An Alicorn's Purpose

Canterlot was quiet this late in the night. Almost no pony was awake, except of course the lunar guards, who walked the hallways of the great castle, keeping watch for intruders. Luna, the princess of the night, was awake as well and was holding night court for any who wished to bring their concerns to her.

There was one other alicorn who was awake and, incidentally, having trouble falling asleep.

Twilight Sparkle was staying in the castle with Celestia and Luna, wanting to learn more about being a princess. Specifically, she wanted to know what she would be princess of. Celestia was princess of the sun, Luna the princess of the night and dreams, and Cadence the princess of love. Twilight had asked both Celestia and Luna several times what her charge would be, but every time they told her she would learn it soon. That had been there answer for several weeks, ever since she became an alicorn and moved to the castle.

Feeling restless, and still having trouble sleeping with wings, Twilight rose from her bed and went to her desk. Her room was the same as it had been when she lived in the castle as Celestia’s student. Celestia had offered her a larger room but Twilight refused, seeing her old room as nostalgic.

Lighting a candle and opening her copy of Star Swirl’s Harmony in Magic, she began reading where she left off. While reading, she remembers how often Celestia would scold her for getting up during the night and reading instead of sleeping. It’s almost surreal how she went from a normal unicorn to Celestia’s student and then from bearer of the Element of Magic to princess of…something.

“Sigh, I need to take my mind off of this.” Twilight said aloud, refocusing on her book. While she did enjoy reading, this book would likely provide little entertainment; she had read it three times through already.

As she began reading again, she heard a knock. Looking up from her book, she turned to the door.

“Who is it?” She called. After a moment with no response, she went over to the door and opened it, looking out into the hallway. There wasn’t a pony to be seen.

Just as she was about to close the door, she heard another sound. This time it was more like a scratch. She looked out into the hall again for any sign of movement.

“Who’s there?” She called out again. With no response again, she decided to investigate the noise. ‘It’s not as if I’ll be able to sleep anytime soon anyway.’ She thought to herself.

Walking down the hall towards the source of the noise, she heard another sound behind the door next to her. It was different from the last two; it sounded like whispering. Twilight knew that room was a spare bedroom that wasn’t in use, so there shouldn’t be anypony in there. Setting her ear against the door, she listened for any further noises. About half a minute passed before she was about to move on, but another noise grabbed her attention. The sound of tearing fabric emanated from behind the door.

Determined to get to the bottom of this, Twilight knocked on the door. “Is anypony in there?”

She waited for a moment and, with no response, opened the door slightly. Through the crack in the door, she could make out a nightstand, a bed, a curtain draw open next to a window, a ghost, a trunk, a…

‘Wait!’ She thought to herself. ‘Am I seeing this right?’ Looking the pony over, she found that she could indeed see through the pony. The pony didn’t have a horn, so she couldn’t be using magic. Besides, Twilight knew that invisibility spells bent the light around a pony, so one wouldn’t just make somepony partway invisible like this.

The pale-green pony herself seemed in a daze, as she was just standing in the room and staring off at the wall. Just as Twilight was about to go in and try talking with her, she heard a weird whooshing sound. Right in front of the pony, a shadow seemed to emerge from the floor. It seemed to be the top half of a creature, having two arm-like appendages with huge claws out of its sides and a pair of horns on its head. This weird shadow seemed to stare at the pony in front of it, though Twilight couldn’t tell for sure as she saw no eyes on it.

“It is your time!” It called in a dark voice. The pony took a step back towards the bed. “You will come with me!” It brought one of its claws up and reached towards the pony.

Not waiting a second longer, Twilight burst into the room. “Stop!” She yelled out, catching both the pony’s and the shadow’s attention.

The shadow raised its other claw, pointing one of its fingers at Twilight. “I don’t know how you can see us, but this is none of your concern, unicorn!” It said in a commanding tone. “Be gone from here!” The shadow stretched its arm out and around the ghostly pony, grabbing hold of her midsection.

