darkness, with the Elements. But Celestia took them away and took all the love of Equestria.” Her mane drooped, and the magic fell away from it, revealing a soft powder blue mane.
“I’ve found myself trusting others less and less, relying on myself ever more. I can no longer speak with my own sister without guarding my thoughts and words.”
Alabaster put a comforting hoof on Luna’s shoulder, indicating that he was there. He knew how much she had to trust him, to reveal this much information. He would take the knowledge to his grave, for nothing can get information out of a stone.
Luna sighed, and the magic in her mane resumed its billowing, starry form. “Thank you, Alabaster. Let us return to the castle. I should resume my court, as small as it is.”
“As you wish, Princess.”
Chiaroscuro : The Pattern of Light and Shadow
Slate
Once his father left, Slate turned to face his half-sister. “Don’t tell your mother what I'm going to do, Pebble,” he whispered, using the nickname he’d given little Quartz.
Her face fell. “You’re going out again, big brother?” she asked, disappointed.
He guided her up to her room. “Sorry, Pebble.”
And he was genuinely sorry, an emotion he only felt with his little sister. As he tucked her into her bed, he almost thought of abandoning his plans.
Still, guilt hadn’t kept him from doing what he loved before. It wouldn’t stop him now. He glanced at Quartz’s open window, wishing not for the first time that he was a pegasus, not a unicorn.
He was what he was, however, and he silently walked down to the kitchens, muffling his footsteps with magic. He avoided the household servants, whose schedules he knew by heart. He’d been sneaking out like this for nine years now, and none of them even knew.
Slate took a deep breath as he stepped outside into the cool night air. It smelled of pony shit.
“Good old Canterlot,” he murmured to himself as he grabbed the cloak he had hidden under the bush. It was an old zebra assassin’s cloak, or so the seller had said. Either way, it hid his features well enough that no one could identify him as the Bastard of Stone.
Cloak on, he started lightly trotting along the streets, looking around casually as he searched for a mark. He wandered up and down the alleys of Canterlot, throwing off anyone who happened to tail him. Not many would, since he didn’t act like an interesting pony.
He spotted second floor open window with a single candle in it. The candle suddenly blew out.
Curious, Slate glanced around, looking for a way to climb up. He walked around the house to the back, where he saw a set of stairs that led to a door on the second floor.
He climbed up them, ready to bolt away if the door opened. The door itself was locked.
Slate sighed and levitated his lockpicks out. Nobody wanted to make this easy for him.
A few moments later, the door unlocked for him. He carefully opened it, muffling the sounds of the door with a small spell.
He tiptoed inside. The door opened onto a long and elegant hallway, similar to one in his own home. He walked past several closed doors before pausing by an open one.
The open room was dark, but a spell showed that no pony was in there.
He heard a door creak open, and he quickly slipped into the room, hiding in the shadows.
A slender white unicorn with a sapphire blue mane walked past the door, escorting a red earthpony mare out. The mare was clearly disheveled, but the unicorn was groomed and put together.
The entrance opened and closed, and Slate let out a breath he’d been holding. He gently closed the door and cast a small light spell inside the room.
It was a simple room, but much of it was covered in cobwebs. Something caught the glint of light, and he brushed the cobwebs off a small wooden box edged in gold. The box had a lock on it, but it was already opened.
He gently pushed the lid open, and his breath caught as he saw what was inside.
A beautiful necklace lay on a deep blue cushion. The golden chain ended in a perfectly circular fire opal. The opal was etched with a design Slate didn’t recognize, but he knew instinctively that it made the piece even more valuable.
He closed the small box and hid it inside a pocket in his cloak.
The entrance to the house opened again, and Slate’s eyes darted to the window. He pushed open the shutters and glanced out, seeing the top of a market stall within jumping distance.
He glanced back over his shoulder. The light underneath the door was blocked by a set of four hooves.
Slate climbed up and out of the window as the door opened. He jumped onto the market stall and rolled off, landing on his four hooves and bolting away. A voice called after him, angry, but he ignored it as he ran.
He slowed when he was halfway across the city and in a much dirtier area. The smell of Canterlot was strong where he was.
He recognized the street, and he walked over to a small shop he’d known for years.
He walked in, despite the late hour, and pulled out the small box.
The owner of the store, a dusky brown unicorn mare with a white mane and an eye patch, glared at him as he place the box on her counter. Her pet raven fluttered his wings. “Wha’s it this time, Dirk?” she growled.
“A pleasure to see you as always, Raven.” They always identified themselves by their cutie marks, rather than their own names. “I found this,” he said as he opened the box, revealing the opal necklace.
Raven stared at it, greed evident in her one red eye. “Three hundred.”
And so the bidding begun. “Six.”
“Four.”
“Five and a half and no less. It was a difficult job.”
Raven snorted at that. “Aye, difficult. Five.”
Slate weighed his options. “Deal.”
Raven counted out the bits, and Slate watched her carefully. The fence would short him if he didn’t.
She slapped a bag of gold bits down next to the opal’s box.
They grabbed their payments quickly, before the other could telekinetically snatch it away.
Slate knew she would triple the price when she sold it again, but five hundred bits was a good payment for a single job.
He whistled as he walked home the long way, the sun just barely starting to rise in the sky.