Without hesitation, Twilight shot a beam of magic from her horn and through the shadow’s arm, severing it. The arm dissipated in the air as the shadow howled in pain.

“I may not understand exactly what is going on,” She said, stepping further into the room and flaring her wings, “but I won’t let you just take this pony!”

A new arm seeming to appear out of its body, the shadow jerks back and away from Twilight. “Alicorn!? Awe, this is going to be bad. He’s going to be really pissed about this when He finds out!” It says, though it sounded less threatening and more…panicked?

Before Twilight can find out what it was talking about, the shadow sunk into the floor and disappeared.

She turned to face the ghost…pony she saved. “Are you alright?”

Only, when she asked, there was nothing.

“Hello?” She called to the now empty room. She looked around and under the bed, in the closet, under the desk, and found no sign of the pony that was in the room with her.

After that, she left the room and closed the door behind her. Starting down the hall, she passed her room and went in the direction of the throne. ‘Maybe Princess Luna can tell me what just happened.’

~ _ ~ _ ~ _ ~ _ ~

Rounding a corner in the castle, Twilight finds herself just outside the throne room. The two unicorn guards give a quick bow as she approaches and return to standing at attention on either side of the doors.

“Is Princess Luna with anypony?” Twilight asks, stopping in front of the door.

“She is not, Princess.” One of the lunar guards responds, turning to face Twilight. “Would you like to see her?”

“Yes, please.” Twilight says, nodding at the guard. The two guards light their horns and envelope the doors in their respective blue and grey auras.

Both guards turn and face towards the throne where Luna is seated and bow. “Presenting Princess Twilight, Your Highness.” The second guard states. As Twilight enters the room, the two guards step back and close the doors behind them.

“Ah, Twilight Sparkle.” Luna says, rising from the throne and walking towards the smaller alicorn. “I did not expect you to be up this late. How are you this night?”

“A little restless.” Twilight responds, stopping as she reaches the steps to the throne. “A little confused too.”

“Then perhaps I can help.” Luna says, also stopping as she reaches the bottom step, flanked on either side by a lunar guard. “What troubles you?”

“Well, I was having trouble sleeping, so I had decided to read one of my books.” A quick tsk from Luna interrupted her speech, but the smile on Luna’s face told her to keep going. “I heard a few noises and I went to see what it was, since I didn’t think anypony else would be awake and in the area this late. I opened the door of the next room over when I heard a noise on the other side of the door and I saw what I thought was a ghost of a pony.” By now, the smile on Luna’s face had vanished. “Before I went in, a shadow just rose from the floor and tried to take the ghost away. I stopped the shadow from taking her, but then both it and the ghost disappeared. I looked around, but I couldn’t…Princess Luna?”

By the end of Twilight’s tale, Luna seemed to have lost most of the color in her face. Her eyes were wide in fear as she tried to make her mouth move.

“H-How did you stop it…?” Luna barely whispers out.

“Well,” Twilight starts, “I used my magic to hit its arm away, but I accidentally…cut it off. I didn’t mean to!” She says quickly. “I just wanted to push its arm away. It yelled out, but I think it grew an arm back before it disappeared.” Twilight lowered her eyes to the ground. “I know that doesn’t excuse what I did, but I was so worried about the pony, I used more power than I should have.”

Twilight stood there, waiting for Luna to explain what it was she saw, or at least scold or punish her for what had transpired. But no words came. Instead, Luna sat back on her haunches, staring numbly at the grand doors of the throne room.

“Princess?” One of her guards asked, trying to coax their liege out of her trance.

“Please…” She started quietly. “Go and wake Tia. Tell her it’s an emergency.”

“Yes, Your Highness.” They said in unison before galloping to the doors.

“Twilight.” Luna said softly, looking down at the lilac alicorn. “It’s time you learned the truth about alicorns.”

END CHAPTER